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An un-American in an All-American diner

5 Comments Posted by on September 27, 2011

Continuing this month’s theme on road trips founding contributor Anthony Windram weighs in with some thoughts on the American diner.

There’s neon tubing that emits a purple glow around the clock that tells me it’s nearly 10pm. The dinner service is long over, the families now dispersed and only a scattering of drifters and loners are left. It’s still, at least, another 45 minutes before the late-night drunken crowd makes an appearance.  This diner is more Edward Hopper than Norman Rockwell. Across the parking lot is a strip club, as the night draws on and into morning some of its patrons, I imagine, will head over here to have a burger or to take advantage of that most American of institutions – the 24-hour breakfast.

There’s a still sadness to the place despite the best efforts of the waitress who exudes a friendly busyness. She could be anything from her late-40s to her early-60s. She calls me “sweetheart” when she comes over to give me a refill of greased coffee. She doesn’t, however, call it “a cup of Joe” — that would be one cliché too many.

Mentally, I take a step back from this scene and try to view all around me as a tableau and can’t but help but think this is Americana that I am sat in, this is America.

Perhaps this is the “real” America; a banal phrase uttered by a banal politician, but a phrase that does strike at something deep in the American psyche.

Dr George Lewis, director of American Studies at Leicester University, has started what the Guardian claims is the “first sustained historical analysis of the term un-American.” While there may be some confusion over quite how one defines being “un-American,” what seems certain to me is that this cold burger and this diner is decidedly the opposite of “un-American”. Though I am in Bakersfield, California, I could be anywhere in the Union, be it red state or blue state.

When I first moved to the US, to my now shame, I found myself fascinated by the Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, hosted by the hyperactive Guy Fieri, a man with the cholesterol levels of someone twice his age. Fieri is a TV host with absolutely no sense of discernment. Everything that he comes across, everything that he tastes, must be spoken about in glowing terms to the point that nothing that Fieri says has any real meaning whatsoever.

And yet I did find myself compelled by the show for illuminating further for me the American diner and showing me places that occupy a place in the country’s cultural milieu that the English cafe doesn’t even come close to back home. I soon stopped watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives — not because my view of diners changed, but because it was (and is) a God-awful program and there’s only so many times you can watch an overweight Fieri eat some barbequed pork and then pronounce it “awesome”. But there was one thing in particular about Fieri’s show that they always got wrong. They would always show the diners when they were packed and buzzing with a family friendly atmosphere. And while I wouldn’t suggest that that’s not the case, what I find interesting is that when you roll into a strange town late at night and find yourself at a diner, regional and political difference tend to dissolve. You are in a place that is resolutely American rather than California, or Colorado, or Vermont, or…I could go on.

Fieri’s show, a sort of televisual equivalent of Pravda which can only emphasize the positive, misses out on what I am experiencing here in Bakersfield as the clock, that has neon tubing wrapped around it, hits 10 and I ask for my check. Here, and which Fieri always misses, is a quiet efficiency mixed with a low-burning malevolence. It’s that mixture of warmth and fear you get when your waitress flashes you a warm smile but you know you’re in a moment going to be stepping out back into that parking lot — and in the back of your mind you’re just a little concerned that this might be the night where you get shot by a drunk coming out of the strip club.

Question: What’s your experience of American diners?

Image by awindram.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s interview with the travel writer Allie Sommerville. NOTE: All DISPLACED DISPATCH subscribers will be entered in our giveaway of Allie’s book, Uneasy Rider.

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Gotta helmet? Time to burn some rubber, have a real travel adventure

7 Comments Posted by on September 25, 2011

The Displaced Nation has dedicated the month of September to the ideas within Robert Pirsig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But enough with theory. What’s it really like to see the world from the back of a motorcycle — and what are us more timid types missing out on? Rubber hits the road today with Matthew Cashmore, aka The London Biker. Braaaaown… brraaoom…… rrooaaarr………. Take it away, Matthew! NOTE: This post has not been edited for British spelling.

There are some things in life that just have to be done. Laying on your back staring at the stars, wondering which ones are dead and which are still blazing. Getting so drunk on cider that you can no longer stand (perhaps that’s just me). Or travelling the world by motorcycle.

The last, many people would say, is optional. But it’s not. If you feel as I do, motorcycle travel is as essential to life as water or food, then there is only one way to do it.

I’m not the first to point out that seeing the world from a motorcycle is better than any other means of travel — just dig out a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or my personal favourite, Jupiter’s Travels, by Ted Simon.* You’ll only read a quarter of each book before you discover why this method of travel trumps the rest. You’re part of the world in which you’re travelling. There is nothing between you, the elements and the people with whom you interact.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see much of the world. I’ve backpacked, travelled by plane to amazing cities, jumped on buses or driven cars. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can match the experience of the wind rushing past your head trying to knock you off your bike, as you hurtle between towns and villages. And nothing can give you a greater grin than riding across the bay in San Francisco on the back of a growling Harley — safe in the knowledge that in a car this would be just another American highway.

If you don’t ride in the rain, you don’t ride…

It does take a certain amount of effort, though. This summer I did a short run from London out to Budapest via France, Germany, Austria and then into Hungry. The return leg took me through northern Croatia, Slovenia, back into Austria and up into the Alps over into Italy and then back over the Stelvio Pass into Switzerland, France and finally home. It rained the entire trip. Every single morning I was greeted with sheets of rain. I was beginning to suspect it was actually following me to Budapest. Each night I was soaked to the skin — even with the most expensive rain gear. Each night I was dog tired, and I really had to question what I was doing. What kind of a nut case chooses to spend his summer holiday riding a motorbike half way across Europe in the rain?

The reason I, and many others like me, do this is because you can ride for eight days in the rain — and then out of nowhere the clouds will clear and you’ll be presented with a road of perfect grace. A strip of tarmac that sings as you press on, a view that leaves you crying because of its beauty. Something you would never have seen had you been in a car or a bus. Something you’ve had to work to achieve — and it’s even more beautiful for that.

A parable of the hospitality shown to bikers

On the Budapest trip I found myself at the top of the Austrian Alps. I was running a day behind because I’d had a stomach bug back in Budapest. I was determined to make up that lost day so that I could still get over the pass into Switzerland ahead of a (yet another) rain front. I had been riding for ten hours, I had another six ahead of me, and I was already on my fourth change of clothes. I was incredibly fed up. Why on earth was I doing this?

I pulled into the first service stop I’d seen for about 150 miles, 2000 metres above sea level and hidden by cloud, rain and spray. Filling the bike up with petrol I spotted a small restaurant complete with a hotel — bliss, escape! I headed inside, dripping water everywhere. As I walked through the door I must have looked like a monster from the deep. I was dressed head to foot in every single piece of waterproof gear I could find — complete with an army surplus poncho. The restaurant manager took one look at me and ordered me onto a piece of lino, where I promptly created a rather large puddle. She demanded I remove my clothing leaving me standing there in just my thermals. I shivered, waiting for her next command. Did they have ways of making me warm?

My gear was whisked off (it came back nearly dry and very warm), and I was pointed in the direction of the shower and given a hot towel. I emerged a different man. Clean clothes, warm, and for the first time in two days, dry. Ushered to a seat, I took the opportunity to eat well — feasting on sausage and strudel, the best Austria had to offer. Buoyed by such amazing hospitality I got back on the bike and rode on. As I rounded the first corner the rain stopped and I hit Italy, sun, and the kind of twisty roads God clearly made for bikers.

I could say this was a one off, but the more I travel the world by motorbike the more I come to realise that the very thing that makes you vulnerable is the very thing that makes you approachable. It’s different if you’re travelling with other bikers, but when you’re on your own it’s a perfect combination of being totally exposed to the environment and more importantly to people.

This is what makes travelling by motorcycle so special. The openness, the access, the smells, the sounds, the people who are curious because you’ve rolled into town in something other than a bus or 4×4. If you want to experience, to imbibe, the world through which you travel…there is only one option. Gotta helmet?

* Suggested further reading:

Matthew Cashmore works in digital publishing. He keeps track of his “random thoughts” on his blog, The London Biker. He also has a YouTube channel, where he posts videos about his life on the road, camp cooking and related topics.

img: Matthew Cashmore in Budapest, July 2011.

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post, on the diner food that has played a part in many an American road trip.

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“My country, ’tis of thee” applies to my expat mum but not to me

14 Comments Posted by on September 23, 2011

We take a break from road trips today with this guest post from Lawrence Hunt, a recent graduate of Warwick University (UK). Followers of The Displaced Nation may recall that we interviewed two cross-cultural married couples last summer. Hunt is the product of a cross-cultural union between an American mother and an English father. Let’s listen to what he has to say regarding the oft-perplexing matter of cultural identity. NOTE: This post has not been edited for British spelling or punctuation.

One of the things that expats like to tell themselves is that home is a state of mind.

But for me, the child of an English father and an American mother, home stands for a physical place: the one where I was born and grew up, England.

For years my mother has sipped her morning coffee from the same extravagantly large mug, Stars and Stripes boldly printed around the outside. She picked it up at an airport in Washington DC where we were visiting her sister. It’s curvaceous and welcoming, a daily caffeinated hit of homeland comfort. I’ve started drinking from it, too — but more as an ironic gesture.

Mum grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in class, but in ultra-PC Britain, patriotism has to be decidedly lower key. It seems commonplace to see flags hoisted outside American homes, but over here the very act of being seen with a St George’s flag in any context other than sporting events or royal weddings is infrequent enough to draw stares. People see you with it and instantly wonder what fanatical scheme for national purification you’re plotting behind closed doors.

Now, I don’t fault my mum for being proud of her cultural upbringing. I think in some ways her extended absence makes her all the more keen to assert her identity and share it with us.

She did some family history research recently that confirmed we’re the distant descendants of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic and longest surviving signatory of the Declaration of Independence. That’s my strongest claim to fame, and I’m holding onto it.

Chocolate — the way to an English child’s heart

That said, America has never played much of a role in our regular family rituals. For one thing, traditions like the Fourth of July and Labour Day just aren’t compatible with the British calendar.

I do remember Mum hosted a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner once with some other American expats when I was little. Without having the next day off to recuperate, however, everyone left early and I think she found the mountain of washing up too colossal to repeat the effort.

The one institution she has passed down to us (and this is something I cannot thank her enough for) was the American Easter basket hunt. The concept, as I explain it to my friends, is simple but ingenious – essentially, it’s what all kids in England do but with two key differences: 1) More chocolate, and 2) Baskets.

While other English kids were being handed single Cadbury creme eggs in flimsy cardboard boxes, my brothers and I were racing around the garden looking for mighty hoards of chocolate hidden among the shrubbery by a miraculously literate bunny that knew how to spell our names on post-it notes.

As American as everyone else in Britain?

Basket cases aside, it’s difficult to say exactly how ‘Americanized’ I am as a result of my mother, and how much of it is just living in a country where America’s influence pervades almost every cultural platform.

The most differentiating feature of mum’s background has always been her accent. I can do a pretty convincing American accent on a good day, and I used to mimic my mother so often when I was a child that I still lapse into it sometimes without realising.

