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What surprises Canadians about the States is how little even people who live close to the border know about Canada. My younger brother was visiting from Hamilton, Ontario and somebody asked him how often he saw polar bears.
Same goes for Canadians. I knew a woman from Windsor, Ontario who asked me if people in Detroit received Canadian tv stations across the border.
When I was touring Europe and living in Poland... I was in culture shock for a few days. I was startled at how small everything was, and one of my Polish friends made the comment... "Noooo, Everything in America is big, big cars, big houses, big food, big people, everything is bigger" When my boy friend and I said we were hungry... they took us to a McDonalds...lol Ugh... we hate fast food haha
Just how boring the US in general is. How there's basically such a stale culture centered around college football and beer brats in most of the country.
Foreigners assume it's all like the glamorous parts of NY, LA or Miami.
I fear the rest of the world is going to start looking the same, too.
My daughter is at a university in China. On a school break she traveled to the Yunnan Province where there are some ancient Chinese sites. She took a photograph of an old pagoda--and next to it are a KFC and a Starbucks.
Now I realize I'm probably going to get pounced on for this but here goes. In the last 6 years I travelled all over the USA. I was in all 48 states south of the Canadian border. The thing that really suprised me was the number of hillbillies and the extent of hillbilly territory in the country. IN the east it's just huge. All of Appalachia including a lot of areas not usually thought of as. NY, Pa, Md, Mn, Vt, WV, Va, NC, Ga, even areas in Ohio. In the west big areas of Missouri, Arkansas and Tennesse.
I have nothing at all against real simple people living in a very provincial manner but I was just shocked to find out how widespread that is in the USA.
Of course there are lots of mountain people in the western mountains but I found their culture to be very different than the states I mentioned.
Now I realize I'm probably going to get pounced on for this but here goes. In the last 6 years I travelled all over the USA. I was in all 48 states south of the Canadian border. The thing that really suprised me was the number of hillbillies and the extent of hillbilly territory in the country. IN the east it's just huge. All of Appalachia including a lot of areas not usually thought of as. NY, Pa, Md, Mn, Vt, WV, Va, NC, Ga, even areas in Ohio. In the west big areas of Missouri, Arkansas and Tennesse.
I have nothing at all against real simple people living in a very provincial manner but I was just shocked to find out how widespread that is in the USA.
Of course there are lots of mountain people in the western mountains but I found their culture to be very different than the states I mentioned.
Hm, I would have thought the stereotype is that WV is synonomous with hillbilly. New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont are all mostly rural/farmland, and so are large areas of the southeastern states. Did you think ivy-league-educated bankers were living in those country areas?
Hm, I would have thought the stereotype is that WV is synonomous with hillbilly. New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont are all mostly rural/farmland, and so are large areas of the southeastern states. Did you think ivy-league-educated bankers were living in those country areas?
Well that brings up another thing that really surprised me about the USA. There is a lot of wilderness areas in the country even not far from major cities. North of Albany for example is mostly wilderness all the way to the Canadian border and that is a long way. Pa has extensive areas of wilderness and they even have elk there. I drove all day through a part of Virginia that was mostly mountains and forest with small farms in the bottom lands. It is truely beautiful all around those parts. Washington, jefferson and Madson all came from around there in Ablemare, I think that is how to spell it, county. I don't think I have ever been in a more beautiful place than the White Mountains of NH. My friend and I way back when we were teens used to go and ski and camp out for a week in June there every year. We would make 2 runs a day at Tuckerman's ravine where you climb the hill. When it was time to go home to Toronto I always wished I could stay there forever.
Well that brings up another thing that really surprised me about the USA. There is a lot of wilderness areas in the country even not far from major cities. North of Albany for example is mostly wilderness all the way to the Canadian border and that is a long way. Pa has extensive areas of wilderness and they even have elk there. I drove all day through a part of Virginia that was mostly mountains and forest with small farms in the bottom lands. It is truely beautiful all around those parts. Washington, jefferson and Madson all came from around there in Ablemare, I think that is how to spell it, county. I don't think I have ever been in a more beautiful place than the White Mountains of NH. My friend and I way back when we were teens used to go and ski and camp out for a week in June there every year. We would make 2 runs a day at Tuckerman's ravine where you climb the hill. When it was time to go home to Toronto I always wished I could stay there forever.
Yes, it is a long way! My daughter goes to college in Albany and I see the signs for Montreal on the way...but Buffalo, NY is even further than Montreal!
This past summer my daughter went to college in Vermont, so we drove through that part of upstate NY into Vt...it was beautiful country.
Vermont's so peaceful. No billboards. It really makes a difference not to see signs all along the road.
Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, too, so green and all those rolling hills. The bad part is that a few years back (I don't know if this is still the case), it was the number one state for KKK activity.
One thing that people from various parts of the world have mentioned is they are surprised how we Americans celebrate the War Between the States and take pride in it especially people from places that have fought their own civil wars like China, the Balkans, or Lebanon. They can't comprehend how battles are reenacted every year and people still take pride in their ancestors who fought in the war. In other countries after a civil war most people who participated it want to hide their involvement. You won't have the Sons of Shiite Veterans in Lebanon or the Sons of Serbian Veterans in Bosnia or the Sons of the _____ Militia in Afghanistan. But i think that just shows the freedom and democracy that exists in America that people are allowed to honor their past and their ancestors and have an open debate about our history. On the record I personally don't think the war was really about slavery and I have a lot of sympathy with the old South.
One thing that people from various parts of the world have mentioned is they are surprised how we Americans celebrate the War Between the States and take pride in it especially people from places that have fought their own civil wars like China, the Balkans, or Lebanon. They can't comprehend how battles are reenacted every year and people still take pride in their ancestors who fought in the war. In other countries after a civil war most people who participated it want to hide their involvement. You won't have the Sons of Shiite Veterans in Lebanon or the Sons of Serbian Veterans in Bosnia or the Sons of the _____ Militia in Afghanistan. But i think that just shows the freedom and democracy that exists in America that people are allowed to honor their past and their ancestors and have an open debate about our history. On the record I personally don't think the war was really about slavery and I have a lot of sympathy with the old South.
Also helps when the war occurred 150 years ago.
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