"The squeaky wheel gets the grease." is a saying I used to here quite a lot, but I don't think it is true as much now as it used to be. Let me give you another quote, "Calmer heads will prevail."
Ah, I cannot speak at all for the dynamic in your culture. If I gave any pretense to that effect, I apologize. I can only speak to what I know and have lived. In my little slice of life, I myself represent the encroacher. I was born here in Puerto Rico. I am ethnically Puerto Rican. 100%, through and through. But, I lived my entire life in the U.S. mainland. I served in the U.S. military. My English is better than perfect. My education is American made. And there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans just like myself. PR born, US raised. We are returning now to Puerto Rico in a wave that is big enough that it's a topic of conversation here. It's on TV and in the news. We are officially a 'phenomenon'. And, for better or worse, we are Americanizing the island in a way that non-Puerto Rican Americans never managed in the almost 100 years of this island being part of the U.S. So I understand the situation from a different point of view. From the other side.
Except maybe during the French Revolution... Or if you wandered into Wonderland and met the Queen of Hearts... Then I guess it'd be "the heads attached to the fastest pair of legs will prevail."
As I said, history is quite a huge animal so to speak, and if you look enough you'll almost always be able to find a contradiction. I guess the same is the same for fiction eh?
Hah no apology needed. I understand the other side (I think) which is probably the benefit of living in a multicultural society most of my life, I had met most of the European nationalities and even some American by the time I was 14yrs old. I don't blame them for wanting to feel comfortable in their adopted countries, I blame those that let our culture go at the expense of others. We are too tolerant sometimes I think.
@Lae : The UK is riddled by evidence of British culture, just look at all the magnificent architecture and railways and stone circles and castles, wherever you turn UK-wide, you won't mistake the country you're in. Turn on the telly and you'll be hard pressed to find a non-anglo face and accent. But I can sympathise with feeling like a stranger. I've been a refugee since I was 17 and even though I have multiple citizenships and speak several languages, I no longer see any particular place as consistent with my culture, because my culture now is a mix of all those I lived in. It's a peculiar feeling, not completely belonging, it's alienating, lonely and upsetting. But at least your country is still intact and thriving, despite other cultures and languages becoming more noticeable. I agree with you, I think it should be ensured that UK wide, all signs are written in English with translation underneath, it's just common courtesy. But I'm sure if someone pointed this out, the immigrants would be happy to oblige. It's just one of those things that can be easily remedied, and shouldn't be left to breed resentment. Culture is always in a state of flux. UK of all nations is historically composed of so many different nationalities, with all the invasions and travellers and settlers, you can't escape this place being a real melting pot, whatever that means
Disney makes Fiona dolls. But you are right to correct me on the movie producer. Mattel does make them. That's so sweet.
Oh definitely. I never really knew about the internet as a kid back in the early 2000's. I jut new that there was an icon on the computer that allowed me to search for information. It hardly resembled what it is today. But it seemed to hit its big strides around the same time as I was more interested in the internet, now I'm firmly rooted in it--At least compared to my parents and grandparents. The view it with a bit more detachment, more lie a resource as opposed to my generation and the kids growing up who view it as just another social platform. Instead of going to bars and clubs we often get on to socialize, even if just through screens and keyboards.
I partially disagree. "Nerd" has many negative connotations, and being seen as one when I was in school could get your ass kicked. And there are other stereotypes in play concerning white folks as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mounting a sauce for the goose argument; but I am pointing our that it is more permissible to stereotype (and as you point out, slur) white people in America. You're right that other ethnicities are also thought of as "nerdy". Those stereotypes are equally wrong.
