Vive la différence
I have always been unreasonably fascinated by the dress of Hasidic Jews.
London reminds me of the Tatooine market in the first Star Wars movie. Luke Skywalker wanders through the market, together with an assortment of aliens of very different shapes, sizes and colours. I wander the streets of London marvelling at the diversity of human beings here, significantly more diverse than Queenstown, despite Queenstown being a tourist hub. Everywhere different languages are spoken, with English just one of the possibilities. We were sitting in a beer garden and mothers watching their children in the play area were striking up conversations in whichever languages they happened to have in common.
I’m alternatively impressed and overwhelmed by the people. London is so busy and so loud. There are people thronging the streets and the roads. Sirens wail and the tube trains rattle and thrum along the tracks with the reverberations beating out voices. I keep on smelling something that reminds me of ink; it could be a vape product but I haven't definitively linked it with anything I can see people doing yet. The green spaces are a welcome respite but, all too soon, one reaches the end of Hampstead Heath, or Regents Park, and is regurgitated into the throngs.
A friend of ours currently living in the UK for 3 months absolutely loves the London hubbub. She grew up in the UK so it feels like home. “Every time I get out at Charing Cross,” she says, “I’m excited all over again.” I’m fascinated by how much she loves the mass of humanity and how much I feel like it is a temporary wonder I will be glad to escape. Obviously, it’s a good thing we are all different, otherwise there’d be an awful lot of people in cities who wish they weren’t there. I feel like a visitor at an avant garde exhibition, prepared to be charmed or entertained by something abnormal that is only a temporary intrusion into my real life. Where she loves crowds, I love wild (as in nature wild, not people wild!).
However, you can’t deny the entertainment to be experienced in London. On our first day here we went to 'A Comedy of Errors' at the Globe Theatre, a replica of the original theatre in which Shakepeare was performed. We walked back over Westminster Bridge via the Modern Tate Art Gallery and Chris wouldn't give me long enough to figure out the scam being played by middle eastern looking guys who hid a rubber ball under one of three cups they moved around. I wanted to watch until I figured it out but had to Google it instead – they use several plants who successfully pick the cup and wait for the unwary punter who thinks, "That looks easy," then start palming the ball and reappearing it in an unexpected cup.
Last night we went to a Korean restaurant, the previous night to an Eritrean restaurant. After eating bibimbap, we went to hear the Gecko Club, an up-and-coming British band, at the Victoria Pub in Dalston. It’s easily possible to walk to Dalston, have dinner, go hear a band, catch public transport home and be in bed by 11pm. The public transport in London is something Auckland should envy.
When we were returning, Sarah and I were discussing the interesting people we saw at the Victoria. There was an exceptionally tall person who completely blocked the view (to be fair he was already there and we came in behind him so it wasn’t his fault I couldn't see past the middle of his back). There were women wearing skirts that amounted to a very small strip of cloth around their mid-section. There were two guys on what looked to be a first date, who were both wearing button-down shirts which stood out from the more unusual clothing worn by most (not that I could claim any dress sense, given I have one pair of trousers and two t-shirts to choose from in my bikepacking kit). There were men with long hair and women with very little hair. However, the real stand out was a woman wearing what I initially thought was a very small baby in a chest harness, of a size that suggested it was less than 3 months old.
The baby hung motionless as the woman sipped her drink and swayed to the music. She had exceptionally long, dark eyelashes and straight orange hair. She curled one hand around the baby carrier. The band was playing at the upper limits of the tolerance of my hearing. How could a baby sleep through the din? Was it wearing ear-muffs? I kept looking over but, given the dark room with strobing lights, I couldn’t see the baby’s head properly and could only make out the clothed arms and feet hanging down.
The woman encouraged the guy she had arrived with to hold the hand of the baby as he danced energetically. He looked unenthused and the baby’s hand dropped limply when he let it go. This was beyond a baby sleeping with ear-muffs. Was it drugged?
In discussion, Sarah, Chris and I all came to the conclusion that the 'baby' couldn’t have been a real baby, so the woman won the weirdest prize. Why would someone wear what looked like a baby when they were going to hear a band? And what was the object that looked like a baby? I resorted to the internet in the bus on the way back to Sarah’s flat. As a result I learned about reborning.
‘Reborning’ is a process of creating lifelike dolls that resemble newborn babies. They are highly detailed and realistic in appearance and can be weighted to feel like a baby. Reborn artists transform a blank, unpainted doll kit, adding layers of color, shading, and details such as veining, mottling, and birthmarks. Hair may be hand-rooted strand by strand.
Reborn dolls are popular amongst collectors, doll enthusiasts and people who find comfort in their lifelike presence – some people use reborns to work through their grief after a miscarriage or death of a young baby. They can also be a prop for teaching parenting skills. There’s a whole community out there of people who create, collect and interact with reborns. Most are women and many find each other online.
Our experiences here all go to show that life is pretty much like the Tatooine market. You never know who or what you’ll find or see and there are other people on this planets whose practices are sufficiently alien to each of us such that they might as well have come from another planet. Or London.
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