Patriotism hits you in the strangest places
As an Englishman, I’ve always prided myself on my lack of nationalism (until I realised that the English going on about so much about how they aren’t patriotic is just another form of national pride), but if there ever was a time when I had no national feeling it certainly isn’t now after 10 years living abroad. Moments of self-awareness included:
- Bristling when students in London started on the whole British food thing yet again (Especially the Spanish, have you ever eaten in a local bar in Madrid?? It’s like 1970s British pub food or BR sandwiches never went away!)
- Suddenly extolling the glories of cricket (a sport I lost interest in about 20 years ago) after seeing baseball for the first time in Japan
- My only extended periods of Teacher Talking Time being ones explaining what British beer (not Guinness!) and real English tea (not Lipton!) is
and most recently and strangely
- Patriotic feelings about Airbus, including chuckling at each slip up by Boeing. Would that make me a European patriot?? If you’d heard me complaining about living in Greece you certainly wouldn’t have thought so…
July 17th, 2009 at 3:05 am
It’s funny how it affects ex-pats. I remember mentioning to a fellow Brit here in Mexico that I’d seen the film Hooligans the night before at the cinema and immediately she launched in to a rant about how such films that shouldn’t be shown because England isn’t like that really and that people will think we’re all thugs etc, etc.
I’ve always thought that it’s funny that in Mexico there’s almost always Worcester Sauce on the table at restaurants – Mexicans call it salsa inglesa but I’m pretty sure they consume more of it than we do.