The Displaced Nation

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Marriage, cross-cultural style: Two veterans tell all (Part 1)

13 Comments Posted by on July 18, 2011

In the life of the global traveler, one of the most thrilling escapades you can have is a romantic encounter with someone you meet in a far-flung land.

But should your story involve going the further step and hitching your wagon to a person from a completely different culture — well, that’s another level of adventure altogether.

For marriage, you will need the ability to stand by the courage of your convictions.

Or, as one of our Random Nomads, Helena Halme put it in her comment on last week’s post covering this topic, cross-cultural marriage tends to be “for the mad bad and young — or foolish.”

Today and next Monday, one half of each of two cross-cultural couples have agreed to take the floor and answer my questions about what made them take the plunge:


GABRIELA SMITH has been married to Daniel for eight years. She was born in Venezuela to Spanish parents, but ended up in the UK, where she met Daniel and they currently live.


JEFFREY HUFFMAN has been married to Naoko for 19 years. They met in Nagoya, Japan, where Jeffrey, an American, had journeyed for his work. They now live in Seattle.

How did you meet your spouse-to-be?


GABRIELA: We were working for the same company in the UK; we met on my first day at work.


JEFFREY: We’re something of a cliché couple. She was a student in the summer Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) prep course I was teaching in Nagoya. She had just graduated from college and wanted to pursue a second degree at a university in the U.S. and needed to pass the TOEFL to do so.

What made you think that this is the person for me? Did culture have anything to do with it?


JEFFREY: Definitely, Naoko represented a tie to the Japanese culture that I wanted to have. Seattle has a pretty large Asian community, I had taken Japanese at university with dozens of nikkei-jin, and I had been to Japan on visits twice before. But it wasn’t until I went to live there that it all fell in place.


GABRIELA: I arrived in the UK at 23 — marriage was not even in my mind. Additionally, I had no wish to stay in the UK so wasn’t looking for an Englishman to marry. I was going to travel more. I actually had a one way ticket to Italy when I fell in love with my husband.

Did you have any reservations before deciding to tie the knot, having to do with the other person being a different nationality?


JEFFREY: No reservations on my side, probably because Naoko had lived in the States for a year as an undergrad by the time I met her, and because her English was so good.


GABRIELA: Not at all. I thought — and I still think — that culture has very little effect on the “amount of risk” in a relationship. Values are important, of course, and I considered my husband’s values as an individual — not by placing him within a category ruled by his nationality.

How long were you together before you decided to get married?


JEFFREY: A point of no small contention with my wife. We’d been together for four years, two in Japan and two in the States, before I finally got around to asking her formally. Naoko was just about to graduate from Seattle University, and I’d been accepted at Columbia for grad school when I finally woke up and realized the time had come…


GABRIELA: Exactly 12 months after the day we met for the first time. Daniel asked me.

Where were your weddings held? Did you have cross-cultural ceremonies?

GABRIELA: The civil wedding was held in England; from my side there was just me. The religious ceremony was held in Venezuela a week after; from my husband’s side there was just him. The ceremony was in Spanish, a language that he does not speak! We held the reception party three weeks later when we were back in England — again, just me from my side. I even looked for a wedding dress on my own, and was on my own at the hairdressers on my wedding day. People may have thought it was strange, but I never minded. I thought it was all very exciting.


JEFFREY: We were married in my parent’s living room by a family friend who was a county judge. He wrote the ceremony for us, and it was very nice – just family and a few friends. We did a recommitment ceremony a few years later in Hawaii. Naoko didn’t want any kind of ceremony in Japan. She comes from Aichi-ken, where weddings tend to be an extravaganza. (Of course the real reason is that she was embarrassed to be marrying me — just kidding.)

Which makes me think of another question… What was it like meeting your in-laws for the first time? Did you have any awkward moments?


GABRIELA: Of course we’ve had some communication barriers, but mainly been due to my accent. I just have to repeat several times a word, or get my husband to “translate” for me. Ah, and the fact that I never drink tea or eat Christmas pudding seems to surprise his family each time!


JEFFREY: I think her parents and older brother initially took a dim view of our relationship, because I didn’t speak Japanese very well. To this day, my wife is my conduit with her parents (their Aichi-ben still leaves me lost a lot of the time). Overall, though, I think they are comfortable with me as I’m pretty comfortable with the culture.

How much of your married life has been spent in each other’s countries? And have you also lived in countries that are foreign to both of you?


GABRIELA: I don’t exactly have a country as my parents are originally from Spain but I grew up in Venezuela. Daniel and I have yet to live in a Spanish-speaking culture. We did, however, spend six years of our married life in a country foreign to us both: France. Otherwise, we’ve been in the UK.


JEFFREY: We’ve never lived anywhere else besides our home countries, and we’ve lived much longer in the U.S. than in Japan. Our time in Japan as a married couple consisted of three years in the Greater Tokyo area in the mid-1990s.

Are you settled down where you are now, or do you think you will change countries again?

JEFFREY:
Seattle is home for the time being. That said, I know Naoko misses her family. We’ve had some very emotional send-offs by family and friends in Japan. If fortuitous circumstances presented themselves (i.e. we were both offered obscene amounts of money and guaranteed vacation time), we’d be fools to not go. Barring that Disney scenario, we fully expect to spend at least part of the year in Japan in retirement, which isn’t that far off. It’s just eight years until our youngest is in college.


GABRIELA: What attracted me the most to my husband is that he also wanted to travel and live in other countries. I think things would have been very different if he said he wanted to stay in England “forever.” Now that we’ve spent six years in France I’ve realized that the weather really influences the social life and, to some extent, how people behave. It would be easier for my career if I stayed in the UK, but I have always placed my lifestyle before my career. Thankfully, my husband is quite happy with the idea of having late dinners on a terrace, under the sun, with wine and cheese on the table! Being Spanish, I would love for us to live in Spain one day.

What language do you speak with your respective spouses?


JEFFREY: Painful as it is to admit, about 99% English.


GABRIELA: Always English.

Tell me more about your kids.


GABRIELA: We have two wonderful children — a girl, 6, and a boy, 2. They were born in France, I was five months pregnant when we moved. Communicating with the midwives during childbirth was … interesting.


JEFFREY: We also have a girl and a boy, but they are a little older. Our girl is 14, and our boy, 9. Our daughter was born in Kawasaki, and our son in Seattle.

What language do you and your partner speak with the kids?


JEFFREY: The children are just now taking formal Japanese lessons.


GABRIELA: Spanish and English with my children. Occasionally I tease them — and my husband — in French. I must say that no matter what language I speak they all reply to me in English.

We look forward to hearing more from Jeffrey and Gabriela — and their spouses — next week. Let them know any comments or questions in the meantime!

