Posts Tagged "expat"

Pork Pie and Other Faux Pas

Posted by cafebebemama on Mar 14, 2010 in American Mum Me, Blogger Love, Guest Bloggers | 1 comment

Traditional Pork Pie

For those of you who weren’t around last week, on Friday I was one of over 70 bloggers who participated in Guest Post Day, started by Erica at Littlemummy.  I had the joy of Guest Blogging for Vegemitevix who is my Kiwi sister, I think!  We have a lot of similarities as Expats and wives of Englishmen.  I give you my post which was written for Vegemitevix last week…just in case you missed it!

Pork Pie and Other Faux Pas

When I first moved to the UK, there was a massive learning curve that I never could have anticipated. It was 2005 and I was thoroughly loved up with my fiance Mark. He had come to collect me in Caen, France after I had finished my study abroad semester. I was never so thrilled as when he drove up, slightly bleary-eyed in his Volkswagen Passat. We spent a day driving across France to Geneva, Switzerland to spend a week with Mark’s sister and her family (our little match maker, she was) and then we journeyed back to England. 2 June, 2005 marked the first day of the rest of my life in this country and I’ve never looked back.

I quickly learned key terminology to allow me to survive. I learned that I spoke American and not English and that my (at the time) fiance was ENGLISH and not BRITISH. I was not fully aware that the UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that most residents are rather particular when it comes to their nationality. I have educated my family and they no longer call people “Brits”…they are learning too.

Vocabulary was a whole different kettle of fish. Chips in Engand are Fries in the US; Chips in the US are Crisps in England; Pants in England is Underwear in the US; Pants in the US is Trousers in England. Pudding in the US is a chocolate or other flavoured custard-like substance that one eats following a meal; Pudding in England is either Yorkshire or the general term for DESSERT. So much to learn!

And don’t even get me started on spelling and pronounciation. I have dutifully learned that one of my FAVOURITE PROGRAMMES is NEIGHBOURS and not one of my favorite programs is Neighbors. I have learned to COLOUR and I ENDEAVOUR to FLAVOUR my SAVOURIES with salt. I now eat TO-MAH-TOES and BAH-NAH-NAHS. I nip to the shop for some bits and bobs and I try not to nick the last one of anything. I’m learning!

One lovely day, the first summer that I was living here, my future inlaws and assorted family all came over to our house after some outing. My sister-in-law-to-be had picked up several meat pies and a pork pie for lunch. She brought them into the kitchen and I started bustling about with them to get them in the oven. I found space for all of them. The beef and onion pie, the steak and ale pie, the quiche and the PORK PIE. That’s right. The Pork Pie went in the oven. What did I know?? Pie + Meat = Oven right? WRONG!

A pork pie DOES NOT go in the oven as I was to learn. It is already cooked and is meant to be eaten COLD. A pork pie has a pastry outside and a pork (and other bits I’m sure) inside and inbetween the two there is a gelatin layer. Now, what do you suppose happens when you put a pork pie, with its gelatin layer, in the oven? The gelatin layer melts, leaks out and effectively ruins the pork pie. And pork pies are not cheap! I went to the oven, checked on the pies and pulled out the tray (thank God I had put it on a tray) with the Pork Pie. It was swimming in now-liquid gelatin. Everyone looked at it and laughed and said “You put the pork pie in the OVEN???” I was MORTIFIED beyond belief. I had ruined the pork pie and had made myself look very AMERICAN in the process. This little mistake is still brought up every time a pork pie is involved. “Remember when you put the pork pie in the oven???” they say. Ha, bloody ha! My family wasn’t mean and they weren’t angry with me at all…they just had no idea that someone WOULDN’T know what to do with a pork pie. Cultural Faux Pas number 762.

Guest Expat Blogger- Vegemitevix

Posted by cafebebemama on Mar 5, 2010 in Blogger Love, Guest Bloggers | 20 comments

New Zealand Flag

US Flag

The delightful world of blogging has allowed me to get to meet so many brilliant people and Vegemitevix is one of them.  We’re kindred spirits, in fact.  Vegemitevix is a Kiwi (from New Zealand) who came to England much the same as I did.  For the love of an Englishman.  She and her Englishman have a similar love of Paris as well as I found out on her lovely post A Girl Guide in Paris.  You can read more about her life and adventures at http://vegemitevix.com.  I think you’ll love her writing and tales as much as I do.  Vegemitevix has this to say about herself:

Vegemitevix moved from the seaside city of Auckland in New Zealand to a small rural town in Hampshire in August 2008, to follow the love of a Englishman she met on holiday in Paris in 2007. She took along for the ride, her kids (two teens and a tweenie) the family pets, twenty boxes of earthly possessions and guts! Swapping pavlova for pork pies, beautiful beaches for Blighty and sun, sea and surf for snow and sleet, Vegemitevix blogs stories from the expat frontline.

I now bring you Vegemitevix’ guest post for my Friday offering.  It’s all about being an expat…something I know just a bit about.  If you’d like to read my post on Vegemitevix’ blog…head on over there after you read this one.  My post is entitled “Pork Pies and Other Faux Pas”…it’s a corker!

