For the last three years, it has been interesting to tell people that asked (in Egypt and elsewhere we have traveled) that we are from the USA.
We have received a lot of
America good, Bush bad.
And then Obama won and it was
Obama good man, muslim!
So that was fun.
Now traveling, the questions in Southeast Asia are a little different.
How old are you?
How many children do you have
Which are a little odd..
And then there is the
Where are you from
Now here, the response from that we are from the US elicits a desire on the part of the questioner to discuss everything they “know” about the US. Which, while more than the average American knows about SE Asia, is still limited to what they have seen on TV.
Which means either the movies, or the news.
[I am not even going to talk about the whole “Washington D.C. vs Washington state, oh there is 2 of them” bit. Nope.]
I have been asked if I have guns. [my usual reply is “not with me, they are in the hotel safe” which always make people a little nervous]
If I have a harley (sigh). Or if I have a horse. We usually tell people we live “near California” and then they talk about Hollywood stars and the latest “happenings” in that sphere of influence. [Which we never followed when we were in the US..]
The most recent discussion was about Mexico and how there are all these terrible drug problems and the fighting between the militias and the police and how all the killings are terrible.
[This discussion took place in Cambodia, literally across the street from the Tuol Sleng prison. And where I had, moments before, been offered marijuana and opium.]
He wanted to talk all about America. Which is fine up to a point. The first dozen or so times it happens in a day. But after spending a day visiting the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng prison, we had ducked into a shady garden restaurant to give our battered psyches a chance to recover from what we had seen that day.
After we extricated ourselves from the discussion, probably a little rudely, we decided that the next time we were asked we would tell people we were from Canada. Toronto is asked.
Nobody really wants to talk to Canadians.
4 replies on “Oh… Canada?”
It is good to be Canadian because the Canadians are all soooo nice (at least those on WL!). Same as those lovely Canadian women on the Nile cruise with us…. “middle age, going through a mid-life crisis, thinking they are all that” (quoth the 13 year old). On the “do you have a horse” question, I have many memories of traveling in the US as a kid and when we told them we were from Washington (western one, not the US capitol….we had the same discussion you are having) – there were always questions about riding horses, did we rent the car/camper we were driving (because all we had were horses to ride), and were we impressed with the indoor plumbing we were seeing in California (no less!)? Enjoy the LONG way home and we will try to have a horse for you, in your back yard, upon your return.
Of course, the Canadians are preferable. Kaddee claimed Canadian citizenship when she traveled in Europe after her graduation from college! I’m only sorry the impression hasn’t changed over the years. Thanks, George W. !
Yeah, it’s so fun to travel aboard and see the amazing places, but it gets so boring to tell your own story over and over and over again to different people, day after day after day. Especially to the opinionated locals who would not mind telling you what THEY think of your “countely”. Every trip I always find myself switch to saying, “eh, I’m from… Taiwan”, after about 3 days. Works like a charm!
Oh, CANADIAN!!!
I actually find americans quite boring, really. But have hundreds of questions for Canadians. Like, hummm, let see, is killing bears part of your daily rutine, or what’s the percentage of canadias that have lost at least one digit due to frostbite. I could go on and on but don’t want to spoil your blog.