Intimidating, moi?

They find it intimidating said J.  Funny but I’ve never seen myself as intimidating, kinda pathetically wimpy yes, but how could anyone find my scattered and clumsy self intimidating?  Let me explain.  Having lived in this little place for the best part of a year I’ve become a bit of a local face and the Trevisans are getting curious about me and my life. 

After the usual where are you from, what are you doing here etc comes who do you live with?  I live alone.  Do you cook and clean yourself?  Yes.  And who manages your money?  I do. What happens if you don’t have enough? I budget but if you need money who do you ask?  No one I deal with it.  My colleague J is in much the same position and last Tuesday taking advantage of an early finish for both of us, we mused over the strange reactions we get over a little too much red wine. 

I’ve already recounted in an earlier post the delayed nest leaving here in Italy (http://rajisphere.blogspot.com/2011/10/bamboccioni.html) and now  I'm no longer surprised when Italians tell me that they live at home, get all their meals cooked for them and their washing done.  What is surprising are the many untruths or half truths I've been told about domestic arrangements.  Guys (and I have to say it’s almost exclusively guys) have told me they live with flatmates only for those flatmates to be parents.  Another proudly told me he had moved out and was now finally living alone – he'd moved next door into an apartment bought by his parents thus allowing him to go home for dinner every evening (I bet cleaning duties are left to mother as well.)  When another told me he was living with his girlfriend I had to tell him that I don’t regard driving over to his girlfriends place with a bag of washing every weekend as living with her and yes the rest of the week was spent living with mum and dad.  It doesn't take long for these little half truths to unravel which just serves to make me think you’re a bit of a tool – I mean at least be honest and acknowledge how lucky you are to have parents willing to help you out or even say I like living at home.

      

So, why this bending of facts?  Well according to J, so strange do the locals find our kind of independence and self reliance that they find it intimidating.  Could it be that at some level the average stay at home Italian feels a bit silly to be still at home?  There is mutual incomprehension between the likes of me and the majority of Italians that I meet.  They do not understand how I’m happy to function so independently and I, well I wonder where in hell is it ok to expect your parents to continue funding you into adulthood?  J recounted to me the tale of one of her students, during the lesson she mentioned the use of an ATM card and one of her students commented “I don’t have one”  J made herself clearer, no not a credit card but just a normal bank card “I don’t have one.”  But how do you get money out of your account asked J “I don’t have a bank account.”  But how do you get your money? “My parents give me money.”  This student is not 14 but 25 – how can you be 25 and not have a bank account? How can you be 25 and still expect to get pocket money from your parents?  No wonder they find the likes of us so alien.     

No place like home?

It is Italy?

It’s an old joke (with a hint of truth) among my friends but the mere thought of a place has me excited – mention Mongolia and I’m already looking up the monthly rent for a centrally located, fully furnished yurt. As well as finding travel exciting I also enjoy the challenges of setting up in a new place – of putting myself in a situation where I have no job, no place to live and no friends and getting on with it.  There's always a sense of triumph after a hard few months when I stop and realise that I’ve done it.  But it’s the staying that always proves the problem.  Wherever I have travelled I’ve always tried to imagine what it would be like to live there and what kind of life I would make.  I’m drawn to so many places; I can see myself living on a sleepy Hong Kong island like Cheung Chau and commuting to the main island for work, drinking in the many bars of the mid levels and exploring the down and earthy Mongkok.  In Buenos Aires I’d be living in the bohemian suburbs of Palermo or San Telmo, wondering the many junk yards, frequenting melongas and seeing a therapist (when in Rome and all.)  In Japan I’m split between  Tokyo – where I would choose to make home in the punky Koenji or the small mountain town of Koya San where there isn’t too much to do beyond enjoying the gorgeous mountain surrounds.  There aren’t many places that I have visited that I couldn’t see myself in -Brisbane being the one that comes to mind.  For the last few years life for me has been full of travels to far off and largely wonderful places and as much as I have loved travelling (and still do) now I'm yearning for home, a place to put down some roots. But just what is a home and in my case where the hell is it?  My family are in the UK my closest friends are largely in Australia and I’m now living and working in Italy. 

