I am writing this blog post rather red-face. Not because I am feeling warm today, but because I am feeling a little embarrassed. Having lived and worked in different countries as an English language teacher, I have experienced how where you are from makes you who you are. This is somehow magnified when you live abroad, especially in a job teaching English to students from many different countries. It wasn’t just about teaching English words and grammar, but also talking about the UK and its culture. Since living back in the UK for some years now, I realise that this ‘magnified’ sense of my nationality comes to the fore when I see the UK being represented by others, for example at an Olympic Games and very recently the Eurovision Song Contest.
So, with that, back to why I am sitting here red-faced. When I lived in Japan, I visited the Aichi Expo. I walked around the various booths and was interested to see how the participating countries wanted to present their culture to the curious visitors, the vast majority of them Japanese. The Expo is back in Japan again this year in Osaka. So when I read an article in The Sunday Times that the visitors to the UK booth were bitterly disappointed by the experience I felt a personal sense of embarrassment, although I personally had nothing to do with its set up. The reason for the visitors’ disappointment: the afternoon tea for which they paid £26.00, was served in paper cups with teabags and the cakes were alleged to be mass produced frozen ones by a Japanese company. One visitor posted a comment and picture of the ‘sad’ repast on social media, which has been viewed 157 million times! Here is a quote from the Sunday Times article:
“It was meant to be a display of British refinement and delicacy, a demonstration of the delights of scones, jam and clotted cream. But British diplomats in Japan have been thrown onto the defensive after indignant complaints about the quality of a traditional afternoon tea.” …Oh dear! Nul points!
When we watch the Olympics and see the athletes who represent our own country doing well or the singer at the Eurovision getting “douze points” (12 points), we surely can’t help but feel a sense of national pride. So I do feel disappointed with the organisers of the UK booth at the Expo and I do think they should have put more effort into the afternoon tea offering. It goes to show how something seemingly trifling like the use of a paper cup rather than a ceramic one, can create more than a "storm in a teacup."* I wonder why they thought that, if after paying £26.00, visitors wouldn’t expect ceramic crockery.
Whilst it isn’t the end of the world in the grand scheme of things these days, it is sad that it presented such a careless attitude and did nothing to bolster the view others hold of the UK. The visitor wrote at the end of her tweet:
“Although British people can be quite careless in many ways, I believe from my experience that they are fundamentally a kind people.”
Well, that’s something. If you had to think of two adjectives, one positive and one negative to describe people from your country, what would they be?
*a storm in a teacup is an idiom which means: great outrage or excitement about a trivial matter.