<p>Quote: “I live in NYC and I can’t tell you how often (daily) people from other countries take the ferry to Staten Island and get off without realizing that they are in another borough. It’s almost universal that visitors from other countries don’t take the time to find out that the city they are visiting is made up of five distinct boroughs. shouldn’t they or their parents have done some research? Right after Christmas, a young woman from Japan got on the express bus to Staten Island, meaning to go uptown, and created a ruckus when she realized she was going over a bridge. Now, bus service on Staten Island is very rush-hour specific, so it was very difficult for her to get back to Manhattan and involved bus driver to bus driver communication over the radio and holding another bus for her.”</p>
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<p>I don’t know how to do the grey box. Everytime I try it doesn’t work. </p>
<p>Zoosermom - I think you’re reinforcing the expectatations by Americans that others know our country but not vice versa.</p>
<p>I remember being at a dinner with intelligent, educated international people. Some people from LA were talking so specifically about this street, that neighborhood, that city - the rest of us just sat there with a vague idea that a place called “Beverly Hills” and “Hollywood” are somewhere in the area. Many of us had even been to LA. I realized then that they had lived so insulated, with so much attention focused on their city, these Los Angelenos just expected everyone to know their city like a local. To suggest that a tourist should know the same reveals a dangerous level of insular perspective. No doubt you have been to Tampa without knowing where Clearwater or every suburb begins and ends, or Toronto without being able to name every city in the region.</p>
<p>What does this have to do with the topic? Everything. It reflects an expectation that everybody should know everything about us because, well, we are the U.S. or NY, or LA and yet we make little effort to reciprocate.</p>
<p>My wife made a friend in college from Sweden, her husband was from Germany. He worked for an international company in their NYC office. The company had offices worldwide.
Many of our friend’s friends were from other countries, Spain, Italy, etc.
When we visited with them at their home, the conversations would take place in German, French, Spanish, …
One day we arrived as the evening was in full swing, our host announced to all, “Jacdad and his wife are here, please everyone speak English now.”
At least in terms of knowing a foreign language, we are at a distinct disadvantage.</p>
<p>"To suggest that a tourist should know the same reveals a dangerous level of insular perspective. "</p>
<p>Not at all. Suburbs are one thing, but knowing that the city you are visiting is made up of components is not asking a lot at all. If you don’t have the knowledge to get around safely, you clearly have a problem. Also, New York City isn’t the same thing as a suburb of Tampa. An educated person should know about the five boroughs, as well as the major geographical features of the world’s great cities. YOU can’t have it both ways. To expect that level of knowledge of Americans but not of visitors is quite hypocritical. I would expect someone (even an American!) to know about the Left Bank of Paris but know nothing of Podunk, USA.</p>
<p>Then you are assuming knowing “urban trivia” is the most important qualifier of knowledge, and rather elitist.</p>
<p>There are plenty people who I’m sure don’t know Paris has a left bank but know the vast intricacies of running a farm that makes that coffee and bagel you have every morning on your way to Times Square. </p>
<p>That’s my point - you’re selectively choosing what knowledge is important and what is not based on your perspective of the world. That’s what Americans do.</p>
<p>While on the topic of “speaking Swiss”, is it true that Vice-President Dan You-Know-Who thought Latin is the language of Latin America?</p>
<p>I sincerely hope it is urban legend. After all, it was his job to know.</p>
<p>There are cultural norms at play here. A friend told me he saw President Mitterrand discuss philosophy and history on national TV. Can you see President Bush doing “William James and American Pragmatism”?</p>
<p>“I wonder how much of that, if any, is a result of the fact that we’re such a large nation. In other words, if a person in Spain is familiar with events in Belgium, is that similar to a person in Alabama being familiar with what might be going on in New Jersey?”</p>
<p>I think this plays some role, but it’s been my experience that people in Europe are more aware than Americans of issues going on in Africa, East Asia, etc. than Americans are; it’s not just a Spain-to-Belgium thing.</p>
<p>Of course, people in Europe pay attention to the US because we’re the superpower, not just because they’re more cosmopolitan than we are. I was recently on the news in Norway because I went to a Super Tuesday party for Obama supporters at a restaurant, and there were Japanese and Norwegian TV news crews there, interviewing Obama voters. They said the primary was a lead story every day in Norway. I imagine they don’t cover Indonesian or Indian party primaries with that degree of focus.</p>
<p>I try not to read too much into the apparent ignorance of contestants on shows like “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”, as they tend to select contestants with broad gaps in their knowledge, for entertainment value…just as American Idol advances a number of no-talent wannabes beyond the initial screenings so they can serve as comic relief as they are publicly humiliated.
As an aside, when shows like “Are you smarter than…” suggest that contestants can win up to $1,000,000, I find it disingenuous. Anyone who is smart enough to make it to $500,000 in the game is probably smart enough not to risk losing that sum by attempting to answer an obscure million-dollar question unaided. Watching the typical end-game strategies on these shows reveals something about the relative lack of math skills among the contestants.</p>
<p>Thanks for the Quayle quotes. Here are my favorites:</p>
<p>“Mars is in essentially the same orbit…Mars is somewhat the same distance from the sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”</p>
<p>and,</p>
<p>“What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”</p>
<p>I will never forget his “correcting” a spelling bee contestant’s “potato” with his own version, “potatoe”.</p>