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!

White tails spider bites hurt, but we don't see many (if any) of them around where we live (suburbia). I don't kill huntsman, if they turn up in our house I catch them and put them outside. Or leave them inside. They are great for catching insects!

Ethnically Pakistani, but educated in England, completed GCSE history in 2004. Absolutely nothing, when we studied world war two there wasn’t even anything about the war outside of Europe, not a hint of Burma etc.

Did nobody ever raise his or her hand and ask why it was called World War II?

Not really a 'standard Christmas meal, and I think what you eat tends to depend on which part of Australia you live in. I'm in a hot part so we tend to have cold food for Christmas lunch - ham, chicken, prawns, salads, cold desserts etc. Interestingly, my in-laws (born and bred in Australia) always used to cook a big hot lunch (roast beef, turkey and pork, baked veggies, gravy etc), which my family (born in England) found really odd. We ditched the hot lunch as soon as we moved to Australia! They don't do that now. In cooler states (Victoria, Tasmania) they might choose hot food for Christmas Day, but I imagine lots still have cold meats and salads.

Another question for the Brits. Is it true that the royal family can't marry anyone who is Catholic? I'm sure I've heard that somewhere. Also, with your class system would it ever be possible for a royal to fall in love with and marry someone from a very poor background? Or are you meant to 'stay in your lane' so to speak.

One for America - in a block of flats why don't the separate flats have a washing machine do you have to use the laundry room

It was recently lifted but yes 1701 Act of Stettlement meant royals couldn’t marry Catholic. A Catholic still can’t be monarch tho as they are head of the church and the church is Protestant.

a few people said they kill white tail spiders, but I didn’t think their bite was particularly harmful to humans?

Not in the way a funnel web is, but they still have the potential to make people physically ill, the bite hurts like all shit and I have seen several cases of necrotic tissue around their bites. So, the thong it is.

Can’t answer re the hard to kill big spiders as we don’t kill big ones, you shift them outside. Funnel web would be the largest you would kill and I still do them with thongs (some of the little buggers rear up and run at you) but if you think about your size and their size it’s a no-brainer.

Digestifs are not really common in restaurants anymore, and generally are offered by the "patron" (the restaurant owner) as a way to bond with customers, and more often than not, not even on the menu.
Worth saying also that its generally a local specialty which might be homemade out of health and safety regulations, so again, that can't be on the menu.

No, the Church of England is definitely not Protestant. It’s not Catholic either. It’s Anglican and has elements of both Protestantism and Catholicism.

The CoE was forged as part of the Protestant reformation. Anglicanism is high church - ie it retained some practices from Catholicism but it’s predominantly Protestant theology and liturgy. No transub, no icons, no mass, no pope.

@Sunshine1235
You can write your own vows here in England if getting married in a licensed venue. We did, 20 years ago. There's a few legal sentences that have to be included though.

You can't change the traditional vows if getting married in a Church.

It's different for different apartment buildings and this is true worldwide, not just in the US. In big cities where land is expensive and apartments are small, no living space will be wasted on a washer/dryer. So residents will need to find a laundromat or use the facilities, often in the basement. In areas where land is less expensive, apartments will be bigger and thus have spare space for a washer/dryer and more.

Thanks for the responses re spiders. I am in awe of those who move huntsmen or just go to sleep with one in the room. I’m such a scaredy cat!

No it doesn't, their way is the worst. What works best is YMD, as a text sort will put it in date order. There is almost no scenario where MDY is best. (It would only work well if all dates belonged to the same month, in which case the month and year parts are irrelevant.) With DMY, at least you can reverse the characters and sort it, with MDY you have no choice but to chop the text into three different parts before you use it. (Assuming you only have text processing functions to deal with dates.)

Are you made to feel odd if you don't fit your national stereotype? ie a French person who hates cooking and can't bear fashion. an Australian who doesn't surf, swim and hates cricket? A New Zealander who dislikes rugby?

@Shinyrain
I'm with you. My 75yr old mum cooks a roast every Sunday and she does the best roast potatoes! Even in summer.
My Nan did the same.
We all go round -16 of us unless someone is away.

Ha yes, but also works the other way: I really love pizza and people laugh at it because I am Italian and apparently it's a joke. Everyone in my office love pizza, i think it's a universal thing now! I hear on Mars they make a mean capricciosa.

I was at school in England in the 1960s and 1970s and no we we weren't taught anything about colonialism in school. But I was a bookworm so I read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Things Fall Apart, and Black Like Me, from the school library. And Alex Haley's "Roots" was on TV - very popular because we didn't have that many channels. Less about other countries like India til I was older.

when we studied world war two there wasn’t even anything about the war outside of Europe, not a hint of Burma etc.

We read a couple of WWII plays in English lessons including "The Long and The Short and the Tall" (Burmah)

For full disclosure - I didn't take history after age 13. My brother took history O level and learned much more about WWII. But different schools and exam boards varied. There wasn't a national curriculum til later.

Huntsmans (in my opinion) aren't difficult to kill as such, it's just that they're so big, that you can see their cute little faces 😆and that makes me feel guilty. So I really avoid killing them for that reason.

Re white tails, I think it's because we were brought up with the notion that they caused necrosis (since been largely disproved), so they still absolutely creep me out. They're also wanderers, which makes me worry about them biting someone. A lot of other spiders are happy just to stay in their corner, which is ok.

I made someone very angry by suggesting that the reaction of the media to Shane Warne's death was a bit over the top and that maybe we shouldn't rush to eulogise him. So I'd say yes, it can happen.

a few people said they kill white tail spiders, but I didn’t think their bite was particularly harmful to humans?

I don't kill them, I try not to kill any spiders. I was bitten once, but it wasn't a big deal.

Nope, heaps of New Zealanders don’t care about rugby but this will only become evident when mainstream media becomes less sexist. At least netball gets relatively high coverage compared with women’s sports in some countries.

Sorry that was meant for @prettyteapotsplease

They can be. A little boy at kindy took one to show the class and it escaped and bit the teacher and she had to be hospitalised.

Why do Australians use so many abbreviations?