The Indian term for a mixture of spices used in cooking is masala and in many ways that’s how I see myself, a little of this and a bit of that.  Many of the Italians I meet ask me what am I?  British, Indian, Australian and if I’m honest I’m not sure myself.  I grew up in the UK but have spent all of my adult life in other countries.  The majority of the last twelve years have been in Australia and there is an easy friendliness to Australia that I connect with.  Now I’m living in Italy and even though I love my time here I suspect that I want the world to function a bit too much to be Italian.  While I feel very at home here in Treviso and Melbourne has a big piece of my heart the one place I don’t feel connected to is where I grew up.  Not that it’s a terrible place – it isn’t.  I love to visit the galleries of London, and the Lake District is a gorgeous part of the world, but aside from dearly missed family, I simply don’t feel connected to the place anymore.  Of the things that define who you are very few are British for me:  my favourite bands are Australian, authors are Japanese and American, hell I even consider Vegemite the superior yeast extract.  Last night a Venetian chum pulled my date aside and said “she’s Venetian” (although that could be down to the fact I like a drink.)   

Or is it Australia?

My recent return trip to Melbourne and subsequent return to Treviso has brought all this into focus.  Stepping off the plane into a steamy Melbourne Christmas morning was like walking into the biggest bear hug from a trusted friend.  I realised how emotionally difficult I have found it in Treviso not being able to just go and see an old friend when times have been hard or I’ve needed someone to tell me to get over myself.  Staying in my old local and catching up with much missed friends, eating favourite foods and walking familiar streets brought home to me what a special place Melbourne is and how ridiculously good life there is.  My favourite band, the rather wonderful Blackeyed Susans are just starting their round of summer gigs and I would give anything just to sit in a bar with a coldie listening to Rob Snarski sing those great songs.  I spent a morning on a glorious Sydney beach with two close friends and their little boys.  I first met Lucas and Robbie when they were just hours old and it’s been a joy to watch them grow, develop personalities and explore the world.  In the ten months I’ve been away they’ve grown so much that I’m sad I’ve missed it and I’ve come to realise just how much I love those little guys.  My send off was so bittersweet that I began to wonder if I would ever make such lasting friendships in Italy.  Getting off the plane at Marco Polo airport after 28 hours of transit and breaking the cardinal rule of not getting on a plane after a few drinks I was feeling tired and a bit fragile.  Spaced out and waiting for the bus to I was trying to come to terms with the sudden time and temperature change when I noticed an Italian staring at me.  Just as I was preparing my most withering what’s your problem look I realised it was I who was just back from Xmas adventures himself.  I shepherded me back to Treviso where it was straight off to Ts birthday party and into my Italian life.  Back in the beauty of Italy, in my little apartment, seeing work colleges and friends, and sipping a spritz this place also feels right.     

I really just want to sit on the stoop and talk to Oscar

There is one place I really want to live and know I could call home but seeing as I’ve never found a way to get to Sesame Street I’m going to have to come up with plan b.  I wonder why I find this decision so difficult – I think it is partly because it seems so permanent and  I’m not sure if I believe in permanence anymore, all too often in my life things I have trusted and thought secure have fallen away to reveal themselves to be nothing more than thin air.  The older I get and the more places I see it gets harder to define exactly what home is. Is it a feeling or people rather than a place? With no real commitments or ties the world really is my oyster.   For all of my adult life I have been trying to negotiate this and it’s a long time to feel pulled in different directions, whether it’s just my soul getting a bit weary or maybe I’m tired of floating through the world but now I want to call a place home.

 

Ode to Yum Cha

Yummy ginger pork dumplings

An orgy of food is how I describe it to anyone unfamiliar to the delights of yum cha and it’s one of the things I have missed most during my time in Italy (after lovely friends of course.)  From the moment I booked my ticket I have been dreaming about a yum cha.  For many the big Sunday ritual is the roast dinner but for me the best Sundays were about yum cha.  Getting together with a group like minded people and sitting around a table and eating for hours. 

Originating in China yum cha was first all about tea – in Cantonese it means drink tea.  Just like the English morning or afternoon tea patrons would get together over a pot of tea accompanied by a little food, in this case dim sums (small portions of food, usually steamed or fried dumplings.) Over the years the focus has changed to the food and now yum cha is a full meal of deliciousness. Basically yum cha is a small serving of a variety of Chinese dim sum (anything from steamed or fried dumplings, barbecued pork buns, greens, taro rolls, salt and pepper squid, duck pancakes.........oh the list is endless) that are served from a trolley.  Serves usually come in multiples of three thus making a three or any multiple of the ideal yum cha group (it’s best to avoid the situation where you're fighting over the last ginger prawn dumpling.)  Freed from the tyranny of the menu each table waits for a trolley baring waiter to stop and describe the dishes they have and the diners choose to take them or wait and see what the next person brings.  Once chosen the waiter stamps a docket on your table and at the end the stamps are used to calculate the cost of your meal.  Just as its original incarnation tea is still the preferred beverage at yum cha and I personally find alcohol inappropriate with the meal, although there has been many a time when we have had to have a post yum cha digestive to help with our gluttony.

It’s strange to think of a time before yum cha but my first experience was in the winter of 2000 here in Melbourne’s Dragon Boat Palace.  From the moment I was introduced into this fabulous new world I was hooked.  My friends are split into those who like yum cha and those for whom it’s a gastronomic reason to live.  When I put the word out that I was going to be in Melbourne for Christmas and a yum cha was definitely on the agenda most wrote back with vague agreements these are not the people to go to yum cha with.  A few days into my stay I bumped into R a woman who is as committed to eating as me.  On mentioning the magic words her eyes lit up and suddenly all plans and arrangement for the next day were cancelled – this is the kind of person I want.  Joined by T a yum cha virgin we headed out to the Gold leaf Chinese restaurant out in the hinterlands of Preston. 

Inside the glorious gaudiness of the restaurant with it revolving golden lights was augmented with tinsel and other Christmas paraphernalia.    We waited hungrily until the trolleys started making their rounds.  When yum chaing it’s important not to let greed overtake you.  Go too hard at the start and you risk filling up with the first few dishes.  Control and pacing allow you to eat more.  I have yet to decide if eating breakfast or remaining hungry are the best preparations but I tend to keep myself hungry in readiness.  Watching the dinners it’s easy to spot the other yum cha obsessives we greedily keep an eye on the other trolleys doing the rounds or watch the door to the kitchen waiting for the next delicious morsels to emerge.  When something particularly good emerged a quick look from R had the waiter come straight to our table – this woman is a veteran.  The next couple of hours were a blur of chopsticks, tea, chilli sauce and banter.  With a final visit from the dessert trolley baring mango jelly our stomachs were full as was our docket. 

Every yum cha veteran will have a war story of over indulgence and painfully full stomachs – those morsels look so small and tasty that it’s hard to resist and I at least, never realise how much I have eaten until its too late.  That’s why yum cha is the perfect Sunday event – you really can’t do too much afterwards and nothing involving movement of any kind.  A movie is an ideal activity failing that just lying on the couch digesting is also pretty good.

To me the yum cha mecca is Hong Kong and I have read many tales of the yum cha delights there.  Sadly I have only ever visited Hong Kong alone but one day I hope to be able to eat yum cha in its spiritual home (open invite to all.)  But for now we left the Gold leaf happy with our stomachs full and T’s yum cha cherry most definitely popped.

The Long Haul

My first impressions were – you’re too big, too fat, you’re carrying way too much weight and there’s no way you’re going to move.  No, I wasn’t surveying the damage done by seasonal indulging but looking at the shiny new Qantas A380 that was going to transport me back to Australia for yet more seasonal indulgence.  I’ve made the longest of long haul journeys so many times now to have become almost blasé about the whole thing. Of course there is always a pang of excitement when stepping aboard a plane ready for another adventure.  While there is glamour to traversing the globe in a matter of hours the truth is for those of us consigned to cattle class there isn’t much in the way of glamour.  In fact after the excitement of take off you really need to put your head down and just get through the next 20 odd hours of transit.

