Las Vegas (I)

We spent the Christmas holiday in Vegas, ideal location if you are traveling, as I did, with a 7 year old and a 1 year old. Las Vegas is far from Boston, almost 6 hours by plane, more or less like London, but with those little kids, it felt to me like New Zealand.
Despite the tiring trip, we had a great time. Weather was good, temperature around 65F degrees, mostly sunny, great. Our hotel was fantastic, the MGM Grand, and our room had a great view to the northern part of the Strip, we could even see the water show at the Bellagio from our room. Most of the foreign visitors were Chinese, some Europeans and people from South America, but the vast majority was Chinese. I only saw one Spanish couple.
I also saw a guy wearing the Madrid track jacket with the Barcelona soccer club logo on. I tried to take a picture, but the result was not so good. You can hardly see the jacket, but you will recognize it if you click here. I was going to delete the picture, but I thought it may become useful if he decides to go to Spain in his next trip instead of going back to Vegas. The plastic surgeon may need it to reconstruct his face.
We also went to see David Copperfield’s magician show in shifts (someone had to stay back to look after the 1 year old). It was a good show but I was somewhat disappointed. The tricks are OK, but I think I can guess the kind of technology behind and I am afraid that half of the volunteers are part of the show. In addition to it, the guy is so presumptuous. He spends 45 minutes of the show either talking about himself or showing video clips of people who praise him, but we had fun at $97 a pop.
In the wine shops I was not able to find any of the Toledo, Logroño or Murcia cava bottles that seem to be hot in the "rest of Spain" boycotting market. There was plenty of Catalan cava (Freixenet) at $14.99. What a price!!! I buy it at Costco at $6.99 and you can buy it in BCN for less that $4.00, so I decided to celebrate the new year with Bacardí;, the founder of which was born in Sitges (Barcelona) and together with some coke it lasted me for a few days, that's the cocktail we call Cuba Libre (free Cuba = Bacardí-Coke).
Another remarkable thing is that while Freixenet sales have dropped 4% in Spain as a consequence of the boycott, all the advertisement made by Freixenet in USA is Spanish stereotype centric (something that really kills me). If you go to Gloria Ferrer's website (a Freixenet group company), you will see that they advertise the Catalan Festival with Flamenco dancers (put your cursor on the picture and you will be able to read "Catalonian dancers") and a Valencian paella (I do not have a big problem with the paella, but I do not want to debate this time the Països Catalans issue).
I cannot accept that the Spanish government portrays all Spaniards in their promotion campaigns as bullfighters or flamingo dancers, but I find it even more intolerable that a Catalan company bastardizes our culture for one point of market share. Why not using the “calçotada” (grilled spring onions more or less), the “castellers” (human towers) and the “sardana” (Catalan traditional collective dance) instead?. And I have already drunk by myself two cases of Freixenet this Xmas to counter the boycott. My goodness!!!
Changing subject, in part two I will explain why I think we should create a Las Vegas in Los Monegros (Zaragoza).

Catalonia, a country without “cojones”

In the Spanish speaking countries, the word “cojones” is gross. Surprisingly in the Anglo countries the same word has pretty positive connotations (a bit “macho”, but positive). I have heard the word used in business meetings several times and I seem to be the only one who gets a bit shocked with the expression, even though the Catalan version of the word, “collons” (pronounced “koo-ee-ons”), is much softer and can be used without raising eyebrows.
To illustrate that the word “cojones” has no negative connotations among the North American Anglo community, I will mention the ad campaigned that Volkswagen started in USA a few months ago. The billboards describe its new Golf as the “Turbo-Cojones”. The campaign did not last much due to the complaints of people, mostly in Florida, who did understand the real meaning of cojones and did not want to be exposed to a gross ad promoting the “turbo-testicles” and maybe, did not want to see the saga continued with a next round of ads promoting the Jetta “Turbo-polla” (Turbo-dick).

