Submitted 2 weeks ago by thal3s@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/e646b738-7816-4a7e-8ee5-b75c2f4c5370.jpeg
Sad but true. (TikTok screencap)
You shouldn’t. People are more likely to be interested in who you are as a person than your country’s politics. You might get some negative bias, true. But you can work pass that.
I’m from the country of Orban, and I do feel shame sometimes saying that. But I have rarely experienced anything more than some cold looks.
The everyday folks who support a dictator tend no to travels abroad. People outside your country are not exposed to them :)
My wife openly says she left Hungary because of the dictatorship, nobody has ever reacted to her negatively for it.
The impression I get from most Hungarians I’ve met is that if you can speak another language then getting out is the smart move.
US ex pat living in Europe: 100% agree. I’ve actually not had a single person be mean or negative about where I’m from. Either jokes about how it’s going or more likely, curiosity about how things actually are.
It’s just like if you meet a Russian who left. I would hope you’d have the nuance to think “oh, they escaped, fantastic for them and I’m so sorry about their country” not “oh they must love Putin”
I met a Russian student studying abroad who was very intent on staying out of Russia as much as possible because he's aware of how messed up things are. Had very a good sense of humor. His jokes about Putin and the Russian government would be enough to get people there thrown in jail.
It’s just like if you meet a Russian who left. I would hope you’d have the nuance to think “oh, they escaped, fantastic for them and I’m so sorry about their country” not “oh they must love Putin”
Unfortunately, as a Polish person, reality proved to me over and over and over again that in this particular scenario, the latter is just most often the case.
Russian people have special love for strong men in power. Make no mistake, they somehow even managed to turn Marxist ideas into authoritarianism and it made a massive damage to the international perception of the idea of communism. To this day general populace, when you say socialism, they see Stalin.
People are more likely to be interested in who you are as a person than your country’s politics.
The current political state of the US is just the icing on the shit cake. When I was a kid traveling abroad with my parents 30 years ago, Americans were considered fat, ignorant, and egotistical. That they expected the rest of the world to speak English, accept USD everywhere, and give them special treatment. That they were loud, obnoxious, ignorant, and rude.
That hasn’t changed much.
The everyday folks who support a dictator tend no to travels abroad.
I remember seeing videos of mainland Chinese people going to western countries to counterprotest against the HongKong Protestors. As a Chinese American, I cringed at that so much.
I’m a Russian, hold my beer.
Do people actually hold that against you? The worst I’ve had to do was explaining that most Americans don’t support Trump, Elon is a Nazi (they didn’t get the memo in east asia), and then contextualizing whatever other weird impressions they have.
Not really. To be open, I don’t live in Russia for over a decade. There were minor incidents even before the big war, like people abruptly stopping speaking to me upon hearing my nationality, or asking why I support (I don’t) Putin or why I don’t stop him. One guy explained to me very matter-of-factly that all Russians are intrinsically evil and deserve supervision because of it… Didn’t know how to answer that one. Very rarely I was thrown insults in the streets. But other than a very few incidents, all people I know outside of Russia were always welcoming and supportive. Recently, I received more threats and hate speech from my pro-putin compatriots than I ever received anywhere else in the world.
Any local who can’t separate you from the corrupt billionaires who run your country isn’t worth your time no matter where you are. Anyone who would lie to another person about where they’re from because they can’t separate themselves from the corrupt billionaires who run their country isn’t worth my time no matter where you’re from.
Yeah. Also, like, I’ve never met locals who are like that. I’m American. I travel pretty frequently. It is obvious from my accent, and also from the fact that I tell people I’m American when they ask. I’ve never run into anyone who openly hates Americans visiting their country.
Same experience here, and when I traveled as an immigrant, everyone was always very cordial and welcoming to me (which is more than I can say for the immigrant experience in America). I was in Brazil during Bolsonaro and found many lefties who appreciated the acknowledgement that they were still there working hard despite their country’s leadership (one of them got murdered by his father over politics). I was in Chile during the student riots under Pinera too and was welcomed by the leftists in the street throwing bottle bombs and the cops in riot gear with water cannons. The average person everywhere is involved in a continuous global struggle for human rights, education, economic equity, etc, and they recognize your empathy no matter what flavor of billionaire is currently running the country.
It really depends though. If you are an openminded american who respects the locals and doesn’t have any issues talking a stand against the shitty politics and the mess the USA calls an economic situation, then you will likely not have an issue.
