My friend wanted to pretend we were Canadian the last time we went traveling and I told them absolutely not. I'm not proud of the US but I don't want to turn that into your problem

You can dust off your Quebecois and give it a try - they certainly won't mistake you for the French.

I find when traveling just being you is your best bet. Anyone pre judging a traveler on their country of origin is an idiotic waste of your time. Even shitty countries have plenty of decent people. Chances are if they are getting out of their country to visit others they aren't representative of the mean anyway. America is a shit hole country and there are a lot of real losers there, but not so many that it's fair to make assumptions about any random individual. For the most part regular people living there deserve empathy. Imagine just being a normal person and having to live and work there? Imagine if you were there and someone in your family needed healthcare?

Like in Argo

It's a constitutional republic with democratic elements. But with our two party system and representation for money we're mostly an oligarchy. The ultra rich support both parties to always get their way.

Roger Federer

Chocolate

Watches

Murat Yakin, that trainer who looked like a mob boss at the world cup.

Mountains

"Neutrality"

Probably places where they would like to live.

I'm more surprised by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, those fuckers has all the opportunity in the world to fix their issues. But just don't.

Part of it is just good PR / marketing. Alpine villages, funny hats, bells on cows, alpine horns, etc.

Being neutral, it is also the home to many NGOs and international orgs like CERN, some of which also have good PR. Others, like FIFA, are shitty. But, FIFA's shittiness doesn't really reflect on Switzerland too much -- it's not like Switzerland is protecting their corruption -- but neither are they investigating them.

A lot of people don't know about some of the shittiness inside Switzerland, like the whole black sheep anti-outsider campaign, or how they nearly ditched the EU because the EU wouldn't allow them to enact their racist laws.

At the same time, because Switzerland basically doesn't even have a president, there's no figurehead out there saying objectionable things, or anything even interesting. So, that blank spot allows people to fill it in with whatever they wish Switzerland stood for.

It says democracy perception index down the bottom of the image, Switzerland is known for its direct democracy.

@Remember_the_tooth Switzerland (govt, press, advertising industry, etc.) is excellent at polishing up their turds and showing them off to the world as if they're all super shiny. And it works, as we can see. @Eyekaytee

Some dudes really like watches idk

I think at least some of it is based on what people expect vs. what the country actually does. Israel talks about freedom and democracy, then kills Palestinians for sport. Russia's lies are so obvious that it's not like they're even trying to be deceptive.

So, Israel is worse than people thought it was, whereas Russia's exactly as bad as people expected.

The BRIC nations have been subject to sustained negative press in the western world. The English colonial history and everything that flowed from it should place the anglophone world at the bottom of this list but only America seems to be significantly weighed by their recent hegemonic ambitions. People have short memories and don't read history.

It is statistically enough with a very low margin of error. The only thing you may care about is if the distribution is random enough and the values obtained weighed correctly by country and demographic.

It's built up social capital. Canada for decades internationally has been generally on the popular side of conflicts and has done real humanitarian work. Canada has also built up a reputation as a reliable ally, that does what they say they're going to do.

So yeah, as a European with a high opinion of Canada, I think it's deserved despite your internal problems.

I'd say because, in part, we are a developed middle-power country with a stable democracy and educated society. Our trade and foreign policies are quite reasonable towards others; plus our parks and landscapes are bountiful and beautiful ♡

Our flag is also quite distinctive and our leaders tend to be charismatic speakers on the world stage who prefer the rule-of-law. We are fairly progressive, a little socialist, and I think our culture is pretty neat too ♡

1. People don't know too much about Canada.
2. Canada is the constant victim of bullying from the USA so people feel sorry for Canada.
3. Canada has a lot of good tourist PR out there, and Canada's tourism tends to be about natural places, which very few people find objectionable (compare that to say Carnival in Rio which some people might think is too naughty)
4. The UK has been the aggressor in plenty of wars, but since Canada became its own country, it hasn't really been. It has joined on to wars started by the UK or the US, but isn't much of a warmongering country.
5. People don't know about how very environmentally unfriendly Canada is in many ways, from the tar sands, to individual energy use, etc. So, Canadians avoid that damage.
6. In any way that Canada is bad, the US is almost always worse, so any time there's a comparison Canada looks better.
7. In general, Canada has been relatively friendly to immigration compared to many other countries. ...

Interesting how cultural export seems to be extremely important in perceptions

It's pretty clear Israel needs to start exporting maple syrup and cute pokemon like cartoons asap 🤣

In Europe at least, there's a lot of historical respect. Canadians fought and died in major wars an ocean away.

NZ should be above us

The genuinely kind and friendly Australians make up for the shitbags a hundred fold.

And I say this as someone with generally negative interactions with Australians.

People just assume they are British so you are safe