So you're one of those Brits who buys into the whole "We have too many immigrants, let's send them HOME!" thing prevailing nowadays eh? Home is where I grew up, where I love, where I am familiar and have people I love, where I speak the language. For me, home's England. And if I bring parts of my Chinese culture with me into the land - so what? Hong Kong embraced all kinds of cultures and foods and is better for it. England has often embraced much and is better for it, richer for it. The more places you go, the more you realise the richness of other countries. Not to say your country isn't rich - it is, rich in many good, beautiful things and blessings and cultural attitudes. So are other countries. If they bring some of the blessings of their countries into YOUR country, England, it is YOUR blessing and YOUR gain. To reject it simply because "it hasn't always been here" is narrow, and encourages racism and prejudice. English has not always been in England either. Cornwall used to speak Cornish. Our monarchy has German ancestry. Lay claim to land all you like, but borders and people change, and somehow people feel ownership of something they've never had a right to, and call the others invaders, or migrants. And then several hundred years later a different group from a different place with a different history would stand on the same piece of land and claim ownership of it. Who's right? The sooner we learn to truly appreciate other people's cultures, the better. I'm of the opinion we should mash it all up. Throw out the bad, bring in the good, and there's bad things in every culture - English culture included. What hurts the country and its people most is narrow-mindedness, that selfishness that says "nobody else can call this home - it's my way or the high way". That's what'll destroy the country, not the Indians and Pakistanis who bring in delicious food and colourful fabrics and spices and celebrate Islam, not the Chinese who bring in the dim-sum and calligraphy, not my Czech husband who would bring in incredible IT skills and gentleness and care for everyone whom he meets, and has a string of grateful families from the hospital where he worked to take care of the dying. It's not us. And if you're thinking my outburst is uncalled for, or inappropriate, at least you might understand how your words come across to someone who calls England home, fought all her life to belong to a land which accepted me with one arm and pushed me away with the other, and has come to realise much as I am English, I will never be English, nor recognised as such - and there're thousands, if not more, people out there who'd see it as absurd that I could *ever* dream of being considered as one of them. Racism exists in England, though there's not a single English person I've met who would admit this even when I list them examples, and the prevailing anti-immigrants mood in the UK makes me fear for my country - yes, it is my country too - and fear for my future, that there might actually be a chance I'll be told to "go home". Go home, after having grown up in the land and breathed its air and eaten its food. Go home, after having befriended and loved its people and language, having taken it as my very own tongue. GO. HOME. Home is England, so where do you want me to bloody go?
Appreciate the comment, but eh? some misdirected anger there. few points: 1. I'm English, not British. I know some people view that as weird or minor or "same thing" but matters to me nonetheless 2. Please dont lump me in with the daily mail type folk, i dont subscribe to the "We have too many immigrants, let's send them HOME!" idea, i've a decent grasp on English history and i understand the importance of immigration, especially in England. I dont know where you got that idea from but please re-read my comments, if you find a quote of where i've said anything like this point it out. I will amend it. If not, please dont put words in my mouth and dont assume i or any other person living in the uk is "one of those brits" just because they're worried about English culture. This is actually backing my point fully, as soon as i mention that i want to preserve English culture and not lose it....i get practically called a racist. 3. "To reject it simply because "it hasn't always been here" is narrow, and encourages racism and prejudice." & "nobody else can call this home - it's my way or the high way"...did you read my comments at all? you seem to be very angry. 4. I dont want you to go anywhere...i've never met you.
It's just every time someone says, "I wish we could preserve some English culture!" - I'm there thinking, well, what is it that you want to preserve? What is this English culture? And the truth is, if by trying to preserve something, we cast something else out - to take your example of English culture disappearing in the situation of shop signs written in Hindi and such with English translations - what are you asking for? The implication of "preserving English culture" is inevitably to ban the practice of other cultures. My suggestion is simply to let culture change naturally as time goes by, keep the good, ditch the bad. It is true that my anger probably shouldn't be directed at you, but you're right, I am angry, and I'm not sure you understand why - that's half the problem. There's little attempt to understand the perspective of the migrant, there's little need. If the good, open-minded, educated English can't understand, what chance do we really have? In any case, just some food for thought. Sure, you're not personally racist, and yet if even people like you aren't even trying to understand how migrants can be upset by the current political rhetoric - again, are you surprised there's anger? It feels rather hopeless. Anyway, I'm not angry with you. Sorry that it was directed at you. Your post fired up a lot of emotions, for reasons I have already explained. Don't take what I said personally, but it *is* important.
To me it's always a little odd when people talk about preserving their country's culture. As if "culture" is something static, something that's always been or something that you can point at and go "that was born at such and such date and time and it's been like that ever since." When fact is, culture is fluid, it changes and evolves all the time, and whatever year or date you look at, the culture of a given area in that snippet is just that, just one phase of something that's in a state of perpetual change. You can't really stop that evolution even if you wanted to. This is also what makes people like, say, neo-nazis look so silly: they claim they are worried of their culture disappearing, their country, their national identity while they are either blissfully ignorant or choose to ignore the fact that our ancestors and their ancestors are all descended from people who at one time or another were immigrants. Unless your great, great, great (ad infinitum) parents were the single cell organisms that grew, lived, multiplied, died, and evolved into humans right where you are now. I kinda doubt that. That's why I find talk about culture and national identities a little silly at best. Yeah, it's nice to feel like you belong somewhere, but to me it's just a flimsy curtain and if you peek behind it, you see that it's all a big mix and match of all kinds of stuff. For instance, there's no such thing as a pure, Finnish lineage. Dig deep enough into the roots of your family tree and you'll find people who weren't born in this exact area. I believe that is the case with just about every country. My question is: so what?
