I could live there

Tags

abroad, Asia, challenges, continents, Europe, ex-pats, Latin America, life, living, Travel

So many times when I will hear people say that they would love to live (permanently) in this or that city or country. Usually this comes up if they have recently travelled or read about a city or country. A few years back I heard of a Montreal couple who retired, sold their home and got rid of all their belongings and moved to Prague in the Czech Republic. It is a lovely place to visit but would you seriously want to move there permanently? I know that they did not speak Czech which is a Slavic language very similar to Polish. All they wanted was to start a new life from scratch, that requires a lot of courage and perseverance.

A few things to consider, one being language, in any foreign country if you plan to live there or spend more than a month, you need to learn at least enough of the local language to be able to function on a daily basis. No the locals will not speak to you in English it is not their language and don’t expect them to accommodate you in this age of mass tourism.  Too often people believe that it will be no problem and they can learn the lingo once they are there. Not so, not so at all.

The other things to consider is culture, ways of doing things, mentalities and social norms.  Those can be big challenges to every day life, living in a country where you are a foreign minority. Trying not to sound like an Imperialist or a Colonial. Yes at home you did things a certain way because that is the way we live here, however elsewhere it is a completely different matter. No one will accommodate you nor see things your way, you will have to adapt or else be ostracized, you are after all a foreigner. It won’t help to remind the nationals that you come from a different country or make endless comparison as if to make a point of being superior.

Cost of living always appears to be the first concern, though cost of living in many countries is not as high as Canada. In Italy the average person lived on $1500 to $1800 CDN per month as of 2011. People live in small apartments, usually a one bedroom one bathroom with a larger room serving as kitchen, dining and living room combined. A single person may live in smaller accommodation and a family would have a two bedroom apartment. No family car and if you do have a car it is small and you park on the street. If you go to work you walk, take public transit, or have a moped to ride, the price of gas at $2.15 a liter or $8.60 per gallon. At any rate employers do not provide parking at work so the fall back is Public Transit.

A friend of ours in Rome came to work at a school where he occupied a management position. He found an apartment in a trendy neighbourhood called Pigneto on the Eastern side of the City. He lived in a small one bedroom apartment in a 6 floor building. He did not know the neighbours, but they were noisy and yes cooking smells and loud conversations late at night. That is life and that is the way it is, so get use to it. There was no A/C and no clothes drier, a very small clothes washer allowing you to wash only a few items, no dishwasher and a very small fridge. Given the cost of electricity in Europe, people are forced into saving energy unless you have a lot of money to pay the high rates. So these are things you need to consider when you wish to live abroad in a country where, though similar is not the same as back home. All this of course is not apparent if you are on a vacation just passing through.

We had friends who moved to Mexico to live in Ajijic near Guadalajara on Lake Chapala, an enclave of Canadians and other ex-pats. What I did not understand was how they manage to live in an area without speaking the language. It was similar to not being able to read or write, isolation ensues and your live on the margins of society. Many come only for the Winter Season up to 6 months but if you are going to do that every year because you invested into a property and own a business or simply live there, would it not make sense to try to integrate into the local scene and not simply sticking to the ex-pat  community, which can turn into a curse.

Food and Health care is another major topic most people don’t think about, however it is very important. In every country I lived in food was always a big question. Be it Mexico, China, Italy, Poland, Egypt or Jordan, the local cuisine is very different from what we know or what we think as their local cuisine. Everywhere I went there was problems with colleagues who served up to 3 to 4 years in a particular country but hated the food. Mexico has many regional cuisines unknown to us in North America, no it is not like the chain restaurant menu. Same in China, the food was so different from one region to the next, it was a learning experience, noting like Chinese food in Canada. Italy was another shock for many who bitterly complained, from the Lasagna to the Pizza to various other meat dishes with no pasta depending on the region or province. In Egypt and Jordan where lamb and chicken dishes are common, the preparation often with yogurt and herbs is different to suit the culture. The ex-pats stayed home and were resentful that the locals would not accommodate their North American palate. Restaurants did not have kids menus, kids either ate what adults ate or stayed home with a babysitter. Funny how the local kids had none of those problems.

Health is another sensitive topic, imagine having a major operation performed in a foreign language you barely understand and needing a translator to speak to the doctor.  The care is good and often better than in Canada, but you have to trust your doctor in a foreign language. I know that in the movies they always go to the American Hospital, the reality is very different. I had operations in Italy and Poland and the care was quite good.

