New York - A Night to Remember

I feel a magnetic pull draws me back to this city. It's like I was born in the wrong life and belong there instead. It was my third visit to New York with my Dad and I was thrilled to be back in the city I'd fallen in love with. Walking around Broadway on a warm summer night was chaotic. I was still jet lagged and my surroundings were completely surreal. I stood for a moment to take it all in. The steam pouring from the man holes was unbearable in the already over whelming heat; I always thought the movies put it in for effect but really it's from the busy subway below.

We were heading towards a comedy club, or at least we hoped. Earlier that day a local approached us and sold us a couple of tickets for a gig. I was apprehensive at first but there's something about New York that makes me impulsive. After all, everyone else seemed so casual and at ease. Just one more reason why I keep returning to this inspiring city. As we walked to the club the smell of roasted peanuts and fried onions from the street stalls was thick in the humid air. My attention rested on a Latino-American guy running the stall, rushing to serve the sea of waiting faces. He was small in height with a thin build and his soft brown eyes looked tired with dark circles beneath. His forehead was creased with sweat as were his clothes but he didn't seem to mind any of these things. He looked perfectly content. I painted my own picture and thought perhaps he was from a deprived country and grateful to have a job in the big city. On the other hand maybe I was being naive and he was a local just getting by. New York is so big, anything is possible.

Walking away from the bright lights down a shady side street, I noticed a sign above a hidden doorway with two sturdy looking bouncers outside: our venue for the evening. We went down the dimly lit stairway into a basement-type room and I thought that such a place would be a great place for a horror movie. Considering the shabby surroundings, it turned out to be a really good show. It reminded me to never judge a book by its cover. I took a particular liking to one comedian; pale faced, bleached blonde hair and extremely camp. He was effortlessly funny and on a role until some drunk in the audience thought he would try and be the comic and threw some insulting comments his way. Of course, the comedian completely humiliated him but not in the humorous way I expected. He started telling us that his long term partner had been a victim to bowel cancer and on the day of his operation to remove the tumour there was an agonising wait for him to come round. When he finally woke up his first words were, “is it a boy or a girl?” We were astounded that after such a painful situation, this man was able to make a joke and the audience laughed off the tense atmosphere. He then concluded his story by saying, “if I can get through that awful time then you can throw whatever crap you want at me and it won't knock me down! I’m stronger than that.” With that, the whole crowd leapt up and applauded such a brave man.

I left the comedy club feeling inspired to never let the small things in life get me down. We decided to have a few more drinks and visit the bar opposite, a very confusing Scottish bar with an Irish barman wearing a kilt. Like true New Yorkers my dad and I were in the habit of sitting up at the bar and we got talking to the barman who told us about himself and how most tourists and locals presume he was actually Scottish as they can’t tell the accents apart. Chatting to him in such an electric atmosphere with the band playing in the background and the bar packed behind us was an amazing experience. The night couldn't possibly get any better but with that thought, a guy with dark hair and big brown eyes appeared next to me with a huge smile. He took my breath away with how handsome he was and when he introduced himself I was intrigued to chat to him. He had a southern American accent and told me he was from South Carolina, worked as a welder and played for a baseball team in his home town. The more we talked the more I enjoyed this aspect of New York; meeting new people and finding out about their lives and how we really are worlds apart. At the same time I was sad because living in a city like this is something I long for. Something so different from what I know.

I lay in bed that night with a mixture of emotions. I felt happy that I was in the place I loved the most but I was filled with dread at the thought of leaving the next day and returning back to normality. It had been a great evening and I was slightly annoyed with myself for feeling that way. Perhaps it was just alcohol flooding my mood but six months on I still feel the same. It truly was a night to remember.

Written by Michelle Turley.

Michelle's full profile can be found here.

Showing a Foreigner How to Be

Margueritte invited her father to visit for a weekend on his way through to China but he misheard, or mis-decided, and put down a hotel deposit for a week. She cried about it into her pillow the night before he arrived. What was she going to do with him for seven heat-soaked days? He hated the heat. She hated the heat – no, she didn't, she hated him in the heat. Sweat would gather in angry dens above his eyebrows and he wiped it like he was organising a bank job. And he bitched about it.

She put bottled water, apples, milk and a melamine mug in the room's fridge, then wondered if he'd prefer a bowl. She told him there was cereal over here and he'd said, I don't want any of that fish porridge shit. She replied, no Dad, they have cornflakes, and then he said, 'cause I hate that fish porridge.

His plane was due at five in the afternoon and she made sure she was late. He was standing underneath the McDonald's arch with a bag of fries.

'They have something called a bul-gog-i,' he said as she kissed his chin.

'How did you buy those?'

'A woman behind the counter told me I was handsome.'

On the train he pointed out how many people were using their phones. She explained that they were watching television and he leaned over a boy's shoulder to see and the boy inched away and he followed until both of them were squeezed in the doorway.

He didn't like the pavement. Of course he didn't; it had the nerve to be broken and uneven, making his wheelie suitcase (beige because he found black dramatic) bounce into his ankles and trip him.

'What's all this rubbish outside for?'

'It gets picked up every day. You just put it next to the road when you want it gone.'

'It doesn't look very good.'

She remembered how much he hated rubbish. Recycling in particular. Plastic bottles most of all. He hated spending money but he always bought expensive lemonade because it came in glass.

Margueritte installed him in his room the way she would put a book that had disappointed her on a shelf. Perhaps a book written by a great author who had, with this story, missed the mark.

He picked up a pillow and smelt it. She showed him the shower with its swivel head and massage spigots; remote for the A/C and TV (the same one); and the goods she had packed into the fridge. He asked what the mug was for and she put it in her bag.

'What are we having for breakfast?'

'Whatever you want. There's a bakery down the alley.'

'Do they have cereal here? You know how much I hate-'

'I know, Dad.'

He wanted her to show him how the TV worked and the first channel she found was porn. He watched for the longest moment like he didn't recognise what he was seeing. Then he asked if there was any sport. She said, baseball. He said no.

