The Thousand Islands

The Thousand Islands

A thick blanket of fog, a thousand tiny little lush green islands shrouded in mist, running through them an international border of world’s two powerful countries, the unobstructed panorama of Lake Ontario, draining into the historic river of St. Lawrence, a culinary mystery and a heart wrenching love story about a castle! The Thousand Islands have it all.

Some places are magical. Some are mystical. Some are mesmerizing. Thousand Islands is all three combined! If you haven’t visited the Thousand Islands, you must add it to your “bucket list” (as in the movie).

A few years ago, we used to live in Buffalo, upstate New York and decided to visit the Thousand Islands. It was a four hour drive, initially to the East on I90 towards the city of Syracuse, and then due North on I81 towards Alexandria bay. We had rented a lovely wooden cottage on a hill. The cottage had a wooden terrace with a private barbeque area overlooking the St. Lawrence river. We were less than five minutes drive from the pier from where we would board the famous cruise boat to roam around the stunningly beautiful islands.

The Islands: Technically, there are way more than a thousand islands in the area. It’s an archipelago of 1,836 islands in St. Lawrence on the border of USA and Canada. A definition of an island in this area is that it must be above water all 365 days, must be at least one square foot in size and must support at least one tree or a house. Several of the islands are so tiny, that they don't qualify.

The area between the towns of Clayton and Alexandria bay marks the Stateside and on the Canadian side is marked by the towns of Gananoque, Rockport and the city of Kingston. Incidentally, Kingston was the first capital of Canada before Ottawa. But that’s another story.

The River: The St. Lawrence River originates from Lake Ontario and flows East over three thousand kilometers via Montreal all the way to Quebec City before draining into the Gulf of St Lawrence. First Europeans arrived here from Spain, during the 16^th century in pursuit of whales and traded with native Americans. The French got here in the early 17^th century, naming the river “Rivière du Canada”. Control of the river was crucial to British strategy to capture New France. In 1759, the British sailed up to Quebec thanks to charts drawn up by James Cook, attacked and won the city. In 1959, a system of canals and locks called the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened by Queen Elizabeth II representing Canada and President Eisenhower representing the United States. This Seaway now allows ocean going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior. During the 2^nd world war, the Battle of St. Lawrence involved submarine action and Germans sank several merchant ships and three Canadian warships.

The love story: One of the major attractions on the Thousand Islands cruise, is the Boldt Castle on the Heart Island. You can explore the Castle grounds and buildings on this heart shaped island for a small fee. If you own a boat, you can also dock at Heart Island for free. There is a US customs office on the island for Canadian visitors, since going to this island is considered entering the US border.

George Boldt, who was the general manager of the famous Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York city, owned the Heart Island. In 1900, George launched an ambitious construction to build one of the largest private homes in America, a six-story castle. He also built an equally distinctive yacht house on the neighboring Wellesley Island where the Boldts had another summer home and a vast estate, with farms, canals, a golf course, tennis courts, stables, and a polo field.

However, Boldt's wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt died suddenly in 1904. George was so grief stricken that he abandoned the construction abruptly and never returned to the island. The love story of the Boldts, of the Castle, the weird Alster tower, the grim Power house, the grotto, the Yacht house with boats docking through the basement – it's a perfect setting of a chilling Hitchcock movie waiting for a thick murder mystery to unfold! In 1969 Anne Colver wrote a famous children's novel about the story called "Secret Castle".

For 73 years after Louise’s death, the castle was left exposed to the harsh winters. Thousand Islands bridge authority acquired Heart Island and the yacht house in 1977 for a dollar, but with the agreement that tourist revenue would be put into their restoration. So far, the authority has spent fifteen million dollars for improvements with a stained glass dome, marble floor and grand staircase for the castle.

There are a lot of exhibits in the castle rooms and hallways showing pictures and artifacts of the Thousand Islands region during the era in which the Boldts lived. An interesting building on the island is the Power House, built to hold a generator to supply the island. Yet another building is the Alster Tower, purposely constructed with slanting and uneven walls, ceilings, and roofs.

From the Heart Island, our river cruise took us near the Zavikon Island, featuring the world's shortest international bridge. One half of this island is in USA and the other in Canada with the world’s shortest international bridge connecting the two parts. Our tourist guide told us that if the lady of the house had a domestic argument with her husband, say for instance about ‘who should do the dishes that evening’, she can literally walk out across the international border and retire abroad for the night!

