i remember a good few years back when we were in Florida doing the usual theme-park touristy things... stopped off at a Burger King on the way back to the hotel: -the person taking the orders only spoke english -the person cooking the food only spoke spanish -they were the only two members of staff in the place! was like a real-life comedy sketch! Luckily for us, the person behind us in the queue translated our order to the person cooking, no idea what we'd have ended up with otherwise
Going to try and make this story as short as possible, but bear with me: The school district in Rockford, IL (my home town) started recruiting teachers from Spain four years ago to teach ESL (English as a second language) classes in our district. When they get off the plane, they only have what they can carry with them on the flight, meaning no car, no bank account, no place to live, etc. Quite a number of their family members knew about as much English as we did Spanish, which was little to none. Over the past four years, my family has personally housed at least 15 of these teachers (and their families, mind you) for upwards of 6 months until they found accommodations they were comfortable with. We were not compensated for this in any way, and did not expect to be. A few of our rental properties in the area are currently occupied by some of these families, and we have kept in close contact with a large number of them (their visas are only good for 3 years). Last year, when the first wave went back to Spain, our family took 3 weeks off to travel in Spain (it was the first time overseas for any of us) to see the people and places so many of them spoke so highly of, and to meet their extended families. Since that time I have moved to Madison, WI, a little over an hour away. I still make the drive back at least once a month to stay in touch, and I talk to a number of them (ages 15-40ish, in both the US and Spain) on a daily basis through various social networking sites. Please don't lump us all in the same boat. Those of us with common sense and common decency may be a dying breed in this country, but those of us with it are still alive and well.
That was exactly my point Fisher. The American stereotype could well be a warm, welcoming place except people who do things like this who formulate the alternate fat, american stereotype. (And you're lucky, here in England you're lucky to get the time of day and we have more than our share of idiots.) I probably worded that a bit harshly for effect. EDIT: I'm not going to say that American culture is wrong because it is: A.) enjoyable and B.) a matter of opinion but it certainly seems very loud (no bad thing) and judgemental. I guess the alternative is the stiff british upper lip which is by no means better so it may well be the lesser of two evils (i.e two extremes with no gap between them). One thing I will say for American culture is that many people seem to be fairly close minded/ignorant.
=] yeah real melting pot of people.. my mom was first generation filipino- got to see 2 different sides (my dad's white) fisher has a good point about the culture too.. I consider grand rapids, MI my hometown- met so many different people who moved from other countries to the US growing up there.. think this whole idea of fat american is funny.. trust me we make fun of fat retarded people too, no matter where they come from think we got a few french guys in hollywood parading around like they know everything.. making shows like the biggest loser XD I've never been fat so I can't relate, but then again I have good genetics! actually imo to label any country with a stereotype of any kind is a sign of the mental midget
Look up southern Hospitality Ending Credits. Some may be redneck, some may be foreign, some may be old, some may be from other parts of the country, but in the south if you show us with respect we will show the same back to you.
Original story is neither invented nor true, it is merely stolen. Newfags don't know about bash dot org link
Haha, i remember when we were driving across america land with the grandparents and family we stopped to make an order at a wendys i believe, there were 8 of us at the time, and my grandpa took it upon himself to make the order, collected what everyone wanted and reeled it off. We get our food at the next window and pop's handing it all out, he then double checks the empty bag and says "who ordered for me?!". He's a funny old man.
My word! Fast food restaurants don't have great service! You want a meat-based food product for under pennies? Well, it's not going to be like going to the Ritz is it? I hate bad service as much as anyone but the hard fact is that the jobs these people are doing is a real dead end job and they're probably considering boiling themselves alive in the frier while you point out how dumb they are. There's 'stupid'-stupid, and 'don't-give-a-flip'-stupid. Some pretty dangerous levels of snobbery going on here guys. People who live in the south of America shouldn't be allowed to breed? Hahahaha! Just like slavery! Hahahaha! Just like the jews! How whimsical! I know you're not *actually* suggesting that (what you see as) dumb people should be subjected to some sort of ethnic cleansing (if dumb people can be considered as a race) but it's condemning trailer-trash and chavs is basically shooting fish in a barrel. We're all homo-bleeding-sapiens at the end of the day.
The world would be a better place if intelligence was thought of as a positive attribute instead of a diease. A lot of those people are the among the ones who treat it as a disease. Genocide could never be advocated, because whose place is it to make the call? Perhaps if there was a bit more respect for intelligence, more people would BE intelligent, however.
Look hard enough in any country on earth and you will find examples to fit all stereotypes. Some countries just seem to have an over abundance of laws that impedes the process of natural selection.
Farenheit 451 here we come I guess. (if you don't know what Farenheit 451 is go google it. Then go to your local library - if its not been shut down - and read the book)
