As the Yorkshireman and I get ready to go back to where he came from (bloody immigrants, coming over here and taking our women) — flying into Scotland and then on to Yorkshire next week to meet his mother, sister, niece, nephews and associated children and husbands — we have been having some long video calls, to give them a taste of what they’re in for. It’s a way of introducing them to my sparkling personality, building an appetite for my Kiwi witticisms. However, it’s become glaringly obvious that they can’t understand a word I’m saying. Every time I open my mouth: lost looks, polite smiles and nods. After a while I just sit there next to him, smile growing rigid, occasionally laughing when it seems appropriate. Amidst the whispered translations — “what did she say?” “something about cheese, I think.” — I had both an epiphany and a flashback. It was like a bolt of cultural lightning. I remembered a time in the early 2000s when many of my academic and business acquaintances had, in a short season of rearranging the chairs on the ship’s deck, become divorced, briefly single and then remarried, often to women from a different culture to white New Zealander. The new bride would then be hard launched at social events within our wider group, where she would have absolutely nothing to say for herself and be considered dull and unworthy as a consequence. But now I see it for what it really is. THIS is why brides from other cultures have nothing to say at family events. You try a few times, haltingly attempting to insert something about yourself, your grown-up job or the weather and everyone smiles and nods and laughs and repeats the hilarious way you say “head” and “eggs”. Attaining actual comprehension is such an effort, you give up and become conversational wallpaper, or as weirdly and randomly loud as bits of the Odyssey soundtrack. Because Yorkshire is not my first language, when I feel I’m not being understood I do what anyone would, I start shouting to clear the blockage. This just makes me come across as strident and unintelligible. They wonder, does she yell at him like this all the time, too? She does seem to speak mostly gibberish, bless her. Solution: I’m going to suggest the Yorkshireman’s family watch some Kiwi movies to build language comprehension and learn more about his new girlfriend. Utu (don’t mess with me). Hunt for the Wilderpeople, “I didn’t choose the skuxx life, the skuxx life chose me”. Once Were Warriors, I’m not in a gang but I do have tattoos and also like crayfish. The Piano, I secretly lust for 1993 Harvey Keitel. What We Do in the Shadows, I’m silly and first thing in the morning behave like a feral animal resembling Count Orlok from Nosferatu. Goodbye Pork Pie, I love a road trip and thrashing small cars. Jojo Rabbit … although a Kiwi-accented Hitler isn’t really the vibe I’m going for, you get the idea. In return, I’ll go full immersion and eat deep fried pizza, Wensleydale cheese and Whitby fish and chips while toasting Dracula in a ruined castle, drink Irn-Bru, embrace curry culture, call everyone “pet”, yelp “bloody ECK OW much?!” about the price of things, call both lunch and dinner “dinner”, and do more for cross-cultural relations than our current foreign minister ever could, the wazzock.
