The Displaced Nation

A home for international creatives

Seven deadly dishes — global grub to die for

12 Comments Posted by on May 3, 2011

A Briton abroad spends a surprising amount of time defending his native national cuisine. I remember going to a steak house in Connecticut where the waitress, upon taking our order and hearing our accents, said brightly, “From England, huh? I hear you don’t get anything good to eat over there. ”  When she brought the filet mignon to the table, she did so with the pitying smile of one delivering alms to the starving.

British super-chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver may be taking the US by storm, but still this delusion of bad food persists. To which I say: whatever the perceived faults of English cuisine, at least no one has to take out extra life insurance before eating Yorkshire pudding.

Yet there are quite a few delicacies from countries without this dismal food reputation, where a top-up premium might be useful before you take that first bite.

In ascending order of danger or toxicity:

7.   Snake wine – Vietnam, Southeast Asian, Southern China.
An assortment of herbs, small snakes, and a large venomous snake are steeped for many months in a glass jar of rice wine, then consumed in small shots for medicinal purposes. Fortunately, the ethanol renders snake venom harmless.

6.   Surströmming – Sweden.
Fermented  Baltic herring. Stored in cans, where the fermentation continues, causing the cans to bulge. In 2006, Air France and British Airways banned surstromming from their flights because they said the cans were potentially explosive.  According to a Japanese study, the smell of this Scandinavian rotten fish is the most putrid food smell in the world.

5.   Fried tarantula – Cambodia.
Tarantulas, tossed in MSG, sugar, and salt, are fried with garlic  until their legs are stiff and the abdomen contents less liquid. The flesh tastes a little like chicken or white fish, and the body is gooey inside. Certain breeds of tarantula have urticating hairs on their abdomen, which they use for self-defense. If the spiders are not prepared properly – i.e., if the offending hairs are not removed with a blow torch or similar – these hairs can cause pharyngeal irritation in the consumer.

4.   Sannakji – Korea.
Small, live, wriggling octopus, seasoned with sesame and sesame oil. The suction cups are still active, so bits of tentacle may stick to your throat as you swallow, especially if you’ve had one too many drinks before dinner. The trick is to chew thoroughly so no piece is big enough to take hold of your tonsils. Some veteran sannakji eaters, however, enjoy the feel of longer pieces of writhing arm and are prepared to take the risk.

3.   Stinkhead – Alaska
Heads of salmon, left to ferment in a hole in the ground for a few weeks. Traditionally, the fish was wrapped in long grasses and fermented in cool temperatures, but then someone discovered Baggies and plastic buckets, which increase the speed of the process. Unfortunately, they also increase the number of botulism cases.

2.   Casu Marzu – Sardinia
Made by introducing the eggs of the cheese fly to whole Pecorino cheese (hard cheese made from sheep’s milk) and letting the cheese ferment to a stage of terminal decomposition. Locally, the cheese is considered dangerous to eat when the maggots are dead, so you eat them live and squirming. As the larvae can jump six inches in the air, it is advisable to cover your cheese sandwich with your hand while eating to prevent being smacked in the face by grubs. An alternative is to put the cheese in a paper bag to suffocate the maggots, then eat it straight away. The maggots will jump around in the bag for a while, making a sound, I imagine, not unlike that of popcorn in the microwave. Although the European Union outlawed this food for a while, it has since been classified as a “traditional” food and therefore exempt from EU food hygiene regulations.

1.   Fugu (Puffer fish) – Japan
Considered to be the second most toxic vertebrate in the world, puffer fish is a delicacy in Japan, but preparation of the food is strictly controlled, with only specially trained chefs in licensed restaurants permitted to deal with the fish. Fugu contains tetrodotoxin, a poison about 1200 times stronger than cyanide, which is most highly concentrated in the fish’s liver —  the tastiest part. Sadly, for gourmets who like to live life on the edge, fugu liver in restaurants was banned in Japan in 1984.

Question: What is the most adventurous dish you’ve ever eaten?

For tamer foods that won’t mean a trip to the emergency room, sign up to receive our posts by email and receive your free copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea,” with recipes for Victoria Sponge, Fruit Scones, Princess Pairs, Queen of Puddings and Tiffin. All English. All good.

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In sum, here’s how three displaced people “saw” Britain’s pomp

2 Comments Posted by on May 2, 2011

Once upon a time there lived Three Stooges in a kingdom ruled by a queen, otherwise known as a queendom. But eventually, each of them moved away to a republic that had renounced that very same monarchy hundreds of years ago (but which still retained a certain fascination for their descendents).

Now these Three Stooges just so happen to be the authors of this blog — ML Awanohara, Kate Allison, and Anthony Windram. When news of an impending Royal Wedding reached them at The Displaced Nation, one of them, ML, hatched a rather zany scheme of covering the event from their displaced perspectives. Thanks to the new technology, they could do this by tweeting like birds, she said.

So the three of them rose at ungodly hours on April 29, 2011, and recorded their impressions: Kate and Anthony from the point of view as displaced citizens of said queendom, ML as a displaced resident (born in the republic, she had lived in the queendom as a student and retains an inordinate nostalgia for those days).

What follows are some edited highlights from their Dawn Chorus. NOTE: All three would like to offer special thanks to Princess Bea for attempting a Cthulhu imitation. The possibility of perching on her antlers helped to sustain them during the lengthy bits, of which there were several.

