A FEW WEEKS AGO I READ WITH INTEREST an editorial regarding people leaving South Africa and the varied opinions this was attracting – especially the negative ones. Now I do not even want to get into the debate about the reasons people do leave as these are varied and certainly very specific and I can attest to the fact that it is not an easy decision to make. The only thing I will say is that to call these people “traitors” is not only absurd it certainly highlights the narrow mindedness and ignorance which accompany such nonsensical utterances.
I wonder if anyone even stops to think how difficult it is to leave a country in which you grew up, where your entire family and support base will remain, whilst you have to make the move to a foreign country, where everything is different and where you will start again, from the beginning. I can only share with you our personal experiences and I can tell you it is damn tough.
I come from a very traditional close knit family. When I was still a child the entire family used to congregate on Sunday’s at my grandparents’ house, which was an event in itself. It would total 40 people with aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces. This tradition even continued when I started my own family, until we moved away to Cape Town. But the distance between Cape Town and Johannesburg didn’t stop us from visiting or the family visiting us and support or advice was only a phone call or even plane ride away if we needed it.
Then we moved away to China and at first it was an incredible adventure. Advice was still only a phone call away but we had to create a new support base and luckily we could find this in the expat communities. When you move to a place like China most foreigners there will stick together because we are all in the same boat. It is also not a move you make permanently – or at least for 99% of people it isn’t, but there are some people we met and became close friends with, who have now lived there for more than 10 years. The adventure and excitement make up for how difficult things can be, but it certainly doesn’t make things easier.
And then there was the move to the Netherlands. I must admit that we were totally and utterly unprepared for how difficult this would be. China at least was set-up to deal with foreigners coming to work and temporarily live there and as I said the expat communities provided unbelievable support for “newbies”. The Netherlands however was a totally different experience all together.
The European Union had recently tightened all its regulations with regards to knowledge and migrant workers, not only from EU countries but especially from countries outside of the EU. You will by now have read about our administration nightmares and in the end it took more than 7 months for us to finalise this process. During this time of course we had to settle and begin a new life and again, in the beginning it was an adventure, but pretty quickly reality started to set in and you began to understand how difficult it is to leave everything you know behind and start all over again (for the 3rd time in as many years).
Here there are no real expat communities to talk about and you are forced (and rightly so) to integrate with the local communities where you live. Integration is not something which just happens, you have to work on it and in the first year it is a constant process and it really starts with the little things.
This is not South Africa and thus all the shops and the products used are totally foreign. What do you do if you can’t find many of the ingredients you used to use in the recipes for dinners? How do you suddenly change the eating habits and preferences of your family? For my genetic rugby playing sins, I have shoulders which force me to wear shirts starting at size 50, what do you do when the largest sizes in the shops are 45’s and trousers are made for people with skinny legs, not someone who used to cycle 40km’s per day?
My job is not a 9 to 5 office job and thus every week I am in a plane on my way to a different office in a different country in Europe. What do I do when my wife calls me complaining that the electricity in certain sections of the house does not work and you then discover there is no such thing as a main switchboard but that we have three different boards, all working with fuses which look like globes and you cannot discern over the phone which one to change? Or you discover suddenly there is an interruption in your gas supply and the people on the other end of the phone cannot speak English. Or you have to buy new furniture and you suddenly find out delivery is not tomorrow, but 5 months from now (unless you buy from IKEA), or even worse, you need a car but this has a delivery period of 6 months or more…
We cannot simply pick-up the phone and call my parents to pop around and help, even with small things like baby-sitting. I cannot even ask my dad or one of my friends to watch my family when I travel, to assist if things go wrong in the house or if they need any help. Nope, you have to start all over again with nothing to fall back on.
These all sound like little inconsequential things and they are, if you are living in a country where you have grown up and everyone understands how things work and your family and friends support network is a simple car-ride away. Believe me they become HUGE when these little things start adding up and you can very quickly fall into a pattern of negativity where nothing is as great as the country in which you were born.
There is of course always an upside and mine is that I have discovered what an amazing family I have and how quickly we band together to face all of these “mundane & inconsequential” aspects of life. We have a can do attitude and although there are constant challenges, we understand that this is the price one has to pay. Sadly we have also met “expats” who have literally given up and who cannot adapt.
It has now been one year since we have moved here and I think we are beginning to settle quite well. We love it where we live, the people (once you get to know them), the environment, the town and now that we are getting to know the shops and how things work, life has become much easier. We have even now begun to look for a house to buy, and boy is this a process and a half, perhaps I will give you some insights into this in the future.
Bottom line is that it is an exceptionally difficult thing to leave the country in which you were born and to leave behind everything and everyone you know. This is not a decision which is taken lightly and it can either totally ruin one’s family or if you are willing to do it with a positive can-do attitude it can really strengthen it beyond your wildest dreams.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Monday, 16 June 2008
Shaking off the winter blues
SPRING IS IN THE AIR and for the last two and a half weeks we have had some of the most divine weather, sunny and 28 degrees. It has truly been a dream and a welcome break from the gloomy cold cloudy winter skies. But this is Holland – so if there is one thing we know it is that it will not last!
