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From Our Own Correspondent
Highlights of 2012
00:28:04
As the year draws to an end, Kate Adie presents a feast of highlights from despatches...
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You're listening to a download from the BBC. This is from our own correspondent.
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You can hear the version of the
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programme we make for the BBC World Service by visiting our site at BBConline. But here's the latest edition broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and introduced by Kate Ady.
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Today we have a special seasonal offering. Some of the highlights and lighter moments from this year's dispatches from our correspondents around the world. And what a feast it is.
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Bitter leaves, mushrooms, nuts, berries and moss.
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Chocolate covered marshmallow Teddy bears, Beer, whiskey, Roasted quail cigarettes.
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Two crispy corn tortillas covered in a rich sauce of green tomatoes and topped off with two fried eggs of perfect consistency.
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Slices of candied orange half coated in bitter chocolate.
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And that's just for breakfast.
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As an appetiser, we join Fuchsia Dunlop to dance with China's past. Earlier in the year, she visited Shanghai, where after two decades of frenzied demolition, many of the city's remaining Art Deco buildings have been revamped and restored. The former French Concession has become a manicured district of designer boutiques and anonymous bars. But there's one place that stands out as a symbol of the city's polyglot glamour in the 1930s, between the two world wars.
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Dal by Lerman Take me to the Gate of a Hundred Pleasures. I ordered the taxi driver and we sped off through the cool Shanghai night. At a crossroads near the Jing' An Temple, coloured lights pulsed up the facade of a grand Art Deco building. The name of the Paramount Dance Hall Bailmen, or Gate of a Hundred Pleasures in Chinese, blazed over the door in red neon lights. I'd been intrigued by the idea of visiting the Paramount for years. In its heyday in the 1930s, it was one of the world's legendary dance halls. A place where Chinese tycoons and gangsters mingled with pretty girls and foreign adventurers in an atmosphere of giddy modernity. Of course, like the rest of Shanghai's decadent pre revolutionary past, the old dancing scene disappeared after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1956, the Paramount closed, later to be turned into a cinema for revolutionary films. By 1990, the building itself was crumbling and falling masonry killed a passing pedestrian. But then a Taiwanese businessman, Zhao Shichong, came to the rescue with a multi million pound refurbishment and the Paramount's famous cantilevered floor sprang into life once again. In the glory days of ballroom dancing in Shanghai, men bought tickets on the door and exchanged them for dances with professional hostesses. These days, a woman is allowed to hire her own man. When I entered the ballroom, my dancing instructor and date for the night, Mr. Cao, was waiting for me, elegantly dressed in a black shirt and pinstripe trousers with slicked back hair. A professional dancer from Anhui province, he'd been working at the Paramount for nearly a decade. And there was the famous dance floor, surrounded by tables and bonkettes, illuminated by a grand chandelier and some multicolored lights. On the stage a small jazz band were playing a waltz as part of their set. Mr. Cao led me out onto the floor and although my dance steps were rusty with his expert lead and a few embarrassing tangles, I found myself remembering how to waltz. Over the rest of the evening he took me on a crash course of all the dances I'd once learned and long forgotten. The fox trot and rumba, quickstep and gyve. And when Mr. Tsao and I settled into the gentle pace of a waltz as the jazz band played, I closed my eyes to the disco lights and was able to imagine myself back in a vanished era.
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Fuchsia Dunlop In China, you may not be surprised to learn that over the course of the year our correspondents reported on matters close to their hearts. Deep crimson wine, an espresso on the
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beach, ice cold bottle of Egyptian beer,
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Melange with extra hot milk and not too much foam. After several cups of tea, I just had to go.
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In a remote part of northern Siberia, Lucy Asch found the most challenging part of her assignment was answering the call of nature in the wild.
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Gritting my teeth, I crawled under the tent flap and into the knife sharp wind. As I squatted in the snow, I was almost toppled by a blow from the side. Nobody had warned me that reindeer loved the salt in human urine.
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Go away.
