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09-19-2003, 04:48 AM
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#1 of 161 
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What aspects of American culture are often misunderstood?
Note: keep international politics and nation-bashing out of this thread!
People around the world get an idea of American culture through popular entertainment, such as television shows and movies. Through such programs, foreign viewers get a positive or negative of Americans, their culture and of the United States.
Since American culture sometime is not self-explanatory, what aspects of it are often misunderstood by non-Americans?
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09-19-2003, 05:18 AM
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#2 of 161
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Very hard to answer without going into forbidden territories (politics, religion,...).
However, I often heard the reason the Americans don't like soccer (the biggest sport in the rest of the world) is because they find soccer to be a slow, boring sport where nothinh ever happens.
Yet you love baseball and US football, both sports that are either slower (BB) or more often interrupted (US foot: 20 sec of "team meeting", 5 sec to get into formation, , 15 sec of shouted instructions, and 2 sec of running. Then 20 sec before the 5 players who jumped on top of the runner finnally get up... then time-out, then 20 sec of "team meeting",...)
Don't get me wrong I prefer baseball and US foot over soccer, but I gave up trying to explain both sports to my familly/friends...
- The obsession with lawsuits and PC, we get the impression that no matter what you do or say, you might get hit by a lawsuit anytime, anyplace...
Cheers,
Vincent
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09-19-2003, 05:35 AM
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#3 of 161
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Quote:
- The obsession with lawsuits and PC, we get the impression that no matter what you do or say, you might get hit by a lawsuit anytime, anyplace...
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this is kind of funny. I speak to european customers most of the day, as well as our office in europe. The german office had a customer that the reps actually wanted to sue in court over some things he said over the phone to them. Not even an american would sue for that  |
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09-19-2003, 06:23 AM
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#4 of 161
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Yee Ming Lim
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Is there really a "the third date is the sex date" "rule" as propounded in Ally McBeal, or any number of TV shows portraying the dating life of singles?
Obviously it wouldn't be hard and fast, but roughly speaking is there any basis for this at all?
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09-19-2003, 06:51 AM
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#5 of 161
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Yee-Ming: there is no rule but it's fairly common, IMO. I couldn't put any kind of numbers to it though.
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09-19-2003, 06:57 AM
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#6 of 161
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David Baranyi: I think you've answered your own question. TV shows show Americans as being violent, shallow, oversexed, etc. Given no other information, I think people assume that TV shows give an accurate portrayal of America.
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09-19-2003, 07:14 AM
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#7 of 161
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Well at the risk of getting political, GUNS we Americans love our guns, we love to shoot them, clean them etc. That is one part of our culture that Europe will NEVER understand.
\"Yea though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no one- For I am the meanest mofo in the valley\"
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09-19-2003, 07:58 AM
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#8 of 161
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Quote:
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The german office had a customer that the reps actually wanted to sue in court over some things he said over the phone to them.
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Yeah, unfortunatly in Europe, we are starting this trend too. Last year a guy in France sued "Meteo France" (the official company relaying inof about/analyzing/forecasting the weather) because they predicted rain for the week-end and the week-end turned out to be sunny 
Cheers,
Vincent |
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09-19-2003, 08:08 AM
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#9 of 161
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Oh God, please don't use our TV shows as an idea of how dating is in New York, much less the US. Sex and the City and Ally McBeal, what little I've seen of them, take place in some fictional facsimile of NY, which I'm glad I don't live near.
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09-19-2003, 08:56 AM
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#10 of 161
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I just returned from the UK and was quite amused to see quite a bit of "full frontal" and "back" for that matter of men and women on regular television without any censorship. The was no "action" but people in their splendor doing normal stuff not normally associated with be naked and on film. I would never make an assumption of the UK based on a couple shows that was able to take in. "Kirsty's Videos", a show quite similiar to our AFHV, was funny and also strange since the show interrupts the videos with staged naked people bouncing around. I dined every night with the natives and not once did they get up strip down and start bouncing around.
I would say that UK television is free to portray and script what US television insinuates.
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