Susanna Shankar was touring solo round Spain this summer season, when she was confronted by a fellow traveler who refused to imagine she was Canadian.
Shankar was at her lodge when she acquired to speaking with an aged gentleman with a British accent. As vacationers typically do, he requested her the place she was touring from. But when she stated she was from Vancouver, the dialog took an surprising flip.
Immediately, the man eyed her with suspicion. He accused her of mendacity, to the horror of his daughter who urged him to cease giving Shankar the third-degree.
“He just didn’t believe me when I said I was traveling from Canada,” Shankar stated. “So I was like, ‘Do you want to see my passport? How do you want to do this?’”
Shankar, 37, is a twin US-Canadian citizen, who runs web sites about regenerative and sustainable tourism. Her father is Canadian, her mom American. She grew up in Alaska and lived in the US till the age of 28, lived in Germany for six years, after which moved to Vancouver the place she has been dwelling the final 4 years. For political causes, Shankar says she identifies much less as American and has taken to introducing herself as Canadian. But typically, her American West Coast accent can betray her.
“I do think his doubt did stem a little bit from a lot of Americans out there trying to pass themselves off as Canadians,” she added.
Shankar is referring to a decades-old apply generally known as “flag jacking,” by which some Americans fake to be Canadian whereas touring overseas to keep away from anti-American sentiment. Flag-jacking Americans sew the maple leaf flag on their luggage and lie about their nationality. It occurred way back to the Sixties and ‘70s during the unpopular Vietnam War, spiked again under George W. Bush’s Iraq War in the early 2000s, and has been revived beneath the present Trump administration.
Some Canadians, incensed at the commerce conflict that just intensified with President Trump’s 10% tariff increase on Canada and his earlier threats to annex the nation, have been calling out the Americans who make mild of pretending to be Canadian overseas, posting on-line feedback calling it cowardly, entitled, and a type of cultural appropriation.
Moreover, one among the most typical arguments on-line in opposition to flag jacking is that they’re not fooling anybody: Americans are easily distinguishable from Canadians, many say, regardless of what number of maple leaf flags they’re carrying.
But are they?
Aside from how individuals measure temperature (Celsius or Fahrenheit), heavy regional accents (French-Canadian or American Southern, for instance), and solutions to a flash quiz asking “What’s the capital city of Canada?” (reply: Ottawa) and “How do you pronounce Toronto?” (Torontonians don’t pronounce the second ‘t’) — can the world actually inform Americans and Canadians aside?
Several European tour guides who work with Americans and Canadians responded with a convincing “yes.”
“Stereotypes exist for a reason,” says Londoner Denisa Podhrazska, who based Let Me Show You London, which has been organizing personal excursions for prosperous tourists since 2014.
“We use them because many of them are true. And it’s not just Americans, it’s for everybody. Every nation has its own little quirks, that’s how we recognize each other.”
And in relation to Americans, one among the best methods to identify an American overseas is that you just hear them earlier than you see them, she says.
“You always hear Americans because they are loud. Really nice, and loud,” she says.
“Canadians don’t stand out as much as Americans. In conversation, they’re more subtle, you don’t hear them from two tables down.”
Canadians overseas typically want to reveal their origin straight. As the joke goes, how will you inform an individual is from Canada? They’ll inform you.
“Canadians will identify themselves as Canadian right away,” factors out Parisian Bertrand d’Aleman, founding father of My Private Paris tours. Other tour guides agreed, believing Canadians do that to keep away from being confused with their American counterparts.
There is little educational analysis that examines the variations between American and Canadian tourists overseas, in accordance with Kim Dae-young, professor of hospitality administration at the University of Missouri.
But his personal analysis provides perception into how a vacationer’s nationality, sense of entitlement and perceived social standing have an effect on their interactions with a vacation spot.
“The findings consistently show that a traveler’s nationality can significantly influence their behavior abroad,” he tells NCS. “When individuals visit a destination they perceive as more advanced than their home country, they are less likely to engage in misbehavior. The same individuals tend to display more misbehavior when they travel to a country they perceive as less advanced.”
For his analysis, Kim performed surveys amongst Americans who have been requested to think about their travels in France, which was perceived to be a extra superior vacation spot, and Thailand, which they thought-about to be much less developed. His analysis revealed that Americans have been extra more likely to litter, vandalize or put on inappropriate clothes in Thailand than in France.
Americans are extra vocal and direct, one other information says
Yet whereas there’s little scientific research, journey professionals have loads of different observations about the variations in vacationers from the US and Canada.
