As you'll see, some of these are longer journeys rather than moments per se, but let's not get too academic here with the definition. All of the experiences made the list for a variety of wildly different reasons...
#10: The Moment of Disbelief
national highway, Eastern Syria (near Iraqi border)
April 2009
We've been exploring nearly half of the country by this point, both the more touristy route between Damascus and Palmyra, and the areas beyond, which distinctly less so. We've got used to the reckless locals suddenly appearing out of nowhere in the rear mirror, in their battered vehicles, overtaking us in a flash, and disappearing in the distance in similar Formula-One fashion. The Roman blood apparently still runs deep in many Syrian veins, a whole Millenium later, when it comes to driving. However, this relatively wound-less Kia (most new-ish cars gracing the roads in this country are Korean makers, including our rental car) has just done something very odd indeed: having overtaken us with no hesitation at all and already in a lead of about 500 meters, it suddenly slows down in the neighbouring lane - or something that's supposed to be such - as if waiting for us to reciprocate the triumphant gesture. We keep to our speed and catch up with it in a few seconds, and realise that we've become the object of this bizarre scrutiny-in-motion: the three local youths in the Kia have evidently never before seen two Asian tourists venturing into this part of the country in their own vehicle, and want to make sure that we're not some weird mirage that they dreamed up at high speed. Once they've ascertained that we really resemble normal human beings, albeit scoring even higher on the scale of recklessness perhaps, they step down on the gas once again and disappear into the horizon. You'll never believe how fast a ten-year-old Kia can possibly go until you've taken a trip along the Eupherates.
#9: The Moment of Natural Power
Prof Leider's house, near Miami, Florida
January 2006
Prof Leider was one of my PhD colleagues at Princeton, and the last time we saw each other was in early 2002. We're therefore doubly thrilled to be invited to this roast-pig party on New Year's Day at his new family abode, just under an hour's drive from Miami. The neighbourhood is your typical suburban Florida (or so as I perceive it): sprawling one-storey family homes, thus hurricane-proof, each with surrounding lawns and/or woodlands roughly the size of two or three postcodes in London. As we pull up the Leiders' driveway, the first sight that greets us is, um, a free-standing, seemingly fully-functioning, fully-loaded Pepsi machine. Our dear friend comes out the front door. 'Welcome you guys, so great to see you!' 'Yes wonderful to see you too but, listen, what on earth is this doing in your front lawn?!?!'
He grins and recounts the story for the five hundredth time. They had the annual hurricane season a couple of months ago, which in this part of the world is taken for granted as just a slightly more inconvenient part of your life. One of the more severe ones lasted about two days this time, and after it ended the Man of the House pulled up all the customary window boards and went out to inspect the damages. The first thing he sees, lying right outside their doorstep, is the Pepsi machine. He puts it up against the wall, finds a power socket and plug it in - for this is what you do when you see a Pepsi machine, right? - and lo and behold, the whole thing pops back into life instantly, complete with backlights. They now have a fully-loaded, fully-functioning Pepsi machine to entertain the two little children with. Of course, being the conscentious and intelligent people they are, they manage to track down the provenance of the machine, which in fact belonged to a school two towns away, pre-hurricane. Professor rings the school up informing them of this latest chapter in the adventure of the machine, but it would seem to be the final chapter, as the cheerful lady at the other end of the line asks him to keep it, for their brand-new replacement has already arrived courtesy of the super-efficient hurricant insurance company. This is the brief but bizzare tale of how two visitors from London end up spending part of their New Year's Day celebration inserting pairs of quarter coins into the Pepsi machine proudly guarding Prof Leider's front door, and receiving the can in the slot below with a loud Thud!, in amazement.
#8: The Moment of Pain
Midnight in Business Hotel Room, Stockholm
October 2006
I'm in my favourite city for a three-day business trip to attend multiple concerts featuring music by one of our most important composers as well as numerous meetings, and have happily settled down at the central hotel that I'm already familiar with from previous stays. Three in the morning, I suddenly wake up with the semi-conscious awareness that something is wrong. It takes another two seconds to realise that what's wrong is that I'm in excruciating pain, and yet another two and a half to locate the precise source of this pain - in my lower gums, where I had a filling done two years previously by a young dentist who I thought looked a bit haphazard at the time, and whom I now just want to strangle with what little strength there is left in me. The rest of the night is sheer agony - it doens't just hurt when you try to chew something on that side, but all the time, when you talk, when you think, when you try to think, every waking and sleeping minute. I stick to the original meeting schedule for the next two days while managing the minimum intake of food and drink that keeps me alive. I go to the dentist's (not the same one!) the moment I get back to London and a root canal is scheduled for the next day. Two lessons learned:
- Don't ever take anything for granted when it comes to the dental department. Nothing's ever wrong until something goes horribly wrong.
- The threshold of physical pain endurance is as high or as low as you can let it be.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Old friend, New friend, Non-friend
I can't help thinking how Sex-and-The-City-like this blog title is, which would be appropriate, as I made a mental note to write about it after being greeted - for about the two hundredth time - shrilly, earnestly, a little too worryingly fervently -
'How're ya doing' today???!!!!'
Yes, I was in New York City a few weeks ago. And no, I had no personal or professional connection with the person who'd just flashed an ear-to-ear smile at me with the question, in fact I didn't know him/her whatsoever. I had, as you've probably guessed, just walked into a shop for a spot of aimless window-shopping, but my new-found oldest friend was determined not to let even the slightest impression of neglect take hold.
Many frequent travellers, myself included, would acknowledge the commendable enthusiasm of the service-industry employees in the US on the whole , compared with their European counterparts. They like to make you feel they really care, their actual knowledge or competence being an entirely different matter. The big smiles and fully-loaded attentiveness are supposed to be the norm. And even an awful cynic like me can be left impressed often. But after all these years - including two living in the US - the intimacy of the Big Greeting by a total stranger can still make me jump sometimes. Or just simply wonder: do they actually ever expect a truthful reply to the question (for that's what it is, however rhetotic)? What would happen if anyone actually looked into their eyes and replied with equal fervour: 'Well, I'm feeling really crappy. I had a horrible day at work and things aren't going so well at home either. And now a total stranger has just pretended that they genuinely care about how I feel. I mean, I've given you the honest answer and now what can you do for me?!'
Globalisation and technology have, hand in hand, changed our perspectives on relationship and intimacy in so many ways. But really there's no point in deluding ourselves. In the world of Facebook, you become 'friends' with people who you've met once or twice. Didn't it use to take a little more effort, serendipity, common interest - and, simply, time - for true friendship to take hold? Whatever happened to the category of 'acquaintances'? What's wrong with just being acquainted with someone? Well nothing, except that if A is an Acquaintance to B as opposed to a Friend like C is, there's something horrifyingly wrong with A, especially if all this Profile is viewed by three hundred other people on a daly basis.
