My month-long 'retreat' (only in the loosest sense of the word - hence the emphatic inverted comma) drawing to a close, I'm pleased at the progress I've been able to make on certain projects that I set for myself. A lot of boxes remain unticked though, and I (only half ingenuously) attribute this to an even busier evening schedule over the past few weeks than usual. Perhaps I should have blocked out the whole month as some kind of culture Ramadan, but when the enticing alternative was to see Helen Mirren, Jude Law, Simon Russell Beale and Rebecca Hall - and some more - all in the space of one week, for a total sum of what a return train journey to Manchester would usually cost, I made my choice in a flash. And now, of course, the Proms are beyond us. My terrifying annual reminder of yet another year that's passed. Before diving into the thick of it though, I'm relishing the memory of a trio of concerts that we enjoyed earlier this month, within 5 days of each other at Barbican (why of course, where else?), which ended our 08-09 season on a high note - or should it be a string of high notes? A high chord?! All the more special because only one of them belonged to the category that we usually attended.
There was Pablo Milanes, the venerable Cuban singer/songwriter who belted out one ballad after another to the accompaniment of his understated three-piece band. The concert, which also featured two jazz acts in the first half, was the main event of the 'Cuba 50 weekend', marking the 50th anniversary of the Revolution (also the beginning of their mutually-sworn enemity with the Western world). We were sitting in our 'usual' seats in the Hall, but were very much the aliens amongst a sea of Cubans and other Latin Americans of all ages. Latin Spanish was the official languge of the evening, and the crowd went wild when it was announced that none other than the daughter of Che Guavara was in the audience, and she was invited onto the stage for a speech. A plain, middle-aged woman, she reminded the audience of the origins of the Latino revolutoinary spirit, the many struggles that they (or she, at least) had undergone over the years, and the inevitable call for a closure to the Cuban people's plights that have now lasted half a century. When Milanes took stage, all eyes were glued, with an almost religious fervour, on this slightly frail old man looking like a retired school-master. Who'd have thought that the Cuban equivalent of Cliff Richards (minus the nip & tuck jobs) could elicit a 2000-strong sing-along like this, with virtually every single tune he belts out? We're the only members of the audience who don't know the repertoire, and we try hard not to be too embarrassed by this fact. Our friends leave early, later emailing to say they found the music too monotonous. But I think they're missing the point - this was a socio-cultural experience as much as anything. And it was thrilling to be part of the crowd.
There was the ever-reliable LSO, under the charismatic Michael Tilson Thomas, presenting an evening of Ives, Prokoefieff and Stravinsky - just my kind of programme. The Chinese pianist Yuja Wang finally arrived this side of the Atlantic, having already taken the US by storm, as another wunderkind barely in her twenties and already poised to take at least a sizeable share of Lang Lang's hitherto undisputed crown of Chinese classical superstar, and the global market that comes with it. Does she have what it takes? Why make our judgement now, she's got a lifetime to prove it, either way. Besides, Lang Lang is not yet thirty himself. The top management agencies and record companies will keenly keep their eyes on the next budding Chinese wizzkid for quite a while yet, that much is for sure.
Then, finally, there was Ute Lemper. With her seductive smile, magnetic voice, impeccably choreographed stage moves and mischievous yet intelligent narration between songs, two hours passed very quickly. She announced at the beginning of the evening that this was to be a journey, chronicling her influences as well as her own career, both historically and geographically. This immensely versatile, endlessly entertaining polyglot even did an astonishingly vivid impersonation of Helmut Kohl flirting with Margaret Thatcher with the aid of a scarlett boa (don't ask). True, the intimacy of both her musical reditions and her spontaneous, witty exchanges with the front-row audience members would have suited the pit of a cabaret - her natural milieu - rather better than the vast Barbican Hall, but when treated to an evening of thoughtfully-programmed numbers sung with this kind of pedigree, this would be a minor quibble. But the most memorable items, given the most empassioned performances, were naturally the Weills. Even with the silky New York accent, you kow that home is Germany, and she looks back at the Germany that she left behind with more than a little wistfulness. 'There was a wall, and it just seemed, to two, three generations, like part of the furniture - that it would be there forever. But then the wall came down. And the rest is history...'
History, of course, continues to be re-written every minute, by the biggest decisions made as well as the trivial ones. As we walked down Silk Street, for the third time that week, I couldn't help looking back as well, to the Latino crowd that we briefly belonged to several days before. Who knows what the future holds for Cuba? And will a new icon, a younger Milanes, archive it all, the history-yet-to-be-written with a different kind of ballad, perhaps? I imagine a svelt figure, a dark face, deep brown eyes, at the 'Cuban 70' weekend (for sure there will be one at the Barbican):
'This is a journey...'
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Children of Syria
Like the best of adventures, it all started with a complete chance encounter.
Her handsome companion, not to be outdone, effortlessly strikes the movie-star pose, with what we have already recognised as the typical Damascene look in so many of their elders' eyes: an innate combination of charm, friendliness and confidence. He's going be a heartbreaker one day, I say to myself.
[Day Three, Palmyra]
[Day Two, Damascus]
It is our second afternoon in Damascus, and we have decided, on an all-too-full stomach from yet another scrumptious lunch, to launch into our favourite Damascene activity for the third time since arrival: letting yourself lost in the maze-like narrow streets in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, south of The Straight Street. While seeking out the Beits and Pashas with the aid of the trustworthy guidebook, we already realised that with the best maps available, it is still a major challange to navigate through the streets of the Old City even for those armed with a better-than-average sense of direction. Forgoing the book and not worrying about whether Sight No. 46 really is indeed in the surreptitious-looking lane on the third right, therefore, at once becomes an attractive alternative, especially after you've ticked off most of the 'must see' items on the list already. The myriad of narrow streets with unexpected turns and ends in various quarters, lined with deceptively crumbly-looking, centuries-old houses, reveal and conceal at the same time the palimpsests of histories that Damascus has witnessed as the Oldest City in the World. And, best of all, here in the warm afternoon sun in the Jewish quarter, there are no other tourists in sight.
It is our second afternoon in Damascus, and we have decided, on an all-too-full stomach from yet another scrumptious lunch, to launch into our favourite Damascene activity for the third time since arrival: letting yourself lost in the maze-like narrow streets in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, south of The Straight Street. While seeking out the Beits and Pashas with the aid of the trustworthy guidebook, we already realised that with the best maps available, it is still a major challange to navigate through the streets of the Old City even for those armed with a better-than-average sense of direction. Forgoing the book and not worrying about whether Sight No. 46 really is indeed in the surreptitious-looking lane on the third right, therefore, at once becomes an attractive alternative, especially after you've ticked off most of the 'must see' items on the list already. The myriad of narrow streets with unexpected turns and ends in various quarters, lined with deceptively crumbly-looking, centuries-old houses, reveal and conceal at the same time the palimpsests of histories that Damascus has witnessed as the Oldest City in the World. And, best of all, here in the warm afternoon sun in the Jewish quarter, there are no other tourists in sight.
