Fair enough but these cultural elements do not exist to any reasonable extent in the US exception chupa chus. How can Gypsies which is an ethnic group that originated in India and exists all over Europe be Spanish culture? Did you mean to say that Gypsie culture is Spanish culture? That would make more sense to me.

The origin of gypsies is still uncertain. They seem to have been traced back to Egypt (hence their name "gypsy", short for "egyptian"), but I had never heard before the Indian theory.

Gypsy has never been the same as spanish culture, but spanish culture include a lot of the gypsy, mainly the southern one, where they have mostly integrated in the community to a level when you cannot tell wether flamenco and the rest of the southern music, for example, are just andalusian or gypsy.

The high number of gypsies in our country (time ago they were estimated in 500.000), and their major concentration in the south have made some mixed cultures that have became part of the spanish culture, even with slang, like "chungo", "peluco", "pasma", "payo", etc..

I guess other countries with less gypsy population didn't have this, and others have had a much higher influence like Romania.

MadridMan: A thousand pardons. I'm sorry to have participated in a discussion that strayed so far from la Sueca's initial query. I also feel that I owe apologies to la Sueca, to OsoMajor and to Ignacio. I'll try not to get embroiled in such a discussion in the future.

This thread wouldn't of lasted more then a day if we did not start talking about real issues rather then arguin wether not blonde hair is appropiate for Spain we have al ready answered her query we can talk about real cultural and world issues now.

Eddie:

I, for one, don't feel you need to apoogize to me. I enjoyed the exchange of opinions.

As for me, I can't see the reason for feeling disturbed (with me), assuming you are, judging by your (sarcastic?) comment.

No need to apologize, but thanks for the thought! I, like Ignacio, have also enjoyed reading the exchange of opinions.

FYI- Not that it’s a “real” issue, but I tried putting some red highlights in my hair which has left it slightly pink. It actually looks kind of cool…haha.

Thanks for all your responses and viewpoints!
:p

Quintos quote: Fair enough but these cultural elements do not exist to any reasonable extent in the US exception chupa chus. How can Gypsies which is an ethnic group that originated in India and exists all over Europe be Spanish culture? Did you mean to say that Gypsie culture is Spanish culture? That would make more sense to me.

Ignacio quote:
Gypsy has never been the same as spanish culture, but spanish culture include a lot of the gypsy, mainly the southern one, where they have mostly integrated in the community to a level when you cannot tell wether flamenco and the rest of the southern music, for example, are just andalusian or gypsy.

You both missed the point I was trying to make. My mention of gypsies was to get Quintos to take the bait....and of course...he did! My list of so-called Spanish cultural examples was as absurd as Quintos' cultural examples of America.

Eddie no need to apologize. I got a kick out of your responses. Im done with this thread.

Numbers:

Spaniards by his natural hair colour:

Blondes: 4´9%
Brown (all tones): 37´1%
Black: 57´5%
Red: 0.05%

Well, you can see: 1 / 20 is blonde and 6 /10 black haired.

Source: "Muy interesante".

It doesn't seem to be a serious publication to me.

Well, other source, numbers from "El Mundo":

"3 | El rubio en cifras. Si sólo el 7% de los españoles es rubio natural (el 57% es castaño, el 26% moreno, el 3% pelirrojo y el 10% restante moreno y castaño claros), ¿cómo es posible, pues, ver tanto dorado por nuestras ciudades? Es fácil, el estudio Pantene revela que dos de cada tres españolas (un 85%) se tiñe habitualmente; y una de cada tres lo hace de rubio. España es el país europeo en el que las mujeres se cambian más de color, la mayoría entre los 25 y los 54 años y va in crescendo. Según L’Oréal Professionnel, una de las marcas de tintes más importantes, en los últimos 10 años se ha duplicado el porcentaje de mujeres que dan color a sus cabellos. Después de nosotras, son las italianas las que más se tiñen (65%). Si cruzamos el charco nos encontramos un panorama parecido: el 62% de las argentinas tira del rubio de bote y una de cada tres estadounidenses luce una cabellera dorada, aunque los ricitos de oro son naturales sólo en el 20% de su población"