Cultural Inadequacy

"The wisest man that ever was, when asked what he knew, replied that the one thing he did know was that he knew nothing."

They spoke in that horrible London accent that you hear in the movies. They smoked 3 cigarettes indoors, ate messily with their hands, burped, kicked the cat and drank beer. They were pudgy, stocky and shouted at the restaurant owners.

There is a term used to describe these people but I forget what it is. I was thinking of Chav, but no - I don't think that's it. They remind me more of those soccer hooligans who don't even look like they should be associated with soccer.

Anyhow, I talked to them because we were the only people in the restaurant and I was eating alone.

Maybe they were actually really lovely people deep down. Somewhere. But on first impressions I found them near unbearable. I was embarrassed to be speaking with them. They disliked everything about South East Asia and were not afraid to let it be known to all.

I really don't like foreigners who enter a new country and demand to have everything their way, in their language and to their customs.

Thanks to my philosophy book I found consolation from Montaigne:

"Every man calls barbarous anything he is not accustomed to; we have no other criterion of truth or right-reason than the example and form of the opinions and customs of our own country. There we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything!"

Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto.
I am a man, nothing human is foreign to me.