Have Americans ever asked you about Canadian stereotypes?

[dvcdisney]

This is a little OT, but I thought I'd share a story.

We were in line at Blizzard Beach and a family behind us heard my husband talking to my son about getting back to the hockey tournament. They immediately came up and asked if we were Canadians and we said yes. We talked to them about hockey like we were best friends. There were no awkwardness. They knew everything about hockey and the man actually played hockey as well and his son will be soon. Mind you, they said they were from New York, and hockey is popular there.

I have had some experience where we were asked if we were from Canada a few times on the resort bus or boat. We were surprised because we didn't wear anything Canadian. But we have been told that we were very polite and that's how they knew. This happened a few times in the restaurants when my children would order with please and thank you's. We had a waitress say to my son, "you are so sweet and polite, I bet you are from Canada.." my son was in awe. He asked me, "how did she know?". To which, I said, "no clue".

 

[MaryannF]

I have lived in Willowdale all my life. Willowdale became North York and then became Toronto on amalgamation. I was in Magic Kingdom one day and a cast member pegged me for being from Willowdale and asked me how "Mel" was. He was referring to Mel Lastman who was mayor of North York and then mayor of Toronto. I was floored to say the least. He said he could tell because of my "accent". Well, I am a native Willowdalian but that took the cake! Turns out he had lived most of his life in Willowdale before moving to Florida.

 

[MikeJ]

Tell an American that you live in Saskatchewan and see what looks you get.

I lived in Baltimore for a few years back in the mid-80s, and when I first moved down I still had my SK plates on my car. (Remember, they're tags, not plates, in most of the US.) I remember once a local approached me as a got out of the car and asked me where Sask-a-sask-a-whatever was. I told him it was in western Canada, north of Montana and North Dakota. It turns out he was a baseball fan so I said the closest MLB team would be the Minnesota Twins. He thought for a moment and said, "Oh, ya. That's up near Pittsburgh."

There's a reason we used to refer to the natives as Baltimorons. Took me a week to recover from that encounter...

- Mike

 

[pumpkinboy]

See now when I first arrived at McGill from New England, my Canadian classmates would ask me where my cowboy hat/ gun was and whether there was really any difference between and Yank and a jerk.

As for Americans' ignorance of life in Yellowknife, I dare to say that most souther Canadians have similar stereotypical images of life in the North.

 

[tinkerbell*Xo]

I was sitting on serenity bay at Castaway Cay enjoying the beautiful sunshine, and a man next to me started to talk to me. He asked where i was from and I replied Ontario, Canada. He then asked how did you hear about disney world all the way there! I could not belive it.
I live 10 minutes from the boarder of the NY! I laughed pretty hard in my head and just said ive been to disney world 7 times.
I still dont think he belived me. lol

 

[Ham Ham]

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

This wasn't a stereotype however a few years ago while my dad was trying to find a parking spot at Downtown Disney I guess this one car thought we did not give him enough room although we did not do anything wrong and then out of the blue he rolled down his window and yelled I am surprised you people know how to drive. Since we drove to WDW he obviously saw our Ontario license plate so he knew we were from Canada. We did not say anything back to him because he had already driven away and it was not worth it to say anything back, however my dad wished he could have said I am surprised you know anything about Canada.

 

[skiloff]

Tell an American that you live in Saskatchewan and see what looks you get.

However, when we were in WDW in December we were having lunch at Pizzafari. There was an older, retired couple sitting next to us. We struck up a conversation and they lived in Florida and come to WDW every couple of months. We told them we were from Canada and then Saskatchewan. Much to our, and probably his, surprise he had actually been to Saskatchewan in his days as a pet supply guy. He would come up here to a salt lake between Regina and Saskatoon that harvested brine shrimp and he would buy a bunch and take them back to Florida.

Tell them you're from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and it gets even better.

Having said that, we sat with a young couple from Florida at the Japanese restaurant in Epcot when we were there last December, just after the Riders won the Grey Cup, and when we said we were from Saskatchewan, he said, "Go Riders!" He knew about the Riders and watched the CFL on occasion, it was quite something.

I also found that most people we met or saw at DW, whether it was Americans, Canadians, Germans, whatever, we found them all quite polite and pleasant people.

 

[LSmith]

Many of these posts are more about stereotyping Americans than the other way around.

Looks like it goes both ways.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

 

[Ham Ham]

 

[Sheribo]

My family went on a Disney Cruise last year and during our day at Castaway Cay, we had a photo op with Cap't Jack of Pirates of the Caribbean. He asked my daughter her name - Jill - and laughed when I said it would be a great Jack & Jill photo. When we said goodbye he said he'd be sailing to Canada soon. What??? How could he know?

 

[Csaks]

My family went on a Disney Cruise last year and during our day at Castaway Cay, we had a photo op with Cap't Jack of Pirates of the Caribbean. He asked my daughter her name - Jill - and laughed when I said it would be a great Jack & Jill photo. When we said goodbye he said he'd be sailing to Canada soon. What??? How could he know?

Roots top on the young girl?

 

[Csaks]

Ham Ham were do you get this stuff????

 

[Ham Ham]

GIS. Google image search.

Some posters feel that this thread is poking a little to much fun at the southern North Americans so I decided to post some typical Canadian stereotypes.

 

[Momto4boys]

I am LMAO at the pics and map. Love them! That map rocks!

I used to work at a call center for RCI in New BRunswick but the majority were US timeshare owners. The questions..good grief. I got the "Are there McDonalds and stuff up there?" and always asking about the snow. Drove me nuts when it's day after day the same silly questions. I did love talking to Southerners though..no rushing through the call. They had patience

 

[Sheribo]

Roots top on the young girl?

Yup! We asked about 4 different CM's if they knew where we were from and they all said yes but wouldn't tell us how they knew. Finally, someone from Toronto told us that the Roots logo on my daughter Jill was the giveaway. He said the Roots name was better known than a Canadian flag!

 

[Csaks]

Yup! We asked about 4 different CM's if they knew where we were from and they all said yes but wouldn't tell us how they knew. Finally, someone from Toronto told us that the Roots logo on my daughter Jill was the giveaway. He said the Roots name was better known than a Canadian flag!

That's how we were pegged, I had a Roots half backpack. Someone told me Roots only sells in Canada, is that true?

It was a great conversation starter.

 

[BraMax]

Okay I have been reading these posts and decided that I would chime in although mine is a little different experince.

We were at Sea World in San Diego Feb of '07 and it was a beautiful day. I had on a light jacket and shorts (jeans got soaked in the soak zone ) but it was still warm enough for shorts in the sun. Well I was talking to a lady who worked there she couldn't believe that I had shorts on and said where are you from I said Canada. She was from Mexico so I guess for her it was cooler there. She said she had on long underwear under her uniform a big heavy coat and 2 pairs of gloves. She then proceed to ask me how we got around up there did we have car/vehicals that hover over the snow. I tried so hard not to and told her no we have regular cars just like you. It only snows in the winter we actually get just as hot as you guys in the summer. She was floored and couldn't believe it. So it's not just Americans that have these typical reactions.

My online friends asked me how we heat our house in the extreme cold that we get here. I told them with a furnace like them.

 

[damo]

As a Canadian with a second home in the US, I find that most of Americans are so friendly and are very grateful that we are down here spending money!!! They are very curious about lots of things and generally know what they are talking about.

Occaisionally there are a few funny questions. The weirdest was the post office clerk telling my Dad that it would take 6 weeks for a package to be mailed from Florida to Toronto since it had to go by boat.

We've had people in California telling us we don't sound like Canadians, which is interesting.

The most common question right now is how our economy is doing compared to theirs.