But even my mother, having lived here for almost thirty years, isn’t really that American any more in her diction. I think the few Americanisms I sometimes find myself using, like ‘movie’ rather than ‘film’, or ‘take-out’ rather than ‘takeaway’, are more because I hear them in American movies and prefer them than because I’ve picked them up from her.

I certainly feel something for the States — a fondness and a familiarity, I suppose. I’ve been lucky enough to go with her on visits to her family almost every other year since I was a baby. Some of my favourite memories have come from spending summers at lake houses in North Carolina, climbing the mountains of West Virginia and walking down endless blocks of New York.

When I was seventeen I took a position teaching at a French camp in the woods in Minnesota, and made friends who I still keep in contact with.

America as distant entity

But America lives for me, as it does for many Brits, more in fiction than in reality. From the moment I read JD Salinger, I was hooked, and I’ve probably read more American writers than British ones: Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and Kerouac, right through to more recent contemporaries like Bret Easton Ellis, David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen.

They all essentially seem to be commenting on the same thing: the tragic failure of American life to live up to its promises. Paradoxically though, in the richness of the characters and landscapes they describe, they evoke a utopia in my mind that’s been hard to shake.

In my final year at university I enrolled in a contemporary American Literature module — ‘States of Damage — US Writing and Culture in the Post 9/11 Context’. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. It was a step-by-step dissection of everything wrong with free market America, from George Trow’s attack on media culture in ‘Within the Context of No Context’ to Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, an expose on America’s foreign policy over the past 40 years.

The critique seemed appallingly one-sided to me, and an hour a week for an entire year I felt compelled to fight America’s corner against the scathing intellects of my fellow students. Truth be told, I just like a good debate, and this was a difficult one. There’s a lot about American politics that we find objectionable in British culture — even though we’re implicated in most of the same hypocrisies ourselves.

To be fair, however, my fellow students showed a very different side on Obama’s inauguration night. The Students Union had been decked out in American flags and YESWECAN posters, and multitudes of students were queuing up to buy hotdogs and other American staples. I voted in that election, and it was a night when I felt nothing but pride to be half American.

My mum’s sweet land of liberty

I sometimes think it would be nice to use my dual citizenship and live on the other side of the Atlantic for a while, preferably near the coast. Mum believes that on the whole, Americans are more open, friendlier (at least on the outside) and more honest than British people. She’s even been known to point out these qualities in my brothers and me, when they appear, as our ‘American side’.

I’m sceptical that you can generalise about such vast groups of people in any meaningful way, especially as the world becomes increasingly mixed.

Ultimately, I think when you spend very little time in a place, and you miss it greatly, you begin to feel connected to a idealised version of it, one that’s perhaps better than the reality. When I ask about America, the memories my mother recalls from behind the vapours of her star-spangled mug are those of the pioneering Midwest. She tells me she always wanted to be one of the pioneers in Little House on the Prairie, struggling against the elements and striking out on her own.

That adventurousness is, ironically, probably part of what made her leave America for pastures new in the first place.

I can see the real things she’s had to give up in establishing her new life here — the family, the friends, the holiday traditions, a million different flavours and details that in some cases are only slightly different here from what she grew up with. Those are also the things I take for granted about my own life in Britain.

I was born here, and that counts for a great deal more than where my mother was born.

img: Lawrence Hunt with his mum’s stars-and-stripes mug, at home in Chorley Wood

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, in which Matthew Cashmore, aka The London Biker, relays his personal “Zen” of this rather risky, albeit exhilarating, mode of travel.

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

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Music for a road trip? Anything but a certain song…

Leave a comment Posted by on September 20, 2011

Mothers of school age children can spend hours at a time in the car — a mini road trip every day, ferrying the kids between school, karate, swimming lessons, music lessons…

This piece, originally titled “California Guys”, first appeared on my own blog, Marmite and Fluff, after I had heard a certain song on the car radio once too often..

I confess to a certain love of Coen Brothers’ movies, especially The Big Lebowski, and in particular the scene where a taxi driver hauls Jeff Bridges bodily from his cab and drives off in a fury. Bridges’ character, “The Dude,” had been stupid enough to ask the driver to change the radio station, because he’s had a rough day and he hates the f***ing Eagles, man.

Dude. I sympathize. I used to like the Eagles. Our scratched vinyl copy of their Greatest Hits proves it. But some years ago – the month we moved to America, in fact — everything changed. It started with the purchase of a Dodge Grand Caravan, an FM radio, and ten programmable presets. After two days we took the car back to the dealer. “There’s something wrong with this radio!” we complained. “It only plays ‘Hotel California’!”

The repairman twiddled with the dials, humming all the while about a dark desert highway and cool wind in his hair, and shrugged. “Seems fine to me,” he said. “That’s what it’s supposed to play.”

Later that day, pushing a shopping cart through the orange juice aisle, I heard Don Henley’s voice on the supermarket speakers, telling me that I could check out any time I liked but I could never leave. By now, I’d heard him say this so often that I was beginning to believe him, so I abandoned the juice and cart mid-aisle, in case he was serious.

After that, I could only listen to one Eagle at a time. Glenn Frey and “The Heat Is On”? You bet. Don Henley and “Boys Of Summer”? Bring it on and turn it up! But the Eagles ensemble telling me to Take It Easy would – paraphrasing slightly – Take Me To The Limit of my endurance.

Most listeners of American FM radio will know what I mean. It’s not just Eagles, of course; Elton John, Rod Stewart, Phil Collins, to name but three — all played ad nauseum. Sometimes it’s as if those artists’ peers never existed. Sometimes it’s as if the Nineties never existed. Ironically, that was what I initially loved about American radio, because I’d never graduated from Eighties’ hairbands to Seattle grunge. So I learned to live with the Eagles et al, because they’d occasionally get off the turntable and let Van Halen have a spin.

