We are all pioneers of the year 2010.
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I arrived in England a year ago today. A lot has changed since then, luckily for the better. I moved from a seedy house with an odd landlady to a lovely quiet house that I practically had to myself. It was brilliant until bailiffs started knocking on the door and notices of repossession came through the letterbox a few months later. By the time the water and gas had been turned off it was time for me to move on anyway. My tenure at the school I was teaching came unexpectedly to a close 3 weeks early and I was suddenly relieved of the worst job I have ever had.
In the weeks that
followed I scoured the Internet looking for another teaching post mainly to see
me through financially. Meanwhile, Nancy was packing up her life in Taiwan to
join me as planned in July.
The day she arrived we were burgled. Only one bag was stolen, but in it was our marriage certificate – a crucial document Nancy would need to apply for a resident card. To our dismay this meant having to apply for a new marriage certificate from the notoriously inept department of home affairs in South Africa where we were married. Miraculously with my mother’s help we managed to get an unabridged copy delivered express to us just days shy of Nancy’s visa deadline 3 months later.
It was stressful time not knowing whether Nancy would be able to stay in the UK for much longer or what we would do if she had to go back. This was compounded by the added stress of moving from one part of England to quite another and having to find a new place to live when we got there. Then there was the stress of me starting a new job and Nancy trying to get a job of her own and in between all this were niggles like applying for National Insurance numbers, a driver’s license, a bank account and so on.
Amid the frenzy Nancy
and I decided on a trip to Paris. It seemed rushed and badly timed, but we had always
wanted to go, we were both out of work, Nancy’s visa was still valid and we
really, really needed a rest. It was perfect - We spent our days strolling
about the city, lazing in parks, eating, drinking and getting bronzed in the
sun. We returned to England with renewed resolve.
Fast forward to the
end of the year. Nancy and I are far more settled and relaxed. We share a clean
and comfortable flat with a Chinese couple who simply leave us be. I am getting
on well in my new school and Nancy has a part time job that she quite likes. So things have gotten better.
Hopefully by this time next year I will be fully qualified to teach in the UK. Ideally I would like to be either the Head of Department at the school I am in at the moment or to be working in a better school. Nancy should have a ‘regular’ job by then doing something that is suitably challenging, and if things go according to plan we will finally have bought a place of our own to call home. It is going to be an interesting year.
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At the far end of the enormous Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern is a correspondingly huge metal box: thirty metres long, thirteen metres high and sitting on two-metre stilts. One end of the box is open with a metal ramp leading up to the pitch-black interior. The artwork entitled How It Is by Miroslaw Balka is said to allude to the Holocaust, whereby the huge metal container is akin to the trucks that took the Jews away to the camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz.
Walking up the steel ramp towards the vast dark opening of the box is certainly unsettling. Even the sound and vibrations of footsteps on the metal ramp feels cold. Once you are inside the structure it gets progressively darker as your move further in. People beside you become less discernable and those at more than an arms length away cannot be seen at all. Were it not for the cheerful and exited chatter of most of the visitors the experience would have been decidedly eerie.
I went in with my sister while her boyfriend remained outside taking pictures. Once we had gone in some way and I could no longer make out or hear any people in front of us I stopped so that my sister’s boyfriend could catch up with us. While we waited for him we simply appreciated the odd sensation of being in a dark box. Before long my sister’s boyfriend appeared beside us. I was surprised that he managed to find us so quickly but also glad because I was eager to step into the absolute darkness that lay ahead. As I took a step forward though I came smack up against the back end of the structure. The wall was lined in soft black velvet, which felt nice to touch and was as unexpected as the wall itself. Turning around I was surprised to see how much more brightly lit the box now seemed and how close the entrance actually was. I had expected it to be further away.
For me the experience of walking into the box was comparable to ones journey through life: as you move forward you don’t actually know what is coming next or whom you will bump into. You might link arms with someone and walk beside others but most of the people you see or hear you’ll never know. When you reach the end it comes as a surprise, it’s disappointing, although you knew it was coming all along. Like the unexpected touch of velvet on the box however death is probably comforting. Our lives will also most likely seem like a much quicker journey than we imagined when we look back on them. Even at this point my life seems to have passed by ever so quickly. Lastly, I imagine that our lives in retrospect will seem far simpler than we experienced them to be, just as the box was much brighter looking back towards the entrance where we started out.
