November 23, 2005
Pristina: Odds and Ends
There are some Chinese shops in Pristina. (Shops run by Chinese, that is.)
A couple in Skopje, too. There are thousands of Chinese in Belgrade and Bucharest... I think we've mentioned this?
There are also a couple of Chinese restaurants. I had dinner in one. Pretty good Kung Pao Chicken, and those cucumber chunks rolled in pepper sauce and garlic. Nice.
The owner had a 10-month-old baby. In a generation there will be Chinese-Serbs, Chinese-Romanians, and Chinese-Kosovars. Not a lot, but a few thousand, concentrated in the big cities.
I have no problem with this, myself, but the locals don't seem too happy about it.
-- The Presidential Seal of Albania will be instantly familiar to anyone who has seen the Presidential Seal of the United States. That's because it IS the Presidential Seal of the United States. The Albanians, loving Americans as they do, copied it. The only difference is the color scheme (red and black instead of red, white and blue), plus they have the Albanian two-headed eagle instead of the American eagle.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find an image online. But it's quite something. It looks like someone hit the US seal with gamma rays and turned it all dark and bloody and heavy metal EVIL.
I know it's not the Albanian's fault that their flag is... well, kinda scary. It was meant to be scary. The snarling-Doberman colors, the mutant-looking double eagle: it was Scanderbeg's flag, and he was engaged in a desperate war for survival. He wanted to creep out the enemy, and I bet it worked.
Still, I'm hoping that when the Kosovars finally adopt a flag of their own, they do something to modify the ancestral Albanian color scheme. Like maybe, red, black, cream, beige, and a soothing dove-gray.
-- There's a cool little music store in central Pristina. It's hard to describe where, exactly, because streets in Pristina get pretty confusing. Um, it's in an older part of town, about five minutes downhill from the Hotel Grand and around the corner to the left. Wait, it's in front of Pirates restaurant. There.
Anyway, it's called "Music and Movies that Matter" -- yah, in English -- and it's basically the music store from High Fidelity. We all saw High Fidelity, right? I almost expected to find jack Black behind the counter.
It was really good. Small and cramped but clean. They had a stove and a little old dog asleep in a basket. The music was very heavy on stuff from the '70s and '80s, but they had some more recent albums too, including some mp3 collections. Very friendly clerk -- a Warren Zevon fan, so we hit it off right away.
Me? I scored some old Lou Reed and a bunch of Smiths mp3s. The lights went out halfway through, but the clerk lit a couple of candles and I finished browsing by candlelight.
The prices were, ah, reasonable. Maybe half were "These CDs belonged to someone who died in the war or moved to America, and we're just trying to get a few dollars for them" reasonable, and the other half maybe "Arrr! Walk the plank, ye scurvy dog!" reasonable.
I've told you about the Brooklyn construction firm that has a blood red van with the black double-headed eagle as its logo, right? They renovated the local Montessori school, and they did a really nice job too.
It's a pity that Balkan countries aren't more accepting of Chinese immigrants. It doesn't surprise me, considering. I'm not casting stones -- changing a society into one that readily accepts immigrants is a new thing in human history, and it's hard work. The benefits are pretty good, though.
Posted by: Carlos at November 24, 2005 04:20 PM"Pirates restaurant"?
They steal your food? They play baseball?
Posted by: Lois Fundis at November 25, 2005 08:32 AMDoug wrote:
Pretty good Kung Pao Chicken
In all the Chinese Restaurants I've seen with this dish in Australia, it's spelt 'Jung Po Chicken'. Wondering if this is some Pinyin / Wade-Giles thing.
* * * *
Carlos wrote:
The benefits are pretty good, though.
Strong agreement.
- Syd
Posted by: Syd Webb at November 25, 2005 10:48 AMDon't know if the Chinese really are all that impopular. Maybe not "I don't mind if you marry my daugther" popular but not "racial progrom" either.
Chinese immigrants don't seem to cause the same 'problems' as muslim immigrants do in Western Europe (partly, of course, because there's not as many of them). No reason why things should be different in E. Europe.
Weren't the Chinese in Serbia invited by Milosevic? I heard/read somewhere that it was a plan to boost his socialist party, don't know if there's any truth to that though. Anybody out there know?
Posted by: Oskar L. at November 25, 2005 01:26 PMFor background on the Albanian-Chinese connection, I recommend Ismail Kadare's novel The Concert.
Posted by: Danny Yee at November 26, 2005 02:02 PMhttp://fotw.vexillum.com/flags/al.html claims that the "Flag of the President of the Republic of Albania" is just a square version of the national flag. (I guess the "seal" is a distinct bit of vexillology).
I hoped to find a picture of the seal at http://www.president.al/ but couldn't. That site has lots of charming pictures of Alfred Moisiu.
Posted by: Dennis Brennan at November 28, 2005 05:49 PMhttp://fotw.vexillum.com/flags/al.html claims that the "Flag of the President of the Republic of Albania" is just a square version of the national flag. (I guess the "seal" is a distinct bit of vexillology).
