Overheard in...: The Tube

The "Overheard In..." category for the blog recalls snippets of conversation I happened to stumble across that for some reason stand out as indicative of cultural differences, or cultural issues I'm trying to understand. (And all subtly prove that reality is stranger than fiction.)
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The Setting: A quiet Saturday morning, around 9am, on the Jubilee line tube between Finchley Road and Bond Street.

The Characters (4): (1 and 2) A couple in their sixties, presumably English-- neatly dressed-- him in trousers and a button down shirt and sweater, she with died brown hair and well-applied makeup; (3) a man in his forties, also presumably English, thickish glasses, straight gray hair, casually dressed; (4) me.

The Scene:
The 60-something man and woman are reading a newspaper, which they’ve split between them. The woman has a facial twitch of some sort. Every so often, her face and neck just out oddly and then go back to normal for about ten to fifteen seconds.

The woman has a nice leather bag with different colors of leather diamond shaped patches sewn together. She rifles through the bag fumbling for something and her hand shakes a bit. Every so often she also asks a question to her husband, analyzing something concerning going in the news, that I can’t quite hear.

The train stops at Bond Street and the couple fold up their newspapers and get up to leave. They don’t move quickly but get off the train. The 40-something aged man who was sitting across from them notices they’ve left their umbrella.

40-something man: (shouting to outside the train) Your umbrella!

60-something woman: (shouting in) What?

40-something man: Your umbrella.

He stands up and realizes quickly that he can’t get off the train or it will leave without him. So he grabs it and throws it to her right before the door begins to close. It lands on the floor on the platform outside the train.

60-something woman: Thank you. Thank you very much, indeed!

(Door closes).

40-something man nods and smiles. But the smile, the smile… the smile is one of the loveliest I have seen in a long time. It is broad but not self-satisfied. Genuine. He holds it on his face for a few seconds after the door closes. Such a beautiful, beautiful smile. An expression on his face as if to say, “Yes, of course. That’s what we’re all really for here at the end of the day, isn’t it?”

And the fourth character, me… I found myself smiling also, on the other end of the train carriage. Because—basically—that is what we’re here for, right?

Overheard in...: A Cafe

The "Overheard In..." category for the blog recalls snippets of conversation I happened to stumble across that for some reason stand out as indicative of cultural differences, or cultural issues I'm trying to understand. (And all subtly prove that reality is stranger than fiction.)

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The Setting:
Costa Coffee (a decently sized chain in London-- also decent coffee, as it happens) a few blocks from my house, on the high street. The scene took place while waiting in line to place an order, around 2pm on a weekday.

The Characters:
(1) A 60-something posh English woman, very well-put together and proper looking, dyed blondish hair, an insanely huge diamond ring on her finger, a face perfectly done up and which looks like it may have had a facelift... She is first in line to order (2) a young American woman in front of me (behind the English woman), in gym clothing-- oversized t-shirt and sweats, no makeup, hair in a pony tail, a bit flushed from her workout; (3) A North African (I think?) employee of Costa Coffee, tallish, short curly dark hair, wearing a Costa Coffee Uniform. (4) me.

The Scene :

North African Coffee Guy: (to the English woman who is first in line)
Hi yuh. (thick foreign accent.)

Posh woman: (clipped accent)
Yes, I'd like a hot chocolate please.

Coffee Guy:
Sorry? (Pause) Sorry, could you...

Posh woman: (Annoyed tone. But she also appears to be slightly hard of hearing)
Wh... What? I said a hot chocolate please.

Coffee Guy:
Meee- dium? Meee-dium, yes, it's okay? (He proceeds to take quite some time to try to input this order into the computer. He's fiddling with different keys on the keypad.)
Sorry. I... (mumbles something indecipherable. I gather he's just started to work there. Finally he succeeds in punching the right button.)
...Dats Two-fouh-ey. (or similar sum, I don't remember exactly.)

Posh woman:
What?

Coffee Guy:
Two-fouh-ey.

