One of my friends once said that she is always on her best behaviour when she is abroad as she is aware that she is a representative of her country while she is visiting someone else's. She thought it may be tempting for the locals to think that any ill behaviour on her part may be typical of her people and she did not want that. I thought that was a bit over the top and that essentially being oneself is one way of letting other people find out about your own customs, as long as you don't try to impose those customs on other people. I have the freedom to express my opinion but don't expect them to be accepted all the time and have no intention of forcing them on anyone. A lot of the times conflicts arise, at home and abroad, when people do not respect the right of other people to their own customs and try to make someone else accept their way as the 'right' way.
Recently at the airport, on the way back from a ski trip in Italy, an incident occurred that made me think about this a bit more. We were in the queue at the check-in desk, waiting for our turn. The airport is small and there wasn't enough space to accomodate the long queues that had formed on that particular morning, most of them consisting of British skiiers returning home from a ski trip. This caused some confusion for people who wanted to join a queue as they couldn't really find the end of one for the crowd. And then the first argument happened.
A family of three tried to join our queue and found they couldn't stay at the end of the line for long as people needed to move round the airport and kept asking to be excused through. So the family moved to a point slightly away from the queue, rather more next to the queue than in it, and then the man in front of us (we were about half way up the queue for our counter) shouted at them, 'The end of the queue is over there, not where you are.' The older gentleman in the group replied in an Italian accent that he knew where the end of the queue was but they needed to move somewhere else to let people through. The man in front of us laughed drily and said he didn't believe him, he's Italian, isn't he? Why he's trying to jump the queue!
The young girl in the group replied, in English with a Birmingham accent, that he was being rude and that actually they were British. The man in front of us turned away from them as she continued to scream abuse at him, whilst the young man in the group tried to calm her down. Eventually they realised they had joined the wrong queue anyway and moved away. In front of us, people kept cutting across the queue as they were trying to get to their check-in desks. This annoyed the man in front of us as well and he kept making comments at people who were pushing through. These were all British and apologised for what they were doing but he accused them of not meaning the apology. At some point the man in front of us turned round and made a comment to the man behind us about being proud to be British whenever he goes abroad. The man behind us replied that it was almost enough to make him vote BNP.
Two other incidents between then and our boarding the plane all had a similar theme: the passengers were lucky, and proud, to be British because things were so much better at home.
The incidents left me thoughtful. Although I don't think that the people I met were representative of all Brits, my view was that these people were hypocrites. They made a conscious decision to visit a foreign country to enjoy the skiing on offer there and yet have no respect for the local people. Although the incident was really a rather big misunderstanding, the underlying message was that the Brits knew better than the locals. Why should the Italians conform to British standards? When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I cannot help but wonder if the imperialist attitude has not quite gone away even though the Empire does not exist any more. Maybe my friend was right after all and that it is prudent to be cautious about one's behaviour while abroad.
Recently at the airport, on the way back from a ski trip in Italy, an incident occurred that made me think about this a bit more. We were in the queue at the check-in desk, waiting for our turn. The airport is small and there wasn't enough space to accomodate the long queues that had formed on that particular morning, most of them consisting of British skiiers returning home from a ski trip. This caused some confusion for people who wanted to join a queue as they couldn't really find the end of one for the crowd. And then the first argument happened.
A family of three tried to join our queue and found they couldn't stay at the end of the line for long as people needed to move round the airport and kept asking to be excused through. So the family moved to a point slightly away from the queue, rather more next to the queue than in it, and then the man in front of us (we were about half way up the queue for our counter) shouted at them, 'The end of the queue is over there, not where you are.' The older gentleman in the group replied in an Italian accent that he knew where the end of the queue was but they needed to move somewhere else to let people through. The man in front of us laughed drily and said he didn't believe him, he's Italian, isn't he? Why he's trying to jump the queue!
The young girl in the group replied, in English with a Birmingham accent, that he was being rude and that actually they were British. The man in front of us turned away from them as she continued to scream abuse at him, whilst the young man in the group tried to calm her down. Eventually they realised they had joined the wrong queue anyway and moved away. In front of us, people kept cutting across the queue as they were trying to get to their check-in desks. This annoyed the man in front of us as well and he kept making comments at people who were pushing through. These were all British and apologised for what they were doing but he accused them of not meaning the apology. At some point the man in front of us turned round and made a comment to the man behind us about being proud to be British whenever he goes abroad. The man behind us replied that it was almost enough to make him vote BNP.
Two other incidents between then and our boarding the plane all had a similar theme: the passengers were lucky, and proud, to be British because things were so much better at home.
The incidents left me thoughtful. Although I don't think that the people I met were representative of all Brits, my view was that these people were hypocrites. They made a conscious decision to visit a foreign country to enjoy the skiing on offer there and yet have no respect for the local people. Although the incident was really a rather big misunderstanding, the underlying message was that the Brits knew better than the locals. Why should the Italians conform to British standards? When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I cannot help but wonder if the imperialist attitude has not quite gone away even though the Empire does not exist any more. Maybe my friend was right after all and that it is prudent to be cautious about one's behaviour while abroad.
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