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The smaller the country, the more internationally aware all of their citizens must be.
Large countries just become worlds to themselves.
I think this is a truth.
Even so, American conservatives seem to be in a league of their own. I am not sure why. They seem unwilling on uncapable of conceiving that any other country could have lessons worth learning from.
Yeah, I also agree with Tiger Beer.. countries like the US, UK, and France are admired all over the world, so it's no wonder they are like worlds to themselves..
When I was abroad in Peru, Costa Rica, and Poland, I didn't get the impression that these people were more "aware" of the world than us Americans. If anything, they had more access to foreign media which in turn, led to more interest and familiarity of outside cultural influences. As for genuine interest, the ball's in anyone's court. Just because you have the media, doesn't mean you will be more knowledgeable. A lot of stereotypes exist, and several young Scandinavian students I met -- for all their "worldiness" -- still had the most idiotic ideas about American (college) culture ever. In my opinion, you might as well forgo nationalities and focus on individuals. Many people forsake their culture for one reason or another, and judging them according to this would be misleading.
I'm not saying Americans are uneducated, but some of the most uneducated people I've met were Americans, and I don't know that many Americans.
Educated yes, but insulated from the rest of the world.I`m reminded of the time a Canadian comic came to the U.S. to do interviews with people he met on the street. He asked my fellow Americans if they thought the polar bear hunting in Toronto should be ended and most of them said yes.
Then he asked them if they thought Canada should realign their time zones so they would be in synch with the U.S. and again most of those questioned said yes. Funny but embarrassing.
Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! (Sorry but you were asking for that...) I meet a lot of Australians in everyday life over here and though most of them are nice, easy-going people, when I get talking to them about the places in Europe they're planning on visiting (not their back yard, I accept) the lack of knowledge is quite shocking (not that that's necessarily a bad thing) when I think that these are the ones who are interested enough to take the time and effort to travel, what must the ones who stay at home be like? I suppose it's inevitable growing up in a monolingual, isolated country notorious for being intellectual-unfriendly. One thing I have noticed about Australians I've met though is that they are much more familiar with Asia, despite the fact that 99% of them who I've met have been from a European heritage.
The most aware IMO would have to be those living in the smaller, non-English speaking countries in northern Europe. Growing up in a place where watching foreign-language TV with or even without subtitles, going abroad multiple times a year and having no choice but to speak a foreign language and reading books in English rather than wait three months for the translation into your language is the norm, plus a society which respects being cultured, well-read and knowing about the rest of the world (and which has an education system to match) can't help but breed people like that.
Fully agree. I would have written almost word for word some twenty plus years ago. Best that can be said I guess is that somethings don't change too much.
Saying that the Aussies are perhaps less obnoxious than years back in London perhaps...
Indeed in Australia little with regards to the outside world is usually discussed.
For the most aware I would go more for certain cities than countries as such. For example London would be way out in front while I wouldn't consider Great Yarmouth to be.
I would include Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen and those sort places but having lived in Denmark,not the entire nation.
Aussies have a superficial awareness when it comes to Asia. Sure most have been to Bali that live here in Perth but that hardly makes them Asia literate.
Returning to Oz some five years back after a month in Laos found almost no one knew where it was,some thought possibly in Thailand,but most had never heard of it. Here I refer to so called educated people.
Still Oz is not a bad place if you want to tune off and forget about the horrors happening to those in less fortunate countries,which to many Aussie minds is anywhere that is not Australia.
I was just looking at a question on Yahoo! Answers, asking why native English speakers are so bad at spelling their own language? The asker wanted to know why Brits, Americans, Canadians and Australians misspelled alot of words yet many non-native English speakers spell perfectly..
Are the Anglo-Saxons really this ignorant, or is it because English is so common? I mean, Scandinavians, the Dutch etc need to learn English when travelling or working/studying abroad because it is the international language of business..
Discovered a long time ago many Europeans could explain English grammar better than native speakers.
They are taught at school. Something rather lacking at some of the schools I attended at any rate.
I find Americans a little naive more than uneducated and certainly far less aware than Europeans in general on worldy matters.
I assumed that to be the case until I moved to Europe.
Once in Europe, I found most Europeans have no clue whatsoever about Asia....couldn't tell you the difference between Chinese and Korean and Japanese, etc.
Have very little knowledge of the U.S., beyond what their media portrayed. Which usually something that perpetuates stupid americans, fat americans, loud americans, etc.
Granted I found among EDUCATED Europeans an awareness of the world in their international cities like Amsterdam, etc. Not all that different than I found among educated Americans from cities like San Francisco, etc.
But there is just a whole lot of just normal regular working people in Europe, who never leave Europe, have no intention of leaving Europe, and think Europe is just fine for them. (Just like any country in the world).
If you threw a dart on a map of Europe, and it landed on Britain's 38th largest town, that no tourist has any interest to go to, and their brightest people try to get out of to try their luck in London - it's doubtful you're going to find this super-educated worldly citizenry.
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) I meet a lot of Australians in everyday life over here and though most of them are nice, easy-going people, when I get talking to them about the places in Europe they're planning on visiting (not their back yard, I accept) the lack of knowledge is quite shocking (not that that's necessarily a bad thing) when I think that these are the ones who are interested enough to take the time and effort to travel, what must the ones who stay at home be like? I suppose it's inevitable growing up in a monolingual, isolated country notorious for being intellectual-unfriendly. One thing I have noticed about Australians I've met though is that they are much more familiar with Asia, despite the fact that 99% of them who I've met have been from a European heritage.
