Latest news with #selfdiscovery
The National
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Stanley Tucci doesn't want to be globetrotting food expert like Anthony Bourdain
Stanley Tucci has a lot of time to think, and he hates it. The American actor, 64, has spent the majority of his life making movies – Conclave, The Devil Wears Prada, The Hunger Games, to name a few – and as much as he loves acting, he laments the fact that he doesn't actually do all that much of it. 'Acting doesn't fulfil me as much as it used to,' Tucci tells The National. 'You're on these sets for 12 to 13 hours a day, and you may only act for 20 minutes of that time. I end up thinking, 'there's got to be a better way to do this!' I just want to keep going and going – I'm very impatient. 'I get paid to wait. It's the acting I do for free. That's the way I feel, at this point.' The problem is, when you're sitting around all day, you're rarely learning something – even about yourself. It's a problem we all have – but he has lost patience with that disconnect. Which is why, over the last decade, Tucci has gone out into the world to learn more about who he really is – through travel and especially through food. 'I think we've gotten out of touch with ourselves physically,' Tucci explains. 'One of the reasons is we're all sitting in front of computers, or on our phones all the time – or myself, waiting on a set – and desk work is far more prominent than doing any kind of labour.' In Tucci's mind, it's all connected. By focusing more on what he eats, he's thought more about where it comes from – the land, and the culture and traditions the land inspires. And by starting at the source, we see ourselves more clearly. 'Getting in touch with the land is so important. From the land comes our food, and then the food goes onto the table, and into us,' says Tucci. Growing up, Tucci was also quite disconnected from his roots. He didn't understand why all the other kids at his small-town school 75km outside of New York City were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he was having leftovers his mother had packed him of last night's eggplant parmigiana. But with each passing decade, he has increasingly immersed himself in his Italian heritage – and embracing even its flaws. And by focusing his journey on food, he has ended up learning more about the country's rich complexities than one might imagine. All of this is in service to understanding the country – and himself – better. 'I don't want to romanticise Italy. I think that's been done ad nauseam. I think it's not interesting and it's not truthful,' says Tucci. Tucci in Italy, his new National Geographic series broadcast weekly in the UAE and available to stream on Disney+, embraces what he feels is the true Italy. In the first episode, for example, he explores Tuscany, focusing specifically on dishes that were created by and for the working class. First he tries lampredotto, the Florentine street food sandwich made from the fourth stomach of a cow. It's named after the eels that once inhabited the Arno river, and only the rich could afford. The tripe dish, then, was invented to imitate its flavours. But the story doesn't stop here. Tucci then finds another old peasant dish made with imitation tripe by those that couldn't even afford cow stomach. That one might even be his favourite. Politically speaking, there's a reason that he focuses on the lower class – at a time when, once again, immigrants and the poor are being scapegoated, both in Italy and in the US. It's something his immigrant family likely went through once, too. 'I think particularly in today's climate, immigrants are vilified and wrongly so, because they have so much to bring to a culture. Millions of Italians once came over to America, and they were vilified to a certain extent. Also, I think that's something that Italian Americans have to remember, and Italians themselves should remember, too,' says Tucci. But as much as he's enjoyed diving into the unexplored corners of Italy for the series – with another season already shot and set to air next year – he's also adamant that his journey will stop there. While he wants to go deeper into his ancestral homeland, a project he started with the CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy in 2021, he doesn't want to explore the rest of the world on camera. It's clear he doesn't want to be the next Anthony Bourdain – the late chef who grew internationally famous for his globetrotting food series Parts Unknown. 'I don't want to do different regions and different countries, because I don't think that would be appropriate. I don't have a connection to those countries,' Tucci explains. In fact, it sounds like Tucci doesn't think there should be another Anthony Bourdain at all. Instead, he wants the Tucci in Italy model to be repeated globally – starring figures who are looking to explore their roots, not modern-day adventurers looking to become the Indiana Jones of restaurants. 'I think it would be more interesting to have somebody like me explore those countries in the way that I've done it – and they need to have a connection to those countries. They need to speak the language, and they have to really, really appreciate the food – not just like to eat. 'They have to know food and be willing to explore and ask questions. It's not just about what's delicious – it's about understanding the passion of the people that make it.' The next season of Tucci in Italy may be the final food travel series for Tucci. 'I'm kind of tired,' he says. Tucci is grappling with the fact that, at 64, he's aging. And part of knowing himself now is about knowing how to navigate his limitations. He's doing that by focusing, once again, on food. 'As a person who's getting older, your body is changing all the time – meaning it's getting weaker all the time. You need to know what it is you need to strengthen yourself - to keep yourself strong. Otherwise I'll grow impatient with myself, too.'
