Where are you from?

While travelling in the American southwest with my family last summer, I had an odd experience. We had been seated in a restaurant and were discussing the menu, in Italian. The waitress came over and asked if we had any questions, and my husband turned to her and spoke in perfect, albeit heavily accented English. When it came time to take the orders, she started speaking with my husband and asked him what the ‘children’ wanted (the children are teenagers).

Number one son started speaking in ‘the Queen’s English’, and once he finished, his brother immediately followed suit. I then started speaking in American English, and you could see the waitress needed a moment to process that each party in this seemingly normal family had a completely different accent when speaking in English. 

Curiosity got the better of her and she asked, ‘but where are you from?’  Ah, what is normally a simple question to answer for most people, for us becomes incredibly complicated.  I am American but have been living in England for more than 20 years, but I arrived via Brussels.

My husband is half Italian, half German and has
lived in more than six countries throughout his life. Our children, are relatively normal, having been born and raised in London. But then, they aren't really normal, are they?

They have parents from different nationalities, while being raised in a third. They have the major advantage of being brought up in a bilingual household, and as a result, find learning additional languages fairly easy compared to their monolingual friends. And if you ask them which nationality they most identify with, the answer depends on which set of grand parents they have most recently visited and which international sports competitions are currently taking place. 

The only thing that is certain, is that they don't
feel English. But then, we live in London, and if I look around at the friends that we have, our children are absolutely normal.  Many of our friends are mixed nationality couples, with interesting combinations such as Irish/Syrian, German/Chinese and Dutch/ Chilean. London is a multicultural melting pot and no one bats an eyelid when a family is made up of many different nationalities. In fact, it is often the norm.

Written by Eva Stock. Eva is Director of Sponsors Relations at FOCUS.



For more information about FOCUS visit:  www.focus-info.org

Should you wish to share your expat experiences in the UK, please contact us: office@focus-info.org

It’s a small world… of SMILEY FACES!

This week I had the privilege to be invited to attend a very Malaysian morning at the High Commission. I had been invited by my Malaysian colleague and what a delightful event it was! Arriving at their grand house on Belgrave Square, accompanied by my perpetually grinning friend, I was greeted by some of the most smiley hosts I have ever met, who directed us to their main room where we were to watch a typical show.

The event started with a Master of Ceremony who concisely explained the different cultural influences that this multi-coloured country has been through the centuries, until it became independent in 1957. An initial ‘speech’ which could have been a somehow tedious affair, ended up being anything but, thanks to this witty, understated smiling MC. He explained that even the very typical performance of music and dance we were about to see was influenced by Dutch, English, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, Sri Lankan and Indonesian cultures; the melting pot which is this vibrant country. And so the band began to play and the dancers came in, one by one, all with colourful and beautiful smiles on their faces.

When I looked at the audience around me I noticed that, like me, they were also made up of representatives of very different and sometimes exotic countries. But what really struck me was the fact that the Malaysian smile is contagious. At the end of the performance, and after most of the audience had clapped and chanted at the lovely music we were listening to, we were all invited to join in on the stage (or should I say dance floor). For another 20 minutes most of us were having so much fun dancing with total strangers…and every single person was smiling.

As the party continued we were invited for a typical lunch, with several dishes and deserts, again influenced by very different cultures. So, different tastes, different looks, different religions, different music and instruments, all mixed up in a melting pot that defines this country: welcoming, warm and accepting of all kind of differences…with an inviting and colourful smile!



Written by Valeria Fleury. Valeria  is FOCUS Director of  Membership.

For more information about FOCUS visit:  www.focus-info.org