The Musty Man : Hating America

When you come back from another country, everything hits you in impressions. Stuff seems new. That’s half of where the antipathy can come from. You see a noisy asshole whitehat at the airport and think « AHA! I HAVE FOUND THE TRUTH OF AMERICA WRIT LARGE! », or you go into a Chinese Buffet and think « I CAN EAT AS MUCH AS I WANT AND NONE OF IT WILL GIVE ME DYSENTARY I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY! » Whether you receive this suddenly new data as a cause for joy or disdain says very little about America and a lot about you, parallel to the sort of observations one makes when they’re abroad. I find that my cultural observations about Guatemala are usually really about me. « These people are mean » means « I am lonely. » « Those people are loud » means « I feel excluded. » « This country is great » means « I love being unemployed and drunk. » When I start talking about AMERICA on the return, I’m usually still just talking about myself.

Je crois qu’on peut aisément remplacer « America » par n’importe quel pays développé, et « Guatemala » par n’importe quel PED.
[via Anil Dash]