Make your own dang eggs. Or, let the hens do it for you. 
Urban egg farming is on the rise—partly because of the locavore movement, partly because eggs are off the “bad food” list, partly because because homegrown just tastes better. Before you decide between scrambled, poached or sunnyside up, you’ll have to decide between your Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island, Leghorn. You’ll probably also want a fancy coop like the Nogg, pictured above. Then start laying.
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New Ideas Blog:
A posting of thinking we like.
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Stop Martha Stewart from bragging about her eggs.
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Hope I don’t die before I get old enough to live here.
This residence for the elderly by Portuguese Aires Mateus architects in Alcacer do Sal, Portugal provides an ideal balance of privacy and social community. Time becomes form, as the architects thoughtfully took into account aspects of reduced mobility, health patterns and open spaces to provide residents a beautifully enhanced lifestyle.
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Mesh this
We’re loving the new mesh series from Brooklyn’s Horgan Becket
studio. A simple twist on negative space.
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Rites of Spring: The Masters on $100 a day
Spring Rituals beckon as the snow finally melts and the buds blossom, and there is perhaps no more iconic April rite than the annual pilgrimage by golf fans to the Masters golf tournament. There’s a lot of pleasure to be had by experiencing this tournament in person or on television. There’s also a lot to learn on the branding side. More than any other golf tournament, the Southern wizards in Augusta, Georgia have invented and sustained the most valued brand in all of golf for nearly half a century. Thinktopia contributor and founder of Snowball Narrative, Jonathan Littman wrote about the Masters as a Contributing Editor for Playboy. He’s recently published a book collecting his award winning Playboy stories, entitled Crashing Augusta: real life tales of sports, men and murder. Ever wondered how to experience the tournament without dropping several thousand dollars? Littman shares his secrets on how to enjoy a once in a lifetime experience on $100 a day. There’s still time to get to Augusta and see Tiger and Phil. The tournament starts on Thursday!
Crashing Augusta
I once shot 84 on a tough course, and like all duffers, dream that one day my wayward putts will fall effortlessly into one hole after another. Golf tempts us with the possible because perfection appears tantalizingly in reach, even for just a single hole, and that keeps us coming back after all the shanks and screams. We’re fanatical by nature. Witness the hundreds of golf training gimmicks and videos and books we buy to improve our swings. But perhaps I’m more fanatical than some. I’ve gotten on an airplane and flown cross-country in the faint hope that I might see and smell and hear and feel perfection in the presence of golf’s masters in their house of worship.
I’m suffering from Masters madness. Against all advice and reason, I am standing outside the gates of the world’s most exclusive golf tournament. Every reasonable person I know has told me it’s absurd to attempt to attend this tournament if you’re not a corporation, guest of a corporation or happen to have several thousand extra dollars to blow. The fact I’ve gotten this far is itself a miracle. I’ve actually secured a crash pad – last night I slept like a baby on an air mattress on the screen porch of a little brick house I’m sharing with seven guys half a mile down Azalea. With the city snarled in traffic it’s ideally located and you can’t beat the price – my share of the week’s lodging, and golf cart (rented on impulse from a local), comes to a bargain $425.
But here’s the rub. The badge, or tournament pass for the Masters, costs $3,500 to $5,000 or more, and is harder to come by than a Super Bowl ticket. Price alone does not convey the tournament’s exclusivity. This is the Deep South, where “Yes Suh!” fills the air like the pervasive scent of Magnolia blossoms, Northern principles do not apply.
Headed by chairman Hootie Johnson, The National, as locals proudly call it, is defined by its own rules. When the thunderous drives of a certain gifted player began soaring over the sand trap on eighteen, The National backed up the trap and lengthened the hole. As for Hootie’s headline grabbing preference for excluding the fairer sex. “Well, we’ve adopted a new policy,” Hootie proclaimed during his annual Masters news conference. “We don’t talk about club matters, period.” That means, “at the point of a bayonet,” he repeated, flanked by a bevy of green-jacketed members. “I said we have a new policy. We don’t talk about club matters, period.” Which is a pretty good idea when your organization excludes all women and counts just two blacks as members, while wholeheartedly embracing billionaires (six) and the nation’s richest, most powerful white men…
Corporations devour so many of the available Masters badges that it seems ludicrous for an ordinary golf enthusiast even to try to get one. But to my golf-addled mind, the clear financial hurdle only fires my competitive instincts. If you can do Europe on $100 a day, why not the Masters on the same budget?
