Wrong, Brittania

On a similar note, working with British teachers and other staff at my school has forced me to correct a few misimpressions I had of Britain and British people before I came to Russia. For the benefit of my American readers, here is what I have learned:

1) Even if it is shown mainly on PBS in America, British television is not inherently superior to American television. I discovered this in kind of a roundabout way. A fellow teacher from Scotland, who operate on the theory that Scotland is, as he puts it, "rubbish", has complained repeatedly about the quality of British television. He tells me that in Britain, a general perception exists that American television is "so much better". Having grown up with the American creed that British television is "so much better," I was shocked to hear this and told him so.

We have pretty much established that these mistaken impressions exist on both sides of the Atlantic because only the best programs in either country make it over to the other one.

If you have any doubts that British television can be just as junky as the American variety, several recent arrivals from Britain have confirmed that the most talked-about scene on British television involved a reality show on which someone had to masturbate a pig. Yes, you read that right: masturbate a pig. What could be farther from Upstairs, Downstairs and Alistair Cooke, I do not hazard to guess.

2) There is no actual law in Britain requiring people to be appalled by all aspects of American English. The same Scottish teacher who enlightened me about the quality of British television also told me that looking down on American English is largely an English preoccupation. Scotsmen and Welshmen can't be bothered with looking down on Americans when they have the English to hate. Looking down on American English is just a cultural tradition, like the monarchy or Guy Fawkes Day.

3) English people are just as keen on doing bad imitations of American accents as Americans are of doing bad imitations of British accents. One British teacher here does a spot-on imitation of a Valley Girl. I don't think the Brits quite understand that, when we Americans try to sound British, it's because we think British people are more polite, cultured, and refined.

4) Brits are not necessarily more well-travelled than Americans or more aware of foreign cultures; they do not all adore the minuet, the Ballet Russe, or a crepe suzette. This is true even though, unlike Americans, Britons have a wide variety of foreign cultures practically at their back door. Some ridiculous amount of tourism out of Britain consists of what are known as "booze cruises"--short trips to northern France to buy cheap alcohol and bring it back to Britain.

5) Similarly, Brits are not any more aware than Americans that not everybody in the whole wide world speaks English. When I told one of the British teachers here that simply knowing this fact made her smarter than 90 percent of the American public, she responded that this was equally true of the British public. Another British teacher confessed that he had given up learning Russian because he figured his chances of ever being someplace where nobody spoke English were slim to none. The scary thing is that I don't entirely disagree that this is so--only that it isn't a good enough reason not to learn the language of the country where you have been living and working for two years.