We turn another corner and suddenly run into four school children. As I raise my camera tentatively the older two (siblings of the two younger ones respectively, we think) shirek with laughter and run away, but the little girl in the pink woolen dress (the April sun, while a sub-tropical relief for us, is evidently just signalling the end of winter for the locals) greets the shutter with the most captivating smile, and as I brave a second attempt, moves to the narrow stairway leading up to a house in the corner (her house?) and properly poses, like a happy little debutante at Royal Ballet School.
Her handsome companion, not to be outdone, effortlessly strikes the movie-star pose, with what we have already recognised as the typical Damascene look in so many of their elders' eyes: an innate combination of charm, friendliness and confidence. He's going be a heartbreaker one day, I say to myself.
[Day Three, Palmyra]Once again, serendipity plays kind God to our itinerary. We originally planned to spend most of the afternoon visiting the ancient sites just outside of Palmyra town, thinking we would arrive by noon. Glitches with the car rental company in Damascus (almost compulsory in the Middle East, it seems) meant we didn't get to set off until almost noon, and by the time we arrive it's later afternoon. Would it not make more sense to take it easy for the rest of the day, and visit the sites tomorrow morning instead? This is of course what normal, sensible people would have done, but then we're far from sensible. We take the car out to the temple after the briefest snack that acted as lunch, and tour the entire site extensively yet efficiently, just before an ominous sandstorm approaches. Tomorrow morning, all the monuments would still be blurred in vision and we would have had to part Palmyra in regret. This is just perfect.
On the two-kilometre drive back to town centre, we're caught in a traffic jam. It's not stationary, just that everyone is moving considerably more slowly than we have come to expect Syrian drivers to be. We realise it's the combination of the bumpy road surface, and the number of families who have been out picnicing (it's Friday, the Islamic holiday) at various corners in the sites now heading home en mass. All of a sudden this truck overtakes us and stays in the queue, and this platoon of exctied children - mostly girls, but also a few boys - seem perfect in the camera viewer. The road remains bumpy though, and even my lovely new high-tech camera finds it difficult when both vehicles are in wave motion all the time. The children keep waving, smiling and shouting Hellos throughout my minute-long attempts, and finally, a split second before the truck swerves onto a side road and leaves our front view, I have it.
[Day Four, the road from Palmyra to Deir Er-Sur, near Iraqi border]
'The ruins of Mari, an important Mesopotamian city dating back some 500 years, are about 10km north of Abu Kamal (on the Syrian/Iraqi border).' Lonely Planet thus tells us. Unless you're a specialist archaeologist, it probably holds less interest than the nearby ruins of Doura Europos, which are at once more sprawling and imposing, with the perfect backdrop of the ancient river. We are glad we did come to Mari though, not least because the caretaker's family, a gaggle of female spanning several generations (no wonder the man had a deeply furrowed face, despite having young children), constitute a group-sitting portrait in their tent - effectively the living room - connect to the ticket office/souvenir shop that would surely have captured many a painter. Darting away from this silently inqiusitive group, almost as the perfect counterpoint, is the caretaker's youngest daughter, bouncing around the place and happily posing for/with a group of French tourists in her striking kaftan. After they're gone, she's ever so slightly withdrawn, and smiles shily for us. Is it simply because she's much more accustomed to the hordes of Caucasians who arrive in big buses than two badly-tanned Orientals who drive to this remote corner in their own car?
Petrol station attendants in Syria, even in this more remote corner of the country, turn out to be a lot more blase about foreign tourists who drive rental cars around the country than we expected them to be (our fellow travellers from the West, in comparison, usually think we're barking mad when they hear our planned itinerary). Here on the early morning of our fourth day, we have left a Palmyra that's still recovering from previous evening's sandstorm, and are heading off east. The first thing we need, though, is a thorough wash of the car before we can really get anywhere, as the sandstorm has graced all surfaces of the vehicle with its indelible mark. The bearded guy squatting on the ground smoking next to the pump - the manager?! - waves to the boys, looking about 10 years old, whom we have presumed was just a neighbour hanging about, signalling for him to take the job. He handles the big power-faucet dexterously enough to convince me that this is indeed his day job, and goes through the whole job with such ease and skill, that I start to think that he's doing it not out of financial necessity, but really because he's a lot better than any of the half-dozen older guys squatting idly. When he's done, I ask if I could take a photo of him with his 'territory'. He looks at the camera uncertainly, looks at the other guys and shrugs, then, looking in yet another direction, gives me the perfect smile.
[Day Four, later, near Halabiyya]
Syrians really are incredibly beautiful. It's a bountiful beauty with many origins, thanks to their diverse ancestral lineages. It's effectively the genetic melting pot of Middle-East - their version of New York, as M puts it. We've seen people in Damascus whose racial resemblance to ourselves was striking, and their best friends from down the street would have the angular central Asian face topped with a waterfall of blond hair. This young sheperdess has the deepest dark brown eyes as she turns to gaze at us, and I can swear the stunning redhead has nothing to do with any commerical colouring brand whatsoever.
[Day Five, Mari, down the Euphrates]
'The ruins of Mari, an important Mesopotamian city dating back some 500 years, are about 10km north of Abu Kamal (on the Syrian/Iraqi border).' Lonely Planet thus tells us. Unless you're a specialist archaeologist, it probably holds less interest than the nearby ruins of Doura Europos, which are at once more sprawling and imposing, with the perfect backdrop of the ancient river. We are glad we did come to Mari though, not least because the caretaker's family, a gaggle of female spanning several generations (no wonder the man had a deeply furrowed face, despite having young children), constitute a group-sitting portrait in their tent - effectively the living room - connect to the ticket office/souvenir shop that would surely have captured many a painter. Darting away from this silently inqiusitive group, almost as the perfect counterpoint, is the caretaker's youngest daughter, bouncing around the place and happily posing for/with a group of French tourists in her striking kaftan. After they're gone, she's ever so slightly withdrawn, and smiles shily for us. Is it simply because she's much more accustomed to the hordes of Caucasians who arrive in big buses than two badly-tanned Orientals who drive to this remote corner in their own car?[Day Seven, Aleppo]
Of all our unusual encounters throughout years of travelling, this will go down the memory lane a long way. We're in Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, home to the most enchanting souq in the entire Middle East (and therefore probably the world), some truly amazing cuisine, and hand-made aged olive oil soap. It is in the pursuit of a famed soap factory - which turns out to be closed - that we run into an army of schoolboys, all rushing home for their lunch hour. This lot, unlike all the others we've met so far, aren't just willing to have their photos taken by you. They want you to take photos of them, they actually follow you around and hound you until they've seen an image in the viewing screen on your camera that they relish. And as with all human groups, you immediately discern the various types, even with these little ones: the philosophical, the fraternal, the mischievous, the audacious.And, in the midst of all this clamour, emerges the surreally beautiful trio of angels, perpetually smiling:
[Day Ten, Krak des Chevaliers]
[Day Ten, Krak des Chevaliers]
This was the briefest of encounters - we've just come out of the awe-inspiring Krak after wandering around for a couple of hours, and are ready to head down towards Damascus to complete this memorable road trip. In the midst of the car park, there he is - while all his fellow hawkers are busy trying to allure some potential customers for a ride around the castle, this one is simply enjoying the two thousand features on his new phone to bother. I raise the camera, press the shutter, get into the car, and we drive away. I look back, and he's probably just started yet another text message...
