Please can you either validate by sharing examples of your own, or disprove my conclusions, about the ungenerous, unwelcome cultural attitudes of British, white people.
My background is Punjabi Sikh and I was born and brought up in the UK. I grew up watching my parents receiving and themselves being visitors.
My take on Sikh people is they were from traditional, humble backgrounds with jolly, warm, generous backgrounds. Sikhs in particular are known for their overly generous nature with a visit never missing offers of quantities of food.
(As a child, I remember guests would be offered anything we had in the cupboards. They only had to mention the word and it was on the table in front of them. The guest was king. The gesture was equally reciprocated when visiting a similar background. The unspoken understanding was we didn’t have much, but we shared what little we had. And offering food showed you cared- I digress).
Trips back to the motherland extended that concept to a greater extent with the people sometimes having the least, offering the most. It made me feel warm, welcome and humble.
In my experience of the UK, it is polar opposite. Whenever I have visited people from British background in their home, I have always been offered nothing.
My daughter once went on a playdate for 2 hours and upon collection, before her host, whined she was hungry and thirsty. The guest didn’t respond by offering a glass of water. Instead he invited us for more playdates the next day (presumably for the same treatment?
)
She later confirmed she had not been offered anything, not even a glass of water. The hosts were well within their means to offer a modest snack, let alone glass of water.
When I stayed for the first few minutes of the playdate, the host remained laying down on the sun lounger, drinking her own cup of tea
! This I could never do for fear of appearing rude.
As a mum, my natural nurturing instinct makes me offer a little girl who visited our house something to eat and drink. We had hosted 2 playdates previously and the mother saw for herself the generous amount of treats laid out, so it is sad this wasn’t reciprocated. I was not expecting equal but at least a (free) glass of water.
I visited someone from British background to pay condolences to someone who had died and I offered food, flowers
and card. I stayed for an hour and not offered even a glass of water by relatives.
I have paid my British neighbours a visit and nothing, not even water. I paid three of my Gujrati neighbours a visit and offered home made food. My Turkish friends offered cake and home made food. At my party, the Arabs arrived flowing with food. I am so grateful and humbled that I reciprocate in good will feelings back to them.
Perhaps I am guilty of actively seeking out examples to reinforce my negative stereotype of white British English people. It is a small sample set but enough for me to make some generalisations.
Perhaps my comparison is unkind as the people who offer nothing have come from working class backgrounds and class plays a part in cultural manners.
I am moved to write this because the irony is that in the world where people are relatively wealthy compared to their third world counterparts, they display what I believe to be ungenerous, unwelcome (mean-spirited) behaviour.
We live in the south east of England - a region of disproportionate wealth in the UK. They have relatively much more in terms of disposable income yet cannot offer even a glass of water.
I know this is a controversial post and I expect it will upset the majority white British people who read this, interpreting racist connotations. It’s not- I’m only writing what I have experienced in real life.
(In gurdwaras, we serve langar which is blessed food for those who seek blessings from god- the giving and taking of food being so central to our lives- I digress).