"what are these morris men dancers?"

I don't want to stray into my fellow blogger Margit's territory - her blog intercultural musings is superb. But today I was asked an interesting question by a Hungarian friend of mine. She wanted to know what St Georges day was about, which then lead to her interesting question about Morris Dancers.

I didn't know how to explain to her what St George's Day was, I was going to have to open up a whole can of worms. I tried to pass the buck - I knew that her boyfriend is British though I've never met him. So I said "Isn't your boyfriend British? He'll know all about it" she looked at me oddly and said "Oh he's British not English." It turns out that he's a British citizen but wasn't born here. (Just as my Boyfriend is British but not English, he's Scottish! I dread to think how he would explain what St Georges day is about!) So it was going to be down to me to explain St George's day.

I tried to explain about how in the recent past there has been a lot of "political" negativity associated with the paraphernalia of St Geoge's. (I don't want to mention them in this post they don't deserve the space but even today in Stoke the ugliest side of nationalism in politics is taking place.) I also explained about football hooliganism in the 80s being associated with the flag of St George etc. My friend thought these excuses were odd and not really relevant in 2010.

So I said that I thought that it was hard to really sum up what is English and so hard to celebrate this. She again thought this was odd as to her, England had a strong culture. I asked her how she thought being English was different to being British - after her comment about her boyfriend I was very interested to better understand her perspective.

For her Britain is best summed up by the multicultural melting pot of London, including Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and English inhabitants as well as the European, African, Asian, and world wide nations represented in London. This energetic mass of creativity, brightness and richness, for my friend, is Britain.

England and being English has a place within that but is different. So I got thinking about the journey our conversation took looking at what was being English about? This weekend I'm going to spend my time in small town England. (A concept that doesn't quite have the same romanticism as small town America) So what makes this town different to any other small town in the world?

Not much really it's a market town, has been since a charter of King John.

So straight away my Hungarian friend would say - "Ah, history and shopping!" She's right, the English history is long and rich, my little market town has been invaded by Romans, vikings, Saxons and Normans, but it seems the Saxons left the greatest mark, when looking at the place names. The market has been running for nearly 1000 years! Yep that cheap mobile phone, sim card and battery stall and the potted plants and the hippy dresses market stall are all part of a long, unmovable history.

Talk of markets some how lead on to the question about Morris Dancing - I explained as best I could what it involved and my friends question afterwards was just fantastic "And what kind of man does this Morris Dancing?" I'm sorry to say I went straight for the stereo type by saying men with beards who like drinking real ale!

Beer you can't get more English than that - I don't mean lager but real ale the warm flat stuff. We talked about how Guinness and St Patrick's day were inseparable now.

So in the end our discussion summed up England and Englishnes like this:

Shires (which my friend pronounces as sheers) her boyfriend tells her that they are far away from London and anywhere else useful!
Green, green, green everywhere, grass, trees, fields all green.
piglets, lambs, farm animals generally
markets
country houses
beer and beer gardens
history
thatched cottages
morris dancing, maypole dancing, chasing pancakes or some cheese down a hill
chip shops, though we argued that these were also British as are Chinese and Indian take-aways
Yorkshire pudding
cricket
honey sandwiches
Paddington Bear
Shakespeare and William Blake

It's a nice little list brought together by a Hungarian living in England and a reluctant English woman! I'm trying to be positive so haven't added to the main list the following:

"Get off my LAND!"
casual racism
NIMBYism
Nosy parkers
sallow faced youths looking sallow (I was once one) desperate to get out of "England"

But my friend hasn't really experienced that side of Englishness, which I am very relieved about!