Notes on being American

     Being an American abroad isn’t really what I thought it would be. In the US, I think I was set up to expect something along the lines of either fawning admiration or enraged hatred. The United States has the most exported of cultures, and can provoke anything but indifference.

     As a result of this expectation, I’ve been both conscious of how I comport myself and wary of revealing my American-ness. On the one hand, I would prefer not to be immediately associated with speaking volume, ignorance, obesity, white sneakers, and America’s policies toward the Middle East for the past ten years. On the other hand, when my nationality is apparent, I’m excited to make a more positive impression – polite, linguistically and culturally aware, interested in getting to know a country beyond its most visible attractions.

It seems, though, that I rarely encounter anyone whose impression of America/ns need extreme mending. My response ‘Amerikalıyım’ prompts a generic ‘ohh’ given to travelers from most other countries. The ones that provoke a more interesting response are usually exceptionally distant and/or uncommon origins for tourists: Peru or South Africa, for example. Americans, Koreans, and western Europeans make up a significant portion of tourists here, and Germans and Russians seem to commonly move here as spouses. These groups, as a result, prompt little interest.

     More often than having to uphold my national identity, I successfully avoid classification. Most generally, when someone will hazard a guess as to my home country, I am perceived as German. Sometimes Dutch, Danish, even Russian, rarely have I been guessed American. On one hand, I wonder if they realize how pleased I am not to be thought American. On the other hand, I recognize that the combination of my ambiguous clothing, shoes, and haircut shout anything but. My nondescript clothing, inimitably practical footwear, and self-styled mop hair I suppose probably are more at home in central Europe than the US (though, undoubtedly, never never mistaken for Turkish. If my light hair isn’t enough, my shoes and backpack leave no doubt. Turkish women on average don’t value pragmatism immensely).

     My passable knowledge of Turkish pleasantries, as well, is a bit un-American. Much to my delight, both courses I’ve taken here have been populated completely by non-Americans. Both months we’ve had at least a couple Koreans, Germans, Greeks, and Russians, as well as other Eastern Europeans, a couple South Americans, and a mix from the rest of the Middle East and Western Europe. The other young people walking the streets practicing Turkish with simitçiler are either relatively local, or married to a local. That leaves some Americans, but relatively few.

     In the end, being American leaves me right where I’d like to be – neither rejected nor effusively welcomed, with no more expectations than any other. I never have to defend myself, and never receive preference (except maybe in visa offices, and such). Overall being American, at least for me, is very akin to not being American. Which, for someone trying to travel in countries on their own terms, is pretty good.