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October 11, 2002
London
Helena Wetterberg, a photographer, titled her graduation piece ‘Home’. A Swede, she had been raised in Malaysia. Around the time she moved to Torquay, England, her parents moved to Stockholm. Her sister lived in the States. She had spent two years in Torquay and three in London by the time I met her. For her, home was where her parents now lived, and she had severed all her links with Malaysia. She had spent a long time trying to define ‘home’; her piece was an installation, with basic furniture projected onto the walls of a dark room: a chair, a wardrobe, a bed, a light, a window. A music box tune could be heard faintly.
I’ve spent more years than I care to admit to in London. I’ve always yearned for a sense of belonging, always felt at odds with what I define as English culture. At one time, I made a concerted effort to Be More English; a few years later, I started a photographic project, researching how English people themselves defined englishness. As most of my friends have always been from other countries, I’ve discussed with them recently the fact that no matter how long you live in London, you will always be made to feel aware of being a foreigner. For me this is a more complicated issue, as I don’t seem to have any obvious nationality, and I have been living for too long in London to feel this way.
Four years ago, I was living in Guatemala when I realised I was far happier than I had ever been whilst in London, and had all I needed to build my life upon: a good circle of friends, a high quality of life, the potential of a lovely home, more music work than I could schedule in, and the offer of studying music at the Conservatory in the capital. Six months later, I found myself unexpectedly back in London, and chose to stay on for a few specific reasons: my egyptian dancing teacher, who I was very fond of, my circle of friends, and my ‘sister’ Marina and my father, both of whom I wanted to get to know better. Within a few weeks I had become a fixture on the live music circuit, literally playing where other harpers dared not tread.
It’s been two and a half years since I last did an egyptian dance class, and seem to have developed a psychological block against ever returning. Marina is living in Spain now, and since partially losing contact two years ago we’ve never regained the friendship we had before. I have lost touch with virtually all of the friends who were so important to me a short few years ago. And in that time, London has been the place that stood witness as bad things happened, as I fought to recover from them, and laughed at me every step of the way. As I flew over the Irish Sea five days ago, my mind was filled with images of my flat in London, and it’s those images that are making me glow at the thought of returning tomorrow.
I’m aware that a visitor’s snapshot experience of a place, in this case Dublin, are going to differ greatly from a resident’s long-term view. I’ve been too tired, and also too discouraged to do all I had thought of in my first few days here. But I came with a list of the ingredients I would need – egyptian and contemporary dance classes, a diverse music scene, martial arts classes, that all-elusive sense of belonging – not forming any expectations beyond finding and enjoying them.
I set out tonight to an egyptian dance class with the intention of writing a piece on ‘Arabic Dance in Ireland’, but realised a common theme during the class. Tonight’s teacher appears to be the sole egyptian dance teacher in Dublin, and bears an alarming resemblance – personality aside – to a teacher I viciously boycott in London, objecting to their philosophy of using class time as a platform for showing off in lieu of teaching. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling it to be inappropriate and insulting to perform while teaching complete beginners who are struggling with even the simplest of moves. The rest of the class was extremely boring, with basic moves practiced for far too long.
I’ve been raised with both the American and British ethics, the American being that you work hard, push yourself hard, throw everything you have into what you’re doing; the British, mediocre is adequate. My brother has been living in the States for three years, and has been dealing with the same conflict since his return a year ago. At least in the States, he says, if you work hard you are recognised, appreciated and promoted accordingly. In England, he struggles to receive basic recognition of his achievements, while I simply get fired. I’m working for IBM now, on their helpdesk, having just finished on the Price Waterhouse Coopers helpdesk. I was intrigued at the prospect of three weeks’ training, and have been horrified to find this is because they have hired people specifically without experience, in some cases barely computer literate, and that this is perfectly acceptable for the Irish branch of a major technological firm. A brief few minutes’ conversation was sufficient to gauge our language skills. They did not even ask for references. Admittedly, this is the only experience I have of working in Ireland, and do not know if other companies do indeed operate on the same basis. Tonight’s class, however, again sought out the lowest common denominator and dropped it sharply. In such environments, it seems most obvious to slow down to the point of stopping altogether, as there is no incentive or reward for seeking a faster pace, indeed a challenge. And in the cases I have seen so far, not even the capacity.
