"Typical American"

Non-Americans don't have the most positive view of Americans.

This is what I learned in my English class today.

It's not that I was unaware of the stereotype- we were fully briefed on the "Ugly American" stereotype in our pre-departure study abroad meetings- but I didn't fully realize that people actually thought it was true.

Here's some background on the situation:  We are reading "Typical American" by Gish Jen in Multicultural Voices in American Literature.  Because most of the class was unable to purchase the book, we spent much of class doing some introductory work.  We were asked to come up with traits of a typical American amongst ourselves in small groups.  

Everyone in my group had actually been able to do today's reading, so we understood that this exercise paralleled the Chinese protagonist's experiences as an immigrant in America, as he and his sister make fun of their landlord and then expand it to Americans in general- example: Typical American so dumb.

Not surprisingly, most of the traits we came up with were negative- ignorant, individualistic, loud, fat, rude, superficial.  The only positives I can remember were friendly and optimistic.  

It was hard to hear some of the international students say that they thought these things were true.

Take, for example, that Americans are superficial.  Someone thought it was superficial that Americans smile all the time but don't mean it genuinely.  Of course, this is true in many cases, but I don't think it is valid enough to apply to an entire diverse nation of people.  Personally, I smile in so many situations and for different reasons- in greeting, acknowledgement, embarrassment, happiness, farewell, agreement, etc.  In Hungary, people don't do this.  It's just a cultural difference.  When I see someone in my apartment building, I smile at them to acknowledge them because I can't speak Hungarian, and because that's just what I'd do anyways.  It was interesting to think that people see such interactions as superficial.  

I have mixed feelings about this.  I know Americans have stereotypes of other cultures and it's often rooted in lack of understanding, but when we express belief in such stereotypes, it only seems to further reinforce the idea that we are ignorant.  However, it is acceptable for a non-American to express belief in American stereotypes.  I also think that it wouldn't have been acceptable for us to spend class time discussing stereotypes of Chinese people or Muslims or Nigerians, because it would come off as racism. Like I said, I'm unsure of how I feel about this, except that it is interesting to ponder.

This whole thing makes me feel slightly self-conscious about being an American in Europe.