The Displaced Nation

A home for international creatives

TCK TALENT: Laura Piquado, New York City Actress & One Well-Traveled Kid!

4 Comments Posted by on January 8, 2014

Laura Piquado Collage FINALWelcome to Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang’s monthly column about Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs) who work in creative fields, Lisa herself being a prime example. A Guatemalan-American of Chinese-Spanish-Irish-French-German-English descent, she recently debuted her one-woman show about being a TCK, which I had the pleasure of seeing during its too-short run in New York City in September of last year: stupendous!

—ML Awanohara

Happy new year, readers! Let’s start today’s interview by plunging right in. My guest is Laura Piquado, a professional actress based in New York who grew up in six countries, including Egypt, where we were drama classmates in high school.

* * *

Welcome to The Displaced Nation, Laura. It’s wonderful to reconnect with a Cairo classmate! I know you grew up as the daughter of a pair of teachers who were full of wanderlust. Can you give us a run-down of the countries you lived in as a kid?
My mother always told me that her earliest dream memory was of wanting to move to Africa. And as soon as she graduated from university in Canada, that’s what she did. She met my father in Sierra Leone in the mid 1960s. He was there with the Peace Corps, while she was being sponsored by CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas)—a Peace Corps-style organization. They left when my mother was six months pregnant with my brother. My mother is tall, almost 5’11”, but at that time weighed only 120 lbs. I think having parasites, or the occasional bout of malaria was commonplace, but the risk to her health became too great.

After my (healthy) brother was born in Washington, DC, my parents decided to go overseas again. The first job my dad got was as an English teacher in a small village in northern Newfoundland, where I was born. Less than a year later, we moved to Beirut, Lebanon. Four years after that, when war broke out, we were evacuated to Shahin-Shahr, Iran, for almost four years. War broke out again, and we were evacuated again. The next stop was São Paulo, Brazil, for two years. My mom and dad hated the city, and we left every other weekend and holiday to get away from it. Consequently, my memories of Brazil are of travel, and of everywhere but São Paulo. After Brazil, we lived for four years in Bontang, Indonesia, which is in the province of East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. After seventh grade we moved again, to Cairo, Egypt, where I graduated high school. That’s where you and I first met! My parents then moved on to Ecuador and China for 16 more years.

My parents loved being overseas, and at no point did they yearn to “come home.” They wanted their lives to be as teachers in international schools, and for 40 years that’s what they did. They retired a few years ago to a small town in New Hampshire.

A hard landing into adulthood

How did you feel about living in so many places?
I loved it, actually. Adjusting to new environments, new friends, new cultures, languages, was never difficult for me. I don’t know why. Perhaps I just got used to it. But I don’t think you ever get used to leaving friends and people you love—that’s always hard.

As an adult, do you find yourself drawn to other TCKs?
I definitely identify with other TCKS, though it’s not always a given we will hit it off. In fact, I used to be magnetically drawn to anyone who was a visible minority. “You’re from Indonesia?! I used to live in Indonesia!” “Hey, you’re Alexandrian! I lived in Cairo for 5 years!” I was always wanting to make a connection with a world that was no longer mine—and maybe never was mine, if I adhere to the rules of 3rd culture. But just because someone grew up all over the world as I did, or just because they are an actor like me, doesn’t guarantee I’ll be friends with that person—but it’s a starting point. And if a person grew up in different countries, at least their eyes won’t glass over when I answer the question, “Where are you from?”

You now live in New York City. How do you find life in the USA?
I’ve lived in the United States longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. Yet it’s the first place I’ve ever lived that doesn’t feel like home. For the first 20 years of my life I played with my friends, explored the jungle, hiked the Andes, swam in the Red Sea and the East Timor Straights, climbed salt flats, made forts in the desert, went horse-back riding around the Great Pyramids, woke to gibbon songs and the muezzin’s call to prayer. And then I came back here to go to school, get some degrees, get a job, and try to figure things out… I had this exhilarating childhood, and then this less-than-thrilling transition to adulthood.

Does your identity revolve around any one particular culture that you’ve lived in?
I am Dyak and atheist, Muslim, Christian, Bahá’í, Jain, Egyptian, Italian, Canadian—there is nowhere in the world that has ever felt foreign to me. I am all of these things, and none of them. After moving to the United States for the first time for college, being able to be all of them at the same time was what mattered the most. I was striving to understand who I was and what my life had been, and trying to share that with others, even if I couldn’t articulate it to myself. It’s taken a long time, and I suppose I’m still working at it. That said, I love meeting the kind of person who, unlike me, was raised in the same town he or she was born in, and still goes back there for family visits and holidays. I am attracted to the sense of being anchored somewhere, to a particular place. That perceived sense of belonging somewhere: it’s something I just don’t have; I don’t know what it feels like.

From an actor on the global stage, to an actor on a real stage

Tell us what you studied in college and how you made the leap to pursuing an acting career.
I did my master’s degree in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal. I wanted, as an adult, to understand the cultural, political, and social environments in which I grew up. On some level I was looking for a path that would take me overseas again, which I was aching to do. I wanted to work in the development of women’s education in post-conflict societies because it was work that I was passionate about.

Just as I was finishing my degree, and thinking about streamlining into a doctoral program, I went back to Cairo. I hadn’t been back since high school. For a whole month I walked through the streets of my old neighborhood, saw my friends, went to mosques and bazaars and the Red Sea, and smelled and ate and absorbed Egypt again. It was glorious. But something changed in me after that, and made it okay for me to move on.

When I came back to Montreal, I started applying to drama schools. Although I had been involved in theatre since I was a kid, I hadn’t wanted to study it as an undergrad. There were other things in my life that I needed to address before I embarked on that.

But now I was ready for drama school—I enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. At LAMDA, I felt like I was flying. I was so happy. To allow myself the ability to change horses mid stream, and for it to feel natural and fluid and right—that was tremendous. I don’t think any of us is just one person, and we aren’t the same person at 15, 25, 35, 55. We have multiple loves and lives and wants, and finding ways to marry them all, if we’re lucky enough to know what they are in the first place, can be overwhelming.

How did your family react to your decision to pursue an acting career?
I’ve only ever had a supportive family. So instead of calling me a flake, or accusing me of lacking any sense of stick-to-itiveness when I told them I wanted to go to drama school, they became, again, my most enthusiastic supporters.

I think our peripatetic childhoods trained us to be actors—to observe, listen, and adjust our behavior to our surroundings. Do you agree?
I do agree, for the most part. But I also think personality has a lot to do with it. Just because you grew up all over the world doesn’t de facto make you a keen observer, or an astute listener, and not all kids who move around a lot are able to adjust to their changing environment. On the other hand, if you have had a peripatetic life, and you also happen to be a good listener, observer, etc., it seems it can only enrich your depths as an actor (and certainly as a human being). For me, adaptability became a defining aspect of my personality.

I think that for us TCKs, the challenge of convincing a casting director that you truly can be this other person is made easier because of all of those things we bring to the table—listening, observing, adjusting, maybe even having lived or known the character’s life. But also for that reason, many of us find it even harder to put up with being typecast.

Which sorts of roles are you attracted to, and do you think your upbringing influenced this?
I’m usually attracted to damaged characters, or quirky ones. And accents are always juicy! I’ve always been a mimic, and am grateful for that gift as it makes it easier to play a variety of roles. Why I’m drawn to quirky characters is less apparent. Does it have something to do with my upbringing? That’s an interesting thought. I’ve never made that correlation, but it makes complete sense.

So which parts have been your faves?
I loved playing Goneril in King Lear with the Texas Shakespeare Festival. I’ve always thought that she’s been inappropriately maligned as a character. Lear is not the easiest father—demanding, impulsive—and to require his daughters to prove, to prove, their undying love for him—for the sole purpose of measuring it against their inheritance—makes him something of a jerk in my book.

Playing the painter in Ionesco‘s The Painting with the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble was pretty great as well. Aside from the play’s absurdism, the part was perverse because of the the vocal and physical qualities we decided on. It’s not often that you get to play grotesque and obsequious, mismanage your voice, throw out your back, and sprain your jaw because the part demands it. Fantastic! 🙂

And a role on the damaged front, I suppose, was Charlotte in Sharr White‘s Sunlight, for its world premiere with the New Jersey Rep. While I’m less attracted to straightforward, modern dramas (though in truth, I love it all), the whole premise for who Charlotte is, for what motivates and oppresses her, is her having been in the Towers on September 11th and losing her child as a result of the trauma. And while that’s not what the play’s about (thank God!), it defines who she is able to become (or not become) in the ensuing decade.

* * *

Wow, that’s an impressive list! Thank you, Laura! I wish you the very best in your career and hope to see you on stage and/or screen soon. Readers, please leave questions or comments for Laura below.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, from our Global Food Gossip!

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And the December 2013 Alices go to … these 2 international creatives

5 Comments Posted by on January 7, 2014
© Iamezan | Dreamstime.com Used under license

© Iamezan | Dreamstime.com
Used under license

If you are a subscriber to our weekly newsletter, Displaced Dispatch, you’re already in the know. But if you’re not (and why aren’t you? off with your head!), listen up. Every week, when that esteemed publication comes out, we present contenders for a monthly “Alice Award,” most of whom are writers or other kinds of international creatives who appear to have a special handle on the curious and unreal aspects of being a global resident or voyager. Not only that, but this person tries to use this state of befuddlement to their advantage, as a spur to greater creative heights.

Today’s post honors December’s two Alice recipients.

Starting with the most recent, and this time with annotations, they are (drumroll…):

1) LAURENCE BROWN, British expat in Indiana and blogger at Lost in the Pond

For his post: “7 British Christmas Songs That Somehow Never Made it Big in the US” 
Posted on: 27 November 2013
Snippet:

Growing up in the United Kingdom, one of the more memorable elements of Christmas was the music that bombarded the airwaves day-in-day-out from November onward. And I’m talking huge hits, many of which shot to number one and continued their popularity some twenty, thirty, perhaps forty years after their release. And yet, as I embark on my sixth Christmas in the United States, it has come to my attention that these same hits—ones I initially assumed were likely just as big in the U.S.—are nowhere to be heard.

Citation:  Frankly, Lawrence, we were so busy lamenting the lack of attention given to Carols from Kings that it hadn’t yet dawned on us that Americans are also missing out on Cliff Richard crooning “Christmas time, mistletoe and wine…” And you have a point: Why would anyone States-side wish to hear yet another rendition of Andy Williams singing “Everybody knows some turkey”—yep, that’s you, Andy!—”and some mistletoe/Help to make the season bright…” when they could break it up with Cliff from time to time? And you are so right, the song’s Christian overtones would not go amiss in this part of the world. (Forgive the aside, but does anyone in Indiana know the words to the Robert-Burns-poem-converted-to-New-Year’s-dirge “Auld Lang Syne”, or is that a lacuna as well? Genuinely curious…) We congratulate you for uncovering some prime through-the-looking-glass territory. It’s jolly difficult to have a proper holiday if the music is missing or doesn’t sound right, as anyone who spends Christmas in Vietnam will tell you—there the bands in the restaurants serenade you with things like: “Have yourself a merry little Crease-mass.” And as Alice herself found out when she joined the Mad Hatter for what she thought would be a proper tea party:

“’Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!’

You know the song, perhaps?”

“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.

“It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

‘Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle—'”

2) JULIE FALCONER, travel writer and social media consultant, Californian based in London, and blogger at A LADY IN LONDON

For her post: Lady’s Expat Holiday Blunders
Posted on: 28 November 2013
Snippet:

I picked [a cracker] up, pulled both ends, popped out the surprise gift and paper crown, and looked up to find everyone at the table staring at me in horror. It was one of a long series of expat moments when I knew that I had done something wrong, and that nobody was going to tell me exactly what.

I gently set the cracker and its contents down, flashed my most sheepish “sorry, I’m a foreigner” smile, and waited. Slowly, each person at the table picked up one end of a cracker, offered the other end to someone else, and played a little game of tug of war. So that’s what I did wrong.

Citation:  Julie, we are sorry to have to inform you of this, but it’s time to crack on with the old cracker techniques because, crackpot as it may sound, crackers have arrived over here in the United States, at Target no less! Though the difference is that you have to show your driver’s license when you buy them because they are technically “firecrackers.” Now that’s crackers, if you ask us! Now, we do hope the English friends who witnessed their rather unfortunate self-cracking episode were a little more tolerant than Alice’s Red Queen (perhaps they thought it fitting in this era of selfies?) and let you keep the surprise gift and paper crown. In which case, you can count yourself a little luckier than our poor sweet heroine:

“You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,” said the Red Queen. “Alice—Mutton; Mutton—Alice.” The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.

“May I give you a slice?” she said, taking up the knife and fork, and looking from one Queen to the other.

“Certainly not,” the Red Queen said, very decidedly: “it isn’t etiquette to cut any one you’ve been introduced to. Remove the joint!”

*  *  *

So, readers, do you have a favorite from the above, or have you read any recent posts you think deserve an Alice Award?  We’d love to hear your suggestions! And don’t miss out on the shortlist of Alice contenders we provide in each week’s Dispatch, which are sources of creative thought if nothing else! Get on our subscription list now!

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, a TCK Talent interview by Lisa Liang!

Writers and other international creatives: If you want to know in advance the contenders for our monthly Alice Award winners, sign up to receive The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with news of book giveaways, future posts, and of course, our weekly Alice Award!. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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An expat novel in episodes: SUITE DUBAI #1 – Arriving (2/8)

Leave a comment Posted by on December 17, 2013
Suite Dubai Collage Drop Shadow

Image: Top: Book cover & author image (supplied by Callista Fox); bottom: By vahiju (Morguefiles).

It’s mid–December—perfect timing for the second installment of Suite Dubai, a serial novel by adult Third Culture Kid Callista Fox. As Callista tells it, the book grew out of a story that entered her head that wouldn’t go away: “There was this girl, young, vulnerable, naive, walking along a concourse in an airport, among men in white robes and checkered scarves and woman in black gauzy material. Where was she going? What would happen to her there?” Missed the opening installment? Get caught up now!!! NOTE: Highly addictive! Six more parts to come in 2014.

—ML Awanohara

Her parents hadn’t wanted her to take this job. “Where?” her dad had asked, like he’d misheard her. “Dubai?”

Her mom had put her hand to her mouth. “All the way over there? In the middle of all those bombings? Can’t you wait a few more months, you know … see if something comes up here?”

A few more months? She’d already waited a few months. Twelve, to be exact. She’d already filled out more applications than she could count, for jobs she didn’t want until they’d rejected her. She had a degree in journalism and couldn’t get a job working the desk at the Motel 6. “Have you ever worked in hospitality?” a woman named Melinda had asked her over the phone, missing the irony of her own inhospitable tone.

In hospitality? What did that even mean? She’d spent her whole life being unnecessarily nice to people, on the phone, at the store, even in heavy traffic. She was certain she could hand someone a room key without causing a scene.

This job, the one waiting for her on the other side of the crowd, had been advertised on a website with an international employment section that she read mostly to pass the time, something she’d had plenty of since graduation. The public-relations position caught her eye, but she didn’t apply. She didn’t even know where Dubai was.

Then, rather than ask her mom for gas money—again—she threw some old clothes into the back of her Honda and headed for a consignment store. At a busy intersection she saw a guy dressed as a mattress, dancing on the side of the road, flashing a 15 PERCENT off sign at oncoming traffic. While she waited at the light, a gust of wind came and caught the inflatable costume like a sail and blew him back a few feet. He stumbled, almost fell, and then regained his footing, but his sign was blowing along the strip of grass and he had to turn and chase after it, the wind blowing against the back side of his costume now. His legs, outfitted in gray tights, stumbled along as he tried to slow himself down lest he become airborne and delivered to the brick wall of the nearby Chick-fil-A. She was scared for him, and she was even more scared she might recognize him from one of her writing classes.

That day she drove home and rewrote her résumé.

She added that she had done some public-relations work for a local nonprofit (omitting that it was her mother’s nonprofit). She had promoted an art auction that raised over $120,000 for at-risk teens (omitting that she’d really paraded paintings, like a woman on a game show, around a banquet hall, encouraging people to bid). She had been more of an art Sherpa than an event planner. Yes, she embellished. That’s what writers do. She wrote a kick-ass cover letter about the lost art of storytelling in the business world and clicked send.

