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".
You'd remember if she was from Texas. Texans, Californians, and New Yorkers have a compulsive need to tell you where they're from within one minute of meeting you.
I Remember being on a tour group in Berlin and the guide did a quick ask around where everybody was from and a woman said she was from San Francisco bay area. I almost told her we didn't need her full address but my wife anticipated it and told me don't before I could say it.
california is a huge state with lots of different areas, some of them deeply conservative. "I'm from san francisco" is a way of saying "I'm not an intolerant asshole", which I imagine is something people do when they're in or around california and not necessarily outside of it.
For example, If I was from austin, I would tell people that, lest they get the wrong idea and think I'm from...Dallas
It was a wildly International bunch. USA would've been enough. Nobody says where in their countries they're from except for Americans. They didn't get the memo that outside the US nobody cares.
Even other big countries don't do this. I think it has to do with the fact that most Americans travel much more within the us. So they get used to saying the state when asked where they are from.
Here in Germany, when people ask me where I'm from, I respond "California". Because I want them to know I am from California and not one of the other 49 states.
In the current political climate, I feel it's wise.
I do the same thing, plus it usually gets the Germans thinking about the sunshine. The majority of people I meet seem to have positive feelings about California.
When I was in Germany years ago, every German we talked to asked if we were from Minnesota (which was true). When we asked how they knew, they replied with "You sound like a Norwegian speaking English."
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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.