Cultural Differences

I received a text message this morning that reminded me of a topic I wanted to write about before, but forgot about when I did the wrap up of my trip.

The message I received this morning was from the ceramics workshop teacher/master. He said another division of the school group was looking for someone of an age (bit lower than my actual age) that can speak Portuguese and Chinese. I thanked him for considering me within that age range but that I'm mostly stage and camera shy and passed.

But that brought up another thing I noticed in the UK.

In many places, like museums and such, when getting entry tickets, I was asked numerous times if we were students, for the student discount. This brought up quite an interesting thought, IMHO.

So over here, the mentality is, up to high/secondary/form school, you are a student. University... maybe undergraduate courses. But once you have a Bachelor's degree, that's it. No more student status. I wonder if it's because of the mentality that "once you get a Bachelor's, you're supposed to be working and not a student." In other words, you're not young anymore (yeah harsh, I agree). I think the unspoken agreement is 26 years old is the limit of being a student. Again, I know there are students older than that. Heck, I'm 40 and if I decide to go get a Masters then I'm technically a student, but I'm talking about the.... what's the word... "unwritten and agreed upon rules"? Coming to think of it, any "dependent" benefits a person gets (parents' work benefits or government benefits to their kids) usually has a caveat that they are considered "dependent if still a student up to the age of 26." I wonder if it's because of that, that there is this kind of mentality over here.

At one place, I think at the Hastings Castle site, when asked if we were students, I sort of laughed and said "thanks for the vote of confidence, but we're way past that by now," referring to we are way past to be considered "students" or "young" now. I don't think the lady understood what I was laughing at, but seemed happy enough that I laughed at all, and said something else about it being a nice day and that we could go in up till 3.30pm again if we leave.

I think in the Western world, even if you're a Masters student, or even a PhD student, because you're technically a "student", so you would still get all those student discounts as long as you have a student's card? That would be unthinkable in this part of the world, as I know it. (Maybe times have changed and I don't realize it.)

Another cultural (cultural? Legal?) difference is.... Traffic rules!!! First off, in Macau, we follow the rules of Hong Kong (because, car imports come via Hong Kong), and Hong Kong follow the rules of the UK (coz, duh, past colonial territory), so, our steering wheels are on the right side of the car and we drive on the left side of the street.

Side note: forget about Macau being a past Portuguese colony and not following the Portuguese way of left steering wheels and driving on the right. Ease of importing cars is more important, I guess LOL. And besides, now with lifting the restrictions to China, there are many left-steering wheel cars in town with crazy Chinese drivers.

I thought, London would be more "civilized" in terms of traffic lights, but no, it's like.... it's worse than here! PEDESTRIANS!!!!! Pedestrians are lawless over there! Here, if it's a red light, everyone stops. Whoever jaywalks and crosses a pedestrian red light is usually considered "tourists from Mainland China" because, er, traffic regulations are just soft guidelines over there.

But then, when it comes to zebra crossings, it was very civilized in London. As long as a motorist sees a pedestrian nearby a zebra, they'll slow down, and once a pedestrian foot lands on the zebra, all cars stop and let you pass. Here? You have to be wary. A pedestrian is likely to be thought of being "bowling pins" in that if a motorist sees you they won't stop and expect you the pedestrian to get out of his way in time. That's the lawless part. Well in truth, cars will stop but only at the very last minute, like, they'd cross that first perpendicular line before a zebra? Yeah.

And then, back to my surprise about "lawless" London, is about the direction of cars parking. Say, if that is a two-way street, with parallel parking space on both sides of the street, it seems that in London you can park in any direction you want. See a spot on the opposite side of the street? Go for it. Park in the opposing direction of the side of the street you are on, it's fine. Here, it's not. If you are going to park in the opposite side of the street, make sure you make an illegal or not U-turn so that your car is facing the correct direction to the side you are going to parallel park. If you park in the opposite direction, even with the car being on park, you'll get a ticket for "going against the direction".