Clichés about your country and its people

>> Few clichés about England:

"English people are gently people" ... yes they are! Apart for late evenings in pubs, people in England are very polite, with a very strong sense of courtesy. They should be an example for everybody.

"the weather is always rainy", well I was in London in summer 2003 while the heat wave, and the weather was fantastic! We had a lot of nice barbecues and picnics around Greenwich

"British food is crap" ... well London is not purely English, as you can get food from everywhere in the world! It can be expensive but there are a lot of nice restaurants. About British food well there is no comparison with Mediterranean food,  but I didn't really mind the roast dinners and the mint sauce.

"English people are violent in pubs while football games" ...  They can be, fortunately not everytime ... don't laugh about football in England! The main problem is that they drink a lot!

"English girls don't mind wearing skirts during the winter" ... They don't! Go and see by yourself around Picadilly circus on cold winter evenings.

"Punk is dead" ... No it's not, go and see Camden Market on week ends!


>> Few clichés about Spain:

"Spanish people are not polite" they are polite but in a different way, quite different than in the UK. They don't say "thank you" for everything. Never thank somebody who sells you something (-he- thanks you).

"Spanish people are friendly people". Yes they are. People I met here are very kind people.

"Spanish pubs are dirty" not everywhere, but people are used to throw they cigarettes end or hand towels on the floor. People don't care about that kind of thing.

"Spanish people love corridas (full fighting)". I am living pretty close from Las Ventas, Madrid's bull fighting place. And it is currently the "San Isidro", with a lot of corridas. I can tell you that people love corrida, there are thousands of people everyday (this week, as it is the San Isidro feast) coming to the full fighting place ... Corridas are also transmitted on television, as a football game! Corrida is an important tradition in Spain.

"Spanish food is greasy" ... yes it is, mind the fat in Spain!

"Everything is cheaper in Spain" well compared to England it is. But people in Spain don't earn that much money...

I've heard exactly the same clichés in Norway about French people :
We're dirty, smell funny, very hairy (women). great lovers, good food, incompetent with foreign language, ... .

Clichés smelly french people have about Norway : inhumane winter, light or night all year long (depends if people see the bottle full or empty I guess), norwegians have bears or wolves in their gardens, and eat fish everyday.

Ooh and life is very expensive, but this one is incredibly true.

Aurélie

Aurelie wrote:

Clichés smelly french people have about Norway : inhumane winter, light or night all year long (depends if people see the bottle full or empty I guess), norwegians have bears or wolves in their gardens, and eat fish everyday.

It's not true?

Here, in Quebec, it's not wolves in our garden, but bears and mooses! :p
La cabane au Canada is a strong cliché, especially for the people in Montreal!

<< Ooh and life is very expensive, but this one is incredibly true.
You'd be surprise by the (low) cost of life here... but salary are 50% lower too...

Olivier

PS: Bonnes vacances!!

Speaking about mooses, have you ever seen one ?
Because here there are traffic signal warning about mooses everywhere but in 2 years, I never seen one. Is it a turist trap ??

La Cabane au Canada is a cliché ?
I'm disapointed

>> You'd be surprise by the (low) cost of life here... but salary are 50% lower too...

Really ?
In Norway salary are very very high, but everything is so expensive. I guess it's logic (buying power/pouvoir d'achat), like you said Julien about Spain.

Aurélie

PS : Merci !!!

Aurelie wrote:

Speaking about mooses, have you ever seen one ?

Yes, many! Mostly in parks. None were totally wild.

Aurelie wrote:

La Cabane au Canada is a cliché ?
I'm disapointed `

Well, of course there are many cabanes... For example, one of my good friend went on a lake on last Friday. He was alone, totally alone! Nobody 30 Km around him.

I am not at ease in this kind of situation. If you fall in the water, you can die, nobody will find your body...

But if you look for a peaceful and quiet place, come to Canada...

I said it's a cliché because 90% of the people live in the south of the country, less than 100 Km far from the US border. 3 millions of people live in Montreal. The cabane is hard to find here...

Aurelie wrote:

In Norway salary are very very high, but everything is so expensive. I guess it's logic (buying power/pouvoir d'achat), like you said Julien about Spain.

