France! - for Literature/Theater, Music, Fine Arts, Food and Drink, Architecture, Politics and Cultural Holidays/Festivals.

US for Television and Cinema

I don't really know anything about sports and don't really care about them either, so I'll leave that blank.

Italy does come in a close second for Music, Fine Arts, Food and Drink and Architecture though...

Television: US
Cinema: US
Literature/Theatre: Germany
Music: UK
Fine Arts: China
Food & Drink: Austria-Hungary
Architecture: Austria-Hungary
Politics: China
Sports: UK
Cultural Holidays/Festivals: Russia

My picks:

1. Television: ENGLAND

Close call between the US and England, but I watch more Documentaries and mini series than most other things...and the BBC has the best of both of those, with great docs and excellent mini series and adaptations, I've yet to be disappointed by a BBC adaptation of any literary series I like...and the fact the BBC here in the US now shows Star Trek: TNG seals it.

2. Cinema: UNITED STATES

Not even close...for all the bad ones there have been, there have just been too many good movies made in Americans and by Americans...

3. Literature: ENGLAND

Again, not even close--for as much as I like Twain and Co., and as awesome as Dante and Virgil can be...like I'm going to pass on Milton, D.H. Lawrence, Dickens, the Brownings, Keats, Byron, Marlowe, Eliots George and T.S...and then that guy from *Stratford* (Anonymous my ass...) ;)

4. Music: GERMANY

I listen to mostly classical anyway, so with Mendelssohn, Bach, Lizst, Beethoven, and Mozart--Wikipedia gives him to Austria and Germany, so I'm counting him--I'll take Deutschland.

5. Fine Arts: ITALY

Michaelangelo, da Vinci, and Picasso, and the Roman artists are enough for me to give this category to Italians.

6. Food and Drink: ITALY

I don't eat that much...but Italian always sounds good and rarely disappoints, and ITaly's supposed to be famous for good drinks as well...

7. Architecture: ITALY

Mostly just because of Roman architecture, which the West owes so much to and has been sturdy enough to stand for 2,000+ years in places...

8. Politics: ENGLAND

Maybe its a "Grass is always greener on the other side of the Pond" thing, but English politics--or at least some of their politicians--seem more in line with my way of thinking than the Far-Left Pelosis and Putins and the Far-Right Perry's and TCs here in the US, and with Hobbes, Locke, and Mill all there on the theory side, they win out.

9. Sports: UNITED STATES

This and Liteterature forn England were the easiest picks for me; MLB, NFL, and the NHL, and I'm a happy guy...even when my Ducks lose 3-1 in a game they should've won! Mets and baseball in the spring and summer, 49ers and NFL football in the fall and winter, and the Ducks and hockey from fall to spring, bridging the gap...sorry, but I'll take these leageus over a soccer league any day...rooting for Team USA every four years to win just one game and make the US not look like a total embarassment atheletically is enough for me there. :)

10. Holidays: UNITED STATES

I'm happy with our holidays...so why should I wish to switch to anyone else's? (Besides, 4th of July weekend is AWESOME...and if I voted for England here, it might be more of a bummer.) ;)

So 3 for England, the US, and Italy each, 1 for Germany...

And goose eggs for everone else? :p

@Putin:

UK for music I get...

But by "Obi is an major English major nerd" law, I must ask...

German lit over all of English lit?

Goethe, sure...but who else can stand up to the stable of writers the UK brings?

Brecht, Brothers Grimm, Herder, Schiller, Heine, Hesse, Novalis, Mann, Roth, Gunter Grass, etc.

Mainly because German literature inspired me quite a lot. I know Britain might be better, but in terms of what I enjoy, nothing can compare to the Brothers Grimm and Schiller, in particular. Herder has transformed my views on a lot of things.

Ok not to run over your Fine Arts reasoning, but Picasso was Spanish.

^
...Yes he was...epic cultural fail on my part. LOL

Oh well...Mike and Leo still take it for Italy for me, they're still enough, I'm not a big fine arts person--I dunno, I could never draw as a kid and never got into it, books and later music were always more appealing and accessible--so Italy still wins with thwat limited knowledge (apparently) as I have of that field. :)

@PutinL

-Brecht I like...not nearly as much as Beckett or Stoppard, but I like him...

-Brothers Grimm...meh...no real opinion one way or another

-Herder...have to admit I don't know him

-Interestingly, I know Schiller, but almost entirely through references made by writers like Dostoyevsky, who seems to love to allude to Schiller, Shakespeare, and the Bible (really, so far in "Brothers Karamazov," almost every literature reference comes from one of the three) so he seems like a pretty good poet, but I haven't read too much of him by himself and not connected with another work

-Heine...nope, don't know him

-Ditto the rest of that pack, though Roth sounds familiar, I might be thinking of a different Roth (that was actually my family's name via my grandfather on my mother's side before she was married.)

