People outside of the USA: What are some interesting, cool, or fascinating aspects of your country you'd like to share with the world?
People outside of the USA: What are some interesting, cool, or fascinating aspects of your country you'd like to share with the world?
Weed isn’t legal in The Netherlands, the sale of weed is only condoned. Meaning the coffee shops who sell weed cant legally purchase it.
As far as the laws concerned it magically appears.
so they illegally purchase it and then sell illegal goods, legally?
Eh, not legally. It's illegal but condoned (up to 5 gram, for personal use only). Meaning they won't arrest or prosecute you for it, but technically you are still beaking the law. I guess in theory some DA could add it along with other charges. But since we don't have a US-style kangaroo court system, this never happens.
Should we call this "blind-eye economics"? I just kinda like the sound of it lol
Ah yes, the magically appearing coffeeshopwiet. I'm trying to get rid of it officer, honestly, but it just keeps coming back! Suppose I may as well sell it for a reasonable price in my humble little shop in Doetinchem. Perhaps with a bit of coffee on the side. Maybe in edible form for those who can't smoke the leaves.
Wasn't there a country where some company ran a "lost and found" service where you'd pay them to "find your weed". Like they were selling you weed but in order to make it legal their business was for you to pay them to find your lost weed.
can people not use that to take each other’s shops down?
How, if they're all playing at the same game? Like, what would be the point, if you get them to start busting others for it, they'll eventually bust you too..
There are bow trials being done with legally grown weed. Meaning it's a government run weed farm.
We use the ISO-8601 date and time format, mostly. We separate the portions by points, not dashes, though. So a typical date looks like this: 2023.12.22. If we shorten it without the year, it's 12.22., or 5.12. We say it with just the numbers, without the points, and shorten "hónap" (month) to "hó". So its "5. hó 12", basically "5th mo' 12".
For time we use the 24H format, regularly even in everyday speech. If it's very clear that you are in the late afternoon or evening, you just say "6 o'clock 24" or "13 o'clock 46".
So always from bigger to smaller "powers". It's auto-sorted on most filesystems, table of contents etc. and very clear in everyday use. It's nice.
Hungary.
I'm so in favor of that time format, both 8601 and 24 hour.
Just to be pedantic, iso 8601 stipulates that the delimiting character is a "-" not a "."
That's why I said "mostly". (Points instead of dashes.)
I generally prefer dates ordered from most to least prominence myself, but any ordering is better than the weird flip flopped month day then year thing we got Stateside.
Interesting that y'all say o'clock before the minutes, tho! Haven't seen that before.
Szoszi kérsz eladó bojlert?
Nice date format, too bad about orban though 🤷
Pigs in Space? Or which one?
If it's very clear that you are in the late afternoon or evening, you just say "6 o'clock 24" or "13 o'clock 46".
Isn't 6 o'clock 24 in the morning?
There are so many natural springs in the Swedish inland, that you don't really need to worry about bringing drinking water when hiking.
It is recommended to bring a water filter with you, but most of the water is clean and safe to drink.
How often do moose bite people in Sweden?
Not often as long as you're not karving your initials into its side.
To my knowledge, I only have a vauge memory of having read this happening, but it may be a Total:Recall scenario where you comment has implanted a false memory.
In any case, I would not be worried about biting, moose are far more likely to crush you when they decided to cross the road just infront of your car, in the evenings, when it is dark, at roads with no lighting.
That is how me and my dad almost had a terrible crash many years ago, we were heading home from Uppsala toward Stockholm, dad was driving, we were on the backroads, and had just started driving on a long straight on the road, there was an oncomming car, and as we got close a moose decided to cross the road just ahead of us, dad had no tome to brake, and had to swerve into the oncomming lane and then back into our lane, we made it, but had a huge adrenaline kick.
All learner drivers in Sweden are required to go to a driving facility and learn about the risks of exsessive speed, stopping distance and swerving, both on dry and wet track to get a feel for it should it happen later, it is really fun, as you get to drive the car at speed alone for the first time.
Heck that's really neat to know, actually!
