I don't hate anyone. I like walking around in the good old USA and seeing all the different folks living amongst us.Back in 2002 I spent a lot of time in Germany. I'd fly to Frankfurt, stay in and around Frankfurt for 2 weeks then fly back home for a week, then go back. That was probably one of the coolest events of my life. Everyone there was "not American". I guess growing up in a little town in West Texas, the ability to get as far away as possible was like a drug (a good drug).
On Saturday I realized that all of the foreigners I have met in the USA have been smart.
I've always been more comfortable around intelligent people. A friend of mine, who I've know since I was 11 or so, is probably the smartest person I know. Except maybe his older brother could be smarter. Interestingly enough, I met him via his older brother.
Anyway, the point is, I like smart people. I'm a geeky nerd. I've been one all my life. On Saturday I met a woman that owns her own photography business. She can speak 3 languages. She knows more about the English language than I do. She's Palestinian.
When I graduated from college, I went to work at a place and met a man from Bangladesh. He helped me get through my first year of corporate America in the software world. Also, at that same job, I met a guy from Lebanon. He spoke at least 5 different languages and was a computer nerd.
I've never met a dumb foreigner. This got me to thinking. Are all foreigners smart? I think we can safely say that this is probably not true. However, we could say, that almost all foreigners coming to the USA are smart. Why are smart people attracted to the USA? When citizens of the USA go to other countries are they also smart? I met some people in Germany that were from USA and they were smart too. Do only smart people immigrate?
I've met a lotta Canadians who could out dumb any dumb Texan you may have met during your time on the planet. Do Canadians count as foreigners?
ReplyDeleteWhy are you out and about meeting up with Palestinian women? Aren't you still married to that smart foreigner you found in Germany?
Were they visiting or were they immigrants?
ReplyDeleteMaybe all Canadians are slow? Can you think of any smart Canadians? Maybe they just seem dumb.
My wife introduced me to the Palestinian.
Geez, you're making me think. Well, I'm actually related to a Canadian or two. There is a lot of cross border breeding when you live that close to the border.
ReplyDeleteI had a teacher, 6th grade who was a Canadian immigrant from Alberta. Totally thick. He was also a preacher with his own church. He was so stupid he did not understand he could not be leading a Monday morning prayer at the start of the week in a public school. I can still picture him earnestly praying, til he was ordered to stop. I was only 10, or so, and knew he shouldn't be doing that praying. He was in Washington,for gawdsakes, not Texas.
If you go to something like the Western Washington State Fair, it's full of Washingtonions, well-scrubbed and well dressed. If you go to the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) in Vancouver it's like going to France, what with too many Canadian's disdain for proper personal hygiene.
But, then again, to be fair, which is not my long suit, I've not been to the PNE in a long time. But I did go twice to EXPO 86. It was very Canadian. But I don't remember a lot of malodorous issues. Probably cuz there were a lot of foreigners there and not such a high percentage of smelly Canadians.
I remember the Belgium Pavilion was particularly embarrassing. As was the West German one for that matter. Who would have thunk that just a few years after Expo 86 there would be no more West Germany. There was still a Yugoslavia in 86, cuz I remember their pavilion, they were touting their Yugo cars! To show my totally unbiased nature, the US Pavilion at Expo 86 sucked so bad I was embarrassed. When I verbalized my embarrassment, to Canadians, they were all impressed I, an American, was telling the truth about it, they didn't want to say it was bad. Canadians are polite to a fault. Americans aren't. Now, the Washington Pavilion, it was pretty cool, very well done. But, the Reagan administration totally mucked up the US one. The Soviets was better than the US, but not that much better.
I miss the Soviets. America really does not have any good decent adversaries anymore.
This time I am being forced to type "headiaul" for your annoying word verification. Some of the ones it comes up with, with you, are borderline obscene. I think the last one was something like "tittibobr."
I think your generalization is more about immigrants from farther-away places. If it takes a lot of resourcefulness to immigrate somewhere, smarter folks will get selected, no? I mean, we grew up with some pretty thick immigrants from a country pretty close to the TX border. But that's an easy immigration--ditto canadia.
ReplyDeleteThere are TONS of smart Indians, but there are even more tons not-so-smart living in India (there are a billion people here). But the Indians you meet in the US are pretty damn smart. I can promise you, it's really hard for south asians to get to the US, so those who do make it have at least something going on upstairs.
I think the same is true for a lot of countries, esp. developing ones.
(amazingly, you or blogger, have turned off the verification CAPTCHAs--cool!)