郭小橹

choi

Xiaolu Guo, 'Is This What the West Is Really Like?' How It Felt to Leave China for Britain.  Desperate to find somewhere she could live and work as she wished, Xiaolu Guo moved from Beijing to London in 2002. But from the weather to the language and the people, nothing was as she expected. The Guardian, Jan 10, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/worl ... m-beijing-to-london
(abstract of Xiaolu Guo, Once Upon a Time in the East; A story of growing up. Chatto & Windus, to be published on Jan 26, 2017)

Note:
(1) 郭小橹（1973- ; 英国国立电影电视大学访问学者)

The brief zh.wikipedia.org states the above. (I was not aware of her until yesterday, when I started annotating the article.) So after reading the Chinese-language Wikipedia page, I thought she had been living in China all these years.
(2) Chatto & Windus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatto_%26_Windus)(founded in 1855; has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House)

(3) "The opportunity to leave came sooner than I could have hoped. I heard that the Chevening scholarship and the British Council were looking for talent in China. I had never heard of Chevening. Someone told me it was a large historical mansion in Kent. My mind was instantly filled with images from The Forsyte Saga – one of the most-watched English television programmes on the Chinese internet."
(a) Chevening scholarship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevening_Scholarship
(named "after Chevening House in Sevenoaks, Kent – currently the joint official residence of the British Foreign Secretary and the British Deputy Prime Minister")
(b)
(i) etiology of Chevening:

The Quarterly Review. vol 116. London: John Murray (name of publishing company), 1864, pp 11-12
https://books.google.com/books?i ... ymology&f=false
("Mr Taylor says -- 'The modern Welsh names for the head and the back [of a person, say] are 'Pen' and 'Cefn.'  We find these words in a large number of mountain names.  The Welsh 'cefn' (pronounced keven), a back of a ridge, is found very common in local names in Wales, as in the case of Cefn Coed or Cefn Bryn.  In England it is found in the 'Chevin,' a ridge in Wharfdale; in Keynton, a name which occurs in Shropshire, Dorset, and Wilts; in 'Chevening' on the great ridge of North Kent; * * * ")")
(ii) Chevening
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chevening
(pronunciation)
(c) British Council
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Council

os similar to Goethe Institute.
(d) The Forsyte Saga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forsyte_Saga
(about a family surnamed Forsyte; section 2 Adaptations, section 2.2 Twenty-first century)

(4) "When I arrived at Heathrow, there was no one to pick me up, and all I had was a reservation letter for a student hostel near Marylebone station in central London."
(a) Marylebone station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marylebone_station
(b) Marylebone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marylebone
(section 1 History: name)

choi

(5) "my only tool of communication was a jumble of half-grammatically-correct sentences. In China I had learned that the population of Britain [2011 census: 63,181,775] was equal to that of my little province, Zhejiang [2010 census: 54,426,891]. * * * I could barely decipher a paragraph of English.  Still, in my naive mind, I was convinced I would find an artistic movement to be part of, something like the Beat generation or the Dadaists of the old Europe. But all I encountered were angry teenagers who screamed at me as they passed on their stolen bikes and grabbed my bag – they were the most frightening group I had ever met in my life. Before I came to England, I thought all British teenagers attended elite boarding schools such as Eton, spoke posh and wore perfect black suits."
(a) Beat Generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation
(American; section 1 Origin of name)
(b) For Dadaists, see Dada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada
(section 1 Overview; name)
(c) posh (adj): "British : typical of or intended for the upper classes : HIGHFALUTIN <posh accents>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/posh

(6) I went "to Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, 20 miles from London. There were only two big buildings in the town: a supermarket called Tesco and the National Film and Television School, where I was to spend a year studying documentary film directing. * * * I was told that this was the richest village in all of Britain. * * *  liked English pubs because they had a particular smell that reminded me of my mother’s silk factory in Wenling 浙江省台州市温岭市 * * * 'I haven't seen you in a long time, Lucy,' one of the barmaids said."
(a) Beaconsfield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaconsfield
(section 1 History and description: name)
(b)
(i) barmaid (n): "British   a woman serving behind the bar of a pub or hotel"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/barmaid
(ii) Wikipedia has a page "bartender" which lists alternate names such as barmaid.