I am indeed aware that the meaningless enquiry of our state of wellbeing is not specifically confined to the American retail sector. Doctors, helpline workers, telemarketers, total strangers in any other number of guises, all want to know just how you're feeling right this moment. And of course no answer other than the positive affirmative can possibly be comtemplated. This is the basic rule of manners of our social existence. But because we already live in a world of excessive spam - materialistic, virtual, emotional - it's quite refreshing, once in a while, to be greeted by something that's merely functional but really a lot more useful than an empty smile. The shop assistants also automatically pump out their chorus of a one-liner in Japan and China, and they tend to be:
'Please feel free to look around!'
'How're ya doing' today???!!!!'
Yes, I was in New York City a few weeks ago. And no, I had no personal or professional connection with the person who'd just flashed an ear-to-ear smile at me with the question, in fact I didn't know him/her whatsoever. I had, as you've probably guessed, just walked into a shop for a spot of aimless window-shopping, but my new-found oldest friend was determined not to let even the slightest impression of neglect take hold.
Many frequent travellers, myself included, would acknowledge the commendable enthusiasm of the service-industry employees in the US on the whole , compared with their European counterparts. They like to make you feel they really care, their actual knowledge or competence being an entirely different matter. The big smiles and fully-loaded attentiveness are supposed to be the norm. And even an awful cynic like me can be left impressed often. But after all these years - including two living in the US - the intimacy of the Big Greeting by a total stranger can still make me jump sometimes. Or just simply wonder: do they actually ever expect a truthful reply to the question (for that's what it is, however rhetotic)? What would happen if anyone actually looked into their eyes and replied with equal fervour: 'Well, I'm feeling really crappy. I had a horrible day at work and things aren't going so well at home either. And now a total stranger has just pretended that they genuinely care about how I feel. I mean, I've given you the honest answer and now what can you do for me?!'
Globalisation and technology have, hand in hand, changed our perspectives on relationship and intimacy in so many ways. But really there's no point in deluding ourselves. In the world of Facebook, you become 'friends' with people who you've met once or twice. Didn't it use to take a little more effort, serendipity, common interest - and, simply, time - for true friendship to take hold? Whatever happened to the category of 'acquaintances'? What's wrong with just being acquainted with someone? Well nothing, except that if A is an Acquaintance to B as opposed to a Friend like C is, there's something horrifyingly wrong with A, especially if all this Profile is viewed by three hundred other people on a daly basis.
I am indeed aware that the meaningless enquiry of our state of wellbeing is not specifically confined to the American retail sector. Doctors, helpline workers, telemarketers, total strangers in any other number of guises, all want to know just how you're feeling right this moment. And of course no answer other than the positive affirmative can possibly be comtemplated. This is the basic rule of manners of our social existence. But because we already live in a world of excessive spam - materialistic, virtual, emotional - it's quite refreshing, once in a while, to be greeted by something that's merely functional but really a lot more useful than an empty smile. The shop assistants also automatically pump out their chorus of a one-liner in Japan and China, and they tend to be:
'Please feel free to look around!'
A Superb Korean Trio
By design rather than coincidence, we've had a bit of a Blitz of Korean cinematic outings in the capital lately. First there were the strong selections at London Film Festival, then the Bong Joon Ho retrospective (at NFT) and the annual Korean Film Festival at Barbican ran almost concurrently. We managed to catch quite a few recent releases amidst it all, and these three really stood out.
Mother - Bong Joon Ho's latest, it's the best of both worlds of his two previous films: the who-dun-it Memories of Murder with a skilfully woven plot that would satisfy the most hard-core detective story nerds; and The Host, with the disguise of a monster disaster movie but really is about the complexity and frailty of human relations, especially those between family members. At the opening of the film, we see the mother of the title chopping up dry herbs on a machinery terrifying in its simplicity. We can already foresee the consequence of her action because she is wholly distracted by the movements of her son, cursed with mental disability (the source of which is itself revealed in a particularly chilling moment later in the film), across the street. Yet she's oblivious of it, because what happens and what will happen to the boy is all that matters to her. This single-minded determination accompanies her on her dark journey throughout the film to discover the truth behind the terrible murder that her son has been implicated in. Yet the revelation of every piece of new information, the peeling away of every layer of the onion skin, involves the inevitable, and sometimes fatal, baring of the soul. By the end we're just as much in need of an artifical injetion as the mother herself, to ease us from the pain brought on by the acceptance of our innate, helpless callousness. I can imagine scores of Hollywood directors looking at the script over and over again before giving up on a potential adaptation, because there's no way of making a new version of this one without preserving the poignant ending. The mother has already shown us how her own, and the son's, destinies are sealed with those semi-automatic fallings of the dry-herb gullotin. There can be no nother way.
Scandal Makers - written by the debut director Kang Hyeon-Cheol himself, this is a superb comedy that achieves the almost impossible - making a roomful of Western and Asian audiences roar with laughter for the same reasons. The protagonist of the film is the host of a hugely popular phone-in radio show, a sleek confirmed bachelor in his mid-thirties. The opening sequence is almost a parodied version of the famous 'daily morning ritual' scene from American Psycho, with the eligible single male in his designer bachelor's pad, going through the motions of muscle-building exercise, skincare journey in the power shower, outfit deliberation in the walk-in wardrobe, and nutrition-specific breakfast. His show has been doing particularly well of late, with millions tuning in to follow the gripping story, serialised by emails, of a young single mum in the quest of her own father, who lost his virginity at the age of fifteen to an older woman, and is not aware of the existenc of his offsprings at all. The host charmingly urges her to seek out her destiny, except little does he know this will lead to a knock on his own door at a most inopportune moment... The basics of the story may be far-fetched but are never contrived, and the human reactions by each characters, to the unlikely situations they find themselves in, are hilarious yet touching. Stereotypes and cliches pop up from time to time, but all in good will, and you never feel for a moment that the writer/director is deploying a gag just to create gratuitous laughter. The totally dedicated cast rise up to the challenge, and I defy even the most unflappable cinemagoer not to swoon each time the five-year-old Wang Seok-Hyun (playing the grandson) appears on screen. Highly recommended. Catch it before the inevitable Hollywod remake hits the screen (reportedly already in the works).
