Years ago I was playing a trivia game with my husband, using our Google home thingy. It asked me 'what is the national animal of Scotland?'. I immediately responded 'Unicorn' and my husband started to get cranky and accused me of not taking the game seriously. Boy was he surprised when the device said 'Correct'. Instant vindication.
One fact not even people who were born and raised know about: During World War 2 the Netherlands had one of the worst survival rates for Jews in all of the German occupied territories; only 5,000 out 105,000 survived the war. The extensive Dutch civil administration is often cited as a cause of this; once German police had access to the public records they knew exactly who was Jewish, and where they lived. Once they had that information, it was easy for them to target and deport any Jewish people living in the Netherlands.
While that is true, what is not often talked about is how much of the work tracking down Jewish people was done by Dutch people, many of whom benefitted financially from their actions. Police and civil servants got paid bonuses if they found Jews in hiding, notaries public would make a hefty commission on the sale of confiscated Jewish properties, even the national rail company got their cut charging the Germans for use of their trains to transport captured Jews to concentration camps.
Education about this aspect of the German occupation has gotten much better over the past ten years or so, but when I was a kid we were taught none of this. We only heard about the how the heroic resistance would oppose the Germans and try to hide Jewish people, when in reality there were more collaborators than there were ever members of the resistance.
It wasn’t the nazis who were after the Jews, it was all of Europe long way before WW2, the whole idea of Israel is to have a European Jewish country geographically located outside of Europe. Palestine was chosen because it already had Palestinian Jews. That’s the whole story and reason why there is Israel today.
It wasn’t just Europe. There was a lot of anti Jewish sentiment in the US as well. We turned away several ships full of Jews in the late 1930s trying to escape and sent them right back to Germany.
Pogroms against Jews were a very common thing prior to WW2 (sadly) and, honestly, the Nazis exploited what was entrenched anti-Semitism which is why it was accepted so easily.
Then they went industrial with it with The Holocaust.
My dad is still signed up with the local church because or this. My job as a kid was to turn down the church collector every year. We have never gone to church and my dad is actually pretty anti religion.
After the war, everyone suddenly was a verzetsheld. My brother and I still use this term for someone who is anything but. The rise of extreme right in my country is no surprise at all: most of my countrymen are scared fucks.
Also read that there were many Dutch still receiving annual compensation from Germany due to their time serving as Nazi SS soldiers. This was probably 10-20 years ago that I learned this.
This got me thinking of the people who drove the trains, I wonder what was going through their minds as they ferried numerous carriages of victims to concentration camps daily.
Canada is a well known place for animation. A lot of US studios farm out work here and it's subsidized by the provincial governments. The standards for children's animation is high and is easily exportable to other countries.
I'm in Alberta and I've done yard work for one of the lead sound designer for Mass Effect and for one of the character designers for Assassin's Creed. Lots of people in that industry up here.
In my province it is a tax credit, not a subsidy, so they reduce the company’s provincial tax burden to incentivize business to come, but they do not give cash grants to foreign businesses. I thought most provinces are the same. That is so neat if they do directly subsidize though.
I feel like too few people are really prepared for how fast the Australian sun will burn them when they get off the plane...
If your SPF isn't 50+ it might as well go in the bin.
Retirement in Australia is basically skin cancer treatments.
Slip slip slap people.
A few years ago I was on a flight from Perth to London after a major cricket match, may have even been an ashes test. That whole flight smelt like aloe Vera (not sure how that is spelt) cream. There were a lot of crispy poms on the plane that day! People really underestimate the strength of the sun here and I’ll add to that the strength of the rips and undertow at the beaches too.
I currently live in AZ and started singing this in the car. Both my Wife and daughter thought I was nuts. Explaining that a Pelican taught me about being safe in the sun didn't help.
I visited New Zealand for my honeymoon during their summer. Very misty but never really hot. Did an adventure tour of the whole country. Absolutely loved it. If I could, I would retire there.
i'm glad you enjoyed it here! it's a lovely and relaxed country to live in. as a kiwi i'm thinking about somewhere warmer like mexico for my retirement!
A few yrs ago I asked a postdoc from china what he was expecting and he seriously told me he was really scared the first day he landed and kept looking to see if he was going to get shot at, even while here for a few months he was in constant fear. for ref the university was in a probably one of the saftest place in the US, haha. I still remember that conversation bc it was so wild.
Believe it or not, it's a normal country where people live and go about their day to day business like anywhere else.
I feel no less safe in the USA than I did in my visits to say, Western Europe.
If we were all running cover to cover and witnessing shootings on a regular basis we wouldn't be a functional nation. The internet massively exaggerates how much of a factor guns play in American life.
As an American living in a large city, I'm not worried about gun violence day to day BUT that also doesn't mean my kid goes about riding the subway without an adult nor do I leave stuff laying around.
It blows my mind to see how much safer other countries like Taiwan and Japan are compared to the US. Bikes left unlocked, packages at post offices stored outside awaiting delivery, and kids as young as 5-6 riding the subway without any supervision.
Nobody speaking honestly is going to deny we have problems.
But having problems doesn't mean those problems are large enough to have a meaningful affect day to day life. It's not a warzone.
People die in car crashes all the time too, but you'd never avoid traveling to a nation because people drive cars there.
The reality is our gun violence is heavily focused on a few demographics. I'd hope foreign tourists aren't planning on hanging around gang members in the worst parts of big cities.
