The British Embassy

Firstly, Hello to all thoose here whom I have not met, hopefuly one day we might..

So, Yesterday I went to the British Embassy Christmas Party (By the way I live in Beijing if any of you didn't know), I had mixed feelings as I walked in to the Pub inside the Embassy (the only embassy with a license to sell alcohol, says alot about English society), indeed it was a strange experience which after a while as I was being given mulled wine and guiness became beautifully surreal. There was a curtain drawn across the stage when the manager of the Embassy, this realy straight no nonsense guy, poked his head out and started singing the monty python song "I like chinese", the curtains were pulled back revealing three rotund guys dressed up in traditional chinese dress performing to the music in absolute perfect time. It was beatifully offensive, I'll have to try and find the lyrics and post them on here.

I havent quite digested what exactly was going on there in that bastion of Englishness, but whenever someone would say something that normaly would have made me feel like an unwanted misenthrope in England (should I be not offended when some one asks me "who the fuck are you?" just because they're drunk and irish? I don't know, I'll let you know the answer when I've worked it out) I was quietly reasurred that outside the walls of this building (classic 1960's foreign concession style) these confused feelings of nationhood and identity would quickly evaporate for me, but perhaps not for them.

Anyway, national identity looks all the more ridiculous when it's isolated and slightly defensive and indignant, that, I found quite empowering actualy. In any case, I think I've been hanging around with too many Canadians as I was told I had a North American twang to my accent, Ah well, I think there is something beautiful about having the people you love around you affect the very way you speak, not that its true though!