stereotypes

dalat, vietnam

we leave our homes with hobo sticks on our shoulders to give a picture to the world we've only imagined. we take basic spanish courses and put on a brave face while we wait for our first bites of mongolian food to arrive. we smile broadly for strangers and learn the history of that statue over there and try our damned best to not mock that vietnamese music coming through the speakers. in short, we travel so that we can familiarize ourselves with the foreign and seek explanations for why.

but what if i told you that, in some aspects at least, we were right from the beginning? that is not to say that travel does not provide valuable illumination so much as an admission that sometimes things turn out to be exactly as they first appeared. i am speaking of stereotypes.

part of the mysticism of travel is the quest to understand just why things are the way things are. i've found that this quest has often made me overlook what's been hidden in plain sight all along. this is not to say that people are all cut from the same cloth. this is saying that stereotypes exist for a reason and that is nearly as dangerous to pretend they are meaningless as it would be to only live according to their gospel.

the following should be a little bit offensive. i know i would be offended if someone heard i was american and assumed i spent my weekends drinking beer, eating buffalo wings, and screaming at some football game on the television screen. oh, wait....

regardless, the following is not meant to be comprehensive and include all. it is only meant as a rough summary of what i and i alone have observed as characteristics of travelers during my limited years of life. i have met anomalies and aberrations of many of these categories and would be disappointed were one of these kind souls (or not kind souls, case depending) to feel i was labeling them as such. maybe i am labeling them as such but love them anyway. anyway, whatever. make sure you spell my name correctly in your hate mail.

americans (white): kings of small talk. most likely to walk into a large, relaxed setting and say, "so, where is everybody from?!" most likely to be clueless about where they are and to not know they need a visa in advance for the border they're about to cross. most likely to violate every cultural faux pas and yet still be thoroughly embraced by the locals.
australians: big dumb animals who like to get really drunk.
belgians (wallonia): always down to have a good time.
black americans (male): wear glasses, t-shirts without words or designs that are tucked into their shorts. basically, they look like they're on leave from military service.
black americans (female): mama africa. long dreads with some colorful bandana or headpiece. long skirt, enough bracelets to suggest they mortgaged their house to acquire them. show little interest in interacting with white americans and cannot really be blamed for that.
brits: too many, too proper, or else way too drunk. often all of the above.
canadians: always wearing some article of clothing emblazoned with the maple leaf. they go to such an extreme to assure everyone that they are not american as to betray the fact that they are incredibly insecure (a slight orbiter dictum here: an identity as not being something is not an identity). i'm not done. peeved that they know the cities and states of the u.s. while americans do not know those of their country, yet oblivious that most places in their country are not worth knowing (olive branch: most places, not all)
canadians (alberta): texans without tact or culture (even by texas standards)
chinese: ready to buy everything, enslave everyone
dutch: all seem like they were the weird kid who kept some exotic reptile for a pet at tennis camp.
francophone lesbians: absolutely lovely people.
french: zis euh euh euh statue at ze far end of zis euh euh euh burning cigarette is euh euh beautiful.
germans: grandma cut their hair. their blind great aunt chose their clothing from a catalogue. they are wearing socks with sandals and a camera on their neck and are probably on their seventh consecutive day of tripping on lsd.
greeks: travel? how is their mom supposed to do their laundry or help them piss if they're out traveling?
israelis: love to go to new, exotic locales with their israeli friends and eat at israeli restaurants that play israeli techno or else foreign-owned places that serve israeli food and offer a great opportunity to meet new israelis.
irish: always down to have a good time.
italians: see greeks
japanese: smiling broadly beneath that paper surgical masks.
kiwis: they're basically that crazy kid from college that you love to party with but would never in a million years invite over to your home.
koreans: see japanese
mexicans: always down to have a good time.
northern californians: give you a hug and lay out the welcome mat, but you're not really invited.
russians: cyborgs wearing hot pants and huge sunglasses.
scandinavians: the fast-talkers of this subset clock in at a rapid three words-per-minute.
south africans (white): love the opportunity to travel and subjugate/belittle a subset of dark-skinned people different from the ones they have at home.
southern californians: the lava lamps are on, but nobody's home.
spanish: always down to have a good time.

beyond nationalities:
people with dreadlocks, tattoos, marley t-shirts: travel across the world to hang out with people who have dreadlocks, tattoos, and bob marley t-shirts.
people wearing athletic gear (i.e. a plain nike hat or t-shirt): go to nepal to climb a mountain and just wish there weren't so many brown people around. have traveled the world and not seen a thing (hell hath no punishment worse than dinner with this subset)
fat middle-aged men in short-sleeved dress shirts: hitting the massage parlors daily. always one misstep away from being discovered and appearing on dateline nbc.
skinny middle-aged men: depending on how many drugs they did back in the day, will either have riveting stories that capture you all night or else will be a rambling mess.
middle-aged women traveling solo: some of the finest folk on this green earth.
westerners wearing one piece of western clothing and one local textile: someone worth latching yourself onto for a time.