I am not an avid patriot, though I am glad (usually) to call myself a citizen of the United States. I have enjoyed cheering for local teams in American football games and the like, but being a foreigner in China has brought out a new side of patriotism for me. Last night was the perfect illustration of expat patriotism in my mind.
In case you didn’t catch it, the US played Algeria in the World Cup, and they needed to win in order to move on to the next round. Matt and I went with some friends to a sports bar to watch with probably a hundred or more other Americans in a very small space. We were much closer physically to our neighbors than we would have chosen to be, and for 90 minutes of the game, we watched with some cheering and more subdued frustration. As we stood in this crowd, I asked myself several times why I had decided to come to such a crazy place to watch the game, knowing the answer was that I did hope for a dramatic game with lots of crazy cheering surrounding me.
Also as I stood in the crowd, I was reminded of the reasons that Americans are somewhat hated by most of the world. The guys around us were yelling loudly at pretty much anything, and most of the time they had no idea what was actually going on in the game (because, let’s face it, most Americans care dramatically little about soccer). Any time a call was made against the Americans, deserved or not, the screens were bombarded with profanities. And who said Americans only have one cheer? I’m quite sure the face-painted girl near us started to lead a cheer exclusively using words I won’t post on a family-friendly blog. At that point, I longed for a good “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” and wondered if I really had much in common with those around me.
Then it happened. In the ninety-first minute, in injury time, the US got the goal they needed to win. The crowd went crazy, and I with them. We jumped up and down. We yelled. We raised our hands in triumph. Someone started chanting, and soon the whole place, small as it was and filled partially with England fans who had just finished watching their game, was filled with the sound of us yelling, “USA!” (Seriously, we really do only have that one cheer.) It was exhilarating. I worked to catch my breath because it was just so intense. I had completely forgotten whatever annoyances I had with the Americans around me and was filled with a pride in my country… over a soccer game.
I flashed back in my mind to the Fourth of July celebration that we went to last year here in Beijing. We were just about to leave for our first trip back to the States, so I was already a bit home-sick. The venue we went to was packed, and our friends and musical hosts, Jason and Kanene, played songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “America, the Beautiful,” and the many Americans gathered sang along loudly when they finally played “The Star Spangled Banner.” I distinctly remember an Australian friend of my whispering in my ear, “This makes me wish I was American right now.”
The hosts had opened up a mic for people to use to express their patriotism, and at some point Kanene convinced a good friend to recite the whole presidential speech from the end of the movie Independence Day. She rocked it. She totally and completely captured the ridiculous patriotism of it all, and we all yelled “Independence Day!” with her at the end of the speech. It gave me goosebumps, and none of us cared a bit that we were cheering for a speech that was given by a fictional president during a fictional alien-invasion. We were totally swept up in the moment.
Living away from your home country, there’s a beautiful dichotomy that arrives eventually. As an American, you start to understand (or at least acknowledge) why most of the rest of the world has something against your home country. You learn to appreciate that people from different places love their country more than America, and you learn that those growing up in something other than a highly-individualistic culture will see politics, religion, family, and general life differently. This is one of the ways you apparently feel changed by your expat time when/if you do go back to your original country; many of the people back home will not have this wider appreciation of worldviews. This can lead to a certain amount of disillusionment regarding your home country.
But then there are those moments when you find belonging in being with other Yankees (or Aussies or Kiwis or Brits) in this foreign land. Whether you gather to celebrate a national holiday, a sports game, or a random Minnesota-themed party, being in the midst of others who share this common origin is oddly exciting. Things that would be cheesy to do while actually in the States are suddenly comforting. Wrapping yourself in an American flag and cheering wildly becomes something different, more intense, as you find yourself out among the other countries in the world. For a little while, Californians and Minnesotans and Virginians consider themselves simply “Americans” because the others around us don’t make these distinctions anyway. It’s almost as if this intense patriotism matters more, not for the teams or the holiday, but for us; we can join in celebrating a country we’ve left to acknowledge that we still consider ourselves a part of the larger thing that is our country, even as expats.
What were your moments of expat patriotism? Did they differ from patriotic moments back in your country?
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Beautifully written. You’ve captured it perfectly, the different patriotism that expats experience.
When I left Australia I didn’t like displays of patriotism, knew little about politics and cared even less, thought Aussie and Kiwi accents sounded soooo different, and despised the stereotypes others held about my country.
In my first few years in China I suddenly morphed into an ardent patriot (the same thing happened during the two years I lived in the US as a teenager). Being Australian, and therefore DIFFERENT to those from other countries, was important to me.
As the years have moved on, however, things have changed somewhat. I’m still proud to be Australian, and I like the mark my nationality has on my personality and worldview, but I’ve lost the fervour I once had. It simply doesn’t matter so much anymore. I don’t feel the need to be marked by my Australian-ness. I love my friends, no matter where in the world they come from. I want to be their friend, not their Australian friend.
I am at my most patriotic when attending the Dawn Service at the Australian/New Zealand embassies on ANZAC Day each year. A simple and quiet acknowledgement of history that has shaped who we are as nations and people, and the comfort of standing shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of fellow antipodeans who also share the expat world I live in.
Tanya, Aussie and Kiwi accents ARE different, I have to translate in my mind when I hear a Kiwi talk. When they say “stip”, they mean “step”, when they say “pin”, they mean “pen”, when they say “bed”, they mean “bad”, when they say “hut”, they mean “hit”.
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