Juggler
Barfly
If you work for a living then why do you kill yourself working?
Posts: 90
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Post by Juggler on Mar 24, 2005 7:36:08 GMT 7
Hi all!
I was back in the states and now I am back.
Busy as always and going nuts, but I wouldn't have it any other way. hahah
When I was back home I saw something I did not expect.
I got a glimpse at what other people think of americans.
They are kind of arrogant and selfish.
I was surprised by this. Maybe it was just my biased opinion of capitalists, but I know some people I had seen were just plainly snobby.
Has anyone else witnessed this?
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Post by Lotus Eater on Mar 24, 2005 7:55:02 GMT 7
Juggler - it is you that has changed. Previously at home you would not have seen this behaviour - too natural and ingrained to be noticed. You also would not have had the 'education' in what other people think as you were not in a milieu where criticism of your compatriots occurred.
Your time here changes your views (and the discussions about nationalities sinks in at some level or another) and your eyes saw differently.
When I went back home I could not believe how quiet Australia was - so few people and cars, even in capital cities. I could not believe how bland my previously favourite foods were, and how caught up in minutiae my work colleagues were.
Again, on a trip home, you are suddenly a tourist with no real role there, so your previous niches don't fit and you are a drifter, semi-dependent on family and friends.
I don't plan on going home again until I want to be there permanently .
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Post by George61 on Mar 24, 2005 8:05:39 GMT 7
G'day, Juggler....enjoy your trip? Those Americans can be real bastards, mate. China changes people, mostly for the better.
Exactly the way I felt...very strange. I figure if I'm gunna feel that way, I might as well be a tourist somewhere I've never been before.
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Post by Hamish on Mar 24, 2005 8:06:44 GMT 7
I don't plan on going home again until I want to be there permanently . I think Thomas Wolfe was right. |
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Post by Raoul Duke on Mar 24, 2005 9:21:52 GMT 7
americans...are kind of arrogant and selfish. And the Chinese are not?  Some Americans behave this way sometimes because they feel a sense of entitlement and power. But it's been my experience that people in other countries, in the same situation, behave at least as badly as we do. Watch a rich Chinese in action some time. Fly on a jetliner full of Italians and Spaniards one day. Only exception, I must admit, are the Aussies, who have no basis whatsoever for arrogance and selfishness.  |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Mar 24, 2005 12:01:49 GMT 7
Only exception, I must admit, are the Aussies, who have no basis whatsoever for arrogance and selfishness.  This is a true story. (currency converted for convenience) A Usanian was visiting the vatican, and noticed a gold phone, with a sign saying, $1000. He asked about it and was told that it was a phone to call god, and that it costs 1000 bucks. He was impressed, and was told that all major churches had one. As time passed, he visited lots of important churches, and sure enough, each one had a phone, $1000 a call. Eventually he came to australia, and sure enough there in the cathedral was the gold phone, but instead of $1000, it had 25c on it. He found the bishop and asked why that was. "Oh, mate, that's because it's only a local call from here." And ozzies are only selfish about beer. |
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Post by Raoul Duke on Mar 24, 2005 13:30:22 GMT 7
These I can maybe buy into.  |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Mar 24, 2005 16:54:09 GMT 7
Cheers.
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Post by con's fly is open on Mar 25, 2005 9:38:49 GMT 7
I'm powerfully homesick for China. The culture shock I suffered upon my return to Canuckistan:
- Drinking costs a fortune.
- No one sidles up to me and tries to lure me from my current job.
- I have no current job.
- When I drop something and say "Gai!" no one laughs.
- Drycleaning costs a fortune.
- There are no travelling fruit carts. The fruit in Canada costs a fortune a sucks to the most part.
- Winter is actually cold.
- There's no meatloaf-stuffed eggplant. Canada's not so big on eggplant generally.
- No one says "Meiyo", "tingbudong", "laowai" or even "xiexie".
- I haven't named a kid in 6 months. I haven't bossed one around, either.
- Government corruption just isn't sexy in Canada. In conversation the subject runs out quickly.
- There aren't nearly as many pretty Chinese gals.
- Passenger trains cost a fortune.
- The food's pretty good in Canada. I guess. But it costs a fortune.
- I don't get that much attention. Strangers don't clamour to talk to me.
Okay, there, I said it: I miss having my ass kissed. I miss people fussing over me. I miss females covering their mouth and giggling to their buddy when I catch them looking at me. I miss kids who think I'm a combination of Einstein, Gandhi and the Fonz.
Stupid Canada.
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Post by Dr. Gonzo on Mar 27, 2005 9:27:32 GMT 7
Me too, Con.
A partial fix is to get a job in an English college in your hometown. Even in my relatively small [1 million] Aussie city, we have Zhong Guo Ren to spare, who do all of the things you mention. When you mention you've been to their city, use chopsticks, throw in some bad but comprehensible Chinese and you'll become a legend.
ps Why are you staying in Hoserville when you could head back to The Land That Time Forgot, to do it all over??
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Post by con's fly is open on Mar 28, 2005 2:53:03 GMT 7
Me too, Con. Why are you staying in Hoserville when you could head back to The Land That Time Forgot, to do it all over?? Finishing that stupid online TESOL course for legaql purposes. On hindsight, I wish I had just forged something- cheaper and faster. I expect to make it for the Mayday gathering, which ain't soon enough for my liking. |
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Juggler
Barfly
If you work for a living then why do you kill yourself working?
Posts: 90
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Post by Juggler on Mar 31, 2005 6:09:39 GMT 7
agree with con.
I have to say that I missed the girls laughing the most when I was back in the states.
American women are just not my cup of tea.
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Post by con's fly is open on Mar 31, 2005 15:37:58 GMT 7
I just figured out why I'm attracted to China beyond the pampering and attention: Chinese call it: Secrets Canadians: Shame Chinese: Privacy Canadians: Withholding Chinese: Discretion Canadians: Hypocrisy I'm all for openness, dialogue, discussion of societal issues, etc. And I know that there are horrors hiding behind the Chinese' public personae, too many things to list. But the Oprah Winfrey urge to reveal every personal ill, call it a Sydrome or Disorder, seek a perverse form of absolution in pulling down your pants in public brings a gag reflex to me. The Marilyn Manson urge to pull down your pants and defy in kneejerk fashion most every notion of decency makes me wonder if anything that's not downright illegal is ever put to a standard of right and wrong. The National Enquirer urge to pull down others' pants, the sheer shadenfreude of it, makes me hate human nature. And the Ashlee Simpson urge to wrap a mediocre talent in a fairytale lifestyle of conspicuous consumption and tout it as a role model for teenage girls fills me with puritan murder. I know it's mostly the 5 months of Reality TV and moronic news topics talking, but I miss living in a country where media don't bombard me with the personal lives of people I've never met, lifestyles I don't want to explore, and standards I'd rather not attain, let alone try for. In China you have to fear local gossip and crooks aplenty, but at least you have the simple privacy of exploring a quiet life. Canada and mass culture here are deafeningly loud. I'm overdosed on the Western world, and clearly not objective, but that's how I feel tonight at 1:30 a.m.   |
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