The Displaced Nation

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THE DISPLACED Q: Does love conquer all — even language barriers?

11 Comments Posted by on February 13, 2012

Last week Tony James Slater, the newest addition to the TDN team, reported on his success with finding love abroad. But it wasn’t always that easy for him. He may be an incurable adventureholic, but when Cupid’s arrow led to a romance with a woman who didn’t speak English, even he had to wonder if there were limits…

Here’s the scenario:

You’re minding your own business in a friendly sort of bar, enjoying the heady mix of cultures as foreigners — a mix of holiday-makers, transients and expats — rub shoulders with the locals.

Suddenly you see him — or her — across the crowded room. This gorgeous individual is staring right at you, smiling seductively. You make contact with those smoldering eyes…and that’s where it ends.

Because she doesn’t speak your language, and you speak none of hers.

So really, what are you going to say to her?

Can romance transcend the language barrier?

It’s a tricky one.

No lo entiendo, mi amor

I have a little experience in this area; once upon a time, when I doing a three-month stint of volunteering at an animal shelter in Ecuador, I fell madly in lust with a gorgeous Latino woman.

Of course she didn’t speak English — there was no one who could for miles in any direction. I spoke no Spanish, because until that moment there had never seemed enough reasons to learn it.

I was captivated by her — she was the kind of exotic beauty you read about in well, the kind of books that I don’t read. Ahem.

So what do you do?

Two obvious tactics spring to mind.

The first is what I did: get horribly drunk and throw yourself at the poor woman, in the hope that you’ll never remember the embarrassment in the morning, if she laughs in your face.

As it happens, this tactic worked — but it should be noted that this is the first time ever, in the history of mankind, that this has been the case. As a rule, I cannot endorse extreme inebriation as a successful method of flirtation; truly, this must have been Cupid himself in action.

The second tactic is to get a friend who does speak both languages to make some kind of introduction. This can help you get over that incredibly awkward initial stage when neither of you is really sure if the other is genuinely interested.

This is the tactic I should have used, as I had a perfectly good friend with the requisite language skills. Of course by the time I’d thought of that, I was already too drunk to pronounce even English words. It was quite a way down the road when I finally got to communicate in words with my new lover, through an interpreter.

At that point, it was great to have it confirmed that she felt the same way about me as I felt about her!

It was slightly less great to discover that she was already married and had two children. But then, that’s the chance you take when you practice tactic no.1.

Thankfully, she was separated from her husband — although as our relationship progressed, I did hear some disturbing rumors that her husband was looking for me…with a machete. I fervently hoped that was just my boss trying to wind me up. (If it was, he succeeded!)

Pidgin Spanish and pantomime…are there limits?

Although she was beautiful, the thought of meeting her again terrified me anew each time. I felt like such an idiot, struggling to express myself in pidgin Spanish and pantomime. I lived in fear of those awkward moments, when neither of us could make the other understand some fundamental issue.

That said, it definitely motivated me to learn Spanish! After every date I’d come back fired up with the desire to study. I never did any studying, of course — my day job (mucking out animal cages) kept me way too busy for that — but the desire was there. The desire, in fact, had never been a problem!

But how far can a relationship really go, when you don’t even have a language in common? Think how close you can get to someone in a long-term relationship; a connection bordering on the psychic, where you’re almost reading each other’s minds — it just doesn’t work when you’re constantly guessing at what the other person is saying.

The Austrian-British language philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked:

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

If he is right, then isn’t the lack of a shared language the very essence of incompatibility?

Relationship experts the world over agree that couples must work hard to bridge communication gaps. Well, when the gaps of linguistic understanding are wide enough to fly a 747 through — and it can feel like a long-distance relationship even when you’re standing next to each other — bridge-building can be something of a challenge.

My Ecuadorian love and I were together three months, after which I left to fly back home. Ironically, we’d each learned just enough of each other’s languages to really get to know each other’s thoughts, hopes, fears and frustrations — the day before my flight to England.

I’d like to open it up to the floor at this point!

Has anyone got any experience of this that they wouldn’t mind sharing? Or an opinion, on whether or not it’s possible?

Can love really conquer all — including that ultimate bad guy of cross-cultural barriers, linguistics?

What do you think?

I’d love to know!

TONY JAMES SLATER is a self-confessed adventureholic. For the last six years he’s been traveling nonstop around the world, working at a variety of jobs including yacht deliverer in the Mediterranean, professional diver in Thailand and snow boarder in New Zealand. Last year, Slater published his first book, That Bear Ate My Pants!, an account of his misadventures while volunteering at the animal refuge in Ecuador. (The book was featured in The Displaced Nation’s list of 2011 expat books.) He is currently working on a second book set in Thailand, while exploring his new home in Perth, Australia.

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post, a review of Matt Krause’s memoir recounting how he met a woman on a plane — and followed her all the way to Turkey! NOTE: Subscribers to our weekly DISPLACED DISPATCH are eligible to win a free, autographed copy!

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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In honor of Valentine’s Day, top 10 travel and expat posts on finding love abroad

9 Comments Posted by on February 10, 2012

My mother used to disapprove of Valentine’s Day. Although she would indulge our need to cut out elaborate paper valentines and bake heart cookies, she always made sure my sisters and I knew what she thought — that it was a fabricated consumer holiday for boosting sales during the winter doldrums.

Despite her remonstrations, I always used to look forward to February 14 — even (especially!) when living outside the United States.

For a start, they have much better chocolate abroad. Plus you get to try new foods that other cultures find seductive — see Kate Allison’s scrumptious post of a couple of days ago.

And your idea of what constitutes romantic adventure changes, too, as you expand your visual repertoire to include the world’s most stunning settings. Indeed, why not pop the question as the sun sets over the City Palace and Lake Pichola in India’s Land of the Kings? (For this and nine other exotic locations for marriage proposals, see Annie Fitzsimmons’ recent article for Forbes.)

In that connection, I was distressed to learn that couples who are thinking of heading to Venice, that magical city of watery landscapes, for a Valentine’s escape may need tips from Guardian Travel on how to avoid feeling ripped off. From the sound of things, it may be safer, and perhaps a good deal more enjoyable, to stay at home and watch The Tourist…

But let’s leave the film discussion for later in the month, when we’ll be doing a series of posts in honor of the Oscars. Right now we’re honoring Valentine’s Day, and I’m urging you all to get into the Valentine’s spirit. To aid you in that aim,  I’ve compiled a list of 10 online articles that address the specific needs of those who are looking for romance abroad. As usual, and as befits our blog’s slightly irreverent tone, they’re from a mix of indie and conventional publications.

Click on any or all categories that apply:

Stories of love on the road

In addition to the story told by TDN’s own Tony James Slater of his own love affair — which sparked off no end of wonderful romantic tales in the comments — I enjoyed these two posts:

1) Modern Love — A Place to Lay My Heart (8 January 2012)
Author: Elisabeth Eaves (@ElisabethEaves)
Publication: New York Times, Sunday Style section (@nytimes)
Synopsis: Two single journalists in their 30s meet up in Mexico to write about tequila. At first, romance seems off the table. Both are commitment phobes: they see travel as their first love and like nothing better than plunging into a foreign culture. But then…something happens, and for the first time, instead of opting for a distance relationship, they take the leap. (Tequila will be served at the wedding.)

2) 10 Reasons Why You Should Marry a Foreigner (Like I Did) (Archived: 10 November 2010)
Author: Corey Heller (@MultiLingLiving)
Publication: Multilingual Living blog
Synopsis: Chances are, if you spend a lot of time abroad, you may end up marrying, God forbid, a foreigner! Hey, it’s not the worst thing that can happen. Some of us have done it multiple times and lived to tell the story. Still others, such as this week’s Random Nomad, Toni Hargis, fell for a foreigner in their home countries and followed him/her abroad. Heller, who met her husband in Ireland (he trailed her back to the US), lists her own ten reasons for committing such a foolhardy act — everything from his “glorious accent” to her enjoyment of a challenge to the fact that he is her true love (now fancy that!). Actually, the one that sticks with me is #3: being a German (no, he’s not Irish), he craves good chocolate just as much as she does! (But perhaps that says more about me than it does about them?)

