Gifting endeavors
A month before the 2013 G20 summit in St. Petersburg, President Obama canceled a scheduled one-on-one meeting with Putin – “a rare, deliberate snub,” according to my paper, borne by such issues as Russia’s harboring of Edward Snowden and support for the Assad regime in Syria. Given the world we now live in, it feels quaint to think of this as being at one point a high-water mark for international discord. Obama, after all, still attended the summit and was received by Putin, who gifted him a porcelain tea set made in the abstract suprematist style.
Photos show a fetching tea service crafted by Nalya Petrova, the head artist at Russia’s Imperial Porcelain Factory. Looking at it gives me the feeling of looking at some kind of rail train, locomotive etc. It has an industrious character.
Earlier this week, while working in Cambodia, I chanced upon the Obama presidential library website, which contains a public and searchable repository of gifts to the First Family from 2008-2016. This is an extremely fun archive, I soon realized, for two reasons: 1) I’m very nosy about these kinds of things, and 2) the time period is lowkey nostalgic. Like wandering into a store and hearing for the first time in a long time the tinny electronic rain drop sound of “Super Bass.” Like, oh…
It takes only 10 years for anything at all to become sentimental.
For example: An elegant satin cushion gifted in 2009 by Berlusconi, pre-resignation, at the height of his sex scandals and personal war with The Economist. Berlusconi… I don’t know why but his simultaneously plasticky and wrinkled face swirls in my memories of being 13. It evokes in me the feeling of being freshly showered, sitting cross-legged on the couch upstairs watching the news and eating slices of papaya. Looking at a program on Berlusconi, I think I asked my mom what “fiscal” meant.
Apart from the tea set, the Russians in this period gifted to the Obamas mostly CDs of Russian composers. Popular endowments from other heads of state: silk ties, chess sets, dog toys for Bo. At some point during the two administrations, the President of Malawi gave Michelle this … unspeakable… wood relief of her. The matching one of Obama is missing a letter for reasons lost to history.
And then there are some listings that are truly ridiculous. Angela Merkel during a working visit in 2009 gifted the family a plastic Adidas bag that literally still has the indent on it that suggests it held a box of shoes. There’s a possibility there’s a story here. But I think it’s far more likely the esteemed Chancellor touched down in Washington, realized she had prepared reams of financial reports on NATO but no gift, rifled around her suitcase to find the recyclable Adidas bag she uses to keep her spare pair of black, low-heeled loafers, and decided Germanly that it would do.
I’m generally not allowed as a journalist to take any gifts from people I meet. An editor of mine said he used to be so pious he wouldn’t even drink the coffee provided at city council meetings. But in Asia where people adore professional gifting, it’s the most awkward thing to explain this rule… You first have to clumsily push away the gift, smile to express that you’re not being rude, then see if the interpreter can help to explain. First you see the furrowed brows and the slow questioning nod, and then – worse – you watch the pink embarrassment arise as it’s spelled out that the rule is meant to protect against bribery. But of course you never meant to imply that they were bribing you. It’s just a rule, you say hurriedly, haha, my workplace – so strict! Haha yes… And you smile even wider to distract from the fact that you are now backing away from the entire interaction toward the door.
I remember painfully a Vietnamese aide who had prepared a green, one-eyed plush toy for after my interview with her minister. I did my little dance of refusal but most of it was lost in translation. She simply could not understand. It was National Disability Day, she stammered miserably. The toy was made by disabled Vietnamese children … and it was… National Disability Day. I think I bowed or made some other sudden physical action before darting out into the street.
Sometimes of course you are bested.
Malaysian official before I could say anything signed his latest book “to Rebecca,” thrust it into my hands, and had his team usher me out of his office. Ditto Timor PM, except he added “with love from DEMO-CRAZY” and admitted raucously he didn’t write the book and thought it was quite boring.
Most recently, the wife of a Cambodian tycoon said before dinner at her palatial house on the Mekong that she had prepared Kampot pepper for me to take home. Kampot pepper, grown in the foothills of the Elephant Mountains in eastern Cambodia, is delicious – more peppery than other cultivars with a tinge of sweetness. I lodged a mental note to reject the gift and endure the perception of rudeness after the conversation of the night was done but lady-tycoon never raised it again. Only as I was stepping into my car under a drizzle did she shoot something rapidly in Khmer to the driver. As I got out at my hotel, the driver noted politely: The bag under the seat, don’t forget -- Yours! I patted down the packet of black peppercorns to make sure there wasn’t a wad of cash stuffed within it and then, with mixed feelings, left it where it was.
(Don't feel bad. The next day at the airport I bought myself two packets of Kampot pepper. A gift from me to me: Unimpeachable.)