She told him they would visit the river, fish markets, palaces, BBQ restaurants. She wanted him to try live squid and rice cakes because it would make him part of what she had built. If he got food poisoning he might leave early.

He took off his polo and his torso was already glistening.

'Are you hot?'

'I just can't stand this kind of humidity. How do you do it?'

Margueritte turned on the A/C. 'Just keep this on.'

'It's like stepping into a rainstorm.'

'Yes.'

'Does it get better at night?'

'Not usually.'

'It doesn't get better?'

'No.'

'Jesus Christ, how do you do it?'

She pointed at the A/C.

Lara has never had a bulgogi burger. It's all about the little things...

Blessed Are Those With (Numerous) Voices

As we cut across the meadows from Argyle Place to Greyfriars through an avenue of parched autumn leaves, I found myself wondering if I knew my friend beside me. Kim Jongwook was deeply moved by the clear daylight making colour-thick clouds around us.

“I don't think I will miss Edinburgh,” he said.

I smiled, my hands kept for warmth in my pockets. A moment later he corrected himself. “I mean, forget. I won't forget Edinburgh”

“It's okay.” I said. “I knew what you meant.”

And though I did at that moment understand him without the parameter of being correct, it did make me doubt how well I knew this fine man. For two days I had wandered with him over the city, discovering more of my beloved Edinburgh as we went – the sphinxes on the roofs of the Scottish National Bank and Gallery, the stained glass and vaulted ceilings of St Giles, the fearsome and divine St Michael hanging from the roof of the War Memorial in Edinburgh castle.

Although his English is much better after six months in Australia, Jongwook still speaks with a Korean rigidness, his sentences formed as if they come pre-packaged to him. From beyond his language he leaps a great divide toward me and I am grateful for it though still I wonder – is he the same guy as he was at home?

I guess I'm obsessed with doubt. In a rare moment of clarity two years back I looked over my work, comparing it to its character, and realised that the neurosis and paranoia that make up my darker side are parallel with the motivation of every one of my characters – generally they are consumed and fixed by not knowing. Whereas I have to live with it.

What does this have to do with my friend Jongwook? Well, I caught myself wondering if I really knew because I only knew him through a language foreign to him. I found myself wondering – would that joke be something he would say if we were speaking Korean?

Jongwook is a funny guy and is great at finding the comedy in his fish-out-of-water situation. It is this patience and resolve I admire. When he visited my girlfriend's parents, Jeff (Lara's father) used a crude euphemism for going to the toilet and Jongwook didn't know what the expression meant. Jeff, I'm sure, would have explained it with one of his wide, face-brightening smiles, sly old silver fox lecturing in BS that he is. Later that week at Jeff's local, in front of the neighbours, Jongwook stood up after his schooner of lager and delivered straight-faced to his guests and their friends the following charmer:

“I have to splash my boots.”

When Jeff related the story over Skype he said it went over like a brush fire. The neighbours shrieked, Jeff snorted his beer, Lyn (Lara's mum) would have made one sharp, high note. And I can just imagine Jongwook walking to the bathroom, a bashful smirk cowering below his nose.

I wonder if this is truly my friend. Or at least, I wonder how much of him I don't know. I want to be able to share the jokes that would come to him as his language bubbles and froths out of his mind. But I can't. It is the first metaphysical conundrum of the language barrier that I believe holds up to scrutiny – that your personality can't fit into the slim usage of an unnatural speech.

Until then I'll comfort myself with the man's friendship. In the end, it's all I need anyway.

Daniel East may be rowing back to the Antipodes, but his heart will always be in Edinburgh.

The Art of Something Beautiful

Having an espresso in a bustling piazza and watching the world go by is one of the oldest of clichés in the book. Tradition dictates that we go on to discuss how peace and equilibrium can be found in the busiest and most unlikely of places and although many a lost soul’s story starts with this quest, that isn’t how I started my travelling days. My story begins in a rather dingy, unremarkable pub in Cardiff. My friends and I had gone to the pub because it was the day the smoking ban had been introduced and we needed to know what it felt like; an olfactory assault of stale beer and sweat which, as evangelical smokers, we took to be an affront. Only beer could save us so we sank pints and toasted the demise of the tabletop Marlborough packet. Not many good things come from a sentence that starts with a drunken slur of “You know what we should do?” but that is exactly what happened.

The answer to this question started as a trip to Europe but as the pints sank we became more ambitious and added Australia and New Zealand to our plan. If you'd asked me at that point why I wanted to go travelling and what I wanted to achieve, I doubt I could have told you. The hunt for adventure and stories to tell was enough to guide me. In fact, if you had asked at that point about drinking an espresso in a piazza, I probably would have admitted to my desire to watch fabulously stylish Italian women walk past and the roguish Italian men riding Vespas. I was convinced that all of Italy was like something out of a chocolate advertisement. I daresay that in my mind’s eye, the entire scenario included a floppy haired man playing the cello somewhere nearby whilst I drank.

I found Rome to be every bit as romantic, inspiring, passionate, exhilarating and artistic as I dreamt it would be. The Roman Forum drove my imagination insane with sights, sounds and smells and filled my head with a hundred quotes from Shakespeare to Monty Python. The Pantheon immobilised me. I stood with my hand resting on the wall, almost as if I was trying to channel the centuries of violence, pomp and solemn religious fervour. Chocolate advertisements and clichéd stories, however, were surprisingly scant amongst the crowds of bumbagged tourists. They descended in their multitudes upon the Fontana de Trevi and the Spanish Steps, in numbers that made it impossible to achieve that postcard perfect photograph. This is the Italy I saw as the café owner brought me my coffee. She asked if I too was a tourist and I proudly replied that I was travelling with my friend. Her reaction was remarkable; she was positively overjoyed and cooed with delight at my choice to visit her bustling home. She caught my attention by announcing that she would pray to God to protect me as I travelled through Italy. I don’t think a stranger has offered to pray for me before or since and it struck me that Catholicism, so scarce in Cardiff, ran so deeply through the pulsing veins of Rome. I thought about the nuns walking down the streets in Rome attracting reverence and respect, rather than the odd and fearful looks they would draw in my native Cardiff.