Retracing my steps, and my previous piece, people’s enjoyment of Dublin seems to be based on the friendliness, the atmosphere, the nightlife. ‘Friendliness’ seems to be a licence for men to hit on every woman they see. The nightlife I have not really experienced, and I’ve not yet figured out what this special atmosphere is. All that has happened is that I have learned to appreciate London all the more. Yes, it is hostile, enormous, discouraging and harsh, but its very size offers a wealth of activities that cannot be found in a small, mostly unicultural capital such as this. Even the size of London itself is a deterrent to taking advantage of most. And I found that the lifestyle and culture of London were such that the opportunities I sought were not enough.
Perhaps that is part of the problem. Although Dublin’s technological industry is apparently developing rapidly, the market itself is too small to provide the resources that are needed; similarly, culturally, there are very fixed expectations which discourage diversification or the competition needed to improve the quality of what little is available. Innovation appears to be scarce, and change unimportant. London… it brings to mind, actually, a rather dire Queensryche song which I can no longer remember, but which was aiming towards gothic. I know of the richness of London’s culture at the start of the last century, and its role in the Sixties’ and Seventies’ culture, but those are very different worlds from the one experienced today. You can gaze at the blue plaques demarcating where the artistic heroes once lived, but remain excluded from the society that formed and created them. I can be proud of this city’s past, but remain, for the most part, relieved not to be eking out a life there anymore.
A lot of London’s harshness is due to its size, and the difficulties in so many people co-existing in such an overpopulated place. Too many people commuting, too many people in your way, too many people you dare not trust. And a very strong sense of impatience, that you will not allow the too-many-other-people slow you down or interfere in what you plan to do. People’s natural instinct is suspicion and solitude, which makes it all the lonelier for others who are not accustomed to such a lifestyle. However that impatience leads to certain expectations, a level of quality or service, or even a basic lack of interference. Certainly one downside of a friendly culture is that you’ll always be late for all that you plan to do; the flip side is that that usually disregards your own preferences and is not always out of choice. But there’s a little voice in every Londoner that says, ‘Nope, not good enough’, ‘you’re joking’, or, simply, ‘next!’ when faced with something not worth your while. The England I know is very reluctant to appreciate or praise, which makes it all the easier to take advantage of the competition available. In a culture without such tension, you simply enjoy and do not question.
What perplexed me in my previous piece, and again in this one, is what is so different about Dublin – or myself – that I cannot settle as immediately here as I have done in so many other places. It is extremely rare for me to get lost, except in London (and particularly where a friend, Madge, is involved!), and wherever I go I am struck with a sense of dormant familiarity. A few years ago, while working somewhere in Central America, for weeks or months I was recognising places from dreams I had had, even though I had never been there before. In Guatemala, my heart swells on arriving, relieved and satisfied by the familiarity and the sense of being ‘home’. In other places, it has been wholly natural for me to live and interact there, with little of the awkwardness or questioning that I have in Dublin or London. The happiest moments of this week have been finding somewhere to live, and buying my ticket back to London, albeit only for the weekend. Nevertheless, the London I am returning to tomorrow is not the one of my experiences, but specifically to revisit my home, the place that has been my source of strength for too long.
I’ve asked my colleagues, most of whom have lived here before or for several months now, what it is about Dublin they enjoy. I’ve never asked Londoners what consciously keeps them there. My experience is that the good times last only a short while, and then everyday life takes over. There is only so long you can repeat the same actions and retain a sense of integrity; you can harden yourself only so far before you forget why. And if you work during the day, there is only so far across London that you can travel to take advantage of something without repercussions. As I did, as two ex-colleagues are doing, if you shut yourself away and choose not to get too involved in the outside world, then you may as well be anywhere; being in London is too expensive and stressful to make it worthwhile. However, if you decide at some point to reemerge, then I hope you choose your place more wisely than I did.
At the end of the day, and this is the extent of my new ‘positive’ outlook, I applied for very many jobs, and this one in Dublin is the only one I got. So be it.
Dublin, 10 October 2002
Posted by chantal at October 11, 2002 03:39 PM