Since the box is supported on stilts you can walk underneath it and hear the footsteps of those inside. If the box is symbolic of life then the space under the box could be likened to the netherworld of ghosts perhaps, or the life one leads after we have left this box that we are now in. I don’t believe in life after death mind you, but if there were such a thing I would imagine that it would eclipse life as the Turbine Hall eclipses the box. Perhaps the after-afterlife would be the world outside of the Tate Modern and so on, until such a point that we live a space that is infinite.
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I finished reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything over a month ago now but the effect the book had on me still lingers. I feel enlightened but also saddened, somewhat like I did as a child when I realised that Santa doesn’t exist and there is no magic to Christmas.
Essentially the book is a travelogue of science that illustrates the amazing combination of factors that resulted in us being alive for brief period of time as human beings on an utterly fantastic and improbable planet. It is quite overwhelming, or should I say underwhelming?
What significance do the foibles of my life, or any one else’s, really have? From just a modest distance the president of our country say, is an indistinguishable dot like any other person. From a greater distance the whole earth our president lives on is just a dot and from a further away still so is the entire galaxy in which earth floats.
Considering that there are millions of galaxies, with space expanding all the time, it is hard to think you matter - no matter who you might be. It is a sobering thought. So too the thought that every infinitesimal atom we are made of are as lifeless as the bricks used to build a house. The fact that the same atoms that form us form everything else as well is also unflattering. On an atomic level there is no difference between a person and a pebble. Long after we have breathed our last these little building blocks that made us up will go onto reconstitute themselves into something else just the same.
The indifference of the natural world to our existence either from a macro or micro point of view is not comforting or uplifting. No wonder people turn to religion to attain some purpose to life. Surely our brains and personalities count for something. If not then what is the point to having them in the first place? To me it is absurd to think there must be a point to it. Why should there be? Is there a point to a tree growing at a particular spot in the ground as well? Nonetheless, without rhyme or reason to our life, it is hard to take it seriously. It is like Christmas without Santa.
My friend Ludovic in Taiwan is also married to a Taiwanese woman. He does not intend to leave Taiwan though. The way he sees it, it is unfair to expect his wife to leave the country of her birth now that they are married when it was he who had left his country when they met. If his wife had met him in France he argues, and they got married and lived there, it would be similarly unfair of her to expect him to up and leave one day for her native Taiwan.
To me it is not so cut and dry. I don’t think it necessarily follows that I have to make a go of things in Taiwan since that is where I met Nancy. If she were averse to the idea of living abroad I don’t think she would have married me to begin with. After all not many foreigners intend to stay in Taiwan permanently, especially not those from countries with very different cultures. It is all but inevitable that the Western foreigners in Taiwan will leave at some point in the future.
When Nancy and first got to know each other I remember telling her about my dreams for the future. They were primarily centred on moving to the UK when the opportunity arose and teaching something that I was interested in. I spoke about the Pounds that I would earn and how that would finance other dreams like travelling the world during the long summer breaks I would have as a teacher. Nancy was excited by the idea too. I told her how easy it would be for her to blend into the multicultural British society if she joined me and how much better our quality of life would be there.
Now that those dreams are finally being realised I would have expected us to be happy, but in fact the opposite is true. My experience of teaching in England has been shattering so far, I have struggled to make ends meet despite earning Pounds and worst of all Nancy is not glad to be here. If it were not for me she would certainly be on the next plane back to Taiwan. It is not that she doesn’t like England, just that she misses her own country where she can get on with her life far easier.
England has certainly proven to be more difficult to settle into that we expected. Finding a job has been the most challenging aspect. For Nancy this is particularly frustrating as she was at the top of her game in Taiwan. She is used to having two personal assistants, but in England she cannot even get a job as an assistant herself because he English is not up to scratch. She is applying for jobs as a waitress and house cleaner in the mean time, which, naturally, is a tremendous dent to her ego.
