A MIGRANT GIRL'S DREAM OF A BRITAIN THAT NO LONGER EXISTS
On the eve of the coronation, Mei-Ling walked the carriage route the King himself would take the following morning in order to be officially crowned the King of England. Her right ankle swollen after twisting it at Charing Cross station looking for a restroom, she continued each painful step unwavering in her devotion to a dream of a Britain that was fading fast from sight with each passing day. Royal ceremonies seemed the exception to the rule in 21st-century England, a harking back to an age of ritual and pageantry in her view and she was determined to be amongst those celebrating on the streets even if the event would feel bittersweet for her.
An Anglophile since young, growing up in Taipei Mei-Ling had loved the books of Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, and trashy Jackie Collins novels; she had watched all the period dramas that had ever been broadcast from the sceptered isle believing it mostly to be a land of refined elocution, tea, and scones. But having lived in England for nearly a decade, the grim reality was that the country was now more than ever a tragedy of conflicted identities, cultural dissimilation, and class warfare.
"It's a shame what's happened," Mei-Ling had recently remarked to her Zimbabwean church friend, Pemmy (a fellow Royalist) who had little tolerance for self-loathing natives who happily virtue signalled about issues damaging the fabric of society all the while watching the country spiral into permanent decline.
"These people seem to actually relish any bad news the country suffers. And if any good news comes around, you know like those occasional buses we wait for on Kennington Road, then they shoot it down dead from the sky like a homing pigeon. I'm telling you Mei, it's not good. Not good at all."
Having watched the rapid decline of the nation's capital in all the time since she moved there, it pained Mei-Ling's heart greatly to see the place she had had such great hopes for be reduced to endless hanging rainbow flags, near-permanent bus, and tube strikes and increasing violent crime. It did, however, amuse both Mei and Pemmy that as they were both of ethnic origin they could say these things more freely due to an increasing privilege afforded by the zeitgeist of identitarianism. Still, they were always discreet, laughing at the white guilt that was bringing historic statues to their knees and setting whole buildings on fire. Ultimately they both had a degree of detachment as they knew they could return to their home countries in the end if things got even worse than they already were.
Walking across Waterloo Bridge and stopping to gaze at the slowly declining sun behind a mish-mash of old and new architectural buildings, Mei couldn't help but feel betrayed by the reality she now existed in. She had so wanted England to be stereotypical and cliched in the way art, films, and books had seemed to so enticingly promise her. Feeling caught between England's existential crisis and her own, she wondered if that would have been the case had she remained in Taipei.
"It would have probably worked out the same. After all, nowhere is perfect."
But that didn't sound convincing in her head. It sounded weak. Here she was having to work twice as hard at achieving a bare minimum existence of human contentment when back home it would have been so much easier. Chasing a dream had ended up costing a lot in reality and now she had to work out exactly where her future lay. Was it in the sickly West or back in the more pragmatic and culturally secure East where she could dream in safety once more?
It seemed so topsy-turvy that she felt more patriotic and loyal to a country in which so many living here seemed to despise the very ground beneath their feet and cursed that they weren't born in some other part of the globe.
When she was a young girl Mei remembered her mother taking her to see Disney's 'Mary Poppins' at the Ambassador Theatre Cinema in Taipei and falling in love with London instantly. Cherry Tree Lane was the fantasy and perhaps with a few opportune promotions she might have managed some version of that idealized L.B Travers existence but her daydreaming had now cost her in more ways than one - she had fallen short of the dream and it felt further away now than ever before.
Though as she passed by the steps of St Paul's Cathedral she couldn't help but smile, remembering her late mother singing the song 'Feed The Birds' in Mandarin to her every night before she went to sleep. Was it her mother, then, who had subtly influenced her desire to move abroad in search of Burt and his street paintings and escaped carousel horses?
Quietly under her breath, Mei sang the song to herself in English this time, communing with both the past and the present in a way that made her feel connected to her dead mother.
Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's
The little old bird woman comes
In her own special way to the people
She calls, "Come, buy my bags full of crumbs"
"Come feed the little birds, show them you care
And you'll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry, their nests are so bare
All it takes is tuppence from you"
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag
Feed the birds", that's what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies
All around the cathedral, the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares
Although you can't see it, you know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares
Though her words are simple and few
"Listen, listen", she's calling to you
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag"
Though her words are simple and few
"Listen, listen", she's calling to you
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag"