Sunday, July 05, 2009

Those Pedros, Sitis and François

I was having a heated conversation with a French about purchasing power. I told him that I enjoyed a higher purchasing power when I was living in Austin with an example that hubby and me were going out for restaurant 3-4 times a week. Here in France, except for lunch with co-workers (with restaurant ticket), we hardly go to restaurant since they are expensive. He immediately replied that restaurants in the USA are cheaper because they exploit those Pedros from Mexico and pay them peanuts. Ok, personally, I didn’t go to the kitchen to check whether there was any immigrant each time I dine in a restaurant. His comment just made me think of some examples I read in the newspaper and a story written by a professor from Taiwan.

Story from a Taiwanese professor:
I was a kid whose daily activity is to wander around the street. My parents had no job so they couldn't afford to send me and my sibling to school. One day, there came a bunch of people with fancy cars and clothes. They built a factory here and hired my parents and other villages as workers. With our parents' salary, we were able to go to the school. I enjoyed learning and playing with my classmates. However, this didn't last long. One day, a bunch of people came to our village. They said they are humanist. They said the factory exploited our parents. Eventually the factory was closed and our parents were once again out of job. I was back to the street. I want to ask:"Why? Why do these humanist made our parents out of job and made me and my siblings withdrew from the school? Who are they?"

A real story from Siti, one of our Indonesian maid:
Siti is from Indonesia and she is currently working as a house maid in Malaysia. She works 15 hours a day, 7 days a week for a peanut salary. She is married and has two kids. I asked her why she wanted to work so far away from her country. She told me that she would never earn this kind of salary in her country as a maid. With her sacrifice, she can now send her kids to school, she will be able to buy a house after several years of work. She just need to continue working for some times and she will be able to change the future, if not hers, the one of her children.

Stories from French newspaper:
François was working in a factory which was a supplier for a car maker. He was laid off recently due to the recent crisis in the car industry. The unemployment agency ANPE suggested him to apply to three job, to which he refused. According to him, two of the jobs are located 100km from his house and this is just too much for him. He doesn't want to sacrifice his family time on traveling to work. The other job was not in his current line and he was not motivated for it.

Françoise was participating in a demonstration in front of her factory. She worked only during the weekend but recently the factory didn't call them to work during the weekend. Her and her coworkers discovered that the management was actually asking the weekly shift (Monday - Friday) workers to work during the weekend to compensate those who only work 3 days a week due to the slow down in demand. The management offered those weekend shift workers to change to weekly shift workers but she refused. She said:"I don't want to do this as I live 50km away from here. I can do it for two days but 5 days is simply too much. Those weekly shifts people shouldn't steal our job!"

Ok, I do not personally know any Mexican in Austin. One of my classmates was from Argentina and he told me that he worked part time delivering pizza and he was earning USD40k a year. "People pay me generous tips, a very big part of my pay". With this part time, he was able to pay off his school fees. He is now an accountant.

Now back to the comment of my French friend who talked about worker exploitation. For him, any job that is not paying minimum wage and has no holiday is considered exploitation. So, why, knowing that being exploited, these Sitis and Pedros are still willing to travel thousand kilometers away from home? For me, yes they are being exploited, but at the same time they are fighting for a better future. Without being exploited, these Pedros, Sitis might still live in poverty and will stay poor for the next couple of generations. They are not as lucky as those French who can simply refuse to travel to work and still receive government help. I just think that French shouldn't use their standard to judge other countries (just like the humanist who closed the factory with a good reason but eventually didn't change the life of the villagers there).

Thursday, June 25, 2009

France new cabinet

I didn't know this could happen: France got a new government cabinet, 8 ministers were out and 8 new one joined in. The remaining were holding different position than the previous one. All these are done without even dissolving the old cabinet for a new election.

Well, I have only partially understood the political system here. Unlike in Malaysia, France really implement the separation of the 3 powers: judiciary, executive and legislative. The president and the representatives are directly elected by the people. These representatives do not hold any position in the cabinet.

So people like Samy Vellu who was elected to represent a department would not be a minister in the cabinet in France. Unfortunately, under the Malaysian system, he was holding work minister of Malaysia for over 20 years, known as the longest serving ministry ever in the history of Malaysia. He was in the executive and legislative branch at the same time. In fact, the Malaysian constitution requires that the Prime Ministry must be a member from the parliament and cabinet members are chosen from among the lower house (elected by the people) and the upper house (assigned by the Prime Minister).

I'm just a bit surprised that there exist countries that actually have different people in the legislative and executive power. And they can just change the cabinet before the 5 years term. It would be nice to different people leading the government every once in a while.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Where to find Marmite in Nantes

I have been running out of Marmite for a while and just couldn't find it in any French supermarket here. I purposely went to Chinatown last weekend as some people told me some Chinese grocery stores might be selling it, but I didn't see any. I need Marmite every time I eat porridge and recently I have been craving for porridge. So where I can find Marmite in Nantes? Posted this question on Facebook and two minutes later someone gave me a link to a forum and someone in the forum mentioned about Comptoir Irlandais, an Irish shop that sells Irish football clubs products plus some grocery.

