The Displaced Nation

A home for international creatives

Tag Archives: USA

DISPLACED Q: What items from home can you not live without?

5 Comments Posted by on May 10, 2011

UK department store John Lewis recently announced it would soon launch versions of its Website for shoppers in 27 countries, including the USA, Australia, and Singapore. The company has no plans to open stores in these locations, however; all orders will be delivered by courier.

Marks and Spencer, another institution of the British High Street, already ships to 80 countries worldwide, even though it has over 300 international stores scattered around the globe.

It seems both John Lewis and M&S  understand something that all expats know — there are certain items you only feel comfortable buying from home.

Marks & Spencer, for example, accounts for around thirty percent of the UK lingerie market; it’s not unreasonable to assume that displaced Brits with diminishing lingerie supplies and no access to M&S stores make up a goodly proportion of the international shipping numbers. Meanwhile, John Lewis has the most popular gift list in the UK. How about some Conran bed linen or Denby pottery to make your relations feel at home in their Moscow abode? Sometimes only the familiar will do.

It’s not all about the goods, either. Expat in Germany, in her March 17 post, explained why she hesitated to buy a wedding dress in Germany instead of in her native Canada. It had nothing to do with the quality of wedding gowns and everything to do with the charming honesty of German sales assistants that made her pine for a gentler shopping experience at home.

But these facts and anecdotes made us wonder: No matter how displaced you have become, are there certain items — other than food — that you still prefer to import from your home country?

Two members of the Displaced Nation Team kick off the discussion:

Kate Allison: During my 15 years as a Brit in the US, I have been known to ask visitors to bring gifts of children’s cotton pyjamas. The cotton in the UK is much nicer, somehow, than in the US. I also had a brief sojourn into Next duvet covers, because duvets aren’t as popular in the US as they are in Europe.  Last time I was over, though, it was shoes that caught my eye. And yes, they came from Marks and Spencer. It’s not that they were any better than their American counterparts — just different, and not from Macy’s.

ML Awanohara: As far as wedding (and other special) dresses go, the more exotic the better. I was never an expat in Rome but went shopping for my wedding dress a few years back in a charming boutique, Maga Morgana, very near the Piazza Navona. (If I had it to do over, I’d have studied abroad in Italy — art history, of course. So perhaps I was playing out that fantasy…) Kate, it’s funny you mention shoes. While living in the UK and Japan, I always preferred to buy shoes in the US. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the shoes in those countries — I coveted them. But they made my feet hurt, something to do with the “last” not being big enough. I noticed recently on an expat news feed that displaced New Zealanders often head to a shop called Minnie Cooper’s as soon as they get home. This piqued my curiosity: is it for the styles, the NZ leather, or both?

Your turn to chime in: What homey items, apart from food, have you yet to wean yourself off?

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What did Agatha Christie know? Expats make great criminals

3 Comments Posted by on May 9, 2011

I’m going to kill myself for saying this — I’m an Agatha Christie fan — but I think the Queen of Crime got it wrong.

Either that or she purposely misled us into thinking that the most cunning criminal minds were hiding behind lace curtains in oldy-worldy English villages.

I don’t know about you, but for a while, I found it convincing. Don’t most scions of wealthy families want to murder the patriarch? And what better place to do it than in the library of his stately home…

But then I became what the tagline of this blog refers to as a “global voyager.” As I navigated worlds far beyond the one in which I was born, I wasn’t so clueless any more. I began to notice that the perpetrators of the some of the worst crimes are people who no longer live in their villages, who are displaced in some way.

And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

No Gardens of Eden out there

Psychological studies have shown that we are less likely to cheat when we’re aware of someone else observing our behavior — even if it’s a poster with eyes on it.

Thus, having a village busybody like Miss Marple should help to deter crime, never mind solving it.

Now many international travelers — especially those with plum expat packages — feel they live in a self-anointed paradise. And perhaps they have to convince themselves of this, or else they wouldn’t travel.

But the sad fact is, no one is immune. To rephrase an old saying, some of us are born bad, others achieve badness, and still others have badness thrust upon us.

If anything, badness is more likely to be a feature of the international life. Those of us who become adept at navigating the globe sometimes lose our moral compass along the way.

As for the Miss Marples, chances are, they’ve gone home. Many of an expat’s associates are transients.

So many bad apples

As you’re probably aware by now, not every expat you meet is a good egg. Some are in fact bad apples (not sure why an egg is good and an apple bad — call it a mystery of English slang).

The actress Anne Hathaway had to learn this lesson the hard way. She fell for Raffaello Follieri, who headed the Follieri Group, a real estate development company based in New York City.

With his mop of brown hair and cherubic features, Follieri came across as the embodiment of old world charm and manners. He cut what the Italians call a bella figura.

