Questions you have about other nationalities!

[WatermelonWaveclub]

Just for fun. DD and I were just watching a video where Americans were asking questions about the UK. What are your questions (can be for any nationality from any nationality)? And please feel free to answer other people's questions!

I'll start with some questions for Americans:

Are your grocery bags really those ones without handles? They look really awkward to carry!

Why do you not have electric kettles?

In High school films the English teacher for example always gives them some homework to do by the next day and says 'see you tomorrow' - do you have the same classes every day? We just had English twice a week or something!

I’ve lived in a few hot counties and no, not suncream everyday. I would wear clothing that covered my shoulders and wear a hat if I was walking to the shops for example. If I knew I was going out for a longer period then, I would wear suncream.
I would also spend more time inside because of the heat, and there were more shaded areas when you were outside.
I also had vitamin d deficiency.

I heard that it is good practice to examine poo and the little shelf allows this.

Not by me! I sort of see what you're getting at but I don't see English as being superior.

No.

The usual standard Christmas meal are cold meats such as chicken, ham, salads and seafood especially prawns or if you want to go really fancy lobster. Will also have desserts like pavlova or similar. In my family it's very relaxed and enough food is made to last for a day or two. So we'll have a big lunch and then if still hungry at dinner time will have leftovers and then finish the leftovers on Boxing Day. There are of course those who like to stay "traditional" and have a hot baked meal but that's becoming rarer these days.

In India there is this concept of continental food (coming from continental Europe, I believe). What is served as continental is quite varied. The only British food I've seen is fish and chips. Italian is very popular, you always get various types of pasta. Stroganoff is really common too. In posh continental restaurants you get French dishes. I've seen paella. Then there is steaks and grills. So you would go out for continental food, not specifically British, or French etc.

I too am puzzled at the widespread popularity of Kevin. Kevin Keegan played for Hamburg of course but I'm not sure that explains it. They are not all devout fans of St Kevin of Glendalough methinks.

@FrozZen Someone told me Tuesdays are unlucky because Constantinople fell to the Ottomans on a Tuesday - the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire. Please don't let this be an urban myth!

The stereotype is that Berlin is full of hipsters so I guess that can be snobby in its own way but not particularly unfriendly. Germany is much less centralised around one city than the UK. Berlin is not that big compared to London, not that rich, has a high proportion of people originally from elsewhere (which I guess is similar to London) and is also quite a young city. If anywhere I would say people from Munich are more snobby because they are all rich down there 😉

I have a question for the Spanish, based on my difficulties as a vegetarian traveling in your county. Why is it that it is virtually impossible to get vegetarian/plant-based food in restaurants, yet all your markets are full of gorgeous fresh produce? Who is eating it? Or do you eat more vegetables at home but when you go out to restaurants people want to eat meat?

I am from NZ. Auckland is thought of much the same way as London is in the UK - disliked, resented, felt to be out of touch with rest of country etc. Aucklanders are sometimes referred to as JAFAs, code for "just another f*%^ing Aucklander." Auckland is not the capital but it's by far the biggest city.

For Christmas my family (British and Irish descent) eat an awkward hybrid of British traditional Christmas food and dishes better suited to the summer weather. We normally have roast ham on toast for breakfast and then an afternoon meal of roast turkey (normally cooked on the BBQ) with trimmings plus a lot of cold salads, followed by Christmas pudding (which most of my family don't like and always seems weird when it's hot) with strawberries and other fresh fruit, sometimes pavlova.

Berliners certainly have a reputation of being rude. To a certain extent, that's probably true, but I believe they have taken German directness to the next level.
I've been to Berlin many times and found people to be quite friendly, if a bit short and direct.

As for the "inspection shelf" in toilets: I don't quite know where that originated, but it is less common than it used to be. In my immediate family and friendship circle I cannot think of a single household who has one of those loos.

Paid time off usually starts at two weeks, but as you spend time in the work force you get more. When you start a new job you can usually negotiate for more.