My fervent host dutifully furnished me with more coffee as I thought more about the differences between nations. I asked myself what we would do with the Colosseum if it were in England. Would we also use it as a roundabout? Would it replace Swindon's magic roundabout?

I drank many more espressos in cafés and watched as Rome unfurled before me. Not the Rome I was expecting - the street-playing cellists of my dreams were remarkably few - but I think that’s the wonder of travelling. Each country we visit conjures images and expectations and while some of them are met, others reveal themselves to be dreams. I found that taking the time to see a town, city or country for what it is, and not what you expect it to be, can take you by pleasant surprise.

Written by Cate Hopkins

See Cate's full profile here.

Edinburgh Through a Lense

It was a difficult choice this week when it came to choosing the next post for The Great Affairs. We've received some great proposals from so many writers and our own stores are brimming with articles and reflections. So why did I choose to publish a series of photographs? Because sometimes there are just too many words and maybe we just don't need them.

From the camera of Lara S. Williams comes this view of Edinburgh, her new city.

Lindisfarne

Greyfriars Bobby

Nelson's Tower

Greyfriars Graveyard

Divinity College, Edinburgh University

Arthur's Seat

Edinburgh Castle

Culture in Canada

I come from an island of four million. We are famous for our 'craic' and our impressive drinking capabilities. If you haven't guessed yet, I'm talking about Ireland. There I lived my life for eighteen years, knowing only my fellow Irish people, two Canadians and four Polish. I've seen all the sitcoms, English programmes, American comedies - I know that deep down we're all the same and culture is dead. But then I uprooted myself and moved to Toronto, Canada. Two months into my life there I could see how appallingly wrong I was. In just eight weeks I learned more about the world and its inhabitants than in the entire nineteen years I'd spent sheltered in Irish education.

I'm a penniless explorer, so everywhere I venture I must work. In Canada I secured a job as a waitress in an Italian banquet hall and it proved to be pure, brilliant madness. I suspect it was akin to being in a scene from my big fat Greek wedding except the visitors were Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese and Polish. I was the only Irish person, the only blonde, the only person over 5ft4. One of the female customers asked me if Ireland was beside Russia before nicknaming me 'white girl.' Another complimented me on my good English to which I replied, 'thank you, it's my first language.' I was making some great first impressions.

The perk of the job was discovering how different nationalities approached partying. Portuguese people were crazy, fun and ridiculously skinny for the amount of food and drink they consumed. I worked a wedding where we served a six course meal followed by a seafood buffet, sweet table and an open bar. By god did they have know how to have a good time. An Italian stag party was a similar story; a sit down meal with massive amounts of consumption. Despite these fascinating social occasions it was a Muslim prom which remains etched in my mind.

The cloaked women arrived en masse and I watched mesmerised as they unwrapped themselves from their confines to reveal a parade of coloured, sparkling gowns topped with tiaras and sashes. No men were permitted to enter, only female waiters were allowed and alcohol and meat was banned. I couldn't help feeling sorry for them. Where was the fun, the madness? It was so far away from the customs I'd grown up with that I was tempted to arrogantly assume myself their superior. What happened next had me awe-struck. As I listened to the key speakers belt out their life lessons, common themes arose. Themes such as: do not put yourself in a position to be attacked; cover your curves so you don't attract attention; never be alone with a male that is not a relation. I'd heard all this before but it was from the TV, newspapers, things far away. Never this close, face to face, and my heart plummeted. I thought we were all fundamentally the same. All humans and equals. How could there be such a divide between me and these girls sitting before me?

They were called to prayer twice throughout their celebrations. Each time we quickly covered the dance floor with white sheets as they once again covered themselves from head to toe and kneeled to their God. Much later, the atmosphere changed and groups of girls put on matching outfits and performed beautiful traditional dances. Though the night wore on, their energy never let up. With plastered smiles on their faces they joined hands and spun and weaved across the wooden floor. Just mothers and daughters out on their one night of freedom.

Thankfully for me, Toronto wasn't all work; the place is a rich persons' playground. I spent warm nights out on the town in bars on towering buildings with views of the entire Toronto skyline. Hours were spent chilling with a beer in hand, surrounded by new and incredible people. Or legs dangling over the bow of a sailboat with the water splashing on my pale legs. Other times I canoed around Centre Island, strapped myself into the Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland, licked ice-cream at Niagara Falls and ate popcorn at a baseball game. I even attended their annual Gay Pride Parade.

Canadians in general are quite a conservative bunch but the same cannot be said for their thriving gay community. They were wild. It was like being in one of Botticelli's paintings - a lot of naked people amongst a riot of colour. The annual Parade closes down Toronto's main high streets for one whole day and attracts thousands of tourists to the city. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Gone were the usual monochrome suits and briefcases, replaced with a chorus of neon clothing and bare skin. People were singing and chanting, sitting on window ledges, trash cans, traffic lights, all cheering at the onslaught of floats parading down the street. Everywhere I turned were stalls spilling from side streets and alleys, all bursting with trendy goods. Speakers knocked out chart music and everyone was blissfully happy. On this one day a year people can freely express their sexuality and not be frowned upon by society or suffer violence and aggression. I was so lucky to get to see such a brilliant example of human nature.

It all makes me wonder why everyone wants to go to the States. Over the border, Canada's got everything they have with a hell of a lot less drama. I may be back in my own world, back to the reality of university life, but I feel different and changed. I no longer cluster around my British and Irish friends but walk willingly into the International community. I want to hear their stories, learn about their culture and travel to their worlds. After all, home will still be there and waiting when I get back.

Written by Orla O Muiri.

Orla's full profile can be found here.

A Brand New Day: Hippies and Homesicklessness in Edinburgh

From my three paned window on Argyle Place I can look down on three green grocers, two organic supermarkets and a sliver of the meadows that runs from the end of my street across to Greyfriar's. This might not sound like heaven but after four months of travelling, the homeliest comforts delight me. I have spent my time in Edinburgh working on my writing in an almost vegetative state.

