* * *
* * *
TAIPEI
By Jeffrey Timmermans
Down a long, narrow road lined with fishing ponds, small groups of
fishermen in T-shirts ply the waters with their poles, which droop at
an angle nearly parallel to their dangling cigarettes. Twenty minutes
from Taipei, it's a marvelously unlikely spot for a traditional
Japanese inn. But nestled in this sylvan dell is the ryokan Tsubaki. Pass through its old wooden gate, and there's almost no clue you're still in Taiwan.
One of the alleys in an area just south of Nanjing Road in Taipei that locals call 'Little Tokyo'
Surrounded
by a densely wooded hill, Tsubaki's garden has just the right mix of
burbling water, rocks and carefully tended shrubbery. Inside the ryokan
rooms, the air is fragrant with the earthy scent of new tatami mats,
and at night, futon mattresses and bean-filled pillows are carefully
laid out in each room.
Taiwan has plenty of its own sights, sounds and foods to amuse
tourists, yet many don't realize it offers some of the best Japanese
food and service found in Asia -- as authentic as you'd find in Japan
itself, but at far lower prices. Tsubaki might not have the same
300-year history and esteemed guest list as Kyoto's Tawaraya, a ryokan
where princes of the Japanese royal family and foreign heads of state
have stayed. But it's just as comfortable. And at about $200 a night,
including two meals, it's a quarter of the price.
Of course, much of what you find in Taiwan that's truly Japanese is
a relic of sorts from its days as a colony of the empire of the sun.
From 1895 to 1945, Japan occupied Taiwan and the nearby Pescadore
Islands -- its spoils of victory over the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese
War (1894-95). During that time, the Japanese turned an agrarian
backwater into one of the most modern -- and well-educated -- societies
in Asia.
Trip Planner
Tsubaki
Rooms of varying sizes start at about US$140, excluding meals.
55 Zhishan Rd., Sec. 3
886-2-2841-2278
tsubaki.network.com.tw
Fei-qian-wu
13, Lane 121, off Zhongshan North Rd., Sec. 1
Closed Mondays.
886-2-2561-7859
Sanmeido
21-7, Alley 22, off Tienmu East Rd.
Tian-quan
136 Yan-ji Rd.
886-2-8771-8272
Wa-ko
84, Lane 119, off Linsen North Rd.
886-2-2568-2736
The
Japanese built grand public buildings, turned the harbors of Kaohsiung
and Keelung into key shipping ports, and laid a railroad that stretched
along the western coast of the island. In Taipei, they tore down the
old city walls and built a grid pattern for the city's streets.
Eventually, they extended primary education -- in Japanese, of course
-- to ordinary Taiwanese, an effort to nurture literate workers.
After the Japanese defeat in World War II in 1945, the Chinese
reclaimed the island. The ruling Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, was
virulently anti-Japanese and it set about erasing most remnants of
Japanese rule. The new rulers renamed streets after Chinese Nationalist
heroes and principles. Chokushi Kaido was renamed Zhongshan Road (after
an honorary name for Sun Yat-sen) and Sansen Doro became Zhongxiao Road
(meaning "loyalty and filial piety"), according to Tai Pao-tsun, a
history professor at Taiwan's National Central University. They also
destroyed Shinto shrines and banned Japanese publications.
But the success of the rebranding of the country, which continued
after the Nationalists fled the Chinese mainland in 1949, was decidedly
mixed. And perhaps because of the many Japanophiles that live in
Taiwan, there are plenty of places that offer tourists in Taipei a
less-expensive alternative to a trip to Japan.
In Taipei, the roots of Japanese culture are still on display in a
warren of alleys that locals call "Little Tokyo," just south of Nanjing
Road, which formed part of the core of the occupation-era capital.
Today, these alleys are virtually indistinguishable from Tokyo's
Kabuki-cho nightlife district, lined with brightly lit Japanese signs
advertising the countless tiny hostess bars hidden behind doors not
quite thick enough to contain the warbling of off-key karaoke inside.
