World Perspectives

[OP666187]

Hey everyone, I'm back. In case you don't remember me, that's fine. I haven't been on since December 11, 2001. But here I am.

I recall from way back when having heard a lot of things in different threads about how different all the countries that you live in are from my country. I'd was hoping everyone would post about their countries, tell me about them, because I'm really ignorant.

I'll go first.

I live in America. That's the big one on the other side of the Atlantic. We almost all speak English, and often one other language. We elect our leaders democratically. All drugs are illegal except tobacco and alcohol. Pretty much everyone has a car (that's why we have so much smog).

I don't want to sound like I'm talking to four year olds, but I don't know anything about most European/Asian countries, and I just assume many of you may know nothing about mine.

Also, I'm curious to hear what you think about the war in Iraq.

 

[rahvin]

@op666187: opinions about the war can be found in the latest 20 pages of the dynamite politics thread, if you can stand reading through dozens of posts by ppl who think the usa should be nuked, or something.

well, i live in italy, but i think i'll leave the pleasure of introducing the country to someone else (plenty of italians round here): i don't want to be the only one talking. i'm sure miolo, hyena and hiljainen all will be happy to provide.

rahvin.

 

[hyena]

uhm... in italy people have cars too. where i live, people have a lot of scooters. i have a scooter. i need to run to catch it and proceed to speed deliriously around town, because i am late for work. which implies people in italy have jobs. some of them also go out drinking on sunday nights and stay out too late and fail to wake up on mondays.

 

[Miolo]

i live in italy. you know, that boot-shaped country coming down in the middle of the mediterranean sea. we almost all speak italian, heh, and a large part of the population speaks english as well. i know a bit of russian too, but that's just me. we have a democratic government, although someone would disagree, but that's not my case. personally i'm happy with the democratic system, at least we shouldn't be bombed by the usa in the near future. drugs are illegal here too, but you wouldn't say so if you spent a day near the university where i study. lots of cars, yeah, and we invented a curious method to reduce the smog: on days with an even date, only cars whose numberplate ends in an even number may be on the road, while on days with an odd date, only cars whose numberplate ends in an odd number may be on the road. i'm sure this system is plain stupid and useless, still it's funny.
well, that's my country. plus, all that hyena said.

oh, you can read what i think about the war here. no, it wasn't written by me, but i agree with most of the sentences there.

Miolo

 

[Ormir]

Anything you ever wanted to know about Finland: http://www.co.jyu.fi/~np/misc/foreigners_guide_to_finland.html

 

[Wolfman Von Jones]

All finns love snow, and the more snow we get, the happier we are. Nothing gives a better workout than clearing six foot of snow from your yard every morning!

Thats great .

Nick

 

[Northern Lights]

Umm well... Sweden is one of the countries that make up the Scandinavian peninsula (the other would be Norway). It's a democracy and monarchy (although I think it's time we laid this whole thing with royal families to rest but that's just me), and is run by the social democratic party at the moment (all hail Göran Persson ). Surprisingly enough we have cars (Volvo anyone?)... and cars come in handy since it is a fairly big country with pretty few inhabitants, so there are big distances to travel if you want to go somewhere.
Alcohol and tobacco is legal, and how swedes handle alcohol... well everyone who lives around the Mediterranean and have seen Swedes on holiday will know....
This country is also home for bands like Opeth, Katatonia and... surprise surprise, Dark Tranquillity. And ABBA of course.

 

[Malaclypse]

i live in germany, you know, the country with all the nazis. we eat white sausages and sauerkraut all day long. we wear short leather pants. we are also the cowards who decided not to put a war on iraq without a yes from the UN.

 

[veil the sky]

Hey everyone, I'm back. In case you don't remember me, that's fine. I haven't been on since December 11, 2001. But here I am.

I recall from way back when having heard a lot of things in different threads about how different all the countries that you live in are from my country. I'd was hoping everyone would post about their countries, tell me about them, because I'm really ignorant.

I'll go first.

I live in America. That's the big one on the other side of the Atlantic. We almost all speak English, and often one other language. We elect our leaders democratically. All drugs are illegal except tobacco and alcohol. Pretty much everyone has a car (that's why we have so much smog).

I don't want to sound like I'm talking to four year olds, but I don't know anything about most European/Asian countries, and I just assume many of you may know nothing about mine.

Also, I'm curious to hear what you think about the war in Iraq.

well it's nice to have you back

i'm from england, which is actually where you are from too, although most americans have simply forgotten!

england is part of britain, which includes scotland and wales (and arguably Northern Ireland). it used to include france.

most englishmen know an awful lot about america. (with the marked excpetion of the american language which is an enigma to us all!) the reason for this being our grossly over-saturated choice of american television programming. which we watch with english subtitles!

and as for the war...............

we are about the only other country in the world with the bollocks to do anything about it

 

[seventi]

Born and raised in Sweden but my family comes originally from Poland. Living in Sweden the way I do, makes me very often feel more Polish than Swedish, but what the hell....

Well, I guess you know about Sweden, but there is much to be said about Poland....

 

[mousewings]

Welcome back, OP666187. Great idea for a thread.

I'm not really into politics, so I won't give an opinion on our bleak world, but I will tell you about my corner of it.