The culinary mystery: Thousand Islands are also famous for a pink to orange coloured salad dressing, which by the way is called “Thousand Island” without the “s”. Legend has it that a fishing guide's wife, Sophia LaLonde living in the Thousand Islands, made the condiment as part of her husband George's shore dinner. Actress May Irwin requested the recipe after enjoying it. Irwin in turn gave it to George Boldt who was building the Castle in the area. Boldt was the general manager of the famous Waldarf Astoria hotel. So he instructed the hotel's chef to put the dressing on the menu. Its a salad dressing based on mayonnaise, olive oil, lemon juice, orange juice, paprika, Worcester sauce, mustard, vinegar, cream, chili sauce, tomato puree, ketchup or Tabasco sauce. It may also contain finely chopped pickles, onions, bell peppers, green olives, hard-boiled egg, parsley, pimento, chives, garlic, and chopped walnuts. 

I must admit that before our trip to Thousand Islands, our family was not a great fan of this salad dressing. We had previously bought the processed food store version of the dressing and were less than inspired with its taste. But the locally made salad dressing tastes very different and it is amazing!

There are at least three competing stories around the origin of the salad dressing. A couple of New Yorkers are filming a documentary in the hope to untangle this culinary mystery. One of the film makers, Eric Roberts grew up in Syracuse hating condiments. “I hated ketchup. I hated mayo,” he says. “I didn’t put anything on anything. But my mom made this dressing one day, it was pink, it was pretty good and I loved it.”  They’re incorporating a “blind taste test,” in which they film people trying unmarked versions of the dressing associated with each of the three competing stories.

Allen Benas, who owns the “Thousand Islands inn” in Clayton with his wife, Susan, believes the story in which Sophie LaLonde, invented the dressing during a shore dinner for their fishing clients. That’s the property Allen and Susan bought in 1972 and turned into the Thousand Islands Inn. He says he found LaLonde’s original recipe in the inn’s safe when he took over. “We have proof. We have the recipe.” He doesn’t give it out of course, in part because the Thousand Islands Inn bottles its own!

by Sachin Kulkarni, 26^th May 2014, London.

Naples and the island of Capri

Naples and the island of Capri

As far as family vacations go, we prefer to do our own research and book a vacation usually to one place which we like to discover at our own place rather than join one of those managed tours where the idea is to pack several attractions in a very short period of time and as a consequence, not have the flexibility to explore what you really like. However, with our demanding jobs we signed up going to Italy on a ten day managed tour to Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Milan, Naples and Capri. I will write about most of these places in my future blogs, but of the entire Italian tour, in my view, Capri beats the rest of the locations hands down.

Capri is a little island nestled in the Gulf of Naples. The most economical way to get to the island is to sleep the night before in Naples (Capri is very expensive to live) and then get a Ferry or a Hydrofoil to Capri in the morning. That’s what we did.

By the time our tour coach entered the crowded city of Naples, it was early evening. Our tour guide had oversold how wonderful our hotel would be that night, how it was steeped in history, and how it served one of the most authentic Italian dinners in Campania.  The dinner was to be outdoors under the historic grand foyer of the hotel at 7 p.m., which would give us just about enough time to check in, freshen up and show up for dinner. At half past six, our coach stopped abruptly before pulling into the hotel entrance. There was chaos with police cars, fire brigade trucks, an ambulance and a lot of excited and anxious Italian people on site. Our coach stopped a hundred yards before the entrance and the driver disappeared into the chaos to figure out what was going on. Every now and then we saw glimpses of him and his animated gestures conversing with the police as he would shake his head from side to side in disbelief. A policeman stood by the coach to ensure that none of us got out to add to the chaos. Italians speak very fast as it is. But the excitement of the situation meant they spoke even faster, not that I would have understood even if they spoke very slowly. After a good 15 minutes, our driver came back explaining the situation in Italian to our tour guide, who then translated for us.

Apparently, just half an hour ago, that historic restaurant foyer under which we were to have the exotic dinner, had collapsed suddenly destroying all the dinner tables, chairs and the furniture underneath. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt apart from a waiter who sustained a minor injury as he was coming out of the restaurant kitchen to set up the dinner tables. The hotel owner was too overwhelmed to check in any new guests that night – not that we trusted the safety of the remainder of his building anyway.

After a few frantic phone calls, our coach was diverted to another hotel for the night. The only decision criteria were A) that they had 45 rooms available at a short notice and B) that the hotel building was as “new” with as little “history” as possible. As we checked in, just about every co-passenger verified that the hotel was built in the last ten years. We had no way of finding out how our new dinner compared to what we were going to have that evening, but the Italian Pinot Noir was excellent and the risotto was sumptuous. The important thing was that the dinner was indoors with a brand new concrete ceiling above us that did not collapse during the course of our dinner.

