I was 7 or 8 years old when my parents told me we were moving to England and I was convinced that London would be a small village with fluffy, warm dry snow all over it. I was very disappointed when I saw my first London snow storm (a whole 3 mm of cold wet grubby ice. Yuck!)

I also learnt about other kids' beliefs. I went to a school in Slough, where a pretty decent number of nationalities were represented and yet when I told them I was from South Africa, the response was: "but you can't be African! You're not black!"

Other favourites were:

"Did you have TVs?"
"Did you live in a mud hut?"
"Do lions wander all round the streets?"

Kids, eh?

Ex-South African

When I was a kid, I'd never heard of Wales, so I thought that Princess Diana was Princess of Whales. I always pictured her riding on an orca.

Anon

When I was too young to understand the concept of a nationality, people still asked me, "Where are you from?" I didn't understand what they meant, so I just answered the most logical way I could--the most recent place I had left. "I'm from my house/the school/the market/etc..." Sometimes the timing was bad and I would have to answer, "The loo."

erica

When I was younger, I must have heard the expression "the British have stiff upper lips" somewhere, perhaps in an Altoids ad. However, not knowing that it was just a saying, I thought that British people, for some odd reason, actually HAD stiffer upper lips than most people, and if you touched them under the nose, their lips would feel hard, like muscle! I thought they must have very strong facial muscles to smile and frown with such hard lips!

Freezair

As a child I thought the whole world was England and that Americans were from another planet! I must have seen a program on a rocket being launched because then I was convinced thats how the Americans got to this planet!

Vikkie

Whenever I asked my parents if I could call my friend in America they told me I couldnt because she would be asleep so I thought all they did in America was sleep all the time.

Sandy (Sydney Australia)

I used to believe that if you touched Chinese people, they would break.

Christian

When I lived in Korea, and my family was about to move to the States a friend of mine told me that people in the States ate weird things and one of the things they ate was monkey meat. Since I was born in the year of the monkey, I was afraid that they would try to eat me, and I tried to keep my family from moving to the States.

Anon

I was on the bus one day when I was little and I saw a man wearing a turban. I was really excited because I thought he was a genie (I think Aladin had just come out). My aunt explained to me that he was sikh and I was really upset.

ann

I used to believe Mexican food was made from real Mexicans!

Holly W.

When I was young and looked at a map, I thought that the colors of the countries on the map were the colors of the people who lived there.

Em

I believed that Spanish people were cats.
Oh yes, it made perfect sense at the time.
One day, my dad invited one of his work friends (who was spanish) round to our house. The man had brought his cat. When the man came into the room where I was, his cat was standing next to him, so when my father said, "Look, this is my friend Manuel, he's spanish!" and pointed towards the man and his cat, I thought dad was gesturing towards the cat.
A year later, I started to learn spanish. Each day I would find a cat and try to speak to them in their own language: Spanish
I still have had no success communicating with the spaniards.

Spaniard Communicator

This happened to my little sister, but it's still hilarious.

When she was in third grade everyone in the class was sharing their genealogy. Kids around the room were saying, "I'm English", "I'm Irish", "I'm Danish". My sister raised her hand and shouted out to the class, "I'm Germish!".

I was told it took a long time for the laughing to die down.

Awesome Sister

I used to believe that if a white couple had a baby in, say, Japan, the baby would look Japanese, i.e., darker skin, straight black hair and almond eyes. If a white couple had a baby in Africa, they would have a Negro baby with Negro features.

Pat

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?

Anon

When I was eight or so, I believed Scotch tape came from Scotland and the kilts that Scottish people wore all had the same design like the one on the Scotch tape package.

Janelle

In 6th grade I moved from Ontario, Canada to New York, and told several of my new classmates that beaver tails are a Candian delicacy, that my old school had been held in an igloo, and that I rode a dogsled or possibly a mammoth instead of a schoolbus each morning. (Some of them caught on when I got to the mammoth, some didn't.)

Beaver

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

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.

Anon

When I was about eight, my family went on a trip to Canada. Since I was "American," I decided it would be cool to call peoplefrom Canada "Canadians." I was so convinced that I made up the word "Canadian" that I was really disappointed that they didn't mention my "great new invention" on the news that night.

So what did Canadians call themsleves before, really?

Jackie F