Is France really Asian guy friendly?

[publicduende]

[...]
Like I said before, the French have a very sophisticated culture and tend to be quite intellectual. Even their language feels inherently intellectual and well-suited to philosophy and topics of importance. But for me, I must admire their sophisticated culture and intellectual sensitivities only from afar; their diva complex, snobbishness and aloofness simply make them difficult to be around. I think of the French as some brilliant yet eccentric artist whose work is extremely admirable but whose eccentricities are just too off-putting and make some degree of distance necessary.

I'm sure that there are individual differences and even regional differences within the country. But my experience of the French has been as stated above.

That was also my impression. Yet, there is a sufficiently big divide between urban France (mainly Paris) and rural France, between white Catholic France and Muslim France. And we haven't even got started with Corsican people, yet...

As for the Italian students at the school, they were mostly super pleasant. Yes, they were hyper-extraverted, histrionic and friendly to all just as you describe. They made an effort to speak to everybody and invited others into their cliques and to nightclubs and daytime activities. And out of all of the different nationalities, the Italian students' language which they sometimes spoke among themselves (yet were willing to switch to Spanish in the presence of non-Italians so as not to exclude others) sounded by far the best!

You mean, you liked the accent of the spoken Italian they spoke to themselves?

Even though I respect French culture and prefer it to Anglo culture, I overwhelmingly prefer Italian culture to French culture.

As for my national team, I support Spain and indeed rooted for them passionately in the most recent World Cup (I even threw a wobbly and started screaming hysterically for about 5 minutes and then sent loads of delirious WhatsApp messages to my Spanish friends when Spain got eliminated from the tournament), but I always like to see Italy do well too due to my admiration for Italy as a nation and as the supremely beautiful birthplace of all Latin civilization.

Italy > France

Thanks for the shot of Italian praise, but, as an Italian, let me tell you, it's not as rosy once the stereotype goggles come off.

Italian culture is something quite brittle and fragile. We often like to rally using some of the few remaining identity symbols - food, Renaissance arts, "la dolce vita" - but reality is, we are still a very fragmented country. Someone from Sicily will still refuse to be put in the same bucket as someone from Friuli (at the border with Austria and Slovenia). A guy born and bred in Milan will feel it has very little to share with someone from Florence, and so on. This is for historical reasons: for the longest times, and I mean tens of centuries, Italy was nothing more than a loosely-coupled federation of city-states and mostly independent townships, each ruled by a different prince or nobleman. We had kings, emperors and archdukes governing large areas of Italian territory, but their rule was never felt as strongly as that of the henchmen in charge of individual cities or villages.

We were catapulted into a rather abstract concept of "unified Italy" between the 1840s and the 1870s. If you go to school, you will read that, all of a sudden, momentum around a "one Italian nation" built around the literary circles, then the political circles, etc. We just had to get rid of the "oppressor" and patriotic spirit helped people organise civil war and gain control over the entire peninsula.

Reality can't be more different: Italy's unification was something the British Crown masterminded, via their Freemasons, to pull an unthinkable triple-whammy: get rid of the Habsburg's rule in the North, the Vatican's rule in Rome and the Bourbon's rule in the South. As I learned when I came here, this is strinkingly similar to what the American Freemasonry did in the Philippines around the same time: foment anti-Spanish sentiment under the guise of patriotism to get rid of the Spanish rule from within.

Main difference being that, in Italy, people didn't mind the Habsburg that much. Down South, we actually loved the Bourbons. Under them, Naples had become one of Europe's most sophisticated culture and art hubs, a veritable Paris of the South. They pioneered the welfare system with free schooling and free healthcare for all. They had a relatively tight grip on their finances and they often shared their opulence with the populace. The port thrived as the only trading hub in the South to rival with British and Dutch ports.

