Interesting thread. Being Canadian, there is only one place where I wore a
Canadian pin a nd that was Japan and I might wear one again when I go to
China this fall.
I do not like to advertise my nationality as I like to pretend I am one of
the people. I have been asked directions in various languages from Flemish
to Russian for various things which I find most amusing.
It is important to me to speak at least a few words of the language where I
go and hope I do not look to much like a tourist.
If someone thought I was American I would say I was Canadian in the
language of the place I was in. Wonder what that is in Chinese?
I do not think you should advertise where you come from. I walked by this
guy going to the train station in Cannes with a Columbia ( as in university
shirt) and a USA cap and yes he did look very American.
Yes I have been mistaken for American too. However even I find that after
all this Iraq stuff that maybe it is time for myself to defend my
neighbours to the south not the Bush government but the spirit of the
American people as individuals. They are a great people but all of us in
this world need to know that our values and institutions may just not work
in other countries.
Alas perhaps that is why Tim Hortons has not expanded to Peru :-)
Happy travels to all and may we find ourselves in a more peaceful world some
day.

Joe Canuck


"devil" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 22:35:07 -0400, zzyyxx wrote:

Why do they insist on putting their flags onto their backpacks and
whatnot?
I'm an American who's done quite a bit of traveling in Europe in the
last
couple years and haven't experienced any problems with people disliking
or
being rude to me. So why do they feel the need to proclaim that they're
not
American? Like you wouldn't be able to tell from their accents! It's
kind of
insulting to me too, because they don't want to be mistaken for an
American,
like there's something wrong with being American.

Isn't there?

:-)