I have 20 days plus the holidays my company is closed. My husband has a bit more plus constantly accruing sick days and personal time. He works for our state government. I don’t get a separate bank of sick days, but generally my manager doesn’t bother to count those days against my holidays. When DH retires they will pay him for all of the days he didn’t use. He could also donate them to someone who has a major illness.)

We get at least:
New Year’s Day
Memorial Day
Juneteenth
July 4th
Labor Day
Thanksgiving and the day after
Christmas

The state workers gets a ton more MLK day, Presidents Day, Veterans Day. The days that schools/government are closed but we are open are very quiet at our office. (Schools are closed so parents take off.) Manager will usually offer for everyone to end the day early, too.

We also have 5 floating days to take off other holidays we choose.

We can carry over 5 days to the next year if we don’t use them.

Paternal leave at my company is now 8 weeks. Not sure about maternity leave, it’s more than that.

Yes agree with this. Hope the UK doesn't break up but the UK government has treated Scottish people (and remainers in general) with contempt - no effort made at all to find a compromise given the closeness of the vote.

I met a man who grew up in Cuba who told us about the government coming in and pouring cement over his back yard when he was a child. They were no longer allowed to grow their own food as they wanted complete government dependence. I’m still horrified when I think about this. His family fled to the US.

Vegetable gardens are very common here in the US. Community gardens are available for people who don’t have yards, also. We personally didn’t start one this year but have some herbs and tomatoes. We have tons of trees, shrubs, perennials and flowers in our yard.

@CatatonicLadybug

In many parts of the US (including mine) we have very little in the way of international food so it never came up that pasta wasn’t a real noodle and Asian food did have real noodles.

That’s interesting, I thought you could get international food all over the US due to the scale of immigration. Which areas are these - the Midwest?

Don't think it's to do with density of population as we lived in rural Devon and even there at least a week. The months mind is only in the Catholic Church but even Protestant/ no faith funerals are very quick here. I think there's a happy medium as can feel rushed here but too long in England. Still don't know how these different traditions have come about.

A question for the French
As a coeliac I found it really difficult to get gluten free meals when at Disneyland Paris even though they have many restaurants.
Is this the same across France itself?

Kevin and other English/American names started being popular in France in the 70s/80s. Babies were named after popular actors, American soap operas, etc. English names sounded more modern and fashionable… but only in some ‘less educated’ or ‘working class’ families. Kevin after Kevin Costner and possibly Kevin from Home Alone! Kevin is pronounced the French way i.e. quay-veen

Nowadays the names Kevin, Jennifer, etc. are being made fun of, but other English names are very popular and in the top 20 such as Liam, Logan, Ethan… No change!

Americans....

WHAT IS A CONDO?

Everywhere outside of the big cities 20 years ago. Pretty much like Britain, where a lot of adults remember not seeing pizzas around until their teens. I still remember not being able to find a single place that did espresso coffee in my city years ago, even when we are flooded with tourists.

What?!

I've never ever heard that. I'm wondering where you did.

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA (home owner's association) and they can makes rules about the color of varnish on your perimeter fence, that the trees don't grow over a sidewalk, not have washing lines visible (that one grates on me since I live in Texas and my clothes dryer seems superfluous) but I have never heard that about fruit trees and gardens.

I'm Swedish. It's not a Swedish accent, I think it's supposed to sound more Norwegian but I don't think it sounds right for a Norwegian accent either.

Condo (short for condominium) is a form of ownership for flats and (newer) townhouses. It's a form of what the UK would call freehold ownership but includes a board and fund for maintenance of common areas which are in shared ownership.

Thanks so much for explaining.

Would that be the kind of properties under a housing association (I think it's called?) where there is a board who make decisions about what properties are/aren't allowed to do to their homes?

Greece- A family member died suddenly on a Sunday evening, the funeral was Monday afternoon the next day.

In general funerals happen very quickly.