In my last post, I wrote about my progress in this country, the United Kingdom, since I moved here to work, which was on or around the 16th of November in 2015. That post was about my professional progress, my personal stuff and so on.
In this post, I am going to mention my social advancement. I have made hundreds of new acquaintances; many of these have slowly grown into friendships, although I do admit that very few have led to household-friendliness. I have had my friends bring me or send me Christmas and festival cards, buy me a cup of coffee, help me do stuff I find difficulties doing, and sending me glowing testimonials about my work. I have been invited only once by a parent of a child I treated - but I did not go as I wasn't free that afternoon. I made an acquaintance with a patient's grandfather that led to membership in a local Indian cultural group that I am proud to be a part of. I made a lot of birding friends, but lack of time has led many of those friends to fall by the wayside. The one person I am still friends with - and whom I do meet from time to time - is very dear to me as he took me on a lovely birding trip to a local area.
Among doctors, I must mention some of my doctor colleagues whom I really treasure the friendship with. They include many who were only in Blackpool for a short while of about 4-6 months as they did a stint here before moving to do posts elsewhere. I should also include several doctors I met and still meet when I do locum jobs in other trusts. There are agency workers with whom I have a very good relationship. They are my friends on social media and we do wish each other on our significant days.
My well-wishers and admirers include domestic staff, nurses, doctors, dieticians, ward assistants, administrative staff and patient parents in the hospital. Outside the hospital, I have similar people at places I frequent, including coffee shops, restaurants, hobby shops, retail stores and so on. There are at least 3 workers at the Blackpool North railway station who always nod/doff their hats/ acknowledge me; one of them trusts me completely and waives his right to even check my ticket on my way to boarding the train.
I have to say this: people from India think the British are tight-lipped and do not freely interact with others. My experience in this regard has been totally uplifting. I do think though that there are certain boundaries we should never cross. The Brits are very open-hearted if you stay within those bounds. For example, there is a polite way to hug that would be completely wrong in India, but very acceptable in the U.K. You could end up hugging someone within minutes of meeting them - and it would still be socially acceptable. A mother of a sick child once spontaneously rose off her chair and hugged me with gratitude at a hospital I had gone to do a one-off duty in - in almost total darkness at 02:00 a.m. when I went in to review her child! Only today, I was with my consultant, when a female colleague I had worked with a year ago came to visit the Paediatric ward for something else - and she came over to us and gave me a friendly hug in front of my consultant.
To be honest, as a married male, I am not allowed to do the same to a woman - and this can be quite unnerving and unsettling - as I was warned by my educational supervisor on one occasion when I reached out to go close to a co-worker of the opposite sex. This is where I have occasionally foundered and worried, but things are improving as I am getting used to the culture of this country.
As I cook my own food and take it to the hospital every day, I have found many admirers who marvel at the smell of the food I open at lunchtime and heat in the microwave. I was pleasantly surprised when I met a GP for the first time at a social function - tells me he has heard about my culinary skills! When I asked him how he had known about this, he told me one of his GP trainees who had once worked with me in the hospital had told him about this!
There is so much to talk about but I will end this post for now. If you know me in the U.K. and are reading this and know I am talking about you, do smile. Readers, please comment. Thanks.
In this post, I am going to mention my social advancement. I have made hundreds of new acquaintances; many of these have slowly grown into friendships, although I do admit that very few have led to household-friendliness. I have had my friends bring me or send me Christmas and festival cards, buy me a cup of coffee, help me do stuff I find difficulties doing, and sending me glowing testimonials about my work. I have been invited only once by a parent of a child I treated - but I did not go as I wasn't free that afternoon. I made an acquaintance with a patient's grandfather that led to membership in a local Indian cultural group that I am proud to be a part of. I made a lot of birding friends, but lack of time has led many of those friends to fall by the wayside. The one person I am still friends with - and whom I do meet from time to time - is very dear to me as he took me on a lovely birding trip to a local area.
Among doctors, I must mention some of my doctor colleagues whom I really treasure the friendship with. They include many who were only in Blackpool for a short while of about 4-6 months as they did a stint here before moving to do posts elsewhere. I should also include several doctors I met and still meet when I do locum jobs in other trusts. There are agency workers with whom I have a very good relationship. They are my friends on social media and we do wish each other on our significant days.
My well-wishers and admirers include domestic staff, nurses, doctors, dieticians, ward assistants, administrative staff and patient parents in the hospital. Outside the hospital, I have similar people at places I frequent, including coffee shops, restaurants, hobby shops, retail stores and so on. There are at least 3 workers at the Blackpool North railway station who always nod/doff their hats/ acknowledge me; one of them trusts me completely and waives his right to even check my ticket on my way to boarding the train.
