I am a bit peeved.

Today, the lovely roommates and I took a long walk, landing ourselves at the versatile Taipei 101 food court. Out of the several options, we chose Indian curry dishes and Kimchi soup. Great!

In Taipei 101, amassing the world’s tallest building and the country’s most expensive shopping center, sat a poorly dressed, manner-lacking family eating McDonald’s. For 5 people they took over a table of 8, chomped their super sized burgers and fries with gaping mouths, slurped and chewed at the same time, got up and moved around, giving the whole food court an accurate display of sweat pant wedgies… They were all covered in neon sweats 3 times too small (at the least), with sneakers that looked a decade old, slumped, hunched, and gobbling up the most infamous garbage for food in the world. They were also American.

Then, to top it off, they picked up their DOG, and placed it on the TABLE, to drink out of a FOOD COURT bowl (Mind you this is a Shopping Mall), that will soon be reused by a human being. After the poor, doomed, puppy drank enough, they picked him up by his collar around his neck, shook him around, and tossed him to one another for entertainment. There are no english words for this nightmare of a scene that I have to describe this poor dog’s misery.

I am on the verge of anguish. I am very proud to be an American, as everyone should be of the land they call home. I have had the opportunity to experience many things my country has to offer and I am extremely thankful. I also love to see the world, take advantage of my youth, my energy, and my mind. I want to feel more and write more and I want to demonstrate to the world that no, Americans do NOT spend all their days eating fast food, watching TV, spoiling their children, speaking one language, knowing nothing of geography, or culture, or never giving one or two or three shits about the rest of the world. (This was not my own assumed brutal perception of the American stereotype but it is common. Many people from other countries have told me so.)

I am tired of the ignorance of stereotyping anyone, on either side. So tired.

I am very sick of an American reputation stained in the grease of McDonald’s (*In Spain, MCD’s advertisements call themselves “The flavor of the West!”) and the pains of ignorance. When I see an American family looking like this in another country, even just committing the act of tossing around an actual animal in public, I feel ruined inside, like my efforts to have the world see Americans abroad the right way just suffered another blow. This is not and never will be what America means to me.

Maybe I am taking this too far. Maybe they just got off of the plane and needed a quick bite to eat. Maybe I should just laugh and march on. Well I did, but my heart still sinks. No one is overly burdened with a national stereotype because they are who they are as a person and not a category. But in general, think of it this way. What if you had a rude and impulsive friend that didn’t care a thing for anyone else around them? Would you like to be associated with them? You would soon get labeled as “the friend of THAT guy,” and then you’d feel the need to defend your friendship to everyone you met that knew them. It’s possible to do it, but it’s exhausting. An every time he insulted someone you knew, what do you do? Throw up your hands and say, “I’m not like that I swear!” …?

Today, this was my American Dilemma.