Union Jane on "ginger kids"

Editor's Note: Birds of a feather flock together...or, in this case, together in spirit but on separate continents probably for the best lest they get in copious amounts of legal, moral and ethical trouble. Welcome to the first of many guest posts from one of my friends exploring the wonderful world of Europe! We'll call her...Union Jane. You know, like Union Jack...but a girl...I'm hilarious and you know it.

Ginger Kids

British people are funny. They call all red-heads ‘ginger’. No really. ALL red-heads. Like, they don’t use the phrase ‘red-head’. I thought this was really amusing at first, because the only time I’d ever used the term ‘ginger kid’ was when I was making fun of my red-head friends, and it accompanied other derogatory terms like ‘fire-crotch’ or ‘does the carpet match the curtains’. And who doesn't love a good, old-fashioned low-blow!

But then I felt kind of awful for all the British red-heads because their only spoken characteristic is ‘ginger’, e.g. ‘do you remember that ginger girl from last week?’ or ‘I went on a blind date last night. It was with this ginger guy.’ And then I heard it so much that I began to think that it just isn’t offensive here and therefore I shouldn’t feel bad for them. Until I had this conversation over rosé (Hilarious side note - people seriously love that pink shit in Europe. The first time I saw a guy drinking it here, I laughed in his face and asked him what bet in hell he lost to have to drink that all night. My comment was met with an appalling silence. Who knew rosé was so sacred in Britain? Tact was never my forté) with a girl I met in London:

Note: please ignore the fact that I sound like a serious closet-case here. I promise I’m not gay – she was genuinely really lovely, and I’m just nice when I’m drunk sometimes. No, really!

Me: “I think you’re really pretty. I was looking at you across the table today and I thought ‘My gosh. She’s gorgeous.’”

Red-headed girl: “Really? Are you kidding?”

Me: “No really! You have the most beautiful blue eyes and I love your hair. I just had to tell you, I swear I’m not a lesbian, though.”

RHG: “What?! You love my hair?! That’s insane! People here HATE ginger hair! My dad told my mum when he married her that if his kids were born with ginger hair he would drown them. Both my parents have black hair. And they ended up with three ginger kids. I’m lucky to be alive!”

Me: “Your parents both had dark hair yet they have three kids with red hair?! Weird! I thought the red-hair gene was dominant?”

RHG: “No, it’s recessive. So you can imagine how pissed my dad was when we all came out, ginger as can be.”

Me: “Recessive genes, huh… Well, look at it this way: *swaying hands up and down, as if to represent a scale* you could have ended up with red-hair, or you could have had down syndrome. Personally, I think you came out on top.”

Editor's Note: If you need more on ginger kids, check out the International Ginger Kids Foundation