Today I thought about a lot of things. When you first move to a new culture you tend to notice first off what is different/strange/weird about your new home. The tendency to compare doesn't always aid in your adjustment- it can develop into an "Us" and "Them" mindset. So today I thought about what is similar about our 2 cultures.
I've found the British people to be very friendly. They aren't immediately friendly always, but once they know you a bit they are friendly. Britons really love their kids- it seems like everyone here has a cute little boy or girl who is getting away with something which they shouldn't be but everyone thinks is cute anyway. Cambridge is a lot like Ann Arbor- there are tons of students, foreigners, high school kids at the university for a special program. And of course the people working in food and industries catering to this population have to deal with the same problems that we have. Many Britons are stressed out just like Americans are- I notice a lot of stressed out women with their children here in town. And older people here are lonely too- there seems to be a larger number of single older men here, either widowers or never married. I see them with their beards, white hair and glasses, usually drinking tea, occasionally coffee, reading the news paper at a cafe. Sometimes they are there for hours, and I see them glance around at other people and wonder if they would like someone to talk to. They seem very nice- I wonder if they work at the University, maybe they're Dons or professors or something like that. But I notice them, and if I get the chance I'm going to talk to a few. Homeless people here are lonely too- here they have a system where homeless people can sell a magazine, The Big Issue, on the streets as a sort of business to help them out of being on the street. I already have a stack of Big Issues here in the flat because I love to buy from these poor guys. They have to be legit sellers- they have a nametag. But they look so lonely, and so desperate, as they stand there asking people if they'd like one, and people just blow past them and never notice their faces. Sometimes I just buy one to be able to talk to them. I keep change in my pockets just for them. Even if I don't have the chance to share the Good News with them, I want them to have one interaction that day where they knew someone cared about them as a person. When we were here last I bought a guy lunch and a pair of pants because his had been stolen in the night by a gang of homeless thieves. Sometimes it's hard to know exactly how to help, and sometimes the best help is to leave a person alone (especially if they're drunk). But I think of the story in the NT where J says "What you did to the least of these, you did to me." I'm really hoping to get involved in the homeless mission here in Cambridge- St Andrews has a food program that I think I can plug in with.
I hope that I'm never homeless. I don't really know what it's like for them here- in Ann Arbor many sleep in tents outside the city, there's even a little camp not far from Traver Ridge. But here they must truly sleep on the streets, in an alley, or in the shelter hopefully. Even if you don't have any money, or you know they'll just drink it away, or you suspect they're making more money being homeless than not, some of them truly are hurting. Smile and say hi- stop and ask their name if you see the same one frequently. Just showing that you care can make a big difference in one of their lives.
Monday, 30 July 2007
Sunday, 29 July 2007
Same but different
My Chinese friends in the US are often under the impression that the UK is basically the same as the US- after all, it is a lot more similar culturally than China is to either of them. But there are quite a few differences, some of which I'll list here, which contribute to amusement and frustration to us all day long.
1. As you may well know, the Brits drive on the wrong side of the road. :) There are helpful signs here in Cambridge because we have so many visitors that say "Look Right!" to remind you that traffic will be coming from your right, not left.
2. Fruit and veggies are more fresh here. Case in point- I bought a watermelon last night, basically 12 hours ago, and it's already spoiled. Why? I don't know. Things here tell you what their expiration date is, and they aren't kidding. I've had this happen with tomatoes, bread, cucumbers....all bought from different stores in different seasons. I think most of the fruits and veggies are grown locally, so the upside is that they are all really fresh! I like that.
3. Phone plugs are different. I guess we use what's called the RJ111 phone plug type in the US. UK phone jacks are sort of flatish. That was surprising.
4. You may not rent movies from online movie renters here. Netflix, CinemaNow, etc- if you're at a UK IP address you can't rent a movie on the internet. I don't know why. Maybe it's a throwback to the regions thing, maybe it's a law.
