A liberality and a sense of fun

Thomas Keneally, Australian writer

To my post-colonial gaze, to be British is to be many valid, and some invalid, things. It is to be a child of the liberal democratic tradition, an inheritor of Magna Carta and Tom Paine, and to be a headquarters possessor of the language all we New World people from Karachi to Kansas, from Toronto to Tasmania, have inherited.

It is to retain, however threatened it may all be, an inheritance of social equity and, though perhaps you are too clamant about the virtues of an unwritten constitution, an institutional strength within which most Britons are willing still to locate their hopes and their protests. You were the folk who came up with the idea that governments that fall from power, and those who rise to it, do so without intervention by the armed forces. This is no small thing! This is the founding formula for sane politics.

The young Brit backpackers I meet daily during my bush walk on North Head are free of much of the sniffiness we travelling Australians used to encounter in Britain. There is no condescension in the British young, but I have to say condescension towards all the great unwashed of the world, previously referred to as colonials and wogs, was un-selfconsciously rampant when I first visited London. A dear lady with no sense of giving offence and no intention to do so, asked me, "An opera house in Sydney? You chaps don't go to the opera, do you?"

Often with such views went the idea that other empires were rapacious, but the British one operated purely for the benefit of the natives. That's an assumption not dead yet. It's there in the applauded Niall Ferguson's Empire: "A few slip-ups, chaps, like the Amritsar massacre, the concentration camps for Boers, the tyranny over slaves on West Indian sugar plantations, the Irish and Bengal famines, and traumatic convict transportation to Australia. But by and large they were lucky it wasn't the Spanish or the French!" And with an empire went the tendency to call anywhere beyond Marseille "out there", as if all the rest of us were not actually centrally geographically located where we are.

But to be fair, the fact of empire, even now, is kind of unavoidable, and we unwashed of outer space enjoy seeing amiable and intoxicated stockbrokers wearing silly hats invoking the land of hope and glory at the Proms. That tune of Elgar's won't and shouldn't go away. But pride in empire has to be tempered by a little reality.

So we come back: along with all else, there is a liberality and spaciousness and a sense of fun in your society and you don't always perceive yourself in those terms. I have received little but generosity from Britons, and I do not accept that's an aberrant experience for journeyers. British temper and whimsy transcend the dismal climate. I'm not saying that to make up for bashing the empire. I mean it when I say those words so hard for an Australian to utter: "I love yez, Poms!"

Thomas Keneally is a novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. His work includes Schindler's Ark, the Booker prizewinning novel of 1982

I can't help but succumb to the great values

Xiaolu Guo, Chinese writer

Although I've lived in Britain for 10 years, my listening comprehension is still not great. One day I was on a brightly lit stage discussing my novel with a BBC presenter. With a warm smile, she asked me: "Xiaolu, now you are an international presence, where do you call 'home' these days?"

I heard her differently, as my response indicated: "Ah, an international peasant!" I exclaimed: "Yes, as an international peasant, my home is any big city, though the odour of rice fields never leaves my memory for long!"

The whole auditorium burst out laughing. I didn't understand what was so funny.

Several years ago, when I decided to switch from writing in Chinese to English, I realised I'd embarked on a journey of no return. I'd lived most of my life in China, arriving in England when I was nearly 30: rather late to start a new life. I told myself I must accept everything on this small island, even though it's an impossible task. I know Britain is the biggest island in Europe. But still, the size of Britain is half that of Sichuan province. Sure, size isn't everything. The politics in Britain is actually even more complex than in China.

When someone Chinese goes British they have to lose their Chinese citizenship. The Chinese government doesn't allow dual nationalities. Once you apply for a British passport, you face a harsh consequence: losing Chinese identity to gain the western brand of freedom and embracing an inner state of exile. This is a big deal, especially for an artist whose work is rooted in her native land.

A foreigner becoming British must swallow some of their native cultural pride to leave space for developing British pride, though acquiring English pride is ruled out by birth. Nevertheless, you would not want to say this to an east London English plumber or butcher: "In China, even a peasant would have heard about Shakespeare, but how come you don't know about Lu Xun – our Shakespeare?" The homegrown cockney would think you barmy.

For years I asked myself: have I come to terms with the rainy sky, the everlasting winter, the grim and expensive train system, pie and mash, tea-less teabags? Not really. But this is all relatively superficial. The real difficulty is living cheek and jowl with alien politics in a small country. That's the real test, and it's impressive to see that most people in Britain have managed this social task.

For an international peasant, Britain is not a bad place. We peasants have lost our land – nature is being transformed into urban space, mining sites or industrial farms. Although I'm nostalgic for life in the countryside where mountains remain wild mountains and rivers retain their vigorous flow, I cannot help but succumb to the great qualities of Britain – the eccentricities, the tolerance to other cultures, and the quiet celebration of individual freedom.

