No, I did all my education in Spain and starting time was 8-9am with a 1-3pm lunch break. About half of the kids going home for lunch and back to school.
Repeatedly calling all the people in a country as lazy and unproductive is not an innocent move. Is parroting the racist slogans what other people said since decades whereas choosing to be blind to the easily verifiable facts. Therefore can be traced easily to drink from the same racist fountains, even if is of a soft, non-conscious type.
Dehumanization is a necessary previous step for racism.
From there is easily escalated to "they don't deserve it" and "they must be punished for it" and to "he tried to resist and I don't care if this hispanic scum can breathe (because in my mind is just a parasite)". Can you see the pattern?
Lots of people in Spain are as white as the whitest people that you can find in USA. I guarantee that you couldn't guess in photos by their look, who will be classified as "hispanic" and who will be classified as "white/caucasian" in the frontier.
Anyone who questions whether it’s still topical in Spain need only read the news where people fret about losing the siesta or complain that their work doesn’t allow it, or enshrine it into law, or proudly announce that the ‘stereotype’ is gone and Spaniards are now like the rest of Europe.
Fake news. I never had seen that in my life.
> or complain that their work doesn’t allow it,
Again, fake news. My advice would be to stop reading tabloids.
> or enshrine it into law,
Maybe I am living in a parallel reality. Can you point here to a single current spanish law specifically about "the right to take a nap" in Spain?
> or proudly announce that the ‘stereotype’ is gone and spaniards are now like the rest of Europe
Nobody is doing this. This cliché was gone 100 years ago.
Talking about how spaniards "love their siestas" is exactly the same as making jokes about blacks, fried chicken and watermelons. Is stupid, tags you as ignorant, is slightly racist, and frankly, after a while it becames pretty annoying.
[1] And by the way, Spaniards aren't, never will be, and don't want to be, like "the rest of Europe". We speak the second language in the world with more native speakers after Chinese, and we have historical, cultural and blood links with three continents: North and South America, Africa, the old Europe, and the Mediterranean World that the rest of Europe don't have (Italy or Portugal are the closest in this sense), and sometimes it seems that it can't understand or respect.
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2015/07/21/valencia/1437504076_40327...
more of a recommendation or advisory than a guarantee.
Obviously this struck a nerve, and I'm sorry about that. I always considered the siesta a positive aspect of the culture. Whether you would use it to nap, to spend time with family, or to exercise, I think it would show a good sense of balance with the demands of workplace culture. Then again, I'm pretty stoked about fried chicken and watermelon, and yet I know how much stereotypes can be used as a synecdoche to dehumanize people. So, please accept my apology.
I would consider a nap in the middle of the day far from laziness, but an enabler of great productivity. I'm (edit: covetous) of siestas.