5. You know that "Everything's bigger in Texas" slogan? Well everything's bigger in the US period. The roads, cars, yards, fruit, veggies, milk, cereal- any kind of anything that comes in a container is at least half if not 1/4 the size. That water melon I bought- it was the size of a muskmelon. Berries are cute and small, just like you picked them from a bush. Milk comes it 2 pint size. Even the packs of cheese are smaller. The fridges here are much smaller too, which of course is why the foods are smaller. People go to the grocery store more frequently and don't need the space. Forget buying groceries for a month- I'm lucky to buy 3 days worth.
6. You can buy fruit and veggies from an outdoor market- it's my favorite place to go! They are very tasty, not expensive, you support local growers, and there's random things you've never seen or heard of. Plus you get to decide whether you need Grade 1 potatoes. Or grade 2. I don't know what the difference is. :)
7. If you want water, ask for tap water. Otherwise you might get bottle water, or fizzy water depending on where you are.
8. The grass here is great! I love walking barefooted on the grass- not at the colleges of course, where you could be executed for stepping on the grass, but the manor houses where you pay a fee and walk on all the grass you want have the most plush, soft, beautiful grass that I've ever seen. It's like carpet, it really is. I walked around barefooted there because it was so cool.
1. As you may well know, the Brits drive on the wrong side of the road. :) There are helpful signs here in Cambridge because we have so many visitors that say "Look Right!" to remind you that traffic will be coming from your right, not left.
2. Fruit and veggies are more fresh here. Case in point- I bought a watermelon last night, basically 12 hours ago, and it's already spoiled. Why? I don't know. Things here tell you what their expiration date is, and they aren't kidding. I've had this happen with tomatoes, bread, cucumbers....all bought from different stores in different seasons. I think most of the fruits and veggies are grown locally, so the upside is that they are all really fresh! I like that.
3. Phone plugs are different. I guess we use what's called the RJ111 phone plug type in the US. UK phone jacks are sort of flatish. That was surprising.
4. You may not rent movies from online movie renters here. Netflix, CinemaNow, etc- if you're at a UK IP address you can't rent a movie on the internet. I don't know why. Maybe it's a throwback to the regions thing, maybe it's a law.
5. You know that "Everything's bigger in Texas" slogan? Well everything's bigger in the US period. The roads, cars, yards, fruit, veggies, milk, cereal- any kind of anything that comes in a container is at least half if not 1/4 the size. That water melon I bought- it was the size of a muskmelon. Berries are cute and small, just like you picked them from a bush. Milk comes it 2 pint size. Even the packs of cheese are smaller. The fridges here are much smaller too, which of course is why the foods are smaller. People go to the grocery store more frequently and don't need the space. Forget buying groceries for a month- I'm lucky to buy 3 days worth.
6. You can buy fruit and veggies from an outdoor market- it's my favorite place to go! They are very tasty, not expensive, you support local growers, and there's random things you've never seen or heard of. Plus you get to decide whether you need Grade 1 potatoes. Or grade 2. I don't know what the difference is. :)
7. If you want water, ask for tap water. Otherwise you might get bottle water, or fizzy water depending on where you are.
8. The grass here is great! I love walking barefooted on the grass- not at the colleges of course, where you could be executed for stepping on the grass, but the manor houses where you pay a fee and walk on all the grass you want have the most plush, soft, beautiful grass that I've ever seen. It's like carpet, it really is. I walked around barefooted there because it was so cool.
Checkbooks, push pins, and other interesting trivia
We haven't been in Cambridge a full week yet, and it's not like we haven't been to the UK 4 times already, but there's always something interesting and new that one of us encounters here.
This week we were finally provided with a place to rent, at almost the 11th hour, but our Father had it in hand all along and although I made it to the 10th hour without seriously panicking, He held out to stretch our faith. Things never go as planned here because everything takes "3-5 business days" longer here, at a minimum. Perhaps there are places in the US where a person not only undergoes a credit check, but also a reference check, where they personally contact your previous landlord and your character reference (a member of upright standing in your community) and ask them questions. Perhaps by phone, perhaps by a written letter- it's random which realtor places use which. The fact that realtors deal with people renting is even strange- the property is "managed" by a realtor. We were told to expect 10 business days before we could sign a lease. Now those who say that the US is not an instant gratification society are on crack because we pretty much get everything the instant we want it. :) I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes for the leasing office to print out a lease for me to sign right then and there. So this was a novel idea to me. So we are waiting for this reference company to do whatever they're going to do (we provided original copies of our references- we had to do some work just to get a reference from our apartment complex because no one in Ann Arbor does that.) We should at least have a status update Monday.