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency': Melissa Febos on her year of celibacy
When Melissa Febos decided to be celibate for a year – after what she describes as a 'ravaging vortex of a relationship' and 'five other brief entanglements' – she felt 'pretty self-conscious and kind of weird'. But other people's reactions surprised her. 'I thought people were going to laugh at me or be like, that sounds boring, but so many people would lean in and either get this eager look on their face or this sort of dreadful look on their face, and they would say, 'Oh, I think I should probably do that too,'' she says. 'I had no idea how many people had been in relationships for their whole adult life.' Febos, a professor at the University of Iowa and author of books about working as a dominatrix, young womanhood and writing, chronicles this celibate era in her new memoir, The Dry Season. 'I had scrutinized my experience and self in many different areas, but in this area, I was fairly unexamined,' she says. 'I didn't have as much insight about that part of myself.' The experience ended up affecting more than her reliance on love and sex. 'All the other areas of my life began to flourish and feel really fulfilling and complete,' she says. 'I had kind of a honeymoon experience with myself, especially at the beginning, because I realized almost immediately that I enjoyed my own company profoundly, perhaps even more than I enjoyed the company of any other person.' What were those first weeks of celibacy like? What was the hardest part? At first, I wasn't quite sure what my goal was, or what the conditions of my celibacy would be. I began with sex, because that seemed like the most obvious common denominator in my relationships. So I thought, I'll take three months off. Within the first few weeks, I had the experience of flirting with someone, and I got a text from someone I'd been on a date with, and I identified very quickly the feeling of excitement and distraction that had been propelling me. I almost immediately began questioning the parameters of my celibacy: I thought, oh, perhaps it's not sex. Perhaps it's this feeling of being taken out of myself and chasing a psychological high that I get out of not just sex, but all of the activity around romance, flirtation and seduction. What made sex and relationships so appealing for you? One factor is a collective derangement that we have around love and sex. We idealize this very temporary, superficial definition of love, which has to do mostly with the early stages of infatuation and is predicated upon not yet knowing the lover, and not yet being secure or safe. That's a traditional sense of eros, of longing and uncertainty; it's a very immature definition of love, and it's not sustainable. But it is the part of love that pop songs and movies and romance novels are obsessed with. I think we have a collectively problematic relationship to love and sex, and also a narrative about it – that it's going to complete us, and it's just about finding the right person and then everything's going to fall into place. In addition, I developed early, physically, and underwent a radical difference in the way I experienced being perceived by other people, particularly by boys or men. And I got this messaging, as lots of young girls do, that my primary power in life was to attract and appear lovable and desirable. That's a very fraught place to be sourcing one's self esteem, and I identified it early, at a time in life when I felt really disempowered. I've learned, partly as a result of being celibate and talking about it, that this is really common. In the book, you talk about distilling these internal beliefs to an idea of 'if I'm not wanted, I will die'. You describe this concept as dramatic, but women constantly receive messages – from companies trying to sell us stuff, pop culture – that partnership is what women should aspire to the most. Those ideas have roots that go back literal centuries, right? Women's individual personal safety and survival did depend on our being appealing to potential partners, both physically and financially. And that was true for a lot longer than it hasn't been literally true. I don't know how we would eschew that idea within just the last few generations. Why did you include historical examples of women who were also celibate, like the Belgian beguines, the 12th-century abbess Hildegard von Bingen and Shulamith Firestone, who called herself a political celibate? A few weeks into celibacy, I started to realize I had a set of role models for love and romance that were quite outdated, whom I had adopted as a younger person who was interested in semiconsciously justifying my own choices in love. These were primarily women who were artistically prolific and fulfilled, but also very passionate and messy in their love lives, like Edna St Vincent Millay and Colette and Sappho. I realized, I've chosen these role models because I'm already like them. And now that I'm trying to change my ideals, I need new role models. So I went about reading about women who were voluntarily celibate across global history, and ended up becoming obsessed with