Category: Uncategorized

The Rich History of Jew Town in Kochin and the Chinese Fishnets

December 20, 2024

The next day Dinesh showed us the Chinese fishing nets. These were stationary lift nets. Circling them, I discovered teak pylons hammered into the ground supporting a shoreside deck, from which the enormous net cantilevered. Four poles, lashed together at the apex, supported a twenty-meter-wide net stretched between their bases. Two of the poles connected to the edge of the platform while the other two cantilevered over the water.

From the platform, workers used ropes tied to the apex of the four poles where the poles met, to raise and lower the net into the water. It took up to six men to pull up the net when submerged. The workers lowered the net for about ten minutes, then lifted it to remove the fish. Tourists could buy the catch of the day, prepared as fresh fish, at little sidewalk restaurants. The entire operation was a crowd-pleaser, and I watched it for a few hours.

I heard two stories about where the nets and this construction came from. One was that the Chinese explorer Zheng He brought such nets from the court of Kublai Khan. The other story was that Portuguese traders returned with the idea from their travels in China; confirmed by the fact that many fishing net parts retained their Portuguese names. Both narratives dated the fishing nets back to the fifteenth century. There were only eight such nets left. Watching the nets go down and up was a relaxing sight.

But Kochin had more to offer us; Dinesh took us to Jew Town. I said, What? The idea of a city area named after an ethnicity seemed unique to me, until I remembered examples like Ottawa’s Little Italy and the many Chinatowns. I learned that the oldest Jewish settlement in India was in Kochin and that they traced their ancestry back to King Solomon. Known as Malabari Jews, they built synagogues along the Malabar coast, starting in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Following the expulsion of Jews by the Spanish in 1492 in Iberia, Sephardi Jews made their way to the Kochin area. These people were called Paradesi Jews—the word means foreigners.

The Sephardim spoke Spanish but learned the Judea-Malayalam language from the Malabari Jews. The two communities maintained their respective ethnic identities, languages, and customs. In the late nineteenth century, some Arabic-speaking Jews immigrated to the Kochin area and became known as Baghdadi Jews. The synagogue we saw dates back to 1568. It was one of only eight synagogues left in Kerala that were functioning and had congregants; the oldest congregant was ninety-six years old. After independence in India was declared in 1947, many Jews moved to Israel. Today, there are few Jews left in Kochin, and Jew Town consists mostly of antique stores, and the one synagogue that we saw.

We went inside the synagogue and learned how the various Jewish ethnic groups used the synagogue. Synagogue membership was granted in full to the Paradesi Jews, also known as White Jews, who were of Sephardic descent from Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The so-called black Jews, or Malabari Jews, could worship in the synagogue but were not admitted to full membership. I did not learn the status of the Arabic Jews.

The 1968 four-hundredth anniversary of the synagogue saw global Jewish communities celebrate, with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in attendance. The celebration demonstrated how the Jews from Kochin melted into the global diaspora.

On our way to the Green Woods Bethlehem Homestay, Dinesh convinced us to visit the Church of St. Francis on the site of old Fort Kochin. Kochin’s history and its succession of rulers are interwoven with the story of St. Francis Church. The history of this church started with Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer who discovered the sea route from Europe to India. Portuguese explorers later built Fort Kochi in Kochin, which contained a church honoring St. Bartholomew. The construction of this wooden church was completed in 1506.

In 1516, Franciscan friars replaced the wooden church with a brick-and-mortar structure dedicated to St. Anthony. Vasco da Gama died in Kochin in 1524 and was buried in this brick-and-mortar church. After fourteen years, they moved his remains to Lisbon. But the gravestone of Vasco da Gama was still visible on the ground at the southern side of the Church of St. Francis.

The church remained Franciscan until the Dutch captured Kochin in 1663 and converted it to a Protestant government church. After the British captured Kochin in 1795, the church’s denomination changed again—this time to Anglican, run by the Anglican Communion, and renamed the Church of St. Francis. Historians believe the Anglicans changed the name to St. Francis. The church we saw was small by European standards and needed renovation.

