General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]DFW
(54,330 posts)I like going home, no question about it. But I also like being here in Europe, and I like visiting my sister-in-law's home country of Japan. I don't mind living (at least partly) in my wife's native country of Germany. My daughters are bi-lingual and bi-cultural and consider themselves "home" in both places. One of them lives in Manhattan and envies her sister's spacious apartment in Frankfurt, her six weeks paid vacation and her everything-covered medical insurance. The one in Frankfurt envies her sister's being able to live in the heart of Manhattan, but wouldn't take her working conditions for all the tea in China.
France has fabulous mountains and some spectacular coastline. Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, ALL have natural and architectural wonders. With all its economic problems, Greece has islands of incredible beauty. I have been people in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere who nevertheless delighted in proudly showing me their very cool little out-of-the-way towns with names like Otavalo and Cotacatchi.
I lived in Spain for a while, so I'm partial to Spain, too, although I lived in a part where Spanish is not the local language (visca Catalunya lliure!).
As I spend the majority of my time out of the country, speaking languages other than English with people who are just as proud of their countries as any American, I will be the first to say that a little patriotism is fine, and extreme patriotism is perverse. There is no more reason for America (or Americans) to have a superiority complex than there is for us to have an inferiority complex.
We all need to take a step back and maybe quote Popeye. "I am what I am and that's all that I am." (or, "yam" as the case may be)