The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but what is the way to humanity’s empathy?

April 12, 2016 By Fredrik Haren - The Island Man

Cam Kim island, Hoi An, Vietnam, Island number 7 (out of 100), country number 6 (out of 25), months number 4 (out of 100.)

“Your hobby is islands?”

My guide, Lucy, is looking at me with a mix of amazement and doubt, like I am a little bit weird.

Which is funny since she just encouraged me to eat a duck fetus (!) – as if eating a semi-developed duckling would be something totally normal. (More about the duck fetus later.)

Lucy is confused about my request to take a detour from the scheduled food tour that she is taking me on and to skip walking though the old town of Hoi An, and instead take a trip around the island of Cam Kim.

(Click here to see island on Google Maps.)

Her reaction is understandable. The old town of Hoi An is on the “Unesco World Heritage List” because it is so unique.

On the Unesco’s website it reads: “Hoi An Ancient Town is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its buildings and its street plan reflect the influences, both indigenous and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique heritage site.”

And it is lovely. (As hundreds, and hundreds, of tourists walking around the city can confirm.)

So you would be forgiven if you thought that I wanted to see more of the city too, but I am a “off-the-beaten-track” kind of guy, who happens to have a soft spot for islands, so I ask to shorten the city tour so that we instead have time to go see an island as part of my tour.

Luckily for me Lucy is very open for new ideas and happily improvises a unique food tour, inclusive of island visit, just for me that takes me to Cam Kim island in the middle of Thu Bon River.

She tells me that the island is mainly known for three things: growing corn, growing rice – and the making of bed mats. (They grow the white version of corn, not just the normal yellow one and they just had their annual Corn Festival.)

Life on the island has recently changed after a bridge (though only open for two-wheelers like motorcycles and bikes) has connected the island to the city. Before you had to take a ferry to the island, which tended to isolate the island a bit, but now you just speed over on a bike and the islands is suddenly just two minutes away from the Unesco Heritage site. Lucy is telling me this and much more while driving me around on the back of her motorbike.

I did the Hoi An Food Tour because of Lucy.

The day before Lucy had held a passionate speech about why the company she works for, www.hoianfoodtour.com, is involved in a social enterprise in Hoi an.

Every last Sunday all the tour guides in the company (20 of them) go and help cook food for a shelter for the unprivileged. The center has +110 orphans, mentally ill and handicapped people living there.
I heard Lucy speak at a conference where I also had been invited to speak, and her passion for the center made me cry. On the spot i decided to give some money to the center and to sign up for a food tour with Lucy to support her and the company.

As a bonus I got to know Lucy, Hoi An and Vietnam through the food of the country.

This is (some of) what I learned.

Let’s start with that duck embryo.

It’s called “Balut” and is a semi-developed duckling where you can start to see the beak, bones, and in some instances feathers of the duck begin to develop. It’s served with papaya sallad, greens and chili. In Vietnam it’s eaten as comfort food when you are sick and the “hot” chili and ginger is said to be a good complement to the “cold” duck. Yin and Yang in harmony.

For tourists eating the Balut is less about getting well and more about not getting sick by the thought of eating the early-bird-egg-bone-and-feather-mixture staring at you from the egg.

Lucy, or Linh which is her vietnamese name, told me that only 20% of the people on her tour are brave enough to try it.

After I had eaten mine (it is quite tasty actually) I asked her if she had thought I would be one of the 20%? She was honest enough to say “No.” She then explained: “Normally the people who try are the young ones, not the old ones.”

Ouch.

Another thing she introduced me to was “the husband and wife cake”.

Legend has it that by baking this cake a woman was able to get her husband back again after he had left her for life in the city.

Nowadays it’s a tradition that the wife to be needs to bake 100 pieces of the “husband and wife cake” to give to the family of her future husband (together with, if I understood it correctly, 100 different pieces of fruit and a pigs head.)

In Vietnam it was traditionally considered “better” to have a son than a daughter (and Vietnam has the same problem as China with more boys than girls being born after ultra sound technology made it possible for “human selection” to replace “natural selection” for which gender should be born. In Vietnam 112.4 boys are born for every 100 girls born (up from 106.2/100 in 2000). The reason you wanted a boy was that when a daughter is married off she becomes the “daughter” of the new family.

But there is an anti trend happening with more and more families starting to appreciate having a girl.

Lucy is a 23 year old, single and strong woman, and she told me that her father, who had three daughters, is now happy he got girls.