But I am enamoured with this city; the tan and grey flats with their turreted chimneys seem immune to the anachronism they impose above the mini-vans and public buses. This is Edinburgh – a city of numerous discourses stretching to the bay, the walls of the castle and the peak of Arthur's Seat risen like the standards of opposing armies, man's will and nature's inscrutability sat opposite a grim labyrinth of stone.

It is a profound pleasure to make this ancient metropolis my home.

Arriving

After four months of travel through South East Asia I arrived in England with a shudder. Lara and I were collected by her uncle and cousin and driven four hours on the A5 alongside moonlit hedgerows and off-ramps to a deep, warm bed in Devon. We spent a fortnight there and on days that we didn't venture out to Dartmouth or Brixham or Paignton we stayed indoors, working on old projects or reading and sleeping in. And then there were the beaches.

When we arrived in Edinburgh I'd grown to love the comfort of Lara's family; Malcolm cleaning your tea spoon the second it touched the saucer, Aunty Chris calling us up for lunch at one o'clock, ham and tomato rolls with packets of crisps on the side. I was going to miss the evening news, toast racks and jam spoons and always another cup of tea. It is indulgent but entirely true that travelling tires you out.

It was midnight when our coach pulled into St Andrew's bus station. Our couch-surfer contact had completely abandoned us earlier that day, explaining that she couldn't put us up for the night, so we arrived with 40+ kilos of luggage, two laptops and a canvas bag of novels with nowhere to put them or ourselves. Finding our way to the backpackers we'd booked for the next night, the staff were kind enough to open the storage room for us. It was the last night of the Fringe but the party had clearly bottomed out. Pubs were shutting and crowds of people were disappearing from the streets.

Only by the mercy of fair Fortuna did we find a bed, crashing with two public school teachers on a rugby field trip. We made with some banter then agreed to pass out together. One of the guys woke up as we were tip-toeing out of the door at nine o'clock and didn't remember who we were. When we explained, he asked the time and on hearing it, rolled back over and went to sleep.

The Hippies

Prepared for a week of house-hunting we actually jigged for joy when the tenants got back to us on the second morning of our search. Lara and I were lucky. The second place we looked at was a beautiful share house next to the meadows with a very laid-back vibe. Five bedrooms with a kitchen on both floors, a massive room with high ceilings and a magical attic full of goblins and mice. But the house also came with a history.

One of the older flatmates, a tall, amiable hippy named John, stayed with us for a week on the couch while he attempted to sort out two years worth of council bills that had been archived in the mailbox. He still drops in from time to time (unannounced of course) and it's never quite surprising to find him at the stove making a massive vegan stew or maybe just smoking in the backyard. It's that sort of place.

5 Argyle Place is home to hippies of all shapes and sizes. We have two long-term lodgers, Andy and Gaton, who have been living in the attic since early September. Their dog Manya, a Husky/Staffordshire puppy, lives here as well, bounding up the stairs and piddling on anything of any worth or value. We live with music – Mike (a housemate) is an accomplished guitarist and gigged professionally until recently. Our lodgers Andy and Gaton still gig for a living and Andrew (the downstairs flatmate) teaches music and plays the Highland pipes in a Ceilidh band during the week. Even the door bell adds a rhythm to the house as it rings off the hook, visitors coming and going at all hours.

Somehow I've been talked into a Samhuinn parade by another former flatmate. Much like the parade of my own life I smile, shrug and get to it. One has few opportunities in life to operate the mechanical right arm of a frost giant.

Agoraphobia

Meanwhile, I fell into a weird sort of apathy. After a year working full time with Lara staying home to write, when our positions were reversed I found myself doting on her, waiting for her to spend time with me. With no one I knew and nothing productive to do I kept gmail open, hoping for a response to a journal submission or for a friend to reply to a letter. It wasn't until I caught myself pacing the floor that I realised I needed to get out of the house.

Two months later and I force myself out the door everyday, fighting off cabin fever by walking a familiar path over the cobblestones. I write for an hour or two in the public reference library then cross to the museum, walking among Celtic claymores and reconstructed steam engines. There is one exhibit that always holds my attention for some time – the fossilised skeleton of a massive buck, from the ground to the top of the ribs easily two meters, a massive rack of antlers riveted together. The specimen is from a now extinct species of deer, presumed to have lived in what was then Scotland over four thousand years ago.

I think of the men and women who lived in these frozen, fecund isles and I imagine what it must have been like to see that massive buck stepping from a copse of pines, grunting a safety call to his does in the rising dawn. In this gothic, vaulted town I can reach out and grab a handful of history wherever I go. And even better, it's a place to hang my socks.

Edinburgh

This is my Edinburgh. A sensate mess that I watch from the relative silence of my window. I have yet to do more than dip my toe into this life, still shell-shocked by my months on the road. I am aware of some invisible festival gathering on the moors but stay inside, shivering as the wind rattles the panes. The sun thrusts from behind a cloud only to be buried in rain an hour later. The ale flows and so do I, down the cobblestones, past the grey squirrels bounding across the grass, over the graves and on, the city an addled and livid dream of some ancient, heavy sleeper.

After so much talk of homelessness, it's nice to feel like the city wants me here.

Daniel East is on Greenwich Mean Time.

Japan in a Glass

In a hotel room overlooking the 18^th hole of the St Andrews Old Course, at the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay 2010 my girlfriend and I raised our glasses and so brought to an end a journey that had begun a year and a half earlier in Hiroshima.

Ordinarily you’d see in the New Year with some whisky or champagne but this year was different; for that we had a sushi chef named Nobu to thank. His restaurant near the Peace Park in the infamous southern city of Japan came highly recommended. We’d been told that the food was superb and the proprietor was a friendly sort who spoke English. We’d been undersold on both counts as the sushi and Nobu’s company exceeded our already lofty expectations. He had lived and worked in California and this was reflected in the fusion style of the food. It was, quite simply, sensational and local flavour came courtesy of the native conger eel. As good as it was, memories of the sushi weren't all that preoccupied us. As the bells chimed, we were excited about the drink in our glasses: a sweet plum liquer called Umeshu, made by our own fair hands and the product of many months of effort and patience. We were finally about to taste our homemade batch for the first time.

