Global Tales from Two Young Travelers

Typical Americans?

By Emily Reisch and Jon Minor

We’ve just realized that we have less than two months left here in Jönköping, before we begin traveling in Europe. As on any trip, the time has just flown by.

We’ve spent a lot of time lately with many of our friends, both Swedish and other international students. So much time away from home makes us both appreciate our country and other cultures.

We just laugh at the differences in some things. We were sitting with our friends, having tea and pie at a café, and Esther, who’s from Belgium, picked up an eating utensil that had come with the pie.

“What do you use this for?” she asked.

Birgit, who’s from Holland, said they use it to cut pie with. In Belgium, they use it to cut fish. We said that we use it to spread butter over bread. And in Sweden, it had been the only utensil served with the pie; we assumed that we were supposed to use it to eat our pie with.

Sometimes, we just have to say, “Cultural differences!” and let an issue go, because views on it are too different.

Sharon and Allison, two Australian girls, were absolutely shocked when Spencer, a guy from England, didn’t save his leftovers. They’d made pasta, and had some left over. They put it in the fridge for the next day, but Spencer couldn’t believe that they’d save old food. They couldn’t believe that he’d throw away good food.

We thought we knew the reasoning behind this. In England, they have very small refrigerators. We’d consider them mini or dorm fridges. Consequently, there isn’t much room for anything – especially leftovers. Australians usually have two or even three refrigerators for storing food, just like many Americans.

A question we hear quite often is if we have cars. We explain that we both have cars and have been driving since we were 14 years old. Many are astonished when they hear the driving age and that it’s almost a necessity in South Dakota since we don’t have public transportation. Our cars are also larger. When a friend from England came to visit us, she said, “It’s like a sofa!” as she climbed into the front seat.

In Holland, it’s very expensive to get a driver’s license. They must take at least 30 driving lessons, costing €50 each and then pay €120 to take the test. That makes it a minimum of about $1,740 (US) to get a license.

As a result, many of the Dutch ride bikes for transportation every day. Our Dutch friends thought it was quite funny that our legs were sore the first week we started riding bikes to school. Neither of us has been on a bike very much since we were 12 years old.

Some countries add subtitles to English TV shows, but some dub over the voices. Rafael, who’s from Brazil, thinks it’s very odd that Homer Simpson speaks English, since he’s only heard the Simpsons in Portuguese. We asked how phrases such as “Cowabunga dude” could be translated, and he explained that they use common Portuguese phrases.

Many people get their only view of other countries through the TV. It seems almost every country in the world gets American TV shows, music and movies, so people have plenty of material for painting their picture of the American people.

Because of this, we’ve been asked some unusual questions. “Was Emily a cheerleader?” “Do you have guns?” “Are you typical Americans?”
Is there really such a thing as a ‘typical American’? We just say, “America has almost 300 million people. What do you think a ‘typical American’ is?”

The best way to break stereotypes is to get to know people and let them really get to know you. We have come to realize many people think that Americans are loud and pushy. “…but you’re not like that” is a phrase we’ve enjoyed hearing.