Posh woman:
That's ridiculous.

(She fumbles through her[nice, expensive, designer] purse to get change. The huge rock on her finger is flagrantly noticeable, unable to be ignored. She reluctantly puts the money on the counter-- but does so with a bit too much force. I hadn't really been paying attention, but now I do. While the coffee guy is making her drink, the posh woman turns to the young American woman in front of me.)

Posh woman:
They're all coming here, people like him. And they don't even know what they're doing. They can't even communicate properly. They don't speak our language.

American woman:
Oh, he' s just started. Give him a few weeks and come back and I'm sure he'll be perfect.

Posh woman:
They shouldn't allow people like that to work here.

American woman: (polite, measured tone)
Well, maybe you should talk to your government because they won't let *me* work here. And I do speak your language. We're all strangers at some point. It's not easy.

(Coffee guy is getting change for Posh woman. The American woman turns to me.)

American woman: (softly, incredulous.)
Did you hear all of that conversation?

Me: (nodding, also incredulous)
Yes. Unbelievable.

(The posh woman walks over to the other side of the counter where the coffee guy is finishing the hot chocolate.)

Posh woman: (agressively.)
It needs to be hot. You need to make it hot. (Pause.) Did you hear me?

(He nods. He sets the drink on a tray for her.)

Posh woman:
Is it hot? Did you make it hot?

(He nods, again. If it had been me I would have wanted to punch her in the face, but he simply demurred. She takes the mug away, shaking her head in disgust.)

Pro/Con #1: Socialized Medicine

When I first got to London, completely abuzz and overwhelmed by the size of the city and the unexpected culture shock, I sent an email to one of my dearest friends in SF, summarizing my early assessment of London. It went something like this:

Pro: It's a huge city with tons going on.
Con: It's a huge city with tons going on.

Pro: There are lots of Europeans here.
Con: There are lots of Europeans here.

Con: It's really expensive.
Pro: ... um...

(etc. The list continued for several pages)

In the same vein, I'm going to keep an ongoing pro/con list and actually elaborate on some of these subjects. They're interesting. And if I sound a bit sarcastic at times, I'll fill you in on a little secret. I actually really like it here. Maybe not quite as much as SF, but I like it. Even when I complain and tell you that I'm homesick and hate the weather and don't like it here. It's all true, but I still like it.

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Pro/Con #1

Pro: There's socialized medicine here.
Con: There's socialized medicine here.


On the pro side...
It's not quite the miracle that Michael Moore makes it out to be, but it is a miracle.

When I first signed up for my GP, as all users of the National Health Service are required to do, the nurse in the 'surgery' (surgery in British English just means a doctor's office) took me through my medical history. She then warned me about my doctor. "She's perhaps the best and most attentive GP in all of London," she said, "but she has no sense of time management. Expect to wait. Hours. For any of your appointments." Fair enough, I thought. Honestly, I was simply grateful to have free health insurance. I'm dirt poor trying to make it here on a US research grant (basically double the cost at half the wages)-- so this generosity is a godsend.

I went to see Dr. Berger (not her real name) two days ago and fell in love with her and her quirky, heartfelt style. I did, of course, wait about 45 minutes in the waiting room, even though mine was the first appointment of the day. When she called me in, she apologized profusely, about a million times. "I'm really sorry," she said-- and then again, with her charming accent, "really terribly sorry." I'd already said it was okay a few times, but she continued. "So sorry. Sorry to keep you waiting. Sorry."

She was probably in her fifties and probably Jewish and had ever-so-slightly frazzled brown longish hair and a long stylish skirt and sweater. She moved around her office with frenetic energy. Every time she needed me to do something so she could examine me (like roll up my sleeve for a blood pressure test, or lift my shirt so she could see the skin on my back), she'd also thank my profusely. "Thank you," she'd say, "Thank you very much, thank you."

