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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
s/o have you ever felt disliked because of your nationality?
Going off the DD'd post, I'm curious if anyone has felt that way in their new country.
During my travels or in the countries I've lived in, I've never felt that people didn't like me because of that (I'm Canadian). I get asked all the time here if I am American, or which state I am from, all in a nice and curious way.
Re: s/o have you ever felt disliked because of your nationality?
Whenever I go to Thailand I have to argue with them that I am not from Sweden or Germany! They seriously wont believe me (I am pretty blonde).
The only time I have felt negativity is in a couple of places where they thought I was American- as soon as they relaised I wasn't I was ok- kind of upsets me on behalf of Americans but I think it does happen.
What DD post btw?
There are a lot of negative American stereotypes here, but no one I have met in person has given me any grief at all. Everyone has been really warm and welcoming.
I will say when I meet people though I am always asked if I am Canadian. Turns out they ask that because Canadians get upset if they are asked if they are American, but American's typically don't mind being asked if they are Canadian. Or at least that is what I've been told. lol
I had a really bad experience at the grocery store check out line. Like as in the lady yelling and making faces at me.And all the damn Swiss people in line are like cheering her on. In the end I left crying and desperately wanted to go straight to customer service but knew it would be useless. Cried all the way home on the tram to DH who immediately called the headquarters for me. I was concerned for others who shop there since the shop was on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. Very busy with tourist buying chocolate and I didn't want them to have the same experience with this crazy lady one day.
I don't think it necessarily had to do with my nationality and more that the lady wanted to make an example of me and my non-Swiss German ways.
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I think so. I try not to let it get to me, so I try to think it might be something else. I didn't like it in college when I joined the Filipino Student Association as was known as the "Half-One". And people I didn't know would say "Oh, YOU'RE the half one".
Then I can't help but think the reason we didn't get a couple of apartments we looked at when we first moved here is because the applications asked where we were born and mine said the Philippines. Or maybe they didn't like that we were Americans. Either way, the place that did finally accept us is owned by a guy who has a home in my husband's hometown in Florida and loves America. He's also been a great landlord as he goes out of his way to make sure we have a good time here.
Throughout my travels though, I haven't felt disliked because of my nationality. If anything it was because of my maiden name when airport workers looked at my passport.
There's something diabolically wrong with this state of affairs.
I've heard it's the same with Kiwis and Aussies, always ask if they're a Kiwi first, because they may be offended to be assumed an Aussie.
I think it's more to do with the annoyance that yes, there are other western countries in that area as well, we're not ALL American or they're not ALL Australian, etc.
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In China, as any of you that have lived in non-western countries will I'm sure have experienced, there was rampant racism against us constantly. Constantly! However, Canadians there are generally very well liked because of 3 things:
1. Norman Bethune. Very famous in China, Ridiculously so. I'd never heard of him before moving there - he brought western medicine or something to China and is credited with bringing China forward, etc. Bai Chu An. (or something) They freaking love him, and when you say you're Canadian they bring him up like he's our national hero or something.
2. Da Shan. Don't know his English name, don't care, he's a stupidly tall, red headed arrogant Canadian douchebag that is all over everything in China becase *gasp* he can speak Chinese - and foreigners normally can't do that. We're not clever enough to grasp it. Anyway, he's Canadian, and everyone there thinks that we must be either besties or related. Drives us all nuts.
3. Justin Beiber. Son of a ***.
So I don't think that I ever felt disliked there because of my nationality - my white skin definitely, but not my nationality. Here in the UK people are generally very friendly to us Canucks.
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We were in, I think it was Zheng Zhou, and one of my traveling partners is a tall white guy. He has black hair and I think he was about 21 at the time. Anyway, people just started taking his picture because they thought my friend looked like this Canadian guy you mentioned. When we got back to the hotel we looked him up and they look nothing alike.
