You are in a long line for your morning latte and if you don’t leave in the next few minutes you are going to be late for work. The two people serving don’t look very happy. One of them is barking orders at the other who then makes the drinks. You get to the front, silently pay for your drink and when you get it, it’s a cappuccino. You think about complaining but the eyes of the attendant seem to say “I dare you and aren’t you running late?” So you leave with your cappuccino thinking you will never come back here again and what terrible people work here. Congratulations, you have just gone through customs at an American air port.
There are several reasons on why the rest of the world is not fond of the U.S.A. and I will address only one of these reasons. The behavior of just a few people in pivotal places can have such a large negative/positive impact on a huge number of people. Throughout my travels I have encountered a number of people who say they don’t like the US because of ill treatment by only one person at an airport, embassy or by an American tourist.
I interviewed a friend of mine, Martin Boother, to get his opinions because he has been through the US airports several times at several locations for many different reasons. According to him “The worst thing is walking up to the guys that stamp your passport. They are always horrible.” He continued to say that they are always impolite and very unhelpful “and they seem put out if you are foreign, annoyed if you ask them questions and when they thought that I couldn’t speak English, they verbally abused me because they thought I couldn’t understand them. When I corrected them and asked to speak to someone they walked away and didn’t come back.” He also said that their obsession with yellow lines “is rather disturbing” apparently even if you have your toe on it there is a guard who shouts “Get behind the yellow line!”
Another friend of mine ended up marrying an American. According to him moving to the States with his new wife was impossible. He had to go to the immigration office on several occasions for various reasons and he said that they were always extremely rude and never answered his questions. They kept telling him in person and on the phone that the process shouldn’t take much longer his comment was “they just shrugged me off as an annoyance.” After working an illegal job with low wages for eight months and no sign of his paper work that he paid hundreds of dollars for, he and his wife ended up moving back to England.
On another trip the same man was detained nearly two hours and almost missed his flight back to England because he was accused of being an illegal immigrant. It was on his file that he had resided here for eight months, but what they couldn’t find were his residency papers. Of course that was because he had given up on getting them and went back to England. So they assumed he must have stayed here illegally and wouldn’t listen to any of his explanations. Finally after the near two hours they found the record they needed that said he was there on a temporary spousal visa and with that they told him to leave. He said they didn’t even apologize for the inconvenience.
I have my own story of mistreatment at the Orlando airport. I was just passing through and was selected for a random search. They went through everything. Opened up my large suitcase took everything out and even inspected my underwear and held each pair up to ask if I was sure they were mine. This was not done in private, there were people around and I was furious. He got to a short skirt I owned and a pair of tall high heeled boots. Upon finding these I was accused of possible prostitution. I was taken to the side and asked to relate what seemed to be my entire life story while they did background checks on me and my parents to see if being a prostitute was already on my record. Eventually they smashed everything back into my bag and told me to leave when they found that I didn’t have prior prostitution on my record, this was all done without an apology. Even if I were a prostitute (which I’m not) shouldn’t they be more concerned with bombs?
Then there are people in the embassies all over the world. When I was in England I had a problem and had to go to the American Embassy. To make an appointment you had to call an $8 per minute hotline and wait on hold, so I went in person instead. I was allowed through a guarded barbed wire fence (this is in London by the way) because I had a passport. However once in the building they very nastily refused to help me and said I had to make an appointment. So I tried to make one while I was there and she said I had to call the hotline. I started to protest and she called security and had me escorted off of the property at gun point. I was thrown out and the barbed wire gate was slammed behind me.
Then there are of course the American tourists. As a tourist your only job is to have fun but people often don’t realize that when in a foreign country you are also representing where you are from in a very big way. Upon meeting just one tourist a person feels they have an idea of an entire country. While in China I encountered an American couple in a restaurant and the man was shouting to the waitress that he wanted a menu in English. He thought that if he was angry enough and shouted loudly enough she would magically understand him. So I came over to him and translated what he wanted, apologized profusely to the waitress. Then I told him that he was silly to expect people to cater to English speakers in a non-English speaking country, especially in a town as small as the one he was in. After this encounter the people that were with me had a different idea of Americans and were glad to know me.
It is unfair to say everyone that has ever worked in that coffee shop is a bad person. However it is the idea that is drawn from the encounter. I selected these few stories specifically because the people in them had a completely neutral idea of America until their encounters with just one rude tourist or one rude airport officer. You may think this is trivial, but you have to realize that thousands of American tourists meet and make impressions on people every single day. The same goes for the thousands of people that pass through American airports everyday and each one of these people relate the stories to several other people. The arrogant and rude attitudes of some airport officials and tourists only help to fuel animosity to the US. So would it kill these people to be a little nicer and a bit more polite?

