.:. Un volt per Europa*,,, .:.

National stereotypes  

A stereotype is an over – generalized and preconceived characteristic to someone or something. In our society, we attribute the same characteristics to a big group of people, and we generalize without distinctions. If we do this, we can be wrong, because we are so different, and people can’t be classified under the same yardstick. Nowadays, there are a lot of stereotypes, and some of them are classed by nationalities.

 An example about this is Mexico D.F. People that live in Mexico have specific items, it means, when we imagine a Mexican, a mulatto man with a big hat sited in a dry place with cactus appears in our mind. Perhaps, in Mexico there are people like that, but I can assure you that Mexicans are mainly ordinary people like us. As regards to their character, Mexican people are lovely, and they don’t mind showing their feelings in public, mexicians also are known around the world for their easy -going character. Their culture is more or less like our culture, we are “hispanos” and we’ve got a lot of similar traditions. At the kitchen, Mexicans are very traditional, they cook ancient food like “burritos”, “frijoles” or “jalapeños”, and these three dishes are typical in Mexican restaurant placed in our country .    

 Spanish people also have many stereotypes. Foreigners know Spain as the country where are celebrated bullfights, where people sleep hours of siesta, and where young girls dance “sevillanas”. These conclusions have a part of truth, some people (mainly south people) have these characteristics, but not anything is true, for example, I’m Spanish and bullfights horrify me and I don’t know how to move hands dancing “sevillanas”. People around the world think that Spanish people are very nice and funny, and they aren’t wrong, here people are very spontaneous and expressive and also very pleasant, in Spain when we are talking with a friend, we like to stay very near to express our affection to the other person. Another stereotype from Spain (special for Asiatic people) is “Real Madrid” and “Barça”, and when foreigners come to our country, they spent a lot of money buying things about these teams. The derby “Barça v.s Madrid” is sawn by millions of people around the world. When we talk about Spanish dishes everyone knows that we are talking about one of the best cookery in the world. Dishes like “paella” or potatoes omelette are known all over the world, and cooking with olive oil is the best way to take care of your own health. 

Finally, I want to talk about one of the most over – generalized stereotypes around the world, Japanese people and photographs. This is a special characteristic about Asiatic people, who love technologies and especially as I said before photographs. People that live in Japan have an eccentric movement at their reach, Manga and Anime. Millions of people are mad about these two things, and they spent a lot of money in these Japanese stereotypes. Japanese people are very shy, but they are very polite and smart. Japanese cookery is known around the world by sushi (a special form to prepare fish), shashimi (another type to cook fish and vegetables) and millions of forms to prepare rice. Japanese lifestyle is curious because Japanese people have a very traditional culture, they celebrate arranged marriage (an ancient tradition) but on the other hand, their hobbies are things that were created a few years ago, like internet, computer games, Play station, etc.   

To finish this search about national stereotypes I want to say that we can’t classify people by countries, we are different and we have the right to be treated as the unique person that we are.