On Being American

Before studying abroad, everyone tells you that living in a foreign country will be a great way to learn about all about a new culture and its customs. While that’s true, no one ever tells you that experiencing these new things will teach you about your own culture, too. During the past few weeks, everything new and different about Scotland has just brought to the front of my mind what makes me American. Of course, the fact that I’m writing this while drinking a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks probably doesn’t help anything.

First, though, I want to point out the fact that, even though I hadn’t really thought about what necessarily makes me American before I came here, I did often think about the fact that I am American. But this, too, is an American thing. Last week in my “Conceptualizing Scotland” class, for example, the lecturer was explaining to us that national identity is something one possesses but never really thinks about or talks about. I found that strange—Americans seem to always talk about what it means to be American and what our American rights are. “‘Murica” is a phrase that I think I hear at least once a day; even if it’s mostly used when things go wrong, people always seem to be conscious of their Americanness. Thus, I was sure this lecturer was just out of touch with reality and didn’t really understand the concept of national identity. When I came home and asked my Scottish flatmate about it, though, she agreed that being Scottish is only brought up when that very fact is questioned, like in the case of next year’s referendum.

Being American, though, is also a very different thing than being Scottish, or any other nationality really. At Oktoberfest, for example, I tried to tell someone from Switzerland that my boyfriend is Swiss (he’s American but has Swiss heritage and dual citizenship), but the response was that if he’s not from Switzerland, he’s not Swiss. Which, of course, is different from America, where I consider myself Portuguese because my great-grandparents emigrated from there and German because several generations back someone was German. This melting pot, of course, is what we always associate with being American, and maybe that’s why we’re so proud of it.

Stereotypically, another part of being American is thinking that the US is the center of the world. Before I came here, I would have hoped that I wasn’t one of these people, but I quickly realized my mistake when I was shocked that my British friend didn’t learn about the American Revolution in school. I know hardly anything about British history, so there’s really no reason for me to expect everyone to know about American history, but I’ve learned so much about it throughout my years of school that I would have thought it would at least be a small part of the curriculum. But, no—for this friend at least, National Treasure was the only source of knowledge on the subject. And isn’t that a scary thought. (The same friend also told me that apple pies are British, so maybe the whole of Americanness is a lie anyway.)

There are two other instances in which I’ve been incredibly aware of being American. First: when I’m sitting at a restaurant, the service takes forever and they don’t seem to care whether or not I’ve enjoyed my food. That, or when I can’t find what I want in a department store and I have to go ask someone to help me—there’s no one at the door to ask what I’m looking for today. In other words, good customer service is an American thing. Before you write me off as being extremely ignorant, though, it’s not because people here are rude or unhelpful—they’re the opposite, really—but because it’s just not a service economy. People don’t tip here, so there’s really no reason to come back to my table a million times while I’m eating to check if I’m okay, because either way I’ll have to pay the same amount. Which, in reality, makes sense, although—and I never thought I’d say this—I do miss waiters coming to interrupt me in the middle of a bite.

On the subject of money, lawsuits don’t exist here, or at least not to nearly the same extent. There have been multiple times when I’ve been doing something—climbing Arthur’s Seat, for instance, a mountain with 360-degree views of the city—and I’ve thought, “There should really be a warning sign or a guardrail here because I could easily fall off and die.” In that case, it was so windy I nearly did fall over. But then I remembered, only Americans sue for things that are really their fault for being negligent in the first place.

Paying exorbitantly high prices for everything also seems inherently American to me. When I was at Oktoberfest two weeks ago, for example, there was no charge to enter the gates and no charge to enter any of the beer tents—if I wanted to, I could have gone and not spent a penny. I find it hard to imagine that such a major tourist attraction would ever exist without a cover charge in America.

And here I digress a little to talk about Oktoberfest, because I can’t not talk about Oktoberfest. Munich is a beautiful city that I toured for a day, but Oktoberfest is a cultural experience that I’ll devote more time to.

For those who are unfamiliar with it (as I was until I arrived in Munich), Oktoberfest is essentially a giant fairground with rides and food booths, but with the addition of a dozen or more giant beer tents. Each tent fits several thousand people at long wooden tables, and each is decked out in German decorations, including a traditional band.  Almost every female wears a dirndl, or German dress, and almost every male wears lederhosen, the traditional German shorts and suspenders. If you’re curious about why I went in September, which you’re probably not because I’m posting this in October, the festival originally existed to celebrate the marriage of King Ludwig I in the 19^th century, but has since been pushed forward because October is apparently too cold. Thankfully, the weather conditions were perfect while I was there.

On the surface, Oktoberfest is just waiting in line to drink beer in a tent. My friends and I visited on the first day, so we waited in line for two hours to get into the Schottenhamel tent at 10 am, after which we waited for another two hours until they officially kicked off the festival with a mayoral address at noon. But, once that started, I realized that Oktoberfest is so much more than that.

After noon, the band played traditional German drinking songs for the rest of the day, many of which require audience participation in clinking glasses and shouting things in German that I didn’t understand. Workers in traditional outfits walked around delivering liters of beer—which we did have to pay for—and pretzels to tables. Everyone talked to everyone else and seemed utterly happy to be sitting with new and old friends drinking delicious beer.

 

It’s hard to explain more than that, because a lot of the excitement of Oktoberfest is the atmosphere. Each of the three tents I visited had its own energy, and they were all fantastic. It’s an experience everyone should have—or, if not during September or October, at least visit the Hofbräuhaus restaurant that has much of the same atmosphere but on a smaller scale—because there’s nothing really like it in America. If I had to pick something, I’d say it’s comparable to the energy at a homecoming football game at a giant university, but even that’s grasping at straws because Oktoberfest is quintessentially German. There’s something for everyone at Oktoberfest, too, whether it’s drinking beer or eating bratwurst or watching the traditional parade, which makes it really special.

 

Of course, I stuck out as being American because I don’t speak German, I wasn’t wearing a dirndl, and I nearly got run over by a German server because someone yelled at me in German to move out of the way and I didn’t understand what they were saying. But even so, Oktoberfest was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done. For me at least, part of what is so great about being American is a sense of adventure and an appreciation for different cultures, and if drinking a liter of beer in a tent next to giant German men doesn’t count, I don’t know what does.