Once again, I will attempt to describe my direct encounters with British culture in order to better understand this city we’ve called home for the past several weeks.
“What kind of music do you listen to?”
It’s the question everyone asks me, and it’s among one of the questions I enjoy answering the least. I don’t have a favorite band, hold a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, or know the title/artist/lyrics/history of any song on demand. I have learned that without this information, your answer to this question quickly turns into a rambling exploration of your taste in music, ultimately ending in “…Well, I guess I kind of like everything.”
Do not misunderstand me – I enjoy music. I love music. I listen to a broad list of genres, have my own taste in music, enjoy certain bands, and could not imagine not having my iPod with me whenever I wanted it. When I came over to Britain, I looked forward to opening my ears to new sounds and listening for the definition of quintessential “British music”. Maybe – just maybe – I could finally find a band in Britain I could use as my answer to the above question.
London did not immediately provide the new sound I was expecting. I often feel as though I have not left the music world of the USA. I walk into a restaurant, and “Snow ((Hey Oh))” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is piped in through the speakers. I wander through Boot’s to pick up some toiletries, and I suddenly find myself humming along to Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young.” The Tube walls are lined with adverts for Illinois-based Wilco and their upcoming album. What does this lasting presence of American music in London mean?
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I did some research into the subject, and my search showed that I am not the only one to write on this subject (Though while I write a small post, they write 400-pg books on the ebb and flow of American and British culture.). The music in the US during the twentieth-century has always been played to some extent in Britain. This influx of American music was so influential that in 1935 the BBC went so far as to ban people from using the word “hot” as a descriptor for popular American jazz music. American musicians needed special authorization in order to play at any venue in Britain (Part of this was due to the era’s inherent racism and prejudice toward many black jazz musicians.) These measures were probably meant, in large part, to bolster the native music population, rid the public from the potential destructive elements of the new American music, and curb a continued domination of American music in the British market.
One can easily pose the question asking why the protectionism of the early twentieth century has not continued to this day. Personally, I point to the truly ‘British’ musicians that have swept up a frenzied fanbase in Britain, Europe, and, most importantly, the US. Anyone ever hear of Elton John? How about the Rolling Stones? Queen? These bands and many, many others have moved Britain to the forefront of the music industry and, in turn, posed a challenge to the flood of American music from across the pond. Accordingly, Britain can rest easy knowing it has held its own in the vast music market.
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Back to the initial point of this post – music in Britain and why it’s so…familiar. I have come to the conclusion that music, while inherently localized to some initial extent, will eventually cross borders. If Billy Joel can play to sold-out concerts in Tokyo, he can be popular among the staff in the local Boot’s. If people in Liverpool can be so uncontrollably excited to get their hands on The Beatles: Rockband – a new game allowing people to sing as their favorite member of the Fab Four – you can only imagine how packed the lines will be outside the GameStop in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
I am still trying to listen for a sense of modern British music, for I have only encountered it by chance. Occassionally,I have the happy fortune of sitting next to someone who just happens to be blasting what sounds like a non-American pop song on their iPod.
At the BBC PROMS concert, I found the British works to be extraordinary. This ties back to the sense of music as truly universal. At one point during Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ pre-concert talk, he mentioned his appreciation and eventual love of Aboriginal music, which he in turn used as an inspiration for some of his pieces. This is just one example of the capability of music to blend, to some extent, many local, national, and international boundaries. [I hope this does not come off as a way to skirt the issue by saying “Oh, well, I do not know too much about British music, but look at how wonderful ALL music can be!” This is one of my goals for the next few months, and one I will probably have a better chance of fulfilling once we settle in Norwich.]
For the recording of Tuesday night’s pieces, I encourage you to take a listen here (you’ll find the recording at the bottom of the page, but I am not sure for how much longer).
Feel free to comment, offer some better understanding of British music, or simply type out a list of songs I should be listening to more often. Many people have defined music in different ways, but I think I have yet to create/find my definition. I do not know when I will be happy with my definition of music (or my iTunes library), but I am more than happy to take steps in some general direction.
Sources:
Kaufman, Will and Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson. Britain and the Americas: culture, politics, and history. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2005. 623-26.
Parsonage, Catherine. The Evolution of Jazz in Britain, 1880-1935. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. 180-81.
