Mind The Gap
by Luminita RUSU
Romanian version: Pasager/21
Unique calligraphies. Kalos � the Beauty, Mr. Platon, yes, we all sense and assume it. But beauty is the eye of the beholder!
FLASH & FLESH
I am pacing determined up and down the huge Heathrow halls and escalators, carrying my suitcases. Metal, plastic, glass. This is all I can see. People? Shadows without a name. For a moment it occurs to me that I won�t be able to live here. But beyond the yellow ribbons with the inscription �Do not pass�, in the area reserved to those who welcome the passengers, there is someone waiting for me, someone who hopes and dreams of me living here. B., the man I left back my country, my career, my family, my friends for. God, is this the right path?
Grey flashes. Nothing�s palpable. Nothing saving me. Finally, I passed through the last customs check point. Suddenly, a huge hall opens to my view. I am looking around. I can�t see anything. Just lots of faces with no shape. From the right side, a hand is raising. Everything makes sense. Flesh. I am sensing the smell of something I can rely on, something concrete.
During the next days, I started learning to live in the new world.
As you know, almost all the cars here have the steering wheel on the right and they drive on the left side of the road. In the first days I had the impression that all the cars from the opposite lane are driving at us. My anxiety level is significantly increasing. I am scared, confused. All this newness invading my life � I don�t know what to do with it. I console myself with the thought that all those who took the same path had to face the same experience.
B. has an angel�s patience. Obviously, my nerves are extremely tense and probably my mind is full of cultural prejudices, so I often overreact. I even find it difficult, getting used to the time zone, though there�s a difference of only two hours. I am horrified to see how resistant to change I am.
BUTTER, WHY NOT? NO BREAD, M�AM!
At a restaurant, during our first lunch in London, B. and I had our first misunderstanding. He�s asking me if I want some butter. �Butter?� I�m asking back with surprise. B. replies: �Well, yes, butter, why not?� I can�t get it. Why would I have some butter for a lunch. I am feeling so embarrassed with the misunderstanding. He�s looking at me calmly and smiling reassuringly, trying to understand what made me sulky. I am looking for an escape. I ask again if he mean the butter. Yes, he just meant the ordinary butter. I�m lost. I probably am looking completely dumb and ridiculous!
Well done, so for nothing I laboriously studied England, their culture, traditions and customs. For nothing I systematically watched BBC documentaries and British movies. Now I can�t find any references. Finally, the waiter brings us the butter, together with a few appetising rolls, covered with various seeds. B. explains to me that they use butter with bread for almost all the substantial meals at upmarket restaurants. �It may also help the stomach to remain protected�, he adds.
On the other hand, for frugal, not too elaborate meals, the English don�t use any bread at all. When I asked for some bread in a restaurant, the waiter looked blankly at me then he asked me if I prefer to take the second dish as a sandwich. It was the only way they could see someone eating bread. In other restaurant they excused for not being able to provide me any sort of bread! All right, sir! Long live the diet with no carbohydrates!
PLEASE, SORRY, THANK YOU
This triad is used here with an astonishing frequency. To beg, to excuse, to thank. That�s the culture of politeness, of compassion and solicitude. I am feeling somehow overwhelmed by the fact that people expect me to say it every two sentences. I�ve never been ill-mannered, but using these three words so often seems a little exaggerated to me. The shop assistant in the supermarket, a passer-by in a hurry touching you by mistake, an old lady who you let past first� everyone asks, excuses and thanks. And you are supposed to do the same.
In my first travel by train here, to Oxford, a young woman was listening to music on her walkman, at a sound level slightly higher than usual. You could have heard from time to time the beats of the music, 1-2 metres around. Nothing annoying � we would say, because we had to bear in Romania the deafening music getting out from the neighbour house or from the cars of the oriental music fans. But for English people, even those feeble sounds prove unacceptable. The woman was immediately admonished by an old man, who was then joined in solidarity almost all the others in the compartment. The poor young woman blushed and asked forgiveness for disturbing them with the volume of her music.
