BRIAN 1

Perhaps they thought that all their wallets would be picked lol,cheers,Brian.

philat98

Yes but they were happy to take their money for the little old houses they didn't want anymore.

BRIAN 1

Hi,it was just a joke.Round here if it rains the Romanians get the blame lol.All joking aside,in our village we get on with everyone,similar to others on the forum.Even the mafia toot us up and say hello in the local bar and restaurant,cheers,Brian.

Geordieborn

I know Phil, I was being facetious. I worked in Glasgow for quite a spell so learnt the language, but I give up on the taxi drivers and just smiled and nodded (as I often do here in Italy)

GeorgeYoung

Incredibly welcome. Wherever people's personal politics lie, they seem to view us as "English" rather than "stranieri", which probably says a lot.

The general reaction, especially as we are both in our mid-30s, is "why did you come to Italy? Everyone's leaving!". And they seem genuinely curious. Their view of Britain seems to be a land of milk & honey, where London's streets are still paved with gold and their nipote/cugino etc. can still earn their fortune. I try not to disabuse them of their perceptions!

A couple of people in the village have even openly complained about "immigrants" ruining the place. When I point out that I'm an immigrant, they tend to laugh and tell me I'm not really an immigrant. I think they're confusing immigrant with "not white". Italy's better than it was 15 years ago when I lived in Bologna but it's still not an easy country to be a non-white person. I know an Afghan in the town who refuses a lift home from me in the evenings because he doesn't want me to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police while he's quizzed about his status and possessions.

FreddyBee

I'm in Siracusa, Sicilia. I've found that, not only am I welcome, but the local, working class people who meet me and find out I've chosen to retire here are positively enthusiastic and proud of the fact. There is a huge level of local patriotism. And local businesses, when they know I'm not a tourist, are most welcoming -- they know I'll be here to support them throughout the year.

GeorgeYoung

Blimey, what's it like living in Siracusa? I just got back from spending a few days there and whilst it was great for a short break, it's not somewhere I could live. Mind, the quality of the produce on the market was a pretty good compensation for the traffic, heat and general crowds.

jonwel

But 40 years ago it was different. In Bologna, where I lived from 1977 to 1980, if they had anything to say against "marocchini", it was as a nickname for Italian southerners, who were the main target of racism. At that time there were few foreigners; black Africans, Arabs or Asians were usually here to study and were better accepted than the terrùn. How things change!

But I've never encountered racism directed against me. I agree that some Italians imagine that all the British are loaded with money! Magari...

GeorgeYoung

That must have been an "interesting" time to be in Bologna, with the various domestic groups on either side and the terrible bombing at the station.

As I heard the football journalist James Richardson say the other week, immigration to Italy is a couple of decades behind the post-war immigration to the UK so it perhaps follows that attitudes are still playing catch up. At least these days, I have seen non-white people in employment; that wasn't the case 15 years back.

philat98

A thing I don't like about a touristic place is that when I go into a shop I often get cheated. The sound of italian spoken with an english accent seems to bring out the worst in shop assistants regardless of whether its a garden centre in Siena or a fish shop in Chioggia. One sentence of italian from my partner usually puts them instantly back in order.

FreddyBee

I enjoy Siracusa. I like hot climates, which is one reason I chose Sicily. I live in Ortigia and don't have a car, so I walk everywhere, which is quite easy as the island is small and attractive. Quite a few local people have got to know me, at least on nodding terms, since I stroll round Ortigia at least three times a day with my dog and regularly shop in the same stores, drink in the same enoteca etc. If, however, I had an Italian driving licence and a car, I would probably choose to live elsewhere (Noto, or by the beach) because of the sheer pressure of tourist numbers here.

modicasa

Tourist numbers which will increase hugely when they finish the new cruise liner terminal. Unfortunately.

jonwel

On 2 August 1980 I was on holiday in England with a friend from Bologna. We saw the station reduced to rubble on British TV and of course he was flabbergasted.

I don't know what you mean by "domestic groups", though. Do you mean political or ethnic?

Lorna at Vicenza

I never felt welcome when I was here at first. Now that I know a lot more about Italian families and life, I know why, but it still annoys the crap out of me.

I was 19 going on 20. The Italians thought I was very young to be living on my own. I thought I was grown up, normal and just doing what most of my friends were doing ........ taking a year off from studying to go abroad. As far as the Italians were concerned, I wasn't just living alone but who the hell was controlling me, checking up on me, paying for me or who had deserted me? Was I a foreign prostitute or a thief or an orphan? My boss used to send his brother and his factory manager to my bedsit once a week for English lessons. I didn't have the courage to say no. They left me a cheap 10.000 Lire an hour. My lovely neighbours called the building supervisor to tell her I was a prostitute because every Tuesday and Thursday I was taking men into my flat.

I knew that people nudged each other in the streets saying things like ....... she's the one. That's her. That's the one I was telling you about. I couldn't understand them. They all sounded like they had the same, loud angry voices to me.

They were all smartly dressed and materialistic and two faced which I learned slowly but surely. All the girls were looking for a rich boyfriend and all the boys were looking for a pretty, mamma would approve kind of girl. That didn't stop dozens of them trying it on with me because I was blond, blue eyes and English. They all knew that English girls were an easy lay. I disappointed most of them. The ones I thought I liked soon got dumped as they were just too mummy's boys for words.