“Where. The hell. Did you find this job?” her friend Emily asked, scribbling down the name of the website with a pen she’d chewed until it cracked. It was her tenth day without a cigarette. “I’d do it. I’d go in a heartbeat. I’m so tired of serving penny beer to drunk college guys.”

When they’d started their journalism degrees, they had both expected a job with the local newspaper that would lead to a column with the New York Times or a wire assignment that required a khaki blazer and a handsome translator. Now all they heard was, “Journalism is dead. You need to start a blog.” She and Emily scraped up money for domain names but neither of them got very far. Her life had become so dull and disappointing she was too embarrassed to write about it.

Emily was having the same problem. “I could describe the texture of the vomit delivered to my left sandal by a guy in a Georgia Tech jersey, or how I’ve started stealing my parents’ dog’s antidepressants.”

“Don’t worry,” Rachel said as she moved her chair into the shifting shade of the umbrella in Emily’s backyard. “I won’t get it. I’m not really qualified. Five years’ experience? Everyone wants five years’ experience. What I really need is a time machine.”

“But what if you do get it?” Emily said squinting at her. “I mean, a real job. One your parents wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell their friends about. I see my mom’s lip quiver before she tells people I’m a waitress at Kelly’s. She’s embarrassed. I don’t blame her. All those ballet lessons, cello lessons, Saturday Spanish classes, SAT prep courses, so I could get ahead. That’s what they said. So I could get ahead. Ahead of what?” She leaned back in her chair. “I wear a green apron with a pin that says ASK ABOUT OUR BUCKET SPECIALS. I count out change and signal to the bouncer when he needs to intervene. But see, I use the word “intervene” instead of “throw his ass out.” So it was all worth it, right? Because…vocabulary.”

“At least you’re good at something. I was a horrible waitress. Always forgetting who got the water, who got the wine. Twice I left a family sitting there, at a table, for almost an hour before even taking their order. The tips they gave me were out of pity. I saw it in their eyes.”

“You’re good at something. You just don’t know what it is yet,” Emily said, unwrapping a piece of gum and folding it into her mouth. “I should go back to school, take some architecture classes. That sounds so much better, right? ‘My daughter’s studying to be an architect.’ Especially if you go off to Dubai and leave me here alone.” Her eyes got shiny with tears. She looked away. “Or you could take me with you.”

“Well, there’s no way I’ll get this job.”

None of it was awful. They weren’t starving. They weren’t homeless. But enough days repeat themselves and you can’t imagine any day in the future being different than the one before it. This is how people fail, Rachel thought. A little bit at a time.

Two weeks went by without a reply. Then one night she remembered the business card in her nightstand. The one she’d had for over a year. The one she’d almost tossed in the garbage. When she had put it in the drawer she’d wondered why she was keeping it, but she knew she’d never get another business card with the word “sheikh” on it. She dumped the drawer on her bed and dug through the gum wrappers, hair ties, and scraps of bad poetry she’d written late at night when she couldn’t sleep. There it was, a simple white card embossed with the name Sheikh Ahmed Al Baz. He lived in a city called Riyadh, not Dubai. Wherever it was, it was closer to Dubai than Atlanta. So she wrote him an e-mail, asking if he remembered her, asking if he’d heard of the Al Zari Hotel.

* * *

So, readers, how are you enjoying the story so far? Let us know in the comments… And if you can’t wait until next month, you can always download the complete episode of “Arriving” (this is just the beginning) —as well as the next episode, provocatively entitled “Party on Palm Island”—from Amazon.

Callista Fox moved to Saudi Arabia when she was eight and lived there off and on until turning 19. she went to boarding schools in Cyprus and Austria. She has written two travel books and a travel column in the Sunday Oklahoman. Currently, she writes proposals for a consulting firm that provides technology and management solutions to governments and nonprofits around the world.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, an interview with this month’s featured author, Alexander McNabb, back by popular request. We’ll be talking about, and giving away, the final book in his Middle East trilogy: Shemlan!!!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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For this peripatetic Argentine, now an expat in Queensland, a picture says…

5 Comments Posted by on December 12, 2013
Canon zoom lens; photo credit: Morguefiles. Belu in Buddha Truth Relic Temple, Singapore; photo credit: Belu.

Canon zoom lens; photo credit: Morguefiles. Belu in Buddha Truth Relic Temple, Singapore; photo credit: Belu.

Welcome back to our series “A picture says…”, created to celebrate expats and other global residents for whom photography is a creative outlet. The new series host is English expat, blogger, writer, world traveler and photography enthusiast James King, who blogs at Jamoroki and truly believes a camera is a mirror with memory…

Greetings, Displaced Nation-ers. My guest today is the 35-year-old Argentine Belu: an expat, blogger, world traveller and photography enthusiast. Belu studied industrial design at university in Argentina and then moved to Europe. Not long ago, she relocated to Australia, where she sells her designs at street markets and travels as much as her finances allow.

Belu brings her experiences and unique view of the world to her photography blog, BeluChi, and to the travel blog, Travel Tips and Pictures, where she is the main travel writer.

I have followed Belu for a short while and love the simple, down-to-earth way she brings her pictures and the stories behind them to life through her writings.

* * *

South American but with deep European roots

Hi, Belu. Thanks for agreeing to this interview. Can we begin by having you tell us: where did you live in Argentina, and when did you spread your wings, leave the nest and start your world travels?
I was born in Mar del Plata, a pretty big town located 500km south of Buenos Aires. I lived there until I was 25, and it was about that time that I became curious about travel and ended up moving to Europe.

So you got the travel bug. I can relate to that—but what really inspired you to travel?
Travelling for me is a way to get connected with people and to nature. I so love meeting people, and I knew travelling would give me that opportunity better than anything else. I love it when people tell me about their lives, their cultures and traditions, stories and dreams. I learn so much from my travels.

I know exactly what you mean. It’s quite addictive and I can see you are a compulsive globe-trotter. Tell me what countries have you visited so far?
Aside from Argentina and southern Brazil, I’ve travelled mostly around Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Monaco, Belgium, England, Scotland and Ireland. And now, because I live in Australia, I’m starting to be more in touch with Oceania and Asia—Indonesia and Singapore, for example. I’m planning a trip to China next year, and in 2015 I hope to travel to India and some countries in Africa.

Wow, that’s quite a package! Tell us, how did you end up in Australia, and what is life like for you your new home?
I met my partner when travelling in Australia over two years ago, when living in Barcelona. So, after going back and forth several times, we decided to live together here in beautiful Cairns, a city in the far north of Queensland. So far, so good. I believe that how you feel in a different place and culture depends mostly on how you connect and interact with the people in your new environment, at least in my case. Weather is also important to me because I’m a “sunlight” lover.

Pizza San Marco, Venice Italy. Photo credit: Belu

Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy. Photo credit: Belu

You offered this photo—of you and all the pigeons in the Piazza San Marco in Venice—as one of your favorite shots that captures cherished memories. Thank you for sharing it. Can you tell us more about why it’s so special?
This photo brings me back to the first time my parents came to Barcelona to visit me. We went to Venice and Rome—spectacular!—and then to Lettopalena, a tiny little village up on the top of a mountain in Chieti Province, around 200km from Rome. It was the place where my grandmother was born. I met my Italian family, who are still living there. That trip was exiting because of the contrasts.

Taupo Lake, Taupo, New Zealand. Photo credit: Belu.

Black swan on Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Photo credit: Belu.

Solo travel and staying with locals

That must be a very personal piece of your life. Now moving on to your photo of a beautiful black swan on Lake Taupo in Taupo, New Zealand.
Lake Taupo is in the centre of the North Island. My trip to New Zealand was unforgettable because of the natural beauty. It was also solo-travel, so I could be more in contact with locals and travellers from everywhere. I love this kind of travel. I usually have a “tentative plan” that I hardly ever follow. I love the freedom of changing and re-organising my itinerary according to my feelings.

Oh! I know the feeling well. No one to nag you. Free as a bird (so to speak). Okay, so now for a photo of the everyday scene—a street market in Ripoll, Girona (one of the four provinces comprising Catalonia), Spain. My favourite country!

Street market in Ripoll, Spain. Photo credit: Belu.

Street market in Ripoll, Spain. Photo credit: Belu.

I spent a Saturday morning strolling around the heart of Catalonia, in southeastern Spain. I had the honour of staying at my friend’s parents’ home, always with locals… that made this travel special. I did visit popular tourist spots in that area, but when you are with local inhabitants, it makes the place so much more interesting and you learn so much more about their culture. They told me folk tales and stories that you’ll never find in any guidebook.

I seem to be agreeing with everything you say, but it’s difficult to argue with that. So many people travel but never really integrate with the local people. They miss so much. But we must move on now. Where were or are your favourite spots to take photographs?
My favourite spots are high viewpoints and streets.From high viewpoints you get to admire the whole picture, almost like aerial photography. I find that very exhilarating. And when I am in the streets I am close to the people and can really feel the ambiance and capture the essence of the place.

High vs low, scenery vs people

The last three photos you’ve chosen illustrate the difference between high (looking down) and low (streets at ground level) admirably:

Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Photo credit: Belu.

Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Photo credit: Belu.

Back street, Bali, Indonesia. Photo credit: Belu.

Back street, Bali, Indonesia. Photo credit: Belu.

London (near St. Paul's), England. Photo credit: Belu.

London (near St. Paul’s), England. Photo credit: Belu.

The photo of Bali is so typical of a Southeast Asian back street. And the one of London, showing a tramp walking between a dust cart and a City businessman with St. Paul’s Cathedral as the backdrop, is an absolute gem. Actually, this photo leads to my next question: do you ever feel reserved about snapping photos of people, particularly when they are conscious that you are doing so? And do you ask permission before taking people’s photographs? How do you get around any problem of language?
It usually depends on the situation and the local culture. I sometimes ask permission by words or sign language, especially if I feel the person is uncomfortable because of the camera. Fortunately, I have never had any problem about that. Most of the time people say “yes”.

That must make it easier to take natural shots; so would you say that photography and the ability to be able to capture something unique which will never be seen again is a powerful force for you?
For me the answer to that is “most definitely, yes!” When I left Argentina I, maybe unconsciously, realised what a powerful force pictures are. To be able to produce something that can never be repeated exactly is quite amazing.

Let’s get technical

Now for the technical stuff which I am not very good at. What kind of camera and lenses do you use?
I have a Canon Ixus 107 called “Anastasia”. She is always in my bag. It isn’t a professional camera but it works as it were! A useful camera for me must be compact and not too expensive, because I don’t want to be too worried about it when travelling.

Finally, do you have any advice for wannabe photographers (like me) who are travelling or living abroad?
Well, the Internet has plenty of information, videos, etc, for those in search of photography tips. But I can tell you what I do: stay curious, learn from others, and meet people.

* * *

Readers, what do you make of Belu’s experiences and her photography advice? And do you have any questions for her on her photos and/or travels? Please leave them in the comments! 

Once again, if you want to read more of Belu, don’t forget to visit her sites (see links above). You can also contact her via aquibeluchi@gmail.com.

(If you are a photographer and would like to be interviewed by James for this series, please send your information to ml@thedisplacednation.com.)

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts, including an interview with this month’s featured author!

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LOCATION, LOCUTION: Jeet Thayil on bringing location to life in a semi-dream state

Leave a comment Posted by on December 10, 2013
Jeet Thayil

Clockwise from top: author photo Jeet Thayil; book cover art “Narcopolis”; author photo JJ Marsh

In this month’s “Location, Locution”, expat crime writer JJ Marsh interviews Jeet Thayil, author of  Narcopolis.

Jeet Thayil was born in Kerala, India, in 1959 and educated in Hong Kong, New York and Bombay. He is a performance poet, songwriter, librettist and guitarist, and has published four collections of poetry: These Errors Are Correct (Tranquebar, 2008), English (2004, Penguin India, Rattapallax Press, New York, 2004), Apocalypso (Ark, 1997) and Gemini (Viking Penguin, 1992). He is also the editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008). His first novel, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber, 2012), won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize 2013. He currently lives in Berlin.

Which came first, story or location?
I knew Narcopolis would be set in Bombay. I started with that city and that period in mind. It was about telling a story that hadn’t been told before, in a way that Indian fiction doesn’t really tell stories. Unsentimental, brutal and beautiful. When I realised that was what the book would be like, it revealed itself to me.

What’s your technique for evoking the atmosphere of a place?
When I was working on Narcopolis, I would work till very late at night, go to bed, wake up and start on it again, without really thinking. I found that when you’re in that oneiric, half-oneiric state, still slightly in the dream, very interesting things would happen. I’d come up with things I’d never have thought of later in the day. I was astonished about how much I remembered from that time, 25 years earlier, when I had no idea I would write a novel, when I was not exactly in the clearest of mental states. I was also surprised how unhealthy it was, the process of remembering.

A negative experience?
Absolutely. It was the opposite of cathartic.

Which particular features create a sense of location? Landscape, culture, food?
All of those. I’m a big fan of crime fiction, the bloodier the better. I’m addicted to crime thrillers. That, and poetry, is what I read on a daily basis. I’m sure a lot of that atmospheric noir milieu seeped into Narcopolis.

That’s curious. Not a link I would have made. I was going to ask you if you had a guilty reading pleasure, but you obviously don’t feel guilty.
Not at all. I hold those books up proudly on the train.

How well do you need to know the place before using it as a setting?
I’ve set poems in places I’ve never been to, and that can be a huge liberation. I think the worst is to know a place glancingly. To visit a place for a few days, get a false sense of it and then try to write about it. It might even be better to have never been there than read a guide about it.

Because it’s too superficial?
I think so. Either never go there or have been there too long.

Which writers do you admire for the way they use location?
I mentioned my love for crime writers and the way they do exactly that, evoking streets and cities and ambiance. But I’m also tremendously fond of the fiction that’s set in the opposite of cities: William Trevor, Henry James, E.M. Forster. Writers that do evoke a sense of place but often in the most mysterious and indirect of ways.

Next on Location, Locution … JD Smith, author of Tristan and Iseult (12th-century Cornwall) and Overlord: The Rise of Zenobia (3rd-century Syria), to be released in early 2014.

 * * *

JJ Marsh grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for culture took root and triggered an urge to write. After living in Hong Kong, Nigeria, Dubai, Portugal and France, JJ finally settled in Switzerland, where she is currently halfway through her European crime series, set in compelling locations all over the continent and featuring detective inspector Beatrice Stubbs.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post!

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JACK THE HACK: Expat authors, once you have a blog, it’s schmooze it or lose it (3/3)

11 Comments Posted by on December 5, 2013

Jack Scott and his partner, Liam, set up home in the Turkish port town of Bodrum in the late aughts. They were seeking sanctuary from a pressured existence in London. In the event, the expat experience proved to be something for Jack to write home about, as in a book! The pair have since returned to the UK, where they are living the life of Riley in Norwich. Some time ago, we suggested that Jack reinvent himself as Jack the Hack and submit monthly columns targeted at those of you who are still displaced and hacking away at travelogues-cum-memoirs—or, in some cases, autobiographical novels. Warning to non-Brits: Don’t be put off by his wry sense of humo(u)r!

—ML Awanohara

In my last two columns, I banged on about the art of blogging and how it is one of the most important tools in an author’s PR box, particularly for indie authors or those with a small publisher and only a few shillings in the marketing piggy bank.

You’ll be relieved to read that this is third and final episode.

FACT: most blogs run out of steam after two years. So, giving your blog legs will keep it in the race for longer.

Here’s how.

Win friends and influence people

So, your gorgeous new blog has hit the ground running and you’ve fallen under its spell. Now you want others to be captivated, too. The single most important thing you must do is engage meaningfully with your audience and your blogging peers, often and in every possible way.

It’s good to talk and networking pays big dividends. Allow your readers to comment on your posts. If someone takes the time to drop you a line, always reply. It helps develop your popularity and credibility.

A word of warning: make sure you’re set up to approve comments before they are published to keep the trolls and spammers at bay.

If you disagree with a comment, unless it’s abusive, offensive or loony tune, let it stand (polite rebukes are fine). That’s the unofficial blogger’s protocol.

Participate in the blogosphere by talking to your peers. Leave comments on their blogs and list your favorites on your site. Many will reciprocate, and the backlinks will help drive traffic your way. Be generous and promote others. Join blog directories. Most are free and some specialize (book bloggers, women bloggers, expat bloggers, for example).

