Seen the Elephant

Blowing My Own Trumpet for a Change(!)

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Elephants trumpeting,
courtesy Mr Thinktank

April showers and flowers are here. Robotayaki, the new kid on the East 9th St restaurant block, is holding an ohanami (cherry blossom viewing party), with a special koto performance, this week.

Meanwhile, I have a few green shoots of my own to report:

1) I have started up a collaborative blog with a couple of writers I met through Seen the Elephant. It's called The Displaced Nation. The tagline reads: "Welcome to the curious, unreal world occupied by the international traveler." We launched it on April 1 (no fooling!), and the response has been encouraging.

Detail from
The Displaced Nation banner

Among other items, The Displaced Nation features:

A serialized fictional diary of a housewife-mother in London who becomes a trailing spouse in Boston: "Libby's Life."
Expat interviews, highlighting favorite objects, foods, and words picked up on one's travels . Our very first subject was Anita McKay, who has been a loyal follower of the lumbering elephant (she blogs at Finally Woken).
Food articles, exploring everything from acquired tastes (eg, Marmite, nattō) to movable feasts (foods you discover on your travels that you like so much, you carry on eating them).
Excerpts from classic expat writing.

I invite you to go in and take a look and, if you like what you see, subscribe to our posts, which are short and come out with frequency.

2) I'm building a new home for the elephant on Wordpress, which has more features. In other words, I don't intend to put my poor elephant, who has been burdened with my blogging ambitions for almost a year, out to pasture even though I'm spending time elsewhere. From now, he'll also be given a different sort of baggage to carry, more personal to me. If all goes well, the next time you see him he'll be ensconced in his new dwelling. Stay tuned for his "change of address" notice!

3) I had an interview about my nascent blogging efforts with a cool Web site, WWWORD.com. WWWORD bills itself as a "home for readers, writers, illiterates, browsers, time-wasters, mavens and bores — and all those who use, abuse, love and hate the English language."

One of the site's lead editors, Lucy Sisman, asked me why I'd started up Seen the Elephant and what I get out of blogging as an activity. The resulting profile strikes me as being more than anyone needed to know about me or this blog.

Still, I had a blast talking to Lucy and, in the process, became a fan of her writing. In the same week as my profile was published, Lucy contributed an "On Design" piece urging designers to leave certain products alone because their packaging is already perfect and has stood the test of time. She illustrated her point by taking objects at random from her kitchen cupboard — including a Marmite jar, a tin of Davis Baking Powder, and a can of Tuttorosso crushed tomatoes. Brilliant!

One of the main insights I offer on blogging is how difficult it is for writers to find their "sweet spot" in terms of length and frequency of posts. Seen the Elephant will be a year old next month, but I still don't post often enough and my posts are too long. Will that change in the coming year? Gaman shite iru (I will do my best).

Speaking of posts, my next post for Seen the Elephant will be on international marriage, a topic on which I fancy myself, a veteran of two such unions, something of an expert.

Question: Can you suggest any topics you'd like to see the "elephant" cover once it reaches its new home? Kindly let me know in the comments.

The Rain in Seville ... Was Simply Marvelous, Says Ex-Expat of Andalusia

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:11:00 +0000

QUESTIONS FOR KATE TURNER

This wannabe full-time travel writer left her native Lancashire behind to study Spanish at Oxford University. After almost 10 years of alternating between Oxford and Spain, she has now repatriated to the UK, where the rain isn't quite the same.

Spain is such a popular tourist destination for English people. I'm guessing it must be a wildly different place to visit than to live. The majority of Brits see Spain as "sun, sea and sangria." They flock there in hopes of living a carefree, easy life full of fiesta followed by siesta. In the busy tourist enclaves of the Costa del Sol — literally, sunshine coast — surrounding Málaga, in the south, it is almost like "Britain on Sea," with English the dominant language and fried breakfasts as common as tapas on restaurant menus. Many Brits move out here for a relaxed life in the sun, but for those of us who move to a less touristy part of the country, the Spain we encounter is a world apart.

Were you ever one of those British tourists? I holidayed in Spain with my parents several times as a teenager, mostly on the Costa del Sol.

Is it true it's always sunny there? I'm remembering the phrase: "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain..." Most of Spain's rain is in the northern mountains. But even in the south, I've been caught in downpours more than once. By the way, the Spanish translated the My Fair Lady lyrics as La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla ("The rain in Seville is marvelous...").

When you first went to Spain to live, I presume you steered clear of your compatriots, especially as you were there to practice language? I first moved to Spain in 2004 as required by my Spanish language degree course at Oxford. I applied to be an English Language Assistant in a secondary school, and although I could state which region of Spain I preferred, I couldn't be specific about the town they placed me in.

Where did you get posted? Alcalá de Guadaíra, a medium-sized town in the southwest, near Seville. With very few other international residents, Alcalá is hardly a traditional expat enclave.

How old were you then? Just 20. It was a little daunting. I was the first in my family to move abroad — or even contemplate it, as far as I know. I had no experience to draw on.

But you already spoke the language? To a certain extent. I wasn't very confident when speaking Spanish, and I had real difficulty understanding the Seville accent at first. Seville is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia, an area of southern Spain with many Moorish influences. The Andalusian dialect is famously difficult to get used to, even for Spaniards, as they don't pronounce some letters: mostly "s" and "d" in the middle or at the end of words.

So at this fairly young age, you lived by yourself in a small Spanish town where expats were a novelty. What hurdles did you face besides language? Alcalá was more relaxed and very family- and friends-orientated than what I was used to. It took me a while to adjust to the rhythms. Another challenge was the daily timetable: everything happens later in Spain than in the UK. People in Spain eat lunch from 2:00 p.m. onwards and dinner at around 10:00 p.m. I still remember the first time I went on a night out. My Spanish flatmate warned me that after a night of partying, it was typical to eat breakfast and then roll into bed at about 7:00 a.m. I was horrified and told her I’d be home at 2:00 a.m. Looking at my watch as I re-entered our flat, I realized she’d been right!

What did your students make of you? The boys all wanted to know what I thought about football players such as David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, while the girls wanted to know about the latest fashions. The idea of vintage horrified some of them, though: one student wrinkled her nose in horror at the thought of us British girls wearing second-hand underwear, until I reassured her that the trend didn’t go quite this far.

SPAIN'S ROYAL FIXATION:
Soon-to-be-royal Kate graces cover
of Spain's leading gossip rag (3.3.11).

Do the Spanish have as many stereotypes of Brits as Brits do about them? Of course. Their more positive images of us include la puntualidad inglesa (English punctuality). The images I’m less keen to associate myself with are of hooliganism and drunken partying. Many people asked me if it rains all the time and if we all sit down for a cup of tea at 3:00 p.m. every afternoon. More serious questions are about politics and the Royal Family, who are almost as famous in Spain as they are in Britain, for some reason.

Did you make Spanish friends in Alcalá? Yes, because the vast majority of the town’s population is Spanish. That said, it took me a couple of months to make friends, as it was difficult to socialize by myself in places where I might meet people. Eventually, one of my older students befriended me, and I got to know the rest of her crowd.

Can you tell me any stories that help to illustrate fundamental Spain-UK differences? I call these Blind Men's Tales of seeing the elephant. One "sees" the ears and another "sees" the trunk, and so on. Compared to British people, Spanish people draw the line in a different place about what is considered rude. They see — and comment on — the entire elephant when it comes to one's appearance. It took me a while to get used to being stared at and looked at up and down in public. One of my students once asked me whether I didn’t like Spanish food because I’d lost weight: quite flattering but untrue. Another time my male Spanish flatmate enquired whether, after an attempt to style my new short haircut, I was going to "go out with my hair like that." Much less flattering, and needless to say, I didn’t.

SPANISH DELICACIES:
Puntillitas (fried squid),
a typical Andalusian tapa,
courtesy Wikimedia

One of the biggest thrills of travel is the chance to try out new foods. You lucked out in being posted to Andalusia, which is renowned for its tapas and especially seafood. Did you develop any new favorite eats? I'm a pescetarian, meaning I eat fish but not meat. However, before moving to Alcalá I would only eat white fish prepared without any of the "nasty bits" such as the eyes and tail. The friends I made in Alcalá insisted that I enlighten my tastebuds. By the time I left, fried andaluz-style fish (pescaito frito) had become one of my favorite dishes, and I now love squid, prawns and other seafood. Oh, and I grew to love olive oil on toast, something that causes great bemusement now that I'm back in England.

If you had to design a meal that blends your favorite British and Spanish dishes, what items would you choose? Maybe cazón en adobo (fried dogfish in a sort of pickled marinade) with British-style chunky chips — the perfect Spanglish fish and chips!

Returning to your story: you went back to live in Spain for a second time after finishing university? I returned in 2008 and lived in Seville for three months. Then I moved to Madrid, where I lived for a year. I saw a different side of Spain in these cities. Unfortunately, I also found it more difficult to strike up friendships with Spanish people — especially in Madrid, where I worked for a bilingual company.

When did you start up your blog Tales of a Brit Abroad? About six months into my time in Madrid. At first the readers were just my friends, but I soon found a broader audience among the expat community.

THE DREAMING SPIRES:
Christ Church Meadow, taken by Kate
for her Travel Belles article

And I believe you also write for some other travel sites? I started writing for a travel site for women, called Travel Belles, shortly after starting my blog. My contributions include a two-part series on my life in Seville and a piece about Oxford. The latter marked the first time I'd written about the city that’s been my home on and off for almost a decade. As I was living in Madrid at the time, I can detect my own nostalgia in it. I also write freelance for Rough Guides when I can.

And now you're no longer a Brit abroad. When did you return to the UK? In July of last year, for a job opportunity. It wasn’t an easy decision. It had taken me a while to adjust to the faster pace of life in Madrid, but once I did, I grew to love the life I had there.

COUNTER CULTURE SHOCK:
Rainy and deserted London,
courtesy renaissancechambara

What were your first impressions upon coming back to the UK again: were there any elephants in the room that weren’t there before? Leaving Madrid at the height of summer for a relatively cold and rainy London was quite a shock to the system. I had to fight my instincts to book the first flight back to Spain. It was also my first time living in London, which didn’t help. Everyone in London seemed in more of a rush than in Madrid and hence less friendly and communicative. Even though both are capital cities, London is bigger and more stressful to navigate. In Madrid I spent a lot more time just walking around the city, even at night. It felt safe because so many Spanish people were out and about for the paseo, dining with their families until late. I also missed Madrid's lower cost of living, its more efficient public transport system, and the excellent coffee.

I see you've started up a new blog called This Reluctant Londoner. Well, I'm not reluctant in every way. I like being closer to my loved ones in the UK. In fact, the time I spent in Spain made me appreciate my British family and friends far more, as I saw how much the Spanish treasure these relationships. I'm also glad to have the British print media and TV easily within reach. And, as I report on my new blog, I've been enjoying the UK’s more diverse culinary offerings. One more factor is that I recently moved to Oxford for work and am feeling more settled. If this pattern continues, I might have to rename the blog to "This Contented Oxford Resident."

Meanwhile, you're keeping Tales of a Brit Abroad alive by interviewing other young Brits about their expat adventures. I'm not actually interviewing them but asking them to write about their experiences, good and bad, in their own words. I've learned a lot from these guest posts — not only about life in other countries, but also about how other people look at the expat life, which strikes me as being a highly individual experience.

I noticed that you also posted some stories of your recent travels to Singapore and Malaysia. Do I detect that you might be a Brit abroad again before long and if so, where? I enjoyed the Far East, but I have to say that Spain is the country with the strongest draw for me — I’m sure I’ll live there again someday. For now, though, I’m trying to settle in Britain and establish a career. Ask me again in a couple of years ...

Would you say you've become a hybrid personality, not quite all British and not quite all Spanish? The challenge of moving to another country by yourself really forces you out of your comfort zone, and some people choose to embrace that and make the most of their time abroad, getting to know as much as they can about the culture and seeing all that they can. I like to think I did that and, in the process, became not more Spanish but more confident and open minded. The Spanish way of being more open and approachable rubbed off on me too, and I now find it easier to meet people and make friends than I did before. On the other hand, I'm pleased I left Spain with my la puntualidad inglesa intact. I have yet to adopt Spain’s more casual approach to time-keeping...

PARTNERS IN BOREDOM:
Elephants at the Madrid Zoo,
courtesy Ludo29980

Last but not least, did you see any elephants in Spain? I guess you didn't see bulls as you're a pescetarian? Even though bullfighting originated in Andalusia... No, no bull fights for me. And I saw just one elephant — in a zoo in Madrid. It didn't look very happy, though.

Before, During and After Shocks: A Former Expat Reacts to Japan's Superquake

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:45:00 +0000

One of several broken picture frames
in our niece's Tokyo apartment,
just after the quake.

March 11, 2011, 6:00 a.m., New York City. My husband's cell phone rings super early and I wake up. I assume it's his work colleague in Tokyo, calling about the story they are is writing on whether Japan's prime minister will be forced to resign over the latest political funding scandal.

Unusually for me, I can't get back to sleep. I get up and go over to my husband at his computer and ask: "So is Prime Minister Kan stepping down?"

"No, no." Looking over his shoulder, he seems a little surprised to see me. "There's been an earthquake in Japan. A big one."

"Does that mean Kan is saved?" I have a one-track mind, and besides, I'm not really awake, not fully taking things in.

"Saved by the earthquake...for now."

I stagger over to my computer, and the earthquake news starts rolling over me, in waves as big as a tsunami. OMG, can this really be happening?

I turn on CNN. Yes, it's happening. Not only that, but it looks like Japan has just had the kind of earthquake I dreaded for all those years when living in Tokyo.

As I take in the scenes of devastation, part of me breathes a huge sigh of relief. I wasn't there! For me, earthquakes were the biggest wrinkles on the Japan elephant, one of the features of life in that part of the world that I could never quite get used to.

Just as pressure kept building under the plates of the earth's crust that lie beneath the Japan Islands, pressure kept building inside the worry-wart region of my brain: how would I cope if the next really big earthquake struck? (Question inside my question: What was a nice East Coast girl like me doing in an earthquake-prone country like this?)

But relief at having escaped that fate is quickly followed by guilt. Why am I thinking about myself rather than others less fortunate?

The people who've lost their lives or loved ones.

The people who are still alive but surrounded by water and debris with no way out.

The people who made it to makeshift shelter but are desperate for food, water and heating...

Photo of Matsushima Bay,
courtesy Wikimedia

I'm thinking of the victims and I'm also thinking of places. Years ago, I went to Sendai on a company trip when I was working for a Japanese advertising agency. Sendai is of course the city in Japan that was closest to the quake's epicenter. It bore most of the brunt of the tsunami.

My work colleagues and I spent a pleasant morning touring nearby Matsushima Bay, ranked as being one of Japan's most famous sights for its many small islands (shima) covered in pine trees (matsu).

The sea looked so tranquil on that day. Never in a million years did I imagine it would one day generate huge waves that would pummel the Japanese coastline.

Our word "tsunami" comes from Japanese. I guess I should have known better?

The Ghost of Earthquakes Past

The last major earthquake in the Tokyo area was the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 (7.9). It claimed 140,000 lives, mainly from firestorms. The quake took place in the middle of the day, when many people were cooking rice. Fire spread rapidly due to high winds from a nearby typhoon.

According to seismologists, such major quakes are periodic, occurring every sixty years or so. For the past 25 years, they've been predicting another big quake along a major plate boundary southwest of Tokyo, which like its 1923 predecessor, is likely to devastate Tokyo, Yokohama, and Shizuoka.

No one was therefore expecting the Great Hanshin or Kobe earthquake (7.3) of 1995. I was living in Tokyo at the time and remember watching in disbelief as some 200,000 buildings collapsed, along with much of the city's transportation infrastructure. The death toll rose to more than 6,000. Some 26,000 were injured.

Likewise, no one was expecting a massive quake in the northeastern part of Honshu, which like Kobe was not considered one of the island's most vulnerable areas. The Sendai earthquake occurred in a subduction zone, where the Pacific tectonic plate slides beneath the North American one. The plate boundary off the coast of Sendai may not have suffered a rupture like this for more than 1,000 years.

Earthquake Drill!

ARK Mori Building, Tokyo

Even in Tokyo, which was far from the epicenter, the March 11 quake struck hard, with buildings "swaying like trees in a breeze" as one American visitor put it.

Hearing such accounts brings back vivid memories of my own time in the city.

"ML-san, you go first!" my Japanese colleagues cry. We are standing on the plaza next to the ARK Mori Building, the 37-floor office building near the Roppongi area of Tokyo, participating in a mandatory earthquake drill. Our task is to make our way through a tent where they've simulated the kind of fire that might take place in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake.

The next thing I know, I am on my hands and knees, trying to feel out the edges of tent. I can't see anything, the smoke is so thick.

Later I tell off my colleagues for putting me in such a frightening, humiliating position. They laugh and say it was for my own good.

Around this time, I decide I don't like working in a skyscraper. Every time we have a tremor, the building sways, and I get seasick — and suffer from severe headaches for about a week afterwards.

Japanese earthquake kit,
courtesy Mr Wabu (Flickr)

After this drill I seriously consider getting an earthquake kit, with transistor radio, bottled water, flashlight and so on.

In the end, I don't bother with the kit, but I do get a small flashlight that I keep in my purse, as a kind of talisman to ward off the Big One.

Minor Tremors Can Be Fun

Upon learning of Japan's monster quake, I reflect, as I have countless times before, on what a difference a few shindo (seismic intensity, literally "degree of shaking") can make. Believe it or not, little earthquakes can be fun.

I'm thinking all the way back to my first sojourn in Japan, on a research exchange in Yokosuka, about 31 miles south of Tokyo.

I've just come home from a drinking night with some Japanese friends. I fall asleep as soon as my head touches the futon on the tatami mat floor.

I awaken around 3:00 a.m., noticing the pendant lamp on the ceiling swaying around.

Am I still drunk, or is this my first earthquake?

If the latter, it's not as bad as I thought.

Fast forward to several years later, and I am lying in bed in my apartment in central Tokyo. It's again around 3:00 a.m., and the building is shaking like crazy.

I try to picture myself heading out to the local shelter dressed in a nightgown and with my hair in curlers. "Just not happening!" I turn on my side and go back to sleep, an expression of amusement on my face.

Even during the daytime, the little ones can be fun. They are a conversation piece (where were you when it happened?) and a meeting stopper/interrupter, something office workers relish as a break in their routines.

There's also a practical reason for liking the less serious tremblors. The more little earthquakes you have, the less likely a big one is. Pressure is being released instead of building.

My Only Big Earthquake Experience, and a Moderate One at That

When God-awful things happen to innocent people, other human beings can find it traumatizing as well. They tend to relive emotions from similar, or even remotely similar, events in their own lives.

This time, because I actually lived in Japan, I'm replaying in my head my first scary quake, even though it doesn't in any way approach the scariness of the March 11 quake, the largest in Japan in recorded history.

I'm back in Yokosuka, sitting in a packed-out medical clinic, the only non-Japanese in the room.

I know only a few words of Japanese and am feeling a little intimidated, especially as I'm surrounded by people all of whom seem to be staring at me.

Actually, I can't really blame them. Most of the Americans who live around here belong to the U.S. naval base. They have their own doctors. That makes me an oddity in a public health clinic.

Eventually, my name is called, and I find myself in one of the doctor's cubicles. His desk is rather cluttered, and he, too, looks disheveled. I wonder if he's overworked and underpaid? He says he doesn't speak much English. I say I don't speak much Japanese.

Just at this moment, the room begins to shake. Nurses start running back in forth, and I hear some of the patients in the waiting room screaming "Jishin!"

"Earthquake?" I venture to the doctor. (Talk about learning language in context!)

He is sitting back in his chair, with his eyes closed, looking very Zen.

"Yes, earthquake," he says very slowly in English.

"Um...should we get under the desk?" The books on the shelf above us are rattling. I don't fancy a medical tome falling on my head.

"It's...okay," he says, and at that very moment, the shaking, which has been gaining in intensity, subsides.

Later I find out it was a moderate earthquake (6.7), and I congratulate myself for having the good sense not to take the pedestrian flyover when walking back home from the doctor's.

The Morning after the Tohoku Kantō Great Earthquake

March 12, 2011. I wake up today thinking about how much I admire the Japanese people for their gaman, or stoicism, in the face of major disaster.

So many of them are reacting to this catastrophic event with dignity and calm. Even more incredibly, some in the Sendai region are already hard at work clearing out the mud and rubble from their homes and other properties.

As for me, I'm starting to fret again. What if this earthquake is just the prelude to another, bigger one, as happened so recently in New Zealand?

Seismologists by their own admission are appallingly bad at predicting where and when the next deadly quake will strike, let alone the conditions that will produce a tsunami. I'm now thinking we should implore our family and friends in Japan to consider living somewhere other than the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Perhaps I'm overreacting? Moving is no guarantee against being blindsided by disaster, whether natural or man-made.

Speaking of which, Japan's natural disaster appears to have precipitated a manmade one, as officials now presume that partial meltdowns have occurred at two nuclear power plants. (Will horrors never cease?)

But back to my main point: no one here in NYC anticipated 9/11. Who's to say another place will necessarily prove safer?

Still, there is something a little creepy about not being able to trust the earth beneath one's feet.

And what about the water? I am remembering the waters of Matsushima again, so blissfully tranquil that even the famed Edo poet Matsuo Bashō was at a loss for words.

And now it's our turn to be nonplussed. In the battle of Man vs. Nature, it can be hard to remember that Nature holds a lot more cards. Or to put it in terms of this blog's central metaphor: don't be seduced by the elephant's majesty!

Question: Where were you when you heard about Japan's big quake, and what were your first reactions and thoughts?

Life's a Jolly Holiday: Why I'd Rather Be the Expat than the Tourist

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:23:00 +0000

On morning strolls with my two dogs, I often pass by the Student Travel Association office, New York University branch. Until recently, it had a poster of The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, in the front window.

Maybe it's the effect of mid-winter doldrums, but nearly every time I spotted that poster, I became possessed by the need to step into the world it depicts. If only I were Mary Poppins, I said to myself, and had her power of leaping into pictures.

As anyone who has seen Mary Poppins knows — wasn't it everyone's favorite film as a kid, or was I an Anglophile even back then? — Mary, Bert, and her two wards jump into one of Bert's chalk-pavement drawings. They land in an animated countryside, replete with merry-go-round and dancing penguins.

But in the case of this poster, I'd be landing on a train that's just left Paris for Venice just as a math teacher from Wisconsin (Depp) encounters a femme-fatale-and-a-half (Jolie).

Okay, maybe this 'oliday won't be so jolly (haha) given that the poster's tagline reads: "Perfect Trip. Perfect Trap." But what would be the fun of travel without a whiff of danger about it? Even in Mary Poppins, the chalk-painting scene ends in a madcap horse race that has us kids on the edge of our seats ...

So that's this winter's escapist fantasy. The only thing is, I can't quite sustain it. By the time I've finished walking my dogs, I'm having my doubts. I just think the plot could have been so much richer, and more convincing, if the Depp character had been an expat, not a tourist.

In my experience, being a tourist rarely affords such exciting opportunities. Or if it does, you're far too preoccupied with how you're going to get to your hotel without being ripped off, fend off jet lag, and find a cash point machine that takes your Cirrus card, to appreciate the thrill of mysterious strangers. And you certainly don't have the psychic energy required to give their intrigues the time of day.

But spending chunks of time overseas: that puts you in the kind of zone where you're open to the idea that anything can happen (it often does). Little by little, life takes on a cinematic, unreal quality.

Here is why I think an expat's life is so much more film-like than a tourist's:

1) An expat gets the chance to play many roles — with wardrobe changes to match.

There I am, all those years ago, flouncing around in my Laura Ashley dresses and Liberty print skirts as a graduate student at a British university.

Oh, and there I am again, a housewife in a provincial English town, sporting my Marks & Sparks separates.

And now look: I've moved to Japan and am approaching a glass-fronted office building in a demure Audrey Hepburnish suit adorned with silk scarf and pearls. Goodness me, was I really wearing my hair pulled back in a snood back then?

ML OLENSKA:
Irene Dunne is one up on me:
I have the opera-length pearls
but no opera gloves.

And look at me now: I'm setting foot again in the United States. My clothes are so exotic compared to what everyone else has on (not saying a lot since many of them appear to be in gym clothes), I could almost be a modern Countess Olenska, from Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Like Irene Dunne who played her in the 1934 film, I have a slightly foreign accent and elaborate hair style. (Come to think of it, I had the nickname of "countess" in those days — no joke!)

2) You want danger? Expats are far more likely to encounter it than tourists.

In England, I experienced everything from serious crime to fear of terrorist attacks. It was an era when people traveled into Central London with a certain trepidation lest the Provisional IRA had left another car bomb outside Harrods. It was also an era of unemployment, linked to rising crime.

Japan, too, despite its reputation for being safe and staid, offered dangers aplenty. I was in Tokyo when the Great Hanshin earthquake struck Kobe and pandemonium ensued. And, little did we expats suspect that just a few months later, we'd be coping with sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway. Several people perished in the station just down the street from where I lived, and there were warnings for several weeks afterwards about further attacks. That was pretty petrifying.

3) The old adage is true: the longer you stay in a place, the less you know about it.

TIME RUNNING BACKWARDS?
Expats in Japan can relate.

Perhaps I'm exaggerating — memory has a way of distorting things — but I don't remember having many days as an expat when I wasn't baffled, beguiled, or confounded in some way.

England is the land of the lace curtain, something Agatha Christie, the Queen of Mystery, understood all too well. (Don't know about lace curtains? They permit you to see out while others can't see in...)

As for Japan, that's a country where most foreigners feel as though they've stepped through the looking glass because pretty much everything is the opposite of what they've experienced before. And unlike Alice, most do not emerge unscathed.

At about this point, you're probably thinking I've forgotten about how life overseas can be just as humdrum as it is back home. All I can say is: get with the program.

Chances are, if you're reading this post, you're the kind of expat who, if the going gets really rough, as it has in Libya right now, can expect to be rescued by your government in a plane or a boat.

So take it from me, your resident repat: time to own the aura of glamor, danger, and allure that goes hand-in-hand with a privileged expat existence.

And don't be afraid of looking like a fool when swanning around in your kimono or Scottish Highland kilt. The Tourist itself had pretensions of being a Hitchcock-style thriller, only to be lambasted by critics. Nevertheless, it got a Golden Globe nomination — in "comedy."

No shame in that, though I would expect your version, which will be entitled The Expat, to succeed in paying homage to Hitch, since you have the material. And you know the other good thing about that title? It anticipates the sequel: The Rex-Pat.

Now if that doesn't scream Oscar potential, I don't know what does.

Instant Poll: Which one gets your vote when it comes to thrills and glamor: tourist or expat?

After 9 Years, Expat Accordionist Squeezes into Asia's Music Scene

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:51:00 +0000

QUESTIONS FOR ALEXANDER
SHEYKIN

This Uzbek-born Russian has seen the "elephant" twice — first in his native Russia and now in Korea. Meanwhile, he has introduced Koreans and other Asians to another bellower: the accordion.

When did you realize that you wanted to be an accordionist when you grew up? My mother and her twin sister both play the accordion, so it's been part of my life ever since I can remember. When I tried to play myself at age 6, it came naturally. It's the only thing I've ever excelled at. My only doubt was about whether I could make my living as an accordion player. Fortunately, I persisted.

Piano & button accordions,
courtesy Wikimedia Commons

This may not be true in Russia, but when people hear the word "accordionist" in the West, they tend to picture a wandering minstrel accompanied by a monkey who passes around a tin cup. Part of what I do is educating people that the accordion isn't just polka and the kind of folk music a busker might play. There are two basic types: the button accordion and the piano accordion. The former has its origins in Russian folk music, while the latter was patented in Vienna in 1829. I chose to learn the piano accordion because that is what my mother and aunt played, and I fell in love with the sound.

What was it about the sound that captured your fancy? Because it has bellows as well as reeds, the accordion can make a sound reminiscent of the human voice. It has breath, it has timbre, it has a soulful tone. The other thing I like is the accordion's versatility. It can play in the highest registers or the lowest, loud or soft. An accordionist can be a soloist or an accompanist. He or she can play any style of music, be it classical, jazz, rock, or folk. I often refer to my instrument as a portable mini-orchestra.

On that note, let's hear you play:

You were born in Uzbekistan, one of the five so-called Stans of Central Asia, which achieved their independence from the Soviet Union when you were around 15 years old. Is it fair to say that experience made you something of a crazy mixed-up kid? I was born in one place, Uzbekistan, but can't live in it, and I can live in in another place, Russia, but it doesn't feel like home. The situation was, and remains, crazy for me, yes.

But you were lucky insofar as Russia provides top-notch musical training. Russia places the accordion is on the same level as violin, requiring 14 years of rigorous training. My mother gave me lessons when I was very small. She enrolled me in music school in Uzbekistan when I was around nine years old. After five years, it was time to go to music college. I went to Kazakhstan for that phase, after which I went to Russia for five years of additional study at the Ural State Conservatory. So, yes, I'm well trained!

Why do you think you found it so challenging to adjust to life in Russia? I first moved to Russia at age 20. The people seemed insensitive and thicker skinned compared to what I was used to, and the country itself was unwelcoming. Even though I'm Russian, I had to wait until I'd graduated from the conservatory before I could obtain citizenship and sponsor my mother and sister to come over. They now live in Yekaterinburg, on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, but not me. I jumped on a plane the day after graduation.

To go where? I went to Korea. Just before graduating, I'd heard that Lotte World in Seoul, the world's largest indoor theme park — it's in the Guinness Book — was holding auditions. I often played in a duo with one of my fellow students. I asked her if she wanted to try out with me. The first thing she said was: "Where's Seoul?" And now she's married to a Korean with two kids!

Did you know where Seoul was? Yes, but I didn't know how much I would love it there, too. Signing on with Lotte World was an easy way to travel to Korea. Everything was taken care of: our transport, visa, housing...

SUPER SCARY: An elephant
in Lotte World

When you got to Lotte World, did you see any elephants? As a matter of fact, I saw one right away in the Jungle Safari. It was huge, with a moving head, and was making some rather scary trumpeting noises.

What was your first impression of Seoul? I felt at home there straight away, which is quite remarkable considering I could speak neither English nor Korean when I first arrived.

And now you speak both? I try to.

How did you learn? I taught myself. Think about it. I couldn't attend a language school for English as you had to know Korean, and the same thing for Korean-language schools: I had to know English. As my English improved, I attended the weekly English classes given by the Mormon Church, which I found very helpful. (We always said a short prayer at the end, but they didn't try and convert me.)

FAMILIAR FOOD: Kimchi
(courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Why do you think you took to Korean life so quickly? One reason is the weather. The area near the Ural Mountains where I lived with my mother and sister goes down to -40 °C in the winter. Seoul is much milder and has four distinct seasons. And because of my background, I was already familiar with Korean food. There's an ethnic Korean community in Uzbekistan. When they were forcibly relocated to the region from the Soviet Far East under Stalin, they brought their kimchi with them. Russian call it chimcha.

Did the Koreans respond well to your music? That's another reason I adjusted so quickly. We musicians speak with our souls, and the audience responds with its heart. Koreans have big hearts. They love live music and feel it very deeply. Also, because Korean society appreciates music, professional musicians receive fair compensation.

MAJOR MILESTONE: Alex's first CD. Also check out
his new Web site: www.alexacco.com

You've been living in Korea for nearly a decade. Is the grass still greener? My nine years in Seoul have gone by in a flash. For the past seven years, I've been building my career as an independent musician. I've played stadiums, concert halls, dive bars and jim-jill-bangs [Korean bathhouses]. Normally I play solo, but I also have a tango quartet, Coamorous. And sometimes I play in a Russian folk band with balalaikas. I made my first CD, Here & There, a few months ago: it features my own arrangements of world-famous pop songs and some Russian hits. I also teach, mostly to private students. One more regular activity of mine is acting on Korean TV: I'm on a weekly "true or false" show.

Ah, you're what the Japanese call a talento! As you were describing your life in Korea, I was thinking that in addition to your seeing the elephant in terms of new adventures, you've also brought an elephant with you for the Koreans to ogle at, by which I mean your music and your talent. After nine years, has Korea come to appreciate this? I can safely say I've made the accordion more popular in Korea than it was when I first arrived. It helps that I have my own YouTube channel, by my stage name of Alex Acco, with more than 250 videos of my concerts. The Internet has also helped me extend my network throughout Asia. I've been invited to play gigs in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, China and Indonesia. When I went to Taiwan, I was greeted at the airport by some fans carrying an accordion.

Asians are famously proficient at Western instruments like violin, piano, and flute. But not the accordion. My instrument won't become big in the region until Asian countries decide to support accordion-learning at the level of the state-run music academy.

Are any Asian countries doing that? China is beginning to. A leading music conservatory in Beijing has recruited Russia's top accordion teacher. He reports that the Chinese students have a very good attitude. They follow instructions and are very disciplined.

Will you ever leave Korea? I've been asking myself that question a lot lately. I am 33 years old. I'm not really Russian, but I'm also not Korean. I think that if you live in one place for a while, you should be rewarded with something more than just being able to call the place home. I will always be a foreigner in Korea.

But where would you go, especially as you clearly have no desire to rejoin the Russian herd? I'd prefer an English-speaking country. I've been thinking about Canada but my visa application got turned down twice.

Out of curiosity, what is the accordion scene like in the United States? Actually pretty good. Many people play the piano accordion as well as the squeezebox (the Mexican version). There's an American Accordionists Association (AAA) that organizes annual concerts and events. And my idol in the accordion world is legendary jazz accordionist Art Van Damme. He died a year ago this month, age 89, but was going strong almost to the end.

~~WHITE~~ RED ELEPHANT: Alex's treasured Hyundai

One more question that I've asked of all of the blog's interviewees. Have you collected any of what I call Treasured White Elephants, which you'll take with you when you eventually leave Korea? Well, I don't regard it as a white elephant since it helps me earn a living, but I do have a precious Hyundai accordion, which will accompany me wherever I go next.

As a traveler myself, I envy you your musical talent. It gives you an entree wherever you go. Music is an international language. It doesn't require translation. Regardless of where I end up, I can be happy as long as I can play my music and have the chance to share it with others. The accordion has given me great joy every day of my life, and when I have the chance to transmit this feeling to an audience, I am in my element. It doesn't get any better than that.

Of Eliot, Elephants, and Expat Mascots

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:20:00 +0000

Valentine's Day is upon us. But before gushing about my beloved el-e-phant and all it means to me, I want to talk El-i-ot, as in George: another extraordinary creature with a prominent schnoz. She is coming to mean a lot to me, too.

Somehow I missed out on the works of George Eliot (the nom de plume of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans) when I was a student.

As an expat in England, I lived in fear that someone would someday expose this lacuna. I tried to make up for it by faithfully watching all the episodes of the BBC adaptations of Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss.

But I still didn't pick up the books.

Years later, I am back in the United States and, Kindle in hand, have decided there can be no more excuses, especially as Eliot's oeuvre can be downloaded for free. While I have yet to tackle Middlemarch, I'm now halfway through The Mill on the Floss.

And I've already made some significant discoveries.

For all these years, I've missed out on Maggie Tulliver — a lively and free-spirited child, as smart as a whip, said to be based on Eliot herself. As the daughter of the man who owns the mill on the River Floss, Maggie is the novel's protagonist.

I've also missed out on an exchange that could have enhanced my understanding of why people travel.

Courtesy The Dunktionary

I refer to the scene toward the start of the novel when Maggie pesters her father's head miller, Luke, to tell her whether he's read any books apart from the Bible. He confirms he hasn't, so she offers to lend him one of her picture books, called Pug's Tour of Europe:

...that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know, and one sitting on a barrel.

When Luke owns up to having a low opinion of Dutchmen, Maggie says: "But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our fellow-creatures."

Animated Nature, by William Bingley
(available from Google Books)

Seeing that Luke has not been swayed by her appeal, Maggie wonders if he might like to take a glance at Animated Nature instead:

...that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail — I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke?

To which Luke responds that he "can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work" as that's what "brings folks to the gallows."

Now, I have to hand it to Maggie. For a youth who has spent her short life in the provincial St. Ogg's, she really knows her onions. She understands the basic reasons why people might venture to other places: to see and get to know their fellow-creatures.

Plus can I hear Eliot gently mocking us by insinuating that we sometimes conflate our fellow humans with strange animals? ...

Hang on a second, a kid is tugging on my arm. Goodness, it's the insatiably curious Maggie. She says she has a question for me:

Why an elephant, ML? Why not a kangaroo or a civet-cat, which are also featured in Animated Nature?

I'm not used to interacting with fictional characters, but what the heck, makes a change from talking to myself:

Maggie, you have a point.

Like the elephant, the civet is native to Africa and Asia, two continents that remain inscrutable to many of us Westerners.

And the first Europeans who saw kangaroos did not know what to make of a creature that has a head like a deer but without the antlers, and that stands on two legs like a human but hops around like frog. They could come up with only one word for it: "astonishing."

Wait, there's another voice cutting in. No way: it's GEORGE!!! She's saying she has a question for me, too:

As you know from making it halfway through The Mill on the Floss, Maggie has a strange and twisted relationship with her doll. Could it be that you, too, have an elephant toy or figurine to which you have a preternatural attachment? Perhaps you keep it hidden in your attic ...

ML's elephant collection

Ahem, George, I haven't got an attic, but I suppose you might mean metaphorically?

I don't mind telling you that I've collected a number of elephant objects, but only since the launch of this Web log last year. I find one or two of them colorful or cute, but that hardly qualifies as an elephant fixation.

Besides, I've met people who are far more elephant besotted than I am: Véronique Martin-Place or Beth Lang, for instance.

And then there's Ona Filloy, a New Zealander who lives in a Victorian house in Brisbane. She and I have exchanged several messages about her elephant curios: a magnificent ebony-and-ivory elephant head and lamp ...

Oh, wait. George is looking impatient. She wants to ask another question:

Then why, perchance, did you settle upon the elephant as your mascot for experiencing life in other parts of the world?

Hmmm... For such a formidable intellect, I find her a bit nosy (hahaha). Still, let's see if I can impress her:

George, I thought you'd never ask!

I could give lots of reasons, but here are three you should find compelling:

1) By reviving the expression "seeing the elephant," I'm hoping to put the trials and tribulations of the modern-day traveler in perspective.

You see, today we have the luxury of traveling in vehicles that fly even faster than birds. But even though this makes life so much easier, we are constantly grumbling about it.

We forget that our counterparts in your century, who came up with the expression "seeing the elephant," had it so much worse.

I'll give you two quick examples:

1. Emigrants who set out for California. Perhaps there are some 21st-century adventurers who would prefer to dine with the Donner party than have Christmas dinner in an airport because of flight delays, but I haven't encountered them yet. The Donner party is, of course, just one among many who trekked some 2,000 miles across continent in the mid-1800s in hopes of seeing the elephant. But they are distinguished for their botched attempt at taking a "shortcut" to California, only to get trapped in the frozen wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. (No, you don't want to know what they ate!)

Print of an original painting: "Antietam,"
by Thure de Thulstrup, courtesy The Old Print Shop

2. Young men who fought in the U.S. Civil War. The expression "seeing the elephant" has a secondary meaning of seeing battle for the first time. If today's soldiers could time-travel onto the battlefield of Antietam, the scene of the most brutal hand-to-hand combat in U.S. history, don't you think they'd appreciate their unmanned aerial vehicles even more?

2) The elephant, with its massive size and theatricality, is the perfect symbol for why most of us travel.

As Maggie intimates when she offers Luke her picture books, most of us go abroad because we yearn to see great sights and to be entertained.

As the largest land animal, the elephant is symbolic of that yearning. It represents the kind of fear-laced excitement most of us will never experience unless we seek it out, which, for most of us unimaginative types, entails venturing to points unknown.

Today we no longer approve of training elephants for circuses. But the same qualities that made the elephant such a successful performer for Astley's Royal Amphitheatre in Lambeth — intelligence, personality, and a certain quirkiness — are also on display in the wild.

Audrey Delsink, who has observed many an African elephant, has a favorite story she likes to tell about a proud elephant bull. She and several others were sitting in a land rover [a kind of horseless carriage] watching as Charles (that's what they called him) tried, but failed, to push over a large tree. Charles looked up, saw them laughing at him, and walked over and pushed a smaller tree right down on top of their car! Delsink claims he then sauntered off with a toss of his head and a self-satisfied swagger.

Notably, the only other animal on Maggie's list that can hold a candle to the elephant in these respects is the ocean sunfish, which with an average adult weight of 2,200 pounds, is the world's largest known bony fish.

But as I think as you can see from watching this little movie (yes, we now have moving pictures!), its antics are less than enthralling:

3) The elephant is super trendy nowadays.

George, welcome to the era where actors, actresses, musicians, sportspeople and other popular entertainers are the new Greek gods. We call them celebrities ("celebs" for short).

Right now among the celebs, elephants are all the rage. Here are some recent examples:

1. Elephants keep turning up at celebrity nuptials. At the end of last year, a celebrity couple included an elephant with an elaborate headdress in their wedding celebration in Los Angeles (the closest thing we have to a Mt. Olympus, which isn't very close since it's terribly flat).

Said couple weren't the first — another pair tied the knot with elephants and camels a few months before them; nor will they be the last.

A celebrity super couple — think of them as our Aphrodite and Ares — are rumored to be planning a Hindu-style wedding to take place this year in Jodhpur, India. Will the groom ride in on an elephant? Ladbrokes in London is offering 10-1 odds.

Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox

2. An elephant is reputed to have bonded very closely with a celebrity heart-throb. A young deity with the face and reputation of Eros says he accepted the lead role in a movie called Water for Elephants because he fell head over heels with his co-star: a 9,000-lb. elephant named Tai.

George, I know you are thinking: so what? There's no reason we mortals should feel compelled to mimic these gods and their frivolities. (This blog even has its own label for that: Dumbo Culture.)

But George, hear me out. You Victorians took for granted your ivory cutlery handles, musical instruments, billiard balls, and other items. Little did you know the toll it was taking on the elephant population. Allow me to share a chilling statistic: in 1831, ivory consumption in Great Britain amounted to the deaths of nearly 4,000 elephants.

George, the sad truth is that as a result of the fashion for ivory, the elephant population is now at risk.

But several celebs are doing their best to change that. One or two of them have recently adopted elephants in support of their conservation.

But I digress. My real reason for applauding the celebs and their predilection for the pachyderm is a matter of self-preservation: I'm hoping to get a celebrity endorsement for this blog.

On that note, and without further ado, I offer my valentine to the elephant. (Yes, George, we still celebrate Valentine's Day, despite dropping the "saint.")

So, George, what do you think of my reasoning? ... Yoo-hoo, George, ayt? ... George, please come back! Was it something I said: about the ivory, about your proboscis? I promise to get cracking on Middlemarch to atone ...

Question: So now it's your turn! Do you think the mascot for expats, rex-pats, and repats should be:
a) an elephant
b) another creature ____________
c) a range of creatures, as in Maggie's book.
Extra credit: Name the bird in Maggie's book that "sits on its tail."

Charity Is Harder Than You Think: Tucson from a Repatriate's Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:55:00 +0000

The time has arrived for me to look in the mirror and say:

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is most ignorant of all?