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Cross-cultural marriage? 4 good reasons not to rush into it…

17 Comments Posted by on July 12, 2011

painting of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, by J.W. GlassAs announced last week, The Displaced Nation is honoring Pocahontas this month for the role she played in advancing communications between two very different cultures.

This week, we take a closer look at Pocahontas’s decision to marry the Jamestown settler John Rolfe.

Did the Rolfes have an easy time of it in their married life? History doesn’t tell us, but as the veteran of two cross-cultural marriages myself (first to a Brit, now to a Japanese), I tend to think not.

Sure, the union had its advantages for both parties. We know for a fact that two years after marrying Rolfe, Pocahontas was invited to voyage to England with her husband, where she met many prominent people, including King James I.

We know also that Pocahontas’s father, King Powhatan, gave the newlyweds property just across the James River from Jamestown, spanning thousands of acres.

But being in the mood to play devil’s advocate, today I will make the case for why Pocahontas and Rolfe should have hesitated before tying the knot.

Here are my top four reasons for cautioning against cross-cultural marriages like theirs:

1. Marriage across cultures is rarely seen as one of equals.

Rolfe felt he had to defend his decision to marry Pocahontas to his fellow colonists. Here’s what he wrote in a letter addressed to Sir Thomas Dale:

Nor was I ignorant of the heavie displeasure which almightie God conceived against the sonnes of Levie and Israel for marrying strange wives, nor of the inconveniences which may thereby arise,…which made me looke about warily and with good circumspection, into the grounds…which thus should provoke me to be in love with one whose education hath bin rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in all nurtriture frome my self.

After much soul searching, Rolfe decided he could marry Pocahontas despite her crude education, barbarous manners and different colored skin — as long as she converted to Christianity.

In the above portrait of the couple, by J.W. Glass, Rolfe is instructing Pocahontas in Christian doctrines.

And now let’s turn to Pocahontas. Did she see Rolfe as her equal, given that he was a mere tobacco farmer, and a foreign invader, and she was the daughter of the most powerful chief in the region?

According to historical records, the news of the liaison was well received by the Powhatan tribes, helping to create a climate of peace toward the Jamestown colonists for several years.

I find it instructive to compare Pocahontas with Cleopatra on this point.  Faced with the rising tide of Roman expansionism, Cleopatra seduced Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony to protect her country from being swallowed up. Likewise, Pocahontas may have seen it as her duty to marry John Rolfe, as it meant she could continue working on behalf of her people. (In that sense, Disney may have been right about Pocahontas’s preference for Captain John Smith — but only because he had more power than Rolfe.)

2. The fantasy quotient in such marriages can lead to huge disappointments.

In Glass’s portrait of the couple, John Rolfe gazes down lovingly into the eyes of a young woman with long, straight, dark hair. He seems to be thinking of Pocahontas as his trophy Indian princess — how exotic she is compared to his English wife (who died on the boat coming over).

But what if, at that very moment, Pocahontas is calculating the advantages that could accrue to her and her tribe from their liaison — including representing her father’s tribes to the powers-that-be in London and arguing against their displacement.

Would it crush Rolfe to learn the practical agenda she had in mind for their marriage?

At the same time, though, the painting shows Pocahontas gazing upwards at her husband-to-be. A young girl, she must have harbored a few fantasies as well. Maybe she found Rolfe much more refined than the Indian men she had known — she’d already had an Algonquian husband by then.

In that case, how disappointed she must have felt when, after the wedding, she discovered his habit of chewing and spitting tobacco, overheard him swearing like the sailor he once was, and noticed his tendency to stomp around the place. Why can’t he be more like an Algonquian man and walk as quietly as a leopard?

3. Sons tend to turn into their fathers, and daughters into their mothers — but how can you possibly anticipate this if you can’t read the culture?

Having been married to a Brit myself, I find it amusing to pretend that Pocahontas met Rolfe’s parents before deciding whether to marry him. In my imagination, she, like me, fails to pick up on all the important cues — things like the necessity of being able to produce a Sunday dinner of roasted meat, potatoes, and two veggies, while her husband rests up from his weekly labors. (Rolfe, by the way, is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco from the colony of Virginia.)

Likewise, had Rolfe been able to meet Pocahontas’s mother, I imagine he would have thought of her as a kindly Indian squaw — having no idea of her ability to control, coerce and manipulate others to her will.

4. In times of strife, the last thing you want is a cross-cultural misunderstanding.

We marry for better or for worse, but during the worst of times, most of us could do without a partner who is culturally clueless.

For example, if Pocahontas received word that one of her close relations had died — how would she feel if Rolfe resorted to trying to cheer her up with sarcastic British humor: “Well, at least that’s one less Injun for us to worry about!”

By the same token, if Rolfe’s tobacco crop failed due to drought, he may not have felt like dancing with Pocahontas, despite her insistence it would bring on the rains.

* * *

Most of the above, of course, is pure conjecture, but it is also based very closely on my own observations. I’ve witnessed quite a few romances in the Rolfe-Pocahontas mould — particularly while living in Japan. And I’ve seen quite a few of them turn sour.

I’ve also experienced firsthand how devastating it can be if one’s spouse can’t communicate properly when the going gets rough and you don’t have the energy to make allowances for the fact that they come from a different culture.

In my experience, the most important quality one needs to have for a successful cross-cultural marriage is that of being a glutton for punishment — a quality I just so happen to have in spades.

Not wanting an easy life — that’s what it all boils down to. And, unless you have a calling for handling complication piled on complication, then I would suggest choosing a mate who lived in the same neighborhood as you growing up — preferably next door.

Question: Do you agree that cross-cultural marriages are unusually challenging?

img: Detail of “John Rolfe and Pocahontas,” by James William Glass (early 1850s), courtesy Wikipedia (public domain)

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s RANDOM NOMAD interview, in which our special guest will answer a Pocahontas-related question.

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Two displaced royals, William & Kate, in la-la land

15 Comments Posted by on July 11, 2011

We welcome Emily Henry to The Displaced Nation as a guest blogger. In this post on the royal visit to California that just took place, Emily neatly combines two of our blog’s favorite topics: what Alice in Wonderland can teach us about the displaced life, and how to assess royalty from within a global framework. A US citizen with an English mother, Emily grew up in the UK. She has been living in California, first in LA and now Oakland, for about 5 years.

In Chapter 3 of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice experiences a “Caucus Race,” as the Dodo calls it. This race — run with the intention of getting all of the sopping wet animals dry — goes nowhere but round and round in a circle.

Despite making a ridiculous scene for themselves, the animals treat the affair with as much pomp and circumstance as they can muster. Although there is no clear winner,

“Everyone has won,” declares the Dodo, and “must be given prizes.”