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Scram. I shouted. I tried again in Russian, but there was still a forest of antlers above my head. What's get lost in nenets? I asked when I eventually made it back inside the conical shaped tent or chum poker faced. Nina, the brigade leader's wife, handed me a stick. Next time take this. There are dozens of rules you have to observe when living with the herders. The so called laws of the tundra. The Yamil Nenets follow a centuries old animistic religion that governs every aspect of their daily lives. For instance, I notice women lifting ropes over their heads while men just walked over them. That's because females who menstruate are considered unclean, so they have to avoid stepping over reins, lassoes or anything that's been in contact with the herd. This taboo is supposed to guard the family's reindeer from disease or predatory wolves. Reindeer supply clothing and shelter it was spring and only minus 15 Celsius, but our extreme weather anorax and sleeping bags weren't up to the job. Nina dressed me in a yagushka, a brightly embroidered coat made from a double layer of eight reindeer skins. It was toasty warm, but there are even thicker winter coats for men who have to sleep outside with the herd in temperatures down to minus 50. I've never been a shoe fetishist, but I did lust after a pair of thigh high reindeer fur boots. All Nenets wear them, from toddlers to grandparents.
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Lucy Ash and the traditional life among the Yamal Nenets A completely different gender division operates in one part of India, as Timothy Allen discovered on a trip to meet the Khasi people in Meghalaya.
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I'm sat across the table from Keith Parriot. Keith is the president of Sengkong Rhumpai Tamai, Meghalaya's very own men's rights movement. He's quick to assure me that he and his colleagues don't want to bring women down. As he puts it, we just want to bring the men up to where the women are. Parriot, who ignored age old customs by taking his father's surname, is adamant that matriline is breeding generations of Qasi men who fall short of their inherent potential, citing act alcoholism and drug abuse amongst its negative side effects. If you want to know how much the cusses favour women, he says, just take a trip to the labor ward at the hospital. If it's a girl, there will be great cheers from the family outside. If it's a boy, you will hear them mutter politely that whatever God gives us is quite alright. I decide to see for myself. In a remote village in the East Cussie Hills. After two hours walking through thick jungle, I meet 42 year old Mary. She is a kadu, the youngest daughter in her family and consequently the one destined to live with her parents until she inherits the family house. Her husband, 36 year old Alfred, lives with them. When I talk to Mary inside her home, she tells me that women don't trust men to look after their money, so they take control of it themselves. I glance at Alfred for a response, but he musters only a candid smile. Mary goes on, most men in our village leave school early to help their fathers in the fields. This, she concedes, is a great detriment to their education. I turn to Alfred once more. He responds with another shy smile, Mary admits she has never heard of the men's rights movement, but thinks the system will never change. Alfred maintains his Mona Lisa smile. As we are talking, a praying mantis careers into our hut and slams into the side of my head. After the laughter dies down, I take the opportunity to break the ice with Alfred by pointing out that female mantises eat their mates after sex. Forty minutes later, however, I have yet to get a comment from Mary's husband, and all too soon it's time to leave. I feel that the last word should come from Alfred, so I ask my translator to target a simple question directly at him. What does he think of the matrilineal system? There is a long and considered pause. After what seems like an eternity, the silence is finally broken. He, like, pipes up mary and it's time to go.
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Timothy Allen in India now it's time for the main course of the From Aroon Correspondent banquet.
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Spicy cats to you, anyone?
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Freeze dried pine needles, stewed cockatoo and
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pigeon fried moss dusted with porcini shavings.
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Or perhaps you'd prefer grilled cat with native wakatai herbs.
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Yes, our correspondents have eaten some strange items this year, but the prize for the most gruesome goes to Cape McGowan in the Philippines, a country not famed for its culinary excellence. Here's one reason why.
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When I first told my friends that I was moving to the Philippines, they were instantly jealous. They were thinking of the tropical sun, the chance to dive to some of the world's best coral reefs, the white sandy beaches. But no one ever mentioned the food. It's not hard to see why. On arrival in Manila, most people quickly assume this is a nation which lives on fast food, not content with the usual international chains. On every street corner there are homegrown versions as well, and there's even one in which everything on the menu is made from Spam. Most street stores are unlikely to win any culinary awards, either. The sausages are so pink they practically glow in the dark. Then there's the wonderfully named helmet, grilled chicken's head and Adidas, which are meant to resemble the three stripes on the sports store's logo. Neither of these seem to have widespread appeal among tourists. Nor does Betamax cubes of dried blood, which are thought to look like the old videotapes. As far as I'm concerned, they look about as appetizing as videotapes, too. Possibly the most difficult food for foreigners to stomach is balut boiled duck foetus still in its egg but just days from hatching. Yes, the beak and the feathers are fully formed, but the idea is that you ignore all that and gulp it down. Anyway, within a few months of moving here, I decided, like many others before me, that eating nice food in the Philippines meant eating food that wasn't actually Filipino. But that's before I met some serious food lovers who persuaded me to give the national dishes another chance. I met chefs who extolled the virtues of a cuisine as vibrant as any in Asia, which mixes the influence of more than 300 years of Spanish colonialism with Malay and Chinese flavors. And of course, the varied dishes of the 7,000 islands which make up the Philippine archipelago. There's the sour sinigang soup, the Spanish inspired adobo stew and the coconut palm spring rolls or lumpia, and many other dishes incorporating the varied tropical fruits and vegetables available here. Admittedly, it was always going to be difficult for me as a vegetarian to love a cuisine that has so much pork in it that I have to specify that I don't eat meat or pig. Once a kindly waiter put some fried pork next to my plate, compliments of the chef, just in case I changed my mind during the meal. But if you look hard enough, there are plenty of options to suit different tastes and preferences. And it's not all fried either. There are salads and soups and roasts as well. The main problem seems to be that most people don't really investigate what Philippine cuisine has to offer, and that includes Filipinos as much as foreigners. Rolando Ladico is a flamboyant, long haired young chef who's passionate about his national cuisine and desperately wants to improve its image. He says that for centuries, Filipinos have been in the habit of apologizing for their food, telling guests they're sorry they couldn't offer anything better. It's seen as cheap, everyday fare rather than anything you'd eat out of choice. That's why so many of Mr. Laudico's friends cautioned him against opening a gourmet restaurant serving only Philippine food. But he went ahead anyway and opened Bistro Filipino. So far, things are going well. It's packed out most nights and another outlet was opened last year because of the demand. So perhaps it's restaurants like this which herald the future for Philippine cuisine. With better marketing and a bit of modernisation, it does have the potential to join the ranks of other Asian cuisines. But boiled duck fetus, I'm still not sure that has mainstream appeal.
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Kate McGowan in Manila, Alan Little had his own egg crisis while in The Falklands Islands. Reporting on the Duke of Cambridge's tour of duty there as a helicopter pilot in February, the excitement of the royal visit was eclipsed by a far more pressing question on everyone's minds.
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Yes, I said, as a matter of fact, I have been hit by the egg shortage, for at breakfast that morning I had nonchalantly ordered two poached eggs on toast. It was one of those moments when you realise that as an outsider you have failed to pick up on a matter of local custom and have momentarily caused embarrassment to your hosts. Two eggs, sir? The lady said. I'm afraid that won't be possible. We're down to one egg apiece now. The two and a half thousand people who live here are among the most isolated in the world and are getting more so. The editor of the local newspaper whimsically called the Penguin News, wrote in her editorial this week about being asked again and again by visiting journalists to express the islander's excitement about the presence here of Prince William on a six week tour of duty as a helicopter pilot. She described instead a call she had received from a friend who was bubbling over with joy, not because of Prince William and all that his stay here symbolized about the all important bond between these islands and Britain, but because she had managed to grow a pepper and a cucumber. Like eggs, fresh vegetables are increasingly hard to come by. The islands, acre for acre, aren't much smaller than Wales, but the land is rocky and unyielding. You can drive for mile after mile across peaty moorlands of black and pale yellow. There are no trees, for the wind comes in at you with such force from the cold Atlantic that nothing stands a chance. I visited a sheep farm. 19,000 acres to sustain 2 1/2 thousand sheep. In other words, each individual sheep needs 7 acres of land to get through the year. That's how ungiving this land is. And yet the Falkland Islanders make it work. But you can't get eggs and you can't get vegetables. South America once traded happily, with the islanders supplying all their needs. But Buenos Aires has been working hard to cut the islands off. Recently, Argentina persuaded other South American countries to turn away from their ports. Falklands flagged vessels. Ships rounding Cape Horn heading for the Falklands are routinely stopped, searched and delayed. So much so that merchant vessels have largely given up trying. Argentina has also restricted air traffic. There is one flight a week from Chile. Argentina won't allow more than this to pass through its airspace. Now Argentina is threatening to close even this last link with mainland South America. But they're an unflappable lot to the Falkland Islanders. They keep calm and carry on. They also seem strikingly egalitarian, unimpressed by status or rank. Ask them about Prince William and they'll say they're glad he's here, but that he's here to do a job. And so are a lot of other young servicemen and women whose names you don't know. And we're just as glad they're here. The editor of Penguin News, combining the two big stories, the Prince and the fresh produce shortage, was in no doubt which she considered more germane to the life and well being of the islanders. Were I to obtain an interview with the dashing young royal, she wrote, my first question might well be, did you bring any bananas?