At the bar, you're likely to find similar groups of middle-aged
salarymen you'd see in Tokyo, except the hostesses sitting beside them
-- to keep the drinks and conversation flowing -- speak Japanese with a
Taiwanese accent.
Thankfully, the Japanese-style grilled eel at the restaurant
Fei-qian-wu is far better than its bar-alley location would suggest.
The smoky flavor the grill imparts to the eel perfectly counters the
slightly sweet basting sauce, just as you'd expect in Tokyo's finest unagi (grilled
eel) restaurants. (The Japanese have been eating grilled eel since at
least the eighth century, and unagi was even mentioned in the Manyoshu,
the oldest collection of Japanese poetry. It was believed to build
stamina, making it a perfect dish for both Japan's -- and Taiwan's --
sultry summers.)
Unajyu, a grilled eel over rice served in a lacquered bento box, at Fei-qian-wu.
As
at most casual eateries in Japan, the menu at Fei-qian-wu hangs on
plaques around the walls (laminated menus in Chinese and English are
also available). Order in Japanese or Mandarin -- the restaurant was
founded 35 years ago by a Japanese-Taiwanese family. You won't even
find the ubiquitous Taiwan-brand beer here. Instead ale drinkers are
expected to order Kirin. A regular size unajyu (grilled eel
over rice served in a lacquered bento box) and a Kirin beer costs about
US$6, a fraction of the several thousand yen you'd expect to pay at an
eel restaurant in Tokyo.
It's not just the physical manifestations of Japanese culture that
survive in Taiwan. The island is one of the few places that can
successfully duplicate the tipsy camaraderie of an izakaya eatery, where Japanese kick back and relax over drinks and small dishes of food after a hard day at the office.
At Wa-ko, the specialty is fresh seafood, and it offers an excellent
variety of sashimi and grilled fish, served in small portions to go
with drinks. Like most izakaya joints, the restaurant has two rooms:
one with tables and chairs; the other with pillows or low-benches
around tables in sunken recesses -- old-style Japanese. On a recent
visit, the traditionally styled room was packed and full of Taiwanese.
Owner Asato Satoshi, 55 years old, hails from the southern Japanese
islands of Okinawa, and opened Wa-ko nearly two decades ago. The most
popular dish is an Okinawan xia jiu cai -- tofu with small fish and lemon on top. Be sure to try the roast chicken wings and squid with tarako, a kind of fish roe.
Oden is so much a part of Japanese food culture that a steaming pot
of the stuff can be found right next to the cash register in many of
Japan's ubiquitous convenience stores. A simple, lightly flavored broth
with various root vegetables, egg, tofu and fish paste, the origins of
oden date back to the Edo period (1603-1867). Besides the modern
convenience-store variety, oden traditionally was consumed at sidewalk
stalls, along with the requisite glass of sake or beer, as a late-night
snack. Taiwan sports its own homegrown version of oden bars -- called heilun in Mandarin -- that date back to its occupation-era days. But the city has some Japanese versions as well.
A bowl of oden at Tian-quan.
At
Tian-quan, Darryl Wang, 32, the gregarious Taiwanese host, might not
speak much Japanese but everything else about his street-corner oden
bar is authentic, including the address. The official Taipei address
plaque on the building's wall has been replaced with one from Tokyo's
trendy Shibuya district. In fact, both street-facing sides of the bar
are completely open, leaving customers' backs exposed to the nighttime
Taipei air as they sit at the single L-shaped counter. The feel is much
like the now mostly lost open-air oden stalls that dotted Tokyo's
streets in the immediate post-World War II period. Mr. Wang spends most
evenings dishing out bowls of oden to a crowd of steady local regulars,
who return the favor by pouring him an occasional glass from their sake
bottle.
Belly up to the bar and try his fishcakes in soup and pick what you
want -- vegetables, meat or even fruit -- to add in. Or just point to
what the locals are having. Grilled chicken & fish also are
available.
