Introduction – Susan Hyland

I have been Political Counsellor at the British High Commission in Islamabad since December 2011.

This is my first posting to South Asia.   Before coming to Pakistan, I was Head of Human Rights and Democracy Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, and before that I served in Moscow, Paris, New York and Oslo.  My main professional interests include defence and security issues and international organisations, as well as the counties and regions where I have lived and worked.

I grew up in the North West of England, near Liverpool, home to the Beatles and to football. My region has thriving links to people all over the world, including Pakistan. Like many people from the UK, I have a mixture of family origins – mainly Irish and Welsh, as well as English.

Educated at Oxford, Yale and the French Ecole nationale d’Administration, I think I’m still a philosophy student at heart, although many of my friends are in government and politics. I enjoy European literature, theatre and art, and am looking forward to discovering Urdu and Pakistani writings and culture.

I’ll be blogging about similarities and differences between  Pakistan and the UK. The first time I lived abroad, as a student in the US, I discovered that speaking the same language doesn’t guarantee understanding.  I also found that the moments of misunderstanding can be quite illuminating about cultural differences. I suspect the same will be true in Pakistan.

So, while everyone is helping me to feel at home here in Pakistan, I will try to blog about things that illuminate the differences and each other’s perspectives.