Faceache and that Tweety thing

Cross-fertilization with social media is a must these days. At the very least, create a Facebook Page for your blog, join Twitter and post and tweet your content.

Facebook may like us all to think that it’s just a nerdy way to keep in touch with friends, but we all know it’s much, much more. Take advantage of its power.

Many blogging platforms can auto-post to the main social networks and this takes some of the pain out of the merry-go-round. While you’re at it, you may as well post to Google+, Pinterest (for images), Linkedin and any other social network you join. All this activity will increase your visibility. It worked wonders for me.

Fans can be fickle and lazy. Make it easy to follow you by adding social network links to your blog. It’s all about seamless sharing and following. And don’t forget to set up a subscription to your great works by old-fashioned email.

It’s not all about numbers, of course. Go for quality not quantity. Try not to obsess too much about your stats. (I should talk—I check mine several times a day.) Remember, your hit rate will be low at first. Don’t let it get you down. With a little careful nurturing and a lot of networking, your audience will steadily grow.

Is there any brass in it?

Blogging may be an important promotional tool but unless you’re attracting hundreds of thousands of readers a week (and some blogs do), you’re very unlikely to make any real money from your blog directly. My advice is not to plaster ads over your site. It will turn people off.

Beware blogging fatigue

Blogs do have a natural lifespan and there’s no point flogging a dead horse. Sometimes the cupboard is bare and there are no words left. Even the most enthusiastic and verbose writers may throw in the towel at some point.

Just like real work in the real world, take a short break or a long sabbatical. A nice holiday can work wonders for the creative juices. When I packed up my drag in my old kit bag and paddled back to Blighty, I was convinced that Perking the Pansies would wither on the vine like a piece of dried-up old fruit. Still, this old fruit soldiered on and much to my relief, the change of scene gave the blog a welcome shot in the arm.

In the end though, nothing lasts forever; when it’s done, it’s done. And that’s okay.

And finally…

BLOGGING TIP FOR EXPAT AUTHORS NO 3:

Blogging can be a hugely powerful tool for writers. It really can. It isn’t for everyone but if you decide to give it a go, have fun with it. If it’s a chore, it won’t endure.

Here endeth the blogging gospel according to Saint Jack. Season’s greetings and good luck from old Norwich town.

* * *

Readers, any comments, further questions for Jack the Hack? He will be following his own advice and taking a break from this column in the new year as he’ll be busy moving house with Liam (within Norwich) and publishing/promoting his sequel to Perking the Pansies—watch this space for a review!

Jack Scott’s debut book, Perking the Pansies—Jack and Liam move to Turkey, is a bitter-sweet tragi-comedy that recalls the first year of a British gay couple in a Muslim country. For more information on this and Jack’s other titles, go to his author site.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, another installment in the life of our fictional expat heroine, Libby. (What, not keeping up with Libby? Read the first three episodes of her expat adventures.)

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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And the November 2013 Alices go to … these 5 international creatives

5 Comments Posted by on December 4, 2013
© Iamezan | Dreamstime.com Used under license

© Iamezan | Dreamstime.com
Used under license

If you are a subscriber to our weekly newsletter, Displaced Dispatch, you’re already in the know. But if you’re not (and why aren’t you? off with your head!), listen up. Every week, when that esteemed publication comes out, we present an “Alice Award” to a writer or other kind of creative person who we think has a special handle on the curious and unreal aspects of being a global resident or voyager. Not only that, but this person tries to use this state of befuddlement to their advantage, as a spur to greater creative heights.

Today’s post honors November’s five Alice recipients.

Starting with the most recent, and this time with annotations, they are (drumroll…):

1) MATT HERSHBERGER, intrepid traveler, former expat in UK, and blogger at A Man Without a Country

For his post: Why I don’t take pictures when I travel, on Matador Network
Published: 18 November 2013
Snippet:

If you’re a good photographer, by all means, keep taking pictures. I need something to fuel my nostalgia addiction when I’m trapped in my cubicle at work. But if you’re not a great photographer, put down the camera. Enjoy the giraffe.

Citation: Matt, as you may know, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, fancied himself as something of a photographer, even toying with the idea of making a living from his photos. But it’s a good thing for posterity that he decided to turn to words instead (while still leaving us with a photo or two of his youthful muse, Alice Liddell). And probably also a good thing that he left off illustrating the book; otherwise, we’d be deprived of the extraordinary drawings of Sir John Tenniel. (That said, Carroll’s own drawings of Alice aren’t half bad.) We suspect that Charles/Lewis would chime in with you and say: “Like me, you moderns should find your niche and stick to it; practice your craft and stop faffing about.” Unfortunately, though, we suspect that even (especially?) Mr. Carroll would be fatally attracted to some of our modern-day gadgetry and communications techniques, the ubiquitous cell phone having turned us all into Victorian tinkerers of a sort, who attempt to do everything from blogging to design to photography to videos without much (if any) training—a case of doing many things badly instead of a few things well. And the presence of social media encourages us to share the rather meager fruits of our labors with everyone else, as though they were works of staggering genius. Still, we unreservedly endorse your “enjoy the giraffe” campaign—so much more creative.

2) Architectural historian JANIE RICE BROTHER, American expat in UK and blogger at FH & FAG

For her post: “The Geffrye Museum and the History of the Almshouse” for the Smitten by Britain blog
Posted on: 22 November 2013
Snippet (after noting that the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch occupies the building and grounds of a former almshouse, or poorhouse):

The Geffrye is the only museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to the history of the domestic interiors of the urban middle class. . . . [I]t took an excellent collection of buildings—home for many people over the generations—and preserved not only the structures themselves but the fleeting and changing sense of home and its traditions over the years.

Citation:  Janie-Rice, we love the sense of wonder with which you approach this almshouse-turned-museum. It reminds us of Alice’s excitement when showing her black kitten, Kitty, the “little PEEP of the passage in Looking-glass House”:

Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty.

A Looking-glass House, an almshouse, a museum of houses…whatever floats your (house)boat and spurs your creativity, we heartily approve.

3) JOSH, blogger at Real Life English

For his post: How Your Personality Changes When You Speak in a Foreign Language
Posted on: 16 April 2012
Snippet:

…what happens when you speak a foreign language using the rhythm from your native language? The effect is that even if everything else is perfect, the listener might not understand everything you say because it still seems like you’re speaking a foreign language. The following video demonstrates this concept quite well. In it there are a group of Italians singing in what seems to be English, but if you listen carefully you will realize that they are speaking gibberish. . . .

Citation: Josh, we love the idea of developing another personality when living in another culture. Far too many of us internationals cling to the naive belief that we can go around the world just being ourselves. As you point out, the only way to be yourself is to adopt the rhythms of the other language/culture, which paradoxically entails acting like someone else. And here is where Alice comes in: she tries to use reasoning suited to the above-ground world, only to find that no one understands her, and some even feel quite offended by what she says. (Mind you, it was a tad culturally insensitive of her to mention her cat, Dinah, in front of Mouse, and to go on about Dinah’s hunting skills to the creatures in the Caucus Race.) Gradually it dawns on her that she must adopt Wonderland’s logic of nonsense, even if that means risking becoming someone she doesn’t recognize:

But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!

International creatives, if you take nothing else from this citation please remember that having an identity crisis is a positive sign. At some point, you will find it an asset to have multiple personalities to draw on.

4) DAWN RUTHERFORD MARCHANT, American expat in London and Quora community member

For her post: US Expat Describes The Best And Worst Things About England (a re-publication of her answer to a Quora question: What is it like to move to England from the United States?)
Posted on: 2 November 2013
Snippet:

Houses are very expensive and you will live in a house half the size you’d expect in the US, often attached to your neighbour and with a one car garage (if you are lucky). There are no basements, so you feel cramped and everything is cluttered—I’ve never seen a walk-in closet to date. You will cram everything into a ‘wardrobe’ the size of your coat closet.

Citation: Dawn, at this point in your narrative, we began to picture you as Alice when, after drinking an unmarked bottle of liquid, grows into a giant with her arms and legs shooting out the windows and doors of the White Rabbit’s house. Perhaps the only consolation is that with one of your arms out the window, you should find it easier to hang the laundry out to dry (another of the bugbears you mention about life in the UK). Further to which, we wouldn’t advise “giving up your arm” for an American washer and dryer. That said, you do have a point about the ironing. It can’t be easy bending an elbow under such conditions! In any event, thank you for painting such a vivid portrait of life in the UK, cramps and all.