For dessert, head to Sanmeido in Taipei's Tienmu area. In the shadow
of Tienmu's giant Mitsukoshi department store, the pastry shop offers
homemade dango, chewy rice-flour sweets skewered on a bamboo
stick for easy eating. The imposing proprietress, a Taiwanese,
fluent-Japanese speaker named Tsai Yin, supervises the operation from a
seat behind a glass counter that showcases her traditional Japanese
sweets. Mrs. Tsai is in her 70s now -- old enough to have attended
Japanese schools during the days of the Japanese occupation. In fact,
she speaks only Taiwanese (the local dialect) and Japanese -- no
Mandarin. It was her husband, who is Japanese, who taught her how to
make the desserts, including the shop's most famous sweet, strawberry
mochi.
—Jeffrey Timmermans is a writer based in Hong Kong. Jonathan Adams and Yang Chianin contributed to this article.* * *
SINGAPORE
By Cris Prystay
Whenever Sydney resident Priya Jaikumar flies to London, she always
schedules a two-day stopover in Singapore to get her India fix.
For Mrs. Jaikumar, who immigrated to Australia from India 20 years
ago, it's a chance to stock up on glittering saris, ornate gold jewelry
and Bollywood music, hit up a few temples and stuff herself with
inexpensive Indian food. If there's a chance, she also tries to catch a
dance recital or two.
Little India's low rises.
"All
our relatives now live in London or Sydney, so we don't get back to
India much any more," she says. "But we love to stop in Singapore when
we travel; we're really able to get a taste of India that we miss so
much."
If you can't make it to India, Singapore's large and vibrant Indian
community may offer the next best thing. Ethnic Indians, who comprise
9% of the city-state's population, date back to the establishment of
the British colony in 1819, when they arrived as assistants and
soldiers. Later in the 19th century came a second wave, mostly Tamils
from southern India, to work as laborers.
The past decade has brought a fresh wave of professional Indians to
fill jobs in fields such as technology and banking. A large population
of temporary migrant construction workers, largely from Bangladesh,
adds to the mix, creating demand for a range of low-priced restaurants,
clothing and music shops.
The heart of the South Asian community is Little India, at Serangoon
Road. Here, visitors step out of Singapore's clean, orderly world and
plunge into the bustle that is India: Spice shops and vegetable stalls
display wares on sidewalks, and brightly colored saris and swaths of
fabric flap from open doors. Bollywood music spills out of winding side
streets. But Singapore offers more than India-like street scenes. The
city-state is dotted with tony Indian restaurants and hip nightclubs
that play the latest South Asian acid jazz.
Trip Planner
Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
141 Serangoon Rd.
65-6295-4538
www.sriveeramakaliamman.com
The Rupee Room
3B River Valley Rd.
01-15 The Foundry
Clarke Quay
65-6334-2455
www.harrys.com.sg
The Yoga Centre
Block 668 #02-022
Chander Road
65-6467-1742
Bhaskar's Arts Academy
19 Kerbau Rd.
65-6396-4523
www.bhaskarsartsacademy.com
Amrita Ayurvedic Centre
11 Upper Dickson Rd.
65-6299-0642
www.amrita.com.sg
Ayurlly Ayurvedic Spa
2 Serangoon Rd.
05-11-13 The Verge (formerly Tekka Mall)
65-6737-5657
The
first stop on the Indian experience trail is a hearty breakfast of
South Indian dosa, a crisp pancake served with a selection of mild
curries. Komala Vilas, on the corner of Serangoon and Dickson Roads, is
an institution.
Later, for lunch or dinner, Gayatri, at 122 Race Course Rd., has a
wide and consistently tasty menu covering most Southern and Northern
Indian dishes. At Lagnaa, on Dickson Road, guests leave their shoes at
the door and sit on the floor around small tables. And while prices are
a bit higher, the food is fabulous. The lamb curry is worth repeat
orders.
Once a month Lagnaa offers a "full-moon party," setting up a dosa
station and inviting people dining at the restaurant to make their own,
at no charge. The technique is hard for a novice; customers tend to try
once and then order some professionally prepared food.
