Naturally the subject of our colonial enterprises came up during conversation recently, seeing as although we Dutch don't often think about them anymore, having divested ourselves of not only those territories as well as any lingering guilt over having been absolutely brutal albeit extremely succesful imperialists, it's been what, three or four generations since we left Java, Sumatra, and the Moluccas forheavensakes, very many historically minded Americans are still insanely jealous over the extent of our realm. Which fuelled the subsequent rise of all other hegemonic capitalisms. As well as all advances in civilization.
And don't you ever forget that.
[Please note: When I say 'Dutch', I usually include myself in that, because I am Dutch American descended from inbred New Amsterdammers, and my family moved to the Netherlands when I was two years old. My grammar and high school education was in Dutch, and despite having no relatives engaged in draining the Indies or Africa of their riches, I'm damned proud of our having been better (worse) at imperialism and golden aging than almost everybody else.]
Growing up in Valkenswaard, I remember being sent across the square to purchase cartons of cigarettes for my mother when I was five years old, for which I got pocket money, to be happily spent on candy. When I was ten, it was comics at Priem's bookshop, next to a cigar store. The two old ladies who ran the small grocery store on the corner of the market square opposite Cafe De Swaen had retired by then, though there was still a cigarette machine on the outside wall, and one or two enamel placards advertising smokes there.
The famous Irish literary bad boy Brendan Behan in his autobiography mentioned that when you could afford a pack of factory mades, you felt on top of the world. Seeing as most of my highschool classmates smoked handrolled ciggies, heavy ("superzware") shag, because it was so much cheaper, I could understand that.
[Borstal Boy, by Brendan Francis Aidan Behan, published in 1958. Which I read when I was fourteen, and still smoking crap like Troost (J. & A.C. van Rossem Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek) or Scottish Mixture (Theodorus Niemeijer N.V.).]
A pot of strong tea, a new tin of a good pipe tobacco, and a Simenon novel I'd just begun reading, and the foggy Autumn afternoon would glide luxuriously into evening darkness. On occasion I too indulged in factory mades. That old-style British packaging, the smell of fine Virginias, with a cup of Assam or Ceylon tea. Oh my.
The world seemed smaller, but better connected.
And filled with reliable manufacturers.
Necessities and good products.
Most English tobacco brands have now disappeared, famous Dutch companies that dealt in coffee, tea, spices, quinine, and tobacco have all been swallowed up, and many people are more familiar with junkfood and mediocre chain beverages or shitty American beer than before, and the only real luxuries left are fine Chinese cigarettes smuggled in.
Especially since folks have gone all healthy and cost conscious.
Both Priem's bookstore and my favourite tobacconist in Valkenswaard have closed.
As have most tobacconists and bookstores here in the SF Bay Area.
And you cannot find quinine at any of the drugstores!
What IS this world coming to?
That said, it's probably time to order a new mosquito net for my apartment mate, given that climate change probably means more mosquitoes. They never bother me, because I taste bad. So I don't have a net around my bed. But her, she's a clean-living Chinese woman, nonsmoker, and come spring she'll need that.
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