ABSTRACT
The scale of cultural difference for an American in England can at first be apprehended in terms of sheer size. The effect is of miniaturisation. Familiar objects, such as grocery carts or automobiles, appear bizarrely small. They are reduced to a proportion of their former self. It was quite fascinating to encounter, for example, refrigerators that were in every respect identical to those found in American homes, only much tinier. Inside these tiny refrigerators were even tinier freezer compartments. And the tiniest ice cube trays I had ever seen inhabited those tiny freezers. The ice cubes were the size of dice. This impression of ‘matchbox’ England was particularly pronounced when airborne: the neatness of the rows of houses, and their uniformity, contributing to an odd sense of familiarity offset by shifts of perspective. Such shifts became familiar to me in England, which is, as they say, divided from America by a common language.
