A little foreigner in the country with big clouds

It's hard being Spanish in London

2010-02-01T17:08:00.004Z

Yes, being Spanish in London is definitely difficult. Our first obstacle is the language. I don’t know why, and I never will, but in Spain, English classes are terrible. There you proudly finish college with good grades in English.
You assist several exams, which give you certificates that say that you know English. Therefore, when writing your CV, you put in languages that you know Spanish, maybe a bit of French, and that you definitely have an average English level.
But then certain circumstances in your life make you go to London to study, to work, or just to gain new experiences, and you quickly revise your school grammar book. Well, once you get out of the plane, you discover that your average English isn’t as great as you thought it would be. If you land in Heathrow, it’s easier to arrive to the centre of London, as there is underground.
You arrive to the tube, and go to the ticket office to ask for a ticket. Well, after 10 minutes trying to understand what the man said, you get to the conclusion that you must buy an oyster. -Oh no! What was an oyster?- You think. You look for a bench, but as you can’t find any, you sit on the floor, open your luggage, and look for the dictionary. You find it, and spend 5 minutes sitting on your luggage because it took you an tetrix exercise to pile all of your clothes inside, and now that you took out the dictionary, things don’t seem to fit anymore in there.

So, you grab the dictionary, and frenetically look at what Oyster means, as you realise that you have already been half an hour there. You find it and hallucinate when you see this: Oyster- Marine molluscs which have a rough irregular shell, found on the sea bed, mostly in coastal waters.

You try to associate this with the tube, but your imagination is not that good. Suddenly you focus on a screen in the opposite wall from were you are seated, and you read: ‘Oyster Card’. You get nearer and read something about an oyster card, which costs 3 pounds. Happy because of your discovery, you go back to the ticket office man and buy an oyster card, and then you tell him to put 5 pounds inside this card. So, you go into this very strange tube, in which the corridor is so narrow that you feel that you are forced to start a conversation with the person in the seat in front of you. However, your English confidence has just gone down the toilet. And at that moment you really think: Being Spanish in London is terrible.

Manners

2009-03-18T14:21:00.010Z

In my Writing for Publication class, I was asked by some mates whether Spanish manners were different from British ones. And in fact they are. I hadn't really thought about it, as I'm quite used to use English manners with my grandparents and cousins. However, the differences are noticeable.

When we greet each other in Spain, we kiss the other person in both cheeks, unless both are men, in which case they shake hands. Even if someone has just been introduced to us. Although, when going to a job interview, it is more common to shake hands.
Here, in Great Britain, you always greet people shaking hands, unless they are very close friends or family. In that case it is possible for you to hug each other.

When we accidentally step on someone, we say "Excuse me" and if it's something more serious, which implies remorse, you say "sorry". Here, in the streets I'm constantly hearing people say "I'm sorry!" when they bump on each other, or when they arrive late.

These kinds of differences highlight the social difference between two countries which are relatively close to each other. The greetings reveal that Spanish people are warmer to each other, as we have more contact when meeting someone; and that English people are colder, more reserved, and don't show their feelings in front of strangers.

I can't really deduce any social difference by the way of apologising we have, but I find that saying sorry for unimportant things, makes the word lose signification when used for more serious matters.
What does your apology etiquete show of your country?

Noise

2009-03-09T03:52:00.015Z

I went shopping in Camden Town the other day. I entered one shop and suddenly I started hearing people laughing really loudly. Before they had even said a word I already knew that they were Spanish. It's really easy to distinguish Spanish people. We are noisy, especially when we talk with other people in our language. I really don't have an explanation for this, although after looking at some websites I’ve discovered that we are the second country in the WORLD with worse noise pollution. Maybe because of being brought up in a noisy environment, we speak more loudly.
English people also make a lot of noise when drunk, although drunk Spanish people make even more.
I find this very curious and hope that you can give me your opinion on this.

Mexican hats!

2009-03-03T23:50:00.007Z

I was with some friends in a pub when suddenly a man passed by with a Mexican hat, and one of them said to me: ‘look, Spanish!’ I was completely horrified. Because I had read that people confused Spanish with Mexicans, but I hadn’t experienced it. I just don’t understand how people can make such mistakes. Mexico is on the oher side of the Atlantic Ocean, in another Continent, in another climate… But people keep on believing that because we both speak in Spanish, we have the same culture and traditions… We have a history in common, I’m not going to deny that, but as India and the UK have, and that doesn’t mean that one’s traditions are shared with the other country.

Anyway, Spanish definitely don’t wear traditional costumes, only when it’s a typical Saint’s day, and I bet that Mexicans don’t wear the hat either, but exclusively when they attract tourists with ‘Mariachis’. Being Spain a traditionally catholic country, costumes were used to celebrate important Saints. Therefore, The Sevillian costume was only used when it was Saint Fernando’s day, and consequently, used in the traditional dances. The Madrid’s costume, ‘chulapos’, were also used when celebrating Saint Isidore. And I could keep on saying saints and costumes forever! But it’s interesting to know that during Franco’s dictatorship, these typical costumes were promoted to create a 'traditional image' of Spain, so that tourism would increase. But he wanted to promote the Andalusian image, so he discriminated the north provinces and created a controversy that has been dragged out until the present day.

I’d like to point out that as Spanish and Mexicans don’t match their stereotypes, British either. During the 6 weeks I’ve been here, I have only seen one man with the typical hat and umbrella, and he was in a touristic area of London (London eye).