There were so many taboos around that initially made me want to laugh in their faces until I realised they were deadly serious and then I was just horrified that anybody could still pass on such nonsense. Some of these still exist now and my 16 year old daughter has been told by school friends that she's a non-virgin because she has tried and used Tampax. That a quick shower is okay when you've got your period and you are standing up (better just a bidet wash though), but a nice warm bath is taboo because the hot water does something to your blood pressure, goes up inside you and blocks you. Thankfully some of her friends are more open, especially the swimmer and the ballerina. They have listened to Chloe who discovered the miracle freedom of tampons thanks to me and passed the word around and gave out free ones for her friends to try. Free to her. I spent a fortune for a month on tampons.

Apart from taboos there was all the febbre and neck ache and backache and tummy ache to learn about and how damaging a bit of fresh air can be. How women still wore fur coats in May because it wasn't quite summer. That sweat kills and that the Dr shouted at me because I didn't have a thermometer in my flat and couldn't tell him precisely what my temperature was down to a decimal point.

There were no big supermarkets and no self service vegetables. I had to go to little different shops for everything from a lightbulb to carrots. People following me around clothes shops wanting to sell me what I wasn't looking for scared me because I couldn't tell them that if I was looking for a red jacket they were wasting their time bringing out yellow, green and black ones.

One evening I'd had enough of Dallas and Benny Hill and Colombo or Murder She Wrote on the TV trying to listen, concentrate and learn Italian so I thought "oh just **** it. I am a grown up and I want a glass of wine." So I went to the bar near my flat and stood at the bar with a glass of wine. Even though I still couldn't understand everything, I knew I was being talked about there as well by the couples and the friends groups and what a sad alcoholic I was having a white wine alone.

Even years later when Chloe was born, I was criticised because she had a regular bedtime, because they thought I was too strict, too British. Because I didn't cook her seven different meals if she didn't like the first one. Because I never begged her or chased her around the room to eat just one more spoonful. Because when we did start taking her out I expected her to sit at the table and eat like a young lady and even though bedtime could be stretched sometimes, she never ran around a pizzeria at midnight bored or desperately tired. Because I let her run around our home barefoot. Because she wore shorts when it was boiling hot even in April.

My own kids think I'm a dinosaur because I have Italian phone gettoni to show them. Old Lire notes and coins. They have no idea what a scatti machine connected to the phone was. They have no idea how much a roll of film was and how we waited to get it developed and out of 36 photos you had only two really great ones. Alex thinks that gettone are only plastic discs that he needs to go on the bumper cars and rides when the Luna Park comes to town.

On the other hand ............ all these years later ...... the very same parents that criticised me are now calling me because their precious little darlings have low grades in English and can I help? And lots of Chloe's friends, some of them from very rich families, prefer to spend the afternoon at my house because even though I don't have a taverna or a pool, they are comfortable and FREE here. They use my kitchen to make milkshakes and smoothies or pancakes. They sprawl out in Chloe's room, sometimes studying and sometimes just chatting and listening to music. Plenty of them stay and eat here and they have all loved Yorkshire Puddings. Plenty of the girls have slept here regularly after a party. I remember going into some Itlain houses and being afraid to breathe because it was so shiny .... all leather and suede and chrome and glass. I've been into Italian houses where they proudly told me that the kitchen cost £15.000 but they daren't make coffee in it in case it gets spoiled or marked. **** that shit.

jonwel

I agree with a lot of what you say, Lorna, and I saw for myself that life was more difficult for a female new arrival than for a male.

However... in certain things the Italians do better than the Brits. But as an Italo-English friend of mine says, it would be nice to have something in between.
a) The Italians generally have proper meals, while many families in the UK make do day after day with microwaved snacks etc. and have no idea how to cook any more. Of course, that doesn't apply to Brits living here in Italy. On the other hand it's annoying when eating primo, secondo, contorno, formaggio e frutta is a must, regardless of after-dinner commitments.
b) The Italians dress better in general. Good when people want to be elegant, but they shouldn't criticise someone who thinks that being well-dressed isn't always the most important thing.
c) The Italians are cleaner and tidier. This is something of an obsession, but on the other hand they're rightly scandalised by the filth in some British homes. I worked in a language school where there were a lot of English teachers and just a handful of Germans, French and Italians. The Brits were really untidy, leaving books all over the table in the teachers' room, with coffee rings everywhere, so the other teachers had to clear and clean before they could use a bit of the table. A German teacher mentioned this to me and I had to agree, so I put up a notice asking everyone to be more orderly. I couldn't get anyone to take it seriously and I was accused of sucking up to the management, even though the boss wasn't involved.
d) Alcohol, drinking alone: a female friend of mine in London had the same problem, which she solved by sitting down at a table in the pub with something to read while she drank and not standing alone at the bar. I agree that these judgements about women alone in bars are absurd. On the other hand I get annoyed with those Brits who think that getting pissed out of their minds is the be-all and end-all in life. The Italians, at least older ones, know what to drink with their meals and how much to drink. You don't see many Italians vomiting in the gutter on Friday or Saturday night.
e) Health. Yes, there are a lot of credences about colpi d'aria, sweat, menstruation and obligatory hair-drying, even for a man with short hair. On the other hand, the Italians are rightly shocked to see girls in Britain with completely bare legs at -5°C. They're only storing up problems for their old age. There are statistics about this.

I do get annoyed with all the stuff about "la figura". If a Brit has no money, he dies of starvation; if an Italian has no money he dies of shame! I remember that years ago, with the weather warming up, everyone used to stop using their coats on about the same day, because if you were the only one without a coat, then horror of horrors, people might think you hadn't got enough money for one!
I'm glad to say that things have loosened up and the differences are smaller than in the past.

One thing I would say to new arrivals is, "Do look around you, see how the Italians behave. You don't have to become Italian yourself, but see if you can adapt to their way of life in some things".

I don't know what all this has to do with being made welcome, but you started this digression, Lorna, and you're a moderator, ho ho!