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 think it's important to understand that ethnicity and national origin are important concepts in the US. Census and other forms often ask for this information, so it is something that people are expected to know about themselves.

Also race and ethnicity are separate concepts in the US. Ethnicity usually equates with national or regional origin.

Seems odd that Anerica, land of the free and all for individualism is so dictatorial about your own property.

I use to live in NZ, a lot of stuff will close down over Christmas, it’s not uncommon for people to take the whole of January off and have a really long Christmas holiday, it’s summer holidays there. I would regularly work through Christmas and the offices would be very quiet with hardly anyone about. Schools usually finish before Christmas and return in February. Some companies will force employees to take 2 weeks off over Christmas and close completely. There are also a number of public holidays in Jan/Feb. I believe Oz is the same.

Rude.

I find this so depressing. School/education is not just for the job market. Or, rather, teenagers will be better served, in terms of the job market but also more widely, if they develop skills in critical thinking/general, historical and social awareness and knowledge and the ability to think about and discuss complex issues and to express themselves well.

It's not trying to make people now bear responsibility for things that were done long ago. It's just an awareness of history and society.

I don't think they should have

It's vitally important to understand the history of your country because it shapes what it is today. The results of colonialism (and slavery, etc) are present in both the US and UK today. People can't be equipped to deal with that if they don't know what happened. School isn't just to teach job skills; it's to produce educated people.

American high schools do start quite early, I'd say. Some are before 7:30. The main reason is to stagger schools so all the kids can be transported. A lesser reason is for activities after school. There's a push by doctors to have high schools start at 8:30 or later because teenagers are chronically sleep-deprived.

It's by consent, though. And there are a lot of housing choices that don't involve HOAs.

@knitnerd90 well if I get fully into it, I think "schools" as they exist today are ridiculous anyway. A lot of them are so authoritarian. It's all about the adults having total authority over teenagers.

My school was absolute rubbish. I definitely didn't learn anything of value. I remember in my Irish primary school, spending half the day learning the Irish language and the second half of the day learning about the Catholic religion. I wasn't actually Catholic, but at that time - they made me study it too. Both were utterly useless to me. My secondary school was useless too. Irish was still mandatory. I didn't want to learn it. AndI remember my English teacher used to come in and just talk all class about her son playing football.
I definitely didn't learn anything of value. I really taught myself things as an adult.

I think the colonisation thing is because there seem, in my experience, to be two attitudes towards it - one is that it wasn't always done in the nicest way but that it gave brown people railways so it had its upsides, and the other is that you shouldn't just walk into someone else's country and tell the people there how to be and live their lives.

That's a vast oversimplification, but I think neither side sees the other's point of view and I'm not sure that they're comfortable coming to an accommodation about it. I suspect, therefore, that it's easier to just ignore it completely!

Why learn about a gory history that happened long ago.

Northern Ireland is still one of the last remaining outposts of the British Empire (along with The Falkland’s, Gibraltar, etc.) so still very topical, I should think?

Hardly any English people know the real history of what went down in Ireland (and many other places.)

Without a proper understanding and knowledge of history how can you have any understanding of yourself, your origins and your privileges (or lack of)

There are many famous quotes along these lines:

”A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

“A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.”

“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Absolutely - I was born 'down south' (near London), then later moved 'up north' (to Manchester). Where I live now is so far north, all compass points are reset and everywhere, even the far north of Scotland, is just 'south' 😂

I have not yet RTFT and this has probably been answered elsewhere, but I do want to go on record with NO, that's not true, at least not in any jurisdiction I've ever heard of or encountered. Growing fruits and vegetables in our yards/gardens is extremely common.

@JenniferAlisonPhilipaSue My son has to be on his High School campus by 7.30am. It's a private school so they don't have to consider school bus times but by starting early they can they finish by 3pm as everyone has a mandatory sport or other extra curricular after school which generally lasts another 90 minutes / 2 hours so they can still get home at a reasonable time.

Americans. Why are your lasagna noodles/sheets shaped like that? Or rather why aren't ours. I'm envious of yours because it looks so much nicer with the ruffled edges.

Are yours flat? We can get them flat or ruffled.

BTW - I personally don't call pasta "noodles".

That's such a long day! How do they cope?

In my area, elementary schools (the first five years of school) start at 8:30, so not ridiculously early. Middle and high schools start closer to 7;30, which IS crazy, and it would make more sense for elementary and high schools to swap schedules so that teenagers can sleep in later. (If I had taken the bus in high school, it would have picked me up at about 6:15, which would have meant getting up in the 5 o'clock hour! Fortunately my mom drove me until I could drive myself.)

However, teenagers have more after-school commitments, so finishing earlier (around 2:30) is more practical. It would be difficult, though I'm sure not impossible, to fit in sports or extracurriculars AND have time for homework if they finished much later.

I know of a high school in my state that swapped the elementary school schedule with the high school schedule, so teenagers started at 8:30 and elementary kids started at 7;30. It was a big kerfuffle because it threw them out of alignment with other local high schools, so they either couldn't hold athletic meets or the other schools had to work around the divergent school's schedule. But it did work out in the end, and it's probably better for the health of those teens to be able to sleep later in the mornings.

But it's totally illogical! And is like a proper rule so I would get told off by Italians and waiters would refuse to serve me a milky coffee after dinner! But somehow tiramisu or ice-cream is fine.

Actually, it's the same with fondu in Switzerland. You aren't meant to drink water as the cheese swells in your stomach but you ARE meant to drink mint tea (or wine) with it. The mint tea doesn't do something magical - it's the same as water but with a bit of mint! The Swiss people I pointed this out to refused to accept it and would point blank not allow anyone to drink water with or after a fondu. But mint tea yes!

@Natsku it is a long day, my DS gets up at 6.30am and generally gets home around 5.30-6pm.
Most evenings he has dinner then goes out again to train for his other sport (it's very common to play for the school and an outside team here), the long hours don't seem to bother him at all so I guess he's just used to it as it's been this way since he started playing sport in late elementary school.
In my experience, the majority of teenage socializing in High School revolves around their sports and extra curriculars so he's killing 2 birds with 1 stone by playing so much sport!

Are yours flat? We can get them flat or ruffled.

Yes. We only get the flat kind here unfortunately.

Italians, how do you feel about pineapple on pizza?

Mint settles the stomach. My mother goes on about it every time I have an upset stomach. Maybe she is Swiss.

German peeps - is it normal to talk about children's poo as 'großes geschäft' or is that a weird translation?

It's normal, though you're more likely to just say "gross" or "klein".

What a stupid comment.

I’m not offended by anything on the thread, and I’m not referring to everything on the thread. But people asking stupid questions like “why do Americans pronounce a word differently to me” are ridiculous.

@BackToWhereItAllBegan I suppose they adapt and get used to it but sounds exhausting to me. My 11 year old finds 6 hour days long enough! (And only has them twice a week, the other days are 4 hours which is much more to her liking. Must get longer in high school but not sure how much longer)