The practicalities of dating abroad

If you do decide to make someone you meet in another culture the object of your affections, there may still be some practical concerns. These four posts should help you finesse these sometimes awkward moments:

3) Dating expectations worldwide: Who pays? (4 February 2011)
Author: C. Noah Pelletier (@flyingknuckle)
Publication: Matador Network (@matadornetwork)
Synopsis: From Pelletier’s unofficial survey of dating etiquette across nine cultures, we learn that German men excel at subtle flirting whereas Turks are much more direct; French don’t really “date”; Mexican men wear clean suits; and Japanese are into group dating. But on the all-important question of “who pays,” all nations are in agreement: THE MAN!!!

4) Don’t pull out the chair — but do hold open the door! (Archived: 26 October 2011)
Author: Tanja from Germany
Publication: InterNations blog (@InterNationsorg)
Synopsis: Notably, one of Tanja’s top concerns is:

Who pays for the meal? Does one split the bill, or does he expect to pay — or even worse, must I pay?!

Too bad Noah Pelletier’s post for the Matador Network wasn’t yet available for Tanja’s perusal (see #3 above), or she needn’t have fretted — especially as it’s Mexico, where men have been known to TAKE OFFENSE if a woman offers to pay. Also, she might not have been surprised when she received more flowers on first dates in Mexico than in her entire life in Germany. Still, Tanja’s story (which ends very happily) is a tribute to the power of persistence and the efficacy of muddling one’s way through. Just one thing I’m still not clear on: do Mexican men expect you to open the door for them, rather like Japanese men expecting you to let them exit the elevator first? (See her post title.)

5) Ten Foreign Words for a Romantic Valentine’s Day (9 February 2012)
Author: Justine Ickes (@justineickes)
Publication: Culture Every Day blog
Synopsis: So as not to be totally culturally clueless, it’s important to master a few other romantic terms/concepts. In Japan, for instance, if you hear someone say bakushan as they look you in the face, then they’re probably not a romantic prospect. The expression is used when you think someone looks cuter from behind! (If, on the other hand, you hear the word kawaii, things may be looking up!)

6) Sex when traveling: location, location, location (29 January 2012)
Author: Laurence Norah (@lozula)
Publication: Finding the universe blog
Synopsis: Norah illustrates (literally — yet tastefully, I hasten to add) various options that travelers have for “getting jiggy on the road”: dorm rooms, tents, showers, beaches, backs of camper vans, and (best of all!) private rooms.

Lonely hearts in foreign lands

When all the world is going gaga for romantic love, it can be lonely if you’re not doing so well in that department, particularly if you’re already feeling isolated because of being so far away from your homeland. The following four posts should help with that predicament:

7) 8 Empowering Ways a Traveling Single Female Should Celebrate Valentines Day (Archived: 13 February 2011)
Author: Lainie Liberti (@ilainie)
Publication: Raising Miro blog
Synopsis: From LA, Laine has been traveling with her son, Miro, since 2009 in search of a simpler life. When still in the States, spending Valentine’s Day on her own was no big deal:

it was easy to ignore the day all together or grab a group of my amazing single girl friends and have an AbFab marathon complete with bottomless cosmos.

But what about now that she’s on the road? Though the post is a year old, her suggestions — some aimed at those who enjoy solitude (movies, nature, dinner-in for one), and others, at those who would prefer being with people (volunteering, meet-ups) — won’t go out of style any time soon, and are good for any day of the year.

8) Help! Nobody Wants to Date Me! (Archived: 15 December 2011)
Author: Chris Laub (@Travel_rtw)
Publication: Backpacker Savings blog
Synopsis: Chris claims he’s “undateable” because of his need to spend almost half of the year traveling. He’s not proud of that fact:

The truth is I want to be in relationship, but my deeper desire to travel and have fun makes it seemingly impossible.

Still, the travel addict’s life does have its compensations. He’s moving to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, leaving him free to hook up with a Brazilian woman. As he sees it:

…running around chasing women in exotic countries and enjoying no-strings-attached travel romances isn’t a bad alternative

— though methinks he doth protest too much!

9) Offbeat Traveler: Unromantic places around the world (6 February 2012)
Author: Jason La
Publication: Los Angeles Times travel section (@latimestravel)
Synopsis: Kissing a well-kissed stone in Ireland, encountering the venomous Komodo dragon in Indonesia, peering into the Gates of Hell in northern Turkmenistan — after such experiences, being wounded by Cupid’s arrow may seem like light relief. (In addition to his seven unromantic suggestions, La thoughtfully provides a link to the LA Times‘s post on 10 romantic cities, in case you get lucky at some point! Chris — see #8 above — may be in with a chance: Rio is on the list. Venice, however, doesn’t make it — not even as a “dishonorable mention.”)

10) Valentine’s Day — the perfect holiday for one (4 February 2012)
Author: Amy Chavez (@JapanLite)
Publication: The Japan Times (@japantimes)
Synopsis: On Valentine’s Day in Japan, the custom is for men to get showered in chocolates by women — women have to hold out for “White Day” when men allegedly return to the favor. But as Chavez points out in her Japan Times column, Japanese women tend to buy just as much chocolate for themselves as they do for the guys, while also indulging themselves with a Hello Kitty trinket or two. I believe that Chavez intends the title of her column — “the perfect holiday for one” — to sound ironic as she finds the Japanese interpretation of Valentine’s Day a little twisted. Perhaps I lived in Japan too long, but I don’t agree. Or maybe it is twisted, but I can hardly blame the Japanese for that. (The other day I noticed that an Asian publication was carrying a story about how the Bronx Zoo encourages people to pay money to give their sweetheart’s name to one of its Madagascar hissing cockroaches, in time for Valentine’s day. After being bombarded with information like this, is it any wonder that Asian women would prefer to buy their own Valentine’s gifts?) What’s more, all women (and not just those who are single) stand to learn a lot from our Japanese sisters: 1) if you can’t rely on the men, then eat chocolate; and 2) never mind diamonds, Hello Kitty charms are a girl’s best friend!

Bonus feature: “Valentine’s Day and the displaced life”

Living abroad can have other benefits besides finding your perfect mate. It can also help you adopt a more expansive vision of life’s rich tapestry and where “love” fits in. To take but one example, the Sufi notion of love entails falling in love with ideal attributes rather than particular people — which, as Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol points out in his article “The Shariah of Love”, leads to a great deal less heartache than Western “romantic love.” (Hmmm…the idea that love shouldn’t hurt — how novel!)

Another potential benefit of the displaced life is the joy in discovering what it feels like to love an actual place, as was the case for British journalist Jane Alexander when she visited Jerusalem. Despite not being religious, she fell smack dab in love with the city and all it stands for:

Love. Total overwhelming Love. Unconditional love that sweeps away all prejudice, all difference, all wanting, all needing, all sense of I, of ego.

Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? And no need to worry if it’s unrequited…

What’s more, travel can also open your mind to rebooting Valentine’s Day itself. This year Causes.com is on a mission to rename it as Generosity Day, and I noticed just now that one of the causes we featured on this blog during Global Philanthropy Month, Free the Children, is asking for donations to empower Kenyan women in bee-keeping businesses. “Bee my Valentine!” sounds a great deal less corny when you know it’s for the sake of others on the globe whose lives are less fortunate…

Come to think of it, could my mother have been right about Valentine’s Day being overly commercial? Best to make that up to her on Mother’s Day — except she doesn’t believe in that either! 😦

* * *

Question: Can you suggest any other posts that should have made the list?

