You Know You're from Suriname If.......? 🌴 Laughing with Stereotypes

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The concept of stereotypes is often viewed in a negative light. This is especially true in current times, where everyone is trying to be politically correct all the time. Mostly in order to prevent anyone from getting offended, as that is apparently a common occurrence nowadays. But we already know what I think of political correctness. I don't think of it at all. :)

Instead I insist on laughing with it. Politically incorrect humor is exactly the type of humor we need to depower certain stigmatized concepts like racism or stereotypes. If we can all laugh at ourselves and each other, no one can get mad. So, that being said, here are a few fun stereotypes of Surinamers to laugh at. Feel free to compare with your own country.



🌴 We're Always Late.


A popular one, especially in the country of our ex-colonizers, the Netherlands, is that we are always late. It's also the one I am the biggest culprit of. Well, used to be anyways. A few years back I couldn't be on time to save my life, but in recent years it has gotten less intense, since I have more responsibilities and all.



🌴 We LOVE food.


If you are planning on rationing or calculating exact portions of food with a bunch of people from Suriname, don't. Don't even dare to think about it. If we love something, it's food. The diverse amount of dishes available due to all the different ethnicities probably have something to do with this.

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Apparently there's an abundance of tagged food pics of me on Facebook. No idea why.



🌴 We're Lazy.


Another one popular with the ex-colonizer is that Surinamers are lazy. While this is definitely not true for any hard-working person in the country, there are some who ruin the reputation by literally doing nothing and depending on the government for support. But that's probably not unique to this country.

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🌴 Not your Man. Our man.


A running gag among my countrymates with a funny bone is that your man is not your man in Suriname, jokingly hinting that someone's man/woman always gets stolen or shared by someone else. Of course this is not true, as we have many loyal people here, at least the ones I know. But its always a good gag to laugh at.



🌴 We love to have Fun and Enjoy Life.


As a true South-American/Caribbean country Suriname knows how to party! Music, booze, food, upbeat tempos, and wonderful happy people all around. If I ever moved to another country this is one of the top things I would miss. Check out the inner city vibes from this end of the year video.

Joking is also another form of fun. To some, not everything is a joke or a meme, but in Suriname it can be. The most serious criminal thing can happen within our political system and I can be sure at least a handful of memes being forwarded and shared through social media. It's never a dull day here.



Do you recognize any of these stereotypes?

What stereotypes can you laugh with in your country?


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17 comments
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Enjoyed in your post from A to Z :) :)

And, yes, I recognized most of these things with Spaniards... Especially about being late, or coming late, or never coming... lol... 🤣 🤣 🤣

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When I first started at the company where I currently am, about 2 years ago, they had a guy, who is originally from Spain, from the branch in the Netherlands to do the training. The lessons usually started at 8 and the apartment/hotel he stayed at was relatively close to the training location.

Many times, while I rushing to get to the location at over 8am, thinking I was late, I saw him sitting in front of the hotel enjoying his breakfast. 😂 But a very cool guy nonetheless. I learned a lot from him.

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hahahahahahaha
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

And then people say that stereotypes are just on paper... lol...

Yeah, Spaniards that I know are cool, but that doesn't mean that they aren't always late... :)

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Lol. I'm never late though. Everyone else is just too early.

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Love your Foodie post!

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This sounds like Jamaican stereotypes as well lol! I guess it runs in the Caribbean and South America. Jamaicans are notorious for being late. I’ll be there in 5 means 1hr later or more. Living here in Japan it was a rude awakening. Everything is on time to the max. The worst thing is when you realize this but then you doing business with other Jamaicans and have appointments with people from other countries and I show yo early and we waiting on the other Jamaicans.

Food, same , Jamaicans don’t play wit the food, no plate needed. Eat straight from the pot. One thing I always respected about people from the country or the inner city in Jamaica, no matter how little they had thym et shared it, right out the same plate and fork. Not the upper class.

Party, man Jamaica is hurting bad right now with the curfews, party everyday in every corner. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jamaica goes into civil unrest because they can’t party 😂.

That video is a nice vibe, Suriname has a nice mix of people. That would be uptown here.

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I had that same culture shock when I was on vacation in Amsterdam. We we're going to the theater and my aunt was like "we have to leave home 2 hours before it starts". I didn't understand at all, as she is also from Suriname. 😅 But everything there is punctual. And it seems that if your late to a theater piece, they just close the doors on you.