I am a huge fan of classical music, so when I heard that we would have the opportunity to go to hear Sir Peter Maxwell Davies speak and attend the Proms, I was delighted! Sir Peter is one of the most prominent British composers alive. He has written hundreds of pieces and holds the title of Master of the Queen’s Music. (A purely ceremonial role that allows him to write music that requires a very large number of people to perform. After all, if the piece is being premiered before the Queen, who wouldn’t want to participate?) Despite all of Sir Peter’s many accomplishments, the thing that struck me most about his talk is how much he truly loves and appreciates music. He said in the discussion that “the future holds as much music as I can cram into it!”
A piece of music should be a journey that tells as simple or complex a story as the composer wishes. Although Sir Peter’s Violin Concerto No. 2 ‘Fiddler on the Shore’ was not my favorite piece of the evening, I greatly enjoyed the story of the piece. (Now, bare with me as this may read as a little bit far-fetched and listening slightly too much into the music.) I heard the soloist as being one person who was trying to find his path and was confused among the peaceful, smooth, soothing noises of the sea (orchestra). Throughout the piece, the soloist becomes much more certain of his path in life, and thus the playing of the violin by the soloist became much smoother, mimicking the “sea” orchestra of earlier. However, when this happens, the orchestra’s playing became much more violent and choppy, which caused the soloist to dive back into the confusion he experienced at the beginning of the piece. In the end, the soloist and the sea come together in peace. To me, the piece was a depiction of the soloist searching for clarity in the world.
Last night I went to hear the conductor, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, speak on his life as a composer, conductor, and teacher. I really enjoyed what I heard of his speech, he was a very passionate and witty man, however as an education minor I greatly disagreed with some of what he said. When he got to talking about education he said that educators should not underestimate students and that “people like to be challenged” and that students should not be talked down to because “they are not stupid”. This I agree with students deserve to be challenged because if a teacher set the bar high then they will learn more than if you expect little of them. However, he then goes on to say that he believes that government officials make decisions regarding education so student “remain ignorant in a state of mind where they cannot criticize the government, where they have not got any qualifications”. I feel that at least in America things are FAR more complex than this. There are so many more factors in the quality of education in public schools (Note: I am using public school in the American way). The reason public schools, especially urban public schools, do not do as well as suburban and private schools is because the high quality teachers want to go where they will get paid the most and have the fewest problems. Urban public schools do not pay as much as private schools and often have more disciplinary problems. This and White Flight combine to drag down the public school systems in both the United States and England, it is not simply the government holding down the proletariat.
He later says that he does not understand why schools have stopped teaching Latin and Shakespeare, because he feels that students are fully capable of learning them (however I cannot find the direct quotation in the link). I do not believe that Latin is being taken off school curriculum is because they don’t feel that students are able to learn it, but rather because it has become obsolete. One of the readings that I had in my Kaleidoscope education book (I really wish I had it with me) specifically talked about this issue. The article in the book was an abstract story that told about a caveman-like society, within the story the elders wanted the youngsters to learn about the certain extinct animals and how to kill them rather than teach them how to kill the animals that they would encounter in everyday life. This article, though abstract, is specifically talking about subjects like Latin in the modern education system. How often is an American or British student going to encounter Latin? Now how often are they going to encounter Spanish or French in their lifetimes? Obviously Spanish and French are much more useful than Latin or Ancient Greek, so the school district decides to cut Latin and add a French department. The school district does not do this simply because they do not think the students are capable of learning Latin, as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies suggests, but rather because it is becoming extinct and there are more useful things to be taught.
Overall, I enjoyed Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ speech however I found that he oversimplified many major educational issues that are very important to me. So, I felt it necessary to set the record straight and blog about eduction here and in the US, as we do face many of the very same problems.
If you would like to listen to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ speak on education and his life here is a link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00mj5xs
I feel very fortunate to have been to both a Sikh Gurdwara and a Hindu temple in such a short period of time. Truly there are not two better examples of divergent immigrant communities than the Sikh and Hindi. Both religions originated from South Asia but due to differences in their philosophies, have taken to life in England quite differently. The followers at Wembley’s Shri Swaminarayan Mandir seem eager to embrace life in England, while the Sikh Gurdwara in Southall seems more intent on just existing wherever they are. Have these two religions been changed by England, or is it something about their inherent beliefs that have created these two different situations? Unfortunately for this blogger, the answer is: both.