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, when Tony James Slater, who is rapidly becoming our in-house expert on searching for love in foreign lands, takes up the timely topic of transcending language barriers with potential partners.

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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Yak-skin footware & the youthful quest for spiritual wisdom

8 Comments Posted by on January 20, 2012

We welcome back Lawrence Hunt to the Displaced Nation, who wrote a popular post for us in November about why the UK’s educated youth seems so preoccupied with voluntourism. Today he broadens this theme to include the quest for spiritual enlightenment.

At a comedy night I went to last year, the comedian’s most popular jokes were aimed at a student who’d made the mistake of sitting in the front row in sandals:

“He spent so long trying to find himself that he lost his shoes!”

As the number of people taking time off to travel has rocketed over the years, so, too, have the numbers of those in my age category (late teens, early twenties) who come back claiming to have achieved their ultimate epiphanies of self-actualization, forcing the fact of their higher spiritual consciousness onto the rest of us in the form of yak-skin footwear.

Meanwhile, companies like STA Travel make millions every year capitalizing on the appeal of the youthful spiritual quest — have a look at the description of one of their most popular holidays, the India Spiritual Trek:

Come face-to-face with a spirituality far removed from the shallow complexity (my emphasis) of the Western world, as you interact with some particularly special people in some truly unique places.

A recurrent theme in pop culture

One of Wes Anderson’s most financially successful films so far, The Darjeeling Limited, is about three rich brothers who board a train from Darjeeling to rediscover their lost kinship with each other.

So begins a strict itinerary of traditional rituals and indulgence in the simplicity of the local lifestyle, as Owen Wilson’s character throws out the odd patronizing comment: “These people are beautiful!”

My mother’s response on finishing watching Darjeeling with me was to promptly drop her jaw and say, in a low voice: “We have to go to India and see those mountain temples, Lawrence.” (My mother has talked for a while now of taking her own gap year, much to my concern — the men in Darjeeling have a mother who joins an Indian monastery and refuses to come home.) Fortunately, she is also able to laugh at Mitchell and Webb’s “gap year backpacking idiots” sketch.

And let’s not forget teen dance queen Alanis Morissette‘s hit single ‘Thank You,” which she released after taking time out from non-stop touring to travel in Cuba and India. At one point, she sings: “Thank you, India.” Did she actually imagine a billion voices chiming out as one from the subcontinent: “Any time, Alanis — we’re here to help”?

A recurrent theme in history

The idea of self-improvement through travel has existed for hundreds of years in such romantic idealizations as the Wild West, Darkest Africa and the Orient. It arises out of a conviction that as our civilization develops, we lose touch with our true selves, what life is all about. And if civilization is to blame, then it is elsewhere, in uncivilized cultures, esoteric religions or even ancient history where we find “reality.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that in the large European states, man had become alienated from the authentic self and preoccupied with meaningless duties, such as the duplicitous regard for manners that hid an underlying ruthlessness in bourgeois society. Primitive man — the so-called the “noble savage” — had been happier and more self-sufficient.

These trends coalesced in the hippie movement of the 1950s and 60s, which directed criticism towards almost every aspect of modern society: its dull consumerism, the system of capitalism itself, our susceptibility to totalitarian “brainwashing” and the war technology which had lain waste to the entire world during World War II and subsequent wars. What was demanded was not reform, but in fact a wholesale replacement of Western culture and ways of thinking.

Probably the most crippling flaw of the sixties counterculture was the total inability of its adherents to agree on a dominant theory of what should actually be replacing Western culture and politics. In fact, one of the defining values of this movement was that one should be free to choose one’s own alternative lifestyle. Everyone was encouraged to practice their own form of escapism.

Some rebels escaped through the fantasy literature of J.R.R. Tolkien, yearning for an enchanted world that existed in a time before the “rule of men” had begun. Others experimented with drugs, hoping to reach new planes of existence mentally. Some even tried to live the life that Rousseau had idealized, living primitively off the land in communes.

And still more looked for escape through non-Western cultures, where magical practices still proliferated, repressive Western structures were not in control, and religion was more spiritual, in touch with the flow of the universe. The Book of the Dead and the I Ching became new Bibles, and a huge amount of longing was directed vaguely in the direction of the undeveloped, non-Western world.

Eastern religions and their mystique

This last form of escapism received a fillip in the early 1980s with the publication of Duane Elgin’s book on voluntary simplicity — which spawned a movement that continues to this day.

On the recent BBC programme How to Live a Simple Life, Peter Owen-Jones pointed to Elgin’s chart comparing the “Voluntary Simplicity World View” with the “Industrial World View.” The latter sees material acquisition as a primary life objective and determinant of social position, while the former seeks a balance between material and spiritual needs, concentrating on conservation and frugality as mediated through self-sufficient communities and a process of “inner growth.”

Interestingly, in Elgin’s survey of “inner growth” processes, only 20 percent of those questioned cited traditional Western religions, while 55 percent claimed to use techniques like Zen or Transcendental Meditation.

What is it these religions offer that Western faiths don’t? According to Elgin, traditional churches are hierarchical institutions of mass society, something he resolutely opposes. By contrast, Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism are religions of liberation, in that they aim to alter our consciousness through self-reflection.

Let’s get real

These opposing views of East and West are widely taken for granted in our culture, but how far do they reflect the reality?

In my own, admittedly rather limited travel experience — I was a gap-year student in China for six months — the perception of the East as a place where spirituality is generally prized above materialism is pure fairytale, the world of Beat literature and Kung Fu movies.

I remember my first day off the train in Beijing. It was April 2008, and Wángfǔjǐng, the shopping district in the city centre, was buzzing with the anticipation of hosting the largest Olympic Games in world history. The atmosphere of national pride was tangible, present in every colorful corner of the street. Buildings were plastered with billboards from companies proudly claiming to be sponsors of the games. Most of them featured the smiling face of Chinese national treasure Jackie Chan — Jackie Chan water, Jackie Chan ice cream, Jackie Chan baby wipes. I found myself wandering through a dazzling labyrinth of colorful street vendors and market stalls, heckled constantly by cries of “You want to buy souvenir? You want to buy hat? Come see!”

Some vendors refused to take my bewildered, negatory smiles for an answer and grabbed me by the hand, trying to hold me in place. “Buy everything” I read on a sign above my head in yellow lettering in English and Chinese. Presumably a poor translation of “We sell everything,” but I didn’t take long to be convinced. That said, I’m not sure they were selling any yak-skin footwear!

A banquet to write home about

Something which I noticed when staying with some Chinese friends was the pride they show in wasting food, something that’s anathema to my Western upbringing. My host, when taking me out to a restaurant, ordered an extravagant number of dishes — including shark fin soup, which they paid a huge amount for but no one touched for the entire meal. Out of politeness, I had a small bowlful — it was unbearably bitter, and the family laughed cheerfully as I struggled with it.

The dish had been ordered merely because it was expensive and they had wanted to impress me. It struck me that by contrast, my parents would never have allowed us to order anything they didn’t fully intend to finish. If anything, the attitude at home towards consumption is marked by its lack of brazen excess.

At the risk of becoming the thing I’ve set out to ridicule, let me offer some closing words:

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.

Who said that? Why, Aristotle, a philosopher whose ideas gave birth to the so-called shallow complexity of the Western world.

Readers, what do you think of Lawrence Hunt’s thesis? Are Eastern cultures more spiritual than ours, or are we too easily swept up in the allure of the exotic?

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, a travel yarn on spiritual escapes by a guest blogger.

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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The Displaced Q: Can travel and the expat life lead to a healthier diet?

17 Comments Posted by on January 17, 2012

Part of the formula for feeling better about oneself — TDN’s theme this month — is eating a healthier diet. Today Tony James Slater, the newest addition to our team, poses a Displaced Q on the eating habits of travelers and expats.