A race with no rules and no winner, but drowned in ceremony and self-congratulation, might be somewhat similar to a royal tour. Watching the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge land in Los Angeles Friday afternoon made me wonder just how tiring it must be to run around in circles in another world — this time, California rather than Wonderland.

When I first heard that William and Kate would be visiting California, I imagined a sunny adventure for the new faces of the Royal Family. After all, I thought we had all agreed that these newlyweds were to be the modern, affectionate royal couple, not a re-enactment of the traditional frigid romance of yore.

They had proved themselves to be sufficiently “unstuffy” in Canada, so in California I imagined them sipping cocktails on the rooftop of the Standard Hotel, running hand-in-hand along the beach, or munching popcorn during a movie premier at the Chinese Theatre.

But then their schedule was released, and it turned out to be a Caucus Race. William and Kate must spend their few days in California running around in circles for the high and mighty: California Governor Jerry Brown was there to greet them from the plane, along with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. A bunch of flowers were presented. No doubt the weather was mentioned, as it would be — no doubt — in almost every instance of small talk throughout the rest of the trip.

Instead of cocktails and a rooftop bar, Friday night meant discussions of “innovation,” “communication” and “technology” at Variety’s Venture Capital and New Media Summit.

If these conceptual, “big picture” lectures weren’t enough to “dry” the couple out, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had an evening with businessmen and politicians to look forward to at the British Consular General’s house.

William, of course, is used to this sort of thing.

But much like Alice, who had arrived in Wonderland only to be forced to listen to a boring lecture on William the Conqueror given by a mouse, Kate must be stifling her yawns in disappointment.

However, she is doing an excellent job.

Perhaps what is most endearing about Kate Middleton is her ability to appease the pomp-loving self-congratulators while at the same time revealing the sense of humor and personality bubbling beneath her regal smile.

I knew I liked her from the moment she flashed a secret smile at William during their wedding as the couple shared a private joke. Amid the ridiculousness of her enormous wedding, the long-winded prayers, songs and sermons followed by more prayers, songs and sermons, Kate seemed to appreciate the funny side. She played her part beautifully, maintaining the airs of the occasion but accepting her wedding ring with an inward giggle.

Alice, too, accepts her self-given “prize” after the Caucus Race with the same sense of irony:

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.

QUESTION: How did Kate and William’s first royal tour look from your displaced perspective — and do you agree with Emily that they, particularly Kate, managed it wonderfully?

Emily Henry is an associate local editor for Patch.com, reporting and editing for 11 hyper-local news Web sites in the East Bay area of California. She is currently running the Berkeley Patch site.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, when we return to our Pocahontas theme and consider some of the perils of cross-cultural marriage.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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RANDOM NOMAD: Simon Wheeler, Steel Automotives Project Leader & Former Cricketer

12 Comments Posted by on July 6, 2011

Born in: Aylesbury, Bucks, England
Passport: English (never ever say British!)
Countries lived in: Australia (Adelaide): 1996-98; California (Newport Beach): 2006-09; Slovakia (Plavé Vozokany): 2006-present
Cyberspace coordinates: Rambling Thoughts of Moon | Englishman’s travelling thoughts from England, California and now Slovakia, Plavé Vozokany… Ahoj !! (blog)

What made you leave your homeland in the first place?
My initial travels to Australia came through boredom of work. Having worked in a large pharmaceutical company from 17, at 24 I realized that I needed to have some new adventures. I am a firm believer that if you don’t like your current situation, change it. When I was asked to go play cricket at Grade A level for the Fulham Cricket Club in Adelaide, I packed my bags and left. Actually, I got cold feet about two weeks before I was due to leave. But then a close friend was suddenly struck ill on a Friday, and sadly died two days later. That was the kick I needed.

Is anyone else in your immediate family displaced?
My sister is now a Canadian citizen living in Vancouver. She has been away from England for over 15 years.

Describe the moment when you felt most displaced over the course of your many displacements.
Can I have two? The first occurred just after I’d gotten married to my gorgeous wife on top of Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. After the wedding, she had to go back to her job in California, while I continued waiting in Vancouver for my visa to be approved. In those three months of waiting, the uncertainty of not knowing if I would be allowed to join her made for very stressful times. We could simply have flown back to England, where a job was being held for me in the City. That would have been so easy, but that said, we have never chosen the easy option.

The other time occurred much earlier: May 24th, 1997. A very precise date, but I remember it so well. I was on the road from Melbourne to Sydney, all on my own, on my birthday, and not one person said “Happy Birthday” or even knew it was my special day.

Describe the moment when you felt least displaced.
I’d have to say right now. We moved to my wife’s homeland two years ago. The culture shock, combined my lack of language skills, was daunting at first. The people, especially her family, have been incredible, but finding a life was very tough. Since we moved here, we have both found jobs in the same company; had our first child, the adorable Matej; and are about two months away from moving into the cottage we are renovating in the village next door to Plavé Vozokany (we’ve been living here with my wife’s parents since our arrival). So, right now, I am on the verge of having all I have ever wanted. To settle into a new country takes time, a lot of time, especially one that is so different to your homeland. I still have some time to go, but with the growing family, a supportive wife, a good job, and soon my dream house, I am ticking all the right boxes.

You may bring one curiosity you’ve collected from each of the countries where you’ve lived into the Displaced Nation. What’s in your suitcase?
From England: My St George’s flag — not because I wish to be associated with rowdy football supporters but because it’s a symbol of my country that I’m very proud of.
From Australia: My Ugg boots from the open-air market in Port Adelaide. I have them on right now!
From California: My photographs from the incredible national and state parks in the Western United States: Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Zion, Bryce, Joshua Tree, Big Sur… I could go on…
From Slovakia: A bottle of homemade Slivovica, a plum brandy strong enough to blow your socks off!

You’re invited to prepare one meal based on your travels for other Displaced Nation members. What’s on the menu?
Whoa, that’s tough… But let me try. To start, we’d have fresh prawns and seafood from Australia. As my main, I’d offer my Mum’s Christmas dinner: turkey, sausages and bacon, Brussels sprouts, veggies galore, roast potatoes, cranberries, stuffing… And if there’s still room, I’d throw in some sushi from Masa Sushi, a tiny, simple, dirty-looking place off 19th Street and Habour in Costa Mesa, California — the host/chef really knows what he’s doing. For dessert, we’d have fresh, homemade cream cakes from my mother-in-law here in Slovakia. It would all be washed down with an Australian white, a pint of Coopers (Southern Australian beer), and a couple of shots of Slivovica.

