kiwiincambodia wrote: Don't knock it until you try it.

Sold!

Perfect slogan for New World cashiers.

Samouth wrote: One of my close Aussie friend told me about this too. He said most of the Australian ancestors were prisioners or criminals. They were shipped all the way from UK as Australia was one of the UK's biggest island prison. However, i have never talked about this with any Aussie or Kiwi tourists i met. i felt that it might upset them.

Yes this is true, it's our history. It's fine to talk about it as it's just a statement of fact and it won't upset us at all.

Samouth wrote:Also, you can spot an American backpacker because they'll have a big Canadian flag sewn onto their bag, but won't be able to tell you anything about the country.

i am quite confusing about this one. They are American Backpacker but have a big Canadian flag sewn onto thier bag. It should be American flag.[/quote]

It was just a joke, but with some truth to it. Whlie Bush was president, there was a lot of hostility towards Americans. I remember backpacking in Central America during those days and while I never pretended to be a Canadian, I met many Americans who did. They would often have that giant maple leaf up on their bags and our accents are close, so even if someone suspects you don't sound quite Canadian, they'd be hesitent to bring it up. Luckily most of the world knows nothing about Canada, so getting away with it was easy... except of course, when real Canadians showed up. It was always funny as the Americans' lack of knowledge regarding Canadian culture revealed their true identity. That and we can (mostly) tell our own accents apart.

I was always against this pretending to be Canadian BS. If you dislike me because of the country I'm from, then I have no interest in meeting you anyway. I never felt it was any great loss if some dumb European backpackers didn't want to talk to me because they assumed my passport dictated my thoughts on global politics.

Mrs Stroppy wrote:

Samouth wrote: One of my close Aussie friend told me about this too. He said most of the Australian ancestors were prisioners or criminals. They were shipped all the way from UK as Australia was one of the UK's biggest island prison. However, i have never talked about this with any Aussie or Kiwi tourists i met. i felt that it might upset them.

Yes this is true, it's our history. It's fine to talk about it as it's just a statement of fact and it won't upset us at all.

Thanks Mrs Stroppy for your confirmation. It is good to see your comment.

It was just a joke, but with some truth to it. While Bush was president, there was a lot of hostility towards Americans. I remember backpacking in Central America during those days and while I never pretended to be a Canadian, I met many Americans who did. They would often have that giant maple leaf up on their bags and our accents are close, so even if someone suspects you don't sound quite Canadian, they'd be hesitate to bring it up. Luckily most of the world knows nothing about Canada, so getting away with it was easy... except of course, when real Canadians showed up. It was always funny as the Americans' lack of knowledge regarding Canadian culture revealed their true identity. That and we can (mostly) tell our own accents apart.

Right it is really unfair that you are hated by other nations because of your President. Yes since Canadian and American both speak English, so it is really easy to pretend. As i mentioned above it is really hard to tell where people from by their accents if you are non-native speaker of English. Yes when you are pretending that you are from another country, you actually have some knowledge about that country, otherwise you would end up with losing face. I don't know if it is true that people said, American is well-known for not knowing about the rest of the world. They only focus on their country. Moreover it also said, only 30 percent of American owns passport. To me, they are probably just stereotypes. i met many Americans and my current boss is also American. They are so knowledgeable about the world and not to mention they travel a lot.

I was always against this pretending to be Canadian BS. If you dislike me because of the country I'm from, then I have no interest in meeting you anyway. I never felt it was any great loss if some dumb European backpackers didn't want to talk to me because they assumed my passport dictated my thoughts on global politics

i actually agree with you. i have never pretended to be any other nations. i always tell people that i am Cambodian. Sometime people were mistaken me as Filipino, especially what i was hanging out with my expat friends. As i spoke English with them all the time. it was really funny that i was stopped at Angkor Wat, Prison and Killing Field. It was solved when i spoke khmer lolzz.

phuketrichard wrote:when i backpacked i always said i was from Greenland,
no one knew anything about u so no prejudice.

Greenland is my dream place to visit. i really hope that i can visit there once in a life time. BTW since you were pretending as Greenlander so do you also speak dialect of English?

@Samouth

Even native English speakers will confuse Canadians and Americans. Most Canadians live within 150km of the US border, cross frequently, and have ties to the USA. They consume our news and our entertainment and many famous "Americans" are indeed from Canada. There's a pretty funny movie called Canadian Bacon that came out right after the cold war. The basic plot was that the US was in search of a new enemy because they needed to keep the Military Industrial Complex happy, but an enemy they wouldn't actually have to fight. They just wanted another cold war, where mass amounts of weapons are built to lay in dust until they become obsolete. So due to various comedic factors, they end up settling on Canada as their enemy. There's a great scene where a propaganda film is shown and the narrator is talking about Canadians "walking among us undetected" and a long list of actual prominent Canadian-Americans is listed across the screen. And I'll guess most people watching the movie (myself included) were surprised by a few names. Unless you're from certain subregions of either country, your accent won't be so noticeable that most people will notice. That said, I've always felt Canadians were better at detecting the difference than Americans... but I've also noticed that Canadians are very eager to distinguish themselves from Americans and therefore would pay more attention to subtle things like that.

Here's the clip I mentioned earlier:


The countries used to be even more connected but (like many things) the fear of terrorism has made cross-border travel a lot more difficult.

This is also why I agree with Richard that due to legal changes since 9/11. a higher percentage have passports than a few decades ago. People from the US generally don't travel very far out of the country, but they do tend to go to Mexico, Canada, and some Caribbean islands. Many of these places used to let us in with only a state ID / driver's license. Now we are required to get a passport or passport card (the latter only allowing travel to certain countries North American countries).

From what I can tell, the US State Department does not seem to keep a list of how many passports are floating around, but they keep a list of passports issued and since a passport expires after ten years, totaling the last ten years should give you a close figure. There are obviously people who've lost their passports, but nobody is walking around using an 11 year old American passport successfully. I don't think these small variances will affect the total.

If you total the last ten years, you get 139,093,150 Americans with passports. The population at the end of 2014 was 320,087,963. Divide these and you'll see that about 43% of us have passport or passport cards. I'm going to guess this number is probably a few percentage points lower, but don't know how to find a more accurate figure. And 38% to 48% doesn't really change much to me; the point is that it isn't super low, but it is low for a developed country with as much wealth as ours.

Stats:
http://travel.state.gov/content/passpor ... stics.html
http://www.census.gov/popclock/

The websites linked also indicates where most Americans with passports come from. Thankfully, it is not the south.

MekongMouse wrote: The websites linked also indicates where most Americans with passports come from. Thankfully, it is not the south.

People from the "north" always have an issue with southerners. It's beyond unfounded. Look at our airports, highways, and military bases. Obviously we know how to bring home the bacon. Nothing worse than a zealot type of Democrat who wants to pretend she's smarter than all southerners as they triple lock their apartments and hear gunfire all through the night in their ghettos housing projects.