Yeah I was taken to Saint-Viateur. Montreal is cool though! I just don’t get the bagel thing.
You will have to teach me on what’s a good bagel, then.
You gotta admit, stereotypes are a real time saver. /s
Everything you heard about us Norwegians is true.
We love rules, are sad and enjoy moving horizontally through snow.
until Kieler Woche hits
We had an Australian family move in round the corner from us (in England) last year while the mum was studying.
Their kids were at the same school as mine so the dad got invited out for beers.
When he stated he was a GP back home he got the obvious stick from us - is that all just shark attacks? etc.
About half way through his stay he got word from home that an old university friend of his had been eaten by a crocodile.
I thought he was fucking joking.
But no. He had been eaten by a crocodile.
It happens.
Gored by kangaroo is another one.
Actually I realised these aren’t really stereotypes, just facts.
Here’s one you never hear, but is 100% true.
Aussies are frightened of rain. TRUE.
I had never heard the phrase ‘its threatening rain’ until I lived here.
Was at a wedding once, chatting with an aussie friend about the same thing, we were all outside the venue… near the barbie naturally. When it started raining, and bam, right on cue, 200 hundred aussies fucking ran back inside.
One of the best laughs I’d had in a while.
sounds like Los Angelinos
Debunking? I’m here to bunk. I’m American and i can confirm most of us are arrogant, ignorant, and oblivious to the rest of the world. All our things are unnecessarily big.
But Cuckoo is always joyful!
He’s a jolly Swede.
Even as US regionalism continues to get flattened out by mass media, I can confirm that some local stereotypes continue to be true. My wife, from small-town-hiya-neighbor Ohio, continues to have a hard time coping with Oregon/the PNW and its cold, robotic people who drink too much and have no emotions.
Also, having lived and taught in Philadelphia for many years, I can confirm that Always Sunny and Abbott Elementary are pretty much documentaries.
I’m loud for an American (like, real loud), so I’m just generally hard to be around, and have no useful yardstick for measuring other Yanks.
- We all have guns. A lot of us have guns
- We’re extremely racist. We have one of the most ambitious experiments in radical diversity that the modern world has seen, and it’s going…okay
- We’re extremely friendly. Most Americans are pretty friendly, especially the ones that choose to travel outside of the country in their spare time
- We’re all fat. This one’s weird, but the the numbers don’t lie, although they are somewhat regionally clustered
- We’re all workaholics. Most of us live in constant fear of dying penniless from medical debt
- We all sound like we’re from
<region>
. Most of the people in<region>
don’t sound like they’re from<region>
, they sound like they’re from TV - We stand really far away from people when we talk to them. Stop trying to kiss me
True
With all due respect, your wife is absolutely yanking your chain if she claims that PNW people drink more than Ohio people.
Two weeks ago, a Tokyo cab driver managed to strike up a conversation despite my poor Japanese and his limited (but sufficient!) English. After a bit of back and forth, he questioned whether we really were Americans. I assured him that we were. “But you have masks on!” - “yeah, we like to respect local customs and also don’t want to catch any of the stuff going around” - the driver was visibly impressed. “but… you are very narrow. Americans are very wide! Tokyo is narrow, Americans are wide. You can’t be Americans!” We didn’t have a good answer for this one, other than that we like to walk around a lot. Except that we were clearly in a cab.
I imagine that cab drivers see disproportionately more Americans Of Size. My experience is that there are plenty of small / slim Americans running around Japan, but that you don’t notice us because we more easily blend in with everyone else.
This is clearly a case of Observer / Survivor Bias: Many stereotypes arise not because they are true and representative, but because they are novel and possibly entertaining, thus easy to remember.
No one told you that the Drop Bears come out when it’s wet?
Finally, a stereo type that I personally find to be overrated is…
Oh yeah, when I came to Florida to start my East Coast trip, I didn’t expect all the stereotypes to be true, yet they were.
exactly. that’s how human brain works, and that’s the reason why it constructs them.
however, there’s a downside: a lot of stereotypes are not true when taken out of exact context where they appeared.
all I can say is I’m not on PCP, I don’t have the strength of 10 men, and I’m not over 10 feet tall Mr. Officer sir…
Yes, the only time when we either have to earn money or go on vacation.
…Don’t look for the annual designs. It’s pathetic. And there’s a Bavarian tent too.
But after “Kieler Woche” sometimes the rain stops and you can go to the beaches.
Or you can go to the coast beforehand. It always rains during the week.
I just want to say, despite what the rest of the world seems to think, that French people aren’t obsessed with baguette.
While it’s not uncommon to see someone in the street bringing his baguette home, especially on Sunday mornings, we also eat lots of other kind of bread, including those that, unlike the baguette, don’t get rock-solid-dry a minute after you’re out of the bakery.
Other than bread:
- Paris is romantic: Fuck no. Paris stinks. It’s dirty. People living there are in a constant hurry and unmistakeable kind of bad mood. Most food is bad unless you know the right places and pay the price. The Mona Lisa is a very small painting. Versailles, on the other end, is impressive and sorta more relax. Apologies to Parisian 'nauts.
- We drink often but not a lot: I feel that’s true, many people will drink a glass of wine every day with diner. This seems less true with mine and younger generations.
- We have long lunch breaks: Yes we can (easily 2 hours in my experience). Often on Fridays we’d go out to a restaurant with most of the people in the office that day. And there we would also drink wine or beer. Friday afternoons were lazy.
- We’re always on strike/complaining: Oh yes. Whenever you want to ride a train or even local commute you have to study the current social-political situation to assess the likelihood of a strike. Have children? Surprise, no school today. Use your car cause there’s no bus? Yellow jackets or farmers are causing traffic jams.
I haven’t lived in France for the past year and half so it might be a little different. Also don’t get me wrong, people are entitled to protest against worsening living and working conditions. French people tend to resist and don’t blandly accept screw tightenings without a fight. Not that it seems to make any difference, sadly.