The idea of a pilgrimage to Augusta has a dreamlike pull, like a Dodgers fan’s fantasy of being able to step back in time to stroll Ebbets Field. Hundreds of thousands of baseball fans make an annual road trip for spring training, a wonderful excuse to spend a beer fueled week in sunny climes, watching ball players up close and closing down bars. The Masters—the first Major of the season—is like spring training and the World Series at once. How can a true fan resist?
Storytelling is the new Innovation. We all want and need stories to read, tell and share. The kindle or print version of Jonathan Littman’s book “Crashing Augusta”—ideal for your next business flight—is available from Amazon.com
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Museo Soumaya premieres tonight
Billionaire Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, gives a sneak peek tonight at his new Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. The museum’s 150-foot high structure, designed by architect Fernando Romero, is covered with 16,000 hexagonal aluminum plates designed to reflect the sun’s light.
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French Upla bags it
Spotted on a recent trip to Paris Upla’s retail experience is as fresh and remarkable as their bags.
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Chinese Business Voodoo
Jonathan Littman, the co-author of the Art of Innovation, Thinktopia® collaborator and founder of Snowball Narrative, just returned from a business trip to Hong Kong and China, where he delved into branding, brand counterfeits — and superstition. This is Part 3 of a series.
Doing business in Hong Kong is not the same as doing business in New York, Paris or Rome. The biggest lesson for those planning to introduce a brand here or strike a deal is that superstition matters. Most know that the number 8 is considered a lucky number in Asia (remember how the Beijing Olympics opened on the eighth day of the eighth month at 8:08 and 8 seconds?). A Chinese company bought an all-eight telephone number for more than a quarter million dollars. Meanwhile, buildings here often skip the 4th floor. Why? Becomes when spoken, the number sounds like the word for “death.”
Businesses in China sometimes consult fortune-tellers to pick company names, when to open, and how to lay out floor plans. Superstition is no joke. Voodoo dolls became such a hit a few years back that authorities rushed to ban them when young Chinese buyers became obsessed with pin-sticking black magic.
I knew that I couldn’t arrive in Hong Kong empty-handed, so I took care to bring two thoughtful gifts for my host. The first was a pair of beautifully designed glasses, considered an ideal gift, along the lines of a vase. I was sure my second gift would impress: One of my books, The Art of Innovation –the reason I’d been hired, had been published in 20 languages, and I happened to have a copy in Mandarin.
My host had paid me in advance for a week’s consulting on a potentially large writing project. What better gift than a Chinese edition of my bestselling book, proof of my credentials?
We met at his guest apartment, the location that this week would double as my sleeping quarters and office workspace. Strangely, his assistants had placed what resembled a tiny cocktail table precisely where the front door opened (so much for Feng Shui). There was scarcely room for my laptop and gifts, let alone a proper place to work.
The doorbell rang and in walked my host—with the fourth assistant I’d met so far. I greeted him eagerly and offered my gifts, telling him that one (the glasses) was for his wife and family, and the other (the book) was for him.
“Giving a book during Chinese New Year is bad luck in Hong Kong,” he stated matter-of-factly.
This was the first time I’d ever been told that a gift would bring bad juju.
“O.K.” I said, thinking fast. “How about you don’t open it. But, since it’s related to our work together, I’ll open it.”
As I tore off the wrapping paper he took a half step back. I held up my book proudly and saw that he didn’t dare touch it.
After an embarrassed silence, I gently placed the book and its wrappings on a side table.
My client wanted to start work immediately, which seemed nearly impossible. There was no room for us at this miniscule cocktail table, and none of the tools I’d normally use to brainstorm a new project: say a white board or flip chart.
After a couple of awkward hours during which I took feverish notes on my laptop, we ate a traditional Chinese lunch. Then my host led us around the neighborhood, buying a flip chart and pens and enough fruit to feed a soccer team. We’d barely gotten started again back in the cramped apartment, when he abruptly announced that he was tired and wanted to show me his office. So, off we went. As I walked around his sprawling office suite–accommodations regal enough to suit Donald Trump–I wondered, why in the world hadn’t we worked here?
The next morning he phoned just before our scheduled 9:30 a.m. meeting. In a cheery voice, he instructed me to read my e-mail. His message stated that he’d like me to help him on a project that’s about a year out. “So, for the rest of this trip,” he wrote, “you can take it easy.” He encouraged me to see the sights and “take a side trip to Macau.”