Things I’ve learnt from being an Expat

This is my third experience of living the expat life. I spent my early life living in a gold-mining town of Vatakoula in Fiji, I spent my kids’ early lives in Brisbane, Australia and now I’m here – in Hampshire, UK.

New Zealand’s national bird and icon is the flightless kiwi – a discreet brown little bird who forages for food on the forest floor! Yet Kiwis have a reputation for lots of travel. Who says Kiwi’s can’t fly? Huh!

I’ve learnt so much from being an expat. Some silly things, some trivial, some deep…and…meaningful, some things about the world, the universal way of things and some sometimes alarmingly revealing things, about myself.

Here’s a few of them.

You wouldn’t go into someone’s home and tell them they had a small house, you didn’t like the food and laugh at their accent, would you? It’s never a good idea to complain about your host country and compare it with home. It’s hard to not do this. At first everything is so new and different and interesting, but after a while the exotic light dims and the comparisons begin. My son (aged 14 when he first arrived in England) would often come out with terribly embarrassing comments such as

‘I got really lost on the way back cos all the houses look the same’.

And in answer to questions about whether he’d found a girlfriend at school.

‘No, all the girls are really fat in England. (He wasn’t trying to be rude, it’s not quite such an outdoorsy lifestyle here and he just lacks social graces sometimes..)

Ahem. Moving on…

Your home country’s national dish may be pickled turnips on a bed of fattened frog’s livers, but nothing in your new country will ever hold a candle to it. I will never understand what is so appealing about Cornish pasties. To me they are a heart-attack wrapped up in a stroke! Who would enjoy stewed mince meat and bland potatoes and veg swimming in coloured cardboard gravy, wrapped up in soggy pastry?

My Englishman!

He comes over all nostalgic and moist-eyed when he sees one. I don’t get it! But then he doesn’t get my favourite food, oysters. I particularly love Bluff oysters from the deep south of New Zealand! He doesn’t understand the attraction of what looks to him like the contents of a sailor’s spittoon and tastes like fermented cough mixture!

I’ve discovered that being an expat will do crazy things to your memory. You will all of a sudden magically memorise every single word of your national anthem, (even the Maori words that you used to mumble!) and you will be prone to bursting into song at any minor sporting triumph. You’ll remember the words and actions to the Haka despite the fact that it’s a Maori man’s ceremonial war dance. And you’re a woman! You’ll watch every All Blacks’ game you can (NZ’s national rugby team), despite the fact you loathed rugby and despaired of your rugby idolising nation!

Memories tinged with homesickness become more vivid when you’re an expat.

You’ll remember a hotter sun, a longer summer, a keener surf, and an easier lifestyle, at home. No doubt the grass is greener there too, despite the fact it doesn’t rain as much as here in England.

Nowhere has as much rain as England!

I’ve been here over 18 months now and I’ve been amazed at how few Kiwis live in my neck of the words. I haven’t met one fellow Kiwi – with familiar squashed dipthongs and flattened vowels – in this little town. This sad search for fellow countrymen and women lead me to throwing myself at a man at the Basingstoke Ocktoberfest who was wearing a t-shirt with a Kiwi advertising slogan on it – ‘Yeah right’. (It’s advertising for a beer called Tui) Keen on making friends I bounded up to him like a friendly Labrador, patted him on the back and said about the rapidly diminishing beer supplies at the festival

‘Beer at a beerfest, yeah right’

He gave me that look that silently asked ‘How long until your meds?’

I tried to explain but failed in light of the fact he was English and the t-shirt was a gift. I hurriedly lost myself in the crowd.

It’s possibly a blessing in disguise that there aren’t many Kiwis living nearby, as there’s no way I can loose myself in a clicque of countrymen. I’ve had to assimilate, though I’ve learnt to be careful to remain true to myself and my identity. I have to encourage the kids to not pick up the local accent. I was horrified when my ten year old daughter came home talking…

‘like is, dropping the ‘t’s in words like, y’know like wah-a not water’. I got her to drop it immediately. The fake accent. Not the t’s.

Being an expat makes you an immediate expert about everything that comes from your home country. At times you become something of a walking talking tour guide. Lord of the Rings? I know all the scene locations. America’s Cup – I was there wearing lucky red socks! How to shear a sheep….um….I’m a city girl!

Everyone you meet knows someone who lives in New Zealand, and they want to know if you know that someone too.

‘Where are you from’ asks the key cutting engraver.

‘Auckland, New Zealand’s major city’

‘OOOOOh I know Fred and Martha Anderson they live in Auckland. Do you know them?’

Patient look. Faint pleasant smile.

‘No sorry I don’t think I’ve come across them.’

There’s just under 2 million people in Auckland. I’m a friendly girl, but not that friendly! I don’t know everyone!

I’ve learnt so much from being an expat.

The most important lesson of all I think, is how deeply unsettling homesickness can be. It creeps up on you not on the dull dark days, but when everything is working out well. When the sun’s shining and the new family dynamics are working out. There’s no explanation, and often no warning when homesickness will strike. Learning how to work through it has been one of the major lessons of my life. After all it’s simply learning how to deal with change. Our whole lives we are travelling from place to place (emotionally if not physically) from age to age, from circumstance to new circumstance. Learning how to cope with change has meant that I am painting myself with resilience. I’m adapting and growing.

I’m forever learning and that is a very precious lesson indeed.