I hoped to find a picture of the seal at http://www.president.al/ but couldn't. That site has lots of charming pictures of Alfred Moisiu.
Posted by: Dennis Brennan at November 28, 2005 05:50 PMHi Dennis,
It's the seal of the President of Kosovo, not Albania.
The search may be complicated by the fact that Kosovo is not internationally recognized as a country yet. No flag yet, either.
Doug M.
What's the status on a flag for Kosovo? I understand they had a Flag Day recently. What flag was used?
I imagine that if a future independent Kosovo is to be a multiethnic state it can't go on using the Albanian eagle or any other ethnic Albanian symbols. Any early speculation at what it might look like?
Likewise, what's the status on the national anthem? Do they have one now? I guess in an independent Kosovo it would have to be in both albanian and serbian and have a text acceptable to both parties.
Posted by: Oskar L. at November 29, 2005 03:41 PMThey're using the Albanian flag. And a recent poll showed that a clear majority want to keep on doing just that... they like the Albanian flag, and they don't want to change.
No national anthem yet, either.
Doug M.
http://fotw.vexillum.com/flags/cs-kosov.html
has a discussion of various flags of Kosovo, including the Odd Black Blotch Flag. No bizarro-world Presidential Seal, though.
Yes, Chinese in Serbia were invited by Milosevic.-Oskar, why the Kosovar anthem should be in Albanian and Serbian? The percentage of Serbs living in Kosovo is 3%, let s say it will be 6%, 9%. Does all countries in the world have their anthem translated also in their minorities language? American anthem in Spanish? German anthem in Turkish? Nonsense!- It may be Kosovo Serbs used to enjoy being privileged comparing to others in the province but that time is over.
Posted by: Buna at January 17, 2006 12:19 PMthere are probably a couple thousands of chinese migrants in Albania as well... they're filling the market gaps with low cost products "made in China", chinese food, construction specialists, chinese traditional medecine etc... doesn't look like albanians are upset with them installing in their country, au contraire...
Posted by: tommy at February 20, 2006 07:16 PMI believe anyone have the right to emigrate in another country as long as they implement the culture, rules and norms of that country. There are no particular immigration restrictions.
Regarding the future flag of Kosovo, it should not be a discussion matter changing the flag or not having the same flag as Albania as long as Albania agrees their flag to be use by Kosovars. It is no ones right and especially others going against Kosovars using Albania's flag if Albania its not against it. Why bother!!! Kosovo and Albania are not the only countries who have the same flag, what’s the difference between the French flag and the Russian. Same color stripes just different order; or the difference between the flag of Slovenia and Slovakia and Russia??
It's not up to no other but the countries who will share the same flag.
I believe anyone have the right to emigrate in another country as long as they implement the culture, rules and norms of that country. There are no particular immigration restrictions.
Regarding the future flag of Kosovo, it should not be a discussion matter changing the flag or not having the same flag as Albania as long as Albania agrees their flag to be use by Kosovars. It is no ones right and especially others going against Kosovars using Albania's flag if Albania its not against it. Why bother!!! Kosovo and Albania are not the only countries who have the same flag, what’s the difference between the French flag and the Russian. Same color stripes just different order; or the difference between the flag of Slovenia and Slovakia and Russia??
It's not up to no other but the countries who will share the same flag.
I believe anyone have the right to emigrate in another country as long as they implement the culture, rules and norms of that country. There are no particular immigration restrictions.
Regarding the future flag of Kosovo, it should not be a discussion matter changing the flag or not having the same flag as Albania as long as Albania agrees their flag to be use by Kosovars. It is no ones right and especially others going against Kosovars using Albania's flag if Albania its not against it. Why bother!!! Kosovo and Albania are not the only countries who have the same flag, what’s the difference between the French flag and the Russian. Same color stripes just different order; or the difference between the flag of Slovenia and Slovakia and Russia??
It's not up to no other but the countries who will share the same flag.
The Netherlands and Luxemburg have the same flag too. The source is a (rather short) common history.
Posted by: Wim at May 19, 2006 03:02 PMThe people of Kosova, have a right to decide their own flag, anthem and anything else that comes up during the making of the state of Kosova. I would prefer that the current flag, Double headed eagle (Albania) would countinue to be used but if a referendum is held and the people of Kosova decide for a different flag, than that is fine too.
Posted by: Josh at July 30, 2006 10:31 PMFrance, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Paraguay all use blue-red-white strips on their flags.
Serbian and Serbia government made the statement.
No red-white-blue-black colors on Kosova (Dardania) flag, because Serbian minority will be offended.
We Ilirian don't beg for equality, parity from Europeans because they were ignoring and are ignoring us.
We have the right publicly to condemn this act of Serbians and their government as a SUBVERSIVE and DIVERSIVE act that means to SABOTATE the FLAG and the future of Dardania.
SERBIA WAS THE TROUBLEMAKER OF BALKAN.
Their tactics were manipulating the history, forging lies to swim in the half-truth waters, humiliating, stealing, torturing, killing their non Serb neighbors.
Unfortunately no matter that the facade is changed, from inside they remain the same.
Their actions prove this.