Wow - wide awake this morning. Just finished my early morning bike ride along the sea wall. I misjudged the temperature -plenty of north in the fresh breeze - and the tide was right up. Could have certainly done with an extra layer. No mind - I am back - mug of coffee in hand - ready to go!
I formed a blog in my mind while I was riding. As ever I have no agenda but quite often something bubbles up to the surface. Very often it is two things that come together as it was this morning. So here goes - I shall try to keep it short.
The first is a Netflix series entitled Street Food. I watch an episode from time to time. The format is the same in each episode - a short cameo of the life of a particular street food vendor (in an eastern or far eastern urban setting) and their heroic struggle and ultimate success. In every episode the motivation of the vendor is economic survival - to keep the wolf from the door - and particularly - a common theme - to fund their children's education - "so they do not have to struggle like I have had to struggle."
In some of the episodes the children have actually grown up and gone on to participate in the business as it has become more and more successful. In others the children have used their good education to move on. Either way the parents take a huge amount of satisfaction from what they have made possible by hard work and enterprise and how their children have used the opportunities they have been able to create for them. The children themselves are shown to have a deep regard for their parents, their journey and the sacrifices they have made to create a better opportunity for their offspring.
These are heartening stories of upward social mobility based on hard work and sacrifice - meritocracy and its outcomes at its best.
A quick off on a tangent - the street food itself! The other day I was talking to someone about travel and how they would like to have the money to stay in top hotels and eat in the best restaurants. I tried to explain that even if I was mega rich that wouldn't be for me ie. the essence of travel is getting out on the street with the locals and eating what they eat. In all my years of travel - and I have been to some quite challenging places - I have never had a problem with street food. In fact the opposite - some wonderful food and at great prices. It is true the vendors love you to enjoy their food - they take great pride in what they serve and you really get the best chance to sample the real culture. On eating street food - standard advice is the best advice - eat with the locals - select the busy stalls (great watching their dexterity) - eat hot food - prepared why you wait - avoid salads.
Now here is an example of not so positive upward social mobility. It comes from a short story written by Thomas Hardy called The Son's Veto. I have bullet pointed below the synopsis :
I formed a blog in my mind while I was riding. As ever I have no agenda but quite often something bubbles up to the surface. Very often it is two things that come together as it was this morning. So here goes - I shall try to keep it short.
The first is a Netflix series entitled Street Food. I watch an episode from time to time. The format is the same in each episode - a short cameo of the life of a particular street food vendor (in an eastern or far eastern urban setting) and their heroic struggle and ultimate success. In every episode the motivation of the vendor is economic survival - to keep the wolf from the door - and particularly - a common theme - to fund their children's education - "so they do not have to struggle like I have had to struggle."
In some of the episodes the children have actually grown up and gone on to participate in the business as it has become more and more successful. In others the children have used their good education to move on. Either way the parents take a huge amount of satisfaction from what they have made possible by hard work and enterprise and how their children have used the opportunities they have been able to create for them. The children themselves are shown to have a deep regard for their parents, their journey and the sacrifices they have made to create a better opportunity for their offspring.
These are heartening stories of upward social mobility based on hard work and sacrifice - meritocracy and its outcomes at its best.
A quick off on a tangent - the street food itself! The other day I was talking to someone about travel and how they would like to have the money to stay in top hotels and eat in the best restaurants. I tried to explain that even if I was mega rich that wouldn't be for me ie. the essence of travel is getting out on the street with the locals and eating what they eat. In all my years of travel - and I have been to some quite challenging places - I have never had a problem with street food. In fact the opposite - some wonderful food and at great prices. It is true the vendors love you to enjoy their food - they take great pride in what they serve and you really get the best chance to sample the real culture. On eating street food - standard advice is the best advice - eat with the locals - select the busy stalls (great watching their dexterity) - eat hot food - prepared why you wait - avoid salads.
Now here is an example of not so positive upward social mobility. It comes from a short story written by Thomas Hardy called The Son's Veto. I have bullet pointed below the synopsis :
- A rather well to do married Parson in a rural setting. His wife dies.
- The Parson's house keeper is half his age and not his social equal. She is courting a local lad (admirer) of her equal.
- In due course the Parson proposes marriage and she sets aside the local admirer.
- The Parson takes his new wife to the City where they can live a lower profile life and he sets out to educate and advise her in order to smooth her rough edges (rather unsuccessfully).
- They have a son. The son wants for nothing and is educated at the best schools and Oxbridge.
- The son becomes increasingly aware / embarrassed of his mothers ordinary ways.
- The Parson dies and money is left in trust - the son is well set up.
- He sees less and less of his mother and she hankers after her former rural existence and the more ordinary life from which she came and was most at ease with.
- Many years go by and she has a chance meeting with her former local admirer and he still has feelings for her. He proposes they marry and that she helps him run a new greengrocer business he is setting up back in their original village. She desperately wants to accept.
- She broaches the subject of her remarriage with her now well to do son.
- He will have none of it. A greengrocer! He states such a marriage would ruin his reputation and his social standing. She tries to persuade him over several years but he veto's her proposal and is able to hold sway over her.
- She is broken hearted and subsequently has a unhappy and relatively short life.
Here is a lesson from Hardy. Some people even today are fixated about their social standing and particularly how their status might be undermined by their class. Some people grow up ashamed of their modest upbringing. Opportunities available to children which the parents did not have can create a gulf, a wedge an irritation in families. It can appear a bit incongruous when children grow up "posh" relative to their parents - particularly in the way they speak and what they consider to be the norm. In the 90's in the UK tradesmen - builders, carpenters and plumbers started to earn big money and many sent their children off to private school. Now and in some instances those parents and children appear a bit like chalk and cheese - to their mutual discomfort and sometimes embarrassment.
Fortunately our society is no longer hung up to the same extent as say the Victorians on class and status and the importance of coming from a "good" family - but at the same time it would be wrong to deny this type of snobbery can still exist. Achieving mutual happiness by doing the right thing is not always a clear path. Overall an interesting phenomenon.
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