When we left Rome, we were not happy, we did not want to leave, though most of my colleagues could not get out fast enough. We had integrate fairly well in Italy and had friends in the City, we spoke the language reasonably well to be able to move around without help. We returned to Rome twice afterwards for private visits and though we are very comfortable in the City and have all our favourite spots including a barber shop and favourite shopping etc. It suddenly became clear to us that living permanently there would not be the same for the long term. Life in Italy is easy, but again you are a foreigner, how do you fit in. Not only do you have to be fluent in the language but you must forget what life was like back in Canada and adapt to all the little idiosyncrasies of the group and place, that is very difficult to do and requires much effort.  But if you are flexible and open minded it can be done.

Having moved within Canada from Montreal to Toronto to Ottawa to Quebec City and now Charlottetown all of whom are very different from the other though always within Canada, imagine moving abroad. I have heard to many stories of people who did move to the USA or France or England because of the similarities with Canada only to be sorely disillusioned. Maybe having to face the bitter truth that they are not as flexible as they thought and more stick in the mud types.

It really is not for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1989 – 2009

Tags

diplomacy, Egypt, Europe, Iraq, Sudan

Some 20 years separate these two photos.

My Official passport photo of 1989 when I was posted to the Canadian Embassy in Cairo, Egypt with responsibilities for the Sudan. Back then only one photographer in Ottawa could take such pictures for the Foreign Ministry and his studio was on Sparks Street behind the Langevin Block which is the Office of the Privy Council for Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office. You had to make an appointment and you had to wear a suit and tie because that photo would go into your Diplomatic passport with mention on page 5 of the document stating your rank and function at the Embassy. Egypt then was a great posting, it was also the time of the First Gulf War when Kuwait was invaded by Iraq and Canadian war ships sailed down the Suez Canal, we went to the Canal to see them pass by.

I also travelled often to Khartoum and we had special permission to board the Lufthansa flight which made a pit stop in Cairo to travel to Khartoum 2 hours South following the Nile River in a straight line. We did not want to take Air Sudan it was too dangerous, planes poorly serviced and mostly unable to fly on any given day. Egypt Air was not safe enough because of tensions between Egypt and the Sudan. Lufthansa had a great flight and so did British Airways back then. I also often carried with me 10 to 12 bags of Diplomatic mail and documents all sealed up. It was all pretty romantic to be a diplomatic courier and also representing Canada in the Sudan. To me that country was about General Gordon and his heroic death in Khartoum. In Saint-Paul Cathedral in London there is a memorial to Gordon of Khartoum next to 19th Century painter Frederick Lord Leighton. I say a memorial because when the expeditionary force arrived in Khartoum to relieve Gordon and his men, everyone had been killed and his body was never found. When I went to the Sudan a new ”Islamic” government was in charge, same people as today. The funny thing was that we had to pay for every curfew pass and special permission pass to travel in the City with bottles if not cases of Johnny Walker Red Label, I discovered that Scotch is an international currency and the favourite drink of staunch Muslims. So we use to call it Johnny Mohamed Walker.

In early 1991 I found myself again in Khartoum and it was at this point that the First Gulf War ended with the defeat of Iraq and the setting on fire of all the oil wells in Kuwait by the retreating Iraqi army. As I arrived at the Hilton Hotel I heard a commotion behind me and turn to find myself face to face with Tareq Aziz (1936-2015) the deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, the cultured face of the Iraqi Regime. I had a very uneasy feeling when I saw him surrounded by his goons. He was well dressed and spoke impeccable French and English. The clerk at the Front Desk explained that Mr Aziz would have his room on the third floor and I was bumped to the seventh floor. The war had just ended the Sudan was an ally of Iraq and Canada was part of the coalition which defeated Iraq. We simply exchange polite greetings, there was nothing else to say and I had absolutely nothing to say to him.

What puzzled me was how he got to Khartoum from Baghdad, there was a no fly zone, it took me some time to figure out that he would have travelled by road from Baghdad to Amman in Jordan which took about 10 hours. Then flew on a private jet from Amman to Cairo and then on to Khartoum. A few years later when I was posted to Amman, I would become more familiar with the Iraqi Regime and the politics of the region, a very complex affair to say the least.

Rome 2009 at home on Via dei Villini

My last post, what was interesting about this posting was my accreditation to Greece, Malta and Albania. I went to Tirana some 26 times, it must be a record of some kind, no one else at the Embassy went so many times. I had regular business to attend and I wish could have gone to Athens more often. Albania was a very strange country, waking up after 45 years of brutal dictatorship under a madman Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) who completely isolated this tiny country, it is only slightly bigger than Vermont, from the rest of the world and broke relations with every country including his Communist allies in the USSR and then China for not being communist enough. No one could travel outside and very few could ever enter Albania. Now in 2007, Communism had vanished with the death of  Hoxha and the nightmare was over which led to all manner of excess. A very poor country with no paved roads, a very poor electric grid and primitive social services. It was difficult to image that to the South was the border with Greece and just across the Adriatic was Italy.  During my time the country saw much progress, there was a large US presence, there was also much investments by Austria, Germany, Sweden.

