12. A different London

The sparkling Thames River flows from the Cotswolds in southern England to the North Sea from west to east. If you sail about 88 kilometers up the river from the estuary, you will reach London, the capital of the British Empire and the heart of Shijie.

When it comes to London, the foggy capital of the United Kingdom, what kind of first impression will come to everyone's mind?

-- cold and damp weather, fog all day long; a newsboy walking the streets, a sailor who buys a drunken brawl; When the bell rings, the Thames flows quietly; the warm fireplace with the flames jumping, the dim streetlamps flickering in the dim yellow; an elegant lady with gloves, a pale face, and a corset under a large tusk; an English gentleman in a bowler hat, a staff of civilization, and a monocle in his pocket; the never-ending balls, banquets, tea parties, fairs, and hunting parties of high society; Arrogance and greed hidden under the mask of hypocritical etiquette, with the occasional hint of uncanny madness......

Through the descriptions of classical literary masterpieces such as "Sherlock Holmes", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Around the World in Eighty Days", and "Great Expectations", Wang Qiu left the above impression of London in his mind: serious, gloomy, and arrogant, like a standard English gentleman...... Although some of the British rock music shows he watched later, especially the subversive dressing of the hippies, made his impression of Britain change slightly. But in Wang Qiu's mind, London should still be Conan Doyle's old overlord who is proud of the European continent, and a classical city filled with thick fog.

Today, however, he finally set foot on the land of the British Isles. After getting on the tourist bus driven by Comrade Shen Yue and leaving Heathrow International Airport, I saw a completely different London from my imagination through the window......

When the bus twists and turns through the Aton neighborhood. Wang Qiu couldn't hold back the confusion in his heart any longer, and finally couldn't help but ask.

β€œβ€¦β€¦ Mr. Shen, may I ask, what is this...... Are we in London, or in New Delhi? ”

Outside the window, I pointed to the tall mosque minarets, the streets full of Indian and Pakistani Muslim men and women wearing headscarves and veils, and shop signs full of Indian and Arabic styles. Wang Qiu asked the local guide Comrade Shen Yue with a look of disbelief.

β€œβ€¦β€¦ Hey, young man, that's how London is today! 'Shijie Multicultural Capital'! ”

Shen Yue held the steering wheel on the side. While saying in a slightly playful tone, there was a hint of clarity in his eyes, as if he had already understood Wang Qiu's surprise, "...... In today's London. The number of foreign immigrants has already exceeded twice the number of native whites in Britain. The British moved to the countryside and the countryside. Go to a rural place like Surrey (a well-known and beautiful town outside of London). As for the City of London...... Hehe, it's like a miniature version of the Shijie Empire, there are people of all nationalities all over the world, but North Africa and India and Pakistan have the most Muslims.

For example, the Autonomous Region of Acton here is a Muslim area, so it's best not to drink in the street or dress too revealingly, otherwise Muslim pickets will come with sticks to get into trouble. Well. In this weather, it doesn't seem like there is such a problem......"

Take advantage of the traffic jam. Shen Yue glanced at the passengers from the motherland in the rearview mirror, and found that all of them wrapped themselves tightly, and some even wore down jackets - it was indeed still cold in London at the beginning of March, and most Chinese were not as frost-resistant as the Russian hairs that could bathe in the open air at minus 25 degrees Celsius," ...... But even so, you'd better not go to places where Muslims are congregated, there is nothing interesting to do - except for the noisy mosque five times a day, and it is full of thieves, robbers and powder sellers (soft drugs, mainly marijuana), and even girls often disappear there, and the rice bucket police in London can't control it.

Hey, I took the wrong bus last month, and I actually changed trains here in the middle of the night, only to be surrounded by a bunch of vicious Indians at the bus stop, and that look was really ...... When I think about it now, I am a little afraid that the so-called ruthless people who sell cakes in China are even inferior to three-year-old children -- many of them are said to have gone to the Middle East to fight the 'holy war'......