Naples is traditionally credited as the home of the most famous Italian dish – Pizza. Apparently, Margherita pizza was named after ‘Queen Mergherita of Savoy’ after her visit to the city of Naples where she tasted this little known local dish called a Pizza cooked traditionally in a wood-burning oven, and fell in love with it.  The ingredients of the Neapolitan pizza (meaning Pizza from Naples) have been strictly regulated by law (!) and must include a certain type of flour, yeast, natural mineral water, peeled or fresh cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, Mediterranean sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil.

Italians pronounce Naples as Napoli, which derives its name from the ancient Greek word Neapolis meaning the "new city". Naples is the capital of the Italian region of Campania and the 3^rd largest city after Rome and Milan with about 4 million people. As we explored Naples, I found a lot of similarities with India. For starters, the weather is relatively hot and so the sky is light blue with white clouds. Most of the citizens live in crowded apartment buildings with clothes hanging out to dry from the apartment windows and terraces. I found Italian drivers to be as aggressive as Indians with little or no regard to pedestrians crossing the streets. In the midst of this concrete jungle, there were plenty of palm trees and apartment buildings had their walls decorated with naturally growing bougainvillea (a common colourful creeper also found in India). 

Capri on the other hand, is much more affluent and therefore has much bigger villas rather than crowded apartment buildings.

 

Naples is at the base of the famous volcanic mountain Mount Vesuvius. Vesuvius has erupted many times since 1800 BC. In the year of 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted in one of the most catastrophic and famous eruptions of all time. It spawned a deadly cloud of molten rock, ash and fumes to a height of 33 kilometers and lava releasing a hundred thousand times the energy of the Hiroshima bombing. The town of Pompeii was almost instantaneously buried under 6 to 10 meters of lava including around 20,000 people living in it. Since then, Pompeii is one of the world’s most interesting archeological sites, now declared as a UNESCO world heritage to be preserved with great care.

Since 79 AD, the volcano has erupted at least 30 times until 1631, six times in the 18^th century, eight times in the 19^th century and in 1906, 1929, and 1944. Therefore the fact that Mt Vesuvius will erupt again is absolutely certain. Apparently when it erupts, the citizens of Naples will have an average of 9 minutes to evacuate themselves to safety. Why on earth would 4 million people live in a crowded city at the base of such a dangerous and active volcano site, defies all logic. 

The following morning, our coach climbed most of the way up Mt. Vesuvius. From the coach car park, it was a good forty minute climb to reach all the way to the top. Once we were on the rim of the giant volcanic crater, we could clearly see plumes of smoke coming out just fifty meters away from us. It was a pretty scary sight. The whole scene reminded me of one of my favourite movies ‘Dante’s Peak’ starting Pierce Brosnan. The only solace was that there were lots of seismographic monitors installed everywhere to give an early warning should there be any volcanic activity.

We bought a few specimens of volcanic rocks from the local souvenir shop. I missed my dad who would have loved the sight since he majored in Geology for his Bachelor of Science and to this day remains fascinated about rocks despite that fact (or probably because of it) that he chose a profession that has nothing to do with geology.

We came down from Mt Vesuvius and headed straight to the Naples harbour. If you are in a hurry and don’t mind spending a bit, you can get on a hydrofoil boat, which would get you to the Port of Marina Grande of Capri, in about 45 minutes. A hydrofoil is a watercraft which as its speed increases, lifts up its hull out of the water reducing the drag, thus further increasing its speed. Its can be a bit rough but if you like speed you’d love it. Most people travel on the bigger ferries which are very comfortable and get you on the island in about 75 minutes.

Once at the harbour of Capri, a mini-bus takes you up the mountain, to the only town on the island also called Capri. The panoramic views of the azure blue waters and all the boats parked around the island are absolutely breathtaking. The views reminded me of another Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep movie, ‘Mamma Mia!’ which was shot from the hills of another Mediterranean Greek island of Skopelos. (I’d recommend the movie if you like Abba songs.) As we were climbing up, the weather was turning cloudy and we saw the storm coming in. 

We had about three hours for lunch and to explore the town. There were some very interesting shops. Like this one where a dining table opens up to also become a leisure games table. We loved the chinaware and fine glass article shops. My wife and daughter bought glass bead necklaces and I bought a paid or glass cuff links as souvenirs. 

Several shops sold extra virgin olive oil and lemon cider in attractive shaped bottles. I had tasted apple cider before, but lemon cider was new to me, apparently a specialty of the island of Capri.