To their honour, the English are very careful with the noises and the stress induced by them. They constantly research the noise map in UK, noise pollution level and so on. They also have strict regulations regarding the domestic and industrial noise and people generally obey the rules.
Lately, on 5th of November, I lived in advance sort of a New Year�s Eve Party, on the occasion of celebrating �Bonfire Night�. This marks the night when, 401 years ago, a group of rebel Catholics led by Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the English Parliament, that King James I was set to open the next day. The plotters were caught before applying their evil plan. For thwarting this destructive plot, the English celebrate every year, on 5th Nov. Bonfire Night, with fireworks and bonfires which symbolise the punishment of the plotters by burning their effigies.
You probably expected the cracks and snaps to last all night long! Well, they don�t. The fireworks have generally only been allowed between 5-10 p.m. Indeed, after 10 p.m. I couldn�t hear any explosion any more. They do obey the rules� mostly.
SHOPPING � WHAT AN ADVENTURE!
My first contact with supermarkets and markets proved overwhelming. The bewildering range of choices, the stunning variety of products in all sizes, colours and tastes, make you feel paralysed. At the beginning I didn�t know what to choose. No need to mention that the Empire took everything it could from every little isle or territory it ruled, which is visibly reflected in their cuisine. Actually, it can�t be said they have an impressive traditional cuisine. However, not like French, Italian or Latin-American cuisine, for instance.
Besides the ritual of tea served with cakes (by the way, they really drink plenty of tea here, from the working class to the aristocracy � everyone seems to find a great pleasure in �bingeing� at least 3 mugs/cups of tea daily), besides a number of recipes for soups and beef/lamb/chicken/pork with various vegetables and potatoes, seasoned with sweet-sour sauces, besides recipes of biscuits, pudding, tarts and trifles, the English don�t have a specific cuisine. They don�t have a national cuisine. But international, oh, yes! All their cosmopolitism consists of these mixtures of food, an astounding melting pot in which all the tastes of Asia and Europe, Asia and Africa, Asia and America are melting one into another. Yes, the Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese etc. are very well represented. Not to mention influences from Caribbean and other island cuisines. Predictably, in the old Albion the fish and seafood are very much appreciated too.
As a consequence, the supermarkets are an accurate mirror of the customer demand. In the vegetables and fruits department, the exotic items are �at home�. The same for the spices counter. On the other hand, the Romanian woman in me felt slightly vexed by not being able to find maize flour for cooking a �mamaliga� like my mom�s, to eat it with cheese and sour cream. Eventually, I managed to find maize flour from a Mediterranean Exotic Delicatessen store. What good luck for our mamaliga to have a western twin sister � the Italian polenta!
But their cheeses are sensational. I�ve tested so far about 20 varieties � all of them delicious, from Cheddar cheese to Blue Cheese (that I already knew in its French variant) and I am only at the beginning of the list! Hundreds of varieties are waiting for me� I hope to live long enough so that I can try them all.
It�s true, the English have never heard of Borsch. Nor used lovage or savory in their food � in a strange way, these two spices remained unknown to them. And I couldn�t find Rum essence either. Eventually, I bought a whole bottle of Rum to flavour with a few drops my caramel cream�
The chapter �Drinks� is well represented here. Many sorts of beer, wines (among Romanian wines, it looks like only Cotnari brand is imported here for now), alcoholic drinks of all kinds, juices and mineral or tonic waters. No complaint! J
THE TUBE
The London Underground is a tube as any other. Apart from its famous history � this is the oldest underground system in the world - the London Tube has its problems. There are frequent reports of trains that are late or delayed. The interiors are similar to the Bucharest underground, there�s only a slight difference - the chairs here are upholstered. But the tube is as crowded as ours and not always perfectly clean.
