Stupid things you hate about countries

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I can't say there's really anything in particular that bugs me about any specific foreign country.

But there's A LOT that bugs me about my country, the United States. If I were to create a list it'd probably be close to the length of an average novel. So in the spirit of brevity...

I'd don't care what you say, government... PIZZA IS -NOT- A VEGETABLE!

 

[ElPatron]

Basically, the IRA put bombs in bins (or trashcans) in the 80s (I think) and now they're pretty much non-existent in the centre of big cities like London because terrorism.

You can blame the IRA for that one - they had a tendency to put bombs in dustbins. They came back in the late 90's after the ceasefire, but went away after 9/11.

This piece of knowledge will kill at the parties. Awsum thnx

 

[commodore96]

Portugal and their Metro. I want it to run at full capacity just one day all day without striking.

 

[Nooh]

Sweden for their obsession with coffee and budget to spend more on immigration than on health care. Yeah, brilliant idea...

No, I don't drink coffee, and people look at me like I just killed a bunch of people when I tell them that.

 

[Penguinis Weirdus]

Tea really isn't that good. But the amount people drink here in the UK is ridiculous, you'd think it was free alcohol or something, when it actually just tastes like watered-down water.

I say! As a Brit this both shocks and offends me! If you really think that's the case old chap, then you're clearly not drinking the right stuff.

My petty problem with my good old home of the United Kingdom - or rather, England, since this is a specifically English issue - is the massive cynicism that pervades that nation, especially as it festers alongside far-right nationalism and idiocy, particularly in my area.

It also gets on my nerves how this cynicism so quickly turns to absolute "My-Country-tis-of-thee" TRUE NATIONAL PRIDE I NEVER NOT SUPPORTED ENG-ER-LAAAND WOTCHA TALKIN' ABAARRRT YOU PANSY balls the second England qualified for the quarter finals of the Euro 2012 and suddenly every man and his dog who spouted hate about our national football team decided they'd always supported England all the time, dunno what you mean ovverwise guvnor.

Anyway, Rugby's better

This is defiantly one of my biggest gripes with England. That and if your not a staunch royalist your a good for nothing oik who has no right to live here.

Oh and Scotland (mainly the nationalists) learn your bloody history. You made the fecking Union in 1603, Scottish landlords buggered up your clan system and the Jacobite rebellion had both English and Scottish combatants on both sides (as in Scottish troops fought for the King George and English Troops fought for Prince Charlie).

 

[Product Placement]

well time to bash ye olde motherland hm? Denmark, why cant you play football?

WTF? 9th place on the world series is not good enough for you?

Incidentally... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_iixmqSBQw]

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I hate that whenever I try to spell "Colour" on my iPod, it auto corrects it to crazy American; "Color". Would ya like to buy a vowel?

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Argentina - Enough with the Falklands already. You never owned it, it belongs to the UK fairly and the people who actually live there don't want you. Get over it.

Scotland - Enough with the English bashing. We get it, you don't like us. Hurry up get your independence so you can shut up about it.

England - Stop basing your opinions on what you read in the daily mail, you make us all look like racist dickheads

Wales - The language, I'm sorry but despite your efforts no one uses it. Maybe its time to let go.

Italy - How corrupt is your country? Your football league has had two match fixing scandals in 6 years. In addition Berlusconi has been voted in as prime minister three times! Three times! How corrupt are the rest of them if he won three elections?

France - I'm English, they're French. This needs no further explanation

Spain - How come your footballers are so much better than ours? D:

USA - Americans buy a globe and use it.

England[footnote]best hate on my own country again to balance this out[/footnote] - Socks with sandals. Stop it!

 

[Jamash]

Americans: Stop putting stupid people in charge of your country.

well cant really say that from a country who gave boris johnson power ( i know he isnt anything more than a mayor but still...)
EDIT: i suppose ill go with my own, why the neds scotland.... why?

Ok, I'll concede your point.

English people: Stop putting stupid people in charge of your cities!

We should split the difference and put the stupid person in charge of our capital city in charge of America... because since he was born in America and has citizenship, Boris could run for President.

Now there's an interesting thought, "President Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson"... he may have silly hair and a stupid voice, but at least he's White, Conservative, Christian and was born in America.

 

[auron200004]

Americans: Stop putting stupid people in charge of your country.

We are trying! Truly we are. The sad thing is: most of us somewhat decent and somewhat smart Americans are only a very tiny Minority among the sea of dumbasses.

OT: America, why you so dumb?

It's actually pretty obvious. The schools don't...educate, for lack of a better word, anymore. I am still in high school. I attend Honors courses and AP courses. When I look at the bare minimum amount of information that students need to learn to pass lower-level courses (and even some honors courses), I can only shake my head and sigh. Kids aren't learning anymore.

