This week's issue is full of unusual discoveries Paigetheoracle made in Norfolk. And flowers from Massachusetts and amazing plants discovered by Willem in South Africa. Other issues have taken us to Spain, the Canary Islands, the Himalayas, even Machu Picchu. As we've been discussing on h2g2, apropos of that TV Tropes claim that we're 'British', we are an international bunch from Planet Earth. As such, we're always having to explain things to each other – you know, like why people on the Isle of Wight like to knit decorative scenes for the tops of postboxes. Or, indeed, what a postbox is. Or what kinds of birds, butterflies, and other wildlife we've got.

Or what the weather is like right now. Willem's having winter but he thinks 4°C is really, really cold. Tavaron's Austrian parents are in the Tyrol as I write and it's snowing. Here in western Pennsylvania the predicted high for today is 31°C with a high UV warning, so I'm sitting in front of a fan by an open window. We don't take too much for granted on h2g2.

One thing we strive to explain to the world is the difference between various customs, habits, and ways of looking at things and. . .well, stereotypes. No, all the people in a certain place don't do things the same way – not even in a small town. For example, some of us here in Hooverville are transplants from the southern US. A friend of mine from Texas and I have a habit of roaming around the frozen food aisles in the area groceries in search of such things as okra and mustard greens. The locals could care less about gumbo, but some of them will buy frozen pierogies. If you don't know what those are, you aren't from around here (or Poland).

The US is a really diverse place, so I derive amusement from any European who says 'Americans do this'. Some will, some won't. It goes along with the fact that some (not all!) Europeans are shocked to find out how big the US is.

'We're planning a trip to the US,' my (adult) students told me. 'We plan to tour New York City, visit Niagara Falls, see the Grand Canyon, and spend a day at Disneyland. We thought we'd rent a car so that we could see more of the countryside.'

'Wow,' I said. 'How long were you planning to spend there?'

'About a week.'

For scale: To go from Pittsburgh, which is a couple of hours' drive from where I am, to California, where the Disney paradise is, you'd have to drive 36 hours without stopping. If you are in the UK and drove to Moscow you still wouldn't have covered as much distance. It's a funny old world.

We are all, of course, equally clueless as to the elevation of the Andes and what it's going to do to your breathing apparatus, the scale of the Pacific compared to the Atlantic, the real size of Africa, which like North America is a whole continent, what it's like to travel by train in India or how humid it's likely to be in Djakarta. . .

In short: we don't know because we haven't been there. That's kind of what h2g2 is for. If you have, we want to know about it. Especially in the Edited Guide or the Post. That way, other people can learn, too.

One of my German military students, a humorous Prussian colonel, was married to a lady whose job was conducting tourists on bus trips. He told me she 'preferred American tourists.' I was frankly surprised: they got a lot of bad press at the time. I asked him why.

'They're so punctual,' he replied. 'When she tells them to meet her at the bus at 3 pm they are there, usually a few minutes early.'

'They're terrified they will be left behind,' I laughed. The dread of being abandoned in a place where they don't speak English was a wonderful cure for tardiness.

Of course tourists get into trouble wherever they go. I've just been reading a novel by Louise Penny. She's a Canadian novelist. Her native language is Canadian English. When she lived for a while in Quebec City she learned French. I'm with her: I've learned a handful of languages and French is harder for me than, say, Dutch. I tend to mangle it. Apparently, Ms Penny did, too. She went around telling people that the night was a strawberry and that some people were good pumpkins. She must have been very entertaining. She has improved, of course: the main character of her best-selling novel series is a Quebecois police inspector. His French is impeccable.

No matter where US people come from, they tend to derive amusement from telling whatever they think is the oddest thing about the latest place they visit. When I returned from my first sojourn in Europe, my mother showed me a column by humorist Erma Bombeck. It was the 70s and Erma and her husband had taken one of those eight-countries-in-seven-days tours that featured in the film If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium. Says it all, really.

Erma's job was to be funny so she built her column around the fact that the American tourists mostly hated the 'continental breakfast'. They were used to something not quite as awful as a 'full British', and what they were getting was more like what we got in Germany: a boiled egg, bread, butter, marmalade, possibly cold cuts, and tea or coffee. Particular tourist ire was aroused by what Erma termed 'the hard roll,' by which she meant a good old Brötchen (Semmel to you southerners). She claimed that, because they refused to eat them, the tour company just packed them up and took them along, serving them every morning in a different hotel in a different country.

This sort of thing does not constitute serious cultural critique. Everybody knows this. However, I used to have to caution the German air force that their choices of conversational openers for Britain left much to be desired.

'Now, guys, you go into a pub. Hans-Jürgen, you start.'

'I vuhd like a beer, pleass.'

'Good. Now say something to the man in the cap next to you. Start with a comment on the weather.'

'Talking about ze veather iss borink.' Turns to imaginary man in pub. 'I zink you shud not haff zis Royal Family. It is a stoopid idea.'

Facepalm. 'Okay, now that you've been thrown out of that pub, let's go to New York City. But please. . .' this was in the 80s. . . 'leave the man-bag at home.'

'Why?'

'Well, I know for a fact you're taking your motorbike. You will be attired from head to foot in leather, ja? This could lead to misunderstandings in the biker bar.'

'Das ist doch intolerant!'

'Yes, it is, even for the 1980s. I'm not telling you what should be. I'm telling you what is.'

I once had a very stubborn German student who spent 15 minutes lecturing me on the uselessness of the English-language 'question tag.' He was outraged at sentences like 'It's raining hard, isn't it?' No, not because of the weather this time. Because of the need to remember to repeat the verb and a pronoun referring to the subject. This was clearly too much work. Instead of 'isn't it?' and 'won't they?' and 'doesn't he?' it was clearly much more efficient to use one expression, like the German 'nicht wahr' or 'gell'.

I agreed with him. This left him temporarily speechless.

Pursuing this advantage, which I rarely had when teaching German business executives, I added, 'You've convinced me.'

He beamed.

'Now go and convince the other 500 million or so people who speak this language.' His face fell.

That's the problem, of course. People won't act the way you want them to. They don't all do the same things, or like the same stuff, or think the way you do. That's actually a good thing, no matter how frustrating you may find it at first.

Some people like hard rolls for breakfast – others, who live next door, prefer muesli. Or noodles. Or sugary cereals with funny names. When we travel, whether in person or virtually, we not only notice what is different, but also what we have in common. We don't merely look for the 'typical', but also for the unusual. We stay open to new things. That way we can be good Earth pumpkins.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

07.08.23 Front Page

Back Issue Page