Australia's View of Americans

"Australia's America"
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/february/1240978945/john-button/americas-australia

"In more normal times, the relationship is characterised by vague impressions and fuzzy understandings. Australians are not particularly well informed about the US. Americans are generally ignorant about Australia: many of them don't know where it is. In surveys conducted by the Austrian government in the 1980s, 60% of Americans surveyed confused Austria and Australia, and 75% thought the kangaroo came from Austria."



"My father was a postgraduate student at a university in New York. He liked Americans, but thought they were "soft". He attributed this to central heating, claiming that when he wanted to get rid of visitors to his student digs, he just opened a window, letting fresh air into the room. "That," he would say, "is the way to get rid of Americans." This became an established hypothesis in the family. It was one I never had the opportunity to test.

My father's opinion seemed to be confirmed towards the end of World War II, when Australian families played host to visiting American servicemen. One regular guest at Sunday lunch was an army major. He was 6'5" tall and a big eater. As lunch concluded, my father would say, "Well, Major Franz, how about a brisk walk round the lake?" The major always had an answer like, "If you don't mind, sir, I'll take a rest. Whenever I feel the urge to walk, I lie down until it wears off." He was true to his word. When my father returned an hour or so later, Major Franz would be flat out on the family couch, his head on one armrest, his legs dangling over the other.

So, as children, we believed Americans were soft. We also suspected they were funny, because of the comedians Abbott and Costello, whom we sometimes saw at the local picture theatre. They specialised in wisecracks and throwing custard pies at each other. When American servicemen said things like, "Melbourne is half as big as the New York cemetery and twice as dead," we thought this must be funny, although not everybody seemed to agree."



"What Does the World Think of Us"
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/314/opinions-of-us.html