Badmovies.org Forum

Taking off of the similar thread involving countries, do you ever get (whether it be in your travels or conversations) questions or comments about your State from people who have never been there?   I live in Rhode Island and I think what we face a lot is "do you live near the ocean".  Granted, for me yes I do live 10 minutes from the ocean.  I can actually walk up the road and see it.  However, I'd say over half the state is a bit far away from the nearest ocean.  It seems to be the first question asked usually.  Either that or many people assume we are all coastline with no rural or suburban areas.

Then I also have gotten, "Are you near Boston?"  This is odd to me because Boston is the capital of MA.  :question:  It would make more sense to ask "Are you near Providence?"

So how about you, what do you get asked a lot about your State that drives you nuts?

No  :bluesad:.  No one asks me questions about Illinois.. no one cares.  I will say that people that live near Chicago but not in Chicago seem to be afraid of the city and people that live farther away, but still a visitable day-trip distance, seem to think the city is hot stuff.  They're both kind of right.

Awwww. Here's an ignorant question for you: what do you call someone from Illinois (I mean besides a yankee--I'm from South Texas, so pretty much everybody north of Houston is a yankee  :tongueout:)?

And Darksider, I can also say that (coming from a Texas perspective), nowhere in Rhode Island is all that far from either a coast or a state border. I have to drive 7-8 hours to get to the next nearest state (Lousiana), and 3-4 hours to leave the country (Mexico). Where are you when you drive 3-4 hours? :teddyr:

Some of the various questions I have been asked by adult tourists from the US while I was fishing off the pier of my hometown in Michigan(which is right on Lake Michigan) have included: Are there dolphins in this lake? Are there whales in the great lakes? Are there sharks here? and my favorite of all time; Is Lake Michigan fresh water or salt water? The answer to all these questions is no! I really wonder if any one teaches basic geography in the US anymore somedays. All that said I don't expect anybody from outside the US to know these thing and I'm more than happy to answer a foriegn tourist's question about the great lakes but I'd expect my fellow Americans to know a little about the great lakes.

I'm from Minnesota, and no, it does not look like this for 11 months each year:

(http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww28/jackc8/arctic_landscape_or.jpg?t=1276687543)

Only for THREE months each year  :teddyr:

:bouncegiggle: I understand that aspect but the way many people ask they generally think we are living like Gilligan.  And to answer you question, a 4 hour drive would end me up in some part of CT I think.  Or Central MA maybe. 

Im from IL too.  I do get asked one question. Are you close to Chicago?   :teddyr:   I tell them no im close to St. Louis and occasionally I hear.. Is that in IL?   :bouncegiggle:

Not all of Canada looks like that either. Where I live, we have a lot of trees. :teddyr:

I don't think it's as true as it once was, but there was a time when Americans seemed to think that crossing the 49th Parallel would take them into something resembling Northern Exposure, but with Mounties. My mom used to be fond of sharing stories of visitors who were impressed to find such things as paved roads. Mind you, there are still enough misconceptions about Canada south of the border to make it a popular source of humour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=pZpjtagJ-0w&feature=related

I'm not from there, but I imagine alot of people, when someon says they're from New York, assume they're from the boroughs. Hello, there's an entire state. New York City is an island off the coast of the state. Then, I also heard a guy from Brooklyn say upstate may as well be Canada.

Derf, what do they call someone from Illinois? How about over-taxed, under served, bankrupt or just plain "sucker"?  (Aw, that's harsh.) I think it's pronounced : Ill-uh-noy-an

  Every now and then when I travel and I mention I'm from Chicago someone will ask if I know Al Capone. Not "know of him" but if I actually have met and befriended Scarface Al Capone. As I am a smart a$$ I sometimes tell them that his baby sister baby sat me as a kid and that's how I learned to bribe cops. 

Sounds more like you're an Ill-annoyed.  :bouncegiggle:

And, being from Texas, I can tell you that no, I don't ride a horse everywhere, I don't speak like a hick (although I can, quite convincingly), I've never tipped a cow (well, there was that fat waitress, but, no  :buggedout:), and I don't wear chaps. I do consider Corpus Christi to be the biggest hick town in America, but that's just because I'm a surly old fart.  :lookingup:

hi
you will have to forgive my ignorance(i,m a brit) but please explain to me .What is a hick?

Yokel, bumpkin and hayseed are synonyms you might recognize.

A hick is an uneducated poor person. A bumpkin. An oaf. A schmuck. People tend to stereotype Texans as either hicks or oil-well-owning billionaires. I'm neither. Well, I am poor, but I have a master's degree, so I'm not uneducated.  :teddyr:

I'm from Arkansas, and we're all ignorant Hill Billies.  When I went to Navy Boot camp in Chicago my company commander was impressed with the fact that I was not a slobbering bumpkin and insisted on calling me Arkie. 

I've been to a lot of  states and several other countries and believe me when  I say, every place has their version own of the bumpkin, redneck, oaf, and idiot.

I usually call the locals here, goobers.

Living in Philly, get inundated with a bunch of random questions.  Questions about Scrapple, The Rocky Steps, Cheesesteaks, Wawa, "Wooder" and a slew of others.

