It's beginning to shock me that I can write unfortunately long blog posts about the activities over only two days, but that is the nature of this amazing and busy trip through the Fulbright Commission. Our day in Edinburgh on Wednesday really captured exactly how much the Commission intends to expose us to in such a short 5 weeks.
So, the group and I woke up bright and early to hop on our bus to Edinburgh on Wednesday morning. Once we arrived, we ate breakfast in a small cafe and waited for Leo, one of our Strathclyde contacts, who was spending the day with us. As soon as he arrived, we jumped immediately into our busy schedule.
The first part of our trip to Edinburgh was climbing Calton Hill. Calton Hill has the most amazing view of Edinburgh and is one of the more touristy spots. When you google the city, images from Calton Hill will undoubtedly pop up, and it's really not hard to see why - the view is stunning. Leo and Pat, our Dundee Professor who joined us, pointed out several important parts of Calton Hill and places in Edinburgh since we could see a huge part of the city from the top. We snapped several photos, but soon had to move on to our next activity.
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| This is the rather classic view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill - it's absolutely stunning |
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| Here's most of the boys and Leo by the National Monument of Scotland on Calton Hill |
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| The Nelson Monument on Calton Hill |
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| Me on Calton Hill with the famous landmark, Arthur's Seat, in the background |
Our next stop was the National Portrait Gallery. The group and I highly enjoyed just walking the streets of Edinburgh with gorgeous buildings, bag pipe players, plenty of gift shops and beautiful scenery, all the while with Pat and Leo telling us anecdotes about the city. The Portrait Galley itself was stunningly beautiful, of course, just with the architecture let alone the portraits. Anyway, we were led into this rather small room filled to the ceiling with books. I won't lie, I was almost more excited about the structure of this room with the two floors of books than the amazing and famous photographs we were about to be shown. Anyway, we got a lovely presentation about the evolution of photography over time by Anne Lyden, an international photography curator. She told us about how Scotland made a crucial contribution to advancements in early photography mainly through the work of Hill & Adamson who used paper as their medium instead of highly shined metal, and therefore taking important steps in the new industry. Other highlights are below:
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| This here is Queen Victoria and her footman Mr. John Brown. You may have heard that after Victoria's husband, Albert's death she was notoriously close to Mr. Brown (there was a film made about it rather recently) and this photography was used to highlight their suspiciously close relationship. What one might not immediately notice is that the original photograph features another footman standing right beside Mr. Brown, but he was cut out of the photograph for sensationalizing purposes. |
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| So, this is a photo by Alfred Buckham who was a pioneer in photography due to shots like these from high altitudes. Apparently he would just hang right out of the planes by his leg! |
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| You might recognize these four gentlemen - they're the Beatles photographed by Harry Benson, still a rather famous photographer |
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| This the main hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh - clearly everything is beautiful in this building, not just the portraits. |
After our photography lecture at the National Portrait Gallery, we walked briskly through Edinburgh to our next appointment with the British Council. You might be thinking "what in the world is the British Council?" - I know I was - but apparently, a lot of Britain itself doesn't know either. The British Council is a nondepartmental government body that works to use the cultural assets of the United Kingdom to build trust and positive relationships between the people of the U.K., and other peoples overseas. It was emphasized that the British Council is all about the people-to-people relationship, not involving the governments necessarily. Also, cultural assets is a bit of an arbitrary phrase, but our host, Kate Walker, gave us the examples of the U.K.'s exceptional education, arts, and english as a language. Now, my sister, having her degree in cultural anthropology, and having taken anthropology classes myself, there were some red flags going off in my head concerning cultural respect of other nations, but after asking a few questions, I found myself gaining high respect for the British Council and all the amazing work it does. The people who work there generally have worked abroad and have a level of cultural experience along with the cultural training they get when they begin working for the Council. But more than that, wherever the Council is doing work, whether it be Afghanistan, or Beirut or even the U.S., they usually heavily rely on the advice and cultural understanding of the local population and usually have a team of locals working alongside them.
So what exactly does the Council do? Well, our host mainly talked about their efforts in education across the world. One example she used was their work in South Sudan where they were particularly focused on female education achievement. There's so much more to say about the British Council and the amazing work it does, so if you'd like to know more, let me know and I'll be happy to extrapolate.