In the meantime Nelly has to stay in a cattery. I never knew such a thing existed! But they are a thriving business here in the UK. Apparently people are afraid to leave their cats at home while they go on "holiday" so they take them to these special cat kennels. Poor Nelly has no idea why we're putting her through all of this, but I think coming to pick her up at the airport put the seeds of "Ok, they are still going to come back for me" in her little cat brain. At first she was upset- I think Nelly's brain is about equivalent to an average 2 year old. Perhaps 2 and a half. Since she's been passed from person to person probably 6 or 7 times in her life, including a stay in the pound where Paul adopted her in the first place, she's a little sensitive to being "abandoned." That's what I've noticed at least. Over 4 years she's grown to trust us to a very high degree, but I think her faith in us was stretched on this whole airplane adventure, and then restored in the 3 hour car ride home from the airport. Which involved copious amounts of cat treats, assurances that she would be fine, and 2 hours of petting on the head.
By the way, letting your cat out in the car is a no no here- I've never done that in the US, but she was meowing so piteously that I thought she was hungry and the second I opened the carrier to give her some food she bolted out and under the car seat. Where she stayed for some hour and a half, meowing piteously. Truly piteously this time- I've never heard her meow like that before, and she tends to be a bit of a drama cat. Maybe she was like that before, maybe she picked it up from us. Who knows. :) In any case, the nice lady at the cattery told me that it's against the highway code to allow your cat out in the car. I didn't even know there was a highway code. Is there a highway code in the US? If there is I don't know what it says. Maybe it says the same thing. :)
By the way Nelly isn't a fan of the roundabouts here- think Grand Theft Auto or something like it. I feel like a European race car driver just driving around here. The roundabouts are good- a better idea than traffic lights. But they are really tricky and often involve simply swerving in front of other cars. The cars here have good handling since it's routine that everytime you go out driving you'll have to swerve around either a pedestrian, a bicycle rider in the street, a parked car blocking 90% of your lane, or another driver who swerved into your lane to avoid any of the above. You get used to it after awhile. But I don't know if I'll ever stop cringing when I'm riding in the car and G has to squeeze to the edge of the road- when you're not driving it looks like you're going to hit everything. :)
When is the last time you've used a checkbook? I only use mine to write a check to my voice teacher every week for our private lessons. We've stopped ordering checks even and just ask the bank to print us a strip of 8 for $1, which lasts 8 months. I do everything online, have all our bills set to prepay via the credit union, and I pay everything either by debit card or Paypal. So imagine my surprise when months ago the banks we opened accounts with sent us checkbooks! I thought "what am I ever going to do with these?" Well this week I found out. :) The realtor asked us to write a check for the deposit on our new place (this is just the "no one else can start applying for this property" deposit, also called marking the property as "under offer".) So I brought this checkbook. Several funny things have revolved around the whole UK banking thing. My checkbook doesn't actually have my name on the checks- instead it says "Mrs KM D_____" (it has my last name but I'm keeping that out of my blogs). Isn't that weird? G's says "Dr. GW D___ III." Titles actually matter here! In the US where they ask for title you can just leave it blank. But not here- it's everyone's right to know what your title is. :) Women can at least still use Ms if they feel it's no one's business what their marital status is. I always thought that Ms was useless because I don't care whether people know I'm married, and I was never ashamed to be single. But I have to admit it's a bit strange having my marital status on every piece of paper I sign and on every account of any kind here. G at least can put Dr. on his which sounds very impressive. :D When you call someone or they call you they ask what your title is first, before anything else, and then they call you Mrs. ___ or Dr. _____.
