Today someone stopped me to tell me that he approved of my shirt and the nation it thoughtlessly self-promotes my country of origin. And it made me realize that being Welsh is a lot like belonging to a club, a very exclusive, horribly uninteresting club. I mean, how do you sell it: “We’re Welsh! We’re just like the Scotts and the Irish but without the child obesity and the rampant alcoholism, and with loads of sheep! Actually, we’re just a smaller New Zeeland.”
I bring this up because my nationality means a lot to me, but I am somehow embarrassed about being Welsh. It’s not like being Irish or English or even French or German, because although there are stigmas attached to each nation, you don’t need to explain them. You do if your Welsh, because everything that used to define your country was either taken or shared.
Take our greatest contribution to the Western Canon, the original mythology of King Arthur, which is always called English because of his status as the King of Britain, fighting the very Saxons who’d one day claim him as their own. But, we lost, fled or were engulfed by the new nation, and spent the next few hundred years getting screwed over by the conquers and then being screwed worse when one of our own. Thanks Henry, you did a bang up job.
Okay, this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, although I am one, which perhaps is a topic for a different time, but I just can’t really say much about Wales that’s well…substantive. We have our own language, but no one uses it, but all of our signs are in it, because we hate English visitors and hope they crash and burn. And on that cheerful note, I think I’ll bid you adieu.
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