4) AISHA ASHRAF, Irish expat in Canada, freelance writer and blogger at Expatlog

For her post: My mother was a nun
Posted on: 7 March 2013
Snippet (pertaining to the times she and her sisters would accompany their mother on visits to her former convent):

Looking back, I see that we were also entering a different culture, an insulated bubble within the larger alien culture of middle England. Like Inception—a dream within a dream. It was all very different from the Irish farm, but it felt like being part of a family, something I came to idealise later on when mine turned out to be so dysfunctional.

Citation: Aisha, leave it to you to bring us to even greater depths by suggesting that expats can find alien worlds within alien worlds, wonderlands within wonderlands, ad infinitum, rather like the mirror reflecting the mirror in Velázquez’s baroque masterpiece, Las Meninas. What’s more, you’ve suggested that a person can come to appreciate the relationships formed within these wonderlands even more than their original relationships with family. If that isn’t going through the looking glass, we’re not sure what is! Thanks for such a cosmic post, from which we’re still reeling (in a good way, of course!).

*  *  *

So, readers, do you have a favorite from the above, or have you read any recent posts you think deserve an Alice Award?  We’d love to hear your suggestions! And don’t miss out on these weekly sources of inspiration. Get on our subscription list now!

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, another installment on blogging from JACK THE HACK.

Writers and other international creatives: If you want to know in advance whether you’re one of our Alice Award winners, sign up to receive The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with news of book giveaways, future posts, and of course, our weekly Alice Award!. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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TCK TALENT: Amber Godfrey, Diplomatic Kid Turned Performer-Writer

4 Comments Posted by on November 28, 2013
Amber Godfrey Collage

Photo credits: left: RoganJosh (MorgueFiles); right: Amber Godfrey, from her portfolio.

Welcome to Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang’s monthly column about adult Third Culture Kids (TCKs) who work in creative fields. Lisa is herself a prime example. A Guatemalan-American of Chinese-Spanish-Irish-French-German-English descent, she recently debuted her one-woman show about being a TCK, which I had the pleasure of seeing during its too-short run in New York City in September: stupendous!

—ML Awanohara

Happy Thanksgiving, readers! I’m thankful to be bringing you today’s guest, a kindred spirit of mine. She is Amber Godfrey, an actress-writer who, like me, has written and performed her own solo show about growing up as a TCK of mixed heritage.

* * *

Welcome to The Displaced Nation, Amber! I’m happy to have met another solo performer whose TCK story parallels my own. Since your dad is a Canadian diplomat, you grew up in eight countries. Can you tell us which ones?
Besides Canada, I’ve lived in the USA, Ecuador, Trinidad, India, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and England.

Growing up, which of these countries do you identify most strongly with?
I identified, and continue to identify, strongly as a Canadian probably because of my dad’s job and the fact that we always connected with the Canadian expat community wherever we went. I also heard on more than one occasion (usually when I was being busted for some rebellious act): “You represent Canada!!” I’ve spent most of my adult life in Canada and the US, so I feel very “North American” at this point. At the same time, though, I do feel like a “citizen of the world,” and the bond that I feel with other TCKs is unique.

“Are you adopted?”

Your family is particularly diverse. Let’s see if I can get this right. You are the daughter of an Ecuadorian mom and an African American father, but you were raised by your mom and a Caucasian-Jewish Canadian stepdad, who then had your brother, David. Was your family’s status ever challenged by strangers, like mine was? In grade school, no one believed my brother was my brother, and people asked my mom if I was adopted.
Yes! This still happens all the time. When the four of us go out for dinner, servers will assume my brother and I are a couple. If I check into a hotel with my Dad, we get stares. When I was in fifth grade, I had to go to the school nurse and, when she realized who my brother was, she asked pointedly: “Are you adopted?” I panicked and said “Yes,” even though that wasn’t the whole truth. Looking back—what an inappropriate question to ask a 10-year-old!

Do you feel offended when that happens?
Honestly, it sort of tickles me that people don’t know what to make of us. I figure, that’s their problem and it doesn’t have to ruin my day. As an actor, I get irritated by the under-portrayal of mixed-race families on stage and in film. When I was auditioning a lot, I became really frustrated realizing I would most likely not be considered for “sister of” so-and-so because the other actor had already been cast as white.

Love the place you’re in

I completely relate! So, with such a mixed background, which culture(s) form the core of your identity?
I grew up with a lot of focus on Jewish history, tradition and heritage, which I resisted up to a point—I chose not to be Bat Mizvah’d—but to which I also really connected. As a pre-teen I was obsessed with The Diary of Anne Frank and wrote short stories about young Jewish girls in the Nazi era. In my early 20s, the combination of acting roles I was being sent out for and my burgeoning adulthood piqued a stronger curiosity in the African-American side of me, which ultimately led to me reaching out to find my birth father. Now, in my 30s, I find myself seeking to connect with my Latin American roots. Of course I also identify with the cultures of the countries I grew up in! I think the quest to understand my “identity” is ongoing…

Were you happiest in a certain place at a certain time?
I guess the short answer is: I aim to be happiest in the moment I am in. Every place I went to had its good and bad moments…

What were your school experiences like growing up?
I went to private school in California, international schools in India, HK and Sri Lanka, and the local public school in Canada. During high school I had to contend with three completely different school systems, which was a challenge to say the least.

How about college?
I went back to Canada for college: I studied theatre at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia. It was hard to get good information back then (the Internet was just a baby!), but my Dad pointed out that as a small school in a small town, it might be an easier transition than if I went to a big school in a bigger city like Toronto. And Acadia has a good theatre program.

“It’s all in me…”

Did your TCK upbringing influence your desire to become a performer?  
Being in school plays or performance groups was a good way to get involved and make friends when moving from place to place. But I also think that portraying characters on stage allowed different parts of myself to come forth and was a way for me to work out my identity. I’m laughing because I’m thinking of Whitney Houston’s “I’m Every Woman”—I’m a hippy at heart and believe we are all one and connected. Seeking to experience and understand life/truth from multiple viewpoints is an essential part of who I am.

Before we get into your solo show, let’s talk about your series of performances of Anna Deavere Smith‘s solo show Fires in the Mirror, a docudrama for a solo performer about the racial tensions that erupted between blacks and Jews in Brooklyn in 1991.
I was asked to do Fires in the Mirror by Jesse Freedman, a fellow performer and prolific director, whom I met in a SITI Company Suzuki/Viewpoints workshop. I jumped at the chance to engage with this epic piece because it is constructed so thoughtfully and allows me to play with my Black/Jewish roots. I initially performed Fires in the Mirror at the Limmud Conference, which took place in Coventry, England. Then the Jewish Theatre Workshop in Baltimore requested the show as part of an initiative to continue dialogue between Blacks and Jews who share space in that community. I also had a short run in NYC at the New Yiddish Repertory Company Theatre.

Moving over to your autobiographical solo show: why did you create DipKid?
I’d been thinking for many years about telling my story but couldn’t decide which way to tell it. After taking a Soulo-Show Workshop with Tracey Erin Smith, I finally started writing. I submitted a proposal to a small festival in NY, and when I got in, I realized it was time to start making the show! My efforts resulted in a short but sweet twenty-minute piece (you can watch it here).

How was it received?
The reaction was fascinating. I had assumed my story was unique, but it seemed that people could relate to it, and wanted more! That’s where the struggle began for me. I didn’t know how to finish the piece because I felt I wanted it to link up with my current situation—but that kept changing! The next time I performed the show, I expanded it to 45 minutes but felt less satisfied. I’d watched the video of my first performance so many times I felt sort of stuck in the past. I also found myself listening to many differing opinions on where my show should go and how it should be crafted—my vision got a little lost in the din. Finally, the festival format was crazy-making—especially as I was holding down a full-time job. Trying to write and rehearse this piece all for just one evening was too much pressure. My dream would be to take the show to the countries I lived in and beyond. I’d love to perform it at international schools and for expat communities worldwide.