 

As a family, we love Italian food and we’ve had all kinds of pizzas and pastas in some of the finest restaurants in the world. But the spinach cheese ravioli at the Al Picollo restaurant in the square of La Piazetta, (the little square – the most famous square of the town of Capri) trounced the tastiest ravioli I have ever had. Over lunch, we had a chat with a couple sat on the adjacent table. The husband was French and the wife was Scottish. Both were management consultants in a multinational and were on a three month sabbatical to de-stress themselves and enjoy the island of Capri in their little boat. They said that on the ‘continent’, it was very common to take 3 months off after every 5 years of continuous work. By the way, most continental Europeans also get 6 weeks of vacation every year. After lunch I did a quick mental math and said to my wife, “We need to take an 18 month sabbatical for the 21 years of continuous work we have put in so far, with an average of 3 weeks annual holidays…” She violently agreed with me.

By late afternoon, as we came down the mountain to the pier, it was raining hard and the pier was now closed. We were seriously disappointed. This would mean we would not be able to go around the island and see the famous caves of ‘Blue Grotto’ which was perhaps the best attraction for a one day tour of Capri. I saw the disappointed look on my daughter’s face but she said, she understood. I seized the opportunity to demonstrate my initiative and leadership by negotiating through our tour guide with a local fisherman who was desperate to earn the day’s wages. He agreed to take his boat out to sea for about fifteen of us brave enough to come along while the weather was coming down.

It turned out to be a big mistake! That boat ride felt like the longest thirty minutes with all the three children aboard getting sick, all the six women aboard shrieking all the time, with four of the men losing their caps blown away by the wind and the remainder two men losing their cameras while trying to hold their ground as the boat rocked violently, initially from side to side, and then even more violently, from the bow to the stern, with water gushing in at every dip. We saw some wonderful waterfalls, natural caves, the Blue Grotto and just about managed to come back one piece. But with all that rocking and through the thick cloud and rain, we did not have great pictures to prove it was a worthwhile adventure. Unfortunately, for the rest of our Italian tour, I wasn’t very popular with the co-passenger families, especially the six ladies who believed I had put them and their children’s lives in a harms way with my initiative and situational leadership.  

  

Hey ho, such are the vicissitudes of this, our sublunary existence!

 

by Sachin Kulkarni, Pune 18^th April 2014.

The French Riviera

The French Riviera

While I have consistently failed to predict French pronunciations, I have resigned to the fact that no French word should be pronounced the way it is spelt. The French city of “Nice” is no exception. It is pronounced as “Niece”. It’s an incredibly beautiful city in the French province of Cote d’Azur, on the Riviera, close to the Franco Italian border. While fun has no age limit, one should really visit the Riviera while you are young. I was fortunate to have been sent on a work assignment in Nice, during my late twenties.

 

My assignment was in a town called Sophia Antipolis, southwest of Nice. Sophia is a giant business park created with the intent of becoming the French equivalent of “silicon valley”. The who’s who of major European businesses are represented here – computing, electronics, biotechnology, IT and other high tech companies. As a result, the population is a lot more multi-cultural and multi-lingual compared to the rest of France, albeit still largely continental European.

In the south of France, particularly along the Mediterranean, the weather is just perfect! Over two hundred and twenty absolutely gorgeous sunny days a year, azure blue waters and fresh sea breeze, incredibly long sandy beaches, comfortable temperatures from 6 to 28 degrees Celsius and on average 6 weeks holidays a year to enjoy it all! Of course what makes these beaches famous, are the stunning sun-kissed Mediterranean blondes dotting the sand and in every beach café, making the whole scene way better than “Baywatch”.

Beside the beach runs a wide, pedestrian walkway with intermittent steps leading down to the beach. A parade of roller-bladers, joggers, and sun-baskers strolls its pavement, looking out over the hypnotic blue expanse of the sea.

The whole area of Cote d’Azur has a certain mystique about it. The nearby city of “Cannes” (pronounced “Kaan”) is famous for its international film festival. The city of “Antibe” (pronounced “Awnteeb”) is famous for its hills with panoramic views of the sea and by consequence, for its massive multi-million Euro celebrity houses. The hilly area of Antibe, combined with its celebrity image, gives it a very Hollywood like feel.

My employer, a technology consulting multinational, had just opened its offices in Sophia. We had hired Jean-Pierre, to run the local operations, perhaps the most well networked individual in the area. He was the vice mayor of the town. As the vice mayor, Jean-Pierre had two constitutional rights. He could arrest anyone at once or get a consenting couple married (i.e. the right of the police and that of a priest). I thought that was handy!

Jean-Pierre suitably impressed the executive management team of my employer by getting the local business community of Sophia to attend our inaugural event where we articulated our value proposition and outlined our consulting services. This was followed by wine and hors’d’oeuvres. The event had an excellent coverage from the famous local newspaper Nice-Matin (pronounced Niece Mataa). By late evening, we had at least a hundred potential and a dozen qualified leads. Within the next three weeks, we had signed a letter of intent with our first client – Robertet, a perfume factory – (pronounced Robertey with the French R).

Up until that point, I had worked for global Banks and Insurance clients. However, understanding the requirements of a perfumery was interesting. Their entire IT department had 2 people, a bunch of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and an IBM AS/400 server, which they had bought a couple of years ago, but no one quite knew how to use it. They wanted me to give them a “fixed price” proposal to automate their entire supply chain from inventory management through to purchasing to accounting. They obviously wanted the proposal within a week!

The requirement gathering process started with a leisurely tour of the perfume factory, where they explained (in French), how nearly four thousand ingredients are procured, carefully tagged and stored at the right temperatures, and mixed in the right quantities, to produce their award winning perfumes. Language was a big problem. My knowledge of French was limited to ordering a Pizza (“Une Pizza avec quarto fromagé sil vous plais”, followed by a “merci boku madame”, followed by a “bon appétit monsieur”, usually concluding in an “au revoir”). Every time I would ask a question to clarify the requirements, they would just give me another tour of their manufacturing process, repeating the whole explanation in French and broken English. The one week deadline was fast approaching. By now I had completed seven tours of the factory, peered over those French Excel spreadsheets many times over, and was nowhere near producing a credible proposal.

I suppose on the positive side, they had given us three 50ml free perfume samples at the end of each tour. These were perfumes that would not be on the market for at least another year. Having been exposed to all possible sweetest fruity, flowery and spicy odors that exist on the planet, my olfactory sense was greatly enhanced. It’s a bit like what would happen to your taste buds if you grew up marooned on a remote island surviving on coconuts and sea weed, and then suddenly invited to a seven course dinner after being rescued by the world’s biggest luxury cruise ship!

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, I was relaxing on the deck chairs next to the swimming pool of my hotel, along with an Irish American couple from Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Schlieper. A gorgeous blonde in her early twenties walked to the swimming pool, took off her bathrobe and swam in the pool in the nude. The French are completely relaxed about nudity. Later that evening, I went to the local markets with the Schliepers to buy a plaster of Paris mask, as a souvenir from Cote d’Azur. The whole time that evening, Mrs. Shlieper was complaining how indiscreet and inappropriate it was, for the French woman to bathe in the nude. While she was busy complaining, she wore shorter than thigh length shorts, a dress completely acceptable in balmy Cote d’Azur, but which I knew would be highly indiscreet and inappropriate in many parts of the world. I chuckled to myself at the irony of the whole situation.

Within a few weeks, we had realized that despite Jean-Pierre’s excellent networking skills and contacts, he was a local politician, not a businessman. He certainly did not know the first thing about running an information technology consulting business. However, it was interesting working with him. Jean-Pierre was so well connected, that walking with him from our office to the local restaurants, a five minute walk, would take half an hour. I obviously didn’t follow most of the French conversations, but through the body language I could tell that people were sharing with him their personal, family, or professional problems and asking for his favors. Jean-Pierre would oblige every man and woman in his husky, yet reassuring voice and they would invariably leave with a grateful smile. Although no one kneeled and kissed his hand, I had a feeling as if I was walking along side Merlin Brando or Robert de Niro from the “Godfather”.

One sunny Friday afternoon, as we sat down for an extended business lunch at an Italian restaurant in Sophia, it suddenly occurred to me that we were not that far from Italy (Nice is near the Italian border). The mixed aroma of cheese, olive oil and wine reminded me of the Louis restaurant where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) kills Sollozzo and McClusky. I had a strong desire to go to the toilet and check if a gun was taped behind the toilet flush.

The oval table was nicely decorated with laced crisp white table-cloth, large wine glasses and silver cutlery except the forks were on the right and the knives on the left. Which was just as well, because I am left handed and therefore used to eating the French way. For once, I would not be frowned upon.

While there were several prominent business personalities, the main celebrity at the lunch was the Mayor. The chatter in the restaurant dropped momentarily to a whisper, to acknowledge the Mayor, a man in his early fifties, as he walked in. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but built strong, with a spotty tanned skin. He sported a milky white French beard. As he took off his French hat, revealing his hair dyed jet black, in stark contrast to his beard, he took the time to look around him – his small, inquisitive grey eyes searching every man’s expression in the room from behind his rimless glasses that drooped on his nose brim. Once he settled down, he called for the sous chef to discuss and select the best bottle of red wine from the restaurant’s cellar.

