Each country has a unique history, a unique culture, usually a unique language as well. But despite all that, some of them are well known for other reasons – for myths that often have nothing in common with the truth.
Such myths were recently discussed by members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community, after one user asked them about the false narratives about their countries. Quite a few people contributed to the thread, so if you want to see if something you believed about a certain country is but a myth, scroll down to find the netizens’ comments on the list below.
Canadians are nice.
We are not nice. We are polite.
That means we say “ excuse me”, please” and “thank you” appropriately.
“Excuse me, could you please take all this 51st state b******t to a corner somewhere and f**k yourself with it? Thank you.”.
Romania: that we have vampires…. Please, my friend Vlad has not seen a single vampire in the past 300 years.
Also, our national anthem literally begins with “wake up from your slumber of death”. :).
America was founded for religious freedom. The Pilgrims were intolerant bigots, driven out of everywhere else because of their intolerance and zealotry.
They also didn’t start America. The Jamestown Colony was the “start” and it was a ‘company town’. So America was founded for corporate wealth expansion.
Japan is not like what you see on the internet. Japanese are not the nicest most polite people. Japanese smile a lot do to social pressure but they are really thinking “I hate you”
The working culture here is really really bad with very little work life balance. The government is just as corrupt as Americas. It’s very crowded and fairly expensive to the point that people are no longer having babies.
It’s a great country to visit for like two weeks. But living here, it’s very difficult to survive ESPECIALLY if you don’t speak any Japanese.
Edit: Also, all that nerdy Anime s**t is also considered nerdy Anime s**t here too.
French are not cowards and we do not surrender or run away in every war.
Countless military words have french etymology, because we were the dominant military power for centuries. It is true we collapsed in 1940 and disgraced ourselves, but that one event does not erase everything else
It is especially annoying coming from illiterate US simpletons who are not aware of the role the french military played in the American war of independence.
“Iceland has an app everybody uses to see if they are related before having sex”. While it is true that it was an app, the app was made as a joke. Iceland has birth records so extensive and complete, I can trace my family back 33 generations to Úlfur Óargi who was born in 740.
So a group of students made a joke app called “Incest Spoiler” which used this data to give you how closely related any two people were, but nobody has seriously used it.
That all of Germany is like Bavaria (all of the German stereotypes only depict Bavarian traditions). Although the country is a pretty small one, people will have different traditions, customs and veeeery different dialects if you drive for only 2 or 3 hours. .
UK – that we all love the royal family & are offended when other people insult them.
A large chunk of the population is in favour of having no royal family anymore (certainly compared to previous generations).
That Vikings had horns on their helmets. Thanks Wagner.
That polar bears roam our streets.
And my personal favourite: that the midnight sun is a physically different sun.
The Netherlands – a majority of people do not in fact smoke pot on the regular, nor is it technically legal.
We also don’t wear wooden shoes, the country does not exist mostly out of farmers that are stuck in the 19th century (thank you for that one Marvel) and we do not have no-go zones in big cities.
We are the land of the Free.
Reality: USA is a flawed democracy ranking in the high teens in the various freedom indices.
So perhaps some nuance to the 100% part unless you get technical.
Scotland – many people think that Wild Haggis are a myth created to wind up tourists but they’re actually very much real animals although their numbers have declined quite significantly so I can see why they think it’s a myth. Luckily, you can see one on display in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum so hopefully that helps dispel the myth of their existence!
As a Canadian, I don’t think we’re particularly “nicer” than anyone else. I would say that we’re less confrontational. We’re more likely to keep quiet then post about it later on social media. .
That British food is s**t.
It was probably true 20 years ago, but British cuisine has gone through a bit of a renaissance over the last decade and a half. We actually season stuff now. As evidenced by the fact that outside of Paris, the city with the most michelin-starred restaurants in the world is London.
One thing that *is* a bone of contention for me is that when I see memes about British food, it’s almost always pot-shots at our “poverty meals”. Beans on toast and stuff like that. We’ve never eaten beans on toast because we *like* it; we eat it because it’s literally cheaper than instant noodles.
It just feels very cheap to mock poverty food when 60 million Americans rely on food banks.
Sweden. That we’ve got no go zones all over the place. We don’t..the only time I’ve felt threatened walking around in my city have been on friday/saturday nights when some random drunk(s) are trying to pick a fight..a fist fight…
That David Hasselhoff played some sort of integral role in the fall of the wall and the reunification of Germany.
Norway. Polar bears isn’t an everyday lurking threat. I told a guy in my guild back when playing wow, that I was heading out, going for a jog in the nearby woods close to my home. And he asked seriously, if I had to be armed in case polar bears attacked.
Australia and all the wildlife. The vast majority of the time, if you leave wildlife alone, they’ll leave you alone. Snakes and spiders are not particularly brave.
Usually this whole “aUsTraLiA iS sO dEaDlY” comes from people that have f*****g bears, wolves, mountain lions and more to worry about. I’m way more worried about those than a spider you can smash with a newspaper.
So many people believe Denmark has a set minimum wage. We do not – in fact the Danish government has stated they don’t want that because it may make companies lower the wages that unions have fought for.
That Brits don’t go to the dentist.
There are people in literally every country with bad teeth, but us Brits get labelled the worst.
People assume Greeks are lazy but we are some of the hardest-working people. It’s always funny when the German tourists come and are surprised that we aren’t running around naked stuffing our faces with food or napping. So sorry to disappoint you.
That in Poland, everyone is an alcoholic, I know more people who nearly never drink than people who drink very often.
That we in the USA think we’re better than everyone. Some do but many have a deep respect for other cultures and a fascination to learn more.
(Our recent election may not support this but it’s 100% true!).
That Serbia is dangerous. In fact it’s very friendly and safe.
It’s more a joke than a myth but I swear to god if I hear “Finland isn’t real” one more time…
We don’t say “OPA!” every chance we get and plate smashing is kinda a thing of the past.
Apparently quite a few Brits think that electric kettles don’t work in the US because the voltage isn’t strong enough or something.
Plenty of us have electric kettles and they work just fine. The rest of us use stovetop ones to preserve counter space.
That Norway has a boring and outdated cuisine. You can literally buy a bacon covered, cheese filled hot dog at every corner in the entire country. That’s pretty innovative to me!
The the US is a massive monoculture. Theres like 8 major subcultural groups recognized within the US, not counting smaller ones or Native Americans.
We are in fact not the country with the highest obesity rates in the world. We’re ranked 13th, still pretty high though.
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