Guide Tells U.S. Students Don't Expect Smiles Abroad

[951]

DALLAS (Reuters) - U.S. college students planning to study abroad will soon have a guide book that reminds them the rest of the world is not all that welcoming to Americans these days.

Southern Methodist University in Dallas and several partners are distributing about 200,000 copies of a passport-sized booklet called the "World Citizens Guide," which they plan to make available to all U.S. college students planning to study overseas.

Polls show the image of Americans abroad has plummeted because of opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and antagonism toward the Bush administration for what is widely seen as its go-it-alone policies on global issues.

"The U.S. is losing friends at an alarming rate," the guide says, "don't be the tourist who tries to impose the American way on others because you think our way is better."

It tells students to respect other cultures, open their eyes and ears to what is around them and avoid behaving like an "ugly American."

"Don't give up who you are; be proud of where you come from. Just try to be a little humble," it says.

Last year, about 167,000 American students traveled abroad, more than twice as many as 20 years ago, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=6492727&src=rss/domesticNews§ion=news

[klook]

1. If Iraqis threw flowers at our troops

why wouldn't people around the world smile at our students? They must hate us for our superior dental care.

[rooboy]

6. Wow... you sure that guy isn't British?? n/t

[jdj]

15. they were carrion flowers.

[dean_dem]

2. Didn't Laura Bush go to Southern Methodist? Seems a little ironic.

[truthisfreedom]

3. watch for these people to be called the "hate America first" crowd

even though they speak the truth.

[calimary]

4. Wonder if they realized they were addressing the entire PNAC cabal

with the following remark:

"don't be the tourist who tries to impose the American way on others because you think our way is better."

Oh, but we're safer!!! Do I have this straight? They hate us more, and there are more of them who hate us, and now it's all over the place, not just in the usual pockets of international enmity. But, hey, we're safer, aren't we?

[Dark Jedi]

5. Humble is a Foreign Word to Republicans

"Just try to be a little humble" LOL Yeah! Don't be like Bush & Co. and their customers :)

[HereSince1628]

7. My stepdaughter says smiles were common

especially when she made jokes about W.

She was in Strasbourg via Syracuse U. and said that among people she interacted with only one seemed to have an axe to grind with Americans.

[RockyO]

8. Smiles and more = France

Nod that.

I enjoyed a recent stay in France and this round found only one rude mister man.

Everyone, everyone I engaged was respectful to the scene here in USA/NC. I was surprised and was looking for more, not a fight but banter. I did not wear a Hate Bush button and I had anticipated a more aggressive rebuke.

The French I engaged suggested they had little real knowledge of how Bush had helped the USA, most suggesting the strained relationships had hurt the French economy, and all seemed sad.

[Amigust]

9. Gee, thanks, George

eom

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

10. Sounds like good advice

on how to be a good guest anywhere.

[HEyHEY]

11. If you Yank bastards stay south of the 49th we'll allll get along fine!

;-)

[BiggJawn]

16. Hey! I'd try to pass for a Canuck!

Put maple leaf patches on my bags and say "Eh? Bush? What a HOSER!" a lot...:7

[robcon]

12. My son was in Europe this spring; he had no problems at all.

He studied in Geneva, traveled to Italy, Spain, France and the Czech Republic, and was greeted courteously everywhere (even France :)) The generalizations of that guidebook are wacky.

[Voice_of_Europe]

24. People who visit other continents are openminded anyway...

.. they usually don't need that booklet and will meet friendly faces in Europe anyway.

Just don't even start talkin about politics and you're fine.

As much as I hate what's going in the name of the US flag it wouldn't cross my mind to vent my anger on some poor tourist asking directions.

[lebkuchen]

38. Ah, France

I camped there for six weeks this summer. It's my favorite country.

[demoman123]

13. This is bullshit.

I travel to Europe or Asia every year. I have also travelled to the Middle East, including Palestine, and to Egypt. I have only experienced anti-American hostility once, with a Muslim in India.

Europeans and Asians still like Americans. So do Arabs, in my experience. They do not like what our government is doing.

I am reporting my own personal experience, so of course this is just anecdotal and not scientific.