He was also, it turned out, a crook. He wined and dined Hathaway with the money he’d conned it out of people by posing as the Vatican’s real-estate man. He’s now in prison.

Murder most foul

Just as we don’t like to think of rats being part of the animal kingdom, we don’t like to think of conmen, pirates, gangsters, and terrorists being part of the group we have loosely defined as “global voyagers” — such a noble concept, and one to which The Displaced Nation has dedicated itself.

But trust me, they are a part of it — as are murderers.

Take, for instance, Nancy Kissel. One day she was living in an exclusive high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong, the city that scores a perfect 10 as an expat destination, with a banker husband worth many millions.

The next day she was known as the Milkshake Murderess — accused (and then convicted, conviction now upheld) of bludgeoning her husband to death after drugging him with a sedative-laced strawberry milkshake and then wrapping his body in an Oriental carpet destined for basement storage.

It’s a story more than worthy of Agatha Christie.

Or ask the parents of Meredith Kercher, a young British woman who went to Italy as part of the Erasmus student exchange programme, to study and immerse herself in the language and culture.

She chose the ancient city of Perugia in Umbria. Surely nothing could go wrong in such a serene setting?

Wrong again. Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you’ve heard that Meredith was brutally murdered, allegedly by two men and her American roommate, Amanda Knox, in what prosecutors called a violent sex game. Only one of the alleged perpetrators was a native-born Italian.

Public fascination with the case has continued unabated — and not just because of the media circus surrounding Knox, who maintains her innocence and is appealing her conviction.

As the Christian Science Monitor put it in an article last September:

…the highly contested circumstances of the crime make it a genuine murder mystery.

(Where is Hercule Poirot when you need him — surely his marrows would thrive in the Umbrian soils?)

And now for a bit of a twist!

I’d like to retract my statement on the Queen of Crime. Je me suis trompé! I’ve done her an injustice.

True, Agatha Christie did produce lots of drawing-room mysteries, but she also also told us everything we need to know about expat criminality in her classic work Murder on the Orient Express.

When the shifty-looking Samuel Edward Rachett is found stabbed to death, the redoubtable Hercule Poirot assembles the 12 suspects in the restaurant car. It’s an odd assortment — call it an expat enclave in microcosm — consisting of an American translator, a British valet, a French conductor, a British governess, a retired British army officer, an elderly Russian noblewoman, a German maid, a Hungarian diplomat and his wife, a Swedish missionary, an elderly American woman who has just been to see her daughter in Baghdad, and an Italian-American businessman from Chicago.

So, whodunit? Can you remember? The answer is: all 12! Each of these characters had thrust the knife into Ratchett, making it impossible for Poirot to determine who delivered the fatal blow.

But as it turned out, it didn’t matter. Ratchett deserved his fate for his own dastardly deeds. He was, of course, the most displaced of all the passengers on that exotic train: a fugitive from justice, whose real name was Cassetti.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you which transnational group of gangsters he was affiliated with. No surprises there!

Question: Do you agree that citizens of The Displaced Nation have criminal potential, and have you ever come face to face with any criminal elements in your travels? I’d love to hear your stories, however unsavory…

img: “There’s been a murder!” by Richard Bogle.

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Expat life as psychological thriller? An unholy appreciation of novelist Shireen Jilla

26 Comments Posted by on May 7, 2011

SPECIAL TDN ANNOUNCEMENT: Dear readers, we have some thrills and chills in store for you: a chance to engage with expat writer Shireen Lilla. She has kindly agreed to respond to our comments and questions on her new novel, Exiled.

Please accept this candle. You’ll need it to light your way to the faux coffin where we’re serving Victorianesque nibbles and “finger” foods in honor of the novelist Shireen Jilla.

Be sure to try our house speciality: fried tartantula. Such an exquisite dish! Or how about some maggoty cheese, imported straight from Sardinia for the occasion? It makes an excellent pairing with our special punch. (Go on, have a sip! It’s only bubbling because we added dry ice to the bowl.)

Our honored guest looks lovely, doesn’t she, in her long black cape with the red-satin collar? But don’t be fooled. Looks are extremely deceiving in her case. Jilla harbors no illusions about the dark side of expat life — and she isn’t afraid to grasp you by the hand and seduce you into entering that netherworld for an adventure.

Many an expat veteran has advised that being stationed overseas isn’t necessarily the life of Riley. But how many of them have ever warned us of the dangers lurking on the other side: everything from psychological breakdown to murder most foul?

Slyvia Plath, the American poet who’d been living in a bucolic a part of the English countryside, put her head in the oven upon returning to London. Nancy Kissel, who was living in an exclusive Parkview high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong, allegedly killed her husband with a blunt instrument and rolled up his body in an Oriental rug.

But why dwell on real-life cases when Jilla’s imagination can provide us with all the macabre details we need?