She cared. She asked me about my research. And my family. And my impressions of the country. And we got into a long discussion about how she'd been tempted to go to the US -- doctors there make much more money. But she couldn't. She never could, she said, because in her eyes, everyone is equal and everyone deserves to be seen by a doctor. She couldn't live with a completely privatized system.

It wasn't hard to see why she keeps her patients waiting hours to get seen on any given day. But that was just her style. Her absolute commitment was that patients should get care, regardless of their background, regardless of the bureaucracy. And there is plenty of bureaucracy, as I will get to shortly. But all in all, I left getting what I needed. And I honestly couldn't have afforded it without the good graces of the socialized system-- as presumably was the case for many people in that waiting room. Pensioners, single mothers, people of all ages, races, and sizes, all entitled to healthcare. I would call that a miracle. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just a travesty that it doesn't exist more broadly, especially in societies as wealthy as the US.

On the con side...
I wrote that I left getting what I needed. That isn't the complete truth. The complete truth is that I left with referrals to go through ridiculous bureaucratic hoops to eventually get what I needed.

For example: My GP in the US, many years back, had noted that I have some moles on my back and I might want to get them looked at every once in a while just to make sure they're not growing or changing shape. It had been a while so I asked Dr. Berger to take a look. "Why?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Why are you concerned? What's your specific reason for being concerned?"

I explained what my earlier GP had said-- he'd always managed to just look quickly and assure me things looked fine. But Dr. Berger asked me a million detailed questions and finally said she wasn't qualified to take a look, even casually. Instead, she had to refer me to a dermatologist. And I'd have to wait- months and months- to get seen. Unless she stretched my explanation a bit and said instead that I had good reason to think they were cancerous, in which case I could get them seen in a few weeks.

Similarly--(apologies in advance if this is too much information.) I'd injured a toe earlier this year and the toenail was growing back oddly, with a strange color, making me think it was infected. "I need a toenail clipping to test it," Dr. Berger said, "but we're not allowed to do that for you anymore. You'll have to take this specimen folder home and do it yourself, then bring it back. Then call us in two or three weeks to get the results."

Now, I'm a student, and my time is flexible, so it's wasn't a big deal for me to walk back the next day, toe nail specimen in hand. But if I'd had a 9-5 office job, I'd have had to come in late on not one, but two mornings-- first for the appointment, and second to drop off the specimen (since the surgery doesn't open until 9:30 am.) Not exactly ideal for running efficient businesses.

Survey says:
Warts and all, it's a still a miracle, as I said before.
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On a tangential note, Michael Moore makes the UK and French systems out to be angelic and the US system to be demonic. I actually liked the film, but as I watched it last year, I couldn't help but wonder if US citizens (by virtue of our fully privatized system) were funding medical innovation from which the whole world benefited, thereby allowing countries like the UK the luxury of not needing to go the private route themselves. The truth is, the profit motive in pharmaceutical research has saved lives. And without it, we wouldn't have the kinds of medicines we have today. It's also developed wasteful medicines and drugs are shamefully maldistributed... but if all rich country govts had socialized medicine, what would that mean for slowing down innovation in the medical industry? Is there some middle ground?

Shortest Day of the Year (Photos)

I have to admit, the short winter days have been getting to me.

But rather than getting depressed about the darkness, I thought I'd get creative about it instead. Yesterday, was the winter solstice-- shortest day of the year (The sun started setting at around 3:15 or so... ). I went around by the Thames with my camera and captured the light dissappearing in the afternoon. Using a camera always helps one see things in a different way-- this time as always. The beauty of the scene made me see the darkness a bit differently.




3:40 pm -- Full Sunset over Houses of Parliament




Another shot, with London Eye in foreground




Me with a characteristically silly grin...

Overheard in...: A Sauna

The "Overheard In..." category for the blog recalls snippets of conversation I happened to stumble across that for some reason stand out as indicative of cultural differences, or cultural issues I'm trying to understand. (And all subtly prove that reality is stranger than fiction.)

