'A wonderful mix of history, anthropology and psychology': Neil Mackay reviews Hello, Stranger by Will Buckingham

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Review by Neil Mackay

BACK in the early 20th century you could travel the length of Mongolia, and without exception be guaranteed a full belly and a bed for the night if you’d a pouch of tobacco and knew to swirl your tea clockwise, leave your guns at the door, and never flash your thighs in your host’s yurt.

That tip comes from Soviet scientist Andrej Simukov. In 1923, he began exploring Mongolia and found himself wanting for nothing as long as he’d a gift to offer (some tobacco) and knew local customs intimately (tea, guns, thighs). It was Simukov’s way of navigating the idea of the “stranger” – he was, after all, a stranger in a strange land.

Anthropologist Will Buckingham immerses readers in the delicious frisson on unknown people in his new book Hello, Stranger. Strangers are both a threat and promise. They can indeed kill you – but you also fell in love with one. Buckingham’s book took shape after the death of his wife Elee. He decided to leave Britain and travel the world. Would chance encounters rebuild his life? Could he find comfort in strangers?

Hello, Stranger is a wonderful mix of history, anthropology and psychology. We – the human race that is – have been navigating the concept of the stranger since we clambered from the trees, and we’ve little recognised how that’s shaped us and our customs.

Our most ancient stories are filled with the notion of strangers. Odysseus – the perpetual stranger – dragging his lonely behind around the Mediterranean in the hope of seeing home again. Religion has always been filled with the motif of the stranger too. Angels posing as strangers in the Old Testament testing humans; Zeus disguising himself as a stranger to eavesdrop on mortal lives.

Until the 20th century in Albania, the set of customs known as Kanun governed how strangers were dealt with – it’s believed the code existed for 3000 years. On one side, the code meant a guest must sleep in a host’s bed; on the other, if a woman was a bad hostess (always the woman, never the man) her husband could shoot her.

Buckingham is at his best when he’s exploring the psychology of this liminal world where strangers exist – a place of thresholds, introductions, first meetings, and the clinking of glasses; where human beings move from being unknown to known. Just think of all those stranger-related customs we never even really consider in our own lives, yet adhere to instinctively knowing subconsciously that it would be social death to break any of these nuanced rituals – like the giving of gifts when we first meet the families of friends or loved ones, strangers we want to impress and woo.

Being a stranger also means loneliness. We find ourselves strangers most often when we travel. Swiss mercenaries in the 16th century had a word for that mix of nostalgia and homesickness that comes upon us overseas – heimweh, “home sore”. There were reports of these soldiers who heard cow bells, thought of home and fell sick and died.

Ghosts are strangers too. On Buckingham’s travels in the East he hears of the lonely shades of long dead GIs haunting the jungles of Vietnam, who villagers appease with gifts of dollars so they can buy the things they loved in life in the spirit world. “Even when we are gone,” writes Buckingham, “we will continue to be enmeshed in the complex webs of which we are a part.”

Our notion of “asylum” – of sheltering others – grew out of the ancient Greek concept of “asulia”, the idea that anyone could seek sanctuary at a temple, even a barbarian. Rome became mighty because Romulus offered runaway slaves – the ultimate stranger in the ancient world – a home if they shared his vision of building a great city.

It’s likely that the concept of the stranger became strong in human culture as the Neolithic period gave way to the rise of agriculture, and humanity started to settle down in cities. If I grow crops, I need to build a fence to protect those crops – anything on the other side of that fence is now a stranger and therefore potentially my enemy.

Buckingham’s book does a marvellous job of showing the essential absurdity of nationalism, of the ridiculousness of man-made borders. He recounts the story of a Turkish shepherd during the Cold War who waved to a fellow shepherd across a border river in Bulgaria, and was jailed for his trouble.

The human brain is hardwired since ancient times to only really be able to deal with 150 people as “non-strangers”, as folk we know well and relate to – we’re evolutionarily predisposed to see the rest of the world as “other”, which probably accounts for the horror and cruelty of social media.

Yet, the modern world – in the shape of the city – forces us to live side by side with millions of unknown people. A recipe perhaps for the deep malaise which hangs over so much of human life. Humans are both innately xenophobic – meaning fear of strangers in this case, not hatred – yet as social creatures we’re also philoxenic, in love with the stranger. The modern festival, just as the ancient festival, allows humans ever fearful of one another to temporarily enjoy the pleasure of losing ourselves in a crowd of unknown people.

How will this strange schizophrenia in humans when it comes to strangers play out in years to come? Soon China will boast the world’s first megatropolis when Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei meld into one great conglomerate called Jingjinji filled with 100 million people. That’s a city with a population roughly the size of France and Spain.

There’s a deep sadness that runs through Buckingham’s book – understandable given its inspiration: that human beings are both deeply lonely yet struggle to make positive connections.

Sometimes this rather marvellous, restrained study of humanity loses track and spends too long looking at side issues like the customs around feasting, but in this era of walls and hatred of the other, it’s a necessary work with a simple message: it’s OK to be wary of others, that’s natural, but if you can find trust in your heart, then welcoming strangers into your life won’t just make you a better person, it might help fix the world a little too.

Hello, Stranger is BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week from Monday, August 16 at 9.45am each morning