Xiaolu Guo is the author of I Am China, published by Chatto & Windus

Tolerance is no longer the key

Chika Unigwe, Nigerian-born writer

One of my favourite Igbo proverbs says: "Offer food to strangers because one day you might be the stranger." My grandmother, Mamannukwu, quoted it a lot. No one left her house with an empty hand. She was a great believer in charity and would remind anyone who cared to listen of how she was a beneficiary of it: one of her sons went to university in England in the 1960s, courtesy of a British scholarship, and had stayed to work for "Ndi Britain" – literally, "the people of Britain" – as had two of her nephews before him.

My uncle had a good job and earned well in this foreign country which had adopted him so generously. Mamannukwu always juxtaposed my uncle's story with that of her cousin who during the pogrom against the Igbo in 1968 escaped from Kano, a place he had always called home, in northern Nigeria with nothing more than the clothes on his back.

To hear my grandmother, Britain was a big, munificent space, welcoming strangers and offering them food. It could do no wrong. Mamannukwu died just before Thatcher left Downing Street and the only time I ever heard her argue with my father was when he criticised Thatcher. "Ndi Britain" could do no wrong. As a child, my perception of the values of "Ndi Britain" was shaped by Mamannukwu, who lived with us. A perception that was fortified by the fact that I knew many people – ostensibly Nigerian – who were British simply because they were born in Britain (this automatic citizenship for babies born in Britain ended in 1983).

Living in a country where one could not even claim as state of origin the state in which one was born and raised, I found this magnanimity astonishing. When I visited England for the first time as a 10-year-old, my best friend and next-door neighbour was a British girl of Nigerian origin whose mother wore the hijab. If I'd been asked then to name one core value, I would have said, without hesitation: tolerance.

However, as the years have passed, I am starting to reassess my view. There appears to be a rise in racial prejudice and intolerance. The journalist and film-maker Jamal Osman – Somalian-born (but a British passport holder) – has stories of frequent encounters with racism (especially at the hands of security officers). And these appear not be a lone case, sadly. Mamannukwu might have now been disappointed in "Ndi Britain".

Chika Unigwe writes in English and Dutch

The love we feel for a place

David Gordon, American writer

In the mid-1980s, I lived in London. I was a poor student in Maida Vale, and though that neighbourhood, with its squatters and drug dealers, has been transformed beyond recognition, my memories and impressions remain. I recall excellent haircuts and shoes: mohawks and flat-tops and skinheads, Doc Martens, Creepers, Clarks. I recall people on the tube saying "Sorry" when I stepped on their toes – something like a miracle to a New Yorker. I remember the local Chinese takeaway having a sign that read: "No chips," since every Londoner ate fried potatoes with every meal.

I remember a distance, a reserve – it took a long time to get invited to someone's house – balanced by a straightforward graciousness, a genuine interest rather than a false warmth. I remember the fine sense of humour in those economically dark days, a wry, dry wit, a fondness for taking the piss. I remember consuming too much warm beer, since protocol demanded that each person bought a round (five guys = five pints) and having cigarettes pressed on me constantly. I also recall realising that the same pub was older than my whole country.

I was enamoured with British cursing and loved collecting epithets from Scotland or the East End. I also remember the attention to accent: How people could tell not just Irish or Scots, north or south, but even what school a person went to. I remember envying the traditional grace and ease in clothing and manners and my wonder that the Labour party even existed, unthinkable in Reagan's America.

I recall toast being served as a dish, chip butties and Marmite. Steak and kidney pies and mushrooms on toast. But I also ate kebabs and curries and Ethiopian food. I remember the obsession with gardens, whether on vast estates or tiny allotments. I visited Oxford and villages with thatched roofs and names like Bryant's Puddle on the River Piddle. Or Wool.

I recall a legacy of courage and suffering, of honour and fortitude. Of blood. An immeasurable literature which made the language itself a noble inheritance. An ancient history that had penetrated the rocks and rivers. I was immensely impressed by the don who could quote Shakespeare and Milton and Keats, but also by the guy I saw headbutt a nightclub bouncer.

So what of this is most essentially "British"? I am no expert on Britain or America, but I know that London and New York are possibly the most diverse places in the world. My own street has two churches, a yoga studio, a warehouse run by Hasidic Jews, a garage run by dreadlocked Jamaicans, a Pakistani café and a mosque. What makes my neighbours Americans, New Yorkers? One recognises it, senses it, certainly. But if it is so hard to define, how can it be legislated? Perhaps it is the love we feel for a place, the way those Londoners felt for their bits of garden. Perhaps, as with any living, growing thing, it is partly a question of what is native, and partly of what thrives in our soil.

David Gordon is the author of the novels Mystery Girl and The Serialist. His new story The Amateur is a Kindle single

I drank beer. I danced. I sang

Herman Koch, Dutch actor and writer

In the late 1970s I lived for two years in London with my Dutch girlfriend, in Chiswick to be precise, walking distance from the Thames, in a street called Glebe Street.

Our neighbours were an Australian couple. "We are so happy you came to live next to us," they said. "Please come and have a drink as soon as possible. We've lived here for two years now. No one in the street has ever invited us. These British people, they keep themselves to themselves. They are all crazy, for that matter."