(To see all the photos with better quality, run the slideshow here:
Friday, 3 July 2009
My stories of Michael
I knew this had to be the subject for my comeback post after the 3-month absence (I won't pretend that the two lines post Syrian trip was a proper post). Those of you who would, for a moment, expect shockingly salacious/banal/revealing stories about my married life (no, actually I don't think there's anyone out there who would) should drop those shoulders now - for, of course, this is to be the gazillionth personal tribute to the King of Pop, albeit 10 days too late. But I'll do my damned best to try to make my perspective unique enough to hold your interest for a moment longer.
It's indeed a bit bizarre to remind ourselves that MJ stopped breathing only 10 days ago. The press coverage of the man and the music has seemed to multiply every day both in its abundance and weirdness. For once, with the death of a major celebrity ('controversial' is such a weak word to be applied here), the world agrees on at least one thing: the man was mind-blowingly, ground-breakingly unique. Oh, make that two actually - he was a true genius too. You really can't think of that many others still breathing who tick both boxes, in pop or any other art form. And for how long have I been thinking so?
When Thriller was released in 1982, I was four years old. Even though I was probably precocious already , all-singing and dacing werewolves were not exactly part of my consciousness. Nor was anything too overtly Western, for that matter - China had only opened its doors three years previously after years of near-total isolation from the rest of the world, and the influx of information was conveyed with a little caution and absorbed with a lot of overwhelm. The most frequently- and fervently- used adjective in those years, at least in big cities, was 'imported'. It was enough of an all-encompassing category, a universal code for originality/novelty, the ultimate endorsement for quality. People queued up for foreign-made cameras, stereos, kitchen utensils, dolls, stationery, stereos - anything and everything with a provenance outside of the Chinese borders that they could get their hands on. No one could possibly forsee that a mere couple of decades later, the hippest New Yorkers and Londoners would keenly seek out the latest trendy bars in Beijing and Shanghai. More significantly for my generation (now officially christianed as 'The 70'ers') - although we didn't know it then - some of us were growing up to be the first cliche-defying first-generation immigrants to The West. And one day we would look back at the astonishing phenomenon that was Thriller, taken for granted as an integral part of our own past as it is to our fellow New Yorkers/Londoners walking down the street.
Then came Bad, explosively. If it's hard for you to understand the monumental scale of shock factor the music and the video (in particular) sent through Chinese youths at the time, just imagine sending MJ back to post-war USA. For in the intervening years, the Pop/Rock genre had not been experienced in the Middle Kingdom with the same narrative. English-learning, trend-following (these two things were often synonymous) twentysomethings - and a very precocious nine-year-old - were happily humming to the ballads of The Carpenters, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, and selective early Madonna (we liked 'Holiday'. We didn't really get 'Material Girl'.) while being oblivious to the Stones. There was one radio station in Shanghai with an hour-long weekly programme devoted to English pop songs. We all saved up to buy blank 'Hi-Fi' cassette tapes to record it. There was one shop in the entire city that stocked 'imported recordings', mostly cassettes and also - still a total novelty at the time - some CDs. My father would buy me one of them at the end of each term as reward for my exam results, which would inevitably become the envy of many friends (the cassette, not the good marks). Piracy was yet to be adopted and proliferated by the Chinese, although it wasn't far off the horizon. And in the midst of all this, the sound of 'Bad! Bad! Cos you're Bad!!' came out of nowhere, and came crashing down on all of us.
To start with, there were frenetic debates in newspapers and semi-academic columns in English-studies journals about what 'Bad' actually meant. Bad could now mean something else?! Something not really bad? That alone sufficed to engage a whole generation of youngsters for quite a while. Then there was the image - did he really use to be a black man? What happened to him? Is this what all American pop stars do to themselves? Those now-and-then photos of MJ that appeared in mainstream media might have heralded the dawn of proper entertainment news in China, for all I know. But above all, the dance. I could recall, almost to the day, when suddenly all the under-45 Chinese males worked day and night so that they could do 'the dance from Bad'. For quite a while, at any semi-significant social gatherings - weddings, New Year celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, National Day celebrations - you could bet someone would serve up an attempt at 'doing the Bad dance'. It's a shame we didn't have early enough imported video cameras to capture this craze. Set against the social/cultural/political backdrop of everything else that was happening in the country at the time, this uncanny syncronicity of MJ fans with their worldwide accomplices would surely have made fascinating study for some modern historians. 'Man in the Mirror', 'I Just Can't Stop Lovin' You' and 'The Way You Make Me Feel' also became popular, though nothing was as ubiquitous as Bad itself. In due course, the Thriller album was retrospectively discovered and similarly revered. MJ became an object of worship just as much as he was anywhere else. We couldn't wait for the next album (having just properly grasped the concepts of 'albums' and 'singles').
