BRITISH CULTURE

“Here, There and Everywhere”

----British Culture in a Nutshell

Britain is one word, often used interchangeably with the United Kingdom, or its full name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which, bummers, is one country. This one country, however, is home to 4 distinct areas each with its unique culture and political atmosphere, fruits 7 of the best-selling fantasy novels in the world, was responsible for the colonization and subjugation of 65 countries and territories, houses roughly 2000 different beer brands, and boasts over 10,000 football (or as Uncle Sam prefers it, soccer) teams; even with all that, as well as being one of the most lasting democracies in the world, the UK still struggles to see, in recent years, any 1 prime minister in power for a healthy amount of time.

With all its wonders and woes, the United Kingdom is a land of unfathomable diversity, boundless creativity, and profound history, and the culture that it nurtures is also blessed with these virtues. Because of its sheer bulk, it is clearly impossible to be entirely comprehensive, but I can at least try to make it enjoyably informative, and provide you with one hopefully-interesting case study for each category. By the end of this article, I hope Britain would mean more to you than just Harry Potter and James Bond.

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History & Society 

- “Come Together”?  

- “Nah, nah nah, nah nah nah nah~”

Guess what is the most popular boy’s name of 2024? Here are five options: John, Paul, George, Ringo, Muhammad.

It’s actually Muhammad.

With various sources of international influence from its numerous colonies and partners, it is impossible to regard British society as a unified body with a single identity. The history of Britain’s cultural import and export will not be covered in this article for the sake of brevity and my sanity; instead, I will be focusing on Britain’s mainland societies and history, which are diverse enough in themselves.

As previously mentioned, the United Kingdom is 4 distinct geopolitical areas (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) sewed into one nation. In other countries such divides led to internal conflicts like the Civil War in the United States, numerous ethnic border skirmishes in China, coups and rebellions in Africa, et cetera et cetera. The United Kingdom is no different. In addition to people beating each other up in pubs for supporting another football team, internal conflicts have been ceaseless due to religious and ethnic disparities.

England, being the modern powerhouse of influence, was the first to politically stabilize and therefore gain enough strength to either conquer or annex the other three. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, officially establishing the first royal dynasty, the Norman Dynasty, England moved from a fractured state to a powerful monarchy by the late medieval period. Wales was subdued after a series of campaigns, culminating in its formal annexation by the Laws in Wales Acts in the 16th century. Scotland’s union came with the Acts of Union in 1707, economically and politically motivated to create a single kingdom of Great Britain. In both cases native cultures and languages were suppressed; in Wales, local education was forced to adopted Welsh Not, a physical punishment system for students caught speaking Welsh, in order to promote English, the official administrative language. Naturally, this measure and many other like it brought about erosion to local cultures, although native languages are seeing revival thanks to conservation efforts in recent decades.

Last but not least came Ireland (without the “Northern” part just yet), which was fully integrated into the United Kingdom in 1801 having witnessed complete dismantling of local parliament and several centuries of domination, after which the situation only worsened. Land ownership was dominated by Protestant Anglo-Irish landlords, leaving Catholics and the general working-class sidelined and subdued. The Great Famine, also known as the Irish Potato Famine, as a result of English negligence and cruelty further exacerbated tensions. Eventually, the conflicts culminated in the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland in 1921, into the Republic of Ireland, an independent state, and Northern Ireland. End of story? Not by far. The troubles had just begun.

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The Troubles: late 1960s to 1998

You read correctly; this period of intense conflict and combat is simply called “The Troubles”. Tensions between Protestant loyalists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic republicans, who sought reunification with the Republic of Ireland, persisted throughout this period and continues to this day. The citizens took most of the toll: in an effort to suppress dissent, British law enforcers raided houses, violently put down protests, and caused numerous cases of civilian casualties. Not surprisingly, this only heightened the republican anger.

British government forces and Irish paramilitaries (most notably the Irish Republican Army, the IRA) waged war on the streets and fields of Northern Ireland, exchanging bullets, grenades, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), gasoline packed in beer bottles (nicknamed Molotov cocktails), and of course, words, discussing peace every now and then. In 1998, a long-awaited peace fell with the Good Friday Agreement, promising civil rights that should have been there long ago: power sharing among the loyalists and republicans, democratic representation, and reformed police in exchange for the disarmament of the IRA.

End of story? Maybe, maybe not. Peace is far from definite at this point, and arguably even less so, with Brexit declaring the UK’s departure from the European Union while Ireland remains. What is certain, however, is that the unique geopolitical composition of Britain makes it difficult to determine what it means to be definitively “British”, and how that is different from being Irish, Welsh, Scottish, or English, and how these four identities differentiate from one another. Perhaps in the future I will introduce the four cultures under the British culture separately, but for the time being, just keep in mind that the interplay of these four distinct societies compose the United Kingdom that we know not to be so united after all.

 

 

Cuisine

- “What are the three thinnest books in the world”? 

- “American history, German jokes, and British cuisine”

The United Kingdom is renowned for culinary abominations such as the Jellied Eels (cooked eels swimming in jelly made from their own juices), Stargazy Pie (sardines poking their heads from pie as if gazing at the stars), and, please don’t censor me for this, Spotted Dick (steamed pudding with dried fruit; it actually tastes quite delightful but the naming tends to project a not-so-desirable image). However, there did exist a time in which food would not induce vomiting from the tourists.

Even in the medieval period, British food was marked by exotic spices, rich meats, and an abundance of imported goods, and food served as a demonstration of wealth. Progressing to the Victorian era, developing technology and increasing communication with the rest of Europe (France in particular) brought British cuisine to its apex.

