Job Discussion Forums

[once again]

I came accross this on a UK paper website. It made me laugh......

According to the expats outside, those dining with Mr Bush were typically super-rich members of Republicans Abroad who worked for US banks and law firms in the City.

"These are not normal people," said Sarah Forrester, an American health worker wearing a badge bearing a picture of her president that read: "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot".

The article goes on to interview someone who was formerly a Bush supporter but who states that many American expats have now changed their minds about Bush and the country since being away.

How have your oppinions changed (if they have) about your home countries
...my oppinion of my country is still the same..I still think it is a great place to visit..but I wouldn't want to live there.

[denise]

Do you mean our opinions about our home countries (in my case, the US of A) or our opinions about the Bush Regime? They are two very different things, in my opinion.

I am still able to see some positives in the American way of life, despite Bush's best efforts to stamp them out.

d

[once again]

Your opinions of your own countries. If you happen to be from the US then I guess that may include Bush. If you are from France, then it may not. Do you see your country in a different light in any way..for better or for worse? I never really liked the people in my own country, and that still holds true. But I never really appreciated just how beautiful the country side there is until I left. I am from the UK by the way.

[mjed9]

This is a good question. I am also from the UK and agree with you OA that it is a beautiful country with beautiful countryside (I now reside in Taipei) but I also don't want to live there.

One thing that has changed is my feeling towards England's foreign policy and its historical impact on the world. England (like America) has carried out some major atrocities all for wealth and power. Previously I had thought England was a great country because of its warring and expansionist victories but I now I think it is / used to be just a dominant, arrogant country (politically speaking - which in turn effects the people's psychology which is, again like you, why I don't like most of my fellow countrymen).

[Newfoundland]

I bleed maple syrup!!!

[Mark-O]

mjed9, I concur with that view. Well put.

[thelmadatter]

OK, Im an American...

There are things about my country that I definitely appreciate more living away from it. The things I dont like have stayed the same...

I dont like Bush - but I dont believe he epitomizes EVERYTHING about my country.

[anthyp]

I like most of my own countrymen, though I try to stay away from American tourists whenever possible (cripes don't get me started on our collective fashion sense). I actually have had a slightly different change of perspective regarding my home country - I always thought of Americans as an arrogant people, from our founding in the "Manifest Destiny" days to our present policies around the globe. Not that I think we are any less arrogant after travelling around a bit, but I guess I've come to realize how great a place it is to live, and how lucky I am to have been born there.

I think if you go abroad and come to have a different understanding of your home country, that's fine, I mean that's what going abroad should do to you, but to suddenly become overly critical or at the point of saying, "I'm ashamed to be so - and - so," might be a little over - the - top. I mean look at the places we teach - would you seriously rather either live there the rest of your life, or have been born there? The US and Britain are both great places to visit and live, I'm sure. Well the States are anyway.

[JosephP]

I've been on a six week visit back here in the US and it seems to me (generally speaking of course) that Americans are a politically polarized, carbohydrate obsessed, SUV driving stressed-out society. There also seems to be an inordinate amount of bible thumpers. Or maybe my view is skewed by being stuck here in Idaho, quien sabe? Next week I'm going back to New Zealand. Granted, NZ shares a lot cultural similarities with the USA (TV there is full of crap American imports) but overall the Kiwis are not so wowserish (is that a word?). At least the Prime Minister in New Zealand doesn't end every speech with "God bless..."

[gugelhupf]

I have to agree about avoiding compatriot tourists. I am a Brit with one German parent and I studiously avoid tourists of both nationalities when I am abroad. By "tourists" I mean in particular Brit males with bad tattoos and football shirts, and fat middle aged German couples with lots of camcorders and a Blitzkrieg strategy for getting around museums (stereotypes or what!).

Particularly amusing from a distance is watching Brit and German tourists competing for resources.

When I am abroad I miss misty September mornings in the English countryside, the Marks & Spencer food hall and my favourite country roads for motorbiking. I don't miss the glossy spin that passes for politics in the UK these days and I despair of UK foreign policy which, since the end of the cold war, largely involves playing off the US and EU and then settling down with the side that looks most likely to win in a particular situation. They got it badly wrong with Iraq, however.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[joncharles]

IN a way it is sad to see this kind of topic, but it is an open discussion forum. I have found that bringing in politics into the class or to the teachers room automatically creates tension and eventually causes distrust between teachers and confusion among students.

I had one English coworker who publicly stated he was a proud socialist and how much he hated Americans (note he did not say America). Another English coworker who was a big Blair supporter. An Australian who also hated America, three females, two from England, one from NZ, a guy from NY who was a Democrat and me. This huge argument started after the socialist guy said he was glad terrorists attacked NY and Washington D.C. The argument got so loud the school manager had to come in and stop it... after that, no one spoke much to each other for a long time... Sad thing was the socialist guy happened to the supervisor in charge of observing teachers. The aftermath of this argument was reflected on the subsequent observation reports of several of us. Up to this point the worst arguement that had gone on was which football team, Manchester United or Liverpool, would win their match.

So I am in favor of avoiding politics and the animosity and name calling that generally follows. However, to answer the question... I like my fellow countymen on the whole. I did run into a few Nova teachers from the U.S. I thought were arrogant jerks.

[dduck]

[once again]

Joncharles, not quite sure why you think this type of topic is quite sad or that it must involve politics. I mentioned the countryside as something I had never really appreciated properly before, and now I will add fish and chip shops. They are a wonderful British institution, although better avoided when the pubs have just shut!!!

[zaneth]

Don't know why this irritated me so much, as I'm hardly a patriot, but may I humbly suggest that Brits refrain from discussing America, as the question is how has your opinion of your OWN country changed? Kindly save your sarcasm for your own country if you like. Or start another thread. Or discuss common issues, good OR bad.

I found that living in America, the material comfort all around, the long history of peace (within our own borders) and the force of public opinion, media, and the daily demands of life (not to mention conservative southern parents) made it difficult to go very far in a negative direction. Certainly I had a rather negative outlook but there were so many things keeping it in check. And the direction I tended to turn was to intellectuals, hippies, and alternative types.

Living outside of America, a lot of that buffer falls away. The average person on the street here tends to be rather skeptical of American policy. In America college students or liberal intellectuals I talk to will be negative or penetrating in their analysis, but an old person on a bus is very likely to be conservative and Christian. There are a lot of things that people in America just tend not to think about too much. At the end of the day you still have to buy your groceries from and work with mainstream Americans. And you're still drawing a paycheck. Even if you're a hippy in the woods your parents or grandparents won't be, and you still have to interact with them. And they're basically good people and their lifestyle works, at least on some level.

When the critical outlook becomes the mainstream one around you it changes a lot of things.

I find my view of the left has changed too. From the outside, they don't seem so much like an alternative, but as just the other side of the coin. Inside America, I found it easier to seperate the Bush regime from the average person. But somehow, being outside of it, it does all seem to be interconnected.

I do miss people, and the countryside. And the West Coast culture. I even miss TV and movies, and the feeling of being inside of my very large and insulating native country. I miss the feeling of thinking about America only as America, the internal America, not the newsreel foreign policy one.

It's a strange feeling. My relationship to America hasn't gotten simpler or more understandable. And I don't really see my relationship to it stabilizing any time soon. Sometimes I feel like connecting more with it, and sometimes I think I should seperate from it in my mind and try to settle in here.

Ok. Sorry for the long post. Touched a nerve a guess. In a way it's sort of THE question, isn't it. Looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts.