polish plumber

I saw this story in the New York Times (pasted in -- hope the NYtimes doesn't mind!). I find the whole thing a little exasperating, considering (as the article mentions) how impossible it is to get ahold of plumbers in France. Here in Grenoble, you are lucky to get anything but a pair of delinquent teens to begrudgingly install a new water heater. And you can count on them simultaneously destroying a wall, toilet and floor in the process. But oh no, we wouldn't want access to an *actual* plumber if they're foreign! Also, today our on site cafeteria workers were on strike.

June 26, 2005


Unlikely Hero in Europe's Spat: The 'Polish Plumber'

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS, June 25 - Blond, buffed and blow-dried, a come-hither half-smile on his face, the man in the travel ad grips the tools of his trade as he beckons visitors to Poland.

"I'm staying in Poland," the man says, a set of strategically placed pipes in one hand, a metal-cutter in the other. "Lots of you should come."

He is the "Polish plumber," a mythical figure who became a central actor in the debate in France over the European Union constitution, which was roundly rejected by French voters last month. Portrayed as a predator who would move to France and steal jobs by working for less pay, this "plumber" has come to personify French fears about the future.

Now the Polish Tourism Bureau is using the character to try to allay French fears and attract visitors at the same time.

"With all the bad publicity about the 'Polish plumber,' we thought why not have a sense of humor and make him work for us?" Krzysztof Turowski, the creator of an ad on the bureau's Web site, said in a telephone interview from Warsaw.

"We picked someone handsome and clean with a sexy look in his eyes - to get the French to come to our beautiful country."

Next week the tourist office will offer Paris a firsthand look at Piotr Adamski, the 21-year-old model, who will also pose at the Eiffel Tower in the same green overalls and Stanley Kowalski T-shirt he wore in the ad.

Mr. Adamski has become such an overnight sensation that even Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Solidarity labor movement, offered him advice for his Paris trip.

"I suggest that he ask the French why the heck for so many years they encouraged Poles to build capitalism when as it turns out they are Communists themselves," Mr. Walesa, an electrician by trade, said in an interview published Friday in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. He added, "Piotr probably won't have the chance to say this, so he should at least publicize Poland well in Paris."

The ad campaign blends humor with a more serious message. At a moment when France is suffering from an unemployment rate of more than 10 percent, and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is waging what he calls a 100-day battle to combat it, it is an effort to assure the French that Polish workers have no intention of stealing their jobs.

Even if they wanted to, they could not. Under the treaty that allowed Poland and nine other countries to join the European Union last year, older members of the union can restrict access to their labor markets for up to seven years. Only Britain, Ireland and Sweden have allowed in workers from the new members.

But labor has always been one of Poland's most important exports. In a sense, the "Polish plumber" is much more than that, because in most cases he is also an electrician and sometimes even a mason, carpenter, painter and roofer as well

"It's ridiculous, truly bizarre to say Polish plumbers are dangerous for France," said Wieslaw Zieba, 55, who has worked in France as a plumber and electrician for 25 years. "Some of the things that have been said by political figures border on the xenophobic. This is a country that desperately needs more plumbers. But it's not a noble profession that everyone wants to follow. You have to clean up after flooding and unblock toilets."

Indeed, according to the French plumbing union, there is a shortage of 6,000 plumbers, and there are only about 150 Polish plumbers in France.

When Mr. Zieba first came to Paris, he said, he had no friends, knew no French and slept in the Metro. He now has dual Polish-French citizenship and runs a thriving business that also does masonry, carpentry, plumbing and electrical work.

But the fear of cheap imported labor in France is so profound that it has dominated the discourse about the troubled French economy.

The term "Polish plumber" was coined in March by Philippe de Villiers, the head of the right-wing Movement for France party, in response to a European Union proposal known as the Bolkestein directive, which would make it easier for workers to live in other member countries and receive the same salaries and benefits as if they had never left home.

The thinking behind the directive was that if goods could move freely across the borders of European Union countries, why not services?

The directive "will permit a Polish plumber to come to work in France with a salary and social protection of his country of origin," Mr. de Villiers said. He also expressed worries about the "Latvian mason" and the "Estonian gardener."

At a news conference in April, Frits Bolkestein, a former Dutch member of the European Commission, used the term himself, saying he was looking forward to the arrival of "Polish plumbers to do work, because it is difficult to find an electrician or a plumber where I live in the north of France." He said he hoped that "Czech nannies" and "Slovenian accountants" would find work in France as well.

The next week, a band of rogue electricians from the state-owned utility EDF cut off the power supply to his country home in the village of Ramousies (population 248).

Opponents of the European Union constitution, meanwhile, urged voters to reject the document, arguing falsely that it would facilitate the invasion of the Polish plumber.

The issue became so serious that Poland's president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, brought it up during an official visit to France just days before the referendum. "I know that the argument about the Polish plumber is very often used, or exploited, in France, but I must tell you that this is really exaggerated," he said. "It's not true that low-wage workers from the new members of the European Union have flooded the other countries."

