Bahama mama

These couple of weeks have been tough on me. Since I decided to keep my personal and business lives totally separated, I will not elaborate on it, maybe I will do so in 2017, but not now.
However I decided, impromptu, to take a vacation with my family and go to the Bahamas. Someone had recommended me a resort in Paradise Island, near Nassau, called Atlantis and so far, it has been no disappointment, despite the $600 a night. It is the right place to relax, you do not have to leave the compound for an entire week, it's a hotel, aquarium, waterpark and tropical beach in a single location.
The Bahamas is a funny place. This former Spanish territory discovered by Colombus in his first trip is now a predominantly black nation. The Spaniards eradicated the local tribes, the Lucayans, through slavery and disease, and left the islands practically uninhabited. As usual, about 150 later, the British took them over. I have been in many countries in 5 continents (I should say 6, since the Americans consider North and South America as two different continents), but I never went thorough Immigration and Customs with a live Reggae band playing in the background.
As I said, my kids loved the place, the water slides ending through the sting ray and shark filled pools are a real hit and the half and hour rapids are a lot of fun. To tell you the truth, personally I prefer the Costa Brava, where the food is 100 times better or a 10 dollar a night Kampung type of hotel in the Riau archipelago (Indonesian islands in the Malaka strait), but an upscale vacation from time to time is not bad either if you can afford it. I will consider it, a birthday present, because, yes, today February 22nd 2008, is my birthday (same birth date as George Washington) and I am celebrating it drinking a Bahama Mama at the pool while listening to, of course, a live reggae band and typing on my laptop. And what about Catalonia, OK, OK, my Bahama Mama had a good shot of Bacardí rum, a real good one, and the founder of the Bacardí dynasty was born in Sitges (Barcelona). Unfortunately, no one knows about it (but me) and they all make him Italian and pronounce it as Bacàrdi. Again, no pride, no "cojones"!!!

Note: the pictures are not catalog pics, I took them.

Dos fills de puta

Today I would like to teach you a little bit of Catalan. I will start with the expression "fill de puta" or its plural "fills de puta". The translation is son(s) of a bitch, or as DJ Salinger would write, sonuvabitch. It is used as synonim of idiot, moron or asshole and not in reference to its literal meaning. In general, son of a bitch's mothers are nice women who do not deserve the kind of kids they raised.
As you all know, there are sons of a bitch everywhere, but the percentage seems to be much higher among Catalan journalists. The biggest dickheads are Enric Vila and Salvador Sostres.
With the false pretext to defend the Catalan language, these misguided individuals have developed a strategy to continuously insult immigrants who do not speak Catalan using a xenofobic and racist language which I find unacceptable.
As an example, Enric Vila recently recommended to those people (immigrants who do not speak Catalan) "to go back to their shitty countries with their shitty people, who have not been able to create or defend a minimum level of harmony". Three of four years ago, Salvador Sostres said in an article published in Avui referring to those who spoke Spanish: "only poor people, rednecks and analphabets speak a language which sounds so horrendously when pronouncing the letter j".
However, this kind of language is not exclusive of Catalonia. I have heard similar things in USA and Germany, and actually I once left a meeting when I suggested to hire some Spanish speaking people to deal with Mexican customers and someone said, Spanish is only useful to talk to my cleaning woman and my gardener.
Maybe I am too sensitive, because I am also an immigrant. When I went to Singapore, I only spoke English, but not Mandarin, Malay or Tamil (I learnt Malay while there) and in China, I did not speak Mandarin or Suzhouese when I arrived (while there, I learnt Mandarin and I was able to understand Suzhouese when I left), but I can assure you that I would have not lasted much as a waiter if I had had to wait in any of those languages. Despite this, I made great contributions to those countries and I continuously promote them and their culture. And no one ever told me to go back to my shitty country with my shitty people, much to the contrary.

