David Sedaris on how cultural stereotypes cut both ways

“I’d never thought much about how Americans were viewed overseas until I came to France and I was expected to look and behave in a certain way. “You’re not supposed to be smoking,” my classmates would tell me. “You’re from the United States.” Europeans expected me to regularly wash my hands with prepackaged towelettes and to automatically reject all unpasteurized dairy products. If I was thin, it was because I’d recently lost the extra fifty pounds traditionally cushioning the standard American ass. If I was pushy, it was typical; and if I wasn’t, it was probably due to Prozac.”
–David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (2002)