“In todays Vietnam it is better to be a woman”, she told me. “Women can make better careers, have better jobs.”

When Lucy gets her own kid she wants a girl.

Some traditions change, some remain. Some evolve.

Lucy takes me to the Bong Hong Trang dumpling restaurant.

The name means “white rose” and the same family has been making dumplings for three generations. It was started by their great grandfather who brought the recipe from China. But over the years the dish evolved and it is now “Chinese dumplings” served with “Vietnamese fish sauce” (instead of soy sauce) and “Vietnamese dried onions.”

They make 5000-6000 dumplings per day – by hand – and it was some of the best dumplings I have ever had, and I have lived in China.

Another “mix of traditions” Lucy took me to was a vietnamese baguette shop serving a“french baguette” filled with the local pork and vegetables.

What I especially liked with the baugett stand was the small “extra stand” outside the restaurant where poor people could go and get a baguette for free.

When my tour was done I had snacked on Water Fern Cake (Banh Beo) in a hole-in-the-wall, eaten everything from noodles dipped in ash to home cooked – and home served – spring rolls in the private home of a Hoi An family and much more.

I have gotten to know Vietnam a little bit better via my taste buds and my stomach.

But more importantly I had gotten a better understanding of the heart, spirit and mind of the Vietnamese people by having Linh show me her country.

I loved all aspects of what I learnt, but there was one thing which stuck with me a little bit more: It was with what ease the Vietnamese seemed to adopt the concept of helping a fellow human in need regardless if it was a small tour company cooking food for the disabled, a restaurant making it easy for the poor to pick up a free meal, or how the Hoi An food tour offers free city tours hosted by students who want to improve their English.

Caring for the less fortunate is of course not just a Vietnamese trait, but a human one – perhaps even the trait which makes us humans?

But during my short stop in Hoi An I got reminded by the friendly and caring Vietnamese people I met how simple it can be to care a little bit more.

For that I thank Lucy.

Now imagine if we as humans all became a little bit better at being a little bit more humane.
That’s food for thought.

Fredrik Haren, aka “The Island Man”, plans to visit 100 islands, in at least 25 countries, on at least 6 continents – in less than 100 months. The purpose of this “World Tour of Islands” is to get a better understanding of the world, a deeper understanding of the people who live here and a broader understanding of life. Cam Kim island was island number 7, country number 6 and months number 4.

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Islands visited in 2016

There is still so much left to do.

March 18, 2016 By Fredrik Haren - The Island Man

Victoria Island and Lagos Island, Lagos, Nigeria. Island number 6 (out of 100), country number 5 (out of 25), months number 3 (out of 100.)

Let’s call him Friday. (Apparently it’s not uncommon to name boys in Nigeria after the day the boy is born, and since this happened on a Friday let’s give that name to him.)

Friday is running after a car who’s driver just bought some cookies from him.

The Lagos traffic is jammed, and it feels like we are moving at snail-pace, but looking at Friday sprinting as fast as he can to catch up with his customer to get his money it becomes clear to me that “slow” in a car on the highway is still a considerable speed for someone on two feet.

It doesn’t help him that he is carrying a huge load of cookies as he is running.

I will never know his real name because I am observing him from the comfort of my car which is just behind his customers car. All I can do is to just watch him run to try to catch up to get paid.

He will become a symbol of our goal as humans on this trip to Nigeria for me.

(Link to where I am on google maps.)

I am in the country to deliver a speech for the managers of Olam, a food and commodities company with a big presence in Nigeria.

The conference is held in a big hall just next to Radisson Blue hotel on Victoria Island in the commercial capital of Nigeria: Lagos.

(View of the marina and bay from the Radisson Blu Hotel on Victoria Island.)

I ask one of the hostesses who is taking care of me to tell me something about this island.

She says: “This is where the ones with money live.”

I also ask my driver to tell me something about this island. He says: “This is where the money live.”

It’s becoming clear that we are in the posh part of town.

They could have fooled me.

Everywhere I look I see cars so old and wrecked that they look like they will die any second.

I see men and women selling soft drinks from icebuckets balancing on their heads.

I see roads with pot holes, broken fences and mountains of trash, especially empty plastics bottles. Everywhere empty plastic bottles.

It reminds me more of a slum than of an African Beverly Hills.

But when I look a bit closer and I see a dusty Bentley hiding under a metal roof. I see Louis Vuitton bags on the women in the bar of the Radisson.

It is posh and dust at the same time.

I am back in the car watching Friday as I my driver is trying to get me to the airport in time for my flight.

