This Changing World

If you try and define the phrase ‘pub culture’ you come up with a lot of answers. According to the BBC, it’s something Britons prefer to exercising. If you look in various travel guides, it’s the ultimate in human interaction, a place to observe the culture, a place for quiz nights, karaoke, a place to bring your children since there’s now a smoking ban inside. For we Hobbits, pub culture has been… a bit of a shock.

Coming from California, it’s not as if we didn’t know people who drank. But with five thousand pubs in the country and at least half of them here in Glasgow, we find we don’t know people who don’t. And boy, howdy do WE stick out.

Our… difference is made more apparent by the fact that the pub is the pulse of the university. The entire Philosophy department goes to a small pub nightly after classes; on Wednesdays after the guest speaker speaks, it’s almost mandatory to attend a post-lecture discussion there. D. has been looked at askance for not going, the department director gave him a little chat about making good connections in school, and so has begun to attend. People stand him drinks constantly — assuming that he can’t afford one. He drinks a steady stream of Diet Coke, and comes home agreeably caffeinated and cheerful. (And yes – he returns the favors, knowing well the etiquette on that one.)

It’s a little different for T., having grown up with adult children of alcoholics. The ensuing emotional drama and narrow judgment surrounding alcohol make it harder to be easygoing about it, and drunk people make her flat out nervous. Which means a lot of Glasgow makes her nervous on a Friday night! The almost compulsory nature of the pub scene is difficult (Hobbits being those regrettable beings who hate being told what to do), so, T doesn’t go. And do you know what? She has NO friends.

(Hah. Didn’t see that coming, did you? Did you think there was going to be some miraculous save where staying home with her tea and her novels made her the most popular girl on the block? You need to widen your reading choices, then.)

D. frets that T. is isolated, but she’s happy enough, as she could some days put the ‘t’ in introvert all by herself. At any rate, this is how it’s been explained: many people in the United States have an easygoing, open-hearted nature on the surface, are quite friendly and make noises about inviting people to their homes but rarely actually do so. People in the UK take longer to warm to strangers to the level of inviting them home, but that’s maybe more honest – and in any event most in the UK are glad to take anyone to a pub (or meet them for tea, and since Glasgow has a gorgeous art deco teahouse, that’s a nice experience!). You can take that explanation or leave it. T. will likely make a few close friends slowly, and be just fine. Or not. At any rate, she’s getting a lot of writing done.

True Colors

We have started seeing posts at Reuters and CNN and other online news sources not only for the wild fires in Southern Cal., but also referring to a statement by the U.S. government saying that Iran was an obstacle to peace. Referring to another country – to someplace else – to someone else – as an obstacle to peace carries with it a heavy irony. We are not intending to start a political discussion but to read speeches that are clearly saber rattling – meant to terrify and intimidate and come on the heels of the President suggesting the possibility of World War III – well it has been a sobering heads up for us.

The first week we arrived, we had people telling us to be careful not to rent from Pakistani landlords. The neighbor here warned us not to leave our bikes out in the foyer, as “we’ve had trouble with the Poles.” A taxi driver pulled out a newspaper with screaming headlines (while he was in TRAFFIC, no less) and pointed to a story about a Chess Psycho Killer – whom he thought was American until he re-read the piece [Said ‘killer’ is alleged to be Russian, but I doubt there is one at all. This paper also looked to carry stories of alien babies.] We were told to be mindful of people wearing hats — because the Italian mafia is also here. We’ve heard deprecations about the Welsh, and then there’s the usual aggravation with the English… There is an atmosphere of uncertainty and nervousness all over. We think it just goes with the territory, of being 577,689 people in one densely populated burgh. But it also reflects a larger global uneasiness. People we know in the U.S. (though not on the West Coast but in the South) have even told us to be careful of the Muslims. This makes us grumpy. We feel threatened here by no one whom we’ve meet on the street (we have to admit, even the drunks aren’t all that threatening – most of them will only pontificate, provoke or puke). No one. If we’re supposed to be watching out for the Polish, the Pakistani, the Indian, the Italians and the Muslims, how will we recognize something actually dangerous when we see it?

– D & T

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