POLITICS: Global Perception on the U.S.

The below is excerpted and slightly edited from one of my posts at the Motley Fool discussion boards. Comments (especially from foreigners outside the U.S.) would be very much appreciated.

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My recollection since I was a kid growing up outside the US (late 70s and 80s) was the perception of the US like to be the 'police of the world' and I was always rooting against the US (and rooting for the Eastern block) in world sport events. No logical reasons other than rooting for the seemingly 'underdog' against the 'favorite' (both attributed to news I watched/read in local medias).

College days in late 80s and early 90s started to change my perception. Some friends from high school went to the US for college as foreign students, I did some research but decided not to go. Majoring in Economics/Accounting, I started to read a lot about US Multinational Corporations operating in the country and paid particular attention to Citibank (for some reasons, banking has always been my favorite interest). Almost every prominent local bankers started their career with Citibank. Fascination about 'everything America' is very apparent in the campus: music, movies, outfits, etc.

Arrived in the US after graduation in 93. Everything was better here and believe it or not, one 'disappointment' as a single young person at that time was how 'less liberal' people here are (I arrived in Los Angeles just in case you think I landed in a 'conservative' state) unlike what's always portrayed about America in the movies I've watched.

Worked and went to graduate school in the 3rd year I was here. Had a chance to travel to quite a lot of different states and places related to the job. Again, very positive impressions in both counts and day-to-day lives (not perfect, of course but I'd probably rate a 9.0/10 on overall quality of life). At that time, the initial plan was to go back and work at the home country (though I started to have serious doubts if I could adjust back to the 'old way' of lifestyle there).

Went back in late 97 and landed a lucrative job that also allow me to work on project basis in a country in Europe. Hated the times I spent in the home country. Lots of personal soul-searching and comparison done in this period among the 3 countries: home country, 2nd European country, and the US. Decision appeared to be less hard when I got an offer to move to the head office located in the European country I worked at. For some unexplainable reasons, the move was not approved by local management and I had to stay in the home country.

Political riots erupted in mid 98 left a serious trauma and I had to make a tough (or easy?) decision to leave my job/parents/friends back to the US. And so I did come back, started to look for job from scratch, settled down, and got naturalized as US citizen in 2000.

Story-exchanges with my wife (who grew up under the Sovyet influences) informed me that under the old Sovyet Union 'propaganda'; apparently people there were told that in the US people don't have enough food, etc. contrary to them over there which were provided by the government ... :)

Those who read this far probably wonder where I am going with this personal stories/biography. What I'm trying to gesture is that my wife and I have experienced lives in several different countries outside the US enabling us to make comparison. A former co-worker told me before I decided to go back to the home country "Kiddo, you're sure about your decision to leave? You know the US is not a perfect place to live at but surely is the best according to most".

I understand that probably lots of our foreign policies and ways of life are deemed to be unfair to some outside the US but at the end of the day, people who live and work in 'normal' democratic countries just work, live their lives, and still be vocal and critical toward the US. But they probably won't start to blow themselves up in our embassies in their countries anytime soon, will they? Who can say that all our foreign policies/lifestyles are fair and agreeable to Mexicans or Koreans? So now suddenly the US (or is it really Bush? "We don't hate Americans, it's Bush that we hate") is the bad guy and "inviting" terrorism against its interests? Really hard for me to "accept" this logic.

This is why I don't really buy to this argument and put most of the blame to the leaders and systems of the countries where terrorists are from.

Despite many flaws, I consider the US to be one of the best places to live at and I still can say that I overall still trust the US government trying to do the right things. I don't base my opinion on news I read on the internet/newspaper or I watch on TV; but simply from my personal life experience and comparison.


CHEERS,
--H