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I have never been so elegantly asked about my alienness as I was on Saturday by friends of

nou. One of them asked, "Where are you from originally?" Another followed up with "Do you still have voting privileges there?"

Conversely, I have rarely been so persistently not asked about my alienness as I was yesterday when I was out running errands. A stop at Lush was among these; that it was the Covent Garden one, tourist central, didn't help. All three of the staff members who at one point or another briefly talked to me presumed I was a transient alien. It's quite a reasonable assumption, given my accent.

I stood indecisively by the facial scrubs, trying to decide if I really wanted to buy more Ocean Salt or not. I wasn't entirely out yet. "You should consider whether or not you can get more of it easily when you do run out." said the sales assistant. "I can." "It's not too inconvenient for you to get more of it?" "No." "If sourcing it is going to be a problem, you might want to buy more now." "No, really, it won't be." And so on. Entire, brief conversations. Three of them.

So clearly, since I am so obviously a transient alien, I should embrace this status for the purpose of casual shopping trips. To enhance this, I need to be prepared with appropriate repartee. Since sarcasm is obviously such an American trait, a few appropriately reinforcing sarcastic remarks wouldn't go amiss either. Sadly, for all my good misleading intentions, my mind is blank of actual exemplary remarks.

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There are 45 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

i tend to prefer 'where are you from originally/where do you live/where were you born' as asking me where i come from gets a blank stare and a request for elaboration :)

and obviously you need a 'not a tourist' tshirt :)

Wouldn't only tourists buy a "not a tourist" shirt? ;)

i tend to prefer 'where are you from originally/where do you live/where were you born' as asking me where i come from gets a blank stare and a request for elaboration

Exactly. Then I have to guess whether or not they're asking where I live. Actually, they usually don't even care about where I'm from. They're most frequently asking where my accent is from. Which happens to coincide largely with where I really am from originally, conveniently.

I love Iowa dearly, but I didn't move here from there, which doesn't help the answer to confusing questions either.

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i've got it wrong so often that now i just ask people what they _actually_ want to know.

my accent's bog standard educated-London/S England so that's not a major problem but 10 years ago after 6 months in Birmingham, it got a few comments :)

it's when people assume that because the accent's British that i am, that i get sniffy.

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Wouldn't only tourists buy a "not a tourist" shirt? ;)

Thus making the wearing of such all the more delicious.

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My most recent alien invasion moment came at the tea room of Blenheim Palace - three American girls together, so obviously none of us live here - when I handed over my HSBC debit card to pay for lunch, the cashier apologized and said, "I'm sorry, we can only take chip and pin cards - it's a secure banking system that the UK uses." Yes. You'll notice that there is, in fact, a chip on this card, and if you put the card in your magic machine, I will, in fact, type in my magic pin.

You're a very sneaky tourist to have a chip-and-pin card! Very clever.

Even in the UK, banks are required to allow their customers to use signature confirmations instead of chip-and-pin if they require it. (Say, if the customer is incapable of remembering number sequences etc. Whatever reason.) I suppose that doesn't mean that shops are obliged to accept signature confirmations from current UK bank cards though - does it? Hmm.

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From last year's BBC Q&A on the subject:

"Is there an alternative for people who are unable to use chip and pin cards?

Elderly people or those with disabilities preventing them from using a chip and pin card can apply for a chip and signature one instead, under which they continue to sign a receipt for purchases.

The Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS) has said more than 100,000 chip and signature cards have been issued, but some people with disabilities have reported problems getting them.

Many vulnerable consumers are being told that they will have to use their pins or they will not be able to shop using card payment

Consumer groups warn of problems for disabled shoppers

The National Consumer Council (NCC) have estimated that up to three million people may have problems remembering or coping with the physical demands of entering their PINs.

Card issuers should do more to make vulnerable consumers aware that they have the option of going for a chip and signature card."

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I remember an encounter in the US where I was required to produce photo ID and produced my passport. No, said the person I was dealing with, I must see your driving licence. Ah, I said, UK driving licences have no photos on them (as they didn't at that time), but I think you will find that my passport will suffice as photo ID. No, I must see your driving licence. Very well, I said, but I warn you that it does not have a photograph on it and will be of little use in helping to identify me.