However, for this posting, I want to stick to the Anglo meaning of “cojones” and definitely, at the end of the year 2006, I have to proclaim that Catalonia is a country without cojones.
For hundreds of years the majority of Catalans have believed that even though Spain is a good country with excellent people, it is not our country, it is not the country where we belong. We have allowed that people arriving in our country change our way of life in a way only seen in places where the invader had a much more developed culture (and army) than those invaded. A high percentage of the millions of people who came to our land, Catalonia, seeking prosperity (and many of them got it) have “hispanized Catalonia” instead of adapting to our culture and values.
But the responsibility does not lie on those who came. The responsibility lies on those who call Catalonia their nation. And the reality is that we do not have “cojones”, we always back off because we are afraid of losing what we have achieved so far. We hide our Catalan identity, because we believe that if we display it, Spanish will boycott it and foreigners will not recognize it and we will sell less. We are a country of “botiflers”, a country without “cojones”.
As an example, I am including a picture of two bottles I bought here in USA, both bought at Costco. The single malt bottle of scotch shows proudly on the front of the bottle “The Macallan distilleries Inc, Easter Elchies, Craigellachie, Scotland. Product of Scotland”. On the bottle of Freixenet “cava”, there is no reference to Sant Sadurdi d’Anoia, Barcelona or Catalonia, just a laconic “Product of Spain” on the back label. I told you, a country without “cojones”.

The first boycott lasted 300 years!!!

Last year results show that the boycott against Catalan products has had a negative effect on the sales of, at least, one of our flagship products: "Cava" (Catalan sparkling wine). Sales in Spain dropped by almost 7%, and if you take into consideration that the market grew and that, in some areas, consumption went up, it means that sales in the hardcore boycotting regions (Castilia, Valencia and Murcia) may have gone down by 15% or 20%. Fortunately exports offset this reduction and the top line remained almost flat (slightly up).
Boycotts can have very damaging effects to the economy, especially for those activities that are more hardly hit. I remember the boycott against French products when I was living in Singapore, as a result of their nuclear test at Mururoa atoll. Restaurants around the world boycotted French products. For example, Beaujolais wine was a product that was particularly targeted. DeBoeuf Beaujolais had more than 44,000 cases cancelled. In 1995, tourism to France declined by 8% while Club Med's resorts lost $1 million in profits. At the same time South African, Chilean, Australian and Californian wines, among others, seized a substantial part of shelf space in the wine shops and grocery stores that would not give away after the boycott ended.
However, we Catalans should really learn from this experience not by giving in (we are not dropping bombs, just defending out identity as a people) but by diversifying our markets. Sales to the Spanish market should be below 25% of our output. We are so vulnerable having most of the eggs in the same basket. I also think that Codorniu and Freixenet (the main producers of "cava') should buy those non Catalan cava producers that have a better quality product.
On the other side, this is not the first time that Castilia initiates a boycott against Catalonia. Even before Spain was formed, in 1486, the year in which Columbus reached Spain, the Catalans were expelled from the Casa de Contratacion, the commercial centre of Seville, which in 1504 would get exclusive rights of trading with America.
Before dying in 1504, Isabel added an appendix to her will , stating that Catalans were not only excluded from enjoying the benefits of the great discoveries, but were even forbidden to settle in or trade with the new lands.
My interpretation is that the hatred of Isabel against Catalans was due to their obstinate refusal to embrace the Castlian Inquisition and we paid the price.
It was not until 1778 that this prohibition was cancelled by Charles III who came from Naples, imbued with European ideas.
During almost 300 years, Catalonia fell into the dark ages, while the rest of Europe benefited from the discovery thanks to the Dutch, Portuguese, Genovese and Hanseatic merchants and businessmen who settled in Seville. Most probably this also shaped our spirit as a nation, creating entrepreneurss who had to rely on their own work and not on the wealth coming from the colonies and that's why Catalonia was the only area in the Iberian peninsula that did not miss the boat of the industrial revolution.

To finalize and before I go and buy some Danish pastry (I understand that some countries are calling for a boycott against Danish products), I will add the picture of a poster dated 1932 that many of you must have seen this week in the Catalan press, calling Castilians to boycott Catalan products while the first Catalan "Statute" was being debated, yes, 1932. It is worth while reading.


Note: Some of the historical data has been extracted from Josep Trueta's Spirit of Catalonia, 1946.