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Watching America: Stories about the US from non-US sources (watchingamerica.com)
17 points by DanielBMarkham on Oct 3, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 14 comments



The image of America in my country(Bulgaria) is pretty bad. Most of us hate you, mainly for two reasons, the first is because of our own ass-licking politicians, who are basically ready to attack China is the US tells them to. And the second main reason is because most of us in Bulgaria are just loudmouth haters and we don't like anybody.

And yeah, I've met with a few Americans in person, two of them are teachers from the peace corps(pretty decent people, be the way, i defeated one of them on scrabble) and the others were some religious nut-bags, trying to convince me to accept Jesus, I told them that most Bulgarians accepted Jesus in 864, and then told them to go screw them selfs. The conversation was in Bulgarian, so i assumed that these people were trained and suspected that who ever trained them and sent them here, was stinking rich, so i decided not to trust them, even thou they looked nice and friendly.


I told them that most Bulgarians accepted Jesus in 864

Upmodded for one of the best comebacks I've heard to that one.


So you hate us because your politicians are idiots and you're a bunch of malcontents?

I mean, I'm not trying to name-call, just repeat what I heard.

I've always liked Bulgaria. Isn't that over next to Cuba or something in Africa? (wink)

Or for the slow of reasoning, if you're going to hate us, hate us for not remembering who you are or what your history is. Most Americans probably couldn't locate the continents on a globe, much less identify Eurasian countries.


We are a bunch of malcontents, being under foreign rule for 5 centuries, and then being humiliated by the west after a bloody war for freedom, and then being used by the great powers(Germany, USSR,USA) for their agendas can really mess you up and make you bitter and depressed. Good thing im willing to make fun of my origin and not take this stuff seriously, i love my shithole of a country, at least Bulgarians don't have an image of fat retards, who confuse Australia with North Korea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

:D :D :D and yeah, some parts of Bulgaria look kind of like Africa or Cuba:

http://news24.bg/userfiles/thumbnails/I20080512175245cigani_...

http://www.capital.bg/shimg/zx350_324031.jpg

http://evropa.dnevnik.bg/shimg/zx490_370026.jpg

http://images.ibox.bg/2007/08/15/cig/430x320.jpg

You don't want to be alone at night(or day for that matter) in a gypsy ghetto. Then again, some parts look like this:

http://www.bgvakancia.com/docs/sunny_beach/photos/view1.jpg

http://www.dnevnik.bg/shimg/zx500_464381.jpg

http://nbta.ida.bg/images/2/83.jpg

http://i.actualno.com/club.bg/files/2006/06/19/3acd515c8f.jp...


You may have missed the parent's winning mix of ironic self-awareness and black Slavic bile.


yep. Screwed the pooch on that one.

Humor is a tough thing to do online. There's always some idiot who completely misses the joke.


the others were some religious nut-bags, trying to convince me to accept Jesus, I told them that most Bulgarians accepted Jesus in 864

Probably LDS missionaries (Mormons).

http://www.google.com/search?q=lds+missionaries+bulgaria

At least some Mormons are alright. Some build very sturdy buildings: http://static.monolithic.com


"At least some Mormons are alright." What a backhanded compliment.

What do Mormons have to do with the monolithic domes?


What a backhanded compliment.

I'm sorry. I wasn't intending any compliments.

  .
What do Mormons have to do with the monolithic domes?

The Souths are Idaho Mormons. They talk about it all the time. There is a culture of self-reliance and disaster-preparedness in Mormonism. The South family builds low-maintenance, disaster-resistant buildings (Monolithic Domes). Do you see the connection?

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amonolithic.com+lds+-%2...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amonolithic.com+latter+...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amonolithic.com+mormon

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amonolithic.com+mormons


I met those guys when they were in Albuquerque. They built a dome for a Protestant megachurch there. It's kind of a neat concept.


What a disaster of a website design. N

eat idea though, I think if more American's knew what was being said about them they would adjust their actions, or least attempt to counter with some good PR.


It's an awful design, but a good idea, I think.

I've been watching for a while. It's always the same -- yes we are starving here, but look at those Americans! Yes we have no freedoms here, but those damn Americans are doing it again!

You'd think it would wear thin on local readers, but I imagine most local readers have no other sources of information. It would be good to see a reverse version of this.


This is absolutely fascinating. It has timely translations into (mostly) idiomatic English, with links to primary sources and the home pages of hundreds of international news sources.


You can read foreign-language newspaper commentary when the subject has to do with America.

Very interesting! America has now become a standard prop for not dealing with all sorts of local and national issues.




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