I’ve met foreigners that have had a few misconceptions about how things are done in the good old US of A that appear to be widely held ideas, not just something dreamed up by an individual.
I’ve had a German and an Austrian tell me on separate occasions that American kids love to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, which, according to the Austrian is why Americans are so fat. I have never heard of anyone eating a PB&J for breakfast, and it’s certainly not common or done regularly.
Russians seem to think you can buy guns at the grocery store in America. I explained that while it is not hard to find someone willing to sell you a gun, you can’t get them at the grocery store. Super-Wal-Mart might fit the bill, but you can also get a set of tires and furniture. I’m not sure if there was a particular film or book or something that gave them this idea.
Lots of foreigners seem to think Americans love McDonalds, which I would disagree with. Most people I know consider McDonalds to be a restaurant of last resort, not a preference.
I’ve met quite a few Europeans that seem to think the KKK is still a “big deal” in the United States, which I don’t really think it is.
Lots of French seem to think if you show up to the ER with a gunshot wound but without insurance you will be turned away to die quietly in a ditch. I’d say this is a myth.
Not just a myth, but illegal. I’m pretty sure it’s against federal law to turn away anyone who has serious injuries or is in labor just because they have no way to pay.
Well, this one’s second hand, and a couple of decades out of date, but when my mother was an exchange student in England, several other kids in her school, on hearing she was from “out west” excitedly asked if she saw any Indians (and, as luck would have it…she actually did. One of her high school classmates was native American).
When she noted she was from the San Francisco area, she got asked if she saw a lot of car chases (y’know, bounding over the hilltops at high speed and all that).
Well, a lot of foreigners seem to think that Canada is a land of year-round ice and snow. Not true.
In fact, the country is huge, which gives us a variety of climates. Certainly, in the north, summers can be short, but they still warm up enough that flowers bloom and ice melts. And in the south–well, the heat and humidity of southern Ontario are probably just as stifling as they are in the southern US. Makes sense, since that seems to be where the humid Gulf of Mexico air goes. Even here on the prairies, summer days can get quite hot–temps above 80F are not uncommon in summer.
True, Canadian winters can be brutal and cold and long. But summers are quite hot in most of the country.
I hear ya, Spoons. Australia is supposed to be completely hot, sunny, and a cross between California and the Sahara. It isn’t. Ask any Sydney or Melbourne commuter in wintertime, coat pulled over his head from the chilling rain because the strong wind has just destroyed his umbrella. And we have more ski-able area than Switzerland.
I should add that this holds for Ontario summers–Ontario winters do get cold, and snow is common from December through March.
TLD, I’ve experienced Australian winters myself. Perhaps not like I’m used to–but I’ll agree that cold rain, strong winds, and temps just a little above 0C in July, especially when one is running down the street to catch a commuter train (in Fremantle, in my case) are definitely not “a cross between California and the Sahara.”
I live down in SW Florida. Now imagine if I said that it can get really cold down here. Sometimes as low as 50F. You know how you’d laugh and laugh at that? Well that’s what happened to me just now when I read the above.
I’ll grant you humid, but when it’s 89 degrees F at 11AM in April in your place, then you’ll know about hot.
Canadian here. I’ve had American tourists ask me where they could go to see igloos. The answer: Sure, just walk North by Northwest for 1,500 miles. Oh, and make sure it’s winter. And yes, that coloured money is legit.
Not all Spaniards dance flamenco. Spain is not a beach. Yes, there are factories in Spain. Oh, and “torreadorrr” is not a Spanish word, you’re welcome.
What kills me is that many of the people who ask me to teach them flamenco recognize the word “Sanfermines”…
But… But… how can you say Australia isn’t super-hot if it’s 80-90 degrees in freaking February?
Israel: There’s shooting on the streets of Tel-Aviv. And we get around on camels, too. While far less wide-spread than in the past, these misconceptions still do exists to some extent.
Um… Tel-Aviv is a thoroughly “Western” city, complete with 50-60 story buildings, A/C everywhere and traffic jams And your chances of dying a violent death here are lower than in NYC.
This doesn’t stem so much from the notion that Canada is permafrosted, as that the Mediterranean Basin is the oven of the world. We’re so used to seeing Germans, Brits, Yanks and Canadians bathing in our beaches when we’re wearing sweaters that it’s hard to understand that some of those places have summers as hot or hotter than ours. One of those things they never do in geography class is point out that Madrid is more or less at the same latitude as NY… from all those movies with “cold winter in NYC” we get the notion that it’s farther north. We’re convinced that NY and Places Farther North get cold winters and not-burning summers, like our own North.
Yes, but my father enjoys telling people that while we lived in Canada (Fergus, Ontario) he did find ice on the ground on the fourth of July. It’s also amusing to tell people we moved south for the milder New England winters.
Granted, it was under the shrubs, next to the house, but it was still ice on the ground.
Maybe they’re still using Nakahama Manjiro’s map. (My uncle has a copy of that map, or a similar one, hanging up in his house. Old family heirloom. Actually, I think it must be different, because IIRC Japan was even bigger.)
I don’t know if it’s a true misconception or if it’s just something Swedish people reiterate, supposedly polar bears are roaming the streets here but I haven’t seen any yet.
Lots of blond hot women? It’s true, thank you zombie-unicorn.
And your chances of dying a violent death here are lower than in NYC.