Americans

[rebalious]

Trust me I could come up with a much larger list for my UK. But I won't, less time thinking of Blundering Blunket and 2 jags the better.

 

Maybe limiting American media and political nosiness would increase the reputation, considering most of that list fits under those catagories.

 

Thanks for finally clarifying that bit of american history.

 

If you do want a list of the UK heres an attempt:

2 jags Presscot (throws a mean punch though)

Blundering Blunket

Political Nosiness

Trying to turn natural disasters into PR goldmines (probably true of most governments though)

Tony Blair the liar

David Cameron the bandwagon jumper

PM Brown who doesn't really seem to do anything in public

The Sun

BNP (think nazis mixed with a dose of confederacy) as a whole

TV

the green movements

 

and so on and so forth

[bben46]

I think most americans would find it easy to come up with a similar list for other countries.

 

From an American - Personally I don't agree - the typical American has no clue who anyone in power in another country is, what the internal or foreign policies of any other country is. And in many cases they don't even know where those other countries are. In fact less than a third of American High School graduates can even identify all 50 states on a blank map, and do not even know that Puerto Rico, Guam and other islands are American.

 

In a business meeting where the upper management of a company I used to work for they were discussing several foreign suppliers. One in Turkey - which most of the management seemed to think was somewhere in southern Europe. And the second in The Northern Marianas Islands (an American possession) which they seemed to believe was somewhere in the Caribbean. They got bogged down for a half hour debating the exchange rate between the US and the Northern Marianas. Three of the five attendees had MBA degrees. Obviously geography was not considered very important for an MBA degree.

 

I loved it when they finally called for a map and started trying to find Marianas. The scale of the map was too small to see it even when they finally started looking in the right ocean.

 

Thankfully, I was there as a technical expert on our product and had orders not to speak unless asked a question.

[Balagor]

Perhaps it is because America is so big, the bigger the world, the smaller the inviroment.

In Denmark you can only go 4 hours by car, then you have to speak another language,

know something about another country.

All this widens your horizon. (no offense)

 

A little funny story, a friend of mine, was in Kentucky once, they did not know about Denmark.

They ask him wich freeway he was using from Denmark to Kentucky. (true story) LOL :)

[rebalious]

I loved it when they finally called for a map and started trying to find Marianas. The scale of the map was too small to see it even when they finally started looking in the right ocean.

 

Thankfully, I was there as a technical expert on our product and had orders not to speak unless asked a question.

 

I am quite clueless when it comes to gepgraphy, but daymn thats bad. Don't think I would show the same self-restraint.

[Pushkatu]

They can't be called stupid just becouse they don't know where a country is on the map or what is the capital of Germany or Italy etc. Most are simple people that only care about themselfs and thier families and as long as they are happy and have everything they need why bother? It's part of the American Dream. On the other hand most of the other nations are somehow forced to learn those things becouse that is the only way then can survive as a nation. Americans are passed that and they can afford not to. I know it's not good to be completly ignorant, but there are ignorant people all over the globe. Most that do learn are eather specialists that need to be well informed or they do it as a hobby. They don't even need to learn other languages, becouse English is international and everywhere they'll go they can use English.

 

Now let me tell you something that I would be ashamed of. I'll tell you a little story.

 

 

When I was in the 11th grade, our Geography professor used to bring all kinds of maps and he used to ask us to indentity countries, capitals, rivers, mountains etc. So at one point he asked one of my colleague to indentify a town. He put a map with Romania only. So that girl starts to look for the town and doesn't find it. The professor asks her to identify a region of our Country, Transilvania where we live, but again she fails. So the professor finaly asks her to identify Romania on that map and again she starts to search but with no succes. I could not believe my eyes at that point. I mean on that map was only Romania, all she has to do is point at it and say "this", lol.

I realy felt bad for her. I mean at 18 years old, not to know where your country is on the map after 11 years of school is a shame realy.

[darkprodigy4u]

Well, as far as American ignorance, all I can say is that, while I may be able to identify Romania, Bangledesh, Norway, Papa New Guinea, whatever... on a world map, I cannot say the same for my 10th grade classmates. And we're supposed to be in the second year of Global History and Geography at that point, the zenith of global understanding! What's worse is that most of them will forget it once they're in 11th grade and only have to worry about American History (what little there is of it!) for the next two years. My Global teacher can't even write well, much less spell, and he expects to teach anybody anything? Lucky for him that I already have a general understanding of most of the things we're to learn before he even teaches them.

