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Other | Wednesday 29th August 2012 | Osh
Spanish vs British
As a Spanish girl in her twenties belonging to the new immigration wave of youngsters from fucked-up countries who come to London escaping economic crisis, I’ve found that the UK isn’t such a bad country to live in, except for a few tiny little things….If you are wondering what this bunch of Spanish people - who you can clearly identify for talking louder than usual in cafeterias and cheap restaurants - think about British culture, here are a few examples:
London is insanely expensive!
Well, the first thing we do when we get to London is start freaking out about how expensive everything is. Especially the public transport. We get on a bus and they charge us so much money that at least we expect the driver to be nice, but he’s not. Then, after a few months, we discover that those Barclays bikes that are all around London can be taken by anyone. In Barcelona we have the same service but you have to have a member card and be registered. London’s traffic can be dangerous though, not only because driving on the other side is quite confusing, but also because our traffic lights work in a different way, we just have the amber before the red light. The other day a driver almost ran over me because I was waiting for the light to turn green…On the other hand I have to admit that there are also lots of things for free, like a great variety of cultural events and gigs that in Spain we don’t have - only if it’s an awful group trying to get promoted. And tap water, you guys are not aware of how much money and flatmate-arguments you can save by drinking from the tap.
Keep calm and be fake
One of the things that we most admire in British people is their capacity to smile and be polite in any kind of situation. In Spain we have the tendency to lose our temper very quickly, shout and slam doors. It’s true that we are very passionate, hot and impulsive, which make us great lovers, but bad colleagues and flatmates. I get the impression that in the eyes of the British we are kind of primitive specimens, I think we create in them fascination and repulsion at the same time. We can have fights everywhere and we love to complain about everything and show that we are right. That has the disadvantage that at the end of the month you have lots of enemies and a bunch of places where you can’t come back. There are also mannerism differences: in Spain, for example, it is unthinkable expecting people to stay on a side in the tube’s escalators if there isn’t some kind of punishment. Here there is a common knowledge of unwritten politeness rules, that I still have to discover to stop getting the disapproving looks hidden behind fake smiles. Here I have the impression that people don’t express what they really think; they just swallow emotions with a smile just so as not to break the politeness of the ambience. I think a fake smile can be scarier than an angry face, because you never know what’s behind it.
Take us seriously!
I love that Londoners love Spain, I notice Spanish people get a better treatment than other immigrants, just because British associate us with holidays, sun and party. But the bad thing is they’re not taking us seriously enough, as the most popular things in Spain are siesta, which makes us look lazy, and bullfighting, which makes us look like insensitive animal torturers. In our defense I have to say that in some parts of Spain, like Catalonia, bullfighting is now forbidden, and we have a growing community of vegetarian people, not as big as the British one though, here vegetarians have more facilities. And we only practice siesta during the weekend, we like to chat after lunch around the table though, and this activity has a special name that has no translation, as maybe it is just a Spanish thing, it is called sobremesa. During the sobremesa we have coffee (a good-taste affordable one) and then some kind of liquor as carajillo or orujo while enjoying the company. And to make it clear once and for all, no, I don’t know how to cook paella!
By Laura Vila