Yes, we say "Wooder."  Get over it.  It's how we talk.  NEXT!  Yes, we shut the "windah".  Yeah, we do randomly go into the E-A-G-L-E-S chant, even if at a Phillies game.  No, not everybody runs the stupid Rocky steps.  Only stupid tourists.

I'm from Iowa and there are two questions I always get asked...

1.) "Iowa...  Is that where they grow potatoes?"  (No.  That's Idaho)

2.) "Are there black people in Iowa?" (this question is almost always asked by a black person)

Well, like Paquita, I live in Illinois, so no one ever asks me anything unless I'm working at my job at the hotel, and usually it's just travel related questions like "Hey, do you know how far it is too..." fill in the blank (usually Chicago and St Louis.)  I'm always amazed though at how many people take trips to places they don't seem to know the location to.  I've had to Google map and print directions for several people.  You'd THINK that when you were going somewhere you'd do something stupid like, oh, I don't know, look up that place on your own BEFORE you started out there, but hey, what do I know?

As for other people, when it comes to their places, sometimes I'll mainly just ask if they've ever been to so and so, as I know something about it.  For instance, when someone's from North Carolina, I ask if they're near Greensboro as I got a friend down there.  If anyone's from Pittsburgh I ask if they've ever visited the Monroeville mall (and if you don't know why, you might be on the wrong web site.)

Usually "poor bastard."

 :smile:

Living in PA do you ever get asked about the Amish?

I did some demographic research. There are six.

Just kidding.  :bouncegiggle:

Here's some questions about the Amish, or the Pennsylvainia Dutch, as they are also known. Are they really Dutch? Are there Dutch people in Holland who practice the same life? Do they have relatives in Holland who come over to visit or live?

Hmmmmmmm.

Do you tell them it was probably people like them who misunderstood "Deutsch" as "Dutch" in the first place?

Any time I tell people where I'm from, at least within Ontario, I usually get two things "Beautiful country down there" and/or some question related to Mennonites. But nothing could compare to the annoyance of my friends who actually were Mennonites when somebody asked a dumb question. It usually starts with somebody who doesn't know there is more than one sect of Mennonites, and some of them are indistinguishable from everybody else. My best friend had the mixed blessing of growing up on a corner right next to downtown, so he got asked for directions a lot. He'd be mowing the lawn and a carload of tourists would drive up and ask where they could see some Mennonites. You can imagine where the conversation went from there. He'd say he was a Mennonite, the tourist would think he was being a smartass, and depending on how nice the guy was, he'd explain and answer the question or go on being deliberately obtuse.

Back in the early 90s, I was on a snowmobile trip (actually not that far from where I live now) with some friends. They went out for an evening ride, while I passed and went to the motel bar, where I eventually got chatting with some other guys we'd seen on the trail. The subject got around to where everybody was from, and one of them asked the usual "There a lot of Mennonites around there?" Shortly after that, my friends came strolling back in, and I introduced them: Reg Martin, Nevin Martin, Leroy Martin, Darrell Martin, Curvin Martin, Dwayne Martin and Dennis Brubacher. A couple of them were related, but there was still about five distinct Mennonite families represented, four of them Martin. I was the only non-Mennonite in the group.

It's kind of amusing that I can do a phone search on a town of just over 10,000 people and pull up over 300 listings for Martin. There are maybe half a dozen really prominent Mennonite names in the area, but that's the big one. And that number doesn't account for the ones in the rural areas who don't have phones.

Quite a bit.  "Ever see an Amish with a horse and buggy?" comes out quite a bit, as if they've got all day to just roam around.  Although, it's not too far from here, and yes, they do pop up quite a bit.  Went out there for a concert (which boggles most people's minds, as they imagine only like, farms and Amish in Lancaster), and there's this thing where it's half Amish, half like, "civilian' I suppose you'd say. 

The amount of questions we get asked are pretty funny. 

Most people, some tourists, do ask about Scrapple if they're eating a breakfast at a diner or restaurant.  Apparently Scrapple is unknown to most people outside of the PA/NJ/DE region.  Without a proper way to describe it, it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapple

When I was living in Japan, and let it be known from Texas, I would always hear:

"COWBOY!!! Bang bang!!" 

Some of those whose English was a bit better would ask me:

Who shot J.R.?  (this was in 1983)
How many horses I owned?
Where my guns were?

That was me, I think.  :wink:

We've got quite a few Amish around SE Minnesota.  Not in my immediate are, but drive 20 or 30 miles and you often see them in their horse and buggies. 

I've heard of that. Never had it, but I recall it being mentioned back home. Looking at the recipe, it seems very similar to some haggis variants, with the scraps, broth, grain, etc.
On a side note, I love how the Wiki Nazis are all over that article. Seems they require a citation for every step in a brief description of making a loaf out of pork scraps and cornmeal. :bouncegiggle:

The first computer company I worked for was based in Massachusetts and to be honest the culture shock of going there was almost the same as when I lived in Scotland.

Two of the most notable things that bugged those of us lived in South was that in the fall you couldn't get iced tea in a restaurant  in the fall (it was out of season).  Also they would only give you one refill of  coffee before they charged you for another cup.

