Stupid American tricks

Sonya, a German master's student here at Swansea, is thoroughly impressed by the American education system.

Instead of spending our elementary recesses conversing in French and Latin as the Germans might (at least they have the options of taking those classes), us Americans did things like seeing who could put their feet behind their heads and/or flare their nostrils the largest, etcetera, etcetera.

Sonya is studying English in Swansea for a year before hoping to teach it when she returns to her home country. Last night, over salami-pepperoni-sweetcorn pizza and potato wedges with barbecue sauce, I and my American roommates entertained her with our stupid American tricks.

Anne, a student from France, and Farydeh(pronounced fair-day), a student from Ireland, also were amazed at our range of useless abilities.

To be an American from our flat, you must know what it means to: Wiggle your ears, touch your nose with your tongue, curl your tongue, make a clover-leaf shape with your tongue, raise one eyebrow, raise the other eyebrow, lick your elbow, make an oinking noise in your throat and crack every bone possible in your body. The louder each crack is, the more satisfying and entertaining it is.

Sonya's eyes got bigger and bigger, and when the cracking began, my flatmate Leah was the all-out winner. Toes, knuckles, wrists, shoulders, hips and of course, her back. It was ridiculous. By the end of it, Sonya had shouted "Nein!" instead of "no," reverting to her native language at the disgusting nature of it all. Mind you, the entire time she was giggling and said she would spend the night "thinking and training" so the next day we could have the same conversation and she could compete as well.

Previous to this little show and tell, we Americans had been asking Sonya, Anne and Farydeh about the differences between our school systems. Sonya knows German, French, English and Latin, which she starting learning at or before age 10. She said not all Germans learn that many languages, but almost all know German and English. Anne knows French and English. Farydeh was born in Wales, but only knows English. And us Americans have taken a smattering of Romance language classes, but can barely piece together full sentences beyond "Hello" and "How are you?"

So the joke was, our tricks were what Americans really learn in school. But I wonder, is it really all that funny?