100 Tage in Shanghai

"Als der chinesische Maschinenbauminister in Deutschland ankam (Jahr 1978), sah er auf den Strassen nicht wie erwartet einen Mercedes neben dem anderen, sondern jede Menge VW-Produkte wie den Käfer oder den Golf. Chou Tzu Tsian erkundigte sich deshalb nach dem Hersteller dieser Autos. Sie stammten von Volkswagen aus Wolfsburg, klärten die Stuttgarter den Minister auf. Kurz entschlossen reiste Chou Tzu Tsian mit seiner Delegation per Zug nach Wolfsburg.

Dort angekommen, ging die Delegation zu Fuss von Bahnhof zur "Wache Sandkamp", seit jeher der Haupteingang für Besucher des VW-Werkes. Chou Tzu Tsian stellte sich mit Hilfe eines Übersetzes dem Diensthabenden Wachmann mit den Worten vor: "Ich bin der chinesischen Maschinenbauminister und möchte einen Verantwortlichen von VW sprechen." Der Wachmann staunte nicht schlecht über diesen Minister in blauer Mao-Jacke, der per pedes angereist kam, und versuchte, jemanden zu finden, der ihn empfangen könnte. Gott sei Dank war an diesem Tag Dr. Werner P. Schmidt im Haus, damals VW-Vorstand für den Vertrieb zuständig. Ihn rief der Wachmann an: "Herr Dr. Schmidt, hier von mir steht der chinesische Minister für Maschinenbau und möchte Sie gern sprechen." Herr Direktor Schmidt war nicht weniger erstaunt als der Wachmann, aber respektvoll und neugierig genug, um zu erwidern: "Dann bittten Sie ihn doch zu mir ins Hochhaus. Es wird mir eine Ehre sein."

Martin Posth, 100 Tage in Shanghai.

Translation into English by myself:

(When the chinese minister for Machinery Production came to Germany [in 1978], he saw that on the streets there were not one Mercedes after another, as he expected. Instead, he saw all kind of products of Volkswagen like the Beatle or Golf. Because this, Chou Tzu Tsian wondered about the maker of these cars. The people from Stuttgart explained the minister that these cars were Volkswagens from Wolfsburg. Chou Tzu Tsian decided at the very moment to travel with his delegation to Wolfsburg by train.When the delegation arrived, they went by foot from the train station to "Wache Sandkamp", the main eintrance for visitors to the VW factory. Chou Tzu Tsian explained to the gate guard, with the assistance of an intrerpretor: "I'm the chinese minister for Machinery Production and I would like to talk with a representative of Volkswagen." The guard had a big surprise, looking in front of him this minister wearing a Mao-blue jacket, and tried to find someone that could receive him. Thanks God, that day was in the headquarters Doctor Werner P. Schmidt, then sales manager and member of the VW chairman board. The guard called him: "doctor Schmidt, the chinese minister for Machinery Production is here in front of me and he would like to talk with you". Dr. Schmidt was no less schocked than the guard but had enough respect and curisosity to answer: "please send me them to the headquarters. It will be an honor.")

Golf courses are cemeteries

"What dit it mean that Adletsky and Dame Siggy had reached a great age, that they were honored as multibillionaire Jews, and that they were what Chicagoans call 'notables'? Or else, in the language of myth, 'heavy-money Yids', representatives of the powers of darkness and the secret rulers of the world?

Much later in the day, talking to Amy about Mr and Mrs Adletsky, I said, 'Okay, they're in retirement. They've got nothing but leisure, and it's pastime with them to bargain with Bodo Heisinger, to chaffer and haggle. Early this morning, they left the house and rode downtown through the blizzard in their strech limo. They sat in the luxurious salon interior. Then for two hours they fenced Madge and Bodo... There was no occasion to look outside -to see the people whose mad doings the papers are always reporting...'

'What are you out to prove, Harry, with an introduction like this' Amy said.

'There is no leisure for anybody,' I said. 'Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries. Adletsky would never stoop to golf. He was right to wheel and deal as he had done from the age of two till ninety-two."

Saul Bellow, The actual.

Fets que ens aclaparen

C.
"Convé de considerar,
malgrat que sigui impossible,
el fenomen de l'humà
com un tot que va expandint-se,
com un esdeveniment,
com un llamp o un canvi d'era
geològica. El pitjor
per no veure-ho és la Història
i el càlcul d'un mateix.
Aquests fets ens aclaparen.
Que existeixen és segur,
però són molt secundaris,
com tenir els cabells vermells
o tenir pèls a l'esquena.
Són només il·lusions,
de les quals no és factible
alunyar-se, prescindir.
Però si no som capaços
de fer aquest esforç suprem,
oblidem entendre l'Home."