I. PRE-CEREMONY

ML Awanohara: I can hear many excited voices outside my window here in the East Village. It’s a global event! Kate Allison, what are you wearing?

Kate Allison: What I slept in. Duh. But have contacts in. The contacts not needed to see the size of some of these hats. Sheesh.

ML: You aren’t wearing a hat? I have on my Chinese PJs and a cute little fascinator…

KA: Probably got a NY Yankees hat somewhere. Would that be ok?

ML: So we both watched Charles & Diana 30 years ago, in UK. And now we’re both “displaced,” on US East Coast, watching on TV. Strange!

Anthony Windram: Why on earth am I up at this time? No semblance of sense.

ML: Isn’t it cool that we are all connected like this, watching a quintessential British event?

AW: On CBS, Beth from New York and Jody from Philly came over especially for this. That’s just silly.

KA: Eugenie, or is it Beatrice, is wearing antlers! You cannot look cute in antlers unless you have a glowing nose as well.

ML: Camilla is being criticized for wearing white. I actually think she looks stunning.

KA: Camilla would be criticized whatever she wore. Take no notice, Camilla. Lovely outfit.

AW: Credit where it’s due, this is one of the few events where children cheer an 85-year-old woman.

ML: I have to say, primrose doesn’t suit the Queen. Though I suppose she does match the clergy in that color.

KA: Some bishop’s done a Scarlett O’Hara and nicked the curtains for his dress.

ML: Shut the front door! Kate is on her way!

KA: Little bridesmaids. Utterly cute.

ML: Fashionistas are calling the dress very Gracy Kellyish.

KA: ….ooohhhhh. Gorgeous.

AW: Will Rowan Williams also be wearing Alexander McQueen?

II. CEREMONY

ML: I do like the aerial view. Train looks just the right length for the Abbey.

AW: At what point in the proceedings do they replace Kate Middleton with a shape-shifting lizard?

KA: Not a meringue in sight, to quote Hugh Grant.

AW: Sod the wedding dress, that’s the most beautiful sight: Westminster Abbey.

KA: Poor girl looks terrified!

AW: Why no Rowan Williams? Boo. Oh, wait, here he is. Love a bit of Rowan.

ML: Catty alert, but Kate looks older than Wills, which she is. Too much makeup?

AW: Rowan Williams should narrate audio books. Think he’d be a good fit with some Trollope.

ML: Oh, no! Wills could barely get ring over Kate’s knuckle! Not a good omen…

AW: I always think the Royal Family jumped the shark with the Glorious Revolution.

ML: Must be the aging process, but I don’t find this nearly as moving as 1981.

KA: I think I’m a lapsed royalist coming back to the fold!

ML: Kate, are you serious? We seem to be switching places. I knew that was going to happen.

KA: I am totally serious and today totally British.

ML: Who is representing us Americans btw? Obamas weren’t invited…

KA: Posh and Becks are representing the Americans, obviously.

AW: James Middleton has the eyes of a killer.

ML: The Londonist is keeping a “not the royal wedding” blog: everything happening in the world except for the royal wedding. For instance, there are these dangerous headache-inducing caterpillars in Bournemouth, and the horror flick Insidious opens today.

AW: Those two nuns got great seats — all thanks to Ticketmaster.com.

ML: Fun fact: Today is the “feast” day of St. Catherine of Siena, a famous 14th-century bulimic.

AW: I got up at 2:30 a.m. to listen to a religious service, a Protestant religious service no less. I may crawl back to bed.

ML: No, don’t leave us! Your jokes are keeping me awake!

AW: Oh annoying CBS, don’t start talking as soon as “Jerusalem” starts.

KA: Ah, “Jerusalem.” But of course: can’t beat it if you’re English. Guaranteed to bring anyone back to the fold. … And now the national anthem. ML, this is the original version of that song you guys sing in grade school.

ML: “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty…”

KA: What, Queen not singing her own tune?

ML: Someone at the New Yorker just tweeted that Westminster is full of bodies (bones?) of kings. Rather macabre.

KA: ML, at the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, they found about 1,800 skeletons underneath. Now that’s macabre.

AW: Nothing more British than the bureaucracy of everyone going to sign the wedding register in the middle of the ceremony.

ML: Just saw the antler hat. Truly bizarre. … Is Princess Anne wearing purple?

III. POST-CEREMONY

AW: So many Union flags. It’s like Rangers at a Scottish Cup final. …

ML: Okay, someone please tell me: it is distance or aging, but I feel like it’s a little flat this time around.

AW: On the basis of that crowd, the world must think the British are a collection of plastic hat wearing morons. In fairness, most of the crowd are Americans. Anglophiles, I’ll never understand you. Give me five minutes with an Anglophile — I’ll soon dampen their enthusiasm for all things English.

ML: They’re showing a pair of older Brits singing “God save the Queen” off key.

AW: Am I meant to feel national pride because a slightly dim, over-privileged couple got hitched? Really? Some mediocre St Andrews grads get to be Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Hurry up and kiss and then I can get back to bed.

ML: What’s going on behind the net curtains on the windows facing out on the famous balcony?

AW: The balcony scenes are always disappointing. They never fall off.

ML: Was that it?!?!?!?!?

AW: No tongue. Duke of Edinburgh seems to making the moves on Pippa. He’s muscling out Harry there.

KA: Someone’s going to drop a small child off that balcony if they’re not careful.

