昨日の話の続きみたいになるが、国民性というのはあるようでいてないようでいて、やっぱりあるものなのだと思う。
それを感じたのは、ある協力隊員から、彼女の友達のKOV (Korea Overseas Volunteers)隊員のことを聞いた時だ。
ある日、彼女がそのKOV隊員と世間話をしている際に、別のKOV隊員の話になった。すると相手は、
「私、彼とは話があまり合わないの。だって彼、仏教徒だから」
と言ったとのこと。
ちなみに本人はクリスチャンである。(*1)
その後、バングラデシュは首都ダッカにある韓国料理レストランで食事をしている最中に、国民性の違いはやっぱりあるんじゃないかということが頭をよぎった。
ちょうど、協力隊員の間でも評判の高かった日本料理レストランがつぶれてしまった頃のことだ。
そのレストランが出来る前、バングラデシュには首都のダッカにさえ日本料理レストランが1軒しかなかった。そこの料理はたいていまずく、まずいならまだましで、時には到底日本料理とは思えないものも出てきた。1軒しかない日本料理レストランだったから、それでも協力隊員、特に地方で活動する隊員はダッカを訪れた際に連れ立って出かけていたが、バングラデシュで暮らしている協力隊員以外の日本人のほとんどは、ダッカ在住で日本食が気軽に手に入るし、日本料理が作れる料理人を雇っていた人も多かったので、足を運ぶことはなかった。
そんな時、新しい日本料理レストランが出来た。正確には元からあったレストランのオーナーが日本人に代わったのだ。メニューにはそれまで通り、韓国料理や中華料理、タイ料理も載っていたが、日本料理に力を入れるようになった。とにかく本格的な日本料理が食べられる、ということで協力隊員たちは狂喜した。(驚いたことに蕎麦がとても美味しかった。)
ところが開店して1年も経たないうちに店の閉業が決まった。噂によると、契約更新の際、土地の所有者が契約金をべらぼうに釣り上げたのだとか、そもそも土地が二重登記されていて新たに登場した所有者が文句をつけてきたのだとか、とにかく店のオーナーと土地の所有者の間にトラブルがあったのだそうだ。
何故そんなことが韓国料理レストランに関係あるのかというと、
「そう言えばこのレストランにも似たような経緯があったのではなかったか」
と料理を食べながら思い出したからである。
その場所にはもともと似たような名前の別の韓国料理レストランがあった。ところが韓国人オーナーとベンガル人マネージャーの間の確執が高じて分裂。土地がらみの話で韓国人オーナーが撤退せざるを得なくなったのだが、それほど遠くない別の場所で再び開店したらしい。
ちなみにベンガル人マネージャーはその場所で元の名前の頭に「新・」を付けて営業を続けていたのである。
ちなみに当時バングラデシュには本格的な中華レストランもなかった。その代わり、中華風の料理は地方都市にも広がり、食べ物に関しては非常に保守的なバングラデシュ人にも受け入れられていた。(「ちょっと今日は奮発して中華(風)レストランに食べに行かない?」みたいな感じ。)
「今日の夕食はちょっと中華風にしてみたの」
という風に、家庭で取り入れる人も中にはいた。
日本料理はバングラデシュ人の口に合わないようだ。
あまりに何度も「日本の料理を何か作って食べさせてくれ」と言われるから、一度かぼちゃの煮物を作って職場で試食してもらったことがある。約10人中、海外在住経験のある2人か3人は普通に食べられた(ただし「美味しい」とは思っていなかったようだ)が、他は全滅。大半は口では「美味しい」と言うが、顔が無茶苦茶である。中には「なんで青唐辛子入ってないの?」と言う人もいた。
同じようなことをやってみた協力隊員は結構いたらしい。ある人はバングラデシュ人の家族をご飯と鶏の唐揚げと澄まし汁というメニューでもてなしたら、全然だめだったらしい。ちなみに私はともかく、その人は料理の上手な人だった。
韓国料理は一部バングラデシュ人には受け入れられていたようだ。一般的なバングラデシュ人には受け入れられないが、ダッカで高級住宅街に住むような人にとっては、韓国料理レストランで食事をすることはステイタスのようなものらしい。ものすごく着飾って食べに来る。もっとも他の韓国料理レストランではほとんどバングラデシュ人を見かけなかったので、あれは新オーナーの営業活動の成果だったのかもしれない。
当時、ダッカの高級住宅街だけとは言え、バングラデシュには少なくとも4軒の韓国料理レストランがあった。この4軒は「韓国風」の料理ではなく本格韓国料理を供していた。
方や日本料理は1軒だけ。しかも本格とは到底言いがたい。(しかも数ヵ月後にはその1軒すらもなくなったのである。)
食べたい物、ひいては欲しい物を着実に形にする(そして手に入れる)力が韓国人は強いのではないか、と思った。というか逆にそういう「握力」のようなものが日本人はなさすぎるのではないか?
確かに当時、在バングラデシュの日本人より、在バングラデシュの韓国人の数の方が多いと聞いたことがある(*2)から、レストランの数の差は(人数の違いによる)需要の差にすぎないのかもしれないが、この在バングラデシュ人数の差に、韓国人と日本人の生命力の差が現れていないか?
(ちなみに当時の在バングラデシュの中国人の数については、橋の建設など大型のプロジェクトに携わる中国人建設作業員の出入りで増減が激しかったためよくわからない。)
これは果たして韓国と日本の「国民性」の違いであろうか?