These days we expect and demand food from all over the world as de rigeur. I live in Glasgow but meals of indigenous origin tend not to make up a large part of my diet (insert your own deep fried Mars Bar joke here if you must). I’m grateful for that as in a regular week I can expect to digest food and drink that originated in India, Italy, Holland, Korea, Thailand, America and many other places besides. It’s great that once exotic, rare and often perplexing foods are now so accessible yet no matter how small the culinary world gets and no matter how experimental our domestic palettes get, there’s always something new and exciting to be discovered in the food and drink of a foreign land.

Like most people, my own tastes have been broadened by the places I’ve been. I remember having my mind blown by pear cider and cloudberry jam in Stockholm before these became widely available over here. When asked by a barman what type of lager I’d prefer I'd always seek out the Staropramon or Krusovice after acquiring a taste for them in Prague. I’d never had calzone before I visited Verona but now it’s my default option in any Italian restaurant. Travel offers such a great chance to revise your opinions about the produce of your homeland; the cliché about Scots abroad craving Irn-Bru rings true but perhaps the most astonishing discovery I’ve made was finding out that Tennent’s Super is the drink of choice among the hipsters and glitterati in the style bars of Milan. It was prettily packaged and creatively marketed but I doubt it would have been as popular had the Milanese been aware that in its origin country it’s drunk primarily by alcoholics and the homeless.

However, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, whilst I’d eaten in Japanese restaurants nothing could have prepared me for the gastronomic revelations of my first trip to The Land of the Rising Sun. Drinking miso soup and trying to grapple with unidentified vegetables at breakfast in a smart hotel offered the first awakening for my western tastebuds. When I spotted flaming chicken hearts on the menu at a restaurant on our first night in Tokyo the tone was set for the best few eating weeks of my life. More than any other journey before, my culinary discoveries in Japan were to stay with me on my return home. There’s always joy in the extraordinary and a 6am breakfast of freshly caught fish at the famous Tsukiji seafood market was a real highlight. Even the seemingly mundane had the potential to delight. I was rarely without a packet of the chocolate covered biscuit sticks called Pocky after first buying them at Kyoto train station. I brought some home with me and gave them to a chosen few; given the addictive nature of the snack I thought it would be cruel to get people started on them without a readily available British supply. In the end I needn’t have worried as Pocky soon became available in the UK as Mikado.

For my girlfriend, Japan could keep its Pocky, its flaming chicken hearts and its seafood. For her nothing could come close to Umeshu in her affections. She isn’t a big drinker, despite the fact that she is currently working her way through a stash of silky smooth Lithuanian vodka bought on a trip to Vilnius, but Umeshu was the tipple she’d been waiting for all her life. Luckily enough, Nobu was something of an authority on the sweet plummy elixir and as I ordered another Yebisu beer he directed Laura towards the Umeshu Rokku (on the rocks) and the rest is history. Some might say it’s a bit of a girl's drink but I like an Old Fashioned or a Rusty Nail as much as the next boozebag and I must admit it is pretty awesome. It’s really sweet, not too potent (about 15% abv) and fairly viscous which is why it’s best served on ice. Its versatility means it can be used in cocktails, in soda water or tonic or even be mixed with hot green tea in the winter. As for us, we were more than happy with our Umeshu Rokku. Our enthusiasm pleased Nobu who went on to tell us how easy it was to make yourself and how to concoct all sorts of variations. With us being Scottish he took delight in describing how he preferred to make it with scotch as opposed to the traditional sochu or sake. After a couple more glasses and some gentle persuasion from our generous host it was decided that we would attempt our own batch.

A month later, with the instruction we’d received from Nobu and a little online research, we were ready to put our moonshine masterplan into action. The basics couldn’t be simpler: soaking unripe ume plums in sugar and liquor. Having bought a couple of preserving jars on eBay we hit something of a brick wall: where were we going to get ume from? Ume are green Japanese plums, similar to apricots. Their distinctive flower (plum blossom) is commonly depicted in East Asian painting but try as we might we couldn’t source the real thing for love nor money. A compromise had to be made. The closest we could get was unripe yellow plums so we bought them and hoped for the best. Next we washed them, then gently removed their stems. Ideally, a bamboo stick should be used for this but we didn’t have one handy so improvised using tweezers. Then we dried and placed them in separate jars before covering them in sugar followed by Jim Beam in one jar and vodka in the other. The jars were then sealed and placed in a cool dark place (my hall cupboard) and the waiting game began.

Initially, nothing much seemed to happen. Then some of the plums began to rise and over time they changed colour from green to squidgy brown while the liquid became more syrupy as the sugar dissolved. It was a fascinating process and we checked on our precious jars more often than was strictly necessary over the subsequent months. It should be ready for quaffing after three but it's best left for at least a year. We decided not to bow to our impatience and with some difficulty opted for the latter option.

As we watched the fireworks from our hotel room in St Andrews with a little taste of Japan in our glasses I knew we’d made the right choice. It was better than we’d dared hope and we enjoyed the fruits of our labour with friends and family in the days that followed. Our bottles soon ran dry and as they did so I like to think that somewhere in Hiroshima old Nobu was kicking back with a smile on his face and a nice big glass of his scotch based Umeshu. Kampai.

Simple Umeshu recipe:

Ingredients:

1lb green plums (preferably Japanese ume)
3/4lb raw sugar
1L alcoholic spirit of your choice

Preparation:

Wash plums and remove the stems. Dry with clean towel. Place plums in a large glass jar, put sugar over them and pour over alcohol. Seal the jar and store it in a dark, cool, and dry place. Umeshu will be ready for drinking in a couple of months but best to let it mature at least one year.

Written by Chris Cruickshank.