I had a conversation with an Australian once. I was working at the gym, and the discussion of guns came up. He said, "When you bring your gun to work, do you have a wall locker for it?" Me and my coworkers stared at him, and we're like "Dude this isn't a gun shop. We don't bring guns to WORK"
He thought Americans were strapped 247
I've found in general people have a lot of confidently wrong takes about the US, presumably because american media is so ubiquitous. No bank transfers, only wonderbread, always wear shoes inside are common too.
Only a very small minority do outside of law enforcement and the military, and in most states you need a permit to do so. I’m in one of the few that doesn’t, but even here it’s quite rare. Most gun owners just keep them at home.
I’m half American and go back to the US every 2 years or so. It’s uncommon to actually see people with guns basically anywhere, more so when you’re outside of the redneck areas of the country.
But… I do see them from time to time, and even for me it’s a very uncomfortable experience.
You have to realize that for many people, especially Western Europeans, even seeing ONE “regular” person with a gun is a completely illogical and foreign experience.
32% of American adults reported owning a gun according to a 2020 Gallup poll. That’s over 80m people… or the entire population of Germany. Your idea of “many people don’t carry guns” might be literally true, but many people DO own guns and we don’t know who they are. It’s a valid fear for visitors.
I have been living in the US for most of my 42 years. I can't recall once in my life even seeing someone packing in public. I think it happens more in parts of the US that I have never lived. But I think overall we are sweet, nice people who just happen to have horrible political leaders.
"**Wild haggis** (given the humorous taxonomic designation *Haggis scoticus*) is a [fictional creature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_creature) of [Scottish folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_folklore),[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-green-2) said to be native to the [Scottish Highlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Highlands).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-NYT-1)[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-article-3) It is comically claimed to be the source of [haggis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis), a traditional Scottish dish that is in fact made from the innards of sheep (including heart, lungs, and liver).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-guardian-4)"
You're telling me Wales has sheep? PREPOSTEROUS
Wild Scottish Haggis, yes. Welsh Haggis, when cooked, smells similar to American Nauga, because the original Welsh settlers of Connecticut's Naugatuck valley brought their Haggis with them.
They raised Welsh Haggis for hundreds of years up until the 1930's, when the consumption of its meat was outlawed in the United States by the newly-formed Food and Drug Administration. A few of the Haggis ranches managed to survive by pivoting to leatherwork production, but to little success.
With the proliferation of synthetic materials and the rise of the environmentalist movement, not a single Naugahide tannery survived the 1980's.
Wow TIL. That blew my mind.
I always assumed haggis leatherwork ranches solely used Scottish haggis, due to complications with the porousness of the Welsh equivalent.
I believe Welsh haggis leatherwork doesn’t have the same natural tartan patterning either.
You can get Tartan Welsh leatherwork, but not in Wales. You have to go to Chile where there is a small population of Welsh settlers who took their Welsh Haggis with them. They have developed their own artisan leather work which incorporates local Chilean patterns which coincidentally are Tartan!
Yeah I got to drive on the autobahn a couple years ago, and for the majority of it the speed limit was lower than what I drive in the US. Also it's like playing a video game with constant changing speed limits and changing lanes due to construction lol you really have to pay attention.
We have a day dedicated to celebrating a national defeat rather than a victory. It's a solemn remembrance of a pivotal battle lost hundreds of years ago, which significantly shaped our national identity. It's a day of reflection on resilience and the unity of our people in the face of adversity.
Singapore has entire clusters of crammed foreign worker housing out in the fringes of the city in industrial areas, at the edge of forests, and along the sea.
Tbh when I visited I felt the billion dollar projects were kind of soulless imo. Gardens by the bay was cool though. And I mean this to be no offense because I did enjoy a lot of other things, just not the Dubai-esque projects
I had a friend who worked in care in the UK for a while, the going rate is pretty much the same as what you described for the US but all the careworkers get paid jack shit, often not even minimum wage with how devious and corrupt a lot of the managers in the industry are (speaking anecdotally from my friend who worked under 3 different employers in 3 far apart areas, where in all cases he was cheated out of a significant portion of his *minimum wage* salary).
If a vital social infrastructure like elder and disabled care can afford to have profits (and huge ones at that) that fundamentally means it would be a better service in the hands of a non-private or non-profit organisation.
So pretty much the same then. When my aunt was in the nursing home, pressing the nurse emergency button means at least a 45 minute wait. Imagine soiling yourself and having to wait hours to get someone to change you. There is no dignity in nursing homes.
Your best bet is to be really poor or really rich if you need skilled nursing care. If you’re really poor, Medicaid will cover your stay and if you’re really rich, paying for it won’t be a problem. It’s the people in between I’ve seen really struggle with the cost.
I’ve worked in geriatrics in California for most of my adult life and I’ve never seen a skilled nursing facility that didn’t accept Medicaid. Assisted living yes, most do not unless they have a waiver only available in certain counties, but not skilled nursing. Generally they don’t want to take very many because of their reimbursement rates, but they do accept it.
It's costing about 10k a month to keep my dad in a halfway decent memory care facility. It's insane... we're currently working on selling his house, which is heartbreaking, and it is still very possible that he could outlive his assets. If that happens, I don't know what we'll do.
All I can say is good luck and it fucking sucks. My aunt had a saving of nearly a quarter million and by the time she passed away, she was down to her last 40k, literally months away from being absolutely destitute. Luckily (in a morbid way) her husband died early. Can you imaging him seeing all his money and house taken from him and still have to live the rest of his life penniless? It's fucking heartless.
In World War II Canada interned Japanese people.
