Unofficial Ambassadors

While in high school in England, we had an assembly for the entire school.  During the assembly, the principal gave a speech about living in a foreign country.  He told us that as teenagers we were unofficial ambassadors for the United States.  He said that the people in England noticed teenagers and the way they conducted themselves more than adults and younger children.  If we were rude and rowdy, then the English people would think that everyone in the United States was that way.  We had a responsibility to act correctly; we represented our country.  I have always remembered that, especially when I later lived in Japan and Germany and visited various other countries and was no longer a teenager.