And boy, was it worth the wait. I can actually say with some confidence that I was one of the first owners of a copy of 'Dangerous' in mainland China, for that was exactly what it was: a pirate copy. Probably one of the first too, which I bought in a street market in Guangzhou (Guangdong province being, to this day, the manufacturing epicentre of Chinese pirate CDs). But unlike what you can get for 10p nowadays, back then the pirate recordings were Properly Made - they had real jewel cases! And proper lookalike booklets! And they were actually being passed off as bootlegged authentic copies, for a not-too-shabby price!! Alright, I was in the wrong AND also conned. But I was 14. I had just entered one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country and discovered that what a lot of my classmates actually wanted to do was to be MJ. We collectively gaped at the video of 'Black and White' over and over again, and declared that nothing that would ever top this. 'Heal the World' became our love anthem. 'Will You Be There' made us regard Free Willy as the cinematic masterpiece of the decade. MJ remained the King, but in the meantime we had moved on much further - even as teenagers! - than we realised at the time. Or is evolution always like this, that we take progress and development for granted, even (or especially) when they come fast and furiously as they did in turn-of-the-century China? The pirate recording I bought was a CD. Several TV stations regularly featured music videos as special programmes, with an increasing amount of works by Chinese singers. We were already absolutely in-synch with Hong Kong pop (to this day an important well of Chinese talents). And I was spending a lot of time listening to The Police, Billy Joel, Prince, Sinead O'Connor, Tori Amos, and was soon to be gripped by Boyz II Men. The great thing about not growing up with the pop/rock narrative chronologically is that you don't have any pre-conception at all. Whatever I reacted to, whether intellectually or emotionally, was by intuition. I did also have the advantage of language skills superior to most of my fellow 70-ers, and was frequently begged/requested/hired to write down lyrics from songs in English by dictation, which in turn helped me to improve it further. I started to read in English. Short stories first, then the classics, then newspapers and journals.
When HIStory was released, I could afford to buy a legitimate copy of the CD, but I didn't. I didn't buy a pirate copy either. I listened to the new singles on the radio and decided that they were not worth the dough, and I preferred to hold on to my past favourite MJ hits. There were rumours that he would come to do some live shows in China but nothing ever materialised. I, and all my friends, were seventeen going on eighteen, ambitious, restless, hopeful for the future of ourselves and our country. But as every day went by, going abroad to study became a more urgent primary goal. Everyone was buying pirate CDs (and VCDs!) now, and I couldn't quite believe that this wasn't also the case in the West. I started listening to a lot of movie soundtrack albums, and was obsessed with Annie Lennox. And U2. And Take That - the perfect overture to my move to England, I have to say.
Year 1997. United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China in exchange for me. I remember buying quite a few pop/rock CDs from HMV during my first week in Newcastle, but none of the MJ albums. And I never did. I don't think I can hum a single song from 'Invincible'. I followed the child-abuse trials and the ever weirder news stories, watched the tearful public testimonials and the Martin Bashir documentary with much the same kind of mild, passive curiosity as the rest of the country. When talent could still shock and shock all the more because of its increasing scarcity, MJ became Just Another Boring Weird Celebrity.
Of all the incongruous and/or unsual things he said on the Bashir documentary, though, one thing stuck with me. 'No, I don't think of dying at all. Because I want to live forever', he said - I've completely forgotten what the precise context or what Bashir's question had been, but I remember the reply clearly. And this is how I had come to regard this being whose physcial looks appeared to be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear a BBC headline announce one day that MJ really was immortal. It would have only been the perfectly sensible conclusion to all that had gone on with him. All the creations, mysteries, glory, notoriety, adoration, hatred - only immortality could have sealed it all. Now we mourn him, but as I look back I also want to mourn that pure state of shockability that millions of Chinese were in when we first got 'Bad', an innocence lost twice over. Would any future pop artist, Chinese or Western, suddenly break on to the scene to deliver something mind-blowingly original to the Chinese youths of now, who're as dexterous at Googling, downloading or Facebooking as any of their Western counterparts, and who have had everything made ready and easy for them? I'm not holding my breath. Me and my generation, we didn't have it easy, but we had it good. Or Bad. Really, really deliriously BAD.
It's indeed a bit bizarre to remind ourselves that MJ stopped breathing only 10 days ago. The press coverage of the man and the music has seemed to multiply every day both in its abundance and weirdness. For once, with the death of a major celebrity ('controversial' is such a weak word to be applied here), the world agrees on at least one thing: the man was mind-blowingly, ground-breakingly unique. Oh, make that two actually - he was a true genius too. You really can't think of that many others still breathing who tick both boxes, in pop or any other art form. And for how long have I been thinking so?
When Thriller was released in 1982, I was four years old. Even though I was probably precocious already , all-singing and dacing werewolves were not exactly part of my consciousness. Nor was anything too overtly Western, for that matter - China had only opened its doors three years previously after years of near-total isolation from the rest of the world, and the influx of information was conveyed with a little caution and absorbed with a lot of overwhelm. The most frequently- and fervently- used adjective in those years, at least in big cities, was 'imported'. It was enough of an all-encompassing category, a universal code for originality/novelty, the ultimate endorsement for quality. People queued up for foreign-made cameras, stereos, kitchen utensils, dolls, stationery, stereos - anything and everything with a provenance outside of the Chinese borders that they could get their hands on. No one could possibly forsee that a mere couple of decades later, the hippest New Yorkers and Londoners would keenly seek out the latest trendy bars in Beijing and Shanghai. More significantly for my generation (now officially christianed as 'The 70'ers') - although we didn't know it then - some of us were growing up to be the first cliche-defying first-generation immigrants to The West. And one day we would look back at the astonishing phenomenon that was Thriller, taken for granted as an integral part of our own past as it is to our fellow New Yorkers/Londoners walking down the street.
Then came Bad, explosively. If it's hard for you to understand the monumental scale of shock factor the music and the video (in particular) sent through Chinese youths at the time, just imagine sending MJ back to post-war USA. For in the intervening years, the Pop/Rock genre had not been experienced in the Middle Kingdom with the same narrative. English-learning, trend-following (these two things were often synonymous) twentysomethings - and a very precocious nine-year-old - were happily humming to the ballads of The Carpenters, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, and selective early Madonna (we liked 'Holiday'. We didn't really get 'Material Girl'.) while being oblivious to the Stones. There was one radio station in Shanghai with an hour-long weekly programme devoted to English pop songs. We all saved up to buy blank 'Hi-Fi' cassette tapes to record it. There was one shop in the entire city that stocked 'imported recordings', mostly cassettes and also - still a total novelty at the time - some CDs. My father would buy me one of them at the end of each term as reward for my exam results, which would inevitably become the envy of many friends (the cassette, not the good marks). Piracy was yet to be adopted and proliferated by the Chinese, although it wasn't far off the horizon. And in the midst of all this, the sound of 'Bad! Bad! Cos you're Bad!!' came out of nowhere, and came crashing down on all of us.
