yo yanks

1. I've learned to be very wary of Americans because they are very emotional people, very invested in their self-images and not easily able to see a different cultural point of view, in my experience. As a female from a particularly stiff upper lip sort of culture, I find most Westerners misread me all the time. Because they are so used to wallowing in emotions of one sort or another (an article on Spielberg's way with movies put me onto that factor), they tend to assume that given my gender and my putative "Westernness", I oughta be a lot more emotional than they are -- hence, I must be hiding something or whatever. They need to realise that their propensity is not shared by everyone and that gender roles are a cultural construct.

2. I spent a lot of time working on being more "emotional" -- i.e. able to express vulnerability and joy. I've stopped now, because I realise it was partly, at least, an effort towards cultural adaptation -- which shouldn't be necessary. I do despise those people, though, who proclaim that I am "not what I seem". If they need to do a double take on me, perhaps to come up with the opposite view to their original perspective, they are not perceiving holistically enough to start with.