How I See The UK After 20 Years Abroad (CULTURE SHOCK)

I left the UK in 2004 and spent the next 20 years traveling the world living in China living in Japan and over 25 different countries so this year marks the 20th anniversary of me leaving the UK and in this video I want to share with you The Good the Bad and the Ugly of how I now see the UK after these 20 years abroad but if you're new here my name is Fred Barton and I used to be a foreign policy analyst and interpreter at the British Embassy in Beijing and I now make videos about

China the UK and learning Chinese I recently spent 6 months back in the UK on a visit there to see my family and I was coming from a month in India and the first thing that struck me when arriving in the UK was the state of the roads the potholes were insane they were enough to cave in your tires and cave in the rims of your wheels and nothing was being done about them I was driving around on these roads and this was even coming from India and some of the roads in my area in

the UK were equivalent to the roads I was seeing in part of India they were in a terrible state of repair and nobody was doing anything about them in the 6 months that I was there I saw some very slow progress on certain stretches of road but basically the roads and other areas of infrastructure were being left to rot and Decay and I was told that it was because there wasn't government spending to refurbish them to invest in repairs and it was a very very noticeable impact when I moved back to the UK for this

visit it was one of the first things that really really struck me of just what a bad state of repair the roads and lots of the general infrastructure was in things looked neglected and very rundown the second thing I noticed about the UK and which i' noticed before on other trips back home is that the service is generally very bad in the UK there isn't a strong service culture I ordered a meal in a restaurant the young guy taking my order he was a nice enough guy but he was unkempt he didn't look clean he

had piercings all over his face I'm not some old fart conserv ative but he just looked messy for the job he had a lot of random tattoos just dirty poor quality tattoos all over his arms and he was leaning on the table like right into my girlfriend's face when we were taking the order so it was just unprofessional he didn't look clean to be working in a restaurant and this is not an isolated case across many restaurants and other places in the UK I know that there is not a strong service culture and I know

these guys are probably not PID particularly well but in comparison to other countries people in shops and restaurants they're generally well presented they are usually pretty alert and attentive and often times in the UK the impression that you get is that these people have just rolled out of bed there was one guy in another shop who was serving me looked like he hadn't washed for weeks didn't really want to interact with me because I think these low paid jobs in the UK people feel that it's beneath them they don't want to do them so obviously

that then comes across to the customer so your experience generally is very poor there is not a strong service culture I understand it's due to to economic conditions and I'm not trying to slam the people in these poorly paid jobs but as a customer or consumer you just know that there isn't a lot of attention or care given to the customer but just generally in the countries that I've been in outside of England customer service is much better and there's just more attention to the customer and the customer experience is much better the third thing

that I noticed about the UK is that the heart has been ripped out of the British High Street out of the Town Center where I lived where I went to visit my parents so many of the shops that were and restaurants that were there had now been boarded up and I know this is to do with covid and the impact on the economy but just walking around town it looked like a ghost town it's very depressing the none of the vibrancy was there that there was before and it just gives a very depressing impression when

you've come from other countries where there is more prosperity and vibrancy the town center and the High Street in a lot of UK towns looks deserted and rundown and empty my fourth view on the UK is that eating out is generally overpriced and a waste of money this is also combined with a lack of good service but the food is normally not cooked particularly well the ingredients don't seem to be particularly amazing it costs a fortune and the times that I went out to eat on my recent trip back to England I said to the

people that I was with that we could have just cooked a better meal ourselves at home and we wouldn't have had to go through the poor service the long wait the poor food there was one occasion when I went out with my family it was an anniversary and then my mom kicked off at the waiting stuff because the food was uncooked and it just created too much hassle it would have just been much easier to cook at home so I don't think England does the hospitality culture very well it doesn't do food very well and

then you're charged a fortune for it so in all the countries basically outside of the UK that I've lived in and traveled to eating out is usually relatively cheap it's delicious it's better than you could cook at home it's a joy to go out whereas in England it's kind of like pulling teeth and you really feel it in your wallet afterwards the fifth thing that struck me of course was the cost of living England was already very expensive and I think overpriced and poor value for money for what you got in England but with the

cost of living it had become completely unmanageable I had the option of staying long but there was no way I would have stayed in England I moved on to Taiwan directly after that trip back to visit my family and it's just such poor value for money and now with the cost of living crisis it's even worse and you see this in the supermarkets the shrink FL a head of broccoli that was 60 before would be this big and now it's like13 and it's barely the size of a tennis ball so in a country that was

