Tuesday, October 28, 2008

How Long Does it Take to Fall in Love with a Country?

Perhaps it's the cumulative effect of my exploratory journeys across the land in which I now reside that have enflamed in me something resembling a fondness for this strange and complex island or maybe I'm just getting used to it but...

I'm actually starting to feel like I like it here.

Living and working London has been one thing but in the past 6 months I've been to Wales, Scotland, York, Stratford, Derbyshire, Brighton and Liverpool.

In London I've managed to see Hampton Court, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, The Thames, The London Eye, Brick Lane, Oxford Street, Covent Garden, The Tate Modern Art Gallery, The Tate Britain Art Gallery, The Natural History Museum, The British Museum, Somerset House, Soho, Greenwich and Greenwich Park, Canary Wharf, Borough Market, The National Portrait Gallery, St. James' Park, Hyde Park, seen the Changing of the Guard...been to the Globe Theatre...

and the list goes on but..

...it's only in the last week or two that I've actually started to enjoy living here.

I think a huge part of it is working at this school and feeling like I'm starting to get this teaching thing figured out. I came home a week ago on a high (which I wrote about on this blog) and I haven't really felt the old negativity since.

I can now navigate London with out anxiety. I know the lay of the land - it doesn't seem so confusing, claustrophobic, cramped and dull as it once did. I don't feel so claustrophobic in general.

I wrote numerous posts about how crowded this country is and how, for some reason, the Brits have to put fences, hedges, and what not in the line of sight at all times. The result is you can literally never see farther than 100 feet. Watch any British TV show - that's how it looks. I always assumed they were filming in some quaint area of the country. That's everywhere. Also - all pubs, stores and restaurants are tiny compared to Canada. I'm now starting to understand the British love of the "cozy." Everything is so small that you start to treasure a warm quiet spot. The result is I'm starting to feel at home.

I've also gotten used to the architecture. This country is full of brick. Everything is hard, dark, echoey, cold, loud and looks somewhat worse for wear. To be blunt - a lot of it is not that pretty (though I've discovered that much of it is). I did't like all the hard brick and stone for a long time. It's not that comfy feeling to a Canadian. I've gotten used to it now and I actually enjoy the good parts of it.


Above: Clapham High Street. Not too far from me. Typical looking street.

I no longer stare at the way people dress with amazement. I mean, compared to Canada or the US people here dress really strangely. Those who are "stylish" are off the charts compared to Canada and then there's the strange national obsession with the drab, tweed, hats...hard to explain but I found the dress here bizarre for ages.




I now have a feeling for pop references and politics. This might not sound like much but think of how many times you talk about a famous TV program, film or politician in a day. Remove 60% of your knowledge of that stuff and see how you feel. I tried to glean information about it from the news rags and gossip columns they have here but it's all very distorted. Keep in mind they have THE most blatantly biased news papers in the universe here as well. They don't worry about neutrality as much as in North America. Some (The Daily Mail) are downright fascist leaning. I am now starting to get comedians references to people and events - which makes them much more funny!

Accents: I can understand most accents now. I've picked up on most common idioms so I have some sort of idea as to what people say and mean. I'm telling you - it ain't easy in this country.

I've gotten a better handle on the people of this country. Especially after travelling around it. How can such a small island have such a HUGE number of cultures and classes? It's amazing and confounding! First of all I'd like to address the concept that the British are quiet. They are not. Even they think they are...but they're wrong. The Brits are WAY louder than Canadians. For instance - there's a shouting match going on outside in the street at the moment. The Brits talk more, use more words, and are all around more chatty than Canadians. Once you get into the upper classes the repression gets more severe and they definitely get quieter but as you go down the ladder...oh boy. There's can't be anyone in North America that can compare with the sheer volume and verbal aggressiveness of the working class British. Just can't see it. People will get in peoples face here like nothing I've seen.

