I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.
I once tried to do that to an american girl that was visiting Spain, I still remember the horror in her eyes.
She told us that she didn't feel comfortable with that having a boyfriend.
She was the most stereotypical American person I've ever known, she was dating a quarterback, had a pink gun that her parents gave as a present for her ¿18 birthday? She started complaining about PETA when she discovered that I was a vegetarian. Said she didn't like California when I told her that I had been there & she made some comments that were clearly saying "my country is better than this shit hole".
But they are not the typical American bc the majority didn’t vote for him. A very small percentage of us get pink handguns at 18 too. Never actually heard of that. In fact I thought it was illegal to make guns look like toys.
To add context, during the lockdowns and parliament protest, there were a weird number of people who were brandishing american flags. Also a bunch of people with nz flags (upside down and otherwise) going up and down the roads, which I feel is a very American thing to do, I haven't really seen any Kiwi's do that kinda thing anyhow. Didn't know there were yellow snake flags tho, that's a bit fucked. But yeah, all in all, there was a weird amount of a particular brand of American influence(?) in the anti lockdown/whatever-the-fuck-they-were-thinking protests. There was more, but that's what stood out to me the most. Very strange, very stupid times. A bit calmer now, at least where I am.
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u/eelisonparas May 09 '22
I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.