To start with, there were frenetic debates in newspapers and semi-academic columns in English-studies journals about what 'Bad' actually meant. Bad could now mean something else?! Something not really bad? That alone sufficed to engage a whole generation of youngsters for quite a while. Then there was the image - did he really use to be a black man? What happened to him? Is this what all American pop stars do to themselves? Those now-and-then photos of MJ that appeared in mainstream media might have heralded the dawn of proper entertainment news in China, for all I know. But above all, the dance. I could recall, almost to the day, when suddenly all the under-45 Chinese males worked day and night so that they could do 'the dance from Bad'. For quite a while, at any semi-significant social gatherings - weddings, New Year celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, National Day celebrations - you could bet someone would serve up an attempt at 'doing the Bad dance'. It's a shame we didn't have early enough imported video cameras to capture this craze. Set against the social/cultural/political backdrop of everything else that was happening in the country at the time, this uncanny syncronicity of MJ fans with their worldwide accomplices would surely have made fascinating study for some modern historians. 'Man in the Mirror', 'I Just Can't Stop Lovin' You' and 'The Way You Make Me Feel' also became popular, though nothing was as ubiquitous as Bad itself. In due course, the Thriller album was retrospectively discovered and similarly revered. MJ became an object of worship just as much as he was anywhere else. We couldn't wait for the next album (having just properly grasped the concepts of 'albums' and 'singles').
And boy, was it worth the wait. I can actually say with some confidence that I was one of the first owners of a copy of 'Dangerous' in mainland China, for that was exactly what it was: a pirate copy. Probably one of the first too, which I bought in a street market in Guangzhou (Guangdong province being, to this day, the manufacturing epicentre of Chinese pirate CDs). But unlike what you can get for 10p nowadays, back then the pirate recordings were Properly Made - they had real jewel cases! And proper lookalike booklets! And they were actually being passed off as bootlegged authentic copies, for a not-too-shabby price!! Alright, I was in the wrong AND also conned. But I was 14. I had just entered one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country and discovered that what a lot of my classmates actually wanted to do was to be MJ. We collectively gaped at the video of 'Black and White' over and over again, and declared that nothing that would ever top this. 'Heal the World' became our love anthem. 'Will You Be There' made us regard Free Willy as the cinematic masterpiece of the decade. MJ remained the King, but in the meantime we had moved on much further - even as teenagers! - than we realised at the time. Or is evolution always like this, that we take progress and development for granted, even (or especially) when they come fast and furiously as they did in turn-of-the-century China? The pirate recording I bought was a CD. Several TV stations regularly featured music videos as special programmes, with an increasing amount of works by Chinese singers. We were already absolutely in-synch with Hong Kong pop (to this day an important well of Chinese talents). And I was spending a lot of time listening to The Police, Billy Joel, Prince, Sinead O'Connor, Tori Amos, and was soon to be gripped by Boyz II Men. The great thing about not growing up with the pop/rock narrative chronologically is that you don't have any pre-conception at all. Whatever I reacted to, whether intellectually or emotionally, was by intuition. I did also have the advantage of language skills superior to most of my fellow 70-ers, and was frequently begged/requested/hired to write down lyrics from songs in English by dictation, which in turn helped me to improve it further. I started to read in English. Short stories first, then the classics, then newspapers and journals.
When HIStory was released, I could afford to buy a legitimate copy of the CD, but I didn't. I didn't buy a pirate copy either. I listened to the new singles on the radio and decided that they were not worth the dough, and I preferred to hold on to my past favourite MJ hits. There were rumours that he would come to do some live shows in China but nothing ever materialised. I, and all my friends, were seventeen going on eighteen, ambitious, restless, hopeful for the future of ourselves and our country. But as every day went by, going abroad to study became a more urgent primary goal. Everyone was buying pirate CDs (and VCDs!) now, and I couldn't quite believe that this wasn't also the case in the West. I started listening to a lot of movie soundtrack albums, and was obsessed with Annie Lennox. And U2. And Take That - the perfect overture to my move to England, I have to say.
Year 1997. United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China in exchange for me. I remember buying quite a few pop/rock CDs from HMV during my first week in Newcastle, but none of the MJ albums. And I never did. I don't think I can hum a single song from 'Invincible'. I followed the child-abuse trials and the ever weirder news stories, watched the tearful public testimonials and the Martin Bashir documentary with much the same kind of mild, passive curiosity as the rest of the country. When talent could still shock and shock all the more because of its increasing scarcity, MJ became Just Another Boring Weird Celebrity.
Of all the incongruous and/or unsual things he said on the Bashir documentary, though, one thing stuck with me. 'No, I don't think of dying at all. Because I want to live forever', he said - I've completely forgotten what the precise context or what Bashir's question had been, but I remember the reply clearly. And this is how I had come to regard this being whose physcial looks appeared to be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear a BBC headline announce one day that MJ really was immortal. It would have only been the perfectly sensible conclusion to all that had gone on with him. All the creations, mysteries, glory, notoriety, adoration, hatred - only immortality could have sealed it all. Now we mourn him, but as I look back I also want to mourn that pure state of shockability that millions of Chinese were in when we first got 'Bad', an innocence lost twice over. Would any future pop artist, Chinese or Western, suddenly break on to the scene to deliver something mind-blowingly original to the Chinese youths of now, who're as dexterous at Googling, downloading or Facebooking as any of their Western counterparts, and who have had everything made ready and easy for them? I'm not holding my breath. Me and my generation, we didn't have it easy, but we had it good. Or Bad. Really, really deliriously BAD.
Monday, 20 April 2009
Spring craze
So we've done it. First proper trip of the year (work-related excursions to various corners of Europe are always wonderful, but they don't really count...) and 11 glorious days in Syria it was. There are numerous tales to tell and lots of photos to share, which shall follow soon.
For now, I'm looking at this week's diary with four concerts and four plays in 7 days. This is when you know you're truly and wholly back in London, I guess. At least, at the moment there's almost as much sunshine here as in the Al-jazeera desert.
For now, I'm looking at this week's diary with four concerts and four plays in 7 days. This is when you know you're truly and wholly back in London, I guess. At least, at the moment there's almost as much sunshine here as in the Al-jazeera desert.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Barbican, week two
Six days later, now in better physical shape and newly recharged by a quick trip to Berlin, I went back to Barbican with M for another pre-show dinner at the Riverside cafe. As with last week, I now noticed the 'other audience' roaming in the foyer - a lot of them wearing exquisite pearls, quite a few elegantly pearl-clad, gingerly sipping their overpriced red wine. This was not 'our' crowd today as we were here to see Pied Piper and they, Parsifal (third act) in concert with Valery Gergiev. We recognise a few friends across the hall and wave to them. I point out to M a riotously-dressed woman in her 60s in scarlett-framed spectacles and her tall, younger companion who looked like an incredibly masculine gypsy. Vivienne Westwood and her Austrian husband, Andreas Kronthaler. Were they here for the hip hop or for Wagner? We managed to amuse ourselves for a full five minutes with the guessing game (the answer was the latter). The LSO concert, as always, started at 19:30 and our opera-loving friend looked on at us with great confusion, from the door across the foyer where he was just about to get in to the concert, as we were not making any attempt to gather ourselves and enter the hall: 'Are you not going in?!' 'No' - we shouted back - 'we're going to see hip hop dance instead.'
