Don't Criticise Our Tea

I’ll never forget the time I saw an interaction between and American and a person from the U.K., and they argued about tea. The idea of iced tea was apparently very strange to the guy from the U.K., but to the American it was a normal thing; hot tea, cold tea, even bottled tea, all normal to us, but to other parts of the world the latter two were very odd.
    And so too are other American products, concepts and ideas. To us they’re completely normal but to those outside of America… not so much.
    Gary Althen in his book American Ways: A Guide for Foreigners in the United States, and more specifically in the chapter titled “American Values and Assumptions”, lists some of the many oddities of American behavior and culture, such as our practice of individualism and application of equality. He sheds light on the general nature of Americans, and it honestly isn’t the great image we usually think of.
    Americans like to support the idea of living for oneself, determining your own future and the path you’ll take in life, looking out for your well being over anyone else’s, breaking away from the close knit family unit to pursue your own destiny. It’s often encouraged for teens to try to become independent, and ultimately be ready to live on their own once they turn 18. Many move out to live in a college dorm, or share an apartment with other students, and this has become a norm here in the States. But for other countries this break of traditional families is very strange.
    I grew up with a Filipino mother, and from what I’ve gathered family is extremely important to them. In the Philippines poverty is much more widespread, so often times family units had to be tight knit to be able to survive; parents and children had to work together if they wanted to live. There it was very common for kids to do housework or even get small jobs in order to lighten the load for their parents. Conversely, parents would wish for and strive towards the advancement of their children, trying to give them better and more successful lives than what they grew up with.
    And that’s not the only thing that sets Americans apart from others in the world. Our hypocritical belief in and practice of equality also make us seem very strange to the rest of the world. We claim to support equality, boasting about how (almost) everyone here has equal rights protected under the law even though many of those rights weren’t given until just a few decades ago. We believe that there is no glass ceiling for any group, or discrimination towards a race or marginalized group; Americans really do believe everyone is equal now.
    We are not.
    As we’ve seen in recent months, there are still major conflicts between white americans and colored peoples; between different political parties and groups.
    With the LGBTQ+ community for example, we (yes I am a part of it) still face subtle oppressions that should not exist where there is “equality”. Gays and lesbians can’t walk the streets hand in hand as straight couples do; those in the trans community have suffered battles over which bathroom they get to use, intersex individuals often times grow up as someone who they aren’t because of forced gender assignment by doctors when they are born. Homosexuals and trans individuals do not have the same access to healthcare, housing opportunities, police aid, job opportunities, and more, simply because they do not conform to the normal standards people are used to. The United States wouldn’t even sign a bill condemning the death penalty for homosexuals in some countries.
    America is still far from equal, but we don’t often see it. Nowadays some are more open to the idea that we are not truly equal, though more progress can be made.
    Let’s face it, America ain’t all its cracked up to be and we know it. To other countries we’re odd and hypocritical; to ourselves we either think we’re the greatest or agree with outsiders.
    But hey, at least we’ve got our iced tea.