Australians are used to the notion of long transits (it takes about 5 hours to fly from one end of the country to the other) and being so far away from anywhere you know that most trips are going to take the best part of a day.  To most of the Europeans I have met the thought of more than four hours in a plane is an unendurable endeavour.   It’s by no means fun but it’s really not that bad if you prepare and after twelve years of travelling between hemispheres I've got this long haul thing down to an art.  What type of book to choose, what clothes to wear, and given that upgrades are as rare as hen’s teeth, where the best spot in the economy cabin is.  In a strange way I actually look forward to the flight as my life is usually so hectic and disorganised that the enforced sitting and doing nothing for twenty hours is a welcome break.  

I have often thought how the act of travelling is a state of mind and atmosphere all of its own.  Over the years I have been through many airports (I think about 30) and the atmosphere in them is always the same.  Once you get past the security check to the airside it feels as if you have already left whichever country you are in and entered the country (or absence of country) of travel.  The transit lounge is full of people waiting wearily for the time to board the aircraft that will take them to an exotic location or back home to familiar surrounds.  Duty free is full of the same bottles of Bombay Sapphire and Chanel No5 that you saw at the point of departure.  There is always the one store stocked full of things that supposedly reflect the culture of the country you have just been in – Harrods in London, Ken Done and boomerangs in Aus, leather and dulce de leche in Argentina, and so on.

Once finally up there in the atmosphere looking down at the world below the clouds I can’t help but imagine that the plane has somehow escaped time.  That by merely taking off and joining the system of invisible airborne highways and byways, that are unmarked save for beacons planted in the middle of nowhere, has taken us out of the earth bound concerns of morning, afternoon and evening; of going to work and what to cook for dinner. Up there all that matters are hours; how many since take off and more importantly how many to your destination.  Watching the oversize plane make its painfully slow progress across the onscreen flight path becomes a small obsession.  The little plane flies over such exotic places as Tashkent and Samarkand that I long to set down in these mysterious places to explore.  At times plane travel seems brutal in picking you up in one place and setting you down on the other side of the world with not a thought to the wonderful places in between.  I’ve long harboured a dream of travelling over land from Spain to China, making the trek from Mediterranean through Central and Eastern Europe across the point where Europe and Asia meet and then over the steppes of central Asia and into South East Asia.  I’m curious to see if I notice the faces, food and cultures changing or if they gradually blend from one into the other – one day perhaps I'll  get round to it.

When at last you do set down in your destination you have to then recover from the flight and the fact that you have gone from one time zone and season to the opposite.  A swim and a shower in my experience is the best way to get over the flight as for jet lag, well that takes a bit of effort.  According to the experts you need to give a day for each hour of difference to come to terms with the new time but for me that’s way too long. The only effective solution I have found is just to force yourself to stay awake until a time deemed reasonable for sleep in your new location.  It’s tough for a couple of days but then you’re right.

    

So very suddenly I am back on the other side of the world in Australia and back in Melbourne.  Back in familiar surrounds where beer comes in pots, people smile and the footy (Aussie Rules of course) is a religion.  There have been reunions aplenty with more yet to do.  As I write this looking out the window at the brilliant sunshine listening to the comforting sound of a tram trundling past I wonder about my funny little life in Treviso half a world away – I wonder if my life in Treviso even exists.   

I give up

It’s a micro climate I’m told, the strange combination of factors that has resulted in this part of the world being meltingly hot in the summer and blisteringly cold in the winter with ridiculous levels of humidity throughout the year.  The hot and humid weather never really bothers me but cold is something I live in fear of.  Get temperatures into single figures and I become the kind of person that lives up to the whinging stereotype that me adopted home holds of British people.  Winter in the Veneto has always been this looming event whose inevitable arrival I have dreaded.  Not just for the cold and humid temperatures that bite through you or the bitter winds that smack you in the face but the knowledge that I can either suffer stoically through the event or start dressing for the weather.  And here lies the problem.

Melbourne gets pretty cold and normally the arrival of the winter months is seen as a opportunity and I look forward to the twice yearly ritual of the wardrobe turnaround when you put wash and put away the t-shirts and summer dresses and pull out the jumpers and thick socks that you haven’t seen for the last five or six months.  I see the cooler months as an opportunity to dress better given that you are required to wear so many more clothes.  When I say Melbourne gets cold I mean Melbourne gets cold for Australia and here with the ever lowering thermometer suddenly my winter clothes look stupidly thin.  Recently everyone seems to be concerned with my preparedness to cope with a Trevisan winter.  I’ve often been asked if I have a warm coat and you know I actually thought I did.  But of late my usual Melbourne winter coat while being ultra stylish in its modern minimalist aesthetic is proving painfully inadequate and I have been forced to consider alternatives. 

