Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Whilst series that get off in their prime can often stop very abruptly even in the midst of a double episode, long running series tend to wind down more gradually these days with the A-team of writers being replaced by the B-team in often a very noticeable way.

So, it’s nice to see that a long running series like MASH was allowed to make a proper final episode which tied up all the loose ends, going through what each of the characters was going to do afterwards. Most of the time these days there’d be a major league lead-in to spin off series but that didn’t happen here which meant that the couple of spin-offs had to stand on their own (neither did particularly well).

Still, I suppose that MASH was an exception that wouldn’t happen these days. After all, who would let a strong series just stop rather than simply wind down into obscurity?

You’d think that France and Spanish culture in the areas along the common border would be very similar after so many years of that border being open but there are still considerable differences.

For example, as soon as you cross the border, you see girls sitting or standing by the roadside. They’re prostitutes yet you don’t see any by the roadside just over the border in France. OK, that’s probably down to some legal difference, but even so.

What’s not down to a legal difference is that in France the restaurants serve food from noon to 2pm. After that, you’re basically talking the likes of McDonalds if you want to eat. Yet drive a couple of miles south and you’ll find the Spanish will serve food most of the day with no really sharp cut-off times at all. Moreover the portions are considerably larger and the prices considerably lower.

It looks like it’ll be generations before that difference starts to fade rather than the few years that many expected it would be.

Whilst it’s peculiar to think of the difficulties faced when immigrating to the UK, that’s a situation that we will be finding ourselves in within the not too distant future so we’re considering some of the logistics.

Even for “native” English speaking children it’s not as easy to do as you might expect.

Why? Well, in our experience most people returning to the UK are doing so after they’ve been abroad at least two years and normally it’s more than five years. For simplicity, let’s take the case of a five year stay abroad of a British child who then returns to the UK schooling system.

If they were just born when the family emmigrated, then the child would be about five and therefore be starting primary school. You might think that would be fine but if they’ve been playing with non-English speaking children for those five years it’s not quite so simple. For one thing they won’t know the english words for all the toys nor the name of the TV shows. That’s even if they speak english at all of course because some emmigrants try to immerse their family in the local culture and language. However, this is by far the simplest point.

What about, say a six year old, moving back at age 11. They will find it fairly difficult as they’ll have picked up a lot of the foreign language in school and will need to learn the english words for all those terms. In fact, it’s generally the case that kids of that background can only speak english to their parents and other english speakers find them virtually impossible to communicate with in english so you can imagine the problems they’ll have in their initial period in an english speaking school.

The worst ages come later though. Someone trying to start A-levels who’d been abroad since they were 11 would have severe problems. They’d not know any of the specialised vocabulary in english for the various subjects that they’d studied. In fact, they’d almost certainly have to go to english classes before trying to get into a school. These problems are magnified a little more if they’re trying to get into a British university but haven’t gone through British A-levels.

So if you are planning on returning to the UK after a stay abroad of more than a few years, don’t just assume that your kids are english speaking because, in most cases, they are far from fluent in english and certainly very far from fluent in academic english.

It’s taken over a year but, at last, James has finally come out with a spontaneous word in French!

‘Twas a really ordinary event in that we asked him where we’d parked the car and he said “la”. Still, it’s a start.

So, if you’re moving to France, don’t rely on the TV families moving and assume that yours will be completely fluent in three months. Some might be, but it can take a lot longer than that as we’re finging out.

One thing that really amazes me is how few people even think about what using their credit card abroad is costing them. For that matter, there is still quite a significant number of people who buy all their foreign currency in the Post Office assuming that “commission free” is exactly the same as “free” when, of course, it isn’t.

Taking a nice round amount of £100 for simplicity, that “commission free” purchase actually costs around £6.50. In fact, in some cases it can be cheaper to get the money from a place that charges commission as the exchange rate they use may be better. The cost to spend that amount abroad on most cards? Well, that’s just £2.75 (£7 if you lift cash out of an ATM with a credit card).

What about that nice prepaid card that the travel agent sold you? The £100 will cost around £30!!

But surely you have to pay no matter what you do? Well, no, you don’t. Get a Nationwide Building Society flexaccount and both cash withdrawals and purchases don’t have any foreign exchange charge.

More on this at our article on getting money abroad.