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A Jamai Writes

This is the much awaited final article in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his wedding ceremony in Kolkata, India.


The Wedding Day


I tried to find out more about the ceremony in advance but nobody handy knew much about it; we were having a Vedic wedding, said to be less patriarchal and over-the-top than the traditional brahmin-influenced ceremony. P's oldest jethima gave us a wedding scriptbook from a previous ceremony and almost all other possible preparations were in place at last. I got to spend most of the day relaxing, writing up my experiences and sorting through photos. Eventually we set out, dispersing between several cars which took close to an hour to crawl through the jam-packed traffic to the club. I managed to greet a few people on my way to the front row where I settled with my parents to wait for the bride to arrive. After an afternoon being made up and bejewelled by a beautician, P was having awful luck in the traffic and I started getting a little anxious sitting there with no news. When she finally emerged she looked, as I expected, absolutely stunning.

The ceremony began on a round podium criss-crossed with marigolds. I mounted from one side where I was met by the mother of the bride bearing the same ceremonial tray from my first day in Kolkata. She waved the arati in a motion of blessing and daubed my forehead with sindoor. P joined me on the podium and we both solemnly promised to adore each other. At that point the scriptbook included a glorious direction:

(The bride and bridegroom adore each other.)

To my mind, this beats even the immortal

(Exit stage left, pursued by a bear.)

We exchanged garlands - I placed mine over her, she placed hers over me, and we repeated the movements off and on. At the end I had no idea which of the matching garlands I ended up with. I figured this was symbolic of the give-and-take of marriage and the difficulty of separating and joining what was once two people.

The entire ceremony had an easy, meditative musicality to it. After the vows, a purohit sang a mantra, accompanied by a three-piece band next to the dais - tabla, sitar and flute. We placed our hands together and repeated the mantra; I realised then that I should have been spending time brushing up on my Sanskrit pronunciation. Thankfully, I wasn't miked up and everything was explained in English. After this we moved to the dais where we were joined by both sets of parents. Hers gave her to me, and in turn mine gave me to her.

The next stage involved drinking holy - and dangerously contaminated – water from the Ganges; I was vehemently warned to not actually drink it and my mother-in-law was nervous when I pretended to swallow a little too convincingly. Then came the first conspicuously vegan-unfriendly part where I received three trays of curd (for mildness), honey (for sweetness) and ghee (for prosperity). I tasted each individually, then carefully mixed them together and offered some to the rest of the group by flicking it messily in four directions and thrice straight up in the air).

We started a fire by placing sticks of sandalwood into a brazier at centre-stage and punctuated the purohit's mantra by adding more wood. The fire - 'voice of all the gods' – was a witness to the ceremony along with the assembled hundreds. Next we brought the fire to blaze by using special long-handled spoons to drip bowlfuls of ghee into the fire. Our parents join us for some of this part, throwing handfuls of dried flowers. Then P's brother joined us with a plate of tasty-looking puffed rice which also, disappointingly, went into the fire.
Next was the Tying of the Sacred Knot; I wasn't wearing a scarf so our oldest jetima took my brother's and draped it around the two of us. We remained physically attached for several hours in a symbolic attachment of life. My brother wasn't getting that scarf back; we were finally and officially married. To mark the fact, the priest cut a line of sindoor on a specially-prepared mirror and I poured it along the parting in P's hair. There was a rather unsavoury origin to this marking: when a tribe was defeated in battle the conquerors marked their chosen women with blood to say 'this one is mine'. All that remained was the Seven Steps - seven lessons given by the groom to the bride as instructed by the purohit: nourishment, success, loyalty, 'the source of Bliss', the good of all creatures, prosperity and finally a guide on the path of illumination.


The Reception


On the day of our reception I woke up feeling rotten. My stomach was churning and I assumed the culprit was all the creamy food. It quickly became clear that I wasn't the only one suffering - my brother and father-in-law were both struck down by the same debilitating sickness. I was terrified that the thousand reception guests would be greeted by apologetic womenfolk. I dosed myself with electrolytes, anti-diarrhoea meds and antibiotics and finally set off shakily with P, leaving the rest of the ill family members at home.

We arrived at an enormous Tea Garden where we were led through the packed crowd to a brightly-lit stage crowned by two outsized thrones. The reception began with crowds trooping onto the stage in an orderly queue as we received a dizzying quantity of blessings and presents. Everyone knew I was sick so I was spared standing up for each party of people. My electrolyte-laden drinks and periodic visits from bouncy friends kept me from passing out or going insane. At the end of the evening we managed to sit and chat with friends while everyone enjoyed the excellent food. Unfortunately for me I was prescribed a simple diet of rice and potatoes with lime. Waiters made the rounds with mugs of hot coffee on little trays but alcohol was only available at a bar hidden inside the club. I went to my bed gratefully that night.

Much of the next day was spent working through the enormous metal trunk stuffed with wedding presents. It quickly became clear that we were going to have to leave most of our stuff behind and we comforted ourselves with yet another delicious feast, this time of southern Indian food; thankfully I'd recovered enough to eat my heart out. In the evening we attended a small party spread over two large roof terraces, one of which was carpeted with grass, the other with not one but two waterfalls, each around thirty feet high by forty feet long. It was an amazing place to spend our last night; we were leaving for Darjeeling the next day and our many guests would scatter themselves to the rest of the globe. Our goodbyes were said with reluctance and great affection.

To Darjeeling

We flew out at mid-day. It's always interesting to see a city and its surroundings from above and I was a little surprised by all the lakes, woods and green fields outside Kolkata. The city itself was fairly green but extremely dusty so I wasn't ready for such lush plant life. There were wonderfully clear views of the meandering rivers below, attested by the shape and vegetation of the landscape. Eventually the Himalayas leapt into view, announced in English by a member of the cabin crew. Shortly afterwards we began our descent towards Bagdogra, the closest airport to Darjeeling.

