Category: travel

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My Extended Sunday Rant

If my radio mentions the Mueller Report or Brexit I immediately change to another station. For TV I frequently opt for NHK Global the Japanese international station because they have a lot of documentaries on the continued handcrafting of classical wood, flower arranging and pottery and very little on western politics.
 
Over the years when I have exchanged views on this topic on line with our friend Abrao, Fox News and the WSJ. he assigns me the BBC and the Guardian, the role of the defender of the left. I have tried unsuccessfully  to persuade him that my firm view is a” pox on both the politics of the right and the left.”
 
Years ago when I played left to his right my best friend of 50 + years, an ex USMC Gunnery Sergeant, he operated a team behind enemy lines in Vietnam and is somehow cynical about politicians, persuaded me that political systems are simply methods for the leadership and their friends to get to the financial trough.
 
Communism. Some years ago Rolls Royce opened a dealership in Hanoi so what was that war about. When I returned to my beautiful Vancouver last year I found it to be the city in N. America with the most high end expensive cars, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati etc. owned by many of the young children of highly placed Chinese Communist cadre. Thanks also to them the average price of a home in Vancouver is in excess of C$1M and the grandchildren of the earlier European immigrants can no longer afford to live in the city. On the other hand that same communist dictatorship lifted billions of Chinese people from poverty. I am confused.
 
Capitalism. A recent newspaper article states that after centuries 50% of the land in England is still owned by 1% of the population, mostly the aristocracy. They also own important swatches of their former colonies.
 
In the US 40% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population.
 
In Russia it is estimated 3% of the richest citizens own 90% of the countries financial assets.
 
Then the Fox News audience applauds a millionaire social democrat, Bernie Sanders.
 
I have lost the plot.
 
The Gilets Jaunes are upset that three of the wealthiest French families immediately and competitively contributed €500,000,000 for the reconstruction of the recently fire damaged Notre Dame cathedral. Pointing out the very same families, often fiscally resident in Geneva or Liechtenstein, do the maximum to avoid paying taxes of any kind, will claim the donations as tax write offs and how did so few people end up owning so much. They continue protesting for a more egalitarian society.
 
I note that when I was in Paris last week Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité , the national motto is etched in large letters on the front of every government building. Who has the script here, certainly not Macron or the Gilets Jaunes.
 
The historical consequences of the United Fruit Company and the dictatorships they installed in Central America are walking up to the southern borders of the US. But who remembers what made Chiquita bananas so cheap.
 
The Iranians though still remember that the US/CIA, UK/MI6 CIA overthrew Mosaddegh their legally elected president when he tried to nationalise the western oil companies operating in Iran and installed the Shah. And when they got rid of him they got an Islamic dictatorship and now its the the Revolutionary Guard that loot the country.
 
The Egyptian public just “voted” the extension of their military dictator remaining in power until 2030. Annual US aid to Egypt estimated to be $1.5bn, and for that they get “cessation of hostilities against Israel”.
 
The citizens of the Ukraine are so disgusted with their political class today Sunday they are about to risk the joke being on themselves and elect a comedian as president. They evidently learned nothing from witnessing what happened in the US but still might have  something of an advantage in that their comedian knows he is a comedian. Watch the evening news.
 
To quote Adlai Stevenson again ” the trouble with Americans is they haven’t read the minutes of the last meeting” but I think today we can also extend this to voting public in Europe. La plus ca change …
 
Today Sunday, Islamists bombed christian churches and tourist hotels in Sri Lanka. They were radicalised by extreme Wahhabism exported in a decades long global campaign created and funded by Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s, good friends of the Bush family, also brought us the 9/11  Twin Towers. But annually they purchase billions of $s worth weapons from the West’s military industrial complexes so they remain our friends and allies. Number of Christian churches in Saudi Arabia – none permitted.
 
 
Layer on all that Kate Raworth’s Donut Theory of Social and Planetary Boundaries, which she thinks could possibly save us from a very likely environmental extinction and you see how I have become thoroughly confused about where our world is headed.
 
 
Having children and grandchildren and trying to make sense of the above I despair how things are shifting so fast. I used to believe that a lot of my perceptions are due to my being old, tired and cynical and for the last few years I have been searching for any voice e.g. Simon Longstaff with any idea of how we can successfully move things in a reasonable direction. At the moment my position is “a pox on all of them.”
 