these women who seemed incredibly complete and fulfilled, and lived profoundly creative and spiritually centered lives that were also very political, very community oriented, that were interested in mutual aid and art making and collectivity. About a month into celibacy, you found you had a lot of time for other things. You included a short list in the book that I thought was really funny: you cut your hair, donated a bunch of clothes and ran 45 miles. All the adults I know are always complaining about not having enough time, and I, too, have been like that for most of my adult life. This amazing space opened up as soon as I stopped engaging in activities related to love and sex. Some were kind of superficial, like, I revamped my whole apartment. But also, I had this luxury of time to bring a new focus to my creative practice, to all of my other relationships, my friendships, my family relationships, my job. I had so vastly underestimated the amount of time and energy that I spent devoted to love and sex and flirting or being on apps or spending time with a partner or thinking about a partner or a potential partner. There's no way that I could have measured that while I was engaged with those things. I just hadn't realized that I had been preoccupied by partners and dating and love and sex, almost all of the time. Ultimately you were celibate for a year, but originally had set a goal of three months. Why did you decide to extend that period? I started with three months because that is a familiar unit of measurement. I'm a sober addict, and three months is a typical amount of time to detox, psychologically. I also knew it would be unrealistic for me to try to commit to anything longer. And honestly, even though it might sound ridiculous to other people, three months was kind of a long time for me to abstain. But when I got to the end, there was no question that I had barely begun. I was just starting to get a sense of the deeply entrenched patterns that I had been stuck in for years, and I knew that it would take much longer to undo them. I had gotten a break, but I had not fundamentally or constitutionally changed. In the book, a friend makes fun of you – like, three months is actually not that long. Yeah, there were a number of people who said that. It's relative, right? To someone who has trouble getting into relationships, it's absurd, but I had been incapable of doing that. This book – as with you previous books about addiction and sex work – is honest and revealing. What is it like to write vulnerably about your life, and what do you get out of the process? Well, fortunately, I am alone when I write. So I get to write in total privacy. I think when people read a memoir, it feels as though the writer is speaking directly to them in real time. But actually the writer gets to sit alone for years with those words until I find exactly the way I want to communicate them. I also get to sit with those reflections long enough to make friends with them and to become comfortable with them. I would never publish the first words I wrote about those subjects. For me, writing is a sort of integrating experience, of undoing shame, of becoming friends with experiences that at one time made me very uncomfortable or felt incredibly vulnerable. By the time a book is published, it doesn't feel so vulnerable anymore. I actually feel quite comfortable with that material and excited to share it. Writing about it and publishing it also connects me to a vast community of people, both living and dead, who have had similar experiences and have survived them. And being a part of that larger network and lineage is incredibly meaningful to me. It makes me feel strong and connected in experiences that once felt alienating. There's a great scene where you describe trying to teach a friend to flirt, and you realize you've honed that skill in response to various external pressures. Before I was in graduate school, I worked in food service, and I located this as a training camp in seduction, because it is through social skills and a form of magnetism that I earned my living. The better I was at it, the bigger tips I earned. But I had never thought of that as connected to seduction. Also because I had gotten so much of my self esteem from feeling lovable or appealing or attractive, it was just something that I was constantly practicing from quite a young age. In my early 20s, I worked as a professional dominatrix, and that was probably the realm in which it was most explicit, where my ability to conform to someone else's romantic or sexual ideal was the extent that I earned my living. People told me what they wanted and I became it. My current profession, in addition to writing, is teaching creative writing. I use those same skills in the classroom, but it feels much less manipulative or transactional, because what I'm doing is using my ability to hold someone else's attention so that I can share with them my genuine love for a text or an art form or an artistic practice so that I can imbue them with that same passion for the subject. You mentioned your sobriety earlier. Were there commonalities between sobriety and celibacy for