American culture

I am some

one who loves to study contrasts between cultures, so as an American student in Korea I have on many occasions asked Koreans, especially those that are staff members for the UIP program, what their ideas of American culture were. What I can say about these conversations is that they mostly revolved around what is most commonly in our own media as it trickles down into their media as well. Most seem to hold the same stereotypes of Americans that we ourselves hold being that we are a mixture of some negative elements that don't exist in Korea such as drugs and violence, but that we are also wealthy freedom loving people. I found that those that had actually been the the states had a much better more refined understanding of America but still seen through the eyes of Koreans first and foremost. Which really leads to three topics that have come up not only with Koreans but also almost every other foreigner I have talked with at length being gay marriage, the American military, and Americans relationship with guns. This is not much of a surprise really considering that like I said before the Korean media reports on what we report on maybe just minus a lot of junk about celebrities. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told something along the lines of "when you go to the club all the guys will dance together but it's not gay, we don't really have gay people like in America". Also as an a member of a nation with a military with a budget the size of the proceeding next 12 largest militaries, and military action around the world, talk of my countries military will come up when discussing the DMZ. But really to me one of the saddest perceptions of American culture was the misunderstanding that we all have guns, that everyone knows how to use a gun, and that our country is unsafe because we have guns, rather than understanding that it's really the right to have a firearm if we so choose and that most Americans in fact do not own a gun.