I'm sorry. Thanks for not letting it stain your image, I promise there's a bunch of us who think
I had some trouble at university in Canada. I was there the day Bush was reelected and there were a lot of nasty comments made for weeks - didn't help that I was majoring in Political Science. I will always remember my friend sticking up for me! I haven't felt that same sort of intense feeling here in Spain.
I am a joint Israeli-American citizen so I've come across some of this sort of racism. I actually got yelled at in a pub in Edinburgh by someone who heard my accent about Bush's policies and how 'all Americans' something something (he had a serious Scottish accent and I only got every few words or so)
I was also verbally attacked by an ex-coworker of DH's who is Iranian and apparently wants 'all Israelis to die a fiery death' Pretty awkward aftermath of that conversation!
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I lived in London when we invaded Iraq so yeah, a lot of people declared their dislike of me as soon as they heard my accent. They were usually old and drunk, but it was still unsettling.
And Canadians tend to look down their noses at me even though I'm technically 1/4 Canadian and I lived in Canada for several years
Yup. It's definitely a minority, but I've gotten some nasty anti-American sentiments, both from locals and from other ex-pats.
I actually had a drunk Norwegian girl go off on me in a club recently about how awful Americans are. Ironically, she also said that Canadians are so different and so much better, and my Canadian friend ended up in a shouting match with her, arguing that Canadians and Americans are actually very similar.
Now that you mention it, I was told off by a drunk Norwegian while I was in Glasgow. He was lecturing me on how crappy Americans were
I blame the fact that they're inundated with American culture. It's like the American Revolution. Except the US is the imperialist, and it's a question of culture instead of government. That's bound to ruffle a few feathers, even though most of the country is still, "Woohoo! We want to be just like Hollywood!"
Yep, it's happened a few times to me. In fact, I was interrupted during dinner with with a friend, at a restaurant, by a Dutch guy who told me he knew I was American because of my "arrogance." He'd never even spoke with me, he just heard my friend and I talking.
Other times I've been called rascist because I'm American and told that I think I'm better than all other countries because all Americans feel this way, apparently.
Personally no.
But a guy I used to work with moved to Belfast to work for a sister company. This was around 16yrs ago and there was a lull in Northern Ireland "Troubles" but while he was living there it all kicked off again. He ended up not speaking when in any of the shops that were near his apartment so that they wouldn't realise that he was from Dublin... he thought it was better that they thought he was a rude customer than an Irish customer... for the sake of his kneecaps/life...
He was probably right and he moved to a more Catholic part of town soon after...
Nothing major, but I'd like to remind myblueangel of the time we were having lunch in Paris a few weeks ago and some old biddies sitting next to us said that "this isn't America, you can't just scream as much as you want here." (FYI: I don't think we were talking at an elevated volume, but whatever.)
Personally, I think they were just nasty women who would have had something to say no matter what. I don't hold this comment against all French people.
I can't say I ever have had any problems. Of course being Dutch usually isn't a problem, especially here in the US. There was actually an article in the Dutch newspaper today how France is number one at being grumpy and rude. Some of the Dutch agreed and a lot of them didn't. I think a fair number of Dutch people tend to be rather opinionated as well BTW.
I think a lot of it has to do with how people behave themselves. There are plenty of Americans that will go abroad and be annoyed with whatever the local customs are and voice their dislike (loudly) or act like they would at home. Those people will obviously get the side eye. I think that no matter where you go you need to respect the local culture. Even if you don't speak the language I would think an attempt to say a few words here and there (hello, thank you etc) would go a long way. If you just automatically assume everyone will speak English to you just becuase people might be irritated by that.I have never had a problem in France. I am certainly not fluent in French but get along fairly well as does my DH. We actually get asked if we are Canadian most of the time.
No matter what the nationality, loud obnoxious people annoy me. I have seen plenty of Germans as well as Dutch (and Americans) that fit this description. Dutch tend to be sort of loud because they figure no one can't understand them so who cares. Again, that is not everyone obviously but those are the people that stand out.