Liverpool Lessons - Culture and Miscellaneous

Thank you dr Wega & dr. Fathin as contributors to this article:

*This is a reflection of all the things I learned in my 2 weeks here in* Liverpool. All of them are based from my own experience, so please keep that in mind I’m not even sure all information I present here are correct… D:

•   Full disclosure, this section is highly subjective. It comes from my own perspective and please take that into consideration.

•   British people are not the
most helpful people you’ll find. If you ask them something, their response is
short and limited. Back in my home country, whenever I don’t know about
something, I’ll ask. It’s quite diﬀerent here as I feel people are more
individualistic. If you don’t know something, google it first, make an eﬀort to
find any information by yourself, then as a last resort, ask them.

•   I find the above culture even
before I arrive here. I was emailing the student accommodation for my initial
short term stay there, and after several email discussing the tenancy contract,
they just simply ignore me. I ended up staying there anyway as I had limited options.

On my first week here, I already got shouted racist chant by someone. I
don’t expect it to be common as most of our time here are peaceful, but that’s
something to consider, especially coming from a majority ethnic and religion in
our origin country.

•   Surprisingly there are many
homeless people. From my time here, they won’t bother anyone as they only ask
for a change to spare.

•   People will generally mind
their own business, but adolescents sometimes shout bad words or causing a
scene in public. Just know that whatever they do, we as adults are against the
law to cause any physical or verbal harm to them.

•   Fake politeness of is also
something that I don’t like. People will ask “how are you” but not even with a
question mark. I feel that they don’t really have any concern about your
wellbeing, but merely just a form of empty greeting or formality and I find
that very oﬀensive.

•   Keep in mind that these
perceptions are in general public situation. Academic interaction might be diﬀerent
and generally are better.

•   In the end, you can’t change
the environment around you, but you have the control on how it will aﬀect you.
My suggestion is to always remember what is your goal to come here in the first
place.

Miscellaneous

•   The tap water is drinkable,
but make sure you don’t drink from the hot water (hot water comes from a
temporary storage that the building has, thus the government can’t make sure
its content). I prefer to buy a water filter jug (the filter itself is
replaceable every 1-2 months, depending on the brand) to clear the chlorine in
the tap water (even though UK government says it safe, but you never know).

•   I’ve heard from several
people here that you can use your local driving license to rent a car and drive
around in the UK, although I haven’t and don’t have the time to try it yet.

•   Buying stuﬀs online is
generally cheaper. There are many websites for online commerce such as Ebay,
Amazon, etc. I haven’t try to buy anything online since I’m still staying at a
temporary place.

Kar: Used items from the Charity shop, Bulky Bobs and Car Boot Sale can also be considered to get cheap stuff. The condition of the Used stuff here is most likely not as bad as what we get in our country. Some stuff can be also available for free like in freecycle [1].