Miquel Bauçà, Rudiments de saviesa.

Eine Zeitung für Fischhändler and Gemüsehöker

"Die ersten Käufer der ZEIT, so will es die Legende, waren vor allem Hamburger Fischhändler und Gemüsehöker, die das Blatt als Einwickelspapier brauchten. Sie mögen sich andere Leser vorgestellt haben, die Hand voll Idealisten, die im stark zerstörten Pressehaus in ungeheizten Räumen beim Schein von Petroleumfunzeln zusammenhockte und das Blatt, acht Seiten stark, zusammenschrieb...

Es waren vier gestandene Männer, die die Nazizeit mit weisser Weste überstanden hatten und von den Engländern die Lizenz erhielten, die ZEIT herauszugeben. Da war der Stadtbaurat a. D. Richard Tüngel, den die Nazis 1933 aus seinem Amt gejagt hatten; Ewald Schmidt di Simoni arbeitete als Verlagskaufmann, bis er wegen der jüdischen Herkunft seine Frau mit Berufsverbot belegt wurde; Lovis H Lorenz, promovierter Kunsthistoriker, ehemals chefredakteur einer Berliner Illustrierten, ohne Parteibuch; und Gerd Bucerius, der Anwalts aus Altona, der jüdische Angeklagte verteidigte und, weil er eine Jüdin geheiratet hatte, von der er sich nicht scheiden liess, als wehrunwürdig galt. Zu diessen vier gesellte sich als erster Chefredakteur der Zeit der Journalist und Professor Ernst Samhaber, ein vielseitig gebildeter Deutschchilene, und mit ihm ein kleiner Haufen von Journalisten, die es zum Ende des Krieges aus Berlin nach Norddeutschland verschlagen hatten."


Haug von Kuenheim, Die Zeit.



Free translation by myself:

(The legend says that the first who bought Die Zeit were fish and vegetable traders from Hamburg that used the paper to envelope [their stuff]. They had imagined another kind of readers, that group of idealist that were writing a publication of eight hard-paper pages in a much destroyed press house with rooms that had no heat and were lighted with petroleum lamps...

Die Zeit was published under license of the English [occupation force] by four grown men that went cleaned up during the nazi era. There was the former Urban planning and building Commissioner Richard Tüngel, who in 1933 was kicked out of his post by the nazis. Ewald Schmidt di Simoni worked as a publishing company agent until he was fined with an Employment ban because the jewish origins of his wife. Lovis. H. Lorenz, Art historian, former chief editor of the Berliner Illustrierte [magazine], without [Nazi] party membership. And Gerd Bucerius, the lawyer from Altona that defended jewish and was later banned because his wife was a jewish and he didn't want to divorce. As first chief editor of the newspaper was included to the group the journalist and Professor Ernst Samhaber, a multifaceted and well educated German-chilean, and with him there was also a bunch of journalists from Berlin that ended up in North Germany after the war.)

Els espanyols l'hauran penjat

-"I per què feu aquestes formoses corones, Bella? -afegí Cuyl adreçant-se a la boja.
-Són per als morts.
-Per a quins morts?
-Per als que es gronxen entre el cel i la terra, com diu l'àvia Joana. Silenci! Els corbs croen i no ho han de saber... -féu la folla, mirant en l'aire amb desconfiança i posant-se l'índex damunt dels llavis.

Cuyl es va recordar de Claas Arie.
-Sí, per als morts... -feu la vella, intervenint en la conversa i apropant-se amb les mans als malucs-, Jo prou que li deia: "Un dia et penjaran com a Claas Arie". Qui sap si avui o demà no vénen a incendiar-nos la casa!
-Però de qui parleu?
-De qui? de Bout, home!
-Bout? Per ventura li han fet sofrir la mort ignominiosa de Claas Arie? -preguntà el jove noble.
-Oh! Tot pot ésser! -continuà la Joana, amb indiferència-. D'ençà que partí no en sabem res.
-És cert, però això no prova res.
-Però ja veureu com serà tal com jo ho dic. Bout odiava els espanyols i els espanyols l'hauran penjat."

August Snieders, El caçador de llops. Rara edició en català del 1931 de la Llibreria Catalònia.

