where am I?

Warning: do not read this post if you are (a) politically correct or (b) of an unduly sensitive nature.


I had a strange day yesterday and kept on wondering where I was. Perhaps you can help me.

Incident 1
I went for an early morning walk along the nearby levee for a creek running into the bay when I must have passed perhaps 30 or 40 people of Indian origin running and walking in the opposite direction. There were few people of other ethnic origins, but they were all very friendly. I wondered for a moment if I was somewhere between Mumbai and Kolkata witnessing a walkathon for some local charity, but then I remembered reading that the population of Santa Clara municipality (100,000+ people) is 35% Asian. By the way, the total population of Santa Clara County (including everywhere from Palo Alto in the west to San Jose in the east) is 1.8 million - much larger than San Francisco itself.

Incident 2
After that Indian interlude, I was still out jogging on the levee when I spied in the distance a bloke who seemed to be running with two dogs. This is not entirely strange, but the incident took an interesting turn when the bloke's legs didn't seem to be moving - he was gliding along! Then I saw he was standing on a large-wheeled scooter being towed by two dogs! Well, these things happen in California, where stuffing large numbers of people into a lift (sorry, elevator) or telephone booth is an art form. However, the scooter was vaguely reminiscent of the ones Rebecca, Max and I used to ride the 5+ km down the mountain-side at Saas Fee in Switzerland last summer. The route took us from Hannig (c. 2350m) down to Saas Fee itself at c. 1800m, a spectacular drop of about 550m (1800 feet). No, I wasn't in Switzerland. The shores of San Francisco Bay are ... er .... flat. I looked again at the dogs. Ah! I'd seen them before at Joanna's house in Lutton on the edge of Dartmoor! They were a couple of grayish lurchers running at full bore. Hey, Martin and Joanna, you didn't tell me that you had gone into exporting lurchers to California. Perhaps your own dogs have a new career as scooter towers.

Incident 3
Confused, I returned to what I thought was Crandall Circle to prepare for the morning's outing to a farmers' market on Benton Street a few km from here. Now, I've been to many such markets in various parts of the US and Australia, but this one had its own flavour so to speak.Most of the stalls, which were selling nice fresh produce - we bought quite a lot of fruit and veges, seemed to be owned by Hispanics and, for another moment, thought I was over the border down Mexico way. Of course, I snapped out of this delusion quite quickly because I've long known the demographic projection that Hispanics will probably out-number people of European ancestry in the US by 2050.

Incident 4
Returning from the farmers' market, Emily took a route past many of the world's big-name IT companies resident in Silicon Valley, including firms like Lockheed Martin. One caught my eye, however: BAE Systems. That's strange because my brother, Brian, works (or used to work) for BAE Systems, though I could have sworn that was in Plymouth, England. I know he hops across to Florida from time to time for business meetings (at least that's the purpose he tells me), but maybe he's heading secretly to Santa Clara! If he's not fibbing, perhaps he should try to uncover some engineering disaster here in California that would enable him to stop by and see niece Emily and her family!

Incident 5
Last night we decided to eat out to celebrate 6 birthdays and sundry other events (all our birthdays, and Max's occur mid-year). The venue for this extravaganza was a large Westfield shopping Centre right on the boundary  between Santa Clara and San Jose. That was surprise number 1 because Dot and I are part owners of Westfield ( a rather small part I might add) and I didn't know in advance that part of our assets lie here! Surprise number 2 was the specific venue: the Cheesecake Factory. Now, I had previously eaten at one of these establishments in Baltimore - and liked the experience. On this occasion, however, I was taken by the decor. I spent some time working out whether I was really in California or in Luxor (in the Valley of the Kings) or in Cairo (visiting the Pyramids) or, more likely, Las Vegas (Nevada). To put it simply, the columns (probably fake) supporting the ceiling; the reliefs; the lighting and so on all looked somewhat Pharaohic. Alas, our waiter didn't really look like King Tut and I doubt if the ancient Egyptians knew of BLT burgers with blue cheese!

So, we live in an increasingly unauthentic world where reality does not match surface appearance. And California, where little is more than a few decades old and much of the 21st century is currently being fashioned, is probably the headquarters of global kitsch and the fusing of cultures. Oh well, I depart for perhaps a less confusing destination two days from now. By this time on Tuesday, I'll be bored at the terminal in Denver as I await a flight for Winnipeg, the fun capital of the Canadian Prairies.

AS