I had an incident once when I was there for training the company was moving their training center from Lowell to Lawrence.   I volunteered to go a Dunkin Donuts across the street for coffee. One of the instructor said he wanted a plain coffee.  When I got back with it and he took a sip and went yuck, this is black!

Seems there a plain coffee includes a shot of cream.   

I'm surprised nobody  has mentioned grits.

 You know Trek, that is one great point there.   Here in the NE we simply don't have grits anywhere so we assume all the Southerners are hoarding them.  :bouncegiggle:  One day I was at a Denny's and the waitress gave me the option of them.   I was shocked to say the least.  Though I will admit, I prefer home fries. 

I've never ever had Haggis, always thought it sounded disgusting.  But seeing as I eat scrapple... :teddyr:

Not so much questions, but what drives me up a wall is how a lot of people, especially those living below the 36th parallel north are unable to properly pronounce the names of either Dubuque or Des Moines.  I've had to bite my tongue a few times.

Being an Okie, people seem to think everyone from there is a cowboy. There are a bunch but mostly in small towns. A friend of mine once went to some Ivy League prep school for the summer. He said he got tired of stupid questions and started walking  with a pronounced limp to one side. When people would ask what was wrong, he'd say "It's nothing, I'm just trying to get used to walking without my gun belt".

I had a friend who lived in Japan for over two years.  According to him, today, the Japanese basically assume all Americans own a small arsenal of firearms and there are daily shootouts and quickdraws in every city.  Actually, that appears to be what many Europeans think as well.   :lookingup:

From what he learned of interacting with the people there, it seemed to him that as far as baffling ignorance of the outside world goes, Japan is several orders of magnitude worse than the USA. 

My favorite was an Australian friend of his who was asked by a local, completely seriously.

"Did you ride in a kangaroo's pouch to get to school back home?"

While I can't claim we're as bad as say, New York or Detroit, this area I'm in now is pretty frigging bad, and well, there are daily shootouts around here for no real reason other than people are bored. :buggedout:

The reason why they have this perception is because the people who perpetuate this stereotype are, of course, the loudest and brashest of Americans, and, like the proverbial squeaky wheel, get the grease (attention). Likewise, this is what is portrayed in popular media as well. There are plenty of decent, peaceful, intellectual Americans, but who wants to see a movie or television show about them? Boooooring.

People always ask me if i know any country singers.

It's funny because Japan has a lot of video game developers and publishers, and they're desperately trying to cash in on all those American video gaming dollars by making games that pander to exactly that stereotype.  And then they're baffled when they don't sell well.

The one thing that is funny is, of course, there's a degree of truth to the stereotype - my friend and his family own guns.  About half of American households do, mine included.  And my friend WAS able to relate that he, as a white person, wouldn't enter East St. Louis and a few other areas at night due to fear of being killed (truth be told, you're more likely to get THREATENED than actually killed though  :buggedout:). 

I lived in East St. Louis almost 30 years ago and it was bad then.  I was surrounded by a group of kids after school who threatened to cut my eyes out. Older kids. I was 7 maybe 8. I never went back to that school and we moved shortly after that. There are bad areas everywhere though.

East St. Louis and the actual city of St. Louis are two of the most dangerous areas in the USA right now.  East St. Louis is actually much more dangerous per capita though - it has the highest crime rate of any city in the USA (along with Opa Locka).  The murder rate is about 20 times the national average.  I can tell you Missourians avoid it at all costs (it's fairly easy to accidentally drive into it from a few places in Missouri, even though it's actually in Illinois).

I believe the city of St. Louis (opposed to the county, which are divorced) has the highest murder rate of any MAJOR city, though.  Neck and neck with the OTHER major city I used to live near - Detroit.  Even the bad areas in St. Louis though don't FEEL as bad as East St. Louis.

That's horrible. I don't care if they were kids themselves - anybody who would say that to a little girl should be... I won't go into what should have been done with them.

True.  Very true.  I've been to various places, and there's some nice parts, but all you read about in the papers and see on the news is all the violence, etc.  Same with where I live.  There's a town here, a suburb of Philly, the town just went into lockdown and a state of emergency cause there's so much violence, drugs, and like, 10 murders in quite a short amount of time.  What people don't realize, is while those things happen in said town, there's actually quite a good section of town but nobody wants to go due to what is read about in the news.  Sad really.

Most people think English people are evil (thank you Hollywood) or morons (Thank you Hugh Grant).

I grew up in western Canada, so we didn't get a whole lot of dumb tourist questions because most of the world didn't know we existed until the Alberta oilsands project started up. Now a lot of tourists who realize we exist think that we're all either hicks, rednecks, cowboys or rig pigs. C'mon, guys, give us a little credit...some of us live in BC and grow weed for a living!

Sadly, at least in this general vicinity, all we know about Canada is it consists of about 3 cities that actually have people, Montreal, Toronto and Calgary.  And the rest of the country is trees and moosen.   :buggedout:

And there's a song called "Canadian Idiot" which, oddly, is about how great you are. :wink: