I Pledge Allegiance

I pledge allegiance-

Its no secret that we Americans aren’t widely liked abroad. The general disdain for Americans is pretty much everywhere. Most of the time it’s subtle and you probably wouldn’t pick it up unless you’re paying attention. Like the lady behind the counter cheerfully engaging with the local in front of you to have her eyes slightly roll and shoulders slightly sag when your American accent is revealed. So far my early assessment is that New Zealand, widely thought of as a friendly and an accepting populaion, has been the worst. I think probably because its most similar to the US compared with the other places I’ve been so far. In Nepal, India, Singapore and Malaysia locals just sort of group all travelers together as westerners. In Sri Lanka it was different altogether and people would actually be HAPPY to meet me. I had a few similar encounters where I’d answer that I was from the US and they’d excitedly say “AMERICA!?” They would flex their muscles and with a serious look on their face say “world power, America very nice, very strong!” I eventually found out that during the countries civil war the Tamil’s of Sri Lanka received support from the US. The family I stayed with credited Obama directly for it and were 100% certain they would have been wiped out completely in genocide with out his help.

I’d always heard of Americans trying to hide their nationality by wearing Canadian shirts or patches on their packs. I have yet to see this happen first hand and from what I’m told it’s not nearly as common as when Bush was in office (I’m taking no political stance here). There was this one time I met a guy that grew up in the U.S. and lived in Russia the past few years for work. When on a boat the captain wanted to know where everyone was from and he just answered Russia. I gave him a dirty look and kinda shook my head at him like he let down the family and should be ashamed. I didn’t talk to him rest of the time. Either way I don’t give a damn what someone’s going to think of me, or what preconceived opinions may dictate, there’s no way in hell I’m going to mask or deny where I’m from. I’ve decided some of my least favorite people are the American’s that bash America. I’m not blind to our hypocrisy who’s government points a guilty finger at corruption, and I acknowledge there are many, many, many, many problems in our system, but to an extent this is the hand we’ve been dealt and it’s a, you gotta dance with the one who brung ya, sort of thing.

That said, it’s not like I come right out and say I’m from Vegas and ran nightclubs. This usually isn’t something a fellow traveler finds cool. I would get a much better reaction if I were a cattle rancher in Montana or a ski lift operator in Colorado. It’s one thing that I’m from the U.S., on top of that I’m from Vegas, on top of that I worked in nightlife and finally the clubs were located inside of casinos on the strip. I had one guy I met in Nepal call me a perfect caricature of an American, complete with tattoos and a gnarly beard. When “getting to know you” the country always comes first and if they are interested any further, they’ll ask. Usually they’ll ask what state which is obviously “Nevada”. If I see confusion on their face I’ll sometimes follow with “Las Vegas”, but a lot of times it just gets left that I’m from good ol’ Nevada, USA. Recently I had someone say “oh Nevada, like Area 51?”… I answered “Yep I kinda live close to Area 51” He thought that was pretty cool. Once I had a self righteous hippie girl say really snottily “Uggg! I cannot stand Las Vegas! built in the middle of a desert! sucking up all the water and waisting precious power so people can get drunk and gamble their life earnings!” to which my response was “yeah I hate your home town too”. When the question of profession comes up its usually “marketing” or “hospitality management”. It takes a few more questions before “nightclubs” comes out and I can count on 1 hand (2 fingers) the people I’ve told the stories to that would allow someone to actually understand what I did. Even with this soft approach I had someone (A hostel owner in NZ) say to me “I hate people in marketing, always trying to convince you to buy something you don’t need and sell you something you don’t want” I was shocked by this statement, especially coming from a business owner, but had a quick comeback-“I’ll go ahead and alert the city you want the sign up the street pointing to your hostel taken down along with the website where I found your listing”. He changed his tune, but I attributed his attitude more to my nationality than profession.

The world, as a whole, thinks Americans are wasteful, lazy and arrogant. One beef people have is that “Americans think they are the center of the universe”. In a cordial and open conversation the example highlighted was the tiny fraction of Americans who do what I’m doing and experiencing other cultures by seeing the world. That’s a tough one for me to argue against. I constantly get messages from friends who genuinely can’t understand how I’m traveling full time, or saying I’m the only person they know that’s done it. In reality I’m nowhere near unique or alone in this, I’m just rare for an American is all. No matter where I go the dominating countries are Germany, France and the UK. Americans outnumber Canadians about 9/1 in population, but as travelers that ratio is easily reversed, if not doubled in the other direction. If more Americans traveled and experienced the world people would inevitably have more more favorable opinion of us through familiarity alone. As it is, I’m left with a small minority and do my best to shake popular negative opinion one person at a time.

Hail to the Red, White and Blue! God Bless America! and Happy 4th of July!

Bob