Eagles airwave-saturation could even have its advantages. No matter how much I wanted to kick The New Kid out of Town, it also seemed that Cliff Richard, a singer beloved by British radio for fifty years, and shunned by me for — well, not quite that long — was practically unknown over here. Never again would I have to listen to the Cliff Richard Annual Christmas Hit! No more Cliff Richard Recycled Golden Oldies to put me off my morning oatmeal! It was an ill wind, indeed.

And so it remained until my Dodge developed terminal transmission failure and we bade farewell. Enter another car with satellite radio. Enter the Hairbands channel, the Soppy Songs channel, and, to my kids’ dismay, the E Street Channel with 24/7 Springsteen. One day, they will avoid “Born to Run” as much as I avoided “Hotel California”. However, the driver of the car was happy, and that was the main thing.

But nothing lasts forever. Something was missing: a sparring partner, perhaps. The turning point came when I heard a new Eagles’ song and thought, “Darn it! I like this!” I found myself genuinely disappointed that I’d be Too Busy Being Fabulous on vacation at the time of their Connecticut gig. I’d come full circle. It was time to make my peace.

It’s been a gradual process, of course. I can listen to entire lesser-known Eagles songs without changing channels mid-track, but still haven’t managed all of Hotel California. Give me time. At least I no longer want to Kill the Beast.

But everything comes at a price. The satellite radio, my once-savior, turned against me. When I pulled into the garage last night, a song started playing in the car — a song I haven’t heard for a long time. Not since I listened to BBC morning radio, 3000 miles and a decade and a half away. Cliff Richard, sneaking onto American airwaves with a Golden Oldie. He wasn’t supposed to follow me over here. That wasn’t part of the deal.

Or as John Goodman in The Big Lebowski might put it, “This is not ‘Nam. There are rules.”

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Just for Laughs ,

6 kinds of road trips and the best cars, real and fantasy, to travel in

3 Comments Posted by on September 19, 2011

To take a road trip, one must have a suitable mode of transport. Most of our road trips were made in a soccer-mom-mobile — a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan, high in practicality but decidedly low in street cred. For our young family 14 years ago, however, it was perfect as we traveled through Maine, Quebec, Ontario, and New York.

Robert Pirsig’s Honda motorcycle, no matter how charismatic the ride or perfect the windshield-less view, would have been unfit for purpose if the purpose was to transport two children under the age of four.

So when people ask, “What’s the best vehicle for a road trip?” the answer will depend on another question:

“What kind of road trip?”

1. The Ghost Hunters Trip

The Fantasy – The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine.

The Reality – While the exact make and model of the Mystery Machine is unclear in the original cartoon, and a search on Google images brings up all manner of vehicles painted to resemble it (including a Dodge Grand Caravan — now, why didn’t I think of that?) I feel there is only one van that will fit this role: the VW camper.

A child of the hippie era, the VW encapsulates the eccentricity required for a ghost hunting trip. Film maker Elliott Bristow made a 500,000 mile trip around America between 1968 and 1982, much of it in a VW camper in which he had his own supernatural experience on an old Indian battle site.

Optional extras — large slobbering dog, at additional cost.

2. The Paris Hilton Trip

The Fantasy – Penelope Pitstop’s pink car from Wacky Races. In a 2009 survey by women’s motor insurer Diamond, around a fifth of the polled female motorists admitted to applying mascara while driving, and three per cent admitted causing an accident by doing so. These numbers statistically equate to “half a million road crashes caused by women applying make-up.” Penelope Pitstop’s pink car with its automatic lipstick applicator, therefore, would be an ideal choice for young women whose multi-tasking ability is limited to watching the road and changing gear.

The Reality — While Penelope’s car may be a reality at car shows (yes, I’ve seen it at Goodwood Festival of Speed) it probably, alas, doesn’t come with a lipstick applicator. All is not lost, though. Earlier this year, Google was lobbying for legislation to make Nevada the first state to allow their self-driving cars on the road, and which would include an exemption on the ban of texting — and therefore, one assumes, the application of lip gloss — at the wheel.

Optional extras — Bring a Southern Belle accent by all means, but leave the Southern Comfort at home. I’m pretty sure even self-driving cars wouldn’t be exempt from drink-driving laws.

3. The Girls’ Weekend

The Fantasy — A blue 1966 Thunderbird, as driven by Susan Sarandon in Thelma and Louise.

The Reality — There are still quite a few of these cars around, at varying prices. Try eBay. However much you pay for the car, don’t expect to find a hitchhiker who looks like Brad Pitt.

Optional extras — Radar detector where legal. Hitchhiker ejector seat.

4. The Flying Visit Trip

The Fantasy — Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Now, how useful would this car be? On a long stretch of dull highway or upon approaching a traffic jam, to press a button, unfold a set of wings, and zoom ahead like ET on a bicycle. Or when you come to some obstacle in the road — like, say, the Grand Canyon. (See “The Girls’ Weekend”.)

The Reality — The Terrafugia Transition. Is it a car? Is it a plane? It’s both. You land on the runway, fold up the wings, and drive home. The Massachusetts-based manufacturer estimates that the first delivery of this machine will be late 2012, and it will cost just under US$300,000.

Optional extras — Call me pessimistic, but a parachute would be nice.

5. The Great Lakes Trip — without waiting for a bridge

The Fantasy — James Bond’s Lotus Esprit. You know the one, in The Spy Who Loved Me. Roger Moore and Barbara Bach take a dive into the sea in this car, which miraculously turns into a submarine. Useful for crossing large stretches of water.

The Reality — The Lotus Elise sQuba. Concept car designer Frank Rinderknecht adapted a Lotus Elise to travel underwater. It can manage about two hours — until the batteries or oxygen run out. Sadly, this car remains just a concept.

