China Goes Global 2014
Zhouzhuang water village, China

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Wilted, at Zhouzhuang water village, Jiangsu, China.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

As if apologetic that all I’ve experienced this time in Shanghai in terms of weather was rain and grey skies, the weather took a turn for the chirpier on the day I was to visit Zhouzhuang, deciding to turn on sunshine at full blast. This was not so much seen as already felt in the early hours after sunrise. Standing under the concrete shelters of the hotel, I had already begun to swelter. Continue reading “China Goes Global 2014
Zhouzhuang water village, China” →

China Goes Global 2014
Visit to ZTE Corporation, Shanghai

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ZTE Corporation, Shanghai, China.
Text & Photo © C Lattemann, JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Founded in 1985, ZTE Corporation is China’s first dual listed company. Listed on both the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock exchanges, ZTE is a giant of a corporation hidden in plain view with its revenue in 2013 hitting a cool 12 billion USD. And it is growing rapidly yet. The telecommunications equipment and systems company that plays a principal role in supporting China’s massive constructions of 4G networks, surpasses the more renowned Europe based Siemens, Ericsson and Philips in patented innovations, reporting a sustained triple digit profit growth in its nine month forecast in 2014. Continue reading “China Goes Global 2014
Visit to ZTE Corporation, Shanghai” →

China Goes Global 2014
Warm rain and gelato in Shanghai

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Along Panyu Lu, Shanghai, with Esther Dijk, from Canada.
Text & Photo © M Salman, CM Cordeiro 2014

It’s been a few days of royal tropical downpours in Shanghai, the warm kind of rain that leaves little room to deny a hot chocolate and a scoop, or three, of ice-cream.

After initially checking into the wrong hotel, and lamenting the fact that I will need to forgo both the hot chocolate, and one particular ice-cream parlour near that hotel that I had become somewhat addicted to when last in Shanghai, I was delirious happy as a butterfly on nectar, to have found this outlet just three minutes around the corner and out the door of where I am currently staying. Continue reading “China Goes Global 2014
Warm rain and gelato in Shanghai” →

August crayfish 2014

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Crayfish. Often consumed, under the “soft August moonlight” (Swahn 2004:248), is popular in Sweden during the late summer months.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

From saving Middle Ages monks from starving too much during the long period of Easter Lent, and in 1522, being prescribed as a remedy for cholera, to later being seen as disgusting to eat because they were thought to be scavenger creatures that fed particularly on human corpses, the humble crayfish has seen its ups and downs in terms of reputation: Continue reading “August crayfish 2014” →

Swedish west coast Harbour Festival, Donsö 2014

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“What do you mean this is not antique?”
Donsö hamnfest 2014
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

So autonomous are the archipelago islanders that closest neighbours, living in the same summer house, agreed to visit the harbour festival each at their own time and convenience, coming back to discuss, “So, what did you think about the harbour festival? Did you like it?”

Most noticeable this year was the lack of an urgent and pushy crowd, witnessed only a few years ago at this annual hamnfest. The change in general behaviour could perhaps be attributed to several factors, though two that come across as most likely are, that the festival this year seemed catered much more to children’s summer activities with a mini-Libseberg of sorts going on, and the other being the establishing of online communities of trade that the islanders had initiated, rendering trading in goods and services between themselves an everyday affair where the harbour festival provided a bolstering physical meeting point. Continue reading “Swedish west coast Harbour Festival, Donsö 2014” →

Blåbärskräm | blueberry cream

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Blåbärskräm or cream of blueberry.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

“Wow, this is fantastic! What was it you said that goes into making this blueberry sauce?”

“Pieces of chess – chessmen – as how you lay them on a chessboard. It is not one ingredient or another, but a combination of factors that includes time, over two decades.”

It was blueberry cheesecake topped with a luscious, syrupy blueberry filling, softly oozing down the sides of the cake as it was placed in front of me at a café in Singapore, that had me at hello darling – what are you, and where have you been my entire life? I was fourteen. It was the first time I was having a baked cheesecake topped with blueberry filling. It looked good.

But even then I realised that I needed to take that blueberry filling home with me somehow. By ‘home’ it was meant, anywhere in the world that I was. If there were blueberries to be found, then there was this to become swiftly of them. I knew at first sight, I needed the recipe to this mouthful of creamy deep blue-purple heaven that wasn’t one bit infused with any sort of chocolate. Yes, what insight into my own culinary visions. Continue reading “Blåbärskräm | blueberry cream” →

Uttervik waves, Swedish westcoast archipelago

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At the Swedish west coast archipelago, Styrsö.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

“It seems like the more I read, the less I understand of things and how they work.” was the exasperated comment.

He looked up from the daily broadsheet, his expression curious and silent.

“For example, if people knew about Gravesian theory, would they then choose to not intervene without first understanding the larger circumstance of society, how it worked in that context, and with that, the consequences to follow, following certain actions? Would they not know? They should know, no?”

He smiled then and nodded, “Things, go in waves. So I’m a little more optimistic than you are in that sense.” Continue reading “Uttervik waves, Swedish westcoast archipelago” →

Sandvikshamnen, Styrsö 2014

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

On top of a granite boulder that has been softly rounded by the Scandinavian Ice Sheet during the last ice age, ca. 11,000 BC at Sandvikshamnen, a guest harbour found at the Swedish west coast archipelago, Styrsö.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

The landscape of the Swedish west coast noticeably lacks sandy beaches. In place of sandy beaches are granite rocks, shaped by thousands of years of mostly cold winds and rains. These rocks have been around for quite awhile and have been smoothened round by the moving glacial ice sheets of the last ice age to render soft looking mounds, set against the horizon of the North sea. But appearances can be deceiving as the granite composites are anything but soft; comfortable only in as much as you can make on them yourself with brought cushions and fluffy beach towels. Continue reading “Sandvikshamnen, Styrsö 2014” →

Sailing schools with wind in their sails

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Styrsö

A touch of Spain along the Swedish west coast: scarf, from Barri Gòtic in Barcelona 2011.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

For the first time in more than a decade, I stayed home during the summer, as in, remaining in Sweden during the warmest part of the year.

These evenings, we are often greeted by the monotonous rumble of high powered pleasure crafts going up and down the western archipelago, of people seeking yet another hip place to spend the night (where there seems to be as many rock festivals lined up along the Swedish west coast as you can anchor), alternatively, an absolutely silent and secluded natural harbour, where you will be lulled to sleep by the soft evening breeze to wake up to the curious pecking of some sea fowls finishing off your evening meal carelessly forgotten out in the open. Continue reading “Sailing schools with wind in their sails” →