Generalise an hour

It's a trap that's easy enough to fall into. When you've lived in a foreign country for a good while, you can sometimes feel entitled to indulge in sweeping commentaries on the state of the nation and/or its people. Any time I catch myself beginning a sentence with "In Spain..." or "Spanish people..." I try to double-think what I'm about to say and reign myself in. I'm afraid it doesn't always work.

Yesterday morning, I caught a train from Malaga city centre to the airport and then, late in the afternoon, found myself chugging along on the coastal railway service in Catalonia. The passengers in Malaga had been, as one has come to expect, chatty and lively. Up in the north, by contrast, there was a silence on board the train bordering on the sepulchral, illustrating perfectly the folly of generalising about the population of such a rich and varied nation.

Similarly, someone from abroad who had lived in the South of England for thirty years might be tempted to say things like "English people drink really weak tea," or "English people pronounce the word 'bath' as if there's a letter 'r' between the 'a' and the 't'". In reality, both of these outrages would be anathema to anyone from north of Watford (or, indeed, with any common sense).

Living in Malaga for a long time possibly gives me some authority to be able to pass comment on how Malagueños live their lives (even then, though, it's fairly dodgy ground) but none whatsoever regarding people who come from, say, Cantabria or Extremadura. Even within Andalucía itself there are marked differences in accents, appearances and behaviour just as there are vast swathes of dashingly handsome men in Liverpool and barely any in Manchester, for example.

No, clearly it's a fool's game to begin any given sentence with "Spanish people..." or "In Spain..." We're extraordinarily fortunate to live in a country of such rich variety and any sweeping generalisations are rendered pretty worthless from the moment they're first uttered. Alas, none of this prevents me from falling into the aforementioned trap from time to time, but I'll keep working on it.

* Footnote - interestingly, there were far more people - of all ages - reading books on the train in Catalonia than staring at their phones. Far more. You might even be tempted to say, then, that Catalans love reading books - although, on second thoughts, that might be too much of a generalisation.

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