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When I was young, I would listen to people talk about "foreigners" and think they were referring to the inhabitants of some specific country. So, one beautiful day, my dad asked me "Do you know where foreigners come from, dear?", to which I hesitantly replied: "Uh... From Foreign?..."
rcguim
Growing up in Sweden in the 1960's I wasn't exposed to a lot of foreign influence and didn't quite understand racial differences. Someone had told me that "negroes" (the proper term used in Sweden for black people) originated in Africa. So for me, this became a nationality rather than a race. I refused to see black people from any other continent as black. You could only be black if you came from Africa. My parents had also given my a black doll (Ada, my favorite) and it never occured to me that she was of a different race than my friends dolls. I just thought she was prettier then theirs because she had more colour and beautiful brown eyes.
Anneli
I used to beleive that the people in Australia had sticky feet. That way they wouldn't fall off the earth.
Bradda J
I am Canadian and I moved to Switzerland. I would tell people that I was English because I couldn't understand how I wasn't. I spoke English, didn't I?
I had beliefs about The Netherlands, even though I never had Dutch friends as a child. They stemmed from a traditional song that you might have sung yourself about a mouse wearing clogs in a windmill and from cartoons. I believed that all Dutch people wore clogs, lived in windmills, made cheese and grew tulips. I didn't think many of them had bikes nor horses and walked everywhere-It was flat so it didn't matter. I also thought when I was a bit older that hamsters came from Amsterdam and I imagined them around the streets (I knew that Dutch people didn't all live in windmills etc. by then :-). I thought they dropped the "h" to make the Amster- part sound a bit less like the cute critters. Oh and the age-old belief that all Egyptians “walked like an Egyptian” and still dressed as they did in the days of the Pharaohs. :)
Ocean-Sirius
I was born in the U.S. in 1940, and WW II was a daily topic in our household. Of course, Germans were the bad guys, and wanted to harm us. On the other hand, Mom was always cleaning, the stated reason was so we would have no germs to make us sick.
It wasn't until I reached the 1st or 2nd grade, after the war, that I finally realized that germs were not Germans, and vice versa.
Pete
Until...yesterday, actually, I was certain that Cleveland was in Denmark. I thought a lot of unusual things about them, now that I think about them. I used to think the Danish were called the Netherlanders. And they also invented doughnuts and dogs. And because they invented dogs, God lived there.
I used to believe the Egyptians lives in appalling squalor because they lived next to the Sewage Canal (Suez - get it?)
John the Finn
I'm the middle child of three, and when I was little my Dad told me that they'd had three children because every fourth child born in the world is Chinese, and they'd only wanted English children. I believed him for years.
Anna
I used to think Indian women had scabs on their foreheads, but it was bindi!
Emily
I used to belive, that USSR is the best country in the World...:(
Iryna
I remember being told as a child that people in China (being on the other side of the world and opposite us, I assume) ate their dessert first. I don't recall if I REALLY actually believed this or not.
Roxanne
Up to about 14yrs I used to think that Welsh people where called "Waleish" as in Scottish, Irish and English.............my relatives (in Wales) never lived it down
WelshLass
(i am a Chinese)When i was small,i used to believe every westeners are rich and beauty.When my school teacher told me there are beggers in the west,i was very upset.
Mag
I believed that Mongolia was where mongoloids came from. I pictured all these mongoloids raiding villages on the steepe on horseback with fire and sword. I figured they were only nice and gentle in America because they were outnumbered.
Morgan
When I was little I used to confuse the word "Lebanese" with "lesbian." There was a civil war going on in Lebanon when I was little, so I thought all Arab-looking people were lesbians. I remember my mother being very embarrassed when I ran into an Iranian classmate in the supermarket and said, "Look mom, a lesbian!"
texasbabe
My (French) mother told me that every third child born into the world was Chinese. Being a third child of entirely Caucasian appearance, I naturally assumed that I was in some way Chinese, and that this would begin to show when I was a bit older. This led to many hours at the local library researching my "heritage", and a lifelong love-affair with Chinese food. I even had a Teach Yourself Mandarin record (45 rpm) with a little booklet containing realistic interactions from Chinese households for me to repeat. Most of these seemed to involve Mrs Wu scolding Mr Wu for not helping more around the house. I was about nine years old before I realised that however hard I studied I would never actually be Chinese. Now in my mid-40s, I'm still coming to terms with the disappointment.
When I was a kid, the Pittsburgh Steelers were in their "dynasty" years. We also collected food labels for the school library - Campbell's, Swanson, Franco-American. I always assumed that Franco-American was owned by Franco Harris and Swanson by Lynn Swann. Why not? When you're 7, the world doesn't extend very far from your hometown...
Heather Lodge
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