For high-end Indian cuisine, there's Song of India, on Scotts Road,
which is just off the Orchard Road shopping district. Set in a restored
colonial-era bungalow, this restaurant is also heavy on Raj-era
ambience.
Between meals, here's another made-in-India special: threading, a
method of removing unwanted facial hair that's faster and cheaper than
waxing. The beautician holds a couple of pieces of cotton thread, which
is twisted and pulled along the skin surface, lifting hair directly
from the follicle. It's offered by tiny beauty parlors found all along
Serangoon Road.
For beauty and health treatments, visitors can check out one of
Singapore's Ayurvedic spas -- Ayurveda being India's traditional system
of medicine. There are a few in Little India: Amrita Ayurvedic Centre,
at 11 Upper Dickson Rd., offers Ayurvedic relaxation massages, using
warm oils extracted from herbs; it also has an Ayurvedic consultant on
hand to recommend treatments for everything from relieving back pain to
aiding weight loss. Ayurlly Ayurvedic Spa, at 2 Serangoon Rd. in the
Verge -- until recently called Tekka Mall -- offers a range of
spa-oriented Ayurvedic services, from massage to hair treatments.
Mrs. Jaikumar, the Sydney resident, focuses on clothes and gold
jewelry. Her favorite shop is Stylemart, at 149 Selegie Rd., for its
selection of "very high-quality designer saris." Stylemart's owner,
Kavita Thulasidas, makes regular buying trips to India, coming back
with colorful, ornately beaded saris in fabrics like silk, georgette
and chiffon. There are also Western-style dresses decorated with Indian
detailing and beadwork, and Indian-inspired tops that pair well with
jeans.
At Amrita Ayurvedic Centre, oil is poured slowly over the forehead.
For
Indians across Asia, Singapore is a Mecca for gold jewelry. Buyers feel
confident about the purity of the gold sold in the well-regulated
city-state. Resident Indians often buy gold to take to relatives back
in India, and families from as far as Australia and New Zealand fly
here to buy wedding jewelry.
The jewelry stores dotting Serangoon Road sell gold jewelry by
weight, based on the current gold price. Pick out a design you like and
they'll put it on a scale and tell you what it costs. Even if you're
not in the market for elaborate ethnic designs, there's plenty to shop
for, with earrings, pendants and simple gold bangles alongside the more
detailed wedding ensembles. At Meena Gold Jewelers, 80 Serangoon Rd., a
simple pair of good-quality gold bangles will set you back around
US$350.
Singapore even has an answer for 3 a.m. jewelry cravings: Mustafa's,
a 6,300-square-meter department store with an extensive jewelry
department, is open 24 hours a day.
Indian culture is shaped by religion, and Singapore has numerous
historic temples that remain active. The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple,
at 141 Serangoon Rd., was built about 1855 by Bengali laborers to
worship Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction and the slayer of
demons. Visitors can watch or take part in pujas, or prayers, at 5:30 a.m., 8 a.m., noon, 4 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. each day. The temple is closed between 12:15 and 4 p.m.
Singapore's oldest Hindu temple is the Sri Mariammam Temple, at 244
South Bridge Rd. in Chinatown. Built in 1827, it's a popular venue for
Hindu weddings and hosts a fire-walking ceremony each in October or
November.
A puffy bhatura at Komala Vilas Restaurant
Many
tourists head to India to meditate and clear their head. They can find
the same in Singapore's Little India, at the Yoga Centre on Chander
Road. Its Raja Yoga exercises the mind, says Rita Devi, a volunteer
there. "It clears negative energy from the mind and puts in more
positive thoughts." Classes are free, although donations are welcome.
The Yoga Shop, a related operation around the corner at 10 Kerabu Rd.,
sells books on Raja Yoga, and has information on classes at the center.
Across the street is Bhaskar's Arts Academy, which teaches
traditional Indian dance and offers both traditional and cross-cultural
performances.
To hear what the young and chic are listening to in Mumbai and New
Delhi, check the South Asian chill-out music and slick Bollywood
remixes at the Rupee Room in Singapore's Clark Quay bar district,
served with pricey cocktails.