And what a show it was. The re-setting of the classic Pied Piper story in the nameless underbelly of contermporary metropolis plagued by ASBO youths was ingenious. The synopsis, divided cleverly into 'chapters', seemed to fit the thrilling choreography (which really favours and befits the episodic narrative as much as classical ballet does) while also making a nod to the medieval literary origin of the story. Kendrick Sandy, the Piper and godfather of the company, Boy Blue Entertainment, clearly inspires so much in his young apprentices and presides the action with unshakable authority. The most virtuosic parts were often left to the youngsters, though, who were capable of doing the jaw-dropping acts with such effortlessness that we cheered and shrieked as spontaneously as the young crowd around us (M had come straight from work in his City suit - for once we really stuck out in the sea of hip-hop audiences). The really breathtaking moments, though, came at the end with the Charming of the Kids scene. Onto the stage came bouncing a score of real kids - we're talking 6- to 10-year olds here - of such a wide range of ethnicity that their mere presence presented a portrait of contemporary Britain right there. And they all bounced and danced and swinged and then did all sorts of gravity-defying things with their limps and on their heads. A lot of 'awwww's emanated from every corner of the theatre. In the final act, 'The Piper's Training Camp' (here's Naughties East London's unique contribution to the tale), they were united with the rest of the cast in a show of disciplines as much as technical brilliance. Isn't this the real morale of this production? The programme states that Boy Blue Entertainment's aim is 'to encourage youth to embrace dance, while teaching them discipline and team building and exposing them to performance and storytelling'. The thought that this company, and this enraptured audience, happily spent the same evening alongside the Wagner die-hards who were just as emotionally moved by a completely different experience, filled me with joy. We might be walking out of a building in the heart of what is now officially a doomed industry, but arts will continue to transcend our otherwise mundane lives, and because of that, this city will never die.
And what a show it was. The re-setting of the classic Pied Piper story in the nameless underbelly of contermporary metropolis plagued by ASBO youths was ingenious. The synopsis, divided cleverly into 'chapters', seemed to fit the thrilling choreography (which really favours and befits the episodic narrative as much as classical ballet does) while also making a nod to the medieval literary origin of the story. Kendrick Sandy, the Piper and godfather of the company, Boy Blue Entertainment, clearly inspires so much in his young apprentices and presides the action with unshakable authority. The most virtuosic parts were often left to the youngsters, though, who were capable of doing the jaw-dropping acts with such effortlessness that we cheered and shrieked as spontaneously as the young crowd around us (M had come straight from work in his City suit - for once we really stuck out in the sea of hip-hop audiences). The really breathtaking moments, though, came at the end with the Charming of the Kids scene. Onto the stage came bouncing a score of real kids - we're talking 6- to 10-year olds here - of such a wide range of ethnicity that their mere presence presented a portrait of contemporary Britain right there. And they all bounced and danced and swinged and then did all sorts of gravity-defying things with their limps and on their heads. A lot of 'awwww's emanated from every corner of the theatre. In the final act, 'The Piper's Training Camp' (here's Naughties East London's unique contribution to the tale), they were united with the rest of the cast in a show of disciplines as much as technical brilliance. Isn't this the real morale of this production? The programme states that Boy Blue Entertainment's aim is 'to encourage youth to embrace dance, while teaching them discipline and team building and exposing them to performance and storytelling'. The thought that this company, and this enraptured audience, happily spent the same evening alongside the Wagner die-hards who were just as emotionally moved by a completely different experience, filled me with joy. We might be walking out of a building in the heart of what is now officially a doomed industry, but arts will continue to transcend our otherwise mundane lives, and because of that, this city will never die.
Barbican, week one
First Friday of March (this has been a month accentuated by travels and health problems - but I'm determined not to let either get in the way of catching up with these notes), 7pm. After two bed-ridden days, I was ever so relieved to be interacting with the world again, in the way of hearing a crowd-alluring programme (Rachmaninoff second piano concerto, Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony) with the LSO. But right now, the impossibility to relief myself was the pressing problem - I expected it to be a popular concert but I had never seen the queues for the ladys' loos at the Barbican so long. I ran upstairs to the balcony level. The size of the waiting crowd there was even more daunting. It suddenly occured to me that the ones located in the Riverside cafe would probably be a safer bet now that the concert was almost about to start. I was right, but as I ran across the foyer to reach them I also realised that the queues had bot looked like a typical LSO audience. Now I know they've got a wonderful marketing department working very hard to reach out to new audiences, but surely all the hoodie-donning, bright-haired youngsters with their smooth, rhythmic moves in every step were not here to hear Rachmaninoff?
Then it dawned on me: Pied Piper had arrived in EC1. This was the hip hop dance show that took Theatre Royal Stratford East (if ever you want to visit a venue where watching the audience themselves can be just as fascinating as whatever's on stage, this is it) by storm last year and went on to win an Olivier. The savvy theatre team at Barbican obviously spotted its potential immediately and pocketed the transfer that were now drawing full-house crowds that were demographically as different from the loyal LSO audiences as possible. And as a result, I only narrowly avoided floor-wetting public embarrassment. This is how every major multi-disciplinary arts venue in the world should be run, I said to myself, except the fact that they'd do even better to upgrade the lavatories (I don't want to seem to have a morbid obsession about this, but the typically awful national standard of British plumbing is always epitomised at busy arts centres and West End theatres). I made a mental note to book ourselves for Pied Piper as soon as we got home.
Then it dawned on me: Pied Piper had arrived in EC1. This was the hip hop dance show that took Theatre Royal Stratford East (if ever you want to visit a venue where watching the audience themselves can be just as fascinating as whatever's on stage, this is it) by storm last year and went on to win an Olivier. The savvy theatre team at Barbican obviously spotted its potential immediately and pocketed the transfer that were now drawing full-house crowds that were demographically as different from the loyal LSO audiences as possible. And as a result, I only narrowly avoided floor-wetting public embarrassment. This is how every major multi-disciplinary arts venue in the world should be run, I said to myself, except the fact that they'd do even better to upgrade the lavatories (I don't want to seem to have a morbid obsession about this, but the typically awful national standard of British plumbing is always epitomised at busy arts centres and West End theatres). I made a mental note to book ourselves for Pied Piper as soon as we got home.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Got an adaptor?!