Deliciously “exiled”

Shireen Jilla
Let us raise our goblets to Jilla’s debut novel, Exiled, a dark, dysfunctional psychodrama set in New York City.

The novel tells the story of Anna, who is so in love with her husband, Jessie, an ambitious British diplomat, that she can’t wait to start a new chapter of their life together in New York. Jessie is the ticket (quite literally!) for Anna to leave her old life in rural Kent far behind.

At first, New York lives up to its promise. The couple find a brownstone on the Upper West Side and fall into the rhythm of New York life. But then disaster strikes, again and again.

As Anna herself puts it in her Foreword to the story:

I couldn’t imagine that my romantic dream would turn into a dark battle for everything I loved.

In our current gothic mood, we laud the idea of this book (unfortunately, we’ve only read excerpts as it’s not yet available in the U.S.) for:

1) Defying stereotypes: Many outsiders who write about New York are tempted to extol the city’s glitz and glamor a la Sex and the City. Not Jilla. As one critic put it, she gives us a New York that is “a teeming pit of hissing vipers, only just covered with a finely buffed veneer of sophistication.”

Exiled2) Pushing the envelope: Jilla, a Third Culture Kid (she is half English, half Persian, and grew up in Germany, Holland and England) who has also been an expat — in Paris, Rome, and New York — hasn’t simply replicated her experience but has dug deeper to reveal psychological truths about the people she has observed. Anna’s step-mother-in-law is a powerful socialite and philanthropist of precisely the sort seen on The Real Housewives of New York City. In Jilla’s rendering, though, she is further revealed as calculating, manipulative — and evil. As one reader-reviewer on Amazon says:

Imagine the stark terror of Rosemary’s Baby firmly grounded in reality. Shireen Jilla has created the sharp thrill of horror in a world of utterly true and compelling characters.

3) Presenting a heroine who could almost be Libby’s alter-ego: Now who is Libby, you might ask? She is the Displaced Nation’s fictional about-to-be expat wife. Her diary entries appear every Friday on this blog. After hearing about Anna, we can’t help but wonder: will Libby’s life take a sinister turn once she reaches Boston? No, Boston isn’t New York — but how long before Libby encounters a Boston Brahmin…or two?!

Time to break the spell?

Before we blow out our candles, it’s your turn, dear reader:

Has Shireen Jilla also illuminated something for you by exploring the gothic side of our displaced lives? Does she speak to your own experience — to the times when you’ve been face to face with people who seemed evil, or with nefarious doings?

And do you have any questions for Jilla about what motivated her to write such a gloriously dark book?

img: New York Skyline, by plastAnka.

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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Seven deadly dishes — global grub to die for

12 Comments Posted by on May 3, 2011

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

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

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

In ascending order of danger or toxicity:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 Comments Posted by on May 2, 2011

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

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

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

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

I. PRE-CEREMONY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KA: Little bridesmaids. Utterly cute.

ML: Fashionistas are calling the dress very Gracy Kellyish.

KA: ….ooohhhhh. Gorgeous.

AW: Will Rowan Williams also be wearing Alexander McQueen?

II. CEREMONY

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

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

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

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

KA: Poor girl looks terrified!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KA: I am totally serious and today totally British.

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

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

AW: James Middleton has the eyes of a killer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KA: What, Queen not singing her own tune?

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

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

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

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

III. POST-CEREMONY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KA: LOLOL

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

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

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

6 Comments Posted by on April 25, 2011

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

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

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

Wedding — what wedding?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to load up on choccie biccies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

img: author photograph – Kristen Ashley

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

9 Comments Posted by on April 23, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

#1: TRAGEDY

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

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

#2: TRIUMPH

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

#3: MULTICULTURALISM

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

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

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What the concept of home means for expats

9 Comments Posted by on April 21, 2011

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

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

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

Misery loves company, especially when it includes Joanna Penn

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Joanna, home is a spiritual bond

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

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

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

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

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

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

A tale of two cities that are now “home”

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

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

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

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

Some parting spiritual reflections

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

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

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

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

But I digress.

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

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Jerry Seinfeld — the Royal Wedding’s answer to Ricky Gervais

7 Comments Posted by on April 18, 2011

“You’re from England, aren’t you?” asked the lady behind the supermarket checkout. “Will you be watching the Royal Wedding?”

I shrugged. “Probably not.”

“Well,” she said, “I will.”

Go figure.

Royal Wedding fever on this side of the pond has reached bemusing levels of hysteria. The happy couple’s faces smile from magazines at every checkout, and news channels fill their airtime with Royal Wedding stories. BBC America is running a program called “Royally Mad,” in which five Americans, chosen by the BBC for their worrying obsession with the Windsor family, are whisked to London for a few days of royal sycophancy and accumulation of Will-and-Kate souvenir teaspoons. In the interests of research for this post, I watched the first episode and, try as I might, couldn’t understand what made otherwise sane people turn on the waterworks at the sight of a ho-hum frock once worn by Princess Diana. Growing up in England, I was used to hearing the BBC speak of the Royals with hushed deference. This tearful swooning over recent Royal memorabilia was more suited for a US network channel documentary about a pilgrimage to Graceland.