But back to the checkbook thing- I had to ask the realtor for help to even write this check, because their checks are different from ours- fundamentally the same concepts, but everything is in a different place. I'll post a picture of a sample check from online. US checks have the word "dollars" printed on the check so you don't have to write it. What a good idea! Now we have to write "pounds" on every check because it isn't there. "pounds only" instead of 0/100 ----------" At least I don't have to sign "Mrs KM D____" I can just sign my real name. I could even just sign my first name if I felt like it. The realtor was very nice and helped me write the check- I felt like I was 15 again.
I learned this week what a "drawing pin" is. It is not something you draw with. It's something you would use to pin up a drawing onto the wall. In other words, a thumb tack, or push pin. Many words are like that here- in the US our English has slowly migrated toward words which more directly describe what an item does. A thumb tack is a tack which you push into the wall with your thumb. But here there's a level of indirection. Like the juice concentrate which is called "squash". It isn't made from squash as one would expect- the fruit was squashed in order to get it. Very tricky. Road signs often leave me wondering too- such as "Danger pedestrians!" Are the pedestrians posing a danger to the drivers? Are the drivers a danger to the pedestrians? Is there some other danger which isn't obvious that is being announced to the pedestrians? Many of the road signs leave us laughing since we don't know exactly what they mean and what with swerving around and avoiding other cars we don't have time to find out. :)
Just to let you all know our US cell phone numbers will work, once they've been fully transferred over in a few days. We are setting up vonage but had a few snags due to a different type of phone jack here. But that should be resolved today. You can call Gon skype, but I still don't have a microphone yet. We're looking forward to talking to people as soon as we can!
This week we were finally provided with a place to rent, at almost the 11th hour, but our Father had it in hand all along and although I made it to the 10th hour without seriously panicking, He held out to stretch our faith. Things never go as planned here because everything takes "3-5 business days" longer here, at a minimum. Perhaps there are places in the US where a person not only undergoes a credit check, but also a reference check, where they personally contact your previous landlord and your character reference (a member of upright standing in your community) and ask them questions. Perhaps by phone, perhaps by a written letter- it's random which realtor places use which. The fact that realtors deal with people renting is even strange- the property is "managed" by a realtor. We were told to expect 10 business days before we could sign a lease. Now those who say that the US is not an instant gratification society are on crack because we pretty much get everything the instant we want it. :) I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes for the leasing office to print out a lease for me to sign right then and there. So this was a novel idea to me. So we are waiting for this reference company to do whatever they're going to do (we provided original copies of our references- we had to do some work just to get a reference from our apartment complex because no one in Ann Arbor does that.) We should at least have a status update Monday.
In the meantime Nelly has to stay in a cattery. I never knew such a thing existed! But they are a thriving business here in the UK. Apparently people are afraid to leave their cats at home while they go on "holiday" so they take them to these special cat kennels. Poor Nelly has no idea why we're putting her through all of this, but I think coming to pick her up at the airport put the seeds of "Ok, they are still going to come back for me" in her little cat brain. At first she was upset- I think Nelly's brain is about equivalent to an average 2 year old. Perhaps 2 and a half. Since she's been passed from person to person probably 6 or 7 times in her life, including a stay in the pound where Paul adopted her in the first place, she's a little sensitive to being "abandoned." That's what I've noticed at least. Over 4 years she's grown to trust us to a very high degree, but I think her faith in us was stretched on this whole airplane adventure, and then restored in the 3 hour car ride home from the airport. Which involved copious amounts of cat treats, assurances that she would be fine, and 2 hours of petting on the head.