Getting used to having less money is also difficult. In Taiwan Nancy got a platinum credit card with no questions asked courtesy of her days working at Citibank, while in England she could only open a basic savings account using me as a reference. Having to keep a careful tab on what we spend in the supermarket for example, only buying clothes that are on sale and living in a house share are things we are just not used to.
The job I had as an ESL instructor in Taiwan was far simpler than my job as a teacher in England but it allowed me to buy more and save more. Essentially I was a lot better off financially in Taiwan than I am in England.
On a social level, Nancy and I also feel rather impoverished here. We don’t know anyone in Basingstoke yet besides our flatmates and have no friends apart from an Australian couple back in Gravesend who are returning home in November anyhow. Unlike me, Nancy is an outgoing sociable person, so she is finding it quite tiresome having only me for company.
All things considered, the temptation to leave England is there. Nancy’s boss in Taiwan still holds an invitation for her to return to her desk and pick up where she left off and has even offered to let me use a well-located building in town to open a little business of my own.
Opportunities come and go fast though. The job-offer I had last year managing a language centre in Shanghai for instance is a pile of bones now. Although I am still in touch with my previous boss he is not going to extend the opportunity again. The moment has passed and someone else is in that seat. So unless Nancy and I snap up the opportunities available to us in Taiwan at the moment they too will slip away. Perhaps that is no great loss as new opportunities will come our way, but then again perhaps this is a chance we have to follow what we would both rather be doing in life in which case there is no time to lose.
What is the right course to follow? I suppose if we knew that life would be rather boring.
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Nancy and I went to
Paris just to relax. It sounds flamboyant when I say it, but it is only a
couple of stress free hours from London by train. Many people probably take the
trip from London just to lunch at their favourite Parisian café.
When we arrived our
first impression was that the city has less wealth than London. The Eurostar
terminal at Gare du Nord in Paris for example was nowhere near as modern and
glitzy as its counterpart in London. The underground system was far older to
the point that it was actually quaint. One must lift a latch to open the doors
to the narrow carriages, which trundle down tunnels covered in graffiti from
station to station. The sidewalks were cracked and patchy and there were far
more buildings in a state of disrepair. Even the famous gardens like the Jardin des Tuileries was not as perfectly tended as those like Hyde
Park in London.
Nonetheless, Paris makes up its lack of
polish compared to London with an atmosphere that is far more relaxed and
happy. People just seem far more at ease in Paris than they do in London. Cafes
spilling out onto pavements are full of people engaged in conversation. Along
the river Seine people of all ages in various degrees of bronze can be found sunbathing
on deck chairs. In the gardens games of bowls and chess are being played. Cyclists
on rented bikes make their way through the streets.
Although similarly tranquil scenes can be found in London, in Paris the mood seems to carry throughout the city as a whole. Everything just seems to run at a slower pace than it does in London. Even the Champs Elysees was not as frenzied as I expected it to be.
It is said that in France the people work
to live, not the other way around. This certainly seemed true from our short
stay in Paris. When we arrived back in London it was like entering a different
kind of world. People seemed a bit colder than those in Paris - the congenial
atmosphere was gone. In Paris for instance people sometimes smiled as we passed
one another in the street. On more than one occasion we were asked if we would
like to have our picture taken instead of awkwardly trying to do it ourselves.
When we couldn’t quite figure out how to use the control panel on the street to
rent a bicycle it was not long before an elderly gentleman demonstrated how to
do it. Nancy received a sweet compliment from another man who said she was
pretty. In London this kind of thing happens too of course but just with less
frequency. It is not the English way to engage with strangers and this is one
of the things that make London less likeable than Paris.
At my last job quite a few of my colleagues
asked me what brought me to England. They honestly could not understand the
motivation of so many people to leave their lives behind to come to England – especially
London. It seemed a shame to them that thousands of Antipodeans willingly leave
their sunny, spacious lands every year to live in a country that is damp and
cramped in comparison.
Speaking for myself I find England a very
beautiful place. I like the all privileges that come with a first world
economy. The earning potential in England is pretty good. It is in close
proximity to mainland Europe, which is good for relatively cheap, exciting
jaunts like the one Nancy and I just went on. The fact that people from Jamaica
to Japan live in England also makes it an interesting place to live. Few
countries have a social fabric made up of such diverse people. Also as an
English speaking person it is a plus to be in country that does not necessitate
me having to learn another language.
My reasons did not really satisfy my colleagues though. They still think I am a bit mad to live in England instead of elsewhere. Now that I have been to Paris I can understand why they might feel this way.
]]>My sister and I met up with my cousin and his girlfriend in London yesterday. They had just arrived from South Africa and we were keen to catch up with them. We found a suitable spot at an outside pub in Leicester Square and as we lazed in the afternoon sun drinking familiar brand beers it felt very much like being in back in Pretoria South Africa.
Our conversation moved onto how things were at home, which my cousin admitted were not all good. Crime remained the single biggest problem and the recession was taking its toll there too. Nonetheless he was excited to be in South Africa again and did not have any regrets about leaving Oxford where he lived very comfortably for 10 years. He spoke about the broader range of opportunities a developing country presents and how fulfilling it is to make a noticeable difference no matter what line of work you are in. The UK in comparison he argued is saturated and it is more complicated to get things done. My friend Stephane who moved back to South Africa from England only days ago expressed similar sentiments. He too found England to be hemmed in and boring essentially. On the last day I saw him he was wearing a T-shirt with a map of Africa and a slogan beneath reading, “Africa is not for sissies”. He plans to buy a large SUV, get browned in the sun and reconnect with the land of his birth.
Many people including Nancy have asked me why it is that I am so averse to living in South Africa. Teaching is a far more rewarding career there, and if I worked in the private sector it would pay much the same as what I earn in the UK. I would be closer to my family, be able to afford a home more easily and generally have a decent quality of life. I am aware of these benefits of course, but for me the level of violent crime in the country overshadows them all. It is not something I can simply accept as part and parcel of living in Africa which so many of my friends and family seem capable of doing. They say that every country has its problems and point out that even in England, people are beaten up and stabbed to death. This is true. Recently two feral youths beat a man to death on his way back from a convenience store in northern England, there have been many stabbings in London and the murder of Baby P has sickened the nation. The difference however is that these are rather isolated cases. The number of people murdered in year in England is about the same number of people who die on a daily basis in South Africa.
Everyone in South Africa has either been directly affected or personally knows someone who has been affected by crime. A few weeks ago Stephane’s parents-in-law and their daughter living with them were held up at gunpoint in their home. They were lucky not to have been shot or raped, as is usually the case. Stephane has promised to install an electronic gate so that they don’t have to get out of their car until they are safely in their property but for me that does not help much. The problem is not so much the level of security around their home, but the level of crime in the country.
I certainly could not live in fear of my life, nor could I expect not to be affected by it by taking all sorts of precautions. The crime problem is endemic in the country. It needs to be solved not with high tech security but with serious penalties for criminals and attending to the reasons people turn to crime in the first place.
With all my heart I hope that the country does turn out for the better and that I can one day sit with my family and friends in Pretoria, feeling as relaxed and carefree as I did in Leicester Square.
1. I did a mural.
My friend Stephane introduced me to his friend Ray, a rather eccentric American who became rich running a flooring business. He was looking for someone to do a mural of a beach scene on his backyard wall, but of the artists he knew none were interested because they were either too busy or the money was not enough. Being unemployed I of course took up the job, and while I stayed at his place we became friends as well.
1. Nancy arrived in England on 21st of July.
We stayed the Ray’s house in Elephant and Castle, which is a rather dodgy part of London, and while we were out getting something to eat we were burgled. At first we did not realise anything had happened because apart from a few open drawers and a magazine on the bed, everything was as we had left it. It was only later when we tried to find one of her bags that we realised it was gone. The bag that was nicked had Nancy’s laptop and all the legal documents like our marriage certificate that we need to reside in the UK. Getting these documents replaced is an enormous hassle that will take 6 months or longer. Losing a computer was also unlucky. It had all Nancy’s photos, music, contacts, emails, and personal information. Our first two days in England were consequently spent cancelling bank accounts and whatnot - an unpleasant introduction to England I would say.
