Saw Bacchus in Wenzhou

A few days ago our bunch of friends decided to have a Chinese dinner at our home. Everyone loves Chinese cooking. This food of course is not a novelty any more, but since while getting better it keeps being incredibly cheap, we still eat it a lot and like it (a lot). Advised by the youngest of us all I thus went to this Chinese restaurant close by, located at the end of Via Cavour, not far from Via dei Fori Imperiali. I ordered a take-away meal for 8. I never was there before. Wow was I surprised by the place and by the people!

The restaurant was elegant enough, and I admired the professionalism, dynamism and hard working style that reigned in the place, everybody being so serious and dedicated. It was a big family clan, I believe, they all seemed related and all ages were present: male teenagers serving tables; middle-aged women organising all, calculating and pinning small sheets of paper to the wall; young sweet-looking women serving too, clad in traditional silk dresses with fine motifs all over; a man who I think was one of the older women’s husband and apparently the boss; and finally the eldest woman, white-haired, the grandmother definitely, who worked at the counter so hard despite her age, incredibly attentive to all that happened and typing the bills on the counter with solemn vigour.

I smiled at her and she smiled back at me. Romans are good-natured but they have some difficulty understanding these closed-up reserved folk who, nonetheless, when they feel you do not see them as aliens, quickly respond. I told her I met some people from China and asked what town they came from, what type of Chinese language they spoke, if their language was Cantonese- or Mandarin-related. She said their speech was related to none of them, it was a totally different language. The way she said it showed she enjoyed answering to me even though it was not apparent (although I felt it clearly).

She said they all came from Wenzhou, which, I later learned, is a town in the south-eastern Zhejiang province residing “on the Ou Jiang delta, with picturesque buildings and surroundings. The port (…) very active in the 19th century (tea export) was later used for fishing only” (La Piccola Treccani). Thence the emigration to foreign countries of large portions of these active people with “a reputation for being an enterprising folk who start restaurants, retail and wholesale businesses in their adopted countries.” Wenzhou. A difficult word I can remember just because this guy got close - the one I thought was the boss - and was so pleased to write it down for me, and asked me if I was a real Roman, and I said yes, I am a real Roman, and after a while I realised a-l-l of them quickly knew this Roman had an interest in them. They sort of suddenly knew I was sympathetic.

Someone probably overheard the above-said conversation and exchanging quick Chinese whispers all of them were immediately aware of ALL and got immediately hidden-attentive, hidden-agreeable, while two young men prayed me several times to please sit down while waiting (till I finally accepted) and offered me gratis this unbelievable Chinese H-bomb liquor (of which I drank two shots). I felt all this almost imperceptible attention, I felt these good vibes in the air despite their not showing it much. Chinese people are both delicate and steel-strong, intelligent and – I must gather from this experience – telepathic, while most of the people here consider them a totally indecipherable and marble-faced folk (marble-faced is funnier than stone-faced, being a joke I have with some Hong Kong IT students: I tease them, they tease me back), but I felt it so well they all at once liked me.

It was a lovely evening, and my fantasy was flying high, this nitro-glycerine booze being not totally guiltless.
I felt like a sudden cool breeze coming from nowhere … looked at the paintings around … looked at the smiling faces around … and clearly felt the presence of the God, as my sight slightly blurred…

At home our Chinese dinner was a success, and went on as only Roman dinners can go (for hours), mixing both Chinese and Italian food, with an icy Italian white wine this time though, a tuscan Galestro, not at all bad.
I didn’t bring any of the bomb stuff actually. Although I do know that I owe it a brief, intense encounter with Bacchus-Dionysus, son of Semele and Jupiter, in a Wenzhou restaurant, and outside in the open cool air, right at the border of ancient Subura.

While actually my sight slightly blurred inside the restaurant I remember I was kindly given my take-away meal for 8 people.

Moments later, I was driving back home with my motorbike, winding and winding like a crazy birdie, fresh crisp air on my ecstatic face.

Rome, the eternal loose woman, imperial, magnificent, was smiling all around.

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Italian version

Best Espresso in the World?

After all these books and reflection we really need a break. What about a good Italian espresso? Read this here:

“The espresso at Sant’Eustachio in Rome is so well-regarded that William Grimes of the New York Times advised those in the US seeking the perfect espresso, “…When the need for a real espresso becomes overpowering, buy a ticket to Rome, tell the taxi driver to head straight for the Sant’Eustachio cafe. The espresso will be perfect. A little expensive, but surely worth the trouble.”

