Weirdest thing for me was when I recently listened to a radio program where an expert in Vietnamese culture and history talked about the Vietnam War and how the Vietnamese feel and think about the American part of it and almost universally they are all like "meh, we have dealt with worse"
Meanwhile it seems like the American consciousness think of the Vietnam War as almost a national scar akin to 9/11.
It is of course a simplification of what was talked about in that program, but it really stuck with me how over it the Vietnamese were because they have dealt with injustices far worse than that war and besides America became their ally later so why even worry about that?
Really shows you the differences in mindset. Americans hold on to the past like it's a lifeline while most other places we kinda just deal with shit and move on. I for one hold no grudges against Germany and my country has mostly forgotten or moved on from occupations and other historical wars because there were so many of those and everybody fought everybody in Europe back in the day so whatever man. Moving on. We technically have a tradition where we are supposed to put candles in the windows on the day we were freed from the Germans. My dad is old enough to remember that day and how people ran through the street with our flag and yelled "the Germans have surrendered".
But today most people forget to put candles in the windows and life has moved on. We do remember what the war was and what it meant, but we just don't feel the need to hold on to it like that.
If ww2 had happened to America the same way it happened to Europe, they would have made it they whole identity and pissed and moaned about it still. We would never hear the end of it. Instead they got to spend a few decades gloating about how awesome they were and how they saved the world from the nazis, lol.
"You would all speak German right now if it wasn't for us" completely ignoring the fact that a good number of European countries speak German and a many others learn German in school for practical reasons.