The same ex USMC friend has convinced me that if you divided the worlds assets equally between the worlds population about 100 years from now the distribution would be approximately as it is today. So why bother?
 
His personal answer has been to give up any interest in the world’s problems, he presumes that somewhere down the line nature will soon consider humankind a failed experiment and turn the place over to another species.
 
The end of John’s  Sunday Rant, thank you for suffering through it.
 
Though I do like this quote. In individuals insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epocs it is the rule. Nietzsche
 
Please stay in touch I find your views penetrating and they often oblige me to rethink my own.
 
Best wishes as always,
 
John
 
PS I heard sad-populism defined as voting for something that damages your own interests as long as it hurts someone elses more. 

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A Quiet Trip To Paris

I travelled up to Paris this week to do some sightseeing with my son Patrick and my grandsons Auden and Rhys who had arrived from Boston.
 
The Gilets Jaunes had their weekly demonstration on Saturday and the police shut down the centre of the city. This provided us a once in a lifetime opportunity to take photographs standing in the middle of Place De La Concorde at midday, normally  impossible because hundreds of vehicles are speeding by in 5 plus  lanes of traffic.

On Monday evening Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire and big crowds were there on Tuesday morning, but the police were on hand to help.  

Even in your dotage you will always have memories of Paris.  

John  

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With Apologies To Dr. Seuss

My Friends
 
I hope you find this as amusing as I did.

Last Wednesday I took my little Toyota Aygo for it’s bi-annual Contrôle Technique and the agreeable technician at the testing station told me I will let it pass but you need to replace the two rear tires as soon as possible. I called Toyota and inquired if the have tires on sale, they did and I made an appointment for this morning Monday at 09:00. Getting there was stressful as there was a thick fog on the road from Saint Denis to Carcassonne. But I arrived only 5 minutes late, signed the approval for the work, estimated to take 40 minutes and sat down with my Kindle to read and wait to be called. About 5 minutes later the young man, they are all young now, brought me my Carte Grise (Registration Papers) which I had forgotten on the counter.  

Time passed and the young man called M. Tierney and my car was ready. But as I was about to sign the bill I noticed the letters av on it and inquired what do they mean and the reply was, avant. I said sorry but you were to replace the two on the rear and he called the mechanic to come inside and pointing at the receipt asked “you replaced the front tires?” Since I had previously signed approving the work to be done this was going to be interesting, but the young mechanic replied no it was the rear ones, they were badly worn so I replaced them. Smiles all round and hats off to the mechanic who didnt’t read the work order.

I pulled out my trusty Visa card, paid, and decided before doing some shopping and driving home that it would be opportune to use the pristine Toyota toilet facilities, much cleaner than those at the supermarket. The maintenance reception counter is to one side of the large shiny car showroom. I went through the exterior bathroom area with the sink and the ubiquitous Dyson high speed hand dryer, and entered the inner sanctum to discover there was no place to set my belongings. I selected the farther corner and carelfully placed my Carte Grise folder, three pages of receipts and bills, my kindle, sunglasses and car keys in a pile on the floor.

Stepping to the throne and still thinking about the near miss with the tires I took my seat, something we have all do thousands of times in a lifetime. But on this occasion I heard an soft unusual noise from somewhere aft. I thought there is a sales room outside and a garage adjacent so odd noises might not be so unusual. However not wanting to leave my exposed posterior to any surprise, particularly anything that might bite I did the older persons crouch and glancing behind discovered my favourite black Warfield & Sanford Elevator Company baseball cap, previously tucked in the back of my trousers to preclude forgetting it like my Carte Grise, floating top down in and filling the bottom of the sparking white bowl.  

I was near, very near to being your older friend who for April Fool’s day 2019 became the man who shat in his own hat. Not a memory one can easily flush away.  

Laughs are where you find them.

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Meeting A Fellow Traveller in Saigon

On a few mornings I had seen a gentleman Claude resting at a table outside a bar on Bui Vien Street in Pham Ngu Lao the backpacker district, with his walker / ambulatoire next to him. Yesterday I said hello, he smiled and I stopped to talk to him. Today I saw him again. The story I heard, told over the two get togethers and put in what I think is chronological sequence goes something like this.
 
