Cross Cultures
I had a couple of days in London at the end of the week. First, to attend a book launch by my friend and colleague Chris Hood at the Daiwa Foundation. The book was the thoroughly reworked and updated second edition of his introduction to Japan for Routledge's "The Basics" series. It was a good event, and I bought the book, of course.
The next morning I was meant to be meeting up with Susan Cooper and her daughter Kate, who are over from the States for a friends-and-family visit. However, being jetlagged they overslept by an hour - which at least gave me a chance to read Chris's book in the lobby of the Hilton. Eventually we did meet, though, and had a very nice lunch (or rather an excellent talk and a rather forgettable lunch - which averages out as very nice overall). We then went to the Foundling Museum, which I'd wanted to see for a long time, especially the poignant tokens left by mothers (many illiterate) who gave up their young children in the hope that they would be able to claim them back in some hoped-for future time of better fortune:
They had an exhibition on Ukrainian refugees on in the basement, and I was very struck by an interview with a young woman, now living in Switzerland, who was explaining that it took her a while to get used to to Swiss schools. Language was an issue of course, but she focused particularly on History. In Ukraine, History was one of her favourite lessons, because it was so full of interesting events, battles, etc. In Switzerland, where only one or two things have ever happened, it was a much duller subject. This is the guerdon of neutrality.
On the subject of international relations, yesterday I impulse-bought some ready-made churros at Tesco, as a dessert for me and my lodgers. (I should point out that the first course was a very nice white wine ragu, cooked from scratch and seasoned with fresh herbs from the garden, etc.) Anyway, the moment they ate the churros, they had a simultaneous madeleine moment, and exclaimed "Disneyland!" Apparently they sell something similar in Tokyo.
So, I bought a British supermarket's attempt at an Iberian snack, which reminded my lodgers of the Japanese branch of an American company's take on its Latin-American version. And it still tasted much the same.
That's cinammon for you.
The next morning I was meant to be meeting up with Susan Cooper and her daughter Kate, who are over from the States for a friends-and-family visit. However, being jetlagged they overslept by an hour - which at least gave me a chance to read Chris's book in the lobby of the Hilton. Eventually we did meet, though, and had a very nice lunch (or rather an excellent talk and a rather forgettable lunch - which averages out as very nice overall). We then went to the Foundling Museum, which I'd wanted to see for a long time, especially the poignant tokens left by mothers (many illiterate) who gave up their young children in the hope that they would be able to claim them back in some hoped-for future time of better fortune:
They had an exhibition on Ukrainian refugees on in the basement, and I was very struck by an interview with a young woman, now living in Switzerland, who was explaining that it took her a while to get used to to Swiss schools. Language was an issue of course, but she focused particularly on History. In Ukraine, History was one of her favourite lessons, because it was so full of interesting events, battles, etc. In Switzerland, where only one or two things have ever happened, it was a much duller subject. This is the guerdon of neutrality.
On the subject of international relations, yesterday I impulse-bought some ready-made churros at Tesco, as a dessert for me and my lodgers. (I should point out that the first course was a very nice white wine ragu, cooked from scratch and seasoned with fresh herbs from the garden, etc.) Anyway, the moment they ate the churros, they had a simultaneous madeleine moment, and exclaimed "Disneyland!" Apparently they sell something similar in Tokyo.
So, I bought a British supermarket's attempt at an Iberian snack, which reminded my lodgers of the Japanese branch of an American company's take on its Latin-American version. And it still tasted much the same.
That's cinammon for you.