Try as we might, it’s difficult not to fall into the trap of believing in stereotypical ideas we have about other nations. However, as anyone who has been disappointed to not see a French person on a bicycle wearing a Breton top and carrying a baguette will tell you, they are highly unlikely to be accurate.
But what about when this comes from the other direction, and people from abroad have fixed – but wrong – ideas about what the UK is like? Over on the AskABrit subreddit, user Decent_Age_1707 asked this:
When you are abroad in, say, America, are there any ridiculous questions that people ask you about Britain?
I was once asked by an American if I’d met the Queen (when she was alive). I responded ‘Yes, I went to Buckingham Palace and had tea with her once’. They looked at me in amazement as if they couldn’t tell that I was joking.
And plenty of Brits chipped in with the things they had been asked by people who had got the wrong end of the stick about the UK.
1.
‘Once an American guy asked me whereabouts in the UK I was from, and knowing he wouldn’t be familiar with my town or county and wanting to be nice I simply said ‘The south coast of England’ and he said ‘ENGLAND HAS A COAST?!”
–user
2.
”I guess you guys don’t have the technology for video calls yet, right?’
-Middle-aged American woman, about 2 months ago
Yes, she was serious.’
–thewearisomeMachine
3.
‘Not ridiculous, but totally threw me. Someone in Borneo once asked me a load of questions about autumn. I had never thought about it before, but in the tropics trees don’t lose all their leaves at once. The ideas of leaf-less trees for almost half the year was incredibly odd to them.’
–EllieW47
4.
‘Ugandans I spoke to had never heard of a snowman. Were blown away by pictures.’
–Mammyjam
5.
‘Moved to USA for a couple of years. Always asked if I knew the Queen etc, etc. But this one person asked where I was from and I said ‘Near Nottingham. You know, Robin Hood’ and he said I was a liar as Robin Hood is from Hollywood.’
–Narrow-Future-1477
6.
‘Yeah, I had a taxi driver in Vegas years back who thought that Disney invented Nottingham and the Robin Hood legend for the animated fox movie.’
–jamescoxall
7.
‘In Burma I had a kid asking me what was the general feeling among the population after Wayne Rooney had a hair transplant.’
–mfizzled
8.
‘I was chatting to a nice lady at a petrol station in rural Wyoming and she said ‘You speak great English for a European’.’
–Forya_Cam
9.
‘The most common I’ve had from Americans is ‘Have you seen a castle?’. To be fair, I don’t judge them for it, castles are pretty cool, especially if you’ve never seen one.’
–OrchidOk2277
10.
”You’re from England? Oh my God! Do you know my Aunt? She lives in Bir-ming-ham!’ I did not know her Aunt, dear reader, for I have never resided in such a place as Birmingham.’
–criminalsunrise
11.
‘Waiter in New York said ‘You’re from England? Do you know my friend Helen?’
Cue eye-rolling from my family and I.
After a little more digging from him, it turns out we actually DID know Helen, who was my old music teacher.
Bizarre.’
–BonnieZoom
12.
”Which part of England is Wales in?”
–apeliott
