Shepherd's Bush

good food, filthy men (not my words), and just kind of a lot going on

I came upon Shepherd’s Bush at a weird time in my life. I was uninspired by work and by life, looking to get away from the creep of fascism infecting every part of life in the US, and trying to find stimuli in what I consider to be one of the best cities in the world: London. Sometimes called Sheppy’s, other times called SheBu, and most often called “The Bush,” Shepherd’s Bush sits at the awkward meeting point of a very ethnic neighborhood facing an imminent gentrification, one of which I am perhaps a part. The signs of it are subtle, so far: a record store and coffee shop that turns into a wine bar at night, an Australian café, and a huge fucking shopping mall, otherwise known as Westfield London. For no reason at all it is the largest shopping center in the United Kingdom, echoing the dystopian mall-laden hellscape of Dubai or even my own beloved Kuala Lumpur.

The mall provides a stark juxtaposition to the rest of Shepherd’s Bush, an otherwise ancient and ethnic little neighborhood. At the heart of Shepherd’s Bush is a green – the Shepherd’s Bush Green – that was once the stopping point for shepherds to graze their sheep on their way to the markets of Central London since (at least) the early 1600s. Folklore suggests that the shepherds would prune indigenous hawthorne plants to protect the flocks from the elements; this, presumably, means the gray London weather.

Only two city blocks away from the green is the Shepherd’s Bush Market, a 110 year old open-market that is effectively just a souk. From prepared food, to imported exotic fruits, to pajamas, to fresh-pressed juice, to gold (real or fake), to Rolexes (definitely fake but advertised as real), you can get anything at the Shepherd’s Bush Market, which is something the merchants really want you to know, for real: anything you want they can get before the day’s end. All you have to do is ask. All they have to do is WhatsApp someone.

When I went to research the history of the Shepherd’s Bush Market, I learned that it had been acquired by a real estate firm in 2020, Yoo Capital. Yoo Capital’s investment thesis is “to uncover hidden gems which have been under-managed or overlooked, and to work with communities to transform them.” It is possible, then, that Shepherd’s Bush has less time than I thought. I relayed this thesis to a friend, one born and raised in SheBu, who only laughed and said, “we’re fucked, mate.” 

I myself landed in Shepherd’s Bush, one block from the Tabernacle, zero blocks in every direction from a shawarma place, in a room of a friend of a friend of a friend from school. Prior to moving in I had no idea the neighborhood was so Arab; more specifically, so Syrian. The main drag of Shepherd’s Bush is called Uxbridge Road and is populated by at least eight Arab cafés, ten shawarma places, eight classic London chicken shops, six Arabic grocery stores (a mix of Palestinian and Syrian competitors), a few Jamaican spots, a few Chinese spots. There are two Lebanese nut roasters, four Syrian tailors, and countless smoke shops. Most of the smoke shops are open twenty-four hours a day. There’s also the imported garments store (and while the storefront says “IMPORTED FROM DUBAI,” the textiles themselves say made in Bangladesh.) And it’s a relatively religious neighborhood. Luckily, between the mix of religions that have settled here, the better part of the neighborhood is open 7 days a week. The Christian establishments (made up of mostly Lebanese, West African, and a few Syrian places) close on Sundays. The Muslim spots – again, Syrians, a handful of Lebanese, Somalians, the Sudanese, Egyptians, Palestinians and more – open late and close early on Fridays. But there is nothing you can’t get any time in the Bush. 

Shepherd’s Bush is populated by an eclectic group of people of whom I have mostly grown very fond, even though the men have proven difficult. What unites the men of Shepherd’s Bush across race, class, age, religion, and nationality is that they are all definitively creepy. Regrettably. Most of them act like they’ve never seen a woman in their life. They whistle, kiss, tell you to smile, jeer, and my least favorite: they stare. They stare relentlessly. You can scowl, smile, spit, or yell and they’d stare. They do not discriminate based on the modesty (or lack thereof) of a woman’s clothing; I saw them whistle at a hijabi the other day. And I was so perplexed by this concentration of creepiness I decided to ask my nail lady, Charlotte, about the men of Shepherd’s Bush. 

She didn’t look up from my hand. “They’re filth, darling,” she said. 

“But why?”

“Why what, darling?”

“Well, why are they so… filth?” I wanted to use her words.

“Oh. I dunno, darling. I’ve never really thought about why. They just are. Haven’t you traveled quite a bit? It’s bad everywhere, surely?”

“I mean, it’s bad everywhere, but it’s like, really bad here.” 

“They’re filth, darling.” 

I suppose the mystery ended there – I stopped asking why. Charlotte gave me some good strategies, though: don’t smile at them, not even politely, because they like that. You also can’t show any hints of annoyance, anger, or discomfort; they also like that. Wear sunglasses if you can. Luckily, the main road is busy and populated for every minute of every day, so, while annoying, it’s pretty safe. And most, if not all of them, are harmless; they’re just bored. This simple fact is annoying and difficult for me to understand. Sometimes I want to pull them aside – the young ones, especially – and be like, “look, kid. You’re a creep. And every woman you will ever meet is probably going to hate you. You just gotta quit while you’re ahead.”

But Charlotte continued: “You can’t think about it too much, darling. They’re just filth. It’s the way the world works. Well, I dunno, I haven’t left London. But it’s definitely the way London works.” 

Since then I have heeded Charlotte’s advice and managed to refrain from scowling even when every muscle in my body aches, even when I want to decry the hypocrisy of leaving a mosque or the Tabernacle only to immediately catcall a woman. 

Speaking of the Tabernacle, you’d be surprised at the way “The Tabernacle” infuses itself into your daily vocabulary. I am unsure if I had ever even said the word prior to moving to Shepherd’s Bush, but now I say it constantly, to my flatmate or to my friends and neighbors: “meet me at the Tabernacle.” “It’s right outside of the Tabernacle.” “There was an ambulance in front of the tabernacle.”

And, admittedly, upon moving here, the Uxbridge Road Tabernacle itself caught my attention. The titles of the sermons reeled me in: “Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha” on one day, “The Folly of the Fool” another. 

“What is Golgotha?” I asked my flatmate when I returned home. 

“Um. Is that English?” 

“I don’t know. I thought you’d know.”

What caught my attention even more severely than the name of the sermons was the name of the Reverend: Ibrahim Mohammad. I did a triple take when I read his name, literally rubbing my eyes to make sure I read it right. He’s a Muslim convert to Christianity – the first I’ve ever heard of in my life – and responsible for the sermons for the god-fearing Christians of Shepherd’s Bush. It seems he has found great success in his endeavors; he’s quite popular, but his birth country is widely debated.

And a few blocks down from the Tabernacle, near the tube stop, congregates daily a handful of Jehovah’s Witnesses who mind their business unless you make eye contact with them, in which case they’ll ask you if you want salvation. It’s always a painful question to ignore. I mean, I don’t not want salvation. I probably don’t want to turn it down if it’s being offered, but I also don’t really want to make eye contact. A block away from those Jehovah’s Witnesses is a Muslim stall of gentlemen handing out free Qurans and explaining to passersby that Islam is a religion of peace, of humility, of generosity. Those guys, bless them, don’t make eye contact at all.

And finally, situated between the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Muslims but a little west of the Tabernacle yet north of the made-in-Bangladesh-but-imported-from-Dubai garment store is my flat, where I now live with a kind, funny, and smart human. I think daily about how this is a fascinating little neighborhood, West of West, Notting Hill’s ethnic and working class neighbor, and how it has been good to me for the short time I have been here. Shepherd’s Bush has, in every way, provided the inspiration and action I was sorely lacking. Whether the Shepherd’s Bush chapter will be short or long, I am unsure. But something tells me it will provide salvation, a form of it.