 

Great news today

Tags

Canada., EU, Europe, European Union, Free Trade, Strasbourg, Trade

Canada and the European Union ratified a Free Trade Agreement today opening our markets to the EU countries, free movement of people and goods, etc. I could not be happier with this turn of events. Many years ago as a young diplomat I was involved with NAFTA and explaining to business people how it would work for them and how to use the new agreement. Later in Mexico same thing with the establishment of free trade zones in the North of the country and Canada’s participation in it. It’s all good and that is what I took away from it, the naysayers are uninformed or have their own fantasy agenda.

Canada needs to diversify our trade and this is an excellent and big step forward. It is crucial in these turbulent, chaotic times with our trade partner in the USA that we diversify. Next will probably be a free trade agreement with China but that is in the future.

The EU-Canada or CETA deal will drop barriers between the EU’s economy of half a billion people and Canada’s 35 million. Trade between the two sides amounts to more than 60 billion euros ($63 billion) a year, and the EU expects the so-called CETA deal to boost this by 20 per cent by removing almost all tariffs.

Very good news, it took 7 years of negotiations for this to happen. PM Justin Trudeau is off to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg on this treaty ratification and then off to Berlin to see Chancellor Angela Merkel with whom he shares much in common and speak with top business leaders.

 

A 23 day adventure

Tags

Air Transat, Dublin, Europe, Hermes, Montreal, museum, Paris, Pointe à Callière

This trip started on Tuesday 6 September, it is our habit to leave one day ahead of schedule when we have to fly to catch a flight in Montreal or Toronto. Though I much prefer to fly from Montreal if possible. We do this because in Canada you never know with the weather or possible storms, Summer like Winter. We left Charlottetown on a bright sunny day, as the plane took off we could see the Hillsborough River and the entrance into the Strait of Northumberland. The island is very green and I got a better appreciation for its topography from the sky. A short flight to Montreal only 90 minutes. Always a pleasure to return to Montreal a city filled with childhood memories.

By being a day ahead we went into Montreal, my home town, to see a special exhibit presented by Hermès, the famous 179 year old French Design House. The exhibit titled Man and Horse was beautifully curated and presented the private collection of Emile Hermes 1871-1951.

We explored the private collection of Émile Hermès. For the first time in its history, Hermès of Paris has agreed to share 250 remarkable objects, which travelled from the enthusiast’s office at 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. The tremendously rich collection—in terms of both history and heritage—traces the history of the horse and its relationship with man. Until now, only a few privileged visitors have been able to see the collection. An exclusive world premiere at the Musée Pointe à Callière in Montreal. https://pacmusee.qc.ca/fr/  The Museum is located in the oldest part of Montreal, the founding site of the city, c.1642.

Duc-Carriage with horse logo

Being in Old Montreal, we also visited the Basilica Notre Dame c.1676 which is built in the French Gothic style and has been beautifully restored to show the great stain glass ceiling which brings lots of natural light into the church which can sit 3000 people.

Old Montreal, Place d’Armes with the monument to Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve 1612-1676 who with Jeanne Mance founded Montreal or Ville-Marie as it was then called. What is interesting about the origin of this great French Metropolis is the original foundation project was strictly a religious one. Ville-Marie was to be a religious settlement for the propagation of the Catholic Faith, things turned out differently.

We had a very good lunch on Place Jacques Cartier by the City Hall at Terrasse William Gray.

On Wednesday 7 September we left from Pierre-Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Air Transat for Dublin, a 5 hour 30 minute flight.

 

 

 

More reading

Tags

Austria, Empire, Europe, Guapa, Middle East, Saleem Haddad, Stefan Zweig, Vienna

I have this old habit, in the evening before going to sleep I like to read a little. Most of my reading is done in bed at night, I find this soothing and it helps me to fall asleep. In the last few weeks I have read two books by Stefan Zweig, (1881-1942), born in Vienna in a wealthy privilege family and died in Petropolis, Brazil in a suicide pact with his second wife Lotte Altmann. He was a famous writer, journalist, biographer of the first part of the 20th century and his books remain to this day great to read and give the reader wonderful insight. He also knew and was friends with all the great intellectuals of that time and do not be surprise to see him associated with so many famous people it is head spinning, Sigmund Freud, Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss, Rainer Maria Rilke and many others.

The first book was the celebrated biography of Marie-Antoinette the ill-fated Queen of France. I have already written on it in a previous post and I recommend it if you want to go beyond the fiction and the Hollywood version of her life.

The other book is the last one ever written by Zweig, The World of Yesterday. He mailed the manuscript to his editor the day he and his second wife committed suicide in Brazil.