"Most of our crowd is young, professional Indians," says manager
Rohit Sharma. The hosted a segment of the "Bollywood Dance Academy"
reality TV show last year. It hopes to host a segment in the next
season, too -- so lucky visitors who time their visit right could shake
their booty to stardom, Indian style.
—Cris Prystay is a writer based in Singapore.* * *
PONDICHERRY
By Paul Spencer Sochaczewski
As Bastille Day events go, the reception was rather low-key: a speech by the French consul, a few plateaux of fromage and saucisson
-- that's trays of cheese and sausage to the English speaker -- but no
parades or fireworks or singing of "La Marseillaise," the French
national anthem.
The first mass in the current Sacred Heart Church was celebrated in 1907.
Still,
the interesting point is that the event happened at all. Why should
this tranquil Indian city of 220,000 people, 8,000 kilometers from
Paris in a country that was once a British colony, mark France's July
14 national day? The answer lies in its peculiar history: From 1674
until 1954, seven years after Indian independence from Britain, this
little corner of the country was an off-and-on French possession. And
while the tricolor flag no longer flies, there remain some connections
to France, including three representatives in the Assemblée des Français de l'Etranger (Assembly of Overseas French).
The prospect was enough to draw my wife, who is French, and me to
the city now officially called Puducherry (the old name is still used,
and the nickname remains "Pondy"). It's in the far southeast corner of
India, an easy three-hour drive from Chennai.
Pondy isn't a high-energy tourist destination. It's a place to take
a long walk and shop for antiques, textiles and handicrafts, practice
your French with schoolkids and breathe the fresh sea air along the
promenade.
Trip Planner
The easiest route is by air to Chennai and then by rented car and driver for the three-hour trip south.
WHERE TO STAY
These are two of several "heritage hotels" located in renovated French Quarter homes.
Hotel de L'Orient
Rooms for two range from $50 to $100 a night.
17 rue Romain Rolland
91-413-234-3067
www.neemranahotels.com
Le Dupleix
Rooms for two are $136 and $146 a night.
5 rue de la Caserne
91-413-222-6999
www.sarovarhotels.com
WHERE TO SHOP
Art Colony
Rue Romain Rolland, near Lal Bahadur Shastri Street
Kathiravan Furniture
2 rue Labourdonnais
91-413-222-5877
Anna Book Centre
A staggering selection of educational posters -- from Indian gods to the life cycle of the cockroach.
66A Vysial St.
91-413-222-0624
Aurodhan Gallery
33 rue Francois Martin
91-413-222-2795
www.aurodhan.com/artgallery.php
Editions Kailash
Primarily French-language books on Asian subjects, notable for their silkscreen designs.
169 Lal Bahadur St.
91-413-222 8272
www.kailasheditions.com
WHERE TO EAT
Satsanga
A relaxed garden-style restaurant
30/32 Labourdonnais St.
91-413-222-5867
Le Café
Facing the ocean, ideal for coffee or a light lunch
Avenue Goubert
91-413-233-9497
Surguru
Not luxurious, but reliable Indian vegetarian food
104 S.V. Patel Salai
91-413-233-9022
In
ancient times Pondy was home to a university. It became a trading
outpost for far-ranging merchants dealing in dyed textiles, pottery and
semiprecious stones; traders from the Roman Empire landed here. Over
time it was occupied by various south-Indian dynasties, and early in
the 16th century the Portuguese became the first Europeans to stake a
claim, establishing a trading post. They were expelled by the sultan of
Gingee, after which the Danes came and left, then the Dutch. The French
opened a trading post to offset the increasing influence of the Dutch
in the region, and in 1674 the first French governor general, François
Martin, began transforming Pondy from a small fishing village into a
flourishing port town.
Nevertheless, it would remain a second-rank colonial outpost. Saigon
it wasn't. Over the years it would be reclaimed by the Dutch, then the
French, then taken over by the British, then reclaimed by the French,
then lost again, and so on until 1954, when it, along with three other
French towns -- Karaikal, Yanam and Mahé -- joined independent India as
the Union Territory of Pondicherry (a fifth town, Chandannagar, was
integrated into West Bengal state). France offered French citizenship
to thousands of people from Pondy, and French remained an official
language.