choi

(7) "Later I moved to a flat on a council estate on Hackney Road that felt like a prison. * * * The year I came to England, I was nearing 30. * * * At the end of the Chevening scholarship I was supposed to go back to China [no explanation about why, given how she had been miserable in UK]. * * * When the birthday party was over, I mopped the floor and did the washing-up.  * * * [She came up with an idea of writing a novel, more or less about herself] The novel would be a sort of phrasebook, recording the things she did and the people she met."
(a)
(i) For council estate, see council house
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_house
("A council estate is a building complex containing a great many council houses and other amenities like schools and shops")
(ii) "Council"?

Holly Bentley, Council Homes: the Rise, the Collapse and the Fall. The Guardian, Aug 12, 2008
https://www.theguardian.com/soci ... communities.housing

the first paragraph: "1890: The Housing of the Working Classes Act encouraged local authorities to improve housing. Three years after the act, the London county council built the first council estate, Boundary Street, on the border of Shoreditch and Bethnal Green in east London.

* London County
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_County
(may refer to "County of London, England, a former county [1890-1965]")
(b) Hackney Road
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_Road
(It lies close to the border between the boroughs of London Boroughs of Hackney [qv for section 1.2 Place name origin] and Tower Hamlets)
(c) wash up (vt): "British : to wash the dishes after a meal.  
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wash%20up
(d) I am clueless about why the author calls that a phrase book (maybe her current English ability is not so good after all; look at what she has writen so far in the article!). It appears that in both US and UK, the term has the same definition.
(i) phrase book (n): "a book for people visiting a foreign country, listing useful expressions in the language of the country together with their equivalent in the visitor's own language"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/phrase_book
(ii) phrase book (n): "a small book containing helpful groups of sentences and words in a particular foreign language, intended for use by travellers"
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/phrase-book

(8) "Technically, the foremost difficulty for an Asian writer who wants to write in English is tense. * * * nor do we [Chinese] have anything like a subjunctive mood."
(a) Anybody can tell the author makes a mistake: the "most" difficult, which is superlative. "Foremost" can be an adverb but almost invariably used in the phrase "first and foremost."  
(b) English subjunctive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
(versus "indicative mood"/ present subjunctive: "I insist (that) he leave now"/ past subjunctive: "If I were or has been"  "I wish I were")

choi

(8) "Technically, the foremost difficulty for an Asian writer who wants to write in English is tense. * * * nor do we [Chinese] have anything like a subjunctive mood."
(a) Anybody can tell the author makes a mistake: the "most" difficult, which is superlative. "Foremost" can be an adverb but almost invariably used in the phrase "first and foremost."  
(b) English subjunctive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
(versus "indicative mood"/ present subjunctive: "I insist (that) he leave now"/ past subjunctive: "If I were or has been"  "I wish I were")

(9) How could she get her completed (English-language) novel published, the author wondered?  "I knew it would have little chance at ever being published, since I had written it using such broken English in a country awash with BBC voices and the perfect sentences of the Queen. And Britain was not like China, where writers could post their manuscripts directly to publishing houses. While pacing up and down in Waterstones one day and wondering how the hell all these books had been published, I happened upon Jung Chang's Wild Swans. I leafed through it. In the acknowledgements, the author thanked her agent.  In China, writers don’t have agents because, in the world of Chinese socialism, agents have traditionally been viewed as members of the exploiting class.
(a) Received Pronunciation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
(RP; "The study of RP is concerned exclusively with pronunciation, whereas 'Standard English,' 'the Queen's English,'  'Oxford English,' and 'BBC English' are also concerned with matters such as grammar, vocabulary and style")
(b) Waterstones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterstones
(formerly Waterstone's; a British book retailer [similar to Barnes and Noble in US] founded by Tim Waterstone in 1872 and based in London)
(c)
(i) The English surnames Toby/Tobey -- and the English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish (Tobías), Hungarian (Tóbiás), and Jewish surnames Tobias -- were "from a Greek form of the Hebrew male personal name Tovyah 'Jehovah is good,' which, together with various derivative forms, has been popular among Jews for generations."
(ii) The surname Eady has a couple of origins and hence meanings. So I will not delve into it, lest you be confused.

