Holy Threads

On Belgian television, a sizeable proportion, if not encroaching upon a small majority, of the advertisements are for laundry detergents, and specifically those that make you clothes as white as the purest of snowfalls from heaven, because, god forbid, the greatest of all sins is to be seen in public with a dirty shirt, or even worse, for I know, a hole. Somehow, at nearly any given point, at least one article of clothing of mine has a hole that “shouldn’t” be there or, as I like to say, I often “wear my food so that you don’t need to ask me what I had for dinner.” Apparently, by now, I should know better judging from the looks I receive when I dare to walk the streets of the über-bleached and for sure, no holes in one’s shirt. Bringing me to one of life’s funny, little ironies.

After a breakfast of chole, which was a first for me, I started my day, walking towards the Gateway to India, thinking I would hit the caves of Elephanta first. However, along the way, weaving my way through the harkers and barkers of wares, services, and asking for alms, I gave in to a friendly face. Sishta, from Bangalore began in the usual way here of asking where I was from. Somehow everyone seems to know that I’m not from India...go figure. Anyway, because of a rather non-pushy mannerism, I gave in to him and engaged in the conversation, which from my limited experience, almost never ends free of charge once you begin it.

So, we chatted it up, and “luck” would have it, Sishta was a tour guide...imagine my surprise. He walked me up to the moorings of about twenty idle boats, having talked up Elephanta for the past ten minutes, then looks at me sheepishly, with a slightly-lilting head movement that Indians do that I will never be able to imitate, and says, “but, you can’t see the island very well in the morning, too much fog, you need to come back later.” But, “lucky” for me, Sishta had a solution...imagine my surprise.

So, we turned around and began walking back towards the hustle and bustle of the Colaba streets and he told me of a “tour” he could offer, which was basically getting me a cab and sending me along with the cabbie on a scavenger hunt of about fifteen destinations, which I agreed to since for sure I could not do this on my own in one day. After handing me off to Rajan, from Agra (have yet to meet someone from Mumbai yet), we were on our way through the teeming madness that is the streets of Mumbai. I have decided that the only formula that I can come up with is: to multiple the chaos, sounds, traffic, and street activity of Naples times that of Istanbul, then cube that sum. That might approximate Mumbai, maybe. If you have ever been to one of those two cities, you can begin to appreciate the absurdity of that formula, though it is rather accurate I think.

First stop, a view into one of the slums at washing time. This is what I saw at 9 am today, Mumbai time. There are parallel scenes in Bertolucci’s Little Buddha in which Keanu Reeves as Siddhartha (and, I will admit that I quite like his performance), the yet-to-be-awakened Buddha and that of two of the three re-incarnations of Lama Norbu, two little boys, one Nepalese and one American, “encounter the poor” for the first time. For Siddhartha, he breaks his father’s ban on him leaving the be-jeweled and protected life within the confine of the palace walls and dodges into the slums of his father’s capital city, while the latter are running wildly through the backstreets of Katmandu, fighting over a hand-held computer game. Both run into the respective slums of the time, but the cinematic shots are the same scene, the poor have not changed in Time, nor Space.

Walking through the streets this morning into the Mumbai slum was just that, a jolt out of Time and Space. I say this mainly because I had no prior reference point on which to hang this piece of mental laundry than that images from the movie, which I now see was no movie set, but probably an actual side-street of Katmandu.

This is the communal washing and bathing place for approximately 15,000 people per toilet.

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SORRY

After visiting other sites including a Jain temple in the wealthy neighborhood on Malabar Hill (which is what all of the families are at the Antwerp International School), viewing the hanging gardens (much less impressive than I imagine those of Babylon of old), the entrance to the Zoroasteran “Towers of Silence,” where the corpses of the ever-dwindling Parsi adherents are laid to the elements for the vultures to eat, the Gandhi House and Museum (more on that in a separate post), and several other places, we stopped in front of the Regal Cinema, where I sought refuge yesterday during a deluge, and there was Sishta, waiting smilingly for us.

He wanted me to go to one last place before dropping me off at the ferry landing in order to go to the caves, as the fog had lifted (and, more on that in a separate post), an emporium (imagine my surprise), where apparently Bill Clinton, Hillary, and Chelsea had visited. It was upscale, and this being my first couple of days in India, I had no intention on buying anything, but went in to be polite. However, it did not really matter if I had wanted to. I had made it in about ten feet before the floor manager came up to me and said, “can I help you,” but not like “can I help you find something nice to buy?” but rather, “can I help you find the door?” He gave me a once over (actually a twice and a thrice over, shaking his head indignantly), and guess what, the shirt I was wearing was pretty ratty as I had planned on going hiking on the island first and my shoes looked pretty much like I had just been walking through the slums, as I noticed then at that moment they were all barefoot on nice, afghan rugs in the store, all with very clean clothes and very clean feet.

