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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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 Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
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| The UK is great if you can afford to live in a nice, safe area like Richmond or Kingston Upon Thames - places where you can don't have to worry about being robbed on the way home from work. However, the vast majority of people can't afford it and never will |
You lot have been watching too much Crimewatch UK without waiting for the bit at the end. Remember violent crime is still very rare in the UK. The chances are you will get burgled at least once in your life in the UK it's true but I've had my flat burgled once in Korea too. By a Korean guy. Yes it costs a lot of money to live in a nice safe area in the UK, that's why I'm working my arse off here so I can go back and do that one day. It's a pretty sad state of affairs just giving up on your own country (which you think is great) because you don't think you'll ever raise the cash to live there properly. |
Okay. maybe I was exaggerating about the crime a wee bit for emphasis, but my basic point stands. To live comfortably and have peace of mind costs an arm and a leg, and this says something about the state of the UK. Why should people have to pay more just to enjoy a life unmarred by antisocial morons? It's sad really.
It's not just the financial aspect that puts me off. Like I said, I have a multitude of reasons. Some of them personal to me. I am mixed race - Asian/European so growing up in the 80s when Far-right idiots made life tough for my family kind of made me feel like the UK is not 'my country'.
I feel much more at home in Asia.
Like Korea, the UK is not for everyone. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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Even if I had the cash, those areas would be filled with reactionary Daily Mail reading Middle Class anyway, who aren't people I want to be near.
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I'm not sure you're going to find Koreans much more open minded and free of prejudice.
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| For the money it would take to live in a nice area in the UK, I can live like a king in Korea, happy in my shoebox apartment |
Living like a king in a shoe box?
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| When I said "Teacher', all the other guys laughed |
They probably thought it was weird that a guy with a degree who wanted to be a teacher, was doing a back to work course instead of a PGCE
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| Zero culture of respect, unless it's respect gained through aggression and violence down at the local pub. |
I agree that this attitude festers in certain areas of society, probably due to the breakdown of the family and lack of authority figures and discipline. Though as a Daily Mail hater you probably think they aren't getting enough love and understanding 
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| I spent a year teaching in Italy, and the culture was so much more varied and related to my tastes |
I agree with you there, though crime is a much worse problem in Italy than the UK. It'd be my first choice country to live in if it wasn't for the amount of street crime and corruption in the place. |
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Setaro
Joined: 08 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
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Even if I had the cash, those areas would be filled with reactionary Daily Mail reading Middle Class anyway, who aren't people I want to be near.
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I'm not sure you're going to find Koreans much more open minded and free of prejudice.
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| For the money it would take to live in a nice area in the UK, I can live like a king in Korea, happy in my shoebox apartment |
Living like a king in a shoe box?
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| When I said "Teacher', all the other guys laughed |
They probably thought it was weird that a guy with a degree who wanted to be a teacher, was doing a back to work course instead of a PGCE
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| Zero culture of respect, unless it's respect gained through aggression and violence down at the local pub. |
I agree that this attitude festers in certain areas of society, probably due to the breakdown of the family and lack of authority figures and discipline. Though as a Daily Mail hater you probably think they aren't getting enough love and understanding |
Point 1: Of course, great swathes of people the world over are close minded and prejudiced, but when one of the biggest selling daily newspaper in England regularly run headlines like this: http://po-ru.com/images/express-racist.jpg, you know you're in trouble.
Point 2: I don't consider 'living like a king' to require me to live in a large house, with all the many rooms filled with furniture. I like my shoebox; it's easy to clean, cheap bills, I eat out every night, have plenty of money to travel and go places and buy books/videogames/whatever all the time. I'm literally not even trying to save, yet I pocket at least 1/1.5 million won a month without even trying.
Point 3: I didn't go to University until I was 24. I was unemployed while studying a pair of A-Levels in order to get into University. Plus anyway I wanted to teach ESL. Why anyone would want to teach in UK schools boggles my mind. I'll never do a PGCE.
Point 4: No, I think they need a thorough slap, and/or beating with a large stick. England also needs more jobs and investment in deprived areas twinned with a complete remodelling of the education system, so that 50% of kids aren't leaving school having failed their basic English and Maths exams. Not letting kids leave school til 18/19 (continental Europe/Asian style) would be a start. |
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b-class rambler
Joined: 25 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2011 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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For gawd's sake, is there any country anywhere in the world that isn't "NOT for everyone"?