you? When I started the celibacy, one of the questions I brought was whether I could apply the rubric of addiction and recovery to my pattern in love and sex, because there were certainly compulsive elements. I was sort of hoping that I could classify it as a form of addiction, because I had had such success when recovering from other addictions, and I wanted a clear solution. Unfortunately, it wasn't that clear cut. I don't identify as a love and sex addict, at least not exclusively. But there was a lot of overlap. I brought a lot of the wisdom and tools I had learned in recovery to this process, from abstinence to the practice of writing an inventory to gain insight into personal behavior, which I learned to do in recovery from drug addiction. My experience of recovery is that it is not passive. My recovery and abstinence from addiction are contingent on my active participation, and it affects everything about the way that I live. And it is also contingent upon my honesty with myself, about my complicity, my past behaviors, and that also became incredibly relevant to my process of celibacy. Accountability cannot be skipped over at any process of personal change, and I learned that in sobriety. Voluntary celibacy is a hot topic now, as with the 4B movement. What do you think has shifted culturally for that to happen? I think certain groups of people are bringing more scrutiny to conventions that they have taken for granted or passively complied with. And one of the reasons is that the political landscape in the US has taken such a hard shift to the right. We're living under an incredibly oppressive government. Part of this swing to the right is backlash against feminism and civil rights movements. People are responding to that with an equal force, both individually and collectively, and a part of that is scrutinizing how relationship dynamics are reinforcing institutional oppression. You're now married to your wife, whom you describe meeting in this book. Have you brought principles from that celibate year to the present era of your life? I have redefined my ideal for romantic love as one that is not based on dependency. I think our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency. My definition of love is contingent upon a very conscious choice to support the flourishing of another person. It's based on choosing them, every moment that I maintain that connection. That is the only way I became qualified to have a long-term relationship. I would never have gotten married if I hadn't redefined love in this way, because I think any other definition is not sustainable. The Dry Season is out now through Knopf
Washington Post
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A writer gave up sex for a year and discovered pleasure
I expected this review to write itself in a headlong rush, the way I read 'The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex.' But like abstinence, the lessons of Melissa Febos's latest book require a bit of forbearance to bear fruit. A serial dater since she was 15 years old, Febos recounts her decision to shake loose from the lovers whose desires had dominated her thoughts and directed her habits. How might it change us to live as we're 'meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity,' as Annie Dillard wrote? Aiming to find out, Febos embarked on a grand experiment: not to seduce, or be seduced, but instead remain replete by embracing masturbation as a form of self-nourishment. Researching medieval nunneries as well as the beguines, lay sisterhoods that chose God and chastity over marriage and children, Febos discovered tremendous sensuality and 'a harbor for ambition.' She became fixated on the German abbess Hildegard von Bingen, a composer and philosopher believed to have written the first known description of a woman's orgasm: 'that vehement heat descending from her brain.' Having chased not just the pleasure but also the power of such fervor since she was pubescent, Febos made an inventory of past lovers to identify the recurrent habits that led to her discontent. She discovered that she was the architect of her own unhappiness and that of many exes. Bad at breaking up with people, Febos preferred to linger 'for months and months after I knew I wanted to leave,' an outcome she created by straying: 'I never stayed past the first kiss—I don't have the constitution for a protracted affair—but also rarely had the guts or gumption to end my relationships without the imperative of infidelity.' Febos's great power as a writer is pairing structural rigor with emotional disclosure. An award-winning memoirist and Guggenheim fellow whose prior books include 'Girlhood,' 'Body Work' and 'Abandon Me,' she has a way of turning her gaze both inward and outward. In 'The Dry Season,' Febos plumbs the restless depths of her own seeking by entwining her compulsive self-discovery with curiosity about a wide range of writers. From nuns to poets to philosophers, her references form a canon, which she has called a squad: Audre Lorde, Virginia Woolf, Sappho, Octavia E. Butler, Sara Ahmed, the Combahee River Collective, Hadewijch, Adrienne Rich, Simone Weil, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, May Sarton, and the list goes on. 