"The French may like to think that Chanel No 5 is their scent but we all know that garlic and stale Gitanes are much more representative."
To be honest, I've spent a fair few summers in France, and I've found the French to be perfectly likeable on the whole. Polite, well mannered, and friendly once engaged in the same manner. But then, I do my best to speak French to them, even though I'm rubbish with it, and I think that is exactly where the unfriendlyness comes from. Frankly, many people seem to expect of the French that just because they can often speak English, that they should speak English to people from the UK who're too stupid and lazy to even attempt to speak the language of the country they're in. I'd be inclined to say in my more elitest snobbish moods that the people who were asked in this survey sound like a bunch of stupid uncultured plebs. Voting Italy the country with the best cuisine is laughable when most people seem to accept Pizza and Pasta as the only food that can possibly come out of the country. I doubt the majority of those questioned could even have mentioned one dish beyond pizza or pasta that they considered to be Italian. That's because you go and live in their country, eat fish chips and curry, and live in your own little English speaking communities you bunch of idiots! The Spaniards are, again, a friendly people from my experience with them. Very loud, and often more direct, to a reserved brit like myself, but friendly nonetheless. It's just in spain, almost more then in France, you have to try to speak to people in spanish, that goes so far there. You just need to prove you're not another one of these people who's got off a plane at malaga, and wants no more then to get drunk, be noisy, vandalise their towns, sit on their beaches, be generally rude noisy and unpleasent, then go home and do the same 12 months later. Anyway, this rant is growing long and old, but to put it simply, if you want people to be friendly towards yourself, don't be so fricking arrogant as to assume everyone should speak your language because you're too stupid to learn theirs, be prepared to actually live a little differently from home, stop being so damn unadventures, and you have to be the friendly generous one first, before they're going to reciprecate. You're in their country, so stop acting like your in your living room or local pub! having read that, it comes off as very elitest, but I feel quite strongly about alot of the stuff in there, so I'm going to leave it as such. I guess it is quite elitest, but phrased better I could have said the same message without being a snob, I just don't feel like taking the emo out of it.
Nope, invented by the Persians basicly, and the chinese kind of too. Made popular in the US and much of the "western" world by the French, not the italians. But my point wasn't to give a history lesson, my point is merely that these people are stupid, and have no idea why they're voting for Italy. They're voting for Pizza and Pasta, which is a bit like someone voting for India as the country with the best cuisine because they like Chicken Tikka.
Unless people TRY to interact with a community what do they expect? I have a large number of family in france and the british seem to spend most of their time trying to get cheap alcohol from English speaking "communities" just like the british in Spain. Note that I have spelt british without a capital as I class them as not British in the truest sense, as the British in the truest sense try to interact. Not expect others to interact.
My gosh. You've just summed up...well, about how 90% of Americans feel about the immigrants who come to our country and don't speak a damn bit of the language...be it to live or to visit for extended periods. However, when WE say it, it's those damn Americans being so unfriendly and pompous, completely forgetting thier country is founded by immigrants. The moral? Try to SPEAK THE F@*!ing language if you move into a country.
Here here. If you're going to be spending an extended or permanent amount of time in a country, you should be able to speak the language (or learn it if you don't already know). Oh, and not that I care, but how do we have the worst food? America doesn't even have its own cuisine(save for koolaid ). Our food is based on the food of other countries. Do we just prepare it that bad?
Americans just think that to be better, it has to be bigger... and that's all you have to do. You apply this thinking to pretty much everything. There's little emphasis on quality, but lots on quantity.
I didn't think US food was very bad, some was poor, some was good. Same as any other country really. I think maybe there is less of the posh "cuisine", but in a country with 220M people, it's gotta be there somewhere if you know where to look. Also, wireframe, I wasn't saying pizza and pasta came from Italy, it doesn't surprise me in the least that pasta has origins elsewhere, I was saying the only people vote for italy is because they view italian food as pizza and pasta the way they've been served it their whole lives.
The Germans have no to reason to celebrate the damning verdict. They came second on all three counts.