When the first signs of cold weather appeared Trevisans en masse (I’m not sure if there is a set date for this or if the Trevisans have some kind of sartorial telepathy) pulled out their puminos.  A pumino is a big puffy, padded coat that while keeping you snug does run the danger of making you look like the Michelin man.  For a while it seemed as if every shop window was full these monster coats.  If like me you don’t particularly like the pumino there is a popular alternative – fur.  Here there doesn’t seem to be any stigma or controversy about wearing animal pelts and I’ve never seen so many women in fur.  Now obviously I’m not going to wear fur so it looks like the pumino is my only option if I’m going to get through the winter.  Unfortunately being short (I make pygmies look tall) and svelte not being an adjective you would use to describe me I look pretty stupid in one of these big puffy numbers.  I also think they’re pretty ugly so the prospect of owning one is quite distressing. 

Winter 2011/2 Big, puffy coat and gumboots

Get one, wear it through the winter and then put it at the back of your wardrobe and forget about it until you need it again was the advice I was given and it was with this in mind that I went out in search of a pumino.  I quickly realised that if I was to be warm I would have to give up any notions of style – these coats just look stupid on me.  They’re not cheap either and when push came to shove I couldn’t face the thought of spending 100+ euros on something that made me look like a cross between the stay puft marshmallow man and a sleeping bag.  I’ve never really thought of myself as a fashonista preferring to dress for comfort and mood rather than the latest trends yet I surprised myself by being prepared to suffer the cold to avoid the marshmallow look.  That was until the temps really started dropping and I soon realised that I am prepared to sacrifice a bit of style to the greater good of being warm.  I was hoping to ride it out until the sales kicked in post Christmas but no luck, it’s just too cold to wait.  Still being tight fisted or prudent enough not to spend my hard earned money on something that will render me a visual joke I’ve borrowed one from M.  Yes it’s super warm and puffy and yes I am giving up on style – for the next few months at least.

He was only a cruise ship crooner

the award for headline of the year goes to The Daily Telegraph

Since my acquaintance with this country a certain Mr B has dominated the political landscape, so much so that it seems strange to think he’s no longer there.  While many an Italian was rejoicing at the demise I wonder if the countries satirists were thrown in a pit of despair at the loss of such a rich vein of material.  But then again Mr B had become such a parody that there really was no need to add satire.

I have always wondered how Italians came to elect (three times) a man for whom the word buffoon seems to have been invented.   Italian politics are a complicated and opaque world and certainly not one that I can begin to sum up in a superficial blog nor would I have the arrogance to suggest I am qualified to do so.  Given that he first came to power after the reigning government was exposed as having its hands in so many tills that the prime minister fled the country perhaps he did seem like a breath of fresh air.  The fact that he owns several television stations and newspapers did help PR matters.  Or were the Italians seduced by the narrative of the vacuum cleaner salesman and sometime cruise ship singer pulling himself up to be a media mogul and one of the richest men in the country?  Who can blame them for thinking that maybe some of that magic would rub off but once in power things where a different matter.   There’s a quote attributed to Pope Leo X which I’m often reminded of when I think about Mr B and his time in office.  From his seemingly endless partying, appointing a string of MPs whose main qualification for the job was a pretty face and breasts, to the changing of laws to suit his business interests or avoid prosecution the cynicism of Pope Leo to me perfectly sums up the last few years of Italian political life - "Since God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it." – substitute a couple of words and I think you’ll have it.   

Once in power and, at least in my opinion, showing himself to be at best hopelessly inadequate and at worst corrupt he was voted back twice to form the longest serving Italian government since Mussolini.  Why?  You could argue it was a lack of an effective opposition or it could be the appeal to self interest or did all the favourable media coverage lead the country to think he was doing a good job?  Well the reason was – Oh hell search me I have no idea, it really is mind boggling that he was voted in once let alone three damn times.       