You may add one word or expression from each of the countries you’ve lived in to The Displaced Nation argot. What words do you loan us?
From Australia: Beauty (said in a heavy Aussie accent). It’s used all the time — but most especially on the cricket fields, after a player hits a good shot or the bowler gets a wicket.
From England – “In England’s green and pleasant land…” We sang “Jerusulem” at my wedding and on many drunken occasions. It always takes me home…
From California: Awesome — but I’d advise that you restrict the usage to things that are truly awesome; otherwise, it loses its meaning. That pair of shoes is AWESOME; that TV show is AWESOME; You are AWESOME — no! The Grand Canyon is awesome — yes!

It’s Pocahontas month at The Displaced Nation, and we’re focusing on cross-cultural communications (or the lack). By living in your wife’s country, do you find that you’re relying on her to serve as your “interpreter” for Slovakian language and culture? Does this place a special stress on the marriage, and if so, how do the two of you cope with it?
Yes, it definitely does. When you go away on holiday and do, say, exploratory grocery shopping, it’s all a bit of fun trying to cope, but when you actually move to the country it’s totally different. So many things to sort out: banks, mortgages, identity cards, driving license — the list is endless. And she has to do all of this. Even if I have to make a trip to the doctor’s, she has to come. When you are sitting there having two people discuss your health, and you cannot understand what they’re saying, it’s very stressful. As I mentioned earlier, we are renovating an old Slovak cottage. But to communicate with all the different workers and tradesmen, again, she has to do it all… You can imagine what a workload she carries for this project, and the uselessness I feel in not being able to help her.

Our relationship, like so many others, works because one of us takes the lead, and in our case, that happens to be her. Imagine Monica Geller from Friends — well, that is my wife. She likes to be in control. Even when we were living in America, she was in charge. So for us, with some blips, it does work. But whenever I want to do things — relieve her of some of her workload and stress — it’s a struggle. My Slovak is improving, but it is not good enough to cope with these kinds of demands. It’s a very tough language, and at 40, I am a poor student.

QUESTION: Readers — yay or nay for letting Simon Wheeler 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 Simon — find amusing.)

img: Simon participating in the traditional slaughter of pigs that occurs in his Slovakian village every year. His comment: “Most village families rear a couple of pigs every year for this purpose. The custom was new to me, and I didn’t like the idea — never ever thought I’d be doing this kind of thing! But it does mean you can fill your freezer with good quality, home-bred meat and sausages, and I’ve gotten used to it.”

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment from our displaced fictional heroine, Libby, who encounters her very first 4th of July celebrations.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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5 proverbs on cross-cultural relations, by Pocahontas

4 Comments Posted by on July 5, 2011

June was Alice-in-Wonderland month at The Displaced Nation, when we discovered that Alice’s “curiouser and curiouser” adventures have something akin to the situations expats and travelers often find themselves in.

But how do local people feel when global nomads land — kerplunk! — on their soil? During July, we’ll be looking at cross-cultural communications (or the lack) with the help of the legendary Pocahontas, one of the world’s foremost experts on fostering intercultural understanding.

As everyone knows — even kids, thanks to Disney — Pocahontas was the human bridge between foreign and local cultures. She helped to connect two groups that were about as different, and as opposed in their aims, as could be imagined: the Algonquin Indians of the Tidewater region of what is now Virginia, led by her father, Chief Powhatan; and the English settlers who’d been sent by the Virginia Company of London to found Jamestown, led by John Smith.

Earlier today, The Displaced Nation performed a special ceremony to invoke the spirit of Pocahontas. She has paid us a short visit, during which she had the following to say:

Chama Wingapo. That’s “Welcome, friends” in the language of my tribe, the Powhatan. “Powhatan” by the way means waterfall.

As you may know from your studies of history, ours was an Algonquian Indian tribe that lived in the Tidewater region of what I understand is now known as Virginia. My father was their king.

Chama Wingapo. I must say, it’s a little strange to speak these words of welcome aloud. Did you know that no one has spoken our language for more than two centuries? It became extinct as we Indians declined in number, dispersed and lost our cultural identity.

Still, I know you’re not interested in the topic of our displacement. It’s just that it was on my mind when I saw you’d just been discussing what some of our descendants irreverently call White Independence Day.

But to return to my mission for The Displaced Nation: I’ve come back to give you some ideas on what building bridges between so-called “local” people and their foreign visitors entails.

Allow me to offer these five proverbs, which represent the distillation of my own experiences:

1. Not everyone you meet in a foreign land will be over the umpsquoth (moon) about your presence in their territory.

I understand you’ve all chosen to travel overseas for your own self-edification, not on behalf of your government’s colonization campaign. And I applaud you for that.

But some of the people you’ll encounter on your travels don’t give two feathers what brought you there. They will always see you as an outsider — not so much displaced but out of place. Nothing would make them happier than if you returned to your own tribe and ceased taking up space in theirs.

Still others will tolerate your presence — but only as long as they can profit from you in some way.

My people, for instance, offered John Smith land for his colonists to live on, in addition to providing the settlers with food — bread, corn and fish — all for an opportunity to trade with them.

Ideally, you will also at some point find someone like me who is interested in forging a genuine friendship across cultures and (where applicable) races. Someone willing to take the time to serve as the intermediary, go-between, guide, translator — I’ve been told that our brethren on the Japan Islands have their own unique term, iki jibiki (walking dictionary) — between you and local residents, with enough skill to ward off the impact of any poison arrows sent your way.

(While on this topic, I have a slight confession to make. I didn’t really save Captain John Smith’s life. Goodness, I was only ten years old at the time we met. What’s more, we were welcoming him into our tribe during the ceremony when I allegedly performed this feat. Talk about cross-cultural communications gone badly wrong! His life was never endangered…)

2. In adapting to another tribe’s ways, you will constantly struggle between respect and disrespect.

Our esteemed descendant Chief Roy Crazy Horse of the Powhatan Renape Nation said the Disney movie of my early life “distorts history beyond recognition.”

While I largely agree with him, there’s one thing that this film got exactly right. I can’t tell you how many times I had the following exchange, not just with Captain Smith but with many of the other palefaces:

JOHN SMITH: We’ve improved the lives of savages all over the world.
POCAHONTAS: Savages?
JOHN SMITH: Uh, not that you’re a savage.
POCAHONTAS: Just my people!

Of course he (and the others) saw me as a savage, too — I was a heathen, after all!

But just like the wind that can blow hot or cold, this strong aversion to our people would sometimes change into something approaching deep love. In particular, the English respected us for respecting nature.

On this point, the Disney movie went a little too far, portraying me as the original — Aboriginal — tree hugger:

JOHN: Pocahontas, that tree is talking to me!
POCAHONTAS: Then you should talk back!
JOHN: What do you say to a tree?
POCAHONTAS: Anything you want!

