It’s “one of those days” in a Southeast Asian airport. The rush of travelers going home for the holidays fills every available inch of the terminal until narrow ribbons of travelers ooze like rivers through the crowd. The humid air hangs heavy with the smell of sweat. Most flights have been postponed and rescheduled so many times that passengers stop believing the announcements.
But that’s not the really stressful part. One passenger has decided to take out his frustrations on a hapless gate attendant. Looming over the poor employee, he pours out his bile loudly enough for the entire terminal to listen in.
And most embarrassingly, he’s American.
What Is the "Ugly American"?
The phrase first appeared in 1948 as the title for a classic photograph of an overweight, cigar-smoking tourist in Cuba, clad only in boxers and a sombrero with large beer bottles clutched in either hand. The concept grew clearer in a 1958 book and film about aid workers in Southeast Asia. This time, the “ugly Americans” are professionally dressed and polished diplomats industriously foisting off useless projects—roads and bridges to nowhere and dams that destroy as much land as they save. The glamor of their appearance belies their repulsive attitudes and perverse motivations. A Burmese observer comments, “For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They’re loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they’re frightened and defensive, or maybe they’re not properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance.”
Why Does It Happen?
In fact, the effect is quite a bit more fundamental to humanity. It’s actually just ethnocentrism. It’s the assumption that the way my cultural fellows see the world is the only true one. It’s the assumption that my people occupy roughly the center and that the best way to calibrate other cultures is relative to myself. It assumes that we’re the normal ones; the rest of the world is made up of curiosities. In its very worst forms, it’s the assumption that my people and our way is inherently better than the rest.[1]
Are Americans Especially Susceptible?
And yet while the malady is a universal, human one, there is a chance that Americans might be especially susceptible for a few different reasons:
- The “ugly American” effect is a natural part of cross-cultural interaction, often linked to culture shock. Americans live in a large, fairly homogenous country, and we can go through most of our lives without having to adjust to other cultures.
- Ugliness does tend to happen more often when people move to developing countries from high-status, wealthy countries. Sadly, many people confuse wealth, education, or general sophistication with superiority. Absurdly, Americans can think that they know how things “ought” to work in the new context or better yet, how to fix it.
- American culture encourages speaking our minds, being assertive, “taking charge,” and conflict resolution through direct, even clamorous discussion. When this comes up against more deferential cultures, we misinterpret their acquiescence. The American walks away glad that everything was resolved so smoothly; the person he spoke with can’t believe what a bully the American was but never says anything about it.
- For missionaries in particular, we enter our new surroundings by bringing the one truth that sets people free. If Jesus is the only way, all other alternatives are wrong. But ethics and culture always travel together. Being mere humans, we are most blind to the ways our own culture expresses fallenness. We can find ourselves invisibly creeping from authoritative proclaimers of Jesus Christ to evangelists for the American way of doing things.
What to Do About It
There is no simple solution to the “ugly American” or ethnocentrism short of a lifetime of learning and an attitude of humility. That comes on three levels:
Cultural training can help. Some things will initially strike you as inferior, disfunctional, or fallen. Closer inspection and more time to learn will reveal that there is a logic behind what people do, and it makes sense. Many of the striking differences turn out to be different solutions to very different needs, concerns, or problems. It turns out that people made in the image of God and societies that enjoy common grace are quite sensible in their own way.[2]
Learn to listen. There are many reasons we ought to be “quick to hear and slow to speak.” Cultural learning is one of them. People like to share their culture. They want you to understand them. The most precious information you can get about your new context is free. You just have to ask thoughtful questions, and then you have to listen.
Be like Jesus. Of all the answers, this is the simplest and also the most costly. Fundamentally, ethnocentrism is not fixed by education. It’s not really a lack of information at all. It’s a matter of character.
Many things are understood in the “universal language.” I’ll add one more. The fruit of the Spirit is recognizable in every context I’ve ever visited. Love people. Think less about yourself. Have less confidence in your own views and solutions. Be in awe at God and His Word.
Conclusion
Not all cross-cultural interactions are created the same. An American in Canada or Australia will encounter fewer cultural contrasts than someone who lands in Cambodia or Benin.[3] The wider the culture gap, the more likely that dynamics such as the “ugly American” will emerge.
But note the widest culture or reality gap ever breached by a traveler. In the incarnation, our Savior left the perfection of eternal fellowship with the Father to inhabit the sin-sodden squalor of earth. No one ever had a more rightful basis for condemning, correcting, or disdaining his new surroundings.
And yet, Jesus came as a servant. Having accepted the wretchedness of our poor estate, He humbled Himself still further to the point of death, even death on a cross. He did it because He loved us. He did it so that we can live.
In so doing, He gave us the beauty of the Gospel. He turned our monstrous ugliness into consummate beauty. He showed us the perfect paradigm of what humanity ought to be. To be like Him is to recover and embody the full glorious dignity God made mankind to be. He is altogether lovely.
Don’t be an ugly American. Be like Jesus.
[1] Ironically, there is a kind of reverse ethnocentrism that assumes all that’s wrong with the world is a Western or American frame of reference work. Truthfully, every group of people around the world has a kind of provincialism, and we all assume our way of doing life is “normal.” We’re all just people down here. Americans don’t get special credit for either good or ill.
[2] Before embarking on cross-cultural ministry, educate yourself to get a basic map of the configurations cultures come in. These include concepts like limited vs. infinite good, external vs. internal focus of control, individual vs. collectivism, assumptions about power distance and authority and many others.
[3] Though beware that these “invisible” differences with near neighbors often catch you by surprise!