It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
avatar
Shadowstalker16: I've seen the exact opposite. I've seen many South Indians look down on North Indians and none of the North Indian people I met talked about my lack of knowledge in Hindi.
I guess you've had the pleasure of meeting with the minority then, where I live I've seen many of them since my childhood and 99% of them fit the description I gave above and the rest are exceptions. These 1% are nice people but when we are talking about traits I guess traits of majority gets precedence. From what I understand, the more they are in numbers the bolder they become and start being asses to south Indians.

Back when I was in college there was this guy who was a North Indian who used to hit my door at 4 AM and shout "Mera Bharat Mahan", to this day I never understood what his problem was.

avatar
Shadowstalker16: Also, I've always felt groups and social interactions are very different. In Kerala you don't interact with the public in general without a group of friends, and in many cases, people just don't speak at all until they see someone they know. I've seen people wander around a bus stand for 5+ minutes until asking for directions, but they'll be bubbling a soon as they have someone they know with them. I've also seen very different interactions between rickshaw drivers. In Kerala they just park on a line and talk to each other until someone shows up to hire them and always the first parked rickshaw will get the passenger. Like, if you ask someone at the back of the line they'll point to you to go to the front. While I've visited Karnataka, I haven't yet seen the drivers fight over who gets the passenger. Kinda weird. How is it where you live?
I have been to Karnataka and they were actually pretty friendly people, and gave me directions whenever I was lost. That Rickshaw fighting thing is the effect of rapid growth i.e. in cities which are growing slowly there's always a trickle of drivers coming in and they are pretty well connected with unions and stuff. Once rapid growth sets in there's too many new people coming in for them to keep track of and pretty soon it's every group for itself. (mostly a locality thing) Over here they are generally united and rarely fight over customers.
avatar
227: A real American knows that our greatest flaw is being too free. All the other countries must be soooo~ooo~ooo self-conscious over their lack of freedom compared to ours. They shouldn't feel too bad, though. We are, after all, a country that formed as a bald eagle and Jesus consummated their love on top of a pile of AK-47s and Philly cheesesteaks while Betty Ross watched. Greatness was our destiny, and anyone who says otherwise should be deported back to a third-world country like Europe.
That was just beautiful.
Attachments:
Let me see... Italian... uhm... we exist. Yes, that is bad enough. Really, when talking about my "fellows" Italians I nearly touch racism.

Jokes aside, statistics show that 47% of the population is functionally illiterate. Considering the consistent amount of people I met due to my line of work, I'm surprised the percentage is this low (despite being huge already): among all workers and enterpreneurs I met, most are not able to build a grammatically correct sentence, often -I kid you not- displaying much worse skills than first grader children. Yes, it is that bad. You wouldn't believe how many legal issues derive each day from misunderstandings due to wild ignorance.
Also, since most Italians can barely speak their language in an intelligible way don't expect to receive an answer if, as a foreigner, you ask for an information. Almost nobody knows a word of any other language, and I met -again, I kid you not- many information technology students that are completely incapable of understanding English, finding expressions like "the book is on the table" totally cryptic.
Being an American I must begrudgingly admit we have never been very hospitable to outsiders.

We really need to be more amiable toward Heebs, Chinks, Degos, Jungle Bunnies, and other assorted other godless savages before we as a country can grow and evolve.
avatar
51nikopol: I apologize for being the first Canadian to post here. We are know for being very polite, sorry!

We are also very passionate about hockey and beer, which is not a bad thing.

Thank you for reading this.

The following sums it up pretty well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU
11 in every 10 canadians are like Ricky from TPB, right? :P
avatar
R8V9F5A2: Jeesu...who does that?
Wish I knew :P
Post edited December 09, 2015 by vicklemos
Drinking problems

Drug problem (Russian mostly do fentanyl, policemen usually confiscate this version from the streets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Methylfentanyl - a hardcore drug which makes opium and heroin look like cannabis, and estonians mostly do a lot of cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamine, cocaine)

About 60-70% of people are so anti-russian they don't see any problems in us foreign policy or any other anti-russian country

Very conservative (especially the middle-agers) - we have a big division in population currently about giving LGBT-people rights to legally live together (ehm. don't know the right word, not marriage but partnership by a legally binding document? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Estonia) I OTOH don't really give a fuck who lives together and who fucks who (unless it's not a consenting adult)
We hate those immigrants from Middle-East etcetc

Belief in new age shit, seriously, we must the worst country in that part. Most people don't belong to a chuch and believe in a bigger force or spirits or some shit like that and believe and watch those fucking faggots from bitva ekstrasensov (a russian tv show)

Reservation when there are strangers around - unless we are drunk

Too much to write here, typical post-soviet shit-state
Post edited December 09, 2015 by dewtech
A great thread indeed.