Something about travelling and meeting people from different areas has given me an appreciation for the regional differences that exist. There really are MASSIVELY different cultures which exist beside each other within this country. To be honest, I don't know how the country actually holds together. We call Canada a country of two solitudes because we have two different cultures (English and French)? This must be the country of 1000 solitudes then.

The Brits are constantly racked with doubt about national identity. 'What does it mean to be British?' they ask. They no longer run an empire and they are now an extremely multicultural society. I was surprised to find they are as confused about being British as Canadians are about being Canadian. (Funnily enough, the Scots and the Welsh have no such problems.) How does this fractured society hold together? I suppose it was the class system upon which it was built which held it together. That system still exists. People are classified by accent, culture, and where they live in a way that we Canadians can't really grasp until we've been here for awhile. Is it love of God and Queen? I don't really know except that in a country so much anger seems aimed across the classes....everyone considers them self a part of the country.

I suppose it's the shared history that creates the connection. The HISTORY! People here can routinely tell you the history of their family, a building, or a product. They can build context for everything. I've never been to interested in history much farther back than WWII but this place... how can there be so much history, so many fascinating places, so many key events and figures of the Western world crammed into such a minuscule place. It's incredible. It's won me over. I had an anti-English bias when looking at history as I looked at it as a method of cultural oppression. We in Canada, for instance, weren't even able to study our own history until the 60's or 70's. Now that I've been here and have seen so many amazing sites... and it's not just the history of Kings - it's the history and development of all the people of this land that's so fascinating. The Roman Empire, The Anglo-Saxons, the Celts, Scots, Druids, the Normans...these aren't abstract concepts here. You can SEE the things they built, hear the accents they left behind, and engage in the cultures that developed over the last 2000 plus years. Amazing.

It's the modern Britain that I'm coming to grips with though. The tendency for people here to be negative and to put down their own country is something I've found confusing. I suppose it's the fact that many people here have taken a shit kicking for a long time that causes this. Some of it is also the "don't be soft" culture. Men can't say they like each other so they say as far to the opposite as they can to express affection. I've gotten used to the differences in products, foods, TV and film. At first I didn't like them, found them alien and was uninterested. Now I'll miss my Marks and Spencers, curries, TV shows, celebrities, brand names, tubes and trains and everything else when I leave. And the music! I mean the music here is incredible. I'm only peripherally involved in the music scene here and I can't get over it. There's also the theatre of course. Amazing - the sheer volume of it. Though I'd put the best of Canadian against the best of the Brits any day!

I now fear that when I go back to Canada I'll pine for Britain. How weird is that?

4 comments:

babagenouche said...

What an amazing and insightful post. Bill Bryson, eat your heart out!

Unknown said...

you soft get. Fall in love? Don't be so bloody soft lad ;-) xx

Unknown said...

joking aside, strange how I have some similar feelings about the US, love it how people aren't afraid to express their passion / liking for something / somebody by saying the love it / him / her whereas we tend to become emotional retards and excuse ourselves whenever we accidentally let ourselves go. Having said that I disliked the insincerity of saying everything was 'awesome' when it was actually quite ordinary or mediocre. I felt more alien in the US than in countries I've lived where I didn't speak the language, and had more linguistic misunderstandings there.
And now I do kind of pine for some things about the US, and seeing Obama get elected was just extra special, feeling a sort of brotherhood (not the right word but that's maybe cos it's too emotional and schmaltzy for a brit!) with who it would affect in terms of internal US politics, knowing some of the folk who had been actively getting the vote out for him. I even got nostalgic when watching the wire for f*cks sake! I don't, however miss the car culture, being shouted at for riding a bike, and people whining about spending their tax dollars on perfectly reasonable social initiatives, but then again we have our own brand of self interested chelsea tractor drivers here too.

Edukator said...

It's a weird thing this changing countries. I now have a great empathy for anyone who immigrates to another nation.

Go Barrack! I've posted his speech on my site!