Come on. I'm Russian, and I was shocked when I came to the UK because I had never seen people drink so much vodka before. Maybe I just hadn't lived in student halls...  I have seen a live bear only in the Zoo anyway.

Being a Russian girl whose mum is teaching Latin American literature at the university, I've always a different picture of Latin America from what most Russian people have. It was greatly influenced by Márquez and Cortázar. Yet, it was still another world for me, some sort of a scary wonderland... I was a teenager, you know. A very different side of Latin America that everybody in Russia knows is soap operas :) They played them on the TV during all the 90s! Most of them were Mexican but they came from very different Latin countries. My grandma was watching something called <em>Manuela</em> when I was, like, 4 or 5, and I still remember the characters...

Estoy de acuerdo contigo. Pienso que los estereotipos, sin duda, son resultado de la ignorancia. Pasa en mi país también, claro. Vivo en Argentina y todos me dicen.. ¿Entonces bailas tango? ¿Entonces comes asado? ¿Entonces tomas mate? Nunca probé el mate en toda mi vida, soy vegetariana y nunca aprendí a bailar tango. Hay todo tipo de personas en todos lados. Más allá de la cultura, o de la región geográfica en la que nos situemos, siempre hay estereotipos. Muchas veces los medios de comunicación masivos contribuyen a ello. Pero, aún si estos no existieran, por supuesto seguirían existiendo los estereotipos. Nada mejor que viajar uno, conocer uno y sacar las propias conclusiones. Incluso esas conclusiones pueden ser erróneas, siempre vemos una parte de la realidad. Buen artículo.