We wanted to ride the Toy Train all the way to Darjeeling but as it would take a good eight hours, runs very infrequently and tends to get delayed somewhere along the line, my new father-in-law insisted we drive. To this end we were picked up at the airport by a Nepali man with no English to speak of and not much Bengali so P spoke to him in broken Hindi. We were staying in the Barnesbeg tea garden, halfway down the mountain on the other side of Darjeeling, and we descended rapidly down winding, ever-more-potholed roads as the sun set, the Kanchenjanga massif catching its last pink rays.

The drive was much more pleasant than we had ever imagined. Even on the main road the air was breathable, a tremendous relief after the stuffy fumes of Kolkata. We passed colourful temples and villages as the distant mountains loomed slowly larger. An hour or so into the drive we passed into woodlands and I saw my first wild monkeys. All the way up the hill, helpful signs provided snappy slogans encouraging people to slow down, honk their horn at every turn and be responsible drivers. These were mostly in English, although sometimes their grammar was sacrificed for added pithiness. The bungalow we were staying in looked exactly like a fine old English country house apart from the pictures of Krishna and statues of Ganesh. I loved it.

We were welcomed in with a wood fire in the hearth, delicious tea from the plantation, alcoholic drinks and a very fine Indian meal; our hosts were originally from Coorg so I had the opportunity to try a wide range of foods I'd never heard of in Kolkata, as well as a powerful and aromatic coffee mixed with a little chicory. At night we went outside for some fresh air and I saw the clearest night sky I've ever seen in my life. There just aren't that many stars in Britain; I've spent a lot of time in the English countryside, far away from light pollution and city fumes, but this was something else. It was like the sky was celebrating our marriage. It made me come to a new appreciation of why the ancients named so many constellations.

See Fergus' full profile here.

A Jamai Writes

This is the second article in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his wedding celebrations and the lead up to an Indian ceremony.


The Botanics

After our trip to the zoo we headed out for the Royal Botanical Gardens, believing this would be a good chance to get away from so many people and relax. The trouble was that we'd taken a yellow cab there. We should have made sure he knew where he was going before we set off; when we realised he was driving under rather than over the Howrah bridge we asked him for directions and he did a swift u-turn. There we sat in traffic for forty-five minutes in dusty, near-static, ever-honking traffic. Thankfully the gardens were the perfect place to unwind in the lush, peaceful quiet. We'd been getting quite stressed before arriving and as soon as we stepped into the green silence it felt like a rattling fog had been lifted. We sauntered past the lotus pond, gazed at the shafts of sunlight beaming through the trees, and made our way to the Great Banyan Tree. The banyan was truly beautiful although there is the question of whether it could really be considered a tree. Banyans send down aerial roots - proproots - which given time and food become tree-trunks themselves and send down their own proproots. This one tree was more than two and a half centuries old and had over 2,800 proproots enclosed in a perimeter almost half a kilometre around. The original main trunk was destroyed a century ago by storms and fungus but the forest of offshoots looked like some kind of elven paradise.

More Partying

The next night's party was where it really kicked off. Spectacularly posh, it was held at a mansion with a goldfish pond under the stairs, an ornamental waterfall in the garden, and semi-live music played throughout the night in the cavernous front room. The house was owned by one of the directors of the company in charge of Kolkata's electricity supply, the father of one of P's oldest friends, and I was relieved when he announced that our wedding was only one of four events being celebrated that night. One of his daughters had a new baby son, another was in India for a rare visit and his niece - almost as close as a daughter - was getting married next month. This took the pressure off us somewhat.

I was introduced to what seemed like a dozen or so middle-aged Indian couples in quick succession, while most of our white folk friends were huddle in a corner making tentative steps towards mingling. Later, we settled down to a delicious meal in the fairy-light-strewn garden next to an image Ganesh in the waterfall. Family servants distributed alcoholic drinks and tasty little spiced babycorncobs, chicken bits and fish on sticks and soon everyone was loosened up and less in awe of their surroundings. My brother struck up an enthusiastic conversation with a fellow animator, a white-haired Indian living in Amsterdam, while I debated astronomy with Janet, Rebecca and an Indian whose name I didn't catch. Orion's sword, he said, points south, but nobody was quite sure whether he meant the bow or the dagger hanging from his belt. We collectively puzzled over whether it's really possible for part of a constellation to always point in the same direction and what effect geographical location has on the orientation of things in the sky. To a European, the moon looks sideways in India. We were sorry to have to leave so early – there were more celebrations planned for the next morning.

Mehendi

The next day's events were taking place at the in-laws' spare flat, used at weekends and for parties, which had a roof terrace and an amazing view over a golf course. My brother and our friends were staying there and were a little dismayed to be woken so early.

All the girls had mehendi done apart from our actress friend who'd spent too much time getting married in her films to fancy going through it again. Intricate patterns were picked out in chocolatey henna and P's hands were completely covered. The designs concealed my name transliterated as closely as possible into Bengali, which made it something like 'P'hargaash'. I was tasked with picking it out among the flowers and curlicues. The henna stayed on for a couple of hours, periodically refreshed with sugary lemon juice, after which it flaked off to leave the skin dyed a reddish-orange. The depth of colour in the bride's mehendi reflected the depth of her husband's love and it looked suitably deep and rich to me. I eventually caved in and got a little mehendi myself - a small om on the palm of my hand. After this was the dancing; a troupe of young women and men performed for us with a star turn from a highly talented nine-year old who really gave it his all. The intensity of his expression and movements were a joy to behold. My brother joined in with the last dance; P said she could see a great future for him in Hindi films. Around this time my parents arrived, straight off the plane from Delhi, looking dazed but happy. The wedding was set for the next day.

See Fergus' full profile here.

A Jamai Writes

This piece is the first in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his time in Kolkata and his approaching marriage to an Indian woman.


Kolkata: First Impressions.

The December night was London-summer warm, the streets wreathed in a thicker smog than Britain has seen in my lifetime, beautiful halos around the streetlights and roads disappearing into haze. We ignored the perennial throng of coolies and tiny insistent beggar-kids, loaded up the two waiting cars and set off into town. As I left the airport and stepped out into the midnight Kolkata mist the air caught in my throat like dry ice. Whether from the shock of the Indian air, humid and heavy with dust and fumes, or from some noxious airport air-freshener, I soon got my breath and my bearings back.