I understand that AP courses are supposed to be more rigorous, but I often find that they are the only classes where I actually learn things. We didn't, and I shit you not, even mention the electoral college system through all of school up until I was in AP American Government my junior year. That is unacceptable.

It may only be Missouri (where I'm from), but based on conversations I've shared with New York and California, we're one of the better off education systems. No Child Left Behind really screwed us as a people, and I stand by that statement.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

To make a less serious counterpoint than the other people who have already quoted you...

"Aluminium" just sounds bad when our stupid American accents try to say it. And Firefox agrees that it's not a word.

OT: Well, I doubt this is specific to the US, but there are a lot of people around who just simply should not be driving vehicles that weigh a few thousand pounds. People weaving in and out of traffic, people zooming by you going 90 mi/h when the speed limit is 65, people who ride your bumper and act like they're in a huge hurry to get into a car accident.

Also, the US being just about the only country in the world to not use the metric system. WTF, us?

Firefox accepts it if you download it in the UK with the English dictionary!

We use half metric and half imperial measurements... Ask someone in the UK their weight, they will give it in stone... height in feet, meat in pounds, TV sizes come in inches, most smaller measurements are in inches as well and we use miles, and height in feet! Hell... the box in the centre of a cricket pitch measures 1 chain long...! :S

On the other hand we use centigrade, we are taught mostly in cm and m in school, weights of fruit and veg in supermarkets are done in both, volume is in ml and l, (except beer and milk which is pints), even petrol is in litres!

Crazy mixed up stuff...

Also I can't slate the yanks without picking on the UK too... when someone in the UK talks about the rest of Europe, for an inexplicable reason we don't count ourselves as being European!? I'm not talking about being part of the EU, which of course is an opinion peice, but the actual physical location! We refer to people of other European nations as 'Europeans' and we get confused when non-european people refer to europeans, and imply us! We just see ourselves separate!

 

[bro1667]

well time to bash ye olde motherland hm? Denmark, why cant you play football?

WTF? 9th place on the world series is not good enough for you?

Incidentally... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_iixmqSBQw]

well, here in denmark, if we dont win. We lose and know that we did something that caused it. So we bash our football team for everything they do, because they could not KICK the ball away in the match against Portugal. stupid them. grr.

 

[cerealnmuffin]

I will start with America, my home country. As this is nitpicking, I won't bring up all the bigotry. Let's start with massively long commercial breaks (the reason I stopped watching television) and also I hate how it is okay to watch TV nonstop, but if you play games for an hour a day then you must be a loser psycho.

Also having ventured outside of the US and coming back, I'm kind of grossed out by how unhealthy and overweight a lot of Americans are. Someone called fat in Korea would be considered average and maybe even healthy in America. Stop blaming your genes and put the mcdonalds down! (Sure some people it is due to genetics, but not everyone is 'big boned')

Also Americans are big on blaming others and not taking responsibility.

Now to talk about another country. I have lived in South Korea for 2 years thus far.

~Why does every kid have to have a galaxy smartphone or iPhone?
~delivery scooters that drive on sidewalks
~old ladies who smack gum really, really, really loud on the bus. It is a nauseating sound.
~Newspapers that say foreigners are the ones who cause all the crimes

Oh and for Canada
~I love you guys, but can we quit with the maple leaf? If I went around wearing a big American flag and have American things all over my belongings, and gave out tiny flags as gifts, I would be considered a pompous, nationalistic idiot. Yet, many Canadians come over to Korea and pull exactly that. I hate super nationalism for any country, including my own.

 

[farscythe]

hmmmm lets see my country is holland how can i make fun of that oh yea

TO ALL YOU TOURISTS OUR COUNTRY IS NOT JUST AMSTERDAM I UNDERSTAND YOU WANT TO SMOKE WEED BUT THERE ARE OTHER THINGS TO DO

maybe that came out wrong sorry

you forgot the cyclists....they're everywhere and they only seem to come in 2 flavours , you get the im on my bike and traffic rules and mortality do not apply to me variety and the i cant look in any direction without somehow veering off that way variety.


(i didnt count the elderly as they seem to be a danger to themselves and others when in control of just about anything with wheels)

 

[ChildishLegacy]

For the UK (Or I guess England, since I can only speak for my own country):
Heavily drinking isn't the only activity you can get up to on a weekend, have a bit of imagination, and stop getting in such a rut. Seems people just live to do the same thing every weekend, that's depressing. It's depressing to see so many people that drunk that they can barely walk, it's depressing to see sick on the pavements on a Monday, it's depressing that I get funny looks when I say I'm not going out to destroy my liver for my 18th birthday.