Wurst und Sterne

"Es tat gut, all das zum ersten Mal auszusprechen. Schon kamen die Worte schneller, die Sätze bildeten sich von selbst. Dies sei kein Gedankenspiel! Er behaupte etwa... Er ging auf den Fenster zu, aber ein erschrockenes Quieken des Männchens liess ihn stehenbleiben. Er behaupte etwa, dass ein Dreieck von genügender Grösse, aufgespannt zwischen drei Sternen dort draussen, bei genauer Messung eine andere Winkelsumme habe als die erwarteten hundertachtzig Grad, sich also als sphärischer Körper erweisen werde. Als er gestikulierend aufsah, bemerkte er die Spinweben an der Ecke, mehrere Schichten davon, filzen ineinandergewoben. Eines Tages würden solche Messungen durchführbar sein! Doch sei das noch lange hin, einstweilen benötige er die Meinung der einziegen, der ihn nicht für verrückt halten könne, der ihn verstehen müsse. Die Meinung des Mannes, welcher die Welt mehr über Raum und Zeit gelehrt habe als irgendein anderer. Er ging in die Hocke, so dass sein Gesicht auf gleicher Höhe mit dem des Männchens war. Er wartete. Die kleinen Augen richteten sich auf ihn.

Wurst, sagte [Immanuel] Kant.

Bitte?

Der Lampe soll Wurst kaufen, sagte Kant. Wurst und Sterne. Soll er auch kaufen.

[Carl Friedrich] Gauss stand auf.

Ganz hat mich die Zivilität nicht verlassen. sagte Kant. Meine Herren! Ein Tropfel Speichel rann über sein Kinn.

Der gnädige Herr sei müde, sagte der Diener.

Gauss nickte. Der Diener berührte mit dem Handdrüken Kants Wange. Das Männchen lachelte schwach. Sie gingen hinaus, der Diener verabschiedete sich mit einer wortlosen Verbeugung. Gauss hätte ihm gern etwas Geld gegeben, aber er hatte selbst nichts mehr. Von weitem hörte er den Gesang dunkler Männerstimmen. Der Gefängnischor, sagte der Diener. Der habe der gnädigen Herrn immer sehr gestört."

Daniel Kehlmann, Die Vermessung der Welt.

Things done changed

"Remember back in the days, when niggaz had waves
Gazelle shades, and corn braids
Pitchin' pennies, honies had the high top jellies
Shootin' skelly, motherfuckers was all friendly
Loungin' at the barbeques, drinkin' brews
With the neighborhood crews, hangin' on the avenues
Turn your pages, to nineteen ninety three
Niggaz is gettin' smoked g, believe me.
Talk slick, you get your neck slit quick
Cause real street niggaz ain't havin' that shit
Totin' techs for rep, smokin' blunts in the project
Hallways, shootin' dice all day
Wait for niggaz to step up on some fightin' shit
We get hype and shit and start lifin' shit
So step away with your fist fight ways
Motherfucker this ain't back in the days, but you don't hear me though.

No more cocoa leave-io, one two three
One two three, all of this to me, is a mystery
I hear you motherfuckers talk about it
But I stay seein' bodies with the motherfuckin' chalk around it
And I'm down with the shit too
For the stupid motherfuckers wanna try to use kung-fu
Instead of a mac-10 he tried scrappin'
Slugs in his back and, thats what the fuck happens
When you sleep on the street
Little motherfuckers with heat, wanna leave a nigga six feet deep
And we comin' to the wake
To make sure the cryin' and commotion ain't a motherfuckin' fake
Back in the days, our parents used to take care of us
Look at 'em now, they even fuckin' scared of us
Callin' the city for help because they can't maintain
Damn, shit done changed.

If I wasnt in the rap game
I'd probably have a key knee deep in the crack game
Because the streets is a short stop
Either youre slingin' crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshot
Shit, its hard being young from the slums
Eatin' five cent gums not knowing where your meals comin' from
And now the shits gettin' crazier and major
Kids younger than me, they got the sky grand pagers
Going outta town, blowin' up
Six months later all the dead bodies showin' up
It make me wanna grab the nine and the shottie
But I gotta go identify the body.
Damn, what happened to the summertime cookouts?
Everytime I turn around a nigga gettin' took out
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Dont ask me why I'm motherfuckin' stressed, things done changed."

The Notorious B.I.G.

Things done changed.

A birthday for the White tiger

"I've got no problem with democracy, Mr. Jiabao. Far from it, I owe democracy a lot, even my birthday, in fact. This was back in the days when I was smashing coals and wiping tables at the tea shop in Laxmangarh. There was a clapping from the direction of the portrait of Gandhi -the old tea shop owner began shouting that all his workers had to leave whatever they were doing and march to the school.

