We’re having a culture day at the agency on Friday. Everyone is supposed to dress up and bring a plate of eats symbolising their cultural heritage. This is easy if you’re Indian, or Xhosa, or Italian. Or even Afrikaans.
But what about us English-speaking South Africans of somewhat mongrel origin, who no longer qualify for an ancestral UK visa and whose ties with the Empire are frayed at best? What do we do?
Take clothing, for instance. What on earth do I rock up in? What is “English”? Jodhpurs and a riding hat? Tweed? Tennis gear? Or, if we’re not going to indulge in the usual stereotyped jolly hockeysticks version of English culture, perhaps I should dress up as an Essex girl in white stilettos and a short skirt.
A prop might also help — a copy of Noddy or The Faraway Tree, perhaps, or a Little Britain DVD. The latest issue of Hello! magazine, specially flown out so that it might land on the shelves of Woolworths in time to feed the insatiable desire of Bryanston matrons for news of slaggish celebrities and twattish toffs.
As for food, do I bring in cucumber sandwiches? Yorkshire pudding? I’ve never eaten Yorkshire pudding in my life. Fish and chips? These days, the quintessential English dish is chicken tikka masala.
And are those things “my” culture in any real sense of the word? That’s the trouble with so-called English culture; in many ways it is generic. Everybody can lay claim to it, and nobody can. As a resident of the former colonies, what-what, I have far less claim to English culture than the average immigrant with a funny surname. I haven’t spent more than a few weeks in my ancestral land. I’ve never worked there, never been dismissed as a Saffer or a Puffer, never hung out at the Springbok Bar or longed for a King Steer burger. In many ways, my Anglophilia is ersatz, an attempt to compensate for my lack of affinity with the flaccid suburban conformity in which I grew up.
Now, if I were in another country I’d have plenty of options because I could claim all of South Africanness as my own. One’s own identity is so much easier to articulate when it is defined in marked contrast to others. I’d show up with biltong, morogo, koeksusters and a Springbok T-shirt cunningly accessorised with Ndebele tourist tat. A bottle of mampoer, perhaps, or a 2 litre Coke with Klippies gooied in. Maybe an empty pain tin filled with mageu. I’d walk around and accuse everyone else of being racist, when I wasn’t blikseming them.
That would be so much easier than having to come up with something 3/4 English, 1/4 Afrikaans, with a bit of French, Cornish and Scottish thrown in for good measure. Perhaps, in the end, I should stop worrying about dressing up or bringing food, and instead focus on the essence of Englishness: being polite, emotionally unavailable and filled with repressed anger, which I would then express through biting wit.
Goodness gracious — as it turns out, I am more than prepared for culture day already.
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31 Responses to “Essex girl or jolly hockeysticks?”
You could always settle for chav. It’s really easy. Put on lots of makeup, wear huge hoop earrings and dress in a really shiny tracksuit (preferably with go-faster stripes). Make sure to leave front unzipped to show cleavage (if you don’t have some, make some). Then chew gum, talk really loud, insult pretty much everybody and don’t forget the vodka.
Not sure what such eat. Personally I’m too busy deciding between the gold tracksuit and the hot pink aerobics outfit to bother about such things, although I do eat lots of biscuits, which is probably why I don’t fit into either today. Cleavage looks good though.
Personally I couldn’t give a damn about artificial, concise definitions of “culture”. Other people’s are interesting but since modern British culture involves lots of drinking and renovating houses and old culture involves Morris dancing, you can see why one doesn’t bother. My kids always get really uptight at the beginning of the year when every single year at school (no kidding, we’re currently on rehash #18 between them) they get marked for describing their culture and religion. It’s a delightful hash of made-up nonsense every time. They stressed the first couple of times but now they enjoy making up stuff about football games, ponies and Christmas celebrations to embarrass even Elton John. Not to say that we don’t have family traditions but have learned they don’t get such good marks.
