On being an expat in Britain
‘Please, look after.’
I recently (re)discovered Paddington. I had vaguely heard of him before I came here but to me he was just some English bear who liked marmalade. Then, a few weeks ago, I finally got around to watching the movie and found out, to my amazement, that he was not English at all. He was a foreigner, thrown into another world, another culture, desperately trying to fit in, to be accepted, to build roots, a home far from home. An expat. Just like me.
You might think my moving here barely counts as expatriation. After all, I am literally two hours away (by train) from home. It takes some people much more time to go back to their homes in the North or to Scotland than it does me. 30km of water and a bit more land. A step. A tiny jump. Un ‘saut de puce’ (flea hop), as we say.
And yet. I am pretty confident people who come from much, much further away (say Australia, or New Zealand) found themselves less puzzled by some aspects of life here than I did.
Eggs. With bacon, with avocado, with spinach, with beans, with mushrooms, with tomatoes. For breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. Eggs everywhere. (I never ate eggs before. I was always told they were full of bad cholesterol). Free water and toilets in restaurants. Hyper-processed foods, yet fresh milk (I always did -and still do- drink UHT, to the horror of almost everyone here). Non-interventionist politics. Private rail and private schools. Uniforms. Pubs. Patriotism. Queues. Hugs instead of kisses (how on earth is a hug less intimate?!).
The bloody NHS.
(And people not swearing a lot.)
But also a general policy of efficiency and pragmatism in things which is cryingly lacking in French culture. Back home, it’s all about form over substance, pedantism, flourishes, appearances, doing things the proper way, step-by-step, in the right order. People can be terribly rigid and narrow-minded, and sometimes take malevolent delight in being of bad faith. It’s incredibly frustrating, and it probably holds us back. I found that here, despite British people having a reputation of being rule-followers, there is a much greater tendency to let efficiency and substance prevail, to demonstrate good will and common sense. It is something I have come to immensely appreciate and value here, and one of many reasons I do not believe I could go back.
Mostly, moving abroad is the opportunity to reinvent yourself. It made me a different person. A better person. I have learned a huge amount about me, about others, about the world. About things I did not even suspect I needed to learn about. This is a more weathered, hardened, perhaps disillusioned me. But also acutely aware, empathetic, accepting. And despite having been taught the hard way, I truly believe, the best version of myself I can be.