Translation: this friendly e-mail was an elaborate effort to put a positive spin on events. Direct confrontation or saying “no” is not in the Chinese psyche. This is called Saving Face, nearly as important as superstition.
Fifteen minutes later he arrived by himself—without one of his ever-present assistants. He informed me his secretary would buy me boat tickets to Macau, and his driver would take me to his private club one night for a dinner with his wife. He was smiling, which in China is often what you do when you’re uncomfortable. After he left, I couldn’t help noticing that my gift to him, the Chinese edition of my book, was still on the table.
Since I was paid in advance, it turned out to be a rewarding assignment for a day’s work plus the international travel and accommodations. My week was mostly a vacation in Hong Kong and Macau, and yes, an incredible dinner at my host’s posh club. But my Western mind couldn’t wrap around what happened.
After my return home to San Francisco, I scoured the Internet for answers. Wikipedia promptly informed me that the word for a book in Mandarin sounds like the word for “loss.” People investing in stocks or gambling who are “carrying or looking at a book,” may be inviting “bad luck and loss,” wrote Wikipedia. In other words, gambling and reading don’t mix.
The voodoo from book giving would be especially perilous in Hong Kong for anyone who bets on horses or the lottery game Mark Six, common recreation for wealthy locals like my host. Don’t give a book, advised another article, “because ‘giving a book’ in Mandarin sounds like ‘delivering defeat.’”
Of course books are not the only gifts off limits. Green gifts would be seen as a symbol of cuckoldry (don’t even think of giving greenbacks!). The color white recalls funerals and death. Clocks may also symbolize death or the end of a relationship.
According to Wikipedia, I could have easily given my host fruit, a widely accepted gift. As long as I gave an even number, as odd numbers would bring bad luck, and as long as I avoided the dreaded, deadly-sounding four.
The day before my return flight to the U.S., my host came to the apartment bearing a gift. Before he left he made sure to gather up a few voodoo-free books I’d brought him from San Francisco. Yet there sat my gift book all alone on the table, signed and untouched.
He ordered me to open my gift, violating the Chinese prohibition against opening a gift in front of the gift-giver. The bright red wrapping paper revealed a large red silk-covered box. Nestled in felt sat two elegant gold leafed teacups. My host showed me the accompanying official paperwork, stating that the “National Emblem Pottery Collection are supervised by the Office of National Pottery Use.”
The papers proclaimed that the cups were exclusively used for dinners and banquets in “The People’s Hall and in major overseas Chinese Embassies.” Attached was my host’s imperial over-sized calling card.
Red is the luckiest color in China. The gesture sunk in. He was sending me home with a box full of good fortune!
Or was he?
“You can’t buy these in China,” he said bluntly. “If you get stopped without the papers, they will assume you stole these.”
“Thank you,” I said as I pondered a trip to a Hong Kong jail.
All I can say is that on my next visit I will think three times (not 4, maybe 8) before giving a gift. Nothing white, no number four, and definitely, most definitely I will abstain from something as dangerous as a book.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Four weeks later, at 4 p.m., my host sent me an urgent e-mail asking for help on taking his writing “to a higher level,” saying “please let me know quickly when and how much so I can agree and you can get started.”
This time I won’t come bearing gifts.
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From hierarchy to biology: designer Ayala Serfaty
Ayala Serfaty Anana Poof Chair
Israeli designer Ayala Serfaty‘s designware demonstrates the ongoing shift from the semantics of military hierarchy to the world of biology. Words like “symbiotic”, “diversity”, and “bio”-everything have sifted into our language over the last decade, heralding our renewed sense of oneness with the planet. Serfaty’s jellyfish-inspired, exoskeleton, cell structures posing as lamps, furniture, and lounge pads certainly demonstrate that it’s not all just words. It’s strange, inspired, primal, intoxicating new worlds.
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Chinese Brand Knockoffs: Hooking Us on the Real Thing?
Jonathan Littman, the co-author of the Art of Innovation, Thinktopia® collaborator and founder of Snowball Narrative, just returned from a business trip to Hong Kong and China, where he delved into the reality of brand counterfeits. He did not write about being offered a plate of grilled pigeon heads.
Her eyes dart back and forth as she leans forward on a stool and gracefully unties the leather roll. Half a dozen gleaming women’s luxury watches on the glass counter, each worth thousands of dollars—if they were real.
We can see and touch them, but she’s poised to snatch them up in a second.
“You want Rolex? Omega?” she asks me, noting my hesitation. “I give you best price!”
Just then my friend whispers to her: “They’re coming.”