already prohibitively expensive in a lot of ways things have got even more expensive and you get even less for your money so basically based on that alone I would never really choose to live in England the SI thing I really noticed coming back to the UK from abroad is that things are generally not wellmaintained and they are dirty British people do not look after stuff very well and I'm talking about in the Town Center where I live the bowling alley the cinema the McDonald's the Starbucks these places were all Filthy the carpets were really dirty

there were greasy smears on the glass everything just seemed very dirty and this is not just in comparison to places like Japan where things are immaculately maintained even compared to places like the Philippines and other places in Southeast Asia where I've lived things are maintained much better there's there's a much greater focus on hygiene and cleanliness and buildings and shops and restaurants generally seem to be maintained much better and kept to a higher hygienic standard you see it even in sports centers where the toilets wreak of urine and they leave pubic hairs in the toilets

and this kind of thing there just isn't a very good level of hygiene or cleanliness in a lot of these establishments in the UK and this leads on to the seventh point which I noticed in the UK which I never considered before um after coming back to the UK I see that the the general standard of hygiene is not actually that good in the UK I never considered myself a dirty or unhygienic person but having been in relationships with women from various different countries they were surprised that I didn't shower before going to bed or

that I had other practices that they thought were quite unhygienic I would say especially in Southeast Asia the level of personal hygiene is extremely high and this is obviously not related to personal income people do often shower a lot more and I know this is not true across the board a lot of people in Vietnam where I am now and in other places I've seen have poor oral hygiene but generally the women especially they will shower a lot more things are just kept a lot cleaner and one habit that really seemed completely alien and strange

to me after living in Asia for so long is the practice of wearing shoes inside the house that you've worn outside you've been walking around dirty Pavements which people have spat on there's chewing gum on there dogs have peed on there potentially there's dog mess there lots of germs on the sole of your feet and then you just walk into your house with these outdoor shoes on and rub those germs into the carpet seemed extremely strange and people in Korea Japan China almost Southeast Asian countries almost anywhere see this practice as completely bizarre of why

would you desecrate your own home with all these germs that you're dragging in from the outside and it's made complete sense to me so I've always left my shoes outside the door and had inside slippers and I know people would say you have slippers in the UK but I've seen it as a much more common practice where people are like oh no you don't need to take your shoes off and people do walk around in their shoes in the house which would never happen in most countries that I've been in abroad the eigh thing that

I've noticed about the UK since being abroad for so long is that the dentistry and the Health Care system looks basically broken I know that you can still get an appointment with a GP you can get on a waiting list you can wait a year or two years for an operation if you need to but I don't want to do that I'd much rather be in Southeast Asia or other countries where I can just pay quickly and easily for excellent standard dentistry and healthc care I went for an MRI the other day in in Vietnam

where I am now I got an appointment immediately the process cost me about £120 I had an analysis with the doctor everything was done within a few hours I wasn't made to sit on a waiting list for 18 months same with Dentistry I can call up get an appointment more or less on the same day get first class treatment and for about £40 I got dental treatment that would cost about 10 times that in the UK so I would far rather pay privately in these countries abroad where I can get rapid very high quality service

just be in and out and the care and the quality of the service is excellent the ninth thing that I noticed about the UK is that people are generally depressed there's very little quality of life and I've seen this before this is nothing new to me but it's really emphasized since being away for so long whereas in countries like Spain Portugal Italy southern Europe they eat together they will drink outside together and I know this is related to the climate of course a lot of the problems in England are related to The Climate you can't

go out you can't physically relax cuz it's cold but the UK just looks very dull and gray and depressed and now that the pubs have been closed in many places it looks like the only option for people to actually enjoy themselves is to watch TV and drink at home and eat food from the supermarket or takeaways and that just seems like a very poor way to enjoy your life even in poorer countries where I've lived abroad there are ways of having fun and even in places like Japan you can go to a bath house for

just a few pounds and there's like wholesome communal activities that people can do together it doesn't just have to revolve around drinking or watching football like it does in the UK there are little things little treats that are affordable for a lot of people abroad whether it is eating out going for a meal with friends out going for a massage going to as I say the bath house these small things just give you that bit of joy of Life which in the UK we don't really seem to have it's a very atomized Society the main

way people seem to relax is by eating crap in front of the TV or watching foot or drinking alcohol okay so those are the negative aspects that I've noticed about the UK since being abroad for so long but there are positive things that I've seen about the UK as well and the first thing which I absolutely love about the UK is Affordable memberships to gyms and Leisure centers in my local town for about 30 a month I get access to a very good gym it has a 25 meter swimming pool it has a sauna a

