Letter Home (SHINE Competition Entry)

[This is something I whipped up for some international student competition a few months ago I wasn’t planning on entering but at the last minute decided to have a go at. Didn’t win anything in the end, but it was fun to write. Thanks to all of you who tell me my stories are entertaining, whether they actually are or not.]

 

Dear Mum and Dad,

Life in the UK is good (oh, I learned the difference between ‘England’, ‘Britain’, and ‘the UK’, by the way). More than good; it’s fantastic. My main source of information on Britain having been childhood literature like Robin Hood and Harry Potter, I had some pretty fanciful perceptions which I fully expected to be disappointed. They were not.

Sure, there aren’t wizards flying around on broomsticks (that I know of), but history and culture is positively oozing from every building I see. Before I left Japan, when I would tell people I was going to Bradford, aside from never once failing to have the link between my name and that of my destination pointed out, I certainly received a number of surprised looks from those who’d heard anything more about the city. However, the slight worry that began to stir in me was unfounded. It’s lovely here. As you saw, I couldn’t help but snap loads of pictures as soon as I arrived, and not just because of ingrained Japanese tourist tendencies.

I quickly took the opportunity to do a bit of traveling around West Yorkshire, which only served to confirm my amazement. In addition to modern city features such as malls and museums in Bradford and the nearby Leeds, there’s also wide countryside, rustic villages, massive ruins, the whole gamut. It might just be the faery-tale lenses on my eyes, but I think colours are more vivid here. The sky definitely is; it’s certainly not dreary grey as often as I was led to believe.

Speaking of added colour, since coming here I’ve expanded my vocabulary with words such as ‘rather’, ‘smashing’, ‘cheers’, and ‘yoright’, which basically means, “What’s up?”. I’ve also learned to spell properly, but it seems that I don’t pronounce things quite correctly.

On that front, however, I have had a kind of success. Like many others, before coming, I was guilty of assuming there to be a sort of ‘standard’ accent, like there is in Japan and, to a certain extent, the US. There doesn’t seem to be, or if there is, it’s certainly not to be found in Yorkshire, much less this uni. To the contrary, I’ve been surrounded by a mad swirl of different pronunciations since arriving, but am slowly starting to match accents to regions and cities. Fortunately, I picked up early on that no matter how curious I am to see whether my fledgling instincts are correct, I must never ask, “Is your accent Scottish or Irish?”.

Even though I had very little idea what I’d be studying in my chosen course, “peace studies”, this too has turned out to be excellent. I’m learning so much about, well, everything, and because we’re given a range of essay questions to choose from, I basically get to study what I want. One day I read all about the Chilean coup of 1973, the next day I went from knowing nothing about the British political system to having a much better understanding of it than either the American or Japanese ones. This culminated in getting to sit in on a Parliamentary session in Westminster, which most people would probably find boring but for me was, like all else, enchanting. It was a bit of a struggle towards the end of term to finish all my essays, but I was able to pull through and emerge into the sunlight of five glorious weeks of break.

I had the most amazing Christmas and New Year’s experience because I chose to spend a chunk of that break in London, the mecca of my magical expectations for this island. For twenty days straight I walked the streets, took in the sights, visited museums, and stayed at strangers’ houses thanks to a wonderful travel website called Couchsurfing. Between that, trying out hostels for the first time, and Megabus, I was able to have this entire adventure for quite cheaply; in fact, with my remaining few days of break I did the same with Edinburgh and was blown away, again. I’m absolutely chuffed to be making friends not only at uni but ‘all throughout the land’.

People ask me what my favourite thing in London was, and I suspect they wouldn’t be entirely satisfied with ‘standing amidst broad, old, tall, new buildings with my senses wide open, soaking in the the very spirit of the city itself’. But that’s the truest answer and also a pretty fitting description of my experience in Great Britain in general. It’s exceeded my expectations in virtually every aspect, and often I feel it’s almost unfair that my life should be so good.

I suppose this is what all those hours of teaching English last year really were for. And the complexity of getting academic transcripts and bank statements from both Japan and the US. And the scholarship essays. And the risk of committing three years to a place I’d only seen the website for. Well worth it.

