[Michele]. A guy came to the primary school to do a program on deadly Australian animals for the year 4-6. You know... "See this snake? It will kill ya!" and "See this spider? It will kill ya!" that sort of thing. I guess to add humor to his program, part of his schtick was to call Americans rude and stupid. Well his joke didn't quite go over as planned at Mission Beach State School. Hardly any of the students giggled and most looked over to Robin and Will for their reactions. They, of course, were too shy to say anything. Needless to say, this guy did not charm my kids.
Ironically, Robin has a reputation for being a smarty especially for science, which is one of her passions. She doesn't want me to tell you this but she actually corrected the teacher for calling Pluto a planet and taught the class on the reasons why Pluto was demoted. That was back in the first week of the term and.. well yeah, that is how reputations are made. Anyways, her classmates take Robin's smarts in stride. She heard them say "Well yeah, she's smart, she's American and they are all smart."
Rude? Shy? Dumb? Smart?
Another only peripherally-related note but since I'm blogging and this one is short I might just keep going here. On a reality cooking show that we are addicted to, Australian Masterchef, the challenge was to cook North American food. This was both contestants' last choice.
Contestant 1: "All I think of for North America is fast food. What am I going to cook?" and "If only it had been South American then I could have done Mexican."
Since when is Mexico in South America? Sigh. So this prompted a dinner table conversation on notable American foods that the silly contestants could have done.
Rude? Dumb? Cuisineless?
Through these experiences and thousands of others it has been interesting to view Americans through Australian lenses.
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