… and then you get the people who let the side down.

I had a response to my blog yesterday (not on here) that said that because I was born in England, I am not Welsh and cannot call myself Welsh. This cheerful and welcoming response came from a Welsh person, and revealed one aspect of the Welsh culture – although I’m sure there are aspects of it in each and every culture, and thankfully it is only a small minority who behave this way – that I dislike, and that is insularity.

I was born in England, yes. I spent the first two years of my life in England, yes. But I’ve spent the subsequent sixteen years in Wales – I have been raised in Wales, all my memories are in Wales (I don’t remember anything from the first two years of my life!), I speak the language and have done since I was three, I will live here (if possible) for the rest of my life, my children will be brought up to speak Welsh, I will always champion the Welsh language wherever possible – but, apparently, I am still English and have no right to call myself Welsh.

Alright then. So, everyone who has come here from England, and now speaks Welsh fluently, and pays into the Welsh economy, and has a house here, starts boycotting Welsh schools. We boycott anywhere with Welsh-language signs or Welsh products – or we leave Wales altogether, taking with us a substantial amount of money from the economy. Of course, I don’t want to do that – but is that what people want us to do? Up here, a lot of the pupils in the Welsh-speaking schools have come from England and made the effort to learn the language, and the schools are struggling for numbers as it is – the amount of pupils in schools will decline if everyone who wasn’t born in Wales boycotts them, and lots of schools will have to close. Small businesses who pride themselves on offering a Welsh service and Welsh products will inevitably close because there aren’t enough people to use them, and the economy in Wales is going to take a sudden tumble.

I’m not sure if these people are Welsh nationalists or if they’re just small-minded, insular, village-mentality people who have this idea that if your grandfather’s grandfather didn’t live in the village, you will never be welcome here, but visiting the Eisteddfod yesterday assured me that the majority of the Welsh are welcoming people who are happy to see you make the effort to learn the language – they have categories in the competitions for Welsh learners, which just emphasizes the fact that they welcome people trying to learn – but to see a comment like that (particularly when I know I was never intended to see it!) is disheartening.

So, if we’re going to be pedantic, I’ll call myself a Naturalized Welsh Person – I have acquired my nationality. If people are so determined that the country we were born in determines how we should identify ourselves for the rest of our lives (a family friend was born in Dubai whilst her father was there on business but has lived in England for most of her life and has the strongest Durham accent I’ve ever heard, are we going to suggest that she isn’t English?) , perhaps we should all walk around with our place of birth and the nationality we associate ourselves with tattooed on our foreheads, so that if anyone hasn’t got anything better to do they can accost us and “set us straight”. Or, alternatively, the people who care so much can go and live on top of a mountain somewhere, where the nasty “English” people won’t bother them with their silly ideas of wanting to integrate and help the language and culture survive, and allow normal people to get on with our lives.

Yet another post about why I am proud to be Welsh.

So, today my boyfriend and I went to the Eisteddfod. For those not familiar with it, it’s basically a mass gathering of Welsh people, mainly for competitions (in this case, as it was the Urdd Eisteddfod, for primary/secondary school pupils and those under 25) in singing, dancing (folk and disco), instruments and also art and design, poetry and other things like that, as well as being a chance for people to meet up and celebrate Welsh culture and the Welsh language. There are also lots of stalls selling Welsh goods and promoting services in Wales.

It was amazing! If you live in Wales and you’ve never been to an Eisteddfod, I definitely recommend it – this year is the first time I’ve ever been to one, because my school wasn’t big on entering people for the Eisteddfods so I never got a chance to perform at any other than local ones which were basically concerts in the village or school hall – because there’s so much to see and do – lots of displays, lots of stands to do activities at, a funfair and the tents and studios where the preliminaries and final competitions take place. The talent is such a high standard and it really is amazing to see so many people who are so young, performing so well in the Welsh language. It provides some hope for the survival of our language and culture, something I will always support (one of the main reasons why I’ll be taking some of my degree through the medium of Welsh).

So, I will always be proud to be Welsh, and when I have children, they will be brought up to speak Welsh as their first language, and if they want to, I’ll give them every opportunity possible to perform at the Eisteddfod, because I wish I’d been able to be a bigger part of them when I was young enough.