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Alan Little. Many of our correspondents bring us behind the scenes stories from conflicts in the world's most dangerous places. But some memorable pieces have been drawn from more everyday events. Take this item from Peter Day, who found inspiration while plugging in his razor.
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I have to report a minor breakthrough in the great power play between nations, and a very pleasant one at that. Any global voyager burdened by electrical equipment will have been hugely frustrated by the rabid protectionism of the international electrical plug and socket industry. It's almost as insistent a badge of nationhood as having your own national airline. An electrical plug that will fit only into an electrical socket designed by an intricate minded national to be utterly impervious to other countries plugs. Thus we have flimsy American two pin sockets sometimes splayed in other countries. Two round pins in continental Europe, with German ones apparently minutely further apart than in France to frustrate the electric shaver. There are also mighty British three pinners with an enormous earth socket that seems rarely to be used themselves. A 1950s replacement for several curious smaller three pillars which must have dated back to the days when electricity was invented. This plethora of standards probably goes back to the beginnings of public electricity in the late 19th century and the battle between AC alternating current and DC direct current. The great American electrical pioneer Thomas Edison stood for dc. His rival George Westinghouse, was in favour of alternating current and as developed in Europe. Well, all this is a rather long winded way of expressing my delight the other day when I found in my bedrooms in two new hotels in China, a simple all purpose socket that took the plugs of many nations, including those of the uk. I have not encountered it before in years of travel. Wonderful. No longer to have to struggle with those converters that never exactly fit or fail to have a vital hole or pin and it's normally discovered only when a shave is vital or a flat battery urgently needs to recharge to enable recordings to continue. Oh, what pleasure to plug in my British three pin plug the other evening in Inner Mongolia, so very far from home. Why is this now possible? It seems to be a new application of the one country, two systems policy first applied to shapes of government when Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997. Since China now includes Hong Kong, Hong Kongers traveling to their own land needed to be able to use the three pin plugs they inherited from all those decades of British rule instead of the two or three pronged flat Chinese plugs. So the UK three pin plug has taken China by stealth in a last gasp of British imperialism. What a slogan. One socket, two nations, or even one socket for all. In the wake of this minor triumph, I have a modest proposal to make. Surely it is now time for the world's statesmen and women to turn their attention to that other source of electrical irritation, the humble light bulb. If the Chinese can stoop to acknowledge the existence of the British electric plug, then surely the peoples of the world should also be ready for for the proud democratic concept, one light bulb for all. Or maybe to put it into Mandarin, many systems, one bulb.
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Peter Day. Now onto our dessert course.
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Asparagus ice cream, semolina, sugar syrup and rose water.
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Seven dried fruits from almonds to apricots served in sweet syrup, rhubarb, large cubes of rose and lemon, Turkish delight heavy
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with powdered sugar and then black cherries. And for pudding, an ice cream served in luminous green dill sauce.
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Mounds of banana, mango and jackfruit.
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At this time of year, the sweet fruits of summer seem a long way away. So here's a glimpse of sunshine from Emma Jane Kirby. She spent part of her holiday in the south of France where she found that it's not only the well heeled but the high heeled who frequent the beach bars of St. Tropez.
