DavidWright

I really cannot understand why Brits think the UK is so bad, perhaps they don't realise that the grass isn't any greener abroad?

dunroving

Ignorance.

TV fairy stories.

Glass half-empty mentality.

Newspapers.

I could go on.

mand8002

I think it depends on your experiences in the UK sometimes. As parents of a special needs child you get very angry at the way you have to fight for the correct education/support for your child when in our local area any child from a non english speaking background gets all the support they need. My child is deaf (with additional learning needs) and we go to the hospital and there is no interpreter there, but there is for the non english speaking. When you have paid taxes for years it feels like you are left out in the cold and all your money is being spent looking after others. This may seem a very blinkered view, but unless you have had to experience this then you wouldn't understand.

Crispyuk88

It’s all because of the 'Grass is all always greener on the side' mentality. All of its influenced by TV, Magazines, not appreciating what you have fully & want-want-want attitude.
I've lived in the states coming on 3 years now... I still can't get over how some people still think it’s a 'better' place.

I've had mates and family over from the U.K for visits, they go back home thinking that it was great, and sure, they would move here in a heartbeat if they had that choice!
Thing is, they never experience LIFE here; they see the positive, fun bits of the country. They relate what a good time they had on holiday to how it would br if they moved here, and continued the 'holiday'.

When you move here, it finally sinks in that you're now not around you're family, but in-fact half way around the world. You get to see them maybe once every 2 years. Same applies with friends, usually worse so though. Some of your good friends you lose contact with, you only keep in touch with your really good friends.
Amongst that... You start to realize the foods crap (I did anyway + most of the family did to) so that’s another thing to add to 'crap list'. When your on holiday, you can blow it off if you don’t like it, stick with it for a couple weeks. Not when you live here. Then maybe you went a bit overboard with the money situation, yeah you have bigger and more material goods, but it’s not making everyone as happy as you imagined (Self included). Problems with Immigration seem to bugger up a lot of things. Doesn't feel like home at all, and your treated like a foreigner by the system; can't work, can't sign up for things with a lack of SS Number. Still after 2 years of living here people are still asking you the 'where are you from questions' that I'm frankly sick to death of! (Slightly anti-sociable now! )

I reckon that people think England’s bad because they live there (Slight Irony).
Take America; someone typically foreign and clueless thinks of the U.S, and the first thing(s) that pop into there head is:
California, New York, Florida – ‘Cause there’s only 5 states in the U.S
Celebrities, Fame, Glamour
Gigantic House with pools and all that other crap
Big Cars (Lots of them)
Having lots of money
Beaches etc etc...
Then you get the average American’s thoughts of England. They are thinking London, Big old fashioned mansion, expensive European cars etc etc...

How many people live those lives? On a relative scale, a definite few do, but the majority… not so much. I don’t think one can really interpret what life would be like if they were living somewhere other than where they were now. People always seem so optimistic about how there future will be if they had it there way. Optimistic is good, being realistic is BETTER and will help you more. The dream is always there, for the most of them it will only ever be a dream, a distant dream of how the other half live.

Only until that dream becomes a reality will they realize that although their house is bigger, their car nicer; a gust of wind might blow the house down. And the Ford they bought is always in the shop…
Only then do they want they’re tiny brick house back, and that Vauxhall Vectra they owned for 5 years that never broke down once!

Apologies for the Essay

Chris

Hutch

Nice sweeping generalisation if ever I heard one. I think you'll find that the majority of brits that make a successful move to another country and who integrate fully into the new country's society accept that the two places are simply different and accept both of them as they are. Don't make the assumption that all the people who frequent this site left the UK because it was 'bad'. Many simply desire change, some seek a different kind of lifestyle, some move for family reasons, some because a good job's come up for them. And hey, newsflash, sometimes the grass *is* greener abroad - just because it isn't for *you* doesn't mean it isn't for others.

Personally speaking we're moving for myriad reasons. My father's a fifth generation Aussie and I have lots of family out here. In the UK we tried to change our lifestyle by moving to a small Cotswold town, but the parochial nature of middle-class country life left a lot to be desired. We wanted to move to the coast down Cornwall way, but unless you have at least 600k in loose change you'll never get within five miles of the sea - and let's not even mention your prospects of getting gainful employment down that way or the horrendous choking traffic issues aggravated by the British obsession with the car.

So spare us the trite conjecture and bring some real information to the table next time.

nun

I agree. Britons make a habit of complaining about the UK. Its "hoodie this" and
"we need more Asbos that". I'm British live in the USA and when I visit the UK
I still like the place. There are pros and cons with any country, but it makes me see red when people from 1st world countries complain about their taxes when folks are dying of the cold in Kashmir because the earthquake destroyed their homes.