Friday has kicked off his flip flops in the middle of the road to make it possible for him to run faster. He is sprinting barefoot on the highway desperate to get his money for the cookies that the customer already received thorugh the car window. He is still carrying all his left over merchendise and he is trying to balance it while running. It’s perhaps 30-40 packages of cookies. They look bulky and heavy.

He probably has been running for 500-600 meters all ready.

I think back to the conference I had been speaking at.

Olam is a very impressive company. A company dedicated to feeding Nigeria by producing staples like flour and rice in a more effective way.

The people of Nigeria (and the rest of us) should be thankful that they do what they do, because Nigeria needs nothing short of a food revolution to be able to handle its next few decades.

The country of 173 million of course has a lot of good land to grow food, and a climate that is great for farming.

But the statistics for how Nigeria will grow in the future are staggering.

Some say that Nigeria will have so many kids in the next few years that it will be bigger than the USA in 2050. Extra amazing if you consider the size of Nigeria compared to the USA.

(Source: Waitbutwhy.com)

And the way Nigeria grows, harvests and produces its food are just too old fashioned.

Olam is trying to change that.

By introducing modern farming techniques and the latest management techniques that have been able to improve the quality and quantaty of the food they produces in a very impressive way.

Down time in their flour mills for example went from 17% to 3% in just a few years.

Their factories are producing at 105% of capacity (!) (They have been able to tweak the machines to bring out more from the machines than the makes of the machines thought possible.

And so on and so on.

It is when I hear stories like this that I get so optimistic for the world. How companies dedicated to excellence just decide to make things so much better – in this case in order to feed more people in Africa.

Friday has dropped his merchendise on the side of the road.

It looks like he has realised that he will never catch up to the car unless he lets go of his products for a few minutes in order to be able to run faster.

The money he will be able to collect is worth taking the risk that someone steals all his products while he is running after the car.

He has probably now been running after the car for 1 km or more

And suddenly he reaches the car!

The driver sticks out his hand and hands Friday the few Naira that he owed for his snack.

Friday puts the money into his pocket, slows down, and just before catching his breath he does a little dance ; as to celebrate the money that he just was able collect.

As he disappears in the background of passing cars I see him slowly walking back to collect his remaining products – and later his flip flops – so that he can start over again selling cookies and snacks to the drivers on the highway.

There are so many people like him on Victoria Island. In Lagos. In Nigeria. In the world.

People hustling, running, and sweating just to make a few bucks so that they can buy some food and survive.

It’s when I visit places like Nigeria and see people like Friday that I get overwhelmed by the task that humanity still faces before we can relax and tell ourselves that we are done.

Fredrik Haren, aka “The Island Man”, plans to visit 100 islands, in at least 25 countries, on at least 6 continents – in less than 100 months. The purpose of this “World Tour of Islands” is to get a better understanding of the world, a deeper understanding of the people who live here and a broader understanding of life. Victoria and Lagos Island was island number 6, country number 5 and months number 3.

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Islands visited in 2016

All classics where once innovations.

March 17, 2016 By Fredrik Haren - The Island Man

The island of Donauinsel, Vienna, Austria. Island number 5 (out of 100, country number 4 (out of 25), months number 3 (out of 100.)

Quick! If I say “Vienna” what picture do people get in their heads?

I am going to guess that most see something old. Like the St. Stephen’s Cathedral at Stephansplatz, a picture of Mozart – or a carriage and a horse.

That is the image that Vienna has.
Of something old. Centuries old.

It is almost like people look at Vienna as a museum of western creative brilliance from the past.

(The Mozart souvenirs are everywhere…)

But I think it is very unfortunate to look at Vienna as a museum of times past.

Because innovation is not about the past. It is about the future.

That was a thought, or shall I say, an idea, that struck me today as I was walking around on Donauinsel, a long and narrow island situated in the Danaue River which flows through the center of Vienna.

Donauinsel is a unique island. The island is more than 20 (!) kilometers long – but just 70-100 meters wide. The car free island is like a huge park that Viennians (is that a word?) can escape too to run, walk their dogs, stroll or swim.

A women out running, whom i got a chance to talk to, told me that the island had almost disappeared in the 1970’s because politicians wanted to build an electric damm but some strong willed people saved the park-like island for the people of Vienna. (At least that is what I think she told me since she told the stories in German, a language I am afraid I do not speak…) Either way it was very clear in the passion in this womans voice that Donauinsel means a lot for the people of Vienna.

In the summer the island explodes with activities such as concerts and races and there are even a couple of nudists beaches on the island.

When I was walking around on the island I was struck by how you could see old churches and an old light house, but at the same time shining, modern and tall office buildings in glass, and graffiti on the bridges connecting the islands to the main land.

On the way to the island I had walked though the center of Vienna and had happened to walk by the exhibition “Happy” by the designer Stefan Sagmeister that was showing in the MAK Museum.

The MAK Museum is an old, majestic and historic building complete with coloured glass windows in the ceiling and status of old, serious looking men.

Stefan Sagmeister’s exhibition was bright yellow, whimsical and – well, Happy.

At first it seemed like such a stark contrast to the building.

But the more I walked around in the show the more I realised that they were just two sides of the same coin, only separated by time.

Stefan Sagmeister is a Austrian graphic designer who now lives in New York. (Be sure to watch his TED talks on the value of taking time off and Happiness by design.)

He is one of the most celebrated Austrian designers of our time.

When I was walking through the building to go from one part of the exibithion to another you had to walk though one of the permanent section of the museum. It was filled with old furniture, glassware and vases.

It was such a stark contrast to the Happy show.

At first glance it felt stuffy, out-dated and old.

But while I was walking through it I understood why they had left it there: It was to show how these exhibitions of old things once had been new and novel innovations.

One of my all time favourite quotes is from Coco Channel who said: “Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics”

The way I read that it was meant as an ambition to see longer than the latest trend and to create creations that would stand the test of time.

But I guess we could re-write the quote to communicate a different truth: “Classics, Classics. One cannot be forever looking at the classics without seeing that they once were innovations too.”

Because that is what became so clear today with all those new ideas being shown in an environment full of old classics: Every classic was ones an idea that someone created.

When we see those old, historic classics from historic times it is easy to think that they were conservative – but they often were not. They were often cutting edge. They were edgy, provocative and often questioned and/or ridiculed.

They became timeless classics because they were brilliant innovations. Creative creations.

I left Vienna not with a feeling of looking back in history: but of looking forward into the future: because that is what creativity is: creating a better future.

Fredrik Haren, aka “The Island Man”, plans to visit 100 islands, in at least 25 countries, on at least 6 continents – in less than 100 months. The purpose of this “World Tour of Islands” is to get a better understanding of the world, a deeper understanding of the people who live here and a broader understanding of life.
Donauinsel was island number 5, country number 4 and months number 3.

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Islands visited in 2016

Like a troubled bridge over water.

March 14, 2016 By Fredrik Haren - The Island Man

The island of Tjörn, West Coast of Sweden. Island number 4 (out of 100). Country number 3 (out of 25). Month 3 (out of 100)

One winter night 36 years ago the ship “Star Clipper” ran into one of the columns of the old Tjörn bridge causing it to collapse. Before anyone was able to stop traffic 8 people, in 7 cars, had died as their vehicles plunged over the edge into the ice-cold water 40 meters below.

I was only 12 when it happened but I still remember it vividly.

Some places just gets connected to a trategy for the longest time.

Like Waco, Texas. And, on a much bigger scale, Hiroshima.

In Sweden Tjörn is still very much connected to the tragedy of the Tjörn Bridge in 1980.

Today I visited Tjörn and drove over the new bridge that was built to replace the one that was ripped apart.

I stopped to read about the bridge and found out that the new bridge was opened less than 17 months after the accident – a quite astonishingly fast construction, at least for being Sweden in the 1980’s.

When I read that I thought about how long it took for the USA to reopen the World Trade Center after the 2001 attacks of 9/11.

New York, 9/11 is another date and place that for a long time will be connected to a terrible event.

It has always struck me as odd how the USA was so slow to rebuild the World Trade Center.

You would think that if you want to show the world, and the terrorists, that you are strong, that you are bouncing back, then would the best strategy not be to do everything in your power to put up a new building as soon as possible?

Yet it took almost 15 years, 164 months to be exact, until the new building – One World Trade Center – was opened to the public in May of 2015.

More than 14,5 years to rebuild a building?

Yes, I understand that building a huge building in the middle of New York is not an easy thing to do.

But according to Wikipedia the owners of the original World Trade Center Towers (the Port Authority) announced the selection of Minoru Yamasaki as lead architect on September 20, 1962 and the towers opened were opened 11.5 years later on April 4, 1973.

That means that it took 3 years longer to rebuild the World Trade Center the second time than it did to build the original two towers. (Even though the first towers were built more than 50 years ago (!) which means they had much more primitive technology to build with (and no computers at all to help them, for example.)