No surprise, after the "unification", the Brits handed over the newly formed country to the Savoy, a tiny, grim kingdom ruling over Turin and some adjacencies of France, famous for their inept, superstitious kings, financially bankrupt. Clearly not the most competent royal family to rule a brand new country, yet the British Crown's only ally in Italy and a good puppet to ensure that any pro-Austrian, pro-Catholic, and pro-Spanish sentiment was kept at bay.

The first thing the Savoy did, once in power, was to literally sweep over the huge reserves of wealth the Bourbons had amassed in the South, to replenish their empty coffers. They instituted a thick net of taxes on land ownership and harvests, which reduced a generation of farmers to near-starvation and forced millions of Italians to migrate. One of the first WTF moments of my life was when, still a teenager, I realised: if unified Italy was such as good thing, why was everybody leaving after unification and not before?

Those years set the stage for a phenomenon we still see today: the socio-economic divide between the more industrialised North and the poorer, more agricultural South. Before the Savoy took over, the economic output of the South was on a par with that of the North. The first railway system in Italy, the Naples-Portici line, was built in Naples, not Rome or Milan. The most prestigious scientific universities were in Naples, not Florence. The legendary Rothschild family moved one of their sons to Naples, not Rome or Milan, as Naples was recognised as Italy's banking capital.

And the rest, as the say, is history.

[Lucas88]

You mean, you liked the accent of the spoken Italian they spoke to themselves?

Yes, I'm a big fan of the Romance languages and think that Italian is one of the best and most beautiful European languages by far. The Italian spoken by the Italian students at the school sounded way more pleasant and melodic than any of the native languages of the other students which included French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, English, etc.

The only reason why I never learned Italian beyond the basic phonology and grammar was that I was too busy chasing big butts in Latin America. My near-cultish obsession with Latinas forced me to prioritize Spanish (which is an equally beautiful language in my opinion but spoken throughout a much larger extension of the globe) and since then I've never had the opportunity to visit Italy, even though I am extremely fond of Italian culture.

In truth, three of my favorite languages are Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese, although I'm probably too lazy and unmotivated to study the latter two. In contrast, I hate the sound of Germanic languages.

Thanks for the shot of Italian praise, but, as an Italian, let me tell you, it's not as rosy once the stereotype goggles come off.

Italian culture is something quite brittle and fragile. We often like to rally using some of the few remaining identity symbols - food, Renaissance arts, "la dolce vita" - but reality is, we are still a very fragmented country. Someone from Sicily will still refuse to be put in the same bucket as someone from Friuli (at the border with Austria and Slovenia). A guy born and bred in Milan will feel it has very little to share with someone from Florence, and so on. This is for historical reasons: for the longest times, and I mean tens of centuries, Italy was nothing more than a loosely-coupled federation of city-states and mostly independent townships, each ruled by a different prince or nobleman. We had kings, emperors and archdukes governing large areas of Italian territory, but their rule was never felt as strongly as that of the henchmen in charge of individual cities or villages.

We were catapulted into a rather abstract concept of "unified Italy" between the 1840s and the 1870s. If you go to school, you will read that, all of a sudden, momentum around a "one Italian nation" built around the literary circles, then the political circles, etc. We just had to get rid of the "oppressor" and patriotic spirit helped people organise civil war and gain control over the entire peninsula.

Reality can't be more different: Italy's unification was something the British Crown masterminded, via their Freemasons, to pull an unthinkable triple-whammy: get rid of the Habsburg's rule in the North, the Vatican's rule in Rome and the Bourbon's rule in the South. As I learned when I came here, this is strinkingly similar to what the American Freemasonry did in the Philippines around the same time: foment anti-Spanish sentiment under the guise of patriotism to get rid of the Spanish rule from within.

Main difference being that, in Italy, people didn't mind the Habsburg that much. Down South, we actually loved the Bourbons. Under them, Naples had become one of Europe's most sophisticated culture and art hubs, a veritable Paris of the South. They pioneered the welfare system with free schooling and free healthcare for all. They had a relatively tight grip on their finances and they often shared their opulence with the populace. The port thrived as the only trading hub in the South to rival with British and Dutch ports.

