The Soul of Queens - Sariling Atin

Queens might be the most diverse place on earth. Among its 2.3 million souls, you can find enclaves of almost any culture you care to name. All of it is packed inside a densely populated melting pot. I love it. When we came to the US, I did not imagine living in a place with such vitality.

I have lived in diverse places before, but not to the same extent. There is also a trend that everywhere is becoming more diverse as the world gets smaller and humans migrate more readily. So, for example, I look back at the South London of the 1980’s or the Birmingham (UK) of the early 1990’s, and recall places with many active cultures, but somehow without the same depth.

You can think of it like merging colours in an oil painting. For most of the world, there is one dominant colour in the painting. As other colours emerge, they look like dots on a landscape, hardly spreading. So, for example, a small community of Chinese lived in the south coast English towns where I grew up. They were very localised and there was little mixing, let alone inter-marriage. One result was that the Chinese restaurants had a menu that looked Chinese only to white people, with items that any visitor from China would not recognise as Chinese at all. The only way to succeed as a minority in such a culture was to maintain tight links among a small network, while also adopting habits to fit the demands of the majority.

The Balti houses of Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook southern suburbs of Birmingham took diversity to the next level. A large population of South Asians from particular districts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh came to reside in these districts. There was enough critical mass for services to grow centred on the needs of those communities, rather than just white neighbours. Nonetheless, the communities were strengthened by creating a brand of restaurant that did cater to whites as well.

This may have been a positive turning point in race relations. There is always resentment and fear of people of difference. While a community is small, it has to be as invisible as possible to the majority, with many activities taking place in private homes. Then they grow and become obvious, like a large blob on a canvas, and are resented. One way to progress beyond that is to find a way to appeal to the majority. It was harder to resent the South Asians of Birmingham, while enjoying a Balti most Friday nights.

The Queens of 2019 takes this forward several more levels. The canvas appears more pixelated. First, there is no dominant colour, though if you look closely enough at any part of the canvas you will see pixels of different colours clustered together. Next, the number of different colours covers everything conceivable from humanity. Lastly, there is a recognisable blurring of the colours. Each culture has begun a process of fusion with its neighbours to create something marvellous and with broader appeal.

I can only hope that Queens becomes the template for how humanity lives in the future, because I can only see upsides. Of course, there are many hurdles to jump on this journey. Queens has the advantage of never really having a majority culture, and, like the rest of New York, being generally populated by people who have chosen to come and to make something of their lives, so maybe being more open and optimistic then most – agile rather than rooted in my characterisation. And don’t let me lead you to believe that there is no prejudice or resentment in Queens – sadly, you don't have to be a majoritarian to be a racist.

Still, despite its many tensions, living here renders much political discourse not just ugly but plain daft. Whether it is Trump’s remorseless drumbeat or Theresa May’s put down of people of no culture, most of us here have moved well beyond that.

An example of how Queens works can be found at one of my favourite shops, Sariling Atin on Queens Boulevard opposite Queens Centre mall. Sariling Atin is a Philippine establishment. Queens has a Philippine quarter in the same way as it has an everything else quarter, centred in Woodside but spreading as far as this establishment. Walk inside and you could be time-travelling to Manila.

The place is only about ten feet wide, which must help to keep the rent manageable, and the managers use every square foot to great effect to offer multiple services, primarily targeted at Filipinos. The counter by the door serves as a bank for remittances, with three suppliers available for sending money back home. That same counter has fresh produce like mangoes, and serves as a till for ambient, chilled and frozen goods stacked in the body of the shop. These goods are mainly brands used in Philippine cooking, as well as lots of rice. Near the entrance you can also find plenty of small ads for apartments, handymen, and so on.

Venture deeper in the shop and you arrive in a café of about eight tightly packed tables, overlooked by a TV continually playing Philippine shows, usually camp talent contests or karaoke. You queue at another counter at the far end to choose between many freshly prepared Philippine dishes there, which are also available for takeout.

So in this small space they manage to combine a bank, grocer, market, café, takeout and theatre, all with a Philippine flavour. It is marvellous, and I love visiting, even if I often have to hand my shopping list over to an assistant or even put my wife on the phone to them. Tagalog merges with English and Spanish, immigrants of multiple generations merge with immigrants of other cultures, and everybody is the better for it. I am often greeted by Philippine matrons brought up to be deferential to colonial rulers, ladies of a certain age who dream of marrying off their daughters and who love nothing more than to gossip with their friends about how poor the mangoes are this season or some church scandal.