Optional extras — As in Hitchhiker’s Guide, never travel in this one without a towel.

6. The Christmas Road Trip

The Fantasy — Santa’s Sleigh and Reindeer. I used to think Santa Claus’s transport was a very neat trick — time travel and flying deer in one machine.

The Reality — No reindeer, but an elk of sorts. This week we came across a road trip post at Sarah Melamed’s site, Food Bridge. (Do check it out. Some great photos, and other wonderful posts on food.) Sarah and her husband rented an RV for the summer and traveled from New York through Maine to Nova Scotia. The RV — pictured above — had a large dent in its front, apparently due to the previous renters crashing it into an elk in Montana. Hence the name Sarah gave it: the Elk-Mobile. The large dent, Sarah says, gave her and her husband credibility among the RV clan, even though they were “amateurs” in the RV world.

Optional extras — deer, readily available in your own back yard, to add a few dings where necessary.

If only I had known it was that simple to gain street cred when I owned my Caravan.

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s post, on the diner food sometimes encountered on American road trips (It’s Food!).

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

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Just for Laughs ,

Dear Mary-Sue: Tempted to make invidious cross-cultural comparisons

4 Comments Posted by on September 16, 2011

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

Dear Wallace-sensei,
As a Japanese expat living in New York, I’m finding myself becoming increasingly unsympathetic to my adopted city. Don’t get me wrong, Wallace-sama, I love it here. It’s just that I’ve found the hysteria surrounding first the earthquake and then Hurricane Irene a little hard to take considering the natural disasters Japan has had to deal with this year. Any advice for how I could stop these uncharitable thoughts that I am having?
— SY, New York City (originally Tokyo)

Dear SY-san,

Let me tell you a little story. There was once an attractive, physically fit young girl. She wasn’t from anywhere exciting, just a small town girl from West Virginia. Her father was a police officer in the town. When this young girl was 10, her father was shot and killed when apprehending a robbery. The girl was sent to Montana to live with her uncle. She didn’t like it in Montana, certainly not on the sheep farm her uncle owned. She tried to run away, to where she didn’t know, she just knew she wanted to be anywhere but Montana. But as she ran she witnessed something awful, the lambs from her uncle’s farm being slaughtered for market. She heard their cries, she still does, SY. She still does — when she dreams. It didn’t stop her running, though — she kept running this small girl.

The girl spent the rest of her childhood in a Lutheran orphanage. It was okay, though she still dreamt of the lambs. The girl was smart, though: she had gumption, she had tenacity and she was able to enroll into the University of Virginia on a full scholarship. When she left college, she applied to the FBI’s training academy. It was the late 70s, it wasn’t easy being one of the only women in the academy. But this girl got on with it. She was uncomplaining, and she was the best, she knew that. None of that sexist bull sticks when you know that.

On completing the training, this girl, now a young woman, joined the Behavioral Science Unit. She was part of a team that traced down serial killers — tried to get in their heads, think like they think. She was sent to a Baltimore asylum for her first interview, to meet with a serial killer who just might be able to help her with the case she had been assigned…

…Sorry, I digress, but the point, SY-san, is that that young girl was, in fact, little ol’ me. Yes, hard to believe, I know. I wasn’t always an agony aunt. Anyhoo, the point is some serious s**t went down. Some really creepy, really heavy stuff. So when I get invited round to Valerie Johnson’s for our book club meeting (second Tuesday of the month — we’re reading The Help at the moment; FABULOUS, you MUST read it), and Valerie starts recounting how she thought there was a robber in her garden the other day and she feared she was going to die — even though it just turned out to be Miguel, her 60-year-old Hispanic gardener — I just bite my tongue. Of course, I want to tell Valerie that she doesn’t know fear until she’s been trapped in a house with a serial killer knowing only one of you is going to get out of there alive. No, that would be rude. So I just sip my raspberry lemonade and nod politely as Valerie talks. New York, dear SY, is your Valerie Johnson. Tolerate her, SY, no matter how much you’d like to wring her neck.
— Mary-Sue

Anyhoo, that’s all from me readers. I’m so keen to hear about your cultural issues and all your juicy problems. Do drop me a line with any problems you have, or if you want to share your fave meatloaf recipe with me (yum! yum!). As they say in Italy, “ciao!” — or, as my (still!) unmarried youngest son (he’s nearly thirty, I despair of him, I really do) might say: “See you on the flip.”

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

img: Close, by Corina Sanchez.

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, on the wide variety of vehicles that have been used for road trips.

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The Displaced Q: Road trip – a simple journey, or a life-changing event?

7 Comments Posted by on September 13, 2011

Every year, a small number of people in biking leathers get on their motorcycles in Minnesota and set off on back roads toward the Dakotas. From Montana, they swerve briefly into Idaho and Wyoming, before riding across Oregon and down the final stretch to San Francisco.

They’re known as Pirsig’s Pilgrims — bikers who faithfully follow the route that Robert Pirsig took in 1968, as chronicled in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

San Francisco is not the destination, but merely where the journey ends. It’s a pilgrimage, sure — but the whole journey is the destination for these dedicated riders.

Still, the question is — Why? Why do they do this?

I’m not a fan of biking (despite being married to an enthusiast) and traveling 1700 miles in this fashion seems…well. Uncomfortable at best, downright dangerous at worst, is my view of bikes. But perhaps there’s more to this journey than the automotive experience for these people?

Pirsig’s account of the journey  is interspersed with philosophical musings, meanderings, and revelations that make light bulbs flash bright in the reader’s head.

Could his Pilgrims, in fact, be searching for an epiphany?

Many cultures demand a period of time in solitude in which to grow spiritually. Australian Aborigine adolescents, for example, would live in the outback for many months, tracing the paths of their ancestors and, one assumes, learning deeply from the experience.

Today, the nearest equivalent we have in the western world is a few years at college, and while you can argue that the experience transforms, it’s not exactly spiritual. (Not that kind of spirit, anyway.) However, many young people choose to take a gap year, remove themselves from their everyday world, and backpack their way through Asia or Australia.

Could it be that this yearning to travel to nowhere in particular, where the journey itself is the point of the exercise, is part of our make up, a necessary part of everyone’s growth?

And what if we missed out on the experience in our own youth? Backpacking isn’t for the faint-hearted, or for the achy knees that come with a certain age.

Road trips. That’s what happens.

We all know that living abroad as an expat is life-changing, but even expats want to travel within the confines of their new location. Our first vacation while living in the US was a road trip. Armed with a minivan, a preschooler, a four-month-old baby, and all the paraphernalia small children accumulate, we set off from Connecticut toward Maine, Montreal, Toronto, Niagara, and back home through upstate New York. (Readers of last week’s Libby’s Life might find some of this itinerary familiar;  I hasten to add that Libby and I have only the itinerary in common.) It was a good trip, even accounting for children’s travel sickness.

Was it life changing, though? Not really — the most memorable moment of the trip was upon checking into a hotel room in Montreal, to discover that Princess Diana had been involved in a car accident in Paris. I didn’t need to be on a road trip to be affected by that.

But one day, in a few years’ time, we will take another road trip, minus toddler and small baby, and drive across America, coast to coast. Maybe we will ditch the car for a motorcycle in Montana, and by that time I’ll be brave enough to view the Big Sky state without the encumbrance of a windshield. And maybe I’ll have that epiphany.

Or — here’s a thought. Perhaps it’s already waiting, within me. To quote Pirsig:

“The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”

Question: Have you ever taken a road trip, and if so, was it the best or worst thing you ever did? And did it change your life? 

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Related posts:

The John Steinbeck Encyclopaedia of Road Trips

Announcing September’s theme: Zen and the Art of Road Trips

Image: MorgueFile

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The Displaced Nation observes the 10th anniversary of 9/11

8 Comments Posted by on September 9, 2011

Two members of The Displaced Nation team, ML Awanohara and Kate Allison, were living in the United States at the time of 9/11 — Kate as an expatriate from the UK, and ML as a recent repatriate. In commemoration of Sunday’s 10th anniversary, they recount where they were on that day, as well as the impact it’s had on their lives for the past 10 years.

ML AWANOHARA:
I moved to New York City about a year before the 9/11 attacks occurred. Though an American, I’d spent a big chunk of my life abroad, in England and Japan.

But on that fateful day, just as the planes crashed into the towers, I was sitting at an outdoor table at a hotel on the island of Santorini, sipping retsina and savoring the sweetness of the tomatoes in my salad while admiring the hotel’s cliff-perched views of the sea.

The man who would become my second husband and I had gone to Crete for vacation. We’d traveled to this extraordinary cycladic island by ferry for the day.

After lunch, we made our way through the winding streets of Fira to the cable car station — we had to take the cable car back down to the beach to catch the ferry back home to Crete. We decided we needed more film and went into a little souvenir shop near the cable car entrance. The man behind the counter said something excitedly in Greek and gestured at the little TV on his wall.

The screen contained a surreal image of a plane crashing into the twin towers and billows of smoke.

I then had to do one of the hardest things I’ve ever done: get on a ferry for six hours, without any way of finding out what was going on. By the time we reached Crete, I had worked myself up into a state of panic over my sister and her young family, who were living in Battery Park City, right next to the twin towers. (Fortunately, my sister and her two-week-old baby were evacuated.)

We spent the rest of our holiday glued to CNN. On the occasions when we ventured out, many Cretans would offer words of sympathy. I remember in particular talking to the proprietor of one of the many open-fronted shops on Souliou Street, in the old quarter of Rethymno. She confessed to me how frightened 9/11 had made her feel. “If they can do that to America, then how can any of us be safe?” she said, gesturing at her wares, mostly hand-made sweaters.

Dogs, buses and other neuroses

In the aftermath of 9/11, I got my very first dog — a black-and-tan cocker spaniel, whom I named Cadbury for his sweetness (that was before I knew he had moods).

There’s nothing more comforting than a pet when undergoing trauma, and like everyone else in New York, I felt traumatized by the knowledge that there were people out there who hated our country enough to target civilians.

I also started riding the bus home from work. In the months following 9/11, there were constant rumors of threats against the subway. I’d lived through the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, and didn’t fancy another round of underground terror.

I liked the bus culture and have been taking buses ever since.

The attacks also deepened my interest in politics and foreign affairs. I understood for the first time how vulnerable cities are in general, and New York in particular. Shouldn’t the opinion of New Yorkers, who are on the front lines, count for more than those of people who live in states that aren’t vulnerable to terrorism? Especially when it comes to choosing our nation’s leaders…

That said, city politics are no better. How many city officials does it take to construct a 9/11 memorial? In fact, fewer (or none at all!) would have been more effective.

But I think what I found most disturbing was the role of religion in international affairs. What was all this talk of “holy wars” and crusades? Were we back in the Middle Ages? No doubt I was influenced by all my years of living in the polytheistic Far East, but I just kept thinking: this monotheism embraced by the West and the Middle East has a lot to answer for. (Give me Buddhism any day!)

A noisy anniversary

We’ve made it 10 years, and that’s a relief. At least, I assume that’s why so many people, along with the mainstream media, are making such a loud noise over this. (Are all ten-year anniversaries commemorated this vociferously?)