I’m not sure what qualifies me to pose a question about food, since my idea of healthy eating is using low-fat mayonnaise on a full English breakfast — but hey, I’d love to hear your side of the story…

I think I have what you might consider to be a rather controversial point of view, which is that traveling and leading an expat lifestyle can lead to a healthier diet — but for the most part do not.

WAIT! Before you hit the comments with that vitriolic reply — hear me out. I may be wrong (my past wrongness is legendary), but I believe I have a point. Tell you what — I’ll lay out my opinion (which I’ve put a lot of thought into), and then you can tell me if I’m talking out of my asparagus.

Chopping veggies: too much like hard work?

Plenty of people see travel as a way to reinvent themselves. I should know, I did exactly that, as explained in my last post about volunteering in Ecuador.

But reinventing your lifestyle is one thing — your diet is something else. I think statistically speaking (and I’m no expert) 99.9% of us have struggled with our diet at some point or other.

It’s not a change like deciding to make more “me time,” or adding the beach into your daily itinerary. We struggle because changing our diet requires that dreaded thing: commitment.

And the enemy of commitment is convenience.

Ah, convenience…the single biggest factor driving the fast-food phenomenon worldwide. Is it easier to swing past KFC on your way home from work than it is to get home and start chopping vegetables?

You bet it is.

What’s more, this instant gratification factor appeals not just to the terminally lazy — like me — but to an awful lot of people in a world where free time is increasingly under pressure.

The food you know…

So you’re in a new country. You tour the neighborhood. What’s the first thing you’ll recognize — whether in Cairo, Bangkok, Buenos Aires or Paris? Chances are it’ll be a fast-food joint. It’s just so easy. Nothing new to challenge you — either your palette or your linguistic skills. Just point and grunt, to be rewarded with something you could have bought within five minute’s drive of the last place you lived.

Don’t get me wrong. As I travel I make an effort to eat everything — including, on occasion, things I shouldn’t. (Apparently, the wings stay on the locust, even if they have got most of the soy sauce on them — who knew?)

Still, there is the part of me that, after a few days dining from street vendors, really craves a burger. Or a pizza. Something Western, that tastes of home.

As British writer George Miller once remarked:

The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you’re hungry again.

Asia — the exception?

There are certain countries with a deserved reputation as a mecca for healthy eating — yes, I’m talking about Japan here. In fact, most Asian countries are considered to have a healthy yet appealing diet, with an emphasis on seafood and simplicity.

For the better part of a year in Thailand I lived like a king. Fresh fruit for breakfast every morning, compared with jam on toast, bacon and sausage back home — score one for healthier eating!

Simple meals of chicken and rice, or noodles from street vendors were my staples. They were as cheap as they were delicious!

And yet… It was all fried. The rice was fried. The chicken was fried. The noodles… Is it possible to overdose on MSG?

I had no control over how my food was cooked and no kitchen to prepare it myself. Back home I fry things occasionally, but I’m a path-of-least-resistance kinda guy. My food isn’t always healthy (burgers, schnitzels, chips) — but I’d stick it in the oven or grill it. So the score…is tricky to say on this one.

And then there’s the booze…

Thailand is famous — at least amongst the 18-35 age group — less for its culinary marvels than for its parties. Score one (a large ONE) + a whisky chaser for the unhealthy diet.

Do you drink more when you travel? Cocktail by the pool? Glass of wine or two in the evening, because why not — you feel so free? Yeah, you do. Don’t worry — so does everyone else. But that’s another nail in the coffin of a healthier diet…

(And yes, I know all about anti-oxidants. That’s how I justify red wine too.)

* * *

In my experience, to eat anything decent, you have to work for it. The easier food is to find, and the more recognizable, the less healthy it tends to be.

If you’re prepared to experiment with different recipes and ingredients, different cooking apparatus and utensils, to learn a few words in the local language and risk using them in the market — then you can manage it.

But if you’re prepared to do all that for the sake of eating healthy, chances are you do it at home too, in which case you’ll eat healthily wherever you are. And probably outlive me by at least a decade.

So, as I said at the beginning: can travel encourage one to adopt a healthier diet? Well, I think it can…but doesn’t.

Am I full of carp? Am I talking sushi? What do you think?

TONY JAMES SLATER is a self-confessed adventureholic. For the last six years he’s been traveling nonstop around the world, working at a variety of jobs including yacht deliverer in the Mediterranean, professional diver in Thailand and snow boarder in New Zealand. He even deprived the world of sandalwood one tree at a time in Australia (though he still maintains it was an accident). Last year, Slater published his first book, That Bear Ate My Pants!, an account of his misadventures while volunteering at the animal refuge in Ecuador. (The book was featured in The Displaced Nation’s list of 2011 expat books.) He is currently working on a second book set in Thailand, while exploring his new home in Perth, Australia.

STAY TUNED for Wednesday’s post, an opinion piece by Lawrence Hunt on what drives today’s young people to seek spiritual enlightenment abroad.

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: Tony Slater with his girlfriend (now wife), Krista, in an open shack-style cafe in Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia. Krista is eating nasi goreng, a Balinese veggie curry (over fried rice), whereas Tony has ordered a burger (but will it be too Asianized for his tastes?).

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Top 10 expat & travel posts on spiritual escapes

12 Comments Posted by on January 13, 2012

As the holidays draw to a close and a new calendar year commences, many of us find ourselves desperately in need of some “me” time — a chance to reassess our “to do” lists and decide which of our life goals deserves top priority.

Gah?? Did I just write that? Talk about understatements! If you’re like me, you are lucky if you can remember that you used to have personal goals at one point. (My only aims for the past few weeks have been writing x many cards, wrapping x many gifts, hosting/visiting x many relations…)

That could be why Kate Allison’s post on Monday — announcing that The Displaced Nation has dedicated this month to spiritual escapes — was a goad to such debate. Does the quest for spiritual enlightenment require geographical displacement, away from the demands of family and everyday life? And what about those who are already living far away from “home” — do they need to displace themselves even further, to the most obscure corners of the globe? (Wait, aren’t some of them already living there?!)

Having tracked this topic on social media for several weeks, I would like to share my top 10 findings as further food for meditation, so to speak… My hope is that these writers can help us disentangle our thoughts — which might otherwise come to resemble advanced yoga positions — on the best techniques for getting in touch with the innermost core of our beings.

As usual, and as befits our blog’s slightly irreverent tone, they’re from a mix of indie and conventional publications.

1) Meditation vacation
Author: Matthew Green (@MattGreenAfPak), a reporter covering Pakistan and Afghanistan and author of The Wizard of the Nile
Publication: Financial Times, Life & Arts (@FTlifeandarts)
Why it’s helpful: Spending so much time in war zones, Green desperately needed the kind of retreat where alcohol, email — and talking — are all banned. During his 10-day “Buddhist boot camp” at the Himachal Vipassana Centre in the Himalayas, he ended up weeping harder than he could remember, for a reason he couldn’t fathom — but he also had to bite his lip to stifle the kind of giggles he hadn’t felt since school!

2) The Joy of Quiet
Author: Pico Iyer, British essayist, novelist, travel writer, and Third Culture Kid (born in Britain to Indian parents, he grew up in California), who once said: “And if nowhere is quite home, we can be optimists everywhere.”
Publication: New York Times Week in Review (@nytopinion)
Why it’s helpful: Iyer suggests that there’s something in the zeitgeist to make us all in need of stillness at this particular moment — that the more ways we have to connect, the more desperate we become to unplug, and would pay almost anything for the privilege. (Hmmm… Perhaps I should end this post right here?) I also found it interesting that as a writer, he prefers to live in rural Japan,

“in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event.”

(Presumably the other part, which he doesn’t mention, is that his wife is Japanese.) Almost needless to say, Iyer has never tweeted or gone on Facebook.

