- What is going on everyone? Welcome back The World According to Briggs, and an international video! Today we're looking at countries where tourists say the locals are rude.
I read a blog about this subject where a guy, said every time he went to Germany, he ran across nothing but rude and unfriendly people. He listed a few other countries he felt were almost as bad as Germany, but he said Germany was the worst. So that got me thinking and I ran a poll where I listed 40 of the most visited countries, and asked travelers to pick the three countries they felt the locals were the most rude.
I also listed the top 15 on a few different polls on the community section of this channel, and this is what we found. (graphic blipping) Number 10, the Greeks. Greece is one of the oldest country still going.
They offer tourists ancient ruins, great islands, amazing beaches, gyaros, and a steady helping of F you, go back where you came from. Around 30 million people visit Greece every single year. The government and shop owners love that.
The locals, aren't always on board with it. They have a reputation of being rude. I don't think it's always as people might think.
A lot like here in the United States, Greece, they have a tendency to talk a lot with their arms and and a little too close for American and let's say British standards, they get a little too close when they're talking. And I think a lot of Westerners or people from North America kind of view this as them being rude. Now granted, like all countries, they have some rude people that are just rude.
But I think a lot of their reputation comes from that. 37% of the people surveyed had Greece listed as one of the three rudest countries. (graphic blipping) Number nine, the Turkish.
Yeah, Turkey's got kind of a reputation for having rude residents. Like Greece, they have a lot of history going on here. Istanbul, which used to be Constantinople, played a big part in the crusades.
This is where a lot of the European crusaders passed through to go to the Middle East, and cause all kinds of problems. And Constantinople served as an Imperial capital for almost 16 centuries. All the way back to the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, they all had this place as their capital.
Turkey offers a lot more outside out of Istanbul. They've got a lot of history here, lot of great things to see. Turkey sees around 50 million visitors a year, actually in 2019 for the pandemic, they hit 52 million.
So they see a lot of people going through here and not everyone's on board with how cool they are there. 41% of the respondents had Turkey as one of their three countries with the rudest locals. (graphic blipping) Number eight, Italians.
I mean, how can these people be so rude? They got pasta, pizza, they got all the good food here. In my opinion, Italian food ranks right behind Mexican food.
Yeah, that's just me. Maybe if I grew up in Europe, I'd feel the opposite about that but Mexican food, then Italian food, that's how I see it. Italy has some of the most amazing cities to see.
Think about it, Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, San Marino, which actually isn't part of Italy, it's its own country. Yeah, most people don't know that, Italy has a small country inside of Italy. It is San Marino, and it is east of Florence and south of Venice.
Italy sees over 90 million tourists every single year, 'least in the last 10 years. That's about what they see, over 90 million. That dropped down considerably during the pandemic years, but normal times they see about 90 million people, and a good percentage of those people, apparently think the Italians are rude.
Italians actually have a reputation for being rude. I mean they didn't invent the middle finger, the Greeks did, but the Italians, they sort of perfected it. In Milan, they actually have a statue of the middle finger pointing at the Italian stock exchange.
Not even kidding, here it is. For a country that invented banks, they really don't like bankers too much. 41% of the people listed Italians in their top three rudest locals.
(graphic blipping) Number seven, the Spanish. This one caught me by surprise. I know quite a few Spanish people.
They have never been anything but friendly and nice, but apparently if you're a tourist in their homeland, they're not too keen about it. I was reading one travel blogger, and he said that it's mostly the younger kids, younger people I should say, The 30 to 20, the teens, and they're the people that don't like a lot of tourists, the older people sort of like it, or at least they like the money that's being brought in from the tourists. I find this one a little strange.
I don't know if it's accurate, from my experience I should say. But apparently, if you go by the survey and the polls, the Spanish people aren't too keen on people coming to Spain. Spain sees about 70 million visitors a year, and 45% of the people surveyed had Spain as one of their three countries with the rudest locals.
(graphic blipping) Number six, the Chinese. Now I couldn't tell you personally, whether this is correct or not, I'm going by the survey on this one. I've never been to China.
I know some Chinese people, not very well, but the survey says that they're pretty rude locals. I did a little reading, and apparently you go into the rural areas and they really like you. If you get in the cities and stuff, they're kind of rude and abrupt to foreigners, but the locals in the rural areas, they're almost happy to have you.
46% of the people surveyed had China, as one of the three countries with the rudest locals. (graphic blipping) Number, five Americans. Yes, the United States is number five.
