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Olympics 101: How to be nice to foreign people

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

17 Aug 05:42am

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Filed under: London, Olympics, Tourism, Travel, United Kingdom

30 comments

Everyone’s got pet hates.  Mine include sniffing milk to “see” if it’s still ok to drink, spitting in public streets, couples who refer to themselves in the third person and people that persist in holiday countdowns on their Facebook updates.

What do you mean we have to be nice to the Germans? Picture: AP.

But just because this is my list, that doesn’t mean that all Australian people want to throw up when they watch someone’s nose nestle into the lid of a communal carton of milk or clears their throat and deposits the contents onto the street.

Yet VisitBritain thinks that you can take the behaviours of a few people and apply it to everyone who comes from that country. In fact they’re so worried about it, that as part of their planning for the 2012 Olympics, they’ve created a guidebook called “how to be nice to foreign people when they come for the Olympics”. Well, it’s something like that anyway.

You can find the full list here but here are some of the highlights:

Don’t wink at anyone from Hong Kong, or attempt any physical contact the first time you meet someone from India. 

If you’re pouring a glass of wine for an Argentinean then make sure the glass doesn’t tilt backwards and if you’ve struck up a conversation with someone from Brail, whatever you do don’t ask if they’re married or what they do for work.

The French will be picky in restaurants, Middle Eastern people don’t like being bossed around and always be sure that you never mistake a Canadian, for American.

Australians and New Zealanders also feature on the list and Briton’s are encouraged to indulge our sense of humour and “not take offence” to our colloquial use of the word “pom”. 

“It is more of a friendly endearment than an intended insult,” the guide advises. 

Whatever your take on the sweeping cultural generalisations, there’s a strong argument for wanting to “spruce the place up a bit” in time for the big games.

VisitBritain is said to be expecting approximately £2.1 billion in additional tourism revenue over the July to August 2012 period and around 320, 000 extra people on the streets of London.

That’s an awful lot of pints to pour and forced cheer to muster for the Brits, so let’s just hope the weather holds out too.

Most commented

30 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Paul Neri says:

      08:58am | 17/08/10

      I make an instant judgement about someone who uses a handkerchief rather than tissues. No doubt they wash it with undies and socks but do they really think the snotty bits are magically lifted off as stains are in detergent ads? More like they attach themselves to ... the undies and socks! Yuk!

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      09:01am | 17/08/10

      A few hints on how to avoid unintended offence.  What’s wrong with that?

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      09:24am | 17/08/10

      “couples who refer to themselves in the third person”. Any couple that refers to themselves as “We” deserve to be punched in the genitals.

      Do the Brits hand out a card to all arrivals indicating the appropriate customs in their homeland? I always thought you were supposed to behave in the manner fitting to the country you were visiting, When in Rome and all that.

      If you are travelling to Britain for the Olympics, you should follow the local customs, i.e Drink excessive Pints of beer from Midday onwards and act simultaneously apologetic and racist towards Muslims.

      There is no way the UAE or France would be sending out similar “instructions” to their citizens

      Reply

    • Sheedy's Left Foot says:

      10:19am | 17/08/10

      ‘If you are travelling to Britain for the Olympics, you should follow the local customs, i.e Drink excessive Pints of beer from Midday onwards and act simultaneously apologetic and racist towards Muslims.’ So just behave as we do in Australia? No worries.

    • Kirk says:

      12:10pm | 17/08/10

      WTF is wrong with ‘we’?  We are going to dinner want to come with?  Or do I have to say ‘Bronwyn and I are going to dinner want to come with?’  How absurd.

    • James1 says:

      12:52pm | 17/08/10

      You are so wrong Sheedy’s Left Foot.  We drink schooners, not pints.

    • Sherekahn says:

      09:26am | 17/08/10

      One enormous problem for paralympians, mothers with pushers, seniors and disabled people is that, All Transport in the UK is “user unfriendly” for those people.
      Regional trains have three steps up into the coach, none have access for prams, wheelchairs or mobility scooters.
      The London ‘tube’ is a no-go area for all those people.
      In fact most people you will meet today in central London are foreigners, new migrants, so the “book” will have its limitations.
      There was a book many years ago about the Europeans, I forget its title.
      However, it went like this:  What the English think of the French, what the French think of the Germans, what the Spanish think of the Swiss, etc.  In fact, every permutation of European countries was there.
      As for “generalisations,” and as a person who has travelled considerably and worked with many Nationalities, I am a firm believer in “guilty until proved innocent.”
      Environment is the major influence on a persons character.

      Reply

    • NEFFA says:

      11:50am | 17/08/10

      A train without prams, sounds like heaven. London never sounded attractive to me before, but now…... tell me more.

    • BT says:

      09:44am | 17/08/10

      Don’t push in, say please and thank you, don’t cough or smoke all over others and for the love of god wash your hands when you use the toilet (regardless of whether it’s #1 or #2). If you can do those simple things then you are halfway acceptable to the rest of the planet.

      Reply

    • Jem says:

      10:01am | 17/08/10

      damn. Just yesterday I made my facebook status ‘countdown’ in reference to my upcoming holiday.  I hate that you hate what I do.

