Back In The UK

Back in the UK

It’s funny how certain things, be they objects, places actions or words, are invested with different rules and meanings in different countries. In fact, in no two cities that I have lived in have the rules been identical. For example, if you suggest to a local in Plymouth that they might, perhaps, be a sheep bothering villain, a few words would be exchanged, but if you were to do the same thing in Cardiff then the whole establishment you were drinking in would be trying to cut your throat with fleecing knives. However, in general, the rules are fairly uniform across a country. To extend my example, if you were to suggest to a group of lads clad in Burberry and sporting large gold sovereign rings, regardless of which British city you were in, that they might, perhaps, be a bunch of sheep bothering villains, then you would definitely get your face smashed in. And deserve it for such rank stupidity.

Living in another country doesn’t necessarily make you forget these rules, fortunately for all us returning expats. However, it does allow you to spot those rules that you had never thought about before, and to consider just how ridiculous some of them are. - i.e. that only girls or homos drink G&Ts; normal people don’t go hiking for fun; only tramps read abandoned newspapers left on buses; and only pretentious little wannabes wear a swimming hat and attempt to swim lengths when they go to the swimming pool. (Incidentally, this is not just a list I have made up off the top of my head.) Living in other countries I have gotten used to making my own rules. Particularly in a place like Korea where you live in an expat bubble away from the everyday rules of Koreans, each separate group will make up its own rules about what is acceptable and what isn’t. And these rules that dominate will obviously depend upon the countries that the members of that group come from. So, for example, a group with a large American contingent will remain incredibly loud, obsessed with sports that stop every 30 seconds and no other nationality cares about; and fond of comedy that can reduce a Brit to smashing his forehead against a doorframe in his haste to get out of a room it is being watched in. Or a group of male Brits would remain only interested in watching and talking about football; listening to Oasis; pining about real sausages and retain their inherent fear of talking to members of the opposite sex.
I could go on...

However, when a group has members from many different places you aren’t allowed to hide in the familiar. It challenges you to challenge these rules you have been brought up in and brought with you. And because there is no society to fit into, all those rules and behaviours that are actually ridiculous get thrown out because people from other countries simply won’t tolerate it. Thanks to American people, I feel I am much more comfortable with talking about myself and my achievements. Being overly self-deprecating is the norm in England, but you wouldn’t get a word in edge ways if you were like that with Americans. It’s such an English thing to kick anyone down who wants to be anything or do anything with their life. We can be a very negative people. Someone who constantly knocks other people down just isn’t tolerated by Americans, and this bad characteristic is gradually weaned out of you.

So, coming home has been an interesting experience. Suddenly all these rules that you had established for yourself no longer apply. You are on the outside. You are weird. And all those things that you thought of as ridiculous are now acceptable. I go to the pool and get pointed at and stared at for wearing a hat and goggles (completely sensibly I feel) and trying to swim, whereas all these massively overweight monsters splash around for an hour and no one else finds it a little odd.
My hometown is right next to one of the largest national parks in England. If I travelled to any other part of the world and it had a huge beautiful national park, I would pay huge sums of money to go hiking in it. Here I can go for next to nothing, save my social standing. People here seriously think I am insane for going hiking for a couple of days - for fun. ‘What you wanna do thaht for? You wanna get yerself down the town and find yerslf a luvly young lady.’ And when I express my lack of proclivity for 15 stone, tattoo covered mothers of 3; they think I’m even more insane. Then when I do go out and suggest that I might like a G&T (‘the drink of the empire’ as Jim might say) then that’s it. Definite homo.

However, while this has all been rather exasperating at times, it has been rather nice to be home. It goes without saying that its been fantastic seeing my family again. But also being able to walk around all these places that have so much individual meaning for me has been wonderful. I can’t but walk through a grove of trees, a bus stop or hear a song on the radio without recalling some adventure of my youth. The title of this blog - back in the UK- is an old Scooter song, that brings back memories of when I was 15 ,running around the streets drinking cider and warm cans of Fosters, wearing white jeans and Ben Sherman shirts and having competitions at who could snog the most girls at the under 18s nightclub. The best of times. And for me, this is what reverse culture shock is all about. You are in a place that should be the most familiar place in the world. After a while its almost as though you have never been away. Part of wants to reconnect with that old life, those old rules and meanings. But its gone. Those times have gone and that you has gone and the fibres that linked you together don’t quite match up any more, leaving you feeling confused and isolated. People expect you to see what they see, and feel how they feel. You grew up together so you should feel the same. But you don’t anymore. You can’t quite connect in the way that you used to.

It’s an unnerving feeling.

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