Foreigners

I don't know if it's just me, but I'd like to point out something I've noticed:

Not that I've ever been to a foreign country aside from the French class trip to Quebec in Canada and again to Canada for Niagra Falls (neither of which really count), but I hear that if you don't speak the native tongue of the foreign locale you are typically shunned, most notably in France. To quote a friend currently in France, "the whole not knowing French thing can be a problem because they're dicks about it."

Well, don't the French hold themselves in this high place of being a tolerant, polite people? Don't the French know they'd be German if not for America kamikaze-ing Normandy and dangerously treching across and saving France? France, remember Hitler.

So, knowing that foreigners are either delighted to learn you're American (because we're easy to get money from abroad) or they treat you with obvious and outright disdain, I'd like to point out how tolerant the ass-hole Americans are.

It must be a combination of French Canada to the North and Spanish Canada to the South and the thickly accented people who call us at dinner, or maybe we're simply better people than everyone thinks, but I've found Americans to be tolerant and polite people when it comes to foreigners!

My ex works at Nine West and they get a lot of Spanish and various Asian speaking customers and they're only, if anything, more polite to them! I don't get it! Sure, we'll deride the pronunciation and thickness of the accent, we'll hate how hard it was to understand and we'll mock imitate it, but this is all relatively quietly and behind the speaker's back or after they've left. I know I've never told a tele-marketer to take more English classes even though we're all thinking it.

Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just not something I've viewed first hand, but these uptight foreigners who think they're better than Americans need to prove it. That's basically what I'm saying.

France, you think every English speaking person who goes to your country should know French? Then I retort with this: Knowing that so many English speaking people come to your country not knowing French, learn some English. It's higher in ranking of most spoken language. As someone who's taken French in school and therefore has attempted to learn your language, give it a shot. The street goes both ways, France.