So Many Nations, So Many Stereotypes
If you stumbled across our website and are just about to leave because of the scary word 'stereotype' which smells like some scientific s...ubstance you don't have any irresistible desire to go into, WAIT! Stop judging a book by its title and start making sure our website about this very tricky word 'stereotype' is one of the most exciting, entertaining, educational s...ubstance about you! Sounds intriguing, eh? Wanna know why? Okay. Your charming unique self definitely belongs to a certain nation which – just like you – appears to have special traits of character, which are not always uniquely good by the way. And yes, it means that even your behaviour patterns influence the generally accepted and then universally exaggerated opinion on the nation you are 'responsible for' so be sure you work hard on self-perfectionizing.
Our website will deal with the so-called 'national stereotypes'. Let's get a little bit educated here before starting our entertaining session. A stereotype is an over-generalized and preconceived characteristic to someone or something. In our society, we attribute the same characteristics to a big group of people, and sometimes we even generalize nations without realizing that such approach contributes to the universal prejudiced, proud and very often wrong opinions.
If we get all serious, we can state that national stereotype is a system of culture-specific beliefs connected with the nationality of a person. This system suggests beliefs about universal and cross-national properties of human beings such as appearance, food, habits, language, psychological 'portrait' or behaviour patterns. If we cut this long scientific story short and make it a little bit more entertaining, we'll just say that national stereotypes are all about trying to take a nation's pants off in front of the rest of the world. Sometimes they manage to do it and it results in pretty shameful situations, but sometimes they fail and vice versa put some inspiring garments on a nation's internationally acknowledgeable 'body'. It's not that you have nothing to show or boast about when you're trouserless, it's just that others might have problems with the sight. The whole thing suggests the fact that there are both positive and negative national stereotypes. Somehow, naked truth suggests that the latter ones dominate.
Our website will tell you about stereotypes of different nations i.e. American, Canadian, French, German, Italian, Spanish and some others. You may have already heard about some of them, some will be new to you. In any case, when browsing through our website you will find a lot of useful information and some fresh food for thought and delicious dessert for entertainment.
Oh these national stereotypes... There are so many of them, they are 'emotionally' unstable and often inconsistent, charming and capricious, ingenious and nosy, confusing and often highly untrustworthy. They are a source of pride, anger or simply bad jokes. Some state that national character stereotypes are not even exaggerations of real differences: they are fictions; others state that there's more to them stereotypical exaggerations than meets the eye. However, the subject is worth dwelling upon, don't you agree? You sure do!
Our task is to avoid arguing ourselves inside out about any issue concerning national stereotypes, their cause-and-effect matter in particular. Instead, we'll tell you a fascinating story about how you as a representative of a certain nation are viewed through the world's eyes. And whether the world's eyes are short-sighted or not. In any case, the world hardly ever wears pink glasses so get ready to be wrapped up in this oh so diverse stereotypical reality. We're sure you'll find it REALly entertaining.