Raised in a country that doesn’t exist anymore, my magic power is that I see double: as a foreign-born living in the UK I’m constantly comparing cultures.

Jun 26, 2016

THE INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING … YOURSELF

When the staff at Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon learnt I was from Armenia, they enthusiastically mentioned their own Armenian, Anais Vanian-Cooper. She had been Manager of New Place (Shakespeare’s final residence) and had latterly been managing Hall’s Croft around the corner, which belonged to Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah and her husband John Hall. Anais’s sister, they said, wrote a book about Armenians. Unusual, I thought, for colleagues to know so much about one’s ethnic background, when you’re Manager at a most English institution.

On the day we meet with her, Anais greets us with a huge smile, offering a tour of Hall’s Croft. I start forming a picture of her, when I’m told ‘’I’m very, very lucky that the team I work with know that I’m Armenian… and how fiercely proud I am to be Armenian.’’ Those are some passionate words in a culture that likes subtlety and dislikes public pronouncements of patriotism. Then she broadens the subject, commenting on how much she likes the jewellery that the people in the Elizabethan portraits are wearing. I know then that I’m in company of a larger-than-life character. ‘’People comment on the way I tend to socialise. I’m outgoing’’, she says with a chuckle.

Having relatively recently moved into the area, I figure now that this place, with a population just over 27,000, punches well above its weight with world-class institutions such as the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, coupled with a diverse, urban demographic. At the same time, it projects a down-to-earth personality of a market town so characteristic of the Midlands, with a pedestrianised, user-friendly centre and suburban lilac tree-lined roads. On that spring day, walking merrily along the low-rise buildings, was a group of Japanese tourists, who tend to make a special trip up here while visiting London and Oxford. We passed by a bunch of visiting French school kids and stood next to happily vocal Americans at the entrance of Shakespeare’s son-in-law’s.

One of the five houses under the care of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Hall’s Croft is situated in ‘Old Town’ Stratford, just a stone’s throw away from the school the Great Bard went to and the church where he’s buried. My interviewee has her work cut out as the property’s manager. It’s Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary this year, and since there is no more famous poet this country has given the world, tourists are expected to flock in to visit the world’s most famous playwright’s home town in greater numbers than the estimated usual 4.9 million a year. The bulk of them will be visiting Trust properties, all of which are located in or around Stratford. Among them is Mary Arden’s Farm, Shakespeare’s mother’s charming childhood home where as a child he would have visited grandparents and roamed around freely, surrounded by gorgeous Warwickshire countryside.

Hall’s Croft, on the other hand, is a town centre residence, which in the 20th century welcomed visitors such as Mahatma Gandhi within its walls. Back in the 17th century, Shakespeare’s daughter’s physician husband Dr Hall used to sell remedies prepared from herbs growing in the medicinal herb garden, which is brimming with colour now. The place is steeped in history. And history is a topic that crops up again and again in our conversation with Anais.
She started off with a love of basic history, as Head Guide at St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Warwick, and suddenly realized that in Henry V and Henry VI Shakespeare wrote about the people she talked about on a daily basis. She started studying Shakespeare’ plays more in-depth, and ten years ago saw an advert that said Guides wanted at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and the rest is history!

One of the 232 million people around the world who, according to UN estimates, are living outside their country of birth, Anais would be classified as a migrant — a word that says lots while revealing little. Her father was a goldsmith and silversmith in Addis Ababa, appointed as the Ethiopian Emperor’s jeweller and medal-maker in mid-20th century. His family had migrated there from the Armenian territories of the Ottoman Empire. Her mother’s side, ethnically Armenian and originally from Ottoman Turkey, had settled in Sudan.

Born in Ethiopia, Anais went to Armenian school, maintained by a sizeable and strong Armenian community. But political turbulence in Ethiopia that started in the 1960s and ended with the ousting of Emperor Haile Selassie and abolition of monarchy in 1975, meant that she had to be sent to England to continue her education in a boarding school. She has lived here for the past forty years. ‘’In a minute I’m going to end up revealing my age’’, she jokes with a cheeky grin.

