Reading Fox before I came to England\u00a0 has definitely helped me a lot, not only because it prepared me for the behaviors and quirks of the English, and probably diffused some of the culture shock, but also because it has helped me to notice things that I might not otherwise have noticed and to think about these things critically when otherwise I might not have know what to do or to think.\u00a0 During our first week in London, I have made a few observations about English culture and habits that were not specifically covered in Fox, but I have used Fox to help me think about these observations.\u00a0 Here are a few:<\/p>\n
Bathrooms\/toilets\/loos:<\/strong> In America, bathroom stall doors and walls are constructed with the least amount of material possible, with a lock that might be a hook through a loop, or a latch in a slot.\u00a0 People check underneath the doors to see if the stall is occupied or gently poke the door, not without the danger of disengaging the flimsy lock.\u00a0 In England, there are floor to ceiling doors with legitimate deadbolts.\u00a0 In addition, the part of the lock on the outside of the door will show red when occupied, just so no one even tries to test the door of your occupied stall.\u00a0 Not that you could look under the doors if you tried.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I probably would not have taken this much notice of the difference between the two countries I have now “lived in” had I not been thoroughly aware of the English obsession with and need for privacy through Fox.\u00a0\u00a0 However, I like this aspect of the English obsession with privacy.\u00a0 Unlike some of the other privacy related quirks,\u00a0 such as not asking someone’s name upon meeting them, this one actually seems adaptive.<\/p>\n On the tube:<\/strong> Although the English are obsessed with privacy, they do not share American qualms about sitting next to strangers.\u00a0 If we were on a train in America, and the only seat open was next to a stranger, we would rather stand.\u00a0 In England, people go for any available tube seat.\u00a0 Do they acknowledge that they have a neighbor or make any attempt to talk to them?\u00a0 No, but I have caught our group standing for a whole train ride unless there are seats where we can all sit next to each other.\u00a0 We Americans have apparently not perfected Fox’s “denial rule” of pretending that we are alone, even in public.<\/p>\n Do not rush eating in England unless you are getting take-away: <\/strong>During our lunch break during class at the UEA London Centre, some of the group (perhaps foolishly, in denial about how much time we actually had) decided to go to a pub.\u00a0 We all ordered sandwiches.\u00a0\u00a0 They were good, but we did not get our food until we only had like 10 minutes to eat before getting back to class.\u00a0 We scarfed it as fast as we could (this felt rude), some of the group took their sandwiches in napkins back to the classroom (this also felt rude), and some of us left the remainder of our lunches on our plates (this also felt rude).\u00a0 When people do get take away for lunch, they are always in a hurry.\u00a0 You can see people power walking through the tube stations with briefcases and sandwiches from Pret a Manger.\u00a0 Clearly the English have specific rules for the settings and circumstances in which you can hurry and not hurry your eating, and we are learning the rules as we go.\u00a0 At most take away places, it even costs less to take away then to eat in.\u00a0 I wasn’t quite sure how to interact with the English pub staff –\u00a0 to apologize for rushing.\u00a0 They didn’t say much other than “Oh well you seem to be in a hurry” but we know from Fox that they never would have told us if we were being rude.\u00a0 I suspect they may have tut-tutted among themselves after we had left.<\/p>\n Well I’ll keep this relatively short for now.\u00a0 I’m sure there will be more observations such as these as our time in London goes on, and as we get used to the customs and habits and begin to become part of them ourselves,\u00a0 I wonder if we’ll start to read Fox in a different way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading Fox before I came to England\u00a0 has definitely helped me a lot, not only because it prepared me for the behaviors and quirks of the English, and probably diffused some of the culture shock, but also because it has helped me to notice things that I might not otherwise have noticed and to think 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