I think I have a case of culture envy. Sure, sure, I love the wonderful United States of America, blah blah blah. But... I mean, we're just not COOL. Britain is cool. Japan is cool. Australia is cool. Germany is cool. America? Not cool. The others have personality, while America just has this hodge-podge of conflicting personalities in our not-quite-Melting-Pot. I live in the schizophrenic of nations.
Eh, maybe I'm just weird, but it seems to me that much of America is bland. We really don't have much of a history, compared to other places. Okay, yeah, we have the First Nations, but them? They're almost dead and gone and they didn't really leave much behind anyway. When I was in England, there were like, all these really really OLD buildings. OLD. Like, thousands of years old. Wow! I live in a place where a fifty year old building has to be preserved for the Historical Society. Neil Gaiman describes Los Angeles in Murder Mysteries. He caputres a bit of it. We have very straight roads here because we never had to build around older structures. Europe has roads that seem to go in spirals.
So yeah, culture envy. I think a lot of Americans have it because we don't really have one national culture to call our own. Like, people aren't just American, they're African American, Asian American, Mexican American, etc. And people keep the national identities their great-great-great grandparents emmigrated here with. There are more people here who claim to be Irish than in Ireland. Seriously.
I sometimes wish I were born in Japan or England. Yet... I love my country. I like it here. I'm content. And hey, Americans LOVE to steal bits and pieces of other peoples cultures! It's our thing. The best of everything, right? Well, not quite, but it works for me.