AW: Balcony would be enlivened with some Michael Jackson-style children dangling. I’m thinking the annoying little blonde page.

ML: Well, this has certainly been a stimulating three hours. Time to say cheerio for now? That kiss was such an anticlimax.

KA: Anticlimax? What did you have in mind for them? Royal weddings are G rated.

AW: BBC really are insisting on talking to every nutter they meet.

ML: So, my dears, any parting impressions? Was it worth losing sleep over?

AW: So we’ve learned (or relearned) nobody does annoying and wacky quite like the British. We’ve learned that the Duke of Edinburgh still has it. Pippa needs to watch out at the disco.That CBS felt the need to make half a dozen references to Meet the Fockers. And we learned you can be born into a dim family that lacks intellectual curiosity, be unremarkable, and one day you’ll be king. But the biggest takeaway was the baby Cthulhu that has hatched itself to Princess Beatrice’s forehead.

ML: Beatrice and Eugenie look like how I always imagined Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters.

KA: LOLOL

ML: On TLC just now, American commentators are saying they were disappointed by the kiss. But the crowds in Times Square cheered anyway.

KA: Disappointed by the kiss? What do they want? Video on YouTube a la Pamela Anderson? Puh-leese.

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A toast to two displaced writers with passionate views of royal passion

29 Comments Posted by on April 30, 2011

Special notice: The writers we are celebrating in today’s post — best-selling novelist Jane Green and expat blogger Karen Van Drie — have kindly agreed to “come in” and respond to your comments and questions on the topic of the hour: yesterday’s royal wedding. Don’t be shy!

A cheery hello to you all. We have a special treat in store for Displaced Nation readers: a royal wedding-themed party in honor of two expat writers — one an acclaimed author, the other an acclaimed blogger — who take very different views of yesterday’s “wedding of the century.”

Jane Green is the author of a dozen novels dealing with real women, real life, and all the things life throws at them. She is also an expat. Born in London — she spent her early career as a writer of women’s features for the Daily Express — she now lives in Connecticut with her husband, six children, and assorted pets.

Karen Van Drie is an American who decided to travel the world after her youngest daughter left for college. Based in Istanbul and Prague, she travels extensively and records her observations in her award-winning blog, Empty Nest Expat. The blog was called out last year in the Wall Street Journal as a “fun read for anyone looking for reassurance that change can be a wonderful thing.”

No in-betweens, even (especially?) among expats

Vogue magazine editor Alexandra Shulman observed that Britain’s “wedding of the century” divided the British nation into lovers and loathers — so was a “perfect Marmite moment.”

Well, she could have been talking about the Displaced Nation just as well as the British nation. Over the past few weeks, we English-speaking expats and repats have divided into two opposing camps.

If anything, we tend to be even more passionate about our views because of the distance factor.

GREEN: “A modern fairytale”

As explained in an April 13 blog post on her newly released e-book for ABC News* on three generations of royal love stories, Jane Green knew little about Kate and William before starting her research but came away impressed:

I loved discovering just how unusual William and Kate are: grounded, humble, and thoroughly modern, eschewing much of the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the wedding of Charles and Diana.

Her book, which blends text, video, still images and interactive features, celebrates Kate for achieving the seemingly impossible feat of bringing an age-old fairytale up to date.

VAN DRIE: “If princesses didn’t exist…”

In the overheated countdown to the Big Day, Karen Van Drie resurrected a post she had written in February about the evolution of her personal views on royals, especially princesses.

Van Drie was prompted to write on this topic during a week-long visit to Sweden, where she noticed that the Swedish Royal Palace gift shop was packed out with tourists snapping up merchandise related to last year’s wedding between Princess Victoria and her personal trainer, Daniel Westling.

Somewhat to her surprise, Van Drie could not get into the spirit. This apathy marked a change from her twenties when she’d fallen head over heels for the fairy tale of Prince Charles and Lady Diana and studied every detail of their royal wedding. When she got married herself, she asked the florist to reproduce Diana’s bouquet exactly.

What’s more, after reading an article about the Swedish Republican Association, Van Drie decided they were thought leaders on the subject of monarchy elimination. She wondered aloud on her blog:

If princesses didn’t exist, what would young women dream of being? Could it likely be a healthier idea for humanity and relationships? A more realistic idea? Can you imagine people of the future laughing at us for even allowing the idea of undemocratic monarchies to exist? For needing the “idea” of princesses?

Where do you stand?

Dear readers, it’s your turn now. While we put out the bunting, pour glasses of Pimms, make pots of tea, and prepare plates of crustless cucumber sandwiches, scones, and Tiffin, for our feast in honor of Green and Van Drie, we’re hoping you will tell us: what do you see when you look at the relationship between William and Kate close up? Do you share Green’s picture of a modern fairytale, or are you more inclined to Van Drie’s notion of a gothic horror story?

* A Modern Fairytale is ABC’s first e-book and Green’s first-ever work of nonfiction. It is available through top etailers — Apple’s iBookstore, Kindle, Nook, etc. — and through the new ABC Video Bookstore app.

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Tiffin: A displaced word of many meanings, but this one is sweetest

Leave a comment Posted by on April 28, 2011

Special announcement from TDN: ML Awanohara and Kate Allison will be live-tweeting the Royal Wedding from a displaced perspective. Join us from 5:00 a.m. EST, using the hash tag: #DNRW Read more.

