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 was asked (well told) that everyone in England has a picture of the queen on a wall in their house

I was also told that there hadn't been any poor people in English history - they were all rich. Apparently.

lemonpoppyseed dd had fun with that at school today, especially the burning of effigies. Her classmates thought she was kidding to start with

It is perfectly acceptable to call black people black in the US, and many native Americans actually prefer American Indian as it is the only double barreled/hyphenated American designation that puts American first.

When in central América I was told by a lovely American woman that England was 7 hours ahead. I said, it's actually 8 hours.

No, she told me, Europe is definetley 7 hours ahead.

On holiday in California last year we were walking on the 'pier' in Santa Cruz (me DH and 5 teens) and I heard an elderly couple remark "they must be Europeans".

It wasn't said in an unfriendly way at all but I'm still trying to figure out how they knew as we weren't talking at the time so no accent to go by. I wasn't wearing my backpack on the front or anything so no idea what it was that made us stand out?

Not from living overseas, but I once had an Afghan interpreter ask me in court "what is wrong with the judge?". He was Welsh with quite a lilting accent. The interpreter had only ever lived in London and needed me to translate any questions from the judge into sarf London speak

I have been asked in Turkey why in the UK we celebrate new year on 25th December. When I've tried to explain that Christmas and new year are separate celebrations the answer was 'Oh I see, well in Turkey we celebrate Christmas on 31st December.'

I'm not living abroad, but was once asked in California was I from Germany.

I'm a born and bred Londoner, who talks like I'm from Albert Square.

Scone, I know this wasn't a widespread position, it was simply the oddity of this particular person - oddly, a university-educated Bostonian. Though, come to think of it, he can't be entirely alone in his view that all the black people of the world should be called African-American, because I remember it coming up more than once in Harry Potter fanfic. One of Harry's black schoolmates (Dean Thomas, maybe? This was a million years ago), despite being a Londoner, was being called African-American by American fic writers posting on Britpicking fora.

Firbolg, yes, I understand; I just wanted to mention it because there are posts on threads now and then that say in the US you can't call black people black. I think that there are some Americans who may have been mistakenly taught that and have told their British friends and it gets passed along. It is just plain wrong. Americans who think that are just not paying attention. The census uses it (black or African-American); President Obama refers to himself as black.

grammarist.com/usage/african-american-black/

Gotcha. Was afraid suddenly that it looked as though I was making some 'dumb Americans' generalisation, which was the last thing on my mind.

Thanks. And I didn't read your comments as dumb Americans generalizations at all.

On the other hand, those comments by other posters about Edinburgh Castle and Windsor Castle have been around for years, and are largely apocryphal, I think. I know the Edinburgh one has several variations.

Yup, have heard the castle/ motorway one about Bunratty Castle in Ireland, too.

One of our neighbours was surprised to hear that the French Controle Technique for a car wasn't valid in the UK, and there was an MOT test for cars.

Many are extremely surprised to hear that English is not a nationality, and that it is, in fact, British. Had that this afternoon.

In the States on holiday in 1964, most people dm and I met were astonished to discover that we didn't know the Beatles personally, despite living only 10 miles from Liverpool. Disclaimer - a lady in the next road babysat for Cynthia Lennon and often took Julian to the local outdoor pool in his pram, but don't think that really counts.

"English is not a nationality"

It depends what you mean by the word. True there is not an English passport. "British" might not include Northern Ireland, but if you mean "British Isles" you would have to include the Republic. Perhaps the UK is a nationality.

If you told Scots people that Scots is not a nationality you should expect considerable disagreement.

I like video for explaining english vs british and a whole lot more.

On the flip side of the coin, I was brought up in an African country but we came back to live in the UK in the 1960s when I was still a kid. My new British classmates were under the impression that we'd lived in a mud hut, wore grass skirts and didn't have shoes!

I don't think all of them were convinced when I told them that we lived in an ordinary house, wore proper clothes and shoes and I even wore a uniform to school.

Another flip side, DH was initially refused life insurance by compañías in the UK on the basis that living in Santiago, Chile " you live in the jungle, you might get eaten by aligators"

Here in Germany I'm officially never allowed to give blood because of the apparently unacceptably high risk that I will have BSE. Even though I was a vegetarian during the danger period in the UK.

I once had a very weird discussion with an older German woman who had been on a two-week holiday to the UK and was insistent that she remembered cars going round roundabouts in the same direction as in Germany. I pointed out that since cars drive on the other side of the road, surely they have to go round the other way in order to avoid chaos, but no, she knew that she was right. I showed her my British driving licence, but she still knew better. Silly moo.

Arch when I lived in Germany, early 2000, I found a lot of Germans mentioned BSE and if I was worried about developing it. I wasn't until I moved to Germany!

I came across a lot of American Aupairs in Germany, my friends all came from a deeply religious sect from Arkansas so more sheltered than most, so I got a lot of strange questions. They were absolutely convinced that Scotland was a seperate island and we still lived Braveheart style.
On finding out my dad was English and my mum Scottish I was actually asked if that was because ....the whole an Englishman has the rights to a Scottish Maiden on her wedding night.

Another question was how can you tell if the men are gay because they all wear tight trousers. This was actually before the skinny jean craze hit so they were just normal jeans.

FruVikingessOla - but in the 70s my Primary School Geography text book told me all about a little boy from "Africa" who lived in a mud hut in the Jungle. I still find it amazing that we were using such antiquated materials.

Yes, I suppose you're right, mummy. But the TV programme, Daktari, was popular in the late 60s which featured people living in houses, wearing normal clothes and driving Land Rovers

I suppose my classmates didn't make the connection though!

Well just ask most people nowadays what is "Africa" like and they won't mention Shopping Malls etc. And most people talk about Africa as if it was one homogenous country, not a vast continent bigger than North America.

The true size of Africa

mummytime
Although lots of people in Africa don't live in mud huts, there are still quite a few that do live in precarious conditions with limited or no access to drinkable water, medicine and so on. Not only in Africa, but in India, even Brazil and so on, though.