Sunday, September 27, 2015

Being European versus American

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Norwegian girl


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Missing 9-Year-Old American Girl From Ohio


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American girl
singer Katherine McPhee


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Slavic girl


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'Westernness' could be defined by people who are ethnically or culturally European, in other words people of European descent or speaking a European language as their mother-tongue.

These are of course the major trends, and exception exit everywhere. Irish and Polish people, for instance, tend to be closer to the American mainstream than to some of their fellow Europeans. Canadians are somewhere in between, sometimes more European, but often closer to their southern neighbours.

Traditions like baby showers and bachelor(ette)'s night with strip-teasers originated in the USA, and even though some made their way to Europe, at least in some countries or social circles, they are still regarded as typically American. For most European this is something they only see in American TV series and movies. The same is true of Thanksgiving and Halloween (although the latter has exported itself pretty successfully to Europe and East Asia from the late 1990's onwards). American marketing strategies have also given rise to nationwide phenomena like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which, as potent as they are in the US, hardly have any equivalent in European countries.

Schools and universities are free in most European countries.


They all seem just as good.