Forthnights

Hello From Sheffield

After 14 hours of flying, 3 hours of transit and another 2 hours on the bus, I finally arrived at Sheffield on a beautiful Friday afternoon. I was excited, but at the same time completely exhausted. My body was aching for some rest. I looked at my watch; 10p.m. Malaysian time. It had been more than 24 hours since I last had a proper nights sleep, but here in England, it was only 3 p.m. But my mind refused to rest, and as hard as I tried catch some sleep on the bus, my eyes were kept glued to the landscape before me. It was truly like something out of a postcard. Wide green pastures, sheeps, horses and cows grazing by the meadows were a feast to the eye as we passed through a long and winding road, aptly named Snakes Pass.

I must say, the English country side is truly a beautiful sight to behold. I searched my mind for one word to describe all that I saw before me, and in a nutshell, the place was charming. Century old buildings, with that signature old style architecture with a backdrop of hilly grasslands, stretching as far as the eye can see; you don’t get that in Malaysia. Immediately, I missed the people at home. As much fun as I was having, enjoying the sights, I couldn’t help but feel sad knowing that I could not share this moment with them. And perhaps in a bit of culture shock, I wasn’t quite used to seeing so many Englishmen around. Back home, you would see one or two Caucasian tourist here and there, but here, I was the visitor. I was fascinated because for the first time in my life, I was seeing the white man in his natural habitat, not as a tourist.

And just like what everyone told me, the weather was chilly and unpredictable. I always wondered why some of the visiting lecturers from the UK would sweat profusely when they came to Malaysia, now I know why. Even on a hot summer day, the temperature was only about 25 degrees Celsius! That’s cold to us, where an average afternoon would be around 35 degrees. That was why the locals went around wearing shorts and spaghetti straps while we Asians were fully covered head to toe, trying to keep warm.

So far, the thing that impressed me most is the churches, dating back to the 17^th century. I had a good time admiring the history and architecture of the local churches in town, appreciating its heritage, beauty and mystic; for some reason, the church walls are adorned by rather scary looking faces of people and creatures.

The landscape is enchanting, the buildings have an old world charm to it, and the weather is rather cool and comfortable. But any sort of delusion of perfect ness and came crashing down by the second day of my stay. For all its post card potential, many of the buildings in the city were blemished by graffiti, streets were full of litter and there were many abandoned buildings, with broken windows and doors. It wasn’t exactly the spic and span town you would expect and the people aren’t too friendly either. On the second day, as we were taking a stroll around the neighbourhood, we saw real life punks, a man pissing right by the street, 2 children braking windows of abandoned buildings with their soccer ball, and lastly, my friends and I were subject to some sort of verbal abuse by this bunch of youngsters passing by in the car.

We were just minding our own business, taking a stroll, the car on the opposite side of the road slowed down, and a man in the back window shouted out something to us, repeatedly. We couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but from the way it was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t saying “Welcome to Sheffield lad!” The words ‘racial abuse’ was ringing in my head for the rest of the day. We have racial problems back home too. But we are kind about it, and never do we start throwing verbal abuses to the man on the street just because he is of a different skin colour. It has never happened to me before, and it would never happen back home. That seriously spoilt it for me, and it killed of whatever impression I had that these people were serious about welcoming people other than their own kind. I’m sorry but hey, I didn’t pay through my nose, travel half way around the world to be called names and racially abused.

But here I am, and I’m not about to turn home just because some punk and his friends enjoy antagonizing visitors to their (not so) lovely town. To be fair, I strongly doubt everyone here is like that, and what i experienced was something seldom. So here it goes, I’ll be staying for 3 months in my newly adopted home, and as determined as I am to make the most of it here, I just can’t wait to get home again.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 3:43 am Comments: 1