steam room and it really is excellent even in countries which are very cheap like Vietnam where I'm living right now now gym memberships are still high I spoke to a friend who recently visited from barley he said gym memberships are astronomical over there up to like $300 as a fairly normal thing so I do really love the cheap affordable Leisure centers in the UK I think they're excellent and for me I love sports I love working out it's a daily practice that I need for my self-care so that makes a massive difference to me related

to this is food and diet once I've worked out I want to get good food and I've always loved the super markets in the UK what I always noticed after years abroad I would come back for a visit and the shopping the food shopping in UK was always the best and although it has been impacted massively by the cost of living and a lot of things were not even available on the shelves when I went to my soap supermarkets recently there were a ration on eggs and other things were actually not in stock I would

say overall it is still probably the best food shopping that I've encountered anywhere in any of the countries that I've lived in or traveled to um apart from possibly Vietnam which has amazing produce if you want healthy food you can get kale beetro it's affordable I really love the food shopping here but in comparison to places like Taiwan and Japan where the the food is extremely expensive there's limited range I really appreciate it being able to get good quality produce and a massive range of stuff and also healthy stuff and often stuff that didn't have

a lot of added sugar in the supermarkets in the UK after so long abroad the third thing that I appreciate about the UK is its overall culture and in terms of print media television radio comedy I really miss the comedy when I'm abroad I think the UK comedy is unparalleled uh been to Great standup shows whether you want to go to theater listening to programs on Radio 4 I do think the UK is unparalleled in those areas and because comedy is so deeply ingrained in our language and so on you really miss that being abroad

the UK sense of humor is very unique and you can only really scratch that itch when you come back to the UK and the third thing I would say about the UK that I appreciate since being away is the quality of Trades people so for example it's the rainy season here in Vietnam there was Heavy downpours in the night the windows were leaking water I called in a Tradesman and he basically rubbed the windows down with a cloth to dry them and because the rain had stopped he then said there's no problem now it's okay

and I explained that if the rain starts to pour again which is going to do this afternoon and evening there is going to be more leakage from the windows but he didn't want to do anything about it he basically said the wind it's fixed for now which basically involved him rubbing a dry rag over the windows and waiting for it to flood again later but the quality of Tradesmen in the UK is very good and having lived in a lot of different condos a lot of different apartments throughout the world and through many different countries

is a consistent thing if anything goes wrong if you've got a leak in the ceiling in your apartment or another problem with your house when you're living abroad often you will get some guy to come in and he just isn't skilled he doesn't have a clue he's getting paid very very little money and he'll come in smoking a cigarette look at the thing for a few hours and be like yeah I think it's okay I put some gaffa tape over the hole you know it's so things don't get done well in terms of repair and

maintenance on your houses so I do appreciate the trades people in the UK the fourth thing that I really appreciate about the UK is the countryside and having grown up in the countryside I took it for granted but having spent a lot of time in very builtup areas like Beijing in Delhi Tokyo then coming back to the UK and spending time in the countryside especially if the weather is good for a change there is something unique about that it has it is kind of a type of unparalleled natural beauty and I do actually really appreciate

a lot of the natural beauty there is in the UK whether it's the coastline in Cornwall the highlands in Scotland this is something that I couldn't really see because I was so used to it growing up as a child but moving been back for a quick visit last year and seeing these places it does strike you how naturally beautiful a lot of the UK is and the final thing that I've learned to really appreciate about the UK after so much time abroad is the British people having lived abroad for so many years the level of

banter that I have when I come back home is something that I miss and obviously because you have a shared language and a culture you can interact in a much friendly more intimate way than you can with other people even though I speak some languages quite well abroad and a lot of people abroad are also very friendly and you can have banter with them there is something unique about the British people and I used to think that they were very standoffish and cold but as I've got older I've realized that that's kind of a self-defense

mechanism British people appear very reserved and quite cold but if you open them in conversation when you chat to someone in the line at the post office or the supermarket they crack that smile you know the defensive serious mask comes off usually and they start chatting to you they're very chatty very friendly and apart from Americans who are are extremely pro-social I think the English are some of the chattiest people that I know and I just really enjoy that banter and that is one of the things that I do miss sometimes when I am living

abroad so there you go those are my good and bad points about living in the UK overall I have no intention to move back there the negatives outweigh the positives for me but if you want to know more about my experiences living in China and living abroad and my views on those countries then check out my videos here