A possible argument can be made for how long each religion has existed. In terms of age, Hinduism is one of the oldest religions to still be widely practiced in the world. Sikhism on the other hand is only an infant in comparison, starting around 1500. However, we cannot judge these two communities based on how long they have been in existence, but rather how long they have existed in their new homeland. Living in a country unlike India, there have undoubtedly been compromises that both religions have had to make in order to survive at the minimum in England. For example, followers of Hinduism in England have to come to terms that many of their non-believing coworkers, neighbors, etc. are very likely to have beef in their diet. On the other hand, Sikhs strictly forbid any kind of abortion, and yet must live in a country where it is tolerated. Therefore, we must consider not the original religions of Sikhism and Hinduism, but the new Sikh/British and Hindu/British identities they have certainly formed. According to the BBC (and their respective links here and here), both the Sikh and Hindis had their first large waves of immigration to England at around 1950, therefore we can not only say that both communities has the same amount of time to develop, but were affected by factors of the same time period. The differences in how their communities have adapted then must be caused by fundamental differences in their religion and how the reacted to life in England.
Thankfully, there are more than enough differences between both their religions and their England-based temples to ascribe these differences to. The largest of these differences is each religion’s sense of humility and how in turn that mentality changes the way each community acts in a capitalist society. As I was guided around each temple with my classmates and was able to look at my surroundings, this factor immediately struck me. The temple itself was furnished very modestly. While there were some places that were elaborate, the most impressive room was the main prayer hall. Although this was the place that an entire of community of Sikhs met to pray, the room was meant to hold the Sikh prayer book, not take away from it. To do this, the entire room was draped in white cloth and the only vibrant color in the entire room was displayed around their holy text. While the building was quite large, every part of it served a function and according to our guide cost around 17 million pounds.
In the case of the Gurdwara, the people who worked at the temple did not even have someone who was trained as a tour guide for their temple. The person that ended up showing us around was purely a student of the religion, and talked to us as such. The focus of his talk (from what I could hear, as he was speaking almost directly to Professor Qualls) was on the philosophies of his faith. What seemed to matter most to the man was the Sikhism’s emphasis of community and how those that followed the religion were part of the community without prejudice. The idea of a tightly knit community seems to be just what Sikh’s in England desire. Although they are immigrants just like the Hindis, they are without a doubt the minority religion of people from India, with there being slightly less than twice as many Hindus than Sikhs. In order to retain their relevance within England, it seems that Sikhs have pushed idea of a unified Sikh community to the level of the 5 K’s, five items that represent the pillars of Sikhism. While caring for and protecting the weak has always been a part of the Sikh religion, it would seem that in their immigration to England, Sikhs expanded this ideal in order to protect their people who in an instant became an even smaller minority than they already were. In addition to wanting to preserve the Sikh community, it seems that the philosophy of Sikhism does not mesh well with British capitalism. Take for example when we were told that we would be getting a free lunch. Most of us couldn’t understand why a temple would give out a free lunch to anyone who came to the temple. Our incredulity was well justified, as it was hard to imagine a group of people working towards pure charity rather than profit. It is likely for these reasons that Sikhism in England has not matched Hinduism in cultural influence.
Some of the students grumbled about how some of the money that went towards building the Gurdwara should have gone to the surrounding community, but those grumbles only fell to the wayside when we entered the Hindu temple. Although the Gurdwara was a large building, the Hindu temple looked to be almost twice as large, the reason for that being the temple’s head-first dive into capitalism. Upon entering the temple, the first thing you are immediately greeted with is the Cultural Center’s gift shop. The temple was also able to provide an actual tour guide who in many ways was the opposite of the Sikh guide. Instead of explaining about the fundamentals of Hinduism, the man instead explained about the magnificence of the building we were in, and how the materials that it was built from came from only the best places in the world. As a class we were shocked by the 16 million pound cost of the Sikh temple, but it is easy to imagine that a building of the Hindu temples grandeur easily cost hundreds of millions of pounds. While it seems that the Sikhs wish to believe in charity and modest (Pride is actually one of their five “vices”), the Hindus have no problem proving to everyone how great they are. In a country where it is up to each person to create his/her own success, Hinduism seems to be more of a fit than Sikhism.
While we now can possibly guess the reasons behind how these two different religious communities act, there is still the question of reason. Are these communities acting as such in order to assimilate with British society, or are they just trying to survive? It seems that each of the religious groups have chosen different paths, as the Hindus aim to thrive and the Sikhs simply want to exist. Is one choice more effective than the other? Will the Hindu’s give up too much of their beliefs in order to succeed? Will the Sikh’s reluctance to reach outside of their community force them to fade into irrelevancy? Only time will tell, but we can be certain that England will keep calm and carry on, with or without them.
It is strange to think that we have only been in London for three weeks. We have packed enough into our days to make it feel as though we’ve been living here all summer. I realize that three weeks is hardly sufficient time in which to study the culture of a city, especially when said city has been around for 2000 years. All the same, our quest towards understanding the cultural significance of the modern city has brought us fairly far along. We are now being asked to define the identity of the people of the city of London.