ShozInOz

The media has a lot to do with it - and the unfortunate British attitude on being somewhat over-cynical and fairly-or-unfairly known for whinging. This compares with the sometimes unbearably 'Proud Aussie' attitudes of 'Best country in the world' - even in 45 degree heat or 90% humidity etc (same with some Americans). And yet life satisfaction among Australian is only 1% higher than that of Britons, as measured in major social science studies in the 1990s.

Then people judge other countries on the basis of media portrayals and fantasy and think, "Life must be so much better there" or "Australia will make me happy" or "I'm meant to be in Australia - it's my soul country" (slightly embarrassed to admit that this was my fantasy for too many years before arriving). Then they follow this hunch up with a short exciting holiday, which obviously confirms their hunch. Then after a few months or a year or so, they are doing much of the same stuff that they always did - work, commuting, shopping, staying in to avoid bad weather (but in this case heat and humidity), etc, doing some other stuff that they couldn't do before (e.g. going to the beach a lot), and not doing some stuff that they could do before (e.g. travelling around own or foreign countries). And in the end its often a zero-sum game; a different life, not better after all.

Interestingly, four out of five of the visitors (couples) to Australia that we've had (all of whom have travelled around Australia) loved it at first, but ALL who have stayed in Australia for a few months or seen a fair bit of Australia said in the end "...but we couldn't live here" (varuous reason - too remote/too underdeveloped/too hot or humid/too career-limiting/etc).

But getting back to the point..I think that some key reasons are:
- Newspapers
- TV programmes (e.g. Crimewatch, Place in the Sun)
- Failure to understand how the media works (especially in crime reporting/statistics, which does not accuractely portray the actual crime rate [per 1000 people], which is very similar between Australia and UK for most crimes)
- Transferral of personal problems and negativity to the UK
- Living in a crap area and being unable or unwilling to move elsewhere
- Tarring the whole of the UK with their local brush
- Hanging around with nagative people
- Fantasy

Irish Guinness

Great post ShoeInOz,

Could have written that myself,an awful lot of truth written here, should make a few people think again about immigrating. As someone once said on here immigration opens up a can of worms, that you cannot put the lid back on.

HiddenPaw

He didn't make the assumption that all people who frequent this site think the UK is bad. You came up with that one all by yourself

So spare us the condescending lecture and read the OP next time.

wmoore

Just what I was thinking. Not everybody emigrates for a big house with a pool, shorter hours bigger pay or lots of the other crap that is peddled on those TV progs.

I came to Oz lost year because I've always wanted to experience life in another country and when I finally got around to doing something about it, I chose Oz. I have a permanent visa but there's no guarantee I'll end my days here. If I leave and move on to some other country or back to England, it will be because that's what I want to do, not because the grass is greener.

There is good and bad everywhere, and it will vary 25 miles down the road, let alone 12,000. If you find somewhere where the good bits outweigh the bad then you're doing all right. And that includes issues of missing family and friends. It's all down to the individual whether (for example) sunny weekends on the beach outweight nights in the pub with your mates. One isn't necessarily better than the other, just different.

Garfielduk

Well I agree with Hutch on this one, it was a generalisation and I'll tell you why; nowhere in the sentence did it say "some" or "the majority" or "minority" so people are entitled to take the statement as meaning "all". However, posting something at 1.50 am maybe he wasn't thinking straight or partially asleep at the time.

callé

Ya know, a lady just asked me yesturday why on earth I would leave Florida to come back to the UK.
Ah yes, sunshine ( extreme heat and humidity, hurricanes, and mosquitos)
beaches ( you get tired of the sandy, sticky, lay in the sun and swim in sticky salty water routine)
big houses (they dont really make you that happy inside)
Disney world ( ok after going there probably at least two dozen times, I'd like a real holiday to another land)

No, nothing is wrong with England....Its beautiful and close to europe and full of wonderful countryside and amasing people and history.

HiddenPaw

We are talking at crossed purposes. The OP mentioned 'Brits'. He made no reference that Brits on this forum think the UK is crap, nor did he mention that those who eventually emigrate think the UK is crap. Hutch took offence that the generalisation was directed at people on this forum, which it wasn't.

chance to be

I'm sure he'll clarify next time he signs in, but i reckon the OP's statement was not directed at anyone in particular, as HP says, I think he has made a generalised statement to stimulate discussion which is the point of many of these threads, rather than thinking theres an agenda thats not there.
in answer to his OP, I'd say the media has hell of a lot to do with it now im in Oz. how many people in Perth read anything other than the Western Australian? oooh, now what shall i read first...."cat stuck up a tree" or " won at sports again" seriously, its really made me so aware of how powerful the media is for getting people to think in a certain way. thing is , in the uk, theres lots of different types of newspapers, here...i feel the thought police about!

Garfielduk

Sometimes David posts things that can be misinterpreted so you had better ask him exactly what he meant to clarify things