[sweetheart]

26. I dunno mate, i live in europe

and have for the past 7 years. I've seen a serious deterioration in
the average response to being a yank. Funnily, very similar to the
divisive effect bush is having inside the US, people in europe are
similarly divided. Some conservative traditionalists still support
bush, as if you discount the internal american atrocities of his
administration, the foreign benefits are "free wars" and gratuitous
risk taking, that these conseravtives don't have to take any heat
for america's foolishness, and also, don't have any down side.

As well, a weakened dollar makes it easier for europeans to travel
in america.

I think that people "hide" feelings like the ones the pamphlet is
discussing, and that they only come out when you know people longer
time, as they must trust you somewhat to confide their feelings about
the USA to a yank. In business, people shine it on, cuz yanks got
bundles of money, and everyone in sales knows to smile and fake it
with a customer.

In private life, i've encountered distinctly chillier encounters over
this past time, or ones that required "social work" on my behalf to
clear the air.

Also, the membership in democrats abroad has shot up to RECORD levels
by orders of magnitude. All people who live abroad are aware of the
change, based on that evidence, there is some systemic reason
driving political america-abroad to become active in ending the
dictatorship.... leading me to think this pamphlet to wise.

The one thing i'd add to the pamphlet is: "If people don't know your
nationality (as they shouldn't if you're not waving your passport
around), and there is some potential difficulty, say your Canadian."
The accent differences are indistinguishable unless you've got a
heavy southern drawl, and even then, you can say you've spent some
time in the states to explain the accent.

Granted, Europe is a large place, and all evidence will be anecdotal,
but the populations are universally against american'ism, some like
spain over 80% against, turkey 90%... and in the wrong place, like
say a turkish night club with some drunken people, being american
could be downright dangerous.

Glad to hear that you've been lucky in your european excursions...

peace,
-s

[demoman123]

33. Thanks for your long, thoughtful reply.

But you are a Brit, right?

I have never lived in Europe year after year as you have, so your experience trumps mine. But I have been the beneficiary of lots of disinterested acts of kindness and friendliness unrelated to people making money off me there. That's my (relatively meager) evidence.

I would not go to a Turkish night club--or to Turkey, for that matter--for precisely the danger you mention.

But I will also never pretend to be a Canadian. (I did that once, during the Gulf War, in India, where I had my only hostile anti-American experience--with a Muslim.)

I try in a small way to be a good representative of my country. I try every day not to be an asshole. If I can, by example, persuade even a few people abroad that not all Americans are assholes, then I will have done some good.

[sweetheart]

40. in britain, (scotland) yes

Over the past several years, i've been all over the continent and
as i'm married to a German, i've met and discussed all this stuff
with people who deeply oppose current americanism and who are deeply
sympathetic as well.

It is that slim percentage of totally shallow ignorant people that
survive in the bars and pubs of all cultures, that i'm referring to.
People who are so shallow that they stereotype "all" folks who
fit labels.... like a lotta americans do with Germans.

To expect europeans to be less stupid than americans with "freedom
fries" is wishing a lot. I can't help but think that populations
of humanoids will always contain a slim percentage of the very
stupid... and only with special intervention of the mass media can
this sub-set come to dominate the whole.

Its up to every person to make their own reality, but there is that
reality that no amount of face time can reverse the effects of mass
media propaganda. That is what worries me strategically, as it is
in "our" interests to stick together across the atlantic.

Some day, perhaps, i could be a brit, but as i've written, even
under this pseudonym, against the monarchy and the war, it is unlikely
the british establishment would consider me quality enough to be
british.... and until then, i'm an obnoxious yank. ;-)

[demoman123]

42. I spent some time on the Isle of Skye.

Just driving around and staying at B&B's. I really liked it. The highlands are wonderful in their bleakness, but mostly it's the people that I liked there.

In talking with people in the UK and reading UK newspapers and magazines, I have encountered a depth of understanding of American culture that really surprised me. It's as if UK and the US were both parts of some larger, unnamed, country.

Perhaps you are right that individual efforts at being a good example of American life and culture when visiting Europe can't withstand the propaganda to the contrary, but I will always try. Like Sisyphus, perhaps.

I honestly don't know whether Kerry will be any better than Bush on the war in Iraq. But one reason for voting for Kerry is to make a moral statement to people in other countries that we reject Bush and all the ugly Americanism he stands for.

