I need to interview someone of a different culture

Yes, yes, yes I do know that. Tell you what, you help the student find the appropriate source for different culture. I also have a pretty good idea of how the rest of the world views the US. All you have to do is read a country's newspaper and it becomes crystal clear. I don't think the posters question was "Hey, which country is the best", I believe he is looking for a region where culture differs greatly from his 'regular' American life. Since American citizens are from all countries around the world, and the culture of all those countries has an impact on American life, he needs to seek out something very different and relatively unchanged. It's an opinion, not a proclamation.

I respectfully disagree. I have a German brother in law. He has now lived in three places in Canada and could give you reams of differences between back home and his new home. Food, vacation days, beer, wine, education systems, medical system, driving, humour, history, heroes, politics, clothing, hobbies, language, multi-culturalism...
I remember being on a ferry with a bunch of Germans, most had met that day, on the boat. They were playing a pick-up card game. They taught me the ropes and the name, but it's been a while, I've forgotten. Regardless, they sat around the table, talking, laughing, playing the games and taking shots of schnapps. If one of them moved here, he'd be hard pressed to find that atmosphere. (The ferry is a favourite german destination, that's why there were so many on the boat.)
To meet a bunch of strangers and follow a routine so normal at home would be kinda rare here. Like the old Italian men who play bocce or Indians with cricket, pitches can be found pretty commonly there, but here it's a Sunday date at one or two specific places.
I remember listening to a S.A. woman on the radio. She started a business to help other South Africans adjust to living here. One area of contention was shopping for food, because packaging and name brands were so different. In Canada, you buy groceries at the Superstore, not a corner butcher or baker. Those are more specialty stores, or at least they are in the west where I live..
Our park systems are different, so then are the games we play. Our education and apprentice system is vastly different than Germany. Our weather temperatures are more severe than most of US but we share common language, for the most part. Australia has a very similar government but has very different reference points, beyond the cliches.
Culture is all the little things you don't think about to often, but if you move, you'd soon miss 'em.

I sat with some friends from three different countries discussing bread.The Norwegian lady talked dreamly about LEFSA I do not think it is that great.
The German did not even know what it is.
I like our slightly sweet bread, which the Norwegeian lady also likes.
The German did not like it all.

Different nations have different bread and I think we connect it with home, mother and security.

I think it would be much more interesting to pick one descendent in USA - not first generation - and ask about traditions and what they see as culture.
The find a person in the country where they came from and see what traditions and culture is the same and what has changed.

What is typical Lutheran? At least mostly of Norwegian descendent in USA.
'--continues to search for the word "coffee" in the bible
--visualizes manna as miniature LEFSA -
--thinks the Annual Lutefisk Supper is a Lutheran Feast Day and consider John Deere Day a church event
--Assumes that lutefisk and lefse are directly descended from the fish and five loafs of bread at the Sea of Galilee.
--can pronounce names that begin with Bj and Kn
--has a last name that ends in ...son, sen, nes, berg, holm or land
--thinks Pina Colada is one of Columbus ships.

I have a friend who was born in Denmark. She loves salty black licorice. Most of us spit it out within seconds and never go back for seconds.
I remember going to Ireland when I was a kid. One night I slept over at my great aunts house. I awoke that morning to the smell of fresh bread. I asked my aunt if my mom had made it. She laughed and asked me who I thought had taught my mom to bake bread...

Spunk is the most famous brand of the Danish variety. The soft kind of salty licorice is mainly from the Netherlands (and Germany).

Did you not mention you like Pippi Longstocking?
The word "Spunk" is in the book Pippi in Taka-Tuka-Land.
Pippi made up the word herself

I like "salmiak", that's liquorice with ammonium salt.

Y'know, I honestly think that the Brits have now overtaken the yanks in the po-faced race.
You see it in all walks of life now, and it is a real shame. Why have a titter when one can get uppity about something.

(Walks away, shaking head)

Pippi likes the taste of spunk, is that right?

No, not I know of. She made up the word and was curious about who this word would fit. Ends up with a metallic shining beatle.

It is not 'po-faced' to object to crude and stupid attempts at humour that are unfunny and malicious and untrue. I get it that you are butthurt because you got called on your racist joke about France. I get it that you feel stupid about your dumb ignorant remark. Perhaps you could now just pour yourself a nice tall glass of STFU?

When you say something funny I'll laugh. And as Contrex says, there's nothing po-faced about hating racism.

What is po-faced??

I am tempted to jump in here... po-faced is a typically British & Commonwealth English expression which seems to be gradually seeping into the wider Anglosphere. Po is an English abbreviation, in use since the 1880s, of the French pot de chambre, or chamber pot. A po-faced person sports the look of absurd dignity and humourlessness that is perfectly ridiculed by calling it po-faced.

I got that there was an insult made, funny or not, about the French, but I don't understand, truthfully, what was somehow racist about it. The french are a race?

That can be rectified if your wife is willing to throw you in the stock tank, Farmer.

I've read somewhere that there isn't a French race in the US because there aren't enough French-affiliated people here. Francophone it could be ....

French-affiliated may be the key term. According to the census bureau, about 15 million Americans have identified themselves as being of French descent. There is (was?) a significant population of French speakers in New England, especially in Maine (the name of which is of French origin), but no longer Francophone. There are many, many place names of French origin in the valleys of the Illinois and the upper Mississippi Rivers. Illinois is itself the French version of a name given that tribe by the Algonquian-speaking people of Canada three and four hundred years ago. What small French-speaking populations there were there at the beginning of the 19th century have been entirely absorbed. (Interestingly, the native English-speakers of southern Illinois and southeast Missouri pronounce St. Louis as "Sant Louis" rather than the typical American Saint Louis of Saint Louie. "Sant Louis" is reminiscent of the French pronunciation.)

The largest and longest-lived Francophone community of the United States were the Cajuns of Louisiana. Cajun is a corruption of the French pronunciation of Acadien. The French-speakers of Acadie were expelled after the Seven Years War as being potentially subversive and were transported to the French colony of Louisiana. They became a rather insular society, speaking French among themselves, and having little to do with the life of the English-speaking community which grew up there in the wake of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In the 1920s, and 1930s, especially under the influence of Governor and then Senator Huey Long, the use of the French language was suppressed in Louisiana. Although children continued to speak Cajun French at home, they were usually illiterate in French because English was the only language they were allowed to use in schools. The language rapidly began to die. There have been attempts to revive it, but i don't think there is much interest among the young. Interestingly, most of the Cajuns i have ever known, even though they didn't really speak French, would invariably count in French. I've even seen English-speakers count out their wages in French, although they themselves were not speakers of French. I wonder if there are other survivals.

People make sly remarks, funny or not, based on data or not, about americans all the time. A toothy kind of snaggle. I didn't take Lordy's inserted zing as other than a jab, much like many other jabs, except 'you are there', as the old tv show was titled.