And for the mirror to respond:

You are the most ignorant of all! You think that just because you have traveled the world, you are a more tolerant, more open person than others who haven't. Well, think again ...

Why am I being so hard on myself, you may wonder? Recent events — I refer to the shooting near Tucson, Arizona — have prompted me to eat an extra-large slice of humble pie.

As soon as the news started to break on my Twitter feed, I had the shooter pegged as an Angry White Male (AWM) who was trying to do in his congresswoman because she'd voted for health care. He'd really wanted to assassinate President Obama but targeted his congressional representative as the next best thing. When I learned that Gabrielle Giffords was Jewish, it made even more sense. As a Democrat, a woman, and a Jew, she made a good substitute for America's first African American president ("the other").

My narrative was further enhanced when I learned that those who helped to save the Congresswoman's life included her gay Latino intern and a Korean-born trauma surgeon. It figured the Good Guys would be the kind of people the Bad Guy doesn't approve of (homosexuals, immigrants).

What a script I had going! But there was just one problem. As everyone now knows, the perpetrator, Jared Loughner, doesn't fit the profile of an AWM. He is a loner with no clear political affiliation or agenda.

In other words, I'd leapt to the wrong conclusion, and my conscience has been niggling me ever since. Why didn't it occur to me right away that Loughner could simply be a paranoid schizophrenic? There are, of course, no boundaries — political, cultural, or racial — on mental illness. Seng-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, was a Korean-born permanent U.S. resident.

The nation is still mulling over the lessons of the Tucson tragedy. While I have plenty of opinions on what those should be, mostly having to do with my experience of living in countries with more restrictive gun ownership laws, I will focus instead on what Tucson has taught me about myself, and the biases I possess towards other Americans.

Grown-up male Komodo dragon
w/ forked tongue, courtesy whl.travel

1) However much I've opened my heart to other cultures, I'm not above delivering unfair judgments on other people, including — and especially — my compatriots.

In a previous post, I called out my fellow Americans on their xenophobia, condemning those who are spreading dangerous lies about Muslims, Muslim Americans, and President Obama.

As it turns out, I, too, subscribe to negative stereotypes of other Americans. Mine are of those who identify themselves as politically conservative. Unless told otherwise, I tend to assume most of them are hard-core capitalists, flag-waving patriots, religious fundamentalists, white supremacists, birthers, libertarians, gay bashers, and NRA supporters, when perhaps that isn't the case.

What's more, I'm all too willing to believe that, if provoked, many right-wingers wouldn't hesitate to take out someone who struck them as being un-American in some way.

I'd love to be able to excuse myself by pleading that I've lived out of this country for so long that I can no longer negotiate its political landscape. (Notably, over on the Matador Network, a bunch of us have been debating whether expats can be cut some slack for becoming apathetic towards the politics of their homelands.)

But the fact is, I'm biased.

Of course, I encountered political conservatives during my days as a rex-pat: e.g., Britain's Little Englanders and Japan's right-wingers who drive around in sound trucks. But I tended to think of them as part of the experience of getting to know the elephant wrinkles and all.

But now that I'm back with my own people, I feel as though I've entered a a den of Komodo dragons: full of venom and capable of cold-blooded murder. And you know something else? They scare the living daylights out of me. It's not so much fear of "X" as terror of "X."

2) It's almost too shameful to admit, but I could use a refresher course in the Golden Rule.

Let's see, I think it works like this. If I don't want other Americans to stereotype me as one of those crazies who gets caught up in living abroad and renounces all ties to the United States, I should avoid unfairly stereotyping them.

Apparently, I'm not alone in having lost the hang of the "do onto others..." maxim. Former-Roman-Catholic nun-turned-religious-historian Karen Armstrong says that most of us "moderns" are lacking in compassion: i.e., the moral imagination to place ourselves in the shoes of others. She feels so strongly about this that she has written a book outlining the 12 steps to a compassionate life. (That was after she won a TED prize to create a Compassion Charter.)

Armstrong distilled her advice into "12 steps" for its resonance with AA. She thinks that people of today are addicted to bludgeoning their opponents into accepting their point of view. We define ourselves by our hates: this person is everything I hope I'm not (but fear I might be).

Armstrong's admonitions have gotten through to me. I'm reminded of my expat adjustment process, first in England and later in Japan. I can remember in both countries reaching a stage where I told everyone: "You know, the more I learn about this place, the more I realize how little I know." Admitting my ignorance was a kind of turning point. From then on, I began to revise my initial impressions, e.g.:

English people are reserved not because they are cold and unfeeling but because they live on a small, overcrowded island with a capricious climate.
Japanese people are suspicious of foreigners not because they are all xenophobic but because they are still recovering from centuries of self-imposed isolation.

What I didn't realize then, and am beginning to realize now, is that it works just the same in my own culture. In the case of conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists, I suppose I might say:

America's political conservatives are full of anger not because they want to lash out with violence against people who aren't like them but because they feel threatened by a country that's changing in ways they don't understand or approve of, and threatening to leave them behind.

The above may need further tweaking, but I hope it at least constitutes a baby step towards absorbing new knowledge and overcoming my destructive stereotypes.

Question to other expats| rex-pats| repats: Have you, too, found that national tragedies like Tucson reveal uncomfortable truths about your relationship to the people and politics of your native land?

What Do Barack Obama and Isamu Noguchi Have in Common? Mothers Who Saw Elephants...

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:27:00 +0000

Perhaps it's not surprising given my life-long tendency to think (a little too far) outside the box, but for some time now, I've been fixated on what I see as the close resemblance between Barack Obama and world-famous sculptor and architect Isamu Noguchi. Part of it is their mixed-race, movie-star looks:

Isamu Noguchi and Barack Obama as youths (Noguchi photo by Berenice Abbott).

But the other piece of it is that both men benefited from having parents of different races and cultures. They saw the elephant early in life, which influenced their careers in a positive way.

Isamu Noguchi (whose paper lantern lampshades I have coveted ever since living in Tokyo) was able to infuse mid-century modern design with Japanese minimalism, to stunning effect.

And Barack Obama was able to infuse community organizing in Chicago with the Asian art of consensus seeking, which he'd learned during his formative years in Indonesia.

But then something funny happened. After a long period of shunning sightseeing, I decided to play tourist again. First, I took an outing with a friend to the Noguchi Museum in Queens. Second, finding myself in the role of trailing spouse in Jakarta, Indonesia, I made a little pilgrimage, as it were, to the Beseki School, which President Obama attended between the ages of 8 and 10.

From left: Noguchi sculpture in front of the Noguchi museum; inscription on statue of Obama at the Beseki School.

These two expeditions diverted my attention away from these two supremely talented men and toward their mothers: respectively, the journalist and educator Léonie Gilmour, and the anthropologist and Indonesia specialist Stanley Ann ("Ann") Dunham :

From left: Léonie Gilmour in 1912, courtesy Wikipedia; S. Ann Dunham's yearbook pic, courtesy HistoryLink.org.

Gilmour was born in 1873 in New York City and attended the exclusive women's college of Bryn Mawr. Dunham was born in 1942 in Wichita, Kansas, and pursued education in Hawaii.

But while they lived in different eras and parts of the country, their biographies show some extraordinary parallels.

Both women predated the era of widespread international travel, when "global" was not yet a buzz word.

But were they world travelers? For sure.

Were they globally minded? Most assuredly.

And did they see elephants? And how!

Consider, for instance, these three similarities:

1) Both women have an early life-story that reads somewhere between a Mills & Boon romance and a penny dreadful:

MONSIEUR BUTTERFLY

Our story is set in New York City in 1901. The dashing young Japanese poet Yone Noguchi has just gotten off the boat from London. He places a classified ad for an editorial assistant, and an earnest Bryn Mawr graduate by the name of Léonie Gilmour answers it. The two instantly hit it off and together resume work on his book, The American Diary of a Japanese Girl — soon to become the first English novel to be published in the U.S. by a person of Japanese ancestry.
       As their professional collaboration flourishes, they fall madly in love. Noguchi writes a declaration that Leonie is his lawful wife. But then, just as Léonie discovers she is carrying his child, the relationship flounders. She goes home to her mother in Los Angeles to give birth, while Yone returns to Japan.
       After the baby is born in November 1904, Yone puts pressure on Léonie to join him. She repeatedly refuses but finally relents, arriving in Japan in March 1907. As she disembarks the steamship in Yokohama, Yone greets her and confers on the child the Japanese name of Isamu. After this reunion, he confesses he has taken a Japanese wife and they've started a family.
       Spurning the idea of being his wife #2, Léonie breaks from Yone — the cad! — once and for all. She makes her own way around Japan and ends up in the picturesque seaside town of Chigasaki, where she has her young son supervise the construction of a house facing out on the Pacific.
       Ensconced in this rustic cottage, which she likes to call her "pine nest," Léonie produces another child, a girl named Ailes Gilmour, who will someday dance for the Martha Graham company in New York. Ailes' father, who is Japanese, is rumored to be one of Léonie's English students. Yone calls Léonie a "slut," but her lips are sealed. She carries the secret of her daughter's father's identity to the grave...

OUT OF AFRICA AND INTO BLUE HAWAII

Our story is set on the palm tree-studded campus of the University of Hawaii in 1960. A 23-year-old African man, Barack Obama Sr, is winning hearts and minds wherever he goes by dint of his charismatic personality and novelty value: most students have never seen an African before. His admirers include the 18-year-old Ann Dunham (she has shed her first name of "Stanley," which her father gave her because he wanted a boy), who is in his Russian class.
       Ann is immediately smitten: Barack reminds her of the blacks she saw in the film Black Orpheus when she was 16, the first time she'd ever seen a foreign film. Surely no man could be as warm, sensual, and exotic as he is? Barack appreciates being the object of her upward adoring gaze. Within a few months of their first meeting, she is carrying his child, a boy who will someday be America's 44th president.
       The pair get married, but the relationship falls apart soon afterwards, when Obama Sr reveals he already has a wife and children in his native Kenya. His Kenyan wife has agreed that Ann can become wife #2, but Ann wants none of that.
       Not long after divorcing her son's father, she encounters another attractive foreign scholar, this time a free-spirited Indonesian. They marry, and Ann makes her first-ever trip to a foreign country. The relationship is fruitful, and they have a daughter...

Here, by the way, are our two main male protagonists:

From left: Yone Noguchi in 1903, courtesy Wikipedia; Barack Obama Sr in 1936, courtesy Appletree.

I don't know about you, but I think they look tailor made for the part of lady killer.

2) Both women displayed a cavalier attitude about picking up stakes and moving to parts of the world they knew nothing about.

Gilmour arrived in Japan in 1907 with a young child, no husband or job, and no training in the Japanese language. What was she thinking? On the other hand, she was a Bryn Mawr grad ... and it was not long before she picked up work teaching English at a school in Yokohama. She also did some private tutoring, including for the children of the late Lafcadio Hearn and his Japanese wife, Setsu Koizumi.

When Ann Dunham boarded a plane for Jakarta, Indonesia, with her son Barack in 1967, she had never left the United States before and knew almost nothing about the place she would soon be living in. Maybe it's as well. Her new husband's house, on the outskirts of Jakarta, had no electricity. The streets were unpaved. The nation was transitioning to the rule of General Suharto, which meant rampant inflation and widespread food shortages. A bit of a culture shock after Honolulu!

Still, Dunham appears to have been unfazed. Like Gilmour, she soon got herself a job teaching English (in her case, at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta). She also volunteered at the National Museum in Jakarta, and worked for a U.S. government-subsidized institute dedicated to Indonesia-America friendship.

3) Both women aspired to be part of the wider world they had risked so much to see, not just live vicariously through their offspring.

This is not to say they weren't ambitious for their children, particularly their sons. Each woman underwent a period of separation from her son for the sake of his education, and took enormous pride in his achievements.

But both women also lived for themselves, and tried to leverage their time abroad into careers.

Gilmour worked in the writing field throughout her life, first as an editor, later as an educator and journalist. Her most successful written works were short autobiographical essays for newspapers and magazines chronicling her misfortunes with a self-deprecating wit. One of them, written for the New York Times, was a wryly humorous account of being burglarized in Japan.

When, towards the end of her life, Gilmour was faced with eking out a living in Depression-era New York City, she started up a business importing Japanese knickknacks, not unlike what many expat entrepreneurs do today. Think Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame, albeit on a much smaller scale. (As the New York Times put it in its article last year about Gilbert's New Jersey store full of curios from Southeast Asia: "Love, Travel, Sell.")

It did not take Dunham long to develop a deep affinity for Indonesia, which not for nothing has been called an anthropologist's paradise, with its 17,500 islands and more than three hundred languages. (Notably, her attachment to the country outlasted her attachment to her husband: they divorced in 1980.)

Dunham enrolled in the University of Hawaii to train as an anthropologist, doing the kind of research that foreigners are always doing on Indonesia: documenting the nation's traditional customs before they succumb to the forces of modernization. Dunham wrote a thesis about the blacksmithing industry found in Indonesian villages. She obtained her doctoral degree in 1992, just three years before her untimely death from cancer at the age of 52.

But Dunham wasn't just an academic. She also developed a professional career working on behalf of women's employment in Indonesia. Her most lasting legacy was to help build Indonesia's microfinance program, giving tiny loans to credit-poor entrepreneurs — who are mostly women.

From left: Article by Léonie Gilmour (1921), courtesy New York Times archives; a revised version of Ann Dunham's 1992 dissertation on blacksmithing in Indonesia, published as a book in 2009.

Neither Gilmour nor Dunham wrote their memoirs. Perhaps they were too busy? (Dunham apparently started hers but produced just two pages.) Their stories, however, haven't been forgotten because of their famous sons.

Not at all surprisingly, given the colorful lives these women led, the film world has taken an interest. The feature-length film Léonie was released last year, directed by Hisako Matsui, with Emily Mortimer in the title role:

Ann Dunham: A Most Generous Spirit, a documentary depicting Dunham's life, went into production last year. I just hope the tone isn't so hagiographic that it fails to capture Dunham's elephant-seeking spirit. To get some sense of that, the biopic Little Obama, about President Obama's years in Indonesia, may be worth a look. (Dunham is played by South African actress Cara Lachelle.)

But for my money, the film to see is the one where Gilmour and Dunham appear together, icons of the kind of fearless American woman who isn't afraid to see elephants — husbands, children, social norms be damned. (And, btw, they still managed to turn out some terrific kids.) It's a film that probably won't be made, but if it ever is, look for me at the front of the ticket queue!

Questions: What do you make of the similarities between Gilmour and Dunham? Can you think of other 20th-century women who led (or are still leading) the life of lady-errant, in the United States or elsewhere?

Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New with Expats from Oz, the U.S., and France

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:04:00 +0000

This pachyderm ended the year
being crowned Miss Elephant International
Chitwan National Park (Nepal), Dec. 29.

END-OF-YEAR QUESTIONS FOR KYM, DAVID & VERONIQUE

What does it mean to be an elephant seeker? Kym Hamer, David Hufford, and Véronique Martin-Place were among the first expats to help this blog answer that question. For this year-end post, I've asked them to share their holiday highlights, new year's resolutions, and any fresh insights on their adventures.

How did you spend Christmas this year?

KYM HAMER [Australian based in London]: This year was my first Christmas visiting my family in Melbourne since 2005. I arrived here early Christmas morning and walked out of passport control wearing a big bow. Hahaha... For the last six years, I've fervently wished for a white Christmas in the UK. It actually came true this season — and I missed it! C'est la vie...

VERONIQUE MARTIN-PLACE [Frenchwoman based in Chicago]: We stayed put in the United States. As I've written recently on my blog, I'm not a fan of returning to one's home country during the holidays.

DAVID HUFFORD [American based in Tokyo]: Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, so my wife and I usually work. But since December 25 was on a Saturday this year, we both had it off. In that sense, it was an unusual Christmas.

Have you tweaked your holiday celebrations at all since living abroad?

KYM: Particularly since moving to the UK, I've enjoyed the tradition of decorating my own Christmas tree. I love revisiting my travels through all of the ornaments I've collected from various places. This year I am away over Christmas and New Year and could not face the thought of coming back and having to "undress" the tree in mid-January, so I am sans tree... I did help some good friends with their tree so did not miss out altogether.

DAVID: Neither my wife nor I is religious, so there hasn't been much of a change in how we celebrate — except that we do much, much less Christmas shopping since there is no tradition in Japan for exchanging gifts. We still put up a tree and have a special dinner. Thus far we've been able to avoid the local custom of reserving a special Christmas menu from KFC, and we only rarely buy a Christmas cake.

VERONIQUE: In the United States as in France, we celebrate by doing lots of family activities: ice skating, going to the movie theater, museums, baking, and most important of all, playing with the new toys Santa Claus brings to our two daughters... But since settling in Chicago, my family has acquired a couple of new habits. My husband bakes cookies for the girls to leave out for Santa. And we listen to Christmas songs nonstop: at home, in the car, any and everywhere!

Have you had any new insights on your adoptive land since your interview appeared on this blog?

VERONIQUE: One thing I've noticed relating to the holidays is that American people usually say "Happy Holidays," not "Merry Christmas." I wasn't aware of it until I started living here. I guess it is a way to be politically correct. For me, it was both amusing and shocking.

DAVID: Nothing especially new, except that I am beginning to believe that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the current ruling party, is totally incompetent. I blog about Japanese politics but was late to come to this conclusion.

KYM: Two big personal changes in the past months: I start an amazing new job in January, which I am insanely excited about; and I became a single girl again. The latter I wasn't so excited about, but I'm now on the mend and starting to revel in the joys of being completely selfish again!

Last but not least, have you made any news year's resolutions related to blogging and travel?

VERONIQUE: My Resolution #1 is to write, write and write — for new clients; for my blog, Expat Forever; and on behalf of personal writing projects. My Resolution #2 is to run, run and run — with the goal of doing the Chicago Marathon in 2011. And my Resolution #3 is to travel to Hawaii in 2011. Hmmm... I wish my husband will read this one!

KYM: My new job will involve some travel, so I am hoping to experience some new places/people and maybe revisit some former haunts. And Gidday From The UK will continue to chart my expatriate life no matter where it takes me.

DAVID: I never bother with New Year's resolutions. As far as Japan without the sugar goes: I never run out of things to complain — I mean blog — about. The most interesting trend at present is Japan's apparent moves in changing its defense posture towards China, and its move to become more involved with South Korea and the US alliance toward the DPRK. As far as travel plans, I hope to get back to the US for a visit next fall around Thanksgiving. I have been saying that for the last four years and haven't made it yet.

If you missed the interviews with these three expats, here are the links:

"French Expat: Chicago, My Kind of Town," Questions for Véronique Martin-Place
"Melbourne Girl Gives London a Burl, Comes up a Doozey," Questions for Kym Hamer
"Seen the Elephant — It's Not All Sweetness and Light," Questions for David Hufford

The Bittersweet Calculus of Changing Countries

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:30:00 +0000

Seville orange marmalade with rind,
invented 1797 in Scotland
(courtesy Wikimedia)

While everyone else was stocking up for Christmas at the Union Square greenmarket last week-end, I was on a quest to find a humble jar of marmalade, as we'd just run out. It took a while, but at last I ferreted out a candidate amidst the dandelion, garlic raspberry, and other exotic jellies at the Berkshire Berries stall. Just to be sure, I asked the vendor: "Is this regular marmalade?" To which he instantly responded: "No, it's the best there is!"

Me: "Well, I wouldn't know. Even though I lived in the UK a long time, I never acquired the taste. Too bitter!"

"Don't be afraid to try this one," he urged. "It's made with Florida oranges, not Seville oranges."

"How very clever of you," I told him, "to come up with a New World version!"

But as I walked away, I thought to myself: Is the New World any less bitter than the old nowadays? At best, this past year has been rather bittersweet for us U.S. citizens. But I imagine our sufferings and disappointments are as nothing compared to those of newly arrived immigrants, who've given up everything to come to this country — the ultimate New World destination — for a fresh start.

Recently I had occasion to ruminate on the plight of immigrants to the United States, after making back-to-back visits to Little Indonesia in Philadelphia and Indonesia itself.

Several thousand Indonesians have emigrated to South Philadelphia in the past ten years or so. I was envisioning their having set up a vibrant neighborhood, rather like Indonesia itself, but the scene that confronted me in late October was rather desolate: one level up from a slum. Philadelphia's Little Indonesia consists of a limited grid of narrow streets lined with pokey row houses. There are several hole-in-the-wall restaurants and nondescript shops carrying Indonesian goods. We tried the food: it is decent enough. And the shops, though cramped, are reasonably well stocked with Southeast Asian staples, everything from cassava chips to jackfruit (in cans).

I have since learned that the majority of these immigrants are Christians from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. They fled to the United States after attacks were made on their churches in the late 1990s. A significant minority (something like a quarter) of Little Indonesia's residents are Muslims. And, whereas the Christians have been integrated into the local churches, the Muslims have to make do with any space they can find. The nearest mosque is in West Philly, and, ironically, during Ramadan they have ended up borrowing space from a Mennonite church where the pastor is an Indonesian Christian.

Would these Little Indonesians — particularly the Muslims — have been better off staying put in their native land? Bear in mind that their prospects have most likely worsened since 9/11, which ushered in an era of racial profiling and, as evidenced by the controversy over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, xenophobia.

Even the Christians — many of whom I suppose are ethnic Chinese — may be wondering if their children might have done better in the Indonesia, where the economy has been growing strongly despite the global financial crisis and recession and, amazingly, reducing debt at the same time. This year Indonesia achieved a growth rate of 6 percent, and pundits say it could have been even higher — 10 percent, easily — if only the government had made some headway in overcoming abiding corruption and structural inefficiencies (democracy hasn't solved these problems just yet). Thanks to real economic activity and bullish expectations, the stock market is up by 50 percent — one of the best performers in the world in 2010.