How much is a:
- liter of gaz for your car
- 1 kilo of tomatoes
- 1 camembert
- your rent
- your internet connection?

Olivier

I think that is a good idea to look at the prices of different things. Like we pay about 32/34 AUD for a CD and anywhere between 10 AUD and 45 AUD for a DVD. Our petrol is about $1.11 a litre but you can save 4c with shopping dockets and by buying it on Wednesday. A kilo of tomatoes is about $3 dollars at the moment but the vine grown tomatoes are twice the price. Bread is about $1.40 a sliced loaf. House rent can vary greatly from area to area. About $160 dollars per week for a 3 bedroom place in a not too bad area. Houses in good spots are about $700 a week! Internet  access can vary depending upon what you have. $49 per month for ADSL and unlimited uploads and downloads. BTW this is in Australia. Incidentally we don't all drink beer, we don't all like the football, we can't all swim, we don't all surf...but we are all into summer wear , BBQs and thongs on our feet. You can hear us coming by our flips and flops! People coming here can get frustrated because they think we don't take things seriously...but they all say we are hugely friendly. Most of us follow the football or the cricket. 

I think most people talk to me about French people being rude, smokers and dirty [dog dirt in the streets and street toilets]
I think the 'rudeness' is more of a cultural thing in that there is no false cheeriness in shops and restaurants etc - however if people make an effort to speak french and do things in the french way, then there is a great warmth that is very genuine.
A lot of people smoke in France but i don't think there are actually more smokers as i always notice smoking much more in the UK.
Dog dirt is a problem but there are pooperscooper motorbikes which zoon around the town picking up the dirt. I think over the past few years there is more awareness of dog mess as a problem and dog owners are being more responsible. Of course, the fact that the majority of french people live in appartments rather than houses with gardens makes the dog mess more apparent.

selkie wrote:

I think the 'rudeness' is more of a cultural thing in that there is no false cheeriness in shops and restaurants etc

I would agree. I think the UK and France are somewhat similar in my opinion.

The false cheeriness is more aparent in the USA though.

In Japan, it's not false cheeriness. Actually, it's hard to explain. "The Customer is King" here, and you get looked after very well. No obviously, this is because it's good for business as opposed to really 'caring' in a lot of cases (there are exceptions).

However, in Japan, they seem be able to disguise this fakeness very well, unlike the US.

France, and Britain just seems more, ummmm, real. Sometimes, you get downright rudeness, but otherwise it seems to me to be just 'talking straight'.

Olivi€R wrote:

How much is a:
- liter of gaz for your car
- 1 kilo of tomatoes
- 1 camembert
- your rent
- your internet connection?

Olivier

I'm very late for the answer, but there it is :

1 liter of gaz is +/- 1,20€ (yep !)
1 kilo of tomatoes : 4,5 €
1 camenbert : a french one 5€ (sometimes more), a norwegian one 3€ (but not eatable).
My rent : in a small city with 23 000 unhab. 35m2 : 600€
My internet connection : ADSL : 60€
A bottle of wine : from 20€ for a bad wine to 100€ for a normal one (in shop not restaurants).
A pack of cigarettes : 6€
And finally a beer in a bar : 8 € to .... .

Ooh yeah !

In Italy:
1 liter of gas roughly 1.22 euro
1 kilo tomatoes - no idea haven't bought any recently
1 camenbert - don't drink
rent - outer outer suburbs of Milan 500 euro
pack of cigarettes - 3.50ish
internet connection 39.95 a month for DSL

Well, I'm from Belgium so I can tell you about being "cliche'd out", especially by the French who, whenever they acknowledge our presence as a country, like to point out that we have an accent (like it's the greatest matter of importance, really!)... and we are kind of moronic to make it short!
And when you don't have an accent, like me and most people of my generation that I know, it is because we "worked very hard at losing it!" (dixit a French friend of mine). Hm... Whatever!
Politics (we have a great "rainbow" government, as we call it, a melting pot of all the colors of the political spectrum.) in Belgium is always a great source of joke too for the French... I even heard that we are not a democracy because we have a king.
Anyway, all this to say that the French are very prompt at stereotyping other people and cultures - especially the ones they don't really know, like Belgium, a great unknown although it's really only 300km between Brussels and Paris - and I don't really feel sorry for them being grossly "labelled" by other countries.
But... You're right, the "French women don't shave their armpits" is truly comical! And I've heard it here in the States!
You have to have a great sense of humor as a traveller or an expat!
(PS: I hope this is not perceived as an "anti-French" message; which it isn't at all. Besides, I'm half French anyway...)