'My attempt to replace dependence with independence and interdependence, to share my questions and answers with the women who came before and after me, was the radical basis of all feminisms,' Febos writes. 'It was the basis of all freedoms. It was my inheritance.' While Febos had broken free of the addictions that characterized the dominatrix life she described in her debut memoir, 'Whip Smart,' her therapist still referred to her as a 'user.' Lovers were her fix. With the time she has spent cataloguing her romantic interests, she worries she 'could have become a real activist instead of someone who only wrote about the things she'd like to change.' However, prying apart the fractals of internalized oppression that keep us in endlessly repeating loops can be a service to society. Febos had age-old patterns to break even before she entered what she calls 'the Maelstrom,' a destructive relationship she exhumed and dissected for 'Abandon Me.' She realized she had desiccated her spirit in service of ephemeral satiation; she had wanted to seduce people, but not just sexually. 'What I wanted from them,' she writes, 'was ultimately more subtle than that: to secure their focus, to make them like me.' Though not as overtly religious as the nuns she venerates, Febos deploys earnest confessions to reach for what is holy: 'Aversion to embarrassment makes it incredibly hard to be vulnerable, and avoidance of vulnerability robs us of true connection with other people, the deep comforts of being known and receiving love.' Tired of squandering her energy on the male gaze, Febos evolved by cultivating desire for and from a multitude of genders before engaging sensual surety from within. 'If my ceaseless entanglements were a result of the ways that I related to other people, then the goal of my celibacy was to relate to myself,' she writes. By reclaiming her focus, she replenished her erotic sense of selfhood, what Lorde called 'an assertion of the lifeforce of women.' The result? In celibacy, Febos was awash with arousal. Backing away from 'empty consent' with Lorde as her guide star, Febos writes, 'I wanted to move into sunlight against another body only when it could embody the same erotic truth that writing did, that my aloneness had.' By centering herself, Febos divined a path toward the woman who would become her wife, the acclaimed poet Donika Kelly, to whom 'The Dry Season' is dedicated. Across five books, Febos has venerated literary ancestors while scrutinizing her own choices. Some might deride attention to personal experience and sexual pleasure while our democracy disintegrates around us, but sex and love are energies that turn us toward each other in an era whose ravages are designed to create lasting isolation. As Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in 'Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good,' 'Liberated relationships are one of the ways we actually create abundant justice, the understanding that there is enough attention, care, resource, and connection for all of us to access belonging, to be in our dignity, and to be safe in community.' Kristen Millares Young is the author of the award-winning novel 'Subduction' and 'Desire Lines — Essays,' forthcoming from Red Hen Press on Oct. 6. A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex By Melissa Febos Knopf. 288 pp. $29
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dark true story behind hit drama What It Feels Like For a Girl: Transgender author Paris Lees endured horrific sexual abuse and was jailed at 16
A trans woman who was sexually assaulted as a teenager and endured a stint in prison has been praised for the 'raw' and 'totally fearless' new TV show about her life. Critics have commended the BBC 's adaptation of journalist Paris Lees' memoir, What It Feels Like for a Girl, which looks at the British writer's tumultuous history and at times dark journey with self-discovery. The presenter, now understood to be around 37, grew up in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, where she at the time identified as a gay man, and at 18 served eight months in prison for a robbery she committed two years earlier. She previously spoken openly about the shocking abuse and bullying she faced in school - including being groomed by 'grown men' who she had sex with in 'public toilets. The show explores her painful past, injected with optimism humour, and bright Y2K aesthetics, with actor Ellis Howard at the helm as protagonist Byron - initially percevied by those around them as a boy. 'Byron' is a pseudonym Paris used in her book as well - an homage to the Nottinghamshire poet. The first episode sees them introduced to 'sex work' - although they're underage and cannot truly consent - through boyfriend Max (played by Calam Lynch), before later becoming embroiled in a robbery plot with dangerous and enigmatic character Liam (Jake Dunn). In her memoir, Paris detailed an account, during this time of her life, that saw her going into a public toilet and being sexually abused on her 14th birthday. In an interview with The Guardian, she explained however that it took her years to understand the gravity of what had happened. 