I can go on and on about Croatians.

1. We love tourism. Every summer there are many news reports about how well tourist season in Croatia is going. We hope that magically tourist season will bring our country back to it's feet, and that whole country will live in prosperity because of it.

2. Drunk. Being drunk is considered cool in our society. We drink alcohol on public places and even though it is prohibited by law you will not get punished by doing so 99% of the time. Also selling alcohol to minors is prohibited by law, and yet 16 year old in emergency with 1 or more promille is a common sight in late Friday or Saturday night hours.

3. Cheating, stealing, hypocrisy and manipulation Political corruption is a common site here, and every now and then some politician gets accused of stealing from government budget and money laundering. He is instantly judged by media which manipulates public into doing so too. I am all about proving guilt first, but we do not trust into our incompetent juridical system, so we are easily manipulated into judging first (myself included). Although everyone is ready to judge without a trial, most people see nothing wrong with avoiding taxes, stealing at import duties, paying for passing at collage exam, of course, as long as they don't get caught. After they get caught, everyone is ready to nod their head and give lectures about how that is wrong. They think it is somehow different because they stole things of a lesser value.

4. Religious It is a sin not to be religious here. Catholic church has tremendous amount of power here, to the point of influencing referendum voting. If you do not go to church god will strike you dead. Ok maybe I overstated it a bit, but I have heard of local priests suggesting how to vote on referendum or elections. It's not uncommon, and people do genuinely stare at you with confusion if you tell them that you do not trust in existence of a god.

5. Scarred with past. People here are scarred with war and former country. I am not going into details here. Croatians hate Serbs for sins of the past, and at the some time, older generations are Yugo-nostalgic.

6. Politically dumb. I'm not talking about politicians (which are catastrophically bad), I am talking about people. People here are not used to ways of democracy. In Yugoslavia they (I'm saying they because I was born after Yugoslavia) had to elect one option of possible one. There were elections with one option and you had to give your vote to one of the available options, or so I was told. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. For some reason, that mentality stuck with people and was transformed to what me and my friends call believers. Believers are people that always vote for same political parties, usually based on your family preference. That means if your dad votes for one party, you vote for that party, not because it has something to offer, but because your mom or dad votes for it. Both main parties together have managed to ruin Croatia's economy in every aspect, brought us to [url=http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Unemployment_rates,_seasonally_adjusted,_October_2015.png]third place for unemployment in Europ[/url], and people still vote for one of those two parties based on family preference.

7. We admire foreign knowledge. People who are educated outside of Croatia are worth more. They somehow poses knowledge that people educated here cannot have. If some research was done by experts outside of Croatia, it is treated as more valuable than research done here.

8. Bureaucracy. Our ministries love to overcomplicate things with overly complicated papers. I am too tired to write more about it, just google it, you will find something.
Post edited December 09, 2015 by Miljac
Right now... David Cameron.
avatar
Enebias: Let me see... Italian... uhm... we exist. Yes, that is bad enough. Really, when talking about my "fellows" Italians I nearly touch racism.

