Stereotypes
Living abroad usually comes with quite a few new experiences and if you’re lucky the locals will let you in on, well, local stuff if you’ve been around for a while. One thing that normally makes up for a good start for an intercultural discussion are prejudices – er sorry – the image that people from one country have about the others.
When you ask me what the cliché of a French person for Germans looks like I’d say that the drawing on the cover of a short language guide that teaches you how to swear in French is pretty accurate:
But the good old rule that a picture speaks a thousand words also works the other way round – in this particular case it ts thanks to an ad campaign of the SNCF (French railways). They are advertising their fast train connections to Germany which gives a bit of insight on how the French see their neighbors.
The posters put a smile on my face, so here you go:
Germany, as seen from a distance
and one more:
In case you were wondering, the ad text translates to: Germany from EUR29. Now is the time to go and see what's behind the platitudes.
And on a loosely related note, the connections really are pretty fast, Paris to Frankfurt or Stuttgart in 3h49 and 3h39 rsp.