Loren Snel is a Dutch exchange student in Linguistics, Literature and Journalism. She has come to Leeds to explore the UK’s promising (media) landscape but its rolling hills and absence of tulips left her culture shocked. She enjoys Pinot Gris, fancy restaurants, jogging and dancing to indie pop bands as long as the drummers are as good as the one she (temporarily) left in Holland. One day she hopes to be a career woman and a published author – because realism is for sissies.
“Is there really any difference between England and Holland?” I get asked. Well, the British wear trousers and shoes, houses aren’t made of mud and the sun still comes up every morning – thank goodness – so in that sense I don’t feel alienated, no.
And yet…
And yet I can point out a thing or two or three that make England as much of an exotic place to me, a legal European alien, as would planet Mars.
I promise I won’t be going all ‘Foreign-Girl-Visits-England-Style-Movie’ over this; “Look, all school children wear uniforms!” or “Oh my god, the upper lip muscles of that poor British person are so overdeveloped that they can’t get themselves to speak another salient world language!”
Neither will you be getting a list of quirky/cute British habits; like how you’re supposed to drink your tea as bitter and milky as the Queer Old Dean or how many please and thank you’s you need to get through the day unscathed.
No I’m talking insidious social rules. Those guidelines a foreigner misses by a hair’s breadth but will regret overlooking when crying in the dungeon of tears they’ve been excommunicated to after using the word ‘moist’ as a synonym for ‘humid’. I’m talking about rules you yourself might not realise you unconsciously adhere to.
Curious? Here we go:
1. Thou shall not respect traffic rules involving pedestrians. A pavement-roamer daring to use its pedestrian right to cross the road to another pavement before an automobile turns into that road shall be honked at and greeted with one of the following vociferations; “don’t bother looking left, love!”, “get out of the f***ing way!” or “you little walking s**t!”.
2. The English countryside shall be deemed Walhalla, paradise and heaven on earth. It is always very, very sunny and green and full of romantic castle ruins. King Arthur has, of course, lived in each and every one of them. Do not doubt this. If thou dost, thou shall watch more BBC ye scoundrel.
3. People crowded at bus stops are sequenced strings of DNA. Their sequence and position in the line shall be respected. If thou disrespect the sequence thou shall face huffing, puffing and a miffed bus driver.
4. Do NOT ask questions to and/or demand an answer from a bus driver. Extracting an answer from a driver takes years of professional training. They are heavily underpaid, work exhausting hours and appeal to their right to remain silent. And they are miffed.
5. Under no circumstance shall anyone less than 30 years of age wear a sensible coat when going out. Any night out in town costs at least as much as the club entrance (zero to ten pounds) and no gentleman or lady shall devote a spare penny to the cloakroom. The fleeting heat of taxis and clubs shall be each and everyone’s nightly allowance sufficient enough to avoid pneumonia.
6. No lady shall ever wear tights under the same circumstances elucidated in point 5. Ladies shall wear their vodka coats and not much else. Period.
7. At around 4:00 pm it is advised that every bus stop and every statue wear an orange traffic cone hat. They shall be cold otherwise.
I’ve been doing my utmost to abide by these rules. I wore a cardy when going out last night and meekly paid a whole two pounds for a hundred-metre bus ride up Otley Road. I’ve been to see the English countryside – well only Scarborough and the winding road to Liverpool – and I couldn’t believe how bright and sunny it was. However I did walk through York in the pouring rain.
Oh, but the next person to tell me to give fish‘n’chips another go can p**s off. I’m still recovering.
Loren Snel
Images credits: Chrissie Cohen, LizzieB2003, Angel Ganev