Survey finds Hungarians wary of American culture, but keen on Hollywood

Some 40 percent of Hungarians expressed negative feelings when asked about United States culture, a survey by GfK Custom Research published on Thursday said.

Hungary had the third worst opinion of US culture after Greece and Russia among the 20,000 residents of 19 countries asked, GfK Hungaria told MTI, presenting the results of the survey commissioned by the Wall Street Journal Europe.

The best-received cultural items were films and TV productions, with 51 percent of Hungarian respondents favouring them, trailed only by Greek respondents (52 percent). The second item on Hungarians' popularity list was sports, picked by 8 percent as their favourite US cultural commodity, followed by fashion (7 percent) and music (6 percent).

A third of respondents agreed that the US could be least proud of its food culture, and this opinion was shared in a higher percentage by those who had actually visited the country (44 percent).

A majority of people surveyed said the US has had an adverse political impact on the world over the past five years, but this would change in the future under President Obama's term.

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