Zweig describes himself as a European in the old world sense and at the same time a European of what we know today as the European Union. He is also an enigma for us who live at the end of the 20th and now in the 21 century. He was married for many years to Frederike Maria Von Winternitz but never mentions her in this book which covers the period from his birth in 1881 to 1925. The reader could be excused for thinking that Zweig was single, he divorced her in 1938 and she lived on until 1971.  Was he a very private man? I do not know, in The World of Yesterday he certainly speaks volume about himself and his famous friends, his work, the people he knew and frequented, his travels, about being an assimilated and integrated Jew in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he describes and analyses in minute detail the society of the time, a society which has totally disappeared now and lives on in print. You have to imagine a world, Europe, the old Empires ruled for hundreds of years by Princes and Sovereigns and then the total collapse in 1919, everything changing forever in a radical  manner with the rise in Europe of Fascism and Bolchevism in Russia.

Zweig misses the old world, what he calls the Age of Golden Security assured by an aged Emperor (Franz-Joseph) over a vast Empire comprising dozen nationalities, languages and various religions. He explains the commercial reasons for the First World War, a war promoted by French and German Armament dealers and British and German competing merchant marine. Decades of Peace in Europe, the last war was in 1870 and lasted just over 3 weeks had lulled people into believing that not much would happen in 1914. No one could imagine that by November 1918 their world would no longer exist.

Zweig did spend part of the war in Zurich in neutral Switzerland, a land of plenty in a sea of wont. He describes a scene at the end of the war in 1918, the Kaiser in Germany has already gone into exile in Holland. Zweig stands on the platform of the Train Station at the Border with Switzerland on the Austrian side, everything around him is tattered and the people look tired and sad, the defeat and fall of the Austrian Empire is dawning on them. Zweig notices how the Station is becoming crowded with people, officials and Austrian soldiers though no trains is expected, he notices a beautiful black train of highly polished cars pulling slowly into the station, it’s the Imperial train, at the window stands Emperor Karl and his wife Empress Zita who are leaving Austria and going into exile, He refused to abdicate and simply left quietly, ending the 900 year rule of the Hapsburg dynasty, Zweig notices how everyone is silent and looks embarrassed, Zweig felt at that moment that this was truly the end. The end of it for him, for the world he had known, yes and how he then maybe went into a state of deep melancholy. The years that followed will see the rise of economic difficulties, Fascism in many European countries, the great depression, anti-semitism, nazism, the rise of Communism and then the Second World War. Of course for Zweig life goes on but on a different track, having the financial means he then travels abroad fleeing the chaos of the new and territorially small Republic of Austria, he will go to England as Freud did, to North America and finally to Brazil. Despite having a new young wife Lotte Altmann, he feels he cannot re-invent himself and fears aging, the past of Old Europe haunt him.

Zweig’s Villa in Salzburg on Kapuzinerberg 5, it is a private house today.

I find Zweig to be a complex person, a highly educated, refined person, he seems to be several people at once, the great writer, the friend of the cognoscenti, living in a world at the top of the social pyramid but then the other person appears emotional, overly sentimental, detached, revealing little of his personal life, this may be simply his 19th century sensibilities, gentile upbringing of not burdening people with personal details, something unknown to us in our world of the selfie.

The other book I read was just published by a first time author Saleem Haddad, a young thirty something man. Saleem Haddad is a writer and aid worker. He was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father, and has lived in Jordan, Cyprus, Canada and the U.K. He has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and other international organizations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, and Egypt. He and his partner have a greyhound, Jack and live in London.

His book published in March is entitled Guapa, the name of a Gay underground bar. I found this novel after a friend of mine who owns a bookstore café in Jordan recommended it to me. I liked the book instantly, the story is fast moving and happens in an unnamed Arab country, I was convinced it was Damascus the Capital of Syria but the author Haddad based the city where the protagonist lives on several cities, Amman, Beirut, Cairo. He does this on purpose and it works very well, though the President Dictator reminded me of Bashar Al-Assad and his wife Asma in their description in this book, this is why I thought it might be Syria.

Guapa gives a very accurate portrait of Arab life, family and society, I recognized it instantly, I came to care about Rasa and the people around him.  Haddad says; Not naming the country also allows the story to take on a metaphorical nature: I really didn’t want to write a book that would be sold as an anthropological or political ‘study’ of one country. Instead I wanted to draw on common themes young Arabs across the region could relate to, regardless of their background. The book also shows in the narrative of the story that Arabs are not a monolithic group and the region is populated by many other people who are not Arabs.

The story of the book is about Rasa, a twenty-something-year-old gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he negotiates family, societal expectations, queerness, love, police brutality, authoritarianism, decorum, revolution, imperialist narratives, and Islamist extremism—all in the space of twenty-four hours. Throughout Rasa’s journey, the reader is thrown back into the losses, definitions, redefinitions, and rebellions that orbit his life. I would recommend reading this book for anyone who wishes to understand this part of the World and the people living in it. As they say, We are not in Kansas anymore.

