What do (some) Europeans really think of each other?
 

Six leading European newspapers were asked to stereotype each other, and then asked cultural commentators in each country to assess how accurate they are

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/inte...eotypes-europa

Must read article carrying so much sense with humor as well.

I am certainly glad that Europeans do not have any misconceptions regarding Americans, otherwise they have mentioned it in this article.

Xenophobia never ceases with xenophobia...

Interesting article Patrick.

This reminds me of a lovely British lady with whom I became friendly at a Goethe Institute. We took a trip over to Colmar one Saturday and stopped for lunch. When no waiter approached us at our outside table, she went inside to inquire about service. She was told that they were too busy, so they weren't serving any new customers.

She was sputtering with outrage about the French in general, since she thought this behavior was typical of them. She was fluent in French, so she'd obviously been to France many times.

On a visit to Germany before there was to be a big English/German football (soccer) game, the German papers were all aflutter about the possibility of soccer hooligans managing to get to Munich and creating havoc. But the British newspapers that I read were really printing outrageous stereotypes about Germans. It really amazed me because their stereotypes were so different from Germans I've known or just met in my many trips to Germany.

Looks about right.

My favorite European expression - can be said in every language - is "You know how the ..... are".

((I))

Fun article, Patrick, merci...

>>But the British newspapers that I read were really printing outrageous stereotypes about Germans. It really amazed me <<

I'm tempted to salute your innocence, peg. Tabloid journalists + real world awareness* and/or balanced reporting: does not compute.

*An awful lot of them write about Germany as though they were trying to be in a 1950s John Mills movie. One or two German diplomats posted to London have nearly had nervous breakdowns about the apparent impossibility of shifting the stereotypes.