However, I also want to promote my language, but with respect and education. Only Catalans are to blame for the decline in our language and we could turn things around if we wanted. These are the reasons why Catalan does not make progress:

• Catalan business owners do not want to spend a cent to satisfy customers. They should make sure that there is always Catalan speaking personnel to attend to customers who want to be waited in Catalan. However, the only thing they want is to make money and they hire those who are willing to work for less and in addition to that, they do not provide them with training to improve their language and job skills


• We, Catalan consumers are lazy and do not fight for our rights. If we want service in Catalan and it is not available, we should demand it to the manager or the owner and leave the restaurant if it is not available. But we should always treat the staff with education, they were hired as they are, and it is not their responsibility if they cannot meet the customer needs. If Catalans would only patronize stores or restaurants where service is offered in Catalan, very soon, all businesses would offer it, but we are, in general and including myself, a bunch of sheep. Remember my post “zom una nazió”


• Many Catalan people do not want to work hard. In USA, many waiters and waitresses in restaurants or hotels are college or high school students who work part time to pay for school, car, or vacation. In Catalonia, there are hardly any students who work, they prefer to get allowance from their parents until they are 30 years old. If all university students would work evenings, weekends or summers, the need of foreign labor for service activities would decline and most of the businesses would be able to offer service in Catalan.

But let me tell you that people like Vila and Sostres are a minority. There's sons of bitch everywhere and Catalonia is no exception. Unfortunately people like them cause a lot of damage to the Catalan national cause. We should not blame the weak and the needy. We should only blame ourselves for where we are.

Happy New Year full of deceit

Last year I thought that global warming was around the corner. We had little snow in New England and in January temperatures reached 70 plus degrees. I remember playing basketball with my daughter on the front yard in mid January. But global warming is making things pretty cold this year. Today the temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 13 Celsius) and we had a lot of snow in a beautiful white Christmas and white New Year (almost 2 feet of snow, as you can see on this picture of my house backyard).


The good news for those who want a change in the Catalan politics is that in only 9 years, I will come back to Catalonia to revolutionize the Catalan politics. My preference is not to come back on the front lines, but become a key strategist that will bring one bright but inexperienced candidate to success, a Karl Rove type of person, but nicer. However, if the raw material in Catalan politics continues to be as crappy as it is today, I will have to step up and take the lead.
2008 is going to be a memorable year. In the upcoming Spanish national elections you will be able to witness all kind of deceitful practises, multiple lies, unfulfilled promises turned into attacks to others, public money funneled to individuals with close links to the political leaders, politicians selling Catalonia for power or using Catalonia to get power, principles flushed down the toilet, etc., etc. and the reality is that Catalonia will continue to lose influence, will become more and more mediocre, our language will lose ground while being told that Spanish is being suppressed and the education system will produce individuals who will not be able to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
I hope that not all will be lost. I am a specialist in crisis management and business turn-arounds, but I need something to build on. Nine years is not that long.

Happy New Year.
Ian Llorens

R rated shitting log

I have never been a Tió person. Even though I am fully aligned with many of the scatological Catalan traditions like the “caganer” (shitter) who occupies a privileged spot in my Nativity display, I never fell for the shitting log (Caga Tió). When I was a kid, some of my 100% Catalan friends got their presents on Christmas Eve through the log shitting methodology, but hybrids like me, were hooked to the cleaner Three Magic King tradition.

