Stereotypes

*career over family *smile all the time
*hard working *eat a lot of fast food
*settle things in court/many lawsuits *busy lives
*everyone visits psychologists *tell other countries what to do
*believe/need for happy endings *rags to riches

Sound familiar? Every semester I teach at least one section of "Culture of the USA" and one of the first activities is for the students to come up with stereotypes about Americans. The above is a common list of stereotypes a class will come up with. Of course we talk about how stereotypes are untrue, although they usually want to agrue that a few are (that Americans are all wealthy, for example).

Hearing what ideas exist about my nation has been an eye-opening experience. Many of the stereotypes I anticipate, but others are new or things I didn't think where as transparent. To foreigners we are a people who seem to lack real substance because we care so little about our family and spend such little time with them. Many of my students will continue to live with their parents or other relatives after their marriage. They can not imagine what it is like to live alone, or why anyone would even want to. "Don't you get bored?" I was asked a lot when students inquired about my living situation or "Aren't you scared?" Such things do not really occur to me, or probably you, who most likely at some point in time have lived alone or in a roommate situation.

While I anticipate things like our always present smile plastered on our faces or our love of fast food (and hence, our obesity), I did not even consider our fixation on happy endings and our desire to have everything tied up in a neat little bow in the end. These are things that do not always culturally translate (although that same group who mentioned this observation wanted me to bring in a short sotry that had a "happy ending"--tired of reading the likes of Poe, Faulkner, and even O'Henry.) But I started to think about this--go to your local video store and rent any foreign film, not just one from this part of the world (although for a real hoot of a flick, I suggest "Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears" which is a typical Soviet happy ending). Upon viewing, you will probably see that most of the rest of the world (Bollywood films excluded)is more accepting of reality and realisitc endings in which the protagonist does not always win the girl or overcome adversity, because truthfully, in our real lives we don't always win.

However, I see this as being a part of our cultural optimism and belief that we can create our own destiny. That we can change and that change is good (be it socially, economically, geographically, or all three). We easily create and break ties to people, places, events--our cultural memory does not seem to last as long as others.

Probably the singular most valuable lesson I have learned here is that there is nothing we (Americans) do that can not be explained by looking at our culture and similarly nothing that Ukrainians do that can not be ascribed to theirs. I have certainly learned more about my own behavior and country and can reflect more honestly on it. I learned that by taking the steps to do this you'll complain less about the surroundings and culture. How this can be translated to the job market upon arrival at home remains questionable, but I suppose I'll try.