Jokes aside, statistics show that 47% of the population is functionally illiterate. Considering the consistent amount of people I met due to my line of work, I'm surprised the percentage is this low (despite being huge already): among all workers and enterpreneurs I met, most are not able to build a grammatically correct sentence, often -I kid you not- displaying much worse skills than first grader children. Yes, it is that bad. You wouldn't believe how many legal issues derive each day from misunderstandings due to wild ignorance.
Also, since most Italians can barely speak their language in an intelligible way don't expect to receive an answer if, as a foreigner, you ask for an information. Almost nobody knows a word of any other language, and I met -again, I kid you not- many information technology students that are completely incapable of understanding English, finding expressions like "the book is on the table" totally cryptic.
I'm pretty sure that you forgot the part about impossibly high taxes, piss poor services (to the point, just to name one, that our mail service is considered equal, if not worse, than third-world countries ones, and i've seen several ebay sellers explicitly stating that they refuse to ship to a few african countries AND Italy due to the humongous numbers of stolen and broken packages), bureaucracy so bad that it takes months or years to do anything they do in a week in another country, horribly biased and politically-oriented media, corrupted politicians, mafia, lack of jobs placement, some of the slowest internet connections in the "civilized" world (as was clearly shown by Ookla Net Index before they shut down the page), the blatant nepotism in every possible structure and job, the common racism and xenophobia and the general behaviour of the middle italian himself, who lives by the culture of "the smartest one wins, the one who abide by the rules is an idiot". There's a reason why our country is one of those with the highest ratio of internet piracy in the world.
Post edited December 09, 2015 by Shendue
avatar
Enebias: 47% of the population is functionally illiterate.
PORCA MISERIA!
Non è possibile!
(47%? pfffff in here it's +75%, amico mio. The worst in here? Illiterate politicians. Illiterate presidentS- yep- and so on...)



avatar
dewtech: Too much to write here, typical post-soviet shit-state
Don't forget the "delicious" tongue sandwich. Yummy!
Post edited December 09, 2015 by vicklemos
avatar
dewtech: Too much to write here, typical post-soviet shit-state
avatar
vicklemos: Don't forget the "delicious" tongue sandwich. Yummy!
u wot m8?
avatar
vicklemos: Don't forget the "delicious" tongue sandwich. Yummy!
avatar
dewtech: u wot m8?
:P
Jokes aside, sad to see that most of the former "western" USSR republics are marooned in alcohol :(
But HEY, at least your friendly neighbor Latvia has a car that runs on logs, eh? :D
Here's another trait:

The large amounts of homophobia and transphobia coming from conservative politicians.

Further, the fact that people actually vote for such politicians.

Also, the fact that scare tactics actually work (and are the reason why Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance got defeated in the ballot).
1. American exceptionalism.

2. Understanding that our arrogance is not a good thing and that we're NOT the greatest country in much anymore, unless you count teenage pregnancies, creation of more taxpayer burdens with none of the USA's greatest resources in the past, IE: work ethic. Mass media is essentially advertising and propaganda, with no middle ground, while popular music tends to be advertising for clothes, alcohol, cars, jewelry, drugs and consumerism.

Before someone says it, no, consumerism by itself is not a bad thing, but when a nation's work ethic degrades to a point where they can't afford the things that pop culture tells them they NEED to have to be considered "cool," it leads to the OTHER thing the USA is really good at.

3. The Prison Industrial Complex. Yeah, we're going there. On one hand, we stuff people away for marijuana like there's no tomorrow, despite the fact that over half the population use it, and despite the fact that states are now lining up to legalize, now that they realize the windfall of taxes there are to be made from dispensaries, farming operations, hemp industries, etc. All of this generates cheap labor for what's becoming a more privatized institution, as opposed to state run and controlled reformatories, which borders on exploitation.

4. Our politics SUCK. BOTH parties are completely being taken over by extremists, while the more centrist majorities just sit idly by, shaking their heads at the complete stupidity of the circus that our political system creates. BOTH parties are just as ineffectual as the other and NEITHER party is in it for the good of their constituents.

5. Race-baiting, divisiveness and sensationalism has become a viable career path. This, coupled with our shitty media narratives, creates a constant atmosphere of tension and molds it into a pressure release valve, so they and their political handlers can all wring their hands and act shocked when someone does something insane, then attempt to pass more laws, all while ignoring the hypocrisy of their own actions.

I could say more, but I feel like I've said plenty already. Oh, entitlement. The amount of self-entitlement rampant in this country right now is god damned egregious.
avatar
tinyE: Being an American I must begrudgingly admit we have never been very hospitable to outsiders.

We really need to be more amiable toward Heebs, Chinks, Degos, Jungle Bunnies, and other assorted other godless savages before we as a country can grow and evolve.
LOL

We are way more hospitable than many countries, though. Americans tend to underestimate just how much racism is tolerated in other countries. And Americans are so friendly in general that people from other cultures can get weirded out.

The intense focus on competition/debate/arguing is a real problem though. We need to be less partisan in basically all aspects of life.
Post edited December 09, 2015 by Gilozard