[quote=“daasgrrl”]
I do believe Anti-American sentiment does exist to a greater extent than some other nations, and I believe most of this can be traced back to its dominance as a world power in some way or other (including the wealth that has given Americans greater travel opportunities than most), but that’s a separate issue. I think some places and people are also heavily pro-American.[/quote]
America is pro-America. But Australia is very pro-Australia, too. Most people everywhere are proud of their countires. They may not agree with everything their countries do, but people have a need to feel an identity (even detached) with a culture. I think that’s human nature.
There is a lot of anti-American sentiment, which is not usually aimed at its people, but what AMerica represents to the world: big business, big military, and Hollywood.
Also, “average” Americans are sometimes not the most well-traveled people, and may go overseas with specific intentions, such as study, or as reps for large corporations. That said, the most well-traveled people I know ARE Americans, myself included.
The unfairness comes when non-Americans have the tendency to group all Americans into one category, as if we’re some sort of homogeneous culture, cut from the same mold.
That, IMO, is ignorance on their part, and one that we Americans overseas should rise above, since we know this is untrue.
In Amsterdam, this guy in a glass shop started going off on me about Americans, as he’d dealt with a certain ilk of American tourists in his shop. It just made me laugh because he’d obviously earned quite a bit of money by selling his objects d’art to these ‘awful’ Americans. That to me, represented a misplaced arrogant inferiority complex that was by and large, hypocritical. In these cases, I get the, “Oh, you’re not a typical American” statement, which in come cases may be true, but only when you’re observing or associating Americans as all being the same. And that’s “bollocks”, if I may snag a British term. It’s as silly as when Taiwanese say, 'waiguorens do this, or all waiguorens think that…"
I can still understand where the resentment comes from, unfortunately. But one must stand back from it, however, when one lives abroad.