So that’s been my first few months trying to convince the natives how great their country is, and I’m looking forward to what the next semester, and next few years, will unveil.

Love you much, and yes, I’ll try to be on Skype more regularly this year.

-Bradley

First Full Day

My first morning in Europe, 15 September, I was able to wake up well-rested and go get some breakfast at the uni’s cafeteria-like place. It’s pretty small; they definitely depend a lot more on cafés and students cooking for themselves than in Japan or the US.

Their breakfast options were fairly standard Western-style so I won’t dwell on it. I will say that so far, the food has been better than I was led to believe. You cynics. Afterwards we moved out of our ’emergency accommodation’, had some difficulty finding our way back there, and moved into our respective housing facilities. I’m on campus, between the library and the sports center, which is pretty much the ideal location, I think. My department of study is also just a few steps away, so I could probably live most of the year without even leaving campus. Wait – I need food. Scratch that. I wouldn’t want to be so cloistered, anyway.

I enrolled without much difficulty and was thankfully not asked to procure my high school diploma which is in a box somewhere between the East Coast and Tokyo, and was issued my student card, which is my magical key to all things good.

After enrolment we hit the town for the first time in search of power converters, the number one essential item on our lists. Each person we asked seemed to name a different store, but we did get a good tour of that area. The discovery of the day was probably a store called Poundland (there’s also Poundworld) which – can you guess? – sells everything for a pound. To other students I was tempted to explain it as being similar to a hundred yen shop or dollar store, but caught myself, realizing that wouldn’t mean any more to them.

Phew. (Anything from anywhere can be plugged into that – just watch the voltage.)

I have yet to meet another American here, by the way. I’ve met a few Japanese, though, which is a higher priority for me. English was guaranteed – it was Japanese I wasn’t sure about. There are significantly more Chinese than any other Asian race, but a few Japanese as well, and they all seem to be in Peace Studies like me. Haven’t seen any Koreans yet though, pity. I like Koreans, although you could argue that I haven’t met true, home-bred ones – are they quite different?

I suddenly realized this morning that the American flag is not on the wall of countries international students are coming from. When I first saw it I only checked for the Japanese one. I still didn’t say anything. Unpatriotic much?

The converters ended up being at a place called Argos, which is a truly impressive store. Rather than aisles, it has merely tables of catalogues and computers. You flip  through the catalogues or search by table of contents, look up the product on the computer to get a code, then take your codes to the counter and pay. You then wait with your receipt and order number at a different counter for them to bring out your merchandise. It’s like the fast food version of department stores, come to think of it. I guess they have it in some other countries but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a brilliant idea, very easy to manage. Aisles are difficult to navigate, a point I’d have pounded home that evening.

The formidable Argos catalogue.

It’s not very often in life that one gets to be completely new to a place, so I’m trying to milk it for all it’s worth. Believe it or not, this is not something I’m accustomed to. I’ve traveled a lot but mainly between two countries I know, more or less. This is different.

Most notably I’m having the uniquely tourist experience of asking clerks what certain coins are. British coins are cool, but a little inefficient. The one pound coin is more than a millimetre thick, so with just a few of those your wallet starts feeling pretty full. The two pound coin has both gold and silver in it, something I’ve never had before. Seems like it should be worth a lot more.

British currency. Using it like a pro now.

It’s fun to play dumb (or be dumb, rather, there’s nothing fake about me not knowing a two-pence from a fifty), and good for starting conversations. So I have to enjoy it while I can, because after a few weeks of being here it would just be weird.

While we’re on this topic of new experiences and observations:

The weather here is quite cold, rainy, and windy, even in September. Very temperamental. It’s been more or less sprinkling this whole day, but continues to fluctuate between hard sheets and light drops. It depends on the wind, I guess. Not many people use umbrellas, which I’m into (not using an umbrella, I mean).

It rains a lot.

The people are nice (although, granted, I’ve mostly interacted with international students, who are looking for friends, or staff, who are paid to be friendly and helpful). They’re not quite as blatantly I-exist-to-serve-you as the Japanese, but their greater degree of directness is useful. And they’re very ready to joke around, as I’ve already found. I must say, it’s nice to be back in a country where talking to strangers is allowed.