 

Industrial Revolution? England. Sooty factories, got it. Colonization? Jamaca is Britain's, Haiti is France's, and Africa is summary assimilated into European empires. Russian Communism? LENIN & the Bolsheviks, THEN Stalin. Chinese unrest n stuff...Mao Zedong and the Long March. Ghandi and the Salt March in India. Hirohito in Japan.

 

Not all Americans are idiots. =]

[Pushkatu]

Here we learn Global History since 5th grade. We start with the historical periods, from stone age to 21st century. So most people have a basic knowledge. :)

[Balagor]

I have met a few Americans in my life, and found them nice, friendly and good friends.

Reading this thread makes me think about American filmproducers.

American filmproducers carry a big responsabillity for the wiev people outside US will generate.

Let me start to say that I am aware that Superman does not exists, and there is no such things

as Spiderman either.

But still, you can read a lot about a countrys culture in a movie/film

 

1. People are always mocking eachother, fighting to be number one. In school/job, what ever.

This is not so outspoken in Danish culture. We help eachother.

 

2. The enviroment of a film is in 98 % of the case a wealthy enviroment. That despite most of

the population is middle class.

 

3. Cliché films. Either the producers use the same manuscript, or they have a very low use of

their fantasy. Nearly always the film starts with a coulpe, Doctor and Professor, they a newly devorced,

despite family life is dear to America. A murder happens, the husbond tries to frame a burgler,

or vice-verca.

The crime can not be solved, but out of nowhere comes a drunken, messy Columbo-like cup, just

released from AA. He has been drinking hes brains out for ten years, because he shot a partner,

and he just sees all the missing clues.

After a quarrel with hes former boss, (and the devorced couple gets remarried) the film ends with the sound of

1000 angels singing.

 

I know I can just hit the red button on my remote, but please, producers, pull yourselves together.

This can not be America.

[darkprodigy4u]

Here we learn Global History since 5th grade. We start with the historical periods, from stone age to 21st century. So most people have a basic knowledge. :)

 

Yeah, I remember learning real history starting in like 6th grade. Before that it was silly stuff like why we have Thanksgiving and Independence Day, and so on. But I didn't know about the scalping Native Americans then, or the overhunting of the Bufffalo, or the structure of an Indian village, or the only reported case of human cannibalism. Ahh, 6th grade was fun. Then in 7th we studied Colonial America, the Patriots and the Tories, Boston Tea Party, stamp tax, etc.

 

I have met a few Americans in my life, and found them nice, friendly and good friends.

Reading this thread makes me think about American filmproducers.

American filmproducers carry a big responsabillity for the wiev people outside US will generate.

Let me start to say that I am aware that Superman does not exists, and there is no such things

as Spiderman either.

But still, you can read a lot about a countrys culture in a movie/film

 

1. People are always mocking eachother, fighting to be number one. In school/job, what ever.

This is not so outspoken in Danish culture. We help eachother.

 

2. The enviroment of a film is in 98 % of the case a wealthy enviroment. That despite most of

the population is middle class.

 

3. Clich films. Either the producers use the same manuscript, or they have a very low use of

their fantasy. Nearly always the film starts with a coulpe, Doctor and Professor, they a newly devorced,

despite family life is dear to America. A murder happens, the husbond tries to frame a burgler,

or vice-verca.

The crime can not be solved, but out of nowhere comes a drunken, messy Columbo-like cup, just

released from AA. He has been drinking hes brains out for ten years, because he shot a partner,

and he just sees all the missing clues.

After a quarrel with hes former boss, (and the devorced couple gets remarried) the film ends with the sound of

1000 angels singing.

 

I know I can just hit the red button on my remote, but please, producers, pull yourselves together.

This can not be America.

 

Not all American movies are like that. Last night I watched "Amelia", the story of Amelia Earheart, the American woman who almost circumnavigated the Earth in a plane. It's set in the 20-30s I think, and you could visually see the difference of the standard of women then compared to today. Amelia was the only woman in the movie to have short-cropped hair, and....get this...wear pants. There was also no woman who wore a bra either. Very good film, not cliché at all in my opinion.

 

My two cents. =P

[desperado2008]

as a foreigner, I put several reasons why peoples don't like americans

the french helped americans in creating their country, americans call them "coward" in return after wwii, the chinese paid enormous sacrifice standing aside americans to fight against Japanese empire and afterwards being treated like dog ...

so on and so forth