“Taj Mahal” by Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tiffin – a word imported to England in the times of colonial British India, when, as well as being Queen of England, Victoria held the title of Empress of India.

Unlike other Anglo-Indian imports, such as gin and tonic or kedgeree, tiffin has shades of definitions – lunch, afternoon snack, or any light meal. My favorite definition, however, is the one given to me by my cookery teacher when I was twelve, which I’m sharing with you in honor of the wedding tomorrow.

It requires very little cooking, and if you start now, you will have enough time to make another batch to replace the one you intended to take to the street party but absent-mindedly ate instead.

One batch is never enough.

*

Tiffin

You will need:

100g / 4oz / 1/2 cup butter

50g / 2oz / 8 tablespoons desiccated (shredded) coconut – optional

50g / 2oz /1/3 cup seedless raisins

2 tablespoons golden syrup (see below if you’re unfamiliar with or can’t obtain this ingredient)

2 tablespoons powdered drinking chocolate (sweetened cocoa)

200g / 8oz / 2 cups broken digestive biscuits. If you can’t get digestive biscuits, graham crackers or crunchy oatmeal cookies would work.

100g / 4oz /2/3 cup plain (semi-sweet) or milk chocolate, as you prefer.

A 9″ x 9” cake tin, greased with butter. (Exact dimensions aren’t critical for the success of this recipe.)

Method:

1. In a small pan, melt the butter and golden syrup over low heat, then remove from heat.

2. Add coconut, raisins, drinking chocolate, and broken biscuits.

3. Mix well, then transfer to the greased tin. Pack down firmly with the back of a large spoon.

4. Put about an inch of water in a saucepan and bring the water to simmering point.

5. Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a heat-proof bowl (e.g., Pyrex). Fit the bowl over the pan of water, keeping the water simmering gently. Stir until the chocolate is melted.

6. Pour melted chocolate over the biscuit mixture in tin, and spread evenly.

7. Refrigerate for a few hours until chocolate is hard, then cut into small squares.

8. Serve with hot tea — of course.

*

Golden syrup

Golden syrup is a favorite in Britain and Australia. It’s thicker and sweeter than corn syrup, lighter in color than treacle (molasses), and  I knew it best for drizzling on my morning porridge before going to school.

In America it’s either unobtainable or very expensive, but according to an article on eHow, you can make your own.

You will need:

Heavy saucepan

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp. water

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2/3 cup light corn syrup

Wooden spoon

Glass or plastic container

Method:

1. Pour the sugar in the saucepan, spread evenly over the bottom of the pan.

2. Mix water and vinegar, and sprinkle over the sugar.

3. Cook the mixture over low heat for five minutes. DO NOT STIR!

4. Turn the heat up to medium, and cook for a further five minutes, without stirring. Remove pan when mixture is a golden color.

5. Add light corn syrup and let mixture sit for 3 minutes. When the bubbling has stopped, stir well with wooden spoon.

6. Allow syrup to cool, then pour into a heatproof glass or plastic container, such as a mason jar. Seal, and store at room temperature. It will keep for two or three months.

(Thanks to my good friend and regular commenter on Displaced Nation, Joanna M-M, for sending me the link to this.)

*

Enjoy!

Img “Taj Mahal” by Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Expats in Moscow satisfy a hunger to learn

1 Comment Posted by on April 27, 2011

Special announcement from TDN: ML Awanohara and Kate Allison will be live-tweeting the Royal Wedding from a displaced perspective. Join us from 5:00 a.m. EST, using the hash tag: #DNRW

I well remember my first foray into an American supermarket. Dozens of brands of orange juice, offset by a dearth of blackcurrant Ribena.  Cheese in aerosol cans, breakfast pizza bagels…  As for the meat — well, thank goodness everything came shrink-wrapped so I could smuggle it home and investigate its cooking requirements in privacy. Anything was better than revealing my ignorance of American cuts of beef to Stop & Shop’s rather intimidating butcher. It made me want to attend cooking classes – not because I couldn’t cook,  but because unfamiliar ingredients and lack of vital ones limited my usual repertoire. I had to eat what Americans did.

All this confusion took place in a country where the language was approximately the same as at home. How much more difficult must this experience be, then, in a country whose language is strange to you?

Borsch and blini

Victoria Agabalyan understands this problem well. She is the founder and chief executive of Taste of Russia, the first English-language culinary school in Moscow, whose students are primarily foreign tourists and expats.

In order to understand what Europeans expected of cooking classes, she, like American TV chef and one-time expat Julia Child before her, attended culinary school in France.  Consequently, Taste of Russia focuses on teaching traditional cuisine from Russia and the former Soviet Union in a cozy atmosphere. Student Bonnie van der Velde says:

“I cooked borshch and drankini with mushrooms for my mom and her colleagues in the Netherlands, and they liked it very much.”

Although Agabalyan teaches some of the classes herself, she also invites chefs to conduct culinary workshops while she or the school’s administrator translates. She plans to open more schools in other cities in Russia.

Hidden bonus for expats

Similar to my own dealings with strange supermarkets,  expats in Moscow have problems finding their way round the grocery shelves, and attendance at Taste of Russia helps them get over this difficulty. Another student, Angeline Sandmann, says that on her first shopping trip in Moscow she bought sour cream instead of the intended yogurt.

But it could have been worse. Try spraying cheese on top of your ice cream sundae.