I get that. No matter how little someone has here, when they throw a birthday party, even if it's not the fanciest or most expensive food, they make sure you can eat 3 times or more if you want to. Plus you get to take some home.

Yeah, too bad that party won't be happening this year. For the first time since I was born, the city streets will be empty on december 31st. Or maybe not, people surprise me each day.

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Spot on, it's good to have a sense of humor about your own country. Where I'm from in the USA is the most uneducated and poor area. The running joke is that we smoke methamphetamine in our trailer parks until a tornado comes and kills us all. Of course this is not entirely true, but my stepsister did blow up her trailer while cooking meth a week before a tornado came to town, so there's that....

We haven't been too impressed with the food here, but of course we're accustomed to authentic Indian, Indonesian, and Chinese foods. Suriname definitely prepares similar dishes with much less ingredients and spices, but would definitely say the food here is better than many western countries. We are still let down with how few choices of herbs, fruits and vegetables there are here.

Oh, here is a good depiction of where I'm from..

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Lol, gotta love those evangelical leaders with their over the top drama and multiple private jets. 😂
Exciting family you got there. The trailer parks addicts, war loving red necks and burger eating idiots are well known stereotypes I think. The Americans I meet however are always nice and educated, but it's usually in other countries. I have yet to go to the USA and I'm kind of scared.

This is what I imagine seeing the most.
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We haven't been too impressed with the food here.

Because you've never been to my home. 🙃
Good vegetarian options are hard to find though, if you are eating out. I have two colleagues who are vegetarian, and they have like 2 places where they can get good food during lunch hours. So they usually bring food from home.

Agreed on the fruits and vegetables. There are some stores that have more unique ingredients, but they are expensive, because of that scarcity. That's why I plant my own. Simple things like basil, oregano and thyme are hard to find in fresh form and yet I can grow them so easily.

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Yeah, all that is too true. I don't think we could ever reopen our restaurant here because we would have to spend too much time farming the ingredients we need. We decided it would be more profitable to be farmers here than restaurateurs. The fruit and veg prices are so high here, but yet we see so much go to waste and rot at the market. I will never understand that.

Hey replace, that monster-sized gun with an assault rifle, and you have what would be a standard American Wal-Mart customer where I live.

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A wallmart safari tour is definitely on my todo list for the US. :)

The food going to waste is part of the same business mentality problem. The concept of selling 2 of 20 watermelons for 50 each making 100 while throwing 18 away versus selling all 20 for 25 and making 500 is a hard one to understand for some. They would rather let it rot. There are some farmers who donate what they don't sell to childrens homes, but those are a handful.

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Hello @rarej
You know what?
That thing you mention in your post, I read it and it makes me think of my country. And in those stereotypes that are handled. Really far from the truth. You can't generalize. You shouldn't.
And you would be welcome in these parts of the Caribbean or South America.
I'm sure you'd have a good time.

By the way, a party like the one in the video would come from a good, this evil pandemic limited us a lot of things. I hope this will finally pass.

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From all the replies I have gotten so far, it seems these are very common in the region, so that's not surprising.

True, a party would do a lot of good for the soul. Unfortunately I think it will be a while before we have that again.

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Hello @rarej
You know what?
That thing you mention in your post, I read it and it makes me think of my country. And in those stereotypes that are handled. Really far from the truth. You can't generalize. You shouldn't.
And you would be welcome in these parts of the Caribbean or South America.
I'm sure you'd have a good time.

By the way, a party like the one in the video would come from a good, this evil pandemic limited us a lot of things. I hope this will finally pass.

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@JustinParke here on behalf of the ReggaeJAHM Community.

Those stereotypes could be used for many Caribbean countries, but it's definitely a uniquely Suriname viewpoint on these stereotypes. I like the expression about the crab mentality too. I didn't know the stereotypes of where I was from until I moved to Colorado, and I realized everyone automatically assumed I'm better at manual labor than anyone from Colorado.

I was raised on a popcorn farm in Indiana, so actually this was true in my case. I quickly realized I could get any landscaping or construction job just based off of where I was born. Stereotypes helped me in that case.

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Thanks @justinparke. It's always funny when you actually fit one of the stereotypes. The important part is that you can laugh at it. A unique viewpoint that not many have is that stereotypes can benefit you. Like the Asian landing that accounting job because he's assumed to be good at match or the black guy getting the girls, because... 😅

Some may view all of this as racism, but to me racism is in the intent and not the words or statements themselves.

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