The Surge of Asylum Seekers: Impact on Canadian Society

November 19, 2024

Dueling demonstrations took place yesterday. At the old Nepean City Hall, a small crowd celebrated the proposed construction of a “temporary” welcome center for asylum seekers. Another group protested against the welcome center at its proposed location, the Nepean Sportsplex. Of the one thousand asylum seekers in Ottawa, six hundred find shelter in community centers, like hockey arenas, while others find refuge with volunteer social organizations.

With expectations of a further surge in asylum seekers, the city hired consultants to evaluate the suitability of over a hundred sites for constructing the welcome center. One site in Barrhaven met vociferous opposition, although nobody owned up to NIMBY. The Sportsplex site is a mile from the nearest shopping center and has an infrequent bus service.


I took some time to gain a deeper understanding of the proposal; I discovered that the city plans to erect “Sprung” buildings, a design from the Sprung family company. The company erected over a thousand such buildings globally. I checked out one built on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and found it is an unappealing tent-like building. But it requires simple construction and is economical and fast to erect.

According to city officials, asylum seekers are mostly young single people. The current arrangement is for these people to stay for three months in these welcome centers, receiving help from officials in finding jobs and housing in addition to filling out papers to become residents of Canada.

How did we reach this point with the number of asylum seekers surging during the past couple of years? And would there be more in the future, given President-elect Trump’s intention to deport millions of illegals just south of our border?

Politicians often create and resolve crises to boost their public image. Prime Minister Trudeau has created an immigration crisis in Canada by increasing the inflow of immigration substantially subsequent to the pandemic and is now trying to solve it by reducing the number of arrivals. Naturally, he denies creating a crisis and blames private interests for misusing immigration policies. 

The surge in immigration has triggered a housing shortage, a healthcare problem, and a challenge to the education system. The capacity for housing construction in Canada is no more than 250,000 units per year. Over the past couple of years alone, the rate of a million people a year arriving in Canada would require the entire annual production of housing units, assuming four people per unit. Hospital emergency rooms boast a waiting time of over ten hours; people without family doctors visit emergency rooms for consultations. Teachers have struggled with teaching children who speak dozens of different languages at home and bringing with them their cultures.

Statistics indicate there are eight million “permanent residents’ in Canada, waiting to become citizens (it takes three years of residency to qualify for citizenship). Furthermore, there are three million “temporary residents,” which include foreign students, seasonal workers, and immigrants. Asylum seekers are immigrants, numbering 250,000 across Canada today.

Interestingly, eleven million of the forty-one million Canadians—temporary and permanent residents combined—cannot vote; one must be a citizen to vote. It is also noteworthy that although the federal government created the asylum seekers crisis, local levels of government shoulder the burden of welcoming and assisting newcomers to fit into Canadian society.

A ninety-day stay in a shelter for a young newcomer to Canada can be a cheerful affair, especially during the cold Canadian winters. I assume that clothing and food are also provided. But what is most important for a newcomer to Canada? I suggest speaking English is vital unless the newcomer already knows the language. I speak from my lived experience. As a genuine refugee arriving in Canada, learning English was crucial for navigating life, securing employment, and resuming my education.

Now, language training takes more than ninety days. I’m wondering, what experience do government officials have dealing with the current wave of asylum seekers? Are they turfing out people in ninety days from their shelters now? Or do the newcomers stay longer, and how much longer? This thought takes me back to the original concept of city officials claiming that the proposed welcome center would be temporary.

The stated temporariness of the “Sprung” structures energized many people who doubted the buildings would ever be demolished. When not required any further for asylum seekers, the public imagined these buildings would be repurposed to house the homeless. Couple with the challenge of sheltering asylum seekers, Ottawa is facing a significant rise in its homeless population. It has become quite unpleasant to walk in central parts of the city at night, with homeless people sleeping in doorways and on the streets.

