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Why the stubbornness and narrow-mindedness of some Poles? [32]
telefonitika touched on it briefly when she talked about cultural 'norms' - its a very interesting subject and these characteristics, traits, norms , whatever you want to call them, do exist....
spending a significant time in a country as a foreigner helps you see this, understand this, appreciate the differences and if you are lucky, be able to look at your own nationality and its/your own traits from a new perspective
these norms play a role in the creation of stereotypes - stereotypes, in one for or another, do exist. the chances of meeting someone who fits every single characteristic is highly unlikely but many people will possess some part of their nationality's stereotype... good and bad
as you say, regardless of how long you spend in a country you will probably only ever meet a small percentage of the population however, its possible that you will meet a broad cross-section from which, whether your conducting a statistical survey or just making a personal observation, you can draw conclusions
someone said earlier that brits are a nation of drunks - obviously this is a generalisation but there is some truth in it - as a nation, we drink in a very different way from others and it is not an unfair observation to think we are all drunkards
i remember when living in italy i liked to go for a couple of bottles of beer after a day at work - less than a pint most evenings. for me, and my english boss, this was a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do as we unwound from a day in the office. because we drunk these 2 small beers in not much more than half an hour, which for the locals, used to making a beer last forever, was pretty unusual behaviour, we quickly found ourselves supporting the stereotype of british p*ssheads...
