My relationship with my homeland has been always been difficult. I never felt particularly welcome in the region that I grew up in. For one thing the locals noticed that I didn't have the local accent (I'm not sure why actually) which marked me out as a "snob" to them, and anyone who was even a little bit different from the norm in Humberside was fair game.
That sense of being unable to fit in to the place where you grew up, but at the same time realising that it was such a stultifyingly narrow-minded and boring culture that you wouldn't really want to fit into it anyway... it does strange things to a teenage boy.
It gives you a permanent sense of respect for people who are somehow different, and who wilfully choose to plough their own furrow in life, leaving others to take them or leave them. It makes you sniff out and question conformity and cultural conservatism - wherever it may be... and the gay scene is full of it. We like nothing more than oppressing each other.
The sense of your home culture not really liking you and you not really liking it back is, I suspect, the root cause of many linguists' journeys across borders. They go and try to blend in elsewhere, flattering the locals with their gargantuan efforts at integration (You, I wanna be like you... I wanna walk like you, talk like you...).
The reward is the one thing that we never quite got from the place we grew up. Acceptance, belonging, identifying with where we live.
But the process plays cruel tricks on you. Just when you least expect it, something, a picture or a word or something on the TV, reminds you of home.
And wherever you may settle, be it Cologne, with its constant sense of being a bright, sunny morning in spring, or Stockholm with its laid-back Nordic beauty and modernity, or Brussels with its cosy cafés, diplomat-driven Mercedes and dog dirt on the pavements, wherever you are, there are things from home whose absence slowly, slyly makes itself felt.
A bit like slowly getting ill from a vitamin deficiency, it creeps up on you bit by bit and you only notice when it's acute.
For me it's water. The British cities I know best, Hull and London have very obvious rivers running through them or beside them and it's a joy to be in them as a result. There's none here and that hurts. But it's not just that. There's lots to miss from home. There's people who mean "may I help you?", and plentiful, modern cashpoints which are never empty, and non-white faces on the TV, there's safe, non-aggressive driving, supermarkets which are a pleasure to shop in, railway stations which are nice places to be, and Columbia Road Flower Market on a winter Sunday morning. There's the Humber Bridge, Tower Bridge, Marmite, Radio 4, the Royal Festival Hall, the view from the wobbly pedestrian bridge across the Thames, the fact that you don't have to register your domicile with the local authority, or indeed with anyone if you don't want to.
Don't get me wrong. I could just as well run up a list of the bad stuff about Britain, the xenophobic little-England stuff, the yob culture, the bad management at work... I could go on. But I was never going to miss all that, was I?
Posted by Eurodan at November 20, 2004 12:43 AMThere's a world of difference between missing the positive things about the culture you grew up in and the strange "we do things better at home" mentality that I so often encounter.
As you say, this longing for aspects of your home creeps up on you, discretely hiding itself behind the more pleasant aspects of your adopted country waiting for signs of vulnerability when it can leap out and confront you to maximum effect.
I find it strangely reassuring. Every country and culture has its unique strengths and advantages. It's good to be aware that just because you've chosen to live elsewhere, that doesn't mean you hate *everything* about your country of birth.
Many people see appreciation of another culture as a betrayal of their own, their roots, even their identity. Far better to appreciate the wonderful diversity of the world whilst it still lasts.
A common complaint amongst ex-pats is that they have to deal with pointless and obstructive bureaucracy. What most fail to acknowledge is that much of this is simply due to being a migrant.
An understanding of the language, culture, laws, customs and workings of the establishment along with the requirement to prove ones identity and establish rights to various services and privileges are very much taken for granted in one's homeland.
Ex pats tend to forget that life in England can also be very confusing, complicated and bureaucratic for those who were not born there.
Posted by: Shyboy at November 20, 2004 1:31 PMPlease contact ASAP regarding freelance interpretation opportunity 7 December 2004.
Yours,
John Coughlan
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