I mumbled something along the lines of “no, I had just come in to look.” I turned, wanted to head back to the door, and before I could count to three, Mr. Manager had finagled his way between me and the stairs opposite the entrance leading up to the even nicer gallery, placing his body in such a way that I could not go up, even if I had wanted to, and he said, “there’s nothing up there,” barely dropping the “for you.” So, the security guard let me out. Sishta, who had been waiting outside for me, asked what had happened, and I said I wasn’t interested to avoid causing him embarrassment for bringing such a customer to them. As we were walking back in the car, Sishta took hold of the hem of my shirt and said, “Mr. Robert, what happened to your shirt, did you know that you have several holes in the back?”

When Giants Walked the Earth

Antwerp is a city of giants, albeit that can be the gigantic ego of the local Antwerpenaar, but it is the city of giants, or at least one for sure, that is Antigoon, the giant who ruled over the Antwerp harbor on the Scheldt, the river that runs through it.

Antigoon was large enough to straddle the Scheldt and as ships passed beneath his colossal legs, if they did not pay his toll, would be smashed to smithereens with a mighty blow from his fist. Well, people don't like taxes and tolls, that much is clear in history and in current American events. Some taxes are indeed necessary, I believe, but Antigoon was just plain greedy.

Others agreed, and one day, a strapping young Fleming named Brabo came to the rescue of all, and a legend was born, as well as a folk etymology for the city's name of Antwerpen. Instead of paying the toll, Brabo excised his own payment and cut of one of Antigoon's hands, casting it into the river, freeing the denizens of Antwerp to go back to drinking their Belgian beers and eating mussels in peace. The action of Brabo's deed is said to be immortalized then in the name "Antwerpen" which is said to be a contraction of "hand werpen" or "to throw the hand."

As such, the city's motif is a severed hand, which is proudly displayed throughout the town on banners, posters, a giant hand sculpture on the Meir, and even gooey-center filled chocolates for gifts to give to friends and loved ones, or total strangers, who come to visit Antwerp.

Last year, however, a different type of Giant came to town, an experience that I will never forget, and is one of the reasons that I do really love this town (and think that Brussels is Boring ;-)).

Royal DeLuxe, a French artistic company based in Nantes, also loves Antwerp (or Anvers for the French-speakers). Antwerp is one of only a "handful" of cities worldwide that Royal de Luxe has chosen to use as a cityscape for its incredible street theater performances using enormous marionettes, which are able to evoke true emotional responses from the street-born audiences.

It was a brilliant performance last year, spanning three days of intrigue and magic. The "program" was kept secret and you had to find out by reading clues in the newspaper or on a website as to where the two giants would appear.

The story was of the Little Giant girl (De Kleine Reuzin) who arrived on her gigantic boat and who was looking for her uncle, the Diver (De Duiker), who had emerged from the Antwerp Harbor. Throughout the day, these two marionettes traversed the city, searching in vain for each other, often just missing one another.

My daughter and I followed the steps of the Little Giant all day last year on one of the days, here on the back of the bike and us racing around the streets trying to find the two. Sometimes we found her napping and snoring loudly, other times dancing a jig on the quays, and even taking a potty break in between the cars parked along the street. We also found the enormous diver sleeping on the St. Jansplein and saw him wake up and start his journey to find his lost niece. Here is someone's version of that event posted on Youtube. My daughter and I were actually right behind the giant anchor that you see in the right-hand side of the frame at the end as the Diver is leaving the square. We were right at the front and you could literally feel the earth shake as he passed us by, towering above the houses, accompanied by a live band. It was the greatest street performance I could ever imagine.

Take a moment from your busy day and watch this video. You might even feel strangely calm by the end of it.

Eventually, the two wandering giants did find each other and in a moment that I can scarcely explain, I was really, really emotional seeing two large pieces of wood, cable, and scaffolding hug at twilight. It was amazing as to the level that I came to really care for these characters in the span of just a few days. When the two departed in the Little Giant's ship from London Bridge on the Antwerp harbor, I was very sad to see them go, as if I was watching two good friends leave on a magical journey, and they had floated away into the mist of memory and enchantment.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Well, the clock is ticking for my sojourn in the US to be over and to soon return, albeit briefly, to Belgium before I then head off to India. So, as I have not been reading Belgian on-line version of its newspaper, De Standaard, as regularly as I normally do, I took a gander today, and guess what was on the front page?? Potato(e)s and Fries of course, what else? That, and the continuing crisis of not having a government. The two are more related than you might think.

Apparently, because of the substantial rains that Belgium has endured while the rest of the planet is drying up, most notably here in Texas, the potato crop has experienced a surplus and the price of a kilo of spuds has sunk to epic proportions. Now, this should be cause for dancing in the streets, but there is just one catch. The price of Frietjes has not experienced this windfall and has consequently not lowered.