With the deft hands of a Vegas card dealer, she sweeps up the loot and slips it under the counter. Seconds later, two police sporting the red armbands stroll by the empty counter.
It’s just another Sunday afternoon in Shenzhen China’s Luohu Commercial City, a gargantuan shopping mall a stone’s throw from the Hong Kong border.
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A well known Hong Kong joke goes like this: Locals hop the train to Shenzhen to buy fake luxury brands, while mainland Chinese flood Hong Kong to buy authentic goods. There’s ample truth behind the saying. Hong Kong rivals Milan, New York or Paris as a destination for the world’s most expensive luxury brands, and local authorities have made extensive efforts to drive cheap counterfeits farther underground. But in reality they are not far away.
After a week in Hong Kong on business, I’m concluding my visit with a brief trip to Mainland China. Fortunately, I’m making the trip with two veterans: Friends from San Francisco working here for a year in Hong Kong. “Mrs. Jones” is not only a successful professional woman, but a talented international shopper, accompanied today by her bemused husband. My goals are three-fold. I’ve always wanted to visit a communist country, hope to score gifts for my wife and daughters, and want to see and understand the counterfeit trade first-hand.
Counterfeiting top brands is a hotly contested issue, especially if it’s your brand. When it comes to software, movies, and other intellectual property it’s hard to view it as anything but theft. But interestingly, when it comes to fashion, anecdotal evidence is emerging that Chinese counterfeits of international brands may be having an unexpected effect. Some market experts are arguing that Chinese women who first buy fake Prada or Louis Vuitton bags, for instance, later upgrade to the real thing.
Can counterfeits act like gateway drugs? You buy your first knock-off handbag for $60 and then a year later find yourself driven to drop $2,000 on the real thing? At first glance, the idea sounds sketchy, but evidence is emerging that this is actually happening to the rising class of Hong Kong and Chinese women. What about American women? What about this American man? It may sound far fetched, but is it really that crazy an idea? What if a little up-front loss on counterfeiting is returned by a steady percentage of shoppers who get hooked on high-priced fashion?
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George Orwell is one of my favorite authors, and having read 1984 multiple times, I approach the border with a curious mixture of anticipation and fear. The train from Shatin, New Territories to Shenzhen is just a half hour, when we disembark and begin the process of entering China. I need to complete a Hong Kong departure card and China arrival card, and pass the scrutiny of two security checkpoints. Once through, I pull out my trusty iPhone and am about to snap some photos, when Mr. Jones advises restraint.
“The security officers might detain you and confiscate your phone,” he says. “Especially if you accidentally take their picture.”
I put away my phone, and then Mr. Jones reveals another little known border secret. “Do you see what the guards are holding in their hands?” he asks.
Small black devices are cradled in their palms. “Those are temperature guns,” he explains. “If you’re more than 1 degree above normal they can quarantine you indefinitely in China.”
Being quarantined in China does not sound like a good idea. I’ve entered another world, and am a long way from home. Without noticing it, my friends have slipped ahead in the surging crowd. We’re walking over a broad enclosed bridge that crosses the muddy green Shenzhen River to communist China. The high stone wall and barbed wire is on the Hong Kong side of the river, summing up all you need to know about communism. Something deep within me clicks, and it’s as if I’m Winston Smith, the doomed protagonist of Orwell’s 1984. Panic grabs me. Where is my passport? I stop and furtively search my pockets. Did I drop it? Was it stolen? My friends, blissfully ignorant of my dilemma, walk on into China.
A frantic minute passes, then two. I’m alone in China without a passport, and then I find it right where it should be—next to my wallet. Suddenly we are outdoors facing the eclectic skyscrapers of nearby downtown Shenzhen.
Ahead lies the aptly named Luohu Commercial City. This is not a shopping mall or center. It’s a full-on indoor shopping city, a frenetic maze of escalators, elevators and tiny glass enclosed shops and booths. Festooned with banners and lights this seven-story shopper’s beehive boasts 32 escalators, 16 elevators, and a phenomenal 1,280 shops.
Once inside, the shopkeepers start clutching my arm, and selling hard.
“Mister, you want iPad?”
“Mister, you like watch?”
“Mister, good deal for you.”
Sales pitches come from every direction, but nothing is quite what it seems. I had foolishly imagined all the counterfeit brands would be on display. But that’s not how it works at all. Mrs. Jones, who has been living in Hong Kong for more than six months, has a system. On her first trip, she started with one vendor, built a relationship, and then created a friends and family plan.