 

 

 

Another bombing and no understanding

Tags

attack, Belgium, Brussels, Canada., EU, Europe, France, Paris, terror

One has to wonder about the formula Western Media is following when disaster strike. The media loves to present itself as all knowing and bringing you the facts and the real story, they repeat this constantly as if to re-enforce the fact that the public is ignorant and the so called or pseudo experts parading on the news will explain it all. What is sad is how they invariably get it wrong. Then you have the report of who died and who was injured, it is always the same nationalities, Americans, British, others are mention in passing. In Canada our news service will mention last if any Canadians were injured or died, if you listen to the French news they will only mention casualties from Quebec, the rest don’t matter. Then the Media will tell us that this or that Head of State or Government reacted to the news, usually with the same platitudes, thoughts and prayers, yeah sure.

The Media will always stir up hate against, in this case, immigrants, Muslims, and try to dress up the story as if all this could be settled if only these little people were more reasonable and not so sub-human in their behaviour. The sub-text of the news stories, they are all ingrates and no good and we did everything for them. There will be broad generalizations and gross exaggerations. One example, a group of Canadian students were travelling in the general area but a few hundred kilometres away from the incidents, so they are safe, well yes they were no were near the incident. Again the sub-text is that nowhere is safe and we should all be very afraid, in other words do not get out of bed in the morning. In this sense Canadian Media outlets and no better than any other ones. They like the spin the story in order to play on the fears real or imagine of the masses.

What I find sad about these events is how they are only widely reported if they happen in a large Western City, Frankfurt, Paris, London, Brussels. In the last few weeks other attacks have occurred in Istanbul, Ankara, Yemen, Libya, however we did not hear about them or heard very little.

Why is that? Are these attacks less important because the people involved who died or were maimed are not like us? We were Charlie after the attack on Charlie Hebdo and everyone ran out to buy a copy of the paper. Then we were Paris and now we are Brussels. It is as if changing your FB icon makes it all fine, is there nothing more intellectually lazy and self satisfied in this FB trend, but then again a sign of our facile consumer society. What does that mean? Not much really and you do not have to think about it too much.

For those who are quick to blame, note that the authors of these attacks are not immigrants, they are born and bred in Belgium and in a strange twist two of them were brothers, had long violent criminal records and were known to the Police but had no links to terrorisms apparently, though one had been arrested by the Turkish Police some time ago for being on the Syrian border area and deported back to the Netherlands and detained until the Belgium Police said they did not know the fellow despite having his criminal record, a very embarrassing situation for the police authorities.

To say that the Belgium Police is incompetent is an understatement, in the last few years several major scandals have exposed a Justice system that is dysfunctional and unable to function properly, corrupt and full of nepotism. Belgium is an economically troubled European country despite being the seat of the European Union and deeply and bitterly divided between its two linguistic communities, it barely functions as a country and again recently saw paralysis in its government with no functioning Cabinet for over a year.

France traced back the terror cell to Belgium immediately after the Paris attacks but it still took four months to find and arrest the main instigator after he had slipped numerous times through police check points in France and in Belgium.

As for these criminals and terrorists, they all come from the same isolated, marginalized, poorly educated and violent suburbs of big cities which are breeding ground for criminality. European suburbs are not pretty, it’s a dumping ground for the poor. Living in ghettoes with little hope of ever integrating main stream society. Their names, religion, colour and background make them outcasts in a Europe that has never been very good at integrating anyone who is not Old Stock National. I saw this phenomenon in Greece, Italy, Turkey, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, etc…

Someone painted Europe as this Oasis of civilization and enlightenment, however this is largely a myth based on past history, the 20th century showed us through two world wars what horrors Europeans can visit on each other. With decolonizations in the 1960’s Europe has had large social problems trying to integrate former colonials who flocked to its shore after bloody wars of independence, Algeria (France), the Congo (Belgium), two name two more notorious episodes.

The recent debacle and still un-resolved refuge crisis from Syria and other parts, Afghanistan, Iraq and Sub-Saharan Africa is still un-going and far from resolved.  Europe appears unable or unwilling to deal with any crisis. It is up to Canada to some extent to intervene with our limited means as a middle-power.

ISIS or ISIL will be defeated eventually and the threat is very present at this time, but the defeat will come only if European Police forces coordinate and work with other  National Police Forces, implementing measures to diminish the threat and hiring intelligence Officers who actually have a background in counter terrorism and the required language skills, I know many do not have those skills, laziness and indifference is often the hallmark of many European police authorities. It is apparent that despite the attacks in Europe the threat has not been taken seriously despite the assurances of various politicians who failed to take the full measure of the crisis. So far Turkey has done more than most in Europe. Jordan has also shouldered a great deal of the Humanitarian crisis.