A couple of weeks after my trip to Little Indonesia, I took off for Indonesia itself and saw this emerging economic miracle with my own eyes.

I had last visited Jakarta in 2004, when it was still shell shocked from the Asian financial crisis and had not found solid democratic footing after dictatorship. The entire city had an air of foreboding about it. The Indonesians I met then seemed defeatist as well about their future economic prospects, particularly as compared to China's.

This time around, there were signs of an economic revival. Don't get me wrong: Jakarta still deserves its sobriquet of the Big Durian, and you take your life into your hands when crossing the street. But one of the first things I noticed is that there is now a Starbucks on virtually every major street corner. As we New Yorkers know, whenever Starbucks moves in, gentrification can't be long behind.

I also witnessed many Indonesians beginning to partake in this new-found prosperity. The first Sunday after my arrival, we visited Grand Indonesia Shopping Town, a luxurious new shopping mall anchored by Seibu and Harvey Nichols. The basement cafes and restaurants were buzzing with customers; parents and kids packed out the indoor playland featuring a kid-sized train; and young people were queuing up for tickets to the mall's 11-screen cineplex.

All of this leaves me with the bittersweet sense that, while something is always gained from moving countries, a great deal is risked. Reader, I leave you to ponder all of this with the help of some photos from my two "Indonesian" trips:

1) STANDIN' ON THE CORNER: Would you rather hang out in front of a faceless grocery in South Philly, or at the entrance to an exclusive supermarket chain in a posh city mall?

Corner grocery: Little Indonesia, South Philly

99 Ranch Market, part of a California-based chain:
Grand Indonesia Shopping Mall, Jakarta

2) PRACTICING ISLAM: Would you rather worship in a makeshift way in a country that fears Muslims, or join the throngs reciting prayers in Southeast Asia's largest mosque?

Hand-written sign on row-house front door: Little Indonesia, South Philly

Worshippers at Istiqlal Mosque, Jakarta

3) SEEING ELEPHANTS: Would you rather contemplate grease-stained elephants while waiting for takeaway in your neighborhood's lone Thai restaurant, or be welcomed to a museum celebrating your nation's history, by a Thai elephant statue?

Thai take-out:
Little Indonesia, South Philly

Bronze elephant statue donated to Indonesia by King Chulalongkorn of Siam in 1871:
front of National Museum of Indonesia (also known as Elephant Building), Jakarta

French Expat: Chicago, My Kind of Town

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 03:02:00 +0000

QUESTIONS FOR VERONIQUE
MARTIN-PLACE

This diplomat's wife and mother of two reflects on life in the city of broad shoulders, jazz, and deep-dish pizza, and how after two years she has come to own the experience.

Which part of France did you grow up in, and did you ever dream of living in the United States? I am from Lyon, in the southeastern part of the country, between Paris and Marseilles. Lyon is known as France's gastronomic capital. When I was a child, I would have laughed if somebody had told me I'd be living in Chicago one day. I wanted to move to Paris, but the idea of living abroad never entered my mind. It was not my plan at all.

And then you married a diplomat and traveled the world? Yes, my husband is a civil servant with the French Foreign Office. We have already completed one full expatriate cycle: three years in Norway, three years in Sri Lanka, and three years back in France (the city of Nantes). Chicago marks the start of our second cycle. We've been living here since summer 2008 with our two daughters. It's our first stay in the United States.

I have a soft spot for your resume as like me, you earned a Ph.D. in politics but chose not to stay in the academy. I will always remember June 1999. My husband was about to receive his first overseas assignment — to Norway, though we didn't know that yet. Meanwhile, I got a phone call from the director of Department of Political Science at the University of Paris expressing interest in my candidacy for an adjunct teaching post. Without thinking too much, I answered: "I'm leaving the country." At that time I was writing my Ph.D. thesis. I could have stayed on my own for another year in Paris to teach at the university and defend my dissertation, but I didn't consider it. I wasn't passionate enough about academe to make it my career.

How does Chicago compare to Oslo and Colombo? It's been easy to settle here because I already speak the language, which was not the case in the other two cities. And the American way of life has been easy to adapt to. It helps that Chicago is family friendly compared to other American cities, Los Angeles for instance.

ON THE "TO DO" LIST: Bank of America
Chicago Marathon 2011

Is your family becoming Americanized? To some extent, just as we became "tropicalized" in Sri Lanka! My girls love celebrating Halloween, which isn't at all popular in France. This year, we decorated our apartment with fake pumpkins and spiders made in China (thank you, Target) and carved our own jack-o-lanterns. Also, my husband and I have started running like a lot of Chicagoans do. We've done some races and hope to run the Chicago Marathon next year, before we leave.

Have you made any American friends? As I'm fond of saying, I got to know more people after six months living in Chicago than after three years of living in Nantes, where we repatriated after Sri Lanka. But having a wide social network doesn't mean having many good friends. My daughters attend an American school so I often meet Americans, but in most cases the friendship doesn't go any further than a nice talk on the playground. To this day, most of my friends in Chicago are other expats.

NO COSTUME CHANGE: Ariel keeps
bikini top, even in France.

I imagine that some of the Americans you meet have preconceived notions of what French people are like. I have a funny story about that. The first year we were here, my younger daughter was in prekindergarten. At that time she was fond of the Disney character Ariel. She would draw Ariel at least ten times a day. One day at pick-up time, the teacher gave me one of my daughter's drawings and said: “At least, she drew her with a bra!” I answered: “Yes, it is very realistic: Ariel always wears a purple one.” The teacher: “Well, you know. Most often children draw what they see. Don’t you go to the beach all naked in France?”

Great story. Can I ask you to follow it up with a "blind men's tale" — an example of how Americans and French people can approach the same topic very differently? Coming from Lyon, I would have to say the style of eating. I still cook everyday which I think is not the case of most Americans. People here are much more convenience oriented — except on Thanksgiving, when they go all out with fancy gadgets. And, although I've picked up the American habit of having food delivered from time to time (I love it!), I always request: no plastic forks, spoons, or paper plates.

That's something I've had trouble readjusting to as well after living in England and Japan. It doesn't feel like a proper meal without real cutlery and china. It's not just that, it's also wasteful. When I first got to this country, I was really shocked by the way Americans consume paper cups and plates, plastic glasses, napkins, etc. all day long. I was doubly shocked when I realized that I would not be able to recycle my garbage in my apartment building. These days, I bring my garbage down to the laundry room for sorting into newspapers, glass, plastic bottles and so. Once a week, I drive out to a place where I can deposit these bags for recycling.

So life isn't "greener" in Chicago? I get demoralized whenever I see bags of garbage on the Chicago streets. Why am I bothering if no one else is?

Even though you've moved around a lot, have you always tried to have a job? I am a mother of two but I am not only that. If my brain doesn't work, I get depressed. My identity is linked very closely to my professional and intellectual activities. But when you are an accompanying spouse and move every three years, it is almost impossible to have a career. Actually, you should remove that word from your vocabulary. You have to find other ways to feel active and comfortable in your shoes.

Tell me more about the business you started up recently. I had always picked up jobs as a trailing spouse, although the work wasn't always suited to my background and skills. When we arrived in Chicago in summer 2008, I was optimistic about landing a more challenging job, but then the American economy tanked. Nine months into our stay, I had no leads, nothing, not even an interview. Almost a year had gone by, and I had only two years left. I enlisted the help of a coach. I began to change my thinking: why not develop a portable job? After a full cycle of life as a diplomat's wife, I had grown tired of having to hand in my notice and search for something else every three years. I wanted some continuity. Just over a year ago, I started my own Web site, Writer Forever, offering freelance writing and editing services. For years, writing had been my passion, and although most of my jobs had included writing, it wasn't always the kind of writing I enjoyed.

Who are your clients? Online magazines, Web sites, publishing companies, and media agencies. I specialize in producing articles in French and English on a variety of topics from a French expat point of view.

You also have a companion blog? I started up Expat Forever this past April to share my thoughts and experiences as a serial expat. People think that "seeing an elephant," to use your expression, is glamorous, but that is a myth. When I was living in Sri Lanka, for instance, I had to contend with the threat of dengue fever, water and electricity cuts, violence and civil war. Another myth people have is that they will solve their problems by going abroad, but this is a mistake. It will only make things worse. Besides writing about my own experiences, I also review books dealing with expatriation, and I just now posted my first interview with a French expat: a painter who has lived in Chicago since 2006.

The blogosphere seems to be full of Americans writing about living in Paris. I imagine they have plenty of French counterparts who are living in American cities? Mais oui. One of my favorites is New York La Dolce Vita, about a Frenchwoman's adventures in New York City.

I notice you recommend Julia Child's memoir on your blog. To be honest, I had no idea of who Julia Child was until I watched the trailer for Julie and Julia on the Internet — and then I knew I had to see the movie. I saw some of my own story in hers. She was an American woman married to a diplomat. When the couple landed in France right after WWII, she had no idea of what what she was going to do with her life. She fell in love with France and the food culture. Her passion became her business. After seeing the movie, I ran to Borders to buy her memoir, My Life in France. A few days later, I wrote an article for Femmexpat proclaiming Julia Child an icon to expat wives everywhere.

Can you channel Julia for a moment and tell us: if you had to design a meal that blends your favorite French and American foods, what items would you choose? I would start with a nice salad in the French style with a real vinaigrette. Then I'd prepare hamburgers and French fries, along with a choice of dips for the French fries — you Americans love your dips! For dessert, I'd serve homemade madeleines with strawberries. And nice wines, of course ...

No Chicago-style pizza? I've tasted it but am not a fan. It's too ... stuffed, too heavy.

LUCKY SIGHTING: Elephants at
Sri Lanka's Esala Perahera festival,
Courtesy S Baker

Finally, a couple of questions posed to all interviewees for this blog. First, have you collected any Treasured White Elephants during your stay in America? My daughters each have an American Girl doll, which I'd like to keep as a reminder of their early years in the United States and how they became a little like American girls themselves. Perhaps my grandchildren will play with one day? I haven't yet started my own collection, but I had one in Sri Lanka. Guess what it was? Elephants: small statutes, wooden children's toys (including a small representation of the Perahera, a yearly Buddhist festival consisting of dances and ornately decorated elephants), lamps with elephant bases, you name it. My younger daughter was born in Colombo, and I decorated her room using an elephant theme. To this day, the equivalent of her teddy bear is a small stuffed elephant.

BATH TIME: Pinnawala pachyderms,
courtesy Dominique Schreckling

I love the idea of elephants being your treasured white elephant. I presume you've seen some real life elephants during your travels? Not in Chicago but certainly in Sri Lanka, where we attended the Esala Perahera in Kandy, and I would sometimes see elephants in the streets of Colombo. I also visited the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage, where I was able to witness mother elephants and babies taking their baths in the river. C'était magnifique!

If the Shoe Fits ... An Englishman's Curious Devotion to a Curious Country

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:59:00 +0000

QUESTIONS FOR JAMIE STOKES

For this author and indefatigable observer of cultural habits, Poland is one of Europe's more opaque and challenging destinations, at once welcoming visitors while denying it has anything to offer them.

Where are you from originally — which part of England? I was born on the outskirts of London, spent my early childhood in Canada, my teenage years in Kent and then 15 years in North London.

What brought you to Poland originally? Ask any foreigner why they live in Poland and you will hear one of three possible answers: 1) I am married to/dating a Polish woman; 2) I was sent here by my company; or 3) I have Polish roots. I'm in the first category. Notice I say "Polish woman" — in all my time in Poland, I have met just one Western woman married to a Polish man but dozens of Western men married to Polish women, a topic recently covered in the collaborative blog I write for, called Polandian. I have no idea what this says about Polish men, but I do know what it says about Polish women!

How long have you been in Kraków in total? Do you speak Polish? I've lived in Kraków for three years. I speak bits of Polish — it's a big language, and I haven't gotten around to all of it yet. My first trip to Poland was in 1997. I lived in Warsaw for about two years. It was an interesting but ultimately frustrating experience that led me to conclude I was better off back in the UK. With a free choice of 197 countries, I moved to Poland again in 2007 — I am not a smart man.

Where and what did you study before embarking on your Polish adventure? I studied philosophy at King's College London. This in no way prepared me for any experiences, including that of being repeatedly asked who my favorite philosopher is.

What do you do for work? I've been a freelance writer and editor for more than ten years, working mostly on nonfiction books for a wide range of UK and US publishers. I also contribute a monthly "Perspectives on Poland" column to the Kraków Post (Poland's only English-language newspaper) and a weekly column Okiem Angola (Englishman's Eye) to Wirtualna Polska (published in both Polish and English), as well as blogging for Polandian — but those are hobbies more than anything.

A LOT TO ANSWER FOR? Barbara Bach
as KGB agent in The Spy Who Loved Me

What do most people in the UK imagine when they think of Poland? Most Brits, even now, think Poland is somehow in Russia — a fact that makes Poles incandescently and rightly furious. This is a hangover from the Cold War when we were taught to regard the Soviet Bloc as a single, evil place populated by extravagant moustaches and female super spies wearing lingerie under their fur coats.

Haven't quite a few Polish youth emigrated to London in recent years? Perhaps they could correct that impression. There is an enormous number of Poles in the UK. So many in fact that nobody has any idea how many there really are. It could be a million, it could be two million. And they're not just in London. You can find Poles all across the country. It's not unusual to find shops in English villages that carry Polish beer and foods to cater for the migrants.

Are more Brits visiting Poland since it became independent? There was a time when speaking English on the street would draw a crowd of spectators, but that is long gone. Kraków, like many other eastern and central European cities, has become a favorite stag party destination for Brits and Irish, much to the detriment of the reputation of both nations in the minds of Poles. Warsaw is also a draw to some extent. There is quite a large British expat community in Poland, but most Poles don't know it exists. There are thousands of Brits living in the pretty areas of Kraków and Warsaw, but when Poles meet them they assume they are tourists.

EXPAT H(E)AVEN: With rents a quarter of London levels,
what's not to like about Kraków Old Town?
(courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

You say the Brits are living in pretty places. Is that part of the draw, that the grass is somehow greener? (Saying a lot for a Brit, of course...) As I mentioned, Poland's image is irrevocably tied to the Cold War idea of grim communist housing blocks, permanent winter, and tractor factories. In fact, the summers are long and gorgeous, the cities are ancient and beautiful, and the tractor factories were retooled long ago to build Daewoo cars. The grim housing blocks, the scowling old ladies with sharp umbrellas, the absurd bureaucracy — it's all still there, but many of us expats see it as the spice, not the principal ingredient. What's more, you can live reasonably well on a fraction of what it would cost in London or other major European cities.

Have you found it easy to make Polish friends? Poles love foreigners and hate other Poles. Foreigners are assumed to be sophisticated, civilized human beings — other Poles are assumed to be car thieves. It's pretty weird.

What do Poles usually say when they find out you're from the UK? Ten years ago, when I was teaching English in Warsaw, a student asked me: "Why did you come to Poland?" I replied: "Because I was curious." He thought about this for a while and then announced gravely: "One day, I wish to be curious like you." In other words, Polish people find it very hard to understand why a Westerner would choose to live in Poland. The longer I live here, the more I can see why.

Bigos, Poland's national dish,
Courtesy About.com

One of the biggest thrills involved in travel is the chance to try out new foods. But unless I'm mistaken, food is not one of Poland's top attractions. Polish cuisine doesn't have any reputation at all, largely because there is nothing in Polish cuisine that is uniquely Polish. Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Belarusians and a lot of Germans eat pretty much the same stuff with slightly different names. Brits who visit Poland usually thoroughly enjoy the food because it's basically big chunks of meat in fatty, salty sauces — all the stuff they've been weaned off over the past twenty years of cholesterol paranoia.

Hmmm... What would elephants eat? They are vegetarians. Elephants would have a hard time here. Stories of vegetarians being given chicken when they ask for "something without meat" are not entirely apocryphal.

What's the British food you miss the most? Any kind of pie — for some reason pies are completely unknown here. My fantasy food would be Thai green curry pierogi.

Can you tell me any stories that you think help to illustrate key Poland-UK differences? I call these Blind Men's Tales: one man "sees" the elephant's ears and another the trunk, and so on. The collaborative blog, Polandian, which I created with several other English-language bloggers — some foreigners, some Polish — is essentially a giant catalogue of Blind Man's Tales. Our stories, however, are a little different than those you might tell after living in Japan. I spent some time in Tokyo, which is so alien that it's possible to mistake a window for a door. Poland is nothing like that. The differences between Poland and the UK are much more subtle and take time to make themselves known to the visitor. For example, Poles are obsessed with wearing the right shoes for the season — the kind of shoes you are wearing comes up in conversation far more often than I would have believed possible. Other unexpected topics include exhumation and an almost supernatural sensitivity to what anybody anywhere says about the country.

Could you elaborate a little more on the shoes — how many pairs do you need? When I first came to Poland I had two pairs of shoes: a pair of trainers/sneakers and a pair of Dr Martens slip-on boots. I loved those boots. They were probably the seventh or eighth pair of the same make I had owned. I could wear them year round, in any weather. Three years later I have winter shoes, autumn shoes, summer shoes, sandals, going-to-wedding shoes, visiting-priest shoes, walking shoes, "good" shoes and, of course, slippers. And I am still considered to be woefully shoe-deficient.

It sounds like you're becoming Polish-ized. Definitely not. If anything, I'm more English than I ever was. When you live in a foreign country, your nationality becomes a vital part of your identity in a way it never is in your homeland. It's the first thing anybody says about you: "This is my English friend ... I know this English guy ... Speak slowly, he's English ...," etc.

I should mention that if anyone wants to read more about the Polish shoe fetish and other equally astonishing topics — such as exhumation mania or the necessity of owning a meat tenderizer — they should visit Polandian. Who are your readers, and how many visitors does the blog typically get? An eclectic mix of English-speaking Poles, Poles living in English-speaking countries, Westerners with Polish roots, and foreigners living in Poland. We get about 50,000 page-views per month and have recently passed 1.2 millions views in total.

Last but not least, I'd like to pose a couple of questions that are put to all elephant seekers who agree to be interviewed for this blog. First, have you collected any Treasured White Elephants: something that has captured your fancy that you would probably cart away when you leave? Books by Ryszard Kapuściński. He deserves to be far more widely known that he is. His writings about Africa in particular made me see things in an entirely new way. Kapuściński once said he writes for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world," which ties in nicely what I said to the Warsaw student.

Kraków Zoo elephants, courtesy Andrew Llanwarne

Second, have you seen any elephants in Poland? Yes. Two very confused looking Indian elephants in the Kraków Zoo. I also saw a tiger on television that had escaped from a Warsaw circus about a week after I arrived in that city. It ran around the suburbs for a few hours and eventually got shot, but not before a vet had also been shot by an overenthusiastic policeman. It did make me wonder what I was letting myself in for ...

It's 59 Degrees Farenheit, So Why Am I Wearing a Fur Coat?

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:25:00 +0000

Up for some down? A warm (75 °F) and
humid (90%) day in late October, NYC

Actually, I tell a lie. No, not about the temperature: it is definitely 59 °F (around 15 °C), and that's in the shade. But I'm wearing an unlined polyester raincoat. It's the people around me who have on fur or — leaving politically correct considerations aside — some close equivalent: down, shearling, leather, or wool.

Temperatures on the U.S. East Coast have been averaging a good 10 °F above normal. But from the way many of my compatriots dress, you would never know this.

I wonder, are all these heavily-clad people sweating it out for the sake of fashion? Or have they actually persuaded themselves that 59 is the new 39?

As a repeat expat, or rex-pat, I'm all about acclimatizing. Upon arriving in a new place, I tune into what the natives are wearing and adjust my own dress habits accordingly.

"Grumpy and Freezy" in Prague,
courtesy Sezin Koehler

Sezin Koehler, a half-American half-Sri Lankan horror novelist who has traveled the world but now lives in Prague, understands this. In a recent post for Expat+HAREM, she wrote:

When I first arrived in Prague I was a size 7, had an acceptable C-cup and chocolate-colored skin. Three years later I’ve become a size 12 and an overbearing DD-cup with skin the color of weak tea. Aging plays only a small part.

I take Koehler's point. Finding herself under assault from Prague's sub-zero temperatures, she responded as any sensible rex-pat would: by making the necessary bodily and sartorial adjustments.

But on the East Coast of America, it may be safer to take your cues from other new arrivals (including us repatriates), not the natives. Often as not, New Yorkers are staggering around like Rip Van Winkle, bundled up against a cold that existed some twenty years ago.

So, how is it that we Americans got stuck in this time warp? (I say "we" because to some extent this post will be a self-indictment.) And what will it take to shake us out of our stupor?

First, some possible causes:

NO CAN CALIBRATE
Americans are most comfortable with binary choices: good guys vs. bad guys, socialists vs. libertarians — or, as Heidi Klum might put it in her steely German accent: "One day you're in, and the next day you're out." It's hardly surprising that we should apply the same non-calibrated approach to the weather. If it's winter, we wear a coat, regardless of what the thermometer says. Life is so much simpler that way. Often it's much sweatier, too, but we have showers and deodorant for that...

"CODDLED" IS OUR MIDDLE NAME
The first time I went to the dentist since repatriating to the U.S., I couldn't get over how much he was at pains (pun intended) to tell me I wouldn't feel pain. If I'd been able to move my mouth, I would have said: "Are you kidding me? Since when did dental procedures become pain free?" That was an important lesson in how coddled my fellow Americans had become in my absence. I suspect that one reason so many of them can't wean ourselves off their heavy coats is that they can't stand the thought of being cold for so much as a second or two. It's everything I can do to refrain from getting up on my soapbox and preaching about mountain climbers who survived horrific cold simply by keeping their bodies moving. Oh, sorry, here I go:

Yes, the first blast of cold air hurts, but keep moving, folks, keep moving, and you'll be fine. Heavy wraps are for when you plan to be stationery for an extended period. ... Amen!