3) The Threshold
Author: Catherine Yiğit (@Yarzac), a writer who was born, bred and buttered in Ireland but who now lives as an expat (also mother and wife) in northwestern Turkey near the mythical city of Troy.
Publication: The Skaian Gates: Notes from an Online Wanderer (Yiğit’s personal blog)
Why it’s helpful: If you’re serious about bringing change to your life, sometimes it helps to take a “tough love” approach. Yiğit found the kick she needed for empowering herself after stumbling upon a program for women writers called “A Year with Myself.” The approach, she says, is gentler than that taken by the unmercifully profane Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig), he of the author-advice blog Terrible Minds. (Ironically, Yiğit cites a post by Wendig that I’d shortlisted for this top-ten list: 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing Right F****** Now. But then I found Yiğit’s post — and could relate to her yearning for some blend of toughness and forgiveness to help her cross the threshold…)

4) A year in awe over the fabulously mundane
Author: Lauren Alissa Hunter (@SankofaMeLately ), world traveler, former expat in China, and blogger (SankofaMe Lately), currently in search of a publisher for her WIP.
Publication: She Writes (@shewritesdotcom), a virtual workplace for women who write from all 50 states and more than 30 countries.
Why it’s helpful: Wannabe novelists, before making any major changes to your life this year, take heed of this rather cautionary tale. A year ago, Hunter upped and quit her job and booked a one-way flight to China in hopes it would spark her creativity as a writer. But instead of finding serenity, she found “intense loneliness, terrifying introspection, emotional vulnerability.” Still, at least she discovered where “home” is — her native United States. What’s more, she currently finds the mundane simply fabulous.

5) The (hateful) ties that bind: Expats and cultural criticism
Author: Camden Luxford (@camdenluxford), an Australian traveler and freelance writer who is now an expat in Argentina. Note: Luxford has been one of TDN’s Random Nomads.
Publication: The Brink of Something Else (Luxford’s blog)
Why it’s helpful: In her inimitable style, Luxford raises the vexed issue of why some expats can’t resist slagging off the countries where they live. Though she didn’t design the post as a contemplation on the January blahs, it dovetails neatly with TDN’s current theme. Are some of us feeling low simply because we can’t stand the thought of starting a new calendar year in the same old same old country? Or because we’re no longer that thrilled about being a world traveler? Burn-out is a serious condition. If you think you might be a victim, I would suggest adding to the comments on Luxford’s post as a first step to recovery… (In this connection, it’s also worth taking a look at the post Struggling in Seville by Ayngelina on her Bacon is magic blog. Ayngelina was traveling solo through Latin America, ended up in Spain — and then decided she was done with being a nomad and would return to Canada. Her post attracted a whopping 168 comments!)

6) 10 of the world’s best yoga retreats 2012
Author: Susan Greenwood (@Pedalfeet) — Guardian writer, bike rider & blogger (Pedalfeet)
Publication: Guardian Travel (@GuardianTravel)
Why it’s helpful: One of the things that always puts me off considering a yoga retreat is the cost — for which you’ll need some controlled breathing even before you’ve learned the proper technique! Greenwood claims that the retreats on her list qualify not only as inspirational but also affordable. I’m not sure if that’s true, especially if you had to add the cost of airplane travel to the cost of the retreat (most of these places aren’t exactly offering bargain-basement prices). Still, the Yoga Barn in Bali seems surprisingly unpretentious and good value — eat-pray-love, anyone?
Worth noting: This Saturday’s Guardian Travel has a special issue on healthy holidays and “courses that will change your life.”

7) 5 magical places in China to disconnect from the world and recharge
Author: “travelingman” Troy on GotSaga (From California, he is now planning a trip to Peru.)
Publication: GotSaga (@GotSaga), an online community for sharing travel sagas, tips, and destinations.
Why it’s helpful: Having been to Mainland China several times, I wouldn’t put it first on my destination list for spiritual escapes, though it’s such a large country it’s bound to have a few spots that are conducive to contemplation — especially if you’re willing to venture to the back of Outer Mongolia. Though Troy doesn’t completely persuade me — some of his proposed retreats sound rather touristy — I do like the idea of glimpsing rural life amid the bamboo forests of Huzhou, which also boasts the distinction of having the world’s only museum devoted to bamboo. As I rather like things that are in bad taste, I might even be tempted to take home some kitsch bamboo products along with my white tea, for the memories. (Listen, if you can find peace of mind in today’s China, you can find it anywhere! No need for fancy yoga retreats…)

8) Happy New Year and the Clutter-free Home
Author: Jennifer L. Scott (@jenlyneva), author of Lessons from Madame Chic, a how-to book based on her experience of living in posh apartment in Paris for a semester while a student at the University of Southern California. (NOTE: The book was featured on our 2011 expat book list.)
Publication: The Daily Connoisseur (Scott’s popular lifestyle blog)
Why it’s helpful: I love the idea of someone deriving powerful life lessons from a study-abroad experience and then distilling them into a “Top 20” list for the benefit of wider humanity. (I’m also rather jealous — have always wanted to do something like that with my years in Japan…) And what better time to contemplate such life lessons than in January — beginning with the need to declutter. Because they understand the pleasure of only using the best things you own, the French apparently excel at getting rid of excess belongings (or not buying them in the first place). Les gens extraordinaires!

9) Quick and Dirty Japanese: It’s What’s for Dinner
Author: Larissa Reinhart Hoffman (@RisWrites), a former expat in various parts of Japan, with a WIP entitled “Portrait of a Dead Guy.”
Publication: The ExPat Returneth: A place to express what you miss about living abroad (a new blog just started up by Hoffman — she hopes to recruit other writers eventually).
Why it’s helpful: Have you included healthier eating in your New Year’s resolutions? Then you ought to be eating Japanese food, Hoffman states. She also gives short shrift to complaints that it’s too hard to tackle their cooking, insisting that if she can handle making Japanese food (she was a late bloomer to cooking), anyone can. While living in Japan as an expat with her (American) husband and their two girls, Hoffman developed a repertoire of what she likes to call “quick and dirty” recipes (the Japanese might be horrified by the latter adjective!). Her main message:

You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to make home-style Japanese food.

Thank God.

10) The Buzz in Mexico
Author: Melina Gerosa Bellows, editor-in-chief of National Geographic Kids and Huffington Post blogger
Publication: Jan/Feb 2012 issue of National Geographic Traveler (@NatGeoTraveler)
Why it’s helpful: Bellows spins the yarn of her recent trip to Tulum, Mexico. She was on a mission to follow the path of the stingless Melipona beecheii bee, which is now endangered — a cause of concern to all those who value traditional Mayan culture. As she explains:

At risk of dying along with the insect is a beekeeping tradition that for centuries has been sacred to the Maya for its spiritual benefits.

In the process, she slows down and learns to value the art of “just being” (pun intended?). Her story is a reminder of how peace of mind can hit you over the head when you least expect it — in Bellows’ case, while on a work assignment (albeit to a very agreeable part of the world, where even bees behave in a civilized manner).

* * *

Question: Can you suggest any other works that should have made the list?

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, a contrarian perspective on spiritual escapes from TDN contributor Anthony Windram.

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Image: MorgueFile

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Dear Mary-Sue: Holiday travel plans & profound epiphanies

Leave a comment Posted by on November 29, 2011

Mary-Sue Wallace, The Displaced Nation’s agony aunt is back. Her thoughtful advice eases and soothes any cross-cultural quandary or travel-related confusion you may have. Submit your questions and comments here, or else by emailing her at thedisplacednation@gmail.com.

Dear Mary-Sue,

Would love some great travel tips for this holiday season. 

Anon, Vermont.

