Quote: (12-07-2018 04:15 PM)Teedub Wrote:
Not sure why Bienvenuto mentioned Sikhs... they are on our side, he probably meant Muslims.
Also, Manchester isn't anywhere as bad as made out by someone previously. Ask Constitution45, he visited me recently and was very impressed with it. If anything, it's becoming too upmarket for my tastes. Plus, as a student, not much beats it. It's also cosmopolitan so your tastes will be met.
Avoid Bradford like the plague. Sheffield, Liverpool, Oxford are all good shouts. Though American accents aren't super rare in Oxford. I think for your diversity requirements/American accent uniqueness, Manchester is your best bet. When you're here, give me a shout and I'll show you the sights.
I think he probably meant that as well. The Sikhs as a group have always seemed pretty relaxed to me.
Back in the city where I went to university for my bachelor's degree though, there were a couple of foreign nationalities who were known to be trouble makers with Pakistani muslims being at the top of the list because they often behaved in a pretty intimidating gang-like way and kept themselves segregated from everyone else. I got in a conflict once with one of them because he thought I was hitting on his cousin/fiancé who was a muslim Punjabi girl from Hong Kong (yes, really). I could hear doors slamming and shouting from up on my floor after I went up to my room (their room was below mine) and, to be away from them, I wound up moving to another apartment that was owned by a British expat who nodded his head and told me that he understood perfectly when I explained my situation to him as if he had seen and heard it all before. In the words of my Iranian friend and neighbor at the time, "I understand your situation. I tell you man, we live in our country right next to them, and I tell you man, they have fucking asshole culture." For some reason, that was one of the funniest things I heard anyone say the whole 4 years I was in university there.
The Papua New Guineans got group-banned from the whole club district of the city because they had a big drunken brawl one night - over some tribal issue as it was explained to me later - that ended with a lot of broken stuff and blood on the floor. I was there to see that one because I was involved with a Papuan girl at the time but I was sober and did not join in. They were generally great as long as they were sober but I did see a fistfight between one of them and another student from Nigeria that started because the Nigerian guy had begun dating one of the Papuan girls. I dated one of the other Papuan girls too as I mentioned though but it was never something anyone cared about so I suspect there was probably more to it than just that. That Papuan girl once tried to subtly talk me into buying her from her parents using pigs and seashells as a dowry, telling me that I would basically own her and she would have to do what I say - . They worked it out of their systems though and everything was fine after that.
Weirdly, the Iranians were among the coolest groups of people I met while in college. I must have met at least 50 of them and I never had a bad experience with any of them. They were super nice and relaxed. None of them had any deep connection to or love for the established order in Iran though they had all been in the military as you apparently cannot get a passport in Iran until after you have served in the military. They were overwhelmingly of the "we are not Iranian, we are Persian" sort and they were great fun to hang out with.
An Aussie guy I knew who was an amateur boxer got ganged up on and wound up knuckle-dusting 6 Sudanese guys (this was less than a year before South Sudan became a country and these guys were all from the north) in a club one night over a girl but that was the only time I heard of them really making trouble.
The Africans (Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda etc.) were lots of fun and there were some lookers among them. Same goes for the Nepalese. Best part was that you know everyone is clean because we all (foreign students) had to get tested for various diseases like HIV/AIDS as part of the student visa process.
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Anyway, sorry to ramble. University was a fun time.
Machester does look like a pretty good option the more I look into it. I will definitely be sure to hit you up if/when I find myself there in Manchester and thanks very much for the offer.