Talking about stereotypes

We are surrounded by stereotypes that set the way we behave according to our culture. In fact, stereotypes are a way of classifying or dividing people into many “categories” which may become denigrating. It is truth that many stereotypes does not always mean that people from a specific country or culture behave as we believe; however, some of such stereotypes represent to some extent how a country generally is seen from outside.

Spanish stereotypes

For example, in the reading “When cultures collide: leading across culture, third edition” written by Lewis Collin, they are described some Englishmen stereotypes we may hear in our day to day. As I could read, some of such stereotypes are not totally false if we make reference to British people. Otherwise, we would be classifying all English people such as Scottish or Welsh people in the same box where British are. Indeed, depending on the area of UK we may find different behaviours; that’s an example that Scottish people are ruder than Brits.

There are also Spanish stereotypes that define us as a culture. Actually, one of the most used statements to describe Spain is the next one: “Spain is different”. That’s why we have different costumes, beliefs and values in comparison to our Europe neighbourhoods and countries beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Doing some research, I found interesting points of view some foreigners have about Spain as a culture. (HuffingPost, 2015).

• ·     Some North Americans from U.S.A. consider that “Spanish people like parties, dancing and drinking. In general, they appreciate all of those pleasures such as eating, taking a nap…”

• ·     Germans hardly understand “why Spanish people talk so fast and loud. It sound as if they were talking making use of exclamations”.

• ·      Italians consider that Spanish people “know to find the balance between duty and pleasure.

• ·      French people state that “Spanish people are kind and friendly with everyone”.

• ·      Greeks say that “Spanish people is good at playing football”.

• ·      Koreans do not understand why Spanish people “cannot have dinner before eight o’clock”. They also state we are “too noisy and bad at speaking English”.

• ·      Canadians point out the “Spanish people tend to arrive late at our meetings”.

• ·     English people consider that “Spanish people sleep almost all the day and buy compulsively”.

General stereotypes around the world

To sum up, it was interesting to find what other countries think about our culture. Specifically, I couldn’t stop laughing at all their beliefs, since some of them are not true at all. For example, we don’t take a nap every day; in fact, there is a vast majority of people who do not have time to do that. Moreover, we have dinner later than other countries because we have more sunny hours, so we take advantage of that to spend more time doing other stuff. Our manner of speaking may be a little bit noisy, but Chinese and German people also make noise when speaking their languages; however, they do not realise about it. In any case, this research was essential to make a brief comparison betwwen how the rest of cultures see us and how we really are as a culture.