National stereotypes

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Sorcerer's Place is an admirably multinational community. I would be interested to hear about other countries' national stereotypes (that is, how they view the citizens of other nations). I will kick off with some British misperceptions of themselves and the world.

Please note that this post is intended to amuse rather than offend. I hope that my tone makes it clear that I do not hold any of the views expressed.

USA
Our closest friends and fellow anglophones, we feel that Americans are more than a little vulgar and uncultured and enjoy feeling superior to them. They're a whole lot richer than us, which we can't forgive. Their soldiers often fight alongside ours and kill more of them than the enemy do.

Canada
Like the Americans, but duller.

France
We affect to despise the French because we're afraid that they might be smarter and more stylish than us. On the minus side they have better food and wine, prettier women and enjoy better sex. On the plus side, some of the stuff they eat is unfit for humans (frogs, snails, horses, etc.), they're rude and they're beyond dirty. They don't take a bath if they can avoid it, none of them own toothbrushes and their public toilets are the most disgusting in the world. They're completely useless in a fight too.

Belgium
Known for how little we know about them. Apparently, no Briton can name a famous Belgian.

Spain
One of the many nations whom we beat in some war hundreds of years ago. We've felt superior to them ever since.

Germany
Of all the peoples in the world, there is none that the Britons find so galling as the Germans. Humourless uniform fetishists, they have a distressing tendency to invade their neighbours every fifty years or so, whereupon we have to step in and sort things out. And they haven't changed a bit since the war, you know, oh no! Their economic and industrial success is no more than part of a secret plan to dominate the world. They take a perverse delight in knocking us out of important football competitions, so a rare victory over the Germans is an occasion for national rejoicing. They take their holidays in Spain at the same time we do. Then they get up really early and take all the sun loungers.

Saudi Arabia
Robe-wearing, Rolls-Royce-driving, millionaire polygamists, the Saudis are known to trade camels for women.

China
Known for their ability to cause earthquakes (or is it tidal waves?) by jumping up and down simultaneously, the Chinese are otherwise models of inscrutable, sinister villainy.

UK
The pinnacle of human civilization, Britain serves as an example to all other nations. We have given the world some of its greatest gifts: football, cricket and democracy. The world was a much better place when we ruled half of it. Although we might grudgingly admit that we're not as great as we used to be, we can still outdrink and outfight everyone else.

 

Democracy is of the Greek

Just come to Poland Our little girls can drink more than your big boys. And they probably fight better, too :ties:

The Poles are at the top of the ladder of evolution. Kicking major ass since 966, we can beat the German when they outnumber us 1,5 to 1 with winning or kick their ass abysmally without winning when they outnumber us so much that no one bothers counting. That's because the German are good soldiers. For Turks and Mongols, this is up to 5:1 and for Swedes up to 4:1. If Russians are concerned, we kick their ass at any rate, so far as their commander is not a Polish renegate, whereby he might even hold his own sometimes. However, we're a very peaceful, forgiving and kind-hearted nation, which is widely abused by the rest of the world. For instance, our might King Boleslaus the Brave (R 992-1025) did not become the Emperor of Germany in 1002 upon the death of Otto III (one of the few German folk that are praised here), despite the fact that he controlled whole German East when he got pissed off by the murder of margrave Ekkehard, a frend and a candidate for Imperial crown, and Saxon lords all bent knees before him prior to the election. Unfortunately, the other guys picked Duke Henry of Bavaria, probably because Duke Herman wasn't really liked. Unfortunately, Boleslaus had some trouble with the Czech and Ruthenians were far from friendly at our Eastern border. Pity, isn't it?

We could also have taken over the whole Russia, and even had our kingson Vladislaus crowned their Tzar in 1618, but as always - our Parliament screwed it all up because nobles didn't want to pay more tax for the development of our glorious military.

Perhaps we would have Sweden, but again the Parliament screwed up and the king Sigismund Vasa could but watch as his uncle Charles of Sudermanenland (the later Charles IX of Sweden) was insidiously taking over his other kingdom until 1598.

