Stereotypes about your country that's not true?

[Zak]

You know you kinda make yourself look silly when you address something and then delete the thing you were addressing.

No nation was being 'attacked' in any derogatory manner and you know it. Unfortunately, you've deleted the post I made, so neither of us can prove it. Classy move.

 

[dragon_nataku]

"Everything south of Texas is Mexico" ^=__=^;;

 

[Lufenium]

More of an old (bad) joke than a stereotype...but people in Wales do NOT have illicit relations with sheep.

 

[zoroarctic]

I live in the US, specifically Louisiana.

The state is not one giant swamp.
No one actually calls New Orleans "the Big Easy."
We don't always ask what church you go to at the first meeting.
And the one that really grinds my gears: NO ONE calls the Civil War "the War of Northern Aggression." Not. One. Single. Person. (We are sore losers about it, though. Proof that history isn't always written by the victors.)

 

[Scarlet Sky]

Continuing the line of thought above, I'd like to point out that we aren't all party animals here in Louisiana either. =w=; Not ever for that matter. People here have to work for a living too.

 

[Zexy]

Let's see, stereotypes about Greece:

The "Greek Life" - It just doesn't exist in Greece. Most Greeks don't even have a clue of what fraternities/sororities are. University life can be carefree but it just is extremely different.

"Loud breeding Greak eaters" - I can't really argue against the "loud" and "eaters" part, but the "breeding" part is just wrong. A few generations ago it was indeed the case because the families in rural areas needed people to work in the farmlands. But eventually, people started stacking on cities and gave birth to less children. Our population is actually declining.

They are lazy and corrupt - It's the current state of affairs that makes us look like it, but that's a VERY long story and it involves politics. Just take my word for it, please, it's not true.

Ancient Greek culture everywhere - Nope. Most people don't care that much. There are some that do, of course, but that doesn't make the entire stereotype true. Besides, you should know that tourist guides/agencies overfocus on some things.

About food - We do not eat lamb frequently. It is associated with Easter and in some places Christmas, and unless it's some kind of holiday, you won't really see people having lamb as lunch/dinner most of the time. Many people (including my mother) find feta cheese disgusting.

 

[henrymidfields]

As a half German, half Turkish person,

German side
- Yes, beer is very popular but we don't drink it like water.
- We are not THAT formality in public. We have sense of humour just like the rest of the world. But I won't deny that Germans love rules.

Turkish side
- Turkey is not closed minded. Yes, the eastern cities may be way a little extreme when it comes to religion and nationalism but the western side, as I depicture, is quite European. Izmir, Bodrum, Marmaris, Istanbul come to mind in the top of list. People barely believe in any religion in these cities according to statics. Christmas and rarely Halloween are celebrated also.
^"Women walk around in Burkas, covered from head to toe, only showing their eyes." is the most hilarious one, btw. Women have quite active social and career life just like European countries.

I've actually thought, and if I remember correctly, learnt in school that the Turkish society in general believe more strongly in a secular government. (I remember one Turkish housemate did not like one of the parliament candidates for wearing a burqa - he was quite a believer in separating religion and state.)

As for the German's and their love for rules, is it true that jaywalking is a no-no?

As for myself, being Japanese:
Are we warmongering like in WWII? Depends on who you talk to. There's still a lot of resistance to changing the "no-war" Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, and law academics consider the latest law provisions for collective defense to be unconstitutional. Of course, the LDP in general is becoming more hawkish than a decade ago.

 

[Wally00]

Stereotypes about Italy:
- it is not true that everyone loves soccer. For example I hate soccer (and many others friends of mine);
- it is not true that we're all fashionable;
- it is not true that mafia is everywhere.
And that's all

 

[Deleted member 86593]

I'll just list off some stereotypes about England.

-We're all posh, gentalman-ly, etcetera.
Not everyone in England is ultra posh, infact, I'd argue the opposite. Especially when it comes to the part of England I come from.
-We all drink tea all day, everyday.
I do love myself some tea, but there's plenty of people who hate tea in England. An example of this is the youtuber Ashens, who has expressed his dislike of tea.
-We hate France.
I have actually never heard anyone say that they hate France, and this is in the Northern part of England.
-And finally, we all speak in Received Pronunciation, commonly known as the Queen's English.
Not everyone here speaks with a "posh" accent. We have many different accents, such as Northern accents and Cornish accents.

