And somehow, miraculously — after almost two years — not a drop of blood has been spilled.
At least, unless you count a minor incident on Pancake Day 2018, when the three representatives of our respective nations stepped up to the pan in a deadly culinary battle; a valiant attempt to prove that theirs alone was the true pancake, not a soggy-bottomed scone or a glorified crepe as the various opponent forces would have you believe.
Let’s just say we’ll be sticking to the Waffle Co for our batter-based consumables this time around.
But, minor skirmishes aside, the living arrangement works. We have the advantage, perhaps, of a common language, a similar level of education, and no irreconcilable differences in terms of political views, religious beliefs, or a lack thereof. Against this backdrop, our difference in nationality seems trivial, if not entirely immaterial. Certainly, it has have proven no barrier to either our cohabitation or our friendship.
As fellow members of the University, I am sure these experiences will seem very familiar. And I am sure you will agree when I suggest that the St Andrews network is a phenomenon which deserves attention all on its own.
A web of students, staff, and academics from across the globe coalesce here in a tiny bubble: our own small hive of international, interdisciplinary, and interpersonal connections, and surely as good an example for transnational activities as any. Add the seasonal influx of tourists, golfers, and holidaymakers into the mix, and a whole new dimension begins to emerge.
And it can, of course, prove deeply controversial.
Indeed, amongst my housemates, who I have listed as two Americans, two Scots, and myself (English, though I will somewhat vainly default to British in my paperwork in recognition of the peculiar transnationalism of my own family), it has become something of a grim running joke to refer to our small North Sea town as if it were a modern Anglo-American colony.
And for all of us, the intense transnationalism of our university is a self-conscious experience. The fact that neither of our Scots speak with quite the same accents as their grandparents, parents, or peers back home is itself enough to generate some small feeling of disconnect from their sense of locality.
Now in the presence of others, they are instead galvanised to find further common ground in nationality — often, shared dialect words or pronunciations, shared experiences in education, or even familiar food and drink.
Think less haggis, neeps, and tatties, and more Barr’s bubblegum ‘fizzy juice’ drink (“You can’t call it pop, nobody says pop!”), steak pie with a pastry top (“What do you mean it’s supposed to come with a pastry case? That’s not the point of a steak pie!”) or cauliflower pakora from your local Glaswegian Indian takeaway, which my housemate swears is like no other.
Because while, on a larger scale, certain markers of identity become more difficult to distinguish – the little details lost on a larger-scaled map, the tiny organelles of a cell that blur together under lower magnification – so too do new shapes and contours come into focus, even if they were previously unseen, unknown, or simply irrelevant.
One of the interesting things about St Andrews, however, is that what comes into view very clearly as an English or an American student is how surprisingly easy it is to fit in here.
Allow me to explain.
Before coming to St Andrews, I attended a series of statistically average comprehensive schools which, though I loved, were not the ones expected to produce the best university applicants in my area.
Nonetheless, my academic profile was promising, and though, ironically, I was afraid that my history grade or my upcoming exam retakes might hinder my chances at entry, my careers advisers, as well as representatives of the university that I spoke with at UCAS fayres were always open-minded to my potential as an applicant.
Similarly, though you might put it down to cultural differences, the overwhelming message received by both of my American housemates was simply to go for it.
Often, for the Scottish students I have known, quite the reverse has been true. From their own schools to the level of university representatives, the number of prospective students told plainly that they won’t get in— or told by friends and family that they certainly won’t fit in –is quite alarming. Even more so when you usually hear these stories directly from students who did get in, and who have proven themselves more than worthy to be a student here, in their classes and beyond.
We could easily argue about the other factors which might generate this pattern of stories: assumptions about education and attainment, about socioeconomic background, even— or more conspiratorially, as many certainly do —the controversial calculus of funding, quotas, and tuition fees.
Yet I cannot help but perceive a stubborn national element here, and I do wonder what it says about us and about our institution that this imbalance exists. That it is frequently the Scottish students who feel the outsider here— and, indeed, who often feel an outsider on their return home —while most English and American students are absorbed quite easily into the mix.
We might boast of a highly international intake, but how diverse is it, really? Do we really experience a strong current of internationalism at St Andrews? Do we hear four different languages waiting in the library lobby, as you might at Aberdeen? Do we hear the voices of people of colour in every hall of residence and every class cohort, as you would in London or Leeds?
Are we, I ask my fellow English or American students, routinely challenged in our assumptions by people of other nationalities, cultures, or backgrounds?
Or, by and large, is our esteemed St Andrews network dominated by a transplanted Anglo-American culture, flavoured with a dash of orientalist Scottish whimsy worthy of Sir Walter Scott’s pageant for Queen Victoria in 1842?
I wonder. I wonder.
I especially loved this post because it is just so relevant. It is funny, but accurate, how a little competition such as a pancake cook-off can really light up nationalistic tendencies. I am still eager to hear who won.
Moreover, regarding your comment about “fitting in”, coming from the states, I had no idea how I would fit into St Andrews. Would I be the only American (I now laugh)? Would I understand the slang? Would the teaching style be different? While the British slang and the new teaching styles are an endless catch up game for me, I really have found my place. There have been so many times were I forget I am not at home in D.C, five minutes away from the White House. For example, walking into my history tutorial first year, first semester of university, I was stunned to find every single person in my class was American, and ⅗ of us were from Washington D.C. How weird! To this day I still meet people each week that live about 15-20 minutes away from my house in D.C. It is strange to think if it were not for this small Scottish University, I would never have met these people from D.C who are only a 15 minute metro drive as opposed to a 7 hour flight to St Andrews.