Several things struck me during that first journey. For one, the buildings were unlike anything I've ever seen in Europe or Canada (the only places I have travelled, to date); more ornate than most and strikingly less flat - most had balconies and even those without seldom have flat facades. Right angles weren't taken for granted the way they are in Europe. Scaffolding was made of stung-together bamboo which enveloped the houses in crazy, curving grids. The buildings were at bizarre angles to the airport road, built later and cutting a swathe through many of the existing developments.

A few other things jumped out - quite literally in the form of stray dogs. We slowed down only slightly for a lazy road-block, manned by police who sat warming themselves round a fire in an old oil-barrel. The cars of the city were largely unfamiliar because they were of makes discontinued in the West decades ago. Most notably, the city's cabs are a fleet of old yellow Ambassadors; splendidly grand cars with no suspension to speak of and ricketty windows. Many walls were daubed with writing - almost all in Bengali - on politics, often accompanied by a hammer and sickle. West Bengal has been a communist state for around two decades even though capitalism has crept forth in a big way these last few years. Another thing which was quite alien to a British visitor was the style of driving. Cars forever honked when approaching other vehicles and at first I took this to be a symptom of aggression. This wasn't the case at all. While in Britain the standard message of a horn is 'get the hell out of my way' a Kolkata horn usually just says 'here I am'. Largely, I suspect, to make up for the lack of wing mirrors on the cars. Most of the larger vehicles were painted in bright colours, often with slogans like 'my India is great', and the prominent, curiously redundant request for the driver behind to blow their horn.

The Welcome

I felt very welcomed upon arriving at my in-laws. My fiancee P and I were greeted by the closest thing her Bengali family had to a matriarch and came in to three tremendous, resounding HWAAAWHs on a conch shell. This was a traditional way to begin a ceremony - in this case the boron-kora. She continued by chanting, anointing my forehead with sandalwood and daubing P's red with sindoor, and waving an arati - ceremonial flame - beneath each of our faces.

This was followed by a midnight feast - rice and dal and rotis and torkari: a Bengali banquet to fill the hole left by British Airways' failure to provide the vegan food I had carefully chosen from their extensive drop-down menu. At home I'm a vegan but most of the things that bother me about Britain's heavily-industrialised dairy industry don't apply here; I would also prefer not to turn down all the amazing non-vegan food in Bengal and I know my stomach can take it. I wouldn't eat eggs but then Indian vegetarians generally don't either. After dinner we removed our shoes and were led into the main bedroom where our mini-puja continued at P's father's mini-shrine. There were photographs and icons of religious significance and over our heads matriarch-auntie recited lines of rapid Sanskrit as we stood with our palms pressed before us.

First Day: Wedding Shopping


In the morning we woke early to the caws of Kolkata's ubiquitous crows, wailing in the streets, and the sound of a neighbour's conch. When we finally got out of bed we had a little time to eat breakfast and take in our surroundings now that the sun was blazing - a beautiful second-floor flat adorned with ornaments from around the world. Their balcony with huge potted plants looked out onto the street; the building opposite our bedroom window had a tree growing around its drainpipe and unfamiliar grey-necked crows hopped everywhere.

Once we'd got our bearings we set out to shop for our wedding outfits. Our's was a relatively small Indian wedding and there were only three days of official celebrations planned. The first day involved mehendi and a sangeet - dancing girls, drinks and around a hundred and twenty guests. The second day, the ceremony itself, involved more singing, dancing, feasting and another three hundred people. The reception was the really big event with about eight hundred to a thousand people invited. On either side of this there were parties of various sizes with friends and relatives and amazing Bengali food. The day after the reception was scheduled for a big, semi-official wind-down before escaping for a three-day honeymoon in Darjeeling.

What this all means was that each of us needed three outfits with varying degrees of grandness. P and I would wear Indian dress throughout - three different sarees for her, two kurtas and a sherwani for me and a dhoti for the ceremony. My brother opted for two kurtas and a tailored suit, much cheaper to get made in Bengal than in Britain. We picked these out surprisingly quickly, they were such gorgeous things to wear, and even P's were all chosen by the next day. P teased me for weeks about the dhoti – a sort of giant nappy for men - but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared.

The Partying Began

Next night's party was thrown by the parents of a guest from the previous night, a delightful and shockingly spry couple in their seventies who I knew only as auntie and uncle. She was a famous beauty in her day; a hit pop song was written for her a few decades back. She cooked amazing food and performed another welcome ceremony largely consisting of me eating rice with uche and sag. Her husband told me about his adventures visiting Antarctica and Africa. His face was lined with eight decades of laughter and storytelling and he ate a different breakfast every day on the principle of choice. This party was in our honour and came in the form of a barbecue in a roof garden with beautiful views out over the city fog. We met many charming Bengalis, a close-knit group of friends of P's parents, and ate far too much delicious food. Barbecued paneer turn out to be so tasty that I vowed to try the same with tofu the next time I got the chance.

The Zoo

One afternoon a couple of days later I headed with my brother to the zoo for perhaps our only chance to see elephants. A man sold us chickpeas at the gate - for the monkeys - but all the animal enclosures had signs saying 'please do not tease or feed wild animals' and the monkeys were kept behind three layers of cage for our protection. Overall the zoo wasn't too badly maintained and apart from the skinniest bunch of bunnies I'd ever seen, the animals didn't seem especially unhappy. Some of the cages were pockmarked and empty as though their inmates had escaped. Others included incongruous cats – there was one in the emu's enclosure waiting for a chance to bring down the bird ten times its size.

Before we left I was stopped by a woman and a small girl with a big grin and a look of wonder on her face. She asked me about my hair and how long it took to grow. Later we were chased by a young boy with a camera who begged us for a photo. We stopped for him and he delighted in showing his friends.

'We were the best exhibits there', my brother said later.

See Fergus' full profile here.