2004-06-19

Here is why I love the English: at the grocery checkout yesterday, the cashier asked me what part of America I’m from. “Actually, I’m Canadian,” I said (for the eight hundredth time). “But I’m living over here for two years.”

“Oh!” she said cheerfully. “Lucky you! You get to go back!” And for the next five minutes, while she rang up my purchases, I endeavoured to convince her that England really isn’t a horrid, miserable, depressing failure of a country. She wasn’t having any of it.

It’s a very peculiar national phenomenon. If you’re traveling in America, say, and you meet an American and you tell him that you’re in America on vacation and you’re having a great time and you think America is fantastic, he will be pleasant and enthusiastic and will agree with you. Traveling in England, if you tell a native you’ve come here on vacation, the invariable answer is, “Why?” I’m surprised that the board of tourism doesn’t put out brochures reading, “England: Why bother?”

I love it. Gloomy self-deprecation is something I can relate to. Though it does make it hard to get good recommendations for further travels within the UK. The most glowing review I can expect to receive is along the lines of, “It’s alright, I suppose. If you don’t mind the weather.”