I have a few problems with this question. How can we define something that is infinitely changeable? Modern society is an amalgam of different parts; British culture is, to use a term hitherto heard only in the realm of AP U.S. History, a “melting pot” of peoples. The identity of the British people has never been a fixed thing. Whether due to the Britons, the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, or now the influx of various Indian and Afro-Caribbean peoples, the influences that effect British culture are constantly shifting. So too are the identifying characteristics of the citizens of this country.
I believe that the people themselves cannot be identified. With influences coming in from so many different cultures how can we pigeon-hole them all into one all-encompassing character? I would rather consider the identity of Britain as a country, not as a people. The people influence the identity of the country, not the other way around. If I was asked to provide images of what I believe defines Britain’s identity many pictures would surface. Sure, Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral would all make the list. However, after many of our field trips I would add the Sikh Gudwara, the Hindu Temple, the smells of roasting food wafting out of Chinatown, and the costumes, and colors, and the sound of steel drums and rock music blasting out of the Notting Hill carnival. These brief snatches of cultural differences morph together to form the character of modern Britain while the people themselves retain their individual identities.
What interests me more than my opinion, is the opinion of the individuality of the British people. Reading Salaam, Brick Lane opened my eyes to just how differently these cultural discrepancies can be perceived. Tarquin Hall is, for better or worse, obviously fascinated by the residents of Brick Lane and the additions they bring to the identity of Britain. However, the other characters (Mr. Ali, Sadie, and some unnamed Cockney cab drivers to name a few) had wildly different opinions. The Cockney cabbies viewed all immigrants, whether they’d been in Britain for years or days, as invaders that had no right to call themselves Englishmen. Sadie considered any and all immigrants from India and Asia as not fit to live in Britain, and even Mr. Ali, himself Bangladeshi, saw all the new immigrants from his own country as ignorant, uneducated hicks. He had lived in London for thirty years and was for all intents and purposes British. His children were born in London. They are British citizens. Yet to those who had been here longer he was just as ignorant and uneducated as the newly arrived immigrants from Bangladesh. What none of these characters stopped to consider is that their ideas, their cultures, their different religions are all effecting the current identity of the country as a whole.
Whether immigrating from India or Israel, Romania or even the United States, every new person changes the identity of Britain a little. While I don’t believe the identity of the British people as a whole can be defined, we can discern the character of the country in this moment. Soon, however, it will change again, as influences pour in from other parts of the globe and other ways of thinking.
Although this post is a bit belated I felt it was important to share my experience in Oxford last Saturday. After a relaxing hour train ride from Paddington Station to Oxford our class had some time to explore before our formal tour in the afternoon. Besides the university I did not know much about the town of Oxford going into the trip so naturally I was surprised to see huge mobs of people as I approached the main road. This sight immediately generated thoughts of the U.S. I felt like I could have just as easily been walking around Yaletown, New Haven or downtown Freeport with shopping centers and fast food restaurants lining the roads as far as the eye could see.
Anxious to get out of the bustling shopping area Brandon, Aidan and I followed our map down towards Christ Church, one of the many sites where the Harry Potter movies have been filmed. Since they were charging 3 pounds to enter the gates Brandon, Aidan and I decided to save our money and take pictures from the outside of the fantastic building. We walked around the back and found a long walkway that took us away further away from the town and back behind the university where we saw athletic fields and the magnificent Church in the distance. We decided to try to go to the Botanic Gardens only to find that the path was closed off and opted to head back towards the town instead.
Not to shift topics completely but lunch was an experience in itself. Brandon, Aidan and I entered a covered market that featured a variety of stores and small eateries. After walking throughout the market Aidan spotted a sandwich place that was selling pretty large sandwiches at a fairly affordable price. We decided to purchase sandwiches there despite the fact that there was no seating available in front of the eatery. Spotting a nearby cafe with 10-15 chairs available we decided that it looked like a promising spot to sit and enjoy our sandwiches. After about two bites we were approached by a random man who gave us a stern warning that we should not be sitting there since we did not buy the food from that eatery. He also mentioned something about needing room for he and his two kids to sit even though there were still ample chairs available. This man had no apparent connection to the restaurant, and no real reason to say anything to us. He simply just wanted to make his point known. Being the law abiding citizens we are we attempted to find another place to sit outside the market. After a few minutes of wandering we found a pizza express that appeared to be closed. Like the cafe there was plenty of seating outside and no business in sight. Sure enough however a woman emerged from the restaurant and told us we could not sit in front of the restaurant despite there being numerous seats available. Frustrated and a bit perturbed I held in my contempt and we attempted to find another place to sit. Due to the massive amounts of people on the streets none of the park benches were open so the three of us ended up eating our sandwiches in a back alley where no one could bother us for eating in front of their establishment.