According to the sign next to the Tjörn Bridge, the reason they were able to build the new bridge so fast was because everyone worked together to make it happen, and processes that normally would have been done one after the other, where done in parallell to speed things up.

The story of the Tjörn bridge is a story of a terrible accident that was resolved in a resolute way.

I guess the lesson here is: It’s not what brings us down that defines who we are – but how we build us up again.

Fredrik Haren, aka “The Island Man”, plans to visit 100 islands, in at least 25 countries, on at least 6 continents – in less than 100 months. The purpose of this “World Tour of Islands” is to get a better understanding of the world, a deeper understanding of the people who live here and a broader understanding of life.
Tjörn was island number 4, country number 3 and months number 3.

(Picture Credit of old bridge: Wikipedia. Creative Commons.)

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Islands visited in 2016

The Paradox of Paradise.

February 1, 2016 By Fredrik Haren - The Island Man

The island of Vadoo, The Maldives: Island number 3 (out of 100). Country number 3 (out of 25). Month 2 (out of 100)

The chef approached us last night at dinner with a big, friendly smile as he asked us: “Since you are staying for so long, can we treat you for a free dinner surprise?”

We were, needless to say grateful, but also a little bit puzzled – we had just told him that we were only in the Maldives for 5 days.

But it turns out that makes us long-stayers in the world that Maldives now finds itself in.

Our butler, Deepu, later explained to us that the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka has changed everything.

So how did peace in Sri Lanka transform the tourism industry of the Maldives?

Let’s start from the beginning.

It used to be that the foreigners from far away lands (like Europe, USA – and lately China) flew in the Maldives and stayed for 10, 12, 15 days – or longer – before going back home.

The Maldives has, for the longest time, been the definition of paradise. It’s THE honeymoon destination of the world.

It has a very strong brand as the number one tropical island vacation spot in the world. As it should, it’s an awesome place to experience.

But it is expensive.

So historically the people who came to the Maldives where wealthy people who could afford to stay two weeks or more once they had arrived from the long, and equally expensive, flight.

But then the war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government ended.
After more than 25 years of bloody fighting the civil war had almost torn the beautiful island of Sri Lanka apart, and the killings, bombings and terrorist attacks had scared away almost all tourists for decades.

When peace finally arrived the island exploded with tourism developments.

Sri Lanka is an island, it’s as big as Ireland, full of culture, and with a beach that virtually goes around the entire island.
The country formally known as Ceylon is now trying to get tourists to discover that peace has arrived in paradise and that it is now safe to come and visit all these new resorts that they have built.
Which means that Sri Lanka is currently cheap.
Very cheap if you compare it with the Maldives.

Which brings us to the logic behind the Paradox of Paradise which goes something like this:

1) Because the Maldives has a strong brand a lot of people want to go to the Maldives.
2) But because of the strong brand and strong demand the cost per night for staying in the Maldives is very high.
3) That means that people want to go – but actually prefer to not stay so long.

When Sri Lanka was still an island at war with itself it meant that the Maldives was just too far away for tourists to fly into only for a few nights, which meant that the people who could afford to come here were people who could afford to pay the expensive rates for many nights.

But now you can comfortably “top-up” your affordable Sri Lanka vacation with a cheap and quick 1-hour flight from Sri Lanka to stay 2, 3 or 4 nights in the Maldives. (Enough so that you can do some snorkeling, have a night in a villa on the water – and most importantly – post on Facebook to your friends: “Look, here I am in the Maldives!”.)

These new guest fly in, check in – and fly out again.

The strong brand of the Maldives drives these tourists to the islands.
The expensive prices of the Maldives resorts drives them away after a few days.

Why spend +1000 USD per night for two weeks in the Maldives when you can have 10 days on the beaches of Sri Lanka for a fraction of that cost and then still end your vacation with 3 or 4 nights in the Maldives, so you can still say that you have been there?

That is what I learnt from visiting the island of Vadoo in the Maldives today: That peace in one paradise can change the business dynamics of another country. We are all connected – our worlds more interconnected – in more ways than we think.

Fredrik Haren, aka “The Island Man”, plans to visit 100 islands, in at least 25 countries, on at least 6 continents – in less than 100 months. The purpose of this “World Tour of Islands” is to get a better understanding of the world, a deeper understanding of the people who live here and a broader understanding of life.
The Maldives was island number 3, country number 3 and months number 2.

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