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Overheard in... a Sauna

The Setting:

The sauna, in my gym, in Swiss Cottage, London. Also known as the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre, it's run by Camden Town Council and is actually quite nice and new... and subsidized, thankfully.

Scene One:
The dry sauna. Small, compact wooden planks.

The Characters (4):
(1) Me, wrapped in big blue towel. (2) A very skinny African woman in her late twenties, wearing a bikini--every muscle shows in her physique, particularly in her legs; (3) a slightly pudgy Korean woman in her thirties, also wearing a bathing suit, very round face; (4)and a boisterous fifty-something ostensibly working-class English woman with leathery skin on her face, as if wrinkled from smoking, but smooth skin on the rest of her body. She is wearing only a bikini bottom. Died brown hair, lots of makeup, heavy black eyeliner; breasts sag down to a bit above her waist.
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Korean Woman:
Don't make it too hot in here, bad for the skin. Dries out oil.

English woman: (boisterously, thick London accent)
Oh, this is good, this is good. I like the heat. Gorgeous.

(African woman silent, staring straight ahead as if no one else is in the sauna.)

Korean woman:
Weather here horrible. London weather awful.

English woman: (Thick makeup bleeding down her face from sweat)
Well, could be worse, love. Where you from?

Korean woman:
Korea. Where I from not like this, no. This awful, sad, weather.

Me:
Yes, I was really looking forward to the dry heat in the sauna, given how wet the air always is in London.

English woman:
Does it get cold there? You from North Korea or South?

Korean woman:
(GASPING) No!!!! I from South. SOUTH!!!! Of course, south.

(African woman still staring straight ahead silently.)

Korean woman:
I very religious. Christian. Pray every day. Pray for the North. Situation there awful. Just awful.

English woman: (to me)
The sauna's downright healthy isn't it, love?

Me:
Is it? Certainly feels good.

English woman:
Well yes, they used to prescribe whole courses of medicine that were just about sweating things out. Your skin is an organ, you know, an organ of purification.

Korean woman: (Shaking her head)
No get this cold in Korea. Cold, but maybe not this.

(African woman still staring straight ahead silently. English woman leaves to take a cold shower and announces she will see us all in the wet sauna)


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Scene Two: Steam Sauna

Characters (5):
(1) Me; (2) the Korean woman; (3) the English woman; (4) a young Russian woman who looks like a professional and has smartly cut blonde hair, wearing a swimsuit; (5) a Chinese middle-aged woman, naked, laying down lengthwise on a towel.
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I enter, the rest are already sitting there

English woman:
So you decided to join us here, eh? It's cold. When is the heat coming on?

Russian woman: (thick accent)
It's warming up, don't worry.

English woman: (to me)
I do this a few times a week. Dry sauna, a cold shower, wet sauna, a cold shower, then dry one one more time. It's lovely. (Then to the Chinese woman)
Do you think you're taking up enough space?

Chinese woman: (thick accent)
I sit... yes. Nice. (then some words no one understands.)

English woman: ( bemused smile on her face.)
Yes, you're taking up a lot of space, dear. (then to me again). Not that I understand her, mind you.... (pause.) It's tropical in here, doesn't it feel like a tropical rainforest?

(I'm wondering why I'm the only one she's directing these comments to-- perhaps because my accent isn't quite as foreign as the others?)

Korean woman:
I move here only three month ago.

Me:
Myself as well.

Korean woman:
I not like London. Not weather.

English woman:
Well, but wherever you go it's bad. In the east coast of the States they have hurricanes,no? Least we don't have those. We've got it mild.

(I hear this a lot-- English describing their weather as mild. Seems to me a somewhat strange description of a place where it rains nearly every day, and sunshine is a precious commodity-- but I suppose it's true that it's not Siberia. And then again, few places have weather like California.)

Korean woman:
Yes, but hurricane come and go. This every day.

(after a few minutes pass)

Me:
I think I'm done...

English woman:
No, no, try a bit longer. Go take a cold shower and come back in...