If there is one pet peeve I have about London it’s that most restaurants don’t have enough places for people to sit and enjoy their food. In addition people become overly offended when you eat food you purchased elsewhere in front of another restaurant. It becomes a vicious cycle and leaves one with two options. The first option is to master the “walk and eat” technique which from keen observation it seems Londoners have figured out pretty well. The second option is to pull out the vagabond card and eat in a back alley or on the side of the street. Needless to say I have had to resort to the second technique quite a few times since my arrival in the U.K. Not to beat a dead horse but it seems to me that restaurants should provide enough seating for their clientele. In addition places that don’t have any business should be generous and allow anyone to eat outside their establishment. I know it goes against the rules of good business but personally I think the rules of common courtesy to fellow man are a bit more important…and with that I digress.
Between my distaste of downtown Oxford and my lunch experience I did not have a very good feeling going into the tour that afternoon. Thankfully this negative feeling would disappear once the tour got going. Our tour guide had the driest sense of humour I had ever encountered but he was very informative and knew a lot about the University of Oxford’s current setup as well as its history. Since I give tours for Dickinson and worked in the admissions office this past Summer my main interest while touring Oxford centered on how the British system of higher education differs from that of the states. I found it interesting that the British government actually requires Oxford to take up to 80 percent of its students from Public schools in the U.K. Traditionally institutions like Oxford and Cambridge have swept up private preparatory scholars like wildfire. Since Oxford is now being forced to take so many public school students I wonder how much the dynamic of the university has been changed. It was clear from what our tour guide said that there is a lot of distaste expressed by the University on this subject. Another thing that I found interesting about Oxford is how it was layed out into separate colleges which essentially function as completely separate institutions. Unlike the university system in the U.S. most of the colleges within Oxford offer classes in just about any subject area, almost like a collection of liberal arts colleges. Students actually apply for a specific college all of which have different traditions and reputations but are all considered part of The University of Oxford. The different colleges often compete against each other through both athletic and mental competitions and the best athletes from each college are chosen to compete on the University team, typically against Cambridge.
Walking around it was amazing to view architecture that was at least two times as old as Dickinson’s. The juxtaposition between the modern, tourist trap of a town and the old, traditional university was striking. Since the town seemed to be completely catered to the 21st century student I had a hard time believing him when our tour guide said that the town/gown relationship needed some improvement.
Overall I enjoyed the tour of the University of Oxford a lot. Although I am extremely lucky to be a student at a school like Dickinson and also fortunate to be attending UEA this year I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to attend Oxford. There is just so much history and tradition there and an unbelievable amount of prestige. I hope that when we visit Cambridge it offers a similar experience.
To compare Oxford to London would be like comparing apples and oranges. I noticed a much different, more touristy, less ethnically diverse and less friendly population at Oxford. As I continue to spend time in England I realize more and more that London seems to be an incredibly unique area within the entire country. As we move from the bubble of London to the countryside of Norwich next week I will be interested to see how Norwich fits in the grand scheme of things. What type of diversity will we experience among the student population at UEA and the Norwich population in general? These are questions that will remain unanswered for now.
For the past few weeks we have been bombarded by tours, museums, tube maps, and sightseeing. We have been living the life of the London tourist. However, just last night, for the first time during our trip here, Anthony, Flow, Jeyla, Audrey, Rebecca, and I got a chance to play tour guides to fellow Dickinson students Gina, Luis, and Leslie on layover on their way to study in Malaga. Having been on many Karl-Qualls-Tours, the six of us were fully capable of navigating the city and hitting all the major tourist attractions in the four hours our friends had before they needed to get back to the airport. We took them to the South Bank, Big Ben, Parliament, the Roman Wall/Tower of London, the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Millennium Bridge, and St. Paul’s.