This is Queens at its best, tightly packed, perhaps a bit shoddy, but efficient. No doubt the menu evolves over time and fusions develop from other cultures, and maybe some of these even make their way back to Manila. This is how humanity develops. Perhaps in the future, one of the people running Sariling Atin will pair off with someone from another background, and the fusion will accelerate.

I frequent Sariling Atin because of my connection to the Philippine culture. But if I crossed the boulevard and headed towards Elmhurst or Corona, I would find similar establishments, first for different parts of China or Korea, then for every country of Latin America. No doubt each of these is subtly different, in ways that I could only start to fathom if I had friends from particular cultures. But I can use any of them in blissful ignorance and feel welcome in all of them.

This is the joy of Queens. And, I hope and believe, it is the joy of humanity to come. Now I will settle back and enjoy some bistek or adobo.

Lessons from a DIY Wedding

At the beginning of this month my daughter was married to her long-time boyfriend. We were thrilled when they suggested holding the occasion at our villa in Portugal, because that made us feel good about buying the place in the first instance when Helen was just 14. Obviously the villa held happy memories for at least two family generations, and perhaps in time that can grow to three or even more. It was also striking how many of the 90 or so wedding guests had already holidayed before at the villa.

So about a year ago the gang of four of us – me, my wife, daughter and future son-in-law – set about planning a do-it-yourself wedding. We managed to pull it off rather well, and the four of us are closer now than we have ever been. But this was a tough major project to execute. We were completely exhausted upon returning to home. Over the last ten days I have slept very deeply as my body has tried to recover.

That, then, is the first lesson. Do-it-yourself weddings are very hard work. Make sure you plan to have a proper holiday after it is all completed, because you will need it. We had a few special complications to deal with, notably a venue a thousand miles away from where anybody lived permanently in a country where none of us are fluent in the local language. But actually we had many things on our side too, notably strong relationships, a realistic budget and a practical venue. I can only imagine the disaster that would have ensued without those three factors in place.

So that is the second lesson. Don’t contemplate a DIY wedding without those three solid ticks. Relationships are the most important of all. Weddings are pivotal moments in lives and we all have our stated goals, our unstated goals and our potential explosions. Only with strong initial relationships can these be navigated. We were able to talk through what was important to each of us and to work out how to work with each other as a strong team. We laid down goals and roles and more or less stuck to each. As part of this, we envisaged how we could use the space at the villa and what the maximum realistic capacity would be, and we came up with some sort of outline budget and how it could be divided between us.

Our main lesson on the budget was also a common one from other major projects. We were able to predict quite accurately most of the big items, especially after we had done some initial research and spoken to potential suppliers. What surprised us was the need for a large contingency budget. All projects have this feature. There are a myriad of items that are either individually small or wholly unpredictable, that tend to emerge during the few days of the execution phase, just when project management has to be most flexible and when the time is too short to find ways to save money. We anticipated this, but not to sufficient degree.

The next lesson is really project management 101, and we did a good job. We defined the critical and the long-lead items, and we made a visit to Portugal last October to get these in place. Apart from nailing down the goals, the budget, the maximum number of guests, key dates and so on, we also dealt with the mission critical items then. For us there were three important ones. We needed a caterer. We needed a supplier for a tent, tables, lights and so on. And we wanted to offer a couple of good hotel deals for our guests. The caterer would be a family friend and local restaurant owner. The hotels were easy, because the Algarve has many and we were asking for rooms outside peak season. The tent could have floored us, but luckily we found exactly one affordable quality supplier, Algarve Marquees. Thank goodness for Tom; the best alternative option would have been a complete disaster.

The next lesson is about how suppliers can fail. Here it helps to know a bit about the Algarve market. The area is a part of Portugal that used to be poor until tourism took a hold, and the local economy depends on the spending of wealthy second-home owners and retirees. The possible suppliers reflect this. Some Portuguese firms cater to the local market but lack depth. Many firms spy opportunities from ripping off rich absent foreigners. Some of these firms are run by foreigners themselves, a number of whom have landed in the Algarve having failed elsewhere. So caveat emptor! Of course this advice is magnified when planning a wedding, because all suppliers’ eyes light up with the potential for customers to lose financial discipline.

