Def depends on where you go. As a german who has visited most European countries at least once, and a bunch of others as well, I found my preconceptions confirmed more often than not.
Or in a case where I went without any due to deliberately not looking up any information beforehand I was severely let down. Looking at you, Serbia.
Having read Mark Twain’s autobiographical travel log, I love that he himself is a bit of bigot - stereotyping quite a few of those peoples he meets on the way.
Albeit in a fairly human way and with a bit of irony about it. Great writer interesting human.
Lol. Lmao.
yankee tourists put the lie to that immediately
Twain also wrote often about meeting annoying US tourists on his travels and going out of his way to avoid them. For example in “A Tramp Abroad”, after describing a particular annoying interaction with one he writes:
And away he went. He went uninjured, too—I had the murderous impulse to harpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon the disposition left me; I found I hadn’t the heart to kill him, he was such a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.
Meanwhile all tourist-facing workers in every non-Anglo country have heard “I’M AMERICAN! SPEAK ENGLISH TO ME!!!” at least once.
I saw a tiktok of a Brit talking about this with the upcoming ban in the US, and he made an interesting point. The Americans who can afford to travel and take time off work, are more often the ones who have lived privileged lives, and as a result act more entitled than the average American. He commented how interacting with regular Americans on tiktok changed his perception of what they are like, because only interacting with the tourists makes it seem like there’s a higher percentage of entitled a-holes.
I don’t travel. Is it common for the locals servicing tourists to not know at least enough English to get by?
Often, however:
- Tourists tend to seek out “authentic” parts of the country.
- Some places tend to German or French speaking tourists primarily.
- Tourist industries can have high worker turnover, so there’s always someone learning the ropes.
- Even perfect English might be unintelligible to a gammon if the accent is thick.
I feel like an adjacent one is having good conversations with people from very different countries (ideally face-to-face)