I handed over my driving licence and the person looked at it in confusion and observed that it had no photograph upon it. No, I said, most UK driving licences do not, but here is my passport, which I used to leave my country and to get into yours, and it has a photograph upon it. See, that's my picture.

Person clutching passport and driving licence now looks deeply confused and flees to find supervisor, who appears, rolls eyes when situation is explained, and confirms that yes, my passport is perfectly acceptable as a photo ID because I am clearly not from around here and therefore am unlikely to have a US driving licence.

Glad we cleared that one up.

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_nicolai_ has gotten out of tickets for moving violations because his UK licence confused the cop so badly.

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The Child had to deal with this for ages, because her first Green Card somehow got lost in the processing shuffle. She had an awful time getting into films because she didn't drive like a normal 16 year-old, and only carried her passport. She finally got a (legally required) state ID card, and it solved all kinds of problems, although she still has problems in pubs, because she's 25 and still doesn't drive.

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Arrgh! I hate that! I have a new style UK licence with photo, but I'm still forget to show photo id for credit card purchases when back in the US. How the eyes of Barnes and Noble employees narrow with suspicion as they hiss, "I've never seen a driving licence that looked like that before. I'm not sure I can sell you this cat calendar with your so-called Visa."

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This is exactly why it's worth it to me to keep renewing my US driver's license. It makes things less complicated. (Well, that, and I haven't relearned to drive in the UK so it's still my only driver's license.)

I want to be able to buy my cat calendar!

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I can beat that: I had my green card referred to a supervisor for the purchase of alcohol. Tragically he wasn't sure either, but he eventually decided that a government-issued identity card was in fact acceptable.

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Some years ago when British passports did not have one's date of birth on them and British driving licences had no photograph (but did have a DOB) I attempted to buy a bottle of wine in Michigan. Despite having a photo ID (with no DOB) and an ID with DOB but not photo, they wouldn't sell me one.

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I'm just reminded of what happened when I came back to the UK for the first time in 3 years and had to ask people to shepherd me through using my chip&pin (after searching through a huge pile of mail to find it). I was in the opposite situation to you - assumed to be local due to the accent but was in fact a confused tourist.

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I've always got weird responses in England and Scotland. When around other USAmericans (not with them, mind) in a shop or pub, I invariably get included in the eye-rolling at the aliens, even when I've already opened my mouth. I'll mention that they may not have noticed I'm also a Yank, and get a response along the lines of, "yes, but you aren't like one." I've never quite understood that. What, because I'm reasonably polite? Maybe because I don't speak that loudly?

I tend to pick up accents pretty easily -- I think that's why Germans assumed I was from another part of Germany or at least Europe. Put me among Scots, Irish(wo)men, or South Africans for a week, and I start sounding like them. But oddly, despite living with a Londoner for 12+ years, I've never picked up a trace of a sarf London accent. You live there -- has your accent changed?

Wrt responses, why can't you simply stop the long list of irritating questions by saying that you live just down the road? It seems a simple solution.

it's the way you behave, i presume? tourist behaviour and i-live-here behaviour are very different - you're adhering to the local unwritten rules and conventions and behaving in an 'appropriate' way. whereas tourists...dont.

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I guess. I tend to try to fit in wherever I am -- probably because I'm always so sure I'm an outsider.

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why can't you simply stop the long list of irritating questions by saying that you live just down the road? It seems a simple solution.

Had the conversation gone on any longer, I would have! It's just the questions were so short and easy to answer, and it was so surprising that that conversation went on as long as three of them. I had three short conversations with three different people in three parts of the store. None were long, but all operated on the same presumptions.

I don't pick up accents easily. I'm more likely to have my speaking influenced by Lancashire than London, given who I live with. I sound much more like I'm from the American midwest than anywhere else, although I've twice been asked, while in Des Moines, where I was from, based on my accent.

I don't have much of an ear for accents either, which is frustrating. I can tell that accents are different from each other, but it's a very long, very slow process for me to identify a rogue accent in the wild. I miss out on all the basic information which Brits all have about each other: where they're from and often a certain amount of class information as well. I generally notice Received Pronunciation these days, but not even always that. I've had moments when I came away from a conversation with a large group of people I didn't already know and have someone make a comment about the other American there... and I'd failed to notice there was one.

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i know some UK accents, guess at others - but i cant identify all.

as for US/Canadian accents...not a hope in hell unless they're _really_ obvious (i can vaguely guess at Texan. but that's it)

i've noticed where i work helps too: when i was working for a Scandi company, i started to differentiate Danish/Swedish/Norwegian. now i'm in a dept of Eastern Europeans, i can kindof spot Russians vs Polish.

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I used to be able to peg any major English accent, and get most regional ones right. Nowadays, I'm not around so many (in Germany, there was a huge ex-pat community, so there was constant exposure), and I've lost my ear.

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I've not managed to acquire any sort of accent, Mancunian or otherwise, in the time that I've lived here. While my years spent abroad in various places seem to give me a decent ability to pick up a good accent in other languages that I learn, my English seems to firmly adhere to a generic "television" American accent, save for intonation and vocabulary.

That said, I always feel like I'm seen as a tourist here and sometimes feel a desperate desire to pull out my passport and wave my visa in the air!

And I can't guess at British accents either, although I've gotten very good at recognizing a broad Lancastrian "o" sound!

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I've twice been asked, while in Des Moines, where I was from, based on my accent.
I can sympathize. Years ago in Little Rock someone commented on my accent, asking "Are you from Germany?"

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*snickering*

In Beirut people are just blatantly rude. Instead of greeting me, they just come up and ask (no hello, no welcome, nothing) "where are you from"? When I am feeling particularly grumpy, I note that I am from a part of the world where people have manners.

I too have a funny accent - or at least one that no one in the region identifies as American. British, Swiss, Austrian (Austrian? How many Austrians can there really be in the Middle East?), but not American.

I think the accent is the result of getting so much of my language from books :-).

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I thought of you while writing this, and how tame it must seem compared to how much more alien you are on a regular basis! I can be mistaken as a local as long as I don't open my mouth. You're known as an alien without saying a thing.

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:-) owlfish I read your reply when it came via email (love that LJ feature, by the way) and I am STILL LAUGHING.

I am forwarding this on to my parents - that I am identifiable on sight as an alien. love it, love it.

what is the same, I imagine, for both of us is that we quickly feel at home in our respective global perches. I am always startled - irrational as that may seem - when someone points out that I am not, indeed from here. do you feel the same?

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Where is "here"? Beiruit, right? (Sorry, it's all your travels of late!)

I can't say I feel startled when someone tells me I'm not from London when I'm in London. In a holistic sense, I really am not from here. But then few people are. I know very few people from London. Equally, in Toronto, I knew very few people from Toronto. There, I knew lots of Canadians from elsewhere. Here, I know lots of Brits from elsewhere. I've been part of large semi-transient groups for years now, especially with academia.

Yet when I'm in other parts of the UK, then of course I'm from London. I traveled there from here.

I suppose this means that no matter where I am, I'm from somewhere else in some sense or other of being "from". But I still do feel at home here, and very comfortable with it.

I've been asked various times where I would most like to live in the world, and I really don't know. I've felt at home in so many places.

(I love LJ email notifications too! I forget to look for followup comments half the time with blogs on other sites - although I've been trying hard to remember with yours.)

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One of the really enjoyable things about going to the US is to discover where people think I'm from this year. My accent is fairly southern English, with a slight burr but also some long vowels acquired from PK, who is from up North, though not agressively oop North, all of this laid over a childhood Received Pronunciation accent, which remains mostly in the precision with which I sound final consonants, and the fact that I tend to be aware of all the syllables in temporary and veterinary, and things like that.

I have been identified as being from Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia; in all the numerous trips I've made to the US precisely one stranger has identified me immediately as being English. Most people profess to be surprised by my claim to be English. Some are surprised that I can 'speak' American (i.e. remembering to say zucchini or faucet or things like that).

I'm a tiny bit jealous: I've never had anyone admire my ability to "speak English" by using English vocabulary.

I may have a decent ear for vocabulary, but it's sadly lacking in ability to detect accents. I can relate to the difficulties of placing even what continent a given accent is from.

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I've been placed as SA.

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I cause similar confusion as I change vocabulary automatically based on where I am. My accent is curiously mid Atlantic being basically RP with residual northern vowels and a slight Southern Ontario overlay. Most often, I get accused of being Australian though to my ear that's about the last thing I sound like.

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How funny -- the couple of times I've heard your voice, I never thought of you as anything but an ex-pat from the northern half of England!

