Stereotypes.

I recently completed my first week in Group 2. The groups consists of 20 students...again from everywhere in the world. More than half of them are from Japan, China, or Taiwan. We also have a Romanian, a few Brits, a dude from Northern Ireland, a Canadian, a German, an Israeli, an Indian, a Brazilian, and moi. It's been quite a change from what I was used to in Group 1...a group of 6 people where I could put my feet up on the chair next to me. Now, I'm lucky if I can find a chair.

During one of our first days in the new group, we did an exercise where we discussed the stereotypes of the French. People would say things like: "They drink a lot of wine.", "They like cheese.", "They love to go on strike.", etc. As soon as the question was asked, my hand shot up in the air like Horshack of "Welcome Back Kotter". My stereotype to add to the list was: "The French do not like to pick up their dog's shit." The teacher laughed and then explained to the class what I said (since my french is so choppy) but didn't repeat my usage of the word merde and instead taught us a new word, les crottes (= droppings).

Later in the week, we had a written assignment which entailed writing 8 different stereotypes about your own country. I do not think I'm right on some of these, but I also don't think I'm wrong on some of them. Here's what I wrote, after getting a little help from my friends (no, I didn't cheat):
1 - We are fat.
2 - We like to eat McDonald's hamburgers and french fries.
3 - We think only of ourselves.
4 - We are very patriotic.
5 - Foreigners think it's easy to become rich.
6 - Hollywood films depict exactly what life is like in the USA.
7 - We do not have a culture.
8 - We support Bush.

Now that I think more about it, I think I might add:
9 - We love American football and baseball.
10 - We're loud.

What would you add to the list?