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People are racists on a town to town basis.
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One of the official language isn't used in the daily life despite having the larger speaker base. People use dialect.
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These dialect can vary a lot between regions or even towns.
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People will be angry and rant if the train run 5 minutes late.
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The biodiversity is actually bad.
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You can legally urinate on a UNESCO monument.
Switzerland
Don't forget that making a spliff out of your train ticket, ink and all, is a thing lol
Edit: There are also pockets where the police won't go because they recognize they're full of crime and drugs, but as long as it stays within those couple of streets, they're happy to let things stay as they are so it doesn't spill out.
Oh and over a quarter of the population consists of immigrants.
And there's free water everywhere.. hiking, in towns.. just bring a water bottle and find a fountain that's always running. The water is ice cold year round too.
It's also the home of H.R. Geiger (Alien design fame) in Gruyère. You can go to the town of Gruyère, which is gorgeous, and see the museum, go to the Alien-inspired café, see how they make the Gruyère cheese that you probably know, and even visit the Cailler chocolate factory, which has a Willy Wonka-type tour with infinite chocolate tasting at the end.. mmmmmmm..
Some others:
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Half of the people with swiss citizenship have a foreign background at some level.
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The majority of immigration went from permanent to temporary. People come for a small amount of time.
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Despite being one of the most neoliberal country, people of the city of Berne voted to allocate money to the self-managed cultural center. This can be explained by the city-countryside political divide.
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Switzerland doesn't have direct democracy but a semi-direct democracy.
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Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus still have a Landsgemeinde where people vote cantonal level legislations using show of hands vote.
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Corruption at the local level is high.
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There are more unwritten rules than laws.
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People keep their friends during the entire life. As a side effect, people can be seen as unfriendly. It can take up to 10 years to make a local friends.
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You can reach 95% of the country by public transportation.
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The Habsburg dinasty originated from the small town of Habsburg in the Canton of Aargau.
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Which monument is this you speak of? :o
The Zytglogge in Berne is the UNESCO monument you can urinate on.
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We don't let sheep vote here, despite being outnumbered by them. We also have no romantic relationships with them either.
Australians suck and are terrible at sport. Don't pick on them though, because we're the Pacific redneck brothers. Only we can pick on Australians.
You always know when Tonga or Samoa is playing a sports match, because you'll see the flags and hear the cars tooting everywhere.
Guy Fawkes is a real big deal. Fireworks will be going all week.
All the fish and chip shops are owned by Chinese, all the dairies by Indians, and all the bakeries by Cambodians.
It's difficult to find some nationality that isn't represented by a restaurant somewhere.
Our national dish is Butter Chicken.
-New Zealand
you are writing about a place where every second person is prone to skin cancer and you don't even notice it... It's just like a cold (illness ) for you. And the fact that you live so far from the rest of the world that if you have the opportunity, you certainly try to escape from the country (despite the high level of prosperity of the country). And you can't swimming in ocean.... water is cold, evenin summer...
Guy Fawkes is a real big deal. Fireworks will be going all week.
Try a major UK city. It's dark early, often foggy, people are fighting each other with rockets on the streets. People are holding hands and burning effigies of the latest prime minister.
God do I miss England in November.
Don't pick on them though, because we're the Pacific redneck brothers. Only we can pick on Australians.
I've always loved seeing these sorts of brotherly rivalries between nations.
You always know when Tonga or Samoa is playing a sports match, because you'll see the flags and hear the cars tooting everywhere.
Ahh, that big a sports rivalry, then?
It's difficult to find some nationality that isn't represented by a restaurant somewhere.
Got a favorite nationality's food?
New Zealand is a beautiful country and it'd be a dream to get a chance to visit y'all some time :D
We also have no romantic relationships with them either.
Well yeah, bit rude for the sheep to cheat on their Welsh spouses, innit? Nawh I kid, love ya Wales! A Welsh accent's honestly my favorite from the Isles.
American here, we'd never pick on the Aussies, they're our little brother that just keeps picking up our bad habits, which I guess makes NZ the little brother that we forget even exists most of the time, till you do something cute.