Source:  The Moscow Times

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Displaced India Hicks throws in beach hat for Royal Wedding hat

2 Comments Posted by on April 26, 2011

Special announcement from TDN: ML Awanohara and Kate Allison will be live-tweeting the Royal Wedding from a displaced perspective. Join us from 5:00 a.m. EST, using the hash tag: #DNRW

On Sunday night I decided to indulge in nostalgia for my misspent youth in England. I watched a couple of TLC programs showing footage from the wedding of Charles and Diana on July 29, 1981.

I was there as a displaced American. Well, I wasn’t in London but at a street party in an East Anglian town.

To be honest, I have only the haziest recollection of how I spent the day: who attended the fete, what we talked about, what we ate. Part of the reason is my exceedingly poor memory.

But I think the lapse is also due to having been displaced so many times since then — to Japan, back to England, and now back to my native United States. England’s royal wedding no longer stands out in my memory compared to other landmark events I’ve observed, such as the marriage of Masako Iwada to Japan’s Crown Prince.

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride

I was therefore particularly taken with the TLC special Untold Stories of a Royal Bridesmaid, featuring model, interior design entrepreneur — and expat — India Hicks.

I kept wondering: does Hicks actually remember that hot day at the end of July 30 years ago? True, she was a bridesmaid for Princess Diana — but she was also only 13 at the time.

And, unlike many of the participants in that Royal Wedding, Hicks has moved on since, quite literally: she has put down roots on a three-mile-long fishing island in the Bahamas, where she lives with her family in a plantation-style oceanfront house.

Indeed, at 43, Hicks is living life on her own terms, a novel concept for a female who was born in the Royal Family orbit (Prince Charles is her second cousin and godfather, and she is 512th in line for the throne). As the New York Times pointed out in its profile of Hicks last month:

For many years, Ms. Hicks distanced herself from the royal circles that surrounded her childhood, focusing on developing her profession.

What’s more — and the Times didn’t point this out — she and her lifelong partner, David Flint Wood, have never bothered to marry, despite having had four children together.

Hicks may have been one of the two bridesmaids assigned to keep track of Diana’s 25-foot-long train, but she doesn’t appear to like weddings much, or else I assume she would have designed one for herself …

A most unroyal royal

I ask you, does this sound like something an heir to the British throne, however remote, would say:

I’d liked to have lived as Cleopatra. She didn’t take any crap from anyone, had lots of children out of wedlock, was intelligent and witty, known for her abilities and was a good stateswoman. I like most that she didn’t take any crap.

It’s what Hicks told the Wall Street Journal in an interview just a few days ago. You go, girl, as we say in the States…

So what’s in it for her besides money — and a higher profile for her brand, which is branching out next month to include jewelry? Not to mention her sense of duty (these are her people, after all).

British people are wont to say that the Royal Wedding provides a good excuse for a day off and a party. But for us displaced people, these affairs are a little different.

For Hicks as for many of the rest of us under equivalent circumstances, I suspect the wedding of Wills and Kate provides a good excuse to:

1) Indulge in a spot of nostalgia.

As Hicks remarks on her TLC special: “I think it will bring back memories that perhaps I’ve forgotten.”

As already mentioned, we displaced types can relate. The desire to recapture your youth intensifies if you are no longer living in your home (or adopted home) country.

2) Spend time in the home country.

As mentioned, Hicks has opted for the life of an expat, far from the madding crowds.

But, while retreating to a Caribbean island may sound like a dream come true, I imagine it has its dull moments, when one longs for a tad more intellectual and social stimulation.

Covering the Royal Wedding provides Hicks with the pretext for hanging out in her native land a little more and for introducing herself to such people as Diana’s wedding dress designer, David Emanuel. (The two haven’t met since 1981.)

3) Reconnect with family.

Living far away from one’s family is another penalty of the expat life, which tends to get steeper with time — especially for women who are close to their mothers.

By becoming a Royal Wedding pundit, Hicks has had the opportunity to reminisce about the good old days with her mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, for several of her TV specials.

A daughter of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India (hence her daughter’s first name), Lady Hicks was herself a bridesmaid to Queen Elizabeth.

I particularly enjoyed the moment on the TLC special when mere and fille pull their respective bridesmaids’ dresses out of the boxes and compare them. Hicks thinks her mother’s looks more classical, while hers is dated — a product of the frilly 1980s.

* * *

On the “bridesmaid” special, the time that Hicks seems most enthused about revealing her stories is when she picks up the Halcyon Days china pot that Diana gave to all her bridesmaids, containing a silk worm that helped to produce The Dress. Hicks holds up the little white cocoon and gives it a rattle.

For that single instant, she looks as though she’s been transported back in her island home, having taken the road less (or more?) traveled by…and to which she will be jolly glad to return on April 30.

Question: In your experience as a displaced person, do events in one’s home (or adopted home) country — whether private or public — induce an overblown sense of nostalgia? I’d love to hear your stories.

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A displaced American writer, awash in sea of Royal Wedding apathy

6 Comments Posted by on April 25, 2011

Today we welcome Kristen Ashley to The Displaced Nation as a guest blogger. She wrote this post in response to Kate Allison’s “Jerry Seinfeld — the Royal Wedding’s Answer to Ricky Gervais.” Kristen is Kate’s opposite number: an American (originally from Indiana) who has been living in England: in a small seaside town in the West Country.