I'm from Canada which is north of the U.S. Contrary to popular opinion, we do have a government (democratic, too), electricity, and do not live in primitive log cabins nor do we keep penguins or small wolves as pets. It's obvious, but I felt weird and had to put this... also some people seem to believe this about Canada.

Our official languages are English and French although a lot more are used by residents. We are a multicultural country which means the citizens can keep their own traditions, beliefs, religions from the places they are from. We seem to encourage immigrants to come here (as the population is naturally decreasing)... so we also have citizens from almost everyplace in the world. My family are from Hong Kong, but I was born here.

Despite being ranked one of the top places to live in the world, Canada has its share of social and economic problems, especially in a few areas (like the city where I live...)

Our dollar isn't doing that well, and our music scene is not that well either. It's not that Canada doesn't have any good artists, the thing is only the worst artists in the most limited genres (alternative-poppy rock and bubblegum pop) seem to be promoted, and if you happen to not be in those categories, you won't be promoted.

Um, this is all I can think of for now.

 

[Miolo]

and our music scene is not that well either.

excuse me, you have Rush. that is enough to say you have an excellent music scene for about a millennium.

Miolo

 

[rahvin]

excuse me, you have Rush. that is enough to say you have an excellent music scene for about a millennium.

that's at least better than a rash.

rahvin.

 

[mousewings]

excuse me, you have Rush. that is enough to say you have an excellent music scene for about a millennium.

Miolo

True. I kinda forgot that

I was referring to the current popular scene stuff they're promoting on Canadian television and worldwide. Such as Avril Lavigne, Sum41, Celine Dion, etc.

I'd rather so much they'd promote Wide Mouth Mason, Voivod, Glenn Lewis, and Deborah Cox as well for the current music scene... But they don't.

 

[wildfyr]

:Spin:

 

[wildfyr]

excuse me, you have Rush. that is enough to say you have an excellent music scene for about a millennium.

Miolo

AMEN.

also, i read elsewhere that Rush donated some of their memorabilia (guitars, drum kits, samples of their gold and platinum records) to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. a date for the exhibition's opening is supposed to be forthcoming. :hotjump:

 

[_Zsuzsa_]

I live in Hungary, country of "choosing always the wrong side" and also country of Erzsébet Báthory, Attila the Hun, Ciccolina (I think I spelled her name incorrectly), Solaris and cheap beer (at least in my hometown ).

About the war; our country formally accepted the fact that If one day there is need of a united back-up for the US we'll be there. But we really try to stay out of it as much as we can. We are a small country, we should not overestimate our values in Europe...

And as for my own opinion about the war...I don't wanna offense anybody, but neither the US, nor Iraq and even nor the EU are saying what is really in tgeir minds...they all all hipocrites; the US does not want to end Saddam's regime out of their good hearts, they want power; the EU does not want to save the iraquians out of their kindness, they don't want Bush to get the oil fields...and last but not least, I'm not really sure that those iraquians are so innocent either, maybe an X % of them, but not all of them.
Maybe this is the most complicated political situation I've ever experienced...there's just no satisfying solution for everyone. And of course it was just a subjective opinion on a very difficult subject.

 

[Siren]

I live in Greece, a relatively small (in size ) country in the East part of the Meditteranean sea, between Italy and Turkey, and southest of all Balkans. We are an active member of the European Union and hold the presidency for this year... (i think the presidency goes circularly to all members, changing every year). Greece could be characterized as a pathway between 3 continents: Europe, Asia and Africa, since it is a neighbour to all of them.
My country has a lot of sea and about 2000 islands, some of which are very popular as a destination for summer vacations. Generally, Greece has many beautiful places to visit, from mountains to sea-shores, to monuments and archaeological sites.
Some of the sites are the Acropolis (Parthenon) in Athens, the ancient theatre of Epidaurus (in which tragedies are presented till today), Olympia from where the Olympic light is produced every 4 years, and many many more..
As you might already know, Greece has a looong history. We've had civilization (and at times a very bright one) for over 4000 years. Great people who produced great philosophy and science were greek, such as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and a lot more.
All of us natives speak Greek, which is (of course with many differences today) eventually, the very same language that was spoken in these lands thousand years ago. Most people today, especially the younger ones, know at least one more language, most commonly English.
Our regime is Democracy, how ironic since we're the ones who gave birth to it in the first place.

As for today, we're certainly not the most developed country in the world, not in the best economic-situation, not as creative and excellent as our long-dead ancestors... Most of the families have cars (some families have 2 or even 3), there are a lot of scooters on the roads, we claim to have some of the most dangerous roads to travel on, we smoke a lot, we don't have a big problem with alcohol (and it's not illegal at all, even underaged ppl drink), our beauraucracy is deadly too, only very few people have ADSL connections and noone has flat-connections ( !! ). Men also go to the army, now the service has been reduced to 12 months (instead of 24 that it was few years ago). Oh, also most of us are Orthodox Christians (or at least claim to be). And in the latest years people from other countries have started immigrating to ours..

As for the war, i'm against all wars i guess, i prefer peaceful solutions..

 

[Miolo]

We are an active member of the European Union and hold the presidency for this year... (i think the presidency goes circularly to all members, changing every year).

actually the presidency changes every 6 months. in fact italy will hold it from july until the end of the year.

Miolo

 

[Siren]

actually the presidency changes every 6 months. in fact italy will hold it from july until the end of the year.

Miolo

*gives a big relief sigh* *phew*
:hotjump: