I don’t mind saying I love London or I love Britain, just as I don’t mind saying I love my little hometown. There are times when you feel that you have known a person or a place long before you physically meet them. Moreover, what London means to me is also a random harvest of finding who I am, what I treasure, and what I want.

I don’t know where Paul, my Prof. in documentary film, has found this film called Listen to Britain, released in 1941, the very same year the 26-year-old Olson Welles distributed his renowned Citizen Kane. On answers.com, Listen to Britain is labeled as a propaganda film during WWII. By the way, Paul Swann is also a Cantab, like many of my friends; graduated from St. John’s, the Collage that I love the most at Cam.

You actually could skip the first two paragraphs, I forgot to mention. The chief idea here is, if you give me everything in this world to represent the spirit of Britain, I would choose this single documentary and nothing else. Paul, on hearing what I said, was shamelessly complacent.

The moment when I saw the clouds of South England again from this documentary, I knew I was going to be completely captured by it. Low and spreading over the vast, endless plains of South England, it is a metaphor of the English heart: whoever comes, whatever happens, whenever it is, we treat it with peace and nobody can change we Britons.

In this sense, I see it much more as a description of the sound of Britain than as a propaganda film. It has a bit of the sound of the war: bombs possibly exploding beside you any moment, and broadcasters announcing the news of the War on the Continent.

But life goes on.

Every day with a cup of tea in Covent Garden, with bacon or without; People sitting on the stage during noontime, calmly wrapping a sandwich; Free concerts at St. Paul’s, the Queen occasionally attending as well;

There was the life of the factory workers, women raising heads from the work, smiling to the men who were kidding with each other. In an unknown corner of a cave-like place, soldiers were playing guitars and singing the old folk songs…

They were boys, they were wives, they were children, and most of all, in the music they hear and play together, they were all Britons.

All these overlap with my memory there: Every day hearing “Darling, have a nice day” and seeing the mild smile on each other’s faces whether you hear a “sorry” or “you’re welcome.”

Think about it, to have a cup of tea as usual and treat it as simply part of you, like breathing in and breathing out.

I used to have some days without being able to do or even think of anything except looking in the air with glazed eyes. Twice at least. Once classmate was killed and the other time, when I felt betrayed.

It is as difficult as it is easy, to take a cup of tea every morning with peace and joy. Then you have the courage to announce, nothing can defeat me.

Things will go; but the music will go on.

It is strange that I restarted to write after years’ running around for all kinds of other businesses. Today I write, Mom, let us not tell each other how crazily busy we are and just think about the beautiful things that we have missed, like music, like shopping, and like writing.

I change my MSN nickname every time I log onto it, at least partially for commemorating the feeling of London: amazing surprises every day. I still successfully bring myself lovely surprises every day, or at least try to. One day I changed my MSN nickname, as I always do, to “being international and being global are different things.”

A couple of people asked immediately, what does it mean?

It’s a saying in business. Being international means the company stands on the overlap of every nation. Although popular worldwide, it does not usually have a unique feature of its own, a brand that makes people identify its origin at the first sight. Being global is a different story. It is a mixture, carries some exotic nature, but adapts to the locality quickly as well. Around the globe it is different. At every location it is part of the life there.

I got this hint from someone working in the advertising business. This amazing person tried to tell me what a company brand is by showing me a piece of paper from Tiffany’s, actually, a receipt from there.

“Look at the texture,” says the person, “it feels different.” Thick, fine, reliable as if it were a piece of fibreless cloth, with golden printing and an insensible scent. What the Chinese call “QI 4 ZHI 4.” It’s there. Hard to describe but so easy to tell. The sense of a brand is comparable to the feeling of a person. S/he says a couple of sentences and if this is a special one, you know that, for no reason at all.

What this person says about Ogilvy and TBWA is as the following. Ogilvy is the same everywhere. New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai. It’s the big red office and all the same… TBWA varies from place to place. The culture is part of the local and the local brings their culture into the company.

Global, I said to myself.

In terms of cities, New York is more international than global, while London is more global than international.

My, the narcissistic Londoner!