When I was asked to write an American’s perspective on Britain’s perspective on The Royal Wedding, at first I demurred. I did this because usually I have a lot to say on any subject but this one I didn’t.

This isn’t because I hold disdain for the upcoming nuptials. Indeed, back in the day when I was just thirteen, I, like many other Americans, woke up at an ungodly hour to watch Diana marry Charles. I did this with excitement akin to waking up Christmas morning. Well before their wedding day I was devoted follower of Diana and I still think she was a very stylish, kind and compassionate woman. And, living in England for eight years, I’ve come to respect Charles. And, lastly, it appears they raised two fine sons. In fact, the Royals as a whole seem okay in my book. I know they have their foibles but don’t we all?

Wedding — what wedding?

No, the reason I demurred from writing this piece was because no one here cares much about The Royal Wedding. In fact, William and Kate were engaged for days before I knew they’d made the announcement, and I only found out about it from seeing the Facebook statuses of my American brethren. Just yesterday, less than two weeks before the big event, I learned that Kate was given Diana’s ring, she wore blue during the announcement and did her own makeup. All this came from my sister who lives in Phoenix.

Therefore, considering the lack of interest was the piece, once I’d agreed to write it, I started to pay attention. By no means did I do any statistical research but I did make the effort to scan the magazines at the checkout counters, none of which, for weeks, had picture one of the happy couple and they still don’t.

A good day for a street party…or to mow the lawn

We get a bank holiday here for the wedding and that’s the only subject I’ve noted of any non-instigated chatter about The Wedding. Even so, no one I know is going to be sitting at home watching it. They’ll likely be in their gardens or on a jaunt to the seafront or some such British activity.

So, I brought up the subject, and not to talk about the bank holiday. When I suggested to a group of friends that we have a Royal Wedding party at my house, I received blank faces. The kind where someone is trying desperately to find a good lie where they can say they’re doing something important like grooming their cat and couldn’t possibly attend your party. The conversation died at that point and even when I told them I’d have plentiful Pimm’s and lemonade on hand there were no takers.

They did talk about the amusing anecdote of an article in the local newspaper describing how one small town was surprised that no one had applied to have a street party on the Big Day. Another indication that folks were taking the bank holiday not to celebrate the nuptials but to trim their rose bushes.

Time to load up on choccie biccies

I have noted, of late, that Clinton’s Cards has Union Jack decorations for sale should there be any takers but this display has only sprung up recently. And McVities has a commemorative tin of biscuits available — but it’s already on special offer and the event hasn’t even passed.

Other than that, it’s business as usual on this sceptred isle with everyone far more interested in what’s happening with Cheryl Cole and Katie Price than their future king claiming his bride.

As for me, I’m undecided. I’m curious about Ms. Middleton’s dress. That’s as far as I can build my interest. Perhaps it’s the lack of enthusiasm that surrounds me or perhaps the ugly, public and, in the end, literal death of the fairytale for William’s mother has soured me on the whole shebang.

I know this, if it’s sunny like it has been here for days, it’s unlikely I’ll be inside in front of a TV. This is England after all and you’re likely to be put to death if you sit inside when it’s sunny. I’m certain there will be plenty of photos on hand where I can examine the future queen’s wedding gown in detail.

But I’ll undoubtedly find them on American Web sites.

Question: How will you spend April 29th? And should the extra British holiday for the Royal Wedding be donated to a more enthusiastic audience?

Kristen Ashley is a novelist and the author of the Rock Chick Book Series. She offers downloadable chapters of her books, great recipes, and much more at www.kristenashley.net.

img: author photograph – Kristen Ashley

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Ho’ omaika’i ‘Ana to TCK writer Tony Roberts

9 Comments Posted by on April 23, 2011

Aloha, reader. We would love for you to join our celebration of writer Anthony H. [“Tony”] Roberts, who produced our favorite article of the week, “No Time for Goodbyes,” a gripping account of his family’s sudden departure from Iran in 1978, when he was just 17.

Tony wrote his piece for Denizen, the online magazine for Third Culture Kids — kids who grew up in a culture or cultures other than their own.

Tony now lives on the Big Island of Hawai’i, so our fete in his honor, which has just begun, consists of a min-luau with traditional foods, mai-tais, and a hula performance.

You will also have a chance to engage with Tony directly as he’s agreed to respond to your comments and questions. (Mahalo, Tony!)

In fact, the hula dance is about to begin. Watch the series of three dances telling us why Tony’s life is so special:

#1: TRAGEDY

From Tony, we can learn about what it is like to be displaced by circumstance rather than by choice. Tony spent five years of his childhood exploring deserts in Saudi Arabia and three years as a teenager running wild in the streets and hillsides of the ancient city of Tehran. Then suddenly the Islamic revolution occurred, and before he had a chance to click his heels even once, he, along with his mother and sister, were transported back to their small farm town in Kansas, where he’d been born but no longer thought of as home:

The greatest sadness of leaving Iran in 1978 was its speed. Our departures were so fast that there was no time for goodbyes. All of my closest high school friends scattered to the winds. Tens of thousands of Americans lived in Tehran when I was there, and by the end of 1979 there were only 52 left — the American hostages.

#2: TRIUMPH

Tony has done something many expats only dream of: he’s written up his experience in a work of historical fiction. His book, published in February of this year, is called Sons of the Great Satan. It tells the story of an American teenager forging a friendship with an Iranian teenager in the last golden hours before the Shah of Iran falls and the country is engulfed by a whirlwind of chaos. Go to YouTube trailer.

