Cultural differences between English speaking nations - A random assessment

I stumbled across some photos the other day, from a holiday I went on a couple of years ago. After a quick perusal, I realised that these photos were never going to see the light of day... "Why!?" You say... Well, I'm glad you asked. It's because, at a stretch, you have a window of about 3-6 months to upload photos to Facebook. Miss the window and you miss the chance of sharing these photos with the people who comprise your Facebook friends. Upload photos outside of this window and it would be like Jamie Carragher coming out of international retirement for the England football team; Tactless, incomprehensible, and ultimately, no one would give a s**t. In fact thinking about it, the only other time you would be able to upload said photos, would be about 10 years from when they were taken, to simply observe how hairstyles and fashion change so much (and also so little) and to share a little nostalgia. I soon realised that I have heaps of photos which I never got round to uploading. I blame the eagerness of the types of people I recently witnessed at Coachella. There's this quirky little chill-out area where they had a few retro computers setup, like an intrevous drip back into the matrix. I don't think I've ever been so amused and saddened that at 10pm on Saturday night at the worlds most infamous festival there were people uploading pictures to facebook, desperately trying to express how much of a good time they were having to their digital brethren. Your not mate, I assure you, otherwise you'd be running around laughing your tits off with Molly, like everyone else...

So, I shall be following my own instructions like doctrine and waiting the obligatory 10 years before uploading them... Can't wait...

I am currently watching the Cricket test match between England and New Zealand and a lot of the build up has been focused on the rivalry between the two. There has also been a key element of note looking towards the Ashes in July of this year. I started thinking about how these rivalries wouldn't be as enjoyable for everyone involved if there weren't the historical and resulting, social similarities between the cultures. I also thought about how very few Canadians and Americans are going to know what the Ashes actually are... Having just returned from a season of snowboarding in beautiful Whistler, British Columbia, I had the privilege of meeting many different nationalities, but the majority of tourists and workers in Whistler were from the primary English speaking countries around the world; Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Americans and obviously Canucks. So, whilst it's fresh on my mind, I wanted to attempt to detail some of the cultural differences and similarities between the two, focusing predominantly on the aspects that comprise the modern 21st century westerner...

We speak the same language but might as well be from different planets:

Ah accents, my favourite subject. Regional dialects and they way in which they've come about have always been something that has fascinated me. Now, I've done a bit of traveling in my time, but before I went to Whistler I had never been to a place where you had SO many different accents in one place. In any given day, you could hear a plethora of accents whilst taking a simple walk through the village. Yet one of the first things I noticed myself is how relatively bland a neutral English accent is and easily subjected to mimicking. I consider neutral English to geographically circumvent London and go up as far as the Midlands (excluding Birmingham, I said bland, not suicidal). When a West Coast North American, Ozzie or Kiwi expresses a mood of excitement, it just didn't sound weird to me. But an English person expresses that same level of enthusisasm and there always appeared to be an obligatory amount of reluctance attached to it. On an almost daily basis, the joyous demeanour of an English accent would soon be drowned out by a puerile but accurate rendition of what the movie 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' thinks an English accent is, cue Kristen Bell:

If you're from North America, Australia or New Zealand, this is how you do an English accent, so I guess, in an over-exaggerated caricature kind of a way, this is how we must sound... This is without fail as well. If you don't believe me, find an English speaking person from one of these places and ask them to do an English accent, it's ALWAYS the same.

I think this is why Brits tend to instinctively stick to a dry and sarcastic sense of humour. It's obviously the highest form of wit and clearly bodes very well with our personalities.

At the same time though, there is a much more diverse range of accents in the UK and the majority (Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Northern English, Cockney) sound so much more intriguing, to everyone around the world. This isn't the view from Americans towards Canadians, or Australians towards New Zealanders though... It's always seemed to me to be quite belittling. The way in which Kiwis pronounce all their 'E's' as 'I's' and 'U's' as 'E's' or the way in which Canadians pronounce words with 'ou' in them as 'oo' (but categorically deny ever doing so; like people are just making this s**t up!? Honestly, the next Canadian you speak to, ask them, "why do you lot say 'aboot' instead of 'about?" Your accusation will be met with nothing but contempt and a pertinacious demeanour... They must know they do it?!) is a constant source of ridicule utilised by their closest neighbour.

But if truth be told, the average person, English speaking or not, can never tell where someone is from after initially hearing their accent. Funnily enough as well I am sure that there is a disproportionately high number of incorrect guesses from any random person when asking this question...:

"You're English?", "F*** no, C***, I'm Ozzie!"

