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Why more Americans don't travel abroad
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eurobound



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 155

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isabel wrote:
eurobound wrote:
Captain_Fil wrote:
...wander around Walt Disney World...


Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing


Hey! Who says Americans don't see the world. Who needs a passport?


Hehe, Uncle Walt will teach you all you need to know...
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sheikh radlinrol



Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ancient_dweller wrote:
Russians are also told from a young age that Russia is the best country in the world,

Unbelievable! How on earth could even the most patriotic Russian justify this in front of his kid? They wasted 70 years of their history and imposed their idiotic system on their neighbours. Russian cuisine is crap and their national drink (little water, I believe, is the translation) is a vile, tasteless concoction that just gets you hammered and anaesthetises you to the misery of life in a drab Moscow suburb.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, but you have no Slavic soul, being misled by the capitalist piggies from the most tender years. These statements are therefore mistaken. Russian food is delicious, and has influences from lots of other regions. It's like Turkic food, but with lots of pork. Vodka is the elixir of the Gods, but if you've just tasted the cheap rubbish sold in decadent Western bars, then your statements might be forgiven, but are no less baseless. Their idiotic system was imposed in a similar military way as the idiotic US/UK one, and they both seem to be unravelling at about the same speed.

The great Russian soul is what makes the country great. It's very hard to explain it - you need to feel it. But a quick look at the roll call of great cultural figures Russia boasts who exemplified this spirit should lead you to a more sympathetic understanding of why a Russian parent would tell the kids that they live in the best country in the world.

Hic!
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you were born in hell, you'd get homesick in heaven. Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

Regards,
John
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Johnslat

Very true. But when you listen to the Borodin Quartet, watch a Tarkovsky film, or read Bunin, then you know that you are closer to heaven than is usually possible anywhere in this weary world.

Hic!

S
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Sasha,

I hope you didn't think I was referencing Russia as being "hell" in my last comment (which, by the way, is an original aphorism, created five minutes ago by me.)

I, too, am a believer if the Great Russian Soul (which tends to become even more soulful when fueled by vodka Very Happy.)

Regards,
John
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Johnslat

I wasn't sure, if truth be known. Though, for you to refer to Russia as Hell would seem out of character for you, as you have revealed in another thread that you have some poetic part of the great Russian soul in you too.

However, hic, as you, hic! may, hic! have gathered, no one hic! is as soulfully fuelled, hic! as me.

Sashhhzha
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Speaking of souls, here is 'Vancha', another North American with Russian soul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uPfEHlHaXI

I shall cry myself to sleep this evening...
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steki47



Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 1029
Location: BFE Inaka

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nomad soul wrote:
No excuse for that mindset, but unlike Japan, the US is known as a nation of immigrants. The history and roots are so easily dismissed...


Actually, the US is a nation of settlers. Immigration came much later for the US. Essentially, European settlers came to North America and created a new country and society. Immigrants came after the fact. Not to start an argument, but the late Samuel P. Huntington made that distinction very clearly.

But you're right that Japan has not had much flow in or out of the country. Monocultural nations have their benefits (greater unity, sense of trust and community, increased efficiency of communication) but they also can become quite insular and xenophobic. (Oddly enough, the US is quite pluralistic yet Americans can be insular and xenophobic.)

nomad soul wrote:
By the way, of all the core disciplines taught in US public schools, geography is the only one excluded from receiving federal funding under the No Child Left Behind Act. With this lack of attention and instruction, no wonder there isn't an appreciation or fair amount of knowledge about this world we live in and share.


This seems sad to me. Learning about the world around you is part of growing up. Just as children learn to respect other people around them, educated people should be aware of the general patterns of cultures, countries, religions, etc.
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear steki47,

"European settlers came to North America and created a new country and society. Immigrants came after the fact. Not to start an argument, but the late Samuel P. Huntington made that distinction very clearly. "

I know a lot of Native Americans here in New Mexico who would use a different term than "settlers." Very Happy

Actually, the US didn't even have federal regulation over immigration until 1891


"Shortly after the U.S. Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1875 that immigration was a federal responsibility. In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, also known as the Asian Exclusion Act, outlawing the importation of unwilling Chinese women for sex slavery.

In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act stated that there was a limited amount of immigrants of Chinese descent allowed into the United States for 10 years.

Prior to 1890, the individual states, rather than the Federal government, regulated immigration into the United States. The Immigration Act of 1891 established a Commissioner of Immigration in the Treasury Department."