The announcement from the loudspeakers, warning the passengers to mind the distance between the tube carriages and the platform resounds obsessively: �Mind the gap�.
IN THE STREET: WHERE THE ACTION IS
The British people love cleanliness. They cultivate it and maintain it. Only in the areas with an intense pedestrian traffic as those ones in the centre of London you may see some rubbish. The street spectacle is fascinating. I love most Oxford Street, kind of the British capital�s Magheru Blvd., if I may say so. Multicoloured, fresh, cosmopolitan, unconventional, sometimes striking and conspicuous, sometimes delicate and gentle. Oxford Street is Europe�s largest high street, the heart of London shopping, with over 600 stores amongst which are over 150 international brands, with over 200 restaurants, pubs and bars, surrounded by parks, museums, theatres and galleries. If there�s something to happen, this is the place where everything emerges from.
You can see all sorts of people in Oxford Street, from Yuppies parading in their impeccably elegant business suits to ragamuffins begging in their torn clothes, from buskers singing divinely for a pound to versatile pickpockets, whose prestidigitation would fill the famous illusionists with jealousy. And naturally, you can also see here lots of middle class people, people of various races and beliefs.
I am impressed with the British tolerance � or at least the one they display. Individuals with various musical orientations � like rockers, punk�ers, skin heads etc., or those with shocking tattoos and piercing, or sexual, ethnic and religious communities and so on �all are regarded with a sense of tolerance. They are accepted. Of course you may meet lots of freaks too � very strange guys who seem to live in their own separate worlds, probably often consuming hallucinogenic substances. But even these ones are considered with a dose of understanding, as long as they keep themselves to themselves.
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
Yes, I visited a number, but there are plenty left! Museums, galleries, parks, gardens. From the coquettish-commercial Madame Tussauds to the commanding and sober Buckingham Palace, from the dark Tower of London and austere cathedrals to majestic castles and royal palaces, from the contemporary art galleries Tate Modern, to the more classic National Portrait Gallery, Courtauld Institute Of Art Gallery or Queen�s Gallery. From the most visited Museum of London, the National Maritime Museum or the Sherlock Holmes Museum to other ones less well known, as Fashion and Textile Museum, Fan Museum or Florence Nightingale Museum. And the list goes on� I have to add a single word about the English Gardens: magnificent!
ENGLISH WITHOUT A TEACHER
My first day on my own in London was worth ten English lessons in Romania. It whipped all my self-confidence about my linguistic skills, it threw me in the blackest pits of desperation and questioned all my knowledge of English. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the language within we get to think and sense at a moment in our lifetime is a great trickster. Instead, the language we were born and then used to live in is a very comfortable teacher. So the foreign language(s) we systematically learn, following a thousand and one strongly advertised methods, fail in front of a strikingly simple reality.
The English language we are taught in the school or at home, is nice, funny, elegant, correct, but it�s no use once we�re here.
As long as I had kept my conversations on an interpersonal level, with B. and his parents, everything seemed wonderful. I was indulging in the illusion that the same scheme would work with everyone.
Once thrown in the street jungle, I failed lamentably. You need a lot of self-consciousness and sincerity, plus a big dose of self-flagellating intellectualism to admit yourself defeated in respect of a language. I, with my cursed perfectionism in the linguistic and communication area (ohh, a professional bad habit, what can I do?), I felt lost face to face with the cruelty of a language teeming with colloquial expressions, folkloric subtleties, the succulence of the street language. Not to mention tens of accents, dialects and cosmopolitan influences. Oh, British slang, with your colourful Cockney Rhyming slang � initially used by the London�s criminals, then developed by the lower social classes living in various areas of the Capital � I wonder when shall I be able to understand you?
