How fun it is to bash America and all it stands for

Life has seldom been as busy as it is right now. I have several papers due next week, this along with a major presentation in marketing. Additionally, this weekend is Spring Fling at Penn, meaning that everybody is supposed to party and act stupid. I plan to join in on the fun, so do two of my friends who are flying in from Chicago and Buffalo.

One of the more interesting incidents the last few weeks was definitely the American hostage crisis in China, in which the Chinese really showed what great supporters of democracy and freedom they are. Anyway, President Bush ended up apologizing to the dictators on the other side of the pond, and I am proud to publish a copy of it.

A couple of weeks back I published yet another article in the Stouffer Magazine, this time on how much I dislike America. A bit of it concerns my college dorm, but I think it should be enjoyable reading for everyone.

America-bashing has long and proud cultural traditions in Europe. As the rest of the world is starting to get more contact with Americans than they have ever wanted too, all the other continents on this planet are developing a hatred of America as well. The bashing of America can be described on a both a micro- and macro-level, and the following is a short presentation of aspects I hate about Stouffer, Philadelphia and America in general.

Of all the places I have been in the world, I have seldom met more incompetent people than I have in Philadelphia. I recently discovered that I have given up asking anyone about anything, this as I expect any answer to be so foolish that it will do more harm than good. Today I was in need of stamps, so I decided to pay a visit to Philadelphia’s least useful institution; The Stouffer House Office.

I have lived in Stouffer for one year now, but I have yet to understand the purpose of the house office. Just by itself, the fact that no one uses it should be reason enough to close it down. Yet, it is also a fact that the house office does not serve any useful function. The people working there are mainly supposed to do two things:

Now, one problem is that the office never has any of these objects. Today, I went to the office with a serious lust for stamps, but was not surprised to find out that the office was out of everything except one-cent stamps. Not giving up my quest for stamps so easily, I ventured out to the drug store underneath Stouffer (yes, there is one!). After standing in line for a while, I was told that they did not sell stamps anymore (even though the sign in the window says they do), but that the bookstore up the street does. Asking for stamps at the bookstore, I was told to try the drug store down the street. Acknowledging defeat, I headed up to the post office, which I consider to have the most competent employees in Philadelphia. The fact that this city’s federal employees are more competent than the workers hired by private companies simply illustrates what a strange town this is. Even though it is a bit of the walk, going to the post office is probably quicker than it would be to waste my time in the Wawa-line. It is awkward, though, that buying a stamp in Philadelphia has to be almost as difficult as it is for a guy to find a date on a women’s sports team*.

The only positive thing I have to say about Philadelphia is that when I visit West-Philadelphia, I get some idea of what Berlin must have looked like in 1945. On a more cultural level, the main issue that concerns me is that Americans still have not captured the essence of a fork. The reason why it looks different from a spoon is that it is meant to be held the other way. Also, a fork functions brilliantly in cooperation with a knife, and they are meant to be used at the same time. I advise students who prefer to continue using their fork as a spoon to simply switch to one of the latter. If you want to eat like European 5-year-olds do, at least try and be efficient at it.

Additionally, I love the American tendency of wearing white socks to any occasion, whether it is a formal or going to Gimble. Dressing decently appears to be considered a sin, so does talking at a volume that does not bother people living hundreds of miles away. Americans are proud of having the world’s largest economy, but now work more than even the Japanese. In Europe, we take five weeks of summer vacation. Americans take five days, at most.

After having published this in the Stouffersphere, I expect to become one of the most disliked people in Stouffer, though there certainly is some tough competition. I assume the safest place to hide will be the House Office, no one goes there anyway.

*This does of course exclude Penn’s seven self-declared heterosexual female athletes, with whom I have all had the pleasure of dating.

Finally, I do again want to encourage you to send me good pictures. Remember that I can count my friends on an amputated hand, and that emails cheer me up like nothing else. My Feedback Form is also available, though it seems to be even less popular than my guestbook.