We have been taking full advantage of the lovely weather of course and the fact that there has been a couple of public holidays over this period has made it even better for spending some great quality time with the family. Of course the first thing we did was to bring out the gas braai (yes the one we brought with us all the way from Beijing). It is illegal to light any fires here in the Netherlands and of course should you wish to, you would need to get permission from the Gemeente (Town Council) and all of your immediate neighbours. Gas braai’s are totally ok, and of course we don’t need to have a license to braai as I see is now the case with you guys in SA. What the hell is that all about?
We hadn’t had a proper braai for more than 18 months so for the next 7 days we had one every evening. The sun only sets at about 10pm, so we milked the conditions for all it was worth. It was amazing to see the transformation of my family’s mood as I started our first real braai in the Netherlands and it then hit me how gloomy we had all been during the winter months. For the last 9 months we had lived in overcast, cold and wet conditions – day in and day out, and although we were used to not seeing the sun due to the pollution in Beijing, this was not something we had experienced before.
We had heard about the winter blues before, but we thought this was nothing but a myth, until of course we realized we were living it in reality. I had also read some very interesting articles recently about “sleepy middle Europe” which spoke about whole towns actually going into hibernation in the middle of winter and the authors were in fact blaming this and the socialistic way of live for the developed parts of Europe’s poor growth. The articles spoke of towns in the North-East of France either migrating during winter or simply closing the towns down, with its inhabitants literally going into hibernation and sleeping most of their days away.
Now it is not cold enough for that to happen here in the Netherlands, but believe me the winter is cold, wet and dark most of the time. I now understand why energy lamps are such popular items in most shops – with people in fact having them prescribed by their GP’s to combat the effect of the long and cold winters here. I also understand why people are so keen on taking their holidays and getting out (en masse) across most of Europe to escape to places such as Spain and Greece.
I have never really thought about not working on a public holiday or of not taking a long weekend away and I was truly amazed to see how religiously people in Europe took these and then made sure they were somewhere where the sun was shining. I was also very quick to condemn these same people and thinking that the developed world truly deserves their slow pace of growth if people had these kinds of attitudes.
Now I am beginning to understand for the first time how close minded I have been. In fact I must admit that due to the fact that I spend so little time at home and am away most of the time travelling to different countries, I have been selfish in not understanding how the weather of all things could so seriously affect my family. Life is very easy here, except for the weather and I can now fully appreciate why the Dutch moan so much about it. I used to say they have nothing to complain about and thus can only moan about the weather (and the level of taxes of course), but I am beginning to change my mind in this regard.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a cliché I know, but in this case it is absolutely true. People here are religious about escaping to the sun when the opportunity presents itself, not because they are lazy, but because it is in fact essential. Coming from South Africa you never even give this a second thought, until of course you suddenly no longer have it.
We have been taking full advantage of the lovely weather of course and the fact that there has been a couple of public holidays over this period has made it even better for spending some great quality time with the family. Of course the first thing we did was to bring out the gas braai (yes the one we brought with us all the way from Beijing). It is illegal to light any fires here in the Netherlands and of course should you wish to, you would need to get permission from the Gemeente (Town Council) and all of your immediate neighbours. Gas braai’s are totally ok, and of course we don’t need to have a license to braai as I see is now the case with you guys in SA. What the hell is that all about?
We hadn’t had a proper braai for more than 18 months so for the next 7 days we had one every evening. The sun only sets at about 10pm, so we milked the conditions for all it was worth. It was amazing to see the transformation of my family’s mood as I started our first real braai in the Netherlands and it then hit me how gloomy we had all been during the winter months. For the last 9 months we had lived in overcast, cold and wet conditions – day in and day out, and although we were used to not seeing the sun due to the pollution in Beijing, this was not something we had experienced before.
We had heard about the winter blues before, but we thought this was nothing but a myth, until of course we realized we were living it in reality. I had also read some very interesting articles recently about “sleepy middle Europe” which spoke about whole towns actually going into hibernation in the middle of winter and the authors were in fact blaming this and the socialistic way of live for the developed parts of Europe’s poor growth. The articles spoke of towns in the North-East of France either migrating during winter or simply closing the towns down, with its inhabitants literally going into hibernation and sleeping most of their days away.
Now it is not cold enough for that to happen here in the Netherlands, but believe me the winter is cold, wet and dark most of the time. I now understand why energy lamps are such popular items in most shops – with people in fact having them prescribed by their GP’s to combat the effect of the long and cold winters here. I also understand why people are so keen on taking their holidays and getting out (en masse) across most of Europe to escape to places such as Spain and Greece.
I have never really thought about not working on a public holiday or of not taking a long weekend away and I was truly amazed to see how religiously people in Europe took these and then made sure they were somewhere where the sun was shining. I was also very quick to condemn these same people and thinking that the developed world truly deserves their slow pace of growth if people had these kinds of attitudes.
Now I am beginning to understand for the first time how close minded I have been. In fact I must admit that due to the fact that I spend so little time at home and am away most of the time travelling to different countries, I have been selfish in not understanding how the weather of all things could so seriously affect my family. Life is very easy here, except for the weather and I can now fully appreciate why the Dutch moan so much about it. I used to say they have nothing to complain about and thus can only moan about the weather (and the level of taxes of course), but I am beginning to change my mind in this regard.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a cliché I know, but in this case it is absolutely true. People here are religious about escaping to the sun when the opportunity presents itself, not because they are lazy, but because it is in fact essential. Coming from South Africa you never even give this a second thought, until of course you suddenly no longer have it.
Eastern Nostalgia
AFTER NOT BEING BACK IN THE EAST for nearly 8 months I had the opportunity to travel back to Hong Kong and Beijing again. Hong Kong was the same-old-same-old, but Beijing was just something out of a different world again and yes, I supposedly did live there for a year not so long ago…
First of all, I arrived at the newly built terminal which opened just 3 days before my arrival and WOW! The new airport is right next to the old one and covers more than 1 million square meters, making it larger than the Pentagon. Immigration was smooth, with friendly border guards greeting you in English and no real waiting at all. We had to take a train to the arrivals hall from where we landed but as I walked into the baggage hall, there my bags were, neatly rotating on the carousel and then the walk through customs was a breeze! It is not even comparable to the old terminal, which although also large and efficient, it just a drop in the ocean vs. the new Terminal 3.
If I may digress just for a second, just a week before the new Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow and what an absolute shambles that has been and continues to be. We actually watched the opening here on Sky and it certainly looks beautiful and spacious, but I think that is the only one small comparison which can be made. You will have all by now read the hundreds of news reports about the falling apart of the baggage handling systems and the PR disaster which has followed since. Some of my colleagues spent the entire week in Beijing without their baggage, and some have returned home still not knowing when they will ever receive these again. The latest is of course that BA has sent more than 20,000 bags to Italy by road freight and there they will be sorted and then couriered to customers’ place of residence. Have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous as this?! Of course every customer is now praying that their bags don’t get couriered back to them via Heathrow…
For the UK this has been a PR disaster, for BA and its reliance on business passengers this will still prove to be absolutely devastating as thousands of business travelers start avoiding using London as a hub into Europe.
Now, if this had to happen in China you can believe that a couple of officials in charge of the new airport would have been summarily shot. Terrible I know… All I can say is the new terminal had 3 successful test runs before the official opening and they have had no glitches at all thus far. Flying out is even smoother and man, let me not even begin to talk about the shopping!
Beijing itself has undergone quite a transformational change before the Olympics is about to hit it in August. Many of the construction projects are now complete. The train from the new terminal into the center of Beijing is not running yet, but the tracks are complete and this should be operational very soon. The buildings which were half complete when we left are now receiving their finishing touches and man these are just spectacular. The new Westin Hotel close to our offices in Chaoyang is just out of this world, not to even mention the new CCTV building, which displays some of the boldest architecture the world has ever seen. The standard systems for engineering gravity and lateral loads in buildings didn't apply to this building, which is formed by two leaning towers; each bent 90 degrees at the top and bottom to form a continuous loop. And then of course there is the Olympic stadium with its outer design looking like a bird’s nest. Trust the Chinese to really push the boundaries of architecture and design.
The only problem for me was that they have still not solved the pollution problem. I arrived in a deep cloud of smog and it only really cleared the next day when there was quite a lot of wind blowing for most of the day. The authorities are experimenting with alternate number plate driving, i.e. those ending with odd numbers on one day and those with even number on the next. They are also removing as many government vehicles as possible. We know the factories will be closed and no construction will occur during this period, but whether this will solve the pollution for the 2 weeks in August remains debatable.
I spent nearly a week back in Beijing and it was oddly nostalgic. I got to visit many of the shops we used to hang out in and saw some of my old friends again. There was an old familiarity in coming back to a place where we had once lived, but also a strange feeling that if I had to come back in 6 months again that even more would be changed. The progress is great for a new developing country but also slightly sad to know that soon this place will be as unfamiliar as any new city I will be visiting in the future.
First of all, I arrived at the newly built terminal which opened just 3 days before my arrival and WOW! The new airport is right next to the old one and covers more than 1 million square meters, making it larger than the Pentagon. Immigration was smooth, with friendly border guards greeting you in English and no real waiting at all. We had to take a train to the arrivals hall from where we landed but as I walked into the baggage hall, there my bags were, neatly rotating on the carousel and then the walk through customs was a breeze! It is not even comparable to the old terminal, which although also large and efficient, it just a drop in the ocean vs. the new Terminal 3.
If I may digress just for a second, just a week before the new Terminal 5 opened at Heathrow and what an absolute shambles that has been and continues to be. We actually watched the opening here on Sky and it certainly looks beautiful and spacious, but I think that is the only one small comparison which can be made. You will have all by now read the hundreds of news reports about the falling apart of the baggage handling systems and the PR disaster which has followed since. Some of my colleagues spent the entire week in Beijing without their baggage, and some have returned home still not knowing when they will ever receive these again. The latest is of course that BA has sent more than 20,000 bags to Italy by road freight and there they will be sorted and then couriered to customers’ place of residence. Have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous as this?! Of course every customer is now praying that their bags don’t get couriered back to them via Heathrow…
For the UK this has been a PR disaster, for BA and its reliance on business passengers this will still prove to be absolutely devastating as thousands of business travelers start avoiding using London as a hub into Europe.
