< Germans Love David Hasselhoff

Germans Love David Hasselhoff/Other

  • Israel itself fits this trope. It's easy to criticize Israel in the mainstream Israeli media (though not as common as is often claimed), and in many countries around the world. Criticism of Israel in the US media, however, will often be equated with pure antisemitism. In part, this is due to the US's prominent Jewish population (especially considering its hovering-around 2% proportion, depending on how you define it) and the US-Israel political alliance that goes back decades.
  • 7-Eleven is a very popular convenience store chain in Japan and Taiwan (in fact, the #1 convenience store chain in both countries). The former having the largest number of stores and the latter having the most per capita. It started as a firm in Texas now a subsidiary of Japanese owned Seven & I Holdings Co--the owner of its Japanese licensee--in 2005. You can find a wide variety of items sold, such as various packaged meals, magazines, and electronics. You can also pay bills, develop photos, and other such service. Don't expect slurpees, though: they had never caught on there.
    • Even more exaggerated in the case of the second-largest chain of convenience store in Japan, Lawson. Lawson was originally from Akron, Ohio, and the Japanese company of the same name was originally its Japanese licensee. Unlike 7-Eleven that still existed in the US, Lawson actually disappeared from the US in the 1980s.
  • Citizens of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas LOVE Wal-Mart. In fact, it is almost considered religious sacrilege NOT to go there when visiting The United States.
    • So do Mexicans. Walmart is more popular in Mexico for buying groceries over smaller supermarkets, which are generally considered to have poorer quality, and some of the smaller supermarket chains are actually state-owned.
  • The American dollar coin. Far more widely used in Ecuador than in the U.S. (Ecuador also uses the American dollar.)
    • And not just any coin but the Sacagawea dollar coin representing a Native American women carrying her child in his back, in fact some people believe it's Ecuadorian coinage as that scene is something you will see more frequently in Ecuador than in the US.
  • Has happened twice with Sudoku. It was first invented in America in 1979, and was pretty obscure. However, in 1986, it achieved popularity in Japan. In 2005, the puzzle as well as the name itself achieved worldwide popularity.
    • Pretty much the same thing happened with Kakuro.
  • Supposedly, many more foreigners than native Japanese climb Mt. Fuji.
  • Friendster is an American company but a vast majority of its users are in Asia. That is, until it recently folded.
    • Orkut originated in the U.S. but was very popular among Brazilians, to the point where their servers were moved to Brazil.
  • Many kinds of crops and livestock have been fundamental to economies far away from their origins. Several Old World species (wheat, sugarcane, grapes, bananas, coffee, cotton, citrus fruits, bananas, cattle and sheep) have been most extensively produced by New World countries (sheep in Australia & New Zealand, cotton in the Deep South, sugar in the Caribbean, etc).
    • Don't forget potatoes, which invert the above by being New World plants popular in the Old World. Native to the mountains of the Andes, we humans spread them across the world because they grow well in cool, wet climates.
    • All that is needed to make something "Hawaiian" is the inclusion of pineapple, even though the fruit only reached the islands in the 1500s and wasn't commercially planted there till 1886
  • There is a little-known fact about the history of rice cookers--the first rice cooker, released by Toshiba in 1956, requires a small amount of water to be poured in the space between the sleeve and the insert to ensure uniform cooking and also act as a kind of timer. Technologically it was rendered obsolete in the following year when Panasonic introduced what is now the basic design for rice cookers worldwide--except Taiwan. Up to this day, Taiwanese knockoffs of Toshiba's 1956 design still dominated the market and is considered the single appliance that identifies Taiwanese cooking--to wit, one can safely assume any young Taiwanese that is going to study overseas will have one in their luggage.
  • Lions. They're just so cool that many nations put them on their national symbols, even when lions have never been present there.
  • The McDonald's McRib is a popular sandwich with a cult following, but in most countries that serve it, it is only served periodically. In Germany, meanwhile, the McRib is so popular (and cheap, considering Germany's rate of pork production), it's the only country to serve the sandwich year round.
  • Thanks to a large immigrant population in America, U.S. automakers opened manufacturing plants in Scandinavia to build American market cars instead of European market cars. This led to local Raggare hot rod culture mirroring America's, and created a massive import market for muscle cars during the 1970s fuel crisis. Today, the largest American car show in the world is Sweden's Power Big Meet.
  • Guam is an island out the Pacific Ocean that's officially owned by the the United States, but it's only a territory, not a state. In fact, there's a lot of US citizens that don't even know Guam exists. However, Guam is seen as a very popular vacation resort in Japan, to the point where Guam actually gets most of its money from Japanese tourists.
  • The Volkswagen Beetle (or Sedan as it was called there) was insanely popular in Mexico, being produced until 2003 long after Germany stopped making them in 1978.
  • A typical Italian joke about the Adriatic seaside is that there are more German tourists than Italian.
  • Cao Cao, the founder of Wei during China's Three Kingdoms period, is historically seen as a horrible, despotic warlord who used emperor Xian as a puppet for political gain (largely, but not entirely, due to the cultural importance of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by someone with a serious favoritism of Shu). Western historians, free from the influences of Chinese culture, are more even-handed. Western consumers of media, who are more familiar with the adaptations like Dynasty Warriors and Three Kingdoms than Romance of the Three Kingdoms itself, often see Cao Cao's love of his subordinates and willingness to accept loyal followers regardless of former station as marks of a benevolent leader while considering the treatment given to Xian extremely favorable for someone with no value but his failed bloodline.
  • The Soviet SKS rifle was adopted by the Soviets for only a few years before being replaced by the more famous AK series and existing rifles were regulated to secondary units or military aid packages. The Chinese found it more aligned with their military doctrine and adopted it alongside the AK, fielding units using both, for 30 years before switching to all AKs during Vietnam.
    • The SKS has lost popularity among US civilians as import restrictions choked supply and caused prices to be comparable to the AK series. In Canada however the SKS is in one the least restricted classes of firearm and is exceptionally cheap thanks to a lack of import bans.
  • Non-historian Americans barely, if at all, remember President Rutherford B. Hayes. If they do remember anything beyond him being president his questionable victory takes the top of the list. The small South American nation of Paraguay however loves the man for ensuring their survival when he moderated a despite between them and Argentina and decided in Paraquay's favor. For this a department (province) that makes up roughly a third of Paraquay (in addition to many other things) is named after him. Historians doubt even Hayes remembered this and believe that he merely approved the proposal of a minor US official.
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