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Every second woman here is precariously balanced on needle thin stilettos and she wears them not exactly confidently, but none the less with a fixed determination, her head held high and her mouth curved in a slight but distinctly self satisfied smile. Or perhaps that's just the Botox. Oh, good surgeon nods. The man sitting next to me in the cafe appreciating the designer draped, tanned and toned Barbie doll who's stilt walking past our table now and whose braless bre as pert as a pair of genetically Modified pomegranates appear to turn the corner a good two seconds before the rest of her. She looks about 45, which in Saint Tropez means she is probably at least 60. But she, like all her clones clattering and teetering behind and in front of her, is out to impress. She may well have just walked down the gangplank of one of the scores of luxury yachts that are moored here, or she might equally have just caught the bus in from one of the neighbouring campsites. But either way, she has come to Saint Tropez in the hope that at as she passes, you and I will look up from our pastis and our newspapers and say, wow, look at that. Just along the Riviera coast, President Hollande has also been taking a moderate summer break, dutifully staying in the official presidential retreat of Fort de Braganson, an austere and cramped castle that President De Gaulle described as a loathsome and mosquito ridden nightmare to which he refused to return. But Hollande, the self styled President Normal, is doing everything he can not to draw attention to himself. Not for him the private jets and billionaire yachts favoured by his predecessor Nicola Bling Bling Sakozy. Not for him the Ray Bans and Rolex and raunchy photos of sun drenched kisses with pop star models like Carla Bruni. The celebrity magazine VSD did publish a photo of him dutifully taking his first dip in the Mediterranean Sea with his partner Valerie Treivilloch. But. But in his serviceable blue knee length shorts, the waistband slightly hidden by the sun, starved but food filled overhang of his stomach, he looked so much like everyone's dad that the best headline VSD could come up with was Francois Hollande Normal even down to his swimming trunks. Until the 1950s, Saint Tropez was really just a small fishing village. But ever since the arrival of Brigitte Bardot, this place has reinvented itself as a star studded hotspot. The place to be if you want to be a person who counts. It talks the talk and it walks the walk. And if your pastis costs you €12 and comes with lukewarm water and no ice, well, that's just the way it's meant to be. Here on my final morning in Saint Tropez, the mistral wind has ripped the warmth from the air and I can feel its sharp and spiteful breath on my skin. The bars are emptying and the holidaymakers are all heading home, where hefty tax hikes, spiralling public debt and exploding unemployment Await them. There's a big storm brewing in France. President Hollande had better learn to swagger. And fast.
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Emma Jane Kirby. I'm afraid our feast is nearly over. Except for the singing.
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Hip hip rah rah rah aven meren tula. Hip hip rah rah rah.
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You're sucking on my. Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum
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dum dum dum dum dum dum.
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Tiger, tiger, tiger.
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Sis sis sis Boom boom boom
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dum dum da da dum dee dum dum dum dee dum.
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That last somber contribution was from Will Grant at the beginning of November. He spent the Day of the Dead in a small town in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It's traditionally a time when people pay tribute to the memory of their ancestors and he found it a surprisingly uplifting occasion.
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Upon the main hill, a troupe of dancers and musicians have gathered. At first, people are just milling around, waiting for the event to begin. Then suddenly, the bands strike up a kind of nightmarish Oompa. And the night begins. From nowhere, dancers appear wearing costumes of mirrors and stars. There are some incredible characters. A series of extremely macabre clowns. A skeleton wearing a bright blue 18th century court dress. The wolf from Little Red Riding Hood with a hand lolling where its tongue should be. A group of living dead mariachi musicians. There is political humour in there too, as well as some not so subtle digs at the church. A pig in a cassock, for example. And masks of identifiable Mexican politicians. Someone is also mimicking the left wing student movement called yo soy siento Trentedos. Despite the skulls and fake blood, everywhere you look, the young children of San Agustin Etla are present, wide eyed but fearless, gripping tightly their parents hands. Some are dancing as they watch, learning subliminally that death is to be accepted and celebrated as part of life, rather than hidden away and feared. Then the fireworks explode. Never a fiesta in Mexico without fireworks. The whole parade starts to wind its way through the village until we arrive at the church. The bells start to toll for the dead and the brass band strikes up a funeral march. Dum dum da dum dum dum dum dum dee dum. One of the figures acts out his death, another the grieving widow. The singing builds and the whole village joins in a single chant. Dios te salva dolorosa. God comfort your pain. My own grandmother died earlier this year and I felt a certain catharsis amid the crazy celebrations of death and the small drink of mezcal I raised to her health. Indeed, the whole event was taking place on what would have been my grandfather's 92nd birthday. It's all about time, a young musician dressed as Zorro says to me at one point, displaying gravitas beyond his years. Everything in its moment, and every moment when it comes.
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And now our moment has come. That's all from this seasonal edition. Join us again next Saturday for more from our own correspondence. Goodbye.