Meanwhile, Mr. Adamski, the model, is getting used to his newfound fame, boasting that he spent several days installing the hot and cold water faucets in his Warsaw apartment. "I'm very pleased to be the postcard for my country," he said in a telephone interview from Warsaw.

But for a real-life Polish plumber like Mr. Zieba, who is 5 feet 4, wears old jeans and hides his belly under a multipocketed work vest, plumbers just do not look like that. Mr. Zieba noted that in the ad, Mr. Adamski is carrying the wrong cutter for the plastic and metal pipes he is holding.

"He's too lacquered, too handsome and too clean to be on a work site," Mr. Zieba said of Mr. Adamski. "He looks like something out of an X-rated fantasy film about women who are waiting for the plumber to come."
But then, he added, "I wasn't so bad when I was his age."
Helene Fouquet contributed reporting for this article.

Japanese Snack Roundup

My parents sent me some japanese snacks from Japan, which I thought I would start reviewing (see my review of party time crabs). I won't bother with the conventional things like modifications on the Pocky theme, but there are a few that are worth discussion. The first is a WAKAME variation:

And although I like wakame, pickled seaweed isn't really what I expect to find in a little resealable snack pack, complete with a toothpick. Actually, I was thinking that maybe it was candy that looked like wakame, but no, its actually seaweed

I wasn't let down by the promise of "Natural Deliciousness" (conspicuously the only english on the package). It was indeed tasty, but seems to score low with western palates like chloe's, who spat it out upon contact with her tongue.

Next up, one of my favorites, and not new to me: crazy sour things.

These are little sugary drops, coated with what must be pure citric acid. They are REALLY sour at first, but relent into a kind of gummy sweetness. I've noticed that your tongue actually starts to physically hurt after eating too many of these.

Finally, Choco Baby.

In the land of fancy chocolates, I haven't been able to bring myself to open these yet, because they look like little chocolate flavored wax pellets. I envision a huge extruding machine where the plastic waste of tokyo, and some small molecule which tricks your brain into thinking "chocolate!" are fed into one end, and little pellets are fired out of the other end. I won't be tasting these unless I get very, very hungry.

Canyoning the Furon

Laurent took us on the first half of the FuronCanyon in the Vercors. I borrowed a wet suit from Laurent, and barely crammed myself into it, while Lolo and Chloe fit into theirs easily

The water is shallow and very very cold, even in the sweltering heat we've been having.

The first difficult part was a jump into a narrow canyon. Its possible to rappell it, but Lolo had been there last week and had scoped out the pool at the bottom, which was quite deep. Here, he describes how to get down in one piece


and a look down into the gorge

Lolo after a successful jump

A little hesitation by chloe

... and a JUMP!!

And thirty three feet later

Lolo getting set up for another jump

and a few seconds to take a picture and let our hearts calm down a bit

Slogging out of the first constriction


and then to another jump




etc etc




It was really fun, and perfect for a hot day. From parking to parking it took us 2 hours, so its not a very long canyon. We didnt do the second part because we didn't have a rope to do the large rappel further down the river.

yay!

My Fujis were finally received by Fuji Repair in NJ, and the estimate is less than half the french price for ONE camera. Another victory for the global marketplace!

Fete de la Musique

Tonight was fete de la musique: a France wide music celebration in which the streets are filled with bands of widely varying skills. Chloe was still tired from a long conference in Heidelberg, so I went out with some friends. I get a little claustrophobic when I'm packed in shoulder to shoulder with throngs of people, but it was still fun. We sat outside at a bar and watched a band with one of our colleagues play marilyn manson (sp?) covers. I ran into a lot of people who I hadn't seen for a while, including our climbing friend Jerome, and my ex-collaborator Maxim. He was there with his wife and a friend, and they all were pulling deeply from matching 40oz bottles of cheap beer. As I looked nervously at his his 40, he asked me
"YOU LAIKE MARILEEN MANSEN TOO?" in his cool Dracula voice. I'm actually not a huge fan, but they were psyched and doing a good job. The only problem was that the electronic drum set sounded tinny and not very drum like at all.

We headed back towards Gambetta in search of ice cream, but the chocolatier which sells ice cream looked like it had closed up shop at 11:00 or so. Along the way, we passed an up-with-people type of band, which was strangely enough greeted with a lot of enthusiasm by the crowd.

Nice moon

Took this shot of the moonrise over the Belledonne yesterday (looking south from Grenoble). Apparently the full moon is at its lowest in eighteen years

comboire

I went to "Comboire", a climbing area near Claix today and almost melted. The rock cooked our hands and feet, and we were forced to retreat after a few hours.

expat moment

As I was emailing my service bureau with my new address, I suddenly realized how many of my "things" are on planes and warehouses throughout the world right now. I have a set of prints that people have ordered which are being loaded onto a van bound for the airport as I write this. The do it yourself speaker kit which I ordered is en route (probably on a truck) from germany. My amplifier control vacuum tubes will be shipped tomorrow from Hong Kong. My workhorse Fuji medium format cameras are still being delivered by the idiots at chronopost, and are in a warehouse somewhere in JFK. And the reasons?