choi

(10) "I sent my book to Jung Chang's agent that very day. He was a man called Toby Eady, at an address I had gleaned from an internet search. * * * Random House wanted to meet me to discuss the book. Leaving my flat at least four hours ahead of the appointed time, I made my way to Pimlico, arriving at the office too early."
(a) Random House
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_House
(b) Pimlico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimlico
(a small area within central London in the City of Westminster; it received its name from Ben Pimlico, famous for his nut-brown ale)
(i) City of Westminster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Westminster
("Upon creation [in 1965], Westminster was awarded city status, which had been previously held by the smaller Metropolitan Borough of Westminster")

section 2 History: "Following the dissolution of Westminster Abbey, a court of burgesses (the Westminster Court of Burgesses) was formed in 1585 [and abolished in 1900; it was a court in the traditional sense: adjudication -- not an executive branch] to govern the Westminster area, previously under the Abbey's control.
(ii) The preceding Wikipedia page does not elucidate the origin of the name Westminster.

Palace of Westminster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster
(Its name "derives from the neighbouring Westminster Abbey"/ the current structure was rebuilt 1840–70 (table) after a 1834 fire)
(iii) Westminster Abbey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Abbey

does not way how the abbey got its name.
(iv) Westminster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster

Search for "name" in this page.
(v)
(A) minster (n; etymology): "a large or important church often having cathedral status"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minster
(B) minster (church)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minster_(church)
(vi)
(A) The (10)(b)(i) above quotes section 2 as saying: "Following the dissolution of Westminster Abbey."

Benedictine Monastery. In Abbey History. Westminster Abbey, undated
www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/benedictine-monastery
("Henry VIII dissolved the monastery [Westminster Abbey] in 1540")

* Order of Saint Benedict (OSB), a Catholic religious order, was founded by Benedict of Nursia (c 480 - 543; born and died in present-day Italy).
(B) Which was part of Henry VII's campaign to establish Church of England. See dissolution of the Monasteries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries
(1536 - 1541)

choi

(11) "Sitting on a grey slab outside the publisher's rain-stained brown mansion building, I ate a prawn sandwich."
(a) English dictionaries says a slab can be made of any material. But a grey lab probably is made of stone.
(b) I believe that the author alludes to "slab bench."  Check it in the Web.
(c) Search images.google.com with "prawn sandwich" (something I have not see before) and you (if you live in the United States) will say it is full of shrimp. And you are right.
(i) prawn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prawn
("In the United Kingdom, prawn is more common on menus than shrimp, while the opposite is the case in the United States")
(ii) Hannah Roberts, 30 Years on, Our Favourite Sandwich Is Still Prawn. Daily Mail, Apr 18, 2011
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sandwich-prawn.html
("Thirty years after the first sandwich went on sale on the High Street, we're still in love with prawn cocktail. * * * Introduced in 1981, the M&S [Marks & Spencer] Prawn Mayonnaise sandwich became an instant bestseller")

(12) "There I was, standing in front of the Chinese visa office on Old Jewry, near Bank station."
(a) Old Jewry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Jewry
(a one-way street in City of London)
(v) Bank and Monument stations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_and_Monument_stations
(Bank station was "named after [and near] the Bank of England")

(13) "the old Chinese saying goes; [sic] 'Uproot a tree and it will die; uproot a man and he will survive.' "

I do not know it.