Illustration by Milo Winter,
Courtesy Project Gutenberg

A COMPULSION TO REWRITE GREEK MYTH
America prides itself on being a new-world culture, where people can take charge of their destiny rather than giving into the Fates. That's all well and good, but attempting to rewrite Aesop's "wind and sun" fable qualifies as overreaching, in my humble opinion. That's the kind of thing I say to myself when I see my compatriots sallying forth in great big coats in 50-degree weather. What were they thinking when they decided to don that monstrosity: that they could make the climate gods conform to their sartorial whims? "Save that for when it's windy," I say under my breath, trying not to smirk upon noticing a few people lugging their coats around. That Aesop was smarter than he looked!

CLIMATE CHANGE? NOT US!
As Ross Douthat pointed out in his New York Times column this week, we Americans can't seem to make up our minds about global warming and whether it can really be happening to us (see #3). His observation dovetails with my theory that for some of us clinging ever more tightly to our coats is a way of clinging ever more tightly to the hope that if we ignore the issue for long enough, it will simply go away. It may even blow out to sea if we're lucky (and collide with the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, but that's another tale of woe...).

KILLING ME WARMLY WITH COAT ADS
Global style hub Refinery 29 has just posted a "cheat sheet" for snapping up the perfect winter coat:

Finally, with so many strange, balmy days behind us, the deep chill of winter is in the air. Along with November's arrival comes a brand-new urge to overhaul the closet and put our coziest wardrobe staples front-and-center. And that definitely begins with a good, sturdy coat for winter.

Of course it's jabberwocky, but I fall for it every time. Why? Not because I don't want to know about climate change, nor because I abhor being cold. The truth is, I'm an old sentimentalist. More than any other item of clothing, a coat harks back to an idyllic past that existed before the earth warmed up. Ah, the good old days when summer was hot and winter was cold, and you needed two wardrobes. I am getting all warm and fuzzy inside just thinking of it! But unfortunately for the retail industry, I have already collected a closetful of coats that I rarely wear any more. I keep them just in case I'm suddenly in the mood to bask (hahaha) in my nostalgia.

And now a few ideas for some wake-up jolts:

British officer in WWI,
Courtesy Wikimedia

1) Corral British and Japanese expats to give lessons to the natives on the fine art of layering one's clothes. As is well known, no one is better prepared for capricious weather than Brits. By dressing in layers, they can weather all four seasons in a day, a not infrequent occurrence in Albion's clime. Regardless of whether you're a rumpled tweed type or a fashionista, two basic layering principles apply:

A lightweight innermost layer in case the sun makes a rare appearance for long enough for you to strip down to next-to-nothing — or in some cases, nothing at all. As Andrew Welch of British Naturism puts it: “When the weather gets warm, we have a whole wardrobe of clothes to choose from. We choose to choose none.”
A practical outermost layer such as a rain/trench coat, mac, or anorak — ideal for when you find yourself being stalked by a chill north wind.

Japanese, too, are fond of layering; but in their case, the tendency is to add under- (rather than over) garments, as can be seen in this illustration of underwear from the Heian era (794-1185). To this day, most Japanese don long underwear in winter. Boring, I know, but boring is where it's at in a country where most people have a long commute in overheated, overcrowded subway cars (the long johns, too, are hard at work, wicking away the sweat).

The Climate Change Elephant,
Facebook profile pic

2) Arrange a stampede by a herd of Climate Elephants. Under the aegis of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, a group of cheeky pachyderms have been popping up Down Under to remind people that climate change is the elephant in the room. Could we Americans commission them to perform the same or similar stunts stateside? Depending on how dexterous they are with their trunks, perhaps their first prank could be plucking excessively heavy coats off people's backs — a kind of Gestalt therapy.

3) Harness the power of reality TV to call attention to our proclivity for overdressing in winter. Possible titles include What Not to Wear — Quite Literally or The Emperor's Old Clothes. Contestants would be taken apart for their failure to don the appropriate garb for a climate that no longer gets as cold as it used to, and taught how to dress in layers. One or more of the judges would be from the UK or Japan. They would make surprise visits to contestants' homes on days when the temperature suddenly rises by at least ten degrees: how well are they calibrating their clothing?

4) Encourage tourism to some of the world's coldest inhabited places. Not only would we Americans find out what cold really is but we would finally have a good excuse for getting our beloved outerwear out of storage. One possible destination is the village of Listvyanka in Siberia, next to the world's deepest lake, Lake Baikal, which freezes over from late January to early May. I'm envisioning a Doctor Zhivago tour, with glamorous fur coats and hats provided as part of the package, along with the option of having your photo taken standing atop the lake next to a cardboard cut-out of Omar Sharif or Julie Christie.

Question: Have you taken any steps to cope with our markedly different weather conditions? NOTE: Practical is fine, but nutty is even better! (Nutty times call for nutty measures ...)

United by an Uncommon Language / Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:24:00 +0000

Maiyim Baron considers herself a henna gaijin
and runs a site by that name.

Strange — that's the word for the people who, as soon as they set foot in Japan, aspire to become more Japanese than the Japanese. The Japanese themselves call them henna gaijin, which literally means strange foreigner — or, as one contributor to a Web site exploring this concept put it, "a weird white person who wants to learn about swords and stuff."

When I first got to Japan, I said to myself:

Well, I may be strange, but I'm not foolhardy. I've just had a small-island nation experience in England, which was pretty intense. No need to charge head on into another one straight away. Besides, only a glutton for punishment would embark on such a difficult language right after getting out of grad school. I'll learn just enough Japanese to get by, no more.

Famous last words, as it were. When I first went to England, I resolved not to pick up a British accent: thought it would sound even more pretentious on an American than it does on a native. Little did I envision visiting my hometown one day and being asked: "Are you from England? I love your accent!"

In Japan as well, my initial resistance to going native gave way to a preoccupation with absorbing what the 16th-century Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier nicknamed the devil's tongue.

In retrospect, I think St. Francis Xavier had it right. Who but the devil could have seduced me into dabbling in Japanese for so many years, knowing full well I would never reach fluency? Not only that, but since leaving Japan, I've been possessed by the need to persuade ALL English speakers to give it a go, for these four reasons:

1) Everybody needs a supreme challenge, and assuming you're not about to climb Mt. Everest, studying Japanese is the next best thing. Once you've embarked on the adventure, it becomes all consuming. You're in pain, you're exhausted, you're under stress, your brain is swelling, you think you're on the verge of getting lung disease (Japan is a smoker's paradise) — and it turns out you've only reached base camp, where you can say a few basic things like "Kore wa pen desu ka? Hai, kore wa pen desu." [Is this a pen? Yes, it's a pen.]

Mt. Everest, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

At this point, you try not to get psyched out, reminding yourself that others have done it before you — never mind the fact that unlike you, they started when they were young, before their language-learning faculties had atrophied. You also try not to think about what the experts have told you: that, to become truly good at Japanese — as in reading and writing as well as speaking — requires seven years of dedicated study. Lethargy is setting in, and you're full of confusion, but you slog on memorizing kanji characters — just another couple of thousand, and you'll be reading the newspaper.

Pretty soon, though, you can't cram anything more into your poor addled brain, and you take a rest. By the time you resume, it's clear you haven't got a prayer of so much as glimpsing the summit. Even then, you refuse to give up, loathe to relinquish the bragging rights it gives you with your expat friends in Europe.

"You think that learning Spanish is hard?" you say to your friend who has been in Madrid for a couple of years. "Try Japanese!" As long as you're learning Japanese, you'll always be the most macho person in the expat room. In fact, you now see your earlier self as a wimp for complaining about learning French in school. At least it's in the same family as English, for pity's sake!

2) Everybody needs a laugh, and the Japanese language has a comical side — quite literally. Kya-ha-ha. No, I'm not talking about Japlish, the "almost-English" that is plastered on tee shirts, adverts, stationery and the like — "I feel Coke" being a notorious example. Given my predilection for the Queen's English (as professed in Part 1 of this post), I have only one thing to say to the perpetrators of such trends: "We are not amused."

Rather, I refer to the many comical expressions the language contains, which not coincidentally are also the lifeblood of Japanese comics, or manga. Does art imitate life or vice versa? In Japan, one is never quite sure ...

At one point during my stay in Tokyo, I was the only non-Japanese in a Japanese office. Whenever we were facing a tight deadline, my colleagues would use the expression giri giri. Even though no one told me the literal translation, this expression, technically known as an echo word, became imprinted on my brain. It perfectly described my inner state of panic while also providing some light relief. If something is giri giri, it's hard to take it too seriously.

Giri giri is an example of gitaigo, mimetic expressions of states of mind or emotions that do not produce sounds. Japanese also has many onomatopoeia — words that replicate voice or sounds, known as giongo: e.g., guu guu (stomach rumbling), kusu kusu (giggle), pachi pachi (hand clapping), and kin kon (ding dong of a door bell). There is even a word for the sound of breaking big sticks, such as an elephant makes when ambling through the forest: baki baki (see visual). How silly-sweet is that?

Courtesy Think Geek

3) It's the duty of every English speaker to find out what happens to our words when they enter other languages, and Japanese makes a fascinating case study. During Japan's period of national seclusion, lasting more than two centuries, Japanese language borrowed a few Western words, known as Gairaigo or Katakanago, mostly from Portuguese and Dutch: e.g., pan [bread] and biiru [beer]. But with the arrival of Commodore Perry and his Black Ships in 1853, Japan began pursuing modernization, which led to heavy borrowings from German, French, and English. The next major shift occurred after WWII. There was a torrential influx of English into Japanese, which continues to this day.

So, do Japanese people use and pronounce our words the same as we do? You've got to be joking! Typically, they alter our words out of all recognition. For a start, Japanese have shown no hesitation in chopping up our words and recombining them. Sometimes they come up with a brilliant new compound: aircon, for instance. But what if I told you this discussion was ofureco and you can't use your dejikame? Pretty clear, right? (Off the record; digital camera.)

And, while we English speakers have no trouble saying "judo," "sushi," and "anime" (this last is actually a reborrowing), Japanese speakers will modify the pronunciation and/or meaning of our words to suit themselves. Let's try another test. What if I said I was trying to find the mochibeeshon to ridusu? Maybe, just maybe, you'd understand that I'm trying to find the motivation to reduce. But reduce what? As it turns out, ridusu refers only to cutting down on the amount of garbage I create, not my weight.

And that's just the half of it. To make matters worse, many Japanese are offended — the cheek! — by English loanwords. While some people think they sound cool, many more fear their overuse has debased the native tongue and led to no end of communication problems. (The natives, too, frequently get lost in the labyrinth of Katakanago, confusing grin piisu [green peas] for Greenpeace, for instance.)

Woe betide the individual who laces his speech with too many English-derived words. He will be told he has a foreigner's complex (the ultimate put-down being bata kusai: literally, reeking of butter). The nation's sportscasters recently set a good example by developing an alternative lexicon for baseball (another Western import). Now, instead of proclaiming shinguruhitto, they say tanda.

Which brings me to my final point:

4) Believe it or not, English and Japanese have something extraordinary in common. Both languages developed in the shadow of an imperial language: for us it was Latin; for the Japanese, Chinese. (Note: This item relates to Part 1 of this post.)

Kibino Makibi（吉備真備）,
a scholar who traveled to China in 716

A brief history lesson. Beginning in the Yamato-Asuka period (538-710 AD), Japan sent envoys of scholars to China to study the Chinese character-based writing system. Not only did these scholars create Japan's first written language using Chinese characters (known as kanji), but they also introduced the first Sino-Japanese words, or Kango.

Similar to the role of Latin in Medieval Europe, Kanbun (the written form of Kango) became the language of statecraft, scholarly literature, and Buddhism (another Chinese import).

But even while borrowing heavily from the language of Imperial China — over 60 percent of Japanese words are derived from Chinese (similar to the percentage for Latin-derived words in English) — ancient Japanese were at pains not to let these borrowings take over. They still used their native words, known as Wago, for describing uniquely Japanese feelings and beliefs. An example is the Man'yōshū, an 8th-century collection of poetry exploring themes at heart of Shinto (Japan's native religion).

While on this topic, let's give a shout-out to the Japanese women who kept the native lingo alive during the Heian period (794-1185), when an alternative writing system emerged, consisting of two phonetic scripts (hiragana and katakana) for representing Japanese words with no Chinese equivalent. Aristocratic women, who had not been trained in Chinese like their male counterparts, took up the brush for the first time. They went on to produce some of outstanding early works of literature. The most illustrious example is Murasaki Shikibu's Genji Monogatari, or Tale of Genji, reputedly the first novel ever written.


Written text from earliest illustrated handscroll (12th C) of Tale of Genji, courtesy Gotoh Museum

Meanwhile, the literature produced by male writers of the Heian, written in much more stilted Sino-Japanese, has been forgotten.

Methinks George Orwell would have approved. And he might have been gratified that English and Japanese, despite having so little in common, are united in the robustness of their native tongues. As a general rule, an English word derived from Latin/French roots corresponds to a Sino-Japanese word in Japanese, whereas a simpler Anglo-Saxon word would best be translated by a Wago equivalent.

Question: Have I convinced you to try studying Japanese, or have I merely proved that I have the chops of a henna gaijin, and a demonic one at that?

United by an Uncommon Language / Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:33:00 +0000

The "look up" dictionary on my Amazon Kindle has turned me into a much slower reader. I can't seem to resist clicking out to every single word I'm curious about. But if it now takes me twice as long to read an article or book, I find it twice as engrossing.

I've been interested in etymology for as long as I can remember. I was an English major in college and proceeded to study literature and politics in the UK. During the latter experience, I took it upon myself to figure out why George Bernard Shaw (among others) had quipped that the U.S. and the UK are separated by a common language. For a word nerd like me, England was the Land of Linguistic Chills, Thrills and Excitement. In particular, I enjoyed:

1) Vocabulary challenges on BBC Radio 4. Who knew word games could be such a hoot? My all-time favorite was Just a Minute, the panel game where players must talk for sixty seconds on a given subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation." (Hmmm ... sounds a little like blogging!) In my day, Clement Freud (Sigmund's grandson) was a regular competitor. He kept the other panelists on their toes with his virtuoso command of English coupled with a mercurial wit. For instance, when asked to talk for one minute about tripe, he responded:

I think it is proper to say that taramasalata is the biggest sexual stimulant that we have in the western world. A man in Newport Pagnall ate his own weight of this confection of smoked cod's row, lemon juice, sunflower oil, spices, herbs and...

(At this point, he was challenged for hesitation — and for talking tripe!)

2) The Queen's English Society. Actually, I didn't find out about the Queen's English Society until recently. But the QES has made the list because of the pleasure I took in the UK in meeting the sort of people who might belong to the QES: who care passionately about correct and elegant English usage. I'm only sorry I can't be in the UK now for the QES's latest campaign to "protect the language from impurities, bastardisations and the horrors introduced by the text-speak generation," to be spearheaded by an Academy of English. There are those who find this initiative patronizing and pathetic: patronizing because of the belief that England should be in charge of what is now the global lingua franca; pathetic because of the attempt to use language to restore Britain's declining world status. But I don't agree. Maybe it's my long exposure to Japlish, but I'm glad to see someone holding up the side in an age where emoticons, acronyms, and other irritating examples of textese are creeping in willy nilly. And I've found studies to back up this opinion, such as the one showing that SMS messaging, though faster to write, takes more time to read than normal English. LOL !

3) Saxonists. Likewise, England was the first time I encountered the sort of people who pay attention to the proportion of Anglo-Saxon to Latinate words in their sentences. English (as you probably know, if you've gotten this far in the post) is distinguished for having many words with identical meanings that appear in two forms — one derived from Latin and one derived from Anglo-Saxon:

The incendiary device exterminated twenty citizens.
vs.
The bomb killed twenty people.
- - -
I adjourned to the sitting room and perused the morning paper.
vs.
I went into the sitting room and read the morning paper.

In his famous polemic "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell pointed out that we English speakers tend to resort to Latinate words whenever we have an urge to obfuscate or gloss over the truth, dress up simple statements, or avoid expressing an opinion:

Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones . . .

A word or two more on this Saxonism business. I subscribe to it myself — using Saxon words as the building blocks for my sentences and tossing in the odd Latinate word for variety. There are times, however, when I find this preference for originally and etymologically English words over words from alien sources a little unsettling. And I'm not the only one to have felt this way. The late, great lexicographer Robert Burchfield once referred to the quest for Saxonisms as "an unrealizable nationalistic dream."

Minted in Italy @ 49 BC

Maybe it's because I've become preoccupied with xenophobia of late, but I ask you: where would we be if the Romans hadn't introduced elephantus into the vocabulary? Hmm ... On second thought, that may be a poor choice of example. It turns out Caesar literally introduced the elephantus when he invaded Britain. As one ancient writer recorded:

Caesar had one large elephant, which was equipped with armor and carried archers and slingers in its tower. When this unknown creature entered the river, the Britons and their horses fled and the Roman army crossed over.

Orwell wrote another famous essay about shooting an elephant, in which the slowly dying elephant serves as an emblem of everything that is wrong with imperialism, suggesting it will ultimately fade and (though it may take a long time) die.

Historical linguists could tell us for sure, but doesn't imperialism linger forever in language? The Romans may have entered British territory with an elephant in tow, but the elephant they left behind — that of the Latin language — has proved far more significant. That particular beast refused to perish, especially after the Normans invaded, bringing in still more Latinate words.

(As a sidebar, I wonder if the early Brits couldn't believe their luck when pompous officials of church and state, not to mention academics, declared their intention to make Latin their special province? As Orwell so clearly demonstrated, the language of Imperial Rome suits the bureaucratic mindset to a T.)

COMING SOON: Part II of this post, in which I report on some of the best (and worst) features of attempting to learn the Japanese language, which not for nothing has earned the epithet of the devil's tongue (this from a Jesuit missionary, who had every incentive to master it!). Until then, I am abandoning the realm of philology post-haste to spend more time with my Kindle ...

Questions: Do you, too, value England as the keeper of the flame for the English language? And am I being paranoid, or does our Mother Tongue sometimes have a xenophobic flavor?

A Polyglot Parses Her Perfectly Preposterous Passion for Polly's Pancakes (Say It 3x!)

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:59:00 +0000

Living for so many years as a rex-pat (repeat expatriate) in England and Japan has turned me into a somewhat freakish cultural hybrid. Though I've been back in the United States for a while, I still have moments when I'm taken aback by what a strange fusion of elements I've become. The most recent instance occurred during a stay in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The specific catalyst was a visit to Polly's Pancake Parlor (hereafter, Polly's).

Located on a maple production farm in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, Polly's started up in 1938 as a small tea room catering to the clientele at the many grand hotels in the area (including the legendary Miss D, or Bette Davis, who'd retreated to New Hampshire to escape the paparazzi). Polly and Wilfred ("Sugar Bill") Dexter were in charge. They hoped that by serving food, they could increase sales of the farm's maple products: not only maple syrup but also granulated maple sugar, maple pepper, and maple spread.

More than seventy years later, Polly's is still going strong, except its founders' vision has flipped over. Nowadays people pine more for Polly's pancakes (and their original-formula pancake mixes) than they do for the farm's pure maple products (though these, too, are delicious).

So, how did a polyglot mix like me develop such a passion for Polly's? Quite simply, because this little gem of a restaurant appeals to the three different cultural strands that run through my personality:

1) American: One of my very favorite picture books from my American childhood is The Perfect Pancake. At that time, I had no idea that the book had been authored and illustrated by the Wisconsin-born librarian Virginia Kahl. She ultimately moved to the D.C. area, where she died in late 2004, leaving behind a houseful of stray cats she had rescued. It turns out, moreover, that Kahl was a fellow elephant seeker. She traveled overseas after WWII with the Army special services section to work as a librarian in Berlin and Salzburg, Austria. It may be far fetched, but I like to think that seeing those particular "elephants" was what led Kahl to produce such memorably quirky stories.

The Perfect Pancake tells of an old-fashioned village woman with a gift for turning out perfect pancakes, one after the other. She will make a pancake for anyone who asks, but no more than one — because it is perfect. Then one day a stranger comes to the village and asks for a pancake. He says it was very good, but... So the woman makes another, only to get a similar response. She makes another and another and is on the verge of collapse when the man at last declares he has had his fill: the last pancake was perfect.

Whenever I catch myself getting worn out catering to others' needs, I remember that story and how as a kid I'd promised myself never to end up like its enervated protagonist.

Visiting Polly's a few weeks ago, I had the satisfaction of being able to live out my revisionist fantasy. Polly's after all advertises that it obtains the best ingredients "in an effort to serve the lightest, fluffiest pancakes possible." But is that true? Does Polly's produce the perfect pancake? To find out, I gleefully sampled three types of the pancake batters with three types of add-ins: 1. Oatmeal buttermilk with blueberries. 2. Whole wheat with walnuts. 3. Cornmeal with coconut.

With each bite, I said to myself: "Now, this pancake is good, but not quite perfect. Let's see how the next one tastes." I was terribly pleased when, almost on cue, the waitress approached me and asked if I was ready for Round Two. "Bring it on," I said, playing the part of the man who will not be satisfied until he's had his fill, to the hilt. And then, when she was no longer in earshot: "You think you can get away with just two rounds? You'll be lucky. Heh-heh-heh..."

2) English/European: In 1986 Carlo Petrini founded the international slow food movement in Italy to protest the plan to open a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. The movement adopted a snail symbol because the snail moves slowly and calmly eats its way through life (snails are also eaten in Petrini's part of Italy). Slow Food has since spread to the United States (particularly California), but to this day, the most avid adherents are Europeans, reflecting the movement's origins as a protest against American fast-food chains.