It is good to know the situation you face and what is likely to go wrong. We had to weed out the timewasters, the incompetent and the rip-off merchants. Luckily, in most categories that still left one or two qualified suppliers. We had to always key an eye on the budget and not let sentiment take over. Our florist tried to charge us 80 euros for confetti, so instead we just collected our own locally – luckily bougainvillea and lilac were moulting nicely. Lastly, one key supplier was clearly at the edge of his capacity to deliver, so he needed some nursing and some contingency work behind his back.

Then there are wedding planners. Weddings attract rip-offs, especially in the Algarve, and as it turned out we were lucky. We were sceptical but undecided about using a planner, until we met one, who turned out to be a comical advertisement against her own profession. I have never trusted businesses that greet me with a glass of champagne. This one started that way and went downhill fast, and as a result we made a clear decision (no planner for us) and became even more determined to do a better job than any planner could. Looking back, I think a planner would have only added to cost and also created extra interfaces to fail. But I do think there was scope for a more limited role. We could have taken on someone just for the two or three days culminating in the wedding, as a sort of co-ordinator. Their job would just be execution support, and the extra eyes and hands might have relieved us to enjoy the wedding a bit more.

That is one more lesson. Make sure you enjoy it. And that means taking the time at occasions during the day to soak up the pleasure and what it all means. I think the bride managed to succeed at this, but for the other three of us we have to rely on the warm afterglow. I know that for me my heart never slowed enough during the day itself, so much so that I managed to freeze during my song!

Which is one more lesson. Rehearse and make professional what is important to you, but accept spontaneity in everything else. Our ceremony was unrehearsed, and in my opinion all the better and more authentic for it. A reader could not work out whether to face the couple or the audience or how to use the microphone. The singer, that is I, forgot his lines and demonstrated in the same instant what the day meant for him. We had to retrieve the aforementioned DIY confetti from the living room when the time came. All of this only added to the fun and memories and also the sense of a family occasion.

One more common lesson from major projects is to close out well. Again, this is a particular risk for a wedding, when part of the point is to get thoroughly wasted. Some of us had to summon the energy to remember to gather up the unused bottles to get the sale-or-return money, and similar valuable but dull tasks.

Reading this, you might wonder if I am rather inhuman to have treated such an emotional affair as a major project. Well, I think I can assure you on that one with three answers. The first is that the major project angle is a deliberate choice for this blog. The second is that a project-type attitude, at least to a degree, is a critical success factor, because this really is a major project, full of risks. How many couples, and their parents, have I seen waste money they have not got on a lavish wedding, or, even worse, fallen out with each other as a result of something careless on a wedding day?

And my third answer is to relate that, major project attitude or not, delayed gratitude or not, this was as emotionally satisfying a moment as any I recall in my life. I am so proud of my little girl, of her wonderful new husband, of my wife and step-kids, and also of my girl’s mum. That has all involved a lot of tears. This whole event was such a blessing. And the last lesson is that, for all its stress, I believe that all the positive feelings are actually enhanced by our choice to do-it-ourselves and to make it ours. 

Brexit and Boris

The last time I wrote about Brexit, I predicted that there was no easy way through the mess. Parliament was not ready to vote for anything acceptable to the EU, and the Irish question was essentially insoluble. Neither a second referendum nor a general election would automatically clear things up. Things were going to have to get worse before there was any chance of getting better.

Well, for a change, I was right. But now one of the dominos required to drop to enable starting to reach a resolution has fallen. Theresa May has finally given up and resigned. She has been much maligned, and maybe for good reason: she was something of a lightweight, lacking the ability to lead either her party or her country in a decisive way and lacking the intellectual capacity to drive through her own approach. But in her defence it can be argued that her motives were always pretty pure: she tried to put the needs of the country above anything else. That quality is rare, and my guess is that we will have cause to miss it in what will now follow.

Because, during a night of fitful sleep last week, a clear idea of what will happen in the coming months came to me. It leads us out of the current jungle. But perhaps it leads us into an even more dangerous place.

Boris Johnson will become the leader of the conservatives and become prime minister. This feels inevitable. MP’s have to rank him in their top two, and then be the choice of party members. While many Tory MP’s hate Boris with a passion, I believe many will vote for him, as the leader most likely to lead the party out of the jungle. The Tories polled historically badly in the EU elections and could face oblivion if they don’t unite over Brexit. Johnson is the only candidate who might achieve that. MP’s, and especially Tory MP’s, place power above all else, so they will hold their noses and vote for him, at least in sufficient numbers for him to rank one or two. Then the party member vote will be a landslide.