Ah, and we kicked the ass of half the Western Europe at Grunwald. The Germans and the rest of you probably say Tannenberg, and the place is indeed close to the site of the Battle of Tannenberg, where Field Marshal von Beneckendorf und von Hindenburg, commonly known as Hindenburg - the one from that Zeppelin, kicked some commie ass. The Teutonic Knights, our old Arch-Enemy, they recruited helluva lot of German, French, English and other knights as guests of the order. There surely was a great driking when we got all the ransom cash

If you don't remember, we also defended Christianity (aka the whole Western lot of you) from Asian hordes from 15th to the end of 17th century, bearing our glorious fate alone without any help. Were it not for our noble selves, Vien would have fallen to the Turks in 1683, or even earlier, in 1621 where only our special light cavalry commando restored order in Austria. If we failed, you all would be learning Koran quotes and going to Mecca.

This was repeated in 1920, during the Battle of Warsaw, whereby Marshal Pilsudski saved Europe from Asian hordes (the commies of Tuchatchevsky).

Thus, we are so grand that we kick ass without trying. We could have all your booze and all your girls, if only we bothered

[ November 16, 2003, 15:36: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

nah..... the United Kingdom invented the skinhead, and the scottish reside in the UK also.... a force to be reckoned with indeed .

 

Americans: Stupid and arrogant. There is an expression here "Do you thing that I am american?" which means "Do you think that I am stupid?". It originates from 1950 when the 6th american fleet came to Pireus and the local mafia and merchants took almost every dollar that the american sailors had.

English: Hooligans and gays. Almost every english male is a homosexual. I don't know the origin of this stereotype, but events like the recent prince Charles adventures make this stereotype stronger. On the contrary, the other residents of British Isles, Irish and Scotchs, have good reputation.

Turks: Barbarians, uneducated, uncivilized and stupid, stereotypes which come from the almost thousand years hatred between Greeks and Turks.

Germans: Robots who always do as they are told.

French: Arrogant and dirty. They invented perfume, because they wanted to cover their smell.

Italians: Thiefs and cheaters.

Albanians: Thiefs, drug dealers and murderers.

Greeks: The centre of the human civilization, the most clever human race, which all the others hate and want to destroy.

These are the some of the national stereotypes here. The majority of the Greeks do not consider them true and mostly they are used as jokes and nothing more.

 

Let's see...

France: Our best friends for 50 years (after we bashed their heads in three times in a row. Well, almost...). Known for great wine, odd food, strange movies and beautiful women. Oh, and good soccer players (the beat us 3:0 yesterday )

Italy: Very chaotic country. We like to travel to Italy, but we don't really understand them. Mostly, because the italians collectivly refuse to learn german. They make even better wines than the french, the food is very good. But the italians are lazy and notorious bad drivers. Beware of pickpockets.

Austria: Our little cousins. Pitied for the backwardedness (hey, they all live up into the mountains) and their bad soccer teams. Noone gets beaten by the Faroer Islands. Except for that, they are rather unremarkable. Oh, and thank you for Hitler.

Switzerland: They are neutral, so what about them?

Poland: What do we know about the polish people? They make the strongst vodka (thumbs up) but are stealing our cars (thumbs down). Half of their country belongs rightfully to us. Not that we want it back now (except for a few insane individuals). We have enough problems with one half of our country.

Netherlands: One word: weed.
Very liberal, friendly people (they all speak german). Seem to adapt the us and swedish tradition to kill off their politicians. But they are more efficient: they kill them before they are elected. Good soccer players who tend to fail in important matches (Ha, Ha!)

Belgium: Brussels is the seat of the Eu-Commission. What else? Don't know.

Skandinavia: Beautiful countries, friendly people. But why is alcohol so expensive?

