Spaniards Annoyed At Foreign Coverage
Foreign media, however, have made much of Rajoy's speech. U.S. and British headlines say "Adios, Siesta!" or "Time to Wake Up!" — alongside stock photos of fat men snoozing, or even bullfighters sleeping on benches.
"A big fat lazy slob sleeping a siesta! It's an offensive image — but it's an image people outside of Spain have of Spain," says Matthew Bennett, editor of the website The Spain Report. "It's a stereotype of Spain, along with bulls and flamenco and tortilla and sangria — like the English and rain and umbrellas and bowler hats. There's no way of getting rid of these historical stereotypes — but they do grate with Spaniards, because they work very hard."
Spaniards typically work longer hours, and sleep less, on average, than other Europeans. While Rajoy's initial speech grabbed few headlines at home, the foreign media's subsequent coverage of it did.
"British headlines say Rajoy wants to scrap 3-hour naps," wrote Spain's conservative ABC daily. "The international press quips: Rajoy wants to scrap the siesta," was the headline on El PaÃs, Spain's leading newspaper.
Bennett says he's been fielding calls all week from foreign journalists asking him to explain the importance of the siesta to Spaniards. But he says most Spaniards simply don't take one. They run errands, have lunch or work straight through their mid-afternoon break, but are still expected to work late too, and thus don't get home until 8 or 9 p.m.
"Everybody kind of idealizes European working hours, and [they] say, 'My goodness, if we finished at five or six [o'clock], we could have like three hours off every evening to do other stuff that's not work,'" he says.
Stuff like fighting bulls, dancing flamenco or drinking sangria on the beach — or so the stereotype goes.
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