to want ^Typical English^ tourist spots to have English people serving you?

[IwantJoansbag]

I expect to get flamed for this and called all-sorts, but I don't care.
I'm genuinely curious.

We went out for the day yesterday and stopped off at 3 well-known English tourist spots.
Glastonbury, Cheddar and Wells. (with a little stop off at a pretty little 'supposedly' English market-garden type place - selling Strawberries, Plums, etc) plus we stopped off at an outlet village.

It just seemed wrong that at EVERY place we stopped we were served by Eastern Europeans. I didn't hear ONE English accent (except in the shops), but all the eateries and stalls.... foreign accents.

If I go to a Beer Festival in Germany, its nice to be served by somebody with a German Accent - it adds to the atmosphere.
If I were to go to New York and eat in China Town - its great if the majority of people are Chinese.
Stopping off in a typical Italian Pizza place and the people are mainly Italian! You expect a bit of authenticity.

So, is it too much to ask the same happens in England?
It must be disappointing for the tourists when they come here.

For the record:- I am ONLY talking about typical tourist spots and I've got nothing against people coming to our country to work, but I think that some places (tourist spots where you expect things to be traditional) they should have mainly English people dealing with the public.

Op

You're weird

And you're also mustelidaeist.

Which has really pissed me off

We have a tapas place locally, very excellent, I have been there many times over the years. it's only recently that someone told me they are Albanians pretending to be Spanish.

Maybe the seasonal workers in the SW should be trained in the correct pronounciation of 'ooo aaaaaaarh', and 'Brizzull' for Bristol etc?

Yes some may prefer Chinese food to be made by a Chinese person (it wouldn't bother me, as long as it tasted good) but the OP wanted a doughnut and an Americano and wanted an English person serve it

Our local brillaint Tapas restaurant is owned by an English chef who worked in Spain for 5 years. It has never crossed my mind to be upset by this.

Of course you can be English and black, Scottish and black, Geordie and Black, Welsh and black, a scouser and Black... and English people (and all the others, respectively) can be English and British because England is part of Britain.

However, you can't be Caucasian and Black.

Unless you are partly Caucasian, partly something else.

the capacity to register surprise when visiting parts of the European Economic Area and encountering Europeans working there is interesting though

can we swap brains for about 20 minutes op?

I saw a documentary a few years which compared the lives of two 16yr old boys, one English and one from an African country (can't remember which one). The English boy had left school with no qualifications and had a pregnant girlfriend, the African boy had to leave school at 14 to support his younger siblings and Grandmother after being orphaned by HIV. He worked 12 hours every day and lived in a mud hut.

The funniest (!) bit of all was that one of the boys needed his interviews to be subtitled as his English was so poor. Do you want to guess which one?

Reveal if you wanted to be served by local people in a restaurant in Barcelona then you wouldn't be served by Spanish waiters and waitresses,- you would be served by Catalan ones.

It is an odd state of affairs, but it didn't begin with globalization. Massive migrations around the world has been happening for thousands of years, it's how people got to the British Isles in the first place and the mass settling of Brits elsewhere by force is how it conquered a quarter of the globe (at least the Eastern Europeans are coming in nicely). It's an odd state of affairs to me when cultures are treated as tourist attractions to visit and take rather the ways of life of people that we may be blessed to be allowed to be a part of if the people of that culture wish to do so.

What is most pinned as UK culture is really pretty modern (and most comes from other places - hence jokes made by others earlier in the thread about the Englishness of tea when it came from so far away and through war). The UK has been multicultural since before the Romans rolled in and tea came in pretty late in the came, Americanos and doughnuts even later and yet the image of British culture is rather limited when it would be better to expand it to reality. And the UK has been and continues to be responsible for the destruction of cultures around the world through colonization and international community practices still going on today. Hence why Nigeria's national language is English. It's not something little that has been lost, it's actually quite a lot and it had nothing to do with globalization and shouldn't be compared to seasonal workers who most often are doing their best to assimilate, adopt, and promote UK culture.

