Merging the cultures

A lot has happened since the last blog- hence the silence. Looking at my last post and how I feel now- my feeling could not be any more different. The families from both sides have met- and now the danish and British Pakistani all know about each other. I am now getting used to this lack of secrecy. My new open life, so what triggered this change, marriage. We got hitched.I am questioning why I was so afraid- perhaps it is more how we perceive our culture than how the culture really is that frightens us.

Juggling the cultures

I am beginning to wonder if my life would have been much simpler if I had been raised in one culture. Multiculturism always seems to cause problems, since my childhood I tried to juggle the Pakistani culture with the British, until a pivotal point in my life..the arranged marriage. Fortunately/Unfortunately it did not last long- hence gave me the freedom I was looking for. I have always tried to live as I can please both worlds and now that these two lives- my boyfriend and now fiancee will meet the other life -the great Pakistani girl- which role will I play?

Competition- Is it healthy?

Competition- It makes us strive to win and yet it can make us so unhappy. So when is it ok.. Looking at how the UK perform in sports, something stops us not quite getting there. Could it be that we are not competitive enough? Is it the very thing which makes many of us gringe at the US Americans, that we lack.. the drive to win, is there a horrible trade-off between being likeable and being a winner? I once was shocked after Sep 11. hearing an US lady state that she believed this was due to jealousy, but maybe this very arrogance is what we need to win. The question then is, how can we switch being competitive on and off? I remember how I once (one time from many) gave up the basketball, as it seemed unpolite to keep fighting...Not the worlds best basketball player, but is it not this lack of competitive drive that makes us likeable?
Once we are out of the sports situation, what makes us competitive, now I no longer think it is arrogance but insecurity.

Samosas to Chip buttys to liquorice?

Can I be a foriegner forever? I guess this question will not be answered in a jiffy.
But I wonder if I can. What does it mean to search for my roots- where do I search? I think that this is interesting in my case (and others alike) -as I am second generation, now living in a third country. Are my roots in the pie and chips, mash of england where I was born and raised, or in those of my parents (gulab jamens and ludo, samosas, the pakastini foods, etc.), and will they soon become liqourice and the liver pate, risengrod (rice porridge) of Denmark. What a concoction of food that will be passed onto the next generation...

the wind is back

since this was the topic of one of the first blog entries it is back. The wind, it is strong in denmark, so even though the sun shines, I cant escape it, and the tears are rolling down my face, bringing back memories of cycling down castle hill in cambridge, reaching the traffic lights and being very conscious that you are 'crying'.

when shall we give up our dream

Life is always more enjoyable if there are dreams that one is still awaiting to attain. It is the age old saying ' it is the journey that is important and not the final destination'. But I think that it is important to keep creating final destinations, and they should be ones that can not be reached. Without these (or dreams) what is life about? It is fine balance between realising yourself that the dream is not attainable and discarding it, yet creating other dreams which are not attainable and tricking yourself into believing they are. Of course it also about deciding whether these dream are what you really want.

When fakeness blurs reality

There has not been much posting in August, one of the main reasons is that I have been travelling- Paris , London and Las Vegas. Las Vegas is an interesting one that I would not visit for the sake of visiting, but given the excuse of a conference it is fun. The fakeness makes it fun, caesars palace, with it fake roman column's, two copies of the trevi fountain, music playing in the background, and the prime feature- the ceilings painted a mid blue to resemble a sky. Of course the idea is to forget time, and spend, spend, spend. So when sitting having dinner in the British musuem a week later, can I be forgiven for thinking of caesars palace? the columns of the musuem, the jazz band playing out of my view, and the fantastic glass ceiling through which the impression of the fake sky is given. I was a bit disturbed that my impression of the artificial casaers palace blurred my view of the British Musuem. Since then I have heard that many americans are disappointed to arrive in Paris to realise that they have already been there, i.e. to have been in paris paris in las vegas....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesars_Palace
http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum.aspx