Me: (smiling)
Yeah, I actually really think I'm done. Enjoy, though...

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Scene Three

I am showered and in the main foyer to the leisure centre, talking on my mobile phone. The English woman passes me, fully dressed, on her way out. She sees me as she is about to pass through the door, stops, smiles a huge smile, and shouts over to me...

English woman:
Be sure to drink a lot of water, love. Lots and lots.

(I nod as I briefly interrupt my phone conversation. I think this may well be the first time while living in England that a complete stranger who is actually English has been so outwardly friendly to me.)

English woman: (waving broadly and smiling)
Bye-bye!

What is Cynicism Good For?

A friend of mine here in London--we'll call her Sarah-- is a corporate executive.

Sarah's firm recently merged with an American one, and she relayed to me the story of an email she received from an employee in the US. He was retiring after having worked with the firm for more than thirty years. The farewell email he sent round to the firm, she told me (with a disdainful smile on her face) was openly gushy... saying how much his years at the firm had meant to him, how much he would miss his colleagues, etc.

Sarah rolled her eyes as she recounted this to me. "Isn't that ridiculous?" she asked. And then she added, "That would never happen here in England."

I was a bit surprised by her reaction. I don't think I would have done any differently than that employee if I'd been at a firm for over 30 years. You develop relationships-- with people, with the institution. It shapes your life.

We then got into a long argument about how, in her eyes, Americans define themselves too much by their work (fair enough); how they constantly say how wonderful everything is without really meaning it (also mostly true); how they feel a need to paint everything with a "you-can-do-it" rosy tint (true again).

Sarah has a point about the way in which the cultural pressure to look and be happy distorts our behavior in the US (See for example, my friend Guy's American phrasebook for a humorous take on this). But I can't help but think that there is something equally peculiar about the energy and passion with which Sarah felt the need to attack her colleague's email.

Just like our American "you-can-do-it" stereotypes, cynicism is also a lens through which to see the world. I find it quite a lot here in London. It's often dressed up in sophisticated, even charming manifestations. My Rough Guide to London speaks of a nation-wide standard for journalists in which extreme cynicism is first quality on the checklist before getting a job as a writer or newscaster. Combined with the fact that the British, on average, have way more knowledge about what's going on in the world-- it makes for far better news coverage than what we get at home.

But like any point of view, cynicism has it drawbacks. It's fine to question things, fine to be smug about those who don't see the irony and sheer ridiculousness of everyday life... But at the end of the day, what's wrong with getting attached to one's workplace, as long as it's held in healthy balance? More fundamentally, what's wrong with believing that it's possible to live the kind of life you want to live?

I ask that rhetorically, of course. But I'm finding more and more that not everyone would see that as a rhetorical question. A realization unto itself.

Same friend tells me the story of a party we went to last weekend. She apparently met a lovely guy, also well educated. He asked her what college she went to at Oxbridge but first revealed his own college-- one of the most prestigious in Oxbridge. She tells him her college-- and, as she recalls-- he pauses for a moment, and changes the subject, as if to underline how much of a higher status he has.

Now, this isn't my culture. I've only lived here for less than six months. Sarah would be able to read his reactions better than I would.

...Except, I was at this party too. I met this guy. He seemed perfectly nice, a bit softspoken; indeed, even a bit diffident. Not the type of person, in short, who would go around averting his nose to different colleges at the most prestigious universities in the country.

I began to wonder. If I'd been in the exact same conversation, I would have read his reaction differently. Where she saw arrogance, I would have seen awkwardness. Where she saw discussions of status, I would have seen a simple exchange of facts.

Perhaps this is the exact meaning of culture-- that you can take the same exact set of inputs and interpret them completely differently. Perhaps I'm naive to not want to focus on what might rightly be a bit of status-flaunting by this guy at the party. I suppose, though, at the end of the day, I'd want to err on the side of interpreting life as fairly good, and people as fairly decent. Are the two interpretations equally valid?

