John,
Well, we'd hardly put our best stuff on the export market, would we?
The genius of the world-wide American culture is in its willingness to pander to what folks want to have. But most of the stuff of ours the percolates into the outside world (McDonald's, action movies, Brittney Spears) is the stuff that easily translates. That and the shameless willingness to take and reincorporate the cool parts of other cultures. Viz the broad incorporation of Hong Kong action movie idioms and techniques. Although I gather Buffy the Vampire Slayer is popular in other English speaking countries, although it's about the most resolutely American (in a good way) thing we've got going these days.
But man, folks may think what they do of American food, but they haven't had the curry salmon bento with a good Widmer Bros. Hefeweizen. A single, delightful meal that slams five different cultures together for US$8, all three blocks from my house here in Portland, Oregon.
To bring this back to Glorantha, I wonder about the clash of cultural expectations and the actual cultures during the Hero Wars.
I remember reading something about students at the Lunar College of Magic agitating for Peace in Sartar. I wonder how they explain the conflict to themselves.
There is probably an amusing cameo in the tour of a group of idealistic young Lunars visiting Sartar with all kinds of romantic "noble savage" kinds of expectations about what she could find, imagining they could save the locals from themselves and turn them to the Lunar way in six short weeks.
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