After lunch I returned to my dorm room to finish unpacking and met the till-then sole occupant of my wing, or whatever it’s called, a German guy from Munich. We’re the only two here so far; I suppose the rest will be arriving around the weekend, either from the EU or from UK – they’re the last, and probably the wildest. It’ll be interesting. I’m trying to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can, and get used to everything. Not to make it sound like I’m not looking forward to having a full house.

He told me about an International Office-led trip to IKEA that evening, so I signed up for that.

If I’d ever gone to IKEA in Japan (or America) I didn’t remember it, because it was a totally new experience and budding relationship birthed out of rapidly shifting degrees of love and hate. I’ll explain.

Thar she be.

When we first went in I was impressed by the ‘Showroom’. You walk on a set path and observe bedroom after bedroom, kitchen after kitchen displaying their products. I thought, this is how a store should be, really artistically showing off their merchandise. Plus it was like a Disneyland ride; I felt like we should be riding in boats down an artificial canal listening to “It’s A Small World After All” playing over and over again.

But that love soon turned to growing exasperation as I realized that with the items spread out over numerous home arrangements it was very difficult to even locate the items I was looking for, much less compare them with others of similar type. I started to hate what I had initially found so charming. I suppose there’s almost always a conflict between artistry and economy.

But after a bit, during which time I got to witness some of my newly-made friends, two Germans, arguing over the proper way to make spaghetti and the necessary pan size, I realized that all the products were again displayed at the end of the route, and there they were simply stacked in aisles like conventional stores. Well, almost conventional. These signs brought my opinion meter back over to the love side:

These single-handedly brought me back to the “This is my kind of store” mentality.

That’s me. The problem is I sometimes like to lie on my back before heading for dreamland.

They work in theory…does the price indicate they work in reality as well? Too much to take a gamble on.

Decisions, decisions.

In the end I was able to get all the bedding I needed and learn once again that asking is always the best way to find what you’re looking for. I bought a ‘quilt’ and quilt cover. It seems to be much warmer than a blanket, at least it has been so far. We’ll see when the cold winter nights begin moving in. At first I was concerned about colors but soon realized there wasn’t enough selection left for me to get both the cheapest and the right color. I think the problem was that I came through after the bulk of our trip group. New student orientation activities amass a force to be reckoned with, as I’ll discover most poignantly when I try to get a job.

At checkout I thought everything went smoothly until I walked away and remarked to one of the Germans, “Oh, we get to keep the bags?” (big blue canvas IKEA bags). He laughed and said, “Well, you paid for it.”

“Uh, no I didn’t.”

I’d had too much to carry in my arms, but fortunately I saw these bags lying next to the things I’d just bought, so I grabbed one and filled it with my purchases. As I left the area I had heard the buyer behind me asking for another big blue bag. It was then that I put two and two together and realized the idea was that you transfer your items to the conveyor belt along with however many bags you’ll need, which are in a big bin before the register. I’d swiped the guy’s behind me after he paid for it. Exit the scene, exit the scene.

IKEA gettings, purchased and, er…yeah.

Later that night I decided to put my second socket adaptor to use recharging my camera battery. Unfortunately the adaptor only changes the shape, it doesn’t do anything about the voltage, which was alright for my laptop because it has a surge protector, but I wasn’t sure about the charger. It said it was workable up to 240 volts, and the source is 250V. Close enough?

Sure. I plugged it in and it didn’t explode, which of course was a good sign. I used my friend’s method of dealing with voltage incompatibilities: plug it in, unplug it when it starts to smoke a little, wait a bit, repeat process. Do I smell something burning?

[Ah, if you’re wondering about the cause of the fire alarm earlier, it was apparently because someone had sprayed deodorant near the sensor. Fortunately I don’t have any aerosol cans. If I burn the place down it’ll undoubtedly be from something more electronic and foreign.]

Haha. It was fine. Seems it’s only hair dryers that are so…combustible. And that was my first full day in Europe.