America the Influential

I’ve observed a lot of things in the little time I’ve been abroad, and this particular subject seems to occur every day. Question: How influential do you think the United States is?

We are a top power, we have a democracy, top GDP, capitalism, blah blah blah. How about the English language? Ok honestly, how many other languages do you know? I’m pursuing my second and I’ve learned most of it while in college. How pitiful is that statement? Not very, right? Wrong. It’s rare to find people in the US studying another language and when you come across someone focusing on studying other languages or international communication my first thought, probably similar to you as well, was “cool, so how are you going to get a job and make money with that? You’re wasting your time”. Our world revolves money, this is true. But it wasn’t until I could speak English with people from China, Turkey, Germany, Taiwan, Spain, and Morocco that I realized Americans are surprisingly uneducated. The common theme is that English is a language required or offered at their schools as early as middle school. Most kids only take 2 years of another language in high school and they never have to deal with it again. It’s such a shame. Yes, if you come to a country you should be expected to learn that language, but we should make an effort to know their language too. Americans are very selfish people and extremely sheltered- which is a point I’ll get to later.

A little quick fact, Chinese is the emerging language that future kids need to know.

Ok so the language thing is very influential. What about pop culture and music? I’ve been to several stores and restaurants here in Spain that play English music. From Avril Lavigne, to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, LMFAO, and Adele. No country…fortunately. I went on Itunes and changed my region to Spain to find some Spanish music. Get this, on the top 10 popular songs right now 8 are from the US, 1 is from Portugal, and 1 is from Spain. Based on this fact 80% of the popular music here is from America. It’s crazy. Then the actors and movies! I’ve seen Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney and other stars on tv. I know that they are coming out with a new Spiderman move with the guy from the Social Network because I saw it on the news.

Getting back to Americans being sheltered, the news here is very different than back home. They don’t censor the news. It’s not like they cuss, but they give the raw, real news. They don’t try to avoid controversial topics, and they give news around the world. If I had to guess, I bet that KCCI or WHO didn’t tell you about the 79 people that died in Egypt from rioting after a futbol game, or the government problems and killings in Siria, or someone who set themselves on fire in Rabat, Morocco as a protest. Probably not, and if so it was probably a 20 second clip. Do you even know where Egypt, Siria, and Morocco are on a map? Americans don’t have a clue about what is going on in the world. Read USA Today, go on CNN.com and become educated. Even then you’re only going to read what they tell you. Forget your work out plans as a New Year’s resolution, you’ve probably already forgot about them, and read up on a world even once a week. There’s only like 46 more weeks before the world ends anyways right?

America is the rich kid who gets what they want and is naïve to reality. We are the sheltered child who was not able to watch R rated movies until they were of age. I’m speaking in comparison to the rest of the world. Have you seen Old School? We are that kid who has to cover his ears when the adults are talking about adult things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that I can call it home. America has got it good, but we tend to let opportunities to expand horizons slip by. I wish people were more adventurous and educationally well rounded. I talked to a girl today who had no idea who Rick Santorum was, the other day I talked to some from Massachusetts who didn’t know where Iowa was. Are you people kidding me?? These people make me upset about America.

One a different note, I don’t know how I’m going to live as an accountant after this. How am I going to sit in a cubicle 5 days a week for the rest of my life? All I can say is that I’m glad I have 2 more years of college and I’ll think about my future over with a margarita. =)