Also I stopped using Facebook because all people my age from England posted up until tuesday was "OMFG FRIDAY/SATURDAY WAS AWESOME, I WAS SOOO DRUNK", then from wednesday onwards was "OMFG THIS FRIDAY/SATURDAY WILL BE SOOO AWESOME".
It's just shit.

 

[farscythe]

also..greece...
how hard can it be to make toilets that i can actually flush the paper down?(being a spoilt westerner ill sooner shit in the woods than have to put me used paper in a wee lil bin next to the toilet)(tho i spose trying to keep a straight face as the maid comes in every morning to change said wee lil bin made me feel lots better about my job)

 

[Syzygy23]

Americans: Stop putting stupid people in charge of your country.

That's not us, that's the private interest groups. Look up "electoral college" and you'll realize what a sham the whole voting process here is.

My complaint? Hmmm, not a lot really, I like other countries cultural idiosyncrasies, they're very endearing.

Eh, I dunno, mexico? Seriously Mexico, get your shit together and just napalm the FUCK out of all the drug lords hiding in those jungley areas. Either that or join our state of the union so the National Guard can help you out with it,. we got state-o-the-art tanks n' drones! Plus we won't have that whole border issue anymore if you were with the U.S. of A.

 

[MetalMagpie]

UK: does London have ANY trashcan? Do you people eat your trash or just throw it to the ground? Because it's really stinks when you are walking ALL day with a bag full of your own litter until you get to the inn's trashcan.

Heck, I asked a airport employee where were the trashcans and not even the people that work there can remember where they are.

Yeah, I live in the UK and this annoys me too. The reason for the lack of rubbish bins is (mostly) because the IRA used to leave bombs in them. (They were jokers like that.) So bins were removed from every airport and train station in the country, and a lot of other public places too. Public bins were starting to reappear... right before the War On Terror began. At which point they all vanished again.

We Brits only know one way to deal with terrorists: Remove all the bins!

 

[wintercoat]

I can't say there's really anything in particular that bugs me about any specific foreign country.

But there's A LOT that bugs me about my country, the United States. If I were to create a list it'd probably be close to the length of an average novel. So in the spirit of brevity...

I'd don't care what you say, government... PIZZA IS -NOT- A VEGETABLE!

Y'know, I hate when this bullshit gets spouted. Congress did not declare pizza a vegetable! They made it so that the tomato sauce used on the pizza counts as one serving of vegetable so that schools in poorer districts could come up with the legally required 'balanced lunch' without having to take money out of other areas to cover the cost. Pizza also counts as a serving of dairy and grain(and protein if it's the kind with some type of meat on it), you gonna go spouting off that "OMAGOD PIZZA'S MILK AND BREAD NOW!!!1!!!11!" too? It really pisses me off. Congress goes and does something useful and get called idiots for it.

OT: America Y U NO get over the whole gay thing?!

 

[Bostur]

OT Mine's a continent-wide annoyance. Why can no one outside of the UK queue properly? Italy, Scandanavia, all the countries I've visited/lived in have some serious queuing problems. They'll push right in front of you without batting an eyelid. I just can't understand how hard-faced you'd have to be to do that! And when they're forced to queue (like at an airport for instance) they have NO concept of personal space. The amount of times I've been in a slow moving queue and the people behind me have stood so close they're actually touching me is unbelievable. Eugh!

There is a simple answer to that. You brits simply have an amazingly well developed queueing culture. Coupled with good manners and general friendliness this makes the UK a great place to visit.
You can pack your tube cars to the limit and still manage to respect each others personal space, it's glorious to observe by an outsider.
Lack of bins and constant security checks are one of the downsides, but I prefer that to bombs.

Why must Scandinavians be so bloody patriotic on the internet? OK, we get it, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are probably the best countries to live in at the moment, but do you really have to post "NORDIC PRIDE" on everything related to Scandinavia?

Being from Denmark myself I hate this as well. It's like some people go "Weee, we live in a country." Yeah big deal so does everyone else. I try to avoid those national colonies on the net and can't help to wonder why people do it. Language barriers may be one reason, history another. Denmark has a history of getting our arses kicked so many times by the Germans, the Swedish and the English that we feel the need to stick together.
Swedish and Dutch people tend to do the same sometimes, but not nearly as much as Danes.

One annoyance I have with people from the US is that they tend to consider the internet as their own backyard. It's kind of cute when people genuinely get amazed that other countries exists. Impractical when it's assumed that 2PM is a universal measure of time. Especially keeping in mind that you guys have 3+ time zones.