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In Nottingham, about the only place I feel safe when walking around at night is the Asian part of the city. |
Just out of interest, which part of Nottingham do you regard as "the Asian part of the city"? |
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Ribena
Joined: 07 Apr 2011
Location: UK
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| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:10 am Post subject: |
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| edwardcatflap wrote: |
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| The UK is great if you can afford to live in a nice, safe area like Richmond or Kingston Upon Thames - places where you can don't have to worry about being robbed on the way home from work. However, the vast majority of people can't afford it and never will |
You lot have been watching too much Crimewatch UK without waiting for the bit at the end. Remember violent crime is still very rare in the UK. The chances are you will get burgled at least once in your life in the UK it's true but I've had my flat burgled once in Korea too. By a Korean guy. Yes it costs a lot of money to live in a nice safe area in the UK, that's why I'm working my arse off here so I can go back and do that one day. It's a pretty sad state of affairs just giving up on your own country (which you think is great) because you don't think you'll ever raise the cash to live there properly. |
I'm not giving up on the UK, I'm just pointing out that not everyone can avoid the troubling areas. I would never live in London now because I couldn't afford to live in a decent part of it but some people are tied to the London area through jobs or family so they can't move to somewhere cheaper. I think this applies for a number of other large cities in the west. I wouldn't live in London due to the costs but there are plenty of other parts that I could afford and are decent. |
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earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:45 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Setaro"]
| edwardcatflap wrote: |
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| The UK is great if you can afford to live in a nice, safe area like Richmond or Kingston Upon Thames - places where you can don't have to worry about being robbed on the way home from work. However, the vast majority of people can't afford it and never will |
I have no nationalistic tendencies what so ever, so I don't really consider the UK "my own country". I don't feel any sort of attachment to the country or its people. I spent a year teaching in Italy, and the culture was so much more varied and related to my tastes. I felt more at home there than I ever did in my hometown. And like you say, it costs a lot of money to live in a nice safe area in the UK. Even if I had the cash, those areas would be filled with reactionary Daily Mail reading Middle Class anyway, who aren't people I want to be near.
That's why I'd never go back to England. Zero culture of respect, unless it's respect gained through aggression and violence down at the local pub. |
One simple but important fact you're missing is that the Brits have the ability to laugh at themselves and their dysfunctions. Self satire is a significant part of our culture, something that is not that easy to find in European cultures such as those of Italy nd France. Brits also face up to hard facts much better than the Italiansand French from what I have seen first hand in my work and travels on the Continent.
If you want to see aggression and violence that is approved by institutions such as the football clubs in Italy, go and watch how fascist hooligans not only stab, kick, intimidate and at times murder other supporters and racial/ethnic minorities but also travel proudly in their team's coach to away games and are guests of honour at club functions as well as being feted by some players. That's wonderful, cultured Italy for you.
In the UK we we damned well took a strong stand decades ago with the result that racist chanters are thrown out by stewards and sometimes have charges laid against them. In Italian football the idea of a game where supporter pressure and the law has made it unacceptable to engage in racist chanting and hate speech is something that will never be accepted so long as the deeply racist, right wing culture is accepted.
Black and non Italian players are routinely intimidated by crowd vitriol and racist threats. That's why Italian football still looks very white. The UK has its share of interracial/interethnic tensions but the society's core beliefs are very clear - the foundation of the UK is the rule of law and strong anti discrimination laws can be and are used to deal with behaviour and attitudes where individuals and groups are not self monitoring.
I doubt British beachgoers would have parties and play volleyball around the dead bodies of gypsy children who drowned after trecking around trying to sell souvenirs to make a few pathetic lira. This shocking incident took place at a beach frequented not by thugs or the Italian equivalent of Chavs but one where nice, affluent Italians go. Tensions are rising in various European countries and the UK over the challenges of coping with mass movement of both legal and illegal immigrants but at least the UK errs on the side of humanity mostly.