[…] Thought Leader » Sarah Britten » Essex girl or jolly hockeysticks? www.thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten/2009/10/27/essex-girl-or-jolly-hockeysticks – view page – cached We’re having a culture day at the agency on Friday. Everyone is supposed to dress up and bring a plate of eats symbolising their cultural heritage. This is easy if you’re Indian, or Xhosa, or… (Read more)We’re having a culture day at the agency on Friday. Everyone is supposed to dress up and bring a plate of eats symbolising their cultural heritage. This is easy if you’re Indian, or Xhosa, or Italian. Or even Afrikaans. (Read less) — From the page […]
mmm… it’s something I have thought about a lot as well. As english South African’s, we don’t have a strong cultural identity to call our own. In that way I envy Afrikaans speakers
love it! i am imagining a comedy about a south african in london or aus whose knee-jerk reaction to everything is to accuse it of being racist, terorising the locals… no-one can use this card quite as skillfully as a south african, it is i suppose a quintessentially south african thing
this ”old” idea of inviting south africans to a cultural do where they have bring or where something that represents their culture is defunct and isnt helpful, we are south africans! people should do more SOUTH AFRICAN days with loads of bells, whistles and fanfair.
You are, of course, not English at all and you wouldn’t have been any more English if you did in fact possess an ancestral visa or had a pure bloodline, purged of funny surnames, of the type that would have excited the fascist Nick Griffin.
Anything you wear that is based on modern England will therefore not ring true. (Test question: if half the crowd at the do were English, what would they consider a plausible statement of culture or heritage from a non-English person?) Anything based on England as it was - say in the Victorian era or earlier - would be absolutely fine. In this costume you would legitimately be representing your cultural “heritage” to which no modern Brit could claim greater ownership.
I would therefore probably ham up the settler bit, not the cosmopolitan modern Britain bit.
This is just wonderful. i can so identify with you. my surname is norwegian and i am often asked if i am from there. i too, am the standard mongrel english speaking white African. i have no culture to call my own and i’m really not crazy about europe and have no desire to go there (not even to norway)my mother faced the same problem at a work function but she is at least half afrikaans so brought koeksisters. no idea what i would do. maybe we should start a support group for “no culture souls” except that sounds like i have no class! oh dear. i love biltong and “krimmel pap” but one of those is afrikaans and the other zulu. all these years in africa and we haven’t come up with anything! my english/scottish/norwegian/dutch/german/french ancestors would be furious.
Great article Sarah!
This is indeed the great quandry we face on a regular basis. I must say though, living in England has its benefits. I bring a packet of biltong into the office, generously offer it to everyone, have no takers, and can scoff it all myself!!
On behalf of the red-blooded SAfrican males around the world, we would like to see you in that Essex gear - short skirt and stilettos….
OneFlew pipped me to the post.
Whatever gave you the idea that you are English? Don’t confuse a language with a people, especially when you describe only the lower levels!
Anyway, if memory serves me, it’s likely you’ll all be barfing over the floor within 30 minutes, having drunk yourselves past the stage of understanding any language you have in common. That’s advertising agencies…
This is great! You hit the nail on the head - I went to university in the UK, and being the token South African in my circle meant I could appropriate all the things WASPs here would never dream of associating with: xhosa music, love of African traditional healing, samp and beans. Sad how it takes homesickness and identity crisis to make us realise how much more we have in common with other South African cultures than we do with the “Anglophone world”
For many years the first task we set our Anthropology 1 students was an essay written in class on the topic ‘the Past and Future of My People.’ The Jews, the Afrikaners, the Xhosa (and other black nations)knew exactly who ‘my people’ were, but not the English-speakers. Some, like Sarah, wrote about their overseas antecededents; others considered themselves part of ‘the human race.’ Occasionally, they identified themselves as South Africans or Africans; but mostly ‘my people’ for them was not about citizenship, or tribe, or nation or continent — they had membership of a genealogy or a species: nothing inbetween. Just like Sarah they struggled to define themselves.
Personally I would like to see you in Jodpers Sarah, but perhaps if you can lay your hands on a Beefeater costume?
Bangers and mash is always a good option to take for eats…easy and if you want colour throw in some mushy peas!
If you decide to wear option 1 - please send photos
good luck and enjoy!