I have to say this: people from India think the British are tight-lipped and do not freely interact with others. My experience in this regard has been totally uplifting. I do think though that there are certain boundaries we should never cross. The Brits are very open-hearted if you stay within those bounds. For example, there is a polite way to hug that would be completely wrong in India, but very acceptable in the U.K. You could end up hugging someone within minutes of meeting them - and it would still be socially acceptable. A mother of a sick child once spontaneously rose off her chair and hugged me with gratitude at a hospital I had gone to do a one-off duty in - in almost total darkness at 02:00 a.m. when I went in to review her child! Only today, I was with my consultant, when a female colleague I had worked with a year ago came to visit the Paediatric ward for something else - and she came over to us and gave me a friendly hug in front of my consultant.
To be honest, as a married male, I am not allowed to do the same to a woman - and this can be quite unnerving and unsettling - as I was warned by my educational supervisor on one occasion when I reached out to go close to a co-worker of the opposite sex. This is where I have occasionally foundered and worried, but things are improving as I am getting used to the culture of this country.
As I cook my own food and take it to the hospital every day, I have found many admirers who marvel at the smell of the food I open at lunchtime and heat in the microwave. I was pleasantly surprised when I met a GP for the first time at a social function - tells me he has heard about my culinary skills! When I asked him how he had known about this, he told me one of his GP trainees who had once worked with me in the hospital had told him about this!
There is so much to talk about but I will end this post for now. If you know me in the U.K. and are reading this and know I am talking about you, do smile. Readers, please comment. Thanks.
Cultural differences, attitudes passed on through upbringing, and socio-political issues of the day can present extremely confusing, awkward, even hazardous complications, can't they!?
ReplyDeleteHere, the attitudes about hugging vary between north and south. Southerners tend to be very "huggy" people; northerners seem cold and stand-offish by comparison. I've one foot in the north and the other in the south - but for years, I bristled if anyone but immediate family (or dates, on invitation only!) dared to lay a hand on me. Hug me? Uhhh...NO.
I have snapped unkindly at people (quite frequently from India) who had the effrontery to call me "Dear" - you do not call a woman you are unrelated to or don't know well, "Dear"! Although, I'm told it's actually quite natural here in the southern US - along with the hugging thing. (Don't do it. I bite. I hear it as being entirely too familiar and/or condescending. Even my husband wouldn't call me "Dear," knowing it would likely come across as the latter, rather than a term of real endearment. As the opener to a written letter, it's formulaic, meaningless, and entirely expected.)
I would hug you. :) And any surprise you may feel over that says that you are a bit naive as to how a mother whose child you've helped feels about you. Or, as importantly, how strongly she feels about her child, and how grateful she is that you helped - even if it's in a small way that may seem insignificant to you at the time. Kissing is out, though. That sort of affection is reserved for very immediate family. Even the cheek-kissing that's expected in some cultures is awkward for those of us who didn't grow up with it and feel like "air kissing" (which is just cheek kissing for people who don't much like touching strangers) is kind of awkward. Plus, I never know if it's one side, both sides, and if both sides - is it left to right or right to left? Better just to smile and wave.
A Muslim man I know won't shake hands with me; he's married, and I am not his wife. I feel like I'm committing sexual assault when I forget and extend my hand out of habit. I told him I'm going to go all Michael Jackson on him, one of these days, and start wearing one glove on my right hand. :) Fortunately, he's quite understanding and chuckles. He knows it's not intentional.
Funny how you say "hasn't led to household-friendliness." I know exactly what you mean. A good friend (you remember Linda T. from WDC) was looking for a place to go during a hurricane. We had not yet met face to face; I didn't feel comfortable inviting her to stay in my home (if it had just been me, sure - but it felt wrong to do that to other members of the family when they had NO relationship with her at all, and to them, she was just "an online friend"). I told her if she couldn't find a room, she could sleep in her car in my driveway. (I worried that made me a terrible, terrible person - but she assured me it didn't.) Later, after we all met face to face, I did have her stay here. We laughed about it later, but I totally get that divide between friends you have online, friends you have face to face but who never seem to visit in your home or theirs, friends you'd invite to dinner in your home but not to stay overnight there, and friends you'd open your guest room to or stay in theirs if invited. (Maybe it's that northern "reserved" side of me that feels this way; I admire those who'd open their hearts and homes to strangers, but I need to get to know people a bit better, first.)
Speaking of the things we do for friends, come test out my comments section again.
P.S. Your turn to figure out how to allow your readers to edit their comments!
ReplyDeleteDear Holly,
DeleteThank you very much for your lengthy comments. I can see you have been thinking a lot about these tetchy issues as well. I would like your permission to include the entire comment above into a blog-post I will be writing next.
About the editing of comments, well, I don't own my blog. You do own the blog you write on, although it is on the Wordpress platform. You might have more liberty to change the code than I can.
Taher
I added a plug-in, but I'm not sure if it's working - are you now able to edit your own comments (for a few minutes) on mine?
ReplyDeleteHey! I was thinking about making my comment into a blog post on my OWN blog and cross-linking to yours! Let's talk. ;)