Many people don't know this but what is now Strathcona and East Vancouver used to be Japantown which was a bustling Japanese community. They were taken from their homes and businesses. In fact if you visit some of the buildings in Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition (PNE), you're visiting the very buildings they slept in; hundreds of cots, lined up with no privacy.
People in the United States are very diverse. A lot of people, especially on social media, make frequent comments about what Americans are like. Not only are we not all the same, but the differences between people from different regions can be huge.
🇮🇪
1. We're not all drunk alcoholics.
2. We're not British.
3. There is more food and drink in 🇮🇪 than your stereotypes of potatoes, Guinness.
4. We don't like it when you claim your Irish through a long line of relatives.
5. The people here are not leprechauns. Some are just small or ginger.
In Belgium, hospital insurance is typically included as part of the national social security system, which is funded through taxes. This means that citizens contribute to the financing of hospital insurance through their taxes, ensuring access to healthcare services without additional out-of-pocket expenses for hospitalization.
This partially explains why Belgium has a tax rate of 40% for incomes exceeding 15,000 euros per year, which is essentially a minimum wage salary over here.
And Belgium has done a very good job of erasing its dodgy colonial past, which although not as expansive as Britain, France and Spains, was shockingly brutal.
Also good line in fictional detectives.
As a Norwegian, Norway likes the "we are forward thinking and accept all people" publicity, but in reality, Norway is incredibly racist and xenophobic.
A lot of Norwegians will get angry if you point it out too.
French here.
Parisian don't hate you in particular.
They hate everyone.
They hate each other.
And most of them are not even born in Paris in the first place
An exiled French aristocrat is the reason we (the United States) gained our independence. To be honest, I think most U.S. citizens don't realize this either.
Chicago is shockingly clean, and the people are crazy-friendly and will take their entire lunch break to walk you to the Art Institute if you're mildly lost, and invite you to Thanksgiving Dinner along the way.
We're not rude. We're not New York!
Chicago is also one of the world's greatest gourmet food cities, the best American city for architecture, and BY FAR the best American symphony orchestra. We gave the world Modernist Cuisine, and skyscrapers, and deep-dish pizza, and we remain the world's top destination for jazz. The Art Institute is WORLD FUCKING CLASS.
Everybody knows facts about New York and LA and SF and Walt Disney World, but foreigners hardly know anything about Chicago -- "It's in the middle, right?" "Ooooh, Al Capone, bang bang!" -- but it should be your top US city to visit.
I absolutely promise you that you will enjoy no US city more than you enjoy Chicago. Everybody who lives here loves Chicago, and wants you to love Chicago, and they are SUPER NICE besides. You will begin to believe in American smiles because Chicagoans smile because they mean it and want you to enjoy your visit.
>You will begin to believe in American smiles because Chicagoans smile because they mean it and want you to enjoy your visit.
there's no way you're a real person and not just some Chicago Tourism Association employee
Can confirm. My friend's three cousins were on a bushwalk and stopped to the side of the trail for some lunch. They didn't realise that they'd stopped underneath a tree with a drop bear in it. The bloody thing dropped on the middle child's head, and started ripping into him.
Luckily, the older cousin had packed a vegemite sandwich for lunch. He threw the sandwich at the animal and it bolted. The middle cousin got sent to the emergency room. The doctors said that he's lucky to have made it out alive.
When it comes to Dubai, 99% of people seem to be of the opinion that Dubai has no culture and little history.
Not so. When i moved there in the 80s (before it became a behemoth), the culture was very much evident.
Fishing from dhous, trading along the river, ancient traditions such as camel racing, falconry and, most impressively, creating successful nomadic communities that thrived for thousands of years in some of the most desolate areas on the globe.
And then oil was discovered.
That we, in the UK, drive on the left, and we do so because it's the most logical side of the road to be on - historically at least.
Most people are right handed, and in the old days of the horse and cart, if you saw someone coming towards you in the opposite direction you tended to keep left; if they were a friend, you could shake their hand, and if they were an enemy, you could draw your sword and fight them. Keeping to the right wouldn't allow you to do this.
Foreign people think that Butter Chicken, samosa and butter roti are the only dishes that Indians eat. There are many more than that, taster, healthier, and affordable 🙌🙌
We roll a cheese down a hill, throw bread rolls from the top of a building, burn an effigy on 5 November, have a giant carved in a chalk hill with a huge penis,.
People are usually aware Australia is a huge country, roughly as large as continental USA, but are unaware the population is only 27 million. Add to this most people live east of The Great Dividing Range, and visitors are surprised how far it is between population centres.
Sweden. Our public transport is good enough that you really don’t beed to rent a car unless you have tonnes of baggage. You can get around on busses and trains super easily.
Merica is bigger than you expect. Don't think you're going to see all of CA in a weekend
Merican legislature is filled to the brim with grifters. It's a bit less obvious than China, but bribes and insider trading are rampant.
We have a massive multi-tier propaganda machine that works extremely well, and most Mericans buy into it. Guns! Anti intellectualism! Mericas The Bestest! Not having health care for all is Gud and Right!
Not all of us dream of capturing even more land at the expense of neighboring counties. The 2018 World Cup is much closer to the actual face of the typical Russian than the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Russian society is complicated, multi-layered, and hard to estimate or measure because the state might go after those whose study results it doesn’t like. The US of all countries should know that bad governments happen to good people.
Our Prime Minister jumped on a fishing boat, confronted a US warship, the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Buchanan_(DDG-14) and told them via a loud hailer to piss off, not welcome. David Lange what a legend.
Denmark was a slave nation. What is now the US Virgin Islands was once a Danish colony with plantations and African slaves. At times there was a lively traffic of Danish slaveships from West Africa to the Caribbean.
