Day 2: Post jet lag and immigration woes (another time, that story), the first thing I notice on my first full day in England is how everybody keeps apologizing for touching me. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. Pardon, sorry, pardon me. I love this. I am from the United States, and we too are a nation of apologizers (to each other, I mean, not globally). I’ve spent the last half-a-year in less apology-intensive countries, where people keep their heads down and elbows out, crowd-situations-wise. So all this apologizing is nice after six months of me saying “I’m sorry” or the local equivalent and being met with blank stares or more elbows. Now you could posit that the anglo tendency to apologize for bodily contact is nothing more than an old Victorian throwback, an awkward manifestation that reveals a profound distaste for all things corporeal, which would mean the non-apologetic peoples (for example, all those who have bumped me throughout southern Europe) are actually reveling in a refreshingly libertine celebration of humanity, a holistic conception of man as mind body and soul, and thus providing a powerful antidote to the archaic ascetic dualism exhibited by their stodgy, stiff-lipped island neighbors. Personally though, I think they just don’t give a shit, and I’m loving the apologizing. First impression of England: positive. |
