The Outgoing Spirit - Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America - page 23

impression in a country where impressions count for more than they should. This, however,
is far from the whole story. When I stroll across an American campus, I sometimes pass a
young man I don't know, and who doesn't know me, who murmurs, “How ya doin', sir?”
This would never happen in Europe. It may be something of a conditioned reflex, but it is
an undeniably charming one. There is an agreeableness about many Americans which is
less obvious in the case of some Europeans. With them, you may have to dig a little to dis-
cover it. In Americans it tends to be more readily accessible, like most other things about
them.
Not all Americans, admittedly, are quite as affable as the young men I occasionally bump
into on campus. A survey showed that people in Rio touch each other an average of 180
times when drinking coffee together, but only 40 times in New York. Perhaps this is be-
cause some Americans believe that touching anything, even their toddlers, is a sure way
to contract bubonic plague. There are U.S. citizens who would clearly feel happier spend-
ing their lives cocooned in a plastic bag, though some of them might fear that this, too,
could result in some loathsome infection. Even if New Yorkers touch each other sparingly,
however, the inhabitants of the United States are by and large a more friendly, helpful
bunch than the citizens of many a European nation. If you stop on the sidewalk with a map
in your hands, they will quite often step up and ask if you need directions.
This tends to happen much less in Europe. In any case, in Britain at least, the art of
giving directions on the street is rapidly dying, along with clog dancing and tapestry weav-
ing, as people mistake left for right, omit vital pieces of information, grossly underestimate
distances in order to raise your spirits, forget about one-way traffic systems, and take loc-
al knowledge complacently for granted. Perhaps the art fares better in the United States.
Some of the Irish enjoy turning their road signs around in order to confuse visitors. It is
possible for tourists to travel in circles for many hours in the Irish countryside, given the
mischievous tendencies of the natives.
The British tend to be suspicious of instant friendliness. There are posters on garbage
cans in O'Hare Airport in Chicago that read “We're Glad To See You!” No they're not.
They don't even know who I am. How do they know I'm here? Glad to see me personally,
or just glad to see anybody? Who exactly is glad to see me? The mayor, the airport au-
thorities, the garbage can manufacturers, or the entire population of the city? How do they
know I don't have a test-tube full of lethal germs in my suitcase, or a collapsible nuclear
weapon? What if I have come to sell heroin to their teenagers?
Such are the churlish reflections of a visitor from the United Kingdom.
Openness and Obliquity
“I know of no other country,” writes de Tocqueville, “where love of money has such a grip
on men's hearts.” In Ireland, a store will probably let you off a few cents if you find your-