*sigh*

[winterbadger]

There are many things that make the 21st century better than the 19th, but I sometimes think--in the small, restricted sense of social and cultural relationships between peoples--how wonderful it would be to be able to bring back the days of Anthony Trollope, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, when Americans seemed to Brits like overly formal and polite country cousins with more money than nous(but well meaning and willing to learn), instead of the less flattering we so often have today of loud, overbearing, cultural and political warlords.

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

A few years ago I played an American heiress in a UK-based 1920s Call of Cthulhu game. I had great fun bagging the Duke's eldest son. I even wrote out their wedding announcement, cribbing details and style from the Times. :D

[nickys.livejournal.com]

It is a problem.

Canadian friends of ours tend to wear maple leaves prominently on their clothing when they go out because they get a much warmer welcome when people realise that they're not American.


Aggressive foreign policy, failure to recognise international treaties and demanding exemptions from international courts definitely don't help with people's impression of America in general.

And the gigantic, hawaiian shorts wearing tourists who barge through Europe never saying 'please' or 'thank you' and demanding 'why don't you speak English?' definitely don't help on a personal level.


Unfortunately this does mean that decent Americans are stuck with the problem of proving themselves not to be *****s before they're accepted by the natives. :-)

But it's not impossible.
Just don't wear the stars and stripes, remember that British people expect to hear 'please' and 'thank you' rather more than seems common across the Atlantic and learn pub ettiquette (http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html).
Good luck.