This morning I gave a presentation on American social customs at IIE to Vietnamese students planning on studying in the United States. I had a ton of fun doing the research for the presentation.
I discussed topics such as: diversity, religion, friendship, dating, forms of address, tipping, table manners, and common stereotypes. I emphasized several times that they should never assume what they see on MTV or in American movies to be true for all (if any) Americans because that is all they have to base their ideas on about what we're like. We don't all live in The Hills, we don't all carry guns, and we're not all loud, belligerent ignoramuses. In the presentation I also stressed American values like punctuality, responsibility, initiative, good sportsmanship, honesty (as opposed to saving face) and discipline.
Afterwards, we had a discussion on America as a "melting pot", American idealism as well as our tendency towards materialism.
Overall, it went really well. It was exactly the kind of presentation that they were expecting and I was able to answer all of their questions.
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