'Listen, I was a rent boy,' she said. 'Because it's written from my perspective at that time... And, of course, you can never completely remove your perspective of now, and what you want to say today, but I really tried to make it authentic to that time, and I didn't realise quite how bad it was. 'It's taken me many years to realise that it was abuse. I wasn't forced, but it was statutory rape. What would you call it? If somebody in their 30s or their 40s was having sex with a 14-year-old? It's abuse. And I wanted you to be horrified.' Remarking on seeing old childhood photos of herself, she added: 'But I look at this body, and this is the body of a 14- or 15-year-old, and this is the body that older men were lusting after, wanting to grab hold of, wanting to have sex with. 'And it makes me really sad. And it makes me sick, actually. It's weird thinking about myself in the third person, but I really want to go and just give that person a hug. And say, "You poor baby, please keep yourself safe. Please look after yourself."' Paris has also been open about her at times difficult relationship with her parents - but has also said their relationship has evolved a lot since her childhood. When she was 16, Paris was arrested after she and another rent boy she was 'sweet on' decided to rob a client - a plotline that is also explored in the BBC adaptation. They stole his bank cards and took out large amount of cash - but the writer has admitted jail was far from the worst time of her life. Reflecting on it on Lorraine in 2021, she explained: 'Weirdly prison for me was a real turning point. 'There are some really difficult things in there [her book] and a lot of this was abuse, and prison wasn't the worst time of my life ironically. 'I've been thinking about prison during lockdown, because I've been here before when you don't have your freedom and we really take our freedom for granted sometimes. It gave me a real space to think and think about the direction I wanted to go in, in my life. 'I look back at that screwed up kid, who is desperately unhappy and would do anything to escape, did do anything to escape, and got into a lot of trouble and look at this person on the screen and think, "This is two different people."' 'It's why it's taken me so long and it's really emotional to be here today,' she added. 'It's taken seven years to tell this story. It's not been easy story to write and it wasn't the easiest story to live to tell you the truth. 'It has been a difficult one for my family, my mum and dad don't read this with undiluted pleasure. It's dealing with some really tough issues, but I think we need to have that conversation because that was my childhood.' 'I was just a naïve teenager when they sent me away,' she said to the BBC, of her eight-month stint in jail. 'I had dropped out of college. Basically, I had gone off the rails because I was terrified of going to prison. I ended up taking lots of drugs. I had a lot of time for thinking when I was in prison.' Once she was out, Paris focused on getting her A-levels - but was still not out as trans. 'I didn't feel like I could transition at college because it was a little bit rough. I didn't think I could face it,' she explained. It was when her grandmother - who she was living with for the duration of her studies - passed away that she got a wake-up call. 'She died and I just thought, "do you know what, life is too short. I can't do this, I need to express myself and who I am",' Paris said. 'In the space of six weeks I went from living in Nottingham as a boy with my grandma still alive, to living in Brighton as a girl.' It wasn't always easy, and 'blending in' was tough. Paris admitted she was not only discriminated against for her identity, but struggled to get work because of her criminal record as well. Eventually, a doctor referred her to Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic - later founding META, a magazine for the trans community. Over the years, she began writing as a freelancer for national titles before getting some impressive accolades in the industry; Paris was Vogue's first trans columnist, as well as being the first trans woman to present shows on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4. In 2021, she released her lauded memoir - now revered in its BBC adaptation. Describing it as both 'deeply disturbing and totally fearless', The Guardian 's Rachel Aroesti praised the optimism and joy inherent in the series despite the at times difficult subject matter. 'Despite... the fact they are repeatedly groomed and exploited by older men – Byron never comes across as a victim,' she penned. 'We are not invited to pick holes in the fearlessness they display when propositioning a police officer while sporting a wig and mini dress. Once Byron starts regularly dressing in women's clothes, sex takes on a new meaning. 'Risky, borderline violent encounters aren't self-destructive – they're self-affirmative, an opportunity to achieve something crucial.' 'This series is very bingeable,' Carol Midgley of The Times also said. 