@MLH: ethnically, I am of English origin - to be more technically correct, a mix of Cornish, English, 1820 settler and Scottish (with some Afrikaner/ Huguenot thrown in). That’s my point. I am well aware that ethnicity, language and culture are very different concepts, and that to confuse them is to lead to the kind of ethnonationalist crap we see in the AWB, for example, of Julius Malema’s infamous comment about Pedi words for concepts he cannot grasp.
Robin, that is an interesting question but one that may, I think, be viewed with some suspicion in some countries. In the UK or Germany, for instance?
I suspect the “my people” heading would, in the UK, be seen as a dangerously exclusive invitation to tribal hunkering down. It is the language of the BNP in Britain, or of the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, not of any remotely progressive group.
Even if it isn’t sinister (as the “cultural evening” described in Sarah’s blog probably isn’t), it would probably be seen as reflecting a slightly gauche, old-fashioned view of identity.
Interestingly, “my people”, “our people” is often used by the ANC - usually in the same way as the BNP would - but then, they are the politically untouchable, aren’t they?
Of course, had the heritage, even quite remotely, been Scottish, Irish, French or Italian, then the South African (or American) descendant would probably quite happily celebrate this ancient link.
The dilemma is in part one of identifying how the English would celebrate such a thing. Is it even done? Is Englishness inherited and transmitted in the same way?
I think not really. Englishness is probably both more embracing (no one for instance really challenges the Englishness of, say, darker-skinned immigrants who have been here for some time) and more specific (second-generation emigrants from England are just not English) than most of the other tribes.
Don’t underestimate the effect of that Essex short skirt and stilletos Sarah. It has the power to overcome most cultural issues. If you’re meeting with the right Gender of course…
Good luck!
You can’t dress to be both inoffensive to your Government audience and faithful to your “heritage”, if by your heritage you mean anything non-South African.
You would presumably need to dress according to a mythical South African heritage which you share. It will probably be colourful - riotous even - and generically African. It will involve “authentic” jewels; beads and the like.
“Perhaps, in the end, I should stop worrying about dressing up or bringing food, and instead focus on the essence of Englishness: being polite, emotionally unavailable and filled with repressed anger, which I would then express through biting wit.”
That is English! With a capital ‘E.’ And that is rather revealing description of myself and most of my english friends … Eek!
This really made me chuckle…. and I think the best post was the one about going as a plain yoghurt … am posting from Australia where I identify with comments about it being easier to see myself as SA from this vantage point. SA’s gather, and suddenly it doesn’t matter what the bloodstock is. Now if only there were some black faces…
I work at an international (primary) school in Shanghai. We had a ‘Flag Day’ last week, and instead of just wearing my nice white skirt with ‘rock-painting’ motif, attempted to wear clothes and accessories representing all the colours of the SA flag, and ended up looking like nothing in particular. I was most amused that my (English) boss and his half-Ghanaian daughters all looked far more African than I did in their matching outfits made in Ghana.
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Sarah Britten has written three books on South African insults. During the day she is a communication strategist in the ad industry; by night she writes books and blog entries. It helps to have insomnia.
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You could always settle for chav. It’s really easy. Put on lots of makeup, wear huge hoop earrings and dress in a really shiny tracksuit (preferably with go-faster stripes). Make sure to leave front unzipped to show cleavage (if you don’t have some, make some). Then chew gum, talk really loud, insult pretty much everybody and don’t forget the vodka.
Not sure what such eat. Personally I’m too busy deciding between the gold tracksuit and the hot pink aerobics outfit to bother about such things, although I do eat lots of biscuits, which is probably why I don’t fit into either today. Cleavage looks good though.
Personally I couldn’t give a damn about artificial, concise definitions of “culture”. Other people’s are interesting but since modern British culture involves lots of drinking and renovating houses and old culture involves Morris dancing, you can see why one doesn’t bother. My kids always get really uptight at the beginning of the year when every single year at school (no kidding, we’re currently on rehash #18 between them) they get marked for describing their culture and religion. It’s a delightful hash of made-up nonsense every time. They stressed the first couple of times but now they enjoy making up stuff about football games, ponies and Christmas celebrations to embarrass even Elton John. Not to say that we don’t have family traditions but have learned they don’t get such good marks.
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