UK: Bad weather, worse food. Good music (apart from Oasis) and good actors. The people are either stuck up, arrogant and snobby, or consist of bald-shaven, rowdy and drunken hools. The "51st State of America". The only "big" soccer nation in europe we can still beat.

Turkey: They are muslims and want to swarm germany with their hordes and convert us all. They torture prisoners. They take away our jobs and our women. But we like the food (hmm, kebab) and their hospitality.

Russia: One word: Mafia.

USA: We hate them. Dumb people led by a dumb president. We like to listen to their music, watch their movies and eat their fast food, but bash them for exporting their "culture", which they preferably do by force of arms.

China: There are a lot of chinese people, aren't there? And they all are kung-fu-fighters.
We like them because they buy our cars. The food is very good, but they have a mafia, too.

Finally Germany: Everyone is bashing us. We aren't all racists and nazis (but those damned outlandish people are stealing our money, our jobs and our women...). Yeah, well, there was a guy named Hitler. But is it not time to forget and forgive? (Okay, you cannot forgive. But can you forget? Please?) We didn't even do anything. It was this little austrian who should get all the blame. And Stalin was worse. And the americans killed the indians. And, and, and...

If I forgot something, please fill me in.

[ November 16, 2003, 16:18: Message edited by: Fabius Maximus ]

 

*ahem 5-1 in Munich! ahem*

Hooligans and Gays?

Eh? LoL

Why does the whole world think us hooligans? The Turkish are worse than us, we merely defend ourselves.

*attempts to staunch his unlimited patriotism and not unleash the tirade thats playing at his lips*

 

1:0 in Old Wembley. *Na-na-na-na-na-nah-nah*

 

England played ****e and still only lost by a jammy free kick!

 

I'd say more, but I just got up after a wild night of playing Scrabble; didn't get to bed until almost 10:00 pm!

 

Now that's an interesting observation. I remember that former French Prime Minister Edith Cresson caused some offence here when she claimed that one in four British men were gay. It would be funny if we thought we were really hard while everybody else thought we were homosexual.

 

Chevalier, I can understand that you need to delude yourself about your history with a trackrecord as that of your country. Reality can be too rough at times.

My stereotypes:
UK: Everyone is damn ugly! Especially the women!

Germany: The rednecks of Western Europe, the land of bad hair cuts, and of course a ****load of ugly people.

France: The home of arrogance, mostly misplaced. Never understood the idea of them as dirty though.

Poland: Kinda like the Mexico of our hemisphere. If you want some dirty job done and dont want to pay much money you hire some Polish dudes to do it for you. The country is also riddled with prostitutes. They are also damn ugly all of them.

The US: Bible grabbing, loud mouthed, gun worshipping, fat, cowboyhat wearing, fanatical, crude, ignorant, intimidating hillbillies. Not nearly as ugly as my fellow Europeans though.

Italy: Silvio Berlusconi fulfills every Italian stereotype I might have and more. The scary part is that he turns it from a funny stereotype to scary reality.

Canada: Like US light, very much like the US but a bit more sensible.

 

Heh, this is the source of it all - we both (Germans and Poles) consider those lands rightfully ours. The contrfactual stereotype in Germany is that the land itself belonged to them. That's false. Whole our state started 100 kilometres East from present German border. That's for the region of Posen (Poznan). We held Silesia since ca 980 and our dynasts (of the house Piast) held it, even though later as Imperial vassals, until 1685 when they died out. The former East Prussia was a remnant of Teutonic Knights who were invited to Poland in 1226 by Prince Konrad Duke of Masovia and were always bound by liege oaths, no matter if they in fact didn't keep them (for example they invaded and annexed the Gdanks/Danzig region in 1308). This remained even after they became a Protestant Duchy in 1525, until 1657 when Poland only assured her rights to the land in case v. Hohenzollerns died out but otherwise abandoned all claims to sovereignty. In 18th century, we got partitioned thrice (1772, 1793 and 1795) between Prussia, Austria and Russia. Ultimately, in 1795 Poland ceased to exist and they held all our lands. This is the end of the German stereotype. What's more, today's Poland is, basically, in the same shape as in the year 1000.