I have never thought of finding it in an Irish shop. I forgot this product is originated from England. 6.50 euro for 250g, very expensive, but no choice, better than sending it from Malaysia.

The address of this Irish shop (hubby said it is a chain and the owner is from Brittany):
12, rue de Verdun
Angle rue de Strasbourg, between la Cathédrale and les Nouvelles Galeries

http://www.comptoir-irlandais.com/

Now I can enjoy my porridge with Marmite!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Class duty

I'm very surprised that in France students do not have to perform class duty.



Basically, they do not directly participate in cleaning the classroom: sweep the floor, clean the white board, align and tidy the chairs and desks, wipe the windows, empty the dustbin and decorate the white board at the back of the class with articles, photos, students art work...


My MIL told me that during her time, she had to go collect woods for the school. But Hubby and FIL had never involved in anything like this during their school life. My MIL explained that ever since the 1968 student demonstration, French education system has evolved in a way that students are protected against labor type of works. Their only duty is to study. And, no extra curriculum activities.


Personally I think class duty is necessary to help build the sense of responsibility, teamwork and sense of belonging to the class. During my time, class duty started as ever as standard 1 (primary school). Usually, every student has to perform the duty once a week, either before class started or during the recess time. During the duty, two students sweep the floor, two students align the desks and chairs, one wipe the windows, one clean the white board and empty and dustbin. A class committee would be nominated to handle the cleaning schedule and make sure everyone does their job. A prefect would be given the responsibility to grade the cleanliness of the class everyday. Every class competes for the Cleanliness Award which is given out once a month and class who won would hung the Award (a flame with a certificate) in the classroom. I had been a class committee. For a very long time we never won the Award. I didn't understand it as it was a boy school and only form 6 classes had girl students and usually girls clean better than guys. So, I led a group of students to decorate the classroom with Chinese NY red envelope and the Malay ketupat wrapping plus made sure everyone cleans well everyday. Eventually, we got the Award, but it was immediately broken by our class monitor while trying to hung it on the wall. Well, at least it was something to be nostalgic about.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

French mother's day

Today France celebrates Mother's day. In France it falls on the last Sunday of May, and since this year the Pentecost fell on that day, the Mother's day is thus postponed to the first Sunday of Jun.


In the conjunction of Estuary 2009 arts festival in Nantes, we invited our parents in laws over to unveil the latest creation of the Royale de Luxe, a French mechanical marionette street theater company founded in Nantes. The theme this year is about the waking of a giant who was buried under the Loire River who has a mission to find his niece.

The parents in laws were impressed by the street theater show and we had a nice evening which ended with this yummy cake.

Thursday, May 28, 2009


Today is the Dragon boat festival, during which the Chinese community prays with bak zhang (rice dumpling in Hokkien) and organizes dragon boat competition. Some people believe that this festival is aimed to remember a famous Chinese poet, who killed himself during the Zhou Dynasty when his country fell into the enemy's hand. People who love him prepared rice dumplings and throw them into the river so that fishes won't eat his dead body. Some people were riding on boats to look for his body thus come the Dragon boat festival.

It has been years I haven't tasted a real bak zhang. Last time I ate some homemade one was back in 2002. Hubby was with me in Malaysia and he immediately fell in love with these mouthwatering dumplings. It requires long hours of preparation and usually we will eat them as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Neighbors exchange bak zhang as every family may have different fillings inside the bak zhang. My favorite remains the one with salty egg yolk with lots of chestnut and dried shrimps.


Austin has a huge Chinese community so during my days there I managed to find some bakzhang (with very different tastes) to ease my craving. Me and hubby even volunteered for the Dragon boat festival by transporting the boats through the Travis lake during the training seasons. Beside the Dragon boat competition, some groups were playing traditional Chinese musics, presenting Chinese art crafts and of course some festive foods.

I have asked the Chinese shop in my area whether they sell rice dumpling during the festival and the answer is no. They said I have to order from Paris. I have not heard of any community organizing anything about this festival. Probably one day when the Chinese community is growing, we are going to have Dragon boat festival on the Erdre river. Let's just hope. :-)

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Cute animal

Saw this rabbit beside a parking. I was wondering why we can see so easily these rabbits whenever there is a park nearby in France, but seldom in Malaysia.

Squirrels, they are everywhere in Austin, but you don't see them often in Malaysia.

So what do we have in Malaysia? An animal that wander around? Monkey! But they are absolutely not cute as they steal stuffs from houses and play tricks with you. Once a monkey stole a banana from our old house and he was eating it on the tree while looking down at us. His attitude pissed us off but we can do nothing.

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