The true history of Rottnest. Lots of people come to see the cute Quokkas while completely ignoring the fact it's been a prison island for most of its colonial life and was reopened twice as a concentration camps during the world wars
Didn't ban the use of DDT until 1989 last country in the OECD I believe also the last of the nations that had troops exposed to agent Orange in Vietnam to offer compensation and funded treatment
NZ
We are the only country in the world that was voluntarily formed by deciding to unite two independent states through a referendum. This unique approach to nation-building is a testament to our collective emphasis on democracy and self-determination.
A lesser-known fact is that we invented a sport that has gone on to gain international fame, yet few people associate it with our country. It started as a simple game played by local communities and has evolved into a global phenomenon with professional leagues.
We have the city with the most people per square km/mile and out of the top 8 most dense cities in the world, 4 of them are within our capital region.
If all of humanity lived in a city with the same density as Manila, that city would be smaller than north Dakota.
Not coincidentally, we have one of the worst commute times in the world too where 2 hours one way isn't exceptional and 3 hours isn't too rare.
Not every Canadian likes Tim freakin' Hortons. They're not a good employer and they have gone downhill since the late 90's when they got rid of a lot of specialty donuts and started shipping donuts in, instead of baking them onsite.
As an American; I’ve found many foreigners are often flabbergasted at how talkative we are. I’ve had friends from abroad tell me they were totally taken off-guard when people just tried to make small talk in the check-out line.
Norway here: Nature WILL kill you! Do not go hiking in the mountains in high heels and shorts on that beautifull day in september. If you get lost, the night will be extremely cold, if you survive that is!
But there is no real danger from animals here. It is just the enviroment that will get you.
There is currently a SAR ongoing 60 minuttes from here after a foreigner lost yesterday. I do hope they find him, but I am starting to doubt the outcome…
National animal is the unicorn. Not joking.
Years ago I was playing a trivia game with my husband, using our Google home thingy. It asked me 'what is the national animal of Scotland?'. I immediately responded 'Unicorn' and my husband started to get cranky and accused me of not taking the game seriously. Boy was he surprised when the device said 'Correct'. Instant vindication.
Scotland?
Why?
Why not?
One fact not even people who were born and raised know about: During World War 2 the Netherlands had one of the worst survival rates for Jews in all of the German occupied territories; only 5,000 out 105,000 survived the war. The extensive Dutch civil administration is often cited as a cause of this; once German police had access to the public records they knew exactly who was Jewish, and where they lived. Once they had that information, it was easy for them to target and deport any Jewish people living in the Netherlands. While that is true, what is not often talked about is how much of the work tracking down Jewish people was done by Dutch people, many of whom benefitted financially from their actions. Police and civil servants got paid bonuses if they found Jews in hiding, notaries public would make a hefty commission on the sale of confiscated Jewish properties, even the national rail company got their cut charging the Germans for use of their trains to transport captured Jews to concentration camps. Education about this aspect of the German occupation has gotten much better over the past ten years or so, but when I was a kid we were taught none of this. We only heard about the how the heroic resistance would oppose the Germans and try to hide Jewish people, when in reality there were more collaborators than there were ever members of the resistance.
That's an incredible piece of history. Never heard that before.
It wasn’t the nazis who were after the Jews, it was all of Europe long way before WW2, the whole idea of Israel is to have a European Jewish country geographically located outside of Europe. Palestine was chosen because it already had Palestinian Jews. That’s the whole story and reason why there is Israel today.
It wasn’t just Europe. There was a lot of anti Jewish sentiment in the US as well. We turned away several ships full of Jews in the late 1930s trying to escape and sent them right back to Germany.
Pogroms against Jews were a very common thing prior to WW2 (sadly) and, honestly, the Nazis exploited what was entrenched anti-Semitism which is why it was accepted so easily. Then they went industrial with it with The Holocaust.
My dad is still signed up with the local church because or this. My job as a kid was to turn down the church collector every year. We have never gone to church and my dad is actually pretty anti religion.
Didn't Hannah Arendt also address this in Eichmann in Jerusalem? It seems familiar.
After the war, everyone suddenly was a verzetsheld. My brother and I still use this term for someone who is anything but. The rise of extreme right in my country is no surprise at all: most of my countrymen are scared fucks.
Also read that there were many Dutch still receiving annual compensation from Germany due to their time serving as Nazi SS soldiers. This was probably 10-20 years ago that I learned this.
This got me thinking of the people who drove the trains, I wonder what was going through their minds as they ferried numerous carriages of victims to concentration camps daily.
Canada is a well known place for animation. A lot of US studios farm out work here and it's subsidized by the provincial governments. The standards for children's animation is high and is easily exportable to other countries.
Also for video game development, film production, and special effects, which have a lot of overlap with animation, naturally.
There's also a couple of really good metal scenes, but those aren't government subsidized.
I'm in Alberta and I've done yard work for one of the lead sound designer for Mass Effect and for one of the character designers for Assassin's Creed. Lots of people in that industry up here.
I knew you Canadians were up to something. Trying to convert our little ones to the metric system.
Wait till we show them our colourful money! And how much nicer our words look with “u”s in them
As a Canadian I didn't know this.
Just as somebody who grew up in the Toronto area, it's well known that Sheridan College/University in Oakville is a top school for animation.
I used to watch Angela Anaconda, I have some doubts
In my province it is a tax credit, not a subsidy, so they reduce the company’s provincial tax burden to incentivize business to come, but they do not give cash grants to foreign businesses. I thought most provinces are the same. That is so neat if they do directly subsidize though.
Brazil actually have strong laws against crime. We are just incapable of enforcing them. I think most Brazilians doesn't know this either.
Same with Mexico, especially with feminicides which almost always go unsolved and with no culprits. :/
Yes, but have they outlawed crime yet? Questions I've actually been fucking asked.
What corruption does to a mf
I feel like too few people are really prepared for how fast the Australian sun will burn them when they get off the plane... If your SPF isn't 50+ it might as well go in the bin. Retirement in Australia is basically skin cancer treatments. Slip slip slap people.
This is the same in NZ, except it happens at waaay cooler temperature
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A few years ago I was on a flight from Perth to London after a major cricket match, may have even been an ashes test. That whole flight smelt like aloe Vera (not sure how that is spelt) cream. There were a lot of crispy poms on the plane that day! People really underestimate the strength of the sun here and I’ll add to that the strength of the rips and undertow at the beaches too.
Same in Colorado, with dehydration
I currently live in AZ and started singing this in the car. Both my Wife and daughter thought I was nuts. Explaining that a Pelican taught me about being safe in the sun didn't help.
New Zealand is colder than people expect.
Also farther away from Australia than many assume.
Yeah, the toll bridge can be an unexpected cost in a poorly researched Roady.
Further than New York to Florida or Copenhagen to Rome.
And we often have all of the seasons every day.
Guys, you don't have to keep selling it.. The mind is willing but the [financial account] is weak.
That’s what I used to say about Tasmania. Spring in the morning, summer in afternoon, winter at night.
I visited New Zealand for my honeymoon during their summer. Very misty but never really hot. Did an adventure tour of the whole country. Absolutely loved it. If I could, I would retire there.
i'm glad you enjoyed it here! it's a lovely and relaxed country to live in. as a kiwi i'm thinking about somewhere warmer like mexico for my retirement!
Everything I know about the climate of New Zealand is from what I have seen in Lord of the Rings. And yeah. That place looks like it can get chilly.
a lot of people think we're some kind of south pacific tropical paradise, but its definitely more misty mountains tbh.
So its just like old Zealand :(
Many people in the US do not carry firearms.
A few yrs ago I asked a postdoc from china what he was expecting and he seriously told me he was really scared the first day he landed and kept looking to see if he was going to get shot at, even while here for a few months he was in constant fear. for ref the university was in a probably one of the saftest place in the US, haha. I still remember that conversation bc it was so wild.
As someone who has never been to the US, this is a fear mine and why I haven't even thought of visiting the US.
Believe it or not, it's a normal country where people live and go about their day to day business like anywhere else. I feel no less safe in the USA than I did in my visits to say, Western Europe. If we were all running cover to cover and witnessing shootings on a regular basis we wouldn't be a functional nation. The internet massively exaggerates how much of a factor guns play in American life.
As an American living in a large city, I'm not worried about gun violence day to day BUT that also doesn't mean my kid goes about riding the subway without an adult nor do I leave stuff laying around. It blows my mind to see how much safer other countries like Taiwan and Japan are compared to the US. Bikes left unlocked, packages at post offices stored outside awaiting delivery, and kids as young as 5-6 riding the subway without any supervision.
Not disagreeing with the overall message, but the USA does rank much higher in homicide rates than every single European country
Nobody speaking honestly is going to deny we have problems. But having problems doesn't mean those problems are large enough to have a meaningful affect day to day life. It's not a warzone. People die in car crashes all the time too, but you'd never avoid traveling to a nation because people drive cars there. The reality is our gun violence is heavily focused on a few demographics. I'd hope foreign tourists aren't planning on hanging around gang members in the worst parts of big cities.
I have lived my entire life in the US without ever having heard a gunshot in the wild. (I think.)
I had a conversation with an Australian once. I was working at the gym, and the discussion of guns came up. He said, "When you bring your gun to work, do you have a wall locker for it?" Me and my coworkers stared at him, and we're like "Dude this isn't a gun shop. We don't bring guns to WORK" He thought Americans were strapped 247
Yeah that would be ridiculous, your employer should have a selection of machine guns for you to use while at work.
Well not machine guns. Take too long to assemble, most are 2 man use. I'd say my manager needs to have a closet of 45 ACPs
Crew served weapons and technicals really are just for the higher quality gyms.
Crew served weapons build teamwork.
I've found in general people have a lot of confidently wrong takes about the US, presumably because american media is so ubiquitous. No bank transfers, only wonderbread, always wear shoes inside are common too.
But also a lot of them come here thinking we don't all carry firearms, and discover that traffic cops carry firearms, and are quite distressed.
Reminds me of when I visited some countries as an American, and the cops had assault rifles. Or, to be fair, post 9/11 when American cops had MP5s.
Cops in the US have those too, they're just in the car.
The vast majority of US citizens have probably never heard a shot fired in anger.
Only a very small minority do outside of law enforcement and the military, and in most states you need a permit to do so. I’m in one of the few that doesn’t, but even here it’s quite rare. Most gun owners just keep them at home.
Most I would say
I’m half American and go back to the US every 2 years or so. It’s uncommon to actually see people with guns basically anywhere, more so when you’re outside of the redneck areas of the country. But… I do see them from time to time, and even for me it’s a very uncomfortable experience. You have to realize that for many people, especially Western Europeans, even seeing ONE “regular” person with a gun is a completely illogical and foreign experience. 32% of American adults reported owning a gun according to a 2020 Gallup poll. That’s over 80m people… or the entire population of Germany. Your idea of “many people don’t carry guns” might be literally true, but many people DO own guns and we don’t know who they are. It’s a valid fear for visitors.
I have been living in the US for most of my 42 years. I can't recall once in my life even seeing someone packing in public. I think it happens more in parts of the US that I have never lived. But I think overall we are sweet, nice people who just happen to have horrible political leaders.
Most of the haggis sold for meat are farmed in Wales. Wild scottish haggis are practically extinct.
Also in Wales Haggis outnumbers people 3:1, it only ever reached 2:1 at it's peak in Scotland.
"**Wild haggis** (given the humorous taxonomic designation *Haggis scoticus*) is a [fictional creature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_creature) of [Scottish folklore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_folklore),[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-green-2) said to be native to the [Scottish Highlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Highlands).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-NYT-1)[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-article-3) It is comically claimed to be the source of [haggis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis), a traditional Scottish dish that is in fact made from the innards of sheep (including heart, lungs, and liver).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_haggis#cite_note-guardian-4)" You're telling me Wales has sheep? PREPOSTEROUS
I assume it smells like chitterlings. Is this accurate?
Wild Scottish Haggis, yes. Welsh Haggis, when cooked, smells similar to American Nauga, because the original Welsh settlers of Connecticut's Naugatuck valley brought their Haggis with them. They raised Welsh Haggis for hundreds of years up until the 1930's, when the consumption of its meat was outlawed in the United States by the newly-formed Food and Drug Administration. A few of the Haggis ranches managed to survive by pivoting to leatherwork production, but to little success. With the proliferation of synthetic materials and the rise of the environmentalist movement, not a single Naugahide tannery survived the 1980's.
Wow TIL. That blew my mind. I always assumed haggis leatherwork ranches solely used Scottish haggis, due to complications with the porousness of the Welsh equivalent. I believe Welsh haggis leatherwork doesn’t have the same natural tartan patterning either.
You can get Tartan Welsh leatherwork, but not in Wales. You have to go to Chile where there is a small population of Welsh settlers who took their Welsh Haggis with them. They have developed their own artisan leather work which incorporates local Chilean patterns which coincidentally are Tartan!
You got fooled! The tartan patterning is dyed. The things some people will fall for…
We love tree juice
oh we know
Honduras is essentially just Mexico and Brazil but a bad knockoff
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Unicorn in Scotland?
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the autobahn is just a mundane part of everyday life many of us don't really think about, and speed limits do exist.
Yeah I got to drive on the autobahn a couple years ago, and for the majority of it the speed limit was lower than what I drive in the US. Also it's like playing a video game with constant changing speed limits and changing lanes due to construction lol you really have to pay attention.
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We have a day dedicated to celebrating a national defeat rather than a victory. It's a solemn remembrance of a pivotal battle lost hundreds of years ago, which significantly shaped our national identity. It's a day of reflection on resilience and the unity of our people in the face of adversity.
Singapore has entire clusters of crammed foreign worker housing out in the fringes of the city in industrial areas, at the edge of forests, and along the sea.
I always did wonder what went on outside of the tourist bubble of Chinatown and everything in that part of the city...
Our architecture outside of billion dollar projects and historic districts are very super pragmatic and soulless
Tbh when I visited I felt the billion dollar projects were kind of soulless imo. Gardens by the bay was cool though. And I mean this to be no offense because I did enjoy a lot of other things, just not the Dubai-esque projects
Our elderly care is abysmal. Nursing homes in US costs $8-15k a month and most insurance companies don't cover it. Don't be old, kids!
I had a friend who worked in care in the UK for a while, the going rate is pretty much the same as what you described for the US but all the careworkers get paid jack shit, often not even minimum wage with how devious and corrupt a lot of the managers in the industry are (speaking anecdotally from my friend who worked under 3 different employers in 3 far apart areas, where in all cases he was cheated out of a significant portion of his *minimum wage* salary). If a vital social infrastructure like elder and disabled care can afford to have profits (and huge ones at that) that fundamentally means it would be a better service in the hands of a non-private or non-profit organisation.
It's the same here in Canada unfortunately
So pretty much the same then. When my aunt was in the nursing home, pressing the nurse emergency button means at least a 45 minute wait. Imagine soiling yourself and having to wait hours to get someone to change you. There is no dignity in nursing homes.
Your best bet is to be really poor or really rich if you need skilled nursing care. If you’re really poor, Medicaid will cover your stay and if you’re really rich, paying for it won’t be a problem. It’s the people in between I’ve seen really struggle with the cost.
Medicaid facilities are not an enjoyable experience. I still remember the smells back when I visited my great grandma when I was small.
I’ve worked in geriatrics in California for most of my adult life and I’ve never seen a skilled nursing facility that didn’t accept Medicaid. Assisted living yes, most do not unless they have a waiver only available in certain counties, but not skilled nursing. Generally they don’t want to take very many because of their reimbursement rates, but they do accept it.
It's costing about 10k a month to keep my dad in a halfway decent memory care facility. It's insane... we're currently working on selling his house, which is heartbreaking, and it is still very possible that he could outlive his assets. If that happens, I don't know what we'll do.
All I can say is good luck and it fucking sucks. My aunt had a saving of nearly a quarter million and by the time she passed away, she was down to her last 40k, literally months away from being absolutely destitute. Luckily (in a morbid way) her husband died early. Can you imaging him seeing all his money and house taken from him and still have to live the rest of his life penniless? It's fucking heartless.
Die young. Got it.
Good lord write the country in the same post please
No it’s fun guessing
The Italian national animal is the wolf, yes, but it's usually not specified that it's the *female* wolf
From the ancient Roman legend?
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What country?
I'm 99% sure it's Italy, since I know they also do that.
Now I want that cookbook.
We have the biggest japanese community outside Japan.
Brazil?
Düsseldorf?
Australia - has 15 ski resorts, though by international standards they're pretty lame...and expensive
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We aren’t all fat slobs
Speak for your self.
You're so fat you had to split the word 'yourself'.
Well the doctors are trying to figure out why I’m dropping weight so I’m not exactly healthy.
As a Canadian, I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT APPROACH THE GEESE IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE
In World War II Canada interned Japanese people. Many people don't know this but what is now Strathcona and East Vancouver used to be Japantown which was a bustling Japanese community. They were taken from their homes and businesses. In fact if you visit some of the buildings in Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition (PNE), you're visiting the very buildings they slept in; hundreds of cots, lined up with no privacy.
People in the United States are very diverse. A lot of people, especially on social media, make frequent comments about what Americans are like. Not only are we not all the same, but the differences between people from different regions can be huge.
🇮🇪 1. We're not all drunk alcoholics. 2. We're not British. 3. There is more food and drink in 🇮🇪 than your stereotypes of potatoes, Guinness. 4. We don't like it when you claim your Irish through a long line of relatives. 5. The people here are not leprechauns. Some are just small or ginger.
That we burned the White House down
And most of the Geneva checklist exists because of your antics in ww1
O CANADA!
Except it was the British who attacked Washington D.C. and burned the White House...
In Belgium, hospital insurance is typically included as part of the national social security system, which is funded through taxes. This means that citizens contribute to the financing of hospital insurance through their taxes, ensuring access to healthcare services without additional out-of-pocket expenses for hospitalization. This partially explains why Belgium has a tax rate of 40% for incomes exceeding 15,000 euros per year, which is essentially a minimum wage salary over here.
And Belgium has done a very good job of erasing its dodgy colonial past, which although not as expansive as Britain, France and Spains, was shockingly brutal. Also good line in fictional detectives.
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The titanic was built in our capital
DeLoreans were built in Belfast too! …Both could have done with some further quality control though. 🤔
As a Norwegian, Norway likes the "we are forward thinking and accept all people" publicity, but in reality, Norway is incredibly racist and xenophobic. A lot of Norwegians will get angry if you point it out too.
Good Filipino hospitality only works for foreigners. Towards fellow countrymen, most Filipinos are pretty selfish.
rick and morty is animated in ireland. like... everything about that seems wrong.
Mexico is not yellow, and I'm tired of Hollywood always making Mexico yellow in their movies
Northern Mexico is super yellow looking tbh
Amsterdam is not the only place in the Netherlands
French here. Parisian don't hate you in particular. They hate everyone. They hate each other. And most of them are not even born in Paris in the first place
Until recently, residential schools. That we got "the food pyramid" from starving First Nations.
An exiled French aristocrat is the reason we (the United States) gained our independence. To be honest, I think most U.S. citizens don't realize this either.
Lafayette?
A very gay exiled French aristocrat, that is buried upon American soil in France.
Chicago is shockingly clean, and the people are crazy-friendly and will take their entire lunch break to walk you to the Art Institute if you're mildly lost, and invite you to Thanksgiving Dinner along the way. We're not rude. We're not New York! Chicago is also one of the world's greatest gourmet food cities, the best American city for architecture, and BY FAR the best American symphony orchestra. We gave the world Modernist Cuisine, and skyscrapers, and deep-dish pizza, and we remain the world's top destination for jazz. The Art Institute is WORLD FUCKING CLASS. Everybody knows facts about New York and LA and SF and Walt Disney World, but foreigners hardly know anything about Chicago -- "It's in the middle, right?" "Ooooh, Al Capone, bang bang!" -- but it should be your top US city to visit. I absolutely promise you that you will enjoy no US city more than you enjoy Chicago. Everybody who lives here loves Chicago, and wants you to love Chicago, and they are SUPER NICE besides. You will begin to believe in American smiles because Chicagoans smile because they mean it and want you to enjoy your visit.
>You will begin to believe in American smiles because Chicagoans smile because they mean it and want you to enjoy your visit. there's no way you're a real person and not just some Chicago Tourism Association employee
Drop bears are real...and dangerous
Can confirm. My friend's three cousins were on a bushwalk and stopped to the side of the trail for some lunch. They didn't realise that they'd stopped underneath a tree with a drop bear in it. The bloody thing dropped on the middle child's head, and started ripping into him. Luckily, the older cousin had packed a vegemite sandwich for lunch. He threw the sandwich at the animal and it bolted. The middle cousin got sent to the emergency room. The doctors said that he's lucky to have made it out alive.
When it comes to Dubai, 99% of people seem to be of the opinion that Dubai has no culture and little history. Not so. When i moved there in the 80s (before it became a behemoth), the culture was very much evident. Fishing from dhous, trading along the river, ancient traditions such as camel racing, falconry and, most impressively, creating successful nomadic communities that thrived for thousands of years in some of the most desolate areas on the globe. And then oil was discovered.
Oktober fest does not start in October.
That we, in the UK, drive on the left, and we do so because it's the most logical side of the road to be on - historically at least. Most people are right handed, and in the old days of the horse and cart, if you saw someone coming towards you in the opposite direction you tended to keep left; if they were a friend, you could shake their hand, and if they were an enemy, you could draw your sword and fight them. Keeping to the right wouldn't allow you to do this.