But immigrants/immigration are commonly used terms long before that.

"European Migration

"The settling of America began with an idea. The idea was that people can join together and agree to govern themselves by making laws for the common good. With that idea in mind, 102 English colonists (later referred to as the "Pilgrims") set sail in 1620 on the Mayflower. They landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is generally considered by many to be the "start" of planned European migration! In 1638, just 18 years after the Mayflower, the Swedes began their migration to America. Unlike the Pilgrim Fathers, the Swedes were not religious dissenters - they were an organized group of colonizers sent by the Swedish Government to establish a colony in Delaware. In 1655, the colony was lost to the Dutch. In the mid-1840s, a wave of Swedish migration began with the landing of a group of migrant farmers in New York and continued up to World War I. During the colonial era most of the immigrants to the U.S. came from Northern Europe. Their numbers declined during the 1770s, but picked up during the mid 1800s. New arrivals came from several countries, but mostly from Germany and Ireland where crop failures caused many to leave their homelands. Other groups also arrived from the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, and Eastern Europe."

http://www.rapidimmigration.com/1_eng_immigration_history.html

Samuel Hunnington - the "Clash of Civilizations" guy - that doesn't seem to be working out as planned.

Regards,
John
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steki47



Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 1029
Location: BFE Inaka

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

johnslat wrote:
Dear steki47,

Samuel Hunnington - the "Clash of Civilizations" guy - that doesn't seem to be working out as planned.

Regards,
John


Johnslat,
Thanks for the great reply. I suppose we shall have to agree to disagree here. Plus, I am not up for a debate on a humid Sunday morning. And it is rather OT.

Sincerely,
Steki47
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Samuel P?! Urgh! A statistic-manipulating mouthpiece for the Piggies. Has no душа either.
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steki47



Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 1029
Location: BFE Inaka

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sashadroogie wrote:
Samuel P?! Urgh! A statistic-manipulating mouthpiece for the Piggies. Has no душа either.


Huntington has no spirit? Well, he passed away in 2008.

I loved his work with issues of American identity, Western vs. modern and even "The Hispanic Challenge". He took a lot of flack from the axe-grinding PC anthropology crowd.
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sheikh radlinrol



Joined: 30 Jan 2007
Posts: 1222
Location: Spain

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sashadroogie wrote:
Ah, but you have no Slavic soul, being misled by the capitalist piggies from the most tender years. These statements are therefore mistaken. Russian food is delicious, and has influences from lots of other regions. It's like Turkic food, but with lots of pork. Vodka is the elixir of the Gods, but if you've just tasted the cheap rubbish sold in decadent Western bars, then your statements might be forgiven, but are no less baseless. Their idiotic system was imposed in a similar military way as the idiotic US/UK one, and they both seem to be unravelling at about the same speed.

The great Russian soul is what makes the country great. It's very hard to explain it - you need to feel it. But a quick look at the roll call of great cultural figures Russia boasts who exemplified this spirit should lead you to a more sympathetic understanding of why a Russian parent would tell the kids that they live in the best country in the world.

Hic!

OK Sasha, Ill take your point about Russian food. I�ve never eaten with a Russian family or in a Russian restaurant. In fact, I�ve never even come across a Russian restaurant in my travels. Some nations, Italy, France, India, China, Lebanon, Thailand, Mexico, for example, export their cuisine. Russia does not! As for Vodka, I have tried the real stuff. Colourless, tastless fire water.
The great Russian soul? The citizens of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania weren�t too enamoured by it and don�t seem to hanker after it. And the citizens of Czechoslovakia must have been delighted when the great Russian soul dropped by in 1968.
Russia, of course, has a plethora of cultural giants and I would applaud a Russian parent who reminded his lad that this is the land of Dostoevsky, Checkhov et al.
I�ve never visited Russia but have always wanted to. As a nation it fascinates me and hope to see it one day. Having said that, I still think it is a bully which has screwed up the lives of millions in countries which had the misfortune to be its neighbours.
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States." Russia isn't the only bully-boy in town. Not too many conquered peoples wanted to stay under the British yoke, either. Even the Scots are getting restive these days. And as for British food! What's that Napoleon quote again...? And as for drab suburbs, Slough takes some beating, which explains the social dynamics of getting hammered there.

I'd strongly suggest speaking from first-hand knowledge before expressing very strong opinions about a whole nation. There's a word for that.
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