Dear Anon,

I love this time of year. Admittedly for a traveler it can be a very expensive and chaotic time so I try and strike a balance between travel and being at home. The Wallace household, like many families across the fine, fertile land, has its own holiday traditions that we like to observe at this time. For me, it’s about spending some time with little John, the intelligent one of my two grandkids, he comes over to stay  the weekend before Christmas. We make sure to make chex mix and drink hot mulled cider. We head on over to St Michael’s where we go to the annual Handel’s Messiah sing-in. My soprano leaves a little to be desired, but it’s always great fun nonetheless. John will then help me decorate the Christmas tree and then we’ll go and see all the wonderful lights that my neighbors who haven’t foreclosed have covered their houses in.

On Christmas Eve it’s time for John to go back to his parents, that’s when me and hubby Jake things up and it becomes all about just the two of us. We pack all of our warmest, snuggliest clothing and get on a plane to Reykjavik. Once there we also stay at  our favorite hotel near the Hallgrimskirkja. Once we’ve slept off our jet lag and had a lovely cup of hot chocolate, we then give it large until New Year’s Eve. There’s one club, in particular, we hang out in called the Birch Tree. Now hubby Jake likes his trance to be fairly chilled, but I’m more about old skool Acid trance. When Gunnar is DJing at the Birch Tree he always manages to give a set that balances hubby Jake’s tastes with mine. We then might hit the sauna and do some shots of Brennivin with this South African couple we always meet up with at Christmas, because that’s what the season is about for ol’ Mary-Sue – celebrating your own traditions.

Mary-Sue

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Dear Mary-Sue,

Earlier this month, as I was trekking through the Kilimanjaro National Park, which is in Tanzania, with these local guys who I knew, I was struck by — and the readership of my blog The Wistful Traveler all agreed — a beautifully profound thought.  It was about how fortunate I was to be there at that moment, to be alive in the now. I blogged about it, you should check it out on my blog. There’s some pretty amazing pictures there too. Now my question to you Mary-Sue is this, do you have any profound thoughts like I do?

The Wistful Traveler, Everywhere and nowhere.

Only when drinking Brennivin.

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Dear Mary-Sue,

Thank you so much for responding to my question in last month’s “Ask Mary-Sue.” I was so pleased to be featured that I’m sending an early Christmas present of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for you. Anyhoo, I was wondering if you might want to reconsider your response that you can’t meet up for coffee. I’ve tried calling your office, but they keep saying that you’re out. Such a shame as I really would love to pick your brains over coffee – not literally, ha, ha, ha. That would just be disturbing. You’re my inspiration.

Susie-May, Arizona

Dear Susie May,

Thanks for the present. My unpaid intern tells me that they were delicious. Unfortunately, my calendar is really full at the moment.

Mary-Sue

p.s. You really should stop calling my office.

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Anyhoo, that’s all from me readers. I’m so keen to hear about your cultural issues and all your juicy problems. Do drop me a line with any problems you have, or if you want to share your fave meatloaf recipe with me (yum! yum!). As they say in Italy, “ciao!”

Mary-Sue is a retired travel agent who lives in Tulsa with her husband Jake. She has taken a credited course in therapy from Tulsa Community College and is the best-selling author of Traveling Made Easy, Low-Fat Chicken Soup for the Traveler’s Soul, The Art of War: The Authorized Biography of Samantha Brown, and William Shatner’s TekWar: An Unofficial Guide. If you have any questions that you would like Mary-Sue to answer, you can contact her at thedisplacednation@gmail.com, or by adding to the comments below.

STAY TUNED for Wednesday’s post — another Random Nomad in our global philanthropy series.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe to The Displaced Dispatch, a weekly round up of posts from The Displaced Nation, plus some extras such as seasonal recipes and occasional book giveaways. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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CLASSIC DISPLACED WRITING: Albert Schweitzer, early humanitarian & medic without borders

Leave a comment Posted by on November 25, 2011

Fifty years ago, “Albert Schweitzer” was a household name. Nowadays it is hard to find anyone who knows who he is. But given our current theme of looking at those who’ve displaced themselves on behalf of humanitarian causes, today I would like to resurrect this great man for the purpose of honoring him with a membership in our Displaced Hall of Fame.

Were he still alive, Schweitzer, a brilliant theologian and musical genius who received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy known as Reverence for Life, might not be all that flattered.

Then again, considering that he chose to spend much of his time living simply and without pretension in Africa, is it too far fetched to think he’d “get” what the Displaced Nation is all about? He might even have a good wheeze at learning of his elevated status among our citizenry…

A displaced early life

Schweitzer was born in 1875 in Alsace, which at that time belonged to the German Reich (it would change hands four times between France and Germany over the next 75 years).

According to Professor J. Rufus Fears who has lectured on Schweitzer for the Teaching Company:

Alsatians are their own people — neither French nor German, though they like to say they eat as much as the Germans and as well as the French.

Did being born an Alsatian give Schweitzer a head start on leading a displaced life? It’s tempting to think so. Curiously, although he spoke two languages — actually, three: Alsatian (a dialect of German), German and French — he professed not to believe that anyone was ever truly bilingual. He maintained that a person’s true native tongue could be discovered by asking:

What language do you count your change in when you give someone a dollar bill?

A displaced career

For our ceremony inducting Schweitzer into the Displaced Hall of Fame, we would do well to choose one of Bach’s organ works. While still in his twenties, Schweitzer distinguished himself not only in his chosen field of theology, but also as an organist and musicologist who specialized in Bach.

He wrote two early works that established his reputation in both of these fields: The Quest for the Historical Jesus (German, 1906; English translation, 1910), arguing that Jesus was human, not divine; and J.S. Bach (enlarged German edition 1908; English translation, 1911), a study of the life and art of Johann Sebastian Bach.

As if being an accomplished theologian and notable organist weren’t displaced enough, while still in his twenties, Schweitzer decided he would go out into the world and devote his life to humanity rather than remaining locked up in the cloisters of academe.

Upon turning 30, he shocked and horrified his parents and friends by declaring his intention to become a medical student in preparation for the life of a physician in French Equatorial Africa.

While studying medicine, he married Helene Bresslau, who although a scholar herself, became a trained nurse in order to share her husband’s life in Africa.

In 1913 the couple set sail from Bordeaux for what today is Lambaréné, Gabon.

The conditions the Schweitzers faced were desolate in the extreme. The climate — characterized by fiercely hot days, clammy nights and seasonal torrents of rain — was appalling. Besides the usual diseases, the natives were suffering from leprosy, dysentery, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, malaria, yellow fever and animal wounds.

But the couple persisted through thick and thin (including a period of being interned during World War I), setting out to build a hospital on the grounds of the Lambaréné station of the Paris Missionary Society (they would later move the hospital to an even more remote spot).

Eventually, Schweitzer’s wife went back to Europe to raise their daughter, while Schweitzer himself carried on working in, and on behalf of, this remarkable medical facility until his own death in 1965. By then the compound had grown to more than 70 buildings, 350 beds and a leper village of 200, and the hospital was staffed by 3 unpaid physicians, 7 nurses and 13 volunteer helpers.

(It still exists today as the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, one of the leading research centers in sub-Saharan Africa training African doctors in the treatment of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.)

Schweitzer, who passed away in the hospital itself, was buried next to the Ogooué River in a ceremony attended by hospital workers, lepers, cripples and other patients.

An epiphany of hippopotaman proportions

Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be a small recompense for the injustices committed by the African Continent’s European colonizers. In a sermon preached in 1905, he proclaimed:

Oh, this “noble” culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves.

By the time he dedicated his life to serving the natives of Africa, Schweitzer could no longer make the intellectual case for Jesus’s divinity. The French had recruited him to work in their mission as a physician not a pastor (somehow a Lutheran who didn’t believe in Christ was just a little too displaced!). Yet Schweitzer remained deeply spiritual. He wanted to find a philosophy that would persuade others to displace themselves to the most desolate places on earth, just as he had done — separate and apart from a proselytizing mission.