What I crave right now, to be honest, is some quiet time, away from all these celebratory undercurrents.

When I first came to NYC in 2000, I lived in Greenwich Village. Whenever I looked down 6th Avenue, the twin towers loomed in the distance, helping to orient me in the right direction.

I now live in the East Village, but perhaps I’ll head toward 6th Avenue this Sunday with my two dogs (Cadbury now has a younger companion) and reflect on my lost landmark.

I may also reflect on the snippet of Zen wisdom that appeared in The Displaced Nation’s Monday post, on road trips:

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

KATE ALLISON:

Summer 2001 marked our five year anniversary of living in the USA. Nine months before the attacks, we moved from New England to Leesburg, Virginia – a busy, rapidly expanding town about forty minutes west of Washington DC. I loved our new location. There were fields, and cows, and rolling hills; narrow streets and brick houses in the town. It was, dare I say it, very English.

September 11 started as a normal, beautiful, sunny day. I put my eight-year-old on the school bus, and went back home with my preschooler.

A little before 10 a.m., a friend phoned me. We chatted for a moment, then she asked where my husband was; since he worked with her husband, and they both traveled abroad in their jobs, this question wasn’t unusual. It’s what expat wives with traveling spouses talk about.

“At the Virginia office this week,” I said. “Yours?”

“India. He left yesterday from Dulles…thank goodness.”

Here, I should explain that I’m not a big TV watcher, especially when it comes to daytime programming, so the TV wasn’t on. If it had been, most likely it would have been tuned to Teletubbies.

“Why ’thank goodness’?” I asked.

Silence at the end of the phone, then “Haven’t you heard? Turn your TV on. It’s unbelievable.”

So I turned the TV on. I stared at the picture of the Twin Towers, not quite comprehending. I heard the announcement that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, just forty miles away. The plane was believed to have taken off from Dulles – the airport my husband, his colleagues, and our friends flew from every week. There but for the grace of God.

“World War Three’s just started,” said my friend.

*

My memories of the rest of that day are disjointed. I tried several times to phone family in England to let them know that we were safe, that no one was traveling this week, and eventually, after many busy signals, I got through. My husband came home from work and I breathed more easily. I didn’t want to be alone with just a four-year-old for company while this was going on.

Reports were vague, rumors rife. There were eleven hijacked planes in the air, there were six hijacked planes in the air. The USAF had shot some down; another two hijacked planes were on the way to Washington. Thirty thousand had died in the towers.

What was clear, however, was that airspace was gradually being cleared, and all planes had to land.

The silence from the skies as this happened was deafening. You don’t realize how much noise comes from overhead aircraft – particularly near a busy airport like Dulles – until the noise isn’t there.

In the early afternoon, rumors were still circulating about a rogue flight on its way to the White House or the Capitol. I went outside into our garden for a moment, and was panicked to hear aircraft engines overhead, because by this time all planes in US airspace had been grounded.

Only later did I discover I had heard Air Force One and its accompanying fighter jets, bringing the President back to Washington.

Our daughter returned from school and wanted to know what was going on. Something was going on, she said; she knew it was, because her teacher was being much nicer than usual and had let the kids draw pictures all day.

How do you explain something like this to a child? For the first time, I wondered at the wisdom of bringing children into this world at all.

Two weeks later, still pondering this question, I discovered we were expecting our third baby. Perhaps it was the answer I needed.

*

Déjà vu

No one we personally knew died that day, but because of where we had lived in the US, close to both attacks, many people we knew lost friends or relatives. Their grief makes me uneasy when I see movies being made about 9/11. It’s too soon, too raw. I’m not sure when it will ever be anything else.

Something I was asked a lot in the aftermath – Will you be coming back to live in England after this?

The answer was always No. I grew up in Britain during the 70s and 80s, when IRA bombings on the mainland occurred all too often. These things can happen anywhere.

This attitude was somewhat justified four years later, on July 7, 2005. I was in London that day, having arrived at Heathrow the night before. Had I not been jet lagged and so overslept, my children and I could have been on one of those trains that were torn apart by suicide bombers – we had planned some sightseeing that day.

Like I said before – there but for the grace of God…whatever you conceive Him to be.

STAY TUNED for Monday’s post, when we return to the theme of road trips.

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

img: Remember — a September 11th memorial image (the New York skyline is reflected in the eye from a silhouette placed on a window), by David Hepworth.

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Announcing September’s theme: Zen and the Art of Road Trips

Leave a comment Posted by on September 6, 2011

For many of us, Autumn is a time to reassess.

The dog days of summer are over, the leaves are starting to turn, and as winter approaches it’s inevitable we wonder where time has gone – and what we have done with it — since the last snows melted.

September in my part of the world happens to be a sweet spot in the annual weather pattern. For six weeks or so, the temperature and humidity are equable, and the New England fall foliage is spectacular.

This period around the equinox, it seems, is a time for last-minute new beginnings before winter sets in; a time to think about Life’s direction; a time to blow away the cobwebs.

It is, in short, the perfect time for a road trip.

“It’s a little better to travel than to arrive.”

In the summer of 1968, Robert Pirsig made a 17-day journey from Minnesota to California on his Honda CB77 Super Hawk, with his 11-year-old son, Chris, riding pillion. With them were Pirsig’s friends, John and Sylvia Sullivan, on their BMW. While it was a time for geographical exploration, it was also a time for meditation. Pirsig commented:

Unless you’re fond of hollering you don’t make great conversations on a running cycle. Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them.

His memoir of the trip, entwined with his philosophical explorations, of course, became the modern classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

This month we will be looking at this book, and asking ourselves what lessons we can derive from it that apply to today’s travelers and expats.

“Although motorcycle riding is romantic, motorcycle maintenance is purely classic.”

