Stone's, inches...

Every now and then, the locals like to say things like 'I'm x inches tall', or 'I've put on x stones and need a diet', etc.. Now, it's obvious by my looks and accents that I'm not a local. They actually know that I'm not a local! They actually know that no non-local ever understands what they're blabering about inches and stones. And they know that all of the non-locals do not plan to learn about inches and stones. Still, they say it!

I started to consider this inch and stone thing like a bit of a good colonizer - bad colonized relationship. Locals (aka British, aka the good colonizers) are convinced of the superiority of their measure systems. Therefore, they nicely want to teach them to those natives of lands with inferior measure systems. Now these natives (us, the foreigners) are stubborn and refuse to learn! (the bad colonized part) The reasons for this stubbornness are that 1) it's impossible to understand such strange systems; 2) we consider it an eccentricity of the locals (aka good colonizers); 3) we consider that accepting such systems is beyond our inferior capacities as natives from the metric-system lands.

As such, we just adopt the innocent style of the colonized by nodding to what the colonizers are saying with a meek smile. After that, we try to calculate how many cms the locals measures or just assume that those stones the local put on is a few kgs more than desirable. That makes the locals rejoice thinking 'here's a once uncivilized human being who has risen to our inch-stone statute... oh, the British civilizing the world'! And we, the supposedly now civilized creatures, are thinking: 'these British are so funny and eccentric! I'll have to tell my friends back home about them!' Oh harmony in the colonized-colonizer relation!

Wee Kilts

Today the children were having their first communion in my Parish church. Until here, nothing out of normal of what you can find in Catholic churches around the world. The cool thing was that all the boys were wearing little kilts! Not the boring grey shorts or trousers everyone wears all around the world...

And that's Scotland!

Twilight

With a title like this, someone might expect me to write about a bad quality teenage saga. But no. I want to write about those two hours or so, from around 10pm to around midnight in which there is still some light here in Edinburgh. Basically, Edinburgh is so far North that in Summer days become really long. Even at that time of night in which it was suppose to be pitch black, we can still see shades of blue in the sky. It's very beautiful!

Blind checks

A couple of months ago, after passing in the X-ray in Edinburgh airport, I was asked to show my ID in a random check. 

I thought that was strange. I have to admit that my idea was "why on earth would they ask me, a white, light-haired, blue-eyed guy wearing a suit and with no criminal record?" I know this thought sounds quite racist. It sounds like I consider to be above suspicion... How politically incorrect can it be? 

As such, while showing my ID, I decided to ask the officer the reason for that random check. The answer came while he was trying to choose which of my names to put on his records: "it's just a routine check!" 

Now, this wasn't a satisfying answer for me. I would guess that in a routine check they should be asking the ID to those individuals with a more suspicious look. Risking continuing to be politically incorrect, I have to admit that my thought was that a light-haired, blue-eyed guy in a suit and tie and Oxford shoes  was not the first guy one would usually consider suspicious. So the next question was: "routine checks are good and necessary, but why me?!" This was said in a tone that also expressed a little bit of a "look at me! do I look like trouble?"

The officer had to control the smirk on his face while answering my politically incorrect question. He said something like "the choice was perfectly random, anyone could be chosen", etc.. Even though he said this in a matter-of-fact tone, he kind of stressed the "anyone" part.

I remembered this today while reading a letter of a guy from Muslim background to the Minister for Justice in Sweden. He was complaining how he always felt surveillance to tight whenever he went into a shop. Or how police always looks at him more suspiciously than they do at "traditional Swedes" (read the light-haired, blue-eyed ones). And even how once he was taken to a police car for no reason and kept waiting for 20 minutes before being dismissed without an apology.

Next time I'm asked for my ID, I promise not to complain. I promise not to ask "why me?" I promise I will be happy that I may even consider such control to be strange.

Holidays

Coming to Scotland was a bit of a cultural shock! Not because of the weather, one only needs to wear more clothes. Also not the food: dumplings and noodles might be awesome, but haggis is no second to them (I do miss a good weekend yam cha, though).

What is really shocking here is the lack of public holidays!

Before I moved to the UK I was living in what is perhaps the most “holidayed” territory in the world, Macau. I guess the reason for this is that Macau was for 450 years ruled by two of the peoples who enjoy having public holidays the most: the Portuguese and the Chinese.

So, basically, nowadays there are many kinds of holidays in that small territory. There are Chinese political holidays, like the day of the establishment of the PRC but also religious holidays that were abolished in China with the Socialism, such as the birthday of Buddha. There are Chinese traditional holidays such as the day to sweep the graves, the moon cake festival or Chinese New Year. There are also the Catholic holidays, inherited from the Portuguese, such as Christmas, Easter, Our Lady of Conception or the day of the faithful departed (which is actually not a public holiday in Portugal because the day before is, the all saints day).

With all these holidays and with low cost flights to so many places in Asia departing from Macau, one of the main hobbies in the city is to plan trips. To me, this trip planning was already natural: browsing the calendar for the next holiday, check how many days off I needed to take to “bridge” it to the closest weekend, check promotions of low cost companies, look for friends who hadn't gone to that destination (an increasingly challenging task, as everyone was doing the same) and finally, book the trip and buy the fake lonely planet guide across the border, in Zhuhai, world’s capital of fake stuff.

The United Kingdom could not be more different! In this country most holidays are just in the calendar, they aren't for real. In the 1^st of May, for example, no one would notice there was a holiday going on. In St. Andrew’s day, the Patron Saint of Scotland, everyone was working. A lot of other holidays appear in my calendar but they’re just another day with no difference whatsoever to working days…

Well, this is actually good, because now my financial situation would not allow me to travel as much as in Macau and I would feel miserable if everyone but me was doing it!

Saudade

I come from a country with a beautiful word: saudade...

Saudade is a longing for what we lost or what we know will never come but also the joy for what we have and a hope for what will come.

Saudade is also a sadness for being apart from "our loved ones" and at the same time the happiness of having such " loved ones."

At last, saudade has a lot to do with your motherland because it is the sadness of having left it (my country is a country of sailors) together with the joy of knowing we have it with us in our hearts.

So saudade is in itself a mix of contradictions. And being such a strong feeling that my country-fellows and I share proves how contradictory and complicated we are.

But I know we are not the only ones. We exported this feeling to the ends of the earth. In South America and Africa, in Asia and Oceania there are people who know this word and share this feeling... Or this mix of feelings. And we're all happy and sad that we can feel saudade.

Public money

In 1983 Margaret Thatcher made what is still nowadays one of my favorite political speeches of all times. One that, unfortunately, was never sufficiently advertised in my own country, Portugal. This is notorious nowadays. However Portugal may be used as an example of a situation that is seen in many other countries, such as France, Italy, Greece, Belgium...

Thatcher reminded the British that the money spent by the state is, in fact, tax payers' money and that the more the state collects, the less the economy has. Even if some of it eventually is invested in the economy... And this happens for two reasons. The main one is that between the moment in which the tax payer gives up his money in favor of the state and the moment the state invests in the economy a lot is lost in red tape, civil service, etc.. The second one is that generally private stakeholders are better at making money grow than the state.

In the day of Lady Thatcher's death, I would like to take a look at the Portuguese situation in light of this idea.

The Portuguese state got into too much debt over too long. To run a huge deficit in the end of every yearly budget became the never disrespected rule instead of the exception. And this was the will of the tax payers / voters: if any politician had had the courage to say that they would slash on public expenditure, that was a politician doomed to failure.

After the 2011 international rescue it seems that few people in Portugal learned the lesson. The government in power since the rescue has failed to really cut expenditure. It is true that some expenditure has been curbed, but that's far from enough. It has, instead, increased taxes in a way that is killing any chances the economy might have to grow again. And if the economy goes down, so does the tax revenue...

The opposition suggests economic stimulus to the economy. However, it fails to explain which money would it use. Again, the taxpayers' money? 

Lady Thatcher's ideas and political example are extremely valuable. In this sad day of her death, let us not forget them. RIP

Climate refugee

There is one thing that I never shared in this blog: I'm almost a climate refugee. 

I was living in Macau for five years and those were five long and painful years due to the inhuman and degrading treatment I received down there. During an average of 8 out of 12 months of the year I would start sweating as soon as I ventured three steps outside home. It had become perfectly normal to see me walking around with my shirt dripping and my hair glued to my face. Face which, by the way, was always as shiny as a turkey in Christmas! If this isn't inhuman and degrading treatment, I don't know what is... For me and for all those who had to bear this sight!

The government of Macau clearly failed to fulfill its positive obligation to build a gigantic greenhouse over the city with super-power ACs working day and night. Only this could provide the city with the necessary protection to human rights of its inhabitants and visitors.

Now, today my climatic traumas were revived. I left home wearing a sleeveless jacket at 7.30 am and still I arrived in the gym sweating almost as much as I used to in Macau. Is this possible in a civilized country under the rule of law?! Is UK not supposed to be the cradle of modern democracy? To whom can I appeal of this approaching inferno? Holyrood? Westminster? Buckingham? Strasbourg?

Who can bring me back the snow?

The new British Class System

If there's something Brits love even more than tea with milk and sugar (which is still something I couldn't get used to, for me tea should be drank pure) it's a good, well stratified class system. Historically that has to do with the Normand invasion and having the upper class speak French and the lower Saxon. Until this day they still don't speak the same language... 

But now BBC decided to innovate and create a new class system because they considered the old one to be outdated. I think I will understand BBC when I'm able to enjoy tea with milk and sugar...

Now, BBC does not want Brits to feel lost and not know where they belong. As such they provide an online test so that Brits are aware of their place in society. They brilliantly named it the class calculator.

Now, this calculator was extremely useful to me. I didn't know my place in the British society. This might be due to the fact that I'm not British... But now, after a short test with only half a dozen questions I know what I am in this beautiful kingdom:

Emergent service workers - a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital

I can't say that I was thrilled at being described as an "emergent" and "relatively poor" (though this last one is true) but I can't hide the fact that I quite enjoy that I have a "high social and cultural capital".

In front of the National Museum of Scotland...

How do we know that the wee lad went to the museum?