Alien Attitudes
Travel
in another country can often make one feel strange and out of sorts. There are so many new things to interpret:
customs, signs, gestures, mindsets, not to mention vocabulary and pronunciation
even in English-speaking areas of the world. Recently though, I’ve come to realize that there are moments
when one can feel as disconnected within one’s native land as in a foreign
country.
Just last week at the pharmacy counter in our hometown grocery store, a man named Dominick waiting in line began a
conversation with my husband and me. We’ll
long remember the exchange we had with him because of his cynical attitude. For starters, according to him all government officials are corrupt—from
Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Governor Andrew Cuomo to the lowliest local
official. A former state worker himself,
he felt “the government” was even to blame for the incompetence of the drug
store employees at Price Chopper! How he
figured that I haven’t a clue! But that
wasn’t all. He believes that everyone
should carry a gun…that we would all feel a lot safer right there in the
supermarket if that were the case. He
suggested that by the time we reach his age—he was about 7 years older—we might
mature and come around to his point of view.
Lord, spare me from that! He told
us that we are the type of people who welcome illegal immigrants from Mexico. When we mentioned our plans for a semester in
Paris to try to change the subject, he replied that the French capital should
be destroyed because of its government’s decision not to let U.S. planes fly
over their country at the beginning of the war in Iraq. Everything out of his mouth was negative; how
sorry I felt for his wife and family! It
was impossible to discuss anything with him or simply to present one’s own side
of the issues. While we laughed at the
so-called “conversation,” it really left us with an empty, alienated feeling.
By
contrast, our initial contacts with the French and other Europeans on this trip
are going swimmingly. Of course, it’s
not our first opportunity to live abroad and being fluent in the language helps
enormously. Americans often ask me if
French people are arrogant, impolite, and treat us poorly; the answer is hardly
ever. The night we arrived, for example,
we had dinner in a nearby couscous restaurant.
We discussed Algeria and the Berber culture with the owner and his son
the waiter. A client from Anjou about to
leave for Agriculture Sans Frontières
in Haiti talked about his experiences all over the world. A Dutch couple, who spoke English, not
French, encouraged us to come see windmills in their town, Zevenbergen.
Naturally,
that is not to say that there aren’t any Dominiques
around who are just as negative as the guy in Price Chopper. It’s just that when confronted with such a
person, we shouldn’t generalize that all of the French are like that, just as
we wouldn’t want to be put in the same category as Dominick. Europeans that we’ve met on this and previous
trips mostly have an open attitude toward us, including an important ability to
separate individuals from governments; not all Americans are so open-minded. Once again, attitude on both sides makes a
difference. We don’t expect them to act
American or to speak English. My basic
advice is always the same: approach others with a smile, greet them in their
language, and learn to say a few phrases wherever you might be traveling.
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