With street signs in French as well as Tamil, the French quarter, on
the east side along the seafront, recalls other former French
territories around the globe. It's a bit like Luang Prabang, Laos, if
more sedate. The beachfront promenade feels vaguely North African. It's
like a Mediterranean town that time forgot. (The west side of town, the
Tamil quarter, is a bustling contrast, full of the pungent energy,
colors and aromas familiar to south India.)
The structures in the French quarter lack the ornate wrought iron of
New Orleans, or the heft of public buildings in Paris, but they are
charming in an understated way -- often painted in a Mediterranean
ochre, peach or burnt sienna and featuring large peaceful courtyards.
"People here know about the importance of preserving the town's
architectural integrity," says Ashok Panda, coordinator of the Indian
National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, which works to maintain
Pondy's heritage buildings.
Well, some do. On our walking tour (by appointment; visit
www.intachpondicherry.org), Mr. Panda showed us beautifully executed
restorations, with elaborate tall gates and expansive green courtyards,
but also some featuring circular external stairwells, faux-Grecian
columns and ornate decorations that only the nouveau riche
could love. He called our hotel, the 16-room Hotel de l'Orient, one of
several built in renovated private homes, "one of our first restoration
success stories."
"It was in terrible condition," he said. "Most people would have
torn it down." The building used to be the colonial mansion of Ananda
Ranga Pillai, right-hand man of 18th century French governor general
Joseph François Dupleix. It was also once used by the Department of
Education -- the sign Instruction Publique can be seen above the entrance. Buildings around town still carry Gallic appellations like Foyer du Soldat (for war veterans), École Français d'Extrême Orient (a school) or l'Institut Français de Pondichéry, one of several French academic institutions in town.
The French consulate is housed in a building whose façade retains some of its 18th-century elements.
Lalit
Verma, chief executive of Aurodhan Heritage Guest House and the
Aurodhan Gallery, a center for contemporary art, calls Pondy "a place
for 'inspirational tourism.'" Sri Aurobindo ashram, and Auroville, an
"experimental" community about 10 kilometers out of town that's home to
some 1,900 people from 40 countries, may be Pondicherry's biggest
tourist draws.
But there's also inspiration in finding a good deal. We spent hours
rummaging through the town's antique shops. I have a particular
interest in unusual figures of Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed god,
and in the antique shop Art Colony, I found one: a terra- cotta statue
showing Ganesha as an infant in the arms of his mother, Parvati. I
thought there was something appropriate about buying a quintessential
Indian religious image in the heart of the old French quarter.
—Paul Spencer Sochaczewski is a writer based in Bangkok.* * *
SYDNEY
By Sam Holmes
The brick bungalows along the streets in the Sydney suburb of
Cabramatta wouldn't look out of place in many of the city's
neighborhoods -- except some are fronted by big statues of guardian
lions. Welcome to Sydney's Little Saigon.
Today is Buddha's Birthday and the waft of joss sticks hangs close
to a life-size brass representation of the deity underneath an ornate
pagoda-like gate known as the Friendship Arch in the middle of the
shopping area. It's dotted with kangaroos and koalas and the words
Liberty and Democracy.
The Friendship Arch in Cabramatta's main shopping area.
Crowds
of shoppers, almost entirely Asian, shuffle casually around the
worshippers paying their respects with incense and cash donations,
earmarked for the construction of a Buddhist monastery.
Around the corner on John Street, the bustle is less deferential and
the language of commerce laced with Vietnamese. Durians and live
crustaceans spill onto the thoroughfare from arcades filled with wet
markets. "We still go back there and buy produce for the restaurant,
probably twice a week," Pauline Nguyen, who runs the popular Red
Lantern restaurant in inner Sydney, says of this suburb where her
father ran an ice-cream shop, a cafe and a video store after the family
fled Vietnam in the late 1970s.
Sandwiched between shops selling fabrics, fresh bread and Vietnamese DVDs are eateries offering everything from pho,
Vietnam's classic noodle-soup dish, to Vietnamese-style coffee, a
serving of strong espresso lightened with a lashing of condensed milk.
Phong Van Nguyen opened his coffee shop, Café Nho, in a lane off
John Street four years ago. The convivial atmosphere of locals gathered
to enjoy a ca phe sua da (iced coffee) in the open air this morning belies Cabramatta's darker days as the nerve center of Sydney's Asian heroin trade.
"In 1991 there were a lot of gangsters...in that time, I wouldn't
dare open a coffee shop -- there would have been lots of trouble," says
Mr. Nguyen, who survived a six-day boat voyage out of war-worn Vietnam
without food or water in the early 1980s.
Trip Planner
To
get the most out of Cabramatta, it's best to visit during the middle of
the day (especially on weekends). Despite its frenetic Asian pulse
during the daylight hours, the suburb is yet to develop a vibrant
nightlife and many restaurants are closed by 9 p.m.
The
CityRail commuter network provides frequent rail services from the
Wynyard, Town Hall and Central stations downtown to Cabramatta, about
30 kilometers southwest of downtown Sydney on the green south line. The
journey takes about 50 minutes. It's slightly faster to drive (outside
rush hours). From the city, head west along the Hume Highway and turn
right onto Cabramatta Road.
Gourmet Safaris conducts walking culinary tours of Cabramatta
www.gourmetsafaris.com.au
61-2-9960-5675.
Café Nho
Belvedere Arcade, 7/66-68 John St.
Serves European and Vietnamese-style coffee as well as a range of Asian fruit shakes.
Bau Truong Restaurant
42 John St.
Popular eatery, with a wide-ranging menu, that is famous for its barbecued meats and spring rolls.
Viet Hoa Bakery
4/105 John St.
A 24-hour hot bread shop
BKK Shopping Center
53 Park Rd.
Great place to pick up fruit shakes, bubble tea coconut cakes or sticky rice or sago pudding.
Like
many of Australia's now nearly 200,000-strong Vietnamese-speaking
community -- measured by the number of people speaking Vietnamese at
home -- he spent time in a refugee camp before he was allowed to
resettle in Australia. For Mr. Nguyen, it was a wait of 3½ years in a
United Nations camp in Indonesia. He and his family first went to
Adelaide and then Melbourne before he made his move to western Sydney
in 1991.
In the 16 years after Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975,
Australia took in about 122,000 people from Vietnam, mostly so-called
boat people who fled by sea, or arrivals under the Australian
government's family-reunion program. Of the four industrialized nations
that took in the most Vietnamese refugees, the U.S., France, Australia
and Canada, Australia's intake was by far the largest relative to its
population, says James Jupp, director of the Centre for Immigration and
Multicultural Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Many settled in migrant-friendly Cabramatta ("cabra" is an
aboriginal name for a tasty freshwater grub; "matta" is a point of
land). For much of the 20th century, the suburb had been home to waves
of immigrants including Italians and Eastern Europeans, and it became
the hub for Sydney's Vietnamese community.
In 1994, Cabramatta made headlines as the scene of Australia's only
political assassination when New South Wales state politician John
Newman, a crusader against the district's gang crime, was gunned down
one morning in his driveway in front of his fiancée. (Phuong Ngo, a
local politician and Vietnamese community leader, was convicted in 2001
of ordering the murder.)
Café Nho in a laneway off John Street serves typical Vietnamese coffee.
It
marked a turning point. A concerted police sweep in the mid-to-late
1990s and the Australian-Vietnamese community's campaigns against
gangsterism have since brought an end to the in-your-face menace that
once prevailed. Now, the area is much more accessible to visitors. Many
come on organized food tours. A sign on the road into the suburb reads
"Cabramatta -- A Taste Of Asia," part of the local government's efforts
to mine the area's tourist potential.