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Lush amuses me. I typically buy their stuff from the shop in Cambridge (UK), or have Nicolai buy it for me, because it's actually cheaper there than it tends to be here (this does mean that my luggage is pretty heavy coming back.), but on occasion I've gone into the Newbury St. store in Boston to top up in between visits. They invariably ask me if I've shopped there before, then go "Oh, what store?" and then "but we don't have one in Cambridge!" I am sad that now they have one in Harvard Sq. and I will no longer get this reaction.

A tragic loss of a good conversational gambit! How inconvenient of Lush to open a new store there.

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I know. Instead they're going to have to resort to telling me to use the bath bombs.

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i've had the opposite happen, whereby the new boyfriend (American, first trip to the UK) commented that WOW! we have KFC.

cue a bemused stare and an 'awww bless!' :) (followed by lots of sarcasm)

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KFC was even owned by a British company for a number of years...

To be fair, some American brands are very new over here. Krispy Kreme opened its first UK outlet a year and a half ago. Other aren't available at all. I finally had down a brand and size of tights that was robust and fit me nicely, and Hue aren't available in the UK at all! I half-heartedly tried a few new pairs of a few new brands here, but they all broke on first wearing. Thus, I have still been buying my tights (in the US sense of robust tights, not panty hose) when back in Canada or the US.

I don't know why a transatlantic flight seems so much easier to sampling enough more brands to find a new one which fits and lasts here.

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it was more that he hadnt realised how many companies/products/brand names can be found on both sides of the Atlantic.

it's easier because you've already done the work, and you know exactly what you want _and_ what you can expect. you can walk into that shop, pick up x pairs of tights in x size and know they'll fit and last.

whereas, here, you'd have to go through that lengthy trial-and-error process again.

people are creatures of habit and comfort :)

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Habit, comfort, and they come in bright, pretty colors.

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Ebay! Ebay is god and mammon.

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So just to be clear, it isn't a problem to get more because you live fairly close by? I would just bluntly state something like: "I live x minutes away, so really, it's fine." Or if there's a Lush store even closer to you, you could say: "Well I usually go to the ___ one ..."

That's all I've got. I hate when store clerks assume that I have no idea what I'm talking about ... like the other day when my friend and I went to order sandwiches ... I'm vegetarian and she's vegan, so we both ordered the only sandwich option, me without the avocado and her without the cheese. The guy behind the counter was baffled, and tried to explain to us that we might want to reconsider because that sandwich doesn't come with much and here we are deleting options. Morons. Seriously, we walked right in, didn't look at the menu, and ordered by number (the #6, no avocado) ... he should be able to guess, from that, that we know what we're talking about and we don't need to be counseled as to our dinner choices.

Ok now I'm rambling in your journal. I also hate the ambiguity of "where are you from." I'm not even in another country ... but when I got here (PA) everyone was completely baffled, because I am "from" California but didn't come here from there, since I'd been living in NYC for the last few years. Of course, everyone is already confused when you say you're from California if you don't look like a beach kid ... so apparently they all decided I was from NYC, which is flattering, but not true. I have friends I have known for years now, both here and in NJ, who probably still think I am from NYC.

And then there's the issue of the NYC ID card (I don't drive) ... those look fake. I actually got refused entry to a bar in Cali that I used to work at over five years ago.

Ok that's enough from me.

"Well I usually go to the ___ one ..."

That's a good suggestion!

I hate lunch places where you have to be taught how to order. I know you're giving an example of one in which you already know how to use it, but it reminds me of times I've been in a sandwich shop and ordered all wrong and had to be corrected, and everyone else was moving through quickly. Frustrating.

Feel free to ramble away whenever you like, especially if it's even vaguely on-topic. You have interesting things to say.

Being from a flyover state, I'm more used to general ignorance about where I'm from than not living up to stereotypes, although I suppose I can't count how often I've been asked if I grew up on a farm.

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"You should consider whether or not you can get more of it easily when you do run out." said the sales assistant. "I can." "It's not too inconvenient for you to get more of it?"

Now you are far too kind to say this, but if I heard that one too many times, my deadpan response would most likely be something along the lines of, "No, not since we got the flying monkeys. Now shopping is a breeze. Could you ring this up, please? Thanks."

I'm fond of my telekinesis machine myself.

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Oh see now that's even BETTER.

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October