A man in government uniform sat at the teacher's desk in the schoolroom, with a long book and black pen, and he was asking everyone two questions.

'Name'.

'Balram Halwai'.

'Age'.

'No age'.

'No date of birth?'

'No, sir, my parents didn't make note of it.'

He looked at me and said, 'I you're eigtheen. I think you turned eighteen today. You just forgot, didn't you?'

I bowed to him. 'That's correct, sir. I forgot. It was my birthday today.'

'Good boy.'

And then he wrote down in his book and told me to go away. So I got a birthday from the government.

I had to be eighteen. All of us in the tea shop had to be eighteen, the legal age to vote. There was an election coming up, and the tea shop owner had already sold us. He had sold our fingerprints -the inky fingerprints which the illiterate person makes on the ballot paper to indicate his vote."

Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger.

Little boxes

"Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes made of ticky tacky

Little boxes on the hillside,

Little boxes all the same,

Theres a green one & a pink one

And a blue one & a yellow one

And they are all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses

All went to the university

Where they were put in boxes

And they came out all the same

And theres doctors & lawyers

And business executives

And they are all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course

And drink their martinis dry

And they all have pretty children

And the children go to school,

And the children go to summer camp

And then to the university

Where they´re put in boxes

And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business

And marry & raise a family

In boxes made of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same,

Theres a pink one & a green one

And a blue one & a yellow one

And they are all made out of ticky tacky

And they all look just the same."

Malvina Reynolds, Little Boxes. Opening theme of Weeds, one of the best things you can watch on TV.

Stories of rottennes, corruption

"There were three black goats sitting on the steps to the large, faded, white building; the stench of goat faeces wafted out from the open door. The glass in most of the windows was broken; a cat was staring out at us from one cracked window.

A sign on the gate said:

LOHIA UNIVERSAL FREE HOSPITAL

PROUDLY INAUGURATED BT THE GREAT SOCIALIST

A HOLY PROOF THAT HE KEEPS HIS PROMISES

Kishan and I carried our father in, stamping on the goat turds which had spread like a constellation of black stars on the ground. There was no doctor in the hospital. The ward boy, after we bribed him with ten rupees, said that a doctor might come in the evening. The doors to the hospital's rooms were wide open; the beds had metal springs sticking out of them, and the cat began snarling at us the moment we stepped into the room.

'It's not safe in the rooms -that cat has tasted blood'.

A couple of Muslim men had spread a newspaper on the ground and were sitting on it. One of them had an open wound on his leg. He invited us to sit with him and his friend. Kishan and I lowered the Father onto the newspaper sheets. We waited there.

Two little girls came and sat down behind us; both of them had yellow eyes.

'Jaunice. She gave it to me.'

'I did not. You gave it to me. And now we both will die!'

An old man with a cotton patch on one eye came and sat down behind the girls.

The Muslim men kept adding newspapers to the ground, and the line of diseased eyes, raw wounds, and delirious mouths kept growing.

'Why isn't there a doctor here, uncle?' I asked. 'This is the only hospital on either side of the river'.

'See, it's like this,' the older Muslim said. 'There's a government medical superintendent who's meant to check the doctors visit village hospitals like this. Now, each time this post falls vacant, the Great Socialist lets all the big doctors know that he's having an open auction for that post. The going rate for this post is about four hundred thousand rupees these days.'

'That much!' I said, my mouth opened wide.

'Why not? There's good money in public service! Now, imagine that I'm a doctor. I beg and borrow the money and give it to the Great Socialist, while touching his feet. He gives me the job. I take an oath to God and the Constitution of India and then I put my boots up on my desk in the state capital.' He raised his feet onto an imaginary table. 'Next, I call all the junior government doctors, whom I'm supposed to supervise, into my office. I take out my big government ledger. I shout out, 'Dr Ram Pandey'

He pointed a finger at me; I assumed my role in the play.

I saluted him: 'Yes, sir!'

He held out his palm to me.

'Now, you, Dr Ram Pandey, will kindly put one-third of your salary in my palm. Good boy, in return, I do this.' He made a tick in the imaginary ledger. 'You can keep the rest of your government salary and go work in some private hospital for the rest of the week. Forget the village. Because according to this ledger you've been here You've treated my wounded leg. You've healed that girl's jaundice.'

'Ah', the patience said. Even the ward boys, who had gathered around to listen, nodded their heads in appreciation. Stories of rottennes and corruption are always the best stories, aren't they?"

Andrea recommends Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger.