Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Sir John Soane, R.A.

Yesterday afternoon we decided to walk to the Sir John Soane Museum rather than taking the tube. It was only a few blocks past the British Museum and I was able to see more of the Bloomsbury neighborhood. When we arrived at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, it was easy to spot. First of all, there was a queue of people outside the gates and second, who else would have caryatids on the façade of their house but a classics-loving architect? While I appreciated the concept of the museum, (Sir John wanted to leave his home as a showcase for his antiquities and works of art) I thought it was SO crowded with his artifacts that I could barely focus on the actual architecture of the house. It was like walking into an “Antiques Roadshow” dream house. Ironically, my two favorite rooms were the ones that contained the least amount of classical antiquities, the library and the upstairs sitting room. I loved looking through his books and his paintings (the Turner on the second floor is exquisite!) because I felt that was a better way to try and gage what kind of man Sir John was. You can tell a lot about a person by what he/she reads. I loved the yellow sitting room because it was whimsical and light in the midst of all the dark wood and ancient Greek artifacts. The stained glass and the bright saffron-colored walls provided a nice contrast against the rest of the museum/house. I imagine that Sir John’s wife had a hand in decorating this area (although I can’t be sure) and he left it this way after she passed away. I only wish that there had been some sort of guide that I could have used to navigate through the house or a curator I could have talked to. Obviously, Sir John loved classical sculpture and architecture, and his collection is truly impressive, but I would have liked to see more of the floor plan. Also, I wonder what Soane’s sons could have done to persuade him to even turn the home into a museum. On the homepage all it says is he was “deeply disappointed by the conduct of his two sons.” Any thoughts on that? I really enjoy exploring the places where people lived. It’s fascinating to me… What were they like? What was their daily schedule? What room did they spend the most time in? To any future visitors, make sure you venture down into the basement aka “the crypt” to check out the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti I. This is definitely a non-conventional museum. To be perfectly honest, what it lacked in curatorial flair, it made up for in dedication to preservation. The Sir John Soane museum was a welcome change from the halls of slick marble and crowds of tourists that have been a staple of the larger institutions. Sometimes it’s the places off the beaten track that make the biggest impression. While this museum was not my favorite attraction of London, It does showcase the importance of exploring the smaller, less popular areas. Next stop—Chancery Lane!

Even though I am one, I rarely feel like a tourist in London. Perhaps the fact that there are hundreds of other tourists makes me feel a bit less conspicuous when I snap photos of St. Paul’s and Big Ben, or perhaps it’s because I truly feel like I’m getting to know this city bit by bit (I have a good chunk of the Tube map in my head now, which amazes me). I readily call London, Bloomsbury, and the Arran House “home” in a way I adamantly refuse to label Carlisle and Dickinson, and when I helped an American couple from California find their way on the Tube the other day, they asked if I lived here, and I automatically answered yes but didn’t realize what I had said until ten minutes later. Despite the fact that we’re often looked at on the Tube or the street for being loud and having different accents, and even though we will probably all be known as “the American” in our various social circles in Norwich, I feel more at home in London than I have ever felt outside of my Connecticut bubble.

Yesterday, however, I felt like a tourist and an outsider for the first time in a while. Southall immediately felt foreign the second I got off the train. Perhaps this is because of my relative lack of experience with England outside of greater London, or perhaps it was because of the street signs and advertisements in Urdu, but Southall only felt more foreign the farther we got into it. Even just walking down the street, I felt that we were being looked at and wondered about much more closely and obviously than we often are around Tottenham Court Road, for example. From what I’ve paid attention to, many Brits will hear a bunch of loud young adults with American accents walking down the pavement, and they seem to give us a cursory glance when they’re sure we’re not looking before walking on. In Southall, on the street as well as in the gurdwara itself, people didn’t seem to hide their blatant staring at our group. This didn’t feel unfriendly, necessarily, or undeserved: Southall isn’t exactly an area that sees a lot of tourists, especially young, mostly white Americans, and I bet many were wondering why the hell we had reason to come to Southall. In the gurdwara, people didn’t seem to hide their curiosity whatsoever, but this time I felt a slight embarrassment: even though we were all being respectful and obeying their customs, I wondered what they thought of us being there and if they felt mocked by our curiosity, our sometimes comical scarf-wearing, and our close observation. I felt as though we might be intruding into their sacred space, perhaps one of the few places in Britain where they are among their own kind and NOT the outsiders, simply by being there and treating the gurdwara like it was another tourist stop on the tour of England and as a space that does double-duty as a museum as well as a space of worship like Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s.

As we discussed in class today, for many of us, being an outsider is an infrequent and uncomfortable experience, but I wholeheartedly agree with such experiences being beneficial, educational, and healthy. However, after feeling like a complete outsider for the first time in a while, I found myself reflecting on how the gurdwara is probably one of the only places in the area where the Sikhs aren’t the outsiders and aren’t given strange looks for having turbans and beards. For the hour or however long they’re in the gurdwara, they are able to be themselves and focus on what matters most to them, but in the outside world, where they’re not even allowed to participate fully in the requirements of their religion (since they aren’t allowed to carry knives/swords, and in some professions, might not be able to have long hair or beards), they are constantly bombarded with strange looks and being “foreign” just because of the way they look. I wonder what this does to a Sikh’s identity, especially through the various generations and levels of devoutness. We have read several books on the concepts of being an immigrant and a permanent outsider in England, but since Sikhs can perhaps stick out even MORE due to the physical markers of their religion. I also think that identity varies from individual to individual, even though two might come from the same place at the same age and live in the same new environment, and I regret not asking our guide more about the Sikh identity in a secular, western community.