British Expatriate Network

I love these things - I came across another American perspective of how the English view the US. It starts out as a quick look at Sky News (the set, by the way, looks like a cross between a Butlins camp and a cruise ship in the year 2525) but the comments tend much more to perspective as a whole. It's the comments that interest me here. As you'll notice fairly early on it does have a bit of a, "oh those poor socialist peasants" but I just love these things anway. Thought you might too.

http//www.janegalt.net/archives/009523.html

Example of comments -

"One of the many wonderful quotes from Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island "Americans think that 100 years is a long time, and the British think 100 miles is a long ways"."

"When I was about to return to the US with my British bride, she wondered aloud about whether we'd need to get firearms to protect ourselves. ("Cover me, I'm going out for a newspaper!") Europeans generally seem to think all American cities are like Berlin in April 1945."

and finally,

"Fun facts about America from the Japanese
-America does not have four seasons. Only Japan does.
-Americans eat bread and beef at every meal.
-Americans never eat rice.
-No American can use chopsticks.
-All Americans own a gun.
-One should not change planes in city like Chicago or Atlanta because they are too dangerous."


What I like about these things are that they sometimes offer a good perspective on things, sometimes they seem laughbaly off the mark, but mostly it says oodles about those making comments.

Yeah those are interesting to read.

Why would it freak out a Brit to have to pump their own gas? They do it all the time in Britain. It would in fact be better to freak out someone from Oregon where we are not allowed to pump our own gas ???

What am I missing, I didn't get much of that from the link?

You have to read the comments people left below the article.

Yeah some of the comments are way off. Everyone is ignorant of everyone else unless they have lived in that country. You can't judge people on the tourists you see from that country or from what you see of another country as a tourist.

It's probably true that many Americans don't know America as well as they think. I'm thinking of the differences of NE, SE, Midwest, SW, NW, and the N&S West Coast.

I hear gunplay most nights. The 7-11 that's ten minutes from my house gets robbed at least once a fortnight. I wouldn't say Berlin 1945... more like Tombstone 1845. So yeah, that bit sounds right.

Well... no white american I know can use chopsticks. The japs, hawaiians and filipinos can though.

My wife can use chopsticks and so can a good half a dozen people at the company I work at - out of two dozen employees. None would check a box other than caucasian, and we're in the midwest!

It all depends on where you live, that is true. I had never heard gunshots until the other night. Even then I didn't know what they were and the girl I was working with stopped me from going to the window to see what the noise was.

The brit pumping their own gas is also regional. I can tell I'm getting into a rough/ more urban area if you have to prepay or use a credit card only. I didn't know about that one for a couple of years, and therefore wondered why the stupid pump wasn't working.

I liked the comment one brit made about What if it rained in America on Election Day. Like it would be raining in the whole country. lol

Americans can get a bit sensitive about it, but shootings are far more prevalent in the US than in the UK and the murder rates in comparable cities are higher in the US.

Last year Boston's murder rate topped 100.
The number of murders for the whole of Engalnd and Wales was 765 (from recollection) and that includes the 51 people murdered on 7/7.