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Expats in Greece: Greek culture, worlds apart from cricket |
 The idea of playing cricket in Greece seems at odds with the typical view of this nation, but this quintessentially English game arrived in June under the auspices of 2Nations - a series of events organised by the British Hellenic Chamber of Commerce celebrating what the two countries of Greece and Britain can offer each other in commerce, education, culture, art and sport.
Do not be fooled by this serene scene on the island of Skopelos. Tempestuous passions are always likely to surface in Greece.
At the Vrillisia Football Ground, the Athens expat team Phaethon Vrillisia took on a Pakistani representative team in a 20/20 game and won by three wickets.
The British are a major and growing part of the expat community here, and the 2Nations initiative runs throughout 2008 in Greece, before moving to Britain in 2009.
Expats in Greece sometimes struggle to understand our hosts, just as much as Greeks are baffled by the British. Greeks at the cricket followed our lead of occasional polite applause with puzzlement. "And you sit and do just this for five days?" said a bemused friend.
For Greeks, life, and especially sport, is to be shouted about with tears of joy or sadness.
advertisementSocially they respect our professionalism but are amused at our punctuality. They don't understand our irony, or our self-effacement, and think we are aloof.
They desire our apparent wealth but fail to see the breakdown of family and social values that can accompany it. Family bonds and social values remain deeply rooted. They are amused and puzzled by the sight of drunken British holidaymakers, while we expats are embarrassed.
The Elgin Marbles, and our failure to return them, still sits more uncomfortably in the Greek psyche than a recent scandal of sex, lies, and DVDs - ironically involving the Culture Ministry, which is responsible for antiquities.
The scandal broke after the dismissal, and then attempted suicide of culture minister Christos Zachopoulos, after allegedly being blackmailed by a female assistant with a DVD of intimate moments between them.
The scandal has expanded to include several decisions allowing construction at or near archeological sites. He is now recovering and a woman is awaiting trial on charges of blackmail, which she denies.
Political analysts say the affair has turned the spotlight on Greece's ills - nepotism, widespread corruption in politics and the press, sexism and lack of transparency in government.
But many Greeks yawn while their ranking on the Transparency International corruption list has worsened, falling from 47th to 56th in 2007 behind Botswana, Costa Rica and Jordan.
But corruption and political scandals are second nature to increasingly world-weary Greeks, expecting little more from their leaders - while expecting much more from their own passionate arguments to repatriate those famous pieces of marble.
It's a matter of pride - and there is nothing more important in a Greek's make-up than pride. After all, they did invent and export chaos, tragedy, comedy, democracy and drama.
To understand Greeks one has to first understand there has been a strong anti-Western current here for centuries.
Populist politicians have cultivated both the conspiracy theory of history and the victim, where the West is responsible for everything.
This is changing with Karamanlis's conservative, modernising government and with a much more educated and well-travelled younger generation critical of the older generations, but many Greeks say, "I studied in Europe" or "I will travel to Europe", as if Greece was somewhere outside.
Their relationship with us can be a love-hate affair, expressed in two Greek words: xenophobia and xenomania.
Xenos in Greek means both the stranger and the guest. Phobia and mania are emotions - and therefore when Greeks talk about, or to, us their language is emotional.
It's not easy for them to think rationally on this issue - in fact, it's not easy for Greeks to think rationally on any issue. They are enthusiastic, excitable, warm, friendly, but also insecure, short-tempered and belligerent, especially if national or personal issues are concerned.
In daily life this is best demonstrated on the television news and talk shows.
Six or eight split screens show all the participants of a political discussion who, mostly, shout each other down.
All rational information and any pertinent facts are drowned out in the bedlam, with a hapless anchorperson trying to regain some control.
Self-control is incomprehensible to a modern Greek, whether it be emotional - where both the important and the mundane must be yelled about in public without embarrassment or guilt - or economic, where, for example, a Greek rarely has money because they will spend everything on one feast and forego eating for the remainder of the month.
The British "dinner party" is, for Greeks, an excuse for laughter and high spirits and the sharing of communal bowls using hands and fingers.
Greeks say that laws are only made so they can be broken. And so they do, daily, from corrupt civil servants to rampant tax avoidance, from noise pollution to rubbish dumping, from pavement parking to treble parking.
Work is something to be done between holidays - of which there is the highest number in all Europe.
To get from A to B a Greek intuitively understands it will take a long time, and may well require several detours along the way.
It drives us expats crazy, but Greeks accept it. It's life Greek-style and as an expat you either get on with it or give up and go home.
While we would push for improvement, the Greek will treat the issue with indifference - as most Greek civil servants treat the public patiently waiting in front of them.
But the Greeks also invented the word filoxenia, the welcoming of strangers. In the end, the Greeks' love of partying, and the welcoming and enjoying of others dates back even further than their invention of democracy.
Greece's new willingness to expand its horizons shows itself in how it embraces us expats and supports 2Nations - which has events ranging from a business education conference to a classic car rally still to come.
• More details of 2Nations events at www.bhcc.gr
18.11.2008
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