United States

I hope this thread thread does not start any angry feelings or anything, but since there are people from all around the world on here, What is the general feeling towards the US by your home countries? This may be a strange question, but I was just curious as to how people feel on the outside.

Hamburgers, yum! 

I don't think they ever went to the Moon though.

Yes, I remember that from the Netherlands, where I lived most of my life.

My experience is that Belgium, where I live for the past six years, does that less. There's also less news about the US in the newspapers and on the TV. There's not an explicit pro or contra attitude towards the US, I think.

I am Italian, and moved to the US about a year and a half ago in order to marry another member of this forum. So, I was not biased at least towards him... Unfortunately, I came here when the country was at its lowest, in the throes of a deep recession that still is not over (though it did not significantly impact either me or my husband). This means that people are very prone to the same 'the sky is falling' attitudes which I used to decry in my fellow Italians, laying the blame on everyone but themselves.

If I have to be perfectly honest, what really makes me uncomfortable here is the lack of human compassion shown by many - like those who believe that healthcare is a privilege and not a human right, or the obsession with 'hard work' (and I had two VERY hard-working parents), as if there were not many equally important things in life. Coming from a country and a family where saving money has always been of paramount importance, the 'debt culture' of the US also shocked me somewhat.

On the other hand, even if there is still a lot of racism and prejudice here, I really like living in a genuinely multicultural environment - something that in my native country is encountering the hostility of a large part of the population (we have an openly racist and xenophobic party as part of the government coalition). I don't know if I will ever really feel at home here, but in the past few years I hadn't felt very much at home in Italy either (too long to explain), so I can only hope things will get better and better with time. 

I think of the United States as essentially a country founded by circus performers and used car salesmen. Whether this is a good or a bad thing depends entirely on the context of discussion. As for the rest of the world's fascination with American culture, I think just as much gets lost in translation as when it happens in the other direction. Cultures often imitate each other in ways that in the end don't resemble the "original" much. Oswald Spengler, a German historian/philosopher active between the two world wars, had a pretty nifty term for this: Pseudomorphosis. A good example of this would be the rather... odd... apparent Westernization of Japanese culture, or to pick from this site's field of interest movements like Krautrock and Zeuhl.

Here in Canada, most people I know kind of look at the US with disdain, mostly because of Bush and fast food. My personal experience with people in the states hasn't really been overly negative; there are things about western culture I dislike, and they almost all exist in the states, but to pretend that they don't exist closer to home as well would be folly.

harmonium.ro wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: I read an article in the WSJ about how McDonald's is really popular in France. :P True, but most of the clients look Asian or are tourists.

To be fair, though, the French McDonald's seem really classy and maybe the food would even be better. I still wouldn't go if I were visiting France, though.

Atavachron wrote: CPicard wrote: Oh, and if you could do something against the fast-food stuff, it would be nice (my God, I just walked near a KFC and I was about to vaint because of the stench!). KFC is atrocious,  real southern fried chicken is heavenly

That's interesting. KFC have the only western-type of fast food that I like. And I really like it! But I only eat at KFC like once a year, sometimes twice (not healthy). Last autumn I've been at a KFC on Oxford Street, London, and it was awful. Huge disappointment.