English culture is the same as Indian, Chinese, German, Japanese, American, French culture. Its what makes a country 'that' country. Where i grew up you would be hard pressed to find an English shop, English food etc. When i was is primary school, back in early 90's i was 1 of 2 English kids in my class, a class of thirty.... So i may not understand the perspective of a migrant but i most definitely understand the perspective of a minority. I'm sorry but that's utter bull, when you want to preserve you cast out others? i couldn't disagree more. My culture is my culture good or bad, its our way of life and i like it, i don't see why it should disappear, im not from asia or africa, im not Islamic, Muslim or Hindu so i personally have no interest in adopting those cultures, that should be my choice. I have no desire to ban anyone from anything, i grew up with friends from more backgrounds than i can think of. Also my example of the situation with the shops signs? please read that post again, it wasn't shop signs and that's was an important point. All in all, im sorry you feel upset by the current situation, i am not against migrants, im not against their culture or the right to practice them, i'm against my own government for not adequately protecting our culture. I think you might need to define neo-nazism a little better there, that makes it sound like anyone who is worried about their culture is a neo-nazi. I've heard this argument before, yes culture changes, yes it evolves. I don't claim to be pure english, nor do i want a country full of pure english, i dont think the going back to the roots of your family tree stuff is a valid argument. I cant be bothered to type my points up again as im a little tired right now and getting bored of repeating/clarifying myself.
I suggest you reread that part of my post. I simply used them as an example of a group of people who often are or claim to be worried about their culture / national identity disappearing. I figured it goes without saying that that doesn't mean everyone who's worried about their culture / national identity is a neo-nazi (and I never claimed or implied any such thing although if I did, I'd appreciate it if you pointed out that part of my post so I can change it). Also, just because all doctors are human doesn't mean all humans are doctors. It is valid if you look at the big picture.
Are you saying that twenty-eight out of thirty kids in your class were not English citizens? Or are you saying that they were citizens, but their parents or their parents' parents or their parents' parents' parents weren't born English citizens? Because I would assume that an English citizen is indeed English, no matter where his parents or grandparents came from.
I think they would be classed as British citizens in that case, most of my classmates were born in England i believe. However that's not what im talking about. I may not have explained that part clearly. Of those 30, 2 of us were of English heritage and followed English culture. This wasn't an issue, i only realised later in life that i was actually a minority (and still would be if i visited my old area) it was just to portray the diversity of where i grew up. They dont "claim to be worried" they take a far right stance on the matter, there is a big difference. We're not talking about the big picture here, the big picture of the universe makes everything and anything that has or ever will happen on earth completely and utterly insignificant.
As the top comment said, do we really need the world to be more cynical and jaded? If we're sharing depressing stories, can I tell you the Iced Tea story? I'm sorry, but I can't feel sorry for faux photographs.
A commentate said this. Also, losing your hair to cancer isn't funny, it's effing cancer. It's a disease. People die from it. People don't have a choice if they get cancer.
The effect the media has on people today has some other, let's say 'side effects' that are not often discussed. I had a student once, for the sake of anonymity let's called him Joystick, he was 54 years old, and had come to my college to learn how to read and write. He was a very pleasant man, I always got on with him, so I liked teaching him. However, I must admit it became difficult when the humble PC was a complete mystery to him. He left school in the 70s, at the age of 14 with no formal qualifications, and had been a white-van man pretty much his entire life, so he never needed the skills of reading or writing, or even basic computer literacy - because he was a qualified driver before the change in the 80s, he also did not need to sit any driving theory test. Joystick now feels completely isolated from the modern world because of this, and especally because of tablet computers people have. When he was growing up in the 60s and 70s he told me he remembers watching Star Trek and seeing such things, and thinking 'that must be what we'll have in the future', and now for him the future is here, and he is the odd one our for not understanding it. This is not a huge problem, but sometimes it does seem that technology is almost advancing too quickly. This isn't a changing culture, it's a culture on LSD.
To relate this to the prior conversation of culture intrusion or assimilation refusion (yeah, that's not a real word), not long ago in one of my interpreter chat groups, one of my Russian pals showed me an article concerning cutting of funding to libraries for translation services and the like which sparked a small kerfuffle in the U.K. as regards the impact it would have on non English speaking persons in the U.K. I can't find the article or any names, but I'm sure you probably know of what I am speaking. The councilman (minister? MP? not sure) was quoted as saying that it was for the betterment of the immigrant population to adapt and acclimatize to living in the U.K., rather than wall themselves off in little pocket-universes of just one culture. My interpreter friends were ablaze with righteous indignation that such a thing should be done to these poor people and how could they, and such ethnocentricity and preachy, preachy, blah, blah, blah... I stayed out of the conversation because I actually agree with the councilman/minister/MP/whatever. In America we have the same phenomenon and I feel it when people here in Puerto Rico hear my American accent and then comment on how it's not a New York accent or a Chicago accent, so I must, of course, have lived in either Miami or Kissimmee. To many locals there are no other locations in America because everything else lies outside of the latino biodomes where the air is breathable to latinos. Idaho or Montana may as well be the Moon. California is known, but that is where another kind of latino lives, not us. I have two aunts who have lived in the U.S. just a bit longer than I have been alive and don't speak a word of English. They came to the U.S. in their late teens, so I can find no excuse other than that living in these domes made it so they never had to learn. It walls them off from regular life. It walls them off from their children to a great extent, whom I know they see as English speaking latino children, but who are in fact Americans who can speak Spanish. It's isolating for them. They can only interact within a few blocks of home.
@Wreybies I do remember that! I wish I could remember more details, but yes I do remember that. My nearby library started asking for people to volunteer their names to a list of people who would in their own time translate things like bills and doctors appointments and so on. The kind of things people new to this country would need. I think that is still going on too.
@Wreybies : I understand the sentiment, but I don't think it's that simple. My community is a typical example. On one hand, you have immigrants who came to Australia in the 50s, protesting the communist regime for one reason or another, and some of them even in the 1990s had dreadful English. This is because Aussies quite happily employed them in factories where, often, only one or two ethnic groups would be working there, both to minimise fighting (for example, at one point you were looking for trouble if you mix employed Croats and Serbs on the same shifts) as well as to enable the easy communication. So the supervisor would have to speak English as well as the foreign language, but everyone else spent their lives working so much, they never had the opportunity to learn English. Nowadays, they have free language courses for immigrants, but that's a recent thing. Even in Australia, a land of the free or whatever, they had a shameful 'White Australia Policy' in the 1970s, which actively ensured immigrants and other races weren't assimilated and not to mention shameful quarantines where asylum seekers don't get any money to use that one public telephone they have access to, to even contact their lawyers or what have you. Children are born in those ghettos and reach school age, never having been outside the camp. Land of the free my ass. On the other hand, cutting translation services is directly jeopardising the welfare of new immigrants, who haven't had a chance to learn the language yet. Especially people coming from war torn areas, pregnant women, children, the elderly etc. But we have clueless, privileged assholes in power in the UK at the moment, they are cutting welfare to the disabled, destroying university education through exorbitant fees, selling off the NHS, antagonising Romanians and Bulgarians in the media for the fear they'll come to work in the UK (which they have a legal right to do), frankly I'd be surprised if they overlooked immigrants, since they are trying to marginalise every other vulnerable group.
I agree with you completely, this is disturbing, especially in this day and age when we should all know better. I see this a bit like high heeled shoes. Why on EARTH women think they need to hobble around in 'heels' in order to look good is beyond me. I was sitting in an office foyer a couple of weeks ago, waiting for an appointment, and I was watching all the executives and workers walking by. And some of the women in both categories were NOT wearing high heels. They were all dressed appropriately for office work, but some of them didn't see high heels as necessary. They were the ones walking briskly, looking as if they had someplace to be. The hobblers just looked silly. I feel it's a choice. You can choose to be stupid, or not. It's not 'forced.' It really isn't. Just say no. No, I'm not plastering expensive makeup on my face. No, I'm not dyeing my hair, either to hide my age or cover up what I think is an unsexy colour. No, I am not going to get silicone implants to make myself look weird. No I am not going to Botox my face, get my teeth 'fixed' etc etc. No.
