Here’s a photo of a takeout shop just down the street from us in London:

George's fish bar, London UK

Unfortunately, the awning doesn’t come out in this nighttime photo, but the full shop signage says:

George’s Fish Bar / Fried Chicken / Barbecued Spare Ribs Our Specialty / We Fry Fresh Fish / Calamari

?!?!

When we first saw this place, we couldn’t stop laughing.  I’m surprised that they don’t advertise hamburgers, pizza, Chinese noodles, and chilled monkey brains while they’re at it.

This is clearly a grease-pit, but we were so amused by the sign that we had to try it at some point.  Eventually, we did and discovered that it’s essentially just “George’s Fish Bar”.  The spare ribs and chicken were dreadful.  Oh well — it’s about what we expected.  Actually, the surprise was that the fish was not too bad.  (Though clearly not what we get at the most excellent local pub!)

But this is really a small reflection of the kind of culture we find in our neighborhood.  We’re living in a neighborhood that’s struggling between ghetto and gentrification, with a healthy sample of immigrants across the spectrum.  Near us, the predominant immigrant groups seem to be Turkish, Greek, and Russian (or the myriad of Russian-speaking former USSR states and satellites that appear Russian to my uncultured eyes, anyway).  We hear a medley of languages on the bus and English is often in the minority.

The local shops and restaurants reflect that melange.  Like “George’s”, many of the store fronts have clearly changed hands many, many times over the years, housing a succession of ethnic groups and their tastes of home.  There’s a Chinese restaurant on the main drag whose plate glass windows still proudly announce fish and chips.  (It’s now defunct; I wonder who the next generation to inherit it will be.)  The local groceries vend everything from kimchee to couscous to salsa, including some vegetables I have never even heard of before.  Within a few minute’s walk of us there are Greek, Turkish, German, and French bakeries and patisseries.  Butcher shops proudly proclaim that they carry halal meat.  There’s a cafe down the street from us that advertises Italian cuisine on its awning, but as far as we can tell it serves essentially British mainstream food.  It’s run by a Turkish woman who spent most of her career as a fashion designer in Egypt.

It’s a fascinating contrast to Madrid, which appeared (at least to our outsider eyes and linguistically impoverished ears) to be much more culturally homogeneous.  In Madrid, you heard essentially one language and most of the shops and overt culture were recognizably Spanish.  (Aside, I suppose, for the massive flux of dubbed Hollywood films.  On which, hopefully, another post another time.)  Granted, there appeared to be a significant number of immigrants from other Spanish-speaking nations, but there did not appear to be such a variety of different origins or ethnicities as we see here in London.  Beyond our neighborhood here in London, we see a high density of Indians, East Asians, Africans, and others.  We run into Nigerians on the subway and hear French on the buses.  The researchers I work with at UCL come from across Europe and beyond.

All of this makes London an exciting, but also a bit dizzying place to spend a few months.  The US is proud of its history as a great cultural melting pot, welcoming immigrants from across the globe.  (Though we’re currently struggling to resolve our own feelings about the current generation of Mexican and Latin American immigrants.)  But there are very few places in the US that approach this density of diversity, I think.  Different regions of the US have different ethnic mixes — Latin American and Native American in the Southwest, East Asians on the West Coast, a mish-mash of Europeans on the East Coast — but by and large, each city will have only a few highly represented cultural groups.  Perhaps New York or Washington DC approach this level of diversity — I haven’t spent enough time in either of them to get a real feel for it, the way I’m just beginning to here.

I suppose this is to be expected of one of the Great Cities of the world.  London is, after all, the capital of what remains one of the most powerful nations on Earth.  It was a capital city roughly 1600 years before Washington DC was a gleam in Madison’s eye.  I suppose it’s not a great surprise that it attracts such a wide variety of people from so many backgrounds and walks of life.  Sometime it leads to serious friction, of course.  Any time cultures (and economies) collide, there are bound to be.

It’s fascinating and fun and overwhelming.  In the short time we’re here, I’m sure we’ll only have the chance to just sample some bits of it all.  But I’m glad to experience what we can of it.

Oh, and the groceries have truly awesome olive oil…