This original article by William Grimes is so funny in his frustrated search for the best espresso in New York, and provides a lot of infos on a great town and on coffee. I agree. Sant’Eustachio’s espresso is actually great, and we cannot but be flattered that this NY guy appreciates it. Thank you Mr. Grimes, really. It can even be worth a flight to Rome, no kidding.

The only thing though being this: YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG MR. GRIMES. I’M SORRY.

I mean, why don’t you US guys ask Italians first before writing such things? I know Grimes asked a few, but I mean the people of the street in here, in this country. If you’d asked them before, every Italian (or 90%) would have replied that the real best espresso in the world is not made in Roman Sant’Eustachio café (where they just perform inspired tricks, that crema etc.). The real best espresso in the world is made in Naples.

The truth is how can Romans compete with Greek cousins in food, pastries and general refinement of life? In Neapolis they have dozens, even hundreds cafés where espresso is much better than Sant’Eustachio’s, even in the poorest suburbs where camorra rules.

So, apart from the real pizza (which in Rome is not bad but hasn’t got the original Neapolitan taste) and apart from a choice of pastries whose quality is definitely unknown in Rome (sfogliatelle, babà, pastiera etc.) where is then the best of the best espressos?

It is served in Il Caffè del Professore, 46 piazza Trieste e Trento, in the heart of Naples. There they make their own blend or miscela of a superior quality so they can serve you the best of the best of the best. No tricks. Only real sublime coffee from a superior sublime miscela. Then of course they also do tricks and variations on the theme. How? In ways and varieties that can make the guys at Sant’Eustachio get pale from depression.

More on our Greek Cousins, the Neapolitans, who can provide a lot of surprises, not only coffee or food. It will be our duty to relate some of this in other posts.

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Power of Reading

To a Chinese IT student. “I am glad to hear that you like reading. Of course I agree on the great fun and sometimes consolation power of reading. As you have noticed, my house is packed with books. Actually I consider serious reading a pretty good substitute for religion and meditation. It is a spiritual activity that can add some depth to our everyday life. I get consolation from reading books that I find special, I get also meditation from books that make me think and/or move my emotions.
Consolation and meditation usually people find in religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam etc. Especially far-eastern religions teach us how to meditate, but I usually find this in books that are important or special to me. These books I sometimes read out very slowly, concentrating on every single word and sentence, or even just meditating them in the silence of my mind.

Special books

The books that are special can differ according to who is reading them. I find special those books written by people whose minds are 1) somewhat consonant with mine and 2) more powerful than mine thence capable of enlightening me in some way. Since I am not a VIP of thought and cannot directly converse with today’s top brains I build up my own Platonic symposium with good books.

Why, you ask, don’t you ever meet important and highly thinking people? Well, sometimes I do, but not so often, it’s not easy to meet them, plus I’m reserved, plus they’re so intelligent they might find me stupid; I know there are intelligent Tv debates and conferences, but I am talking about intimacy and continuous communication.

So I like many sorts of books and I read lots of them, though classics are my favourites and I mentally hold intercourse with them. I adore classics. They are my lymph. They are my religion (literally lol). They resisted time. They are regarded as beneficial and/or fascinating even though decades or centuries (or thousands of years) have passed. Time is a merciless darwinian selector. I really doubt that Dan Brown’s books will be read in the centuries ahead.

Dan Brown & J.D. Salinger

Incidentally, if you like American culture (as I do, though it is getting sometimes too superficial) “The Catcher in the rye” by J.D. Salinger is a great little classic written by an intelligent and gifted person. I had the luck to read it in the original when I was 18. I was in Dublin at that time attending a summer English school, and this Swedish boy I was sharing the house with was about to leave. He left this book to me he had just read saying “It is full of sex and slang”, which of course made my resolution to read it rocklike. It might not be special to you. Some American people find it boring because they were obliged to study it at school. But you are Chinese.

Dan Brown’s books are good thrillers in my view though a little bit too entertainment-oriented (in the negative sense: nothing wrong in entertainment), even if they talk about interesting things, history, religion, lots of technology and today’s stuff like NSA - a sort of IT CIA - NASA, the Vatican, which on the whole is fine, but the thing is he’s in my view making money by morally subjugating the reader with his pseudo-theories. I am not religious but I find it ridiculous (and depressing) that some people have lost their religious faith because of his books. It is really depressing. And it is revealing of the fact that void rules. No kidding.

You told me about the low percentage of Italians who speak English. It is sadly true. We are animals in this field (animals in the negative sense: nothing wrong in being an animal), so concentrated on our culture and petty politics only (though something is stirring). Nothing can really excuse this shameful national flaw.

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Italian version