Anecdote #1: in the summer of 1997, after finishing high school, I did a four-month stint at the Shanghai office of an Australian engineering firm before coming to the UK. McDonalds and KFC, both enormously popular then as 'high-end Western food', were just starting to become affordable for most urbanites, and Starbucks hadn't yet arrived (there are, naturally, dozens in central Shanghai alone now). There were 5 of us in the office - they have considerably expanded over the last decade but these were early days. So, 2 expats from Sydney: one with a decade of various China stints behind him already, the other, the big boss, a relatively new arrival; plus 3 Chinese. One of my daily jobs as the office assistant (essentially, receptionist plus interpreter) was to make the 7-minute hike to the nearby Hilton hotel to buy lunches for the Aussies. And for four whole months, day after day, the orders remained the same: a ham-and-lettuce sandwich for one, and a tuna sandwich for the other. The little cafe at Hilton was the only place where you could buy such things back then, and each sandwich cost 36RMB (to give you some context, my monthly wage was 2000RMB, which was considered very good for a job like this). On my way back to the office I'd pick up a box lunch for myself from one of the many street-stall holders - typically rice, one meat or fish dish, one vegetable dish, all freshly made and piping hot. It cost 5RMB, or 6 if you want an additional meat dish. When I returned to the office the big boss would cast a quick glance at my lunch box and proceed to devour his sandwich. Finally one day, I was curious enough to save up and ordered 3 sandwiches at the Hilton instead of 2. As I carefully munched throug the soggy ham-and-lettuce concoction I thought, hell, this fuss was not worth a whole week of my usual lunches, and why wouldn't he just try the local fare once - just once? A whole decade later, when I return to Shanghai I would often meet friends for a drink at the lobby bar at the same Hilton hotel. The same little cafe is doing a roaring trade now as the number of expats in the neighbourhood have rocketed in the intervening years. I sometimes wonder if they've ever tried a local box lunch (which now, admittedly, probably costs 8 or 9 RMB instead, the equivalent of about 70p) during their entire overseas posting.
Anecdote #2: two summers ago, I went back to Shanghai for my annual business trip. I was due to meet with some friends for a quick bite at a neighbourhood restaurant one Saturday afternoon, except that the neighbourhood in question had been going through the my home town's trademark weekly makeovers so thoroughly that I couldn't find our rendez-vous location. As the area was lined with restaurants and bars I pushed open one of the doors thinking I could just ask someone for direction. I immediately did a double take, because I'd stepped into the Alternative Universe to the street that I was in a second ago: I'd walked into an Irish bar. Alright, being a seasoned traveller I'd seen Irish bars in the most unexpected places, but still this one had something other-worldly, almost hypnotic about it. You've got your usual pool tables and the big-screen with the looped repeats of that week's Match of the Day highlights, and, and... I finally (two seconds later) realised: as always, it's the people who really defined the place. All four of them. Middle-aged male expats, each sitting at his own table, slowing picking through a plate of very suspicious-looking steak pie and mushy peas, staring at the big screen with no expression on their faces. They looked like they'd been sitting their forever, that this was an infinite meal of universally transportable Irish (?) staple food. I wondered what the chef (who was probably a local Shanghaiese) thought as he/she made the mushy peas, the locally grown, in-season fresh peas being a wonderful Shanghai speciality. Having established the fact that neither any of the Irish pub-lovers nor the lone waitress knew about the place I was looking for, I stepped back into the street. There were at least a dozen restaurants lining the same street, offering specialities from various parts of China (the concept of 'Chinese food', like 'Indian food', being the ultimate misnomer), all filled with boisterous customers who seemed to be having a very good time.
Anecdote #3: this one is a more general phenomenon rather than an isolated episode. And I hasten to add, already, that the curious cases I'm trying to illustrate here are not confined to Westerners alone - far from it! Chinese restaurants over here, and other Asian restaurants to a lesser extent, have enjoyed steadily growing business as the number of Chinese students to the UK rose considerably in recent years. Among my own acquaintances who have emigrated from China, with a fairly wide range in both age and profession, it's not uncommon to hear someone delare proudly of possessing a 'Chinese stomach'. In some cases, even after years of residing in the West, they can't stand the sight of a plate of banger & mash, or the smell of an upmarket cheese platter (okay, the latter is more understandable). With the growing wealth back home, gone are the days when newly-arrived students all had to watch their budgets and most did a stint of waiting in local Chinese restaurants (as I did). For most new comers, their only reason for stepping into a Chinese restaurant is to have a table full of food (the concept of a formulated three-course meal doesn't exist in Asia), as they would back home, and many do so on almost a daily basis. If, for those in the UK, this is rather more excusable considering the usual alternatives being bog-standard British fare (no offence, but Pret sandwiches are a sufficient lunch option, not gourmet food), what makes me scratch my head as much as the Irish pub in Shanghai did is the fact that many Chinese who have made Paris or Milan their new home are just as oblivious/antagonistic to fois gras, prociutto or pasta (the real Italian ones, not spag bol). They'd have to be threatened with the possbility of severe bodily harm before succumbing to trying a plate of gourmet salad. And these are young people who have much less language barrier than their elders once did. I remember my amazement, soon after moving to the US, when I found out that there were thousands of first-generation immigrants who had virtually lived out their entire lives in the Chinatowns of New York, San Francisco or Vancouver, without speaking a single word of English or having any interaction whatsoever with the world outside of the Chinatown borders.
Of course it's entirely reasonable, and understandable, to maintain a close emotional connection to where you come from, which often is reflected in many mundane habits, such as daily diet. However, I find many modern expats' ardent refusal to learn to appreciate, let alone blend in, certain cultural and societal elements of their new surroundings bordering on the obsessional. This genetic lack of adaptability (for I have no better way of describing it) was, I suppose, once the norm for colonial occupants - think the British lords who carved out a little universe for themselves in many pockets of Asia in the 1920s, filled with quintessentially British air they managed to bring with them, or manufactured on location. But nowdays, this phenomenon seems to transcend nationality, race, class or age, and can be found in the most unexpected, sometimes bizarre circumstances (like my Irish pub encounter). You may say I'm making a fuss out of nothing, but I do wonder: in our day and age when globolisation is a given, when instant communication and mobility are taken for granted, should it not occur to those fortunate - and, more often than not, well-educated - enough to have the experience of living in a foreign land, that the capability to adapt is an important quality to be armed with. The HR-talk of 'skillsets' invades our individual and collective spheres often enough, yet if I were an HR manager, I'd make sure that every candidate up for a cushy overseas relocation (and they're almost invariably cushy indeed) has 'natural adaptability' on top of his/her CV. If you're to be a senior manager in charge of hundreds of local workers and can't be bothered to eat their daily lunch box like they do at least once, to find out what their living environs are like and where their childrens' schools are located, can you really be an effective leader? I don't think so.
