Zacht Ei - Compulsory reading

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Compulsory reading

It's an old one, but this is by far one of the best articles dealing with European hypocrisy towards America.

'Hertsgaard illustrates Americansâ€™ ignorance of world geography by telling us about a Spaniard who was asked at a wedding in Tennessee if Spain was in Mexico. I once told such stories as well (in fact, I began my professional writing career with a fretful op-ed about the lack of general knowledge that I, then a doctoral candidate in English, found among my undergraduate students); then I moved to Europe and met people like the sixtyish Norwegian author and psychologist who, at the annual dinner of a Norwegian authorsâ€™ society, told me sheâ€™d been to San Francisco but never to California.'

Just the other day, a well-educated acquintance of mine complained of an American who didn't know that The Hague, our political 'capital', wasn't the real capital of the Netherlands. Of course, she fell mute when I asked her about the capitals of Rhode Island, New York and Florida. (Providence, Albany and Tallahassee.)

Point in case: the average citizen of any country is probably not that well versed in geography. I've done fairly well in school, but when I bought my first car for 500 euros a few years back, I then spent 1300 euros on a navigation system because I usually can't find my own bedroom without a map. (I live in a 40 square metres apartment, so it's not the size that matters, in this case, at least.) And using such clichÃ©s only serves to estrange two proud continents (no offense, Canada) that would be better off working together.

My sincere apologies to Dr. Phil for that last sentence.

14:26

permalink comment(s) (4) trackback(s) (0)

The BBC does 'philosophy'

Any Irish readers out there?

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry

Always nice to find area's where we DO agree ;)

Dutchmarbel (ip:80.100.225.59) 29 September 2005 - 18:21 uur

Your example is all too familiar to me. I usually trick people into confusing Washington state for Washington, DC or vice versa myself. That's not always necessary though, Americans should be entertained to learn that in Europe, some people consider Hollywood a state.

Robert John Kaper (ip:213.84.48.90) 29 September 2005 - 13:39 uur

I'm nearly finished with my Geography degree from the University of Minnesota. When I've traveled to Seattle to visit my uncle who works for Boeing I regularly made the rounds to the many National Parks out there (Mt. Ranier, Mt. St. Helens, Olympic, etc.) and met many foreigners being tourists in the region. I had been under the impression that Europeans were very well tought in geographic knowledge.

Having introduced myself to more than a few, many asked me where I lived myself, I responded "Minneapolis, Minnesota".

"Where's that?"

Back in high school I knew a German exchange student. I knew that despite Minneapolis being a metropolitan area of about 2.5 million people then it's a modest sized city but probably not significant enough for foreigners to have instant recollection of where it is. So I had asked her how she would explain to her friends back home in Germany where she was. She said that she would just tell them to find the Mississippi River on a map (because she said everyone in Europe knew learned things like the biggest rivers of the continents), and follow it to the northern end and you'll find Minneapolis.

So thinking this was a pretty good idea to follow up with the visiting foreigners I'd respond, "Well, you know where the Mississippi River is?"

"No, the what?"

*boggle*

A few times folks knew the Mississippi River, but three times I got people that never heard of it... Needless to say, I lost my innocent belief that generally Europeans were much more better informed about American geography than Americans are of Europe. ;)

I'm sure more than a few people have their stories of geographic ignorance on both sides of the ocean.

Anondson (ip:209.98.144.184) 29 September 2005 - 7:45 uur

I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and later spent 4 years in Seattle.

So when people ask me where I'm from, it's quite easy to just say "Washington." And if they ask "which one?", I just reply, "both"!

vaara (ip:80.127.26.54) 29 September 2005 - 14:51 uur

Comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(By submitting comments you agree to have read and accepted the forum rules. If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Doorbakken kan altijd nog

Compulsory reading

Trackback Pings

Comment

Wat deed ik recent?