But having already seen these sites, and been in London now for about three weeks, another tour didn’t seem that exciting to me. I went along just to be with my friends, but ultimately I learned something about myself along the way, and it has to do with IDENTITY: I’m now a Londoner. Leading the way, knowing the tube routes, does that make me a Londoner? Knowing the history, the significance of each spot, does that makes me a Londoner? Or was it feeling so jaded the past few days that the thought of more sightseeing made me a little sick? I think it was a combination of both. But seeing the look in Leslie, Luis, and Gina’s faces, the excitement they felt at seeing Big Ben for the first time, made me realize that now, we members of Humanities 309 are no longer tourists, but rather Londoners. And it is not because of any reason other than our ability to give that moment of awe to a group of our friends. -Megan
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On Sunday night three members of my posse Leslie, Gina and Luis flew into Europe. For the academic year they will be studying abroad in Spain however their layover for a night was in London. A couple of students decided that it would be great idea to take them out and see our new home, London. Granted they would only be here for a night so we decided to cram in our best London Tour in the span of literally 5 hours.
Jeyla and I wasted no time, and rushed on the tube towards Heathrow airport. Our tube cards only go up to zone 3 on the tube, and whenever Jeyla and I passed the boundaries of a new zone we felt petrified that we were venturing out too far. However we got to the airport safely, picked them up, and quickly returned to the hotel. As soon as we arrived they visited some other Dickinson friends of theirs, ate, and we headed out on the town.
Now when I say that London is a beautiful city at night, I am not giving it enough credit. It was definitely a night to remember, in that we saw, what we as “Londoners” thought were the most important tourist attractions in such a short time span. We walked bridges, greeted Big Ben, climbed statues, took pictures, walked skate parks, saw bridges rise and fall, and of course had an amazing time with great friends. I felt so blessed that I was able to take my friends out in the city that I have grown to love, and even more amazing, that I knew my way around. The time spent that night is one I will cherish forever. Next adventure will definitely be in Spain!!!! See you then. -Anthony
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Arrival Time 3:00 pm Sunday
Last Sunday we got a visit from three of our Dickinson friends, who on their way to study abroad in Malaga, stopped by to get a taste of London! Luckily, we had the day off on Monday, so Audrey, Megan, Jeyla, Rebecca, Anthony and myself decided to show Gina, Leslie and Luis everything that we have seen in the past two weeks. Interesting enough, we all had the opportunity to see something we had never before witnessed. For instance, Tower Bridge was raised, gracefully, to allow a ship to continue to make its way down the Thames. It all happened in a matter of about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, but it was my first time seen a bridge being raised, and it was Tower Bridge for that matter! It was a magic moment.
(Video of Tower Bridge rising coming soon)
We walked along the Thames, from the National Theatre to the London Eye to Big Ben to the Tower of London, across Tower Bridge and over the Millennium Bridge towards St.Paul’s. We spoke of everything we knew about, taking the time to explain to them (the “new tourists”) why St.Paul’s was so special and why London Bridge isn’t as cool as Tower Bridge, and to answer their questions on what is Westminster Abbey so important or what is inside the Tower of London… among many, many others. I definitely took some time to show off my knowledge of Nelson Mandela, as we made a quick stop at his statue located near Westminster Abbey. It was a night full of fun, recollection of knowledge and moments that will always be unforgettable.
This night will be remembered as the time when we all felt like true Londoners! The night when “Professor Qualls [(or Quallzie, as Jeyla calls him)] would be proud!,” the night when I described the system of Apartheid as a system where “whites segregated that shit to the T!”
-Flosha
Departure Time 2:00 am Monday
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I’m normally pretty good with directions, but for some reason during our stay in London I have managed to disrupt that pattern in some pretty fantastic ways. My group has had to run for a good 20 minutes because of my decision to take the wrong tube line when we could have just walked to our destination in 10 minutes in the first place. I led a friend on a two-hour walk trying to find the hotel that was only two blocks away. Oopsies. But when a few friends stopped in on their way to Malaga, my sense of direction seemed to be right on. They were incredibly jet-lagged so taking any additional steps than those that were necessary was not even an option if we wanted everyone to be happy by the end of the visit. To get from the Tower of London area to St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t necessarily that difficult, but the way my luck has been going I was nervous about how we would get from point A to point B without stopping at any tube or bus station. Thank goodness for our walking tours. Just when I was getting nervous about where we were, I looked up and saw a pirate ship on the sidewalk. Normally, such a site might throw me for a loop, but in this situation it was a sign that said ‘don’t worry, everything is working out’.
