What are the stereotypes held by your nation of other peoples?

[Rand Al'Tor]

Belgian stereotypes (as far as I know, wich isn't that far)

Antewerpers: Racist, Vulgar, rightwing stupid bastards who dodge taxes and harass foreigners all day.

Limburgers: Farming folk who are slightly stupid and consider everything bigger then Hasselt a metropolis. Seen as half Dutchmen (while the Dutch see them as half Belgians)

Wallons: Lazy, complaining people who either don't want to speak Dutch though they can or avoid learning it with fanaticism.

Exterior:

Dutchmen: Arrogant, rude and cheap, though for some reason everyone seems hellbent on taking over their economic systems.

Other: Standards apply.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Fun fact: a couple of years ago, the British Council did a worldwide survey of foreign impressions of the British. The #1 perception? "They're all drunks." Way to party, guys!

American stereotypes of Canada: A couple of years ago, my oldest friend --a bright, successful guy, who did his undergrad at Georgetown and follows foreign affairs more than anyone else I know -- almost missed his flight from Chicago to Montreal because he went to the wrong terminal at O'Hare. Why the wrong terminal? He forgot Canada was a separate country! I think that says it all about US perceptions of our northern neighbors.

[Meticulous Man]

Their drawling for a language is impossible to interpret (the idea of all Scandinavians understanding each other is a myth), I actually had to speak English all times I visited the Roskilde Festival.

Well, that's reassuring... I've tried to listen to Danmarks Radio at www.dr.dk a couple of times and always given up after a minute of two, thinking "how the **** can anyone comrehend this babble". What is strange, however, is that all the Finland's Swedes I've asked claim to understand it!

[Seneca]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Fun fact: a couple of years ago, the British Council did a worldwide survey of foreign impressions of the British. The #1 perception? "They're all drunks." Way to party, guys!

What a completely false and misleading impression.

[mindseye]

Here's my take on Chinese stereotypes:

SHANGHAI VERSUS BEIJING

Shanghainese on Shanghainese - cool, classy, hip, polished, urban, metropolitan, wealthy. Excellent businessfolk. Best looking men & women in the country. The pride of the nation, China's future. Showing the rest of the country how it's done.

Shanghainese on Beijingers: rude, uncouth bumpkins who spit a lot. Lazy, bureaucratic buck-passers, only like to talk about politics. Suck up the wealth from the rest of the country, give nothing back. Heavily polluted city, alternately scorching, frigid, and beset by sandstorms. Mortally afraid Shanghai will upstage their dirty, traffic-clogged town, as it is destined to do. Talk like they have a mouth full of marbles. Food is too greasy.

Beijingers on Shanghainese: grasping city-slicker yuppies trying too hard to be westerners. Woman are overbearing schemers. Men are skinny, overdressed schemers. Think of nothing but how to make money, or turn any situation to their advantage. Too much of nation's money lavished on their city. Speak a very ugly dialect. Food is too sweet.

Beijingers on Beijingers: most important city on Earth.

------------------------

GENERAL CHINESE ON CHINESE

Northerners: tall, robust, brash risk-takers, love to fight and drink. Loyal, but a little dumb. Prefer noodles.

Southerners: smaller, smarter, trickier. Prefer rice.

Westerners: impoverished peasants, but lives are rich in tradition. Prefer spicy food.

Guangdong (Canton) & Hong Kongers: shrewd business folks, make great movies and pop music, but are ugliest of Chinese. Eat anything including rats.

Taiwanese: they'll get theirs soon enough.

------------------------

CHINESE ON FOREIGNERS:

Japanese: nice culture and gadgets, but never, ever to be trusted. Incredibly homely.

Filipinos - uncultured, barely out of the jungle, live in huts, but are friendly. Great musicians. Hong Konger's choice for domestic help.

Americans: Crazy, hedonistic people who inhabit a fabulously wealthy country. Nice folks, generous, and friendly, but government is evil and trying to hold China back from it's rightful place. A nation of sex-maniacs, many of them are homosexual. Produce wonderful consumer products, films, and music. Most carry guns, many take drugs. Generally reasonable businessmen who can be trusted in deal-making.

Canadians: rather like Americans, but less crazy. Friendly, honest, but a little dumb. Live in an inhospitably cold place.

British: nice and cultured, but cannot be trusted. Speak strangely-accented English which is difficult to understand.

Australians: friendly, beer-guzzling partiers. Speak unintelligible version of English.

New Zealanders: same as Australians but have lots of sheep.

Germans: great technologists and engineers, like to drink a lot.

Dutch: a race of giants. A lot like Germans, but like to take drugs.

French: cool, sexy, great style.

Italians: Pretty country. Stole idea of pasta from Chinese.

Scandinavians: ("Who?")

[Seneca]

Brits on Brits:

London - Huge, unfriendly, dirty, absurdly expensive place that no-one in their right minds would want to live in, though it's cool to visit now and then.
The North - full of failing industry and call centres, partially redeemed by cheap beer. People in Newcastle never wear shirts, even in December. Liverpudlians steal things and get pregnant at 14.
The West - laid back, drink cider and smoke dope. More than its share of new-age weirdos and Guardian readers.
The South East - covered entirely with identical semi-detatched houses, whose inhabitants engage in wife-swapping and cross-dressing behind their seemingly drab and futile existence, at least during the twenty five minutes each week they're not commuting to London.
Northern Ireland - full of bigoted psychopaths
Wales - rugby, singing, sheep. Of so little consequence we haven't bothered to update our stereotypes of them for a century.
Scotland - parsimonious alcholics.