Now, if this had to happen in China you can believe that a couple of officials in charge of the new airport would have been summarily shot. Terrible I know… All I can say is the new terminal had 3 successful test runs before the official opening and they have had no glitches at all thus far. Flying out is even smoother and man, let me not even begin to talk about the shopping!
Beijing itself has undergone quite a transformational change before the Olympics is about to hit it in August. Many of the construction projects are now complete. The train from the new terminal into the center of Beijing is not running yet, but the tracks are complete and this should be operational very soon. The buildings which were half complete when we left are now receiving their finishing touches and man these are just spectacular. The new Westin Hotel close to our offices in Chaoyang is just out of this world, not to even mention the new CCTV building, which displays some of the boldest architecture the world has ever seen. The standard systems for engineering gravity and lateral loads in buildings didn't apply to this building, which is formed by two leaning towers; each bent 90 degrees at the top and bottom to form a continuous loop. And then of course there is the Olympic stadium with its outer design looking like a bird’s nest. Trust the Chinese to really push the boundaries of architecture and design.
The only problem for me was that they have still not solved the pollution problem. I arrived in a deep cloud of smog and it only really cleared the next day when there was quite a lot of wind blowing for most of the day. The authorities are experimenting with alternate number plate driving, i.e. those ending with odd numbers on one day and those with even number on the next. They are also removing as many government vehicles as possible. We know the factories will be closed and no construction will occur during this period, but whether this will solve the pollution for the 2 weeks in August remains debatable.
I spent nearly a week back in Beijing and it was oddly nostalgic. I got to visit many of the shops we used to hang out in and saw some of my old friends again. There was an old familiarity in coming back to a place where we had once lived, but also a strange feeling that if I had to come back in 6 months again that even more would be changed. The progress is great for a new developing country but also slightly sad to know that soon this place will be as unfamiliar as any new city I will be visiting in the future.
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Like sand through the hourglass, so is Europe
GROWING UP IN SOUTH AFRICA I LEARNT THE history of how South Africa was founded as a trading post by the Dutch, how it was taken over by the British in 1795, the Great Trek, the Boer Wars and of course the history and evolution of the political, social and economic landscapes since 1910.
My European history lessons were mostly confined to the two World Wars and the Cold War, all neatly summarised. Oh, there were bits on the dark and middle ages, and the Renaissance, but it never got down to the detail, like the evolution of the Greek and Roman empires and the formation of the United Kingdom. The social, political and economic nuances were entirely left out.
Now, travelling and working in Europe, I have found my passion for history awakened, not to mention the fact that understanding this continent is now a business imperative considering the influence history has on the present.
Since we arrived in the Netherlands I have tried to educate myself about politics within the European Union and around its edges. What I’ve found is a soap opera, something like the Bold and the Beautiful, except more outrageously unbelievable.
Not that I’m a political analyst, mind you, but it is hard not to reach that conclusion.
Consider: Western Europe is the domain of Germany, Britain and France. Germany is ruled by a fragile coalition established when Angela Merkel took over. Her predecessors were ousted because their economic reforms were too hard-line capitalist. Merkel supported those reforms, but had a leftist, more socialist outlook on how they should work and how far they should go. The reality is that Germany desperately needs to reform a stagnating economy struggling under a social burden. But the new coalition is under increasing pressure from the conservatives who blame everything – crime, slow growth, social problems and cultural decline – on either immigrants or the European Union or both.
The UK, by contrast, is boring despite the superficial drama. Pity Gordon Brown, who doesn’t have the spin and grin that Tony Blair commanded. Since his “new government” under his “new leadership” took over it has had to contend with Allistair Campbell criticizing it on the handling of floods, the handling of Northern Rock and the handling of confidential citizen data. That wouldn’t have been a problem if there was an iota of ideological difference between Messrs Brown and Campbell. The most interesting real debate is on how to handle a culture of teenage binge drinking. Even the new leader of the Liberal Democrats is being called a stunt double to Campbell.
In France, Nicolas Sarkozy won a hard-fought election on a platform that France desperately needs to reform both its economy and a social system that, like the rest of the government, is an overstaffed and inefficient bureaucratic nightmare. Before the election I didn’t even know that France had legislated a 35-hour working week (about half of what us real people pull) and actively discouraged overtime. Or that the core message in textbooks for secondary and tertiary education is that capitalism is legalised theft, preventable only when the state runs all industry on a non-profit basis. No wonder the commentators predicted that Sarkozy, though popular, would have a hard time effecting change. And they were right; witness the transport workers’ strike and the students protesting against being asked for money to study at university. When he tries to touch that bureaucracy the real fun will start. But at least his divorce and immediate second marriage (to a beautiful model, no less) adds a bit of flair missing from the proceedings elsewhere.
That’s just the internal issues of the three majors, and ignores such volatile places as Italy, or Eastern Europe with its fear of Russia (but its love of Russian gas) and its hatred of the West (but its love of Western money).
What do all of these have in common? I’d argue it is this: there is lots of drama and excitement and to-ing and fro-ing of actors, yet the more things change the more they stay the same. Just like any good soapie.
My European history lessons were mostly confined to the two World Wars and the Cold War, all neatly summarised. Oh, there were bits on the dark and middle ages, and the Renaissance, but it never got down to the detail, like the evolution of the Greek and Roman empires and the formation of the United Kingdom. The social, political and economic nuances were entirely left out.
Now, travelling and working in Europe, I have found my passion for history awakened, not to mention the fact that understanding this continent is now a business imperative considering the influence history has on the present.
Since we arrived in the Netherlands I have tried to educate myself about politics within the European Union and around its edges. What I’ve found is a soap opera, something like the Bold and the Beautiful, except more outrageously unbelievable.
Not that I’m a political analyst, mind you, but it is hard not to reach that conclusion.
Consider: Western Europe is the domain of Germany, Britain and France. Germany is ruled by a fragile coalition established when Angela Merkel took over. Her predecessors were ousted because their economic reforms were too hard-line capitalist. Merkel supported those reforms, but had a leftist, more socialist outlook on how they should work and how far they should go. The reality is that Germany desperately needs to reform a stagnating economy struggling under a social burden. But the new coalition is under increasing pressure from the conservatives who blame everything – crime, slow growth, social problems and cultural decline – on either immigrants or the European Union or both.
The UK, by contrast, is boring despite the superficial drama. Pity Gordon Brown, who doesn’t have the spin and grin that Tony Blair commanded. Since his “new government” under his “new leadership” took over it has had to contend with Allistair Campbell criticizing it on the handling of floods, the handling of Northern Rock and the handling of confidential citizen data. That wouldn’t have been a problem if there was an iota of ideological difference between Messrs Brown and Campbell. The most interesting real debate is on how to handle a culture of teenage binge drinking. Even the new leader of the Liberal Democrats is being called a stunt double to Campbell.
In France, Nicolas Sarkozy won a hard-fought election on a platform that France desperately needs to reform both its economy and a social system that, like the rest of the government, is an overstaffed and inefficient bureaucratic nightmare. Before the election I didn’t even know that France had legislated a 35-hour working week (about half of what us real people pull) and actively discouraged overtime. Or that the core message in textbooks for secondary and tertiary education is that capitalism is legalised theft, preventable only when the state runs all industry on a non-profit basis. No wonder the commentators predicted that Sarkozy, though popular, would have a hard time effecting change. And they were right; witness the transport workers’ strike and the students protesting against being asked for money to study at university. When he tries to touch that bureaucracy the real fun will start. But at least his divorce and immediate second marriage (to a beautiful model, no less) adds a bit of flair missing from the proceedings elsewhere.
That’s just the internal issues of the three majors, and ignores such volatile places as Italy, or Eastern Europe with its fear of Russia (but its love of Russian gas) and its hatred of the West (but its love of Western money).
What do all of these have in common? I’d argue it is this: there is lots of drama and excitement and to-ing and fro-ing of actors, yet the more things change the more they stay the same. Just like any good soapie.
Cross-cultural Europe
SEVEN MONTHS ON AND WE'RE SETTLING DOWN nicely in the Netherlands. The kids are happy in school, the wife has her own car and life is assuming a semblance of normality.
Normality, in this case, also means I can realistically set a target of spending only 25 to thirty weeks this year travelling, and most of that travel will be in short hops. Moscow is only three hours and forty minutes away from home now. That also means I get to spend more time in the countries I visit – and I’m starting to see that, deep down, they’re not all that different from home.
For example: I was sitting in a presentation in Warsaw recently, where a business was bragging about the growth in a particular line. In one of the slides the numbers had been reversed, so it looked like there had actually been a decrease. The presenters looked at each other, smiled, and one said: “We apologise but it seems as if there is a ‘Czech’ problem in the numbers.”
With the Polish accent, we thought the word was “check”, as in “Damn, we forgot to check the slides”. Only during drinks after the presentation did we learn it had been a jibe at people from the Czech Republic. I still don’t know why, exactly. The best explanation offered had something to do with the way you spell in Czech, but that smells like a diplomatic retreat.
Similarly, I was sitting in Kiev in Ukraine when some heavy furniture had to be rearranged to accommodate more people in the room. A female employee chirped to her colleague that this was a job requiring “a Polish solution”, which I later found out refers to the physical strength of Polish men. Which is apt, I guess, when you consider the official ranking of the strongest men in the world: the two top spots are held by Poles.
Then there is the cultural debate between the Ukrainians and the Russians. Don’t ever even think of bringing up the whole Ukraine-is-the-cradle-of-Russia thing; that’s my advice. Or even within countries; don’t try to dispute that people in Warsaw are business types, that Krakow is the home of party animals or that Poznan residents aren’t actually German.
My approach is to sit back and ask questions but never offer any thoughts on the matter. That way I can learn without putting my foot in my mouth, as I would surely do, and risk important business relationships.
All this shouldn’t come as a surprise, I guess. No matter where you go, human nature is still human nature.
Normality, in this case, also means I can realistically set a target of spending only 25 to thirty weeks this year travelling, and most of that travel will be in short hops. Moscow is only three hours and forty minutes away from home now. That also means I get to spend more time in the countries I visit – and I’m starting to see that, deep down, they’re not all that different from home.
For example: I was sitting in a presentation in Warsaw recently, where a business was bragging about the growth in a particular line. In one of the slides the numbers had been reversed, so it looked like there had actually been a decrease. The presenters looked at each other, smiled, and one said: “We apologise but it seems as if there is a ‘Czech’ problem in the numbers.”
With the Polish accent, we thought the word was “check”, as in “Damn, we forgot to check the slides”. Only during drinks after the presentation did we learn it had been a jibe at people from the Czech Republic. I still don’t know why, exactly. The best explanation offered had something to do with the way you spell in Czech, but that smells like a diplomatic retreat.
Similarly, I was sitting in Kiev in Ukraine when some heavy furniture had to be rearranged to accommodate more people in the room. A female employee chirped to her colleague that this was a job requiring “a Polish solution”, which I later found out refers to the physical strength of Polish men. Which is apt, I guess, when you consider the official ranking of the strongest men in the world: the two top spots are held by Poles.
Then there is the cultural debate between the Ukrainians and the Russians. Don’t ever even think of bringing up the whole Ukraine-is-the-cradle-of-Russia thing; that’s my advice. Or even within countries; don’t try to dispute that people in Warsaw are business types, that Krakow is the home of party animals or that Poznan residents aren’t actually German.
My approach is to sit back and ask questions but never offer any thoughts on the matter. That way I can learn without putting my foot in my mouth, as I would surely do, and risk important business relationships.
All this shouldn’t come as a surprise, I guess. No matter where you go, human nature is still human nature.
Playing the homeboy tourist...
NOW THAT WE OFFICIALLY RESIDE IN THE Netherlands, my family and I returned to South Africa over the holiday season as near foreigners, more European than African you could say. If we were real foreigners it may well have been our last trip.
Yes, I know saying anything bad about the country gets you branded an unpatriotic traitor these days; I’ve been exposed to the prevailing culture of not daring to criticise. But somebody has to talk straight, and it may as well be me.
Our problems came at the two points where most people’s impressions of a trip are formed: coming in and going out.
The rental car office is the last place you’d expect trouble at an airport, but that is where it started. The “super extreme insurance cover” we’d opted for was no longer available, I was told. Neither was the lower excess rate we had chosen at the cost of a higher daily rental. The higher rental would stay, though.
Fine, nobody wants to start a holiday stressed out, so we proceeded to the half-hour task of inspecting our (expensive but under-insured) chariot. And off we went. Only to return ten minutes later.
We had barely made it onto the highway before, bang! The rubber strip around the windscreen was suddenly flapping in the wind, barely attached to the car – a car with 3 000 kilometres on the clock.
Back at the rental place, things quickly went wrong. “How could you let this happen,” was the opening gambit from the service consultant. Then I was told there was no replacement car in the class I had booked, only a lesser car at the same price or a better car at a higher rate. We drove off in a higher-class car at the original rate, eventually, but not before I quite thoroughly lost my cool. Thank you Hertz.
The holiday itself – the beaches and sunshine and mountains and family and stuff – went well. The load shedding wasn’t fun, neither was the shortage of Coke Light, but such is life.
Trying to get back home is an experience that will stay with me, though – in nightmares, for a long time.
You might have heard of the KLM flight that had to return to OR Tambo Airport because of “technical difficulties”. Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.
By the time we arrived at the airport, just after 10pm, the terminals were closed for business. Without food or retail outlets to amuse waiting passengers, the business lounge was akin to a sardine can. And just as dark, once load shedding kicked in.
“Daddy, what happens if the power goes out while we are on the runway,” my ten-year-old daughter asked. I made reassuring noises while worrying about the same thing.
There were more mundane problems, though. No working information boards to check departure time or gates, for example.
Just after midnight we made it onto the plane, only to be told there was no fixed departure time because baggage could not be loaded without working conveyer belts and conveyer belts require electricity. One and a half hours later we were in the air. An hour after that we were back on the ground – and that is where the real fun started.
It took two and a half hours to get our baggage back, because there were no baggage handlers and no working conveyer belts. I shouldn’t complain, though; we were among the forty lucky passengers who did actually regain possession of most of their bags at the first attempt.
We were also among the 19 lucky passengers to get a room at the hotel across from the terminals. Three single rooms for four people. But, hey, that didn’t seem too bad when we saw the 300 poor sods lined up for taxis (there being no buses at that time of the morning) to take them to hotels further afield.
The next day we were sent from pillar to post in search of our few missing bags – to no avail. Again we were lucky, though; we made it onto an Air France flight that night, among just ten original KLM passengers who didn’t have to spend another day waiting for a flight out. But we did have to wait an extra two hours because conveyer belts were once again on the blink.
In Amsterdam, it was straight to the baggage handling office – another bag having gone missing during the new flight. It took a week to turn up.
The worst wasn’t being in airport limbo, or being abused by ground staff. The worst was talking to fellow victims, who all had variations of the same story. “It’s a beautiful country, but I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Systems and processes, guys. Don’t wait until December 2009 to get them in place. Start now. Or us Europeans won’t be back for more.
Yes, I know saying anything bad about the country gets you branded an unpatriotic traitor these days; I’ve been exposed to the prevailing culture of not daring to criticise. But somebody has to talk straight, and it may as well be me.
Our problems came at the two points where most people’s impressions of a trip are formed: coming in and going out.
The rental car office is the last place you’d expect trouble at an airport, but that is where it started. The “super extreme insurance cover” we’d opted for was no longer available, I was told. Neither was the lower excess rate we had chosen at the cost of a higher daily rental. The higher rental would stay, though.
Fine, nobody wants to start a holiday stressed out, so we proceeded to the half-hour task of inspecting our (expensive but under-insured) chariot. And off we went. Only to return ten minutes later.
We had barely made it onto the highway before, bang! The rubber strip around the windscreen was suddenly flapping in the wind, barely attached to the car – a car with 3 000 kilometres on the clock.
Back at the rental place, things quickly went wrong. “How could you let this happen,” was the opening gambit from the service consultant. Then I was told there was no replacement car in the class I had booked, only a lesser car at the same price or a better car at a higher rate. We drove off in a higher-class car at the original rate, eventually, but not before I quite thoroughly lost my cool. Thank you Hertz.
The holiday itself – the beaches and sunshine and mountains and family and stuff – went well. The load shedding wasn’t fun, neither was the shortage of Coke Light, but such is life.
Trying to get back home is an experience that will stay with me, though – in nightmares, for a long time.
You might have heard of the KLM flight that had to return to OR Tambo Airport because of “technical difficulties”. Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.
By the time we arrived at the airport, just after 10pm, the terminals were closed for business. Without food or retail outlets to amuse waiting passengers, the business lounge was akin to a sardine can. And just as dark, once load shedding kicked in.
“Daddy, what happens if the power goes out while we are on the runway,” my ten-year-old daughter asked. I made reassuring noises while worrying about the same thing.
There were more mundane problems, though. No working information boards to check departure time or gates, for example.
Just after midnight we made it onto the plane, only to be told there was no fixed departure time because baggage could not be loaded without working conveyer belts and conveyer belts require electricity. One and a half hours later we were in the air. An hour after that we were back on the ground – and that is where the real fun started.
It took two and a half hours to get our baggage back, because there were no baggage handlers and no working conveyer belts. I shouldn’t complain, though; we were among the forty lucky passengers who did actually regain possession of most of their bags at the first attempt.
We were also among the 19 lucky passengers to get a room at the hotel across from the terminals. Three single rooms for four people. But, hey, that didn’t seem too bad when we saw the 300 poor sods lined up for taxis (there being no buses at that time of the morning) to take them to hotels further afield.
The next day we were sent from pillar to post in search of our few missing bags – to no avail. Again we were lucky, though; we made it onto an Air France flight that night, among just ten original KLM passengers who didn’t have to spend another day waiting for a flight out. But we did have to wait an extra two hours because conveyer belts were once again on the blink.
In Amsterdam, it was straight to the baggage handling office – another bag having gone missing during the new flight. It took a week to turn up.
The worst wasn’t being in airport limbo, or being abused by ground staff. The worst was talking to fellow victims, who all had variations of the same story. “It’s a beautiful country, but I don’t want to go through this again. I don’t think I’ll be back.”
Systems and processes, guys. Don’t wait until December 2009 to get them in place. Start now. Or us Europeans won’t be back for more.
Planes, Airports & Hotels
I TRAVEL MORE THAN MOST, I THINK. ACCORDING to my calculation I spent 120 of the last 156 weeks (since 2004) away from home – much of it on planes. So I’m qualified to share my list of best and worst airlines, airports and hotels. Perhaps I can save you some trouble.
What has happened since the days when we were taught that the only polite way to join a queue was from the back? In Asia, the concept has never existed, but lately everyone in the world seems to think themselves above something as tawdry as waiting in line. In airports, anyway. At ticket counters, passport control or security stations they join from the side, or suddenly discover a new best friend near the front, or just walk straight past 60 other people to slip through. Nothing kills goodwill towards mankind quite like waiting for 45 minutes to be strip-searched and then watching some bozo cruise straight past you.
But I digress.
The worst airline in the world is India Air, especially on the route to New Delhi. I’m told it has improved recently, but because I now strictly fl y Air Malaysia I wouldn’t know. India Air was exceptionally dirty, the seats were small and broken and it felt like sitting on bare metal – in business class. On my last flight the entertainment system (overhead movie projectors, naturally) was broken, so we spent five hours staring at each other while trying to block out the odour of spicy Sichuan noodles and red-hot chicken curry. Never again.
The second worst airline in the world is SAA. Perhaps not on all routes, but between Johannesburg and Hong Kong there is nothing to match it. In a record one-hour and 15 minutes you are served drinks, dinner and desert, and then the lights go out. For the next ten hours you dare not disturb an attendant – all of whom are getting some much needed sleep, as we gathered from the look of sleepy-eyed disgust any request was met with. On three consecutive flights I had seats that could not recline and had a broken entertainment system. No sleep, no distraction. Never again.
By contrast, the best airlines out there are Singapore and Emirates. The planes are immaculate, the service is astonishing, the food is unrivalled and the entertainment proves that there is such a thing as too much choice.
The worst airport in the world is New Delhi. Your passport gets checked at least 15 times, the business lounge is a joke and even though there is water everywhere there is not a drop to drink if your stomach is Western.
But New Delhi is somewhat out of the way. In the “frequented” category there is nothing to rival Heathrow. There you need to set aside a minimum of three hours to catch a connecting flight or suffer the consequences. Don’t expect your baggage to arrive; by my calculations your chances are around forty percent. Security is worse than even in some of the former Soviet states. I’m not holding my breath for the fabled Terminal 5 to open because I already use the London City Airport exclusively.
The best airport in the world is a tie between Hong Kong, Singapore and Schipol. Everything is efficient and convenience and just generally trouble free. A special mention must also go to Eastern European states like the Ukraine, which has one of the best business lounges in Europe.
The worst hotel, sadly, is in my favourite city, Shanghai. The first night I stayed in the RuTai, the shower popped out of the wall just as I had myself entirely covered with soap. I opened my eyes to find the bath I was standing in was filled with wall tiles. The next night I returned to my new room to find the entire floor flooded by a toilet that had literally exploded. Breakfast consists of spinach, broccoli and blue eggs. Thanks, but no thanks.
The best hotels are the Conrad in Hong Kong and the Arrarat in Moscow. Everything is impeccable, from the bathrooms to the high speed (and free) internet connection. The staff can’t conceive of any guest request as troublesome or difficult.
As you fall prey to pathetic service and horrible infrastructure in your own travels, though, remember to look on the bright side. There is no point to travelling if you don’t come back with stories to tell. And stories of good fortune are never as entertaining as ones of plague and disaster. The bad experiences invariably give you better bang for your buck – it’s just damned hard to realise this at the time.
What has happened since the days when we were taught that the only polite way to join a queue was from the back? In Asia, the concept has never existed, but lately everyone in the world seems to think themselves above something as tawdry as waiting in line. In airports, anyway. At ticket counters, passport control or security stations they join from the side, or suddenly discover a new best friend near the front, or just walk straight past 60 other people to slip through. Nothing kills goodwill towards mankind quite like waiting for 45 minutes to be strip-searched and then watching some bozo cruise straight past you.
But I digress.
The worst airline in the world is India Air, especially on the route to New Delhi. I’m told it has improved recently, but because I now strictly fl y Air Malaysia I wouldn’t know. India Air was exceptionally dirty, the seats were small and broken and it felt like sitting on bare metal – in business class. On my last flight the entertainment system (overhead movie projectors, naturally) was broken, so we spent five hours staring at each other while trying to block out the odour of spicy Sichuan noodles and red-hot chicken curry. Never again.
The second worst airline in the world is SAA. Perhaps not on all routes, but between Johannesburg and Hong Kong there is nothing to match it. In a record one-hour and 15 minutes you are served drinks, dinner and desert, and then the lights go out. For the next ten hours you dare not disturb an attendant – all of whom are getting some much needed sleep, as we gathered from the look of sleepy-eyed disgust any request was met with. On three consecutive flights I had seats that could not recline and had a broken entertainment system. No sleep, no distraction. Never again.
By contrast, the best airlines out there are Singapore and Emirates. The planes are immaculate, the service is astonishing, the food is unrivalled and the entertainment proves that there is such a thing as too much choice.
The worst airport in the world is New Delhi. Your passport gets checked at least 15 times, the business lounge is a joke and even though there is water everywhere there is not a drop to drink if your stomach is Western.
But New Delhi is somewhat out of the way. In the “frequented” category there is nothing to rival Heathrow. There you need to set aside a minimum of three hours to catch a connecting flight or suffer the consequences. Don’t expect your baggage to arrive; by my calculations your chances are around forty percent. Security is worse than even in some of the former Soviet states. I’m not holding my breath for the fabled Terminal 5 to open because I already use the London City Airport exclusively.
The best airport in the world is a tie between Hong Kong, Singapore and Schipol. Everything is efficient and convenience and just generally trouble free. A special mention must also go to Eastern European states like the Ukraine, which has one of the best business lounges in Europe.
The worst hotel, sadly, is in my favourite city, Shanghai. The first night I stayed in the RuTai, the shower popped out of the wall just as I had myself entirely covered with soap. I opened my eyes to find the bath I was standing in was filled with wall tiles. The next night I returned to my new room to find the entire floor flooded by a toilet that had literally exploded. Breakfast consists of spinach, broccoli and blue eggs. Thanks, but no thanks.
The best hotels are the Conrad in Hong Kong and the Arrarat in Moscow. Everything is impeccable, from the bathrooms to the high speed (and free) internet connection. The staff can’t conceive of any guest request as troublesome or difficult.
As you fall prey to pathetic service and horrible infrastructure in your own travels, though, remember to look on the bright side. There is no point to travelling if you don’t come back with stories to tell. And stories of good fortune are never as entertaining as ones of plague and disaster. The bad experiences invariably give you better bang for your buck – it’s just damned hard to realise this at the time.
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