Quote:
Originally Posted by Blansky
Back after WW2 when international air travel was starting to take off with affordable flights to far off lands, and Americans were venturing out into the world to experience other cultures there was a derogatory expression that some may have deserved and some not.
It was "the Ugly American", where Americans would make fun of, and be loud and boisterous in other countries, not respecting their culture, their ways of doing things and their accommodations. Of course now most hotels are international and large cities have adopted the customs of the west, and it's easy to travel seamlessly to most places and experience what you'd expect at home to some extent.
As for the OPs experience, there are something like 380 million Americans, so judging a few as rude, does not have much to do with the other hundreds of millions. Add in the fact that often people on vacation do not necessarily behave as well as they might in different circumstances, especially in groups.
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I think it’s mostly about the geography of wealth, power, and consumption. As the US emerged from WWII as the world’s dominant economic power, people all over the world begrudged the deep pocketed Americans pouring into their borders. Now that China is primed to become the top economic power, Chinese cash is flooding across the world and similarly pissing folks off. And now the Parisian hospitality workers might be hoping for the Americans they hated to come back