By the way, letting your cat out in the car is a no no here- I've never done that in the US, but she was meowing so piteously that I thought she was hungry and the second I opened the carrier to give her some food she bolted out and under the car seat. Where she stayed for some hour and a half, meowing piteously. Truly piteously this time- I've never heard her meow like that before, and she tends to be a bit of a drama cat. Maybe she was like that before, maybe she picked it up from us. Who knows. :) In any case, the nice lady at the cattery told me that it's against the highway code to allow your cat out in the car. I didn't even know there was a highway code. Is there a highway code in the US? If there is I don't know what it says. Maybe it says the same thing. :)
By the way Nelly isn't a fan of the roundabouts here- think Grand Theft Auto or something like it. I feel like a European race car driver just driving around here. The roundabouts are good- a better idea than traffic lights. But they are really tricky and often involve simply swerving in front of other cars. The cars here have good handling since it's routine that everytime you go out driving you'll have to swerve around either a pedestrian, a bicycle rider in the street, a parked car blocking 90% of your lane, or another driver who swerved into your lane to avoid any of the above. You get used to it after awhile. But I don't know if I'll ever stop cringing when I'm riding in the car and G has to squeeze to the edge of the road- when you're not driving it looks like you're going to hit everything. :)
When is the last time you've used a checkbook? I only use mine to write a check to my voice teacher every week for our private lessons. We've stopped ordering checks even and just ask the bank to print us a strip of 8 for $1, which lasts 8 months. I do everything online, have all our bills set to prepay via the credit union, and I pay everything either by debit card or Paypal. So imagine my surprise when months ago the banks we opened accounts with sent us checkbooks! I thought "what am I ever going to do with these?" Well this week I found out. :) The realtor asked us to write a check for the deposit on our new place (this is just the "no one else can start applying for this property" deposit, also called marking the property as "under offer".) So I brought this checkbook. Several funny things have revolved around the whole UK banking thing. My checkbook doesn't actually have my name on the checks- instead it says "Mrs KM D_____" (it has my last name but I'm keeping that out of my blogs). Isn't that weird? G's says "Dr. GW D___ III." Titles actually matter here! In the US where they ask for title you can just leave it blank. But not here- it's everyone's right to know what your title is. :) Women can at least still use Ms if they feel it's no one's business what their marital status is. I always thought that Ms was useless because I don't care whether people know I'm married, and I was never ashamed to be single. But I have to admit it's a bit strange having my marital status on every piece of paper I sign and on every account of any kind here. G at least can put Dr. on his which sounds very impressive. :D When you call someone or they call you they ask what your title is first, before anything else, and then they call you Mrs. ___ or Dr. _____.
But back to the checkbook thing- I had to ask the realtor for help to even write this check, because their checks are different from ours- fundamentally the same concepts, but everything is in a different place. I'll post a picture of a sample check from online. US checks have the word "dollars" printed on the check so you don't have to write it. What a good idea! Now we have to write "pounds" on every check because it isn't there. "pounds only" instead of 0/100 ----------" At least I don't have to sign "Mrs KM D____" I can just sign my real name. I could even just sign my first name if I felt like it. The realtor was very nice and helped me write the check- I felt like I was 15 again.
I learned this week what a "drawing pin" is. It is not something you draw with. It's something you would use to pin up a drawing onto the wall. In other words, a thumb tack, or push pin. Many words are like that here- in the US our English has slowly migrated toward words which more directly describe what an item does. A thumb tack is a tack which you push into the wall with your thumb. But here there's a level of indirection. Like the juice concentrate which is called "squash". It isn't made from squash as one would expect- the fruit was squashed in order to get it. Very tricky. Road signs often leave me wondering too- such as "Danger pedestrians!" Are the pedestrians posing a danger to the drivers? Are the drivers a danger to the pedestrians? Is there some other danger which isn't obvious that is being announced to the pedestrians? Many of the road signs leave us laughing since we don't know exactly what they mean and what with swerving around and avoiding other cars we don't have time to find out. :)
Just to let you all know our US cell phone numbers will work, once they've been fully transferred over in a few days. We are setting up vonage but had a few snags due to a different type of phone jack here. But that should be resolved today. You can call Gon skype, but I still don't have a microphone yet. We're looking forward to talking to people as soon as we can!
New country new blog!
I decided to start a blog- it's more accessible to everyone and it makes things easier for me so that I don't have to email the same things. We're having lots of exciting adventures already! I can't promise I'll post on here everyday, but for awhile it might be everyday as something new comes up. Once we get settled maybe down to once a week. We'll see. I'm not allowing replies onto the blog right now- G had some issues with trolling from outside our family and friends so we'll see. Feel free to email me though.
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