bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2001) — Summer 2001 // Été 2001, pp. 20–23
Nothing for Me, Please — by Robert Hage
At the end of the 1970s, I acted, for a brief period, as Chargé in our High Commission in Lagos. I had not had much use up until that time for a western-style dress suit since we all wore what were known as “French suits,” which consisted of a Mao-type jacket and matching pants, usually made from some sort of impenetrable polyester.
Australian Prime Minister Fraser was coming to town prior to a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and I was to represent Canada at the Nigerian government reception in his honour. I dressed for the occasion, putting on my one and only dark grey suit which had been hanging in the closet for the past two years. When I went to put on the pants, however, I discovered to my chagrin that the zipper had rusted in the Lagos humidity.
There was nothing to be done except put them on. My wife then took needle and thread and sewed me into them. I left for the reception with the flag flying on the car and her admonition in my ear: “Whatever you do, don’t have anything to drink.”
The Full Monty (Part I) — by Diane Harper
After the January 2001 earthquake in El Salvador, my family was very nervous about going indoors for more than a few minutes at a time. There were hundreds of aftershocks, so we moved the TV and kids’ video collection to the terrace, and camped out for several days. We even slept in our clothes in case we needed to evacuate the house. Eventually though, we needed to bathe.
My husband was the first to test his courage. No sooner had he gotten into the shower when a major aftershock hit (estimated 5.7 on the Richter scale). The bathroom is built on metal pillars over the garage, so moves even more than the rest of the house. He set a land speed record from the bathroom to the back yard with wet feet over bouncing tiles, wearing nothing but shampoo. Luckily, there was no damage and he was able to retrieve his clothes, if not his dignity.
Trudeau and the Security Guard — by Arthur Blanchette
The year was 1977. US President Jimmy Carter had invited all American Heads of State and Government to the ceremonies held at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., to mark the signing of a Treaty transferring full ownership of the Panama Canal to Panama in the year 2000.
Prime Minister Trudeau decided to attend. I was of course present at the airport to greet him and I accompanied him in the official limousine to the Mayflower Hotel – his favourite in the US capital.
Since everything had been set up fairly quickly for the signing ceremonies, I thought I should take advantage of the ride into the city to tell him what the Treaty was all about. He took it all in very seriously, asked good questions, and at the hotel thanked me for an excellent briefing.
I was, of course, quite pleased. Even more so the following day when during a press conference he told those present that if they wanted to know anything about the Panama Canal and the Treaty they should consult me.
That being said, however, I learned sometim after the visit that at the Mayflower Hotel he had gone on at some length to Secretary of State for External Affairs Don Jamieson about the excellent briefing he had received from an extremely knowledgeable security guard on his way to the city: a briefing clearly based on a wealth of information that he found surprising in a Secret Service agent. Eventually, Jamieson interrupted. “Prime Minister! That was no security guard. That was our Ambassador to the OAS.”
Prime Minister Trudeau had obviously mistaken my hearing aid for the communications devices normally worn by Secret Service agents at the time.
What’s Behind Door Number 3? — by Dawn Jones
I recently had my first experience of sitting-in to take notes at a meeting between Minister Manley and an important guest.
The meeting went very well, and concluded on a very congenial note. We all stood to leave the Minister’s office. As I was the nearest to the door, it seemed logical to open it and leave. However, there were three doors! I chose the most likely and began to open it, when the Minister said: “Don’t go in there. That’s the fridge!”
My Comeuppance in Peking — by Kenneth G. Ramsay
In the old days – this would be the late 1970s – when meetings with Chinese authorities took place, they were never in the office of the Chinese official concerned. Rather, the visitor was shown to a rather sparsely furnished room, there to await the arrival of the “Chinese side.” This may still be the custom today. I had been summoned to the Ministry of Textiles to discuss Canadian textile import restrictions. In this case, ’discuss, I knew, meant I would receive a ’telling off’ because the People’s Republic of China objected to Canadian textile import restrictions.
Aware of the protocol involved in meetings, newly arrived in Peking and anxious to demonstrate my competence and understanding, I greeted the old lady in the meeting room, who was busying herself with the teapot (gallons of tea, before, during and after all meetings, are a ritual), in my recently acquired, and very broken, Mandarin. Complete with sweeping, demonstrative hand gestures, I offered the Chinese equivalent of: “Me come from bilig land faar, faar away across wide ocean called Jaa-naa-daa! Much happy be here speak with foreign friends. Have you heard, Comrade, of my bilig country which provides much wheat for Chinese people?”
I was happy to see, by what, I hoped, was a smile of understanding, that my ten arduous months of language training had proved useful. She asked me (in Chinese) if I would like a cup of tea. Proud, and not a little relieved that I, in turn, had understood her question,
I graciously accepted, my obsequious body language ensuring that she appreciated that this illustrious foreign diplomat was treating her like an equal, like a true comrade. Firmly, I said to myself, “No lofty foreign airs by this white man.” She poured my tea and padded quietly out of the room. duced by the interpreter and identified by title. My tea lady, at the end of the line, had a twinkle in her eye as I heard her identified as the leader of the delegation. As the meeting started, the interpreter asked me, courteously but firmly, to speak English for the duration of the meeting. This was pretty standard practice as it allowed the Chinese side, most of whom understood English much better than the foreigner understood Chinese, to consider everything twice before having to reply.
In the subsequent negotiations, she demonstrated a depth of knowledge of Canada, its textile producers, their manufacturing costs, their rates of pay, union affiliation and the names of Canadian government officials, that was impressive. Had I been set up? There were grounds to suspect so because, in negotiations with the Chinese, putting adversaries on the defensive or shaking their self-confidence (although both sides play this game) is a standard ploy. However, in this case, I doubt if I was set up; but certainly felt a little humbled.
During the rest of my two years in Peking I met the ’tea lady’ frequently. From the twinkle in her eyes that belied her always solemn face, I suspected she remembered our first meeting and was well aware of how it had influenced all my subsequent dealings with the Chinese.
Spit and Polish — by Michael Wondergem
It was fortunate indeed that my dentist could find time to insert a new crown over my broken front tooth on the day of the Dutch National Day reception. As a formal Dutch national, I wanted to be presentable for this event. The Ambassador, whom I had met before, enjoyed bragging that some former Dutchmen had managed to infiltrate DFAIT. On this occasion, he also was going to introduce his new wife to the diplomatic corps and to his countrymen.
The sun was shining and the residency garden in Rockcliffe was appropriately decked out in many tulips in full bloom. As the queue slowly wound its way through the main entrance I had the opportunity to observe the attractive and well-endowed new wife of the Ambassador. The moment he saw me, he grabbed my elbow and introduced me to his wife as “one of those fellows I told you about.” As I stuttered my “How do you do,” my new tooth flew out of my mouth, teetered on the brink of madam’s ample bosom and slowly rolled from there onto the ground.
Having paid a lot for this tooth I took a dive, crawled on the floor at the head of the queue and felt around between the feet of madam, where I managed to retrieve it from just behind her heels.
Red-faced, I stormed to a bathroom, on the way to which a kind colleague offered me a piece of chewing gum to try and glue the tooth back.
Unbeknownst to me, the gum was green and amply bordered the new tooth in addition to holding it in. Only diplomats could have contained their laughter as I flashed them my handsome smile.
Christchurch on My Mind (Or, the Full Monty, Part II) — by Stephan Hesse
Towards the end of our posting in India, my family got the well-known urge to get away from all things Indian and seek relief in a place that featured wide-open spaces and practically no people. Our choice fell upon New Zealand, and those who had gone there before congratulated us on our choice and told us of the varied wonders of flora and fauna that could be found there.
Having previously travelled through other Third World regions, we had developed a routine of sitting on kids, luggage, and photographic equipment (not necessarily in that order) to prevent things from being lost or stolen along the way. Thus, we happily arrived in Auckland to commence our much planned and talked-about trip through the North and South Islands. It was wonderful to drive up to food stalls and acquire a variety of fruits and vegetables that could be eaten after washing them in water rather than dousing them in iodine or other chemical solutions. In short, we were on our way to having one of the most pleasant and memorable family holidays in a long time.
After crossing the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton, our family leisurely drifted towards Christchurch, our last stop before leaving New Zealand. We decided to spend our last few days in a motel along the Avon River and explore the city on foot. At day’s end, we parked our rental car directly in front of our motel room and settled in for the night. In the early hours of the morning, I was awaken by Michelle’s loud scream: “Get out of here!” Only afterwards did I realize that this piercing exhortation was not the aftermath of some remaining domestic unrest of the evening before but rather had been directed at a cat burglar who, close to my side of the double bed, had undertaken to search our luggage for valuables.
Once disturbed, the burglar fled fleet-footed through the front door of the bungalow. He had apparently opened the front door slightly to provide himself with a quick escape route, for just the eventuality he now encountered. After I had recovered from what at first seemed a rather untoward way of shouting at one’s husband in the middle of the night, I went in hot pursuit of the burglar, out through the front door, straight across the motel grounds, and out onto a major thoroughfare in the city, which at that time of the night was mercifully unpopulated. All the while running after the break-in artist I kept yelling and shouting, hurling rather uncouth bits and pieces of the English language at the intruder.
As an additional preparation for his quick getaway, the burglar had arrived on a ten-speed bike which he quickly abandoned as it did not give him the desired speed in the initial stage of my pursuit. Eventually, I had to abandon the chase and return to the motel. On the way back, I picked up the bike now lying in the road and marched it back to the scene of the break-in.
Now, it has to be said that I have not made use of pyjamas since times immemorial. My loud ravings had awakened the entire population of the otherwise peaceful motel. When I returned to the motel grounds with my newly acquired ten-speed bike, all guests had dutifully assembled outside their rooms and cottages to see about the commotion. My explanations regarding the just experienced break-in to our motel room could not overshadow the fact that I had returned ren-speea bike in nand.
Subsequently, the police came, took fingerprints off door and window frames, and spoke to us at great length about the dastardly deed. Somehow, in the criminal investigation, the fact that I had turned up naked seemed to be a lesser concern, not worthy of further mention. Michelle and I have since had a number of conversations about the merits of wearing pyjamas at night, but I am a firm believer that such unusual moments do not happen more than once in anyone’s lifetime.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2001) — Summer 2001 // Été 2001, pp. 20–23. Read the rest of this issue →