A bright sparrow of a woman named Lily dressed in black holds court at a small counter stuffed with strands of pearls and Chinese watches. A few weeks before she met all the phony branding needs of Mrs. Jones’ mom. An assistant pulls up three stools for us. None of the watches in the glass case appeals. Omega is what we want, and after Lily scans the area for cops, she pulls out a leather satchel and lays out several, including the elegant women’s Aqua Terra. She tempts me with a Rolex, but I too prefer Omega, and so, after a little rummaging around behind the counter, out comes the Omega Speedmaster, which retails for $3,500. Five minutes later, a hundred feet away, three cops in full uniform begin marching down the aisle. Lily’s lookout casually walks toward her, ahead of the troops. She sweeps the watches off the counter. A couple of minutes later the cops are gone, and the watches return.
Mrs. Jones understands the game. The woman’s timepieces would retail for more than a thousand U.S. dollars each. Lily wants $30 apiece for them, and Mrs. Jones returns with her best opening line.
“Lily, I live here,” she laughs good-naturedly. “That’s much too expensive.”
Mrs. Jones takes the clunky, oversized calculator from Lily— every shopkeeper has one— and divides the price by three to $10 U.S., and hands the calculator back to Lily.
“I no make money on this,” Lily responds, looking at the calculator and shaking her head.
So begins a friendly calculator tug of war, which ultimately results in a price of $12 a watch. The Omega Speedmaster starts at $80, and Mrs. Jones quickly cuts it down to $37, which she advises me to walk away from. But what can I say. I’ve always wanted an Omega.
The handbags are another matter. Fortunately my sixteen-year-old e-mailed me images of her favorite brands. I hand Lily the printout, and out comes a massive catalog from beneath the counter. Lily flips through and finds the Louis Vuitton women’s purses, picks up a landline phone and makes a call. Ten minutes later, a young man in a black sports coat strolls up, glances around and hands her another leather satchel, this time containing four wallets. Retail ranges from nearly $400 to $1,500—if they were real. Mrs. Jones quickly reduces the price on the $400 wallets from $30 to $15. Lily is stubborn on the $1,500 patent leather one, (wrapped in felt in a nice box). Mrs. Jones haggles it down to $30.
After Mr. Jones picks up his three elegant custom sport jackets, (each about a fifth of what they’d cost in New York), we enjoy a pleasant Chinese lunch, and then cross back to Hong Kong. I’m carrying Omega, Louis Vuitton, Longchamps, silver bracelets and silk scarves. Chinese customs is friendly as can be. Half the people are returning with large suitcases and oversized bags—and yet no one is stopped. We walk the bridge back to Hong Kong and I drift as far as possible from the temperature guns.
But I’m not quite home free. That night I take the Singapore Airlines red-eye back to San Francisco, and get stuck in the line with the chatty customs officer. I mention I’m a Contributor Editor at Playboy and that amuses him and he inquires about Hugh Hefner’s sex life. It’s going swimmingly well until he stares tellingly at my wrist,
“Where’d you get the Omega?”
What should I say? If I say it’s real, he may assume I just bought it and owe import duty. And if say it’s a Chinese phony? Like most Americans, I don’t really know the rules.
Later, I’m surprised to discover that my fears were unfounded. Our government is largely ambivalent about tourist purchases of minor counterfeit fashion items overseas. As long as you don’t go hog wild it’s perfectly legal to bring counterfeit fashion brands into the U.S. According to Customs Directive No. 2310-011A dated January 24, 2000, “Customs officers shall permit any person arriving in the United States to import one article, which must accompany the person, bearing a counterfeit, confusingly similar, or restricted gray market trademark, provided that the article is for personal use and not for sale.”
The only limitation appears to be that you can only import one of each counterfeit good: one Rolex, one Mont Blanc pen, and so on. If only I’d know this in advance I wouldn’t have had to make up such a silly story.
Now, if I can only figure out how to switch my Omega from Hong Kong time!
Jon@snowballnarrative.com
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Globalism not new, dopamine drip, ignorant bliss.
Thinktopia® has conducted business in every continent on the planet, except Antarctica. An intercontinental sweep from New York City to Amsterdam to Cape Town to Beijing to Paris to Moscow to Bogota reveals some similarities (and differences) that exist in our 21st Century.