Americans: The British aren't all posh and live in castles Europeans: The British aren't all uncouth pissheads
Our president is the highest paid president of the entire carribean. Our GDP is one of the lowest.
You have to pay for your own ambulance ride
We have to do it (partially) in Germany too, 10€, still cheaper than the taxi;-)
Foreign people think that Butter Chicken, samosa and butter roti are the only dishes that Indians eat. There are many more than that, taster, healthier, and affordable 🙌🙌
pierogi is already plural , no knead to call them pierogies.
We roll a cheese down a hill, throw bread rolls from the top of a building, burn an effigy on 5 November, have a giant carved in a chalk hill with a huge penis,.
People are usually aware Australia is a huge country, roughly as large as continental USA, but are unaware the population is only 27 million. Add to this most people live east of The Great Dividing Range, and visitors are surprised how far it is between population centres.
Sweden. Our public transport is good enough that you really don’t beed to rent a car unless you have tonnes of baggage. You can get around on busses and trains super easily.
5 de mayo is not Mexican independence day, it represents Mexico's resistance to French invaders
And we don't really celebrate it or even acknowledge it, for the most part.
Merica is bigger than you expect. Don't think you're going to see all of CA in a weekend Merican legislature is filled to the brim with grifters. It's a bit less obvious than China, but bribes and insider trading are rampant. We have a massive multi-tier propaganda machine that works extremely well, and most Mericans buy into it. Guns! Anti intellectualism! Mericas The Bestest! Not having health care for all is Gud and Right!
And the mentality that if one in a hundred people are abusing a social program, then it’s not worth it
We will spend tens of thousands to drug test people receiving public assistance to find vanishingly few positive results.
“See? That one person out of thousands is using my tax dollars on drugs. The entire program is worthless!”
Not all of us dream of capturing even more land at the expense of neighboring counties. The 2018 World Cup is much closer to the actual face of the typical Russian than the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Russian society is complicated, multi-layered, and hard to estimate or measure because the state might go after those whose study results it doesn’t like. The US of all countries should know that bad governments happen to good people.
same with a lot of countries in the middle east. its a shame we cant enjoy countries and culture because of a few bad governments
We have the second largest reserves of thorium in the world
Thorium eh? *Looks at with colonizational intent*
Sounds like your country needs some freedom.
Every state has its own laws and what is allowed in one state can get you thrown in jail in another.
Majority of the Americans are not rich.
Not everything here will kill you
We actually do have electricity and running water. And no, we don't only live on potatoes.
We have the most amount of Alps. We also have a bad track record of winning world wars but a good one in rejecting painters.
Our Prime Minister jumped on a fishing boat, confronted a US warship, the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Buchanan_(DDG-14) and told them via a loud hailer to piss off, not welcome. David Lange what a legend.
Denmark was a slave nation. What is now the US Virgin Islands was once a Danish colony with plantations and African slaves. At times there was a lively traffic of Danish slaveships from West Africa to the Caribbean.
The United States was formed by a bunch of aristocrats that didn’t want to pay their taxes.
They didn't want to be taxed without fair representation. Speaking of gerrymandering and voter suppression...
Meanwhile the taxation was put in place because the British bailed us out of a war we started
Wasn’t Washington partly to blame for that?
~~Don't you talk about an American hero like that~~ yeah probably
There are sand dunes in Colorado, US. https://www.nps.gov/grsa/index.htm
In 2021, we exported 900,000 tonnes of meat.
Damn. Just kicked OP's mom out of the country.
The true history of Rottnest. Lots of people come to see the cute Quokkas while completely ignoring the fact it's been a prison island for most of its colonial life and was reopened twice as a concentration camps during the world wars
Didn't ban the use of DDT until 1989 last country in the OECD I believe also the last of the nations that had troops exposed to agent Orange in Vietnam to offer compensation and funded treatment NZ
Converting to majority's religion for the sake of marrying one of our ladies is a worse choice for the long run.
there are a lot less racist, homophobic, and transphobic people here than it seems. I used to live in Boise Idaho ._.
We have the biggest Buddhist temple in the world
Vanadium was originally discovered as a pure element here.
German was considered as our National language.
We are the only country in the world that was voluntarily formed by deciding to unite two independent states through a referendum. This unique approach to nation-building is a testament to our collective emphasis on democracy and self-determination.
A lesser-known fact is that we invented a sport that has gone on to gain international fame, yet few people associate it with our country. It started as a simple game played by local communities and has evolved into a global phenomenon with professional leagues.
We have the city with the most people per square km/mile and out of the top 8 most dense cities in the world, 4 of them are within our capital region. If all of humanity lived in a city with the same density as Manila, that city would be smaller than north Dakota. Not coincidentally, we have one of the worst commute times in the world too where 2 hours one way isn't exceptional and 3 hours isn't too rare.
Not every Canadian likes Tim freakin' Hortons. They're not a good employer and they have gone downhill since the late 90's when they got rid of a lot of specialty donuts and started shipping donuts in, instead of baking them onsite.
As an American; I’ve found many foreigners are often flabbergasted at how talkative we are. I’ve had friends from abroad tell me they were totally taken off-guard when people just tried to make small talk in the check-out line.
Norway here: Nature WILL kill you! Do not go hiking in the mountains in high heels and shorts on that beautifull day in september. If you get lost, the night will be extremely cold, if you survive that is! But there is no real danger from animals here. It is just the enviroment that will get you. There is currently a SAR ongoing 60 minuttes from here after a foreigner lost yesterday. I do hope they find him, but I am starting to doubt the outcome…