Friday, 31 August 2018

Decidedly not English


What can I say, it's been an English kinda month. A whole season, in fact, as my time here ticks over the three month mark.

A whole three months of offending British sensibilities, translating communication attempts that 'beat around the bush' and making enemies both on public transport and in the workplace.

I've been thinking recently, I thought I was English before - after all, it's my ethnicity and cultural heritage. But I am, decidedly not. 

Getting more localised, Londoner I am not. Yet.

First of all I need to give you my interpretation of what being English means:

1. Massive amounts of people pleasing. You will never hear an English person let on that they are unhappy with you leaving the teabag in their sink, for example (and no I never do that). You will never hear an English person tell you that they want to go home as that's their last drink, when you have just ordered a large Long Island Ice Tea (yes, I do this), and you are going home together. You will rarely hear an English person tell you to do something directly, even when they are in the middle of delivering devastating news e.g. 'erm, so would you, you know, be OK with moving out in ten days?' (This happened to me when my flatmate wanted her boyfriend to move in)

Moving on...

2. Hello postal service. Greetings, Snail Mail. Make friends with your Mailman / Woman. I had the displeasure of opening another account with HSBC (a business one). And I had to register for VAT (GST). I received a total of four envelopes preparing me for the fact that I would be registered for the Taxman / Woman. It went something like... "Dear Albino Kiwi, we have registered you, be prepared for the preparation." "Be prepared for the registration." 

I'm sure you get it. Tedious. Uneccesarily slow. Unnecessarily paranoid of email and hacking. Maybe I'm too attached to my Gmail?

3. My accent. It is miles apart (oh gawd I've left the metric system already). But seriously, some people here have no frigging idea what I am saying. England interprets the English language completely differently from the Antipodes. My vowels are still weird. I still can't ask for a pen without getting confused looks. 

So I guess those are some of my initial impressions of what it means to be English. 

What do we have in common? A sense of hospitality. I have been treated like a Queen in newfound friend's homes. 

That's once I get inside the door. If I'm lucky. 

I was stuck next to an old man on a bus the other day, trapped by the window. Said scuse me and tried to get out at my stop. He didn't move so I squeezed past, tripped over his feet and then stepped on one of them. 

"What the fuck was that?!?" He exclaimed, spittle flying out of his mouth in rage. 

"I'm so sorry sir, I didn't mean to, are you OK?"

[WTFery I just tripped over you because you didn't get out of my way]

"Are you drunk? How dare you?"

Of course I wasn't drunk. If I was drunk I would have been ubering. 

"I'm so sorry," etc etc and much embarrassment and shame. 

And this, would never happen in New Zealand. 

I have never met such self-entitled folk in NZ. 

So. To summarise. I am not as English as once thought. 

The culture I come from is a straight-up one and we never treat strangers like that. 

Or at least I hope. 

It's good to get some identity behind this crazy path of the Albino Kiwi. And surprising, though not unpleasant, to learn that my supposedly British culture can be distinguished from where it originated from in the 1800's. 

Heh. You learn something new every day. 

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