Posted Tuesday, May 02, 2006; 5:19 p.m.

Foreign Exposure
"No, we don't have lions and elephants in our backyard... We get that all the time." -- Toni Stuart

By Rocio Zamora
The L.A. Pilot

LOS ANGELES -- Toni Stuart, born and raised in Cape Town, came to Los Angeles for the first time last month. She talks about the differences in cultures and how a lack of knowledge leads to huge misconceptions about each of our countires.

" I've been here just under two weeks and from speaking to people ... the thing I've noticed the most is that (Americans) actually just don't know anything about Africa. People see Africa as one country; they forget that there are like 50 odd countries in the continent. And that South Africa is completely different to Egypt and Ghana and Nigeria."

At the same, Stuart's visit to the U.S. opened her eyes to her own misconceptins of Americans.

"Bush's whole take on the war in Iraq has not gone well in South Africa, and the fact that he won in the last election left everybody asking, 'But how could they vote him back in?' So for me it was very interesting to get here and realize that there is another view point and that not everybody supports him. "

The media in South Africa also has a lot to do with its people's view of the States.

"South Africans see (the U.S.) as this big world power, but also a country that's abusing its power for its own gains. There are a lot of negative perceptions, but that being said, our youth culture is so strongly influenced by American youth culture. And so a lot of your top shows are being imported to us, a lot of your top artists are being imported to us.

"So we're buying the music and we're watching the shows, we're reading about these celebrities and not necessarily the other issues that are happening in your country."

The journalist hopes people will realize that despite its problems, South Africa provides a richness in culture, education and diversity.

"There are people over there who live very much like you do here. Los Angeles and Cape Town are so similar in terms of cultural and racial diversity and the issues surrounding that.There is this whole population striving to find their identity. There's this thriving arts world where we're looking at all kinds of issues."

Stuart also discovered that one learns more about their homeland when experiencing the way other people view their country.

"One of the things I've learned this coming year was how phenomenal it was for us to go from apartheid to freedom the way we did, without any of the violence and any of that stuff. I mean that hadn't even hit me until I came here and I was asked to talk about those issues.

PBS Program
In 2001 PBS asked students in the United States about their perceptions of South Africa. This is what they had to say:

"I didn’t think that [Africa] had that much transportation . . . And I didn’t expect the people to be so nice . . . a lot of them did understand English. And they were smart.
-Scotty, U.S.A.

"The only thing I’ve seen of Africa, you know, is what’s portrayed in the movies, and what you see, I guess, in storybooks. . .like safaris and everything. When I got back home, everybody was like, ‘So did you go on safaris? Like, no, it’s not like that’."
-Elli, U.S.A.

"I wasn’t expecting Dakar, how busy it was. It was totally different than what I thought it was going to be. It just blew me away."
-Sarah, U.S.A.

And there were also preconceived notions in South Africa about Americans:

"I thought they were going to be, you know, very high and mighty, and be like they know everything and whatever."
-Lebo, South Africa

"All that we know of Americans, we see what’s on TV and so forth. . .I just thought that they were going to be very ignorant about us."
-Marvina, South Africa