A Frozen Flower - you would be forgiven for thinking that it's nigh-on impossible for any other film-maker to try treading the water again with a tangled story of homosexual love involving royalties in the court of ancient Korea, after the sumptuous The King and The Clown from 2005. Well, the director Yu Ha pulls it off with admirable panache, complete with - gulp - even more stunning lead actors. One of the key differences in the plot device from the earlier film is in the female character. The Queen here, instead of being just a jealous, passive aggressor, is one third of the male-female love triangle. The King is also not a tempestuous, ignorant tyranny, but someone who's intelligent and righteous, whose priority in a life-threatening moment is to ensure the safety of his queen, even though he has not spared a sparkle of love for her, either emotionally or physically. Such graciousness is only maintained, alas, until the moment he realises that the Queen has supplanted him in the heart of his true love, the dashing Captain of the Royal Guards who has been groomed by the King since childhood. And who sowed the seeds of the discovery of heterosexual carnal thrill but the King himself, in a desperate attempt to produce a royal heir under the covers ('You're the only one I can trust', he says to the Captain, an ominous key of a sentence, to the Pandora's box for all concerned). All three lead actors imbue their characters with both striking nobility and touching vulnerability even in the most delicate situations, of which there are numerous, running the whole emotional gamut from the farcical to the heartrending. Against the epic backdrop of sovereign battles, royal assassinations and other age-old political games, the director presents us with the simple question of Where the Heart Lies. And even after all the blood is shed, the hearts broken, the skulls brandished (literally), the answer is still appropriately ambiguous. The court scenes at banquets, army inspections and assassinations serve up a visual feast while never losing the meticulous emotional details, which is something that films such as Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Yellow Flowers utterly failed to achieve in contrast.
Mother - Bong Joon Ho's latest, it's the best of both worlds of his two previous films: the who-dun-it Memories of Murder with a skilfully woven plot that would satisfy the most hard-core detective story nerds; and The Host, with the disguise of a monster disaster movie but really is about the complexity and frailty of human relations, especially those between family members. At the opening of the film, we see the mother of the title chopping up dry herbs on a machinery terrifying in its simplicity. We can already foresee the consequence of her action because she is wholly distracted by the movements of her son, cursed with mental disability (the source of which is itself revealed in a particularly chilling moment later in the film), across the street. Yet she's oblivious of it, because what happens and what will happen to the boy is all that matters to her. This single-minded determination accompanies her on her dark journey throughout the film to discover the truth behind the terrible murder that her son has been implicated in. Yet the revelation of every piece of new information, the peeling away of every layer of the onion skin, involves the inevitable, and sometimes fatal, baring of the soul. By the end we're just as much in need of an artifical injetion as the mother herself, to ease us from the pain brought on by the acceptance of our innate, helpless callousness. I can imagine scores of Hollywood directors looking at the script over and over again before giving up on a potential adaptation, because there's no way of making a new version of this one without preserving the poignant ending. The mother has already shown us how her own, and the son's, destinies are sealed with those semi-automatic fallings of the dry-herb gullotin. There can be no nother way.
Scandal Makers - written by the debut director Kang Hyeon-Cheol himself, this is a superb comedy that achieves the almost impossible - making a roomful of Western and Asian audiences roar with laughter for the same reasons. The protagonist of the film is the host of a hugely popular phone-in radio show, a sleek confirmed bachelor in his mid-thirties. The opening sequence is almost a parodied version of the famous 'daily morning ritual' scene from American Psycho, with the eligible single male in his designer bachelor's pad, going through the motions of muscle-building exercise, skincare journey in the power shower, outfit deliberation in the walk-in wardrobe, and nutrition-specific breakfast. His show has been doing particularly well of late, with millions tuning in to follow the gripping story, serialised by emails, of a young single mum in the quest of her own father, who lost his virginity at the age of fifteen to an older woman, and is not aware of the existenc of his offsprings at all. The host charmingly urges her to seek out her destiny, except little does he know this will lead to a knock on his own door at a most inopportune moment... The basics of the story may be far-fetched but are never contrived, and the human reactions by each characters, to the unlikely situations they find themselves in, are hilarious yet touching. Stereotypes and cliches pop up from time to time, but all in good will, and you never feel for a moment that the writer/director is deploying a gag just to create gratuitous laughter. The totally dedicated cast rise up to the challenge, and I defy even the most unflappable cinemagoer not to swoon each time the five-year-old Wang Seok-Hyun (playing the grandson) appears on screen. Highly recommended. Catch it before the inevitable Hollywod remake hits the screen (reportedly already in the works).
A Frozen Flower - you would be forgiven for thinking that it's nigh-on impossible for any other film-maker to try treading the water again with a tangled story of homosexual love involving royalties in the court of ancient Korea, after the sumptuous The King and The Clown from 2005. Well, the director Yu Ha pulls it off with admirable panache, complete with - gulp - even more stunning lead actors. One of the key differences in the plot device from the earlier film is in the female character. The Queen here, instead of being just a jealous, passive aggressor, is one third of the male-female love triangle. The King is also not a tempestuous, ignorant tyranny, but someone who's intelligent and righteous, whose priority in a life-threatening moment is to ensure the safety of his queen, even though he has not spared a sparkle of love for her, either emotionally or physically. Such graciousness is only maintained, alas, until the moment he realises that the Queen has supplanted him in the heart of his true love, the dashing Captain of the Royal Guards who has been groomed by the King since childhood. And who sowed the seeds of the discovery of heterosexual carnal thrill but the King himself, in a desperate attempt to produce a royal heir under the covers ('You're the only one I can trust', he says to the Captain, an ominous key of a sentence, to the Pandora's box for all concerned). All three lead actors imbue their characters with both striking nobility and touching vulnerability even in the most delicate situations, of which there are numerous, running the whole emotional gamut from the farcical to the heartrending. Against the epic backdrop of sovereign battles, royal assassinations and other age-old political games, the director presents us with the simple question of Where the Heart Lies. And even after all the blood is shed, the hearts broken, the skulls brandished (literally), the answer is still appropriately ambiguous. The court scenes at banquets, army inspections and assassinations serve up a visual feast while never losing the meticulous emotional details, which is something that films such as Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Yellow Flowers utterly failed to achieve in contrast.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon
The ancient Chinese adage goes: 'The beginnings of all human beings consist of nothing but kindness.' Well do they really? Haneke's latest masterpiece confronts us, head on, with both sides of the argument. All the adults in the film, including the narrator, the school teacher (an atypically uncomplicated Haneke character), merely provide background layers - albeit crucial ones - to the story. Whereas the group of children, aged four to fourteen, are the focal points of the stark blank-and-white (literally) canvas.
Haneke is well known for pushing his actors beyond the usual limits of performative capacies, yet what superman techniques he deployed here to extract such chillingly heartfelt (for one's heart is over-chilled throughout most of the scenes) performances from these little ones, only the devil knows. For the devil hides himself in every unseen corner, and eventually manages to creep into some of the veins of the underaged beings. Or was he there all along? Every adult playing a noble (in social terms at least) role in life has an appallingly dark side here, and the way they attempt to preserve the 'purity' of their offsprings is via emotional humiliation, physical abuse, religious shock tactics, or all of the above. The oppressed include not just these children, but when their adult company make an attempt at retaliation, the outcome is clumsy and futile, only to bring more severe punishment onto themselves. The children, in contrast, are much more instinctive and ruthless with their acts of evil, and what initial fear there might be it quickly subsides - once the fascination with death is brushed aside, there is nothing left to fear. Respectable adults busy themselves with adultery, incest, religious hypocrisy, deceipt, class resentment, familial despotism (a rather short list for a Haneke film, really). How pathetically banal. The invisible ones - for they are purposefully overlooked, until our ardent school teacher decides to really look around - carry out the horrific acts as if saying, Look what you can really do if you go straight to the core. And we're all alike. We were all born like this, not consisting of an ounce of kindness. The so-called child-like innocence was always a facade after all. We're just waiting to become adults so that we will have proper excuses to web schemes and layers for our brutalities, and then we can instill all that into our own children too, all in good time.
