America: a love - hate relationship

While the rest of you were skiing and vacationing in Hawaii in December, I was eating mysterious fried foods and being lost in the Orient.

I spent one month in China at Zhejiang University. While I studied the language and learned a lot about the culture, I also learned a lot about America, more specifically, how people internationally feel about us.

I must tell you the prognosis is not good. I had always hoped the world's hatred of America was exaggerated.

It is not. Everyone hates us.

Now don't misunderstand. I had a wonderful time and I met awesome people. Ninty-nine percent of my trip was beautiful, but there were those awkward moments.

Fairly often I was asked to explain or to defend the United States' actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as the economic problems and the election of certain political figures.

This was difficult for me, as I was in seventh grade on Sept. 11, 2001, and I couldn't vote the second time Bush was elected. I also have to say that, like most people between the ages of 12 and 16, I was not super attuned to the political happenings of the world.

This wasn't my only international issue, however. After a week of giggling to myself and fawning over the adorable Spanish, Australian and British accents, I realized that I was in fact the one with the funny accent. I didn't mind — I have a sense of humor — but it was interesting. I was asked more than once why Americans put "r"s at the end of random words, like "pizzr" instead of "pizza."

I

wasn't aware that people spoke this way after 1867 in the Deep South, but whatever.

There were more stereotypes I had to answer for as well. All of the Europeans in my class spoke multiple languages. They were taken aback to find that Chinese would be my third language once I mastered it. Apparently, Americans are too closed-minded to learn multiple languages.

I was also told that America was the only country in the world where "there are people so poor they don't have teeth."

Not only are we toothless, according to international students, we have gross and fattening cuisine. People went so far as to say they hate cheeseburgers.

This had to be just to irritate me. No one hates burgers. Vegetarians adapted their veggies so they too could eat an approximation of the delicious food.

Best of all, I was told these things under the golden arches of McDonald's. There was one every block in the area, usually next to a KFC and Pizza Hut.

The Chinese pop music is all based off of ‘90's pop and R&B. At the bars, clubs and malls they play only American artists.

While the style is uniquely theirs, clothing stores all have English names or are based off of American companies. (For example their famous athletic brand is Lining, and the logo is basically a distorted Nike swish.) They sell their T-shirts with badly mangled English.

The world is increasingly Western and it's largely influenced by American culture. I'll be bold and arrogant enough to say it. We own pop culture. It's easy to criticize the stars and stripes, but it's still in style.

And so they say they hate us, but let's be serious; they really don't.

They're lovin' it.