The Grass is Always Greener, or is it?

E325: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, the perfect podcast for intermediate to advanced-level English learners. I'm Anna, your host, and today’s episode is all about the concept of longing for the past or another place, through personal anecdotes from our team at ELAN.

👄 Want the opportunity to practise your spoken English? Join my Conversation Club here!

👍👎 You'll hear stories from our team members, myself included, about our experiences living in different cities and countries, from Brazil to Spain to various parts of the UK. We’ll talk about the quirks, challenges, and joys of living in a foreign country or a new city in your own country. Whether it’s the unexpected conveniences or the small frustrations, these stories will resonate with anyone who has ever felt the pull of the “greener grass” on the other side.

💭 I encourage you to think about your own experiences. What do you love about where you are now? What do you miss about a place you’ve lived before? Share your thoughts with me.

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Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. The podcast for intermediate to advanced-level English learners. My name is Anna and today's episode is called The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence. Now, this episode will be peppered full of lots of fantastic words and phrases. There is a full transcript and a list, a glossary, if you like, of all the highlighted terms. And you'll see the highlighted terms if you're watching the YouTube version of this episode. And this glossary and transcript is available along with all the other transcripts and vocabulary lists in the Plus area of the Club. So, if you're not yet a club member and you want to really improve your English, then consider joining my Club. I'll leave a link in the show notes. But for now, let's get started. Now, the other day I was chatting to a colleague called Mark, and the topic of what you missed from your hometown when you were living in a different city or country came up. My colleague said that he remembered meeting a man who came from what Mark considered to be an exotic and interesting country. Being curious, Mark asked him to say something about his homeland and what was different there compared to where he was living at the time."Oh!" the man replied."It's the same everywhere. Just stupid people and bad weather!" This was just a joke, of course. We should all know by now that there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only inappropriate clothing. At least the man that Mark was talking to wasn't missing anything from his home! Have I got you thinking now about what you miss? About the differences between where you are living and where you have lived? Perhaps, like our plain-speaking man in Mark's anecdote, you are more inclined to notice the similarities. If we are lucky enough then we can choose when and why we leave, as well as where we go, so in those cases we should even be thinking about what we prefer about our choice of location. Of course, there are many circumstances which might lead you to have to leave the place where you were born and raised; work or study opportunities, romantic reasons, political problems or worse. Wherever we are, and for whatever reasons, I suppose it's human nature to come up with comparisons, whether it's about different places or even different periods of time. One of our team members here at ELAN recalls going on a tour of a partially preserved and reconstructed Māori village on the North Island of New Zealand. He attended the traditional dance ceremony and then enjoyed the mouth-watering food from the hangi, a method of cooking using heated rocks under the surface of the ground. Then, the tour guide, a member of the tribe, or hapu, that had lived in the area for centuries proudly showed him a recreated village and described the humble way his people had lived. He said,"Yep. That's how it was. We're not ashamed of it but we don't want to go back!" Well, we have an expression in English that"the past is a foreign country". This expression that is actually part of the first line of a novel published in 1953, conveys the idea that things were so different in the old days that it might as well be another country. Just as we can compare things from the present, we can also think about what we miss from the past, whether it be a particular person, smell, pastime or even a whole era! That's a subject for another time though. In this podcast I want to explore the idea of living in a foreign country, or a different location in your home country, which is markedly different from where you grew up. So, inspired by Mark, I asked the members of the ELAN team to share a few thoughts on the subject. You'll hear what came to mind from some of us behind the scenes as well as others who you'll have seen in front of the camera. Especially if you are a Club member. So, let's start with our furthest-flung member, an American citizen who now lives in Brazil. When he thinks back on the beautiful cities he has lived in, he misses what he refers to as'the splendour of the USA'. He goes on to say that,"Living in Brazil offers a unique experience." He says,"If you can turn a blind eye to some of the challenges, you might find yourself enjoying a comfortable life. For instance, my salary places me in the top 5% of earners in Brazil. However, in the USA, it would be considered quite modest." It's crazy, really, but true. Doesn't it just boggle the mind? Another member of the team grew up in a very hilly place he used to joke that he has fantastic calves, that's calf muscles, not baby cows, because of walking up and down those hills all the time! Perhaps that's what's made him such a keen climber. He has ended up living in a really flat part of the UK. In fact, the area is so flat that when he recently did an internet search to find the nearest climbing location to where he currently lives, the top suggestion was one around 200 miles away in the city where he used to live! He did admit though, that having more than one international airport nearby sort of made up for the lack of gorges and rock faces. If you're going to have to drive 200 miles you may as well get on a plane to Austria, or, the Iberian peninsula! Speaking of which, some of our team have a lot of experience of Spain. When it comes to grocery shopping, the general consensus is that,"British supermarkets are the best! They generally have a wider range of products, particularly when it comes to'healthier' choices like whole food alternatives, spices, and so on." Not only this though, it's a common complaint among so-called expats that getting any paperwork or official documents done always seems to be a"convoluted and ridiculous process, where you always seem to be given the wrong information and everything depends on which mood the person is in as to whether your paperwork gets processed or not! In the UK these things are extremely efficient!" This is a pet peeve that many Brits share. One more thing that a team member mentions is that,"People generally don't seem to have the same spatial awareness as we do in the UK and don't seem to be so bothered by being in close proximity to others in the street or in public in general. So, when you're waiting to cross the street, in a big open space where there is a lot of room on the pavement, people will always seem to choose to stand three centimetres away from you! And groups of people will block pavements and walkways without moving to let you past." So if you've ever lived in Spain, what do you think? Do you notice these things, or is it just us? Remember that I said that some people are fortunate enough to be able to move where they want? Well, now I'm going to tell you what those Brits in Spain love about the country, too! One of our Conversation Club teachers says,"I love the Spanish culture of just being outside, I spend a lot more time outside here than I did in the UK, whether that's walking in the park, going for a bike ride along the river, or just sitting with a cold beer on a terrace with friends. The weather is of course a factor, but it seems like a huge part of the culture to just spend time out and about in fresh air, which I love." Another team member agrees that,"The best part about Spain is that I can be on the beach in minutes. There is so much to do within a 30-minute drive, and the culture and customs are everywhere. In the UK, I found life very dull, boring and mind-numbing!" So there you are. Some of us don't miss the UK at all! Now, before I give you my story, there's one more team member who doesn't miss much about the UK either, except perhaps the live music scene. But when he put his mind to it, he could only come up with one notable plus of living abroad. Well, one and a half: his wife is from another country and they have a daughter together. As for me, I miss the reasonable prices in the north of England. In London I shudder every time I need to buy petrol or groceries. I also miss how easy it is to drive and park everywhere. Down south I have to research parking options in advance if I'm going somewhere new, and I've had so many driving fines for doing the wrong thing on the ridiculously confusing roads. There are so many opportunities here, though, particularly in sports. In my local area, I can kayak, climb, play tennis and squash, swim, trampoline, do gymnastics, circus skills, skiing and horse riding. There are loads of activities, clubs, classes, childcare options for the children. The theatres are plentiful, but again, very expensive. And there are trains and planes to almost every conceivable destination from here in London. Well, listeners, can you relate to any of these? It's common to feel a sense of longing to be somewhere else, especially to return to a place that is familiar to you. But if we realise that every day we have to start from where we are then we can find reasons to appreciate what we have around us. The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. So, I would love now to hear from you. What do you love about where you are now? What do you miss about a place that you previously lived? Maybe you lived in a different country before or a different city. Tell me about the differences, what you love and what you miss. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.