Departing the Ngala Game Reserve in South Africa on a two-hour drive to the Nelspruit airstrip, our African driver slipped a Jimmy Reeves CD into the player. As we listened to Jimmy’s warbling honky-tonk woes, we passed freight containers (the kind usually found in ship cargo holds or on the back of truck semi-trailers) whose contents were the local village cell phone. Hot sites where remote villagers call friends and family on other parts of the planet. Cut to Moscow. The container-cum-cell phone trendspotting was contrasted by a young woman in Moscow who flaunted her new iPhone—at that time still unavailable from Apple—which had been purchased in New York, then blackmarketed back to Moscow. It was subsequently uploaded with pirated software that not only connected her with Moscow mobile phone company Beeline (check out their online television programming), but also enabled her keypad with the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
In a grocery store in Cape Town, we saw Lays Oven-Roasted Chicken with Thyme potato chips. Doritos in Poppy Seed with Roasted Garlic and Italian Cheese flavor. A trip to inside a Moscow market revealed Moscovites not only have a fondness for Bentleys and Rolex watches, but also for Danone’s Activia. We had already seen Activia launched on the streets of Paris (before it launched in the U.S.), and a hallway chat with Danone product managers in Bogota learned their exclusive Bifidus regularis was to launch later that year.
Cold turkeyed from Starbucks in Africa, we were forced to attempt tasty African coffee from our tent, as lions—rather than Starbucks iTunes downloads—roared in the background. I also savored fine espresso at an Italian café in Cape Town, European roast at the National Hotel in Moscow, and in Bogota (home of legendary icon Juan Valdez—Juan Valdez coffee cafes are sprinkled like Starbucks throughout Bogota), I consumed the best cappuccino of my life.
The stark contrast of tribal innocence against the Age of LVMH and Starbucks continues today in the context of global consumerism. Similar contrasts are evident in mental snapshots: native South African women wearing Aeropostale t-shirts carrying oversized loads on their heads. The Russian army lining up in formation in Red Square for the 90th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution, in front of a block-long Rolex billboard. Shopping at the Albert & Victoria Mall in Cape Town, just a few minutes from widespread slums in the Cape Town Flats–and the highest murder rate in the world.
Globalization is not new. The Mongols and Chinese spread trade from Vietnam to England in the 13th century. The Portuguese, Dutch and English followed suit centuries ago. What is new is the speed to market and the ubiquity of primary brands. Even mundane staples like potato chips, yogurt, pizza, blue jeans promote cultural context and connectivity, even as they breed an overall sameness. The more we come together, the more we become the same.
We are trained as consumers to anticipate new things. When the new does not come from existing brands, we become disappointed and move on. As consumers, we are addicted to the stim of the new, the dopamine drip that stimulates and satisfies us.
What we seek, traveling to new places, is thrill refreshment. As frustrating as it is to find Coke, McDonald’s, Levi’s and Starbucks wherever you go (there is even a Sbarro just a few blocks from Red Square), they exist because of the most fundamental marketing truth of all: we enjoy them, and we trust them. When we put down our money, we know what we are getting. And, globalized or not, that’s as true in Chicago as it is in Beijing.
The appreciable point of global consumerism is that distance does not always mean difference. Because we can find the same products on the shelves even after flying 18 hours, perhaps it’s time to appreciate the experience that we experience.
If we cannot be stimulated by new things to stimulate our dopamine drip, we must rely on existing brands to continually excite and titillate us.
Predictably, what becomes rare and remarkable is the unfamiliar. In Bogota, I tasted fruit (still unidentified) I had never seen before. We brought back microwavable pappadums from South Africa. Le Petit Ferme chardonnay from a Franshhoek winery founded in the 17th century. Some things are not transportable. The smell of Africa. The smell of Mumbai in the morning. Moscow has some of the best bread on the planet, incredible fish, and an unimaginably tasty crab dish unanimously agreed worth flying 10 hours for. A small South African soap store called Rain that could become the next Body Shop. A bookstore in Cape Town that had its own unique charm, in a world curiously without Barnes & Noble booksellers. And back in the homeland, on a street corner in Seattle, a wonderful gift shop named Watson Kennedy.
Thirty years ago, a picture appeared in the German magazine Stern. In the photograph, a naked New Guinea woman leans against the shining aluminum of a jet airplane, a visual culture collision. She smiles into the camera lens, blithely unaware of DKNY, the potential sociological consequences that might come if we really can’t buy fake “Made in China” Kate Spade, Gucci, or Chanel purses, or the differences between this year’s Jimmy Choo bag and last year’s.
Perhaps ignorance really is bliss.