I have been told that my English�s �very good� or �exceptional�, with a clean accent and a faultless grammar. I have even been told that I was speaking �Queen�s English� � the court English, the official, literary language thus. Hmm� �Qui prodest?� What for, as long as I have difficulties in understanding what ordinary people say to me - the plumber who came to fix the water pipe, or the guys with the cable for the Internet connection? I often have to say I�m sorry and to ask them to repeat. A month ago, a young man knocked at the door. I was home alone. He jabbered something I couldn�t understand and then he paced forward, trying to get in. I vigorously took a fixed stand in the doorstep and I asked him to repeat more clearly and slowly what he wanted. He did it, but as quick and unintelligible as the first time. I replied to him I couldn�t understand a word and I asked him again to say it, more slowly and clearly. He repeated, but God!, the same gibberish. It seemed to me that we were two characters performing in the theatre of the absurd. Eventually, I took the risk and let him in, to see what he wanted. So I found out he worked for the electricity company and he actually came to read the meter! To paraphrase a Romanian writer - we may be sad, but the language always has a great sense of humour�
I try to console myself with the intellectual circles, with the TV and radio news programmes, where everything sounds fine and humanely.
As for the rest, I keep fighting with the grinding, rash language of the street and I hope that one day I will get to understand it properly, as any language deserves � in the end this language is real and alive, it only can convey the colour, vivacity and plasticity of the people who speak it, and not the language that stuck in conformist, covered in dust handbooks or polished salons�
(CON)TEMPORARY CONCLUSIONS
Did I get used to? People here say I am doing very well. I don�t say it, I only say that I am trying to live a normal life. Sometimes I find myself looking in the street for faces that I wish I named somehow, I identified. The faces that I want not to appear strange to me any more. People who I wish appeared being mine. Belonging to the life I lived till two months ago. Excepting B., his parents and his friends, I don�t know anybody here. I keep in touch with my parents via phone, email and sometimes messenger. We are virtual to the God and backwards.
Sometimes I feel like I am about to cry, howling, I miss my past and it hurts� I miss - I don�t know if I miss the country, the culture, the language I was born in -, but the people who were living in them. Those almost invisible, unknown, ordinary people who made everything appear mine too � my language, my house, my parents, my town, my profession. I am so lucky to have B. by me, his love and devotion makes everything more easily bearable.
This new life obliges me to keep my head up, over the shoulders. It�s exactly as if you swim � the higher the waves, the stronger your determination to be a good performer and to move properly. Recently I started looking for a job. I apply my CV, I introduce myself. Since the negative image that the British mass-media promoted towards Romania and Bulgaria, the employers seem pretty much reserved to anyone is a Romanian or a Bulgarian. I even was astonished to see here and there a hostile attitude, like they were thinking: �Oh, what the hell these East-Europeans want now?� Where is the British politeness, may it be even cold and formal?
� I don�t know which culture I am living in now, or which language. When I am tired or drowsy, when my synapses are torpid, I found myself speaking Romanian to B. Then we both burst into laughter. I taught him a couple of Romanian words� it looks like our language sounds appear difficult to him.
When we are going to parties or meetings, some of his acquaintances speak so fast and using so many expressions or contexts that I didn�t have any chance to have known about, that I simply give up following and listening to them. In the end, I apply �the method� of the dumb smile or �the poker face� � expression zero. People don�t usually realise that you didn�t listen to or understand, that there�s no real feedback. Funny, isn�t it? What�s great is that in these circumstances I can observe at will their body language, I can read the meta-texts that appear in the process of communication, because there�s no more parasitic �noise� I have to pay attention to.
True, you can find out a lot about a person, without listening to or following his words, but observing his mimicry, posture, gestures. And incredibly, you may often get to know what he is saying without understanding what he�s saying!! Isn�t the semiotics adorable?...
I feel like, I want to believe I am on the right train. MIND THE GAP. Be careful with the distance (or the difference�J) between the cultures and languages. You may fall down and hurt yourself. But you may as well succeed in overcoming to the other side, where you can contemplate from the Beauty of the two worlds, exactly as it is.