Still, there is a grain of truth in that exchange. Our animism was something our foreign friends envied, and hoped they could pick up by association.

3. Romantic love for a person of another culture often has tangled roots.

I should know as I was married twice — once to a fellow Algonquian, and the second time to an English settler by the name of John Rolfe. (No, I was not in love with John Smith — another Disney distortion. I loved him as a father, though.)

Did you know that John Rolfe fretted for several weeks over whether to marry me because I wasn’t a Christian? In the end, I converted and gave myself a Christian name, Rebecca.

At the same time, though, John worshiped the ground I walked on. I was his exotic Indian princess. But sometimes I thought he was more in love with the idea of me as a Noble Savage (rather literally!) than with who I was as a person.

4. When a man or woman moves away from his tribe, opportunities await.

I offer up this proverb for any locals who are considering marriages to foreign visitors.

Thanks to my marriage to John Rolfe, I was able to expand my world far beyond its original boundaries. In the spring of 1616, I, Rebecca Rolfe, took a sea voyage to London as a guest of the Virginia Company. They presented me in all my finery to King James I and the best of London society.

But what is life? The flash of a firefly in the night. I fell ill and died just as we set out on the voyage home. In my memory, the English erected a life-size bronze statue of me at St George’s Church — which you can visit to this day.

Not bad for someone who trod upon this earth a mere 22 years… As I understand it, most people must wait many many umpsquoth before being appointed as the ambassador for their nation.

5. Be ever-watchful of the child whom others may judge harshly because of a mixed heritage.

I had just one child, Thomas Rolfe, who was born to me and John just before we left for England. It’s to my regret that I didn’t live long enough to shield him from the inevitable prejudices shown against Indian-white “mixed-bloods.”

That said, he appears to have thrived, even without my help. Among those who claim descent from Thomas today are several of Virginia’s First Families and the wife of one of your presidents, Nancy Reagan — a strong woman if there ever was one.

The limb doesn’t fall far from the tree!

+ + +

Cheskchamay (all friends), I wish you well on your travels, and I bid you, go in e-wee-ne-tu (peace).

There is one Native American precept that lies beneath all five of these proverbs:

“Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins.”

If you remember only this from our encounter, your journey will be a fruitful one.

* * *

Thank you, Pocahontas!

Question: Readers, do you have any responses to Pocahontas’s proverbs — anything to add from your own experiences?

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s RANDOM NOMAD interview, in which our special guest will answer a Pocahontas-related question.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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The Displaced Nation celebrates American — and its own — independence

8 Comments Posted by on July 4, 2011

Today being the Fourth of July, the whole of America is celebrating its independence from Great Britain.

The Displaced Nation is celebrating, too, but in our usual idiosyncratic style. According to the mini-introduction on our site:

Here at The Displaced Nation, we are passionate about the experience of becoming a global resident.

Celebrating one country’s detachment from another, 235 years ago, doesn’t seem quite in keeping with this Declaration of Independence from nationhood of the conventional kind.

So instead of looking back to 1776, two of us are looking back only to this time last year — to a time when The Displaced Nation didn’t even have a name.

Kate Allison:
This time in 2010, I blogged about the Queen’s visit to New York, which tactfully had been scheduled to start just after the Fourth. In my post I described the awkwardness of representing the very country from which America was celebrating its independence:

Imagine gatecrashing a silver wedding anniversary bash, given in honor of your ex-husband and his subsequent wife, and that’s pretty much what it’s like to be a Brit in America on the 4th of July.

And yet last year was better than others had been in the past. The reason?  I’d discovered an online world full of other people who had lived away from their home country for some time, who weren’t sure any more where the heart was, and therefore didn’t know where to call Home.

Two of those people, of course, are my fellow writers, Anthony Windram and ML Awanohara, at The Displaced Nation. When ML first emailed to ask if I would be interested in this joint venture, being a fan of her own site I naturally said yes. But I had no idea what a lifesaver this intense project would turn out to be, during a difficult time for me.

It’s been an exhilarating three months since the site went live. So although I can never quite get to grips with the spirit of Fourth of July, I’m going to celebrate anyway.

Fire up the barbecue, cue the fireworks, and pass a Corona. Cheers!

ML Awanohara:
I was feeling very misplaced, out of place, out of sorts last Fourth of July. I wrote a rather caviling post maintaining that celebrations of American Independence Day haven’t seemed the same since I repatriated to the U.S., after so many years in the UK and Japan.

I had three main gripes:
1) The latest poll showing that most Americans didn’t know from which nation we’d declared our independence. In the version being circulated in 2010, some had actually speculated it was from Japan or China.
2) Inferiority of American fireworks to those I’d seen over the Sumida River in Tokyo. Why hadn’t we bothered to update them?
3) Boring barbecues. At the very least, I thought it was time for Americans to consider expanding their grilling repertoires to include British bangers.

Two Brits who’ve displaced themselves to the United States, Kate Allison and Anthony Windram, read my post — and stepped up to offer their cyber-friendship.

One year later, I’m thinking about how delighted I am to have have joined forces with them in founding a nation for displaced types like ourselves.

What’s more, The Displaced Nation has just turned three months old, as of July 1. That’s nothing, of course, compared to the American nation (whose 235 years is nothing compared to China’s 5,000 years of history, let alone the histories of most European countries).

But surely it’s something in cyberspace?

We hope that you, too, by now are beginning to put down roots in The Displaced Nation, and we thank you for your contributions to our nation-building efforts.

QUESTION: Which kinds of posts would make you feel even more at home on The Displaced Nation site? We’d love to get your suggestions and input.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, proposing a new theme (woo hoo!) for The Displaced Nation to explore for the remainder of the month.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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In search of 007th heaven: A travel yarn in three parts (Part 3)

Leave a comment Posted by on June 29, 2011

We welcome back Sebastian Doggart for the final installment of his story about the pilgrimage he made to Goldeneye, the Jamaican coastal retreat where Ian Fleming wrote all the James Bond novels. In Part 1, Sebastian reports on his clever ploy to gain admission to the birthplace of James Bond. In Part 2, he registers disappointment at the conversion of Goldeneye into GoldenEye, a soulless bolt-hole for the rich and famous. In this final part, he tracks down the original locations where some famous scenes in two early Bond films were shot.

Back on the cactus-studded road, fortified with a cup of 007’s favorite Blue Mountain coffee, I — along with my two Bond girls: my lovely girlfriend, Emily, and our cheeky six-month-old daughter, Alma — renewed the quest to find some legitimate traces of Britain’s greatest spy.

