A COLLECTION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES: AMERICA AND THE MIDWEST

This is a map of the effect the atomic bomb had on Hiroshima, Japan, located in the British Museum. I chose it as the image for this post because it was one of those times where you experience your own country and their actions from an outsider’s perspective. The caption read “The first atomic bomb was dropped by the USA on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The map has a darkened area, where the centre of the city and the people who live there were obliterated.” I don’t think I’d every heard the events of August 6 put so bluntly, so honestly. In American history we tend to try to justify and make ourselves feel better about what happened. I’m not trying to say that what we did was right or wrong, it’s just a very interesting experience to step back and get a view from outside of the bubble.

People in London are from all over the world. So it is a very common thing to ask, and be asked, “Where are you from?”, often times before you are even asked your name. After a while, you settle on a little spiel and just go with it. When people asked where I was from, I would simply answer “America”. If the conversation continued or if they wanted to know more, I’d say “Springfield, Missouri – it’s right in the middle of the country and no one has ever heard of it.” That usually got a few chuckles, and truthfully, no one had ever heard of it, let alone of Missouri. When people ask “What’s it like there?” or “Do they do this/have this in America?” I would always answer “Well, it depends on where you are.” People from all the way across the world don’t always realize that the United States is so broad, there are actually completely different cultures and ways of living from coast to coast, even state to state.

However, there were a few people who did have vague ideas of what midwest America was like, and two particularly humorous ones stand out in my mind:

1.

The first was the horse riding instructor that accompanied me in Hyde Park (see previous post). He was telling me how he actually visited the United States once and went “American horseback riding” (it’s different than “English horseback riding” apparently) with a few “cowboys”. Apparently they took off like it was the wild, wild west and he just had to hold on for dear life and wonder what he had just gotten himself into. He also recounted lunchtime where they’d all pull out their PB&J sandwiches. I guess peanut butter and jelly aren’t quite the classic combination to refined English palates as they are to ours… poor things.

2.

The next time I encountered someone who had at least an inkling of what this part of the US is like was a shop assistant I was chatting with as she rang up my purchases. She was asking if they were gifts and I said, “Yes, souvenirs for family, you know how it goes.” So that prompted her to ask where I was from. I gave my typical answer and she said, “Oh I know, that’s the place where there are lots of tornados!” I just thought about it and said, “Yeah, I guess so, we’re just kind of used to it, really.” To which she replied, “That is so badass. Here we’re just used to rain and traffic.”