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| The group and our host, Kate Walker, at the British Council office in Scotland |
As if we hadn't already had enough amazing experiences for one day, we moved on to our tour of the Scottish Parliament. Oh man, I have so much to say, but I'll try and keep it brief. So, the Parliament of Great Britain (you know, that thing at Westminster), devolved some power to Scotland beginning in 1997. Wait, wait, wait, remember that date 1707? That's when the Scottish Parliament and the English Parliament were dissolved and merged into the Parliament of Great Britain. So, that covered the legislation of England and Scotland from 1707-1997 -- which is quite a long time! Alright, so Scottish Parliament - the building itself wasn't actually opened until 2004, which does not surprise me having been in it. It's a bit of a masterpiece. So we come in and put our special pink lanyards over our heads to show everyone we're special and then start our tour. The architecture was very modern and quite stunning, but also had a lot of important symbolism. For instance, the St Andrews cross (the cross on the flag of Scotland and therefore a completely secular symbol) could be seen in all sorts of creative places from the ceiling to the floor -- quite literally. It was made almost entirely from oak wood as well, giving it a very warm feeling.
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| St Andrews crosses on the ceiling of the Scottish Parliament |
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| The lobby of the parliament is a perfectly public place anyone can come in and use! |
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| This is the debate chamber in the Scottish Parliament - talk about gorgeous |
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| The sun roof of the debate chamber in the Scottish Parliament |
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| On of the hallways inside - the ceiling is supposed to look like leaves |
One of my favorite moments of the tour was the tapestry pictured below that was made to symbolize Scottish history. At the far left, it's all black with a few Scottish flags representing the distant past of Scotland and all the stories and moments that are shrouded in the doubt of the deep past. Certain crosses throughout the tapestry represent certain things; so white represents a unifying event, and black symbolizes an event with lots of death and loss. There are also hidden messages in block letters, which, of course, I can't remember, but they referred to Scottish nationalism.
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| The tapestry of Scottish History |
After our tour, we were lucky enough to get a chance to sit down with a current member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) called Jenny Marra. Ms. Marra is a member of the Labour party's shadow cabinet in the Scottish Parliament. As you may know, the Labour party in Scotland has recently met a huge obstacle in representation in the Parliament of Great Britain due to the success of the Scottish National Party (SNP) - out of the 59 seats Scotland holds at Westminster, Labour won only one of them, while the SNP won 56.
My question for Ms. Marra was what some of the reasons are for the discrepancy between independence being voted against last September and then the Scottish National Party winning the vast majority of seats in the British Parliament in the most recent election in May. As expected, Ms. Marra had many interesting insights. As many know, independence was voted down last September 45 to 55. One of the more interesting tidbits was how those who voted "yes" for independence are referred to as "45-ers" because of the voting record. Interestingly enough, the number 45 has had significance in the realm of Scottish nationalism for a number of years, namely because of 1745, the year of the Jacobites' Battle of Culloden. Ms. Marra also noted that the 2-year campaign for independence was very similar to President Obama's first campaign in that they both emphasized hope and change. Anyway, Ms. Marra made sure to mention that she, being a member of the Labour party, does not support independence and was instead part of the "better together" campaign.
In considering the inconsistency between voting against independence and the bounce back of the SNP in the general election, Ms. Marra said some level of bounce back was expected, but not nearly the amount the SNP gained. So why was the SNP so successful? According to Ms. Marra, the SNP knows how to run a good campaign. For the referendum, the party was successful in lobbying for and achieving a lower voting age, considering that younger people were more likely to vote for independence. However, Ms. Marra said that when polls were taken across Scotland in schools, the proportion of those who wanted independence and those who didn't were about the same as those of the general election, so although these efforts might not have helped the odds of independence much, it still catalyzed the voting age in Scotland to be lowered to 16 for electing members to parliament and in referendums. One reason Ms. Marra stated for why the SNP was able to make such a splash in the last general election is the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon. Besides her general appeal and excellent political skills, Ms. Marra suggested it is a popular time for female leadership as well. One particularly brilliant move on Ms. Sturgeon's part was pitting the SNP against the Conservatives, not Labour, in the general election. Labour is a more liberal party than the Conservatives (unsurprisingly), so Sturgeon was able to create a duality with greater polarity in the general election by contrasting her party with the Conservatives.
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| The group of us talking to Jenny Marra in the Scottish Parliament |
It was very interesting being able to talk to a member of the Scottish Parliament in the Labour party about the SNP and the independence referendum. Based on interactions the locals, at least in Dundee, I've really only been exposed to the perspective for independence. Although, Ms. Marra did mention that Dundee is considered a "yes" city, so perhaps Glasgow will present a different perspective. More on what the locals have to say about independence later though.
