Six Things I Do Not Understand About Americans

I am finally moved into my new house in Indiana now and should be getting my classroom ready for school starting next week, blah, blah, blah; but I am blogging instead about something completely unrelated to that.  In short, the time has come to discuss the things I will never understand about Americans (speaking generally here).

1.  The need to be #1 at EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD!!!!!!  No, seriously, go pick up any magazine or newspaper, and sooner or later, you'll find something claiming that because America isn't #1 at something, we are failing ourselves and all future generations.  Really, so no other country is ever allowed to have a shining moment?  America must be the leader in education, GDP, conservation, science, safety, industry, etc.?  And the worst part is that despite all these articles, we never seem to start doing whatever the #1 country is doing to make it work.

2.  They have every resource in the world to learn about everything but don't.  Seriously, you don't know where Iraq is on a map?  America has been fighting Iraq for, like, over ten years, right?  You have Google, portal to the entire Internet.  What is your excuse?  I don't blame you for not knowing where specific towns within the country are, but with all your resources, can't you just, maybe...look at a map?  Learning something won't kill you.  The primary reason America isn't #1 at everything isn't the government's fault.  It's the average American's for refusing to learn anything beyond what the Kardashians are doing next.

 

3.  The dichotomy of "You don't know that?" vs. "But you're a missionary kid!"  This one is very MK specific.  If I don't know some aspect of pop culture, I'm criticized for being ignorant.  If I do know some aspect of pop culture, I'm greeted by the shock and horror of, "But you're a missionary kid!"  I've gotten, "You don't know that?" over The Matrix trilogy, yet "But you're a missionary kid!" over Madagascar.  Please, people, some consistency would be very nice. 

Apparently, a true missionary kid would not know the words to, "I like to move it, move it!"

 

4.  Slaughtering pronunciations of borrowed foreign words.  Now, as a kid, you learn to read and you pronounce words wrong, but get corrected by an adult who informs you "It is pronounce e-GREE-jous," and you learn to pronounce it correctly because that's the right thing to do.  But Uncle Sam forbid that we learn to pronounce karate, futon, or kamikaze properly.  Nope, sorry, someone important slaughtered the word, and we just claim we have Americanized the word and plunge on, refusing to fix it when someone who actually speaks the language corrects us.  (Reassurance:  No one complained when I stopped pronouncing emu e-moo and started saying e-myoo.).  Are there multiple pronunciations to some words?  Yes; toe-may-toe vs. toe-mah-toe, zee-bra vs. zeh-bra.  But when you start borrowing the word, could you at least send over businessmen who actually bother trying to pronounce words properly? 

This emu is shocked at American pronunciation.

5.  The English system (pounds, inches, etc.) and soccer.  Just switch, please.  Okay, I know there's the matter of American football (Three days until the Packer preseason game!), so I guess I'll allow soccer to slide.  But, really, while the rest of the world uses grams and meters, why are you still literally stuck in the Dark Ages using measurements based upon the distance between the king's nose and wrist?

6.  Why, when traveling internationally, you apparently believe speaking louder and slower helps.  If the person doesn't speak English, no matter how loudly or slowly you say, "I.  WANT.  TO.  CHANGE.  MY.  FLIGHT," they still won't understand you.  Imagine if a Chinese person started speaking to you, and no matter how many times you said, "I don't speak Chinese," they kept repeating themselves louder and slower.  Would you understand them any better?  You would not.  Although a lot of people do understand English, when you find one who doesn't, maybe try someone else if at all possible.

Another hint:  Next time, try pointing at the items you want if you can.  It helps a lot.

So, there is my little rant of the day before I spend the rest of my evening "watching" Fantasia while cutting out letters for my bulletin board on Early American Explorers.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not upset about being American or living in America.  Y'all are just a bunch of weirdos sometimes.  I could also come up with more, but I won't because I'll probably offend you, and then I'll get sued.

'MERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!