What's the oddest thing you've heard or been asked about the uk in your resident country?

[redexpat]

I've heard more than once in denmark that the UK is a catholic country

And today i was stopped in the supermarket and asked to settle an argument about the origins of halloween.

Does anyone else feel like a sort of cultural ambassador?

I'm not British (from Belarus- main stereotypes I've heard is how we all drink vodka regularly, we've got radiation poisoning or we're Russian, that's if they've heard anything about us) but my relatives were horrified at how we celebrate Christmas. I had a great conversation with my brother last year.

'Why do you want it to bang? Why do you rip up fancy bits of paper? Isn't it sad if you only get a cracker (he thought they were gifts you'd give if you couldn't afford much)? Do people actually find those jokes funny- I thought British people were meant to be funny?'

A lot of people seem to think food here is tasteless and isn't fresh, so no actual wholesome, healthy food, and everything is covered in pesticides. They're usually surprised when they visit.

On a bus in America travelling on a motorway a fellow passenger asked me if I was excited about going on such a big road?!
I gave him a what the fuck look and he went on to explain how it must be odd for me as all I would be used to is roads made of little stones.
After some questioning and much trying not to laugh I worked out that he thought the whole of England had cobbled streets and nothing else.

In a store in Boston the lady behind the counter (upon hearing my British accent) reached across and started stroking my cheek remarking how soft my skin was.

The other member of staff alongside her commented that this was because it rained every day in England and it kept our skin 'moisturised'

This was followed by general nods of agreement all round, including a few customers.

This wasn't some little backwater in the bayou, this was downtown Boston!

I live in Japan, this is basically my life: do your eyes work properly? ( they are blue) do you have honey in England? Do you have satsumas? Can you use chopsticks? (That one is kind of understandable) English schools are are basically Hogwarts.

Yabbie yep my life too!

although when I was back in the UK recently, someone asked me what I ate for breakfast in Japan, and I said "well, toast and jam, usually", and they said "Oh wow, you can actually buy bread in Japan can you? do they eat it too? not just rice?"

so its goes both ways

I lived in Germany for a while when I was younger and shared a flat with a very naive 19 year old American who was out of the States for the first time for a summer placement.

His many gems included:

"Are there black people in England?"
"All my buddies think I'm really European because I wear floral shirts"

And he refused to believe the Channel Tunnel was real. He thought we were pulling his leg.

That's interesting chrome

On holiday in California I struck up a conversation with a black lady fishing from the pier.

She thought that I sounded like Adele (I don't) and then asked if we had black people in England too. She was quite surprised that we did and even more surprised that many of them spoke and sounded just like me

TanteRose I can understand the bread in Japan thing. I spent three months there once and didn't see a single slice of bread anywhere!

In Florida, parents were asked by a local when saying they were from Scotland, 'Scotland, is that overseas?' (They do say some Americans aren't good at geography -and it is a big country).

In Germany as a youngster I was told by a Japanese man that I spoke very good English.

I've also been asked in various places what language we speak in Scotland.

Sometimes people don't know where Scotland is. In central Europe It's been mixed up with places like Denmark.

Apparently I knit like an Italian. Told this by a fascinated and chatty German man. And no I don't - I just don't knit like a German.

Obviously the black American accent thing is a common misconception.
I worked with an American teacher - she was doing a placment type thing over here in the UK. She asked me why the black kids spoke with English accents.

I wonder why that is haffdonger?

I know that American children focus a lot on American history at school so maybe there is a lot of focus on black history but maybe only in an American context?

I really don't know though.

I find it a little sad although I'm not sure why?

I suppose a lot of films (okay, movies!!) and TV seen in the US will have US actors - so many black actors/characters will be African Americans. And British/European film has relatively few black actors/characters. So unless they travel (and what percentage of Americans don't have passports? A lot, but can't recall figures), many Americans will have very little contact with anyone outside of the US - unless they are tourists.

Gary Younge, a British journalist with African ancestry who now lives in the US, has written of how often he is stopped and searched in the US and the police are surprised to find he is British, not American. but not sure what that says really. Maybe some police officers are just presumptuous.

No weird questions while I've been in Australia, but it is crawling with Brits!

I did once get asked by an American what language we speak in the UK.

I guess it's partly how the UK is portrayed to the rest of the world through media and politics etc - all Hugh Grant, Harry Potter and Eton types - not a black face to be seen.

Many yrs ago I received a letter from an old friend in Ghana, in its she asked how I was settling in, she had heard that I had moved from London to England. In actual fact I'd just moved from London to Luton.

"You're from New Zealand? Oh... Do you know what a Christmas carol is?"

I have got "you are from the UK", No I am Irish. repy is usually" same thing". I was in Amsterdam airport waiting for a flight with my cousins. When an American sitting at the next table asked us were we were from abd after we replied Irish she responded with "Wow you guys speak english really well"
A friend of my aunts in Boston came to visit my mum and dad in Ireland and were amazed we had electricity and a modern kitchen. I don't know what they expected as my parents had been to visit them in the states a few times. I think if you can afford airfares to Boston you can afford electricity

I was once caught in the Boston markets in heavy rain, and a couple of old American men were there chatting to me - they asked me where I was from, and knew that England was overseas, they'd been GIs there. Asked where I was from and when I said I'd lived near Oxford, and knew where Witney was, they asked me that standard "Oh I used to stay at XX Abcde Road, in Witney - do you know it? Do you know Mrs. XYZ?" Err, no. Apart from anything else, you're talking ~60 years ago.

A Scottish friend did a year's sabbatical in the USA in the 1990s and they lurved her accent - were fascinated to discover that Scottish folk had electricity, the telephone and even television over there!

I have heard people ask if London is the capital of Europe; is England the capital of Europe; mixing Ireland and the UK up etc.

Australians that I've met mostly have some link to the UK or have been themselves, so I haven't been asked any questions here; and haven't been asked too many mad questions about Australia either - except "do you see kangaroos everywhere?" and for me the answer is "yes" because we do! Our house backs on to a nature reserve sort of area, with a large mob of mostly-wild kangaroos. The only reason they don't make it into our back yard is because of the fence.

I can't recall any strange questions about England where I live (British Columbia, Canada) but then most people have an English relative not that far back, so generally the direction of the conversation tends to be about where exactly I'm from and their relative was from, and if I've ever been there.

I teach in Australia and have had quite a few children hold the utter conviction that all UK beaches are pebbly.

echt - I know where that one comes from!

I can't count the number of times I've seen a blistering, sunburned Pom staggering off a beach muttering " I just can't be getting on with all this sand! Give me the pebbly beaches back home any day!"

Well to be fair to them, echt, quite a few are! Certainly the ones we used to go to (Bognor, Worthing, Brighton and similar) - that south east coast is mostly pebbles.

There are pebbly beaches here too, though. You can normally tell which ones are pebbly because they're almost invariably called Pebbly Beach.

That's true, Surfsup! I do love the Aussie "say what you see" attitude to naming things.