Janus and Her Friends

I am experiencing a strange dichotomy while I sit on the balcony of my flat in East London writing this journal entry. I live in the inner-city district of Whitechapel, which is both the most multicultural and ethnically diverse region in London, and one of the poorest. The balcony of the apartment directly overlooks the slums of Whitechapel, second-rate housing projects built after the area was decimated and bombed during WWII—home to many of the inner-city’s Bangladeshi residents who represent over half of the district’s population, many of them in the low-income bracket. Go a little bit further west into East London and you get to the area known as The City (London proper), which features the old financial district mostly spared by the bombs, an area of Victorian-era buildings, gothic-like skyscrapers, and architecturally impressive corporate towers, not to mention the yet-to-be-completed Shard London Bridge, slated to be the tallest building in Western Europe once construction is finished. I can already see the half-erect tower creeping over the skyline as construction workers rush to keep pace with the Olympic countdown. (Yes, I am struggling to refrain from making a psychoanalytically inspired socioeconomic quirk here.)

On the other side of the flat is the district of Canary Warf, home to London’s new financial district. Its domineering towers and abundant office buildings (one of which is London’s current tallest building, at least until The Shard soon pierces the virgin sky), housing the head offices of most of the U.K.’s major banks, were all built in the last two decades or so, surrounded by upper-middle class suburbs and schools in the quaint, peninsula-like area that abruptly swings south to correspond to a sudden dip in the Thames River. Canary Warf is the result of government redevelopment after the West India Docks closed in 1980.

“What shall we do with the Docks?” they asked.

“Build a financial district?”

“We already have a financial district.”

“Well…another financial district. This time we’ll do it right: gentrification style.”

It is like a secluded area of clean, modern-day living, guarded by a Thames moat, if you will. Earn your living and pay your mortgage all in one gated-like community that doubles as the second slice of bread in the financial-district sandwich in which Whitechapel is tainted meat.

Nostalgic, antiquated big-city greed vs. modern-day suburban gentrification, and I’m lost and confused in between it all, right in the middle.

Whitechapel is both dirty and threatening on the one hand, and active and exciting on the other hand. The dichotomies exist within, too. Vibrant food and shopping markets are everywhere, including Brick Lane, which is more vivacious than anything I have encountered back home. But garbage and waste run these parts wild, and the threat of extreme Islamic activity looms over my head like an irresolute cloud. I love that the largest mosque in all of the U.K. is within a five-minute walking distance of my front door, but it's so unfortunate that the joie de vivre brought by such cultural heterogeneity is spoiled by a small minority of residents who give the Borough of Tower Hamlets (within which Whitechapel resides) the nickname of "Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets." As recent as only a week prior to my arrival in London, local media stories reported incidents of death threats to unveiled women, as well as public physical assaults on gay men.

The Janus-faced metaphor couldn’t be more appropriate. Some days I am lost, confused, and lonely as hell. Other days, well, I fall in love. I love falling in love. Can you blame me? London, lyrical, lovely, lilting. I fell in love on the bus the other day. I didn’t get her name, but it was love, real love. She was cute and sat next to me. My phone rang and there was no answer.

“Don’t you hate that? The ring of the cellphone, the anticipation of a conversation, knowing that somebody, someone out there, wants to talk to you. You’re important. And then…nothing. You think you find somebody to love, but it’s just a dial tone. Life is just a dial tone.”

I said something like that. Probably. She smiled and engaged me in small talk. I made a joke about how I struggle to navigate through the settings on my new phone: Normal, Loud, Vibrate, Orange Citrus, Morning Breeze. She laughed. Yeah…love. Then her phone rang, and she had a somebody on the other end. Her stop came when she was on the phone still so all I got was a quick “goodbye” and “nice to meet you.” It was all a dial tone, really; but that’s what love is, a dial tone: two harmonious noises that no one person could hum—it requires two voices in sync. Ironic that a dial tone can symbolize both white noise and love. Apparently Janus is poaching on Cupid and Venus's turf.

My flatmates are the best. George, Mike, Kat, and Alice. Seasoned vets to help me navigate through the financial-district sandwich and through the dial tones. They too are right in the middle of it all. George is a young Jake Gyllenhaal, although a little bit more abrasive and chatty, in a very British way. Everything he says is funny. He enjoys a good drink and chain smoking. Mike is quiet yet friendly. He plays video games, has a quirky taste in indie music, and a dry sense of humour. He looks like Phil Kessel, although he doesn’t know who that is. Kat is confident and approachable, but don’t fuck with her or she’ll make you drink a lot of alcohol. If you are ever unsure of anything, she’s right there with an answer, a strong voice, and a passionate opinion. All three of them study politics, and are currently working as student interns at Westminster that count towards their degrees. During the day they work as assistants to MPs, then at night they come home and write their corresponding reports to be submitted to professors. Weekends are fair game. Alice is smart and easy-going. A house full of politicos, she’s the artist of the bunch. She finished her degree in English literature and creative writing, and spends her time now as a freelance wedding photographer for mediocre money, an amateur photographer selling prints at outdoor street markets in London for even worse money, and a lowly caterer for better money. Perhaps her most interesting gig is her own card-design project that she recently started, Birds in Hats. Alice draws various birds posing with different headpieces, and will then transfer the designs onto greeting cards and sell them in bulk. I get along with her well, and it seems like she and I have a lot in common in order to be good friends.

Lost and confused in London, I have asked them all a million questions and sought their advice countless times. Not once have they been impatient or unhelpful. Caught in between two worlds, falling in and out of love, constantly torn and undecided if I should be happy or sad, valiant or afraid, these four wonderful people have taught me that Janus can get by just fine with a little help from his friends.