As recent as one hundred years ago, it would take weeks for even the wealthiest to cross the Atlantic, months to get from one end of Eurasia to the other, journeys that now amount to a matter of three or four films (depending on their length) on Virgin Atlantic. Even with all the modern skylines that increasingly make Shanghai, Mumbai, Chicago or Frankfurt look like clones of one another, each new destination still has something unique to offer, usually in the shape of local delis, corner shops, independent boutiques, and above all, the residents who are the beating heart of the city in question. We were not all born with an innate adaptor when it comes to culinary preferences but we can, should, need to all make an effort to learn something about our new home, which in no way signifies abandoning our roots (some people's excuse, in case you're wondering). Try, for once, to turn your back on the known and the familiar, and eat/watch/do what your neighbours do - for what is the point of living elsewhere, and what shall life be without the seductive excitement of the unknown, after all?
Anecdote #2: two summers ago, I went back to Shanghai for my annual business trip. I was due to meet with some friends for a quick bite at a neighbourhood restaurant one Saturday afternoon, except that the neighbourhood in question had been going through the my home town's trademark weekly makeovers so thoroughly that I couldn't find our rendez-vous location. As the area was lined with restaurants and bars I pushed open one of the doors thinking I could just ask someone for direction. I immediately did a double take, because I'd stepped into the Alternative Universe to the street that I was in a second ago: I'd walked into an Irish bar. Alright, being a seasoned traveller I'd seen Irish bars in the most unexpected places, but still this one had something other-worldly, almost hypnotic about it. You've got your usual pool tables and the big-screen with the looped repeats of that week's Match of the Day highlights, and, and... I finally (two seconds later) realised: as always, it's the people who really defined the place. All four of them. Middle-aged male expats, each sitting at his own table, slowing picking through a plate of very suspicious-looking steak pie and mushy peas, staring at the big screen with no expression on their faces. They looked like they'd been sitting their forever, that this was an infinite meal of universally transportable Irish (?) staple food. I wondered what the chef (who was probably a local Shanghaiese) thought as he/she made the mushy peas, the locally grown, in-season fresh peas being a wonderful Shanghai speciality. Having established the fact that neither any of the Irish pub-lovers nor the lone waitress knew about the place I was looking for, I stepped back into the street. There were at least a dozen restaurants lining the same street, offering specialities from various parts of China (the concept of 'Chinese food', like 'Indian food', being the ultimate misnomer), all filled with boisterous customers who seemed to be having a very good time.
Anecdote #3: this one is a more general phenomenon rather than an isolated episode. And I hasten to add, already, that the curious cases I'm trying to illustrate here are not confined to Westerners alone - far from it! Chinese restaurants over here, and other Asian restaurants to a lesser extent, have enjoyed steadily growing business as the number of Chinese students to the UK rose considerably in recent years. Among my own acquaintances who have emigrated from China, with a fairly wide range in both age and profession, it's not uncommon to hear someone delare proudly of possessing a 'Chinese stomach'. In some cases, even after years of residing in the West, they can't stand the sight of a plate of banger & mash, or the smell of an upmarket cheese platter (okay, the latter is more understandable). With the growing wealth back home, gone are the days when newly-arrived students all had to watch their budgets and most did a stint of waiting in local Chinese restaurants (as I did). For most new comers, their only reason for stepping into a Chinese restaurant is to have a table full of food (the concept of a formulated three-course meal doesn't exist in Asia), as they would back home, and many do so on almost a daily basis. If, for those in the UK, this is rather more excusable considering the usual alternatives being bog-standard British fare (no offence, but Pret sandwiches are a sufficient lunch option, not gourmet food), what makes me scratch my head as much as the Irish pub in Shanghai did is the fact that many Chinese who have made Paris or Milan their new home are just as oblivious/antagonistic to fois gras, prociutto or pasta (the real Italian ones, not spag bol). They'd have to be threatened with the possbility of severe bodily harm before succumbing to trying a plate of gourmet salad. And these are young people who have much less language barrier than their elders once did. I remember my amazement, soon after moving to the US, when I found out that there were thousands of first-generation immigrants who had virtually lived out their entire lives in the Chinatowns of New York, San Francisco or Vancouver, without speaking a single word of English or having any interaction whatsoever with the world outside of the Chinatown borders.
Of course it's entirely reasonable, and understandable, to maintain a close emotional connection to where you come from, which often is reflected in many mundane habits, such as daily diet. However, I find many modern expats' ardent refusal to learn to appreciate, let alone blend in, certain cultural and societal elements of their new surroundings bordering on the obsessional. This genetic lack of adaptability (for I have no better way of describing it) was, I suppose, once the norm for colonial occupants - think the British lords who carved out a little universe for themselves in many pockets of Asia in the 1920s, filled with quintessentially British air they managed to bring with them, or manufactured on location. But nowdays, this phenomenon seems to transcend nationality, race, class or age, and can be found in the most unexpected, sometimes bizarre circumstances (like my Irish pub encounter). You may say I'm making a fuss out of nothing, but I do wonder: in our day and age when globolisation is a given, when instant communication and mobility are taken for granted, should it not occur to those fortunate - and, more often than not, well-educated - enough to have the experience of living in a foreign land, that the capability to adapt is an important quality to be armed with. The HR-talk of 'skillsets' invades our individual and collective spheres often enough, yet if I were an HR manager, I'd make sure that every candidate up for a cushy overseas relocation (and they're almost invariably cushy indeed) has 'natural adaptability' on top of his/her CV. If you're to be a senior manager in charge of hundreds of local workers and can't be bothered to eat their daily lunch box like they do at least once, to find out what their living environs are like and where their childrens' schools are located, can you really be an effective leader? I don't think so.
As recent as one hundred years ago, it would take weeks for even the wealthiest to cross the Atlantic, months to get from one end of Eurasia to the other, journeys that now amount to a matter of three or four films (depending on their length) on Virgin Atlantic. Even with all the modern skylines that increasingly make Shanghai, Mumbai, Chicago or Frankfurt look like clones of one another, each new destination still has something unique to offer, usually in the shape of local delis, corner shops, independent boutiques, and above all, the residents who are the beating heart of the city in question. We were not all born with an innate adaptor when it comes to culinary preferences but we can, should, need to all make an effort to learn something about our new home, which in no way signifies abandoning our roots (some people's excuse, in case you're wondering). Try, for once, to turn your back on the known and the familiar, and eat/watch/do what your neighbours do - for what is the point of living elsewhere, and what shall life be without the seductive excitement of the unknown, after all?
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