At the end of it all Mr B wasn’t brought down by any one of the number of personal, political or business scandals that became so common that one didn’t even raise an eyebrow but by the enormity of the European financial crisis.  Once the crisis turned towards Italy his demise was swift, watching his leaving I got the impression that B is genuinely bewildered as to how events turned against him.  From being the astute media player suddenly the populist touch deserted him.  Many Italians were angered by his glib assertion that everything was ok as the bars and restaurants of Italy were full without a mention of the growing hardships caused by austerity measures.  B has left the country with one hell of an overdraft, rising unemployment and the (temporary) suspension of democracy – the current and polar opposite Prime Minister Mario Monti was appointed to the position by the president.  The country like much of Europe is in a mess and one that will most likely get worse before (if) it gets better.

As for Mr B have we seen the last of him?  Will he be happy to retire to his villa or is he plotting a return.  He has kept himself busy releasing an album of co-written love songs just a week after leaving office.  Given that now he is out of power his immunity from prosecution has gone and that his party is still the biggest in Parliament it’s hard to believe this is the end of him.  I personally don’t think it will be too long before the perma tan returns – just long enough for the public to blame the current government for the continued economic hardship that’s my guess.  “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.” Machiavelli
            

Crash, Bang, Wallop

This week I’ve been asking myself do different nations hear differently?   No I haven’t been listening to the Italian charts (although whenever I am unfortunate enough to catch the latest top ten hit I do wonder if a large percentage of the Italian population is tone deaf – but I also I wonder that whenever I’m confronted with the fact that Coldplay have a career.)  When travelling through various countries one of my personal joys has always been the different languages I have encountered and the little tricks I’ve gathered to cope – whilst navigating the Japanese transport system I quickly learnt to match the symbols on my ticket to the departures board with not a single mishap, when in a little town in the Tamil speaking part of India meeting a local who spoke no English and me only speaking Panjabi, of the multitude of Indian languages, we found that we could communicate in Italian of all languages.  As well as dealing with the new words and grammatical constructions there is the host of vocal and onomatopoeic sounds that make up a language.  While I expected words to be different I never really gave a thought to the onomatopoeia. 

In the UK and Aus (I hasten to add other English speaking Countries) the onomatopoeic word for a dog bark is woof, here dogs don’t woof woof they bau bau! Birds don’t go cheep cheep they cip cip and frogs don’t ribbit they cra cra.  It’s not just the world of animal sounds that are different, if an English speaker cuts their finger they will exclaim ouch or ow an Italian will say ahi or ahia as they apply pressure to the injured digit.  Crack a joke to a native English speaker and you will hopefully hear  ha ha or hee hee try to be funny in Italy ah, ah, eh, eh, ih, ih, or uh, uh is what your ego will be wanting to hear. Tuck into a Raji curry and yum yum or om nom nom is what I want to hear from an English speaker and gnam gnam from my Italian friends.  When it comes to bodily functions once again we are in a linguistically different world, an English speaker will fart or burp and an Italian will prot and rutt respectively.  Hearing brrrring will have me leaping for the phone and Italian will only do so if he hears a drin drin.  I knock on a door while my Italian chums toc.  In Australia my floorboards would creek here they cric crac.

These onomatopoeic sounds seem so hard wired and often come from instant emotions that I cannot believe that I would ever be able to make them part of my lexical repertoire.  Yet when I talk to my long term expect friends I’m amazed that they do make the Italian exclamation when in pain, or just generally pissed off while driving.       

These differences while unimportant do make me wonder, do we hear sounds differently or is it just out different languages that result in the divergent interpretations?  The Japanese language has no L sound and Japanese speakers have great difficulty in identifying and pronouncing when speaking English.  Studies have shown that as newborns Japanese children can hear the L sound but as they grow and the brain develops to acquire language skills they lose the ability to identify the sound due to not hearing it spoken.  Does this explain why different nations interpret the same sound differently?  One theory of linguistic development argues that language developed from early humans making onomatopoeic words from the sounds around them.  I’m way to ignorant to speculate on such things but this week once again I have been reminded what an amazingly rich, complex and beautiful beast language is.