He was in medical school in France when in 1966 the Israel-Egypt 6 Day War was threatening. Being Jewish he wrote a letter to the dean of the school saying he was going to Israel to join the army and if he survived he would return to do his final exams.  When he arrived in Israel and tried to volunteer they laughed and said they have a perfectly competent army and don’t need any untrained French volunteers. They sent him instead him to a kibbutz on the Jordanian border where he worked on a farm owned by a Holecaust survivor who taught him Hebrew. After 4 months he returned to France finished his medical training and for 18 years was a practicing surgeon. 
 
He retired and moved to the Caribbean and opened a clothing store in St Martin, eventually over 5 years ended up owning two in St Martin, 1 in St Barts and 1 in Puerto Rico.  He said some tourists thought it was chic to shop in an upscale store owned by a retired French surgeon and would pay a fortune for a silk tie. He says he made a lot more money selling clothes to tourists than he ever made as a surgeon.  However his wife of 26 years and his daughter raised their consumption levels and expectations along with the growing income from the business and this became an increasing cause of friction. They already had a large remodelled home in Provence with a few hectares of property and he became increasingly fed  with the life he was living. He and his wife divorced, he gave them the property and the business, got no thanks, and retired to Chiang Mai in Thailand with his personal pension. At this point we changed to speaking French. Remember it is Claude’s story. 
 
In Chiang Mai he frequented a French bakery L’Opera and the French owner told him he should definitely visit Vietnam as it was for him much better than Thailand. The owner had previously owned a business in Saigon but moved to Thailand at the insistance of his Thai wife. So having read extensively about Indochine when he was young, we both like Jean Hougron’s Les Asiates, he also recommended Andre Malraux and Lucien Bodart on the same subject, about 14 months ago he moved to a couple of rooms off Bui Vien street in the back packer area of Saigon. 
 
He very much enjoys his new life, his 42 year old girlfriend, she said she is 36 but she left her ID card sitting out, he sits at a table on the sidewalk in the morning, always at the same bar and watches the street come to life, in the afternoons he watches the tourists roam, he eats at or orders food from the nearby Singapore Chicken Noodle restaurant which he said had 300 choices on the menu. On my way to the French owned Marou chocolate shop, excellent local chocolate, I stopped by and picked up the carry out menu at his restaurant and there are actually 310 items with a an average price of $2.50.  
 
 
He initially estimated it would cost him $1,000 a month to live on Bui Vien street but now thought $800 covered it. For his air conditioned room with ensuite bathroom, laundry, drinking water and daily cleaning he pays $16 a day. However one surprisingly high cost from recent experience was emergency health care.
 
I asked about the walker / ambulatoire and he told me that when he fell and fractured his upper left thigh they took him to the French International hospital. There they advised him he had to have an operation to pin and repair it. They proposed a choice of two possible operations, one for D170,000,000 (€6,476 / $9,524) and another more complete for D250,000,000 (€7,322 / $10,786). He said logically at 78 years of age with how many years remaining he opted for the cheaper one where they jam the two pieces together on a spike and the recovery time is about 3 months. But when he was in the recovery room he learned they had done the more expensive and complex one and he had a 6 month recovery period with 2 more months to go, he was most unhappy with this. But during his earlier discussion with the Vietnamese surgeon he had revealed that he himself was a retired surgeon and thus at least received the fellowship of the scalpel 50% reduction in price.  http://fvhospital.com/
 
I commiserated with him about the cost of the operation suggesting that the dangers of the badly broken sidewalks and also of travelling on the back of motorbike taxis were particularly hazardous for people our age. Oh non, non, non he replied laughing, I slipped in the shower while “dancing”with my girlfriend. 
 
When does he plan to return to France ?, never he doesn’t want to hear anything more about les gilets jaunes, President Macron, immigration, politics, his ex-wife, or own a car, none of it. He wants to sit in the sun in the morning, watch the world go by, eat off his extensive inexpensive 310 item Singapore Chicken Noodle menu. I suggested, in light of his dedication to the terpischorean art while damp, and to avoid future emergency health care expenses he consider the installation of a safety grab bar in the shower. He found this uproariously funny.
 
Claude’s restaurant.

He says his next scheduled operation is for macular degeneration because, among other things he can no longer clearly appreciate some of his girl friends finer aspects.  

Yesterday I purchased some chocolate for him, for the children of my AirBnb, landlady, for my friend Gaetan the best patisserie, chocolatiere in Toulouse and of course for myself. I gave Claude his this morning.   All of that for saying hello to, smiling and sharing a coffee with a stranger.  

Definitely LOL and now too old to die young.