When living in a small English town, I became a practitioner of (lower case) slow food without knowing anything of Petrini's efforts. It was just the way people lived in that part of the world: shopping almost daily for ingredients for making their evening meals. And, as my confidence in my cooking increased, I started hosting dinner parties. To this day, going round to people's houses for a "meal," and returning the favor, remains one of my sharpest memories of life in small-town UK. I recall slaving away for days on end concocting starters, mains, and desserts (a choice of two puddings!) from recipes I'd found in cookbooks such as Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course or Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery. In case you haven't surmised, at that point in my life I was well on the road to becoming, as it were, the perfect pancake maker ...

Upon returning to the United States to live, I was genuinely dismayed to see, despite mounting evidence about the lack of nutrition and environmental waste, how many families have abandoned the tradition of home cooking in favor of convenience foods and how often they are consuming Big Macs and the like. (Take it from Rip Van Winkle: fast food has proliferated since my day.)

Imagine my joy, then, in stumbling across Polly's — and in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, an area that is not exactly known for culinary pre-eminence. Polly's was doing slow food long before anyone called it that or developed it as a creed. Among other things, this little breakfast spot can boast of decades of making:

pancake batters using organically grown grains, which are stone ground on the premises.
maple syrup, maple sugar, and maple spread using a time-consuming process and some machinery Sugar Bill invented.
coffee with pure fresh mountain water.

The current owners of Polly's take great pride in keeping up these traditions. They claim that their all-time favorite customer comment is from an English guest (no, not me — I'm a hybrid, remember?): "Polly's Pancake Parlor is an oasis in the American food desert." Roger Aldrich, who managed the business with his wife from 1949, must have been gratified by that remark. He saw the elephant in the traditional sense of seeing battle through service in WWII, which took him to France, England, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. The highlight of his tour was arriving at Omaha Beach two weeks after D-Day — an experience Aldrich describes, along with his resulting PTSD, in a memoir he published on his war years, available for purchase at Polly's.

3) Asia/Japan: Strange as it may seem, Polly's deeply appeals to the Japanese side of my personality. The principles governing Japanese cuisine are, of course, quite distinct from our Western traditions, placing much greater emphasis on the food's appearance (for an overview, see Donald Richie's A Taste of Japan). As Richie puts it, "in Japan the eyes are at least as large as the stomachs." But, although Polly's differs from other American pancake houses in not serving up humongous portions (the pancakes are just three inches so that you can sample several types), the arrangement of the food on plates is rather pedestrian. (Hey, it's a pancake house!)

Nevertheless, there is something about Polly's that corresponds with the food ethos that has been permanently engrained in me after years of living (and eating!) in Tokyo. Part of it has to do with the freshness of the food, and the fact that after taking your order, your waitress goes back to a special griddle area, and you can watch her mix up the batter and fry your pancakes. (You are served just three pancakes at a time, to ensure you are always eating a warm one.) From the Japanese standpoint, watching the cook in action is one way of proving how fresh the food is.

In addition, Polly's reminds me of the kind of Japanese restaurant that specializes in a single cuisine: soba/udon, ramen, tonkatsu, tempura, sushi ... Although the menu also includes eggs, quiches, sandwiches and salads, Polly's has become known for mastering the art of producing pancakes from original recipes and local ingredients that are assembled each morning. It's what we might call in Japan a pancake-ya.

I'm sure that what has inspired some of these musings is Polly's location (in the mountains) and its decor: very charming, and in keeping with the Japanese sensibility for unembellished natural materials. Polly's is housed in a vintage-era 1830s carriage shed. What a splendid (and to me, thoroughly Japanese) idea to convert a shed into a rustic breakfast place, especially as its windows afford such fabulous views, heightening the diners' awareness of nature.

Polly's busiest season is autumn, and this, too, puts me in mind of Japan. Japanese value momijigari (leaf viewing) nearly as much as ohanami (cherry blossom viewing). They watch as the koyo [colorful leaves] front moves slowly southwards from Hokkaido to the central and southern islands, in order to plan their annual leaf-viewing outings. Polly's has a fall foliage chart on its Web site, and I note it has just now posted some autumn foliage pix on its FB page. Kirei desu ne!

Question to other rex-pats: Can you relate to my sense of being an odd duck as a result of your travels? (Have any of your own "Polly's" to share?)

In Honor of Those Who See the Elephant Untrammeled by Xenophobia

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 23:42:00 +0000

We long-term expats are far from perfect. We're too often the empty chair at the extended-family table; we can come across as arrogant or aloof; and some of us are boozers. But one thing you can say for us, we don't fear the "other." We're not xenophobes. Thus one of the most difficult challenges of repatriation can be witnessing an outbreak of xenophobia in one's native land, as has been happening lately in the United States.

Immigrants, Muslims, President Obama: demonizing the "other" is rapidly becoming a blood sport. Never mind that most immigrants come to see an "elephant" (as did many of our own ancestors). Or that most Muslims aren't terrorists. Or that in this age of international travel, President Obama is hardly alone in taking the "x" out xenophobe and putting it into expatriate. In a cover story for this month's Forbes, conservative thinker Dinesh D'Souza asserts that because Obama spent “his formative years — the first 17 years of his life — off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa," he is an "other," doesn't think like an "American," and takes actions that benefit foreigners, not natives. (This barb from a man who was born and raised in India!)

As an antidote to these poisonous times, this blog will be issuing occasional Pachrydermophile Prizes in honor of Americans who are carrying on a love affair with the elephant, or "X," in a very public way, untrammeled by xenophobia. In this post, "best of" prizes will be awarded for the following categories:

Wrinkles and All: For foreign-born or first-generation Americans who continue to embrace their native cultures in the face of vitriolic attacks.
Grass Really Is Greener: For Americans who admire certain things about the "other" and aren't afraid to broadcast that fact.
Feed Time: For Americans who, having fallen hard for another culture's food, try hard to get the rest of us to fall as well.
Why Do Elephants Paint Their Toes Yellow? For Americans who express a love of other cultures through clothing.

And the winners are . . .

BEST "WRINKLES AND ALL"

Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian-American novelist, for facing down the American "elephant" since 9/11. Khakpour's debut novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, told of the travails of an Iranian-American family in New York post-9/11. But little did Khakpour anticipate, when she published the book in 2007, the "boiling hot summer of anti-Islamic assault" the nation has just experienced. As she wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times, published on September 11, 2010:

. . . it would take almost a full decade for the proverbial 9/11 fallout to fall out, for anti-Muslim xenophobia to emerge, fully formed and fever-pitched, ostensibly over plans to build an interfaith cultural center near ground zero.

Khakpour's family fled Tehran at the advent of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, when she was only three years old. They hustled from country to country, ultimately settling in Southern California. At that time, Khakpour spoke only Farsi; now she is a professor of literature Santa Fe University of Art and Design as well as an accomplished novelist. She did not embrace Islam and has become an American citizen. That said, she still considers herself to be a Middle Easterner culturally — an identity that sometimes clashes with her values, those of a political liberal. For instance, she cannot fully accept Western stereotypes of Muslim women:

. . . I used to experience so many mixed emotions when I’d see women in full burqa in Brooklyn: alarm at the spectacle (no matter how many times I’d seen it), followed by a certain feminist irk, and finally discomfiture at our cultural kinship. And then it would all turn into one strong emotion — protective rage — when I’d see a group of teenagers laughing and pointing at them.

BEST "GRASS REALLY IS GREENER"

Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical-doctor-turned-foreign-correspondent, for combining an anthropologist's ability to immerse herself in other cultures with a journalist's ability to report back on her discoveries. As the health and environment reporter for the International Herald Tribune, Rosenthal has embarked on a quest to find out what makes Europe greener than the United States. She likes to tell an anecdote at her own expense: about how she struggled to get used to not having a clothes dryer or air conditioner in her apartment in Rome. All's well that ends well, she says: "I now enjoy the ritual of putting laundry on the line, expect to sweat in summer, and look forward to the cool of autumn." She is also of the conviction that if she can do it, others can. The average American produces three times the amount of CO2 emissions as a person in France. So if we are serious about lowering our carbon footprints, then it's time to forgo some of our energy-wasting appliances.

Before Europe, Rosenthal reported on health-related issues for the New York Times' Beijing bureau. She recently drew on that experience when contributing a front-page story to the Times's Week in Review addressing the debate now raging in American educational communities about the importance of testing. She tells the story of how well her children adapted to their international school in Beijing, which combined a Western curriculum with an Asian emphasis on discipline and frequent testing. She says that her kids mostly didn't understand they were being tested as the "tests felt like so many puzzles; not so much a judgment on your being, but an interesting challenge." What's more, they came to "like the feedback of testing." American educators would do well to heed Rosenthal's advice and learn from the Chinese example. Notably, her observations dovetail with some new U.S. research showing that not giving tests may be bad educational practice.

BEST "FEED TIME"

Ratha Chau and Ben Daitz, two members of the New York City restaurant scene, for founding the city's first Cambodian-American sandwich shop. Daitz and Chau were buddies at Clark University in 1992. Their paths crossed again some years later when both were working in the food industry in New York City. Daitz helped Chau open Kampuchea (New York's first Cambodian restaurant, now closed) on the Lower East Side. Daitz still remembers the first time he visited that restaurant, and Chau made him a sandwich using his Cambodian mother's recipe. He took one bite and felt he'd seen the "elephant." Eventually, the two friends joined forces to open up a tiny sandwich shop in the East Village called Num Pang, showcasing traditional Cambodian ingredients — fermented fish, shrimp paste, fermented shrimp, and lots of herbs — in a style (gourmet sandwiches) they hoped would appeal to Americans.

In a recent "At Lunch With" column in the New York Times, the actor Oliver Platt dragged film critic Leah Rozen to Num Pang and proceeded to order his favorite skirt steak sandwich topped with mayonnaise flavored with fresh cilantro [coriander]. Platt's father was a diplomat specializing in Asia, so the family (which also includes food critic Adam Platt) lived in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan. There are many Americans who think that cilantro tastes like soap, but for Platt, cilantro is the equivalent of what the madeleine was to Proust: the flavor that recalls his time abroad more than any other. No wonder he's a Num Pang regular. At the same time, Platt appreciates how well Daitz and Chau have made their Southeast Asian food concept work in a New York City's ultra-urban environment. "You’ve got all of New York in microcosm right here," he told Rozen. ". . . I can smell the exhaust, and that’s part of the whole palate.”

BEST "WHY DO ELEPHANTS PAINT THEIR TOES YELLOW?"

Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai, a team of up-and-coming fashion designers, for melding designs from far-flung corners of the globe with an American retro aesthetic. Mayock and Buhai met when they were graduate students at Parsons School of Design (home of Project Runway). Each was elated to discover a fellow Californian who was attempting to dress an East Coast "elephant." (In Mayock's view, West Coast style is much less defined than what's found in the East.) Upon graduating from Parsons, the pair collaborated on their own label, Vena Cava, which is distinguished for its hip prints and dresses with a worldly feel — clothes that, in New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn's phrase, "hint of Americana with a dash of another country."

Vena Cava's cultural references have included Egyptian history, japonismo, Wiener Werkstatte, and African textiles. Lately, Buhai and Mayock seem to have turned to the Tuscan region of Italy or France for inspiration. (Are they suggesting we'd all like to escape?!) Their Spring 2011 collection, shown at New York Fashion Week, "felt very Mad Men by way of Capri," according to Huffington Post contributor Nicole Berrie. "An Eat, Pray, Love of the 1960s if you will." (Sounds heavenly, in my current mood ...)

Question: Long live the American pachydermophile spirit! Are there any other exemplars you think should be honored?

A Scorcher Calls for Scorched-Earth Tactics: Reflections on Summer 2010

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:38:00 +0000

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer, and you're not as beguiling as you used to be. Anything but. The National Weather Service recently pronounced Summer 2010 the hottest ever recorded for New York City. But we residents didn't need official stats to know it was a hot mess. Drama queens that we are, we became fond of dabbing our sweaty brows and declaring aloud: "I can't stand it any longer!"

Part of me wishes I'd been in London, where summer apparently started quite well but faltered badly. Even a nonexistent summer would have been better than the perfidious combination of heat and humidity that passed for summer in New York. Still, at least I didn't spend it in my other home-away-from-home, Japan. A friend has just now written that Tokyo had its hottest summer in 113 years, with 48 "tropical" nights.

But now that the end is in sight — Labor Day, YES!!! — I'm switching over to a practical state of mind. Time to think up some scorched-earth tactics for dealing with this kind of scorcher in future (as scorchers are predicted to become the norm). Drawing on my years of adapting to other countries' climates, I'd like to offer offer three suggestions for beating off the next heat wave:

1) Beat a hasty retreat to the mountains (so much healthier these days than the seashore). I have just now tested this idea by spending the final week of Summer 2010 in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It's hot up here, too, but at least you can plunge into the nearest mountain stream, river, or lake for instant relief, or run into a forest for shade. Plus the psychological benefits of gazing into crystal-clear waters are enormous after a summer that has been dominated by the devastating news of the oil spill in the Gulf. And fellow elephant seekers, please take note: New England offers the challenge of trying to spot yet another ungainly but majestic animal: the North American moose (Alces alces). We've had the good fortune of seeing three since our arrival — much to the delight of our two canines ...

2) Dance in a circle to the beat of taiko drums. Many Americans are familiar with the Mexican "Day of the Dead." Well, the Japanese have a version, too. It's called Obon and takes place in the dead of summer (mid-August), when even the living are half-dead because of the onslaught of what the Japanese call mushi-atsui conditions (if "mushi" isn't an onomatopoeia, I don't know what is). As the climate of the U.S. East Coast resembles that of Honshu Island, I propose we start up our own Obon celebrations. Being Americans, perhaps we can skip the part about our ancestors coming back to life and think of it simply as "The Day of the Living Dead." The focus could be on the Bon Odori: the custom of heading to a local park, garden, shrine, or temple, wearing yukata (summer kimono), and dancing around a yagura stage to the rhythm of taiko drums. Even if you don't join in the circle, just hearing the drumbeat can be revitalizing, getting one's blood flowing again. If you're lucky, it will keep your brain alive until summer finally ends...

3) Try beating other bloggers in the race to upload photos showing how much you are suffering, in the certain knowledge it will make them happy (misery adores company). For me, one of the greatest comforts of the past summer lay in reading other expats' blogs and seeing that the grass wasn't any greener (on the contrary, it was browner) elsewhere in the world. Here are three examples:

SUMMER IN SHANGHAI: Blogger Kristin Bair O'Keeffe entertained us with stories of how the Shanghainese handled a summer where temperatures soared as high as 40C (104F), a record. According to her report, men tend to rub their bellies while saying how hot it is, while women employ a variety of methods to make sure the sun never touches their skin, from parasols to sun sleeves and capes.

SUMMER IN MOSCOW: Jennifer Eremeeva uploaded this view from her Moscow apartment as evidence that the sufferings of Moscow residents at the hands of Russia's record heat wave had not been exaggerated. Carbon monoxide levels rose to at least six times the maximum acceptable level, as hundreds of wildfires raged across the country, some very near the capital.

SUMMER IN DOHA: On July 14, when Doha recorded 50.4C (122.7F), its highest temperature in four decades, expat Sybil Knox decided it was time to try baking chocolate chip cookies in a tray on the dashboard of her car. Hey, if life gives you blazing desert sun, try some cooking experiments ... Her blog post was picked up by the Qatari Daily Gulf Times.

Question: How did you survive the Summer 2010 — got any good stories to share, or heat-beating advice to impart?
Note to expat bloggers: Do you have a photo of summer 2010 in your neck of the woods to contribute to the above collection? Please e-mail me at seentheelephante@gmail.com.

Paying Tribute to an Elephant-seeing Statesman of Yesteryear, William Saxbe

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:37:00 +0000

William Bart Saxbe died this week at his home in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, age 94. A politician and statesman for many years, his biggest claim to fame was serving as U.S. attorney general under Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal. But we can forgive him that transgression in part because he was an unlikely pick for the post (a one-term Republican senator, he had frequently criticized Nixon) — but in large part because he displayed three qualities the Seen the Elephant blog associates with a fearless leader.

1) Saxbe was an American politician to the core, but he was proud of having expanded his horizons beyond American shores. He was familiar with the "seeing the elephant" metaphor and used it for the title of his autobiography, I've Seen the Elephant, published in 2000 (with Peter D. Franklin). Saxbe narrates his life's journey from his youth in a small Ohio town, to his military career during WWII and Korea, to his career as a public servant in Ohio, Washington, and overseas (he served as ambassador to India under President Ford). Saxbe's eldest son contributed the book's introduction. He lauds his father's "sense of adventure, love of travel and receptivity to new people and ideas," adding: "He's the kind of man you don't meet every day" (my emphasis). You can say that again! When is the last time this nation has encountered a politician who feels comfortable trumpeting the alter ego of an elephant seeker? That's if they have one, of course. President Bush famously had not traveled outside the continental United States before he became president. The same is true for most congresspeople and senators. Bill Clinton spent two years at Oxford at a Rhodes scholar but played down this detail of his biography during his campaign for fear it would alienate voters. Perhaps Barack Obama has seen more of the elephant than any previous president, having lived as a youth in Indonesia; but this portion of his life continues to raked over the coals by those who are on a mission to prove he's not an American citizen, to the point where he probably wishes he'd never set foot in Jakarta.

2) Whether consciously or not, Saxbe channeled the 19th-century adventurer who went off to see an "elephant." He was said by his peers to resemble the redoubtable Will Rogers. Born in 1879 on a ranch in Oologah, Indian Territory (what is now Oklahoma), Rogers just about qualifies for membership in what I've labeled "elephant seekers of old." He traveled around the world three times, achieving acclaim as much for his ability to deliver zingers ("Our foreign policy is an open book — a checkbook") as for his trick roping. Likewise, Saxbe, while he may not have been a lasso spinner, was a tobacco-chewing cattle rancher who traveled the world as part and parcel of his career in public service. He became known for such homespun "Saxbeisms" as:

"That's a ticket on the Titanic." [a disastrous cause]
"There'll be blood and hair on every stump." [a good political fight]
"He couldn't carry cold guts to a bear." [a weak advocate]

Notably, Saxbe once said that Nixon, in claiming to know nothing of the Watergate coverup, was like "the man who plays piano at a bawdy house for 20 years and says he doesn't know what's going on upstairs."

3) Saxbe brought home some especially quirky mementos from his travels, a practice this blog wholeheartedly endorses. His treasured white elephants from India included the tiger skin rugs that grace his home in Mechanicsburg (these, it should be noted, are no longer environmentally correct, if they ever were) and, more unusually, a supply of betel nut, which he'd grown fond of mixing with his chewing tobacco. (Although Saxbe was a nonagenarian, tobacco chewing, it should likewise be noted, is not a habit to be recommended: bad for health and teeth.)

Questions: Do you agree that William Saxbe merits the label "fearless leader"? Can you think of any other 20th-century statesmen who might qualify for this status?

Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge/Cornerstone #3

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:05:00 +0000

"The Semi-Invisible Traveler,"
by Bruno Catalano (Camden Arts Centre, UK)

Congratulations! You have almost completed the series of cornerstone posts on the themes of this blog. But in order to reach the finish line, you must undergo the experience — full of promise but mostly full of peril — of coming home again after seeing an "elephant."

In the previous post, we became acquainted with Eddie Expat, who has seen an elephant or two in his time — and lived to tell the tale. But for the final phase of this discussion, we will turn our attention to Ramona Repat, who unlike Eddie has packed in the elephant-seeking adventure and trundled back to the land of her birth.

You might think that knowing something of Eddie's story would help you to anticipate what Ramona will have to say for herself. But think again. Just as the expatriate's life is another country (or two), the repatriate's life is another country (or three).

SEE ALSO:
#1: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" … Encyclopedic version
#1a: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" ... Reader's Digest, Twitter, Movie Trailer, and Crib Notes versions
#2: How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant" ... Meet Eddie Expat

#3: Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge

Ramona Repat is back in the United States after a decade-and-a-half in other countries. I invited her to be a guest blogger, but she prefers to have me speak on her behalf as she has family matters to attend to, which she neglected during her time abroad. Ramona says it has taken her some years to come to grips with the challenges of repatriation — also known as "reverse culture shock" or "reentry syndrome." What follows is a summary of her key observations.

MEET RAMONA REPAT

Ramona's Top Ten Observations on Repatriation:

"The Prodigal Son,"
by Gerard van Honthorst (1623)

1) At first Ramona objected to the title of this post, saying it was too repat-centric, since the first thing every returnee must realize is that it's not just about them any more. After all, this blog does not cover prisoners of war or refugees that are being sent home. On the contrary, the blog's focus is on the kind of repats who have voluntarily spent their lives seeing elephants and whose stories are therefore closer to that of a prodigal son (or daughter). Even if their homecoming is joyous, they may still face a reckoning not unlike the one in Rudyard Kipling's poem:

My father glooms and advises me,
My brother sulks and despises me,
And Mother catechises me
Till I want to go out and swear.

In Ramona's view, repats would do well to rise above their personal histories in acknowledging all those who have, in essence, underwritten their elephant-seeking adventures:

Your family couldn't always depend on you for support at critical moments, as you were too far away to be physically present (being present in spirit isn't always enough).
The government had to sacrifice some portion of your income (as you didn't pay much in taxes).
Politicians couldn't rely on your support for their campaigns (at most, you probably voted by absentee ballot, and only in the presidential election years).
The working world had to carry on without the benefit of your input and experience.
The environment, too, suffered: all that galavanting around the world has left an untidy carbon footprint.

