# Europe and Italy : FUNNY!



## badgrammar

Because you are all so wonderful here at Word Reference, I would like to treat you to something special today:  A short animated film by Bruno Bozzetto that resumes the difference between Italy and the rest of the EU.  I already posted the link in response the the "ordering coffee" thread, but I think it deserves its own thread!

http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html

It's worth watching...


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## jokker

Is it true that *all* European Countries are the same as the video described?? Is it true that the scenes about Europe in the video are general and everywhere?


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## DDT

badgrammar said:
			
		

> Because you are all so wonderful here at Word Reference, I would like to treat you to something special today:  A short animated film by Bruno Bozzetto that resumes the difference between Italy and the rest of the EU.  I already posted the link in response the the "ordering coffee" thread, but I think it deserves its own thread!
> 
> http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html
> 
> It's worth watching...



That's hilarious and so tragically (   ) true especially as regards "elections" and "queue"!

DDT


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## badgrammar

@ Jokker... No, of course it's not true at all, these are just stereotypes based on generalizations....  France is certainly not as orderly as some other countries, like Germany and Switzerland, are reputed to be.


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## jokker

DDT said:
			
		

> That's hilarious and so tragically (  ) true especially as regards "elections" and "queue"!
> 
> DDT


Oh, the bus scene is exactly the situation in most of the places in Taiwan.

Edit: And the scene of pedestrian crossing.


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## maxiogee

In many of the situations the Irish flag could well stand in for the Italian one!


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## jokker

badgrammar said:
			
		

> @ Jokker... No, of course it's not true at all, these are just stereotypes based on generalizations.... France is certainly not as orderly as some other countries, like Germany and Switzerland, are reputed to be.


Thank you, badgrammar.


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## Vanda

Hi,hi, hi,  you can also change the Italian flag for the Brazilian one. NO difference at all!


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## jokker

maxiogee said:
			
		

> In many of the situations the Irish flag could well stand in for the Italian one!


I think Taiwan could do, too. Especially on the former part in the video.

Actually, I think disorder presents being alive and vital in some way. (The most wonderful examples would be the traditional markets and night markets in Taiwan.) I don't think I will like an environment which is too order.


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## danielfranco

Well, I thought that I would find this animation applicable or funny, I mean, I've never been to Europe, so what do I know, right?
But if the guy Bruno had pasted a little mexican emblem in the middle of the white stripe of the Italians he would have captured precisely the idiosyncracies of my country of origin... Very funny! So Italians are to Europe what Mexicans are to the USA...
Ah, well, now I know which country to visit first in Europe then!
See you all there!
Dan F


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## DDT

jokker said:
			
		

> Oh, the bus scene is exactly the situation in most of the places in Taiwan.



Try Italian public transport and you'll change your mind  

I have understood that you're basically supposed to use a car when staying in Italy so please forget about an effective public transport system   

DDT


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## DDT

maxiogee said:
			
		

> In many of the situations the Irish flag could well stand in for the Italian one!



I agree about the public transport, it was a little disaster when I lived in Dublin  

DDT


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## jokker

DDT said:
			
		

> Try Italian public transport and you'll change your mind
> 
> I have understood that you're basically supposed to use a car when staying in Italy so please forget about an effective public transport system
> 
> DDT


I guess the renowned Italian food can make up for this.


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## belén

As a Spaniard, I could identify our country with all the Italian situations as well


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## alpago

it was really funny.. my country also has almost the same problems with italy.


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## cherine

Thank you so much Badgrammar for reminding me of this hilarious movie 
I've seen it two years ago, and we passed it -my friends and I- to each other with titles like : Is it about Egypt ? Replace Italy with Egypt....
For, yes, it's the same thing here : the traffic, the sports, the politics, the queue, the elections....

I think all Mediterranean countries and -maybe also- "third world" countries share those same characteristics. Oh how similar we can be !


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## Willi

Fantastico, bellissimo! Mai ghignato tanto  (purtroppo)
PS La scena dell'autobus a me capita sempre


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## ang68

Thank you for the amusing video!
Here in Greece things are more or less the same as in Italy, but having read the answers from all over the world I can see that we all belong to the same big family more or less!!! Quite comforting I should say!!!


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## Outsider

The cartoon of the election is especially funny. 

I suspect that this corresponds well to most of the world except Northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.


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## TrentinaNE

This reminds of the compare/contrast joke about legal systems:

In the UK, everything is permitted unless it's prohibited.
In Germany, everything is prohibited unless it's permitted.
In (insert name of county with totalitarian regime), everything is prohibited, even if it's permitted.
In Italy, everything is permitted, _especially_ if it's prohibited.


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## zebedee

belen said:
			
		

> As a Spaniard, I could identify our country with all the Italian situations as well


 
Yes, definitely. I was laughing throughout the video thinking how similar Italy and Spain seem to be. Thanks for that link!


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## anangelaway

Thank you badgrammar for sharing this, it's so funny and so sweet. I loved the _'coffee'_ one.


