I’m talking about after going through borders and I put away the US Passport…
And the average everyday people ask me “where are you from?”
Like if the place has anti-American sentinments, could I just pretend to be… not American…
cuz you know… the US has been getting a bad rap recently due to ahem a certain person in Capitol Hill…
Like most people in the world falsely assume “American” = “White” anyways…
They’d never suspect a thing… would they?
I can speak Cantonese and Mandarin… I can try faking a Chinese person’s accent when speaking English. Or pretend to be a Hong Konger (via the Cantonese). Or pretend to be Taiwanese (most people can’t tell the difference between the sound of Mainland Mandarin vs Taiwan Mandarin).
I heard that there are people who hate Chinese tourists… so is this actually gonna backfire?
But then again, I might also get hit with the double-whammy of “looking Chinese” while “acting like an American”.
So this is basically like code switching… but with national identity…
Is this morally okay? Or am I like crossing some ethical line here? Is this like the “cultural appropriation” thing where it’s inappropriate to do?
Americans talk loudly and tend to be less mindful of the area around them. There’s this tendency to take up more space. Not necessarily in the sense of putting your bag on the seat but just big arm movements when talking, leaning, stretching legs. Not that every American I met did that, but enough to be noticeable. At least here in Germany people on average try to take up less space when in public.
There’s just this general air of “confidently doing something without knowing what they’re doing”. Other tourists tend to be more careful, ask how to do something or show they are insecure about how things work in a foreign country.
Americans just tend to take up more space. With their body language, their voice… I’ve met quite a few through language exchange groups and like 80% of the time you can tell their nationality before you talk to them.
Edit: Also let’s not forget american friendliness and enthusiasm. Often they are like 50% more enthusiastic about a situation then what feels appropriate. Be it thanking someone or being amazed by something.
Yeah, I can see that criticism.
Part of the problem is that a lot of Americans aren’t used to being in cities, which becomes an issue when they have to move around an urban environment. A lot of the same issues of not knowing for to be in a city appear in tourists visiting NYC.
It’s not exactly a criticism. I personally have never met an american who was outright rude, just really oblivious of their surroundings. One of my american friends (who is a rather quiet person and feels much more at home here) told me that the US always feels very loud due to advertisements, music, TV being everywhere and you get uses to having to speak very loudly just to be heard.