Here are
certain stereotypes of national character which are well known in Britain . For
instance, the Irish are supposed to be great talkers, the Scots have a
reputation for being careful with money, the Welsh are renowned for their
singing abilities, and the English are considered to be reserved. These
characteristics are, of course, only caricatures and are not reliable
description of individual people from these countries.
British
people give a relatively high value to the everyday personal contacts. Some
writers on Britain have talked about the British desire ’to belong’, and it is
certainly true that the pub, or the working man’s club, or the numerous other
clubs devoted to various sports and pastimes play a very important part in many
people’s lives. Many people make their social contacts through work and, partly
as a result of this, the profession is also important aspect of their sense of
identity. British people try to appear as if they belong to as high class as
possible, though nobody wants to be thought of as ’snobbish’.
The British
have few living traditions and are too individualistic to have the same
everyday habits as each other. They are rather proud of being different.
However, this does not mean that they like change. They don’t. They may not
behave in traditional ways, but they like symbols of tradition and stability.
The British are rather conservative and their conservatism can combine with
their individualism. Why should they change just to be like everyone else?
Indeed, as far as they are concerned, not being like everyone else is a good
reason not to change. Their driving on the left-hand side of the road is a good
example to this. Systems of measurement are another example. The British
government has been trying for many years to get British people to use the same
scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world. But everybody in Britain still
shops in pounds and ounces.
The modern
British are not really chauvinistic. Open hostility to people from other
countries is very rare. If there is any chauvinism at all, it expresses itself
through ignorance. Most British people know remarkably little about Europe and who lives there. The popular image of Europe seems to be that it is something to do with the
French.
It is
probably true that the British, especially the English, are more reserved than
the people of many other countries. They find it comparatively difficult to
indicate friendship by open displays of affection. For example, it is not the
convention to kiss when meeting a friend. Instead, friendship is symbolised by
behaving as casually as possible.
The British
are comparatively uninterested in clothes. They spend a lower proportion of
their income on clothing than people in most European countries do. Many people
buy second-hands clothes and are not at all embarrassed to admit this. Of
course, when people are ’on duty’, they have to obey some quite rigid rules. A
male bank employee, for example, is expected to wear a suit with a tie at work.
But on Sundays the British like to «dress down». They can’t wait to take off
their respectable working clothes and slip into something really scruffy. In
fact, the British are probably more tolerant of strange’ clothing than people
in most other countries.
The English
people are great pet lovers. Practically every family has a dog or a cat, or
both. They have special dog shops selling food, clothes and other things for
dogs. There are dog hairdressing saloons and dog cemeteries. Millions of
families have ’bird-tables’ in their gardens. Perhaps, this overall concern for
animals is part of the British love for nature.
(Gerasimchik
Angelina)
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