Quote from: tekla on February 10, 2011, 09:14:58 AM
People should be:
1. More appreciative of what they have.
2. More understanding of how they came to have it
3. Far more aware of how easy it is to lose it.
pp
No doubt.
But with respect, I don't think you really understand the English psyche.
Don't worry too much, It too me many years.
In the county where I live, for example, English is spoken with three, quite distinctive accents, Hog, which is the traditional working class accent, a sort of working/middle class accent, with some interesting vowel sounds and the upper class accent. People speaking each of these might be born and raised, within a few hundred metres of each other.
Emigration in England is not the affair it is in the States. There, emigration tends to be seen as almost turning your back on your birthright. Here, it is seen as just trying something different. Those that don't emigrate demonstrate that they do like being here, they do appreciate this place and they stay put of choice.
I hold three passports, (potentially), I choose to stay.
Apart from the upper classes and those middle class people with social aspirations, patriotism and icon worship are almost unknown. Most here don't feel any need to demonstrate theirn loyality to this place, or any particular love for it. They are here by right.
I want you to know, I really do appreciate, that these notions are probably alien to you and most, in the likes of the US, plus many other countries. I found it incredably confusing when I first came. I had my head filled with warnings over impending communist invasion and the glory of the space race plus my continuing sorrow over the death of the late, late, late, late Kennedy. Yet these people played something called Cricket, with a piece of wood, a few twigs and a tennis ball they found in the gutter, in a back garden, that is about the size of the average US bathroom. They had 2 TV channels, no fridges, few owned a car and the old people were forever making references to 'The War'. When I asked, which war? I was, quite literlly, smacked on the side of my head.
I only started to understand these people, 3 years after I arrived.
But this is England. A strange, weird, facinating place with more variety than most of the world put together. They do things their way and always have done.
But with the greatest respect, suggesting those things to an Englishman is a bit like a 15 year old telling their parents they don't understand anything about life.
