The Mythbusters - Blogabond

I have the impression that quite a lot of people, including me, who have never been to the US consider the country through several lenses: the politics, the friends and the popular culture. No doubt that the pop culture stereotypes are largely shaped by the movies - there is actually a great deal of things we see on the screen which might be different to what we know from Europe but because we've seen it so many times it seems natural.

Below I will try to list those stereptypical perceptions and try to answer: yes or no to each of them. The order is totally random.

-YES: there are lots of vans driving around, exactly like the ones from the A-team, many of them white with company names.

-YES: there are many gringos walking around in off-white t-shirts, hairs combed back, looking like they just got out of the set of "Desperados"

-YES: geography is expressed through blocks and street numbers (see my previous entry)

-YES: when you enter an office of an institution (may it be an administrative office at the university or a social security office) the lady whio will attend to you is a laaaaarge, black woman that needs to move away from the desk on her rolling chair in order to see the papers lying on it. Yes, she does talk with a kind of a southern accent "Mea a haep you". The only thing I have not experienced from them yet is a "sweety" added at the end of the question.

-YES: there are black gangsta boys standing on street corners or sitting on stairs leading to the entrance to a house.

-YES: they do eat at fastfood.

-NO: they are not complete ignorants. The Americans I've met so far are very well aware that both, Denmark and Poland are contries. No one has said things like: "Isn't Denmark the capital of Sweden?"

-NO: they are not all fat. In fact I do not see a huge difference between here and Europe. Yes, there are some extremely fat people that you don't see that much of on the other side of the Ocean, but in general, excluding them the populations are quite similar in size.

-YES: there are ice cream trucks playing songs like from an amusement park.

-YES: the drivers extensively use horns while standing in traffic - even if it doesn't help and the persons at the beginning of the traffic jam have no chance of hearing them becasue they are too far.

-What else? Do you have any proposals to verify? Let me know in the comments!

Another thing which struck me in Hoboken is the amount of corruption and the attitude people have towards it. The other day I was having lunch at a place right across the city hall just to find out from twitter that the major was just charged with bribery. There was a press conference going on inside at that time where he denied everything. There were many news vans and police cars outside the town hall.

Right after the press conference the major was handcuffed and taken out - hollywood style. Maybe this would not be very surprising, if not the fact that it was his 23rd day in the office and the bribe he took was "only" USD 10,000. Was it really worth it?

The same day, taking care of the paperwork, I overheard the conversation of some clerks. An old lady was telling a young lad that there were many majors like that - in Hoboken everybody's corrupt, "especially the police". "But the previous ones, you know, they took bribes but they did something good for the city too. We had a major here, 10 years ago maybe, he was very corrput but he cleaned the city nicely, so everybody just looked away from the greased palms"... Along with the major, several associates and several rabbies were arrested.

One more thing to add for tonight: fastfood. I deliberatly decided to go to eat at McDonald's as part of the US experience. That was the worst meal of my life! (except the ones that I cooked for myself). The inside of the place looked like a Lisbon restaurant, or a Polish university cafeteria: white tiles ...and that's it. The employees looked like they were going through the worst torture of their lives and did not talk more than they really needed. The food? Seems that the European McDonald's is a fine example of healthy eating. I could not eat the roll of the burger it was turning into superglue as soon as I placed it in my mouth. From all that I started getting weird thoughts and searched for chicken legs inside - found something quite similar. All in all, the McDonald's I visited in the US looked more like a homeless shelter than a restaurant.

So YES: their eating habits are bad. This morning one of my roommies, who just moved over here from California, asked me with that typical accent: "Duuude, what do you think? Do you think this bread is still good?". I asked "Isn't there a best before on it?". "No, I must have removed it." "How long have you had it?" - I asked. "I don't know... Prolly a month or so. But from the look and feel it seems allright. I'll eat it."

Song for today: New York State of Mind by Billy Joel (thanks Ala).

written by

lagrange on July 28, 2009 from Hoboken, United States

from the travel blog: Artur's Blog

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Nice, I didn't know why had a myth buster on duty over there (btw, this is a pity-comment; why doesn't anyone comment?)

written by Andri on August 1, 2009

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