What then? I think this is clear too. He will see that he is just as stuck as Theresa was and he will find a way out via an election. First, he will use his strong mandate to define a very clear and aggressive Brexit policy. Then he will invite MP’s and prospective parliamentary candidates to back this position or resign, asking pliant constituency parties to act as enforcers. Then he will manufacture a crisis with the EU – not difficult, because there is one already – and call an election, which he will win by a landslide.

His election platform is easy to define. He will promise rapid Brexit, with questionable promises about what can be negotiated, and exit with no deal as a backstop. He will use City money to position Corbyn as a Marxist, and succeed in out-debating Corbyn by exploiting the ambiguity in its own Brexit platform. He will campaign to reduce taxes, especially corporate ones, positioning the UK as one giant Jersey. He will use the dog whistle on immigration, stirred up by some manufactured story or other. There will be little else, but this will be more than enough.

The next steps are predictable too. Boris will gain some minor concessions from the EU, find a meaningless fudge for the Irish question, and then present a package that barely differs from Theresa to his newly compliant parliament, and Brexit will then take place. All these steps might require one more deferment but nobody will mind this since the process will at least be moving forward.

After this, predictions become a bit flakier. But I’ll keep going while I’m on a roll.

I can predict what Brexit itself might mean. I believe the people I’ve been listening to recently, whether wealthy expats in Portugal or BBC pundits or people trying to work flexibly, have all overstated Brexit’s negative impacts. Especially under Boris, I believe the rich have little to fear. Britain managed well enough without the EU before and Switzerland or Norway does now. The wealthy will find a way to get by, and indeed my Jersey analogy suggests all sorts of ways for the rich to get richer. While I hate all of this, these impacts are probably less damaging than years of unresolved crisis. Boris will settle the issue for a generation, and the economic impacts will be negative but not catastrophic.

There are clues around in other countries for other ways this might pan out. The comparison with Trump is telling, and no doubt Steve Bannon is quietly plotting behind Boris. Like Trump, Boris is a celebrity and will act like one, and the victims will be many, starting with truth. Complex issues will be deferred or simplified, scapegoats will be sought and foreigners and elites scorned. The BBC will be an early target. The new Tory parliament will be as supine as the US republicans. John Howard in Australia may be a closer match, so expect dumbing down, artificial scandals (stop the boats!), power to Murdoch and corporate greed.

Europe itself could react in either direction. Boris could possibly strengthen fellow populists in Europe, but it is as likely that remaining Europe will become more cohesive and liberal in response, just as Brexit itself has lessened demands in other member states to exit the EU.

It is also hard to predict what will happen to the left in British politics. Corbyn will probably resign, and there could be some splintering, involving growing Greens, revitalised liberals or even a new force with disgruntled Tories. That might enable Boris to keep power for a decade, despite the inevitable scandals and crises that he will generate. His own party will be rather united, and the Jersey strategy will keep the City and the papers happy. But in the longer run, just as in the US, the backlash will eventually come, as an educated generation will look to more enlightened leadership.

The impacts will be toughest on the Union and on the UK constitution and institutions. In the election, Scotland will remain an SNP bastion and more obviously pro-EU, so a second referendum with a different result is all too likely. Ireland is even harder, The DUP has wasted a historic opportunity, as it always does, and it is possible that Boris will concede a special arrangement for Northern Ireland with the customs border in the sea not between the parts of Ireland. That could portend a resumption of the troubles there, or maybe even a re-united Ireland. For sure Boris will think about this too little, too late and too selfishly, so the Irish will be sold down the river by the Brits one more time. The UK constitution, or its absence, is a flimsy thing, and it will be tested to the full in the Boris years.

From the beginning, the argument to remain in the EU for me was always less about trade and more about peace. Gordon Brown was one of the few who stood up and made this point before the referendum. I fear he and I may be proved right in the coming decade. The referendum will finally lead to Brexit, but also to Boris, to a breakup of the union and to growing risks of war, at least in Ireland and perhaps more widely, partly because efforts to reduce climate change impacts will be weaker.

I am always an optimist, and in the long term the world will emerge stronger, because the positive trends about the development of humanity are strongest. But I do think we need to buckle up for a tough ride in the coming decade, and Boris is one more reason why.