Who are you to say that they are 'improvements?'
You are the one complaining about it, not me. I don't mind at all if you keep doing it your way and keep thinking that way is better. Why do you have a problem with me doing it my way and thinking my way is better? Why do you insist that I must have a full understanding of your "authentic" way of doing things so not to be insulted by my better way of doing things? Maybe your old way will even learn a thing or two from my improvements?
Would you be all upset if some restaurant in Korea opened an "American Food" burger place where people ate fries by dipping them in ketchup with chopsticks? Confused maybe. But upset? Why? What if this then became a fad back in the US (it is unsanitary to touch your food with your hands!) and you saw folks in your area doing it at McDonalds? Would that greatly offend your American cultural values?
It is already considered unsanitary to touch food that is not on your own plate --and often, even then, at least where I live and have lived. At the very least, poor table manners.
Ketchup confuses me anyway. I don't understand why anyone would eat it on anything. With or without chop sticks or french fries. Or 'freedom fries.'
Would I be upset if people came up to me all the time and asked me ridiculous questions based on misinformation and a total lack of understanding and bad stereotypes about Americans? Well, yes, that sort of thing has confused me and occasionally upset me and made me question the role of media in the world and to appreciate the need for people to actually get to know one another and not to rely on stereotypes and movies for 'understanding.'
Have you read any of the blogs of people whose pieces Metaphor has posted?
It is disconcerting to be visiting in another part of the world and to find some aspect of your culture presented as 'authentic' when it is far from authentic and in fact is mostly a poorly drawn stereotype.
When I watch some foreign films and see/hear how Americans are represented, with terrible accents (and yeah, I know American actors do an equally poor job of accents from Great Britain, Germany, etc.) it can be really...disconcerting and even ugly. But then, I'm watching a film from the comfort of my own safely upper middle class home where I am not in danger of being taken as some cardboard cut out figure of an American. I'm not being erased.
I've spent some time being one of only a couple of Americans in my work place, surrounded by people from all over the world, from different cultures and different religious and political backgrounds than my own. Daily, I was confronted with whatever perceptions had been absorbed, usually from old cowboy and Indian movies, but other pop culture inspired perceptions. And I got to leave every evening, travel through my American city, surrounded by people who spoke some level of English (lots of international people in the streets) and have the full rights and privileges of an American citizen--and a white one at that. It was very educational. There were lots of (good natured) arguments as most people told me that they had a real love/hate relationship with America. They loved America because of (this) but (this other thing) completely drove them crazy. Me, too. Some of those loves and more than a few of those hates were based upon bad stereotypes and not on any reality or genuine understanding.
But then, I am extremely mainstreamed white American: educated, upwardly mobile, white. I even live in the mid-west. I am about as average as one can get, except that our gross family income is above average.
Do you see the outrageous backlash against (fill in the minority) going on now? A certain kind of white American is so outraged, so offended by people who they believe come from a different background than themselves that they are supporting... Fucking Donald Fucking Trump. Who appeals to their inner racist and classist. WTF.
If we, as a people, as a nation, as a planet, don't start to actually look and see, listen and hear and attempt to understand and accept other people then, then we are doomed.