The fact that these children would grow up to be the Nazi generation has been pointed out by every film critic worthy of his job, but to me it's almost an afterthought. The abrupt ending to the village horrors, as everyone, adult and child alike, is distracted by the onset of WWI, could almost be replaced by the onslaught of any arbitrary war, without the specific historic reference. The really vital context of the story is not that particular annus horibilis of human history, but the human nature itself. For our children's innocence had been tainted not just by these parents, but by generations of forbears already. When did it all start, and where will it end? In an even more atypical Hakane scene, l'auteur depicts an almost completely care-free, happy moment between prim, shy, ingenuous young lovers. Not a message of hope amidst despair exactly, but a provocatively tender masterstroke nevertheless.
Haneke is well known for pushing his actors beyond the usual limits of performative capacies, yet what superman techniques he deployed here to extract such chillingly heartfelt (for one's heart is over-chilled throughout most of the scenes) performances from these little ones, only the devil knows. For the devil hides himself in every unseen corner, and eventually manages to creep into some of the veins of the underaged beings. Or was he there all along? Every adult playing a noble (in social terms at least) role in life has an appallingly dark side here, and the way they attempt to preserve the 'purity' of their offsprings is via emotional humiliation, physical abuse, religious shock tactics, or all of the above. The oppressed include not just these children, but when their adult company make an attempt at retaliation, the outcome is clumsy and futile, only to bring more severe punishment onto themselves. The children, in contrast, are much more instinctive and ruthless with their acts of evil, and what initial fear there might be it quickly subsides - once the fascination with death is brushed aside, there is nothing left to fear. Respectable adults busy themselves with adultery, incest, religious hypocrisy, deceipt, class resentment, familial despotism (a rather short list for a Haneke film, really). How pathetically banal. The invisible ones - for they are purposefully overlooked, until our ardent school teacher decides to really look around - carry out the horrific acts as if saying, Look what you can really do if you go straight to the core. And we're all alike. We were all born like this, not consisting of an ounce of kindness. The so-called child-like innocence was always a facade after all. We're just waiting to become adults so that we will have proper excuses to web schemes and layers for our brutalities, and then we can instill all that into our own children too, all in good time.
The fact that these children would grow up to be the Nazi generation has been pointed out by every film critic worthy of his job, but to me it's almost an afterthought. The abrupt ending to the village horrors, as everyone, adult and child alike, is distracted by the onset of WWI, could almost be replaced by the onslaught of any arbitrary war, without the specific historic reference. The really vital context of the story is not that particular annus horibilis of human history, but the human nature itself. For our children's innocence had been tainted not just by these parents, but by generations of forbears already. When did it all start, and where will it end? In an even more atypical Hakane scene, l'auteur depicts an almost completely care-free, happy moment between prim, shy, ingenuous young lovers. Not a message of hope amidst despair exactly, but a provocatively tender masterstroke nevertheless.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
What I Believe In
Because we're destined to be ordinary people
We owe it to ourselves
to live extra-ordinary lives
We owe it to ourselves
to live extra-ordinary lives
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Ten Days in October
[optional subtitle: 'Finally we've realised why we never manage to do all the laundry...']
1 October, Thursday.
Philharmonia Orchestra concert, Royal Festival Hall
It's always a treat to hear Janacek's mindblowing Sinfonietta, and the RFH is probably the only London venue fit for the piece. I shouldn't be lavishing Magnus Lindberg's chorus-and-orchestra piece Graffiti with praise due to conflict of interest, but for me, it really revealed itself as a substantial addition to the repertoire, especially with the splendid choir (Philharmonia Voices) in this performance. I had heard the piece at its world premiere back in May, in Helsinki, and this second hearing eally helped to confirm my faith in it. If only more contemporary orchestral works could be blessed with repeat performances similarly in quick succession, by different but equally devoted interpreters - can't wait to hear the third commissioner (Oslo Philharmonic) tackle the piece, alas it's going to be 18 months away.
2 October, Friday
Judgement Day, Almeida Theatre
A five-star production in all aspects for me. Christopher Hampton's beautifful translation of the Horvath play keeps that most crucial element - the ambivalence of morality - exquisitely poignant throughout. The ensemble cast is uniformally powerful yet subtle, with Joseph Millson the devastatingly effective leading man. Why isn't this guy more famous? I sure hope every casting director who knows their business came to see this and that he lands a big starry role on stage somewhere soon, before we lose him to the screen. Special praise also goes to the set and lighting designers - this was probably the most daring transformation to the Almeida set-up I had seen for as long as I can remember, and it packs a punch.
3 October, Saturday
Le Grand Macabre, English National Opera
I knew from the curtain rise that I was going to like this production immensely. ENO's director-led programming strategy has has its hits and misfires, but this one firmly belongs to the first category. Everthing that happens to the naked giantess that dominates the stage, literally, dramaturgically, musically, anatomically - made me shudder. Ligeti's score, as a whole, actually convinced me less than I'd expected, despite the wonderful playing from the pit. But all in all this was an outstanding achievement by everyone involved. A lot of the straight-faced operagoers manifestly hated it, some politely baffled by it, but sure enough no one was going to forget it in a hurry.
4 October, Sunday
District 9
So this is what a mock-documentary, quasi-arthouse, humanitarian/existential/Sci-Fi/racial morality tale in the shape of a sleeper hit looks like. The only thing that displeased me about it was the rendition of the ending, which was an undisguised act of paving the way for sequel(s) to come.Those Big Blockbusters offering simpler versions of the plot usually try their mightiest to restore your faith in humankind, this one shatters it ruthlessly - or does it? See it and decide for yourself.
Another, more notable event of the day: our first-ever attempt at making seafood risotto, a joint operation, ended up a resounding success. The whole thing was gone in a matter of minutes.
Everything those five-star reviews say about this is true. No wonder there was already a queue of about 20 people waiting for returns when I collected my tickets 2 hours before the show started (such irrational tenacity never fail to amaze me - why would you join a returns queue at a sold-out show if there're already more than 15 people in front of you?!). Rupert Goold and his team clearly knew from the beginning that their show was destined for West End and Broadway, for this was conceived as a blockbuster show of the smartest kind, multi-media theatre par excellence. The changes he made to the script (which is still in pre-rehearsal form in the published version) all make perfect sense, tightening up the dramaturgy considerably. Sam West's central performance as Jeff Skilling deserves at least a nominatin for every acting award going this year, and the young, energetic ensemble tackle their many fantastically choreographed scenes (never will you think of the trading floor in the same way again) with total panache.