      Reply
    • Lucy Kippist

      Lucy Kippist says:

      10:27am | 17/08/10

      Well don’t take it too personally. As long as you steer away from the minute by minute, hour by hour countdowns we can still be friends smile

    • MD says:

      12:17pm | 17/08/10

      Me too Jem, 15 sleeps and counting

    • Richele says:

      10:27am | 17/08/10

      46 days ‘til I go to London :D

      Reply

    • Holly says:

      10:56am | 17/08/10

      Macca - “We” is actually first person plural not third person.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      12:18pm | 17/08/10

      Thank you Holly, and that’s a double ‘we’ for the french, who once tried to have French Cuisine registered with the World Heritage Register.
      (I’d like to put the French on the World Heritage Register.)

    • Richele says:

      12:25pm | 17/08/10

      Yeah, I thought she meant she knew couples that say “John and Andrea are going on a holiday in 11 days” that WOULD be bad.
      There’s nothing wrong with ‘we’, in my opinion.

    • Shifter says:

      01:21pm | 17/08/10

      I don’t think I’ve ever heard a couple refer to themselves in the third person.

    • Richard M says:

      11:07am | 17/08/10

      Re the handkerchief thing, Paul Neri: us oldies were brought up in a time before the ready availability of tissues, and had it drummed into us by our mummies that we must always carry a hanky and must always use it to wipe and blow our noses.  It is hard to get out of habits drummed into us, often with the threatened use of the wooden spoon as an incentive.
      The hanky was also useful for tying our money into the corner of when we needed it for school.

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      12:03pm | 17/08/10

      In Asian cultures they may think nothing of spitting on the floor of a bus, but they find the concept of a hankerchief utterly repulsive - why would you carry a snot-encrusted rag around all day in your pocket? Their preference is tissues, or in the absence thereof, a ‘rapid extraction’ technique.

      While I do find the spitting and rapid extraction a bit gross, they do have a point about hankies, which in retrospect, are even more gross.

    • papachango says:

      11:14am | 17/08/10

      ‘always be sure that you never mistake an American, for Canadian.’

      That’s wrong for starters. Yanks couldn’t care less if you mistake them for Canadians - they are vaguely aware of where Canada is, but some think its a northern state.

      It’s actually Canadians who get extremely upset when you mistake them for Amercians. Generally they have maple-leaf flags plastered all over thyeir clothes just in case…

      Reply

    • MD says:

      12:20pm | 17/08/10

      papachango - did you not read properly - always be sure that you never mistake a Canadian, for American.  she said it the correct way

      Reply

    • Rhys says:

      12:29pm | 17/08/10

      What the hell is wrong with sniffing milk?
      You never know if some lazy stockboy left it out at the supermarket or something and who wants to ruin whatever they are cooking by pouring sour milk into it?

      If you need to put you nose INTO the carton to smell it you are either doing it wrong or your milk is fine. If it’s off you will smell it from a fair way from the opening.

      Reply

    • Bob H says:

      02:03pm | 17/08/10

      There is always a layer of government workers tasked with filling time before they go home.  The same all over the world.

      Reply

    • Graham S says:

      02:56pm | 17/08/10

      We could take the “be nice to foreigners’ in Australia but in reverse for instance, Muslim women do not offend Australians by wearing their burquas, that Indians & other sub continent nationals resist the urge to become taxi drivers, that visting Kiwi sporting teams dispense with their stupid, laughable haka. Even closer to home, NSWelshmen hand over their slabs of that Tooheys substance, laughingly called beer at the fruit fly check point, along with their rugby,  travelling Queenslanders to pack their IQ’s but leave their Akubras at home & as for South Australians, just stay at home
      Tasmanians & West Aussies are very inoffensive and can please themselves.

      Reply

    • Once lived in HK says:

      03:05pm | 17/08/10

      Asia Week magazine used to do a similar list back in the 80s. It included not pointing with your foot or touching small children on the head in Thailand, not wearing white or red to a Chinese wedding (white is for funerals and red is for brides), not going to a meeting without a business card when in Japan, no shaking hands between the sexes in several countries including Indonesia.

      Reply

    • Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:

      06:16pm | 17/08/10

      So, don’t mention the war? ?

      Reply
    • Lucy Kippist

      Lucy Kippist says:

      08:20pm | 17/08/10

      Brilliant! Thank you iansand smile Did you find the body language section of that a bit strange? Since when has thumbs up been a sign of rudeness?

    • Sean Williams says:

      05:17am | 18/08/10

      Do you really think Britons or Londoners will take a blind bit of notice of this. It’s not as if we’re new to welcoming people from abroad. A few predictable “anti-Pom” cheap shots but we’ll indulge that as your best stab at “humour”. It seems to annoy Australia that all the focus is on London, one of the globe’s truly great cities that will host a knock-out games, and that most people around the world have forgotten the rain-swept Sydney 2000 Games ever took place. I wonder how many of these snipey articles we’ll have to put up with in the Aussie media over the next two years?

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      09:57pm | 06/08/12

      In Gross wirkt das noch viel krasser als auf Flickr. Sehr schf6ne Komposition und vor allem : Scharf. Mir glfelean hier die Felder im Hintergrund besonders gut. Hammerbild, ehrlich.

      Reply
 
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