While on a boat trip on the Ogooué, Schweitzer noticed a herd of hippopotamuses swimming in the water, and thought to himself: what purpose does the hippo serve? He decided that the spirit of the universe had made this creature — and that this was reason enough to treat it with respect.

From that point on, he promoted the idea that man, in his quest for dominance, should never forget the need to show reverence and awe for all living creatures.

For Schweitzer, such a belief should suffice as motivation to reach out and help others who are less fortunate than oneself. You can almost sense his relief at discovering this philosophy from the epilogue he attached to his major autobiographical volume, Out of My Life and Thought:

Two observations have cast their shadows over my life. One is the realization that the world is inexplicably mysterious and full of suffering, the other that I have been born in a period of spiritual decline for mankind.

I myself found the basis and the direction for my life at the moment I discovered the principle of Reverence for Life, which contains life’s ethical affirmation.

His Reverence of Life philosophy further led him to warn against man destroying animals (what we know today as “animal rights”) as well as his environment — he was an early environmentalist, who predicted that man “will end by destroying the Earth” (Rachel Carson dedicated Silent Spring to him).

Schweitzer tried to put these principles in practice in all sorts of ways, but the two examples I like best are his refusal to teach his pet parrot how to talk (talking would lower its dignity), and his decline of an offer by a foundation to replace his dug-out canoe with a motorboat for fear it would pollute the Ogooué River.

Schweitzer’s relevance for today’s global nomads

In his lecture on Albert Schweitzer, Professor Fears insists that this early humanitarian still speaks to us. I agree and would add that he positively shouts to those of us who’ve chosen to live much of our lives abroad. For a start, we can find inspiration in his refusal to follow a conventional career path (a quality that, by the way, drove the bureaucrats in charge of French Equatorial Africa crazy).

But the really impressive thing about Schweitzer, of course, is his unconquerable spirit, his desire to do good. Despite living through two world wars, he carried on believing in mankind’s potential to treat life, in all its forms, with the reverence it deserves.

Even after World War II, when Albert Einstein called on him to speak out against the atom bomb, he did so despite his better instinct to get involved in politics (and suffered the fall-out of having funds withdrawn from his hospital when the FBI and CIA began persecuting him for his anti-nuclear-arms-race position).

The way I see it, we expats and “internationals” are perfectly positioned to understand where Schweitzer was coming from. Our travels have taught us that life, whether human or animal, deserves respect no matter where one is on the globe.

But how do we share this knowledge? What do we actually do with it?

As mentioned in my post on Richard Branson at the start of November, for some of us it’s challenge enough to cultivate our own gardens and hope that in doing so, some of our attitudes will rub off on others.

But Schweitzer, whom Fears calls a “living testimony to goodness,” clearly believed in the need to do more. And after a month of celebrating those who’ve done more — see our profiles of Adria Schmidt, Jennifer Lentfer, Matt Collin, and Vilma Ilic — I’m prepared to concede he is right.

To give the redoubtable Albert Schweitzer the final word:

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

STAY TUNED for Monday’s reflections on global philanthropy by third-culture-kid columnist Charlotte Day.

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RANDOM NOMAD: Jennifer Greco, Writer & French Cheese Specialist

4 Comments Posted by on October 19, 2011

Born in: Spokane, Washington, USA
Passports: USA and France
Cities/States/Countries lived in: Washington (Seattle): 1987-99; Louisiana (New Orleans): 1999-2003; France (Cesseras*): 2003-present
Cyberspace coordinates: Chez Loulou | A taste of life in the south of France (blog)
* A tiny village in the Languedoc-Roussillon region

What made you leave your homeland in the first place?
I’ve been a devoted Francophile ever since I was a teenager and knew that one day I would live in France. My husband and I bought a small holiday house in the south of France in 2001 and decided to move here permanently in 2003.

Is anyone else in your immediate family “displaced”?
I have no immediate family members who are “displaced”; however, my grandfather moved to America from Italy with his family at the age of 10.

How about your husband?
My husband was born and raised in New York City. He wasn’t a Francophile when we met, but as soon as I introduced him to Paris, he was hooked.

Describe the moment when you felt most displaced.
It wasn’t just a moment, but every single frustrating minute I had to spend in the the sous-préfecture, arguing with the woman behind the desk who didn’t want to do her job by helping me with my carte de séjour paperwork [visa for staying in France longer than a year].

Describe the moment when you felt least displaced.
The summer night that my husband and I sat at a long table in the center of the village with our neighbors, sharing wine, food, stories and laughter.

You may bring one curiosity you’ve collected from each of your adopted countries into the Displaced Nation. What’s in your suitcase?
From Seattle, Washington: If it wouldn’t spill, a caffè macchiato from Caffe Ladro.
From New Orleans: Mardi Gras throws and Crystal Hot Sauce.
From France: An olive wood Laguiole corkscrew.

You’re invited to prepare one meal based on your travels for other Displaced Nation members. What’s on the menu?
We’ll start out with a specialty of the Pacific Northwest: cracked Dungeness crab and clarified butter. Then we’ll each have half a Charentais melon filled with Muscat de Saint Jean de Minervois — a wonderful dessert wine from Narbonne, close to where I live in the south of France. For the main course, I’ll serve a jambalaya from New Orleans. Then we’ll have (mais oui) a Languedoc cheese course — including Roquefort, Pélardon and Tomette des Corbières. Dessert will be a New Orleans classic: bread pudding with Bourbon sauce.

You may add one word or expression from the country you’re living in to The Displaced Nation argot. What will you loan us?
From New Orleans: Makin’ groceries — meaning going grocery shopping. It’s one of the many colorful expressions that’s part of the local vernacular. I simply love it!
From France: Oh la vache! (Oh my gosh!) This one cracks me up — the literal translation is “Oh the cow!” I can’t say it without smiling.

It’s French Cuisine month at The Displaced Nation. Who is your favorite French chef of all time?
I love Jacques Pépin. He is an honest, down to earth chef, writer and instructor, and his recipes are always delicious. One of my favorites of his is the Skillet Apple Charlotte, a melange of Tarte Tatin and French toast. C’est délicieux!

Like you, Julia Child was an American who moved to France and fell in love with the food. (We have just now inducted her into our Displaced Hall of Fame.) Of the following three Julia Child quotes, which do you most identify with?

1) The only time to eat diet food is when you’re waiting for the steak to cook.

2) The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

3) Until I discovered cooking, I was never really interested in anything.

I most identify with: “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” I believe in living life to its fullest and sometimes that means taking risks and ignoring the fear, whether it be in the kitchen or in life. Our decision to move to France meant leaving our comfort zone and embracing the challenge of learning a new culture. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s definitely been worth it! As for the kitchen — readers of my blog will know that I’m now on a mission to taste every single French cheese. I’ve now tasted 205 (there are 600-1,000, depending on who’s counting).

Readers — yay or nay for letting Jennifer Greco into The Displaced Nation? Tell us your reasons. (Note: It’s fine to vote “nay” as long as you couch your reasoning in terms we all — including Jennifer — find amusing.)

img: Jennifer Greco in Paris, in front of the Louvre (April 2010).

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment from our displaced fictional heroine, Libby, who is taking last week’s advice from Maggie to heart and discovering that Woodhaven is her oyster. (A good thing she’s not allergic to shellfish like her husband, Oliver!) What, not keeping up with Libby? Read the first three episodes of her expat adventures.

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DISPLACED Q: In modern French cuisine, who wins the race — the slow-food tortoise or the McDonald’s fast-food hare?

7 Comments Posted by on October 4, 2011

In yesterday’s post on French cooking guru Julia Child, ML Awanohara wrote about the Slow Food movement, which began life in the 1980s in resistance against big international interests and, more specifically, the opening of a McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Today, on its website, Slow Food states it aims to

counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

Valid and valiant aims in an eco-conscious world that nevertheless marches toward global homogenization.