Bernard Lefèvre of the National Union of Friers explains that the cost of the potato is actually quite marginal in the process of making the fries and that it is more about the cleaning, peeling, packing and shipping of the product than the base material of the spuds.

In the politics of Belgium, the current political impasse still rages between the French-speaking Walloons, championed by Elio Di Rupo and the Flemish-speaking Flemings, whose main mouthpiece is Bart De Wever. It has become a classic case of one side saying "AAA" louder each time the other says "BBB" and so on. Nothing really gets settled and each side continues to see its own agenda as more and more important, focussing on the differences rather than the commonalities. It was to such an extent earlier this summer that the Flemish party was dubbed the "Ja, Maar" party, or "Yes, But" in that every compromise offered was met with a "Ja, Maar..." and the impasse continued. Futility in praxis.

What the Flemings are arguing is that the Walloons, now the financial minority, are mooching off of the more affluent Flemings. However, recent history will clearly show that the exact opposite was the case when the southern portion of Belgium was booming and the northern part was bust. The Walloons supported the welfare state of Flanders for quite some time, but when the tables are turned, the Flemings don't appear to be willing to be so reciprocal. Granted, this is a huge oversimplification of a much larger, more complex problem, but the problem is universal, not limited to Belgium.

The core of most arguments, whether political or religious, private or public, is often a failure to either effectively communicate our differences, or more commonly, an inability to be willing to recognize the plight of the other party.

In a hypberbolic example, if the potato growers are providing the goods at a lower cost and those who make the actual fries don't reflect the change in price, they should not then later expect to share in the profits if the price of potato(e)s one day surges due to a blight or the like, right?

If we continue to look only after our individual concerns, without looking at the larger picture, we end up in tangled up in a sterilized stalemate and nobody profits.

The future of whether Belgium will actually stay a tri-lingual menagerie of provinces, or if it will be split up into two or three separate municipalities remains to be seen. For now, it comes down to whether you say pataat and I say pomme de terre. Regardless, the truth is, for now at least, French Fries are actually from Belgium.

Don't Say "Please" If You Please

One of those little differences between living in Belgium (and traveling in Europe in general) is the verbal or non-verbal exchanges that are involved with a monetary transaction or other types of cultural bartering.

Being back in the United States currently, the absence of anything being said is quite noticeable. When in Flanders and you are handing over your money for say, a coffee, you say, "Alstublieft," which means "If you please," being a direct correlation to the French, "S'il vous plait." To which the salesperson will say "dank u wel" and from there it is kind of a free-for-all. Next, when you get your coffee, the salesperson hands it to you saying, "alstublieft" You can reply again with "dank u wel" or some other similar verbal pleasantry. This can go on a few times, back and forth, until one of you breaks the monotony and the transaction is over. And, then you go on your way.

However, a rather annoying trait of many Flemings is the insistence on speaking English, despite one's sincere efforts to speak Dutch/Flemish. This may be done with good intentions at times, but other times it is rather, "don't bother, my English is better than your Flemish will ever be..."

When at that point of a transaction it reverts to English, instead of "alstublieft" when handing you your coffee, for example, the salesperson will say, "Please." Now, I know that he or she is trying to be courteous, or to show off his or her English skills, but in all honesty, that is worse than nails on the chalkboard for me. Yes, that is petty of me, but, I really cannot explain why this gets to me at my core. But, when I am back in the States, it is clear.

For the most part, shopping, customer service, or other commercial transactions, they are almost always more convivial in the States, or at least in most places. Customer service is, by and large, something that Americans do at least strive for, but in Europe, for the most part, it is considered a minor to greater annoyance for the service person. Customer does not always come first, and often not second, third, fourth or even fifth. As Leopold Bloom thinks to himself in Joyce's Ulysses, "Come forth Lazarus! And, came fifth and lost the job..."

Usually, or at least in parts of the "south or southwest," when you walk into a store, restaurant, mortuary, auto shop, barber shop, whatever, you are treated like the long-lost friend, coming back home from years trekking across the Outback. Relatives are called, hugs given, tears shed, hand me a tissue Tito...

But, when it comes to the actual exchange of the money and the goods, Americans are amazingly silent! We just thrust our money out, silently, and the service person takes the money silently, then, back to best, long-lost friends.

During that simple transaction, it is nearly a reverend silence, or an embarrassed moment like you are paying for a drug deal or selling your first-born child. Whereas the money/goods exchange in Belgium may be the only pleasantry or verbal exchange at all in a mercantile setting, in America, the exact opposit eis true.

When I am back in the States, then, during that weird silence, I feel compelled to say something, anything, but when I am in Belgium and they say "Please" I want to scream, "WE DON"T SAY PLEASE DAMMIT," but I don't. Instead I usually make some growling noise like Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb...