I wonder if I might ask you Martin what is wrong about having an after dinner discussion or a debate on the relevance of your monarchy? I won't comment because I am not British and I believe it would be inappropriate.
As to your awards, I do not know anything about them but having read back over the posts here, I can't see anyone quiping (is that a verb?) about your awards.
You are possibly correct James. It would appear that some of your contributors are quite aloof and condescending of others. These comments appear to go unchecked.
My understanding was that this site provided after dinner discussions, points of interest and help for new joiners.
The sources of information are second to none. However I don’t appreciate quips re our monarchy, my awards, the fact that I got something and others should have (but they don’t go on about it) and an intimation that I’m living in an Expat Bubble.
I do enjoy healthy debate and do enjoy contributing.
Your call.
Hey Ho.
I don't appreciate that comment regarding censorship Martin. If you don't like how I run this site then you are free to find another.
Just an observation, before I’m censored, with the latest inputs. Could it be those that have experiences of living abroad outside of Europe in places such as the Far East, Middle East, Africa and the states that feel that we will always be guests outside of our country of birth?
I’ve been involved in several Humanitarium efforts which have involved lifting and shifting expats. Some had lived in the country all of their lives but when the proverbial hit the fan their houses, land and possessions were taken for “genuine nationals”
I don’t believe that language is an issue but do believe that those Brits that, as Andrew put it, live in the Expat Bubble, are asking for trouble. Here in our village we have 9 French families that we socialise and mix with. This includes helping each other and opening the front door to fresh vegetables and home made jams. However, I still feel like a guest. Oh, and we pass the time of day with an English couple that spend the summer down here.
If you haven’t read Elephants on Acid, there are some excellent reports on how human behaviour changes in certain situations.
Finally, re crime, we had an attempted break in 10 or so years ago. The Mayor was that embarrassed he paid for the window and shutters to be repaired.
Yep, let's just keep it between the two of us OK?
Martin,
I don't run a mile from other expats, and the ones I know here are great and I am only too happy to spend time with them - as you say talking in one's own langauge is always easier - well for me at least and with deafness it is easier to combine some lip-reading as well. Something I can't do in French.
I DID live for eight years previously where no-one spoke English at all, and being an intellectual and linguistic cripple, I was very surprised and a little touched to find out later that I was called 'Uncle NorMAN' as that was their pronunciation.
My wife told me later here, that the dentist's assistant had called me a 'Gentle Man'' which I have construed both ways as neither could be called less than complimentary.
To me my only claim to anything is my efforts (at least) to try to be pleasant, and smile a lot. Help where I can, and above all respect the other people. I am not plaster saint, I get as irritated, annoyed and downright aggressive (silly old b*****r!) as anyone on occasions.
Yes, I have also known the expats who know it all, of all nationalities, and as my role was mostly to try and teach others I am sure the epithet has been applied to me. Sometimes confidence can be confused as arrogance and I am certainly guilty of projecting that element.
We none of us are perfect.
Don't worry - I won't tell anyone!
Martin/Jane;
I recall as a yoof that North of Watford they painted themselves blue and ate their children?
Don't tell me it was all a lie?
Not another one!!! Gawd they get more frequent every day! Deep apologies!
Nah - I think it's an age thing Norman :)
(I'm assuming getting my name wrong means you're having a 'senior' moment!!)
Caroline, in my book - Never. When you stop thinking and acting like a guest - anywhere and at any time you probably adopt the same rudeness you complain of in others.
This is not a Nationalist thing it is a behavioural one. If I vist my brother in England or any place in England that doesn't stop me from being a 'guest ' and behaving like one. Is that so hard to accept? If it is, then we are in deeper trouble than I ever imagined.
Celeste, I will give you credit for being either ironic or simply unknowing. Having spent time in REAL police states - Communist Russia, Hungary, Vietnam and yes, the ultra right-wing Gulf States, plus Jordan in the days before and during the Cold War then you would really appreciate that this is nothing like a police state.
Apart from anything else its too inefficient to operate one.
Ooof. My parents with broad Highland and Forfar accents respectively going to live in London with a child who spoke the language of the recently defeated enemy reflexively. Always an incomer in your sense Vincent except that apart from the Spitzname, soubriquet if you like, 'den Schotten' during my Berlin years I was rarely considered a foreigner there. It's always somehow conditional. I was nonetheless a foreigner.
yep, we're now labelled as les aveyronnais although we've only moved just into the Tarn...!
PS, it's easier to feel less of a guest when there isn't a language barrier and that must affect the way that those who aren't fluent feel about being a guest/immigrant or other label.
Excellent question. I was following Norman's logic which is that we have our cultural 'luggage'. Our children 'become'. It is that difference between 'being' and 'becoming' which makes Andrew very close in a sense. What none of us can absolutely exclude is circumstances putting any of us elsewhere which might be the Anglophone world - the dream job of a lifetime is always one of the type of thing that would allow that to happen.
Integrated immigrant, OK that is perhaps close to what we are. We have only recently got to know an English couple a bit because their son is in our daughter's class. So he came to her party last Saturday so that they were both there for the apero for adults after. All other adult guests were from the Francophone world so we only used French and that is how our world is. Professionally and SFN, both Anglophone and giving me that bit of help with the written particularly. The girls use both languages as an when preferred or required but ask them what they are and both will say Scots-Ticinesi (weird one that) because that is what they feel they are.
The question your eldest raises is both interesting and open though. Will she necessarily give birth to a French child one day? Perhaps a partner from south of the nearby border or... but then what is said child?
I think about my son born in then West Berlin whose mother insisted we do a consular registration, which we did, but never got round to the German one. I am not sure what she had in her mind, he has never had a German passport but all of his working life has been in the German system so that to all intents and purposes he has everything except electoral rights despite being a taxpayer. Even his English is a bit iffy. What is he? Nearly 42 years in that country, his partner and children are Germans. Last time I saw him he asked me what I thought about getting his children UK papers so that that were dual nationals, which they are perfectly entitled to. My question was whether it was meaningful within the EU that should in theory make us more 'like' each other. I don't actually know what happened since and certainly his oldest is (I think!) over 18 and could decide for himself now.
Culturally, Catharine, yes you and your family will always be guests, but ones who are appreciate. Unfortunately in any expat situation, blow-ins will always be blow-ins. The village in which I still have a house in Eire, regards me as a blow-in because I was brought up in Avoca (Ballykissangel) which is twenty miles away. Some of our french neighbours are from Normandy and are regarded as blow-ins, even though they've been here for 40 odd years. Marie-Elisabeth is regarded with suspicion by the Charentais, because her family came from the Gironde, and she speaks with an educated langue d'oil manner. In fact, she finds it hard to understand half of what they say, because of the patois influence on the local dialects. All my french friends, I have met through asking them about french life, which they appreciated and enjoyed trying to tell me, as we struggled through the language barrier. You only have to read some of the "France" books to see the difference. Last week, Marie-Elisabeth read a book by Celia Brayfield, which she hadn't noticed on the shelves before. "What a strange book! She comes down to deep France and spends her time with other English! Are the editors mad?" M-E is qualified to say that, as she was a french journalist, a literary editor and book translator.
Read “from here you can’t see Paris”, written by an American and has no expats! The only error the publisher made, was not to change dollars to euros, and lab to Labrador. I hate when words are shortened, reminds me of the Sebastien Coe problem, when the sports journalists refused to use his full name, Colman balls and all that shower.
Quite, Catharine. There are so many variables here. I can understand some feeling like guests when there are still strong links to the UK or elsewhere, when they travel back to the "home country" etc. But if you're here 100%, speak French 99% of the time. Have all interests here and just pop back to see family once every couple of years then I think the "integrated immigrant" label is closer. As for family situation, that counts too, my OH and kids are French as are all our family and friends here. We're a francophone household, kids can now understand some basic English now but still don't speak a word... all of which makes me feel more than just a guest here. Especially given the years of working and paying tax here.