2) Ramona further advises patience: just as you couldn't see an elephant overnight, it will also take time to earn back your compatriots' trust. She warns in particular against assuming you can easily sell yourself with an elephant-seeker's résumé. Most potential employers could not care less about how many wrinkles the elephant has. She read somewhere that if you move abroad, you lose four years of your career, as you can't take your networks with you and have to start again with zero contacts. Well, job hunting as a repat is not for the feint of heart either. So, Ramona suggests getting a dog, if you don't have one already. (If ever there was a time to benefit from a canine's unconditional love, this would be it...)


Statue of Rip Van Winkle, Irvington, NY

3) Who are you, what have you sacrificed? Ramona admits, however, that a certain amount of navel gazing is inevitable for repats like herself. It's not uncommon, she notes, for them to develop a Rip Van Winkle complex. Rip Van Winkle got himself into trouble by proclaiming himself a loyal subject of King George III, having snoozed through the American Revolution. Likewise, most repats possess some major cultural lacunae. Ramona remembers thinking, for instance: since when did this fad for home schooling take off, and what's this I keep hearing about charter schools? And, though most repats don't come back with long white beards (they are more likely to sport a perennial tan), they must nevertheless come to terms with the loss of their former lives (and youths) in the mists of time. And for 21st-century American repats, there is an additional counter culture shock in realizing that your nation — and in many cases, your family as well — has become highly dysfunctional in your absence. Ramona often reflects on how far times have changed since Thomas Wolfe wrote his book suggesting that if you went home, you might be seen as a failure in the eyes of your family and friends. Now it's the other way around. You might be tempted to judge them harshly: good grief, what have you done to this place?!

4) But if Rip Van Winkle is a convenient role model for many repats, Ramona recommends taking a look at the Chinese version of the tale, which in some ways rings truer to their circumstances than Washington Irving's. Irving based his story on an old German folk tale of a goatherd named Peter Klaus, who awakens from a 20-year slumber after drinking fairy wine on the Kyffhäuser Mountain, to find his village dramatically changed. (This tale has parallels to the old Jewish story about Honi M'agel.) But in the Taoist tale that was told in ancient China, a woodcutter ventures into a forest and encounters two old men playing go (weiqi). He falls into a trance and when he comes out many years later, his axe handle has rotted to dust. Japanese (who also have their own Rip Van Winkle, Urashima Tarō) found the Chinese story fascinating, as evidenced by this 9th-century poem conveying the woodcutter's thoughts upon returning to his village:

I've come back home.
There is no friend to play go with.
That place far away
where an axe handle turned to dust -
how dear to me it has become!

Ramona, too, can relate to the woodcutter's feeling of longing. Seeing elephants is an all-absorbing adventure beyond compare. Is it any wonder that so many repats become permanent malcontents? Ramona has to keep reminding herself not to come across as a Ra-MOAN-a.

5) On a related note, Ramona says that one of the most difficult adjustments for repats is a feeling that their horizons are shrinking. Ramona recalls, when she first came back to this country, being drawn to a book on display in a chain bookstore: Seeing the Elephant: Understanding Globalization from Trunk to Tail. The book concerns global financial strategy, but its title really spoke to Ramona. She recalls saying to herself: "Okay, so you've seen everything from trunk to tail. But how do you go back to seeing just trunk again — or being around others who do?" (Not surprisingly, the book was on the half-price table.)

6) As a result, most repats end up with an elephant (or two, or three) in the room. They refrain from speaking out on issues they feel passionately about for fear of being labeled raving lunatics. Ramona, for instance, still can't get over how many cars there are on the roads compared to when she left, of which an unacceptably high proportion are SUVs. In her day, only the military and the police were allowed to drive such gas-guzzling vehicles. How she would love to get up on her soapbox and preach about her years of living in countries where people get around perfectly well using public transport and driving fuel-efficient cars. But she knows full well that, by the time she has cleared her throat, most of her listeners will have bolted for their Range Rovers.

7) That's of course assuming that Ramona could deliver an effective oratory given how challenging she sometimes finds communications with her fellow citizens. Clueless? Well, yeah. "You go, girl," "smokin' hot," "wife beater," "fugly," "rad," "yo," "yadda yadda yadda," "whatever," "as if" — Ramona is in a perpetual state of incomprehension. Vocabulary aside, she still struggles with daily interactions. When someone tells her to "have a nice day," for instance, there is a visceral sense of familiarity coupled with a sense of strangeness. After wrestling with her conflicting emotions, Ramona has at long last reached a place where she accepts that she is now a hybrid personality and will never be fully re-assimilated. She and several of her repat friends now think that the only country where they will feel at home is the one they create for themselves in cyberspace, so have set up blogs. (Ramona calls hers "Ramona's Much-Expanded World" in honor of Ramona Quimby, that rambunctious 8-year-old heroine. Ramona projects she will leave Portland eventually.)

Isabella Bird, 19th-c. explorer
(print by Stephen Alcorn, 1991)

8) As a repat, Ramona also finds herself much more sensitive when someone shows intolerance or bigotry, than she was before her travels. She recalls an incident that occurred the first summer after she came home, when she was walking down the street in the blazing heat carrying a sun umbrella she had picked up in Japan. Suddenly, a car went by honking its horn and with someone leaning out of the window yelling that people "don't do that in America." Ramona noticed it was an SUV with Virginia plates. At times like these, Ramona wishes she had been born in Victorian England, where people who traveled and saw elephants were held in high esteem, however eccentric they became (and women carrying parasols was de rigueur).

9) But despite the many trials and tribulations, Ramona urges new arrivals to have faith in the repatriation process. Cultivating your own back garden can be immensely entertaining after so many years on foreign soil. When she first got home, Ramona spent hours roaming the aisles of her local drugstore, supermarket, and bookstore, feeling like a kid in a candy store. And who knew that the U.S. had so many superb vacation spots on its borders? "Mexico and Canada, here we come!" she is fond of exclaiming.

10) A fan of cinema, Ramona is also not one to shy away from the grand gesture, and she thinks the grandest gesture of all for an elephant seeker is to come back home. So what if you have to eat humble pie and spend some years carving out a new niche for yourself in your homeland? "Hang it all, you've seen an elephant!" The words of the farmer whose cart got knocked over by the circus parade are a mantra that has sustained Ramona through her readjusting pains. Not to mention the idea that if all else fails, she can go abroad again and work on a sequel ... (Joke! Ramona insists she is here to stay, even if it necessitates frequent visits to the pachyderm house in the local zoo.)

Question for repats: Can you relate to Ramona's story? Has she left anything out?
Question for expats: Can you imagine coming home again after hearing what Ramona has to say, or has she scared you off completely? (Pls note: That was not her intention!)

How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant"/Cornerstone #2

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:43:00 +0000

Welcome back to the extended tour — the second in a three (and a half)-part series on what this blog is about, known as "cornerstone posts."

If you need to stretch your legs, you're in luck. We've just now rounded the corner where the tourmobile stops for long enough for us to get out and gawk at people who have seen an "elephant."

But before we do that, some orientation: who exactly are these people, what are they like, and how do they differ from the rest of the traveling herd?

SEE ALSO:
#1: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" … Encyclopedic version
#1a: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" ... Reader's Digest, Twitter, Movie Trailer, and Crib Notes versions
#3: Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge ... Meet Ramona Repat

#2: How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant"

Once you've seen an elephant, it's relatively easy to spot someone else who has. The faraway look in their eyes, the I-can't-quite-place-where-it's-from (because it's such a funny hybrid) accent, the rather droll way of responding to life's vicissitudes — all are dead giveaways. But what if you haven't met an elephant seeker before, how will you know?

For background, I've prepared a one-page hand-out on Eddie Expat. Though he can't be here today with us in the flesh — he lives on the other side of the world — Eddie is a good friend of mine and trusts me to represent his story. Rest assured, Eddie is with this tour in spirit. The more you come to know him, the more adept you'll be at recognizing people who have seen an elephant.

MEET EDDIE EXPAT

Top Ten "Need to Know" Items About Eddie:

1) Eddie is the kind of traveler who stays put in his destination — he is not, repeat not, a tourist (he does not travel merely for pleasure) nor is he a globetrotter. He's not one to "eat, pray, love" around the world in response to a life crisis at home. And never once did he aspire to be the kind who clocks up more than a hundred countries and six continents by age 25. Unlike most globetrotters, Eddie prefers to take it slow and easy. He unpacks his suitcase (never a backpack) and stays awhile, sometimes for many years or a lifetime. Eddie insists that s-l-o-w travel is what people generally mean by seeing an "elephant." Elephants are highly intelligent, complex animals. It doesn't do well to rush the experience.

2) At the same time — and I don't think he will be insulted if I say this — Eddie is no country expert. By that I mean, someone who has seen so much of the elephant they don't even know they're looking at it any more: they are the elephant. Eddie has seen the elephant, wrinkles and all, but he prides himself on staying at arm's length. Now why is this, you might ask, given Eddie's pachyderm obsession? Eddie doesn't know exactly. It stymies him, too. Sometimes he says it's because he doesn't want to spend his adulthood focusing exclusively on one pursuit, especially as he has to earn a living. Other times he says that not knowing the elephant too well will make it easier to say good-bye one day. Eddie intends to come home, he's just not sure when ...

3) Eddie moved abroad during his formative years. He eventually married and now has a couple of kids, but he still talks about seeing the elephant in the first person, because for him it's been a deeply personal connection. He likes to think that his elephant-seeking experience has turned him into a philosopher — albeit of the garden variety. (Eddie by the way won't mind that joke at his expense. He's a generally humorous guy with a self-deprecating wit.)

4) Eddie can certainly be philosophical about the places where he's lived. The other day I emailed him a map I'd found of London — that's where Eddie went to live first, for graduate school. It was a map plotting where and by whom photos uploaded to Flickr and Picasa were taken during a given period. Sights captured by "local" shutterbugs — who are identified as such because they've taken many shots over a wide range of dates — are marked with blue dots. Tourists get red dots. (Yellows could not be placed in either camp.)

Locals and Tourists #1 (GTWA #2): London, by Eric Fischer

Eddie wrote back that he found the map, which had been generated by a computer programmer in California, very interesting. Whereas tourists see one London and locals see another, he sees both versions, and for him, that's seeing an elephant. You want the broadest possible canvas if the goal is to glimpse life's rich tapestry.

5) Eddie does not delude himself into thinking his travels have been epic, but he does think they are worthy of writing about. That's why he keeps a blog, occasionally including snippets of poetry and wisdom that have inspired him along the way. He notices other expat bloggers doing this, too, and for fun keeps a running list of taglines that he finds uplifting. Here are a few of his recent favorites:

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." — Saint Augustine, The World Is a Book blog
"Where everything is something trembling ... on the brink of something else." — Vladimir Nabokov, On the Brink of Something Else blog
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." — Talmud, Destination Anywhere blog

Pony Express ad, 1860

6) Returning to the elephant, which for so long has been the object of Eddie's quest: now, it's true to say that Eddie has developed a certain elephant envy over the years. He particularly admires the way these extraordinary animals have evolved for long-distance living. Elephants in the wild range tens of miles a day. They live in large, tight-knit family groups and communicate with each other at great distance. Eddie doesn't think that expat groups are particularly tightly knit, since the members are so transient. He also doesn't think that modern communications — Blogger, Facebook, Twitter — are especially helpful for staying in touch. Sometimes he wonders if they are any better than the Pony Express, which used to sustain the pioneers who traveled to the Wild West to see the elephant. While Eddie maintains a Facebook page and tweets occasionally, deep down he agrees with the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar that virtual community is no substitute for the real thing and most social media contacts are "weak ties."

7) Eddie is further aware that some part of him couldn't give a toss about having hundreds of friends with whom he communicates constantly. If pressed to say why he's such a loner at heart, he points out that it helps him notice subtleties — and that subtleties are what makes seeing the elephant worth the trouble. Eddie also admits that while he dreams of returning home, he doesn't particularly miss his home country. He was always something of a misfit in America, never having been one of those "bright outgoing happy shiny" people. (I told him the American psychologist Barbara Held, author of Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching, could have a field day with that comment.)

8) As much as he admires the elephant, Eddie doesn't mind admitting that the quest has left him a trifle world weary. "Same s**t, different scenery really is true": Eddie occasionally catches fellow expats saying things like that, and although he disapproves, he knows it's not dissimilar to the Victorian saying: "Been there, done that, seen the elephant." In his lowest moments, Eddie wonders whether, by giving himself over to the ambition of seeing an elephant, he peaked out too early. He fears he may even be suffering from what the Hawaiian Islanders call "rock fever" — except that for him, the rock is Planet Earth. In which case, what's the cure: space walking?

Emily Dickinson Museum poster (2008),
created by Penelope Dullaghan

9) As he gets older, Eddie admits to having the odd doubt about his chosen life course: was it actually necessary to leave home to see an "elephant"? At his wife's encouragement, Eddie has begun reading Emily Dickinson for the first time. He likes Emily's poems, especially the one about the robin, but he's even more bowled over by her biography — the fact that she could find everything she needed for her poetry in the flowers, birds, and insects she encountered in her own back garden. In comparison to the reclusive 19th-century poet, he and his fellow expat adventurers seem a rather unimaginative lot. On the one hand, you have a garden-inspired world-class poet; on the other, a group of garden-variety world-weary philosophers. Not much of a choice, is it?

10) Knowing Eddie as well as I do, I'm sure he would want this lecture to end on an upbeat note. Like many an intrepid traveler, Eddie is a firm believer in: If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. It's an attitude that has helped him remain grounded over his years of living overseas. Hardly surprising, then, that Eddie has become a lemonade maker worth his salt, occasionally mixing in tequila. (Hahaha — just checking whether you're still listening ...) Eddie recently sent me a link to a Web site for expats where it said that one of the things no expat likes to admit is how much they drink in a given week, particularly as it never seems excessive at the time. I responded I'd drink to that, and he told me he was guffawing out loud. I told you he was a jolly sort!

Question: Any questions you'd like me to answer on Eddie Expat's behalf? We have a few minutes before setting off for our final destination on this tour: what I've labeled the repatriation challenge. At that time, we will learn all about Eddie's counterpart, Ramona Repat. Can't wait!

Time to Define Seeing the Elephant/Cornerstone #1A

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:03:00 +0000

To those who found my first cornerstone post, Time to Define Seeing the Elephant, a little daunting, I have just one thing to say: Lend me a tenor! (No, not a tenner, though that would be nice.) I'm talking about the play by Ken Ludwig that was revived on Broadway this spring under the direction of Stanley Tucci.

For some audience members, the highlight of Lend Me a Tenor is the epilogue. It recounts, in roughly 90 seconds — and zero spoken words — the action you’ve just spent two-and-a-half hours watching. As one critic put it, this "lightning-quick version" serves as the "breathless icing on an already hilarious cake."

Now the blogging medium is such that I can't do zero words, let alone extreme hilarity. But I can at least offer several breathless alternatives that might go down a little easier. Take your pick among the:
1) Reader's Digest version (C'mon now: just 229 words!)
2) Twitter version (Even better: 115 characters!)
3) Movie trailer version (For those who live in a visual world...)
4) Crib notes version (It's all in the labels.)

Reader's Digest Version (229 words)

What is the "theme" of the blog, sort of "adventures of expats and former expats"? No, not exactly, especially if we're using "expat" in a very limited sense to mean a person who is sent to a country through his or her place of work. Rather, this blog is interested in recording observations about what makes people uproot themselves from their native lands. I want to dig down and ask: what made you, unlike most of the other people you grew up with, a candidate for detaching yourself from your native identity to try your luck in a far-off place?

You don't have to be like the 19th-century farmer who went in search of pachyderms at the circus, though that might not be a bad idea as elephants are remarkable creatures. But you do have to go in hopes of broadening your horizons to include sights as exotic as an elephant, and be willing to run the risk of disappointment ("wrinkles and all"). More often than not, however, the experience of "seeing the elephant" fosters tolerance, and even affection, for the culture you are immersed in.

We who have seen the elephant should never forget how privileged we are to travel by choice. And once you've seen an elephant or two, it no longer matters where you physically live: it becomes a state of mind that you carry around.

Twitter Version (115 characters)

Adventurers travel to see exotic sights, or "elephants." They come home again as philosophers. http://bit.ly/dq2GSv

Movie Trailer Version

INT. AIRPORT - DAY

A YOUNG WOMAN stands at the entrance to the airport security gates with her MOTHER and FATHER. She is dressed in jeans and a tee shirt that says "Elephant or Bust."

MOTHER
Oh, why can't you just go to the zoo?

YOUNG WOMAN
Ma, do we have to go through this again?

FATHER
Take care, baby. Come back in one piece!

NARRATOR
And so begins a classic adventure of Seeing the Elephant.

EXT. FIELD, REMOTE PART OF AN EXOTIC COUNTRY - MORNING

NARRATOR
The dawn of a new day… in a new place…

An ELEPHANT lumbers into the field. Then the YOUNG WOMAN appears, wearing a sun hat and sunglasses and carrying a backpack.

As she approaches the elephant, she tears off her hat and glasses and hurls her backpack to the ground.

YOUNG WOMAN
Oh my God, oh my God, an elephant? I've been on the road forever, just to see you!

ELEPHANT
How do I measure up? Worth the journey?

The Young Woman circles the animal, taking in its ears, tusks, trunk, sides, tail.

NARRATOR
But our young heroine must now face three difficult questions, beginning with: Is the grass any greener?

YOUNG WOMAN
Actually, you're a little wrinkly.

She squats down on the ground next to the elephant, running her hand through the grass.

YOUNG WOMAN
But the grass here, it really is greener. By the way, do you creatures eat anything besides roots?

NARRATOR (CONT'D)
Second: Can she get to know and love the elephant, wrinkles and all?

EXT. TOWN - DAY

Six BLIND MEN surround an elephant as a WISE MAN looks on. The Young Woman enters as each of the blind men is touching a different part of the beast — the side, the tusk, the trunk, the knee, the ear, and the swinging tail — and arguing about what they think the elephant looks like.

WISE MAN:
Is it a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, or a rope? It is all and none of these things...

YOUNG WOMAN
Now what are they wittering on about?

NARRATOR (CONT'D)
And third: Can she defy Thomas Wolfe and go home again?

INT. LIVING ROOM - AFTERNOON

The Young Woman sits on sofa in her parents' house

The Elephant is also in the room, visible only to the Young Woman.

The girl's father comes in, picks up the remote control and switches on a video of Walt Disney's Dumbo.

FATHER
Hey, does that make you feel at home?

The girl's mother comes in carrying a tray with cups of tea. The Young Woman reaches into her backpack and takes out a box, offering it to her dad.

YOUNG WOMAN
I brought something back for you guys. It's tree bark. I hope you like it.

FATHER
Thanks. ... What you might call an acquired taste?

The elephant trumpets in laughter, and the girl glances back at him. He quietens down.

MOTHER
How long are you staying this time, dear?

As the narrator speaks, majestic images of elephants fill the screen.

NARRATOR
How long indeed?

Noise of an elephant matriarch trumpeting.

NARRATOR (CONT'D)
Coming soon to a theater near you.

The end.

Crib Notes Version

As the Japanese realized some time ago, it's all in the labels!

Blind Man's Tale: An instance where you as a long-term expat feel compelled to defend something about your adopted culture to the folks back home, knowing full well they'll think you're deranged and suspect you've "gone native." {Origin} The South Asian parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Cornerstones: Posts that explain the blog's key concepts, including the etymology of "seeing the elephant."

Dumbo Culture: Observations having to do with the popular culture in your adopted country. In some cases, can also apply to your native country, especially when experiencing the Rip Van Winkle syndrome.

Elephant Seeker Interviews: Fun Q&As with people who have left their native lands or places in search of broader horizons.

Elephant Seekers of Old: 19th-century adventurers, with whom the idiom "seeing the elephant" originated. Most were traveling West to participate in the U.S.-Mexican War or to join the California Gold Rush.

Elephantry: The practice of joining the military as a way of seeing the world, with a secondary meaning of seeing action in battle. Notably, soldiers in the U.S. Civil War often said they were "going to see the elephant." {Origin} The branch of the army that uses war elephants.

Feed Time: New foods or food experiences that come from extensive travel, considered by most expats to be a key fringe benefit.

Fearless Leaders: Expats who transcend the typical expat life. They go abroad, immerse themselves in other cultures, learn languages, tell entertaining or informative stories to people back home, and then come home again to write bestsellers, become talking heads, etc. They are the exceptions that prove the rule "You can't go home again."

Grass Really Is Greener: Stuff about your adopted culture that you really like and have come to prefer over your own.

Rejoining the Herd: Trying to go home again after a long period abroad and confronting the inevitable counter-culture shock.

Treasured White Elephant: Something you've collected on your travels that's in bad (questionable) taste but you cherish it anyway because it reminds you of those days. You know that if you displayed the item in your house back home, no one would get it — but that only makes you cherish it the more.

Wrinkles and All: Instances where you come face to face with the ugly, less-than-salubrious sides of your adopted culture(s) and are confronted with a fundamental decision about whether you can compromise your core values.

Why Do Elephants Paint Their Toes Yellow? Any observation having to do with new styles or fashions — often lending new meaning to the word "outlandish." Can be in your adopted or native country (the latter usually after a long absence).

PLEASE NOTE: This blog also has geographical labels, which thus far include:
Africa | Australia | China | France | Japan | UK

SEE ALSO:
#1: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" ... Encyclopedic version
#2: How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant" ... Meet Eddie Expat
#3: Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge ... Meet Ramona Repat

Question: Would anyone like to propose a tagline for this blog? As we say in Japanese, onegaishimasu. Also, please feel free to make suggestions about the labels. They are not set in stone... Thanks!

Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant"/Cornerstone #1

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:55:00 +0000

I've developed a new test for friendship. A true friend is someone who gives you brutally honest feedback upon receiving a link to your blog. One friend that I contacted this week passed with flying colors. She wrote back: What is the "theme" of the blog, sort of "adventures of expats and former expats"?

My friend's uncertainty was a wake-up call. I realized it's was time to deliver what's known in the biz as a cornerstone post, addressing the blog's major themes. Check out the rest of the series:

#1a: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" ... Reader's Digest, Twitter, Movie Trailer, and Crib Notes versions
#2: How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant" ... Meet Eddie Expat
#3: Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge ... Meet Ramona Repat

SEE ALSO: Three-part series exploring the etymology of the "Seen the Elephant" expression: 50 Ways to See an Elephant, Parts I, II, and III.

#1: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant"

So, back to my friend's Q: is this a blog for expat stories? The answer is, no, not exactly, especially if we're using "expat" in a very limited sense to mean a person who is sent to a country through his or her place of work. The term "expat" implies that you have a career job (versus just picking up whatever work you can get) and that you intend to go back to your home country.

For me, these are rather tedious distinctions and not what this blog is about.

I'm aware of a certain irony in this position given that I've been an expat in my day — and on the strength of that affiliation, have joined several expat blogging groups. It's just that I'm wary of overusing a word that tends to conjure up a negative picture of the sort of people who:

Go into a siege mentality, "circle the wagons" and say: "Right, it's just us now." I'm sure you know the kind of expats I mean, the ones who live in a colony or compound, or socialize as if they do.
Enjoy slagging off the former homeland: e.g., "Is that what they call a train service?"
Become obsessed with the negatives of their new home country: e.g., "Don't like the police here, and can't get any decent ham."
Can no longer spell English words.
Are inclined to excessive alcohol consumption.

Now, I like to see pink elephants as much as the next expat, but again, that's not what this blog is about. (By pink elephants, by the way, I don't mean Sarah Palin's posse of women; poor choice of idiom on her part!)

Rather, this blog is interested in recording (mostly) sober observations about what makes people uproot themselves from their native lands. Candidates for seeing the elephant can range from people on lavish expat packages to those who join the military and travel to distant lands. Notably, soldiers in the U.S. Civil War would use the expression "seeing the elephant" to describe the experience of seeing combat for the first time.

I am not, however, interested in the pedestrian observation that despite our vastly different backgrounds, we elephant seekers share a yearning for a better job, change of scene, adventure, blah, blah, blah. I want to dig down and ask: what made you, unlike most of the other people you grew up with, a candidate for detaching yourself from your native identity to try your luck in a far-off place?

In my interviews with elephant seekers, each one has told me a different story. Beth Lang, for instance, said that it was an overwhelming love of the French language, dating all the way back to high school, that propels her need to travel every year to France and French-speaking Africa. She finances this peripatetic life by teaching French to college students and consulting for French-speaking African embassies, in between trips.

For Kym Hamer, by contrast, language was hardly an incentive to pack up and leave her home in Melbourne, Australia, for a new life in London. She can speak the Queen's English just fine — if you can forgive a few pronunciation quirks not to mention her rather country-bumpkinish habit of fossicking on people's desks. What drew Kym to the UK was not language but the history everywhere she looked as well as, rather surprisingly, the weather. She loves snow! (Fortunately, the London climate has been more than obliging these past few winters.)

As for David Hufford, both he and I were among the many foreigners who flocked to Tokyo at the height of Japan's bubble economy in hopes of working for Japanese companies. During the 19th century, it was common for Americans who were heading West to find gold to say they were "seeing the elephant." You might say that David and I were modern equivalents of 19th-century gold rushers. And, like our earlier counterparts, for the most part we failed to strike it rich. We quickly discovered that much greater profits for far less labor were to be found in other activities such as teaching English or becoming a foreign tarento.

A few more points to note:

1) Quality, not quantity. There are no set rules about the journey's length; what counts is how you approach it. That said, for most of us, it will require a prolonged stay in the adopted country (or countries), of which a significant minority will opt to become "lifers" in that place.

2) Broader horizons. Though the journey need not be to another country — it could also be to another coast, or to a big city — it entails broadening one's horizons in a literal sense, through travel. Recall the story of the farmer who tried to go and see the elephant only to get knocked unconscious by the circus parade, led by the elephant. That was extremely unfortunate, but the farmer still deserves credit for making the effort to journey by wagon as far as the town hosting the circus, a feat in and of itself.

3) A serious elephant fetish, metaphorically speaking. You don't have to be like the farmer and go in search of pachyderms, though that might not be a bad idea. Elephants are known for their terrible tempers — to anyone who has been following the news, the name Baby Louie should speak volumes — but on the whole I would contend they are lovely animals: intelligent, complex, and in need of our protection. (Perhaps Baby Louie attacked his trainer because he was bored?) But you do have to go in hopes of broadening your horizons to include sights as exotic as an elephant, and be willing to run the risk of disappointment (what I like to call, "wrinkles and all"). A case in point is that of Emperor Charlemagne, who, as explained in a previous post, became obsessed with obtaining an elephant. We can imagine he was less than thrilled when, upon its arrival from Baghdad, the creature pulled down the stone stable that had been specially built for its home. (I wonder if Abul Abbas was an ancestor of Baby Louie?) More often than not, however, the experience of "seeing the elephant" fosters tolerance, and even affection, for the culture you are immersed in. Two quick stories from my own travels should help to illustrate how this works:

I went to Japan and didn't see an elephant but saw a whale ... on a plate ... being served as a main course! To this day, I don't approve of eating whale. (I'd like to think it's because I refused to compromise my core values — only I suspect it's as much because I didn't care for the flavor.) Nevertheless, I've been known to defend this Japanese culinary preference, pointing out that eating whale is not all that different from eating other mammals. I call this a Blind Man's Tale — referring, of course, to that old chestnut from India, about the blind men and the elephant.
I went to Japan and didn't see an elephant but met Hello Kitty. As explained in one of my very first posts, I have developed an inordinate fondness for the famed Sanrio cat and have accorded her the status of a Treasured White Elephant in my life.

Well, I've wittered on for long enough, and besides it's almost 5:00 p.m., time for making a G&T, a bad habit I picked up during my misspent years with other expats. Let me wrap this up with two concluding thoughts:

1) It remains a sad reality that the vast majority of the world's uprooted cross international borders because of civil wars, violence or persecution (even greater numbers of people are internally displaced by such forces). We who have seen the elephant should never forget how privileged we are to travel by choice.

2) Once you've seen an elephant or two, it no longer matters where you physically live: it becomes a state of mind that you carry around, a kind of elephant in the room. For some, this may be a burden — I'm thinking of soldiers who have traveled to the front and seen action and now suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Whereas for others, it can be a source of enlightenment. I'm remembering my conversation with Beth Lang again. She sailed through the Monica Lewinsky scandal convinced it was no big deal as compared to the peccadilloes of France's political leaders. For still others, seeing the elephant can be a source of endless delight. David Hufford may seem an unlikely candidate for this since he no longer views Japan through rose-colored glasses. Yet he admits it can never be summer again for him unless he can partake in the sublime Japanese meal of unagi (grilled eel) and cold beer. For some things, the grass really is greener, and on a beastly hot summer's day, it doesn't get any greener than that.

Questions: Will the real elephant seekers please stand up? Have I told you enough to identify who they are through this post? And have I been too hard on the expats among us — do you feel betrayed? If so, I don't know what I was thinking, I may have been drinking?! And now it only remains to say thanks to Amelia for inspiring this post — and to everyone else, cheers!

SEE ALSO:
#1a: Time to Define "Seeing the Elephant" (Reader's Digest, Twitter, Movie Trailer, and Crib Notes versions)
#2: How to Recognize at a Glance Someone Who Has Seen an "Elephant"
#3: Who Are You, What Have You Sacrificed? The Repatriation Challenge

Melbourne Girl Gives London a Burl, Comes Up a Doozey

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:39:00 +0000

QUESTIONS FOR KYM HAMER

This Australian sales and marketing expert, now a London expat, says that while the UK has its drawbacks — it doesn't offer the outdoor life and many of the natives are whingers — there are attractions a plenty, including, strangely enough, the weather.

Where are you from Down Under? I was born in Brisbane, then moved to Cairns when I was 9. Eighteen months later, Mum, my sister and I moved to Melbourne — so I consider myself a Melbourne girl.

What brought a Melbourne girl to London originally? A fling! Long story — really crap on arrival ... but hey, it got me here!

How long have you been in the UK at this point? Six-and-a-half years.

As a kid, did you think you would ever leave Australia and make your home in another country? Dreamed about it but not as anything I ever actually thought I'd do.

Really? I was under the impression that many antipodeans emigrate to the UK. They see it as some kind of rite of passage. I didn't think about it like that. When I first got to London, I picked up a book called Australian Expats: Stories from Abroad, which charts 33 Australian expat journeys. The Foreword opens with a quote from Auden: "... To be free is often to be lonely." The editors point out that despite the loneliness of being an outsider, "to be free is also to be enriched, humbled, exhilarated, enchanted, challenged..." The desire to be free really was — and still is — a powerful motivator for me.

I'm in awe of your Auden (no pun intended) quoting ability. Where did you do your education? Australia. I actually did two degrees at the same time. I applied to one of the first two-degree curricula offered at Monash University in Melbourne. I earned a business degree (Marketing) and an arts degree (Psychology).

It's refreshing to see a truly Renaissance person making her way up the corporate ladder, something that's also in evidence on your very entertaining blog, Gidday from the UK. What is your day job nowadays? I'm on contract for Associated News Limited, part of Daily Mail General Trust, a business that is privately owned by Lord Rothermere. I'm the sales coordinator for www.localpeople.co.uk, a network of community-based Web sites. I've been there nine months.

Have you always worked for English companies, or is this something new? I've worked for three companies before this and, come to think of it, all are of English heritage but were bought up relatively recently by overseas interests: Tetley Tea, now owned by the Tata Group, which is headquartered in Mumbai; Interpet, bought by the U.S. company Central Garden & Pet just before I joined; and Alpha Group, bought by the Italian-based Autogrill while I was there.

The U.S. and the U.K. are said to be separated by a common language. Is the same true of Australia and Britain? The problem for Australians in Britain is that we presume to speak the same language and have a similar culture — after all, Australia is still part of the Commonwealth. So when the inevitable miscommunications happen, they are more of a shock than if you were learning a completely different language and culture. Australians have a tendency to say what they think, and that can get you into some sticky situations. It's been one of the biggest challenges for me, particularly in managing staff.

The United States may have broken away from Britain and become a republic, but I sense that my experience of London overlaps yours in some crucial ways. I would wager, for instance, that you are over-scrutinized by the natives on your use of the Queen's English. I'm sure you can relate to the trouble I've had with the word "pants." English people say "pants" to mean underpants, but for us Australians and you Americans, "pants" means trousers. You know you're an Australian living in London when you mention your "pants are wet" — because you stepped in a puddle — and everyone gives you weird looks.

Plus Oz has its own patois. I once told someone at work I had been for a fossick on their desk, and they looked horrified until I told them that it meant rummage around!

We haven't even broached the issue of Australian pronunciation. Another minefield. My boyfriend is English. Some time ago, I mentioned to him I was going to Sainsbury's to buy charcoal chicken (I think you call it rotisserie chicken in the U.S.). He thought I'd said "chuckle" chicken. We still have a good chuckle, as it were, about that. Australians tend to put equal emphasis on their syllables, whereas the English put the emphasis on the first syllable and then let the rest of the word fade a bit: e.g., South-Wark versus Suth-ock. (I'm referring, by the way, to Southwark, a borough in South London that is home to the famed Borough Market.)

But at least you don't have the constant ear-bashing, as I did, about the misguided policies of the government back home. Actually, do people in England even know that Australia now has its first woman PM? Ha! Not until I tell them. And given she's just announced a General Election, it may not be for long!

What would you say is the key difference on how Aussies look at life compared to Brits? Australians are MUCH more outdoorsy. They may not be necessarily sporty but we have this whole thing about fresh air. I love to go outdoors even in the dead of winter. English people have this annoying habit in winter of turning the indoor heating up to tropical levels and then walking around in tee shirts. I feel like saying, "Put a bl**dy jumper on, you twit ... saves money and the environment!"

Interesting. I feel the same way about Americans in New York City — they seem much more wasteful of energy than citizens of other developed countries. So can you trace your roots back to Britain — is that something Aussies like to do? My stepmum's from Ramsgate and still has various relations there. Mum's dad was Irish and descended from Bernadette Devlin, who was the first woman in Irish parliament. I should also mention that Dad is Dutch, so I enjoy popping over to Amsterdam and exploring the restaurant scene in hopes of finding the "home cooking" my Oma used to make. Bit of a mixed breed I am, as are most Australians.

After six years, would you say you've become anglicized? I don't know whether I'm anglicized, but my life is very different over here. In Melbourne I was always out and about with friends at the ballet/theatre/dinner/parties and never really considered myself a "home person." But here in London, I treasure my weekends at home. Maybe it's a combination of living here and reaching this age and stage of life.

How did you come to settling in Kingston-upon-Thames? I went flat hunting about a year after I arrived. I had been in a group share and really craved my own space. I knew when the letting agent was driving me up the hill in Kingston that I wanted to move in, even if the flat was a hovel. The flat is quite small, but for me it is a haven, not a hovel. Kingston is also where I met my boyfriend, Jeremy. We chatted on each other's doorsteps for about three months before becoming a couple.

Besides Jeremy, have you gotten to know other British people well? Until I started working, my friends were mainly Australian and to this day my two closest (one of whom I met a week after I got here) are Aussies. But I have a mix of friends.

Has your relationship with Jeremy brought you any closer to English people and culture? Having an English partner (he has two teenage kids) has definitely increased my exposure to English ideas and attitudes. I don't always think about it, but then someone comes to visit from Australia and I notice how much my perspectives have shifted. Jeremy, by the way, is no stranger to Australia. His aunt and uncle emigrated there about 40 years ago, so he has Australian cousins. I would also say that despite his English roots, that man o' mine does a mean BBQ!

When did you start up your blog and for what purpose? I started Gidday from the UK almost exactly two years ago. I saw it as a way for family and friends to get to know the everyday stuff in my life as opposed to the "highlights package" I would deliver in sporadic phone calls. I usually post twice a week: there's an auto-email that goes to 10 of my family and close Aussie friends (who find "following" a significant challenge!). When I started, I found it cathartic and realized that I hadn't written anything that wasn't for business since I'd left school to go to uni. I loved writing in school, and didn't realize how much I missed it.

Do you still keep in close touch with friends in Australia? Not all of them. Distance is difficult, though I think if friendships are strong, they can be sustained. Mum and her partner have just been over to visit. We did some touristy things: Brighton, London Eye, Harrods. We also just hung out. For my mum, hanging out in my life and seeing what I love (and don't love) is the best way of coping with my being so far away. It helps her "see me," she says.

After a while, it can become harder to share things with folks back home. There's this e-mail I got from an Aussie friend: You Know You Are an Australian Living in London When… The answers range from "You catch yourself complaining, then cut yourself off, afraid you’re becoming 'one of them,'" to "You can walk into your kitchen, bedroom and bathroom by pivoting on one foot." That is absolutely so true. It really sums it up. Only those who've done it — i.e., moved to another country, what you have called seeing the elephant — "get" the challenges and the upsets that make up the expat experience.

Could you ever go back to Australia to live, now that you've made this kind of leap? I can't imagine living anywhere other than London, and I never thought I'd say that of anywhere. I love the cultural and political diversity, the history everywhere one looks, and having four proper seasons each year. That it has snowed seriously in the last couple of years thrills me, although autumn remains my favorite time of year. And nothing can beat the sense of celebration on a glorious English summer's day, as I'm sure you remember. I also think public transport over here is fab — you can get yourself absolutely anywhere with a bit of creativity. In Australia if you don't live close to "town," you really need a car.

Wait, doesn't Melbourne have four seasons? No snow though!

How does the food in London compare? Besides being more expensive... I don't eat red meat so traditional English food is a bit lost on me. I miss good Chinese food and I do think Australia has a real edge on lighter cuisines like Thai, Vietnamese and seafood. That said, Indian food in London has been a real joy to explore. I have also liked trying Caribbean and Moroccan food here, which we don't get at all in Australia. You are right about the £££. For that reason, I've taught myself to cook and even to make things from scratch. My latest triumph was taking a glut of onions (I get an organic veggies box delivered every week) and turning it into this amazing relish ... yummo!

So I have to ask: have you seen any elephants? There was an elephant parade in London recently, to raise money for saving the Asian elephant, which is on the brink of extinction. There were these huge, brightly painted elephant sculptures in Trafalgar Square, outside the Victoria and Albert Museum, in Green Park, and near the Tower of London, where I took my mum (that's where this photo is from). I've also driven through Elephant and Castle on the way to Islington to visit friends a few years back — but I don't suppose that counts?

It does, it does! I take it that your various elephant sightings, metaphorical and otherwise, have more than made up for the trials, tribulations and hardships you've experienced on your journey. Yes, life has a richness for me now. To use yet another adage: "You know you're an Australian living in London when..." — wait for it! — "you used to think the grass is greener back home but now realize the grass is greener wherever you are now."

An American Woman's Conversion to Football Fandom/Part II

noreply@blogger.com (ML Awanohara) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:55:00 +0000

NOTE: I'd like to extend a special welcome to followers of Pond Parleys, which published a version of this 2-part post on 7/11/10 (or 11/7/10). Pond Parleys explores the allegedly special relationship between the UK and USA.

Am I looking forward to the World Cup championship game between the Netherlands and Spain? And how! Did I ever think I'd be writing this? Not in a million years! Herewith, the second part of the unlikely tale of how I came to join the ranks of football fans the world over. As explained in Part I, Why I Never Liked Football Whilst Living in England, I never paid much attention to the sport despite nearly a decade of exposure; on the contrary, I developed an abhorrence for it.

In Part II of my tale, I have settled back in the United States, the 2010 World Cup is upon us, and I find myself uncharacteristically drawn to this high-profile game, like never before.

PART II: How I Came to Change My Mind About Football, or At Least the World Cup

I can't pinpoint the precise moment when it happened — or the precise reason, for that matter, especially as football still has all the same drawbacks I noted before: goals are few and far between, the fans are predominantly male, and jingoism reigns, particularly between the English and the Germans.

All I know is that my conversion took place as a result of my no longer seeing the elephant. Ironically, even though the UK is considered the cradle of the game (the English have been kicking balls competitively since at least 1314), it wasn't until I returned to living in the States that I felt comfortable giving the sport a chance. Though I have yet to make any fellow converts among my compatriots, I've got my pitch prepared (no pun intended). My top three reasons for fanning football are:

1) It's the World Cup, stupid. Living in England, I couldn't see the World Cup forest from the local English football club trees. But once you see the forest, there can be no turning back. Watching the very best players in the world compete, even a hardened skeptic like me begins to see why they call it The Beautiful Game. All that talk about poetry and magic, Spain's choreography and the marvels the Dutch team — it's not just drivel. (Of course, following the World Cup also represents a minimal commitment to the sport, since it happens just once in four years. It has yet to be seen whether I maintain my dedication to the sport during the interval.)

2) It's a much-needed distraction. Where do I start: the economy, the oil spill, the war in Afghanistan, the heat wave plaguing the East Coast. When the news is consistently rotten, there's nothing like a soaring soccer ball to lift the spirits, not to mention the vicarious pleasure of seeing a team, and a nation, carry off the trophy. And how thrilling for a European team to win outside Europe (a first!) and for that team to be taking its very first drink from the cup. Cheers and more cheers!

3) It's way better than the Olympics. If you are the kind of person who has been there and done that and seen the elephant, then chances are you are a hybrid of nationalities, which makes you an ideal supporter of international sporting events. You're game to throw your support behind almost any athlete or team as long as they're the world's best (and aren't cheaters). The Olympics provides many such events, but that's the problem: there's too much choice. There are mainstream sports like soccer (men's and women's), but then there are also strangely compelling fringe sports like curling and synchronized swimming.

The FIFA World Cup, by contrast, is a singular occasion. There can be no bigger stage, literally as well as figuratively, than the vast pitch on which this ultimate sporting drama takes place.

* * *

The other day when I was watching one of the semifinal matches, and the TV cameras were taking an aerial shot of the pitch, I suddenly thought to myself, that's what it must be like to be an alien surveying the Planet Earth. (Thanks to the buzzing of the vuvuzela, it's not so far-fetched to imagine cruising along inside a flying saucer.)

And do you know, I believe that if I were an alien, I would find the World Cup more riveting than anything else than the planet has to offer — certainly more than the spectacle surrounding the basketball player LeBron James (my goodness, how parochial!) or the vision of Roger Federer bombing out of Wimbledon (tennis, now that's an acquired taste!). But this sport, it's something else: on the one hand, it's simple and basic (hey, anyone can kick a ball); on the other, it's extremely diverting. Did that bald guy just make a goal with his head? And how is it that some of these earthlings have developed the talent of using their feet as though they were hands — now that's something worth beaming home about!

Stay tuned for Part III, to appear in time for Brazil 2014, in which I will attempt to bend the case for football still more, stressing its potential for opening up intergalactic communication and fostering truly universal harmony.

Questions:

Do I sound like a true convert?

Are there any more reasons I should have in my arsenal? (Hahaha, couldn't resist!)

Last but not least, Spain or Holland? The writer of this blog is pleased to join arms, as it were, with a distant cousin of the pachyderm, a cephalopod who goes by the name of Pulpo Paul, in declaring: Viva España! (If you don't believe me about the cousin thing, then I urge you to take a close look at the proboscis pictured above, which for all the world looks like an octopus's tentacle — it functions like one, too.)