Base Camp Britain: How International Freshers Acclimatise to St Andrews

Scots are a “version of Arabs”, Khalid Hunbot, a Philosophy second-year from Saudi Arabia, told me. “They’re generous, they’re fun, they’re light-hearted, and they swear a lot”. Hunbot concluded this from watching Still Game, a Glaswegian soap opera. The show also helped him get used to the Scottish accent — a perennial problem for international arrivees.

I talked to Hunbot and Ariel Dodds, an American third-year Economics student, about accents and all the other cultural curveballs associated with arriving in St Andrews from abroad. Why do Brits say sorry when they walk into a doorway? How does one ‘blag a fag’? What’s the crucial yet subtle distinction between slagging off and shagging on? (Please do neither to The Saint). 

The typical induction pack to help international freshers acclimatise to St Andrews might cover housing, an acerbic aside about Scottish weather, or a pathetic plug for British food — but no further. I present this humble article, therefore, as a ten-minute-before-the-exam-starts cram for those arriving internationals. Think of it as an aeroplane safety presentation. Except, unlike an aeroplane safety presentation, you’d better pay attention. If you tune out the air hostess fiddling with the whistle, you’ll statistically escape with your kneecaps intact. If you go to the Scottish Independence Society and pronounce it “EdinBURG”, the numbers may not be in your favour.

Edinburgh

noun 

pronounced /edin-BRUH/ not /edin-BURG/ nor /edin-BURROW/

(American freshers who get this right get brownie points)

Slang wasn’t a huge problem for Hunbot — he picked his Scots up from Still Game and his foundation year spent living in a working-class neighbourhood in Dundee. But, when he got to St Andrews, that quickly changed. “The majority of people you’ll end up meeting are non-Scottish and non-British”, Hunbot said. “[St Andrews] is, like, 40% American, 40% Chinese, and 20% Eastern European,” he added. “I’ve only met an English student once, and that was while smoking.” 

Hunbot’s experience isn’t reflected in the formal statistics of the University’s demographics — 53% of students are British, half of whom are Scottish. But it reflects an interesting way in which students segregate themselves — by nationality. Dodds noticed how many societies are overwhelmingly American or English. 

“Every Scottish person I know is lovely”, Dodds told me. “That being said, because it’s St Andrews, I know two Scottish people. Maybe three.” 

Lettuce

noun

A brassica. Also a former Prime Minister. 

Both Hunbot and Dodds recommend reading up on British politics before arrival. Dodds strongly recommend doing that reading before getting the spiels from the political societies themselves at Fresher’s Fair. (“They all kind of tell you the same thing”). 

Outside our political debates, Brits are generally polite — famously, excessively so. Dodds, though, didn’t find the British habit of excessive apologising odd: “I’m Midwestern, we also do that.” Hunbot however, took a dimmer view. The extent to which Brits say ‘sorry’ “takes away from the emotional weight of the word”, Hunbot said. Nevertheless, Hunbot would advise freshers to apologise anyway, just to fit in, “ridiculous though it may be”. 

Shag 

verb

Sex act. Also a rug type. Use context clues.

As the furniture-related sexual slang hints at, Britain is not renowned for its sexual liberation. That said, we’ve certainly worked through our Victorian repression about another vice: alcoholism. “You actually get to have fun”, Dodds was told when she first heard about British drinking culture. She arrived in St Andrews from her joint degree at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where drinking is illegal for most students. In Scotland, she initially went somewhat wild. After a rocky Freshers’, she advised similarly abstemious Americans to take it easy — avoid “diving too quickly into the going-out scene”. 

Hunbot was more blunt. “Drink with moderation. Don’t be British about it.” He’d expected a reasonably restrained drinking culture, similar to the American movies he’d watched, where trips to bars were rare and self-contained. Instead, he found that the entire social life of many students and locals revolved around pubs. As a fresher, visiting Market Street on a Thursday night was like being “surrounded by zombies.”

Half four

noun

Germans assume this means 3.30. It doesn’t. Don’t ask a German the time.

The quirks of British time didn’t faze Hunbot or Dodds (perhaps due to their blissful ignorance of the German language). The main surprise for Dodds, arriving to these three streets, was the lack of pumpkin purée in Scotland. She had to buy it in London. It’s “not normal, apparently”. Other than blended vegetables, though, she had done her homework. To prepare, Dodds  watched Men In Kilts, a video series following two Outlander actors who drive a van around Scotland and interview locals, which helped familiarise herself with a lot of the place names. “It’s corny, but it actually did help.” She’d also been exhaustively advised by other students on the ins and outs of Scottish culture, from housing to Tesco Clubcards (get a Clubcard). Her pre-arrival briefings had even stretched to comments on the strange proliferance of Irn Bru in Scottish shops. 

How should international arivees, who lack such extensive carbonated drink-related advice, best learn the ins and outs of Caledonia? Both Hunbot and Dodds emphasised the importance of talking to a lot of random people. For Dodds particularly, talking to elderly Scottish locals made her feel comfortable once she’d arrived. “They’re very chatty, and they remind me of my dad.”

Hunbot, on his part, recommended taking advantage of the liberties afforded by British freedom-of-speech laws. “You owe it to yourself to be as outrageous as you want, because then people might counter what you have in mind — then you at least will have learned something.” 

Illustration by Isabelle Holloway