It was at the pirate ship that I realized that London has become more than just a big city with a confusing street lay out. This bridge connects to this theater which is caddycorner to that cathedral. It’s not a home for me yet and I’m not sure that it will be any time soon. But it’s not a place in which I feel completely out of place anymore. I am familiar with some of its alleys, I have a good-ish grasp of which tube stops are on which line, and I know which areas of London have which personalities. The pirate ship is in quirky Southwark and not in the swanky West End. It’s also something that can help a group of Dickinson students around London on a fun night of exploration. I only wish that I was more at home in the city that I could have climbed aboard and said Argh. Another time. -Audrey
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Seeing Big Ben lit up at night, running across the streets, crossing the Millennium Bridge, witnessing the Tower Bridge being lifted. This was all experienced in one night when my three good friends from Dickinson had their 15 hour lay-over in London’s Heathrow Airport before going on their way to Malaga, Spain for their study abroad program. The adventure began when Anthony and myself decided to pick our friends up in the Zone Six area of London which is farther than one would expect to be from our “regular” Zone Three expeditions. It was fairly easy to get to the airport on the Picadilly line on the tube and we were pleasantly surprised to see out friends hanging out at the arrival gate. As we made our way back to the Arran Hotel we explained to them what we have seen so far of London and of course they have seen our facebook photo albums to go along with our stories. Arriving at the Hotel, Anthony, Flosha, Megan, Audrey, Rebecca and myself decided that we wanted to show Leslie, Gina and Luis the “real London” which meant a lot of walking in the few hours that they have had left to spend in England. It has been a great experience to have spent a month exploring London with my fellow Dickinson class mates, some whom I knew while attending Dickinson and some whom I got to know better by living in the Arran Hotel. However, a whole new appreciation came upon me when three of my friends, whom I have known for almost three years, were able to explore London with me. As we made our way to Embankment stop, we made sure to show them Big Ben peaking through the bridges, the Westminster Abbey, the statue of Nelson Mandela, the Tower Bridge, the Globe, London Bridge, and of course the magnificent Saint Paul’s. We ended the night by taking a ride in the legendary London double decker bus. I can just imagine how exciting it must be to be able to see another European country before heading to their destination of Spain. Their arrival to London also made me realize how easy it is to travel across Europe, and seeing London full of lights gave the city a romantic notion for me instead of the historical side that I am used to.
I am so happy that we were able to not be tourists for a night and show someone else around this beautiful city. Quallzie would be proud! –Jeyla
It takes a lot to make me feel emotionally uncomfortable. I pride myself on my open mindedness especially in the face of different, unfamiliar cultures, ideologies, and religions. For instance, besides some minor worrying about potential offensiveness of our silly attempt at head covering, I didn’t feel the least bit anxious at the Sikh gurdwara in the same way some fellow students did. I venerated our unprepared, yet clearly impassioned tour guide on his ability to speak from his heart. I deeply respect anyone capable of complete devotion to his or her beliefs.
I was uncomfortable in the Mandir. The temple itself was beautiful beyond words. The grandiose structure stuck out in bland Neasden like a Ganesh in the room. (Get it? ‘Cuz Ganesh is an elephant? Sorry). Incredibly intricate masonry and woodcarving adorned the Mandir inside and out. It looked like it belonged on the list of Wonders of the World.
Images from www.mandir.org (since I forgot my camera, of course)
So yes, the mandir was gorgeous. Truly beautiful beyond words. What bothered me was the overbearing sense of pride conveyed by our guide. I lost count of how many times he mentioned that 2,800 tons of Bulgarian limestone and 2,000 tons of pure Italian marble were hand carved in India by the greatest craftsmen on the planet. “It is a masterpiece of exotic design and workmanship that rises above London’s skyline…replete with luminescent white pinnacles and glittering marble pillars, it stands as a beacon for Hindus, both young and old throughout the world” (www.mandir.org). In the featured exhibition on Hinduism inside the temple, the writers claim that Hinduism is “the most tolerant, most resilient, most peace-loving of all religions.” In addition, the BAPS (Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha) faith has grown worldwide, without a hue of hypocrisy or an fever of fanaticism.” These are some very bold statements for a religion based upon the principle of ego-free modesty. Nirmãn, the fifth prime principle of Swãminãrãyan sadhus (monks) preach a life “untouched by pride or anger.” Modesty wasn’t exactly the most clearly conveyed quality of the Neasden mandir.
That was the negative. Now for the positives. For all the outright bragging done by our guide and the self-revering scripture on display in the exhibition, BAPS has redeemed its apparent immodesty through acts of charity and respect. Disaster relief is their forte. According to www.bapscharities.org, BAPS members donated their invaluable services to reparation efforts of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the 2004 South Asia tsunami, the September 11th attacks in New York, and just about every natural disaster that has ever occurred in India. They also provide rehabilitation clinics to those with addiction problems, ecological ventures such as tree planting and recycling campaigns, and perhaps most importantly, teaching literacy skills to those in regions with poor educational institutions.