Australian Leigh Barnes, president of the Americas area at tour firm Intrepid Travel, says Canadians are usually adventurous and freewheeling, open to new actions and spontaneity, whereas Americans are inclined to favor construction and group.
Likewise, Canadians are much less more likely to complain brazenly in the event that they’re sad with one thing and brood quietly, whereas Americans are way more vocal if one thing doesn’t meet their requirements, Barnes provides.
“The Americans are a bit louder, ask more questions and are more direct,” he says. “Canadians don’t vocalize if they’re unhappy. And both of those can be pros and cons.”
But actual variations begin to emerge as conversations deepen –- refined cues in attitudes and conduct that make clear the cultural variations between the two nations.
In separate interviews, Podhrazska and d’Aleman agreed that Canadians are inclined to have a broader understanding of European historical past and present affairs than American vacationers, owing to their very own historic reference to Europe as a Commonwealth nation, and their French-Canadian heritage.
Another giveaway {that a} vacationer is American? “US travelers are obsessed with ‘skip the line,’” says Podhrazska. It’s one among the most typical requests amongst her prosperous American purchasers, she says, who’re prepared to shell out extra to maneuver to the entrance of the line at vacationer sights.
“I blame Disney for this,” she says half-jokingly, referring to the theme park’s expedited entry passes (at the moment known as Lightning Lane passes), which create a tiered system of elite versus common guests. But by and huge, the idea doesn’t exist in London, she says, forcing her to handle expectations amongst her American purchasers.
“Everyone has to go through the security queue and do what everybody else does. There’s no special treatment.”
Briton Charley Harrison, founding father of the London-based Totally Tailored Tours, additionally cautions American tourists in opposition to assuming that American tradition is the default yardstick by which the world is measured. Among her US purchasers, that’s manifested in the previous by way of their assumption that they’ll pay overseas with US {dollars}, or their insistence that the British have an accent – and that they, Americans, don’t.
“To me, the subtext is that I speak normally, and everyone else doesn’t.”
Cindy Jaso, 64, a twin US-Canadian citizen who moved from New Brunswick to Texas at the age of 21, didn’t hesitate in calling out her good friend and American journey companion throughout their European trip this summer season, when the good friend complained about the slender, cobblestone roads, lack of air-con, and the indisputable fact that a few of the locals didn’t converse English nicely.
“You expect immigrants coming to the US to speak English. You’re on their turf here,” Jaso recollects telling her good friend.
Canadian content material creator and creator Stewart Reynolds, higher recognized to his 500,000 on-line followers as Brittlestar, has carved out a distinct segment as a cultural commentator on all issues Canadiana. His catalogue of TikTook movies consists of, “Explaining Canada Day to Americans” (and why to have fun common healthcare, maternity depart and poutine) and cheeky tutorials like, “How to be Canadian: Know your Sorries” (“Sorry you bumped into me.” “Sorry I bumped into you.” “Sorry, I’m not actually sorry.”)
Reynolds’ provides a broader overview about the variations between Canadian and American vacationers overseas, first with a disclaimer, then with a climate analogy.
“Canada’s got jerks. We’ve got a lot of jerks,” he tells NCS. “But on the whole, I think that Canadians generally try to find the best for the group, whereas Americans are very much for the individual.”
That would possibly imply going to the again of the line as a substitute of looking for a shortcut, and ready for his or her flip. Because Canadians worth order, he says.
And although it might sound like a glib rationalization at first, Reynolds provides up a easy speculation that reduces this cultural trait down to at least one factor: climate.
“I think the collectivist attitude comes down to the environment,” says Reynolds, who lives in Stratford, in southwestern Ontario. “Canadian winters can be life or death sometimes and everyone needs to get their car pushed out of a snowbank every now and then. Everyone needs to shovel someone else’s driveway.”
For Shankar, the twin US-Canadian citizen, variations between Canadians and Americans lie in the approach they “hold space” in a dialog and in public.
“In the US, we’re raised to be confident, and you move through life with that confidence. So Americans tend to be a little more bold. And I think their most redeeming quality is that they can be a unique, authentic version of themselves … the culture there supports being loud, unique and individualistic.”
Canadians, on the different hand, are extra collectivist, capable of mix in, she provides, and adapt to totally different cultural areas, a mindset she identifies with.
Along with evading anti-American sentiment, flag-jacking Americans say they lie as a result of they’re led to imagine they’ll be handled higher as Canadians overseas.
But all of the tour operators we spoke with agree this notion is groundless.
“It’s more about the behavior that you’re modeling, as opposed to where you’re from,” Barnes of Intrepid says. “If you’re respectful of the local customs and culture, you’re curious and courteous, you’re going to have an amazing holiday.”