2. I have a new job.
Just couple of days before the end of term when I had lost all hope of securing a post for September, I got two interviews back to back at two very different types of schools. One was at a tough community school in Basingstoke, Hampshire, the other at an historic private school in the Isle of Man. Both had something favourable to offer: the Basingstoke school offered permanent employment which in turn would allow me to embark on the process towards gaining qualified teaching status in the UK. The Isle of Man job presented the opportunity to gain access into the independent school circle and experience what it is like to actually teach, not just practice crowd control. The disadvantage about this job was temporary, just a 3-month sick leave cover. There was a chance however that the teacher I was covering would not make it back to work after that, in which case I would stand a chance of being offered the post on a permanent basis. Nancy suggested I take that chance, as did a few other teachers I incidentally met in a London pub on the day the schools closed. Nonetheless, I decided to follow my reasoning, which was to take the Basingstoke job for the sake of gaining my teacher qualification in the UK without any further delay. Once I have it I will have the credentials to pursue more desirable teaching posts.
3. We have found a new place to rent.
The Hamphire County Council has a few houses and flats near Basingstoke that they rent to teachers for a period of one year while they find their feet in their new environment. I was taken to look at the places they had available, which were in a lovely part of the county. One of the areas called Fleet was particularly nice with quiet leafy streets and a pretty town centre. The problem with the flats was that they were completely bare. Moving in would have meant buying a refrigerator, microwave, washing machine, TV, furniture, household appliances, curtains – you name it. Such a big outlay for just a year did not seem worth it. So I opted to rent a room in a house share for the first few months in Basingstoke. Fortunately I found a house share looking for a couple, which is rare, in a brand new place right in the heart of the town, which is rarer still. The couple renting out their apartment are Chinese, which means Nancy will have someone to talk to. As yet I have only met the lady of the house, Bing who seems lovely. I’ll be very happy if she and Nancy get along. We move in on the 23rd of August.
4. Stephane has gone home.
My best friend from childhood moved to the UK in 2001 at about the same time that I went to Taiwan. This year we were able to resume our friendship, which has been fantastic. He was tremendously supportive during my first dark months in England and I have relied on him like a brother many a time. Stephane is still one of the most intelligent, sincere and kind people that I have ever known – a really special person and I am gutted that he has left to return to South Africa.
At the moment Nancy and I are staying with his wife Anne at their home while she finishes up with her job in London and ties up some lose ends before going over to join him. Anne is a few months pregnant and by the time she has her baby they will be far away. Personally I think it would be better to live in England, but I can understand that they want their child to know its grandparents and vice versa.
Since I have effectively been on holiday for about 5 weeks now I have been spending a disproportionate amount of time on Facebook. It’s oddly addictive. I especially like looking at photos, but in doing so I have become seriously irritated by a particular kind of photo that people take of themselves and others.
It seems that the cool thing to do when you are having a picture taken of yourself is to scrunch up your mouth into a stupid looking pout or to stick out your tongue or to roll your eyeballs up to one side as if looking at the ceiling. At first I thought this was a teenager thing to do noticing it only amongst my high school students but then I saw my flatmate and colleagues and family members and friends doing it too - and it started to get irritating.
It is even more annoying when people having their picture taken beside someone else, stick their tongues out as usual, but this time angling it towards the person next to them as if about to lick them. On its own it would be quite funny, but when you come across fifty different people all doing the exact same thing it is ridiculous.
Something else to do when having your picture taken with someone else is to raise your hand more or less at your chest level and point at them as if saying, “he’s the man” or something like that. Once again, this becomes increasingly annoying the more often you see it.
In Asia people show a peace sign when having their picture taken, which also used to irritate me. At first I thought only young girls did it but then I had a picture taken with my rather stern boss he did it as well. I soon realised that it just the done thing much like it is to smile for the camera. I tried it myself a few times but I felt embarrassed. I don’t like doing pointless things just because everyone else is.
Compared to the Asian peace sign I find the pouting, protruding tongue, rolling eyeball, finger-pointing photos infinitely more irritating. I guess it is because it is meant to convey a goofy spontaneity that is not the case at all. I cannot imagine anyone thinks it looks cute or attractive. It clearly requires a fair bit of effort to do and all for no reason other than to look as dumb as everyone else who does it. Irritating.