No surprise, after the "unification", the Brits handed over the newly formed country to the Savoy, a tiny, grim kingdom ruling over Turin and some adjacencies of France, famous for their inept, superstitious kings, financially bankrupt. Clearly not the most competent royal family to rule a brand new country, yet the British Crown's only ally in Italy and a good puppet to ensure that any pro-Austrian, pro-Catholic, and pro-Spanish sentiment was kept at bay.

The first thing the Savoy did, once in power, was to literally sweep over the huge reserves of wealth the Bourbons had amassed in the South, to replenish their empty coffers. They instituted a thick net of taxes on land ownership and harvests, which reduced a generation of farmers to near-starvation and forced millions of Italians to migrate. One of the first WTF moments of my life was when, still a teenager, I realised: if unified Italy was such as good thing, why was everybody leaving after unification and not before?

Those years set the stage for a phenomenon we still see today: the socio-economic divide between the more industrialised North and the poorer, more agricultural South. Before the Savoy took over, the economic output of the South was on a par with that of the North. The first railway system in Italy, the Naples-Portici line, was built in Naples, not Rome or Milan. The most prestigious scientific universities were in Naples, not Florence. The legendary Rothschild family moved one of their sons to Naples, not Rome or Milan, as Naples was recognised as Italy's banking capital.

And the rest, as the say, is history.

This is absolutely fascinating!

I'm currently reading about the rival city states of Italy during the Renaissance period but I certainly would like to dig deeper into Italy's more recent history too. I'll look into the various kingdoms that you mentioned and the history of unification itself. Thanks!

What you said about Freemasons conspiring to undermine Spanish rule in the South and at the same time promoting a pro-British regime caught my attention. A while ago I saw a video by a Spanish historian on YouTube who asserted that, despite propaganda to the contrary, Hispanoamerica was better off under the Spanish crown and that the so-called "libertadores" (Bolívar and ilk) were in reality Freemasonic agents secretly working for the British crown and with an agenda to break down the Spanish Empire, using Enlightenment ideals of liberty and independence as a pretext. As we all know, much of Hispanoamerica has suffered under corrupt governments since its independence from the Madre Patria. Do you know anything about this alleged Anglo-Masonic conspiracy?

I personally don't mind that Italy is culturally fragmented or even that Spain has its own internal conflicts for that matter. I still find Mediterranean civilization far more beautiful and inspiring than anything in the North of Europe, with far more aesthetically pleasing architecture, a far more pleasant climate, far more delicious cuisine, far more melodic languages, and way cooler people!

When I was a kid, I had family in Spain and used to spend the summer there. I was exposed to Spanish culture and it left a significant impression on me. Even as a kid, I hated the UK, its aesthetics and even the sound of its language. I always longed to return to Spain which I loved so much and always asked my parents why we had to live in the UK and why we couldn't move to Spain too just like our expat relatives did. I found the UK totally miserable in comparison and envied my family who lived near Alicante. In my teenage years, I became a huge Hispanophile, completely obsessed with Spain and Latin America. I perceive that I'm a Latin soul at heart and am naturally fond of Mediterranean and Latin things.

[publicduende]

This is absolutely fascinating!

I'm currently reading about the rival city states of Italy during the Renaissance period but I certainly would like to dig deeper into Italy's more recent history too. I'll look into the various kingdoms that you mentioned and the history of unification itself. Thanks!

What you said about Freemasons conspiring to undermine Spanish rule in the South and at the same time promoting a pro-British regime caught my attention. A while ago I saw a video by a Spanish historian on YouTube who asserted that, despite propaganda to the contrary, Hispanoamerica was better off under the Spanish crown and that the so-called "libertadores" (Bolívar and ilk) were in reality Freemasonic agents secretly working for the British crown and with an agenda to break down the Spanish Empire, using Enlightenment ideals of liberty and independence as a pretext. As we all know, much of Hispanoamerica has suffered under corrupt governments since its independence from the Madre Patria. Do you know anything about this alleged Anglo-Masonic conspiracy?

