How Observing American Tourists Taught Me a Brutal Lesson in Hyper-Individualism
<p>A few weeks ago, I saw a lady bawling her eyes out in an Italian airport security queue.</p>
<p>At first, I thought perhaps she had just said goodbye to someone she won’t be able to see again for a long time. Or she was <em>really</em> sad to leave the country where you can buy a bottle of decent wine for just a few euros.</p>
<p>But she continued to cry for long enough to get people around her looking increasingly startled and worried.</p>
<p>Eventually, one of them asked if she was all right.</p>
<p>She replied, in an unmistakably American accent, that she’s sure she’ll miss her flight because of long queues.</p>
<p>‘Well… you can just <em>ask</em> people to let you through?’ they said back to her.</p>
<p>The American lady froze in confusion. But a group of people in front started to make way for her to pass, and so she snapped out of it, grabbed her backpack and went ahead without saying a word.</p>
<p>Even after her figure disappeared in the sea of travellers, I couldn’t stop being confused at her confusion, though.</p>
<p>I’ve travelled a lot, mostly around Europe and mostly pre-pandemic, yet I never worried that a lengthy airport security line would make me miss my flight — if you’re short on time, you can ask people politely, and they will let you through. I queue-jumped more times than I can count and not <em>once</em> had an issue.</p>
<p>But then I started thinking about all the other times I came across American tourists or expats here and noticed a repeating, and quite depressing, pattern.</p>
<h1>The ‘Ugly American’ stereotype</h1>
<p>Americans are, generally speaking, quite hard to miss.</p>
<p>Mostly because of their big and blindingly white smiles, love for running shoes — sorry, <em>sneakers</em> — and the fact they often look like they’re going to the gym even though they probably aren’t.</p>
<p>But sometimes, it’s not just that.</p>
<p>If you’re from Europe — or any other place they like to flock to — you’re probably familiar with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_%28pejorative%29" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">the</a>…</p>
<p><a href="https://medium.com/the-no%C3%B6sphere/how-observing-american-tourists-taught-me-a-brutal-lesson-in-hyper-individualism-59a66953e93d"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>