What impression do British give me?

Now I know that they serve grilled tomatoes only in my college and that there are many other things which any visitor of the British Islands can hardly fail to notice: for instance, the separated warm and cold water taps and frequent fire alarm testing scheduled to the time near half past seven in the morning. I have not had an opportunity to talk about home servants with neither professors nor my classmates but when a rather Hungarian than British professor of mathematics invited students to his house after the lecture for small refreshment, a Thai maid pouring the port was present.

Let me leave some deep-roted clichés now to comment two features of the British society that surprised me the most.

British nature has two sides. People are quiet, tolerant, tactful and very friendly during a first contact. Dealing with anybody is always a positive experience. People want to be helpful and if there is any problem, they do everything for its successful resolution (travelling would be so nice if I could say the same about southern Europe citizens). It is clear that they behave in such way of their own will following what they were taught by their parents when they were children. On the other hand I often experience situations dominated by pretence and artificiality. I have not got used yet to the constrained smile of cashiers in supermarkets and their enthusiastic greetings as if they wanted to say: “YOUR visit to our department store is the greatest thing that happened to me today”.

More open Central European people may find startling that certain formality and pretence is conserved even during contact which would be considered much less formal by us. It is not rare if the weather is passionately discussed during such interactions. I often think of the tale “Tobermory” from Saki where an afternoon meeting of acquaintances (not friends) is interrupted by an arrival of a huge cat that was taught the human speech. It starts to gossip everyone present in order to disrupt this pretence.

British society as a whole seems to me extremely active. One can find fences around the small Cambridge gothic churches covered by various posters announcing classical music concerts, public discussions, popular lectures or a number of leisure activities. I must say that this enormous activity seems very decent. Unlike huge billboards on the highway, these posters spread on the town encourage people to stop and read calmly. It is also obvious that everybody organizes something or takes part absolutely voluntarily.

I admit that I am still shocked by the immense people’s enthusiasm to the wide range of sports. I am not sure if it the following is a systematic strengthening of immunity or just a consequence of the pig-headed teachers of physical education: people do sports here in any weather. Even during the days with negative temperature that we have too many this year it is common to meet runners on a street dressed in a t-shirt and shorts only. On the other hand, being a person with quite reserved attitude to sport I really appreciate that sport activities are regarded as a personal matter here. I have always considered slightly peculiar that success in sport can improve the chance of being admitted to an American university or getting a scholarship. Thus in a word, the world is different behind the Channel but has not gone crazy yet!