Yes, it's an established fact. If you go to London, to a place called Gower Street, you will find this spot:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Giuse ... 11jv47lsgd

Giuseppe Mazzini has been reported to history as one of our biggest "patriots" and architect of unified Italy. In reality, he was exactly what you said: an agent paid by the British Crown (via their Freemasons) to foment anti-Habsburgic and anti-Spaniard sentiment, under the pretext of an Italy finally free of the yoke of foreign rulers. Those were the times where the overt power of rulers still tied to the old land ownership aristocracy were being supplanted by the covert power of the financial elites.

I haven't read anything specific about Simon Bolivar as a Freemason agent but it is a fact that the declining British Empire spent its last couple of centuries undermining the power of an equally declining (because overstretched) Spanish Empire. An "if I die, you're coming with me" twisted kind of statement.

It is also a fact that piracy was previously unknown. The famed Harry Morgan, the most famous pirate in the world, made into an exotic romantic hero, was nothing more than a gangster who would routinely used his small private army to pillage, destroy and take ownership of territories controller by the Spanish Crown in the Caribbeans and South America. For his services to the British Crown, he was even appointed Governor of Jamaica. Ironically, pirates were also disrupting British and Dutch maritime trades. Britain had introduced maritime insurance (LLoyds) to cover the cost of failed trade expeditions. Spain did not and got a massive blow.

I am not saying we should be hating on the Brits but it is true that they were the only naval and then imperial power in Europe that openly used war against competing powers. They waged wars against the Dutch, then France, then France and Spain.

I personally don't mind that Italy is culturally fragmented or even that Spain has its own internal conflicts for that matter. I still find Mediterranean civilization far more beautiful and inspiring than anything in the North of Europe, with far more aesthetically pleasing architecture, a far more pleasant climate, far more delicious cuisine, far more melodic languages, and way cooler people!

When I was a kid, I had family in Spain and used to spend the summer there. I was exposed to Spanish culture and it left a significant impression on me. Even as a kid, I hated the UK, its aesthetics and even the sound of its language. I always longed to return to Spain which I loved so much and always asked my parents why we had to live in the UK and why we couldn't move to Spain too just like our expat relatives did. I found the UK totally miserable in comparison and envied my family who lived near Alicante. In my teenage years, I became a huge Hispanophile, completely obsessed with Spain and Latin America. I perceive that I'm a Latin soul at heart and am naturally fond of Mediterranean and Latin things.

I lived in the UK for almost 12 years and I can say I never "vibed" with their culture. I was there to work and build a career, like many others who confessed me the same thing. This is why I never applied for a British passport, let alone for British citizenship: it would have been very convenient, especially now in the light of Brexit, but I would consider it the ultimate affront to my integrity. Funnily enough, my Colombian ex-wife stuck around and got her British passport and citizenship while I would need to apply for a Visa to work in the UK.

Because of said ex-wife, I also spent a little bit of time in South America. I only visited Colombia (several trips) and Panama (for a few days). I could also tell that Spanish language and culture must have been a far better fit for those native cultures, than the trade-oriented colonisation operated by the British Empire.

Unlike the British and the Dutch, the Spanish Empire never was an architecture of trading outposts, with executives of large trading corporations basically getting political rule over those territories. When Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon married and started pushing for a unified Spain, at least in spirit, their vision was far greater than Spain alone. Both deeply Catholic, they had a project for a new Humanity, peoples from all around the globe living peacefully "under the light of Jesus Christ".

Of course those who financed their trading ventures were just as opportunistic and money-driven as any others. Yet, it remains that they were the only empire who would take missionary priests, men of culture and science, as much as soldiers in their expeditions to the new world.

Talking about cultures, though, I would see a difference between the culture of Spain and that of Spanish ex-colonies. Having lived in the Philippines for 8 consecutive years now, I can tell you for sure that the local culture here is much more similar to that of Mexico or Colombia, than that of Spain.