With the Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanization, however, intensive and extensive working hours in factories, as well as the exploding population, demanded much more practical and utilitarian culinary options, and consequently British cuisine saw a shift toward simpler, more affordable meals. The World Wars further hastened the development of British cuisine from elaborate to convenient; as in both wars Britain was closed off from naval access to its colonies on which most of its food supply previously relied, the British people simply had to make do with what they had, which was essentially small, offshore fish and meager domestic vegetables. Hence was born the aforementioned Stargazy Pie, Jellied Eels, and the national dish, Fish & Chips. With the post-war economic austerity, these dishes remained on the inventory of British cuisine, and the castration of British food was done.

Not a happy ending, I know, but that is not to say the food in the United Kingdom is horrible. With the aforementioned influence from international cultures imported from its colonies and partners, modern dinner favorites include Curry from India, Pasta from Italy, and Chop-Suey, a form of American-modified Chinese food consisting of meat, eggs, vegetables, starch-thickened sauce and typically served with rice or fried noodles.

The contemporary British cuisine, as a result of all these upheavals, periods of scarcity, the United Kingdom’s rapid expansion in the 19th and 20th century, and the consequent fusion of culinary influences, is characterized by the amalgamation of historical and cultural factors. As you will learn later, the English breakfast is a perfect example of the factors presented above.

[“What’s the Story Morning Glory”? : The English Breakfast]

The full English breakfast, or “fry-up”, is one such fusion of various historical and cultural influences. Seemingly large enough to feed an entire family, the English breakfast is actually a one-man meal, originating from 13th-century British tradition and gaining popularity during the Victorian era among the aristocracy. As I have explained with the general development of British cuisine, the English breakfast also evolved during the Industrial Revolution to become a hearty breakfast for the working class.

As a result of its working-class factors, it includes fairly accessible and calory-intensive elements, like:

-sausages from various European regions (depending on your cook, the sausage may vary from the German bratwurst, the Italian salami, the French saucisses, and so much more)

-bacon as a British twist (usually cooked tender, unlike the crispy American variant)

-baked beans with roots in Native American and early New England cuisine (the top baked beans brand, Heinz, is actually American marketing as British)

-black pudding from Irish, Scottish, and English culinary traditions (pork-blood sausage, again speaking to the Britons’ cleverness with limited materials)

-tomatoes and mushrooms, popular in the 19th and 20th centuries due to health trends (in my opinion it’s very ironic to stuff yourself some meager vegies after eating a 2000 calorie meal for “health trends”)

-tea and coffee, introduced to the British table with the benefit of the expansive British maritime empire

-regional variations, including Irish breakfasts with white pudding, Scottish breakfasts with haggis and tattie scones, and Welsh breakfasts with laverbread.

To be honest, just thinking about these grease-dripping, steam-bellowing, stomach-destroying, fat-inducing foods piled onto one’s plate can make one lose all appetite for the morning, but hey, at least it’s better than having a dozen dead fish stare up at you from a pie.

 

Entertainment

- “Please Please Me”

In contrary to the common misconception that British people like to throw magic spells at each other in their spare time, entertainment is deeply rooted in British society and can be extremely elaborate and diverse.

[“Live Forever” : The Evergreen British Literature and Theatre]

British literature and theatre have a long-standing tradition of producing some of the world’s most celebrated writers and literary works. From medieval texts like Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” (presented as a storytelling contest among pilgrims traveling from London to a shrine in Canterbury) to contemporary novels, from Shakespeare plays like “Macbeth” to modern cinematics like “James Bond”, British literature and theatre has evolved and adapted to the times while maintaining a core of both drawing from classics and revolutionizing.

The Renaissance period introduced us to William Shakespeare, whose plays and sonnets have transcended time and are still performed and studied globally. Shakespeare’s works, such as “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, and “Romeo and Juliet”, explore timeless themes of love, power, jealousy, and ambition. His contributions to the English theatre and language (a nice way of saying “inventing words and phrases from nowhere”) leave legacies that are still in use today, including phrases like “break the ice”, “wild-goose chase”, and “foregone conclusion”. His characters, still widely alluded to (like Romeo and Juliet in Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”), are timeless because of their profoundly humanness, with flaws, aspirations, and emotions that hardly fail to evoke sympathy in the audience.

Moving into the 19th century, the British literary scene flourished with authors like Charles Dickens, who brought to life the struggles of the poor and the working class through novels like “Oliver Twist” (criticizing child labor and cruelty of society) and “Great Expectations (exploring the conflict between morality and ambition). The Brontë sisters, with their passionate and gothic tales like “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre” that address the rising feminine figure and oppressive societal norms, also made significant contributions to English literature and society.

In the 20th century, the rise of modernist literature and contemporary British writers such as J.K. Rowling with her globally beloved “Harry Potter” series, draw inspiration from British folktale to create elaborate tales that capture the imagination of readers. Many of the Fantastic Beasts in the Harry Potter series, for instance, have origins in British folklore, like the Red Caps (murderous spirits that inhabit ruins of castles of Scotland and northern England), Pixies (mischievous fairy-like beings in Cornwall folklore), and the Basilisk (a serpent whose stare can kill, from European folklore). Theatres adapted to cinemas enabling accessibility for a wider audience, while conventional theatres still remain as a symbol of Britain’s evergreen artistic legacies, most famously in London’s West End (the “posh” area of London).

 

 

Conclusion 

– “Now and Then”

2000 words cannot possibly cover, or begin to cover, the expanse of British culture, and I have been forced to abbreviate or delete several sections (the Troubles, music, the Britpop movement, etc.) for the sake of my dwindling sanity; yours as well, I presume. Hopefully I will get a chance to cover all of them in greater detail in the future. So much has changed in the past few centuries, and so much has carried on.

A quote from Oasis’s “Champagne Supernova” to sum up my perception of British culture: “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannon ball”. Whatever that means to you.