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Edited on 2005-11-01 19:19:25 by SheElff

Additions:
It is unfair to say everyone that has ever worked in that coffee shop is a bad person. However it is the idea that is drawn from the encounter. I selected these few stories specifically because the people in them had a completely neutral idea of America until their encounters with just one rude tourist or one rude airport officer. You may think this is trivial, but you have to realize that thousands of American tourists meet and make impressions on people every single day. The same goes for the thousands of people that pass through American airports everyday and each one of these people relate the stories to several other people. The arrogant and rude attitudes of some airport officials and tourists only help to fuel animosity to the US. So would it kill these people to be a little nicer and a bit more polite?

Deletions:
It is unfair to say everyone that has ever worked in that coffee shop is a bad person. However it is the idea that is drawn from the encounter. I selected these few stories specifically because the people in them had a completely neutral idea of America until their encounters with just one rude tourist or one rude airport officer. You may think this is trivial, but you have to realize that thousands of American tourists meet and make impressions on people every single day. The same goes for the thousands of people that pass through American airports everyday and each one of these people relate the stories to several other people. The arrogant and rude attitudes of some airport officials and tourists only help to fuel animosity to the US. So would it kill these people to be a little nicer and a bit more polite?

---

Edited on 2005-11-01 19:19:00 by SheElff

Additions:

You are in a long line for your morning latte and if you don’t leave in the next few minutes you are going to be late for work. The two people serving don’t look very happy. One of them is barking orders at the other who then makes the drinks. You get to the front, silently pay for your drink and when you get it, it’s a cappuccino. You think about complaining but the eyes of the attendant seem to say “I dare you and aren’t you running late?” So you leave with your cappuccino thinking you will never come back here again and what terrible people work here. Congratulations, you have just gone through customs at an American air port.
Another friend of mine ended up marrying an American. According to him moving to the States with his new wife was impossible. He had to go to the immigration office on several occasions for various reasons and he said that they were always extremely rude and never answered his questions. They kept telling him in person and on the phone that the process shouldn’t take much longer his comment was “they just shrugged me off as an annoyance.” After working an illegal job with low wages for eight months and no sign of his paper work that he paid hundreds of dollars for, he and his wife ended up moving back to England.
On another trip the same man was detained nearly two hours and almost missed his flight back to England because he was accused of being an illegal immigrant. It was on his file that he had resided here for eight months, but what they couldn’t find were his residency papers. Of course that was because he had given up on getting them and went back to England. So they assumed he must have stayed here illegally and wouldn’t listen to any of his explanations. Finally after the near two hours they found the record they needed that said he was there on a temporary spousal visa and with that they told him to leave. He said they didn’t even apologize for the inconvenience.
I have my own story of mistreatment at the Orlando airport. I was just passing through and was selected for a random search. They went through everything. Opened up my large suitcase took everything out and even inspected my underwear and held each pair up to ask if I was sure they were mine. This was not done in private, there were people around and I was furious. He got to a short skirt I owned and a pair of tall high heeled boots. Upon finding these I was accused of possible prostitution. I was taken to the side and asked to relate what seemed to be my entire life story while they did background checks on me and my parents to see if being a prostitute was already on my record. Eventually they smashed everything back into my bag and told me to leave when they found that I didn’t have prior prostitution on my record, this was all done without an apology. Even if I were a prostitute (which I’m not) shouldn’t they be more concerned with bombs?
Then there are people in the embassies all over the world. When I was in England I had a problem and had to go to the American Embassy. To make an appointment you had to call an $8 per minute hotline and wait on hold, so I went in person instead. I was allowed through a guarded barbed wire fence (this is in London by the way) because I had a passport. However once in the building they very nastily refused to help me and said I had to make an appointment. So I tried to make one while I was there and she said I had to call the hotline. I started to protest and she called security and had me escorted off of the property at gun point. I was thrown out and the barbed wire gate was slammed behind me.
Then there are of course the American tourists. As a tourist your only job is to have fun but people often don’t realize that when in a foreign country you are also representing where you are from in a very big way. Upon meeting just one tourist a person feels they have an idea of an entire country. While in China I encountered an American couple in a restaurant and the man was shouting to the waitress that he wanted a menu in English. He thought that if he was angry enough and shouted loudly enough she would magically understand him. So I came over to him and translated what he wanted, apologized profusely to the waitress. Then I told him that he was silly to expect people to cater to English speakers in a non-English speaking country, especially in a town as small as the one he was in. After this encounter the people that were with me had a different idea of Americans and were glad to know me.

Deletions:
You are in a long line for your morning latte and if you don’t leave in the next few minutes you are going to be late for work. The two people serving don’t look very happy. One of them is barking orders at the other who then makes the drinks. You get to the front, silently pay for your drink and when you get it, it’s a cappuccino. You think about complaining but the eyes of the attendant seem to say “I dare you and aren’t you running late?” So you leave with your cappuccino thinking you will never come back here again and what terrible people work here. Congratulations, you have just gone through customs at an American air port.