Despite my initial discomfort of the grand Neasden BAPS mandir, learning of their selfless acts was cathartic. Verbal modesty is overrated in the face of philanthropic action. So go ahead, Mr. Mandir Tour Guide, tell me about the Italian marble one more time…
So, last night we went to the Royal Albert Hall for an orchestral concert. I really liked the first and the last piece, and although i only took a short nap during the second piece, I spent most of the evening thinking about the architecture. I kind of felt like we were sitting at the bottom of a pond, looking up a lilly pads and gazing out onto a greenly- illuminated organ. There was even a frog. I had done some background research on good old Prince Albert before because of my trip to Kensington Gardens. But I realized that most people probably don’t know much about Prince Albert or what he did for British society. Other than being the name-sake of some painful looking rings, he doesn’t really come into conversation much on the day to day basis. Prince Albert was a consort, which meant he had no actual power or duties, but I guess that’s what you get when you marry your first cousin. Anyway, because of this he had to look elsewhere to make a name for himself. Thus he looked to make social changes. He dipped his hands in the abolition of slavery in the colonies, child labor laws and social welfare. As I mentioned in a previous post, he was a great supporter of the arts; the monument dedicated to him expresses that quite efficiently. He was also one of the first people to introduce new areas of study into Cambridge.
So why is it that he goes so unsung other than through the efforts of his wife’s broken heart? He halted potential war with the United States, for Pete’s sake! I would wager it is his status, and the classist infrastructure of English society. In his own words “but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, not the master in the house.” (courtesy of wikipedia and Albert to William von Lowenstein, May 1840, quoted in Hobhouse, p. 26). To everyone else, he was just the husband and so all these actions he did were, I think of selfish endeavors rather than actual attempts to better the world. Surely it all ended well and good, but i wonder if he had been King, would he have still gone through with his crusade for the poor and downtrodden, or the artistically inclined? Maybe it would have gone the same way. After all Queen Victoria opened up the parks for the factory workers and worked to create a stronger constitutional monarchy.
Also as a note: the Prince Albert piercing has not connection historically to our good fellow, except in sharing a name.
I find the prompt a bit vague and difficult to answer simply because I’m not at all familiar with how Sikhs and Hindus adjust to life in London. However, based upon what I’ve seen and what I’ve read, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between the cultural identities of the two in the UK. I actually think that a lot of their adaptation is similar, mainly because I link the two religions in my mind as well.
Just as an aside, I read a quote today by C.S. Lewis that reminded me of our visits to the two temples: “You don’t have a soul./You are a soul./You have a body.” I think this is the perfect way to sum up Sikh and Hindu ideas regarding the relationship between God and humanity, that is to say, God can exist in all things and in all people. I was particularly reminded of our guide in the Sikh temple who stressed the transience of the human body and the importance of tending to one’s soul. However, it could also refer to the Hindu concept of “Atman,” or the true soul which transcends earthly existence and our false egos. I think the relevance of the quote extends to each in equally significant ways.
I think the sense of community central to both Sikhism and Hinduism plays a huge role in the ways that these people adjust to London life. Both temples stressed the fact that their buildings are a gathering place where people can congregate and worship. In Salaam: Brick Lane and Brick Lane, I got the impression that Tarquin Hall and Nanzeen felt isolated in their respective communities because they were forced to adjust on their own. Since Tarquin Hall and Nanzeen came from such different socioeconomic, cultural, and geographical backgrounds than their neighbors and friends, they both seemed to suffer from loneliness to some degree. Each managed to cope until they became more comfortable with their surroundings, but it certainly took time and great effort. I found that this was in direct contrast to the Hindu and Sikh communities that we visited. They put great emphasis on community and togetherness, which makes for easier adjustment to a new culture simply because they are able to spend time in comfortable places with people who act in a familiar way. Similarly, I was able to adjust to London life quickly because I am surrounded by people who are going through the same changes that I am. From a psychological perspective, change is easier when one is not alone, and I think this is applicable to Sikhism and Hinduism.
Along those lines, both attempt to maintain this community through arranged marriages or simply marriages within their religion population. Interestingly, BBC mentioned that online dating is increasing for both denominations. This, to me, is the perfect balance between adaptation to a new culture and adherence to one’s background and history. They are able to try new things while still congregating with those who share their own religious beliefs and morals.
Since this is getting quite long I’ll finish, and perhaps add more later..but for now, I think my general sentiment is that both Sikh and Hindu followers are able to adjust more easily than other religions because of their focus on community and willingness to support one another in their daily lives in London.
