- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -
What happened to the Ugly American, the one with the loud shirt and the loud voice, expecting the natives to speak English? Has he been shouldered aside by the Arrogant French?
That’s the conclusion one could draw from a survey this month of 4,500 hotel owners around the world who rated the French the world’s worst tourists, bad at foreign languages, arrogant and tight-fisted. Spaniards, deemed noisy and messy, came second in a field of 27. Americans ranked 9th on the list of the top 10 best.
The survey, commissioned by the online travel agency Expedia, ranked travellers in nine categories, from cleanliness to generosity in tipping, and provided food for thought on a long-running debate on an unresolved question: to what extent do national stereotypes correspond to reality?
One of the most extensive studies of that question ever conducted, led by scientists of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, involved 4,000 people in 48 countries and came to the conclusion, in 2005, that most national stereotypes are inaccurate.
Researchers compared perceived national characteristics with actual character traits and reported some surprising findings. Americans, for example, think the typical American is very assertive. Canadians think the typical Canadian is submissive. But Canadians and Americans had almost identical scores in objective measures of assertiveness.
The enduring nature of stereotypes, scientific studies challenging their veracity notwithstanding, is reflected in an evergreen joke about the nature of heaven and hell: Heaven is the place where the lovers are Italian, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the cooks are French and the place is run by the Swiss.
Hell is where the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the police are German and the place is run by the Italians.
In a similar vein: How many American tourists does it take to change a light bulb? Nine. Three to figure out how much the bulb costs in the local currency, three to comment on how funny-looking local light bulbs are and three to hire a local person to change the bulb.
So is there a kernel of truth to the notion of the noisy American, the efficient German, the stiff-upper-lip Briton, the stingy Scot, the rude French, the passionate Latin lover, the drunken Russian, the polite and boring Canadian, the extrovert Australian, the macho Mexican, the egocentric Argentine, the melancholic Swede? It depends on whom you ask.
STEREOTYPES ARE UNIVERSAL
Almost everyone has stereotypical ideas of other nations and other cultures. Shining the light on these notions can be entertaining as well as good business. Take the case of the Xenophobe’s Guides, a series of light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek books on the characteristics of different nations.
Since the guides started in 1995, the publisher sold 2.6 million copies and there are translations into 22 languages, according to Anne Tauté, the creator and editor of the series who lives in London. She says she was prompted to start the books to provide more insight into other cultures.
The guide to Americans observes that they “are friendly because they just can’t help it; they like to be neighbourly and want to be liked. However, a wise traveller realises that a few happy moments with an American do not translate into a permanent commitment of any kind.”
On the French: “French politicians look smart because power itself is chic, attractive, and one should dress to look the part. The French electorate would never allow any government to intervene in their lives if it were shabbily dressed.”
There is a serious side to stereotypes. As history has shown, they can contribute to discrimination and prejudice, often reflected by offensive jokes. As in: What do you get when you cross an Italian with a Mexican? A gangster on welfare. At the extreme end of stereotyping, there have been persecution and mass murder, viz. Nazi Germany or Rwanda.
To get back to the survey of tourists: it confirmed some widely-held stereotypes and raised questions over others. Why do people from France and Spain, the world’s top two tourist destinations (The U.S. is third) behave in ways they would criticise in visitors to their own countries?
As to the Americans: they were rated the loudest, least tidy and worst complainers. They owe their ranking as the 9th best to generous spending and tipping and to their willingness to try and communicate in the local language. Who ranked first? The Japanese.
"What happened to the Ugly American, the one with the loud shirt and the loud voice, expecting the natives to speak English? Has he been shouldered aside by the Arrogant French?"
Reply: He has turned to online blogging.
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As an American, I was horrified on a cruise in 2000 when I saw elderly American passengers treating the French people in Monte Carlo terribly. They were asking where the “quarter” slot machines were and threw fits when they couldn’t cash in their chips at one booth instead of the required two. I wanted to hide underneath my seat.
But my wife and I went back to Europe in 2004 and encountered not a single iota of bad feelings toward us as Americans. We went to Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France and the French people in particular were wonderful to us. My wife was pregnant at the time and the French people in Paris were standing up on the trains so she could sit down. We found that if you are mild-mannered like we are and take the opportunity to smile, people are more than willing to treat you with respect.
There are “bad eggs” everywhere. We also went to Vancouver, BC in 2002 and had a teenager walk up to my mother and tell her that she needed to take off her sweater, which sported a tiny American flag. It was an unpleasant experience, but I would certainly not allow it to diminish what was otherwise a fabulous trip. The Canadians are great folks.
We just came back from Italy and I’ve never met a nicer group of people. To be sure not all of them were saints, there was that bully at the airport who felt that by running past people while getting on the plane he’d get there faster. But with that exception I enjoyed the Italians and look forward to returning soon and discovering more.
When Americans come up to Montreal to drink in our bars on Thanksgiving and New Year, they glow from a distance, though. Really loud and excited.