It was revealed last week that with the announcement by President Putin that Russia was pulling out of Syria and reducing its involvement, they had been bombing the Opposition forces to President Assad of Syria, while the USA has been bombing the regular Syrian Army in the hope of toppling President Assad. So who is bombing ISIS, no one, the reason being that Iran and Hezbollah are fighting ISIS and neither the USA or Russia would help because of political differences and the future of President Assad.

As for those criminals belonging to ISIS, they have no program, no political agenda, religion is just a prop but not much more. Yes, they have been able to recruit young naive people with little life experience and little knowledge of the world. The biggest problem is marginalized youth with little prospects and no future who will fall for totalitarian ideas giving them structure they do not have in their own family milieu. It is a complex problem and it needs careful study and not facile solutions we have seen lately that some politicians have been promoting in the hope of electoral success.

One solution to defeating radicalism is to make a place for every one in our Society. Leave no one behind and integrate people no matter where they come from, make them understand that they have something to contribute. The Canadian model has worked based on our own history and traditions, an example for Europe to follow perhaps if they are capable of it, though I doubt it. There will be more attacks of course and more hand wringing and half responses.

 

 

 

 

Painting

Tags

BMAC, Canada., China, docent, Europe, Fantin-Latour, museum, NGC, Ottawa, painting, Renaissance, Song Dynasty, Zhai Wei

This week I had 3 days of duty as docent at the National Gallery of Canada. One was hosting the Wednesday Morning Lectures-Mercredis Culturels, I coordinate that program in French and in English. Then I had a school group, the students around 9 years of age where quite good and had lots of good questions and observations, the teacher was also interested and helpful, that is not always the case. We also had a training session, unfortunately the NGC is under a lot of renovations in preparation for Canada’s 150th Anniversary of Confederation. The Canadian Galleries are being completely redone, the Bookstore is getting a facelift after 27 years in the same spot. There is also some work installations in the Contemporary Galleries which are taking more and more space at the NGC and slowly eclipsing the other collections. Also all the lights in the museum are being converted to LED, apparently that is better. I also presented a work of art by Matthias Stom, Flemish School of Painting, 1630, entitled The arrest of Christ. I never know who is going to come and listen to my presentation which last about 10 minutes,”officially”. I had a father with his little daughter who was 7 yrs old and she wanted to know what a Museum guide did, she was very attentive and a little overwhelmed. I also had a couple from Spain and a Muslim lady who told me how much she loved the museum and was appreciative of my presentation. Another lady wanted to give me a tip, which I declined.

The subject of this painting from the Baroque period is religious and so I was not sure how it would go over. You cannot count on people knowing about Biblical stories or even being able to identify the Deity nowadays. At any rate I concentrate on the colours, the light and other details of the composition such as facial expression, clothing, hand gestures etc. I speak about the painter and the technique he used and then speak about the frame and how it was made. One person did ask me where this scene was taking place and another asked who was Judas. Christ is looking up towards Heaven and one person asked what is he looking at given the violence around him, I said God the Father which confused them, many do not know who that is. A bit like in another tableau where the Virgin Mary and Jesus are featured, many Renaissance paintings (1300-1600) have a strong religious subject. One fellow asked me who was that women with the baby in her arms, before I had time to answer a 9 year old who was also looking at the painting said, that’s Mary and Jesus, thank you kid and shame on the adult.

Virgin and Child with St-Anthony Abbot by Hans Memling

I take that sort of lack of knowledge as a sign of the age we live in, we think we know a lot but in fact we know nothing and understand even less. To me that is really sad and unfortunate. Quite a few people do not understand why European paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque period feature religious themes, despite the fact that the explanation fact sheet explains where it came from. There appears to be this belief that since we all know religion is bunk then why show it, it’s boring I am told. Sad really, I often have to explain that the European galleries show 900 years of paintings and through the ages style and fashion evolve and we are showing this evolution in human history. The galleries are arranged like a clock when you start you are in 1290 and when you finish at the other end its 1970, still many just don’t get it. Well I console myself, thinking if one visitor I spoke too loved it and was inspired my job is done.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of why more women come to the museum than men. I am sure there must be a thesis some where on the topic. I did observe that in Europe there are more men in Museums in general but in North America it is different, culture no doubt.

Finally, I always make a point of going through the galleries whenever I have a moment at the museum to look at what is new. In the last week I counted 15 new works on the wall. They had replaced other works, so the rotation happens more quickly now than before, the NGC can only show about 1000 works at the moment with the space we have, the basement has over 35,000 in storage. This of course is not counting the sculptures, the Diploma works of the Canadian Royal Academy, the photographies and all the sketches and prints. We do have a very rich collection.