#3: MULTICULTURALISM

Tony and his family embody our ideal of global citizens. His wife is a Kiwi, his son a Cherokiwi, and they live in Hawai’i, a melting pot of cultures from around the world, with influences from China, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Portugal and Puerto Rico, to name a few. And let’s not forget Ziggy, the family pet. He’s a Boxador, a cross between the Boxer and the Labrador Retriever. (Ziggy, assuming Fergus makes it to The Displaced Nation, we’re sure he would enjoy palling around with you.)

And now, it’s time to adorn Tony with leis and drink a toast to his honor. Okole maluna! Cheers, Tony!

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What the concept of home means for expats

9 Comments Posted by on April 21, 2011

My mother was the kind of woman who knew she wanted to be a journalist from the age of 12. She never stopped moving. Maybe that’s why I remember so clearly the one ambitious sewing project that she managed to finish. It was a sampler that lay over one of the chairs in our family home embroidered with the words “Home is where the heart is.”

I’ve often pictured my mother’s needlework as I wandered the globe, first as an expat in England, then as an expat in Japan. Where was my heart, and therefore my home: with my mother, my husband, my husband’s family, or in some of the places I’d visited and connected with? Hadn’t I left a piece of my heart in each of those places?

Then when I finally returned to my native land, having spent as many years abroad as I’d consciously lived in the United States, I was no longer sure if this country could be my home any more, as it appeared to have changed so much.

Misery loves company, especially when it includes Joanna Penn

Oh, why does life have to be so complicated? Why can’t it be summed up on a sampler?

Still, I have taken much solace in knowing I’m not alone in grappling with such questions. Just last week, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my expat-to-repat group now includes the extraordinary Joanna Penn, author, speaker, and business consultant.

I am a faithful subscriber to Joanna’s blog, The Creative Penn, which not for nothing has achieved the distinction of being one of the top ten blogs for writers. Recently, Joanna gave us the thrill of live-blogging the writing and self-publishing process for her very first novel, a fast-paced thriller called Pentacost.

Somehow, though, it hadn’t clicked with me that Joanna was an expat.

But then I read her 8 April 2011 post and watched the accompanying YouTube video, “What the Concept of Home Means for Writers.”

Joanna was prompted to talk about “home” because she’s repatriating to England after having spent the past 11 years in New Zealand and Australia. Not only that but it turns out that Joanna was a so-called third-culture kid. Her family moved all over the place when she was young, including to Africa for a while.

For Joanna, home is a spiritual bond

Joanna thinks outside the box when it comes to publishing, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that she thinks outside the box when it comes to being an expat. She seems to regard her displaced state as par for the course, as nothing particularly special. This is because she sees herself as a writer first and an expat second:

… for me the concept of home is not necessarily where I’m physically based at any one point but somewhere where I spiritually feel I belong…

We could say Joanna is out of the James Joyce mould, as described by Anthony Windram in his latest TDN article, “James Joyce’s Paris.”

This is not to say Joanna isn’t fond of the countries where she’s lived. She says she still has a soft spot for Malawi, where she went to school as a kid, and has enjoyed her more recent time Down Under.

That said, I sense she will be glad to see the back of Oz in some ways — judging by her response to one of the commenters on her “concept of home” post, that she is “looking forward to being without mosquitoes, huge spiders, sweltering heat and humidity.”

Joanna’s mention of the spiders gives her something in common with Robert Pickles, who has stirred up some controversy for his Daily Telegraph series on why he’s decided to ditch his dream of Australia and move back to Blighty — the “vast array of insects … with fizzing wings and frenzied little eyes” being at the top of his list of dislikes.

A tale of two cities that are now “home”

But that is where the similarity between Penn and Pickles ends. Unlike Robert Pickles, Joanna Penn never really thought of Australia as “home.” Right now she feels a spiritual kinship with two cities: Oxford, where she went to university and near where her father now lives, and Jerusalem, which she’s visited at least ten times because she loves it there so much.

What’s more, Joanna connects these two cities in her mind and has done so ever since reading the Thomas Hardy novel Jude the Obscure as a kid.

The novel’s tragic hero, Jude, is a working-class boy who tries to educate himself. He idealizes Oxford (known in the book as Christminster) as a “city of light,” where “the tree of knowledge grows.” Coming over a ridge and gazing at the city of his dreams for the first time, he refers to it as a “new Jerusalem.”

Joanna approves of Jude’s hypocatastasis. (“And did those feet in ancient time…” is now playing in my head.) Steeped in religious studies, she sees both Oxford and Jerusalem as holy cities, worthy of pilgrimages and therefore an intense romantic attachment.

Some parting spiritual reflections

In the week of Passover and Easter, I sometimes envy those people with strong spiritual ties, a pull that I’ve never especially felt.

In fact, the only time I’ve ever wanted to kiss the ground upon first discovering a place was when I landed in Taipei and my husband took me to a restaurant called Din Tai Fung. The dumplings were so delectable that I decided then and there that if ever I were told I had only a few days left to live, I’d demand to be transported to that restaurant for my final few hours.

Could a Taiwanese dumpling house really be my spiritual home? No doubt that explains why I’m writing about Jamie Oliver’s food revolution on this blog whereas Joanna Penn is working on her second in a series of religious thrillers set in Oxford and Jerusalem.

