You don’t
have to live in China to experience a little of what it is like to live in
China, you can go to any number of China towns around the world where Chinese
people have set up their own little versions of China for themselves to enjoy
and live in. You don’t have to go to Africa to experience what it is like to live
in Africa, you can go to any number of suburbs or urban areas in the world
where African immigrants have made little versions of Africa; this is true
whether they are South African or African. You don’t have to live in Ireland to
live in Ireland, you can go to major cities like Chicago and New York and live
in areas where there are so many Irish immigrants it is like living in Ireland,
in smaller measure. This is what many immigrants do all over the world. They take their way of life with them. Most of them
do not assimilate to the culture around them, they change part of the society
to look like their place of origin.
I often find
Australians will get offended at this suggestion, but just think about the
heritage of our own nation, which was founded by the English. The people who
are probably the most prolific at changing wherever they settle anew are the
English. Wherever you go in the world where English people have emigrated, you
can see England in one variety or another. From Canada, to South Africa to the dry
land of Australia, you will see the impacts of English immigration. If any
people does not assimilate more than any other, it is the English people. As
this example from the Daily Mail highlights,
“A new documentary is lifting the lid on how Brits starting a
new life in France aren't always greeted with the warmest of welcomes from
their French counterparts.
The series, which airs on French and German channel Arte, is
called Little Britain in the Dordogne, and follows the journeys of Britons
who've moved to towns and villages in France's South-West - now dubbed
'Dordognshire' - to enjoy a taste of the Gallic life, and cheaper property
prices.
The show shines a light on the tensions that have crept in
between locals and the Brits who have snapped up country estates at bargain
prices.
While the French locals are apparently bemoaning the
infiltration of British culture - including the arrival of English butchers and
barbers in their rural villages, the cultural differences are also felt by the
ex-pats moving in.
One former Norfolk handyman, Graham Parker, airs his
frustrations with the local French workers he's tried to employ to work on his
£1million 18th century gite - saying they take two-hour lunch breaks and return
to the job 'half-drunk'…
…Although they've tried to learn French, they operate the
stall in English and most of their customers are English, they say. Their meat
comes from locals French farms.”[i]
I laughed
for several reasons when I came across this article. I laughed because I have
been to France and I have seen how the French respond to the English. It’s
fascinating, and good on them, it is their country after all. While I was there
we stayed with some American missionaries and they played us a TV show they had
which was all about this English couple moving to France and then trying to
come to terms with the ways the French did things. Getting trades people to
come was one of the hardest things they found they had to deal with, along with
many other differences. I also laughed because I remembered that show.
And herein
is the point, people of different ethnicities are different, and because of
this we create different kinds of societies. French people create one type of
society and English people another. And though someone looking in from Asia
might think that they look almost the same, for the Brits and the Franks, the
differences are stark. English people like certain things done a certain
way, they like their tea, their bacon, their cottage pies, they want their
tradesmen to come on time, and they think that drinking wine with lunch is a
wild extravagance and irresponsible. The French see things a little different
again. I was amazed to see how long lunches with wine were just part of French
culture, at least where I stayed in Paris.
Because
people are different, even though they may like the idea of living in another
country, they will also find themselves congregating with those who are like
themselves in that new country. Very few immigrants actually assimilate. If
they come in in very small numbers then they will assimilate over time, by the
time their kids have kids they are part of the society. Some immigrants work
really hard to assimilate as much as they can, and some can even pass for a
native of their new land. South Africans can blend in very well in Australia. But
if you talk to people from countries like South Africa, even if they have been
here since childhood, they will talk about how different Aussies are and they
think of themselves still as South Africans. The same is true for many Brits,
or Yanks, and others.
Immigrants
change the place they go to, because those changes are the result of their impact
on the environment. And it is not wrong for the locals to not appreciate all or
some of those changes,
“A trader selling French baked goods at the stall next door
to the Robbins admits that the locals in Eymet aren't all enjoying the impact
on their village the new residents have had…Another villager expressed
frustrations at the Brits' reluctance to try and learn French, saying: 'They
learn French slowly. They would need more lessons but they keep to themselves.
So we have to speak English or there is no sale.'”[ii]
It is not
fun to have to live like a foreigner in your own land. People think of things
like a “Little Britain” as an oddity, because they think of people from other
ethnicities doing this sort of thing. But if you step back you can see that
Canada, Australia, NZ and other countries really are just big “Little
Britains”. The language, culture, legal traditions, and much of the rest of
these societies have the stamp of Britain all over them. The British have changed
every single place they moved to. But then so do other peoples.
But, again, the
point is people are different and because of this they create different kinds
of societies. People, on the whole, don’t really assimilate. And sometimes this
works out ok for a time. Cultures that are generally similar to each other, or neutral to
each other can succeed for some time in this situation as long as there is
prosperity for all to share. But what happens when the good times start to come
to an end? History is very illustrative here. The history of the fall of Rome,
or Byzantium, or other empires shows that when times get tougher people tend to
coalesce to those who are more like them. We live in an era of ridiculous and
unprecedented prosperity. But if this prosperity goes, how will all of these
divisions work out?
List of
References
[i] Jo Tweedy 2023, https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/british-ex-pats-in-dordogne-offend-french-by-opening-english-shops/ar-AA1hkG2Y?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=26ccc9aa57c146f6b5384146f13ebde4&ei=12#image=1
[ii] Ibid.
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