'It is funny, heartbreaking, occasionally disturbing, sharply written and well acted, most notably by Ellis Howard, who plays Byron with wit and, at times, devastating poignancy. No one was more surprised than me that I quickly watched all eight episodes. 'Lees became the first trans woman to present shows on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4 and also became a Vogue columnist. There is much humanity and sadness in the writing, but there is a great deal of humour too.' Elsewhere, The i 's Emily Baker praised the series as an 'absolute riot'. 'In having such a strongly realised, fully formed character in Byron, What It Feels Like a Girl can push the envelope into territory often seen as far too ghastly for television, particularly on the BBC,' she penned. 'By the end of tonight's two opening episodes, Byron finds his tribe in the "Fallen Divas" – a gang of trans girls and gay men who show him a different side to his hometown and the possibilities within it. 'It is joyful and funny, but that dark streak returns when Byron falls in with another pimp, Liam, who involves him in a crime that will turn his life upside down.' And writing for The Independent, Nick Hilton felt the 'messy coming-of-age tale is both universal and also rooted in the transgender experience'. The series is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
Times
20 hours ago
- Health
- Times
The spellbinding trip to China that taught me how to enjoy being single again
Last year I was in a sweaty, chaotic café in Delhi when a housefly landed on my glass of lassi. My husband, Peter, noticed and swapped his lassi with mine wordlessly, like it was the most natural thing in the world. 'Ah,' remarked Diana, a young woman on our tour. 'The perks of being married.' I laughed and sipped from my unmarred glass. After 14 years with Peter, I was used to these small kindnesses. What I didn't know then is that within six months we would be separated. We had become more like housemates and our break-up was overdue, but it's impossible to spend so much of your life with someone and not feel adrift without them. To be honest, I didn't know if I could be alone. Before Peter, I was a serial monogamist and hadn't been single since the age of 18 (I'm now 43). After some desultory months at home, I decided to reset with a holiday. I had taken a few solo trips before but only to western cities such as San Francisco and Berlin. For years I had wanted to go to China, a country rich in history and culture, but Peter had already visited so it had always been low on our list. Now I finally had reason to go. I turned to G Adventures, which specialises in small-group tours, and booked a 15-day trip from Beijing to Shanghai. The itinerary included all the usual big stops — the Great Wall of China, Chengdu and the Terracotta Warriors — but also a number of quieter sights: a hike to a mountaintop monastery; a farmstead lunch in Xi'an, northwest China; and a cooking class in Yangshuo, in the south of the country. I was sure that in those quiet corners I would find what I was looking for: space, time and calm. Arriving in Beijing, the first difference I notice is that I'm strangely keyed up before meeting my group. I have been on six trips with G Adventures and have found everyone I've met on them to be fun, warm and personable, but this time I won't have the safety net of a partner. I've been in a couple for so long, I've forgotten the extra social labour that solo travellers must perform. I can't opt out of a conversation when I'm tired or bored because no one else will pick up the slack. I can't sit in companionable silence because, with strangers, silence is awkward. I am aware of (and slightly embarrassed by) my eagerness to make an impression. I smile warmly, remember people's names, make jokes and generally try to be charming. It works and I gel well with our group of ten, which includes a nice balance of age, gender and nationality: a statuesque Swiss who works in tech, an American teacher turned artist, an Irish software engineer and a retired Welshman who used to fix helicopters. The trip begins at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China, 50 miles north of Beijing. Our guide advises us to start at the second entrance gate, which offers three ways to reach the wall: a 40-minute climb on foot, or a cable car or chairlift, which allow for more time at the top. I opt for the chairlift and board it somewhat flustered. I have worn too many layers and my jacket doesn't fit in my bag. As I grapple with it, I notice a fellow tourist handing her jacket to her partner, who stuffs it into his backpack. Ah, I think. The perks of being married. As we rise above the Mutian valley, I catch my first glimpse of the wall. Its sidewinder shape slips in and out of the mist as it traces the crest of surrounding hills. The Mutianyu section is less busy than Badaling, which is more easily accessible from Beijing. There are touristy stalls on approach but the wall itself is surprisingly quiet. The views are vast and dramatic: a steep sweep to the east and a long, lazy meander to the west. Watchtowers emerge from the haze in the sort of postcard