Attending such an international university, I found that the people who go to St Andrews want to, as Robert Frost put it, “follow a road less traveled.” The Americans could have attended state schools, the Londoners could have stayed in London, but it seems everyone either crossed oceans, countries, or cities just to come to this University in a quiet, small town. I would say that the St Andrews student is a student that wants to learn, be humbled and challenged, and grow from a new environment. I mean come on, you have to be at least a little bit adventuresome to partake in all the St Andrews quirky traditions!
Scanning my classes, sitting next to Dutch students, Russians, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Syrians. I learned quickly not even attempt to guess where people are from. So many people are American but grew up in Dubai, or Russia, or Spain. No answer to the question “where are you from?” is an easy straightforward one. To complicate matters further, even those who appear to have American sounding accents are either, Norwegian, Dutch, or Panamanian. The transnational trends as you rightly pointed out, keep rolling through.
However, to address your question: “is St Andrews merely Anglo-American colony?”, I pose a new question. I completely agree that the American/English influences have had a strong impact on the town. However, my question is, is this a bad thing? With ceilidhs, kilts, and bagpipes at formal events, I do not think the Scottish culture is wiped out of St Andrews by any stretch. I completely agree that other cultures have strong armed their way into the mix: hence the tragic American aisle at Tesco. While all these cultures are mixing and meshing, I think the town only benefits. With new people comes new ideas, arguments, and research. It is for the benefit of everyone in the town, to have these transnational connections, filling in our view of the world. Studying with German professors, or students from Syria, our knowledge of the world only can grow and we as people will have a greater appreciation for what lies outside the narrow boundaries of St Andrews. It is pretty unbelievable that students and professors from all different background are connected through one small town. So, while I completely agree with everything in your post, I would argue it is for the best that our little town is so transnational and different to any other seaside Scottish town.
I totally agree that St Andrews itself can be examined as a transnational phenomena, and I wanted to weigh in with my own experiences.
I think academic families especially are interesting as transnational phenomena. My academic mom is German and her dad has worked all over the world on various engineering projects. My academic dad is Norwegian, but his biological dad went to the same American university as my biological mom. Despite this significant overlap in background with my academic dad we had a rather amusing cross cultural snafu. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only jewish person my academic dad knows well, and as I find with many people here who have never met a jew before they sort of expect all of us to be fairly religious. I’m not so used to having to explain things about my background, because jewish people are fairly common where I come from, but I find that here I’m often the first jewish person someone gets to know. So anyway, on raisin my academic dad put a frozen pizza in the oven for us. It had ham on it, he started to freak out about it after I had already eaten half a slice. I had to calmly explain to him that I’m only really ethnically and culturally jewish and and that I do eat pork.
In fact not only do I eat pork, I went to a christian union event with a buddhist and a muslim just to get free pork sandwiches. The buddhist in question is my friend Rosie who is from Vietnam. Rosie has been the source of some of my most interesting transnational experiences. I met her volunteering at the cat shelter in Dundee. Her english is nearly perfect, to the extent that she could probably pass for an American (her accent is American not British, despite having lived in the UK for 4 years and never having been to America, apparently if you have a British accent in Vietnam people think you’re stuck up). In spite of her excellent English she could not understand the Dundee accents of the guys who ran the cat shelter, so I had to translate even though everyone involved spoke english. In addition Rosie learned almost no history in school and what she did learn was propaganda. She’s also perhaps the most apolitical person I’ve ever met. She’s perfectly willing to admit that the system in her home country is corrupt, but she doesn’t really care much about changing it. Her actual concern is changing mental health care in her home country, a friend of her mother’s tried to get demons exorcised from her mentally ill son, for Rosie who is a psychology student, stopping this sort of thing is higher priority than vague political corruption.
Rosie is perhaps the friend of mine whose background is most different from mine, but there are bits of cultural overlap I have with her that I lack with my anglo-american friends. Often when I tell Rosie stories about my family back in America, she’ll say something along the lines of “jews are just white asians”. That’s of course not entirely right, but she is sort of getting at something. In social psychology cultures are often decided into two groups: individualistic and communalistic. Western Europe and the US are described as prototypically individualistic, places like Asia are often viewed as more communalistic. While I’m from the US jewish culture and my family specially tends to be more communalistic. I’m constantly surprised here by how little some of my friends consult with or call their families. I don’t mean to imply that they love their families any less, but that their extended families aren’t as big a part of their lives.
What’s funny about St Andrews is that even though it is in view this amazing place of cross cultural connections, its also the whitest school I’ve ever attended. The high school I attended was about 40% asian. Even though I would categories myself as white, that non-white culture that surrounded me for so much of my childhood is honestly something I really miss here. I tried eating at The Dining Room recently. They felt the need to warn me that the Szechuan chicken was spicy and didn’t give me chopsticks. I felt kind of homesick, even though I’ve never been to China. That transnational experience of good Chinese food in America and that made it part of my families Christmas dinners seems to be part of my very concept of home.
I could go on about this stuff for a very long time, but I should really write my project proposal.