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## nichec

DDT said:
			
		

> Try Italian public transport and you'll change your mind





			
				DDT said:
			
		

> I have understood that you're basically supposed to use a car when staying in Italy so please forget about an effective public transport system
> 
> DDT




Yeah, the public transportation is quite.....in Italy. I was really amazed by this when I lived in Rome for some time....And it didn't help that I was comparing Rome with Paris all the time, where the public transportation is quite good and modern in my opinion. I can't really say anything for the rest of the film since I didn't live in Rome long enough, but I really love Italy in many ways, and I don't think the rest of Europe is as presented in the film (at least not the cities I've ever been )


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## Raphillon

This is an hilarious movie 

Italy has many problems, basically thanks to some bad habits of us Italians, but fortunately has also many enticing things to compensate...

Oh well, not easy to be impartial for me


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## Brioche

It's like the Heaven V Hell:
Heaven:
The police are British
The cooks are French
The engineers are German
The administrators are Swiss
The lovers are Italian

Hell:
The police are German
The cooks are British
The engineers are Italian
The administrators are French
The lovers are Swiss


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## geve

"Organized bureaucracy" sounds very much like an oxymoron in France !!

Maybe this is what Europe is about: we might get something good out of the combination of all our "bads"...  
Shall we call it cultural wealth?


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## Jfarinon

Funny! As Belen said, it reminds me a bit of Spain 

Can anyone suggest a video similar to this comparing Spanish culture (or a Hispanic culture)? 


Just thought I'd ask in case someone has come across something....


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## natasha2000

Brioche said:
			
		

> It's like the Heaven V Hell:
> Heaven:
> The police are British
> The cooks are French
> The engineers are German
> The administrators are Swiss
> The lovers are Italian
> 
> Hell:
> The police are German
> The cooks are British
> The engineers are Italian
> The administrators are French
> The lovers are Swiss


 
This really gave me a good laugh, as well as the video... I think that the image of Europe is what the Europe SHOULD be, or what someone WOULD like it to be, rather than what IT IS... Nobody is perfect, really, therefore Europe neither... 

Many of the European or non-European countries can recognize themselves in "Italy" of this movie... I think it would be unecessary to mention, that I seeing it, I recognized my country, Serbia, too... especially in the scene of highway, parking, pedestrian crossing...Maybe not in sports scene, but the rest is really pretty the same...


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## Ottavio Amato

Brioche said:
			
		

> It's like the Heaven V Hell:
> Heaven:
> The police are British
> The cooks are French
> The engineers are German
> The administrators are Swiss
> The lovers are Italian
> 
> Hell:
> The police are German
> The cooks are British
> The engineers are Italian
> The administrators are French
> The lovers are Swiss


 

 Well, actually the joke is:


Heaven : A place where cooks are French, mechanics are German, police is English, lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss. 

Hell: A place where cooks are English, mechanics are French, police is Germans, lovers are Swiss and everything is organized by the Italians.


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## aa92

the video was very good!!


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## Like an Angel

Gli argentini siamo tutti italiani  ... you can change Italy for Argentina and will fit almost perfectly, mainly about "Highway", "Parking", "Pedestrian Crossing" (the problem in here aren't just the cars, the pedestrian misbehave very well too), "Bus", "Bureaucra*z*y" and "Queue".


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## ireney

hey thanks I had deleted that one by mistake and I was miserable for a while back then (and yes, as ang68 said, Greece is as bad as Italy to say the least!)

as for Trentina's comment hehe. I remember my sister in law once was in an EU conference about consumer's rights etc. She an Italian friend of hers where discussing the difficulty of forcing the industries and the, well, 'commerce' people in general (not to get technical) to adhere to what they had agreed to in several cases.
Someone from errr a country in Northern Europe heard them and asked : "but they have signed the agreements! How can they not adhere to them?"

My sister in law and her friend promptly started laughing. So did I when I heard about it


Oh! (and I realise this one is one Looong post): a rather cruel (I think you'll agree) friend of mine, when she first moved to London, used to cross the pedestrian crossings again, and again, and again, just to see the cars actually stopping for her (not that pedestrians around here _bother_ with crossings anyway- why should they?)


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## maxiogee

When I had some visitors from England with me in Dublin for a few days they were shocked at the casual manner in which we Irish crossed the road, often just a few feet away from a pedestrian crossing or set of traffic lights.
At one set of lights I couldn't understand their reticence to cross the road - against the red light - when there was clearly no traffic within reach. They wished to wait for the "green man" to appear and thought that I was being unnecessarily daring and possibly even criminal in my actions. 
They asked: "Is there not a law requiring you to wait for the lights to change?" 
I replied: "There probably is, but after hundreds of years of not heeding laws we didn't like we Irish seem to "choose which laws to obey."


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## ireney

Moderator's note: Please remember that the rules have _really_ changed from 2006. You can check this own forum's moderator's posts to see what I mean . Thank you.


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