 

[Beth Pavell]

There also seems to be this strange idea floating around that we - Brits, but especially the English - are all secretly bitter Imperialists fuming over the loss of the Empire. We're just not. Most of us have only a spotty idea of what Britain's imperial territories were in the first place. You could find people who seem to think that the Empire was good news for everybody (It wasn't, not even as far as Britons are concerned) - one of my school friends insisted on calling Zimbabwe Rhodesia, for reasons I never really understood. But surprise, surprise, you guessed it - that's a tiny minority of people

 

[Matleo]

Poland, we have so many stereotypes about our country that we should have
already a world record for that.

 

[voidcritter]

So I'm from Texas, and while the majority of stereotypes related to Texas are at least a little true, I thought I'd talk about a few things that are either blatantly false or have a little more depth.

• No, we do not always dress and act like cowboys/cowgirls/cowindividuals. You probably won't have any problems finding some gear if that's how you want to look, though. (Western motifs are also fairly popular in decor here, but by no means ubiquitous.)
• Yes, cows actually do dot the landscape here everywhere, although that's partially because speculators aren't allowed to buy a piece of land and then do absolutely nothing with it. Buying some low-maintenance beef cattle and erecting a crude shelter mean you can legally consider that land a "farm", and then tear down the barn and sell the cows once you're able to sell the land at a good price.
• It's also not too difficult to find a horse just about anywhere if you look closely enough, but most Texans don't ride horses on a regular basis. This is because a good number of us live in urban areas where that's an expensive and stupid thing to do.
• Most Texans are not, in fact, rich off of oil. Only some.
• Texas is actually a very large state that has a variety of different landscapes, which does include desert and flat grasslands but also includes forests, beaches, and mountainous areas.
• The phrase "Don't Mess with Texas" isn't supposed to be some badass one-liner or anything. It was just a slogan for a public anti-littering campaign that got really popular. I mean yeah, it's catchy, but... it was originally just meant to make people care about the environment.
• While not EVERYONE is like this, a pretty good number of Texans are, in fact, unhealthily serious about (American) football.
• We tend to be unhealthily extreme about a lot of things, really.

 

[gentlefeather]

"Aboot".

However, we are lumberjacks who live in igloos. Those are true.

 

[Giles]

That everyone is obese (not true)
Everyone is racist (Not true at all)
Everyone is illiterate and dumb (Again, not true)
And that everyone is a witch... (I don't want to talk about it.)

 

[Juliko]

This doesn't involve a country, more a state. I'm from New Jersey, and there seems to be a stereotype that people from New Jersey are jerks who hate the world. And who happen to be loud, obnoxious, and full of themselves. That's...not true. I'm pretty sure shows such as Jersey Shore contributed to this.

 

[Lyrebird]

That Vegemite is gross.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

That Vegemite is gross.

That is a lie and anyone propagating that lie should be dealt with swiftly.
I'm honestly having trouble coming up with Australian stereotypes that I didn't address the last time I posted here. I'll just re-iterate that "mate" thing; we don't really say that all that often. You see some people who do, but then again all of these stereotypes had to start somewhere right?
Also, our accents generally aren't that extreme.

 

[Lyrebird]

That is a lie and anyone propagating that lie should be dealt with swiftly.
I'm honestly having trouble coming up with Australian stereotypes that I didn't address the last time I posted here. I'll just re-iterate that "mate" thing; we don't really say that all that often. You see some people who do, but then again all of these stereotypes had to start somewhere right?
Also, our accents generally aren't that extreme.

My boyfriend uses mate a lot, my brothers use mate a lot. We use it a lot. I don't know what you do but mate is used a lot. Also swearing is a sign that you care.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

Huh, really? No-one I hang out with ever really says it that much.

 

[Muur]

That we British have bad teeth, which makes little sense when we have the NHS and thus for a lot of people, dentists are free.