picture that draws wistful tourists from the west. It's no coincidence, perhaps, that three members of our group have gone through recent break-ups. • 12 of the best places to visit in China I walk a three-mile section of the wall and it occurs to me that this is the only one of the new seven wonders of the world I have seen alone. All the others — Chichen Itza, Christ the Redeemer, the Colosseum, Machu Picchu, Petra and the Taj Mahal — I saw with Peter. This is bittersweet but also befitting. I'm single now and if I want to continue to explore the world, I have to be comfortable doing it alone. For the first few days in Beijing, however, I stick close to the group. The vast Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, an imperial palace complex, are intensely busy and I'm not yet ready to explore on my own. On day four we head to Xi'an, home to the Terracotta Army. It's my first time on a bullet train and I'm delighted that it's so clean, quiet and spacious — and then there's the speed. Landscapes pass in a blur as we cover the 675-mile distance in less than five hours. The Terracotta Army is a true spectacle, epic in scale and exquisite in detail. The crowds, however, are overwhelming and I find that I enjoy myself far more when I stop trying for the perfect picture and use the time to simply observe. After the rush and the noise, I decide to take some time alone. My sense of direction is abysmal and I'm afraid of getting lost, but I head to Xi'an's city wall and the surrounding Huancheng Park. As I stand on the bus, in a crowd of strangers, in this very foreign city, somehow I feel braver than on the skydives and bungee jumps I've done in other countries. • This is how to see China's most beautiful spots (minus the crowds) In Huancheng Park, I stumble upon a delightful scene: groups of older women have gathered to dance, play and exercise. There is an aerobics class in one corner, ballroom dancing in another and badminton in a third. It almost makes me emotional. It's so rare to see older women in public spaces taking simple enjoyment in their bodies. I certainly can't imagine my mother — an immigrant to the UK from patriarchal Bangladesh — dancing in a park. There is freedom in these women's movements, a grace, confidence and lightness. I watch for an age and leave thoroughly energised. Our next stop is Sichuan province's Chengdu, 450 miles south and four hours by bullet train, where we visit the Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. To beat the crowds we arrive at the opening time of 7.30am and spend the morning watching the endearing pandas eat, loll about and play. From Chengdu we go on to Emei Shan mountain, 100 miles southwest, to see the Leshan Giant Buddha, an impressive 71m-tall statue carved into a sandstone cliff. Our penultimate stop is Yangshuo in Guangxi province, eight hours away by train, famous for the Li River and its green karst mountain landscapes. Here, I face my biggest challenge of the trip: a three-hour bike ride along the Li. I learnt to cycle in my late twenties and was in a serious crash in 2016. Since then, Peter has kept me safe on roads abroad, often wading into traffic to create a wide berth for me, but now I am alone. • The little-visited coastline of China that I adored The ride is challenging but the scenery is unmissable: a glittering river studded by towering karst peaks and the unlikely sight of Moon Hill, a giant natural arch with a perfect circle in the middle. I complete the ride unscathed and victorious. My new-found zest must show. That night, at the Riverside Garden, a buzzy bar with excellent margaritas, a man buys me a rose — a playful custom with tourists. On the night that follows, I receive a second rose, this time with drinks for the attention, which remains lighthearted and non-intrusive, reminds me that there is a fun side to being single. Later that night I come across a group of women dancing in a courtyard. Buoyed by the mood — and a glass of wine or two — I accept their call to join in. As I move with the women, I feel light, happy and free. It occurs to me that if Peter were here, I wouldn't be joining in: my tipsy merriment tended to embarrass him. I realise that perhaps it's no bad thing to be adrift. A partner may be a tether but tethers keep us in one place. At the very start of our trip, our guide warned us, 'China is not a holiday. China is an experience' — and she was right. When I stood on the Great Wall and noted that my seventh wonder of the world was the one I was seeing alone, I hadn't imagined that, mere days later, I would feel so comfortable being by myself. My solo trip to China taught me to be brave — and that bravery takes different guises. Sometimes it's bungeeing into a literal abyss, sometimes it's dancing with strangers in the dark and sometimes it's as quiet as taking a walk in a foreign park. Kia Abdullah travelled independently. G Adventures has 14 nights' room-only from £2,999, including some extra meals ( Fly into Beijing and out of Shanghai What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah (HarperCollins £16.99) is out now. To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
