The (fantastic, btw) radio show This American Life recently featured a story about America looks to immigrants who recently moved to the United States. In that story, Mary Wiltenburg asked refugees about the image of America they had in mind and the rumor they heard before setting foot in the country, and how that image compared with reality.
In this follow up thread at Quora, immigrants and visitors are asked to relate facts about the United States they did not believe until they come to America.
The answers are fascinating, as Max Fisher of The Atlantic summarizes:
How do they get everyone to obey traffic laws?: Quoting cab drivers is sometimes considered the epitome of lazy journalism, but there is one trend I've found in talking to foreign-born cabbies working in the U.S. and to foreign-based taxi drivers who've visited the U.S.: amazement at how devoutly American drivers follow the rules of the road. Compared to the U.S., driving in many developing world cities can feel like organized chaos, with motorists ignoring not just stoplights and speed signs but lane markers and even the direction of traffic. If you go to Cairo and rent a car (side note: don't rent a car in Cairo), you're obligated to follow the standard every-man-for-himself style if you want to get anywhere; drive like you're back in the U.S. and you'll never leave the parking lot. The miracle of American roads, as outsiders have described it to me, is that it only really works if everyone follows the written rules and unwritten norms alike, and they do.
Nothing like what I saw on Friends: The U.S. is about as famous as a country can get. People around the world experience it through the American films and TV shows that dominate global entertainment. But those media portrayals can sometimes add more confusion than they dispel. A Chinese friend once insisted that of course 20-something Americans all get news boyfriends and girlfriends every single week: she'd seen it on Friends, and Seinfeld, and Sex and the City, and a half dozen other TV shows. They couldn't all be lying.
Read more over at The Atlantic: Link
What say you, Neatoramanauts? What strange facts about America surprised you?
This one made me think of my last trip to Germany. I was asked by a friend's neighbor that "since I was American, where my cowboy hat was?". As I tried to explain to them I wasn't from that part of the country and there really aren't many tradition cowboys left. They kind of stared at me with awe like they didn't believe me.
Afterwards, they went inside and came back out with a hat similar to one you see in the cowboy films. They asked me to put it on for a picture... I couldn't refuse, but to give them a hard time I asked for a six-shooter for my hip. They thought it was quite silly.
What a great memory!
My father worked with people from Russia who lived right outside of NYC. When relatives came to visit, they had a list of places they wanted to see, like the city, the Statue of Liberty, and the Grand Canyon. They had no idea how far the canyon was from the New York area, and did not understand why they couldn't just hop in the car and drive there. Once they were shown the atlas and the actual scope of what we be involved in such a trip, they were astounded!
1.I find it interesting that you have met so many Americans that you know "most of them" are ignorant and untravled. I guess then I can say that because 10 of the people I met while traveling Europe don't know where Virgina is that all of Europe is ignorant. And Asia. And Central America.
2. Seriously, if you beleive that everyone is like they are on TV, you are so beyond any help.
3. Yes, there are rules here. Shocking, I know. Try to keep up.
4. Red Indians? And yet you call us ignorant? I'm aware this is what they are called in England, but I think even that has become passe.
I might have fallen for a troll post, but hey, you gotta stand up for things sometimes.
2. That all Americans are perfect in appearance (like on TV). And then I stumbled into a K-Mart in a mid-western town...
3. America is a free country & you can do anything you want. The first time I brought a can of beer into the student union everyone freaked out...
4. That all the cowboys were the good guys (like John Wayne & Clint Eastwood). Just like the Brits who gave the Chinese opium, the American cowboys gave the Red Indians whiskey.