The Castel de Mouro and Being American
12. Aug, 2008 
12 Comments
Under the forest canopy the filtered light looks pale green on the path leading to the Castel de Mouro. As I hiked towards the Moorish ruins, the crowd thinned as they headed to the bus terminal or shops or back into town. I soon found myself alone, in the hushed silence of the overgrown forest, taking pictures of ancient walls or crumbling arches.
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but when two young men, speaking in heavily accented English, came within earshot, I let myself linger . “Americans. They’re always Uh, huh, –” He imitated the expression of someone trying to taste lemons and solve calculus problems at the same time. The other guy laughed and cut in, “Yeah and they’re so stupid.” I chuckled to myself. The boys were wearing American brands, likely listened to American music and couldn’t possibly avoid the Hollywood posters that are plastered on bus stops and metros everywhere you go. Similarly, if I thought the French were ‘stupid’, I probably wouldn’t wear French clothes and watch French movies. So how do they make the distinction?
I headed to the ruins, where the “whack, whack, whack” grows steadily louder, a sound I couldn’t place until I saw the flags perched across each tower, whipping wildly in the wind. I was alone again, only a dozen or people milled around the outcropping of castle walls.
I thought of the Israeli at the hostel the night before and his condemnation of America, “They think just because they give us all this money, that they can tell us what to do. They should just let us do what we want.” I bit my tongue. I had read books about the conflict. He had grown up in it. It’s different for him. It’s real and full of complexity that I can’t possibly appreciate. I could defend American policy, but what was the point? I was part of a country that equated blank checks with progress. I was guilty by association.
After touring the ruins, I headed back to the train in Sintra. A young Portuguese mother and her toddler son sat on the curb, waiting for the next bus. She was smiling and he clumsily wrapped his arms around her neck. I snapped some pictures and you’d never know the difference if I told you it was taken in Boston rather than Portugal.
It wasn’t clear to me before, but “America” is not real. We’re a concept, a faraway land that most of the world knows best through our cinema. We’re bigger than life, impossible and strange. What do we think about? What is it like to be us? We’re the same as anyone else, and yet we hold the world at arms length, and them us. If this was a movie, then we’d still be in Act 2, where two comically opposite characters are thrown into a high stakes situation together. We all know how Act 3 will end. We will find some common ground and begrudingly become buddies. Can we skip to the end, already?
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Wow, this one really had me thinking. You’re right, you can’t help but see America’s influence as you walk the streets of the world. At times, I feel that people here in Europe (I’m in Prague right now) are just as much American as I am. Do I know California, New York, any of these hollywood featured cities any more than the rest of the world does?
I think in many parts of the world, it’s “cool” to hate America. A poor analogy, but within the U.S. it’s like hating the Yankees. They have a lot of money (and think they can get whatever they want because of it), they’re flashy, and they’re usually up on top. We don’t necessarily hate any of the players as individuals, but we hate the concept of them as a team…especially when we feel like they’re winning at our team’s expense.
When I taught in Greece, my students always wanted to tell me everything they hated about America. Most of them, of course, had never been here, and if you asked them about their favorite musician, favorite sports team, favorite movie, favorite TV show, favorite clothing brand, it was usually American. Also, when you asked them where they wanted to go on vacation, it was NYC or LA, and where they wanted to go to college, it was a school in the U.S. I think it’s a bit of a love-hate relationship–a good bit of jealousy, resentment, and some rightful anger and indignation, mixed with a bit of grudging admiration.
As travelers, I think the best thing Americans can do is try to dispel some of these anti-American biases by respecting cultural norms, by not comparing everything to how we do it in America, and by listening to others and asking them questions more than talking about ourselves and our country.
(And every once in a while, I think it’s good to engage in a bit of heated dialogue. I don’t think we always have to stand by and let people attack America/Americans or somehow feel guilty for our citizenship.)
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I co-sign on Theresa’s stmt. She has wonderfully articulated the conundrum.