Stereotypes are based on truth, whether it’s past or present and evolves over a period of time. Each stereotype develops by acknowledging the differences in a culture instead of understanding them. Each culture is what it is because of what daily life is like in that area over history. Each one is unique and interesting in its own way.
I wish there was a cultural codex to allow people from different cultures to mesh like gears in a clock when interacting in the world, but it never works that way.
When abroad, “be a traveller not a tourist.” Try to understand and fit in instead of stand out and be disrespectful or ignorant.
Let’s not overlook the fact that the survey was commissioned by a US company. It wouldn’t do much to enhance Expedia’s rapport with US customers if Americans were rated as the worst travelers. Perhaps a collection of surveys commissioned by companies around the world would be appropriate here.
Of course come to think of it, we do have a lot to be humble for these days, given the last eight years of our government’s international diplomacy record.
The poor economy and weak dollar might have something to do with it. Only wealthier Americans that have disposable income and place international travel as a higher priority are still traveling. Meanwhile, lower income Americans might be putting off their first trip overseas waiting on a surer tomorrow and more favorable exchange rates.
The Ugly American became President. A few other ugly ones did almost everything he decreed. From then on, things went downhill all the way, unfortunately taking all the other Americans along for the ride into everlasting ugliness.
The End
As a Mexican, I guess I should be some how offended. But I am not.
First, yes, most Mexicans have a Macho profile, sadly me included.
On the other hand, I have lived in the US for 3 years now, not as an ilegal immigrant, but as an investor. It is sad to see that most Latinos in the US (including mexican roots, on first or second generations) are some how always looking for some type of welfare benefits. As a result, stereo typing all the rest of us. No wonder Canada is requiring visas for Mexicans travelling to Canada, as soon as they step in Canada, they ask for asylum, giving a big burden to the Canadian economy.
Ruckus obviously does not think abortion is terrorism, or he’d not say 95% are Muslim. He does not think those that bomb clinics and harass patients are terrorists, either. He also does not think the large number of white supremacist groups that quietly terrorize minorities in this country are terrorists, or the number would be lower… If we pluck out all the things different people call terrorism (like a teen playing with a bomb in a field, or making sarcastic comments on facebook), the percentage of terrorists that are Muslim is much lower than 95%
This is such mindless gibberish.
In some cases , Racial Profiling works. Example: Not all Muslims are terrorist but 95% of all terriost are Muslims. It is stipid not to take this into account. Political correctness can cost life. You are not likely to have a 22 year old Blond Iclandic girl carrying a bomb. Anyone in law inforcement will tell you profiling works. In the FBI, that is a complete department.
“One of the most extensive studies of that question ever conducted, led by scientists of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, involved 4,000 people in 48 countries and came to the conclusion, in 2005, that most national stereotypes are inaccurate.”
Is anyone else shocked that the NIH is wasting taxpayer money on BS studies like this one? Cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria: pick a real problem to fix.
Helen R.:
The five best, according to the survey:
1. Japanese
2. Britons
3. Canadians
4. Germans
5. Swiss
The five worst:
1. French
2. Spaniards
3. Greeks
4. Turks
5. South Africans
Having lived overseas for several years, and in several countries, I can attest to the fact that the French have been arrogant snots for far longer than this article would suggest.
I was a tour guide on Bali in the 70’s and I would leave the island in August - the traditional French holiday month - because of several run-ins with French travellers.
No, I don’t think any one group of people are worse than another but the lingering memories of the arrogant expectations of the French stay with me to this day.
The only reason Americans did so well is because they speak English which is one of the foreign languages the French were criticized for not knowing.
Different cultures interpret different behaviors differently. An action as simple as choosing a seat on a bus could be inrepreted a hundred different ways: sexually aggressive, an act of charity, physically threatening, an act of solidarity, etc. Politeness and etiquitte are relative to each culture and sub-culture. In some cultures, tipping is foreign. To say Expedia users are an adequate sample is ridiculous. I’m guessing that 80% of the users are American. That’s a poor representation of the cultures of the entire world. What about tourists who visit countries that are off the grid i.e. the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and the like? How is American behavior interpreted by them? People, tourists and innkeepers, should realize that there are cultural differences. As big an effort that one may make, he or she will make mistakes in cultural competency. People should be empathetic to those missteps, not see them as an opportunity too assert cultural superiority.
You have a right to express your opinion. But, author, as a journalist, you have an ethical obligation. Just in case you forgot: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
I’m just saying, take an athropology class and watch yourself before you spew out any more pseudoscience.
It’s a brief but good article. Japan rated the 1st in ranking as best tourists. Who were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th?
Thankfully, not all the Boomers taught their kids this codex of stereotypes. What a ridiculous fraud.
Racism isn’t cute. At all.
This is a step away from saying racial profiling works.
would love to see the actual results of the survey. any chance you could post a link?
FakeName:
You say “policymakers sometimes will make policy decisions based on these skewed assumptions.” They sure do, and some help create the skewed assumptions, so there’s plenty of room to create vicious circles.