u.s.a/britain culture clash

[bitch one]

i spent 3 months living in ohio one time. i was going out with a girl who went to college there. what struck me was that americans (generally) don't take the piss out of each other much. british people do. when me and my then girlfriend would get drunk we would start slagging each other for fun and sometimes her american friends would respond with disbelief saying 'are you going to take that from him?' or whatever.

by contrast, complete strangers would frequently insult her openly for having facial piercings. people don't do that in the uk very much. strangers insulting each other is generally the way physical fights start. but we were in ohio, tho i like to think ohio is kind of representative of the majority of small town usa, as opposed to more culturally advanced places like new york or san francisco.

so it's a little cultural thing - americans only take the piss out of people they don't like. if you like someone you're supposed to hug them and tell them you love them and stuff. whereas in the uk, in scotland especially, it's the opposite - taking the piss out of someone is a sign of affection. you can tell how well people know each other by how personal the slagging gets.

sometimes it can be a pain in the arse actually. but most of the time you get a great deal of comedy mileage out of it down the pub. and it's a way of keeping people's feet on the ground. it stops people taking themselves too seriously. whereas, in america, it's often ok to take yourself seriously. i'm not saying one way is better than another - it's just a cultural difference.

[pille'ocheoni]

i think this is very true...........but at times on close freinds we have the same ragging on type thing..........but yes, in special cases if someone i dont like says something which is not right or out of order, i get pissed.

the culture barriers and the almost language polarities puzzle me all the time. i dont know what english/scottish life is like, only my own, since im a product of my own environment.

but the biggest thing that gets me is ghostly resentment towards americans, and the almost high and might aproach to all conversation regarding the wrongs and rights of conduct.

but i do agree with the non-biaist point of view. because i will never truely understand another culture untill i experence it in full, like visiting , or living in that place and even at that, im still and always will be an american. which sucks at times, but ive learned to deal with it i guess

im sure everyone dis-likes some country or lifestyle, so if im destined to be hated or dis-liked ...so be it.............but this is all speculation from a sort of disapointed member.

[bitch one]

i think weirdly the common language acts as a barrier. what i mean is, we share so much culture that we assume we know what the other culture is like. if a person speaks french, you assume they are from a different culture, and you don't think you know what france is like unless you go there. but cos we speak the same language and watch so much american tv we sort of think we do know what it's like. and america is actually much MORE different to britain than france or germany.

i found it endlessly fascinating spotting all the cultural differences..

as to disliking americans - not you personally of course - but you can hardly blame people at the moment what with american imperialism on the rampage. i think what people dislike most of all is this ignorant belief so many ordinary americans have that america is better than everywhere else, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. of course people are going to dislike you if you think that. i mean it's sort of a joke, but you still get reasonably intelligent american tourists being surprised that we have electricity in scotland...that isn't an endearing kind of ignorance. it's the same disease of ignorance that makes soldiers think that saddam hussein blew up the twin towers, and that iraqis are going to welcome being invaded.

i'm not talking about you personally mate. i don't subscribe to any kind of lumping people together under a flag - but a lot of europeans' only real experience of americans is of totally clueless rich tourists with loud voices.

so you are right to be paranoid i guess.

but i still say you take the slagging you get here too seriously...

[pille'ocheoni]

your right, and this is the response that i guess i wanted and needed. i would like to hold myself above the stereotype of most americans discribed above, which i know you didnt mean personally, but those same type ppl visiting your country have the same foreignness in america. i think the worst thing is ignorance within a country about the country they live in. ppl from up north like myself thought that the south had fucking waffle houses, and rodeo's all the time, which they do, but its not that bad.

i beleive the rest of the world is much more educated and revolutionized than america. this is why i want to further my own personal experences and culture awareness, outside of america.

and i hope the scots would have toliets. but ppl in enoree, south carolina dont. europe in retrospective is a much more advanced culture than most of the world in my opionion, but the same ignorance that most europeans see from americans is the same here in the states.

at this point, all i would ever want to do is abolish all previous "beef" and move on. and i will be the first to say that i mis-understand alot of shit and am quick to over react, due to insecurities regarding the whole "america hate consortium". my bad, and i do have an ego which is slowly learning to grow-up.

:)pece/p

[grobelaar]

I think the factor that people forget is that not only is the US fucking huge, its all quite a mish-mash of cultures in the first place - hence the name United States of America.