私は何となくそんな気がしているが、国民性は普遍的なものではなく、その時その時の国のあり方や社会状況によって変わり、そしてむしろ非常に変わりやすいものだと思うので、当時自分なりに感じたことについて、あまり声高に言うのはやめておこうと思う。
*1
KOVの隊員はみんな韓国でもごく限られた層の出身者(かなりエリートらしい)だと聞いた。だから韓国の社会全体としてこういう傾向があるのかどうかは実はわからない。
*2
確か日本人が300~350人、韓国人が500人余りだったと思う。(自信なし。)
Yesterday, I might seem not to think people have the characteristics of a nation. I think they have, though. They sometimes seem to have and sometimes seem not to have, but actually, they have, I think.
It was when I heard about a KOV (Korea Overseas Volunteers) member who was a friend of a JOCV member that I wondered if we have the characteristics of a nation at the first time.
One day, the JOCV member talked with the KOV member about another KOV member.
"I rarely talk with him because we are not on the same wavelength. He is a Buddhist.", said the friend who was a Christian. (*1)
I remembered it while I had dinner at a Korean restaurant in Dhaka which is the capital city of Bangladesh.
It was just after a Japanese restaurant which was much popular among JOCV members was shut down.
Before the Japanese restaurant opened for business, There were only one Japanese restaurant in Bangladesh, which was in Dhaka. Their food was not nice. To make matters worse, they sometimes served something not like Japanese food. They were the only one, though. So JOCV members who stayed in a place far from Dhaka sometimes went together to the restaurant when they met in Dhaka. Few people except them went there. I think people who were not a JOCV member never went there. Most of them lived in Dhaka and could get Japanese food from a shop easily. And many of them employed a cook who could cook Japanese dishes.
Then, however, the new Japanese restaurant opened for business. Exactly speaking, they had opened long time before. A new Japanese owner took the former owner's place at the time. The new owner focuses his business on Japanese dishes though they served Korean, Chinese and Thai dishes as before. It got JOCV members to be wild with joy. (I was surprised that Japanese SOBA noodles was excellent.)
So we all were surprised and disappointed that we heard they would entirely shut down the restaurant about one year later. Some people said the owner of the land made a rent incredibly much higher when they renewed their contract, or the land had a double registration and the other owner appeared suddenly and complained about the contract. I'm not sure which it was, but there sounded to be a trouble between the owner of the restaurant and the owner of the land.
What reminded me of it during eating dinner in the Korean restaurant was that I remembered the Korean restaurant had had a same trouble as it.
Before them, there was another Korean restaurant with a similar name at the same place, but the Korean owner and the Bengali manager of the restaurant were separated after their feud. The owner lost the lease contract of the land. He moved into another place which was not so far from his old place and opened a new Korean restaurant with same name.
The manager kept on his business at the same place with no change but the name of the restaurant. He add a word "New "on the head of the former name.
There was not any real Chinese restaurant in Bangladesh, either, but there were many Chinese style restaurants in other cities as well as in Dhaka. Bangladeshi are usually very conservative about food, but many of them liked Chinese style foods. They sometimes went to a Chinese style restaurant on a special occasion. Sometimes, some of them even took such a Chinese style into their cooking at home.
Most of them never got to like Japanese foods, though.
At first, Bangladeshi people around me asked me so many times to cook a Japanese dish for them, so one day, I cooked pumpkin in a Japanese style and took it to the office. After nearly 10 people tried some, I found it tasted good to no one except a few people who once lived in a foreign country. The two or three people looked OK, but the other people looked so painful even though many of them said "It is good". One of them asked me honestly "Madam, why didn't you put some green chilies in it?".
Some JOCV members would be in the same situation as mine. One of them who was a good cook cooked rice, fried chicken and Japanese clear soup for a Bangladeshi family, but they looked terrible after they taste the dinner.
Some Bangladeshis except ordinary people possibly got to like Korean foods. In the Korean restaurant, there were many Bangladeshis in their best. They looked very upper-class people who lived near the restaurant. The area around them was an exclusive residential district. I wondered if they had dinner in such a Korean restaurant to show their social status, but I found few Bangladeshis in other Korean restaurants, so it might be the result of the new owner's efforts.
In those days, there were at least 4 Korean restaurants. They were a real one, not a Korean style one.
On the other hand, how about a Japanese restaurant? There was only one which was far from a real one. (And besides, even this would gone several months later.)
It made me think Korean people much more powerful than Japanese. They had much more vitality to realize something they want as well as something they want to eat, didn't they? We have too little, don't we?
I heard there were more Koreans than Japanese in those days. (*2) So I should take the difference between the numbers of two peoples into consideration because it might caused the difference between their demands, but the mumbers of Korean residents in Bangladesh itself shows their vitality, doesn't it?
(I'm not sure of the number of Chinese people in those days because many Chinese workers who were assigned to such a big project as a bridge construction always came from and went back to China.)
Is such a vitality one of the characteristics of Korea? Is it one of differences between Koreans and Japanese?
I'm not sure but I feel it is somehow, but I think such characteristics are up to the temporary situation of a nation or their social circumstances which is so changeable. The characteristics of a nation are not universal truths. So I will never speak what I thought about them in a loud voice. (*3)
*1
I heard from the JOCV member that all KOV members were from a very limited class and they were the elite. So I can't tell how the other Korean people think about religion.
*2
There possibly might be 300-350 Japanese and a little more than 500 Koreans, but I'm not sure.
*3
In this diray, "Korea" mainly means "the Republic of Korea" and "Korean" mainly means "South Korean".