So, in order to relax a little after our thrilling time at the Scottish Parliament, we crossed the street and toured a castle for an hour (relax, ha). Not just any castle though, the Queen's Scottish Residence, Holyrood Castle (pronounced Holly-rude). It was named after the Abbey that stands in ruins next to it which once supposedly housed a fragment of the cross Jesus was crucified on (holy + rood, which was an Old English word for cross), but our tour guide suggested that was probably just something they said to entice early Christians to take pilgrimages to the abbey.
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| Holyrood Abbey - right next to the castle |
Anywho, Holyrood was very crowded and touristy - more so than any castle we've seen. It was very lavish, of course, and our tour guide was able to tell us of many impressive occasions and moments that occurred - and still occur - in the castle such as the knighting of Sir Sean Connery. The most impressive part of the castle, for me at least, was Mary Queen of Scots's bed chambers. Our tour guide told us a rather chilling story of the room where one of Mary's personal secretary and good friend, David Rizzio, was suppering with Mary with a few other friends in her chambers when Mary's paranoid second husband Lord Darnley barged in with a group of Protestant nobles, dragged Rizzio out of the supper chamber across a room, and proceeded to stab him no less than 56 times. Talk about excessive. Oh, and Mary was 6 months pregnant.
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| Here's a portrait of the Murder of David Rizzio, although a) Mary does not appear to be pregnant and b) that room is not that big, let me tell you |
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| The courtyard at Holyrood Castle |
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| The whole squad outside Holyrood Castle |
Think our day in Edinburgh is over? Not even close! Next we hopped in a taxi and headed to the U.S. Consulate. It was casual - not. We changed into our finest garmets in order meet with the staff at the U.S. Consulate in Edinburgh and a U.S. diplomat, Fleur Cowan, currently stationed in London, but working on relations in Iran. It's very complicated. We had a lovely meet and greet with Ms. Cowan and the other staff members and were able to ask her what it was like to work in the foreign service. Ms. Cowan has spent time in various countries serving the United States and speaks seven languages. She walked us through a normal day as a diplomat, mentioning how important collaboration and staying up to date with politics is for their team. Between this visit and the British Council, I'm confident many of us were considering a potential future in the foreign service.
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| The group with Fleur Cowan, U.S. diplomat |
After our visit with the diplomats, we stayed at the consulate for a reception that hosted people from all over Scotland. There were several students and Professors from both Dundee and Strathclyde along with high school students who were interested in studying in the States. My favorite conversations were those with the younger high school students. They told us we had accents and couldn't believe we were so excited to be in Scotland. They also were flabbergasted that we had yet to try Tablet (a harder, carmel-y fudge), Haggis and Irn Bru (pronounced Iron-Brew), which I went out and tried today since they insisted it was very tasty. It's not. It's less sugary soda that tastes like bubblegum cough syrup, but at least I tried it, right?
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| Here I am trying Irn Bru, the Bubblegum Cough Syrup Soda in the Dundee Student Union |
So, after our day in Edinburgh, we were
exhausted, as you might imagine. We all slept quite well Wednesday evening and were well rested for our day of Forensics!
On Thursday, we spent an amazing 7 hours in the Forensics department at the University of Dundee. There were three main highlights. Firstly, in our opening lecture, Dr. Clare Lamb discussed one of the most important advancements in the study of anatomy, Thiel Embalming. This method of preservation of the human body leaves tissue soft and much more lifelike, so that observations and experiments are significantly more accurate to the live human body. But get this, Dundee is the only university in the UK that offers instruction in Thiel Embalming and the technique isn't used
at all in the States. What?! This is the best way to preserve the human body and study anatomy out there and the U.S. isn't using it? We couldn't believe it. When asked why this is, Dr. Lamb had a depressingly simple explanation: most of the literature on it is in German. Sure, there are costs associated with it, but the research advancements are totally worth it, especially with all the crucial medical research done in the States. My own sister actually works for a translation company, so I made sure to tell her to get on that.
The second highlight was being able to see and touch body parts preserved with Thiel Embalming vs. the older method (which basically plasticizes and hardens all tissue for preservation), which effectively demonstrated the assets of Thiel Embalming. Yeah, it was little eerie to hold a human heart in my (gloved) hands and manipulate a dead hand's tendon to make the finger move, but it was clear that preserving tissue in its soft state would lead to much easier and effective medical research. Plus, our bio majors Patty and Nina were tweaking with excitement, which is always fun to see.