In a very unscientific survey, I asked some of my English friends if they were looking forward to the wedding. The answers varied from a resounding “No!” to “Looking forward to the street party” to  “I love a good wedding.”  (So do I — when I personally know the parties involved.) Interestingly, the most enthusiastic responses came from expat friends in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. None, however, displayed the starstruck adulation of the Royal Family that I see  in America.

So why the American fixation with English Royalty? Americans had their most significant war while ridding themselves of the people whose descendants they now idolize. Legend has it they weren’t ready to give up the idea of a monarchy even then: a group of people wanted to crown George Washington as the first King of America, but he refused. Had his ego been bigger, Americans would now have their own King Paul.

But Washington’s decision prevailed, so another idol had to be found. The Kennedy dynasty is sometimes referred to as America’s Royalty, as are the President and First Lady. Presidents, though, must be elected — even when they are part of a political dynasty. True idols must have a birthright, be it a 1,000-year genealogy, a trust fund from the Hilton empire, or innate acting ability (especially when coupled with a last name of Redgrave, Barrymore, etc.)  In terms of public fawning and adoration, I feel it’s fair to compare English Royalty with Hollywood stars.

As I watch the hoopla surrounding this wedding, however, it seems the distinction between Beverly Hills and Buckingham Palace has blurred. Disney princesses are being confused with the real deal.  A few days ago on a BBC blog, an American commenter noted that she liked the way the Royal Family did their weddings openly. Hollywood stars, she said, held their weddings in secret now, and that was no fun.

Perhaps the Windsors could learn something from Hollywood.

One of the attractions of the Royal Family used to be its mystique.  Unfortunately, with the modern, out-of-control paparazzi and a gossip-hungry public denied the insight into Hollywood weddings, mystique is a thing of the past, and its disappearance was greatly aided by Prince Charles and Princess Diana separately airing their dirty laundry on TV in the mid-1990s.  It might be prudent for Royals either to stay out of the limelight or behave with a little decorum and sensitivity, as the Royal Matriarch has always done. Because when newspapers run stories about Prince Andrew spending taxpayers’ money on numerous helicopter rides to play golf, or Prince Harry turning up to fancy dress parties in Nazi uniforms, it’s hard for English Joe Public to go along with the notion that these people are privileged by divine right any more than Paris Hilton is.

I honestly am not being mean-spirited — I genuinely wish Prince William and Kate Middleton all the best for their life together, just as I would wish it for any couple about to get married. She seems a nice enough girl, and he understands the definition of ‘Love,’ unlike his father.  But the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, as Jerry Seinfeld controversially – or refreshingly, depending on your viewpoint – pointed out on Friday, when on a British TV show he called the wedding “a circus.”  “These are not special people,” he said.

The reaction from the show’s hosts (“How dare he!”) was not unlike that of the Washington Post  in response to Ricky Gervais’s comments at this year’s Golden Globes.

“Are we at war with England? If not, then why have we been subjected to two years of Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globe Awards?”

And yet despite the furor, Gervais is rumored to be returning to host the awards for a third time, proving that he did provide the shot of popularity that the Globes needed.

Windsors and BBC take note.  Judging by the number of positive comments from the British public about Jerry’s outburst, I am not the only Brit to feel nonplussed about the Wedding Of The Century.

For Harry’s wedding, book Jerry Seinfeld to do the commentary.

Adrian Chiles, host of the British TV show that featured Jerry Seinfeld, suggested that Seinfeld could end up doing his stand-up show on June 3 from the Tower of London.  Do you agree? If not, whom would you rather see in the Tower?

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“Living in the Midwest,” by Susanna Daniel

Leave a comment Posted by on April 16, 2011

Join us today in eating some virtural Wisconsin cheese on crackers and drinking White Russians in honor of our favorite article of the week: “Living in the Midwest” by Susanna Daniel. (Later on, there might even be some tap dancing on the bar in Dansko clogs!)

Susanna reinforces our theory that you can suffer culture displacement without the inconvenience of an international flight — in this case, by moving from New York to Iowa and Wisconsin.

I’m considered an outsider by many locals, even after a decade, even considering my roots here…  When or if I’ll ever slough off the designation of “recent transplant,” I’m not sure.

Let us know when you do, please. It’s OK. We’re patient people.

Susanna Daniel is the author of the novel “Stiltsville.”  You can find her at http://susannadaniel.com/.

Posts relating to this article:  Mobile in America; The Domestic expat

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