I know a lot of people from other countries probably just gasp. "How could they be number five? Shouldn't they be number one?
" No, we're really not that rude when you're coming here to be a tourist. I mean, if you end up in the wrong place, like New Jersey, you'll probably think differently of us, but for the most part in most of the country, people are pretty decent in the tourist areas. Not just New Jersey, you might wanna add Hawaii onto that.
Hawaii's not too keen even about other Americans coming to that state. Now, if you consider gun violence rude, yeah, we're hella rude then. 'Cause we got a lot of that here in the United States, in case you don't know and you're from another country.
That's like my advice to anyone coming to the United States from another country. Make sure you know where the dangerous neighborhoods are. I mean, any neighborhood has the potential to be dangerous, but we have some, that if you don't know about 'em, could be a serious mistake so keep that in mind.
You should know little things like, go see St. Louis, the Arch is neat, and all that's really cool. Don't go see East St.
Louis. Don't make that mistake. Go see Downtown Detroit.
Don't go outside of Downtown Detroit, and you'll be fine. Go visit Chicago, just don't go too far south from what they call the loop which is the downtown area of Chicago. Things like that.
51% of the people surveyed, had the United States as one of their three countries with the rudest locals. (graphic blipping) Number four, Russians. Russia's another country that has people that I think sort of get a bad rap, because it's their culture and the way they do things, it doesn't jive with a lot of, especially Western countries and their citizens.
Russians are very to the point, and very blunt about everything. There's no like gray areas with them most of the time. And they don't sugarcoat much when they're talking to you.
So a lot of people might think that's rude. The people that I know that have visited Russia, they're kind of 50-50 on it. Some say it was great, some people say, they were kind of rude and mean to 'em so, you don't know.
But, in the survey, 53% of the respondents had Russia as one of their top three countries with the rudest locals. (graphic blipping) Number three, Germans. Yeah, Germans are rude and everybody knows it.
They can't help it. They got a little that Russian thing going too where there's no sugarcoating anything. It's very blunt, very to the point, very matter of fact.
And like I said, in the Russian part, that Westerners find that a little abrasive sometimes. My experience with Germans has never been good. The ones that I know, the ones that I've talked to online, they're always seem to be rude.
It's like their thing. I don't know what it is. One thing I've always heard over and over and I kind of got that vibe too, they always get that thing where they think they're better than everyone else.
That's an opinion by a lot of people, not like a fact. There's no arrogance metric. Germany normal years sees about 40 million tourists, and 61% of the people surveyed had Germany, as one of their three countries, that they felt had the rudest locals.
(graphic blipping) Number two, the British. Now this is amazing because of all the people surveyed, the number one country of origin of people that said the British were the rudest, were the British. Yeah, the UK says British are the absolute rudest people in other countries.
It's like these people know how they are and they just own it. I've always heard the phrase ugly Americans, when they're talking about Americans going to other countries and being tourists and how we're just rude and stupid and everything else like that. But apparently, the British are even worse than us.
63% of the people surveyed had the United Kingdom in their top three, for rudest locals. Alright, before we get to number one, don't forget at the end of this video, we have these little things where the algorithm suggests other of my videos, that you should watch, watch click on one and see if the algorithm's correct. Alright, on to number one.
(graphic blipping) And number one, the French. The French have a legendary reputation for being rude. There have been jokes about how rude the French are since forever.
Everybody knows it, it's in jokes, they do things about how rude the French are in movies. There was a movie with Dudley Moore years ago where he played ad executive, who had like a breakdown, and started telling the truth, and he created an ad that everyone loved. It showed an Italian woman cooking some pasta and said, "Come to Italy, we're nice, we're not like the French.
" And it showed a guy with a beret flipping the camera off. So, that kind of gives you an idea. Now don't take that as an opening because I made reference to a movie that shows how something's a stereotype.
For some reason, whenever I mention a movie that's like someone's defense, "Oh, he's basing his opinion off a movie. " No, that's called an antidote. My opinion is just like the rest of the world's opinion on the French, they're fricking rude.
They got some good wine though, you gotta love their wine. In 2018, France saw 89 million tourists. Now, their target for 2020 was 100 million, but the pandemic kind of set that sideways.
We'll see if they get their 100 million here in the next couple years, now that we're getting outta the pandemic. 71% of the people surveyed had France in their top three countries with the rudest residents. (soft music) Alright, that's today's video, hope you guys enjoyed it.
Don't forget to click another video, so you can do a little binge watching here in World Gordon Briggs. Everybody have a great day, be nice to each other.
