While it is nice having ministries like the Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that cyclists wear tight shorts and apples taste sweet, there are no ministries that deal with issues that matter most to expats. Here are four such ministries that the government needs to create.
Ministry of Not Very Interesting Cultural Observations
Your first weeks and months of living in a new country are full of keen observation and wonder about subtle cultural differences – observations that you want to share with someone who cares and won’t mock you.
The Ministry of Not Very Interesting Cultural Observations would employ agents to listen to your not-very-interesting observations and respond with enthusiasm. “So true! Servers here often don’t ask if you are enjoying your meal.” “Sharp eye! Most people do indeed close all their shutters at night.” “Great observation! That driver flashing their lights at you isn’t angry, but rather is inviting you to turn.”
Ministry of Social Group Formation
Let’s face it: making friends after the age of twenty-two is hard, and this difficulty is compounded when you move to a new country with numerous cross-border workers, a huge foreign-born population that splinters off into dozens of tightly knit micro groups, and a native-born population that is happy as long as you don’t hassle them.
That is why we are calling for a Ministry of Social Group Formation. The Ministry would form friendship groups based on shared interests (theater, beer, or bugs), sense of humor (intellectual, juvenile, or sick), and mutual dislikes (loud noises, smelly cheese, or certain bumpy textures). It would ensure that these groups meet up twice a month, and it would build adult playgrounds where expats could meet, have a chat, and play on a swing set.
Ministry of Minor Complaints
As an expat, you certainly face a number of annoyances, some of them so minor that you might actually be ashamed to share them with anyone. This could be a bakery employee not noticing that you were there first, speaking French to a server who responds in English, or the person in front of you in the supermarket queue neglecting to place a plastic separator on the conveyor belt.
That is where the Ministry of Minor Complaints would come in. You could submit your minor complaint, and an official would contact the offending party and ask him or her to apologize and rectify their conduct going forward. And if you felt that the Ministry didn’t take your minor complaint seriously enough? You could complain about that to them, too.
Ministry of Trivial Questions and Answers
As an expat, you are bound to have many trivial questions about why things are like that here, but no one to answer them. Why is the color of the minced meat different than in your home country? Why are subtitles for English-language films in French and Dutch as opposed to French and German? Why do vendors at Christmas markets insist that you return a plastic token along with the mug to get your deposit back?
The Ministry of Trivial Questions and Answers would be there to tell you everything you need to know. It would dispatch teams of experts to take every trivial question seriously and provide an answer – except those that are truly impossible to answer, such as why it is forbidden to say bonjour to a stranger while you both wait for a lift, but it is allowed or even encouraged once you are both inside.
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Originally published by RTL Today
