The first stop on this magical mystery tour of vacation brought me back to the English speaking world for the weekend, namely the city of London, England. Distinctly separate from Europe (with tricky immigration services and the English pound sterling to prove it), I headed to London to both visit a friend/fellow FIJI (Vaughn Stewart) and visit a city by which I expected to be wowed. From its extensive historical significance, renowned multiculturalism, and unofficial status of America’s little brother, London had plenty to offer, or at least that is what I had been told. Fortunately, I was far from disappointed.
London’s history is impressive and, unlike certain French cities, is truly uninterrupted for the past 1000 years (minus a few fires here and there). As such, the city walls from William the Conqueror are still visible, statues on churches have not been mutilated, and buildings from the Middle Ages remain standing and, in some cases, in use. With fellow Quakers providing the complimentary tour, I was able to see everything from Buckingham Palace to Big Ben, Tower of London to Tower Bridge, Parliament to the Prime Meridian, an exhausting yet rewarding list of sights which are truly the hallmarks of Anglophone civilization. The most unique aspect of the touristy journey was Hyde Park, which was similar to New York’s Central Park in the sense that it was a massive green space in the heart of a bustling city. What made this different was a spot within the park called Speaker’s Corner, where every Sunday various people, with no qualification or moderation whatsoever, come to speak their mind. Obviously, visitors do not simply come to sit back and watch, so the corner of the park is filled with contentious arguments, yelling, and the occasional thrown punch. As far as I know, there is really no parallel to this spectacle; open, angry intellectual debate, all confined to one park corner each Sunday. While we may have had some disagreements on the topic of America (one squealer claimed that Americans are only good at running away as that is what our country was founded on, to which our little American cohort responded by reminding her about the two small world wars we helped them out in, and she quickly packed up and left), this was an experience well worth repeating.
British history also provides the context for London’s overwhelming cultural presence, something that surpassed my already high expectations. It seemed that each of the colonies of the British Empire had their own section of town, from China to Arabia to India. I was fortunate enough to have multiple samples of England’s national dish, that of course being Chicken Tikka Masala, and I can confirm that the best Indian food is found in London. But this multiculturalism overshadows a more subtle truth; the British have readily accepted the influence of other cultures because their own culture is so lacking in quality. The cuisine is marked by fried fish and French fries, beer is sold by the pint starting around noon, and high class is defined as pub-life. Coming from France, this was quite a shock, but not necessarily unpleasant. While France (and especially Lyon) is marked by a generally monochromatic population peering over their afternoon coffee from a sidewalk café, London seemed to generate serious energy off of the random mix of cultures present on every street corner.
Of course, the culture I was most on the lookout for was American culture, and it was certainly not hard to find. Clearly the British founded America and all that colonization business which the English are still quite proud of, but today the relationship is completely turned on its head. While I was initially surprised by the amount of American influence in France, by removing the language barrier, the domination of America in Britain is almost overwhelming. Music, theater (we saw Inherit the Wind, the play about the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1920s Tennessee, starring Kevin Spacey), and of course television are just a few of the many areas where you could be forgiven for believing you were back in the States. Now, to be fair, this perception is perhaps a bit jaded by the fact that this Sunday featured an NFL game in London, and in celebration I believe that yesterday was unofficially declared show your NFL pride day, and we were stunned to see American football jerseys from San Diego, Oakland, Green Bay, Philly, Washington, Dallas, New York, New England, Tampa Bay, Miami, New Orleans and Pittsburgh (initially we thought these were just Americans, but after a couple of them opened their mouth, we discovered they were distinctly British; regardless of nationality, they were Fans, and wanted everyone to know it). But despite the selection bias in terms of days, the idea was clear, namely that England is the next closest thing to America, and they cannot help but want to be even closer to their former Commonwealth pals.
Alas, there are more places to go and more sights to see, so this morning I bid goodbye to London for the next stop on this vacation. I will definitely miss being in an English speaking country, as I had forgotten how valuable the presence of signage and helpful people in my host language really is. With that being said, the British definitely do speak a different dialect of English, if you will, and at times I was straining to understand people that I was under the impression were speaking my language. The accents, word choice, misplaced u’s, it all threw me off; in the end, I simply said, “cheers”, “fair dues”, or “splendid”, and moved on.