[gsjackson]

Thanks for the shot of Italian praise, but, as an Italian, let me tell you, it's not as rosy once the stereotype goggles come off.

Italian culture is something quite brittle and fragile. We often like to rally using some of the few remaining identity symbols - food, Renaissance arts, "la dolce vita" - but reality is, we are still a very fragmented country. Someone from Sicily will still refuse to be put in the same bucket as someone from Friuli (at the border with Austria and Slovenia). A guy born and bred in Milan will feel it has very little to share with someone from Florence, and so on. This is for historical reasons: for the longest times, and I mean tens of centuries, Italy was nothing more than a loosely-coupled federation of city-states and mostly independent townships, each ruled by a different prince or nobleman. We had kings, emperors and archdukes governing large areas of Italian territory, but their rule was never felt as strongly as that of the henchmen in charge of individual cities or villages.

We were catapulted into a rather abstract concept of "unified Italy" between the 1840s and the 1870s. If you go to school, you will read that, all of a sudden, momentum around a "one Italian nation" built around the literary circles, then the political circles, etc. We just had to get rid of the "oppressor" and patriotic spirit helped people organise civil war and gain control over the entire peninsula.

Reality can't be more different: Italy's unification was something the British Crown masterminded, via their Freemasons, to pull an unthinkable triple-whammy: get rid of the Habsburg's rule in the North, the Vatican's rule in Rome and the Bourbon's rule in the South. As I learned when I came here, this is strinkingly similar to what the American Freemasonry did in the Philippines around the same time: foment anti-Spanish sentiment under the guise of patriotism to get rid of the Spanish rule from within.

Main difference being that, in Italy, people didn't mind the Habsburg that much. Down South, we actually loved the Bourbons. Under them, Naples had become one of Europe's most sophisticated culture and art hubs, a veritable Paris of the South. They pioneered the welfare system with free schooling and free healthcare for all. They had a relatively tight grip on their finances and they often shared their opulence with the populace. The port thrived as the only trading hub in the South to rival with British and Dutch ports.

No surprise, after the "unification", the Brits handed over the newly formed country to the Savoy, a tiny, grim kingdom ruling over Turin and some adjacencies of France, famous for their inept, superstitious kings, financially bankrupt. Clearly not the most competent royal family to rule a brand new country, yet the British Crown's only ally in Italy and a good puppet to ensure that any pro-Austrian, pro-Catholic, and pro-Spanish sentiment was kept at bay.

The first thing the Savoy did, once in power, was to literally sweep over the huge reserves of wealth the Bourbons had amassed in the South, to replenish their empty coffers. They instituted a thick net of taxes on land ownership and harvests, which reduced a generation of farmers to near-starvation and forced millions of Italians to migrate. One of the first WTF moments of my life was when, still a teenager, I realised: if unified Italy was such as good thing, why was everybody leaving after unification and not before?

Those years set the stage for a phenomenon we still see today: the socio-economic divide between the more industrialised North and the poorer, more agricultural South. Before the Savoy took over, the economic output of the South was on a par with that of the North. The first railway system in Italy, the Naples-Portici line, was built in Naples, not Rome or Milan. The most prestigious scientific universities were in Naples, not Florence. The legendary Rothschild family moved one of their sons to Naples, not Rome or Milan, as Naples was recognised as Italy's banking capital.

And the rest, as the say, is history.

This is absolutely fascinating!

I'm currently reading about the rival city states of Italy during the Renaissance period but I certainly would like to dig deeper into Italy's more recent history too. I'll look into the various kingdoms that you mentioned and the history of unification itself. Thanks!

Agreed. All of a sudden I'm interested in Italian history for the first time.

[tiagomoncada]

I've been to France, and Netherlands a few times. Never noticed any large amounts of Asian male, White female couples. There are Asian female, White male couples though, as in any other western country