Do emigres from the UK imagine the UK is stuck in the dark ages?

[livingunderskirt]

I have quite a few relatives who have moved overseas to places like Australia, Canada and Denmark. Something that I notice when they visit is that they seem to assume that in the UK we are stuck in the dark ages, I had one relative from Australia try to explain to me recently what an ipad is and does, when I have my own ipad. My aunt who now lives in Denmark tells me about how in Denmark they are very advanced with recycling much more so than the UK because they have special bins for paper and glass/plastic. We have all that too but at the time we had food waste recycling too and they didn't. Lots of things like that, like being surprised to learn we Malaysian, Korean, Sri Lankan restaurants locally and not just Chips or Chinese places or that we have podcasts and smart watches.

Its not a big deal it doesn't wind me up or anything but I do wonder why this is? I suppose they might assume that the UK has stayed the same since they left in the 80s or 90s. I just think it's kind of odd. I have lived overseas myself and never felt this way and I sort of expect lifestyles / tech to be similar all over the developed world at this point.

I just wondered if anyone else has noticed this?

@StamppotAndGravy

The country you now live in sounds incredibly advanced in tech. Could I ask which country it is?

If you said South Korea I wouldn't be surprised, but I think you're in the EU?

If you said South Korea I wouldn't be surprised, but I think you're in the EU?

I'd guess that quite a lot of what @StamppotAndGravy mentioned might pertain to Norway? On a recent trip, it was noticeable how good the strength and coverage of the mobile signal was - but with the geology making physical travel harder than many other countries it needs to be. Norway also has oodles of hydroelectricity I believe, and a massive sovereign wealth fund so it's had money to spend on infrastructure.

One thing in general that happens is 'leapfrogging' - a country which is an early adopter/pioneer may get stuck with legacy systems which kind of work while other counties go straight to newer technology.

Someone on message board that I'm on wondered if we had trees in England because the programme she was watching didn't show any.

I hope you told her no

London is 47% green 🌲 🌳
It is the first National Park City in the world.
Mind you, in north Norfolk where we holiday frequently, there are telegraph poles and wires across the space to each house. I've even seen a functioning telegraph pole in Chalk Farm!

It feels like we are ahead of Germany technology wise. So often there you still need cash and can't get around so freely just with a phone or credit/debit card. Also any dealings we have with government/official processes here are far less bureaucratic and clunky than in Germany.

@SummerCycling and @ErrolTheDragon I'm in the Netherlands (not Amsterdam), but I also had fibre right into my router in France (in Paris though). We don't just use online banking, we're pretty much cash free. All bills are paid by QR code, even Big Issue sellers have QR codes (but unfortunately we do still have homeless people). I'm always surprised that my mum still has a cheque book in the UK. I don't think anyone under 50 would know what a cheque was here.

We do tend to cautiously adopt fashion and food. We have to wait at least 5 years for London normal to take off in my city, but that means we only keep the tried and tested good bits. No cronuts or cold shoulder tops here, but definitely small batch single origin coffee, halloumi and relaxed jeans at the moment.

@StamppotAndGravy I’d say it’s only the older generation who have cheque books now. I don’t know where my cheque book is and I think the last time I wrote a cheque was 10 years ago! And I’ve seen big issue sellers here with card readers.

@StamppotAndGravy

Ah NL, ok thanks for answering!

Actually, I can't even remember the last time I had cash in my hands. I never take any anywhere and we probably don't have any at home.

QR codes are also normal here, mostly for information though. I think most people use their watch or phone to pay.

Cheque books, that seems like something from the 1980s. I do remember them, as a distant memory. I doubt anyone under 50 would know about cheque books here either, although they were used for longer in the UK than NL, I do know that (thinking about 1990s).

Credit cards were standard in the UK long before NL or Germany. I love Germany, but they have never been credit card friendly! That's also a bygone era now though, with watches and phones, so my cards stay at home in a folder somewhere (occasionally needed for online shopping). Last time I was in NL or Ger was pre-pandemic, so I am a few years out of date with my knowledge there.

I live in a London suburb.

Regarding 5G, that is patchy here for sure. At home we're still only on 4G, but my phone was showing 5G the other day in a different suburb.

For South Koreans we'd sound like total dinosaurs. Apparently 5G is ancient for them, they moved on ages ago. A South Korean told me they found it hilarious when they saw adverts for 5G as if it were a new thing - and she told me that in 2018!!!!

The disappearance of cash is not good. It penalises the less well off and marginalised. There is also the issue of data tracking. I go out of my way now to keep a healthy wad of cash in my purse and use other methods too

Agreed. Change, no pun intended, isn't necessarily progress.

