Similar to what happened to Jennie in Denmark, I found out that a common stereotype of Americans among Russians is that Americans are too friendly to the point of being fake. On our first day in Russian class last year, our professor told us to not casually ask “How are you” (Как дела) to a Russian because unlike in America, where the standard response is “good” even if you’re not being totally honest, Russians take “Как дела” as a serious question and will give you a serious answer. Furthermore, my professor, who himself is Russian, told us that Russians might think it strange if we answer back that we’re “good,” and that we should use words like “not bad” or “normal” to seem more honest. Like Jennie did in Denmark, I got the impression that the stereotype of Americans being superficially friendly can sometimes cause Russians to doubt that Americans aren’t being totally forthcoming with them, or putting up a communication barrier, as Maya mentioned.
Growing up in Northern Virginia, a really common stereotype that a lot of us there hold about people from the southern part of the state (basically anyone not living in Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William, or Alexandria counties) is that a lot of them are really backwards. For me, this was reinforced by taking trips to those parts of the state with my parents and seeing a lot more Confederate flags that I was used to seeing in NOVA (Colloquial term for Northern VA), as well as those counties being the ones that consistently voted Republican in elections while NOVA were more consistently Democrat. However, when I came to Smith, I was at my friend’s birthday party and a girl there had a Virginia driver’s license. I got excited, asked her where she was from. She said that she was from Richmond, but I wouldn’t say that I stereotyped her in that way because growing up, I had been to enough state-wide events in my last two years of high school that had given me opportunities to interact with people from the southern parts of the state and know that that stereotype isn’t always true. However, when I said that I was from Fairfax, she said, “Oh. You’re from that part of the state” and proceeded to rant about how she can’t stand people from NOVA because they were all privileged government employees. It had never occurred to me that people from the southern part of the state held stereotypes about us too. It is true that the counties in NOVA are considerably wealthier because of their proximity to DC and that most people there work public sector jobs and aren’t necessarily rich but do pretty well. However, my parents did not work in the public sector and actually wound up moving from NOVA after I graduated high school because they couldn’t enjoy a lot of the economic benefits given to public sector employees, so that girl stereotyping me in that way really put me off.
This was such a relatable post! I spent most of my life in a suburb of New York City, and because of this people often questioned by status as a woman of color, and immediately assumed I came from a wealthy family, because I went to Catholic school in a relatively affluent area. This is not the case, but it’s difficult to convince people otherwise! Thank you for sharing.
I encountered the same stereotype that you described when coming to the U.S. For me, it was confusing that people won’t stop to listen to me telling me how I was doing, so I had this thought “Why do you even ask?”, so I guess what you describe as “too friendly to the point of being fake” was what I felt when people won’t listen. It took a while to understand that it was a form of greeting. Do you think U.S. students notice the confusion on international students faces? I am trying to understand the other side since I know as international students we just stereotype it since for some of us this is a cultural shock.