I must confess there are many benefits to being an ex-pat- or more acurately somebody who lives and works away from that place called 'home' given that I am not on any special package out here, and rightly so. The more we progress with technology, the easier it becomes and the less you really miss. Example- Skype and chats with the webcam, being able to download English telly, reading The Sun online etc etc. In the past decade I have spent just 3 years in the UK, with 2 years in Japan, 3 years in France and the past almost 2 years here in Hong Kong. The downside to this is, of course, being away from family and old friends. I will be right up there when tickets go on sale for trips on the (2nd generation of) teletransportation machines going on sale or at least when some fabulously fast aircraft is invented. Anyway, I digress. One benefit of living abroad is that you really can bury your head in the sand when it comes to politics and views of both a domestic nature (never read the local papers here) and from back home. Of course I am interested in the issues, but I don't see them as my issues or frankly my concern because I am not part of it.
I've always felt it important to know what's going on and have an informed view and balanced opinion of things, and growing up we always had lively discussions on all sorts of matters from human rights, politics, history and why my Dad could never support England at anything ever (he's Scottish).
One school of thought I have such a hard time with is what I see as the the classic, middle-England, middle-class, right-wing, Daily Mail-reading views where anything bad that happens to good Old Blighty is because of blacks, immigrants, gays, labour supporters, anyone on the dole and, dare I say, women that go out to work leaving their children with nannies and their husbands without a decent excuse for helping around the house now and again.
Now I am all for a lively debate, but this is way of thinking that no matter how hard I try I just cannot appreciate their point of view. Sometimes the views are in fact very subtle, references to the Irish (a certain generation still has a hard time with them) which irk me, blink and you'll miss it comments regarding gays, blaming society's ills on the current wave of immigrants working hard to make a living and a future or peoples expressing their non-Christian religions on British soil. I want to be polite and not react, but fuck I find it hard.
Some say your views and beliefs are formed very early on in life, and whilst I agree this can form a good foundation, a good education can also enable us to articulate clearly our own views too. It almost pains me, for example, to hear my parents-in-law rant on about how immigrants seem to be the reason the UK is falling to bits when not 2 generations ago my father in law's own family were fleeing some poor Eastern European country that had a problem with Jews. "I'm in now, mate, bolt the gates!".
Like I said, I haven't really lived in the UK very much over the past 15 years or so, and I was laughing with my Dad when I read on the news that the population or Southampton (my home town) is 10% Polish. I just didn't know that. And my Dad's view? "Aye hen, it's been like that for years. And they are bloody hard workers".
We're all immigrants in one way or another. Me here in Hong Kong, my Scottish Dad and Irish Mum in Southampton, my Polish Jew father-in-law in Cheshire, all just trying to make a living and live our lives as best we can.
Anyway, I could go on about the ills of evil Tony Blair, the NHS, the evils of Gordon Brown... but it's only Monday and I have a whole three weeks more to go!!
