Kwame Brown

Culture Clash

I met someone the other day who had come to live in the UK and originally came from Greece. The conversation was fine until I made a joke about Cosmetic eyelid surgery. English humour, I don’t remember what exactly, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that she might not get it.

“But what does this mean?” she asked, fidgeting. “This is new to me, I do not hear this in the time before.”

“Um, well–” I replied, thinking this was a joke in itself. “It means exactly what I said.”

She considered what I’d said but I could see it wasn’t meaning a thing, so I added: “stupid English humour, I suppose.”

She smiled. “It is not stupid, it is just that in Greece we don’t have the same. There is different.”

So we talked about the differences in humour, and I was quickly educated. According to her, Greece was similar to the US. The humour was more what you see is what you get. That was why she was so baffled by what I’d said. And the reason why so often she came in to contact with British people who just seemed strange. (I informed her that it was also possible they were just strange full stop, and she got that joke.)

That conversation opened my eyes somewhat. Suddenly I was seeing things from another person’s perspective, things I had never considered before.

After our conversation I got a text: I just try Greece humour again and it don’t work very well–next I try English–

I replied, what happened?

I just tell a man in the street his face is ugly, not, she wrote back. Did I say something wrong to him or what?

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