Of course, there are also safe immigrant settlements, such as our Chinatown, and the New Morton district, which is the largest Korean gathering area in all of Europe, full of authentic Korean restaurants and barbecue joints, guaranteed to make you spicy to death with a bite, and you can smell the kimchi smell from afar, in addition, there are beauty salons and plastic surgery hospitals that Koreans can't live without......"

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The passage of time can change everything.

Just as the late Qing Dynasty Beijing in the 19th century is completely different from the Beijing in the 21st century, the Victorian London that Chinese students read about in classical classics is very different from the real London today.

In fact, for those who have never been to London, even a brief depiction of Britain in the nineties in the Harry Potter books can be faintly discerned – the obvious fact is that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the end of the twentieth century was no longer the world-leading John Bull. And the enrollment scope of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is limited to the island of Great Britain. So why are there so many Chinese, Indian, and black "Muggle" wizarding students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

Note! They are not adults who bid farewell to their motherland to work or study in the UK, but children who are only 11 years old!

The answer to this question is actually quite simple: because these foreign immigrants were born and raised in the UK. Back in the days of Harry Potter, there were more than a million primary school students in the UK who were not native English speakers! Now, in the eyes of the British, London is on the verge of becoming a "foreigner's city", just as Detroit in the United States is gradually becoming a black city.

Although the proportion of immigrants in Britain is not particularly high in Europe as a whole, it is particularly striking because the vast majority of these immigrants are concentrated in a limited number of large cities. And East Asians actually account for a lot of weight in this. Wang Qiu: No matter which neighborhood they are, they can basically see a few yellow faces - according to Comrade Shen Yue, London is mixed with immigrants of all ethnic groups, and there are not the most Chinese here, if it is in Liverpool, even if you don't speak English at all, it's okay, because you can find Chinese anywhere. Part of this comes from international students: those who come to the UK to study or "pretend to study", where the cheaper the tuition fees and the lower the admissions scores, the more Chinese students will have and they will have a crazy time. Another part of the source is immigration: of course, China's immigrants to Europe have long passed the "low-level stage" of container smuggling, and have turned to the "high-level stage" of throwing money to engage in investment immigration...... Hey, don't talk about it......

After entering the central city of London, the scenery along the streets is finally more "British", but the number of blacks and colored people is still too high to believe that this is in Europe.

Then, the group finally came to Marx's tomb.

Wang Qiu originally thought that the location of Marx's tomb should be in London's Hyde Park. Because he vaguely remembered that there was a text called "Speech at Marx's Tomb", which was a speech delivered by Engels in front of Marx's tomb in Hyde Park. But when he actually arrived in London, he learned from the tourist brochure that in 1954, the "wider" European Communist Party members collectively raised funds to move Marx's tomb to a cemetery called Highgate in North London, which is a wealthy area, and every house is an elegant single-family villa, full of ancient trees and green grass, which is obviously more suitable for the great man to sleep in than the noisy Hyde Park.

Although the grave is very imposing, visitors are very scarce and always deserted, because there is an old lady with white hair who watches the door of the cemetery, and charges each visitor a fee of Β£4 for entry, and an additional Β£2 for those with a camera - I have to say, this is a very expensive price. The old lady also sold souvenirs, such as a portrait of Marx and the Communist Manifesto in English.

paid for the tickets and went in to take a look, Wang Qiu found that there were really no tricks in it. In total, it is a lonely tombstone, with a huge portrait of Marx carved above the tombstone, and the names and dates of birth and death of the people in the tomb engraved on the front, as well as the "Communist Manifesto" Zuihou: "All shijie proletarians unite"! In front of the tombstone lay several shriveled bouquets of flowers, apparently from previous travelers.

So, everyone bowed to Marx's tombstone and offered flowers they had brought, and several political commissars raised their fists to repeat their communist oaths, which was considered to be the end. And when she went out, the old janitor was still so happy that she couldn't stop talkingβ€”only a few people visited this place every day, and she didn't make any money at all. Xin Qi came to such a large group of fat sheep today, and finally received a few hundred pounds......

Then, when they boarded the bus again and arrived at their next stop, Hyde Park, they were immediately shocked by the crowd in front of them. (To be continued......)