Comparisons are often made between the EU and the USA, some people think that Federal Europe is impossible because of the language barrier. But at the end of the day, diversity of language is probably the only thing that marks the USA apart from a potential federal Europe (if that's the way things are heading) and even then its likey that one language will be declared as European Language - eventually... (once again if things go down the Federal root)...

The US on the other hand struggles to maintain one language across its vast expanse. This I believe is why the Americans are that little bit more inflexible with the way they use the English language - an attempt to prevent mutation of the language at an elementary educational level (right down to the slimlining of the spelling of some words).

Many Americans I meet have very definite uses for certain words in certain situations - unlike English people who are more used to using on-the-fly context generated meaning for words. Please note I'm not taking hard and fast rules here - just general trends.

This has been a theory of mine for a few years - I had a chance to talk it through with a guy with a PHD in English Language, he reckoned I could base a Masters paper on it - sadly I had to inform him I that didn't even have my Bachelors... :-)

[JE:5]

When we have had a bit of a gathering round our house on a friday night, you wouldn't believe some of the crude slaggings off we have given each other for hours on end, it's hilarious!

Slagging off each others parents seemed to be a popular one.

[phil]

how mature

[jukka]

the old game where no one wants to shut up and let it end lol

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by jukka
the old game where no one wants to shut up and let it end lol

No fuck you...

[jukka]

see thats what i meant you shithead.....

[JE:5]

Originally posted by phil
how mature

Your a fine one to talk, nobber.

[bitch one]

Originally posted by grobelaar
I think the factor that people forget is that not only is the US fucking huge, its all quite a mish-mash of cultures in the first place - hence the name United States of America.

hmm interesting. tho there are obviously people from very different cultures in the u.s., what was amazing to me as a european - especially in the midwest- is how everywhere was exactly the same. the same street names, the same shops, the same architecture, etc. it's mental. all the different cultures are being absorbed and possibly obliterated by the big homogenous mass culture represented by macdonalds and coke and friends and ER and oprah and jerry springer and gap. this was most poignantly driven home to me when i was at a big gathering of all the native american tribes of the southwest. you could see how dirt-poor they were; how, even today, they are still pretty much the lowest of the lowest rungs of society. yet, when they had a parade, at the very front, even in front of the flags of their own indian nations, they carried the stars and stripes. i found that quite shocking. but then i'm scottish - who am i to talk? the scots were quite happy to wave the union jack while our soldiers were conquering india an that.

[phil]

oh..yeah..your mums fat..hur hur...and your dads unemployed...hur hur..u cunt...hur he......fack off cunt....ho he....prick..hahah.got any K...your mum has...hur hur

[piscaries]

as far as the flag thing goes, it's law that you have to fly the US flag above any other flag. but i see what you mean about one giant nonsensical culture. you have to remember though that our country is really only about 250 years old. the european countries have had much much more time to get their cultural roots planted firmly before evolving into what we know today. the us never really had time to plant its roots... we just started growing with a bunch of ideas in mind. but even though we are one country, i think it's safe to compare the cultural mapping to that of europe. i mean, i live in chicago, and if i want to go california, it's about 2400 miles away. i don't have a map near me, but i think i could compare this to someone from britain going and visiting czechoslovakia. even though you're part of the same land mass (okay, i know the uk is an island, i'm just generalizing) you're still worlds apart from each others culture. here in the states, even though we have the same language we definately don't have idential cultures from state to state. hell, i can even make a local comparison. i grew up just outside of chicago and it's a comletely different culture from that of the people that are actually living within the city of chicago.

these are all very general ramblings i'm spurting out because this could definately take pages to really get detailed.

[jess-ssej]

Originally posted by grobelaar
I think the factor that people forget is that not only is the US fucking huge, its all quite a mish-mash of cultures in the first place - hence the name United States of America.


YES. this is the problem. Litterally, EVERY debate I've ever had w/ ppl about our country boils down to the fact that we're too damn huge.

People want to say "well Norway does this, Norway does that and it works, why can't *we* do that?!" And it seems certain policies/practices/things really only work well when you have a more homogenous group in a smaller area.

Here there are too many groups of ppl who can't agree on everything. And too many ppl to keep track of whats going on in the upper eschelons...and too many ppl, too far spread out which just fosters this culture of individualism and me-first attitudes.

It is to easy to disassociate yourself from "the other" whether it be an iraqi soldier or the people living outside of your suburb.


That being said.... There are A LOT of DAMN COOL people here.
Some of them I know personally.
But they don't make sitcoms for CBS featuring middle of the road, sensible folk, as that is just not in our concept of comedy. Jerry Springer guest and Ethnic Stereotyping is much more "entertaining" than a bunch of nice people working on a LETS garden together.

Yes America is fucked up, but really, everywhere is to some degree.

I'm going to live on an island.... :)

[JE:5]

Living on an island would be nice, it's just trying to find one that hasn't been nuked that would be a bummer!

[jukka]

living in the woods is cool.......

[piscaries]

moon colony! i vote for a moon colony!

[jukka]

you still think the americans have been to the moon, yet right ?
:-p

[JE:5]

I hear the sun is quite a hot destination these days....

[jukka]

we all could move underwater........atlantis like.....but i think i won't be able to go fishing with my rod and my reel anymore..so no good idea...

[jess-ssej]

[dreamy voice] ooo mooooon colony. [/]

good ideas, all. : )

[bitch one]

the other thing about america's hugeness is you can get rich with really stupid ideas - you can invent some totally daft gizmo like an abdominizer or something and enough mugs buy it to get you rich. but that's just the big economy - europe is probly going that way too.

[piscaries]

pet rocks..

[pille'ocheoni]

moon yeah

[thetonewrecker]

I'll just live in a "moon bounce"

http://www.gcc.edu/student/current/090202/Carnival33%20-moon%20bounce-.JPG

Here's a cheaper version

http://www.usstorsk.org/volunteers/tww08/tww8_001.jpg

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by jess-ssej


I'm going to live on an island.... :)

We all live on an island - this island earth...

[aleks]

Originally posted by jess-ssej


I'm going to live on an island.... :)

i recommend ibiza...lol

[thetonewrecker]

What about the people who live under the stairs????

[gunjack]

Originally posted by bitch one
i spent 3 months living in ohio one time. i was going out with a girl who went to college there. what struck me was that americans (generally) don't take the piss out of each other much.



(already been said but) ummmmm maybe because the usa is like 20 or 30 times bigger than the uk, with a bazillion ethnic backgrounds? where i am from, friends talk smack to eachother every 2 seconds, ESPECIALLY in the wee hours and under the influence*coughcharlycough*. lotsa my friends from japan cant understand why we insult eachother so.

[karitek]

Originally posted by bitch one


hmm interesting. tho there are obviously people from very different cultures in the u.s., what was amazing to me as a european - especially in the midwest- is how everywhere was exactly the same. the same street names, the same shops, the same architecture, etc. it's mental.

yeah, but i find that true for england too. every town i have been to in england has the exact same shops and appearance to their town center - boots, marks and spencer, etc. i think it is just as an outsider since it is all new, it is harder to see the differences and what makes areas unique.

also, you can never judge a country by its tourists. for some reason, no matter what country they are from, tourists leave their brains at home. i mean just look at the british tourists in places like greece...

[invisibleplanet]

Originally posted by jukka
you still think the americans have been to the moon, yet right ?
:-p
Whitey on the Moon
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
The man jus' upped my rent las' night.
('cause Whitey's on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
I wonder why he's uppi' me?
('cause Whitey's on the moon?)
I wuz already payin' 'im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
An' as if all that shit wuzn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made las' year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain't no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey's on the moon)
Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)
Gil Scott-Heron

[databombers]

i rekon we should get a submarine paint it yellow and chill untill there's peace..... man

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by databombers
i rekon we should get a submarine paint it yellow and chill untill there's peace..... man

lets make sure its a nuclear submarine - just in case, no seriously we need that Nuclear deterrent - just in case some other less fortunate hippies want to come and chill in our space - but yeah - peace 'n' all - man... :-)

[bitch one]

Originally posted by gunjack
(already been said but) ummmmm maybe because the usa is like 20 or 30 times bigger than the uk, with a bazillion ethnic backgrounds? where i am from, friends talk smack to eachother every 2 seconds, ESPECIALLY in the wee hours and under the influence*coughcharlycough*. lotsa my friends from japan cant understand why we insult eachother so.

yeah - i was in the midwest, and i was hangin about with college kids who were not very mature. and i know plenty people here who can't take a good slaggin - so, as is so often the case when i write stuff on these message boards, i was talkin shit. this is why i kind of hate message boards. cos you write shit without thinking about it and then can't retract it. maybe it's better to just stick to aimless wind-ups like phil.