origin story: the origin of us travelers’ bad reputation

BY JENNIFER HOWARD

merican travelers don’t have a stellar reputation overseas these days. And by Americans, I mean US citizens.

The “ugly American” trope of tacky tourists trying to speak another language by either speaking ever more loudly or mispronouncing English words with what they consider a local accent is one we all know well. These characters, or perhaps caricatures, seek out a McDonald’s as a first stop in a foreign country. They complain the beer is hot, the hotel rooms are small, and taxi drivers who don’t understand English are rude.

The inability to communicate, or communicate properly, in a foreign language could leave even those Americans who truly want to understand another culture guilty of perpetuating Americans’ poor reputation abroad. In fact, many travelers make a concerted effort to learn the language of the country they visit. Emboldened by hours on Duolingo and armed with Google Translate, they plunge right in, heedless of subject/verb agreement, proper pronoun gender, and local slang.

Yep, people like me.

It’s true: I have brought about grave misunderstandings and triggered multiple obscene hand gestures— and possibly a small diplomatic brouhaha—when making an effort to speak the language of a country I have visited.

Look, I am no dummy. I took Spanish 101 and 102 to satisfy my high school graduation requirements like most other citizens of our fifty states. Whatever Spanish I might have learned or recalled from Senhora Lopez’s fourth-period class was no help at all when I traveled to Brazil, where the dominant language is, unfortunately—at least unfortunately for me—Portuguese.

A few days after I arrived, I was thrilled to spot an open market in the park just outside the apartment where I was staying. Eager to prove that I could handle shopping for fruits and vegetables, foreign language be damned, I darted downstairs and into the busy market. Emboldened by my, um, strong Spanish-language background and the time spent on my iPhone on the flight south muttering after Duolingo, I plunged right in.

I managed to purchase some flowers—flores—without incident. But then I saw the mirlitons. To a native New Orleanian such as I, finding mirlitons is lightyears better than any McDonald’s.

For those of you who don’t speak the mishmash of languages that form the lingua franca of the Crescent City, a mirliton is not a tall hat worn by hussars in the eighteenth century or a eunuch flute. Don’t believe everything Google tells you.

A mirliton is what some people call a chayote or alligator pear. It’s a mild squash-like vegetable, pale green and shaped like a pear. In New Orleans, the gushy interior is mixed with shrimp and seasonings to make a tasty, savory dish. By “tasty,” I mean high caloric. By “savory,” I mean spicy.

The vegetable stand where the mirlitons were piled in a meticulous geometric pyramid-type display was watched over by a largish man with a beard, wearing a stained white apron. He regarded me suspiciously as I walked to the front of his stand, beaming at the mirlitons. No doubt, I stood out in the crowd of uniformed housemaids and women sauntering in sheer bikini cover-ups. Or perhaps it was because I was clearly so excited over a vegetable. It’s difficult to say, what with cultural differences and such.

“Bom dia,” I said, with all the confidence of someone who knew at least fifty words in Portuguese. (That means good day.) So far, so good.

I was equally confident that I knew the word for mirliton. Out of the many helpful words and expressions I might have learned, I am not sure why I glommed on to mirliton. Food is important, right?

Smiling my best non-Ugly American smile, I said, “Eu quero xhi-xhi, favor.” I want mirliton, please Not exactly fluency, but it should have gotten my message across.

The man behind the vegetable stand came out and started saying something very quickly that I didn’t have a prayer of understanding. Clearly, he didn’t understand me the first time.

I tried again. “Eu quero xhi-xhi, favor.” This time, to make sure he understood, I pointed to the carefully stacked pyramid of green mirlitons.

I wasn’t getting through. Maybe it was my accent. The vegetable stand proprietor raised his voice and started making motions that looked like he was trying to shoo me away. This wasn’t good. A few of the other shoppers had stopped and were watching.

At this point, I felt I really had to make an extra effort to bridge whatever cultural divide was causing this misunderstanding.

“Eu quero xhi-xhi, favor.” To make my point even more easily understood, I pointed to the precariously stacked vegetables. “Aqui.”

The reactions of the group of onlookers varied. Some laughed. Some laughed a lot. Others appeared angry.

The vegetable stand guy stuck with angry. His voice grew louder, vigorously making the point of whatever he was saying. He literally, although relatively gently, pushed me away from his stand. I stepped back, and he went back to the shooing motion.

I can take a hint. This was clearly a cultural misunderstanding I could not untangle. I tried my best to keep smiling as I wound back through the market toward my apartment building. Holding the flowers over my face helped.

A bit later, I knocked on my landlady Cecilia’s door. She was completely fluent in English, having apparently had a much stricter language education than I had. I recounted the situation at the open market to her and was dismayed when she, too, vacillated between a horrified expression and laughter.

“Oh my God,” she said. “The word is xhu-xhu, not xhi-xhi.” She was gasping with laughter.

“That’s not so different,” I defended my language-skill honor. “You’d think he would have figured out what I was saying.”

“Oh no,” she finally wound down from howling laughter to uncontrollable giggling. “Xhi-xhi means to urinate, only it’s a word a little child would use. Like pee-pee

“You were telling him you wanted to peepee on his vegetables!”

“PLEASE

ROM-COM ROOTS

“THE STOICISM OF A TREE”