Hi Marianne!

Marianne wrote:

Well, I'm from Belgium so I can tell you about being "cliche'd out", especially by the French who, whenever they acknowledge our presence as a country, like to point out that we have an accent (like it's the greatest matter of importance, really!)

We are in the same position... people from Quebec hear the same thing. Everybody knows that there are many different accents, even in France.

I think it comes from the media, which are all in Paris. So people are used to hear the Parisian accent, but not the accent from Strasbourg, Marseille, Bruxels or Montreal. I just can regret it.

Marianne wrote:

... and we are kind of moronic to make it short!

Don't you do the same on another people?
It's not an excuse (I know) but, for example, the Quebecois laugh at the people from Newfoundland (called the "Newfies").

There are less and less "blagues belges"... and, in my opinion, the guys who tell "blagues belges" show they are stupid!

Marianne wrote:

I even heard that we are not a democracy because we have a king.

Who told you that?
You could simply answer that 1/3 of the EU countries have a monarch.
After all, even Canada has a queen...

I don't think the majority of the French thinks that. Could you tell us more about this?

Marianne wrote:

Anyway, all this to say that the French are very prompt at stereotyping other people and cultures

Aren't you doing the same just right now?

Read what the French have said on the forum, and you'll see kind and open-minded people.

But... You're right, the "French women don't shave their armpits" is truly comical! And I've heard it here in the States!

This cliché comes from the WWII. Easy to explain...
When the GIs came to free Europe, they found starved and dirty people. When they came back to the USA, they told everyone how dirty the French were.

Since that time, L'Oréal has been created!

I'm half French anyway...)

I'll be like you one day...

Olivier

Marianne wrote:

But... You're right, the "French women don't shave their armpits" is truly comical! And I've heard it here in the States!

Same is true for some Italian women I've seen.  Disgusting!

I've missed this thread, but :
1 liter of gas > 0,5 €
1 kilo tomatoes - between 0.4 and 1.5 €
1 camenbert - 6.50-7.50 €
rent - 130 m2 in a condo : 1200 €, but in general, it's more like 1300 € for 90-100 m2
pack of cigarettes - 3.50-4.50 €
internet connection 25€/mo (DSL 2048).

About the clichés :
- American people is fat, as the food > yep... It's sadly true.
- French food is fat, but french people is healthier than american people (french paradox) > yep
- All is big (the plates in restaurants, the roads, the cars...) > Yep too, and very surprising the first time. We still can't finish our plate in a restaurant :p
- American people drinks a lot > yep, mostly sodas, but a lot of beer and wine too !
There is more clichés, but I just wrote the most common I've heard at this time.

Hi!
that would be really interesting for me if you could tell me what are the clichés you have regarding Romania and romanian people.

Thanks a lot in advance,

See u,

S.

manu wrote:

We still can't finish our plate in a restaurant :p

Don't you ask for doggy-bags?
I do now.

Of course we do ! But in some high-rated restaurants, you can't, they don't provide this...

So... you go to high-rated restaurants!...

loool > nope, only sometimes
In general, we go to Carrow's, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and some good-but-not-expensive restaurants.

When people find out i'm from Australia, they say things like:
-'oh you're from Australia, g'day mate'
-'do you know so and so living in so and so?'
-talk about the rivalry thing with NZ
-'you're all descended from criminals'
-all Aussies are piss pots

etc

I am somewhat reluctant to tell people where I am from originally. I feel that clichés about Germans are all negative. It's quite frustrating. I'm not sure if people realise that. It's so hard to be from that country because of all those negative connotations. I guess it may be different if you're proud to be German. But I am not at all. I feel very bad because of the passport that I hold. Sometimes I want to say "Look, it's not my fault that I was born there."