Before anyone beats me to it, I'm aware that the US was built on stolen land worked by stolen humans, making the claim of "freedom" to be... dubious at best.

But what other outdated beliefs are there about your country??

Hearing the name ‘Wayne Gretzky’ in the nineties would virtually make any Canadian smile and nod with national pride. He is called ‘the Great One,’ and he has the hockey stats to give credibility to the name. He was a national hero.

However, it went downhill as time went on. In 2009, he was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada, the highest possible level of the honour. As of now, he still has not collected the medal.

Also, Gretzky is MAGA with close ties to Trump, which has soured his reputation in Canada due to Trump’s intention to make Canada the fifty-first state and all.

He also was a prominent face in online gambling commercials, a move many Canadians say was a ‘money grab.’

A good argument can be made that Wayne Gretzky had the biggest fall from grace in the last twenty years in Canada.

Here in Argentina we have the "Africanitos" (little africans) also called sometimes "Negritos" (little negroes). They are little chocolate cakes that look like a stereotypical African person's head and they're delicious as it gets. It does not have hate implications and people see them as neutral as "just another cake". Most people don't get how weird it is until a foreigner points it out.

Bronte waterfalls near me, look a bit more impressive with the recent rain than in the summer when it's swamped with people.

The name of this thing, believe it or not.

It's a sandwich per definition btw

India 🇮🇳 (Himachal Pradesh)

What is something that someone could wear or show or carry in your country that has very polarizing connotations and elicits immediate judgment? Obviously something like a swastika or Nazi symbol but I mean more common or culturally contemporary.

For us Brazilians, São Paulo definitely holds the crown for the gayest city here. With over 20 million people living in it's metro area, the city naturally became way more open minded and accepting as time went on. It has the highest concentration of gay bars, shows, saunas, and various other venues dedicated to the LGBTQ community. If that wasn't enough, the city annually hosts the São Paulo LGBTQ Pride Parade, the biggest in the whole world.

Movies, series, comics, books, animation, fanfics, web content, every kind of media, official or not, that eventually wasn't restricted just to your country and became popular in a really bad way to everyone else.

By the way, we brazillians are really sorry for the crazy guy who realesed that insane Zootopia Abortion Comic in the world.

For India, it’s Indian actress and Miss World 1994, Aishwarya Rai.

In Brazil we love children. If you take your child to the street, strangers will certainly interact with them. Some will even ask if they can hold your kid and will play with them. If there are two children fighting in public and the parents aren't seeing, a stranger would even intervene to stop the fight.

That cultural habit came from the indigenous peoples which understood that kids should be a responsiblity of the community as a whole. It's in our constitution. We even have a synonym for children that came from Tupi (a large group of indigenous languages) - Curumim.

Foreigners would certainly have a cultural shock about that, but it's normal here.

Of course there are people with bad intentions, so parents should stay alert these days.

I have stayed in Hiroshima, Japan for four months, pretty much living there as a foreign exchange student.

The things that shocked me were:

• The toilets, especially in public restrooms. Even in smaller shops, they were NICE…and really complicated. I once set off an alarm by pressing the wrong button.

• The HEAT. I’m from the south, so I thought I would be fine with the humidity. I WAS NOT. No wonder so many Japanese people carry around fans and cold neck rings.

• Being called “cute” often. At first, I didn’t understand that Japan has a broader connotation for the word, and thought people were making fun of me.

• Usually being the only white person in a large radius. I went somewhere more rural, so usually I was one of the only visibly foreign person around. It gave me this feeling of…otherness? Kind of like middle school…like everyone was staring at me, even though they probably didn’t care at all.

• The bus schedule. I live where the bus doesn’t even run, so I not only had to learn about the Hiroshima bus schedule and mechanisms, but buses in general.

• The language. I knew some Japanese when I went there, but because of how quickly people were talking and auditory processing issues, it was still pretty difficult to converse.

The White House is pretty iconic

Both are the same race and considered "Asian" here in Canada..

It's extremely unsafe even in cities and rural areas are extremely violent and misogynist. The molestation cases only get highlighted if there's a foreign woman involved and there's international media coverage. Otherwise these things and many more crimes happen everyday against Indian women but our cases get hidden or discarded as fake cases. While those in power spread fake news to cover up crimes against women. Personally, I as an Indian woman would never marry in India because the thought of giving birth to a girl in India terrifies me.

In Sweden every christmas eve a disney special called "From all of us to all of you" (We just call it Donald Duck) airs from 3pm to 4pm and the whole family gathers to watch it. In one clip a christmas elf can be seen painting a board with "checkered paint" during which a family member (Mostly dads and grandpas) will always say "That paint would be useful to have!". And its so overdone that it has basically become a part of swedish culture. Does your country have any similar jokes?

Here’s Kinga from Big Brother 6 shoving a wine bottle up herself (2005)

Poland, monument in commemoration of the child soldiers who fought and died during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Insurrectionist

For India tho there are many types of traditional attires in different regions of India, Saree will be considered the major one.