If you are an obnoxious asshole who thinks the USA is the greatest place ever and that any other place is beneath you, you might experience some substantial blowback.
Most people are clever enough to differentiate those two groups.
If the US starts a war against the country you travel to that might change though.
Do you tell people your from America, or from a random state or town and not even mention the country. I’ve had never, ever had someone from America tell me they’re from America or USA when I’ve asked where they are from. And I’ve never, ever had anyone from any other country do the same. Which subconsciously reinforces biases, as much as I hate to admit it.
The only time that I experienced genuine dislike for my nationality was when I told a Serbian person at a training that I was giving that I’m American. I think that feelings run deeper when your home has been bombed or invaded or similar by another country.
My father in law has no time for Germans, which I kind of get since he is a Dutch Jew and half of his family was killed during the German occupation of the Netherlands.
Brother, do you think any country is afforded that level of differentiation by the common people? People probably know that not literally every single american supports Trump, but they will still consider any american to be “from that place” first and foremost until proven otherwise.
I am german myself and most certainly not aligned with our current government, but you bet i have to justify myself to others anyway.
Sounds like an expectation of special treatment that many Americans don’t even afford people from other countries lol.
Tell that to the countless brown people your country has tortured in the last decades you simpleton
I am Canadian. People in Europe would always ask if I was American after hearing me speak, and their faces would always lighten up when I told them I was Canadian.
In Spain it was the worst. I would sometimes overhear service staff tell each other I was American and proceed to get awful service. It got to the point that I started going in to random stores to try to (unsuccessfully) find something with a Canadian flag on it.
I will try my best to be obviously Canadian next time.
I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but anytime abroad I tell people I’m from Jersey. First and foremost I identify as. New Jerseyan. “American” and “Canadian” are so incredibly broad. Are you from Vancouver? Toronto? Are you a Newfie or from Edmonton? Shit, are you Quebecois? The same applies in the US, I don’t for a second begin to think of any of the regions as being remotely similar. Northeast, Atlantic, Midwest, West Coast, all very different places with very different people. I didn’t include the South because they’re the worst.
So yeah, I’ve kinda always just led with that. Maybe us people from Jersey are just like that though, I dunno. I won’t lie, sometimes it leads me to saying things like “I’m an hour outside of New York.” I leave off “city” because New York State may as well not even exist, it’s essentially a barren wasteland of former mining towns that are in a depressed death spiral of long, gray winters and trips to the finger lakes.
anytime abroad I tell people I’m from Jersey
You tell me you’re from Jersey, I’ll ask you about a tiny island in the english channel.
You sound like the type of people OC is being confused with.
You understand differentiation for demographics in certain areas, but no one else does, it just confuses people abroad when you talk about what city you’re from. Like if I started talking about Melbournites, vs sydnesiders you wouldn’t be able to chime in on the conversation.
I’m a) currently travelling in Europe, and b) not American. I have encountered plenty in the six weeks or so I’ve been here though. Right now I’m sitting on a riverboat that is about three quarters Americans.
I’ve found that some of the stereotypes are true. Mostly the Americans are loud. Some are loudly ignorant. Some make questionable choices - I’ve seen a few wearing the American flag on their clothes, or blatant bible references.
However, the vast majority of the Americans I’ve spent time talking to are embarrassed by the current political shenanigans. We’ve encountered a few in full throttle support, but it’s rare.
I’ve found the Canadians interesting. Most we’ve spoken with are avoiding visiting America and plan to do so for a few years yet. More than one has said they’re afraid an over zealous border guard would dent them entry, which would affect any travel plans for years into the future, so they’re not taking the chance. Sounds fair to me.
Are Americans abroad garbage? No, not all. Some are. But they do stand out like dog’s bollocks.
How I feel as a citizen of a first world country.
I don’t bring it up but if people ask me I say I’m from San Francisco. I’m close enough, like 30 miles away. I feel like I avoid some judgement by doing so but idk.
Your fellow Americans did this to you by voting MAGA. Bring your pain to them.
Yeah, sad but true
OberonSwanson@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This is why most Americans say they are Canadian, when traveling.
blarghly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Most American tourists definitely don’t do this.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
obviously I can’t say anything to actual statistics, but I can provide anecdotal evidence of this one time back in Europe When some very clearly American tourists were claiming to be Canadian, and the Canadians and Americans in our group were just kind of side eyeing them from a few tables over
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s why I picked up a second language. We rarely speak English when traveling abroad now.