A concept Pirsig explores is that of romantic versus classical approaches to life: a Romantic focuses on being in the moment, rather than on rational analysis, whereas a Classically minded person wants to know all the details and inner workings of a situation.

When we travel, who among us likes to know the story behind the places we visit — and who is content to observe the surface appearance?

“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”

In other words, as we’ve all seen on those motivational posters, it’s the journey that counts, not the destination.

How many of us are guilty of ignoring the mountain flowers as we climb the mountain, or of ignoring the minutiae of daily life in a small town as we travel through it?

“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge.”

And then we arrive at the top of the mountain — or at the end point of our long journey — and we look around.

“Is this it?” we wonder.

Look around. Look a little farther. Look behind you, from where you came. That long journey?  You did that. All those random events, good and bad — the pit stops at old-fashioned diners, the Good Samaritan who helped you change a tire in the middle of nowhere, the time you ‘paid it forward’ by helping someone else on their journey — they all formed a pattern that has become part of your life.

Now, doesn’t that look better?

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

So this September, The Displaced Nation will be talking about all things road trips.

Who makes them? Why?

And are they really times of new beginnings?
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Family visits — 3 universally acknowledged truths by Jane Austen

1 Comment Posted by on September 5, 2011

Summer is the time when displaced people often visit or are visited by their families, and because of the distances involved, this usually means more than just popping round for a quick cup of tea.

As easy air travel is a fairly recent innovation, it’s tempting to think of these lengthy visits as recent also. They’re not, of course. A hundred-mile trip by horse and carriage two hundred years ago to see family was as tiring as a flight from Heathrow to Sydney now, and visits would last several weeks.

It’s only the mode of transport that has changed, though.

Take it from Jane herself.

1. Eliza Bennet Syndrome

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a displaced person in possession of a new abode in slightly exotic location, must be in want of visitors from home.

I feel sorry for Eliza Bennet. Despite marrying the richest man in Derbyshire and living in a house only slightly smaller than that county, she would always bear the burden of her awful relatives.

Even Pemberley wouldn’t have been big enough when they came to visit — and visit they surely would, as Jane Austen’s characters spent much time in the company of relatives scattered around England.

Evidently, it was dangerous to do otherwise – a visit with a mere friend to that iniquitous den, Brighton, resulted in social and financial ruin for Lydia Bennet when she eloped with Mr Wickham.

A decorous horse-and-carriage trip through Derbyshire with a respectable aunt and uncle, however, rewarded her sister Eliza with a good-looking (if emotionally constipated) husband, and her share of his ten thousand a year.

The moral, gentle reader: If you do not wish to be blamed for the consequences of young visitors searching for a good time with unsuitable handsome army officers, ensure that your foreign abode is in a quiet backwater where the only entertainment is weekly bingo in the church hall. Don’t live near a British bar in Ibiza. If you can find a house big enough so the raucous tones of your visiting mother cannot be heard by you or your neighbors, so much the better.

2. Mr Woodhouse Syndrome

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that some people will never visit on your own territory, and when you visit theirs, it is never for long enough to keep them happy.

Some people will never visit you, believing flights only travel in one direction, or that you live somewhere foreign and unhealthy. It is, therefore, your duty to visit them, since you were thoughtless enough to move away in the first place.

Emma Woodhouse’s father fell into this category of people. Although his married daughter, Isabella, lived only sixteen miles away in London, he disliked visiting her because

“…the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!–and the air so bad!”

Instead, to see her father, poor Isabella had to drag her entourage of five children to Highbury, where Mr Woodhouse would offer her a nice welcoming bowl of gruel.

She had nothing to wish…but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit;–perfect, in being much too short.

Too short for her father, that is. Not Isabella. She was just being polite. Take it from me.

The moral, gentle reader: Bring your own bottle. You’re going to need it, especially if all your folks have to offer is gruel for supper.

3. Fanny Price Syndrome

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the longer you have lived away, the more foreign your home country will feel, and at some point you will ponder the issue of whether it is possible to go home again.

Fanny Price, protagonist of Mansfield Park, and a lesser-known heroine than Eliza Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, understood this better than most.

At the age of nine, Fanny was booted from her home in Portsmouth to live at Mansfield Park with her advantageously-married aunt, to make room for yet another baby in her own family. Desperately homesick and missing her beloved brother William, Fanny is the Cinderella of her adopted family, mocked by her society cousins, and used as whipping-girl and general dogsbody by her two aunts. It wasn’t quite Charles Dickens territory — Fanny was given proper food — but it wasn’t far off.

She did, however, have a raging crush on her cousin, Edmund. Enough said.

Regardless of Fanny’s feelings for her cousin, one might assume that she would one day be glad to leave her aunt’s house and visit her family in Portsmouth. When she eventually did, it was many years after her first arrival, and as her uncle’s punishment for refusing to marry Henry Crawford, an upper-class philanderer. The implication was that, just as Fanny had been raised in society by her uncle, so could she once again descend to her miserable roots if her uncle chose.

While Fanny’s visit in no way persuaded her to marry that cad, Henry, she did realize that her spiritual home was no longer with her parents and siblings. Her parents, whom presumably she had loved at one time, and who had never mistreated her, were a huge disappointment to her. She perceived her mother as

a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern.

So, conveniently forgetting the unkindness of her Aunt Norris and her cousins, and the indolent neglect of her Aunt Bertram,

[Fanny] could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways. Every thing where she was was in full contrast to it. The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony — and perhaps, above all, the peace and tranquility of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour.

The moral, gentle reader: Are you sure you can never go home — or are you, in fact, suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

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Img: 1869 engraving of Jane Austen, based on a sketch by her sister, Cassandra Austen (WikiCommons)

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