While I was walking in the 19th century gallery, a work by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) caught my eye, entitled Roses, 1885. The simplicity of presentation and botanical accuracy of his still-life paintings prompted many critics to compare him to the 18th century painter Jean-Siméon Chardin.

What I did not know and discovered was that Fantin-Latour would pick flowers from his own garden early in the morning, arrange them and then create a painting of them. He became famous for his delicate portrayal of roses.

Les Roses, 1885 at the National Gallery of Canada.

I also noticed on the explication note that he would cover the canvas with a thin layer of transparent colour that would serve as a background- a neutral colour determined by the bouquet he wanted to paint.

During the Song Dynasty in China (960-1127) painters would do this also on their canvas applying a thin layer, with a broad brush, of black tea and ink.

Unfortunately the reflection of the glass does not help, however I purchased this in Beijing from an artist of the Chinese Central Academy of Arts, Ms. Zhai Wei. She applied a thin layer of black tea and ink before painting the little sparrows on a ficus branch, thus imitating the style of painters during the Song Dynasty.

Meal Time

Tags

daily, Europe, Food, imagination, planning, portions, shopping, Wine

The idea or inspiration for this meal time planning entry was suggested by a post from sporeflections.wordpress.com who lives vicariously in Arizona, apparently they are having an early Spring.

Many people live stressful lives and work far too much, in my humble opinion, work as a concept is highly overrated, in post-modern times we have forgotten to enjoy a meal and just relaxing about life in general. So with this in mind and since I am the generous sort here is a pragmatic little secret I share with you.

I do most of the food shopping and I shop on a daily basis instead of one giant trip to the grocery store each week. I find that every day you can plan ahead and have lots of choices on what you want to serve at meal time. I also follow the rule of Helen Corbitt (1906-1978), the head chef for many years in the kitchen of the flagship Neiman Marcus, who really believed in having a pantry with emergency supplies for guests who just appear. She had a long list of items but oh so practical.

Usually by 8am I know what I am serving that day for dinner or lunch or both. If people come for dinner or for lunch, we do a lot more luncheons now, I can plan a complete menu 3 days in advance, so no surprises, the secret is too keep it simple, good and enjoyable.

All you need is a bit of imagination, discipline and planning and know what works for you. I would never do a new recipe on people in the hope that it might be ok or might work or say to my guests, ”I have no idea if this is good or bad, never tried it before.”

Chef Helen Corbitt of the Zodiac Room at Neiman Marcus, Dallas

I am retired but still fairly busy each day with all manner of things to do around the house and in town. If you are really run off your feet and feel tired by the time you get home, here are some tips on what could help you along instead of going to a fast food outlet or eating frozen processed meals, which is equivalent to rat poison in my book.

The first thing to do is establish what both of you at home like to eat, that should be fairly easy. I usually buy daily a small amounts of fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes which I leave on the counter because the fridge is bad for them, apples, clementines or oranges but only a few, never a bag, in winter because of cost I will buy other fruits more of the season and not imported. Our Canadian dollar is only worth 0.67 cents US right now so it does make a difference in the final bill. Also many other green vegetables or root vegetables, I usually serve 2 vegetables minimum with a meal.

By buying selectively, I can decide ahead of time what green vegetables, root vegetables or potatoes, a variety of them, I wish to prepare with the meal. As for meat, since we have a crockpot, we can prepare spaghetti sauce, stews and soups, etc. I will get Will to tell me what he wants me to buy and then we will spend a couple of days preparing cooking dishes which can be frozen and you have a variety of things in the freezer you can pull out.

I also like to buy chicken, but never whole, parts, deboned and skinless, escalope style or thighs etc… Ham steaks or meat balls my butcher makes. I will also look at other cuts of meat or fowl. Am not buying steaks any more because of the cost again but burger meat like beef, veal, I can mix up with spices and do burgers which I can then freeze. So I have about 7 days of meals prepared ahead of time.

As for fish or seafood, given the state of the oceans nowadays, it is becoming very problematic to buy fresh or wild. Most of the stuff sold in supermarkets is from Asia or South America so do consider that it has been on the road for at least 3 weeks before it gets to you. Though I do look for product from Canada in fish and seafood, PEI being a good source well known for quality.

I also get things like good cheeses and deli meats at my butcher which is cut fresh, I do not buy the pre-packaged processed meats because of the salt content. Fresh eggs can be cooked hard boiled or you can make an omelette and this is simply enough for a lunch. Sicilian Olives because they are sweet and not vinegary and assortment of nuts, but always in small quantities because it looses its freshness quickly.