Still, fans of Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman should understand how I feel… My mother would understand it: she was an excellent cook, when she had time for it…

But I digress.

Question: What do you think of Joanna’s notion of a spiritual home? Is “home” for you a place that has captured your heart, your imagination and your spirit? Or is it a place where you live with your nearest and dearest?

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Nation. That way, you won’t miss a single issue.

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CLASSIC EXPAT WRITING: James Joyce’s Paris

8 Comments Posted by on April 20, 2011

Statue of the Republic, Paris, c. 1890, from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

In producing this small, slightly piffling series of blog posts dedicated to expat writing, or members of the literati that we might class as expats, one thing that keeps holding me back somewhat and that is that I frankly dislike the term “expat writer”.

Expat writer: say it quietly to yourself and no doubt it conjures up thoughts about Peter Mayle and his numerous imitators, and do we really want to be conjuring up thoughts about Peter Mayle and his numerous imitators? If it’s not careful, expat writing can seem to be  mostly about a rather self-satisfied soul who is a little too pleased with himself and a little too enchanted with his surrounding. And if, like me, you’re one of those fusty souls who thinks that any writer worth their salt is more concerned with internalising thoughts and emotions, poor expat writers, who seem interested purely in the external, can drive you mad.

I was reminded a little about what this expat writer conundrum when on Twitter I stumbled across a discussion led by some of this parish about whether James Joyce should be considered an expat writer or not. Of course, it seems simple. Joyce spent most of his adult life living in continental Europe. It logically follows that we can lay claim to the title of expat writer for Joyce on account of him being both an expat and a writer. But it seems others would argue that Joyce is not an expat writer. And it is true, I grant you, that he certainly not in the Peter Mayle mould of expat writer. Paris, on the surface, does not seem to have inspired him. It never nourished, on the surface, his work in the way that Dublin did. But we could argue that Joyce needed the intellectual climate of France in the 20s and 30s to feed his own modernist work. If we were to be glib we might say that Finnegans Wake was conceived in Dublin, but Paris was its midwife.

With this in mind, for this week I’m drawing attention to an interesting essay from the New York Times first published in 1982 which takes a closer look at Joyce’s Paris and its effect on his work. An extract follows, but the full article can be found here at the New York Times Website.

N o. 7, Rue Edmond Valentin. A six-story facade, heavy ornamental moldings, a wrought-iron grille door, the Eiffel Tower in sight down the street: the heartland of upper-bourgeois Paris. Poodleland. Beneath the city’s winter overcast, these arrondissements – the 7th, the 8th, the 16th, the 17th -are an endless yellow-gray undercast: bland and impermeable. They are a chilly mask: and for the later James Joyce, who cloaked his turbulence with formality, they made an oddly appropriate residence.

Joyce spent 20 years in Paris – almost as long as in Dublin – but that is like counting the time we sleep. In 1922, two years after he arrived from Zurich, he immersed himself in the elusive dream that took him 16 years to finish: ”Finnegans Wake.”

In ”Ulysses,” the tangible presence of Dublin is memorialized: paving-stone and brick wall, legend and grilled kidneys, gab and gossip. ”Finnegans Wake” is a sleeping packrat dragging the world in, bit by bit. There are slivers of Paris in the pack but they are transmuted, as a dream transmutes the sound of a passing car into an army in flight.

So how is the pilgrim to find Joyce in Paris? There is, of course, his biographical presence, which will be attended to in a moment. But mostly what we look for in a literary pilgrimage is the cafe the characters drank in, not the one where the author did. Not, that is, unless the author is materially incorporated in the characters. We follow the characters Stephen and Bloom in and about Dublin; and we follow Joyce too, because he gave them his meanderings. In Paris, Joyce’s work and his life diverge d. How do you follow the sleeping Hum- phrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose dream is ”Finnegans Wake”? Strictly speaking: by eating an indigestible dinner, falling asleep, and letting the toots and stirrings outside and an uneasy memory infiltrate your dreams.

By the time Joyce got to Paris he was approaching middle age and near-blindness. He was not inactive, but he did not throw himself into the life of the city in order to find himself or his subjects or his art. He had them already. He used Paris for its quiet, its elegance and the congenial atmosphere it offered a writer.

He had company and diversion. He had the material support of Harriet Weaver, who sent him astonishing sums from London, and of Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, who got ”Ulysses” into print when nobody else dared to. He had a reasonable amount of lionizing; but he also had the privacy and aloofness that Paris allows to its lions, because it possesses so many of them.

Mostly, except for brief visits in 1902 and 1903, Joyce’s Paris geography is a series of respectable apartments, such as the one on Edmond Valentin, where he sat and wrote. They were havens of a sort, but invaded more and more by shadows. Literal ones: He had at least 10 eye operations, and at times could barely see to write. Correcting proofs, he would lay his head sideways on the page to achieve the only odd angle at which he still had some vision.

There were other troubles. The lion grew moth-eaten, as his Herculean labors on ”Finnegans Wake” were rewarded by puzzlement and distress on the part of many of his admirers. Even the American poet Ezra Pound, not exactly a clear-running stream, wrote him: ”I will have another go at it, but up to present I make nothing of it whatever … I don’t see what which has to do with where …”

Question: I’d be fascinated to know your own thoughts on what constitutes an expat writer. Do you need to focus your work on the expat life to be one?

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