As the interviewer, I think I can permit one question that’s of particular interest to me, which is: how do you like solo performing?
Solo performance is relatively new for me and I do miss getting to work with other actors on stage. That said, the medium allows me to be a bit more in control of the work and my approach. And it’s wonderfully vulnerable!

I understand you’re planning to film a documentary. What will it be about?
The focus will be on other children of diplomats (i.e., “dip kids”) and how their lives have been shaped by their upbringing and the jobs of their parent(s). I plan to tell the story from my perspective and also weave in my experiences as a mixed-race individual who continues to search for an understanding of and connection to my identity, heritage and all the parts that I am made of.

Do you have any other projects coming up?
I am writing a memoir that will delve deeper into the stories I reveal in DipKid.

Best and worst (Canadian) Thanksgiving memories

Canadian Thanksgiving was in October, but since American Thanksgiving is today, please share with us your best and worst Thanksgivings.
The best occurred when we were living in New Delhi. We were invited to the Official Residence of the High Commissioner for a Canadian Thanksgiving celebration. It was a big party with live music and food sprawled out on the grounds. At dusk everyone looked up and gasped as hundreds of bats swarmed the sky. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen!

I think the worst was my first Thanksgiving away from home. My parents were in Sri Lanka and I was in Wolfville, Nova Scotia (where Acadia U is). Everyone I knew at school had family nearby, but it was only October and I hadn’t bonded with anyone enough to get an invite. I ate Pop-Tarts and drank Dr. Pepper and felt homesick for my family and a bit sorry for myself…

* * *

Thank you, Amber, for being you, a fellow TCK theatre-maker! Readers, please leave questions and comments for Amber below. And if you want to keep up with her creative undertakings, I suggest you also follow her on Twitter: @DipKidAmber.

STAY TUNED for next week’s/month’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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An expat novel in episodes: SUITE DUBAI #1 – Arriving (1/8)

1 Comment Posted by on November 26, 2013
Suite Dubai Collage Drop Shadow

Image: Top: Book cover & author image (supplied by Callista Fox); bottom: By vahiju (Morguefiles).

Today we begin a serial novel by Callista Fox, called Suite Dubai. Recalling her childhood as a Third Culture Kid in the Middle East, Callista had a story in her head that wouldn’t go away: “There was this girl, young, vulnerable, naive, walking along a concourse in an airport, among men in white robes and checkered scarves and woman in black gauzy material. Where was she going? What would happen to her there?” Sounds tantalizing, doesn’t it? On that note, here’s the very first part of Episode 1…with 7 more parts to come. (Warning: Highly addictive!)

—ML Awanohara

When Rachel walked through the sunlit terminal at the Dubai airport, her student-loan payment was a month past due; her credit card, maxed. She had thirty-six dollars in her bank account and twenty-three in her purse, minus the ten she’d converted to euros to buy a stale ham-and-cheese croissant from a vendor at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. Now she couldn’t find the name of the man sent to pick her up. She’d printed the e-mail back in her mother’s office, folded it into a neat square. But where was it? Not in her purse or her carry-on bag. She’d checked them twice. It was a man’s name, something that started with an S. Her phone was no help. When she turned it on, the word ROAMING flashed across the screen. She was definitely roaming. At least Sallie Mae couldn’t reach her here. Not for a few weeks, anyway. And when they did, Rachel would finally have the money to make a payment. Unless her new boss realized she was a fraud and sent her home.

They wouldn’t have hired you if they thought you couldn’t do it. That’s what she’d been telling herself since Paris, since before Paris, really. Since she’d gotten the job offer.

You will do it, she whispered.

Down an escalator and along a series of moving walkways, she followed a family she recognized from her flight: a man in loose-hipped pants and long tunic, his wife in a bright green sari, the end of her scarf trailing behind her sequined shoes. Between them, holding their hands, a tiny girl in a yellow dress kept bending her legs, lifting her feet off the floor and letting her parents carry her along. The little girl shrieked and giggled, and in spite of the strain on their arms, her parents smiled down at her. In front of them, two men wore long, floor-length dress shirts. Checkered scarves flipped away from their faces like long hair. To her right, in the aisles of a duty-free shop, a woman covered in black gauze moved like a shadow among the perfume displays.

Rachel switched both bags to her other shoulder and smoothed the front of her wrinkled t-shirt. Her pants were no better. All those hours of travel had left a dull film on her skin and her head felt like it was filled with cotton.

She needed something. A trip to the bathroom to splash more water on her face. Something to eat. Several hours of real sleep—not the kind you did while trying to sit straight up until, desperate to finish your dream, your head slipped down and found a comfortable spot on the shoulder of the man sitting in 32F. “Excuse me…miss…”

She handed her passport to a man behind a high counter, who studied her picture then thumbed through the pages to her visa.

“You are here for work?” He asked.

“Yes,” she said. “The Al Zari Hotel.”

“The Al Zari Hotel,” he repeated. He looked at her t-shirt, her pants and then down at her tennis shoes. “Housekeeper?”

The customs line was long but it moved quickly. A man straightened his black beret before motioning for her to put her suitcase on the counter and open it. “Medications?” he asked. She shook her head. “Cash over ten thousand dollars?” She laughed. No. “Gifts over three thousand AED?” She had exactly no gifts worth any AED, as far as she knew.

“You have nothing to declare?” He said, looking annoyed.

“No,” she said. “Nothing to declare.”

“You are in the wrong place.”

She stared at him, not sure what to do next.

He pointed across the room to the Indian family who was waiting for their luggage to travel along a conveyor belt through an x-ray machine. “There,” the man said.

She grabbed her suitcase first, then her carry-on by the strap, tipping it over and spilling an envelope of pictures onto the counter. Together she and the customs man began to scoop them into a pile. He lifted one and squinted at it. Then he turned it around so she could see it. It was her with Truman, taken by a stranger while they stood in front of the roller coaster at Dollywood. They were doing that couples pose they’d perfected the one with their heads tilted toward each other. She was holding a mass of fluffy cotton candy and his face was scribbled out with a black marker.

“Oh, yeah.” She took the picture from him. “I should just throw this away.” She turned and slipped the picture into the side pocket of her bag.

On the other side of customs some sliding doors parted to reveal a crowd. People craned their necks to see who was coming through. Some held signs in Arabic. Some in Chinese or Japanese. The only English sign had the name Mr. Duncan written in marker. She walked along, looking for someone looking for her. The family from the airplane walked past her, the man pushing a luggage cart and the woman carrying the girl, who had fallen asleep on her shoulder.

Someone touched her arm.

“Rachel, eh, Lewis?” A short man with a horseshoe of black hair on an otherwise bald head, wearing delicate gold spectacles, stood a few feet from her. “You arrre Rachel Lewis?” His rolled rs made the question sound dramatic.

“Yes,” she said, and gave him a smile that remained on her face against her will. This was not the professional look she’d practiced but the face of a girl watching a friend of her father’s pretend to pull a quarter from behind her ear. “I’m Rachel Lewis.”

“I am Sayeed,” he said. “The car is outside.” He picked up her suitcase and headed for the exit.

Outside there was no sky, just the sun’s glare. It stung her tired eyes and she had to blink just to see where she was going. The heat felt thick as fur against her skin, too thick to breathe in all at once. Sayeed crossed a road and led the way along a row of cars, finally stopping at a white Mercedes.

The city looked nothing like she’d hoped. She saw no ancient markets shaded with draped fabric, no tents, no camels. It was as modern as downtown Atlanta with silver skyscrapers and wide, smooth multi-lane highways and perfectly painted crosswalks. A Rolls-Royce passed them on the right, then a big truck hauling men like cargo. They were packed tight on benches bolted to the truck bed; the ones on the end braced with their feet to stay seated. Their faces sagged, their shoulders, their arms and hands. They looked as tired as she felt. . . .

* * *

So, readers, would you like to hear more? Let us know in the comments… And if you can’t wait until next month, you can always download the complete episode of “Arriving” (this is just the beginning) —as well as the next episode, provocatively entitled “Party on Palm Island”—from Amazon.

Callista Fox moved to Saudi Arabia when she was eight and lived there off and on until turning 19. she went to boarding schools in Cyprus and Austria. She has written two travel books and a travel column in the Sunday Oklahoman. Currently, she writes proposals for a consulting firm that provides technology and management solutions to governments and nonprofits around the world.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, some musings on Thanksgiving from an expat point of view, by Anthony Windram.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Image: Top: Book cover & author image (supplied by Callista Fox); bottom: By vahiju (Morguefiles).