I have to give credit to the previous dictator Franco for having devised a plan to eradicate Catalonia as a nation by favoring the relocation of a massive amount of people from other regions to dilute the Catalan sentiment and convert Catalonia into a blended combination of Spanish traditions. He was quite successful in his attempts, but died too early to fully succeed and the Catalan seeds started to re-grow in the 1980s. I am not totally sure what globalization will bring to us. The vast majority of those who moved from other regions to Catalonia are now Catalans and have embraced the Catalan culture and language and their children have no ties whatsoever with the regions where their parents come from. It is unclear to me what’s going to happen with the 1 million foreign nationals who migrated to Catalonia in the last decade. I see most of them very interested in transforming Catalonia into what they thought it would be, instead of adapting to what Catalans as a people want Catalonia to be. I think that the way the Catalan government reacts to the situation with things like Catalan immersion or obligations on Catalan signage is understandable, but often backfires. Strategy is more important than tactics if we want to win the battle against homogenization.
Anyway let’s go back to the shitting log tradition. The poem below was recited by the kids who gathered around the shitting log while hitting the log with a baton. At the end of the process, the Tió would defecate all kinds of presents for the children and adults rejoicing:


Caga tió/Shitting log,
Tió de Nadal/Christmas log
No caguis arengades/Don't shit herrings
Que són salades /‘cause they are salty
Caga torrons/Shit nougat
Que son mes bons!/Which is much better

A couple of months ago, I was in a hotel in Japan watching a late night show, while drinking a glass of rice sake to try to compensate my jet lag, I saw a TV advertisement which made me long for the shitting log tradition. I am in my mid forties and my continuous trips, long haul flights, jet lags, meetings and teleconferences any time of the day and often nights, have partially eroded my stamina, what translates directly into a poor sex life. My problem is not ED, it is just exhaustion and the Japanese R rated ad seemed to address exactly my requirements. I was able to find a video clip in one of the video sharing sites (I have edited out the steamiest scenes to still have a remote chance to become a Catalonian Politician). On Christmas Eve, I will hit hard my shitting log and hope that the present will be there at the end of the night. You may want to try the same. I do not understand Japanese, but my assumption is that neither the guy nor the girl come with the piece of equipment.

Mid Age Crisis Aid

Las Vegas in Los Monegros

It is no point being a visionary, if my Catalan audience does not want to follow me. Most probably I am already too American, too market economy oriented, too focused on the private sector, against a welfare society which penalizes hardworking people and pampers the lazy.
I am often blasted in the Catalan forums when I propose a dramatic downsizing of the government, free enterprise, reduction of the welfare benefits for those who are healthy, but simply do not want to work. I still think that the government should provide a cushion for the needy, senior citizens, children and sick people, but that's it.
But today I will not elaborate about my political views, I will do that step by step, today I want to talk to you about a missed opportunity.
When in December 2005 I was in my room at the MGM hotel in Vegas, I had a dream. I looked trough the window and I saw the flashing hotels superimposed to the desertic background. It reminded me of Los Monegros. I used to cross Los Monegros when I was a kid. We visited, from time to time, my mother's relatives who lived near Saragossa. I still remember crossing the Monegross when I was 4 or 5 in my father's olive green Seat 600. It was in August and the car was literally boiling. The temperature outside was 110 degrees and inside 120. My father stopped at the roadside, somewhere between Alfajarin and Bujaraloz. The Guardia Civil stopped shortly after. My father told them that we had a problem in the car, it was hot as hell. The police inspected the car and found the problem. I had activated the heating. There was a lever to activate the heating under the passenger seat. While playing in the rear seat, I had turned it on. In the 1960's kids did not wear safety belts, just played around without any restrictions.
I also remember that when the Americans made it to the Moon, my grandmother used to tell me that it was all a sham, that she heard that American military film crews based in Saragossa had been seen filming in the Monegros, months before the Americans landed in the Moon. I was a kid and I believed her.

I also remember that in my mother's village, they would call us catalanufos or something similar and they tried to hurt our feelings by saying that we spoke a dialect. They did not offend me (they would now), I thought they were village people and I was coming from the civilization. For a strange reason, my mother always talked to me in Catalan. Most probably because she thought that I would have more possibilities of success if I was bilingual. Almost everyone spoke only Spanish in the 1960s Hospitalet de Llobregat where I grew up.