[sweetheart]

45. Skye and the northwest are absolutely stunning

And although the peet bogs appear "bleak", i live in a peet bog, and
the plant life is incredibly diverse. THe wetlands of the north are
an incredible wealth of plants and animals.

Kinda like the deserts of the american soutwest, they appear bleak at
the outset, but on further inspection turn out to be very very rich
ecosystems.

I feel like a salmon upstream, as i can see in the tiny microcosm of
highland culture the scots who emigrated to the USA, and the huge
impact they've had on "the experiment"... so much so, in fact, that
i really feel like a reverse-clearance person (highland clearances),
coming across the atlantic in reverse, to the spawning ground of the
ancient highland straths.

IMO, skye and the northwest are one of the world's 10 most powerful
natural "power places", amongst the grand canyon (colorado river
basin - up including canyonlands, etc.) (kailas of the tibetan
himalaya) (aires (sp?) rock in australia).. blah blah... a place
of great energy that invigorates inspiration.

I think kerry will be a statement on behalf of the american people
that we remain "slightly" polite and considerate of others. That
alone would be a tremendous relief to myself, as people are very
very very very conservative in the highlands (small "c"), and that
a culture admits humility and perhaps having made bad decisions,
is considered wise given the 7000 years of living human history
that the culture of this place remembers in its blood and the
ancient buildings of previous ages rotting in the peet bogs.

PM me, next time you're in Skye-zone, and i'll buy you a pint. :-)

The MacKay's I know figure that presidents come and go, but there will
always be MacKays. Sadly the Hopi's can't say the same.

namaste,
-s

[VegasWolf]

14. This is absurd, as one who travels for a living the first thing I

do abroad is mention that I didn't vote for awol and never will.
People then throw smiles and drinks at you. Act like an asshole
and you will be treated like one, anywhere in the world.

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Has it occurred to you that SMU, being located in the heart of

Bush country, may be trying to deliver a wake-up call to its more freeperish students? You know, the kind who might get drunk and walk up and down the streets of Paris yelling, "Bush ruuuules, you surrender monkeys! America's number one! Yeee-haw!"

I used to help prepare students for study abroad, and it was appalling how many of them thought that the rest of the world was just like the U.S., only with different languages.

[VegasWolf]

20. LOL. Too Damn funny! or make comments like get me a beer or

we will nuke your ass!!!

New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

[Zerex71]

18. I was in Ireland this summer

and guess what? Every night of the week in swank restaurants I heard Americans making total asses out of themselves, from the smug middle-aged couple next to me the Belgian restaurant irate over the anti-Bush conversation that broke out on the other side of me (and which took to writing little notes on the table cloth about their supposed "incorrect facts")...to the dipsh*t college kids who were being as loud as they would in a TGI Friday's. All I could think the whole time was, What asses we are. We think every restaurant and place abroad is ours to loudly proclaim who we are. Frankly, I'm embarassed to be an American because of that kind of behavior. It's obnoxious.

Mike

[Mr Creosote]

25. Don't worry Zerex

most of us are smart enough to realise that for every "obnoxious" American there are 10 ( or 20 or 100) decent Americans.
Back in the summer a ceremony was held to commemorate D-Day (many US servicemen left from near here to cross the Channel). There is huge respect and gratitude (love almost) for what those men did. It saddens me that what US Forces are being forced to do now not only tarnishes their own name, but that of their predecessors.
The time for Americans visiting Europe to worry is if you vote that stupid, evil, bigoted little man back in. Because no-one will understand it, or forgive you for it.

[Dark Jedi]

19. Humility and Freeperism? Mortal Enemies!

"Just try to be a little humble" LOL *Busting out laughing* Good luck with that!

[Katha]

21. I'm in England now as part of study-abroad

and in the interview one of the questions was, "How will you deal with anti-Americanism?"

[Laughing Mirror]

22. What was your response, Katha?

[Skittles]

27. hey Katha

I was on a train in England when an American woman made a scene with the guy pushing a food cart. Really loud and ugly. After it died down I piped up with I JUST WANT EVERYONE HERE TO KNOW THAT NOT ALL AMERICANS ARE ASSHOLES. Everyone except that woman erupted in applause and cheers. :D

[Darth_Kitten]

28. LOL

:D Brave. :)

[Skittles]

23. tell 'em you hate that piece of shit Bush and they smile

yes INDEED

[lebkuchen]

36. before the election, yes, when there is still hope

Those European smiles will fade quickly if Kerry doesn't get elected.

