Culture Codes: Tour de France and British Open

Captain's Quarters has an amusing and gracious little blog entitled "American Imperialism in Europe" describing the twin victories of Tiger Woods and Floyd Landis in two of the world's most prestigious sports championships.

Yesterday I bought the book, "Culture Codes," written by a Swiss francophone named Clotaire Rapaille, who describes international marketing nuances and cultural guideposts in interesting anecdotal ways.

For the French, Rapaille says, Americans come across as what he calls "Space Travellers," literally beings from a planet that France is unfamiliar with. Rapaille goes into detail about "the confusion of people in France who were educated into the belief that they were supposed to illuminate the world with their ideas, but that the Americans were actually doing it." [p. 172] To imagine the consternation of the French that Americans have won eight consecutive Tours de France in a broader context, Clotaire goes on to explain on the next page that Americans are seen as "usurpers."

In their minds, we have landed in their world and are trying to impose our culture and our values on them, and because [Americans] are 'travellers,' we don't have the same committment to the well-being of the planet that they have. How can we know what is important to humanity when we ourselves are not fully human?

Yes, it's got the ring of dime-store psychology, but I must admit that during my time living there and during re-visits, there is always a sense of confusion at the way Americans tend to get their way and achieve success. Perhaps this is why US difficulties in Iraq are regarded almost joyfully by the French, whose second-class status in world sports except for imports from their colonial past [North Africans in tennis and soccer], keeps them brooding and even vengeful, as with allegations that Armstrong somehow brilliantly evaded a dope-testing downfall, doubtless because he was a Texan bred of Arcturus E.T.s!

However, to give the French a break, one of their top commentators said the Americans excelled at the Tour de France for their unexcelled "discipline and committment."

Clotaire has another take for the British, whose one-word culture-code mantra is "class." Yes, cliches are cliches because they often happen to be true, at least at the sporting level. But Tiger Woods has succeeded Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus as the most beloved American at the game of golf in the birthplace of that exasperating sport. Tiger's genetic multi-cultural heritage [Thai, Chinese, Black, White, Native American] doesn't seem to have negative reverberations with the sportsmanlike British. They can appreciate unparalleled excellence no matter what the provenance, and their own popular culture now admits all sorts of variations from the Anglo-Saxon norm of manners and behavior nowadays.

I wonder how Clotaire fits the universal Vitruvian Tiger into the circle of his cultural codes?