On 5/8/2010 10:22 AM, harry wrote:

I have to say that during my visit to America (I visited an internet
friend in Iowa) everyone was very kind and generous towards me.
It was explained to me however that this would be true in the South
but folks on the East and West coasts were nasty. Is this in general
correct?

Cultural misperceptions abound! If your definition of "nasty" is a tendency to
be hurried and direct (blunt), then you could say, "yes". However, you can't
stereotype behaviors and/or attitudes in a highly multi-cultural, mobile society.

I lived all my life on the East coast, except for 2 years when I lived in the
mid-West in the mid-1960s. I found the mid-Westerners to be highly intolerant
of outsiders, highly defensive of their own way of life (although very quick to
voluteer that they had never traveled out of the state because "why should I;
this is the greatest place in the world!"), and having cultural values that were
at least 30 years behind most of the rest of the US (strongly prejudiced against
women, non-white skinned people, Catholics, Jews, intellectuals, anyone with
political opinions to the left of Attila the Hun).

I grew up in a major urban East coast city that felt as though it were a
miniature United Nations. Multiple accents, cooking smells, ethnic restaurants,
houses of worship, etc. bred tolerance and intellectual curiosity. Fast pace of
life, work fast, get out of work fast, play fast, talk fast, eat fast, etc. But
the citizens tend to be engaged and knowledgeable about issues pertaining to the
entire world - local, regional, national, and international. Nasty! The
nastiest people I ever met were in the mid-West.