Until that day, I considered myself at least wine literate. I thought I knew enough about wines to sit at a French lunch and participate in the conversation. Having lived in USA, Australia and the UK, I had been to a few wine tasting events and blind folded, I could at least tell what grape it was, eighty percent of the time. I knew the difference between a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Merlot and a Pinot Noir (unless of course it was a blend – the edge of my wine competence). I knew about famous wine regions and had read about famous vineyards. I knew that certain years were good since that year, the combination of sun, rain and humidity was most conducive to produce the best quality grape. I could tell how dry or sweet a wine was and whether it was light or heavy. However, what I witnessed in that restaurant in Nice, proved beyond doubt that I was a complete novice. From that day, I stopped showing off my knowledge about wines, even with friends.

The sous chef brought a dusty bottle of a most special wine from his cellar downstairs. One of those, preserved for a special occasion like this; and poured a very small quantity for the Mayor. The Mayor tilted his glass all the way down so it touched the table and then turned it a full circle, such that the wine created a thin line along its brim. He then carefully lifted the glass, held it at an angle against the light, cocked his head, scrunched his eyes and examined whether the wine was of just the right viscosity. While everyone was pretending to carry on their conversation, they all had an eye on the result of Mayor’s scrutiny. As the audience saw the mayor’s approving smile, they relaxed once more, in the knowledge that the lunch would now be a success.

Most of the lunch conversation revolved around what type of wine goes with which kind of cheese, the grand prix at Monte Carlo and the Nice carnival. The mayor boasted about his wine cellar being the best in town and how he was once interviewed by a vintner (winemaker) to establish whether or not the Mayor deserved his exquisite wine before he was even prepared to sell it. The Mayor then went on to describe how he felled that bottle in his cellar for the exact period of time, at the exact temperature and humidity for it to mature to its peak potential. He talked about his cellar as if it was Alibaba’s cave, clearly his most priced possession. I had read and heard about the French being true wine connoisseurs. However, this conversation was clearly bordering on a wine obsession.

As a globe trotting IT consultant, I cannot say that Nice was my most professionally successful assignment. However, I came back knowing a thing or two about how to live a good life!

by Sachin Kulkarni, London 23^rd March 2014.

Guangzhou - the Pearl of China

Guangzhou - the pearl of China

As I was growing up in India, in my school text books, the only things I learnt about China, were that they have farmers who work hard in the fields to grow lot of rice while wearing their pointy wooden hats, that they drink lot of tea, eat really fast with their chopsticks, and that a Chinese scholar called Hsuan Tsang, had come down to India during the 6th century to visit the ancient university of Nalanda. That image of China is so inadequate and antiquated…

Today, if you visit Beijing, she offers an explicit message about China’s strategic importance (http://sachinrkulkarni.blogspot.com/2014/02/beijing.html). Shanghai displays China’s economic and infrastructural progress epitomized by the ever changing skyline of Pudong. (http://sachinrkulkarni.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-smart-city-of-shanghai.html). However, if you care to look behind the façade of the modern infrastructure to try and understand real China, and its culture, with all the vibrant customs and traditions of one of the world’s most ancient civilizations, I would recommend you a visit to Guangzhou, in south east China.

Guangzhou is China’s 3^rd largest city with a population exceeding 15 million. It’s a port city on the Pearl river delta, bordering the islands of Hong Kong and Macau. In the 19^th century, opium trade started through the Guangzhou port, opening an era of foreign incursions into China. Macau became a Portuguese colony, Hong Kong was conquered by the British, and Kwang-Chou-Wan ceded to the French. In the second world-war, Japanese troops severely bombed and occupied Guangzhou. The imperial Japanese army doctors experimented on human prisoners. Having endured these invasions, the city bounced back with the determination and the work ethic Chinese are known for, and rose dramatically to an extraordinary eminence.

Guangzhou is the capital of the Guangdong province. Guang in Cantonese means "vast", and Dong means "East" so the province is a vast expanse in the East. Guangdong’s GDP increased from $4 billion in 1980 to nearly $1 trillion by 2012, representing a 25,000% increase over three decades, making it the richest province with the most billionaires in mainland China. 