Which brings me back to the question I posed as the title of the post. There's nothing inherently inferior or superior about the American tendency to celebrate heroic individualism and optimism. It's good for certain situations and distorts others.

But what is cynicism good for? When is cynicism the right lens to take to the world?

That, I might add, is not a rhetorical question.

Poppies and Pride (a late second post)

In early November, I found myself in King's Cross station, London, sitting on a crowded bench, waiting to board a train to Newcastle.

Cops were walking around with dogs to sniff our luggage and make sure we had no explosives. People were milling about like mad, buying their last minute baguette sandwiches and coffees before heading on the train, talking on their mobile phones... and generally not paying any attention to each other.

But scattered around the station, I noticed a few people wearing red paper poppies in their lapels-- women and men alike, of all different ages.

For those of you who have lived in the UK, you will know that November 11th is Remembrance Day, a huge holiday to honor war dead. But I had no idea. (And at this point, it was still over ten days before Remembrance Day, when many more people would be wearing the flowers.)

The young woman sitting next to me on the bench was an African immigrant-- she looked about 18 or 19. She had braces and was wearing bright silver eyeshadow. I asked her if she knew what the red poppies were all about. She looked at me absent-mindedly and shook her head.

Meanwhile, another woman (who I assume was native-born English) had overheard my question and intervened. She appeared to be in her early thirties-- conservatively dressed, a bit overweight-- and told me she was a primary school teacher from the Midlands. She explained, beaming with pride, about how the British celebrate Remembrance Day ( ...In the 11th month, on the 11th day, in the 11th hour...), how the red poppies symbolize the earth upon which soldiers in Europe fell, disturbing the earth enough for huge fields of these flowers to spring up around their bodies.

But this wasn't just a technical explanation. Her eyes started to well up as she explained how her grandfather and uncle had served in World War II and how she always made sure all of her students took the holiday seriously. Her passionate explanation went on for almost 30 minutes; she almost made herself late for her train.

I was struck by the depth and sincerity of this woman's convictions-- the sheer upright conviction and morality which seemed to lay beneath them. For better or worse, it's hard to imagine Americans feeling a similar pride today about any of our past or present wars-- WWII included. Most people I know spend Veterans Day as just an extra day off (if they actually get it off, that is...which is a topic I shall have to save for another blog post.)

As the days wore on, I was up in the NE of the country, in tiny villages, and saw more and more people wearing these paper flowers in their lapels, which they bought from a national charity whose proceeds went to benefit war veterans. Birmingham had huge poppies decorating the city center (see photo below). Some people even wore 'alternative poppies' (see below)-- white flowers meant to symbolize a pacifist response to war-- but one that still acknowledged the sacrifice of war victims all the same.

Now I'm a human rights practitioner. I've spent years studying nationalism and patriotism in all its forms and tend to have a love-hate relationship with all of its many manifestations. So one would think I might not be super excited about witnessing other countries' forms of patriotism. And of course, there's an element of performance about the whole practice, also. BBC TV announcers, for example, are told they must wear the poppy in their lapel in early November; no choice about it. There's plenty of people who wear the poppy just because they can't be seen not doing so.

But somehow, still, the whole poppy practice struck me as a good and honorable thing. Perhaps the deep recognition of the debts we owe to those who came before us and their struggles. Perhaps the sense of gratitude that the freedoms we enjoy were not just dropped in our laps pricelessly (do I sound like a politician making a speech?).

There are many reasons one could postulate about why Americans don't take their war history quite as seriously. Perhaps that our land has never been physically threatened to quite the same degree, 9/11 notwithstanding. Perhaps just that our sense of history is so much less keenly developed-- given we have so much less of it to look back on.

It's understandable. And I'm the last person to glamorize war.

But, I have to say, I admire the way the British celebrate Remembrance Day. I think we've got something to learn from it.

Birmingham town centre with poppies

White poppies symbolize pacifist commemoration