Some people give the University of Connecticut a hard time, but the astute observer cannot help but detect its many salubrious aspects, its many magnificent advantages; what with healthful country air, the delightful munificence bestowed exclusively upon the athletic establishment, the wholesome social isolation and the bitter, bitter cold.
So it is with the deepest regret that I have had to face the prospect of packing my meager belongings and departing 12,000 miles for Singapore - a smallish trading post in Southeast Asia which is the very definition of backwards barbarism in comparison to our own, cosmopolitan Storrs.
Ha ha ha, psyche. One might very well term my enthusiasm "unbounded," if one were into that sort of flowery stuff.
There are things to be said for studying in Asia these days. When you look at the news, it isn't Florence that's all up in world affairs, meddling with human rights treaties, propping up military juntas and mass producing poisoned Thomas The Tank Engines. Really, Italy is merely the world's capital of cheap wines and organized crimes theses days. On the other hand, Asia is the world's capital of unorganized corruption and cheap DVD's. Now, what kind of contest is that? (No contest: I'm much rather go for the cheap vodka, at any rate. I'm a terrible Italian.)
There's the whole culture argument, the necessity of traveling to Paris or London so that one might take in the great Western works of art - but that is a view so commonly held that one feels the need for some dissent, some Faustian advocate to go out on a limb and propose that digital photographs are really very, very underrated. If one ever gets the opportunity to see the Mona Lisa in person, be prepared for an experience akin to that first, long-awaited moment of coitus after the wedding of two devout abstainers: an incredible surge of mind-blowing disappointment.
To be fair, however, Italy does have its advantages: while increasingly irrelevant on the world stage and culturally stagnant, most people can find Italy upon a map. Even if merely because it resembles footwear.
The same cannot be said for poor Singapore. (It is unfortunate that Singapore is actually fabulously wealthy for so small an area, or one would have more opportunity to employ the pun.) Admittedly, clocking in at little over 200 square miles, Singapore's size does not exactly make it an easy mark for the novice geographer. Still, one might reasonably expect certain indulgences: for example, that one's fellow inhabitants of a former British colony (the United States) might know that another former British colony (Singapore) also speaks English. Or that a country with the 17th-highest G.D.P. per capita in the world has internet access. Or that one can get prescription drugs and access to health care in one of the world's foremost cosmopolitan cities.
But one would be wrong. No one's ever gone broke overestimating the average American's capacity for complete international ignorance. Our provincialism has soaked into the most benign aspects of our culture: if I've got to hear "I'm glad to be an American, where at least I know I'm free" one more time, I'm going to shoot myself. Just kidding, ha ha. But I will be irritated, and I might even accost the singer with the following proposition: what, exactly, would you say about the inhabitants of Sweden - are they unsure as to whether or not they're free? Furthermore, in this age of human resource management and rampant careerism, does one really want to be free? I'd rather be valuable, myself.
I don't want to be all down, however: Americans don't always underestimate the quality and worthiness of other countries. Sometimes, we grossly, grossly overestimate them. If racism is defined as "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others," as dictates the venerable Dictionary.com, then it's equally objectionable to unduly aggrandize one race as it is to unduly derogate another. And what might be the object of America's relentless, undue celebrations? Hint: It is the nation of crocodile hunters and "That's not a knife, this is a knife".
Yes, it is Australia, home of the buxom blondes, tanned abs and adorable kangaroos. What people fail to realize is that you take a nation full of Anglo-Saxon criminal descendants, and you're going to get a nation full of Anglo-Saxon cultural values. Sure, Australia has its things, sense of humor, beautiful reefs, but the numbers don't lie: in 2004-05, 40.5% of males and 24.9% of female Australian adults were overweight. 15.1% of the women were statistically obese. Did porking a porker on a crystalline beach ever factor into anyone's Australian fantasies? Apparently, stuffing your fat, greasy face until it cannot be further stuffed is simply British.
Then there's the delightful kangaroo, which is, in all Australian respects, as universally loathed as the deer is here. The kangaroo is edible, it's skin makes delightful fashion accessories, and the animal itself is stupid and objectionable, it's little wonder that all Americans love the kangaroo so very much. It is, after all, cute! Ha ha.
Alright, well - the thing is, Americans don't know jack about foreign nations. It's too bad. Maybe the increased trend of college students studying abroad will turn things around, but if we're all going to Florence, that isn't going to happen.
Weekly columnist Bryan Murphy is a 3rd-semester economics major. He can be reached at Bryan.Murphy@UConn.edu.
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