Interaction with Brits and Americans (Q&A, part 1)
Jeri was the only person to accept my solicitation for questions thus far, and because customer service is what we take great pride in here at Burlaki.com, I am addressing it right away. See what the rest of you all are missing?
Of course, Jeri posed three questions at once and I’d have to be out of my mind if I did not use that as a pretext for three separate posts on three separate dates. So, here is one of them, and the rest will follow soon. Thank you, Jeri!
Have you mingled a great deal with your British colleagues and neighbors, or has your primary interaction been within the expat community?
The short answer is neither, really.
In the first few months, I went out a lot with my British co-workers, participated in events such as quizzes and golf charity days, and become close enough with a couple of people to actually make visits to their houses. With one of the people who used to work for me, we even went to the classical music program at Royal Albert Hall two years in a row.
But I am not really spending much time with my colleagues outside of office – and after-office drinking – hours. And I never really did even in the States.
We tried getting to know our neighbors, but that quickly fizzled out for reasons that I cannot pinpoint. Natasha has occasional outings with other Moms from Becky’s school. The parents of one of Becky’s best friends once stayed at our place for tea, when picking up their daughter after a play-date. And that’s the extent of our interaction with the natives. (The kids, of course, are a totally different matter).
Of course, I am not counting the “service industry” interactions; after all, we shop at English stores, ride English public transport, go to English doctors, etc.
I keep online correspondence with a number of American expats, and most of our closest friends here share our background. But due to quirks of geography and pressures of schedules, we don’t get to interact even with our closest friends as much as we want. I am certainly looking to the American expat community for new friends, not to my local community. Maybe, that’s the best answer to your question, Jeri.
Hmmm. Interesting. Our friends in Japan were Japanese. There was a lot of the “royal expat” thing going on in ex-pat Tokyo – membership at the Tokyo American Club, etc., and then there were the hippies looking to get enlightenment from Zen Buddhism that not even the Japanese pay much attention to anymore, and the hipsters teaching English short term to score some J-babes.
Obviously, we didn’t fit into any of those categories.
That is indeed speedy service Ilya! And I fully expected you to get as many blog posts as you could out of the questions, that’s the whole point of an “ask me questions” day.
Interesting the divide – but it’s really the same as it would be at home. I don’t go out much with my colleagues and it wouldn’t be much different here or overseas – I prefer to spend time with my family and close friends.