I also try hard to stick to what I like to call European portions, meaning meat is 5oz steak or pasta is no more than 100 gr. and sauce simply to cover not drown. You can serve a salad with that, dressing just olive oil or a nice gourmet dressing. These days we love blue cheese which is made by our food store and has none of those unpronounceable ingredient names. As for breads I buy small quantities daily or every 3 days, fresh, never that processed white bread stuff that looks like insulation. I do like the hard crust and dense bread.

So by shopping everyday and buying only according to what I planned, we have a diversity of things to eat. Having also a variety of prepared meals which can be reheated makes for variety every night of the week.

As for inviting people over for lunch usually on a Saturday or Sunday, I try to plan a meal that is nice but requires simple steps and everything is ready when the guests arrive. We can have a pre meal drink, to keep things easy I will offer a bubbly and some olives or radishes. I remember reading in my manual from the Hotel School in Lausanne that liquor or cocktails before meals is not a good idea since it spoils the palate for the meal to come. Since we are going to have a meal, you don’t want to ruin your guests appetite with chips and dips.

I also try to keep the desserts light, no heavy cakes or anything too rich. Usually if it is just the two of us, there is no desserts, maybe a fresh fruit not canned. If we have guests then it will be a nice sweet but something that accompanies the meal instead of fighting for first place and displacing the main dish in texture and taste. I find that serving a small glass of dessert wine is a good alternative dessert. I always think that our guests will thank us for not overloading their stomachs with too rich foods.

Images of 2016

Tags

2016, Berlin, Budapest, Canada., Copenhagen, Dresden, Europe, New Year, Niagara, Rome, Vienna

Some beautiful photos of New Year in Europe

Dresden reborn on the Elba river in Saxony.

Copenhagen, the Tivoli Gardens

Berlin, GendarmenPlatz

Berlin, Brandenburg Gate New Year’s Eve party

Budapest seen from the Danube river

Vienna, St-Stephen Cathedral

Rome

Amsterdam

Athens, the Parthenon, Greece

Canada, Niagara Falls, the horse shoe

Summer cooking

Tags

cuisine, Europe, Food, grilled tomatoes, Italy, Olive, Olive oil, spaghetti, zucchini

The one thing I liked the most when living in Italy was when you entered a restaurant there would always be a big display of Antipasto (before the meal) dishes, mostly cold cooked or grilled vegetables, always a big variety from grilled fennel to roasted tomatoes to roasted zucchini and peppers, olives and Sea food salad, grilled anchovies or sardines (the fresh fish kind).

Today for dinner tonight I made grilled zucchini and roasted tomatoes. Both are done in olive oil and not any other kind of oil, but I use the cheaper version of olive oil which  does not smoke. The expensive brand like first press or cold press extra virgin is not good for cooking. I also use fresh chopped garlic. For the zucchini I will slice them length wise using the pale green small zucchini, the dark green is also good. I wash them before cutting them and cut off the head and the tail end. Once sliced length wise I will brush them with garlic and a mix of herbs and garlic, placing them on a rack and grilling them for 25 to 30 minutes at 400 F. Keep an eye on them you do not want them to burn.

For the tomatoes, take one tomato wash it, then slice in half sideways, take out the seeds. Then put a generous amount of garlic on the tomato and pour Olive oil until it spills over the sides. I use about 9 or 10 tomatoes this way, placing them in a pyrex dish which I will then fill with no more than about one quarter inch of olive oil.

Put your dish on the stove top and turn on the heat at medium high and let it all bubble away for 15 minutes. In the meantime warm your oven to 400F. After the tomatoes have been cooking away on the stove top for 15 minutes transfer them uncovered to the oven and let it all cook for 45 minutes. Keep an eye on them you do not want them to be charred and burnt. After the cooking time is up take out and let cool on the counter. Be careful because the dish is very hot and the oil will take some time to cool down.

You can serve them cold or you can serve them hot draining the excess oil away.

DO NOT throw out the Olive Oil you used to cook your tomatoes. Once it has cooled the olive oil with all the good juices from the garlic and herbs can be used on spaghetti.

This is another authentic Italian recipe, you know the one the real Italians have back in Italy.  In fact it is such an old recipe, almost all restaurants and Mama’s use it as a family dish. This dish comes from the days when Italians could not afford meat or more fancy ingredients to make a sauce for their pasta and also you did not throw away perfectly good Olive oil used to cook vegetables, you used it into something else. The way mother’s would use the water in which they boiled vegetables to make a base for soup.

Simply cook your spaghetti pasta the way you usually do. Then drain the pasta well. Simply toss the pasta with 3 table spoons of the left over Olive oil and serve (this is for 2 persons). You can shred a few leaves of basil to add to the dish before serving. Delicious and wonderful.