There aren't any service bureaus in france with the kind of printer I need (and even if there was I couldn't afford it). So I do business with a company I trust in California.

Speakers and anything else electronic (like 1920s era vacuum tubes) cost about 2 times more than the already overinflated stereo prices charged in the US, so I buy from Germany and Hong Kong.

Fuji france wants the price of the camera to repair my 8 year old GA645i, so I have to ship my cameras to the Fuji repair center in Edison NJ. This makes sense in a way because I bought them in the states, but still!

The punchline is that the French are taxing themselves out of many markets. As an example, many professional French photographers end up saving money by flying to Hong Kong and New York for their gear purchases, compared to buying in France. And yes, that includes the plane fare.

Lyon Food Posters

Chloe and I went to Lyon today to spend a lot of money at Au Vieux Campeur, look for ECC81 tubes for my new amplifier and most importanty: go to Caro de Lyon in celebration of my first photo show and selling my first print. After buying a new rope and shoes, we started walking towards the presqu'isle. Along the way, we saw that the Prefecture (local governmental installation) seemed to be wreathed in pictures of delicious things!

Upon closer examination, we discovered that there was a large "installation" celebrating Lyons status as the culinary capital of France. Chloe and I wandered around, mesmerized by the beautiful color photos. Not surprisingly, since it was so close to dinner time, we noticed many other people stumbling along in dream like stupors, hypnotized by the deliciousness. I'm pretty sure we looked at every single one, and I took pictures of most of them. Here they are (all images are clickable to see the larger version with more legible text)




















We rested our feet in a small park near the prefecture, surveyed our au-Vieux-Campeur booty, including chloes
"P-mates"(for when we are on multi pitch alpine routes, I HOPE)
,
then set off towards Le Caro de Lyon. Along the way we saw a boat which had been converted into a garden


and then we commenced with the eating. We both got the Menu de degustation (is it any wonder after looking at the prefecture photos?!). Although we both ordered the menu (76 euro), they gave us different plates for everything except the olive soup and the dessert (you can choose the dessert).

Soupe d'olives vertes, salade de pain et tomates au basilic, langoustines roties.
Fantastic. We had this at our last meal. The cool olive soup goes perfectly with the grilled crayfish.


Terrine de pigeon roti aux figues et amandes torrefiees, feuilles demaches aux poires et celeri
Roasted squab with figs and grilled almonds, pears and celery mache salad. Very nice, but pigeon?


Croustillant de fois gras au pain d'epices, calisson d'aubergines, saveurs pistache et melon
Crispy foie gras with 5 spices bread and eggplant caviar calisson from Aix en Provence flavoured pistachio and melon.
This was fantastic. The top was a delicate creme brulee


Tartare de thon rouge en croustillant de tofu, framboisine de tomate en effeuillee de salade japonaise
Tuna tartar, crispy to-fu, tomatoes rasberries coulis with japanese herbs salad
Excellent again... but not what I would call a Japanese flavor at all.


I'm not sure what this was exactly, but it was the only dish that really fell flat on its face: It tasted like a bad imitation of "asian" cooking.


Sandre du Rhone, chutney de betterave et coeur de sucrine, fricassee d'escargots aux noisettes, creme de laitue
Pan pike perch and snails fricassee, chutney of beet and lettuce cream.
I'm not sure that this description is of the dish below, but it was almost perfect. The fish was just a tiny tiny bit too oily, but was still wonderful


Turbot en filet, mariniere d'asperges blanches au parfum du Bearn, emulsion a l'ail des ours
Filet of turbot, white asperagus, cold Bearnaise and honey garlic emulsion.
Perfect.


Carre d'agneau roti aux mangues, fenouil braise et mijote de tomates, salade de jeunes pousses d'epinard
Rack of lamb with mangos braised fennels and tomatoes, baby spinach salad
This was another welcome re-run from the Springtime menu that we had last time.


Lobe de foie gras poele, figue farcie et pomme ecrasee au gingembre, sirop de fruits a la cardamone
Pan foie gras, stuffed figs and crushed potatoes with ginger, sirop of red fruits flavoured with cardamon.
If I hadn't had the other foie gras plate I think I would have enjoyed this more. But it was still very tasty. The stuffed fig was pretty interesting and complemented the foie grassyness well.


next, St. Marcellin and Fromage Blanc (no need to take pictures of these!)

And finally,
Fondant de chocolat "Ivoire", marmelade d'agrumes et son sorbet
Melting white chocolate cake with citrus fruits marmelade and sorbet
no words for this one.. too good.