The final highlight of our day of Forensics was the facial reconstructive portion. Dr. Christopher Rynn walked us through the process of facial reconstruction and how it's evolved over time. Dundee's facial reconstruction services are used for several criminal cases a year and for many other services as well. Although the scientific portion of the lecture was absolutely fascinating, my favorite part was when Dr. Rynn discussed race and facial reconstruction. He told us about how the "Cross-Race Effect," or basically how if you're a member of one race, you might think everyone from another race looks very similar, is rooted in skulls and psychology. Because when we see another face, our brain automatically compares it to our own, we're used to comparing differentiating features that result from our own skull shape - so for me, I look for differentiating factors that result from a caucasoid skull. Because people of Asian decent (and Native American, actually) all have mongoloid skulls, that's the main distinction I, as a caucasoid, see. So I might think most Asian people look the same since my brain is comparing their faces and skulls to my own, which are fundamentally different. There were so many other interesting factors of forensics and facial reconstruction that contribute to racial relations, but I've written enough on the topic for now. Ask me upon my return if you'd like to know more.
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| We also got to play around with the facial reconstruction computer technology in the forensics lab! The pen in my right hand actually felt resistance when it contacted a part of the virtual skull! How cool is that?! |
We got off from Forensics a bit early, so we headed over to the Student Union to meet up with some of the Union Board Dundee students. We spent a lovely night with them learning about their culture, and UK culture altogether since one of the students was from Newcastle, England and one was from Northern Ireland. We played a game with them where they had to name all 50 states in 6 minutes. I won't lie, the first time I did this, I only got about 44 - these Brits ended up getting 49! Granted, we helped them a little, especially with New England. If you're curious, the one state we all forgot was Montana - sorry Montana!
Also, everyone knows who Bernie Sanders is and totally loves him here. Classic Europe.
Beyond playing games, we compared political systems and student life. We were both equally shocked at our differing costs of school. If you live in Scotland, you can go to university in Scotland
for free - what's that? Did you say
free?! Why yes they did. If you're from another country in the UK, you have to pay a few grand and you're good. Also, if you have student debt, you don't have to start paying it until you make 23,000 pounds a year, and if you haven't paid it off in 30 years, it's completely forgiven. Wow, sounds like a good deal, doesn't it? Then we told them what each of us were paying for college and their mouths dropped. We all agreed Scotland has the better deal here.
Finally, I asked them all about independence and devolution. Most of the students were for independence. When asked why, they said they were for it in the first place because it would make legislative issues more simple (more on that in a moment) and it was economically viable. Apparently, in 2007 (right before the recession) the Royal Bank of Scotland was the biggest bank in Europe and all because of donations from Scots themselves. To Derek, one of the students, this proved that the Scottish people were willing to make sacrifices for independence. They also mentioned that one big reason used to argue against independence is that Scotland would most likely accumulate a 3 billion pound deficit, but as the students pointed out, that's much less than the U.K. deficit and American deficit and several other European nations. These among other reasons they cited supporting the idea that Scotland could easily be economically independent convinced them of Scottish independence.
Another fascinating aspect of UK politics we discussed was devolution. So, I've talked about this before and we know Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own governing bodies whether they're parliaments or assemblies as of rather recently. So, there's a parliament of Great Britain which represents all 4 nations within the United Kingdom. Here's a handy chart from Wikipedia to show how many seats each country has!
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| Number of seats for each country in the British Parliament. Thanks Wikipedia! |
Okay, so each country is represented decently in the UK parliament. Apart from that, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own bodies with devolved powers that they can regulate and the UK cannot. However, note that England doesn't have their own parliament with devolved powers. So England just uses Westminster for the powers that were devolved to all the other nations' parliaments...which all sounds well and good until there's an issue being addressed in the UK parliament that's only relevant to England and the representatives from the other countries get to have a say in it because of their seats. This actually recently came up in the issue of Fox hunting. In Scotland, it's already illegal to hunt foxes, but in England and Wales, it was being voted on. Scotland believes the practice is morally wrong, so the SNP threatened to block the vote even though it wouldn't affect Scotland at all! This seems a little unfair. The students at Dundee told us they thought Scotland should be independent, but if not, England should at least get its own parliament with devolved powers so it's all equal and all this complicated political stuff doesn't happen as often. I asked why the English parliament isn't an argument that's gone anywhere and you know what they said? Apparently, England doesn't want their own parliament! This seems very strange to me, but maybe I'll find out why later on.
Okay, wow, this is turning out to be quite the long blog post, so I will postpone writing about today until the next one. Thanks for reading! I know it was a doozy.
Cheers till the next one!
