The ugly American
Yet, a report published by CNN today is turning that stereotype on its head. The headline alone speaks volumes:
- ‘Everybody loves Americans’: Why US tourists are a hot commodity
But the following quote sums up that report:
‘It’s not true at all. Europeans in general, and all the European businesses that I’ve made contact with during my years in the industry, they’re always welcoming to Americans,’ explains Albertynas, who’s CEO and co-founder of Ratepunk, a startup whose browser extension scans major travel booking sites to uncover the lowest price on hotel rooms.
‘Especially when they are from New York or LA, everybody is kind of putting them on a pedestal. So, actually on the contrary to the ugly American fad, everybody loves Americans.
Except that Albertynas cites New Yorkers and Los Angelinos as prototypes of the “beautiful American” tourist. Many will say that undermines his credibility. After all, most Americans would expect any assessment in this respect to cite Midwesterners or even Southerners.
Even so, the Chinese are giving Albertynas cause for his assessment.
The uglier Chinese
China touts its long march to replace America as the world’s sole superpower. That remains in doubt for all kinds of geopolitical reasons. I’ll mention some of them below. But there’s no denying that China is now an economic superpower that rivals America.
However, China’s rise comes with a dirty little secret: nouveau-riche Chinese tourists behaving badly. Viral YouTube videos abound.
They show the microaggressions that make Chinese tourists look like spoiled brats. Not to mention the menacing altercations that make them look like soccer hooligans.
Chinese are upstaging Americans as the world’s rudest tourists. And that explains the ongoing shift in the perception across the globe. Remarkably, Chinese officials are doing little to correct this perception. The embassy they just built in The Bahamas is a testament to this. It’s their largest embassy on the planet. But we resent the Chinese using our country as a staging ground to spy on our oldest and best friends, the Americans.
China’s foreign policies and their consequences
Chinese diplomats take pride in calling themselves “wolf warriors.” So it’s no wonder many Chinese tourists behave like wild animals. But that’s only half the story.
The other half stems from the debt-trapping, loan-sharking nature of Chinese foreign aid and investment. This style of foreign policy is breeding anger and resentment. That’s especially the case among people in developing countries.
But China’s bullying foreign policy is breeding similar anger and resentment among developed countries. For example, imagine how European countries must feel watching China bully the United States with impunity. That bullying included a Chinese fighter jet menacing a US spy plane and a Chinese warship menacing a US warship.
China’s support for Russia is alienating whatever affection Westerners had for Chinese tourists. After all, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine mirrors Hitler’s invasion of Poland at the outset of WWII.
Of course, no country is doing more to enable Russia than China, while none is doing more to defend Ukraine than America.
Indeed, President Biden has declared the war in Ukraine a proxy for the clash between democracies and autocracies. So it’s hardly surprising that Westerners are beginning to consider Chinese tourists no more desirable than Russian ones.
Moreover, the longer this clash continues, the more the stereotype of the ugly American will give way to the archetype of the uglier Chinese.