And henceforth, like a thread through our conversation, runs a geographic triangle of countries and cultures. Armenia, Ethiopia, England. Middle East, Africa, Europe. So where is home?

‘’Because I came to England, went to boarding school at a young age and stayed here, I do consider England to be my home, but it is not my root. My root is Armenia. I admit, I’ve never been there and would dearly love to go. But when I talk to people, I don’t say I’m English Armenian or British Armenian, I say I’m Armenian. …My heart is still in Armenia and I don’t think I’ll ever shake that,’’ says Anais.

Go figure what a person with multiple identities means when they are talking about a country they haven’t visited as being their ‘root’. A concept mildly strange to Western ears, she finds it surprisingly easy to discuss. On the other hand, the phrase ‘not ever shaking that’ puts an image in my head of a burden, something stuck to you that you’d like to get rid of, or shake off.

This contradiction dissipates, though, once you follow the tree analogy — you have lots of branches on a tree, but it starts from a singular root. You don’t necessarily see it, but it’s there, inevitably holding everything up and together. I ask about another branch of her ‘identity tree’, Ethiopia, suspecting it was relegated to memory, and yet detect genuine affection. It turns out, she went back there recently, re-tracing her steps and re-connecting after 40 years’ absence.

However, there’s no limit to places one can hold in one’s heart, it appears, and so a minute later she’s stressing her pride as an Armenian: ‘’When I came here I was very aware through my upbringing and my schooling what Armenia means and how to be proud of who you are and what you are. …You are born Armenian, you will always be Armenian. There is nothing that can beat it out of you. And it’s the pride that you carry it with.’’

Is there more to the use of the expression ‘beat it out of you’? Does it reflect the genetic, unconscious memories of being persecuted? And as for the oft-repeated word ‘pride’, could it reflect the collective dogged determination and self-preservation that is the hallmark of much of Armenian history?
The modern idea of nationality is based on one’s passport, as opposed to one’s ethnic background. So how does she practice being Armenian and all that comes with it? One of the things that comes with it is the language — ‘’absolutely, an essential part of identity.’’ She still speaks Armenian to her sisters (one of them, Rubina Sevadjian, is the writer) and brother: ‘’I think it’s very, very important to keep that flame going. I am also aware that there are a lot of young Armenians who are not able to speak the language but they have an Armenian soul and are proud of being Armenian.’’ And there goes that word ‘pride’ again, lighting up her eyes.

In the fifteen years that I’ve been living outside of my homeland, I’ve met countless other foreign-born individuals. It’s impressive to see the efforts of those, from non-Western countries in particular, to retain their distinct identity and pass it on to the next generation in an overwhelmingly English-speaking environment. It’s largely an uphill struggle.

In fact, a born-and-bred British friend who recently moved to Germany with primary-aged children has mentioned how their English is weakening only after six months! Which makes it all the more impressive to see a third generation migrant from a faraway place so in touch with her origins.

We touch upon another aspect of her Armenian-ness, namely Apostolic Christianity. When she lived in London, she attended the Armenian Church in South Kensington often and was involved in the community’s events. These days, living in Warwick, she goes to her local Anglican church and makes sure at least two of her prayers are in Armenian, ‘which throws certain people off a bit’. And the slightly mischievous smile flashes across her face again. You can be secularist or a cynic, but as someone who’s had two children in the UK with bilingual upbringing and little opportunity to practice my mother tongue with them socially, I recognise the audacity to speak your language in public as an unavoidable side effect in one’s strive to be principled. It’s the self-preservation instinct of a first generation migrant. Through that, Anais feels, she keeps ‘that flame going’ again: ‘’I like to vocalise it…and by doing that I feel that I’m keeping a little bit of that religion with me.’’

My internal monologue during the interview has ground to a halt. There. She said it, ‘keeping a little bit of that… with me’.

And therein lies the human need to cling to every single thing that defines us. Because we are nothing but a collection of those bits — our memories, our prayers, and our stories.