Canada is, surprisingly enough, not part of America.
We're not America's hat - you're Canada's asshole. /s
Just because we do our best here in Canada to not be like our American cousins .... it doesn't mean that a good number of us think, act and believe like our southern relatives.
Honestly, I live in northern Ontario where we shouldn't have so much American influence but it's so strange to meet and talk to outright Trump supporters with 'Let's Go Brandon' stickers, don't trend on me and Confederate flags. It's especially strange when some back woods people I know barely have any knowledge of Canadian politics but enjoy mentioning their second amendment rights and the right to bear arms (both of which is an American thing and not part of Canadian history)
Remove the /s and you’re right.
Be a man ;)
We’re grateful for the Canadarm too. A tip o’ America’s hat for that program.
You're not part of the United States of America, but you're still part of the continent of North America.
Canada is the younger brother of the United States of America.... you do everything with an eye on them... And this is not a surprise to anyone
If you are going by approximate anatomy, Canada's asshole would probably be the Panama Canal. Y'all poop boats.
Big love to our northern brothers across the border! That said, we can't be just y'all's asshole. You're forgetting that we got the perfect dangling phallus of Florida that cannot be ignored (despite our best efforts.)
Hey we're both the assholes of the world, there's enough room for two on this throne
We are Canada's pants.
No - they've already got pants. Nice and sturdy ones. Bit jealous.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/qarlinngua-nunavut-arctic-bay-hidden-sea-arch-1.4515601
Nice to hear from Europe-America in this thread.
Now go play with Exotic-America and his juguetes in the corner and let the real countries talk.
We take folk dancing very seriously. There are A LOT of folk dance ensembles and they vary from random hobbyist groups to company-sponsored groups of 80+ dancers. There are lots of competitions, drama and every 5 years - a huge concert where most ensembles participate and perform in a stadium. One dance can contain up to 1000 dancers at the same time.
During this year's final dance the spectators mentioned that they could feel the ground shaking.
-Latvia
My wife’s late grandfather was from Latvia, displaced during the Second World War, I always enjoy reading things about the country and relaying them on to her.
Passion for dance is a really cool thing to have in my book, preserves something that words doesn’t.
I'm not even into dancing but goodness me, that sounds like a lotta fun to watch. I'll have to see one of y'all's competitions if I ever find my way around the Baltics!
Competitions aren't that interesting to the average person. The Song and Dance festival would be a must-see:
Very cool.
The night before December 6th, children leaves their shoes on front of the chimney, along with a glass of milk and a carrot for Saint-Nicholas and his donkey (other countries say it's a horse, but it's a donkey for us).
Saint-Nicholas leaves a bunch (like, a lot) of candy and toys during the night for children to find when they wake up.
Traditional treats include speculoos, chocolate coins, nuts, clementines and "guimauve" (like marshmallows but a little less soft, in the shape of clogs or religious figures, sometimes chocolate-covered).
Also, on Easter, children will find eggs in their backyard. They are dropped by "the bells". The story is that the bells of Rome fly across Europe and drop eggs along the way (see this postcard). So when the children are done finding all the eggs, they shout "THANK YOU BELLS".
Belgium
Your country is my favorite in all of Europe. I definitely wanna spend the rest of my life over there.
Everyone who thinks this is a bad idea, get your downvotes ready.
I thought this would be Dominic the Donkey
Okay but I friggen love the candied klompen. Definitely gonna have to grab a few if I ever get a chance to visit Belgium!
In Finland, during winter, we enjoy making wide openings into an icy lake near the shore, and go swimming in it. Best translation I can find is ice swimming. This is usually paired with a piping hot sauna, and you alternate between the 80-100 celcius hot room and taking dips in the ice water. If no lake/similar body of water is available, rolling around naked in snow is also a valid option.
We do that in Michigan too but it's to punish people who commit crimes against fashion
and translation is not necessary, here in Russia we call such people (swimming in an ice hole in winter) simply: walrus
I remember this is also a cooking style called blanching.
or in this case, reverse blanching? -- cold first, then hot.
We call that a polar bear plunge in North America, not sure if the sauna is involved though
Shit I'm down to try that.
Here’s a few:
- Our national animal is a Unicorn
- We are oddly proud of our tap water being drinkable
- We have nearly 800 islands
- The saltire (our flag) is the oldest in the world allegedly, from 8th century
- Despite being part of the bigger country of United Kingdom, Scotland has its own entirely separate legal and education systems.
Scotland
South Africa has 11 official languages and some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet.
All the South African folks I've met working in tourism had been absolutely lovely! Just a joy to talk with. Last time we had a South African gal I managed to blindside her with an unexpected Tot Ziens as she went to leave the gift shop, and we wound up just chatting for a good while. Coincidentally that was the day me and a coworker were talking coins, and it just so happened I had my Rand coin with me that day. Seeing one of those this far away from her home was uncanny for her.
That's what it is. I've always been able to tell a distinct difference between the British English accent, and the South African English accent, even though they're almost identical. You speak English with a happy accent.
Genuine question here from a place of interest, what do you count as a British Accent? Is there like an actor or someone with an example?
I’m Scottish and for such a wee country (meaning both Scotland and also the UK) we have such a wide variety of accents I am always interested when someone says ‘British Accent’ as the difference between south Wales to Newcastle to Essex to Aberdeen are chalk and cheese to me.
There are broadly 150 indigenous language groups but only about 14 are still in common use.
If you've worked for a single company/system for 7 years you get a bonus 6 weeks 'long-service' leave.
We have a native cherry that grows inside out called a cherry ballart.
Our cuisine is really varied depending on your geography with a lot of soth East Asian influences. Most people will make stir-fry reasonably often and we have our own variations of sushi and dim sum which would offend most Japanese or Chinese people.
Oddly, the long service leave varies from state to state/territory. One state gives 6 weeks at 7 years, another gives 12 weeks at 10 years.
We moved country earlier this year, and my wife misses “dim sims”. Truely unique
Aight, my geography isn't heaps great, but I do vaguely remember a Southeast Asian nation with tons of indigenous languages. Shot in the dark, one of the archipelago nations?
The cherry ballart sounds neat! So I take it ya crack 'em open to get the fleshy juicy goodness inside?
Australia. Here's a tidbit on the cherry ballart.
https://theconversation.com/native-cherries-are-a-bit-mysterious-and-possibly-inside-out-108760
Sejm RP youtube channel (basically parliamant) recently got 600k subscribers and live streams have over 1M views
Huh, interesting! I take it Polish folks are generally more widely engaged in politics?
Not at all. Just after 8 years of Right wing party (PiS) lost the elections in october to Left wing coalition. Right now everyone wants to see the fulfillment of promises and reapair of all the things that they broke.
Also it is extremely funny to watch grown ass men in suits fight with fire extinguishers
The current Marshal of the Sejm is a showman. He was a host of the Polish version of Got Talent. He often says funny retorts and is less uptight than other Marshals. Some even call the live stream “Sejmflix” now.
But also members of the previous ruling party, PiS, are like… super stupid. I don't know if populist parties are like that everywhere, but PiS politicians often say things so ridiculous, that they are just funny. Well, they weren't so funny, when they had a majority.
Most slavic languages probably don't have spelling contests - what you say has mostly exact textual representation, except some letters that can sound alike when spoken.
The more I learn about other languages the more I realize that most languages do that. English probably also did that before it became mixed with french
English spelling wasn't even remotely standardized at that time. So phonetic was pretty much all there was
Very interesting! I vaguely recall having once seen an infographic explaining how to read cryllic in very little time ages ago, and if it's that rigid with pronunciations and such I can see it being that easy to pick up.
As opposed to English, where you might cough and hiccough while the borough's favorite dough-maker ploughs through the field.
This website has maps of how french words are pronounced differently depending on where people live, sometimes the words aren't even the same but still refer to the same thing!
https://francaisdenosregions.com/index-des-billets/
Of course it's only interesting if you're into french language haha
I don't actively look it up much but linguistics is a seriously fascinating thing. We've invented not just one seriously complicated and complex series of grunts and noises to communicate everything from immediate danger to the craziest of dadaist humor, but thousands of them - and the vast majority have little enough similarities to one another that dedicated translation services are necessary. Humans can do some really cool stuff.
We eat raw olive oil with bread for breakfast. Trust me, it's actually more disgusting than everyone thinks.
Imagine a country physically located in Africa that has more influence from the Arab world and the European [sub]continent than local influence. Your average citizen can speak like, 3 languages, and there's certainly some that can speak more than that. We even participated in the Eurovision Song Contest at one point (biggest regret imo).
Have you ever heard of Pokimane? What about Loreen? Chances are they have ethnic roots from this country. Oh, and Faouzia too.
There's so many mosques here. I'm not against practicing religion, but I have to say that there's probably too many mosques, when a couple hundred is more than enough for everyone. Try appropriately 40 thousand. And the state actually wants to build more.
Some Israeli company uses our argan oil for their skincare products. To this day, this remains my worst nightmare.
Hospitality.
You guys really need to try our couscous. It's delicious.
Hey, I see you mentioned the USA in your post. Well guess what. It's not France that first recognized them, it's us.
I gave you enough clues. The country is Morocco.
We even participated in the Eurovision Song Contest at one point (biggest regret imo).
Wait, why was that regretful? o.o
I have to say that there's probably too many mosques
There's more churches than businesses in my county here, I completely understand that sentimen-
Try appropriately 40 thousand.
u wot mate
You guys really need to try our couscous. It's delicious.
I'll look into it! Thank you for your reply :D
Wait, why was that regretful? o.o
Not only did we only participate once for a single year, it ended up being a poor result, receiving only 7 points from Italy and getting 18th/19. The Moroccan broadcaster chose not to return. It's actually even more of a problem now because of... things that happen that offend the Moroccan state, such as LGBT rights. Also, Israel participating would result in massive boycotts if Morocco participates alongside them.
There's more churches than businesses in my county here, I completely understand that setinen-
Yeah, counties are small. Morocco is bigger than most European countries.
u wot mate
Yep. It's actually true.
Anyway that's all the additional stuff I have to say.
Do you season or do anything special to the couscous?. Over here it's just served plain and I always wondered if other countries seasoned or prepared theirs differently.
Carrots, potatoes and pumpkin everywhere. We also add chicken.
If you're feeling fancy then saffron is a good one. Tumeric and cumin are more common, as well as harissa. Sometimes aniseed, cinnamon, nutmeg or mace for something sweeter/peppery, though I personally don't like those as much.
The same comment was sent twice.
Oh man I actually love the raw olive oil, especially on msemmen (I'm half moroccan)
Good for you. Msemmen is actually quite good though.
Do you season or do anything special to the couscous?. Over here it's just served plain and I always wondered if other countries seasoned or prepared theirs differently.
We are not middle earth
Well obviously, you're a couple of islands surrounded by thousands of kilometres of water, that makes you Middle Ocean
Ah. The forgotten lands, according to some maps.
There there be dragons
I concur
(But my instance doesn't easily identify me as kiwi)
Nawh, can't be. Too cold to be the middle of the earth.
A traditional Christmas meal includes KFC and cake in Japan.
Marketing be strong, yo.
Honestly as a kid I would have loved that!
It's probably reasonably well-known, but nearly (or around) 90% of Aussies live within 50km of the coast, despite us having a landmass similar in size to the USA.
Can't blame ya with how brutal the Outback is. Yer skin cancer rates are already sky high, I can't imagine how bad it'd be if y'all lived in the parts of the country where they haven't invented clouds yet.
We think of america as third world
Yeah the income disparity here is nuts x.x One of many reasons why I wanna get outta here.
Thats not even getting started that u guys dont even have healthcare. Surly thats a prerequisite to being first world but what does some dumbcunt aussie know.
Most of the US doesn’t think of you at all mate.
The World
We don't praise guns 🙃
Gonna guess you're a true blue, fair dinkum Aussie, mate?