We didn't point out the subtlety to them that we hadn't invited them either. They had invited us. We even felt a little cheated that our neighbours turned out to be Australian. We would have gone to Australia if we had wanted Australian neighbours – another subtlety we didn't point out.

Those were the years of musical revival. The middle ages of symphonic rock had just been replaced by the fresh sound of punk and ska. My girlfriend was more into opera. We went to Covent Garden once when her father, a classical musician, was over to visit us. It was Verdi.

I was very relieved when the father announced after the first interval that he was hungry and we'd better leave to get something to eat.

Because of our different musical tastes I went to all the possible concerts alone. The Police, the Jam, the Specials, Madness, the Selecter, Ian Dury & the Blockheads. I bought myself a pair of Dr Martens boots, a type of shoe I hadn't seen anybody wearing at Covent Garden.

At those concerts I drank loads of beer. I danced. I sang the songs I knew by heart from all the LPs I had bought at the Virgin store in Tottenham Court Road (or was it Charing Cross?), aloud with the bands.

I was happy. I smiled to boys with shaved heads, and to girls with two tons of black mascara around their eyes: because we were enjoying ourselves. We were happy. We were alive. I was in London in the late 70s and it was all happening. The girls at the concert didn't look at all like my girlfriend. I came home late. I tried to make as little noise as possible.

At a UB40 concert at the Hammersmith Odeon I saw something I had never seen before: an enormous heap of Dr Martens boots at the entrance. They had made all the skinheads take their shoes off before they were allowed in. Because of the steel capped noses of the boots. Because of the threat of violence. Never before or after did I see so many skinheads in bomber jacks walking around in socks.

The man at the entrance looked at my Dr Martens boots. Then he looked at my face. "No need to take them off," he said, and let me through.

We never visited our Australian neighbours to have that drink. "These Dutch people keep themselves to themselves," I can almost hear them say, even today. "They are all crazy, for that matter."

Herman Koch's Summer House with Swimming Pool will be published by Atlantic Books on 3 July

An eloquent story about Britain

Yan Lianke, Chinese writer

One of my enemies is my own memory. When it serves me right, all I want to forget can be forgotten; when it serves me poor, what I want to forget never goes away. Those who have been nice to me do not stay in my mind for more than a couple of days, but those who were not nice to me would not be easily forgotten no matter how much I want to. They would just stick on me like a deeply rooted rancour.

Maybe I am just an ungrateful person, an unforgiving villain. For example, when I was away from home, in Europe or Britain, I was always so warmly helped and received in glamorous London, in tranquil villages or in colleagues' homes. Giving me directions, helping me with shopping, treating me to western food and red wine, British people's gentility, politeness, warm yet restrained welcome were so overwhelming that I was just like someone trying to pick up the most beautiful flower among a numerous number of them. I was lost. I did not know which one was more beautiful. I could not remember where a certain one was blossoming and what kind of gentle fragrance it had given me. However, there is a story which has been kept always in my mind and unforgotten. It is such a trivial matter, insignificant as a sesame seed and light as a fallen leaf, but it is always there dwelling upon me and carved in my mind.

It was autumn 2009. I was having dinner at the same table with a few British writers, publishers and Sinologists. They are all elites in their respective fields, exceptionally knowledgeable and highly cultured. Their refined style of conversation and sense of humour often set off my boorishness by contrast. Back then, my son was studying in Britain, and somehow our dinner topic zigzagged its way to be about my son and his future marriage. A professor from a renowned British university suddenly asked me, "Does your son have a girlfriend?"

"Yes, he does." I replied.

"Where is she from?" he asked again.

"Britain," I answered.

The person who asked the question and all the British elites at the dinner table seemed to be stunned by my answer. They stopped eating and fixed their glare on me. After a moment, attempting to break the uneasy silence, a renowned translator asked me in a soft voice:

"Britain … whereabouts in Britain?"

I replied, "A young lady from London."

The dinner table is again shrouded in an extraordinary silence. I notice a subtle but clear change of expression in their faces. They are writers, professors or translators who all have a passion for the Chinese culture. While the facial expression was still undergoing further changes, a friend from London asked another question:

"Caucasian?"

I nodded firmly, "Caucasian!"

No more questions.

All the British elites at my table went silent. It seemed that they did not understand what had happened, how it had happened or how come it could happen. Silence. Such a heavy silence, like mountains and like ocean. Some of them lowered their head and started to eat again, but some still fixed their glare on me so persistently that it seemed that my family and I, and also my son, stole something from him (and Britain). Such a silence lasted for a long time. Ten seconds, 20 seconds, several minutes, 10 minutes and over … Not a single word was uttered at the dinner table. There was just complete silence, breeding energy that could bring down the heaven and open up the earth. In the end, I was not hardhearted enough to prolong the silence. I tittered and said, "I was just joking. It is not true. My son does not have a girlfriend."

Everyone seemed to be relieved and lightened up. The dinner table is blessed with witty conversations and laughter again.

This is just a small story, an interesting story about Britain and British culture. It has nothing to do with British people's views on the world, life or race. It is merely a story.

Yan Lianke is author of Dream of Ding Village and other novels and short stories