It transpires that in her family of two grown children, an English husband plus various in-laws, they alternate a Protestant Christmas lunch on December 25th one year, followed by an Orthodox Armenian Christmas on 6th of January the next. Fair and easy, you might think. Not so. In my recount, even eating one’s traditional food out of context is challenging, due to factors such as lack of ease of access to the foodstuffs and competing prevalent images, a limited ethnic social circle, peer pressure, and even the relevant climate, for that matter. Munching on traditional food on your own and for the sake of paying dues to your heritage rather than for the love of it seems artificial enough, but treating innocent foreigners to it is plain enthusiastic. As for rigorously observing minority holidays far away from that community is nothing short of devoted.

What of England? She’s lucky to have found a subject matter that she loves, and appears grateful to this country for giving her opportunities. ‘’This is my home, and I’m very grateful to the British government who took me in when …there were problems in Ethiopia, and we ended up staying here. …Certainly, if I hadn’t left Ethiopia, and come to school here and learnt history, I wouldn’t have found a connection with a subject matter that I love and [… been able] to work at a fantastic property like this…’’

So no conflict. And then we’re back to roots again. ‘’Once a year we have a team party and they’ll always end up having something Armenian, they will always end up hearing a small ‘lecture’ about what is to be Armenian.’’
More often than not, an ex-pat’s or immigrant’s story is one of ‘never shall the twain meet’ as they claim to have to almost drop one cultural identity in order to fully immerse themselves in another, and vice versa. From my own experience, you feel a different person when speaking different languages, and cultural references too are easier to be kept separate for the risk of being lost in translation. Anais has, however, managed to build a mental bridge, connecting the two, and even taking it upon herself to educate and inform those around her of the heritage that underpins the Armenian culture.

‘‘I’m proud of being able to, trying very hard to teach others what Armenian is and how we have survived through all sorts of things and we’re still here. …I see it as my job to spread the information.’’, she insists in a way that I’m beginning to recognise as typical of her. I’m starting to sense this being-Armenian business seems too easy for her, but then I realise it’s about being yourself and being at peace and at ease in your own skin, and accepting whatever cultural exposure you’ve had.

I think of her family, moving from Asia to Africa, and then again to Europe, against the background of massacres, war and coups, carrying the bloody history of their ancestors and seeing an end of an empire, all the while trying to better themselves. And her strive to learn, as much as educate, to follow her passion and recognise opportunity, and then pursue it. In my mind, I wonder whether what I call ‘the overachieving immigrant’s syndrome’ is real, but I guess in devil’s advocate’s terms, she’s just someone who has been doing a good job, obviously well, for ten years.

I can’t, however, help but ask about the Armenian Diaspora, most of whom settled in the West fleeing the policy of systematic annihilation by Ottoman Turks in early 20th century. Is the fact that there are twice as many Armenians like her, living outside of Armenia than within, a curse or an asset? Anais being Anais, has a positive spin on it: ‘’It’s a little bit of everything. Yes it’s tragic … but it has given many people new chances. By going to America, France, Canada, Australia … we have been able as a nation to contribute to those countries. If I hear, for example, of someone in France or in Canada has invented something and they’re Armenian, that pride… [It’s] definitely because they were given a chance outside… It’s bittersweet… ‘’ In fact, there is more room for optimism, as she stresses that ‘’no matter what, after all we’ve been through, we’ve survived. That’s something we should be proud of.’’

We complete the cycle and get back to Shakespeare. The Birthplace Trust, apparently, houses translations of Shakespeare’s plays into every language imaginable, including Armenian as well as Amharic (the official national language of Ethiopia), expanding his legacy as well as enriching those cultures. I reflect on the work she does and how it’s similar to the life she leads. On the one hand, proudly guarding Shakespeare’s heritage, preserving every minute detail from his era and spreading information about it, and on the other, speaking her ancestors’ language, saying the prayers of the far-away lands and educating others about their history. With pride, of course.