Quote:
Originally Posted by cashman
gotta say when i lived in europe for a while, late 60s found the yank tourists very ignorant in the main, yet the times ive visited the states, have not met more obliging, polite,friendly people, n thats all over, EXPLAIN how this can be so please you USA members cos it beats me.  |
Not quite sure what you mean when you say ignorant , if you mean they were clueless ie. no idea or understanding of foriegn cultures, not being able to speak the local language or sense of history I would agree , but if you mean ignorant , being bad mannered and uncouth I would tend to dis-agree .
I think there was a time probably during the 60s as you mention when the term "ugly american" came into use , think this was a leftover from WW2 , the older folks who came back over to Europe were probably making return trips and still had the wartime mindset of America being responsible for the liberation of Europe ( sorry folks , but without Eisenhower and his troops D Day would never have happened) much the same way the WW2 generation in Britain thought of 'Eyties' and 'Japs'
As for the younger kids who came over in the 60s, I think the problem there was a failure of the American education system , I dont think the Yank kids visiting Britain had any problems only the ones going to the mainland, up to about 15 years ago most American schools were mono-lingual no matter where the kids originated from , all the kids spoke English and if a new kid arrived in school un-able to speak English he/she was thrown in at the deep end and soon learned out of neccesity, the American kids had mistakenly learned from thier fathers and grandfathers who had served in Europe that a foriegn language wasn't neccesary (probably the same these days, wonder how many American troops in Iraq have made an attempt to learn Arabic)