Italy will only get worse as more and more Africans including Libyans enter to try and get a new life away from the desperation of their own countries. Yes, there are significant numbers of Brits who don't want that situation either but our legal system and our basic foundation of liberal democracy and rights mean that the same situation in the UK isn't as bad as that of countries such as Italy.
I'd also rather come from a country where organised crime hasn't got the iron grip it has in Italy. We have problems in the UK with criminal groups from those in the white majority to Russian and African gangs but Italy is basically held to ransom in daily life by organised crime, graft and corruption.
As for France,
while the UK has problems with dysfunctional members of society including
minority youths from broken homes seeing no future beyond the welfare state and organised fights with other youth, including to the death with knives, France's treatment of minorities is a national disgrace. The lack of a safety net after a certain time limit results in widespread financial hardship among minorities and there exist areas known as The Zone/s where Blacks and others are relegated to live away from mainstream French society. It's similar to apartheid without the bloody mindedness of apartheid and its worst excesses.
Yes there are ghettoes for minorities in other countries but France shows an outstanding hypocrisy in its smug high handed language of how everybody is a Frenchman or Frenchwoman and not a minority yet ensures that minorities mostly can not experience what it is to be a Frenchman or Frenchwoman as their presence in the mainstream is discouraged.
The UK is hardly the worst country in the EU for social attitudes and conditions. |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:02 am Post subject: |
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yes I agree with a lot of that, Italy is a truly beautiful country with great weather, wine food, culture etc... But a lot of social problems and a lot stronger feeling that politicians cannot be trusted and are all morally bankrupt. This has resulted in the anarchistic attitudes that have allowed the Mafia to flourish. Family is everything there because, as Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society. In the south, where I lived for five years, people openly disregard laws and mention it as a point of pride. This can seem free and attractive when you're younger but would become a real pain in the ass if you chose to retire there. Also bureaucracy is awful, slow old fashioned and totally un customer oriented.
On the subject of the gypsy kids on the beach, I remember that incident quite well and although it's true that Italians don't have much love for gypsies (which country does when you get down to it) I remember thinking at the time about how the people who objected to the scene expected the bystanders to behave. The beach was full of people on holiday, the gypsy kids were already drowned, dead and covered up, waiting to be carried away. Being Italy this took a while. Meanwhile, presumably after standing around looking shocked for a few minutes, the other people on the beach went back to sunbathing and swimming. At this point someone took a photo of the dead kids lying on the beach with people swimming and sunbathing in the background. I mean did they expect everyone to hang around the bodies of these total strangers, weeping and moaning until the ambulance arrived? maybe that would happen in some countries but I reckon what the Italians did was pretty normal human behavior |
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Ribena
Joined: 07 Apr 2011
Location: UK
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| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:39 am Post subject: |
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As for France,
while the UK has problems with dysfunctional members of society including
minority youths from broken homes seeing no future beyond the welfare state and organised fights with other youth, including to the death with knives, France's treatment of minorities is a national disgrace. The lack of a safety net after a certain time limit results in widespread financial hardship among minorities and there exist areas known as The Zone/s where Blacks and others are relegated to live away from mainstream French society. It's similar to apartheid without the bloody mindedness of apartheid and its worst excesses. |
There are no-go immigrant areas in the UK full of knife crime with a safety net of benefits so I don't think its much different in the UK. Just walk around London and you'll see the ghettos clearly. I don't think the welfare safety net has done much good for the country of the people it is supposed to help. It mostly makes things worse.
The UK isn't the worst country in the UK but its probably one that is least honest about its problems because its far too nice and accomodating of everyone. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Interesting, when I read about Europe here, I see a lot of soial problems. Seems the welfare state has given people too much time on their hands. Also because people have too many rights and privledges no one has any respect for other people any more. Seems some rights ought to be curtailed and these criminal gangs ought to be conked on the head and put in jail. Maybe limit the amount of time you can go on welfare to one or two years, then you have to get a job and can't go on it again for several years. Our western culture has a lot of problems. A lot of idiots seriously need a boot up their a$$. |
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johgraker
Joined: 08 Sep 2010
Location: KOREA
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| Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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| simply prepare for the country by learning basic korean and familiarizing yourself with culture issues, then it should be a blast! |
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