Love of the Day - How Many of 'Them Foreign Types' There Are in London

You may have noticed that I heartlessly abandoned this blog and went off with a whole other more topical one about Taiwan, in the manner of a fickle friend. Well, as such capricious folks are wont to do, I have returned to take up my seat at this table again, smiling broadly, as if I had never been away. Hello Love/Bug! How the devil are you? It's been too long!

Photo borrowed from theprisma.co.uk

I read the other day that one in three people living in London is an immigrant. Apparently for some Brits this is a cause for concern - the media obsession with this topic means we've all been exposed to the bleating about some people taking other people's jobs, loss of 'British'ness in certain areas and the other ignorant, close-minded crap that is spouted by UKIP types - and, well, obviously everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I personally couldn't disagree more. I LOVE how many foreigners there are in London. It is in fact, the only reason I am here, both literally, in that a close 'foreign' friend is currently letting me stay with them, and because the multiculturalism of the capital is one of the few aspects I find attractive about it over other British cities. London is, after all, also overwhelming, crime-ridden, insanely overpriced... all that unpleasant stuff.

I'm not saying I'm any kind of virtuous, inclusive, pro-integration-working paragon or anything, my reasons for enjoying London's mix of nationalities are entirely selfish: first and foremost, I just love walking around and seeing a giant variety of humans. It's interesting. The more different people look from each other, the more diversely they are dressed, the more fun watching them is (in the least creepy way possible). And, being a bit of a linguaphile, I also very much like the fact that I can go shopping in Kingston - hardly even the most diverse of London's neighbourhoods - and hear Polish, Spanish, French, Chinese, and other languages I don't know enough to identify, spoken around me. It's cool! How is that not cool?!

Photo borrowed from orugallo.net

Even if you don't think it's as great as I do, you surely have to agree about the access to different cuisines. You can literally eat dishes from anywhere you care to in London. Iraqi maqluba? No problem. Taiwanese gua bao? Yup. SomalI cambuulo? Sure. And if you want Chinese, Japanese or Indian food that actually tastes something vaguely like the dishes found in those countries - you can get it here!! (I mean, apparently. I'm personally living on gruel in the hope of saving up the king's ransom you need to rent a room around here *sigh*). You could probably also find someone to teach you to cook any national dish you can think of, any musical instrument, any language, any style of dance, or song, art technique - anything!

I guess, really, all of the reasons I like the amount of foreign-ness going on in London so much can be encapsulated as follows: it's like being able to live in a dozen countries at once, with access to all those different cultures, but without the tiresome nuisance of culture shock, without needing to learn each of the dozen languages (unless you want to, like me. FEED ME NEW LANGUAGES, FEEED MEEE...), a fraction of the travel costs and all the comforts of home.

What's not to love about that? All of the lazy and all of the fun, at the same time!

Unless of course you have no interest in any of the above, are scared of difference, have no sense of adventure and enjoy your world a soothing shade of beige, in which case - yes, I am judging you. I think you should go and live somewhere more boring. And I'm entitled to that opinion.