DW-only for obvs reasons

[rhivolution]

Thinky thoughts--if I were to make a community on Dreamwidth for expatriate people in the UK, would anyone join it?

Thing is, there are a bunch of issues here:
- the obviously vastly different experiences for people of different races
- the class/race divide between being expatriate and being immigrant (I saw this referenced recently by someone, had an a-ha moment, but cannot remember where...citation help?)
- the differences in experience due to the places that one is coming from

And since my position is one of a shitload of privilege, being a white lower-middle-class person shifted between two Western English-speaking countries, one of which being the bloody USA...I gotta chew on this one for a while.

And also the issue of Anglophilia, which sometimes can drive me up.the.wall. (sorry Anglophiles.)


...OTly, I am pee-my-pants excited about my Festivids reveal later today. SO EXCITED. I have got more comments on my vid than on any fannish thing I've ever done and I am just plotzing.

Comments

[rhivolution]

I feel like I saw the thing I cited above as one of the posts in Potluck #1, but don't quote me?

I would want it to be really a LET'S TALK ABOUT WEIRD/FRUSTRATING SHIT IN BRITAIN sort of comm, and closely moderated to avoid going fucked up places, but that could be very difficult. Sigh.

[littlebutfierce]

Yeah, there's stuff like groaning over why no one here rinses the soap off their dishes, & then there's trickier stuff. You could make it approved-membership only, perhaps? Or the sort of comm where you need to have some connection to someone else who's already in the comm to vouch for you? It'd make it a smaller comm, certainly to start w/, but maybe a bit easier in terms of modding?

[rhivolution]

I thought I was the only one who noticed the no rinsing thing.

Good suggestions. I think this will take more thinking, if that makes any sense at all.

[littlebutfierce]

Ha, no, definitely not! I had another immigrant friend here (before my social circle went up in flames :P ) who was annoyed by that too, & all the USians here we know are similarly bemused/grossed out by it. & clearly it's not poisonous, b/c the whole UK eats off dishes w/the residue of dish soap, & maybe the practice started as a way to save water but... I dunno. If so there have to be other ways to conserve. I mean, even dipping them in a basin of clean water? Not just the gross "one quick shake to get some of the suds off, & if there are still bubbles on it, no worries, stick it on the dish rack anyway" thing.

I almost made liseuse (who is English) choke on her coffee once by telling her I'd wondered if UK dishwashers had a rinse cycle or not.

[futuransky]

I was brought up always to rinse my dishes! You only don't need to if you are going to dry up right away, but we always left things on the rack, we we rinsed -- either under the tap or in a bowl or rinsing water. So it's NOT universal... But maybe there is more of a culture of drying-up immediately in the UK than US?

[littlebutfierce]

Interesting! I've seen pretty much only people putting things on the rack to dry here--I distinctly remember seeing dishes put on w/big clumps on bubbles left on them. But also I don't understand why drying the dishes immediately would make leaving the soap on any different from leaving them to air dry--I can't imagine it really would wipe off all the soap...

[futuransky]

I feel like the soap would get wiped off... somehow dried-on soap feels worse to me. But there may not be logic actually involved in that perception. :)