The movie that pays greatest tribute to Fleming’s love for Jamaica is Dr. No (1962). Filmed just outside the island’s capital city, Kingston, on the south coast, Dr. No features the first Bond car chase, as glimpsed in the film’s original trailer. (Notably, I did not encourage our red-eyed Jamaican driver to hit the accelerator and, for Alma’s sake, was relieved to see a large blue traffic safety sign saying: “SPEED KILLS. Don’t be in a hurry to eternity”.)

Also as glimpsed in this trailer, Dr. No also introduced the world to the first Bond Girl: Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder — emerging from the waves, cuddling a conch shell.

No matter that her voice was dubbed in the final film, Ms. Andress in a bikini was a vision that launched a million erotic fantasies, including my own. The beach where this iconic scene was filmed is as hard to reach today as it was for Bond in the movie. Located four miles west of Ocho Ríos, behind the Roaring River generating station, on a privately owned, rentable estate, it is approached by an unmarked track that ends at a security gate. The Laughing Waters stream — in which Bond and Honey concealed themselves — still pours into the sea.

But Bond and Honey’s actual hiding place is now a very unromantic drainage ditch.

In both the movie and the book, Honey’s beach lies on the island of Crab Key, which is Dr. No’s well-appointed hide-out. Bond and Honey make their way from the beach, through a lush forest, where they find a stunning waterfall in which to wash off.

I would do the same thing…

The cascade used for the movie is now one of Jamaica’s top tourist attractions, Dunn’s River Falls. As we reached this reputedly picturesque spot, the first thing we noticed were grotesque conga lines of cruise-ship passengers — mainly American, but with a large smattering of Chinese — clambering over the rocks. How I wished I’d had a Walther PPK pistol to silence the tour-guides as they orchestrated raucous football chants.

(Afterwards, Alma exacted her own ruthless revenge on the commercialized desecration of the waterfall. As we were waiting for our driver to pull up, a septuagenarian American couple, all sunhats and positive energy, approached us. Alma served up her gummiest, sweetest grin to the lady, whose tired face melted. “Awww,” she cooed, “you are the cuutest ba–“, at which moment she stumbled sharply and fell face first on to the asphalt. A blackish red liquid oozed from her mouth. Emily shielded Alma’s gaze from the horror. The husband yelled for help. A call went out to out to an ambulance, which — do they have one permanently stationed at the Falls to handle tourists tumbling down the rocks? — arrived within minutes. The lady was carried into the back of the ambulance, as her husband asked a fellow cruise passenger to tell the captain not to leave until she had been patched up and discharged.)

Dr. Julius No’s lair was where he entertained Bond and Honey for dinner…and concealed the laser that could disable American missiles. It also contained the nuclear reactor where he would meet his death, sinking into the boiling liquid from which he was unable to escape because of his metal hands.

The building used for the reactor’s exterior is a bauxite plant that sits beside the main road on the crescent harbor of Discovery Bay. It’s owned and operated by the American company Kaiser. Beneath its russet-stained dome is where the “red gold” that is Jamaica’s second-leading money earner after tourism is transformed into aluminium for export to U.S. refineries.

The other movie where Jamaica plays a major role is Live and Let Die (1974), the first film to star Roger Moore as James Bond.

Jamaica stands in as the Louisiana bayou for the classic scene in the crocodile farm owned by the evil Mr. Big. In the film, Mr. Big’s real name is Kananga, which was taken from real-life crocodile wrangler Ross Kananga, who was the double for Moore in the scene where Bond escapes by running over a phalanx of crocodiles.

In this clip you can see all five takes of Kananga performing this perilous stunt for Moore. The location was an actual crocodile farm called Swamp Safari, near the town of Falmouth. (It was being refurbished when we visited and is due to re-open next year.)

In Live and Let Die, Jamaica is also the fictional Caribbean island of San Monique. In the original novel, Bond comes here to track down what his MI6 boss, M, believes to be a stash of gold that was originally amassed by the notorious pirate Henry Morgan, himself an early foreign resident of Jamaica. That gold was being used by the criminal network SMERSH to fund nefarious activities in America.

In the movie, Kananga’s base was conceived of as a cathedral-like cave beneath a cemetery. It was here where the infamous drug lord kept his submarine. And it was here, in a shark-infested lagoon, that Moore kills Kananga by stuffing a bullet of compressed air down his throat, causing him to explode.

The Kananga scenes were shot in the real-life Green Grotto and Runaway Caves near Discovery Bay. They comprise a network of limestone caves and a limpid lake, 120 feet below sea level. Originally a Taíno place of worship, the caves had a recent incarnation as a nightclub — but after revelers damaged the stalactites, it was closed down. Today, tour guides are scrupulously protective of the green algae on the walls.

As my Bond girls and I wound up our 007 tour and headed back to New York, I was re-energized to write my own Bond novel. It will begin with our hero discovering that his mother, whom he has not seen since he was very young, is alive but has been kidnapped by a mysterious criminal gang.

With Bond’s fascination for women clearly linked to an Oedipal complex and an impossible love for his mother, this will set up the highest stakes of any 007 story ever. In an extraordinary final twist, his mother will be revealed as none other than…M herself!

M for Mummy! Genius!

What do you think? Will this effectively reboot the Bond franchise?

img: The intrepid Sebastian Doggart with his equally intrepid “Bond girls,” girlfriend Emily and their daughter Alma, snapped in front of Dunn’s River Falls, Jamaica, with conga lines of cruise-ship passengers in the background.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment from our displaced fictional heroine, Libby, who, having just said good-bye to her London home, is about to embark on her long-anticipated relocation adventure.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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DISPLACED Q: Wimbledon — is it an anachronism in today’s international sporting world?

4 Comments Posted by on June 28, 2011

Given that Fred Perry was the last British man to win a Wimbledon singles event (1936) and Virginia Wade the last British woman (1977), the British public’s enthusiasm for this rather quaint championship is surprising. Then again, nothing fuels their enthusiasm as much as cheering on the underdog, and goodness knows, there are underdogs aplenty for them at Wimbledon.

Every now and then, a British competitor with a sniffing chance at victory will come along and be vigorously rooted for. Alas, no amount of national pride will change the inevitable outcome of (Andy Murray excepted) the Brit’s hangdog expression as he packs away his racquet and towel after losing 6-0 6-0 6-0 on an outside court to an American or Rumanian.

As Clive James, the Australian writer and broadcaster, pointed out:

“A traditional fixture at Wimbledon is the way the BBC TV commentary box fills up with British players eliminated in the early rounds.”

Perhaps different countries are wired for different sports? Czech-born Martina Navratilova, nine times winner of Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles, thinks not:

“I’m an American. You can’t go on where you were born. If you do, then John McEnroe would be a German.”

John McEnroe (born to American parents in West Germany) caused controversy at Wimbledon in 1981, when he loudly criticized a line call and called umpire Ted James “the pits of the world.”

Despite being named by Sports Illustrated as one of the Top 10 Men’s Tennis Players of All Time, McEnroe fears the reputation of his temperament will outlast that of his talent:

“I want to be remembered as a great player, but I guess it will be as a player who got angry on a tennis court.”

For those who say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, McEnroe disagrees:

“Princess Diana, she used to come watch the tennis [at Wimbledon]. And even though she had it 1,000 times worse than I ever did, she pulled me aside a few times and said, ‘I really feel for you.'”

Meeting the Royal Family is something that doesn’t happen too often at, say, the U.S. Open. Perhaps it would be better if it did. Serena Williams, who has her own reputation for putting her verbal equipment in gear ahead of time, describes a Wimbledon meeting with Queen Elizabeth:

“I was supposed to say, ‘Your Majesty.’ I totally choked. I was like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you’, total American style. And then she started talking. Then I was like ‘Your Majesty’ while she was talking… Maybe she’ll remember me.”

Undoubtedly. Serena should have heeded Jimmy Connors’ rueful comment nearly 30 years ago:

“New Yorkers love it when you spill your guts out there. Spill your guts at Wimbledon and they make you stop and clean it up.”

Some international tennis players remain unimpressed by the oldest, and to some the most prestigious, tennis tournament in the world. Russian player Nikolay Davydenko says:

“Wimbledon is the world’s most boring tournament. There’s hardly anything to do apart from tennis. You constantly find yourself yawning – there’s no entertainment here.”

Is he referring to the arduous 30-minute train ride into the bright lights of central London, or is it simply a severe case of sour grapes at never progressing beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon? Whatever the reason, he isn’t alone.

“A lot of people think that everything revolves around Wimbledon but it is just one week of the year for us. If nothing happens at Wimbledon, it’s not the end of the world.”

— this from Elena Baltacha, the Ukraine-born British player, after losing at Wimbledon 2009 and sadly proving Martina right in her earlier statement about birthplace versus nationality. Oh, and Elena — Wimbledon is a two-week tournament. Perhaps that’s where you’re going wrong.

But maybe she’s right not to take it so seriously. My all-time favorite saying by a tennis player is that of Boris Becker, youngest ever winner of Wimbledon’s Men’s Singles, when he lost in the 1987 final to Pete Doohan:

“Nobody died. I only lost a tennis match, nothing more.”

So, let us have your views! Do you see Wimbledon as an anachronism in today’s sporting world, or are its slightly eccentric traditions to be cherished? The strict dress code of white for competitors; the strawberries and champagne; and above all, the venue of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. (How Alice is that!)

And on the subject of Alice, our last words come from Venus Williams, on her tennis outfit at this year’s Australian Open:

“The outfit is inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It’s kind of about a surprise, because when Alice goes down the rabbit hole, she finds all these things that are so surprising. This outfit is about having a surprise in a tennis dress, and showing some skin and then just having a print. Prints don’t happen that often in tennis. So it’s called the Wonderland dress.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m with the Wimbledon dress code on this one.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s post, Part 3 of Sebastian Doggart’s thrilling chase after James Bond creator Ian Fleming’s Jamaican haunts.

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CLASSIC DISPLACED WRITING: Ian Fleming

7 Comments Posted by on June 24, 2011

As The Displaced Nation has been serializing Sebastian Doggart’s article (part 1 and part 2) about visiting Ian Feming’s Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, it seemed like a good time to take a brief look at Fleming’s writing with a Classic Displaced Writing Post.

Sebastian’s posts have been concerned with Fleming and his love of Jamaica, and while Jamaica and the Caribbean is used numerous times as a backdrop in the Bond novels, through the course of the novels Bond visits dozens of  different countries that Fleming has to conjure up for the reader.

What is clear on reading Fleming is just how important food and drink is to Fleming in order to allow him to describes new and exotic (at least for the vast majority of readers in austerity Britain of that time) locations. I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that Fleming fetishes food and drink. At times, reading a Bond novel is like reading food porn. While the Bond films now do an expert and cynical job of name dropping as many brands as they can in 2 hours, the Bond novels don’t shy away with the name dropping of food or of alcoholic brand names. The Bond of the novels isn’t solely a Martini drinker. He’s aways one to try anything local that’s on offer. In Jamaica he’ll drink a glass of Red Stripe, in the US he’ll have a Millers Highlife beer. Throughout the novels Fleming uses food and drink to convey an alien culture, demonstrate social status, show Bond’s mood and his sophistication and ease with the world.

For ten minutes Bond stood and gazed out across the sparkling water barrier between Europe and Asia, then he turned back into the room, now bright with sunshine, and telephoned for his breakfast. His English was not understood, but his French at last got through. He turned on a cold bath and shaved patiently with cold water and hoped that the exotic breakfast he had ordered would not be a fiasco.

He was not disappointed. The yoghourt, in a blue china bowl, was a deep yellow and with the consistency of thick cream. The green figs, ready peeled, were bursting with ripeness, and the Turkish coffee was jet black and with the burned taste that showed it had been freshly ground. Bond ate the delicious meal on a table drawn up beside the open-window.

From Russia with Love (1957)

Video of some more examples –

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, when guest blogger Sezin Koehler riffs off Alice in Wonderland to capture the curious, unreal aspects of her life in Prague.

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. SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers receive a FREE copy of “A Royally Displaced Tea.”

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RANDOM NOMAD: Vicki Jeffels, blogger, freelance writer & social media consultant

17 Comments Posted by on June 22, 2011

Vicki JeffelsBorn in: Auckland, New Zealand
Passport: New Zealand (only, and proud of it!)
Countries lived in: Fiji Islands (Vatukoula): 1973-77; Australia (Brisbane): 1996-98; England (Tadley, Hampshire): 2008-present
Cyberspace coordinates: Vegemite Vix | A Kiwi expat in the UK licking the Vegemite off life’s fingers (blog); Digital Discussions (start-up consultancy)

What made you leave your homeland in the first place?
I first became an expat at the tender age of 3.5, when my family moved to the Fijian Islands for my father’s work: he had a contract with the Emperor Gold Mines in Vatukoula. I have wonderful memories of expat life as a child. The days were honeyed with heat, we munched sugar cane off the back of the cane truck, and we swam with the tropical fish through the intricate coral reef. Of course, a child’s experience is so very different from an adult’s, and now I’m a parent, I’m more aware of the challenges my parents faced — which included being robbed, almost being airlifted out in civil unrest, and sheltering under the house during the monstrous Hurricane Bebe in 1972.

