A Creative Mind Abroad

Culture shock, culture shock, culture shock! Yes, sir, this page is devoted to the wonderful notion of culture shock. While it’s true, and commonly accepted, that every country has its own set of customs and colloquialisms, you don’t realize how different they are until you’ve spent some time abroad. With that in mind, I’ll take this page as an opportunity to illustrate the little differences in culture I’ve noticed since I came to England.

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Shocker #1: Roads

While it’s perfectly true, the direction of traffic isn’t the only differences between the roads and Great Britain and those in the US. In fact, it’s the roadway difference I got adjusted to most easily. What is more culturally shocking than cars coming at you from the wrong way? Let’s find out…

-Street Signs. To be more precise, this bullet should include “lack there of” in its title, but you get my gist. When actually visible and in existence, the shape and style of road signs are vastly different from the dark green placards of the states. London is one of the most confusing spiderwebs of pavements I’ve ever seen, and the lack of street signs makes finding a location exceedingly more difficult. If you’ve somehow found a street with a street sign somewhere on it, the placement of the placards are very random; some are on buildings, others on two or three feet tall legs, and still others mounted at a height visible to cars, but the last is rare and generally reserved for suburban boroughs. Good luck finding where your ultimate destination is, Londonites!
-Cars. It isn’t like the automobiles are something out of the Jetsons, but the styling and brands are very different and distinctly European. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched a lot of UK Top Gear, but I could pick a British car out of a line-up of US cas without even looking at their badges Then again, I love naming the “foreign” car company based on a car’s badge; Renault (Reh-no), Vauxhall (Vox’ll), Mercedes Benz, Fiat (Fee-it), Alpha Romeo (Row-meh-oh), and Lamborghini are just some of the brands I’ve seen since I’ve been here. As for styling, the vehicles, including the vans, are much smaller and curved than American vehicles. I have not, thankfully, seen anyone driving a G-Wiz (think British Smart Car), but a lot of the cars have that same minimal space sentiment. I suppose I’ll have to look elsewhere for the gorgeous supercars from Top Gear. Sigh.
-Roads Themselves. In addition to the cars driving on the “correct” side of the road, roadways in the UK are a lot more slender and confusing than American roads. Each lane gives approximately three inches of leeway on either side of a car, meaning European drivers have to be very good and what they do. Some roads have only one lane, but lack markings that call it a one-way road; I have to wonder, so people get stuck in the middle of a street when someone drives up from the other direction, or are they just expected to know? There are also what are known as “zebra crossings” (zeh-bra), where the lane borders become zig zags. You’re completely allowed to jaywalk across these at any time, making it feel just like home!

I could go into the more obvious intricacies to British road culture, but I don’t suppose I need to describe every road sign or landmark different from the US. Some differences in the roads may be minor, but the three above were enough to give me a bit of a taste of culture shock.

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Shocker #2: America and England: Two Countries Separated By A Common Language

It may be a joke my British professor told me, but it’s actually pretty accurate in summing up the difference between American English and, er. English English. Speaking with a lot of the British students and faculty here at Kingston University along with the rest of the area has been quite an enlightening experience, namely because the phrasing, diction, and general intonation of their conversation is so different! Here are a few of the things I’ve noticed during my time in London:

–“Fries are chips, chips are crisps.” No matter how infamous this distinction is between the two countries, I still find myself saying the wrong word for the various potato products I’m trying to name. I haven’t received the wrong thing on accident, thankfully enough, but I have gotten to wondering something about the British term for chips/crisps. If potato chips are crisps, what do you call tortilla chips? I suppose I really don’t have an answer for that…
–Food names in general. Like the above bullet, the names for various kinds of food and drink are very different. I won’t go too in depth about the distinctions, since I plan to talk all about food in another entry, but I will mention the word “lemonade.” If you want sugary lemon beverage traditionally served by a poolside, you’ll have to call it “country lemonade” or “cloudy lemonade.” It’s also not as common as it is in the US, so when you see “lemonade” on a British menu, you’re going to get Sprite instead of lemonade. It didn’t happen to me, but one of the people in my study abroad program got a nice glass of bubbly lemon-lime soda instead of lemonade. Sad day…
–Being someone’s love is not a sexual thing. The same goes for darling and a lot of the other British pet names, and though it may come off that way to Americans, these are pretty innocuous things to call someone in the UK. Regardless of prior knowledge, you’ll still probably be taken aback the first time you’re called it, so don’t be too embarrassed if you are.
–Swear words. I won’t go too deeply into this for the modesty of my readers, but as a college student, I most assuredly heard a difference in curses between Americans and Brits. The majority of them seem a lot more low-key than the strong swear words you here in the States, and I think some of them are actually based in Christianity. I’m not going to list them, but let’s just say that the bl**dy w**kers across the pond know how to swear in their own special way.

I could continue with more differences in speech, but I feel like this is getting a little too lengthy for light reading. Needless to say, the syntax, speech patterns, and diction of the British are very, very different from what most Americans are used to.

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