The government’s recent announcement lowering immigration targets will reduce the number of asylum seekers, freeing up welcome centers to house the homeless. The most significant impact of this issue for me was that I noticed a shifting public attitude towards immigrants in the news media, questioning immigration’s worth to Canada. I blame the federal government for this snafu for acting without a proper impact study of what a significant increase in immigration to Canada would entail.

The Coffee Klatch: Why Canadians Compare Themselves to Americans

November 16, 2024

When I sat down for coffee, my friend asked, “Will your children return to Canada?” I understood he was talking about Trump’s presidential victory in the US and its impact on people. Trump’s win caused widespread consternation among my friends.

I said no. Why would my children return when they have good jobs, own their houses, and are growing families in the USA? I said that I do not talk with them much about politics; we talk about their families. Besides, a new government would not make any difference to them, at least in the short term.

His question upset me because it steered our conversation immediately toward US politics. Why are we Canadians so preoccupied with US matters? Yes, the US is our largest trading partner; most of us visit and travel to the US. But don’t we have our own political issues to talk about?

I find scant news about Canada despite watching Canadian TV channels. Two recent provincial elections were hardly covered on the national TV channels. Ontario’s big news recently was that the Premier ordered municipalities to remove bicycle lanes on major roads to ease traffic jams. I agree with him; on some major roads in Ottawa, the bike lanes take up space, making for dangerous driving while watching for cyclists right next to you. And, of course, one cannot park along the curb to visit stores because of the bike lanes. Beyond the bike lanes issue, what comes to my mind is the Premier’s promise to give every Ontarian $200, anticipating an election next spring. These news items produce no excitement in me.

Although local news has had sparse coverage, US news of the election was shown in detail on Canadian national TV channels every night. Canadians have a love-hate relationship with Americans. They like to winter and shop in Florida and Arizona. However, they often express critical views of life there, mentioning rampant crime and an expensive healthcare system compared to Canada.

You’ll be surprised how often you read a thread on Quora (a social network) about universal Canadian healthcare and its superiority to American healthcare. It is also cheaper, according to the threads. Perhaps. However, the subject is more complex; only eight percent of Americans are without health insurance today, and we should also compare the quality of healthcare in the two countries before drawing simplistic conclusions. Two-thirds of Americans with private insurance have better healthcare quality than in Canada; for example, access to a family doctor is much faster than in Canada, and waiting times for hip replacements are shorter.

Also, in Quora threads, many Canadians think Americans are ignorant; I remember the popularity of Rick Mercer’s TV show (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) when he presented fake situations and asked people to respond, for example, when he said the Canadian parliament building is made of ice. Is that Canadian humor? It was a silly statement and demeaning to the people he interviewed. In one episode, he interviewed Mike Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas, embarrassing him: Huckabee congratulated Canada on having a “National Igloo” in response to Mercer’s prompt. I think American comedians could come to Canada and emulate Mercer’s performance in the US, showing how ignorant Canadians are.

I went to graduate school, worked in the US in the 1960s, and have fond memories of my life there. That was after I lived in Vancouver, Canada, where people, particularly the British people, wanted to learn about your pedigree before befriending you. I found them class-conscious, and the Brits still considered themselves living in the colonies. In contrast, the Americans asked what I could do and what my skills were, not dwelling on my background.

In my experience, Americans work harder and longer hours than Canadians, which may also lead to higher stress levels. I remember when my brother, who traveled a lot, told me that it was always calming to fly into Canada; the atmosphere was just more relaxed at Canadian airports compared to US ones.

The conversation with my friend over coffee made me think of why Canadians spend so much time comparing themselves to the US, and always in a favorable light. I do not have an answer, but I cannot help wondering whether this results from an inferiority complex, justified or not.