I moved overseas again — to Brisbane, Australia — with my first husband in 1996, with a two year old and two-week-old baby in tow. On reflection, that wasn’t brilliant timing. We struggled to make a home for ourselves particularly as my (then) husband was working in Perth, an eight-hour flight away — leaving me to cope on my own in a new country with two babies. I did it, though. I made friends through the children’s networks and found work for myself — until two years later, when my husband was suddenly made redundant and we limped back to New Zealand with our tails between our legs.

My most recent expat adventure started on a holiday in Paris in 2007 when I met a rather scrumptious Englishman. We chatted, we flirted, we kept in touch long after we’d returned home — and our long-distance relationship soon blossomed. A year later, I packed up my three kids (two teens and a tweenie), dog, cat and 20 boxes of books and moved to Hampshire to live with my Englishman. After a romantic engagement atop Mt Hellvellyan (yes, he made me climb a mountain to get the engagement ring!), we married in his village church in North Yorkshire in 2009.  I’ve written about our story on my blog and am currently writing it up as a memoir — hopefully coming to a bookstore near you, shortly.

Is anyone else in your immediate family displaced?
All of my immediate family currently live outside of New Zealand. My mother, father and sister all live in Australia, but I wouldn’t say they are “displaced.” They are all happy living there and hold Australian passports, and my mother is an Australian by birth.

Describe the moment when you felt most displaced over the course of your many displacements.
When I found myself standing in front of the judge at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in London three weeks after our wedding, having swapped my wedding bouquet for brickbats from the UK Border Agency, as they probed and prodded and demanded to find fault with our story. Standing there pleading to stay in the UK with my husband and kids — when everything in my body was screaming “Get me out of here!” and “Get me home!” — was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was dissonant not only because we were newly married — and I longed to go home and celebrate with my friends and family but had been restricted from leaving the country — but also because I’m the archetypical “good girl” who has barely ever had a parking ticket. What was I doing standing in front of a judge being cross-examined by solicitors? It was scary stuff and deeply disturbing — as if the entire nation wanted me to just leave. It was the final straw after a year’s worth of feeling displaced — of saying the wrong thing and being laughed out of the room, and of breaking unwritten rules of conduct in the supermarket that resulted in an elderly woman throwing limes at me! Who knew there were rules about how and when you should put your shopping on the checkout counter?

Describe the moment when you felt least displaced.
This is a telling question, because although I’ve had some great times whilst living here in England, I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced feeling “at home.” My most recent trip Down Under highlighted for me how displaced I truly feel living in the UK, and how exhausting it can be spending one’s days trying to “fit in.” It was wonderful to have a break from explaining myself all day every day. It doesn’t help that I moved from an upmarket suburb of a large seaside multicultural city, to a parochial town in the English countryside. I wonder if I would feel more at home in London where there is a far more multicultural vibe? At times I wonder about moving again, perhaps to the US or Australia. (Is it itchy feet, or failure to fit in, that’s behind those feelings?)

You may bring one curiosity you’ve collected from each of the countries where you’ve lived into the Displaced Nation. What’s in your suitcase?
From Fiji: A frangipani flower. We used to make them into wreaths when I was a child. The smell reminds me of the South Pacific and makes me smile.
From New Zealand (which, though home, is now something of a foreign country): A pāua shell to remind me of the ocean and the beautiful Kiwi beaches.
From Australia: A boomerang because it will remind me that there is always a home behind me as well as in front of me.
From England: A St George’s cross to remind me that I too can fight and defeat the dragons.

You’re invited to prepare one meal based on your travels for other Displaced Nation members. What’s on the menu?
I hope you like seafood! For starters I’ve prepared a Fijian raw fish meal called kokoda, which is “cooked” in coconut milk and lime juice. It’s divine. On the side there’s a dozen Bluff oysters from New Zealand. For mains we’ll have barbequed prawns, Moreton Bay bugs (Australia), and good quality pork sausages (British). We’d probably toast the meal with a New Zealand champenoise and down the sausages with a Margaret River Shiraz.

You may add one word or expression from each of the countries you’ve lived in to The Displaced Nation argot. What words do you loan us?
From Fiji: Bula — one of those indispensable words. It means “hello” and “thank you” and “How are you?” and “See you later” and “Good luck.” In fact, it’s a phonetic smile.
From New Zealand: Wopwops, meaning out in the bush away from everyone and everything else, preferably where there is no mobile signal and Internet. We all need to lose ourselves in the wopwops from time to time.
From Australia: Barbie — colloquial for barbecue, or BBQ. Particularly when eaten outside in the glorious fresh air and sunshine, with sand between your toes and the sound of the surf crashing on the beach, a barbie is one of the finest meals you can have.
From England: Bless — because the English have a way of saying it that sounds nice but is really derogatory. It’s so English to hear someone recount the story about how they did something stupid, and have the listener respond with “Bless” — really meaning “You moron!” I offer it to The Displaced Nation as a reminder of the need to master some of the local lingo, without which you’ll have a tough time understanding the folkgeist of the country you’re in.

It’s Alice in Wonderland month at The Displaced Nation. In closing, can you tell us your worst “Pool of Tears” moment, when you wondered, how did I end up in such a predicament and will I ever escape?
It, too, occurred during my struggles with the UK immigration authorities. Having moved to the UK to be with my Englishman, I was awaiting a valid work visa so was restricted from working. At the same time, my ex stopped paying child support. As we were struggling financially, I was stuck at home feeling terribly isolated. One day I received the news that I had been served with a deportation order and had 28 days to leave the country and return to NZ with my three children. I collapsed in tears, wondering how on earth I was ever going to afford going back to NZ where I no longer had property or anywhere to go. My savings had been eaten away by legal fees, and I had no income. I felt utterly dispossessed. In the end, we won the appeal against the deportation — my most displaced moment — and I was granted a valid visa, after which I regained the self-confidence I feared had been lost in transit.

Like Alice, did you encounter a Mouse who helped you ashore?
My Mouse would have to be the first friend I made in my English town after living here for almost two years. All that time I would cheerily smile hello at strangers — and they’d run away as if I were brandishing a knife. I was bitterly lonely and would live for Facebook chats with the many friends I’d left in New Zealand. Finally, on the school sports day I met an Englishwoman who had relatively recently returned from expat adventures in Canada. We bonded over our shared status as outsiders in a town where the majority of local people have family connections back through several generations. I refer to her as Strawberry Munchkin in my blog and am so very grateful for her friendship. I think of her as an honorary Kiwi.

QUESTION: Readers — yay or nay for letting Vicki Jeffels 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 Vicki — find amusing.)

img: Vicki Jeffels, taken in the UK for use on her blog.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment from our displaced fictional heroine, Libby.

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