Britain as a whole - we're crap at everything, especially the things we invented, like football, industry and railways.

Brits on foreigners:

Germany - arrogant, humourless. We beat them in the war.
France - obnoxious, always on strike. Insist on speaking French.
Spain - full of great beaches and bars. The Spanish people consist entirely of waiters called Manuel.
America - crazy Jesus freaks who shoot each other all the time.
Canada - Sensible Americans.
Australia - informal, drunk, friendly.
Swizterland, Scandinavia - nice but dull countries that mind their own business
Netherlands - place where absolutely everything is legal
Russia - dangerous gangsters

[Thue]

Originally posted by uncle_funk
Danes: Constantly drunk, painfully liberal North-Germans.

Because of our low alcohol prices, and the high prices at our neighbor Sweden, loads of swedes come here to drink. You can guess the stereotype we have for them .

But I think the stereotype of drunk danes is shared by many. When I was at an international event in Canada we were picking up a box of beers for our teachers (ahem), and a guy who saw us promptly said "oh, you are the danes" .

Their drawling for a language is impossible to interpret (the idea of all Scandinavians understanding each other is a myth), I actually had to speak English all times I visited the Roskilde Festival.

I have been know to ask other scandinavians to speak english . I am getting better at interpreting what goes for your language, however .

[Drekkus]

Originally posted by Rand Al'Tor

Dutchmen: Arrogant, rude and cheap, though for some reason everyone seems hellbent on taking over their economic systems.

Heee. I'm spending big money in Belgium this weekend!! Although I'm lending an appartment in Knokke from friends so I don'y have to pay

[Dauphin]

Somerset?

The West - laid back, drink cider and smoke dope. More than its share of new-age weirdos and Guardian readers

You forgot:

They all drive around in tractors, saying words like fertilizer in a funny accent. However some have upgraded to combine harvesters and instead sing songs about Worzel Gummich.

[Thue]

Originally posted by Aivo½so
Well, that's reassuring... I've tried to listen to Danmarks Radio at www.dr.dk a couple of times and always given up after a minute of two, thinking "how the **** can anyone comrehend this babble". What is strange, however, is that all the Finland's Swedes I've asked claim to understand it!

It seems to be mutual - I have tried talking to finns, and found their swedish very understandable.

[red_jon]

Originally posted by Seneca
Brits on Brits:

The South East - covered entirely with identical semi-detatched houses, whose inhabitants engage in wife-swapping and cross-dressing behind their seemingly drab and futile existence, at least during the twenty five minutes each week they're not commuting to London.

Sounds about right

Except none of that accurately covers Brighton.

[Bereta_Eder]

Northen Europeans: passive as cows and washed out like a used cloth (in color)

Americans: stupid as can be, ignorant and incredibly misled

more specifically:

english: gays

turks: brutes, savages, animals

albanians: cutthroats, barbarians, primitives

bulgarians: primitives

germans: naive, easily mislead by rhetorics and crypto nazis

italians: same as us

serbs: brothers

russians: the orthodox connection

french: socialist fighters

scandinavians: lucky bastards

slavs of Fyrom: thieves of history, gypsies


these are the most prominent INMHO.

[Ted Striker]

Purple Robe Wearing Spartan,

Now break it down by Greeks

(Athenians, Macedonians, etc)

[Bereta_Eder]

that's a little bit tough because they are very regionalized.

For example in the small aegean island of Karpathos (where the goats may very well outnumber the number of inhabitants) the people of the "upper little crystal stream" village would badmouth the people of the "down little crystal stream" village and so on.
And this happens in many places.

But as a general guide anyone who is not born and bred in Athens or another big city is a hick (according to Athenians).

Athenians are rude, impolite, non helping SOBs to anyone coming from a small town

People from the North (Macedonians and others) have an opposition with people from the South and specifically Athenians because we eat more state funds. (and they are right).


People of the Ionian islands are considered a little bit "romantic" if you catch my drift (=feminine) - a claim that I reject with disgust since my grandfather was born there (all others in Athens).

Peloponesians (Sparta is a small village now) are stereotypically considered tough and somewhat dangerous as well as Cretans.

Greeks from the former Pontus region of Byzantium (north east Turkey today) are considered very stupid and there are thousand of jokes about them (they now live in mainland Greece). That's because they are actually much smarter and better traders than the rest of the greeks.

All the other stereotypes are regionalized and you have to actually live in another place to know with whom they are exchanging imaginative adjectives

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Seneca

The West - laid back, drink cider and smoke dope. More than its share of new-age weirdos and Guardian readers.

It's a disturbing experience to realise that you fit a stereotype perfectly.
Seneca forgot the Cornish- Swarthy, and feral semi-humans who quietly in-breed across the moors. Cornwall is actually part of England, but the Cornish aren't actually aware of this.

One for mindseye- an early 20th century British stereotype of the Chinese.
"There are two types of Chinaman. Those who give bribes, and those who accept them."