The other day I heard the term “Ugly American.” Actually you don’t hear that phrase used so much anymore, but I remember throughout my younger life hearing it all the time. Having traveled over most of the world, I can certainly appreciate how it came to be and why it was, and is, used so often.
Years ago, several of us were Nicosia, Cyprus for a few weeks to install some equipment for the State Department. We stayed in a very nice hotel (I can’t remember the name) and it had very nice restaurant just off the lobby. We had breakfast there every morning and the staff became very familiar with our routine. We usually sat at the same table — a large round one off in one corner of the room. There were usually 4 to 6 of us that ate breakfast there every morning — the table could probably accommodate 8 or 9 people.
The waiters knew that we all drank coffee, and after the first day or two, they just automatically poured everyone a cup coffee. After we’d been there a couple of weeks, we were joined by a fellow employee from Washington. He had brought a couple of things we needed to complete the installation, and he stayed a few days to help. He arrived one afternoon and I picked him up at the airport and checked him into the hotel. The next morning he came down for breakfast with us and the waiter poured everyone at the table a cup of coffee. The conversation around the table was mostly about what we hoped to accomplish the next couple of days. During the conversation, Ron (the new guy) waved to the waiter and and pointed to his coffee cup and said, “Arch-Harumph” (or something like that.) The waiter just looked at him with a puzzled look on his face. Then Rom pointed a little more vigorously and and spoke very loudly, “Aaarrgggghhh!” The waiter looked at me, and said, (in very good English) “What does he want? Another cup of coffee?”
Of course what made this even worse is that we were always briefed about each country we visited, so we wouldn’t be “ugly Americans.” The briefing about Cyprus was clear that the Cypriots had been very fluent in English for many years.
The world has changed a lot in the last 50 plus years, the ugly American — not so much…..
— 30 —