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GLOBAL FOOD GOSSIP: Stuffing a chair with boar’s hair, and your face with Charlotte Royale – British style, bien sûr.

Leave a comment Posted by on November 19, 2013

global food gossipJoanna Masters-Maggs, our resident repeat-expat Food Gossip and Creative Chef, is back with her column for like-minded food lovers, which includes pretty much every expat we’ve ever encountered.

This month: Upholstering armchairs to the tune of Mary Berry.

* * *

I haven’t been cooking much this month.

This is because, instead, I have been totally absorbed in reupholstering an armchair for my daughter’s bedroom.

Like so many “trailing spouses”, I am an International Jack of All Trades and, possibly, Masters of None.  Work visas are rarely applied to spouses and we must do what the current location allows us if we wish to work.

In my time I have taught English (yes, I have a qualification), arranged flowers (basic qualification), taught exercise classes on a Saudi compound (absolutely qualified with first aid certificates to boot) and baked and decorated birthday cakes (the qualification here is hard to pin down, but I am very enthusiastic).

My latest enterprise, however, is gripping me, and might well be what saves me from permanent life as an expat dilettante.

A family history, as recorded on sofa cushions

Over the years my four children have wrought destruction on all our soft furnishing, but the sofas have suffered the worst.  In part, I have been loath to recover them, as they represent something of both the material culture and culinary history of our family.  The stains, ever more poorly hidden by artfully draped throws and cushions, track the growth of the children from breast to solids. Here and there are the stains of snacks smuggled from the pantry or the marks made by friends I felt woefully too weak to upbraid.   Perhaps I’m just too English to tell off other people’s kids successfully.  My “Take the hamburger back to the kitchen before I am forced to beat you” delivered mildly with a smile and a wink, is taken as face value and ignored – I should expect no more, really.   Anyway, confronted with an upholstery bill that reached into five digits, I decided to take another “Have a go, Jo” course.

The result is that I can no longer visit a friend’s house, or watch a film or TV, without becoming entirely distracted by the chairs and sofas on display.

Thanksgiving stuffing? Not unless it’s made of boar’s hair

This new interest has caused me to all but abandon the kitchen.  Meals are late and gracelessly served.  Plates generally consist of pasta with a side of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and sundry vegetables dragged from the back of the fridge or freezer – anything to make up the 5 a day and free me to return to the basement.  I’m amazed that my family is bored by this approach.  Perhaps they need a little footstool project of their own.

Thankfully for this webpage, this dearth of food-related happenings in my household has been tempered by my need to listen to radio or TV while I work.

This month I caught up with Great British Bake Off: the perfect accompaniment for the stripping and recovering process.  If you haven’t yet discovered the delights of this quintessentially British of “competitions”, I recommend a quick rifle through YouTube.  I’m sure you too will be hooked.

None of the competitors claim that winning the show is their dream, or assure us that they must win because they want it so bad. That they don’t do so on a televised competition comes as a surprise and seems to suggest that things back home have changed more than I could ever have guessed.  So accustomed are we all to naked ambition and self-puffery despite slender talents that the shock of modesty seems inconceivable.  This year there was even a competitor, Ruby, who was so self-effacing that she became a hate figure in the press.  Holding up her various offerings and apologizing for their variously burned, dry or just plain terrible states, she seemed to hail from a bygone age, ignorant of Simon Cowell.  But today this is mistrusted and seems to be insincere, even manipulative.  Interestingly, Mary Berry, the rather strict octogenarian judge, was quick to comfort and reassure.  Modesty has been lost to the British TV in 15 years of TV competitions in music, food, modeling and god-knows-what.

The public might mistrust Ruby’s handwringing over her uselessness, but Mary did the proper thing and bucked her up.

What, really, is so wrong with such a world?

Killing two oiseaux

IMG_2070

Joanna and her impressive reason
for a lack of cooking this month

Where am I going with this?  Welcome to the wandering mind of someone whose hands are deep in boar’s hair and webbing.  I’ll tell you where, though.  It occurred to me that, since this hugely successful show had been spun off to many countries, each tweaking it to its own tastes and state of mind, I could find the French version and improve my lamentable French while never pausing in my upholstery endeavours.

The first two hour episode proved to be a deeply comforting and successful experiment in language acquisition — mal cuit, anyone?  But then, halfway through the next episode I received a bit of a douche froide, so to speak.  The announcer, thankfully less humorous than her British counterparts as my French is barely up to understanding French slapstick let alone gentle, self-deprecating humour, announced that the Challenge Technique would be English in origin.  Cue the endless pause so beloved of such shows, then:

“Le challenge est……….  Charlotte aux fruits rouge.”

Well, strike me down with a langue de chat.  You see, Charlotte Royale wasn’t English, it was French.  I knew this, because it had appeared only a week before on English T.V. and during French Week, no less.

Charlotte? C’est un French name, non?

Finally, something had occurred which made me look up from my stitching.  What gave Charlotte her ambiguous status between the French and the Brits, while retaining value as a challenge worth attempting?  The British show gave no clue.  Although their Charlotte involved Swiss Roll and looked like one of the illustrations in your mother’s 1970s copy of, er, a Mary Berry recipe book, it was accepted without demur by all as French.  Similarly, the French contestants, while sucking in their breath and declaring they were going to have to concentrate hard on this one, they failed to cry as one patissier,  “Zut alors, c’est un recet francais!”

The French presenter thickened the plot further, introducing a historian to explain the English origins of the dish.  Apparently, it was invented by Antoine Carême (yes, the father of the art of patisserie) who worked at both the English and Russian courts for a time.  You see?  Strange, no?  He made it for either a Queen Charlotte, a Princess Charlotte, a cousin Charlotte and then at some point tagged on Russe to include the Tsar in his flattery.

So why is this not considered French if a French man really did invent it?

Unearthing Charlotte’s origins in my own kitchen

IMG_2042

Patrick sharing his British Charlotte Royale. In France.

Patrick, my 9 year old, and I, decided to make the British version.  Doing it for myself cleared up all my questions.  It was, let’s say, a woman of substance.  French Women Do Not Get Fat, and their puddings cannot be hefty either.

My own Charlotte Royal was no slip of a thing.

The Swiss Roll lining was easily managed by Patrick working alone with our trusty KitchenAid.  While the French contestants piped boudoir biscuits to surround their moulds for the light bavarois filling, Patrick sliced up jammy sponge rolls which gave the pud a slightly cerebral air when turned out. How can you cut a petite tranche from that?  Piping even biscuits would be much more of a challenge for child and adult alike.  The Swiss Roll is infinitely more forgiving.

The difference between the French version and the English became clearer.  Simiar amounts of work and skill are involved, but one must be elegant and the other must be generous.  One should look preternaturally perfect, and the other is valued for comfort.  A French dessert should perhaps make you feel you are not quite elegant enough to eat it, while the English makes you feel better because you do not look like the Duchess of Windsor.  Ha ha –  it is not generosity of spirit that holds the French back from planting the tricolor on this this dish.  They are anxious that it is a recipe that can look unfinished, so trifle-like.

When Carême returned to France, he apparently rechristened the dish Charlotte á la Parisienne, probably to soothe the nerves of alarmed locals who may have heard a thing or two about the English king Carême had worked for.  I have no doubt when Charlotte arrived on French shores she resembled a trifle as little as possible.

Carême’s Charlotte is a little rootless, like so many of us expats.  Like us, it is unsure where it belongs and if home will ever be home again.  The Charlotte is perhaps a sort of Third Culture Dessert.

But at least I think I may have found the name for my upholstery business if I ever start one.

Here’s to Third Culture Sofas.

* * *

Joanna was displaced from her native England 16 years ago, and has since attempted to re-place herself and blend into the USA, Holland, Brazil, Malaysia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and now France. She describes herself as a “food gossip”, saying: “I’ve always enjoyed cooking and trying out new recipes. Overseas, I am curious as to what people buy and from where. What is in the baskets of my fellow shoppers? What do they eat when they go home at night?”

Fellow Food Gossips, share your own stories with us!

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Images: All images from Joanna’s personal photo albums, and used here with her permission

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