I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and
English wine. On the surface this is quite a funny joke, but look a
little deeper and you will see it is actually saying something very
important about the expectations we derive from cultural stereotypes.
While living in the UK I had many British friends. Some of them were
punctual, some of them were always late, some of them were funny, and
some of them more dry and serious (although of course I never drank
English wine), but I never thought anything of it. It would be very dull
indeed if everyone was overly polite all the time, played cricket,
drank beer, loved the Queen and read a lot of Shakespeare. It was these
differences in my friend’s personalities which made the rich tapestry of
life so interesting and exciting. We were all British, but we were all
different.
This all changes once you move abroad and you are suddenly forced
into being an ambassador of your home country. Everything that you do is
now measured by how well you comply or not to the expected behaviour of
people from your country. While living in Britain, if I had a British
friend who was late, they were just late. However, abroad, an Italian
person is expected to be late, and when they are, everyone is secretly
slightly happy that their preconceived judgments of Italian people have
been confirmed and reinforced. On the other hand, when a German person
is late, they have failed at being German. Everyone is secretly outraged
that they are forced to question if their preconceived judgments of
German people are actually fair and accurate. The poor German in
question is expected to fix their problem with tardiness as soon as
possible, so everyone can go back to happily (and wrongly) believing
that all Germans are punctual. Douglas Adams explores exactly this in
his book Last Chance to See.
“If they [Helmut and Kurt] were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn’t actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid… [or] an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch… If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing.”
When living abroad, and mixing in international circles, we are no
longer allowed our own identities. We have the stereotypes of the
identities of people from our home countries forced upon us, and we are
expected to perform this role faithfully, however cliché or unnatural
this may be.
On my project here, there are also three people from Germany, two
from Estonia (but of a Russian minority) one from Denmark, and one other
from England. This Friday we were asked to paint our faces with the
flags of our home countries, and to take pictures. While this was great
fun, there is nothing like walking around with the British flag
plastered on your face to make you question what your national identity
means. This is a question not only of what your own personal identity
means to you, but also of how the world identifies you. We are surprised
if a German volunteer makes a funny joke, and we were outraged when the
other English volunteer revealed that she doesn’t like tea. But none of
this should be surprising. We are all just individual people, who
happen to have been born in one country or another. Yet this is often
where the similarity ends. Within this country we have all had very
different upbringings and life experiences from the several millions of
other people who happen to have been born in the same country as us, and
we all have very different personalities and ways of life. While living
abroad, and especially while participating in a European project, we
are all in some way ambassadors for our home countries, this is
inescapable. But it should also be remembered that we are all just
individuals, living our individual lives, and should in no way be held
accountable to, or responsible for, other peoples prejudiced and
preconceived judgments of how people from our countries should act.
Italians can be punctual, Germans can be late or funny, I have even
found perfectly drinkable English wine and none of this should be in any
way surprising.
Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, colour, class or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful. – Margaret Mead
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