Insights into a Bimbo's Mind

IT Diaries: The Darker side of Rome

Saturday, July 09, 2005

After a total of at least 15 days abroad, I’m finally back in the comfort of home. After a long nap to make up for the 13 hours of flight and 6 hours of jet lag, here I am again, reflecting back on the last few days of my holiday in Roma, Italia.

Maybe I am growing old. They say that the older you grow, the more emotional you become about little things in life because it totally surprised myself that when I was in Rome, I saw not just the grandeur and beauty of the place that use to house the Roman empire a few thousand years ago but also the decay and poverty of the city and people, which actually affected me a little bit more.

Since this is a bimbo’s blog, I am not about to rant on and on about the history of Rome nor the beautiful architectures in the city because if you wanted to know about these, probably thousands of other websites can tell you better... But through a bimbo’s eyes, this is what I see.

Art?
The first thing that caught my attention when I touched down in Rome was the extent of ‘art’ found in the streets. My of my, these are truly the descendants of Da Vincci. I feel and see the freedom of art everywhere I go. Some people call these great works in the streets, an unconventional appreciation of art. Since I’ve never been able to tell the difference between Donatello or Michaelangelo and honestly I’m not even sure if Donatello was a famous painter or butcher or even Italian for that matter, I prefer to call these things on the streets, ‘vandalism’. To the whole world, Rome is perceived as one of the most romantic cities in the world. To me, yes, I find the historical structures grand and impressive but any other structures built or created remotely recently is almost compulsory to be with some kind of grafitti or mere scribbles and this includes walls, trains, signboards, vans, and any kind of public properties you can imagine. Some of the scribbles are so bad, you can’t even look out of the window of your train to see if you’ve arrived at the right station.



The strangest thing is people here seem to think that the wall to wall scribbles are perfectly fine. No city council seems to bother with wiping them off, no authorities is bothered with nabbing these mischieves and lastly, the victims of vandalism, the people of the city themselves, seem to have gotten so used to them, they don’t even see it anymore.



Once I’ve seen on tv this lady says that metal kitchen tops are simply gorgeous though they get scratched easily but that’s part of the charm. Does the city of Rome think the same? Grafitti from wall to wall is part of the charm of the city as well? I don’t think so. It really does frustrate me that people who lives amongst such beauty does not only fail to appreciate them but instead plays a role in destroying their very own heirloom passed down from thousands of years ago.

'No Fame'
There are always two groups of people, the kind who thinks that beggars are in the streets either because they belong to a syndicate or the beggars are pure lazy and does not bother to try earning a living for themselves. The second group would be the kind who takes pity on beggars and will always try to help in any little ways possible.

For myself, I can’t quite grasp which group I belong to because my feelings does a flip-flop from side to side about 10 to 20 times every time I walk down a regular street in Rome because there are just so many of them! Some were old ladies begging in the most pitiful voice following you quite a distance, and literally begging for help, some are young men just kneeling on the ground with a sign in front of them that says, “No Fame”. As much as I am bimbo, it doesn’t take a genius to know that “No Fame” here doesn’t mean, “No Glory”. In Italian, I’ve figured out that “No Fame” in English, means, “No Food”. Some of the beggars downright puzzle me. Once I saw a 200lbs man sitting by the side of the streets begging?

But fat man or not, my overactive imagination can’t help but to make up a thousand possibilities of why they are right where they are and I guess it also doesn’t take a genius to gather that the scenarios in my head aren’t those with rainbows, roses and puppy dogs. Then I thought to myself, maybe I didn’t manage my own expectations too well. In Holland, no offence, but even the milkman has another house in the woods up north and the postman I heard has some chalets by the beach and offered Narrrling and I some free stays. Since Rome was the capital of Italy and since I saw so many Italian movies and Chinese series that totally and completely romanticized the city, I guess I didn’t expect to see this side of this beautiful city.

There are many small peddlers on the streets as well. Most of them are manned by non-Italians, or at least I assume they are not Italians because some came across to me as Africans and some Chinese and some Indians. The lesson I learnt this time is unless you’re really interested to buy something from them, if not, never show an interest. Once you have shown an interest, they could follow you down a street asking you how much you’re willing to pay for the item, practically begging you to continue with the bargaining process. In the course of walking, they would bring the price so low down that you can see the desperation in their eyes. It almost made me feel that if I didn’t buy the item from them, they would be with no food for the rest of the week and having an overactive imagination thoughts of the old grandmother, sick wife and 5 hungry children started flowing into my mind.. Probably I’m just a softie, sheltered from the true hardships of life because I find it very heart wrenching to hear desperation in their voices or from any voice for that matter. Yup, so that’s how the bimbo ends up with 3 new bags, one from Guci and 2 from Fehdi.

With attitude
Coming from a country that makes songs out of smiles and smiling, I was also a bit surprised at the ‘warm’ hospitality tourists in general receive and this time, it’s from your regular and ‘friendly’ Italiano. If you see hoards of tourist crossing the road, you honk at them as angrily as possible because they’re crossing the road on a zebra crossing when you are about to drive past it. If you’re a hotel bus driver, you shout at the tourist in your bus if he wants to be dropped off somewhere along the route you’re about to take anyway. If you’re a waiter in a restaurant, when asked, you throw the menu on the table with a loud smack and walks off without a word. If you’re a check out counter girl, you snatch the wrong receipt from the customer’s hand because she picked it up and thought it was hers. In the 5 days I was in Rome, I witnessed so many of these incidents. Then I thought, it kind of all fits, doesn’t it? Graffitti, poverty, desperation, grouchy citizens.. ?





Don’t get me wrong, I still think Rome is a beautiful place and if you’ve never visited the place, you should definitely book yourself on the next flight. I even managed to capture some amateur photographs of the Rome I thought was beautiful. Definitely, I’ve had my share of great times and good food too. Pasta with truffles, gelato, parchiutto de parma, pizza al funghi… Rome is truly a place to be if you’d like to gain weight. For people like me who wants to lose weight, bad news… gained a couple of kilos yet again, confirmed by the evil electronic weighing machine in the bathroom… Uggh.. back to cabbage soup next week..





As for the darker side of Rome, oh well, maybe I’m just spoilt. Since I’m on a holiday, I expected sunshine from the sky and glowing radiance from the people. What was I expecting, right?

posted by Miki-C @ 1:31 PM