Malta in a Package
This week’s challenge requires us once again to go explore our city and see what emotion it communicates. Following that we are to interpret that emotion creatively. Being from an island the size of a spec, I decided to look at the whole country and see what it is on about in this day and age.
These days the new buzzword is that of Malta becoming a ‘cosmopolitan country’… whatever that means. I work in iGaming – an industry that involves interacting with people from different countries and very different backgrounds and it is also one of the biggest moneymakers in the island. Personally, being part of the “upper working class” yet I am from the southern part of Malta, allows me to see multiple facades of this country. In addition, as I get to mingle with locals as well as expats, I get to listen to multiple perspectives. From struggles to make ends meet, to hanging out at lavish parties that go head-to-head with those of Jay Gatsby’s.
With that said, condensing Malta into one single word is not easy. The life on the island has changed drastically in recent years. The population is becoming more multi-national, lifestyles are getting faster and we are running out of space. Right now I have a poll going on on Facebook and Instagram. I asked all the Maltese people to describe their town in one single word. I would like to see what they come up with. Should be interesting. In addition to the above, every Maltese town has its own characteristics. Mentalities of the locals differ greatly from the North to the South. Malta also has a number of regional dialects. Foreigners find this quite surprising considering the size of the island. They are even more surprised when they are exposed to the dialect of the Gozitan dialect – the dialect from the sister island of Gozo. Even Maltese people struggle with understanding that one at times. Architectural characteristics also vary from town to town. The Northern part of the harbour is more urbanised and expats tend to settle there, whereas in the Southern and Western areas it is more rural and traditional.
I also wrote down all the words that come to mind when describing Malta, from its aesthetics, culture, mentality and size. Feels a lot like a box of Quality Street or a bag of Bassett’s All Sorts. The words that stood out most from what I see everyday, the words I wrote down plus the answers I am getting from the poll, the words that best describe this country are:
- Compact
- Infused
- Dense
- Assorted
Malta is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. The average family own 3 cars – statistically when children own cars. Houses are being brought down and apartment blocks are thrown up instead. However, with all this diversity in such a small place, it is hard to get bored. There is a Maltese saying that goes ‘mimmlija daqs bajda’, meaning ‘stuffed like an egg’. Coming to think of it, an egg is a very a convenient form of packaging….