Slow and steady? Or just slow?

Yesterday, ML also expressed her bemusement that the movement started in Italy, not France — a reaction I share with her, because if one traditional cuisine takes le gateau when it comes to drawn-out toiling over a hot stove, it’s the French.

Learning the nuances of French cooking isn’t something I’ve ever yearned to do. While I am full of admiration for Julie Powell and her quest to conquer all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s tome of French cooking, I have no desire to repeat the exercise myself.

Well, perhaps that is no more you would expect of me. I am British, after all — Brits aren’t famed for their good food, although of course I feel this reputation is undeserved — and I have lived much of my life in America, home of fast foods such as Burger King and McDonald’s.

Do I exist on cheeseburgers and fries, though? Absolutely not. Rarely, in fact. I cook most things, from traditional English cakes and roast dinners to an authentic variety of Indian, Chinese, and Thai dishes. When it comes to French cuisine, though, my repertoire is limited to creme brulee and cherry clafoutis.

My reason? I’m not prepared to spend vast swathes of my evening preparing an eighteen-ingredient, three-page recipe when I can get an enthusiastic reception from my family by cooking a Ken Hom stir fry in one-third of the time.

But no matter the nationality of food I cook, it’s rare that our family does not sit down together in the dining room and eat together. The way I see it, rather less time spent in the kitchen means more time eating and conversing as a family.

Could it be that French cuisine has shot itself in the foot with its complicated nature?

Winning by a hare’s breadbun?

In his 2008 article in The Times, Hugo Rifkind describes McDonald’s as

“France’s dirty secret.”

Three years ago, Paris had around 70 McDonald’s — or McDoh’s, as they’re known there — which is the same number as in London, in a city with a third of London’s population.

Rifkind says:

Stop any Frenchman on the street…and he will shrug and snarl and say that he doesn’t eat in McDonald’s.

But someone does, and it can’t be just the tourists.

Evidence suggests that the image of the French businessman taking a two-hour, multi-course lunch is gradually being consigned to the past, and instead of lingering over a bottle of fine red and runny camembert, Monsieur is adopting the regrettable Anglo-American habit of lunch on the hop.

One oft-quoted statistic is that the length of the average French meal has fallen from 1 hour 22 minutes in 1978 to a mere 38 minutes today.

A sad statistic indeed.

While McDonald’s is trying to cater to the French palate by introducing the McBaguette and the Croque McDo, I feel this is missing the point.

Food is not just about fueling the body.

It is about taking time out of your day to enjoy time and conversation with friends. It should be about savoring the taste of good flavors, not about stuffing a sandwich down your gullet as fast as possible so you can make that meeting at one o’clock.

In Aesop’s fable, the tortoise eventually won the race.

In this race, I hope the Snail does.

STAY TUNED for Wednesday’s guest post by a serial expat who has recently moved to Provence.

Related post:

When a Julia Child-like curiosity about French cuisine leads to a displaced life — bienvenue au October theme

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When a Julia Child-like curiosity about French cuisine leads to a displaced life — bienvenue au October theme

9 Comments Posted by on October 3, 2011

The first time I was introduced to the Slow Food movement was in the land of its birth, Italy. My husband and I were in Florence for the wedding of his niece, and we ended up befriending and dining out with a couple of the other guests: a Chinese-American brother and sister from California who were serious gourmets and would only go to Slow-Food restaurants.

Ever since then, I’ve been puzzled.

Not by the concept of Slow Food itself. I get the idea of savoring a meal that is cooked from fresh, locally-sourced ingredients and that has not been prepared in advance — we’re talking the anti-Fast Food.

What’s more, I had enormous fun in Florence peering at all the restaurant doorways to see if they had a snail symbol. “No snail? Well then we’re not eating there,” I would declare to my husband.

No, what I find confounding is that the movement started in Italy, not in France.

For me, Italian food, with its pizzas, anti-pastas and gelatos, comes fairly close to being the fast food of Europe.

That could never be true, of course, of French cooking. (And what better symbol of French cooking than a snail, btw?)

I feel certain Julia Child would agree with me. An expat in Paris for many years, Julia belongs in the Displaced Nation’s Hall of Fame because of her refusal to be satisfied with her native country’s Anglo-derived plain food consisting of meat and potatoes and two veggies — let alone the fast-food version: meat (as it were), bun, French (quel insult!) fries, no veg.

Addressing just one of these nefarious ingredients, Julia once said:

How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?

For Julia, France was a spiritual as well as culinary homeland. As she wrote in her memoir, My Life in France:

I fell in love with French food — the tastes, the processes, the history, the endless variations, the rigorous discipline, the creativity, the wonderful people, the equipment, the rituals.

A date with destiny

Julia’s first forays into foreign cuisine occurred when she worked for the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA) during World War II.

She was posted first to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and then to Kunming, China. Along the way, she met, and fell in love with, Paul Child, an early example of a foodie. At Paul’s initiative, they entertained themselves by exploring Ceylonese and Chinese cuisine and culture.

The pair married the year after the war ended, and Paul went to work for the American Embassy in Paris — a move that proved fortuitous in the extreme for his wife’s career.

For their first meal on French soil, Paul ordered sole meunière. For Julia, it was an epiphany — “the most exciting meal of my life.” The scales fell not just from the fish but from her eyes. She could see what American WASPs like herself were missing out on: sauces made with fresh herbs, butter, wine, and so forth.

The rest is history.

Bon appétit — say what?

Well, not quite. To be honest, I don’t think Julia’s approach to French cooking ever really took hold here in the U.S. We pretended that it did because we loved Julia so much. We loved her for her jolly-jape sense of humor and melodious voice.

But half the time, we didn’t understand what she was wittering on about.

Now, Julia knew that her fellow citizens were mostly flimsies (her word for people who aren’t serious about food). But she thought that the key to converting us was to provide a step-by-step outline of the centuries-old techniques that the French learn like a language: how to make foundation sauces, how to do a roux, how to lay in flavor, how to be patient.

The blogger Julie Powell tried to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s encyclopedic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a single year. Some say it was a gimmick, but I say, hey, she deserves the fame — including the honor of having Amy Adams play her in the ensuing Nora Ephron film, Julie & Julia.

‘Fess up: when was the last time you cracked open Julia Child’s magnum opus and gave her recipes a try?

Food writer Regina Schrambling wrote in a post for Slate just after the film’s release, analyzing the problem:

Consider the boeuf bourguignon depicted so romantically in the movie… The ingredients and instructions for its recipe span three pages, and that is before you hit the fine print: The beef stock, braised pearl onions, and sautéed mushrooms all require separate procedures. Step 1 involves making lardons and simmering them for 10 minutes in a precise amount of water; seven steps later, the fat is finally skimmed off the sauce, which is either boiled down to thicken or adjusted with liquid if it’s too thick.

And this is considered an entry-level recipe….Even simple sautéed veal scallops with mushrooms involve 18 ingredients and implements and two pages of instruction.

TDN’s October theme

Still, if expat blogs are anything to go by, a Julia Child-like curiosity with France and French cuisine has continued unabated since Julia’s own time. There is no shortage of Americans (also some Canadians and South Americans) who have relocated to France and intend to stay for as long as it takes to learn the art of French cooking at some level.

Partly out of curiosity, partly out of jealousy, The Displaced Nation will peer into the lives — and kitchens — of several of these expats during October.

What is it actually like to make the Ultimate Slow Food your focus? It any less daunting because of living in France and adopting the French lifestyle? And like Displaced Hall of Famer Julia Child, do today’s expats have (or hope to have) a spoon in the soup back here: are they planning to stir things up and convert us?

Readers, do you have any questions you’d like us to explore on this theme? Vas-y! Let us know!

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