If you turned up expecting dazzling contemporary dance, you'd leave disappointed. If you changed your mindset and decided to take it all in as an 80-minute piece of performance art as devised by one of China's most interesting visual artists working today (Cai 'Olympics Firework Architect' Guoqiang), you could end up reasonably gratified. I say 'reasonably' because with this length the poetry is diffused (as is our attention), and although there were undeniably breathtaking moments, in the end the piece as a whole seriously lacked coherence. Still, the final moment, which really delivers the impossible and sucks you in relentlessly (yes, I mean it), was worth spending the evening with this troupe.
7 October, Wednesday
Alas, a night in (early train tomorrow morning to Brussels)! Repeated the same risotto recipe with the same satifying result. Now firmly a new addition to the repertoire.
8 October, Thursday
Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra concert, Palais de Beaux-arts, Brussels
This was the opening concert of the Europalia-China festival hosted by the capital of the EU. If you happen to be in town, or have the chance to go, anytime in the next two months, it's well worth checking out the festival programme, which features an impressive line-up of artists for what is essentially a government-led diplomatic event. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the Margrittte Museum next to the Palais had just opened its shining doors, after being shrouded in a giant Margritte-esque building facade for the last couple of years. Even though I didn't get a chance to go in on this trip, it's certainly been added to my long list of reasons for returning to this (still highly underrated) city for a personal visit as soon as possible.
9 October, Friday
Life is a Dream, Donmar Warehouse
How rare it is these days to see a major institution (for that is what the Donmar is, for me) taking the Spanish Golden Age really seriously, and it probably would have faulted in a production any less dazzling than this one (literally - the bare back wall of the stage is gilded with golden splashes which later metaphorphoses into a vertical pool of blood). Legions of The Wire fans can drool about Dominic West for all they like, for me this performance - utterly frightening with uncontrolable rage one minute, vulnerable with nuanced confusion the next - showcases a very fine stage talent indeed. For once, the big TV-name casting for the sake of box office allure is justified. Some would say the material is merely second-rate Shakespeare from a lower latitude, and in places the long monologues do drag a bit, but the fine actors here (Kate Fleetwood, aka Mrs Rupert Goold, is the worthy equal of West with her dramatic arias as well as her depth and gravitas) give us a consistently gripping evening, and even the ludicrous all's-well-that-ends-well finale can be forgvien with a smile. Additional marks to the haunting music provided by Dominic Haslam (complete with muscles, in the 'cage').
10 October, Saturday
Inherit the Wind, The Old Vic
There are two things you need to know about this: one, when someone like Trevor Nunn who applies the broad-stroke brilliance he's known for (this is the man who brought Les Mis to life, after all - he really hasn't needed any work for the last 30 years on account of this royalty bill alone) to something that might otherwise looks a bit on the dull side on paper, it works. And two, Kevin Spacey gives his most memorable Old Vic outing yet (I don't want to think of this as 'the culmination' - more to come, please!), and his is a tornado of a performance, eclipsing a remarkable David Troughton and various supporting acts. We've all seen the American courtroom face-off scene in films that we can all rattle off for a good few minutes, but this is infinitey more gripping, intelligent, funny, complex and humane - all these things in turn.
"And on the morning of the eleventh day, we decided -"
- that we really needed a nice, big dose of visual arts. Turning up at Tate Britain 20 minutes after opening time on a Sunday morning to find the Turner and the Masters exhibition already crowded was uplifting (we aren't the only freaks!) and dispiriting (I'd hoped to see this in a much emptier setting!) in almost equal measure. Some of the aesthetic parallels theorised, between Turner and the sources of his inspirations seemed a little too academic/arbitrary, whereas the comparisons of his later works with his contemporaries were more fascinating to this viewer. While we usually conjure up those mesmerising seascapes as the main association with Turner's name ('Atmosphere is my style', apparently the man declared), it was particularly interesting to discover his forays into portraiture, and to conclude that some of those attempts were a bit clumsy. Later, in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, we couldn't help wearing the smug smile of the RA member while walking past the substantial queue (limited timed entries, no doubt) for the Anish Kapoor show. The word 'retrospective' is utterly inappropriate and irrelevant here, for the centrepieces are tailor-made for the space, and even pieces that weren't, such as Yellow, looks like it was always destined to be on that side of the wall. Breathtaking, thought-provoking, dizzying (literally, in one of the rooms).
1 October, Thursday.
Philharmonia Orchestra concert, Royal Festival Hall
It's always a treat to hear Janacek's mindblowing Sinfonietta, and the RFH is probably the only London venue fit for the piece. I shouldn't be lavishing Magnus Lindberg's chorus-and-orchestra piece Graffiti with praise due to conflict of interest, but for me, it really revealed itself as a substantial addition to the repertoire, especially with the splendid choir (Philharmonia Voices) in this performance. I had heard the piece at its world premiere back in May, in Helsinki, and this second hearing eally helped to confirm my faith in it. If only more contemporary orchestral works could be blessed with repeat performances similarly in quick succession, by different but equally devoted interpreters - can't wait to hear the third commissioner (Oslo Philharmonic) tackle the piece, alas it's going to be 18 months away.
2 October, Friday
Judgement Day, Almeida Theatre
A five-star production in all aspects for me. Christopher Hampton's beautifful translation of the Horvath play keeps that most crucial element - the ambivalence of morality - exquisitely poignant throughout. The ensemble cast is uniformally powerful yet subtle, with Joseph Millson the devastatingly effective leading man. Why isn't this guy more famous? I sure hope every casting director who knows their business came to see this and that he lands a big starry role on stage somewhere soon, before we lose him to the screen. Special praise also goes to the set and lighting designers - this was probably the most daring transformation to the Almeida set-up I had seen for as long as I can remember, and it packs a punch.
3 October, Saturday
Le Grand Macabre, English National Opera
I knew from the curtain rise that I was going to like this production immensely. ENO's director-led programming strategy has has its hits and misfires, but this one firmly belongs to the first category. Everthing that happens to the naked giantess that dominates the stage, literally, dramaturgically, musically, anatomically - made me shudder. Ligeti's score, as a whole, actually convinced me less than I'd expected, despite the wonderful playing from the pit. But all in all this was an outstanding achievement by everyone involved. A lot of the straight-faced operagoers manifestly hated it, some politely baffled by it, but sure enough no one was going to forget it in a hurry.