From the MGM hotel I imagined that I was back in Los Monegros and I thought it would be a great idea to encourage Catalan businessmen (and women) to invest in Los Monegros to set up a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex. I also encouraged them to set up a bullfighting rink, since I was sure that bullfighting would be banned in Catalonia with the new Estatut. In March 2006, I published a post with my recommendations, it was called Las Vegas II.
Unfortunately, no one in Catalonia followed my advice. We could have made millions. It would been the ideal complement to Catalonia, like Vegas is to California. The reality is that a group of International investors has recently unveiled its plans to start a Las-Vegas-like leisure complex in Los Monegros, exactly as suggested by me. Since I proposed the idea two years ago in my blog and my blog was licensed under a Creative Commons Attibution, do you thing I have rights to some royalties? I will check with my lawyer.

Resign in Spanish and in Catalan used to be “dimitir”

When I was a student at the Institute of North American Studies in Barcelona, our teacher, an interesting guy called Donald from Cocoa Beach Florida, spent a couple of lessons talking about things which sound similar in English and Spanish, but have different meanings. The most vivid example I remember is the word molest. As many of you well know, “molestar” means to disturb in Spanish. Some Spanish speaking people, however, have the tendency to say, “may I molest you?”, instead of “may I disturb you?”, what in some instances can bring them some trouble, since the connotation of molest in English is mainly related to making indecent sexual advances. The other word I remember is the word resign. The correct translation for resign is dimitir in Spanish (and also in Catalan. I know that in Catalan you can also say resignar, but let’s forget about it for the purpose of this post). Donald explained with multiple examples that when someone resigned, he or she was giving up an office or position and that we should not confuse the word resign with resign oneself to something.
After 30 years I have realized that Donald was wrong, that the word “dimitir”(resign) has been eliminated from the Spanish and Catalan dictionaries and that the only words left are “resignarse/resignar-se (resign oneself to something, to submit (oneself) passively; accept as inevitable).
Yesterday was Thanksgiving day and I was able to spend a couple of hours reading all the Spanish and Catalan internet press and I felt like crying. The situation in Catalonia is deteriorating so dramatically, but no one is taking any responsibility. I already mentioned in my previous posts the situation of the infrastructures and that the incumbent ministress Magdalena Alvarez (the spell checker wants me to change the word ministress by mistress, I am impressed by Microsoft!) is holding on to her post. Emulating John Stark’s famous sentence “Live free or die”, she said “antes partía que doblá” an Andalusian phrase that could be translated as “rather dead, than kneeling” And here we are, the infrastructures suck and she is a happy woman. Today she opened a new tunnel that connects France and Spain. It is ahead of time, as it was fully financed by the private sector. Unfortunately it connects nothing with nothing, because neither the Spanish side of the High Speed train, nor the French one, will be ready in many many years, but there she was, on the border, smiling and cutting ribbons, while tens of thousands of Catalans suffer every day from the ailing infrastructures. The Catalan disaster will position her very very well in the next elections when she is said to be a candidate for Malaga. Problems created in Catalonia are great credentials in the rest of Spain to become a public official.
But is she guilty of all this? No, not fully. The only group of people responsible for the debacle is the Catalan politicians, especially those in the “tripartite” (Montilla, Carod and company) who did not have any master plan for infrastructures in Catalonia. How can you measure progress if you have no plan. I heard Carod saying exactly that, “we have to admit that we had no long term plan in infrastructures” Quins collons! (translated as beep). And they are all still there, getting richer and richer and sending the kids to private schools.
That leads me to the last point I want to discuss today: the last report of the Jaume Bofill Foundation shows that Catalonia is trailing the rest of the countries in the European Union and even the majority of Spanish regions in terms of education. The only two countries which are worse than Catalonia are the two super powers Portugal and Malta. The biggest fiasco is in the secondary education where the percentage of drop-outs is extremely high. In a normal country the secretary of education would have resigned. Education is a fully transferred competence, so we cannot blame Madrid for this. However the guy responsible, Ernest Maragall, brother of the one who is even more responsible Pasqual Maragall, has said he has no intention to resign, that they were aware of it and they will take urgent measures. Urgent measures!!!. Once again, those living in Catalonia will have to resign themselves while our politicians pocket as much money as they can in a nation that collapses.

Labeling in Catalan: right or vanity?

Prior to me going to Barcelona, I had decided that I would only buy products labeled in Catalan during my vacation. I do not mean products labeled only in Catalan, I think labels in Catalonia should be in Spanish-Catalan-English or Spanish-Catalan-Galician-Basque. In my first visit to the supermarket, I saw plenty of bilingual labels. However, the two languages were not Catalan and Spanish, as you may assume, the labels were in Spanish and Portuguese.
I thought that as consumer, I had the right to choose. I thought that labels would be in Catalan because millions of Catalan speaking consumers demanded it, and companies would want to make customers happy by addressing their specific needs, not because of the threat of fines. But I was wrong. Very soon I realized that if I wanted to stick to my plan, I would die of inanition after a couple of days. There was almost nothing labeled in Catalan and I started to wonder why.
After giving some thought to the situation, these are my conclusions:

• Catalan consumers in general, Catalan and Castilian speaking, do not value labeling in Catalan. I have seen many comments in several e-newspaper forums, where people said, “I would not spend a single cent to have labels or DFUs (Directions For Use) in Catalan”, “Companies will leave Catalonia if we ask for these things”, etc. We will go no where with this kind of mentality. We have to demand what we believe is right. Both Catalan and Spanish speaking should demand bilingual labels for all products sold in Catalonia and, at the beginning, they should be willing to accept a small mark up to get the machinery started. I also remind you that most of the jobs created by the requirement to have customer facing interfaces in Catalan cannot be outsourced: call centers and translation services cannot be moved outside the Catalan speaking territories. Conclusion: if we Catalans do not value it and demand it, companies will not voluntarily go through the extra effort.


• The anti-Catalan sentiment in Spain is unbelievable. Very few people understand that the only way to keep Catalonia in Spain in the long term is to embrace its diversity, support it and promote it. It is interesting to see that the anti-Basque sentiment is far milder, despite the fact that Catalonia has almost always used pacific methods to defend its rights. This anti-Catalan sentiment prevents companies from labeling products in Spanish and Catalan for its distribution throughout Spain. Many people in Spain would not buy bilingual labeled products if they noticed that Catalan is one of the languages, no problem if the other language is Portuguese or English, but Catalan, no way, and many companies do not want to run the risk of boycott for distributing products with Catalan as one of the language on the labels. Isn’t it sad?


• The third issue is collusion. I am convinced that there is a certain level of collusion among companies operating in Catalonia to avoid labeling in Catalan. I cannot prove it (I hope a whistleblower will bring this to light one day), but I am convinced that a number of companies have agreed not to label in Catalan to avoid that if one company does it, it will get a much bigger market share and the rest will have to follow. Browse in internet and you will find by yourself. SEAT advertises in Estonian in Estonia (click here to see). There is only 1.1 million people who speak Estonian, and most of them speak Russian too, but SEAT spends advertising dollars to tailor the offer for the Estonian. Seat is a Catalonia based company, but its only website in Catalan (http://www.seat.cat/) is only addressed to Andorra. It is disheartening.


• Finally, I think that there is a total lack of pride among the Catalan business people. In my previous blog, in a post called "Catalonia, a country without cojones", I explained that Freixenet sells cava in USA, without any reference to Catalonia, Barcelona or even Sant Sadurni d'Anoia. A couple of weeks ago, I ran of out "cava" and in my home, there is no celebration without Catalan "sparkling wine", so I rushed to the liquor store and the only one one I could find is the famous 1+1=3 (I had never heard it in my life). At least this one had a translation of the brand to Catalan “u més u fan tres”, but no reference to Barcelona or Catalonia. I repeat again, a country without "cojones".