[Donkeyboy75]

29. People are generally nice everywhere if you are nice first.

I am living in Ireland, and have traveled in France, Italy and England within the last year. Speaking a few words of the local language and being polite may be the reason why I haven't had one person act rudely or aggressively towards me.

Unfortunately, like others in this thread, I've been embarrassed on more than one occassion by my fellow Americans during my travels.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. I've found that, too

If you respect the local culture, don't make yourself conspicuous (I can't help being conspicuous in Asia, but I speak softly and politely), and don't have a chip on your shoulder, most people will treat you very well. Speaking a few words of the local language is a great ice breaker, too.

When I visited Europe as a high school student many years ago (my only trip to Europe), I was already comfortable with German (thanks to growing up with German-speaking relatives) and conversational French, as well as pidgin Norwegian, but in the other countries, I learned a few words, especially how to say "Do you speak English?" in the local language.

People really seemed to appreciate that I asked first instead of just blathering at them in English and expecting them to understand.

[Donkeyboy75]

32. You spend a lot of time in Japan, right?

I agree with what you've posted. Interesting to me is the fact that knowing a few words of a language is more appreciated by those whose language isn't as global. In Korea (back in 2002...when they had PLENTY of reason to hate Americans), I received the biggest response to knowing a few words of their language. People really opened up to me after they knew I had taken just a few hours to learn a bit of their language.

"People really seemed to appreciate that I asked first instead of just blathering at them in English and expecting them to understand."

It's entertaining when people from any country do that in another. I often think foreign tourists ought to do the same thing in the U.S. ;)

[Polemonium]

31. US students BOOOED at orientations here in OZ

To say that international good will toward Americans has declined is an understatement. Sure most people recognize that people are people, and can separate individuals from your home countries politics, but it is now much more common for me to be verbally sprayed by random individuals if they find out I'm American. Further, while most people I run into are not abusive just because I'm American, most do ask for some kind of justification or explanation of our increasingly wrong-headed policies. I never thought I'd see the day when young American students were brought to tears by being booed and verbally harassed here in OZ.

[lebkuchen]

34. benefit of the doubt is being given until after the election

If Bush wins, I would seriously claim UK or Canadian citizenship should the subject come up, if you want to immerse yourself in the European culture. If you can speak the local language, and can report that you'd voted for Kerry, it will help a lot.

Europeans loathe Bush.

[fedsron2us]

35. Most Americans have little to fear from the locals

when they go abroad. Most people have the common sense to realise that the average tourist is unlikely to have much influence on the decisions made by the administration in the White House. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for foreigners who have the misfortune to travel to the US on holiday or for business. They will be photographed, finger printed, interrogated and generally treated as if they were enemies of the state. Sooner or later this shabby treatment of visitors is going to rebound back on Americans who go overseas.

[lebkuchen]

37. Since the EU, passport checks are almost nil

I was able to fly out of Frankfurt Airport last summer with an expired US passport, but the Germans warned me that as soon as I arrived to the US, I should contact the immigration guards and explain my situation to avoid a hassle. I did, and I had no problem.

[AspenRose]

39. My friends in Ottawa gave me a Maple Leaf pin to wear abroad

for "protection" from unwelcome verbal attacks.

Sad that it's come to that, isn't it.

[young_at_heart]

41. Why don't the Republicans care about this?

There must be one or two out there with kids going abroad who are concerned about this abominable situation!

[Flapjacks]

43. Europe

I spent 4.5 years in Europe courtesy of the USAF. Even back in the late 80s we were told to blend in with locals as much as possible. Don't wear cowboy boots, hats, giant belt buckles etc... I lived about 30km from my post in loft apartment. Hint, best way to blend in is to learn the language.

[Kellanved]

44. I don't believe it

I know several American students at my university - they are pretty fed up about having to talk about American politics with about anyone they meet, but I haven't heard about any (new) problems. Being humble is always a good idea when visiting another country; I have never met a student behaving otherwise.

Better to tell students about different concepts of bedclothes - I sure wasn't prepared for the whole topsheet thing (how is anybody supposed to sleep using them anyway? ).