"You're Canadian?", "I'm terribly sorry to have to correct you madam but I am actually English"

"You're a Kiwi?", "What!? What even is that...?" - Correct, this one is an American...

Our lives are focused entirely on having a good time:

Until I lived in Whistler, I don't think I have ever thought to myself on so many occasions, 'that is nothing but a first world problem'. Which, thanks to the social media which surrounds us and controls our lives daily, I had even abbreviated (in my own head) to a simple #1stworldproblems... Let me give you a few examples:

"FFS, I'm at the peak of the mountain and I completely forgot to wax my board" #1stworldproblems

"My boots are so obviously last season, the laces are ripped to shreds and everything" #1stworldproblems

I could go on but I think you get the idea...

I think it was more prevalent for me because of the opulence of my surroundings. Whistler is probably one of the most expensive places on earth (OK, so I just Googled it and it's not on any lists, but it is a very small place...). A tuna sandwich you can get from Wall-Mart for $1 will cost you $6.99 at the local Whistler market. Your average meal at a pub/bar is gonna be in the region of $20. And this is a country mile short of gourmet. Mass produced greasy fries and a handful of breaded scraps of chicken are items sold as luxury on the mountain.

So it's an expensive place, but more so, skiing/snowboarding is a very expensive hobby. When we first got there and were buying new equipment, I remember being in the main village and looking around at people and thinking that with all the apparel; skis, boots, bindings, poles, goggles, gloves and the fact that a mountain pass is $100 a day, each of the 25,000 people that holiday in Whistler on a busy weekend are spending roughly $1,000 each before they have even set foot on the mountain.

But we're all there doing it, we all love it, it is the pinnacle of western civilisation and everyone's having a great time. When it comes down to it, the problems that we, as English speaking westerners are experiencing on a daily basis, aren't really problems at all. But it's all relative I guess. My point being that living in Leicester and living in Whistler are two places massively set apart on the lavishness scale. But living in somewhere like Whistler really makes you realise that there is a whole other end to the spectrum; where the cost of a pair of Oakley goggles could feed and shelter a family in Laos for a month...

(Yes I am actually going to end this section on this unnecessarily morbid notion, you greedy western b***ards)

As much as we get on, we are the nationality we are and it's difficult to ignore that:

As we grow up, we are moulded by the social interactions of the world around us. If you consider yourself an international citizen, which not many of us are, then you presumably mould well with many different nationalities. But ultimately, you will find it easiest to get on with people who have the same sense of type of personality and sense of humour as yourself. Finding that through international boundaries is a pretty great thing, but usually, and I'm only saying this from experience, nationalities' tend to default to their own. We love venturing into the unknown, experiencing different opinions, philosophical viewpoints and cultural trends but when it comes down to it, the social interactions that sculpted you to the person you are, are ultimately difficult to ignore.

To try to put this indecipherable nonsense into context. I'd have to give Australians as the prime example. Australia, as a relatively new country, has grown over the last 50 years as a relatively recession free economy with beautiful weather and beaches which has breed a somewhat independent ethos and a culture of (amongst much of the youth anyway) 'social independence'. Especially amongst younger guys, I found from my time in Sydney and in Whistler that Aussie lads tend to more easily default to what they know than other nationalities. I assure you, that not for one second am I suggesting that there aren't hundreds and thousands of people of that ethos from the UK and America etc. but I just think that Aussies tend to have a bit of a bubble for themselves in today's society.  Anyone who has been to Bali in the last 10 years (who isn't Australian) will be able to tell you that Aussie lads create a sense of being in Australia, outside of Australia in the same way that Brits do for places like Magaluf and Malia. Both sets of nationalities are probably equally as proud of it, which is really quite depressing...

But in more neutral places for English speaking travellers, like South America or South East Asia for example, where the geographical divide isn't as significant, the relationships between these English speakers couldn't be stronger. Because although we have grown up on different sides of the planet and thousands of miles away, through the media, ease of travel and a vast array of cultural similarities, we share the same ideals, dreams,* and ambitions which instantly draw us together. This results in even stronger bonds being created as this is part of the beauty of travel, meeting new people who live continents away from where you come from who think in the same way you do.

* - 'Who gives a f**k about an Oxford comma?'

So on that sentiment of utopia and taking into consideration the fact that I am a week overdue with blog post number two, I will sign off. I will leave you with knowledge that the tardiness of my second post can be put down to nothing other than having an almighty fantastic time at Twickenham on Saturday. A day which was highlighted by a group of lads from Leicester wearing full wigs and beards in commemoration of the last game of a true Italian/Argentinean rugby legend. My beard didn't quite fit me though and I had no pockets in which to stash all my cash, these were my biggest issues of the day. #1stworldproblems