In short, an intergated immigrant, yes. French, no, and even with French nationality I'd still say d'origine anglaise ;-)
Vincent, I think you take it all too seriously. Food. Well to be honest, the only way to truly enjoy French food is to move around the country. Regional food can be prepared by the best in the world but still suffers from being a bit 'samey'. The repertoire is broad in big cities. To truly enjoy excellent food one needs a broadly international menu which can even include a couple of English dishes at their best, certainly a couple of Scots dishes I have tried on people here. Then there is personal preference and to be straightforward on that, most people are within a spectrum from slightly to highly conservative which conditions choice and preference. That is fine. That is as it is worldwide. Let it be.
Your view of governance nationally to locally is amusing too. I lived many years in an East Cambridgeshire village. Firstly, being a dozen miles from the city it did not identify at all with that but more with Newmarket which is West Suffolk. Then, being the very southern bottom of East Cambs it was absolutely nothing like the Fenland of the greater part of that district in any sense. I served several terms as a village councillor. Initially we had a retired colonel who was the big local farmer (in the sense he had a big house with stables and servants quarters, the real 'big' farmer owned far more land...) who was permanently chair. When he retired his son, also a former colonel, took his seat. However he was a man of about my own age who cared little about farming generally, reared and trained polo ponies and that was that. The first opportunity after the old man passed away he resigned. None of us wanted to take on the chair. However, in the end I did but then the clerk appeared to be withholding just about everything. So several of us formed a 'working group'.
The parish had been run like a bastide for generations. Local bye-laws were flouted, county regulations sometimes never even distributed to members, right up to national laws ignored. Several generations of clerk and chair had run a little 'dictatorship'. In the end we had no choice other than to pick up a considerable package of things we could lay on the clerk to get him to go. He did, very resistant and fearing problems, fully knowing he had overtly broken laws. When I arrived where I am now I laughed, recognising something very much akin to what I had known albeit it they have far more powers and duties here. When our former maire resigned mid-term I was not entirely surprised given what I had heard.
My point there is that there are imagined differences sometimes. The Anglosaxon world is capable of being just as difficult an environment as the French. Compare it to my OH's native Swiss one and this is actually a cakewalk in most senses, well sans Germanic laws for one thing.
Ok then, when do we stop being 'guests'?
If you argue that I am a guest, how about my kids some of whom have lived here virtually all their lives? Given that my eldest says every time she goes to the UK, she gets an overwhelming urge to start whistling the Marseillaise, can she be considered a guest?
Or do we have to wait for her to give birth to a French child?
If you want to be legalistic, then as EU citizens we can live anywhere, so the guest idea, in that sense, doesn't work. Culturally though, we are guest,s and should behave in a way that doesn't clash with the french way of life. The British have always been controlled by a central system, and so are the Irish, through no fault of theirs, (the Brehon laws were ruthlessly suppressed under pain of death) so one of the cultural shocks that await the islanders is the local control of life. Some communes have shitty maires, others have very nice ones, ours even had a member of the reformed church as a maire. This local control is totally at odds with the ingrained thinking of the islanders, so much so, they have difficulty in dealing with the mairies, which is compounded by lack of the language. In the densely expatted areas, they gather in little groups and cling to local expat networks, which of course makes the gap even wider. They may as well buy some land and start building modern versions of the bastides!
As to the police state. There people who have that obsession and when you look closely, you realize it isn't quite a bad as they make out. The french police system is very complicated and a lot of stuff gets unnoticed, because if the system was working, then a lot of the rip off and nasty expats would be shown the door, as they were before the AE scheme came into being. Any clown can now get a siret number and say he is a builder, and doesn't have to show his city and guilds or degrees (if they are civil engineers etc),to the chamber of work. We at the program hear some very sad tales, and have been told that moves are a foot to try and correct the problem. It is a lovely feeling to be able to go the door of a check-bouncer, with gendarmes, who tell them to pay up or go with them!
Those of you who live in areas that have few expats, just don't realize how bad the problem is.