Sad but true… I also heard such comments when I was in Portugal. My friend Mary and I were at an African club in Lisbon, and there was a famous African artist performing on stage that night for his CD release party. Addressing the crowd of African fans in between his songs, he said “Americans call their women ‘ho’s’ and ‘b*t****’ but we Africans respect our women”… My friend Mary (who happens to be African-American) was outraged… But then we thought well, all they know of African-Americans comes from the sordid BET music videos (with half naked women prancing around everywhere and those words being thrown around in lyrics). On the other hand, they love watching those music videos so it’s all very hypocritical. In this case we were in a nightclub so there really wasn’t much we could say to protest. But yes, sometimes it irks me because at the end of the day, so many of them would move to the United States in a heartbeat if they were offered a visa.
It’s probably good that you didn’t engage in a debate about how awful/great America is on foreign soil! I don’t think you can change one person’s mind by talking the issue to death, and if you’re traveling on your own, you’re probably wise to just smile and keep moving.
Isn’t it strange how quickly we make assumptions about others while traveling? It is one of the basic traveling activities…point out the differences and make generalizations!
I think this happens because (on a usual vacation) our time in any one spot is so short, and we want to leave with pat answers for the way things are.
Love your travel writing and pictures!
That last paragraph is very well written. Good insight.
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It’s the same way anywhere you go… in the USA, they hate those south of the border and speak bad about them, with most of the people not being able to pinpoint where a Latin American country is on the map other than Mexico. Overseas, people have their own opinion about Americans based on what they see personally from those Americans who visit their countries or what they read/hear/see on the news. It’s a never ending story, no matter where you go.
Fortunately for me, I can play the Honduran card instead of American while I’m gone. I already do so here in the country I was born in anyways.
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I don’t think people “hate” North Americans because they’re jealous. I guess it’s the US international politics that cause this feeling around the globe. This constant interference in other countries/cultures.
Maybe not only politics, but also the interference of these brands, artists, cinema, etc. that overload other cultures with North American stuff and end up changing a whole culture. There are countries that hardly speak their mother tongue any more!
Of course people around the world know the difference between politics and the US people, and wouldn’t hate a North American only because of what the government has been doing. But it is a fact that there are a lot of people in the US, that never leave the country, and don’t even think about leaving, that support these politics. And not less common is that this same person cannot even point Iran on a map.
It might sound weird for people from the US who have grown up into this culture, but for who is looking the picture from outside, and I include myself here, sometimes there is this “Pinky and the Brain” behaviour of world domination that is not comfortable for us. Why North Americans have to be always the best in everything they do? I am not saying they are, I am saying that it seems they think they have this compromise. And not only the best among countries, but even among themselves.
I am sure the US is a great great country!! I’ve lived there for a few months and met very nice and not so nice people, equally. I’d never say that I hate North Americans, I love a lot of them! But I cannot say that I love all of them or their culture/lifestyle either.
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I’m going to just agree with Theresa here and say she got it pretty good. I will add that if you press deeply enough, you find they really don’t hate America the country, but they hate America’s government.
Cause as Theresa said, most of them have never been there….
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I think this is a great discussion to be having.
On the Americans and Travel front, my opinions on that have shifted. After living in Europe and traveling around a bit, it’s amazing to me the small distances between places. The US is huge, isolated by water and we get only 2 weeks vaca a year. When you compare to an UK person who can take a weekend in Paris for a few hundred bucks, gets 6 weeks off every year, and the fact you have dozens of countries so nearby, it suddenly seems less impressive to me when an European travels a lot around Europe.
I still think Americans should travel more, but we definitely have some obstacles that Europeans don’t have. I think if you magically transported all Americans to Europe, they would travel more too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Americans or anyone is more of a product of the country they live in and those circumstances than some innate differences. I don’t think Americans don’t travel internationally because they “LOVE” the US, but more from a practical standpoint. If you think about it, a trip from Boston to Florida would be crossing 2-3 countries in Europe, if not more! So we do travel, we just don’t have the same geography.
Christine, thanks for pointing out the difficulties Americans face in regards to foreign travel (long distances, high cost, low amounts of vacation time) that others around the world sometimes don’t. I wish Americans would travel internationally more, but I totally understand why they don’t and wish the rest of the world would figure this one out too.
As far as defending American abroad, I’ve found that in France at least just being yourself works pretty well. They have some crazy stereotypical ideas of what an “American” is/thinks/looks like/does and when they meet you they see you’re just a normal person like them. Then again, I’ve also learned that some people will always love to hate America and will give you a hard time no matter what you say. Best just to avoid talking to them, you’re not going to get anywhere.
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