The Polish stereotype, however, is also wrong. While many inhabitants of Polish lands acquired by German states indeed kept their national identity, many did not. German rulers sent settlers who contributed to the growing percentage of German folk and even Polish rulers of those lands invited German settlers and themselves assumed German identity politically (Poland was unstable) and even culturally. As a result, Poles keeping their Polish identity became a minority in the lands. The same processes took place in lands acquired in 18th century during the infamous partitions of Poland, but the level of their advancement was not so high.

To sum up, I believe both sides should think twice before using the word 'rightfully'. I doubt that more than a slight minority of German people would regard partitions of Poland as lawful land acquisition by Prussia and Austria. Probably much the same about earlier happenings, but that's actually advanced historical knowledge that common people don't possess. It's also quite advanced knowledge that the lands weren't really all that Polish politically and culturally - Poles tend to change their views when they realise the fact. It's just pity that common people have to suffer the sad consequences of political changes. They're not interested in whose their piece of land used to be - Prussian German people don't care about the fact that theirs was dispossessed from Poles after partitions, Poles don't care theirs was dispossessed from Prussian Germans after the war. And the circle closes...

 

Now that's more like it. Can't say I'm particularly proud of the description (other than the "more sensible" part), but it's accurate.

Now that I've had a nap, here's mine:

USA - kind of like a big brother, in the friendly-but-bullying kind of way.

France - nice to visit, but kind of snotty.

Belgium - like Germany and France, but nicer.

Spain- Manuel (sp?) from Fawlty Towers

Germany - clinical, cold. Like their cars.

Saudi Arabia - Some of them don't mind our winters, so they can't be all that bad.

China - their cuisine is great. Unless you have the authentic crap.

UK - frumpy and snotty.

 

As an american, I am tired that the general stereotype of my country includes the words 'stupid' 'ignorant' and 'fat'. Then I realized where I live. So I am changing my attitude (and the 'from:' box) to reflect this realization... USA? Can't say I've ever been there, sorry.

 

Gee thanks.

Alas, Canada is like the american, Fortunatly Quebec is by far superior!


Quebec: More culture, More common sences, we don't like the queen, we rock at football, we don't speak english, and so on so Canada is more or less a better US and Quebec is the most better land on earth period.

France: Arrogant, and they speak french in a funny way

Germany: Beer drinker chocolate eater

US: VERY ARROGANT,

England: Sqare head, and bad teeth

Poland (language): Complicated speling

Saudi Arabia: Ra-Ra speaker ( Each time I heard someone speaking arab all I heard is ra-ra...)



NOTE: All I did was more or less joking exept for Quebec of course,

 

Austria Strange people with strange customes and a strange affinity for coffee, which is aviable in 2000 different flavours.

Germany A rather arrogant bunch of people, who usually mistake screaming for talking and all seem to imagine that they have a grip of our language through simply talk like they always do, yet pronounce the "ch" a little bit different.

The Netherlands A little bit more liberal then the Germans to their south, but also think sceaming is speaking.

France Country of top-less beach fun.

Italy Homeland of style.Besides of being warm and welcoming, they all invest a terrible amount of time and thinking in looking good. And it pays. Most beautiful and best dressed women.

Eng-er-land A strange mix between arrogant snobs, pup-psychos and swarms of Hooligans. And then the streets are full of 18-year-old mothers, taking a stroll with the pram. Keep away from Turks, at any cost. It will end in vandalism and backstabbing otherwise.

Scandinavians They are all so damn tall, it's not funny. The ones from the northern too are immediately start buying everything that remotely seems to contain alcohol as soon as they're in a country with reasonable prices for alcoholic beverage, i.e. always drunk when outside of their borders.

Finland Lumberjacks who are all employed by Nokia. Drinking homebrew stuff when not naked in mixed saunas.

Americans Puritans

Canadians Americans-lite

Australians Anglo-Saxons with a certain flair of savoir-vivre.

Edit: UK-Seperated.

[ November 17, 2003, 01:03: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

OK, I'll take a stab at this (or since I'm American, "a shot")

Canada - That sometimes reluctant 51st State up North somewhere. We find your feigned sovreignty to be kinda cute.

Mexico - Possible candidate for State 52. We haven't acted yet due to the potential detrimental impact on our property values.

England - A drunken, abusive, overbearing mean Step-father. You beat us, abandoned us and put us out in the cold. We hate you...no, we love you...no, hate...love...I'm confused.

UK - Our fellow Step-kids. Don't really know any of you, sometimes you seem nice enough. We often feel a kinship in our love-hate of ***hole above.

Norway/Sweden/Finland - C'mon, you guys aren't really separate countries...are you? US maps just show this Northern European lump called "Finwayden" or "Norswedland". Sheesh...quit fooling around.

France - Due to the French influence in our 51st State, some American's believe that France is a European colony of Canada. I know better. They are foreign, and always will be. Great wine, food, art, women...but still foreign. Sorta like that one really geeky kid in school that no-one liked, but sometimes you still played with him because he had really good toys.

Belgium/Denmark - See Norway/Sweden/Finland above. Heard you were the "Low Countries", don't know if that means from drugs or depression...but damn, snap out of it and change your image.

Germany - Stomping, shouting, authoritative loudmouths. Anyone remember the Vogons from the Douglas Adams books?

Italy - All American's go to Italy and come back upset when we find they don't really eat pizza. They are frauds and need to admit it.

Poland - In this current era of political correctness, the Poles are the only Nationality that we in good conscience make jokes about. Thank you. Oh, and thanks for the Vodka.

Greece - Thank you for Democracy. Thank you for Plato. Thank you for Hellenism. What have you brought to the table in the last Millenium? Thought so...sit down.

Australia/New Zealand - You strangely seem much like us...but too far away. Also, can't think about how you're up-side-down all the time, causes headaches. Need to forget you are there.

That about does it, at least for the parts of the world that I know about. If I missed you and would like to have an opportunity for equal insult, let me know.

 

HS, I think you should bunch Denmark in with Sweden/Finland/Norway. Especially since there is a whole Germany between Belgium and Denmark. Thank you for fulfilling one of my stereotypes

 

USA - On a recent holiday to America, I found that most of them to be very hospitable, friendly people. Although, seeing as we went to Florida, this was probably in their interest.

Canada - Hmm... A strange one for me. A mix of Yanks and Frogs. On paper, not a good combination. But, most Canadians I have spoke to have been friendly people.

France - Frog mutilating, garlic swilling, surrender monkeys. Get helped out constantly, and show no kind of gratefulness what so ever. Seem possessed of an unjustified arrogance.

Germany - Clinical and cold. Wherever you go on holidays, your sure to find Germans there. Getting up at the crack of dawn to steal the best sun spots. Saying that though, I am in a German gaming clan and every member is a friendly, nice person.

Australia - Seemingly nice people. If abit eccentric and over competitive.

New Zealand - Australia in black.

I can't really think of any more, but i must say this, before arguments start ...

These stereotypes are silly, uninformed and horribly nationalist. And could stir up unnecessary emnity. So lets all remember that this thread was not intended to be personal, or indeed, a true reflection of opinions.

(hopes he hasn't just made an arse of himself. lol)

 

OK, Finwayden gets Demark and two draft picks. They can keep the name the same because it is agreed that at least some of Demark's letters are already represented.

Belgium acquires The Netherlands and a nation to be named later. A conglomerate name made no sense, so all letters are used to yield NetherBelgiumlands

The trade is of course dependent on all players passing a physical.

Joacqin...I am pleased that in my own small way I can help everyone on these boards develop a deep appreciation for Americans

[ November 16, 2003, 20:26: Message edited by: Hacken Slash ]