@StamppotAndGravy As PP have said, pretty much everything in your latest post is also standard practice in the UK.

@Davros

I do agree with you, although I think it's not unusual for change to penalise the less well off, or also more elderly or vulnerable people. Moving away from cash is just one example. Things only being online is a another, then apps, also post offices and banks disappearing from the high street. People can get left behind. I imagine I will feel that way if I live long enough to reach my 60s, 70s etc.

@TreTreesAtSea I can only compare with my parents, which isn't favourable. They only have copper Internet despite living in the suburbs of a big British city. It's sold as fibre, but the fibre stops a mile away so they still only get 50Mb vs my 2Gb. The small shop my mum works in still takes cash, which costs them a fortune in handling, fraud (fake 20s) and they get robbed fairly regularly which is seriously traumatising. It's a charity shop, and actually the volunteers often don't have good enough maths to cope with cash and change so 100% digital would be much kinder. They only have 3G signal in their house and there is only 5G in the city centre. I know British people are attached to cash, but if you sort out the rest of society, it honestly doesn't come with issues being fully digital. In fact, it guarantees that everyone is banked and gets state support in their own name, even undocumented people.

So annoying when people who have moved abroad slag off Britain, but are happy to come back and use the NHS.

The cancellation of HS2 does seem like a massive step backwards. Trains in this country are an overpriced nightmare now.
We travelled (from London) to Scarborough/Whitby last year and every train was so overcrowded that once in your seat you couldn't move during the journey, or not without squeezing past dozens of people. Train fares are so huge we usually give up and take the car.
Trains on the continent are cheap, fast and punctual.
Brexit Island seems so get smaller and more insular by the day.

I think most under 75s who can afford it have a smart phone and can use it fine. I also don’t think there’s any evidence the Uk is a late tech adopter?

As for emigrants Op, I think it’s natural to see the county you left as it was when you left it. Although Brexit hasn’t exactly been great PR..

Charity shops are a bloody blight on the high street, in terms of pushing up rent.

But I do think they are also odd outliers on cash. I can mostly compare the the US, but the UK was a much earlier adopter of debit card payments generally, contactless, dumping cheques and reducing cash - though the states has caught up a lot now.

Back when cash was still needed a lot the epic lack of cash machines in the US also used to amaze me.. you could walk for miles for an ATM.

Where are you?
Spar is 24 hours, the corner shop is probably 10pm and open weekends, and that's without getting into the town centre. Yes lots are quiet on market days but Poundland is open 7 days a week, so too are Lidl and Morrisons. All in our small town centre. Couple of "local" shops quaranteed to be open over Xmas as the staff aren't Christian.

Agree about recycling but in Wales it's very good. England needs to step up

Using cheques? I'm 42 and have never written a cheque in my life.

You might never have used cheques, but I'm pretty sure they are still legal tender in the UK, whereas some other countries no longer accept them.

I very, very rarely write a cheque - a couple of times in the last few years for eg the bloke who cuts the trees. He'd probably rather be paid in cash ... I don't doubt one of the reasons some people do that is tax evasion.
Actually the last cheque I wrote was to a tradesman who did a crappy job so I .... cancelled it!

But seriously, covid kicked most businesses firmly into cashless. I'm wondering if emigres who think the U.K. still mostly uses cash have visited since 2020?

As for coffee... seems like there's a planning reg which mandates the presence of a costa or cafe Nero in every high street. Halloumi is ubiquitous, puzzled why anyone would mention that as a signifier of cosmopolitan status?

On a side note…… when commenting on this thread instead of saying “in the country I’m in” just say what country you’re actually in.

As you were 😀

I'm in Iceland and never really lived as a proper adult in the UK so I still have a teenager's understanding of many of the 'systems'. Like council tax, I've heard of it but I've never paid it so don't know how much it usually is or how you pay it.

I do think a lot of the bureaucracy here is much simpler and more streamlined because of national ID numbers and the population register, which is all digitalised. E.g. I can always get a passport in 2-3 working days and that's normal service, not express service for an extra charge.

It's a bit crazy for data privacy though - if I know someone's name I can easily find out their address and date of birth in the register unless they've made themselves unsearchable to the public, which people hardly ever do.

Iceland is also 'behind' the UK in a good way with childhood independence. Kids are out and about by themselves from much younger, getting around their neighbourhoods on foot, bike or taking the bus aged 6/7 while their counterparts in the UK are going to schools that apparently won't 'allow' them to leave by themselves.