🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <46ava9$eds@mandolin.qnet.com>,
Melody Clark  <melodyc@qnet.com> wrote:
>lawdie@iol.ie (Les) writes:
>>
>>>We found American's very ignorant when we were on holidays this
>>>summer.  We visited Nashville and New York and one was as bad as the
>>>other.
>
>Well, of course you did, just as the Spanish found the aboriginal people 
>of the Americas to be "ignorant" - ignorance is the absence of 
>information (chiefly surrounding one's own self and culture) in someone 
>else which we arbitrarily deem "intelligence".  
>
>Now, you spoke with every single person in Nashville and New York?  No, 
>my friends, you spoke to possibly fifty...maybe one hundred?  There are 
>millions of people in those fair cities.  You hardly garnered a 
>representative sampling.  And at that, those cities comprise a small 
>portion of the US.  
>
>BTW, when I'm across the pond, I have to field my share of ignorant 
>questions...my favorite being, "My cousin lives in (fill in the state).  
>How far is that from Hollywood?"  There also is the rather rash 
>assumption that the USA is that faint image depicted in film by 
>international filmmakers, when it is hardly that at all.  


Melody, we seem to share some common experiences. My interpretation
of the 'average' European view of the USA is like this:

  On the east side, there is New York and Florida. On the west side
  is California. In between is Texas.

That is about it. Next comes the ignorance of the size. I've had folks
write that they were going to have a 2 week vacation and planned to
drive from New York, down through the South, into Texas and over to
California. Then they were going to drive back to New York through the
northern states. Oh, of course they were going to stop and visit their
friends and enjoy the sites to see along the way! Fortunately, I was
able to advise them that this itinerary was not viable.