Christine Chin Malaysia to England
Story about houses - part 1 The weather was different and the houses were very different. I find that very strange that the houses are built in brick but no paint on it, not like painted in white or different colours, but all you can see is those brick houses. Almost all the houses are similar, that's very surprising and I imagined that London would be very bright and kind of modern, but in fact it's not. Its actually the other way round, the kind of city is quite, how do you put it, look quite old fashioned kind of way. And I think that is because the houses weren't kind of painted in kind of white wash. Story about houses - part 2 Back home if you built a house or a shop a kind of newly developed one, normally we have kind of white wash or paint so and most of the houses, unless its kind of plain in a village or in town, normally it has quite different character, yeah. Story about food The food is kind of really different in the way that we normally eat rice and cook a meal with vegetables and some meat. But here, you can see, you eat one big chunk of meat like a pork chop and beef and so that surprised me because that one piece of meat can feed about a family of three or four! Er.. you know and so, then also I see people lunchtime just eating sandwich. I think that back home we have better food to eat I think! Story about East End Baths When I arrived in England and I stayed in East End near Mile End, there was this landlord and they have several rooms to rent and I was occupying one of them. And to my horror there was no bathroom at all. So when you take bath I had to go to Whitechapel near me and that was big place for public to go and take a bath. And you have to pay some money and then take a bath. This I couldn't understand, because I think that England or London is a very advanced country and how come there is no bathroom! But in a house or in a flat, that's really... I can't believe. I just can't believe that at that time, it was 1966, so this is the thing that really shocked me. You see in our country, we have to take shower every day. Every village, every house has their own bathroom, so I was very surprised!