Comparison

In my first evening class back, after we'd said how we'd missed each other, and how good the young woman had been who'd covered for me while I was away, we moved to the theme of the day: Making Comparisons. We went over comparatives, equalitives, expressions for degrees of similarity or difference, and so on, ending finally with a round robin: aspects of Boston, and the U.S. vs the same in the students' cities and countries--weather, public behavior, food... Comparison makes us nostalgic and satisfied at the same time.

It got me thinking about my recent trip to Scotland. My mother is Scottish, originally Glaswegian, and my late father English from London, but I see myself as American, and a by-adoption Bostonian. Wearing the kilt at my second cousin's wedding, was nostalgic for my mum, but only pleasant for me insofar as it proved admirable for dancing later in the evening.

Points of comparison:

The most salient, driving on the other side of the street. Less obvious, speed cameras and violation ticketing by mail. Absent, parking meters. Present but unexpected, barriers around the sidewalks at intersections with opening only at the signalled pedestrian crossing points. The trains are as quiet as slippers.

Language: not only the burr, but the vowels: 'coos' for 'cows' and a kind of ski jump intonation with a singing lilt. A special Scots vocabulary: be careful if youc all any woman 'besom.' A pleasant sounding dialect, to my ears, but hard to follow in heated conversations.

Land use: housing is tightly clustered, surrounded by large areas of open space mostly for sheep. This means that at the end of whatever narrow, tightly turning street one is on, there's a vista, not too distant, of a green or yellow hill. There's a signal absence of billboards.

Many houses compact, the stairs steep. Kitchens often tiny, and appliance similarly scaled. Bathroom fixtures modernistic, chrome, multi-functional. Radiators are thin but large and attached to the wall. Electric blankets under, not over, the sleeper. Outside, the grass is putting green short. I recorded singing birds in all sorts of places

A pound is about two dollars, but often what costs a dollar here is a pound there.

Tea: gallons and gallons of it. "Shall I just put on a pot?' Coffee is white or Americano (black), and no half-and-half. Eggs have bright orange yolks. No spices in the food, just basic provender. Haggis (oatmeal cooked in intestines) is actually one of the more flavorful concoctions. Trifles for dessert. Cellophane-wrapped cakes and candy bars for tea-time snacks.

The weather sometimes made Boston's seem as stable as Arizona's; it was overcast, bright sun, drizzle, sun, overcast, a spot more rain, and so on. Cloudscapes were spectacular.

Citizen/government relationship: 'It's here for us', and often is. Pensions, for instance, seem to be generous. Worker/company relationship: 'I work to the clock, because I have a life to lead.' Vacations: sure, the seaside or the Highlands, but regularly, Florida, Spain, and wherever else.

Politics: I was only with conservatives whose views and modes of expression were as Red State as any we have here. Independence: Glasgow voted for it, but the people I talked to thought the 'Yes' supporters were 'eejits' who hadn't the intelligence to see the harm that separation from England would inflict. Alex Salmon, leader of the independence drive (and all other politicians) were deemed corrupt and self-serving. The currency issue was often cited. Vague hopes were expressed that the vote would shake up Westminster (the center of the British government, and be good for other underrepresented sections of the island, but not a lot of interest in political specifics.

Much disdain for Eastern European immigrants, and for the E.U. generally. Doubt about climate change. Much awareness, though confessed sotto voce, of Catholic or Protestant identities-- 'So you know who you're talking to.'--this played out in the Rangers vs Celtics soccer club rivalry.

I'd thought, in the independence vote, that my mother and father were going to symbolically divorce again, but instead the complex, fraught relationship carries on.

This is New England; up the coast is Nova Scotia. We on the upper Atlantic coast are perhaps more aware of the British as ancestors and as contemporaries. So much is recognizable but so much is different. I didn't get the feeling there of 'Gotcha' in the public space as I do here. Some commercial opportunities that could have been exploited, by public policy, hadn't been. There's a distinct socialist, if not quite communalist, ethos generally accepted there that, of course, is hotly contested here.

Of course, a week with the family for a wedding is an extremely limited experience; I may well be very wrong on many points. Still, I saw many things to like in the way, you Scots, have arranged your affairs. Yours is not my style, but it's a good style with much to recommend it, and one I was happy to encounter.

At the end of our class exercise on making comparisons, a student from Haiti compared me and my stand-in, a bright young woman just graduated with her TSOL certification. After the obvious old vs young, male vs female observations, we got to the matter of style: games vs exercises, voice volume and speed, and other things that make one teacher different from another, and a variety of teachers good for students. I think the people in class are happy to have had both.