I use to think pedestrians were a special race of people who if you hit them specifically you would get in trouble. I thought there was a country called pedestria.

Tara

I used to believe the reason my latina mother was so dark compared to me was because she drank coffee. Years later I learned it was because my father was white that I was so pale.
Probably why I like coffee so much now lol

Danielle

As a child I first heard about Americans going to Mexico and getting "Montezuma's revenge" from drinking the water. And then somewhat later I heard how it doesn't effect the Mexicans who live there. I later learned that that is because the develop a resistence to the germs in the water. But for a long time I thought that Mexicans don't poop and that's why they can't get "Montezuma's revenge" like Americans can from drinking the water there.

Julia

I used to believe when I was little that it was well known that after a certain period of time, the British would invade. I even had dreams about their military marching, millions of them, but all they did was march, nothing else happened. I don't know where the idea came from, probably something sarcastic my dad told me.

cdw_almosthero

I used to believe that anyone who wasn't British (as I am) thought of themselves as foreigners!

"velveire"

I thought people from Turkey actually praised turkeys...

Anon

growing up in the orient and living in the west, I could not understand the fascination with lion (line - you idiot) dancing !!!

harj

I used to tell my mom that i never want to be turkish, when she finally asked me why, i replied saying because everyyear at thanksgiving we always eat the turkeys!!

Anna

i used to believe that the reason why the chinese put their baby girls up for adoption because her parents didn't want to pay for her wedding.

Melissa

My family has always gotten wall calenders that contain both American and Canadian holidays. For years I remember seeing December 26th as "Boxing Day (Canada)" and thinking that meant instead of celebrating Christmas on the 25th, all Canadians went to a big boxing match on the 26th. I felt sorry for all the Canadian kids because I thought boxing was really boring. I'm still not sure what Boxing Day is, but I know it's not THAT.

Confused American

An adult had told me that people in China are of the 'yellow' race and that people in India were 'brown' and people in Africa 'black.' Naturally, I was confused why there were countries on the globe colored pink, green and blue, too.

queeneve

When i was younger i thought that england was the only country in the world that had the internet!! When i was even younger i thought England was the only country in the world! I was terrifed when some from another country came to my house or on the T.V because i thought they were aliens!!!

~*silly moo*~

I used to think that Germans were men that had germs...hey, I could read when I was like 3 so the word itself made sense...

Amanda

when i was little my dad and i watched a show and there was a line on it where the main charectar kept shouting "The British are Coming, The British are Coming" like in the indapendance war, i didnt understand and asked him who the british were and why the were coming, and he said big men in red suits would come and get me if i didnt wash the dishes...i obediantly washed the dishes until i was 13.

Anon

I used to beleive that there was someone just like me, in some far off place like CHINA or somewhere, and they looked the same, and had the same name, and did exactly the same stuff as me, at the same time. I thought that one day I would go to far off China and meet myself.

Cookia

When you are little the world fills up bit by bit with foreign countries. At the time I'm thinking of I at least knew there was America, Germany, Poland and Eskimoland, with just that minimum image of each to be going on with (never mind how crazy with hindsight). But there was also Switzerland which maybe wasn't a proper country, you never saw it in newsreels or heard it mentioned in news bulletins or newsreels for instance, but on the other hand every day I saw our 'Made in Switzerland' clock so it had to be a half-real country at least. But frustratingly I knew two and only two things associated with the Swiss to construct an image with, Swiss mountains which were big hills and Swiss rolls. Putting this scanty material together I guessed a good way of moving around in mountains would be to roll down them. I formed this image which has never quite abandoned me, of lots of Swiss people rolling bumpily down these vast slopes. That raised an obvious problem - not even knowing of ski-lifts I just lived with the idea they never went uphill, they started life at the top and never went back.
I disagreed with the philistine way adults ate Swiss rolls, cutting a slice and just eating it like an ordinary piece of cake; I insisted on eating them as they were meant to be, from the outside in. I vaguely remember this being tolerated while a parental line was drawn at my eating them from the inside out. One day with my parents on a shopping expedition I discovered carpet rolls in which they were taking an great interest. These obviously suggested Swiss rolls, and I also realised it would be a more comfortable ride to roll down a mountain inside one. I imagined Swiss people, more often than wrapping them around, climbing into the middle of one of these rolls when they had to go somewhere.


At some point though I knew more words of Swiss than I did of any other foreign language. I remember the words were yodeledi yodeledi yedi ledidee. Not an encouraging start for language learning: not only I didn't know what any of those words meant, but I thought I couldn't hope to master the difficult pronunciation of this language. Still, the rhythm of those words was just right for Swiss to sing them in their outlandish tongue in synch with the rotations as they rolled down the mountains in their carpets.

eppenguin

when i was 6 or 7 i lived in scotland and we were just doing some work in school on the vikings and how they had invaded england, when my mum told us we were moving to england. i remember crying hysterically because i truly believed that people in england still lived in straw huts like the vikings did. it took my mum several weeks to reassure me that we would be living in a brick built house with a proper roof

beanie shona

I used to think all Chinese people were kung fu experts. Must have been from watching so many martial arts movies with my dad.

:P

I used to think Indian women had scabs on their foreheads, but it was bindi!

Emily

I used to believe Saddam Hussein was Uncle Sam.

M