As you look past the shopping malls, the metro, the bullet train and step beyond the impressive skyline of the Zhujiang new town where most of Guangzhou’s expats live, the city slowly starts to reveal its culture. As an Indian, I found great similarities between ‘Mumbai’ and ‘Guangzhou’. Just as the citizens of ‘Mumbai’ restored its original name from ‘Bombay’ since the latter had the undertones of ‘The British Raj’, citizens of ‘Guangzhou’ insist on using the transliterated original Chinese name, rather than the colonial name of the city – ‘Canton’.

Although majority of the local population speaks ‘Cantonese’, due to the influx in the last three decades of millions of ‘Mandarin’ speaking domestic immigrants, the dominance of Cantonese has diminished. This is just like the invasion of ‘Gujarati’ and ‘Hindi’ communities in the ‘Marathi’ speaking Mumbai, the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra.

When I visited Guangzhou, the city was gearing up to celebrate the Chinese new year, a two week holiday with traditional food and family gatherings. This is the time people leave to visit their hometown or go on vacation, just like 'Diwali' in India. And just like Diwali, there are fireworks to scare off the evil. The loudest and longest displays are on the 1^st and 15^th days. Fireworks are not organized and regulated like the firework shows in London on the Guy Fawkes Night or on 31^st December. It’s more like India where anyone with a few Yuan in his pocket can light them wherever and whenever they like. On the 15^th day, there is a lantern festival where paper lanterns are hung and lit to welcome and guide the new, good spirits into your life. Again, I found this remarkably similar to the ‘Akash Kandils’ during Diwali in India. Here is the Chinese and Indian comparison (respectively) in pictures.

Every day of the new year holiday has a special significance and a different traditional food. People clean their homes before the new year, purchase new clothes and shoes – clearing out the old and making way for the symbolic new. The 1^st day is the welcome of the deities of the heavens and earth, beginning at midnight. Its traditional to light fireworks, burn bamboo sticks and to make as much of a din as possible to chase off the evil spirit of Nian. (I find this tradition similar to the Indian festival of Holi – especially the fire and making noise.) This is also the day Chinese honor their elders. Families visit the oldest and most senior members of their extended families, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. Elder members of the family give red envelopes containing cash, as blessings to suppress the aging and challenges in the coming year, to junior members of the family. Business managers give bonuses through red packets to employees.

On the 2^nd day, married daughters visit their parents, relatives and close friends. Some celebrate this as the birthday of all dogs and remember them with special treats. The 5^th day is the god of wealth's birthday and people shoot off firecrackers to get Guan Yu's attention, thus ensuring his favor and good fortune. (This is just like the 'Laxmi Pooja' prayer of the god of wealth during Diwali.) The 7^th day is known as Renri - the day when everyone grows one year older. For Chinese Buddhists, this is a day to avoid meat commemorating the birth of Sakra, lord of the devas. On the 8^th day, employers host a party for their employees, thanking them for the work they have done for the whole year.

The legend has it that on the 9^th day, Hokkien Chinese were spared from a massacre by Japanese pirates by hiding in a sugarcane plantation. Since sugarcane literally means thank you in the Hokkien dialect, Hokkiens offer sugarcane to each other, symbolic of their gratitude. (The concept is similar to the Indian festival of 'Makar Sankanti' where you offer sesame seeds and jaggery known as ‘til-gul’). On the 13^th day, people eat vegetarian food to cleanse themselves after two weeks of partying. This is the day of the Chinese God of War who represents loyalty, strength, truth, and justice. On the 15^th day, people eat traditional rice dumplings (tangyuan) – a sweet rice ball brewed in a soup. Candles are lit outside houses as a way to guide wayward spirits home. Families walk the streets carrying lighted lanterns.

Talking of not so nice examples of some Indian and Chinese similarities, I saw Chinese people spit on the street. This is sometimes accompanied with stomach-churning throat retching. I saw children go to the toilet in the streets with no shame. By the way, they don’t have western toilets in China. Most toilets are the ‘squatter style’, which doesn’t unnerve someone like me who grew up in India but as you can imagine, requires a lot of getting used to, for the average Westerner. Around Zhujiang or Tianhe districts, in any restaurant or bar hoping for Western clientele, you will find Western style toilets. Mosquitoes in Guangzhou are an unavoidable and a highly uncomfortable part of the visit. They seem to hone onto new, foreign flesh with relish. They are tiny so you don’t feel them, until you feel the throbbing and itching mounds they leave behind. The worst time is obviously the sweltering humid summer months and especially at night. (another Indian similarity!)

