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> I've often wondered how Americans see the world. Many are mesmerized by it and lots want to travel, but are prohibited due to costs or time from doing so. Other countries are seen as exotic, my wife can probably name a dozen fashion companies from Europe and requests gifts from them for holidays. Going to most places outside of the Caribbean islands, Central and South America, or Canada is outside the limits of many people. Taking a vacation to Europe is often seen as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The language barrier is big, there's usually little need in many states to learn a second language, though in parts of California and Texas that being English/Spanish bilingual is becoming much more commonplace. I've lived in, and visited many regions on America, and it is not homogeneous. The US is geographically large (many of our states are bigger than most European countries) but relatively sparse with often many different subcultures inside the same state. One place I lived was 1,000 km to the nearest foreign country. Accents in the various parts of the country used to be a lot more distinguishable but that seems to be evening out a little. It can still be difficult for some Americans to understand other Americans. While many forms of media are commonly consumed by America, a lot of American subcultures are heavily and incorrectly stereotyped in media or ignored altogether. Most of the media comes out of very small regions of New York and California, with most of the details described being at a federal (national) level, which doesn't affect our day-to-day activities very much. Europeans may know a lot about America, but very little about the things which affect you. Most Americans also don't even know much about the rest of America, and many people can't even remember the state I live in, which is quite different from the other states nearby. The problem is a fan-in vs fan-out problem. It's easy for many countries to look at the heavily broadcasted messages of America, but very difficult for Americans to become intimately familiar with details of other countries especially due to the language barriers. Modern technology has simplified this quite a bit, and hopefully Americans are becoming better informed travelers. |