For a do-it-yourself taste of Cabramatta, start your day at Café Nho
in Belvedere Arcade off John Street for one of Mr. Nguyen's caffeinated
potions or an Asian-style fruit shake, taking your pick from
ingredients such as avocado and durian, sour apple and strawberry,
pennywort and basil seed. In Cabramatta's many bakeries, you'll find
traditional European pastries such as croissants and pies as well as
Vietnamese creations like banh mi, a crusty French baguette with Asian fillings such as pork slices with chili and coriander.
The always-packed Bau Truong restaurant, also on John Street, is
known throughout Sydney for its grilled meats and spring rolls. Head
down through the Friendship Arch in Freedom Plaza to BKK Shopping
Center where you'll find places to pick up fruit shakes or coconut
cakes and sticky rice for a sweet end to it all.
As I end my own tour and make my way back to Cabramatta railway station, an old man plays a slow tune on his pipa, a Chinese lute-like instrument.
The haunting sound conjures up visions of Guilin mists or
mountainscapes in an Asian children's picture book. But then it strikes
me -- the tune he's playing is "Click Go The Shears," a traditional
Australian bush ballad. He smiles my way, a friendly reminder in this
curious enclave that he hasn't forgotten where he is.
It
is possible that the reason Belgium has been saddled with a reputation
for anonymity is that the two Belgians the world arguably knows best –
despite it being the birthplace of Audrey Hepburn and Magritte – are
fictional characters. One is Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s
detective. The other is another solver of crimes, cracker of mysteries
and righter of wrongs: a strangely ageless reporter and adventurer
called Tintin, created by the illustrator Georges Remi. At an early
age, Remi developed the affectation of signing his illustrations with
his initials in reverse order. The resulting nom de plume is now
rendered in vast black letters on the outside of an odd-looking new
building in the university town of Louvain-la-Neuve: Hergé.
My inspiration was a rather obscure French book called The Autonauts of the Cosmoroute,
by Julio Cortázar and Carol Dunlop. It’s an account of the month they
spent living on the Autoroute du Soleil between Paris and Marseille in
the summer of 1982. Travelling around in a VW camper van, they drove
only short distances and stopped each day at two of the 65 rest stops,
sleeping overnight in the second. 
Motorway
cafés are the most frequented eating places in Britain, not because
people want to eat in them but because there are no other places to
stop on long motorway journeys. Service stations are usually seen as
soulless and slightly alienating; but there is also something
liberating about their democratic inclusiveness. There is no room for
social snobbery at Newport Pagnell.
When
I got back to the service station, it was dusk and the mood had
changed. The woman from Fone Bitz, the mobile phone accessories shop,
had pulled down the shutters. The man from the RAC had gone home. The
lights had dimmed and the service station had gone into standby mode –
it never sleeps but sometimes its eyelids droop a little. 
The
London-based Dutch artist Madelon Vriesendorp makes landscapes that are
densely populated by endless crowds of badly manufactured Statues of
Liberty, Mickey Mice, Leaning Towers of Pisa, Smurfs and Mexican Day of
the Dead skeletons. This teeming city is the contemporary, urban
version, the global model village, a wonderful riot of outrageous
difference and badly remembered, garish images. Vriesendorp, married to
architect Rem Koolhaas (whose passion in architecture is, ironically,
what he has termed “bigness”), fondly remembers taking their children
to Bekonscot: “Children don’t really know about scale. Ours used to get
down to the level of the houses on their hands and knees and imagine
themselves part of it, just like boys get their heads right down on the
floor to play with their cars, putting themselves into the
perspective.” If there is a sense in which the model village is a
peculiarly English phenomenon, deeply embedded in a particular idea of
yearning for a romanticised past, there is, in fact, nothing
particularly English about them – it is more that the English
themselves would like to see this kind of eccentricity as unique and
central to their being.
![[Kyoto]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PT-AL637_kyoto_D_20090514170102.jpg)
![[Map]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PT-AL650A_Kyoto_NS_20090515150617.gif)
Joe LeMonier
![[The Esplanade Theater]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PT-AL244_SINGAR_F_20090327113741.jpg)
OnAsia
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