4 October, Sunday
District 9
So this is what a mock-documentary, quasi-arthouse, humanitarian/existential/Sci-Fi/racial morality tale in the shape of a sleeper hit looks like. The only thing that displeased me about it was the rendition of the ending, which was an undisguised act of paving the way for sequel(s) to come.Those Big Blockbusters offering simpler versions of the plot usually try their mightiest to restore your faith in humankind, this one shatters it ruthlessly - or does it? See it and decide for yourself.
Another, more notable event of the day: our first-ever attempt at making seafood risotto, a joint operation, ended up a resounding success. The whole thing was gone in a matter of minutes.
5 October, Monday
Enron, Royal CourtEverything those five-star reviews say about this is true. No wonder there was already a queue of about 20 people waiting for returns when I collected my tickets 2 hours before the show started (such irrational tenacity never fail to amaze me - why would you join a returns queue at a sold-out show if there're already more than 15 people in front of you?!). Rupert Goold and his team clearly knew from the beginning that their show was destined for West End and Broadway, for this was conceived as a blockbuster show of the smartest kind, multi-media theatre par excellence. The changes he made to the script (which is still in pre-rehearsal form in the published version) all make perfect sense, tightening up the dramaturgy considerably. Sam West's central performance as Jeff Skilling deserves at least a nominatin for every acting award going this year, and the young, energetic ensemble tackle their many fantastically choreographed scenes (never will you think of the trading floor in the same way again) with total panache.
6 October, Tuesday
Cloudgate Dance Company, Barbican TheatreIf you turned up expecting dazzling contemporary dance, you'd leave disappointed. If you changed your mindset and decided to take it all in as an 80-minute piece of performance art as devised by one of China's most interesting visual artists working today (Cai 'Olympics Firework Architect' Guoqiang), you could end up reasonably gratified. I say 'reasonably' because with this length the poetry is diffused (as is our attention), and although there were undeniably breathtaking moments, in the end the piece as a whole seriously lacked coherence. Still, the final moment, which really delivers the impossible and sucks you in relentlessly (yes, I mean it), was worth spending the evening with this troupe.
7 October, Wednesday
Alas, a night in (early train tomorrow morning to Brussels)! Repeated the same risotto recipe with the same satifying result. Now firmly a new addition to the repertoire.
8 October, Thursday
Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra concert, Palais de Beaux-arts, Brussels
This was the opening concert of the Europalia-China festival hosted by the capital of the EU. If you happen to be in town, or have the chance to go, anytime in the next two months, it's well worth checking out the festival programme, which features an impressive line-up of artists for what is essentially a government-led diplomatic event. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the Margrittte Museum next to the Palais had just opened its shining doors, after being shrouded in a giant Margritte-esque building facade for the last couple of years. Even though I didn't get a chance to go in on this trip, it's certainly been added to my long list of reasons for returning to this (still highly underrated) city for a personal visit as soon as possible.
9 October, Friday
Life is a Dream, Donmar Warehouse
How rare it is these days to see a major institution (for that is what the Donmar is, for me) taking the Spanish Golden Age really seriously, and it probably would have faulted in a production any less dazzling than this one (literally - the bare back wall of the stage is gilded with golden splashes which later metaphorphoses into a vertical pool of blood). Legions of The Wire fans can drool about Dominic West for all they like, for me this performance - utterly frightening with uncontrolable rage one minute, vulnerable with nuanced confusion the next - showcases a very fine stage talent indeed. For once, the big TV-name casting for the sake of box office allure is justified. Some would say the material is merely second-rate Shakespeare from a lower latitude, and in places the long monologues do drag a bit, but the fine actors here (Kate Fleetwood, aka Mrs Rupert Goold, is the worthy equal of West with her dramatic arias as well as her depth and gravitas) give us a consistently gripping evening, and even the ludicrous all's-well-that-ends-well finale can be forgvien with a smile. Additional marks to the haunting music provided by Dominic Haslam (complete with muscles, in the 'cage').
10 October, Saturday
Inherit the Wind, The Old Vic
There are two things you need to know about this: one, when someone like Trevor Nunn who applies the broad-stroke brilliance he's known for (this is the man who brought Les Mis to life, after all - he really hasn't needed any work for the last 30 years on account of this royalty bill alone) to something that might otherwise looks a bit on the dull side on paper, it works. And two, Kevin Spacey gives his most memorable Old Vic outing yet (I don't want to think of this as 'the culmination' - more to come, please!), and his is a tornado of a performance, eclipsing a remarkable David Troughton and various supporting acts. We've all seen the American courtroom face-off scene in films that we can all rattle off for a good few minutes, but this is infinitey more gripping, intelligent, funny, complex and humane - all these things in turn.
"And on the morning of the eleventh day, we decided -"
- that we really needed a nice, big dose of visual arts. Turning up at Tate Britain 20 minutes after opening time on a Sunday morning to find the Turner and the Masters exhibition already crowded was uplifting (we aren't the only freaks!) and dispiriting (I'd hoped to see this in a much emptier setting!) in almost equal measure. Some of the aesthetic parallels theorised, between Turner and the sources of his inspirations seemed a little too academic/arbitrary, whereas the comparisons of his later works with his contemporaries were more fascinating to this viewer. While we usually conjure up those mesmerising seascapes as the main association with Turner's name ('Atmosphere is my style', apparently the man declared), it was particularly interesting to discover his forays into portraiture, and to conclude that some of those attempts were a bit clumsy. Later, in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, we couldn't help wearing the smug smile of the RA member while walking past the substantial queue (limited timed entries, no doubt) for the Anish Kapoor show. The word 'retrospective' is utterly inappropriate and irrelevant here, for the centrepieces are tailor-made for the space, and even pieces that weren't, such as Yellow, looks like it was always destined to be on that side of the wall. Breathtaking, thought-provoking, dizzying (literally, in one of the rooms).
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Thoughts on Flights II - What is Haute Cuisine?
23 May 2009. VS 238. LHR-HKG
I've just started my first in-flight meal on this thirteen-hour flight. If only plane food actually is presented as it sounds – alas, not in the twenty-first century. The 'menus' could look and sound terribly fancy, and yet each and every item on the tray just manages to contain that bit of awkwardness that you do wish they'd given you something quite plain but more pleasing than, say, yellow-brown green beans boiled two days ago and now 'dressed up'. As if the prospect of being bound to the half-foot space for the next half-day isn't depressing enough already, I suddenly realise that I've made one of the worst mistakes you can make when having an economy-class in-flight meal - I've chosen a programme called 'Yi-Pin Ryoyi' on the V! Japan channel on the entertainment system (sure, the food sucks but I still stick to Mr Branson's airline where I can, mostly for their entertainment programmes).
Yi-pin ryoyi means, literally, 'first-class cooking'. Any producer of the equivalent of such programme in the English-speaking world would have named it 'Haute Cuisine' (with just enough English accent in the pronunciation to ensure the snootiness of it). And what would this be in the heart of Tokyo, which is consistently featured in the global chart of cities with the highest living costs? Since Japanese food (I mean the real deal – perish any thoughts of Wagamama!) worldwide is already synonymous with freshness, exquisiteness, tastiness as well as nutritional values, you'd be excused for thinking, as I did, that it would be the Tokyo version of Gordon Ramsay/The Ivy/Nobu. But that couldn't be further from what's presented next.
Yu Café, located in the beautiful, historic neighbourhood of Ueno, is famed for its 'bi-hu shituro'. That's beef stew to you and me. And actually, that's the only dish they offer, day after day after day, all year long, . 'They' consist of a total staff number of two, a mother-and-son team. The mother, who must be in her fifties but has such impeccably beautiful skin common among Japanese women, looks like she could be in her late thirties. She brought up the son (now in his late twenties/early thirties?) all by herself, remarkably while remaining a career woman, working in publishing. A few years ago they opened up the café together in the front room of their own 75-year-old house, and since then it's become, if the crowd of lunchtime customers captured on screen is anything to go by, a real hit. They take us through their daily routine – the son takes their two dogs walking, picking up all the cooking ingredients (fresh beef, miscellaneous vegetables) he needs en route from local shops. Meanwhile mum cleans up the space and gets ready for cooking. The secret of the beef stew is in the stock apparently, and even though I didn't understand a thing being said, they clearly didn't give out the secret here. Each order of the stew is beautifully presented in a little stone pot, topped with freshly steamed vegetables, and served with bread and salad. It may sound utterly un-Japanese, yet the visual aspect of it – how you can tell the beef would be tender and juicy and delicious just by looking at it – already beats a lot of dishes that sound much more pretentious and are much less tempting. The customers, who include local businessmen as well as tourists, can't get enough of it. One of them is a heavily-accented, middle-aged man-in-suit from Osaka, who could have come all the way on the bullet train for a bowl of the stew for all I know. And there's just something intrinsically satisfying about the fact that everyone's eating exactly the same thing and in agreement with each other on their high opinion of the food. If only real socialism could be achieved thus! Oh, and the cost of the set? A total of 1000 yen (approximately US$10). No wonder the cute female presenter keeps widening her big eyes, with non-stop exclamations of 'Soo nan desu-ka!' (Is that so!)
Next up is a Ten-don place, in the heart of Ginza, where real estate prices rank among the highest in the world. Ten-don is short for 'tempura-don', don being the generic dish of bowl-of-rice with topping, which is just tempura in this establishment. And yes, you've guessed it – they serve nothing else but this signature dish, and if your tempura encounters so far have mainly/only involved greasy batters with a barely recognisable soggy centre, just watching this would make you a complete tempura convert (well, as well as making you feel so awful, about not being able to actually have it right here and now, that it hurts – trust me). Again – one can only accept that the Japanese haute cuisine is routinely borne out of such circumstances – it's a family business through-and-through, in this case a husband-and-wife team in their fifties. The words 'forty-one years' appears in the subtitle when he describes the history of the restaurant, and I guess it's been a family business for at least a couple of generations. The whole process of tempura being created here is captivating to watch from start to finish. First he selects three huge, plump shrimps whose freshness manifests itself abundantly. They're dipped in a special batter before being fried in sesame oil at 180C – the chef here does a hand gesture to stress the importance of the precision of this temperature. There's some magic working here, for when they're lifted from the fryer a couple of minutes later there's no residue oil dripping at all, almost a physical impossibility. Next up is assorted vegetables – again, unlike the bog-standard line-up of carrots and sweet potatoes we tend to get, they use carefully selected asparagus, aubergine and other indigenous Japanese varieties. In the meantime, the other half of the don – the rice base – is being made by the Madame of the house. Whereas usually this would be just plain steamed rice, not so at an Yipin-ryori restaurant! She lightly fries sliced onion with beaten eggs, using a minimal dollop of oil, which acts as a sub-topping, the scrumptious, soft layer between rice and the crown jewels of tempura. The whole appetising bowl is then served with miso soup and pickles. At this point the lovely presenter reveals yet another house secret – the chef conjures up a whole line of miso pastes from under the counter, each originating from a Japanese prefecture, from which he chooses and serves each customer depending on their accent – 'so that they can have a taste of home' (or at least that's what I think he said). And the pretty lady – if she weren't obviously so nice I'd have really, really hated her by now for the privilege of devouring all this – now lightly sprinkles green tea salt – I couldn't have made this up if I tried – all over the tempura, then everything is devoured, in a matter of seconds, with a lot of 'umms' and 'ahhhs' (well, their Japanese equivalent). Again, local workers and visitors alike don't seem able to get enough of this place, and the sight of impeccably-besuited bankers patiently waiting in line in this little side alleyway amidst all the surrounding Ginza grandeur is something to behold. Yet the most memorable frame is the humble smile of the proprietor/chef and his simple motto: 'Beautiful food makes you want to smile, I guess that's why I've enjoyed doing this for so long.' Oh, and the most important piece of information – the heft costly of all this 'ji-pin' (the ultimate food) as pronounced by our presenter? 1200 yen for the set, that's US$12. Those shrewd bankers sure know how to get the best value out of their hard-earned money.
If you think my enthusiasm about all this is completely disproportionate, and probably due to exceptionally bad accompanying meal thanks to Virgin Atlantic, think again. I didn't even understand what was being said on the programme 98% of the time, and just about managed to piece together all the practical information with the aid of the Japanese subtitles, some of which were in Chinese characters (as with all written Japanese). I'm simply struck – as I have in the past, time and again – by how differently the Japanese define 'high quality' as Westerners mostly do nowadays. Even in Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world, haute cuisine needn't cost the earth, quite the opposite in fact. The things they believe in, and celebrate as a people, are what make their food so unique. Sure, there are places all over the country where you can find thousand-pound-bottles of champagne, Phillip Starck interiors, set menus that can take a lengthy ritual to finish and cost a small mortgage to consume, and establishments where 'tipping' (although in the discreet Japanese manner) is a euphemism for 'be prepared to leave half of your savings account here'. But they choose not to show any of those exclusive and elusive options as their places of joy and pride, instead giving us a perfect and illuminating lesson of what haute cuisine means to them with these two little gems of examples. And for me, there is an upside to having this on the in-flight system after all: by the time I've watched this for the fourth time, Hong Kong is not that far away.
I've just started my first in-flight meal on this thirteen-hour flight. If only plane food actually is presented as it sounds – alas, not in the twenty-first century. The 'menus' could look and sound terribly fancy, and yet each and every item on the tray just manages to contain that bit of awkwardness that you do wish they'd given you something quite plain but more pleasing than, say, yellow-brown green beans boiled two days ago and now 'dressed up'. As if the prospect of being bound to the half-foot space for the next half-day isn't depressing enough already, I suddenly realise that I've made one of the worst mistakes you can make when having an economy-class in-flight meal - I've chosen a programme called 'Yi-Pin Ryoyi' on the V! Japan channel on the entertainment system (sure, the food sucks but I still stick to Mr Branson's airline where I can, mostly for their entertainment programmes).
Yi-pin ryoyi means, literally, 'first-class cooking'. Any producer of the equivalent of such programme in the English-speaking world would have named it 'Haute Cuisine' (with just enough English accent in the pronunciation to ensure the snootiness of it). And what would this be in the heart of Tokyo, which is consistently featured in the global chart of cities with the highest living costs? Since Japanese food (I mean the real deal – perish any thoughts of Wagamama!) worldwide is already synonymous with freshness, exquisiteness, tastiness as well as nutritional values, you'd be excused for thinking, as I did, that it would be the Tokyo version of Gordon Ramsay/The Ivy/Nobu. But that couldn't be further from what's presented next.
Yu Café, located in the beautiful, historic neighbourhood of Ueno, is famed for its 'bi-hu shituro'. That's beef stew to you and me. And actually, that's the only dish they offer, day after day after day, all year long, . 'They' consist of a total staff number of two, a mother-and-son team. The mother, who must be in her fifties but has such impeccably beautiful skin common among Japanese women, looks like she could be in her late thirties. She brought up the son (now in his late twenties/early thirties?) all by herself, remarkably while remaining a career woman, working in publishing. A few years ago they opened up the café together in the front room of their own 75-year-old house, and since then it's become, if the crowd of lunchtime customers captured on screen is anything to go by, a real hit. They take us through their daily routine – the son takes their two dogs walking, picking up all the cooking ingredients (fresh beef, miscellaneous vegetables) he needs en route from local shops. Meanwhile mum cleans up the space and gets ready for cooking. The secret of the beef stew is in the stock apparently, and even though I didn't understand a thing being said, they clearly didn't give out the secret here. Each order of the stew is beautifully presented in a little stone pot, topped with freshly steamed vegetables, and served with bread and salad. It may sound utterly un-Japanese, yet the visual aspect of it – how you can tell the beef would be tender and juicy and delicious just by looking at it – already beats a lot of dishes that sound much more pretentious and are much less tempting. The customers, who include local businessmen as well as tourists, can't get enough of it. One of them is a heavily-accented, middle-aged man-in-suit from Osaka, who could have come all the way on the bullet train for a bowl of the stew for all I know. And there's just something intrinsically satisfying about the fact that everyone's eating exactly the same thing and in agreement with each other on their high opinion of the food. If only real socialism could be achieved thus! Oh, and the cost of the set? A total of 1000 yen (approximately US$10). No wonder the cute female presenter keeps widening her big eyes, with non-stop exclamations of 'Soo nan desu-ka!' (Is that so!)
Next up is a Ten-don place, in the heart of Ginza, where real estate prices rank among the highest in the world. Ten-don is short for 'tempura-don', don being the generic dish of bowl-of-rice with topping, which is just tempura in this establishment. And yes, you've guessed it – they serve nothing else but this signature dish, and if your tempura encounters so far have mainly/only involved greasy batters with a barely recognisable soggy centre, just watching this would make you a complete tempura convert (well, as well as making you feel so awful, about not being able to actually have it right here and now, that it hurts – trust me). Again – one can only accept that the Japanese haute cuisine is routinely borne out of such circumstances – it's a family business through-and-through, in this case a husband-and-wife team in their fifties. The words 'forty-one years' appears in the subtitle when he describes the history of the restaurant, and I guess it's been a family business for at least a couple of generations. The whole process of tempura being created here is captivating to watch from start to finish. First he selects three huge, plump shrimps whose freshness manifests itself abundantly. They're dipped in a special batter before being fried in sesame oil at 180C – the chef here does a hand gesture to stress the importance of the precision of this temperature. There's some magic working here, for when they're lifted from the fryer a couple of minutes later there's no residue oil dripping at all, almost a physical impossibility. Next up is assorted vegetables – again, unlike the bog-standard line-up of carrots and sweet potatoes we tend to get, they use carefully selected asparagus, aubergine and other indigenous Japanese varieties. In the meantime, the other half of the don – the rice base – is being made by the Madame of the house. Whereas usually this would be just plain steamed rice, not so at an Yipin-ryori restaurant! She lightly fries sliced onion with beaten eggs, using a minimal dollop of oil, which acts as a sub-topping, the scrumptious, soft layer between rice and the crown jewels of tempura. The whole appetising bowl is then served with miso soup and pickles. At this point the lovely presenter reveals yet another house secret – the chef conjures up a whole line of miso pastes from under the counter, each originating from a Japanese prefecture, from which he chooses and serves each customer depending on their accent – 'so that they can have a taste of home' (or at least that's what I think he said). And the pretty lady – if she weren't obviously so nice I'd have really, really hated her by now for the privilege of devouring all this – now lightly sprinkles green tea salt – I couldn't have made this up if I tried – all over the tempura, then everything is devoured, in a matter of seconds, with a lot of 'umms' and 'ahhhs' (well, their Japanese equivalent). Again, local workers and visitors alike don't seem able to get enough of this place, and the sight of impeccably-besuited bankers patiently waiting in line in this little side alleyway amidst all the surrounding Ginza grandeur is something to behold. Yet the most memorable frame is the humble smile of the proprietor/chef and his simple motto: 'Beautiful food makes you want to smile, I guess that's why I've enjoyed doing this for so long.' Oh, and the most important piece of information – the heft costly of all this 'ji-pin' (the ultimate food) as pronounced by our presenter? 1200 yen for the set, that's US$12. Those shrewd bankers sure know how to get the best value out of their hard-earned money.
If you think my enthusiasm about all this is completely disproportionate, and probably due to exceptionally bad accompanying meal thanks to Virgin Atlantic, think again. I didn't even understand what was being said on the programme 98% of the time, and just about managed to piece together all the practical information with the aid of the Japanese subtitles, some of which were in Chinese characters (as with all written Japanese). I'm simply struck – as I have in the past, time and again – by how differently the Japanese define 'high quality' as Westerners mostly do nowadays. Even in Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world, haute cuisine needn't cost the earth, quite the opposite in fact. The things they believe in, and celebrate as a people, are what make their food so unique. Sure, there are places all over the country where you can find thousand-pound-bottles of champagne, Phillip Starck interiors, set menus that can take a lengthy ritual to finish and cost a small mortgage to consume, and establishments where 'tipping' (although in the discreet Japanese manner) is a euphemism for 'be prepared to leave half of your savings account here'. But they choose not to show any of those exclusive and elusive options as their places of joy and pride, instead giving us a perfect and illuminating lesson of what haute cuisine means to them with these two little gems of examples. And for me, there is an upside to having this on the in-flight system after all: by the time I've watched this for the fourth time, Hong Kong is not that far away.
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