It's odd that the destruction of cultures seems to be only be a loss when it affects tourists. There are thousands of cultures around the world suffering from previous and current occupations that are fighting mass loss of language speakers, loss of land, children many who are now adults who were raised in an atmosphere that mocked and destroyed any connection to their home culture, and coping with being mocked from their 'backwards ways' on one hand while having taken as trendy and making a fortune for everyone but them in another, and having to explain that our cultures are not costumes for others to wear. Having a bit of difficulty feeling anything for people who act attacked when they are freely engaging in their heritage being supported by low wage workers from elsewhere who are doing nothing to prevent said access when people are being fined and banned from wearing traditional clothes or going to their cultural important places When we have British and Anglo corporations literally suing countries for access to traditional grounds so they can dig it up for resources and the US forcing indigenous nations to pay billions of dollars to prevent sacred lands being paved over that the UN had told the US to give back ages ago.

As the joke goes, UK went around the world starting wars and forcing their culture on people (when not doing outright genocide) and then got annoyed when the settlers found those they wanted to be more British in their home.

And usually when I encounter someone working in a country where they don't have speak the language fluently I admire them because it must be effing difficult. unfortunately they must encounter people like you with their 'opinions' all the time.

dot

Do we have to go down the road of slagging off underpriveleged Brits in a well-meaning but cack-handed attempt to defend the honour of everyone else on the planet?

Really?

OP are you my Mum?
Last time I was at Heathrow arrivals with her, a plane arrived from Bangladesh and as the passengers filtered through the arrivals hall she turned to me and said "Good Lord, where have all these brown faces come from?"

She's Indian, and her face is brown although I think she's in denial.

Honestly I do wonder if people could just engage their brains before posting...

Hang on a minute this is fucking with my head.

Our factory manufactures stuff that everyone assumes must be imported from China.

Does that mean I'm pretending to be Chinese?

And our Polish employees are pretending to be a English people pretending to be Chinese people?

We pay a living wage as well by the way, but on Monday I'll explain that only the drippy English can have one.

Although since we're all Chinese no one will be eligible off that.

Oh holy fucking hell my head hurts now

LadyRabbit

YakinaMac - I suggest you look at Caucasus mountains on a map. It is quite possible to be Caucasian and Black. The vast majority of ethnic groups from that region are known to typically have dark skin.

HotPink I had to google that. Very good. I have learned something today

I spent a summer working as a tour guide in a distillery. We all wore kilts (black mark for authenticity as women don't traditionally wear kilts) in all sorts of different tartans (another black mark because no-one was wearing their "own" tartan, and anyway tartan is a reasonably late addition to "scottishness" so isn't always recognised as authentic anyway), and I took German groups round, so (another black mark) I spoke to them in German rather than lots of "och aye the noo". You'd have hated visiting us OP. Made-up Scottishness for the tourists rather than authentic accents.

Sounds like my mum too. I remember years ago her making a comment about all the "darkies" (ffs) on the tv . She was referring to moira stewart. If you met my mother you would understand why at the age of 7 my face was a mixture of and .

Every days a school day on mumsnet unless you are the op

Ladyrabbit is your mum Mrs Cooper (Kapoor)?

LeapingOverTheWall I believe that the whole notion of "clan" tartans is the invention of enthusiastic and entrepreneurial nineteenth-century Edinburgh tailors.

The whole idea that Scot = Highlander is in any event phony. Until 1745 and All That to nine-tenths of the Scots the garb of the Highlander was the garb of a cattle-thief.

OP, I'm still absolutely dying to know where the hell you went in Wells to find anyone that couldn't be classed as English?? I mean there are only 2 tourist destinations and at one of them there really isn't a single member of staff that isn't English and I can't imagine it's any different in the other one! As a PP said, the market stalls are all also run by locals and unless you ate in the Italian, Chinese or Greek places, I'm stumped!

I went to a cafe in spain last yeAr was served by a welsh woman blew my mind

I somewhat agree with the OP. If I were to visit a stately home or a museum or Rudyard Kipling's house or a garden like Wakehurst, I would expect the people to be at least British - if not English. Surely, their knowledge of the place would be greater than anything a foreigner could have picked up for a 'seasonal' job.

I'm not talking about coffee shops or burger bars (not that they are English!) but about traditionally English places like Stonehenge or Winchester Cathedral or Westminster Abbey or even a tea shoppe with scones, cakes and tea with the waitress in a black frock and a white apron and white cap.. Tea does not originate from this country but it's a traditional drink and has been for centuries not like that coke muck--.

Oh dear! I struck through too much.......