Americans are different than the rest of the world. Soccor is rearely watched and usually only played by young people. Attempts to get americans interested in Soccor were largely unsuccessful. We call Soccor Soccor and not Football as everyone else in the world does. We play American Football. A variation of this is played in Canada, in Britian its played as a sort of novelty but it is really a uniquely American sport. Baseball is played here. It is true that Baseball is played in Latin America and in the Orient but this sport is still something associated with the US. You never hear of Europeans playing ball? Rugby is played mainly on college campuses and is a bit of a novelty as well. The only American sport that seems to have caught on is Baskettball, but oddly enough the sport is dominated by american players. Finally there is Hockey, a game loved in the US but dominated by foreign players, mainly from Canada but also from Russia, Czech Republic or Sweden.

Americans have their own systems of measurements. In the 70's the SI or Metric system made a play but never caught on. Mainly this was because industry needed to retool in the US but I also suspect its because it was thought of as being "un-American".

When foreign nationals visit the US they are amazed at a lot of things: the lack of respect for things old (the demolition of old landmarks for example), the private ownership of railroads and utilities, the use of 110 volt power, the amount of violence and blight in urban areas, the ample portions served in american resturants, the zenophobia which views only what is in US borders as being relevent, the consumer driven culture, american sports, watery american beer and so on.

Some of this is good and some of it is bad. The us is to my knowledge the only nation with a constitutionally guranteed right to bear arms. The right to bear arms is highly controversial and its not something I wish to discuss here, but only point out that it seems odd to non americans that such a right exists.

The uniqueness of american life is only matched by the increasingly cosmopolitanness of the nation. US was once thought as being a nation of immigrants. This is mainly felt in northern industrial cities as well as California. In the rural south this has traditionally not been a factor though today Mexican immigration is touching places like South Carolina where migrant laborers work in the food production industry.

Today there is more immigration in the US than at any time in its history.

We also see things in America today that we never seen today. If you go to a supermarkett today you may see homas or couscous. The emergence of Starbucks and other coffee houses have brought gormet coffee to main streets througout the USA. Today, dining out in the US could very well mean eating at a Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian or Italian resturant.

Some may be alarmed at this but I just see it as the globalization of american culture. Its all tit for tat. In Italy, italian cities are concerned at the rise of fast food franchises. In the US we are seeing italian eateries popping up in the most unexpected locations.

If globalization is something to be worried about than I would say that maybe its a good thing. Maybe by learning about foreign cultures we can learn to not be afraid and not hate as much. If we can spend a night out at a Middle eastern resturant and maybe see what people from Palestine look like first hand we may learn not to villianize them. If we have contact with Chineese people we may find that they are not all bad people.

Hopefully they too can learn something about us as well.