Taxis in Guangzhou are numerous and cheap. Every taxi has a tiny printer that chugs the receipt out at the end of the ride. You should always take the receipt or ‘fapiao’. That way, you have the identification of the taxi, which in a large city is absolutely vital. One of my British colleagues once forgot his laptop bag in his taxi. Using the fapiao, within 15 minutes our hotel concierge called the taxi company and the laptop was returned. The other care to take is, while crossing the road. An average Chinese driver does not respect pedestrians, even at clearly marked pedestrian crossing. (yet another Indian similarity!)

By the way, you must always carry with you a piece of paper with your destination written in Chinese characters. At the Guangzhou airport, I tried to tell the cab driver to take us to the Hilton Baiyun hotel. Baiyun is a district in the North of Guangzhou named after the famous Baiyun mountains and Hilton is of course Hilton – a major international hotel chain. He didn't understand anything. What I came to know later, is that Cantonese people refer to "Hilton" as "Seeitan". Just like "Coke" in Cantonese is pronounced as "Kha Kha Kha La" (Chinese version of Coca Cola). Here is a picture of the Hilton Baiyun.

Cantonese is a hard language to learn, when you take into account different tones which can completely change the meaning of a word and the thousands of Chinese characters which are hard to remember. For example the word Tsat which means number 7, if mispronounced can mean “ugly”, “shameful” or a “boner” and Gau which means number 9, if mispronounced can mean “dog”, “dumbass” and other bleep-censored vulgar meanings. So you never want to stay in a hotel room with either a ‘7’ or a ‘9’ in the room number – and you certainly wouldn’t want to risk calling the room service from that room!

Living in Guangzhou converts most seasoned meat eaters overnight into Vegetarians. The Chinese eat anything that swims, crawls, wriggles, walks and flies. They eat it mostly after the animal has stopped moving but that is not always necessary.(!) Seeing turtles served from an icebox at a local football game confirms this. The western way of eating meat in a nice cellophane packaging with pretty pictures is not the norm here. The first test is traveling into town and seeing pigs and ducks packed tightly in a poorly maintained van, rocking and reeling as it cruises down the highway. That ruins your appetite. The next test is when you visit the local fresh produce market. Here you will find chickens squawking angrily, feathers flying; turtles in bubbling baths nodding their heads sadly; and shallow tubs crammed full of gulping fish in the process of dying. Some of the sites are too graphic than I care to describe in this blog but the whole cruelty of killing unfolds right in your face. There are the markets with bowls of insects, deep fried and freshly stir-fried; piles of dried and desiccated carcasses you would never want to see; fish head soup; entire glazed ducks hanging in restaurant windows. I am a vegetarian by choice. By my otherwise carnivore colleagues, also gagged at these scenes.

The Guangzhou metro is efficient, clean, well connected to all the main parts of the city, including the airport, key train and bus stations. The system is easy to use, with its simple ticket machines and English announcements. Its really inexpensive, just 40 Yuan to travel for a couple of hours. Travel at off-peak times, and you should have no problem getting around the city. However, at rush hour times, weekends and big sporting events, the Metro is as bad as the Mumbai local trains. As the doors open, masses of people push off the train while an equal, sometimes greater, mass of people push on. There is no distinction made for the elderly or children. It is an unmannerly survival of the fittest in which bodies bounce off bodies. It is shockingly physical with indifferent elbows and fists pushing into your back. Most Westerners find this completely unnerving. However, I found myself quickly recalling my old acquired skills of boarding Mumbai rush hour local trains.

From the south Guangzhou railway station, I went to Shenzhen on the famous bullet train that runs at 305 km/hour. I must admit that station is better than most international airport terminals and is absolutely massive. 

The only problem is, not all documentation is in English. I have no idea what this arrow meant but I followed it anyway to board my train. 

The only familiar thing was this fast food chain shop with “Bruce Lee” as its logo. There are fewer McDonalds and KFCs then the Western media lead you to believe. Starbucks is the most prevalent American chain, with over a thousand branches in China. But be prepared to enunciate the word “tall” very clearly in Starbucks as to Chinese people it sounds like “two” and it can result in unexpected extra coffees.

In conclusion, let me share another Indian and Chinese similarity. Chinese names have a meaning, significance, layers of family history and parental expectations (like Indian names). You are not just given a random Chinese name. Most Westerners get given a name either because their parents like it, or it was inherited from an older family member. Most of my Chinese colleagues and clients also have another English name. My Chinese friends tell me that this is to make it easier to communicate with a Westerner. Likewise, if as an expat you wish to live locally, you are encouraged to adopt a Chinese name. Next time I go to China, I intend to acquire a Chinese name. So please don’t be alarmed if I sign off my next blog as Shen Wong!

by Sachin Kulkarni, London. 8^th March 2014