By writing in this blog, I’ve reached the conclusion that stereotypes are used to try and simplify the world’s complexity. It is so difficult to know every culture’s foundations that we end up creating some basic characteristics to have a global idea of everything. The problem about them is that they end up being caricatures of societies and give a totally wrong idea about the place.

Male chauvinism

2009-02-23T00:13:00.014Z

Yesterday night, something that happened reminded me of what one of the comments in this blog said. According to Talmannon, Spanish women are ‘under the pressure’ of their husbands. I don’t think that Spain has more male chauvinism than other countries in Europe. Although it’s true that the Spanish media are constantly bombing us this kind of news, this doesn’t necessarily mean that more women are murdered by their partner than in any other country.

In fact, I’ve just done some research and apparently only 23 countries in the world know how many women are victims of sexism: 17 European, 5 American and Japan. And according to Europe’s official survey, Spain has less domestic violence than United Kingdom (65 and 94 deaths per million respectively); although both countries are below the World’s Domestic violence average. I've also discovered that media is known for producing some news or advertisements which transmit this sexism, it's possible that it can affect the society that sees it.There were many examples in youtube, but for some strange reason, they have been banned and deleted,and therefore, I can only show that some british channels, like BBC, have critisized this and made parodies:

I was surfing through youtube and found this:

Anyway, this is what happened to me yesterday night:
I was going home after shopping when I suddenly saw a mad, strong man chasing a woman. Suddenly he reached her and punched her in the face. I got really angry and stunned and started shouting at him: ‘leave her alone, or I’ll call the police!’. Of course, he didn’t pay me any attention so I rang the police. When he saw that I was actually calling them, he decided to leave. The woman told me that it was alright, that he had gone and that the police was unnecessary now that he had left. She thanked me and went to a friends' house. This scene shocked me, and made me feel that society has barely evolved.

Punctuality

2009-02-09T16:48:00.003Z

In my opinion, Spanish people tend to be unpunctual. Of course, this is a stereotype, and consequently not all Spanish are unpunctual, but most of them are. But I think that it also depends on the context.

When we are going to work, or to the university we are punctual. I believe that this is due to the fact that in these situations, the hour in which you have to be there is already established, and if you arrive late, there are consequences, as for example, not being able to attend the class or miss a meeting.

However, the punctuality radically changes when we are going to meet our friends. I think that the reason for this is that we agree to be in a place in a certain hour, but we establish an hour without thinking of the transport we are going to use. For example, maybe you decide to meet your friends at 6 o clock, and you have to get a bus that takes half an hour to get there. But when you look at the bus’s timetable, you see that you can get either one at 5:20 or 5:35. And maybe because of our way of being brought up, we would definitively choose the second option (it’s only five minutes late). Of course, we don’t really think about the traffic, so maybe we arrive there 10 minutes late.

So after this happening more than once, your friends end up planning to arrive 10 minutes late, so that they don’t wait for you, and as they get another bus, they arrive there 15 minutes late. So I think that as we are used to people arriving late, we don’t give it so much importance, unless it’s an hour late (something not as common). So I truly believe that Spanish are unpunctual, but only in their spare time, not at work.

We could also make a distinction between young people and adults. Young people don’t have working appointments, (only school, and generally parents are the ones responsible for this) and consequently are more unpunctual than adults.

I do not have as much experience with British punctuality as with the Spanish one, and therefore asked my British grandparents to give me their opinion about it. They believe that punctuality is essential, and that being unpunctual has lots of consequences, both on a personal level and in terms of career.

Arriving late to a dinner could ruin the meal for the rest of the guests. In Spain, usually when the guests arrive you haven’t finished cooking, as you already expect them to arrive a bit later. As a result, there are consequences, as in order to be invited again, punctuality is essential.
Of course, it may be different with younger people, but I still haven’t experienced it yet. Although I’ve asked some of my flat mates and people that have been living in England, and they say that they are generally punctual, or at least they try to.

So, why does punctuality depend on the country in which you are born? It’s totally related to your background and your way of being brought up. Writing this blog is making me realize that most of our characteristics are results of our education and the society that surrounds us.

Stereotypes

2009-02-06T21:15:00.006Z

I've decided that I want to start listing some common British and Spanish common stereotypes, and I will discuss each of them. If you think of a cliché which I haven’t listed, please post a comment.

British stereotype:

punctual

Reserved, arrogant , unfriendly

Ignorant about the rest of the cultures

Promiscuous

Not clean

Have a strange humour

Are pale because of the bad weather

hooligans

They either wear a bowler hat and carry an umbrella or slippers with socks

Have tea in china cups with the little finger crooked, wearing a monocle and reading the newspaper

Drink too much

Go to sleep at 6 in the afternoon

Are known by people as Mr. Bean, Lady Di, and Shakespeare

Love cricket and golf

Have bad eating habits

Patriotic and think they’re superior

Spanish stereotype:

Unpunctual

Noisy and rude

Don’t know how to speak other languages

Very catholic

Spanish pubs are filthy

Cigarettes in Spain are a lot cheaper but they smoke strange brands

Are tanned because it’s a sunny country

Criminals, lazy people who have siestas

Women wear a Sevillian or flamenco costume and use hand-held fans; and Men wear big hats or bullfighter’s costumes

Ride donkeys in dusty roads to go to work. They are great dancers and dance ‘flamenco’ and ‘Sevillanas’

Spanish beer is served in too small glasses

Their shop schedule is strange

They are known by famous people as Nadal, Alonso, and Cervantes

Love bullfights

Eat ‘Tortilla de Patatas, tapas and paella’; drink coffee and don’t know how to prepare a proper cup of tea

Patriotic