The Evolving Ethnic Character

November 5, 2024

During the late 1950s, I worked alongside Steve as a draftsman at the Buildings and Grounds Department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Although we were recent Hungarian immigrants, we differed in our behavior in the office; he used to bring his breakfast to work unlike me, I ate at home. He spread some grease paper on his drafting table and ate his breakfast of smelly, garlicky sausage with a thick slice of brown bread. The powerful smell permeating the room bothered the rest of us working there, but nobody wanted to tell him to eat his breakfast at home and save us from the unpleasant smells. Eating a smelly breakfast at work was not Canadian, and still is not. I am not sure if that behavior was Hungarian. However, I heard Steve became a successful architect and integrated into Canadian society in a few years.

In contrast to Steve, some individuals never assimilate into the local culture and instead choose to return home. A Hungarian friend’s mother embraced women’s freedom in Canada and entered the workforce. Her husband was not as successful, and he felt he had lost his masculine dominance in the household, so he returned to Hungary, but the wife stayed in Canada with the children.

I do not know how others in Vancouver perceived my ethnicity when I arrived in Canada in the late 1950s, except that they noticed my English language skills and accent. I improved in record time and assimilated into local culture in many other ways.

One strategy I used was always to try to fit in and go with the flow; for example, I acquired a taste for beer when I drank with my classmates while finishing architectural projects at all-night sessions at the UBC School of Architecture.  I was not too fond of beer then, but drinking with my classmates led me to develop a taste for it.

Other opportunities for cultural assimilation arose when I attended concerts with Elvis Presley at the PNE and Dave Brubeck at the old Georgia Auditorium in Vancouver. Later on, I acquired a taste for rock music. My father could not understand why I listened to The Grateful Dead, The Bachman Turner Overdrive, Credence Clearwater Revival, and their ilk; he thought music was only classical.  

I further embraced local culture when we started camping and canoeing after marriage. Later, we traveled widely in a tent trailer across Canada with our children and a dog. After getting tired of hauling a tent trailer, we bought a cottage. And cottaging is a Canadian thing; only a couple of immigrants own cottages out of a hundred neighbors where our cottage is (I realize immigrants may not have the money for a cottage).

While I have been in North America since 1957 and consider myself part of North American culture, I am always intrigued when I hear Hungarian being spoken. My language abilities in Hungarian are equivalent to that of a sixteen-year-old, the age I was when I departed the country. While traveling in France last summer, I heard a group talking in Hungarian in Arles. I introduced myself to them, and we spoke about Hungary today compared to the one I left. I had to search for some words since my fluency in Hungarian was spotty, but it was a satisfying conversation.

A recent event drew me back to my ethnic background. Kathy met a Hungarian woman at a grocery store who recommended that we join the Hungarian Community Center in Ottawa.  I followed up and decided to attend a social event celebrating the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. I hoped to listen to conversations in Hungarian and perhaps meet some people from Sopron from where we fled, so I looked forward to the event. I was somewhat fearful of how I would react to my countrymen and whether I could intelligently converse with them, limited by my sparse vocabulary and lack of practice speaking the language.

Upon entering the building, nobody welcomed us. We found our way to take a couple of seats and looked around. All age groups were there, from children to grey hairs, and they all seemed to know each other. And I heard only Hungarian spoken. There was a celebratory feeling in the air; some people were informally dressed, while others wore pin-striped suits. Nobody showed interest in us.

The MC asked the Hungarian Ambassador to Canada to speak. She spoke in Hungarian, and I whispered to Kathy and explained what was happening.

Although we were in Canada, curiously, there was absolutely no French or English spoken, and there was no acknowledgment of land rights by the Indigenous people of Canada, a custom in all public events now. That made me think that the Hungarians have a thousand-year history occupying the land of Hungary. The Ottomans took over the land at one time and the Germans at another time, but there had never been an acknowledgment of previous land ownership and compensation for taking the land. To my knowledge, the concept of compensation to earlier landowners has no currency in Hungarian thought. That made me think of how people interpret history in different parts of the world.

After the Ambassador’s speech, we enjoyed some poetry and dancing by third-generation Candaian-Hungarians, indicating that some families kept their culture intact. When the Ambassador asked people who came to Canada after the 1956 Revolution to stand up, I counted half a dozen out of fifty, including myself. So, most of these people were second—and third-generation Hungarians who maintained their native culture.

One of the celebration’s highlights was serving “langos,” a Hungarian breakfast food similar to doughnuts, fried dough covered with cheese, cinnamon, and/or garlic. I lined up to get a couple of langos and limited by my language skills, I ended up with two plain ones. There is not much taste to plain ones, so I returned for another one with cheese and garlic to enhance its flavor. I put on too much garlic that burned our mouths, and we took it home, not wanting to throw it away in front of the Hungarian crowd, showing our dislike of it.

Frankly, the event disappointed me because nobody welcomed or showed interest in us while we sat in the audience. Of course, we could have approached people, but they all seemed either to know and talk with each other or to be occupied with moving chairs around and other official matters.

The people were not unfriendly; they seemed to accept and ignore us. For some reason, I felt quite at home, understanding the language, although Kathy felt ignored. I felt as if I was on an island with my old countrymen. When I lined up for our langos at the kitchen, I heard the women working there talking to each other; one kneading the dough and cutting portions to fry, another frying, and the third putting the cheese and/or cinnamon on and serving it. The entire atmosphere felt homey. Based on our strange experience with this celebration, we decided to try again and attend a party next week with dinner, a concert, and dancing. I hope we won’t. be disappointed.

A Men’s Book Club Discusses Alice Munro

October 22, 2024

The title suggests that men and women have differing perspectives on Alice Munro’s work. Can that be verified? I do not know. But our book club had a lively discussion about Munro’s book entitled Dear Life, a short story collection published in 2012.

Surprisingly, our members read some stories, but not all of them. They found the stories dark and stopped reading to avoid being depressed. One found the lack of “redemption” in the stories disappointing. But does life always have a happy ending? Many people have challenging lives and fail to reach a satisfying old age. There could be health, financial, and family issues that are never resolved. The shock value of missing an ending to the stories made me think of what could have been should the author have completed it. And that I found exciting, and I dreamt up options for finishing the stories.

Although most of us considered the subjects dark, we all agreed that the writing was extremely smooth, and the characters in the story came to life. Descriptions of small towns, the location of many of the stories, also came to life with such force that one of us thought she described the city where he grew up. I admired the ease with which Munro described her characters in a few pages in such detail that I thought I thoroughly understood the person and her motivation in life.

Most of Munro’s characters are women residing in small Ontario towns during the 1950s and 1960s. These women did not usually attend university, and the smart ones hid their intelligence; it was not fashionable for women to be clever in those days.

Her characterizations reminded me of my parents: my mother stayed home and occupied herself with housekeeping while my father was the breadwinner. My mother was the sole exception among her siblings, who all attended university. One of Munro’s stories is an exact copy of one aspect of my parents’ life: the wife prepares dinners for her husband, a doctor, just like my father, who expects dinner on the table when he returns home from work.

Munro’s description of women’s societal role and status started a conversation about their role today, with the understanding that women now surpass men at university graduation. It’s common for wives to be the breadwinners while their husbands take on household responsibilities. This has been a significant change over the past fifty years. Thinking of this trend, some of us questioned to what extent Munro’s stories would be relevant today. I thought that they would. Confirming my view, the Nobel Committee recognized Munro’s universal writings and awarded her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013.

But after her death this year, Munro’s reputation suffered with the widespread publication that her husband sexually abused their daughter. Many followers of Munro expressed moral outrage about Munro being aware of the situation and not doing anything about it. Doubts were raised about her genius, and discussions ensued about the quality of her books after her questionable behavior was uncovered. Interestingly, despite anecdotal evidence of changing opinions about Munro, our book club did not dwell on this subject. Maybe this is one difference between men and women when considering Munro’s work. Three out of eight of us resonated with the book, while one person didn’t find it appealing. Most agreed that the stories were dark and depressing but beautifully written.