bout de papier, Volume 14, Issue No. 1, 1997
bout de papier, Volume 6, Issue No. 1, 1988
China Takeaways
When signed up for a posting to China back in 1999, there was still a debate going on. One of my favourite writers on the subject, Joe Studwell, pointed out that there is a long line of merchants from the days of…
Red-Faced in a Dark Suit
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…
Excerpt from “A Stubble Jumper in Striped Pants: Memoirs of a Prairie Diplomat”
When I joined External Affairs, I was worried that I would have to do things which would make me look silly back in Saskatchewan, like kissing women’s hands and wearing tails and striped pants. In my first year in Ottawa, I was…
Canada’s Answer to the Cultural Revolution
The best night of my posting as the purveyor of Canadian culture to China came in May of 1994 in the distinctly non- Canadian and non-Chinese surroundings of the original Beijing franchise of Maxim’s de Paris. I had arranged for Montreal jazz…
Reflections on China’s Wall
Everyone has heard of the Great Wall of China; a massive structure, five metres high and almost as wide, originally built over 2,000 years ago, stretching in a continuous, unbroken line across the north of China for thousands of miles, protecting her…
A Giant Game of Scrabble
“It’s almost like a giant Scrabble game … It’s arcane. We dance around commas, we argue over ‘ands’ and ‘ors’. But in the end, we come up with an agreement that reflects the substance, the positive message that we wanted to put…
Travelling the Trans-Siberian in Troubled Times
The journey along the Trans-Siberian Railroad is the foremost train trip in the world.
IT’S FRED…
The things we do in the Foreign Service! Hard and fast job descriptions or physical limitations are not excuses in a Canadian diplomat’s line of duty. His Excellency, Fred Bild, Canada’s Ambassador to China, rides a camel along the streets of Beijing…