Roth is technically Austrian so that doesn't count. He wrote Radetsky March.

You like Shakespeare and classical music, so I'd imagine you'd love everything Schiller ever wrote, since he was influenced by Shakespeare and influenced plenty of classical music. Wallenstein has to be my favorite.

Oh thank God for another high-brow(errrrrr insipid) obi thread!

I was getting SO exasperated with all of the lively political commentary around here.

Thanks for the trollinjg bump, mapleleaf...without such bumps, my threads might even go unanswered!

Television: UK. I love britcoms unreasonably. And QI.
Cinema: US
Literature/Theatre: US, but I'd be giving up a lot. Thing is, my favourite books are American, and Musicals are more American than British. But I'd definitely be sad to give it all up.
Music: That's tricky, I actually don't know.
Fine arts: Japan but yeah, giving up a lot there too.
Food and Drink: Aaaah. It's a coin toss between China and Italy. And I'm not talking about the fake Americanized stuff with either. Actually authentic Chinese food and Italian food.
Architecture: Don't really know a lot about it, but there are a lot of good choices. Might actually go with Turkey for that one.
Politics: Don't really know, all those countries kinda give me a headache in terms of politics.
Sports: US, Hockey and only hockey.
Holidays: Don't actually know enough, to make an informed choice but at the very least, not US holidays. You guys celebrate Thanksgiving more than a month late. Seriously what the hell?

Hey, that way we have a holiday for the last three months:

October has Halloween...
November has Thanksgiving...

And December has Christmas for most, Channukah for some, Kwanzaa for some more, Winter Solstice for those really against the cultural grain, as it were...

And even if you want to say "Fuck it" to all of those religious/spiritual holidays--never mind how secular they are anyway--you can still enjoy Obi's Birthday, erm, New Years Eve!

;)

(Why? When do you celebrate it?)

Early October. Canadian Thanksgiving falls on the second Monday in October, but really because the Monday is a holiday, Thanksgiving tends to spread itself out across the entire long weekend.

I like to joke with my American friends that at least part of the reason why Canada does it earlier is because a harvest festival in Late November in Canada would be pretty silly. All the crops would already be dead and buried under several feet of snow.

Television: US (Comedy Central and Discovery Channel)
Cinema: US (won by sheer numbers)
Literature/Theatre: Russia (Gogol, Solzhenitsyn, Chekhov, Zamyatin, Yefremov)
Music: UK (most difficult cathegory along with literature)
Fine Arts: France ((post)impressionism and most of modern styles that followed)
Food & Drink: Austria-Hungary (Pilsner×Tokay, vodka, Becherovka, goulash...)
Architecture: Austria-Hungary (Prague, Vienna, Budapest, castles, chateaus)
Politics: Germany (Federal Parliamentary Republic, gets some shit done)
Sports: USA (NHL, PGA)
Cultural Holidays/Festivals: Germany (Oktoberfest!)

3 USA, 2 Germany and A-H, 1 UK, France, Russia

China, Japan and Italy would have some second places though.
Turkey is lacking. There is quality but others are better.

Nice thread, obi! Although, I think some of the categories, especially the Cinema category, will be unfairly affected by bias. Most English native speakers will veer towards America for Cinema because of the unrivalled influence/power of Hollywood to which no other national cinema can compete. Anyway, that said, here are my answers:

Television: UK: Dramas, as obi says, but also for the sense of humour.
Cinema: (US by default) Japan: to offer something different, Japanese horror is great and often provides the inspiration for Hollywood horrors, Japan also has great crime thrillers and, of course, the amazing Studio Ghibli.
Literature/Theatre: Germany
Music: UK
Fine Arts: Germany
Food & Drink: UK: a melting pot of culture and has everything from European to Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, everything, everything.
Architecture: Turkey: Islamic architecture is so beautiful and impressive.
Politics: Germany
Sports: UK
Cultural Holidays/Festivals: India

How is India a country? I'm sure you meant the British Empire, right?

And Japan seond in Cinema is good, it would be a Japan/France split in my case.

But voting for your own country's politics? Unheard of :)

@ulytau: Well, I know obi didn't specify India as a 'legal' option for this game but I figured if we can have USA, Japan, and China as options then we can India too. If it was a case of the British Empire than depending on how far you go back the USA might not have its own category either :P

Yup, the US caveat is there! And since Turkey replaced Byzantines as successors to Roman Empire, all European power except for Russia are subsets of Turkey :)