I used to beileve that all men with brown hair and glasses were from england, and were freaks. I also used to believe that they probably were plotting to kill me.

Anon

people where I live are always complaining about Bosnians, so one day my confused little sister said "there are Bosnians all over the place, aren't there? they must have a lot of kids!" she thought that 'Bosnian' was a surname and that all the Bosnians were part of the same huge family!

Elisa

I used to think all Icelandic people looked like Bjork.

Katya

When I was little and I saw Indian, Hindu etc. people with little red Bindi dots on their foreheads I would marvel at how those people all got 'pimples' in the same place.

Emily

When we tuned in to Americana music, I thought that the word "Americana" means a woman is of an American descent.

Anon

When I was younger I use to think the term "Caucasian" was a term used to refer to Mexicans with a lighter/whiter complexion. It wasn't until I was around 8 years old I understood what it meant. Mind you I grew up in a community of mainly whites and hispanics. Talk about some really confusing conversations.

Anon

I am Canadian, and when I was small, we went to visit my aunt's family in America for Christmas. My aunt had married into a Jewish family, and my older brother told me that her family did not usually celebrate Christmas, but they would this year just because we were coming. I knew nothing about Judaism, so I assumed, and believed for several years, that Americans (the only differnce I understood being our nationality) did not celebrate Christmas.

Anon

Up until I was about 26, I beleived that being Jewish only implied that you were of the Jewish faith. And argued with my husband, and mother that Jewish could also mean you were *Jewish* such as being *Spanish* or *English*. I didn't beleive anyone until my father (who has told his share of doozys) convinced me otherwise!

Ericka

Until I was almost 18 I believed that Hungarians were black. My logic, they were hungry, therefore it was a third world country where people ate nothing but twigs, 3rd world countries are full of black people.

Emma

When we were selling our furniture, a Dutch family came over to view the beds. Their son was like 6'5" and when they left, my sister asked why Dutch people were so tall. My dad told my sister that this was because Dutch people put their children in growbags, to make them tall. My sister believed this for about a year and told just about everyone she knows, including teachers :P She was 9.

He also told her last Christmas that a news flash on Sky News had just told him that Santa Claus had died, after being electrocuted by fairy lights. I'm beginning to think my dads a bit of a sadist :P

Ashley

When I was a kid, I thought that all the Americans are born to kill others (bad hlywood movies !) , one day in a hotel a 4 or ^ years old American boy asked us whether he could play footbal with us, we searched him but there were no guns with him so we let him ... but! one min. later his sister came with a pistol toy !!! we all fleed !

Persian Buddy

(I can't find an appropraite category for this one...)

When I was younger, my family was in the military and moved around between countries. Thus, we always had passports.

It wasn't until high school that I learned that passports are not required by citizens until they leave the country. I'd always thought everyone had a passport from the day they were born.

Anon

I didn't see an Indian person until I was about 2 years old, the Pakistani gent in question was about 90 years old, and I thought that when you got old you turned black.

munkt0n

I'M 58 AND WHEN I WAS A KID BLACK PEOPLE
WERE REFERED TO AS : "colored people", so I thought there was a race of folks
that were pink, green, blue, red, orange
etc. I think this helped me to grow up
to not be a bigot!

RUSS

I remember the time i found out that people on "the other side of the world" was awake when we were asleep, and vice versa and they had night and we had day, vice versa again. And for me the other side of the world was Australia and japan and all those countries, since I live in Norway.
Then i remember thinking that they must have a really boring life, because all the stores, the schools, and the places were closed at night.
Later i realized that the ones that own the stores and the other places also sleep when the other people in the country sleep... complicated, really =)

Ingeborg

I used to belive, that USSR is the best country in the World...:(

Iryna

When I was little, my sister told me that there were a bunch of different people exactly like me, doing everything I was doing, at that time, in every country. But I thought they were doing it in French in France, and Chinese in China. Like that Brown commercial.

Sonia

when my mom said that i should look at china because they got starving people, i used to think seriously why couldnt we pack it up and send it to them.

Anon

I used to believe that you can tell the Chinese from the Japanese by the way their eyes slant. Eyes of the Chinese slant downwards and eyes of the Japanese slant upwards.

Anamarija

Growing up in Germany, I used to believe that all Americans were black. That is probably because I assumed every white person I saw was German. Only when I saw a black person did it occurr to me it might be a foreigner, and those were mostly Americans in that region.

With the help of American movies and TV series, I later adjusted this belief. About half of the Americans must be black and the other half white. That seemed only fair to me. I was very surprised when I found out the real percentage in school.

allgrownupnow