An American in England Part 1

In a matter of about 12 hours I managed to have two completely diverse experiences with the British here in Norwich...

Part one of my experience started last night when I was waiting outside a local pub with a number of my American cohorts. A man, clearly a bit intoxicated, started off his conversation with us asking us if we were Americans. Of course, at least for me, I am always wary of a person when they ask that question because you don't know what their reaction is going to be. After we all answered a timid yes to the question, the man clapped his hands with joy and thus began his words of praise. From what I gathered from his scattered speech to us, he had fought alongside Americans in WWII during the Battle of Britain. To just give a quick history lesson, the place where I am studying, Norwich, is apart of the county of Norfolk, from which there was a big airbase that supplied much of the army and went through damages from the war. Since Americans were a big help to the English during that part of the war, some people hold us in very high esteem. This man contined his praising with blowings of kisses and many "bless you all"s. He also relayed to us that, "We Brits had never seen coffee before you Americans came, all we had to drink was tea (at this point he makes a letter "T" with his arms) and then you introduced us to the world of coffee...". Anyways, after chatting with this fellow, or I guess I should say, him chatting with us, we backed away slowly from his attempts to blow kisses at us and give us a hug. Overall it was a nice gesture and something I thing none of us ever expected to experience.

Part two of my experience happened in my Visual Display class (which is all about well "visual display" in museums, life, art, culture, nature, etc.) the following day. It was actually a rather good class, where the guest lecturer was discussing Vauxhill Gardens, a place in 18th Century London that was about art first and foremost as an aescetic. It was also about British identity and nationalism, put on display in an area to show off to other visiting cultures and people as well as to make fellow Englishmen and women proud of their country and themselves. To begin with, it is also a little awkward to listen about British nationalism during the 18th century (at least for me). The class concluded with a discussion about finding this sort of naivity, non-political correctness in society in a place where nationalism is put on display. People were discussing how nationalism is not really thought of as a tasteful thing in society. The kicker was though, when my professor decided to bring up the difference between American and British soldiers today. Her comparisson was that, "British soldiers are often perceieved as 'nice chaps' you know where American soldiers are all about might. So maybe we [British soldiers] don't wear helmets on our heads or metal vests and we get blown to smiterines for it, but at least we are thought of as nice chaps." Hmmm. So much for being all "PC" there huh? It was quite a different attitude on American soldiers than I experienced only a mere twelve hours or so before.

I am quite sure I will have many more experiences and encounters either similar or different or whatever to this, so I will be sure to post them!