Author: Kathryn Lukey-Coutsocostas
Date: November 2011
Source: Athens News, Column ‘On the borderline’
SHOULD we newcomers to a country feel at home or, instead, make ourselves at home? There’s a slight, but important, distinction between the two. In the former we remain guests, but in the latter we claim ownership.
There are times when I still feel like a guest. When it comes to harshly criticizing Greece and Greek ways, for example, caution rules – even when our closest Greek friends and family are doing so themselves. I sense it would be ungracious of me to rant and rave, and that it would not be taken well.
To my surprise, the three people I spoke to about this also said they consider themselves guests, which may indicate a (rather disturbing) transnational phenomenon.
When exploring the implications of feeling like a guest, I found that the websites specializing in houseguest etiquette keep repeating one word: grateful. Good guests, the sites all seem to say, must be grateful, presumably because the hosts are allowing them to stay. To be grateful means to feel gratitude. Gratitude in turn means to feel thankful appreciation for the favours or benefits received.
Does this mean that we must go through life in another land with a yoke of gratitude round our neck? And doesn’t this imply that we don’t fully believe we belong?
Ps & Qs
Englishman Christopher Holmes has lived on a number of continents, moving to Greece in 2006. This globetrotter definitely feels we are guests. His message rings clear, even though his tongue is tucked firmly in his cheek.
“Natives are allowed to slag off their own country and people,” Holmes says, “but you, lowly guest, you keep schtum and express your gratitude for the kind treatment you have always received.”
Does Briton Karen Field agree that we’re guests, after having lived here for 26 years? “Naturally,” she says.
Field has never been made to feel unwelcome, but stresses that she speaks for herself. Integration, she adds, is a two-way street because it takes hard work.
“My decision to move here was one made of my own free will, so I felt obliged to learn their history and language, and to adopt their customs and traditions,” Field says. “Greece was, after all, to be my new home.”
When asked about gratitude, she says: “I believe tolerance and acceptance seal the bond and, yes, does in fact produce gratitude, along with mutual respect and admiration.”
Forever
Fellow Englishman David Gibson has been here the longest of the three, more than three decades. “My advice to anyone living outside their homeland is to never, ever forget that you are a guest,” he says.
“However long you have lived there, those people are your hosts and you should treat them with the same respect you would show them if they invited you into their homes.”
Those of us living in Greece may bear an even larger weight. “Greeks are renowned worldwide for their hospitality,” Gibson says, “and it is our responsibility and duty never to abuse it.”
Kathryn Lukey-Coutsocostas is an Athens-based, Canadian Greek (by marriage) writer and a transnational of some 30-odd years
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The Perpetual Guest
Author: Kathryn Lukey-Coutsocostas
Date: November 2011
Source: Athens News, Column ‘On the borderline’
SHOULD we newcomers to a country feel at home or, instead, make ourselves at home? There’s a slight, but important, distinction between the two. In the former we remain guests, but in the latter we claim ownership.
There are times when I still feel like a guest. When it comes to harshly criticizing Greece and Greek ways, for example, caution rules – even when our closest Greek friends and family are doing so themselves. I sense it would be ungracious of me to rant and rave, and that it would not be taken well.
To my surprise, the three people I spoke to about this also said they consider themselves guests, which may indicate a (rather disturbing) transnational phenomenon.
When exploring the implications of feeling like a guest, I found that the websites specializing in houseguest etiquette keep repeating one word: grateful. Good guests, the sites all seem to say, must be grateful, presumably because the hosts are allowing them to stay. To be grateful means to feel gratitude. Gratitude in turn means to feel thankful appreciation for the favours or benefits received.
Does this mean that we must go through life in another land with a yoke of gratitude round our neck? And doesn’t this imply that we don’t fully believe we belong?
Ps & Qs
Englishman Christopher Holmes has lived on a number of continents, moving to Greece in 2006. This globetrotter definitely feels we are guests. His message rings clear, even though his tongue is tucked firmly in his cheek.
“Natives are allowed to slag off their own country and people,” Holmes says, “but you, lowly guest, you keep schtum and express your gratitude for the kind treatment you have always received.”
Does Briton Karen Field agree that we’re guests, after having lived here for 26 years? “Naturally,” she says.
Field has never been made to feel unwelcome, but stresses that she speaks for herself. Integration, she adds, is a two-way street because it takes hard work.
“My decision to move here was one made of my own free will, so I felt obliged to learn their history and language, and to adopt their customs and traditions,” Field says. “Greece was, after all, to be my new home.”
When asked about gratitude, she says: “I believe tolerance and acceptance seal the bond and, yes, does in fact produce gratitude, along with mutual respect and admiration.”
Forever
Fellow Englishman David Gibson has been here the longest of the three, more than three decades. “My advice to anyone living outside their homeland is to never, ever forget that you are a guest,” he says.
“However long you have lived there, those people are your hosts and you should treat them with the same respect you would show them if they invited you into their homes.”
Those of us living in Greece may bear an even larger weight. “Greeks are renowned worldwide for their hospitality,” Gibson says, “and it is our responsibility and duty never to abuse it.”
Kathryn Lukey-Coutsocostas is an Athens-based, Canadian Greek (by marriage) writer and a transnational of some 30-odd years