Toulouse: The Seattle of Europe? Part 2

BUT!

Toulouse is not the only city referred to as ‘the Seattle of Europe’; in fact, if one were to take a deeper look at all of the places bearing that title, as one is about to, Toulouse would emerge relatively insignificant.

Remember me saying that a full 50% of the search results for ‘toulouse “the seattle of europe”‘ were actually about Norway? Turns out if you Google just “the seattle of europe” (double quotation marks needed, otherwise you’re served only flight offers) you get five different candidate cities in just the top ten hits. And if you click on the second hit, a site ironically called ‘seattlest’ though I doubt the creators meant that the way I’m reading it, you get a whole list of cities claiming to be the Seattles of their region, country, or continent. Some of them contradict each other, and Toulouse is not even to be found.

I won’t list those cities here; you can look at the site yourself if you’re that interested, but I will name certain contenders, as well as their reasons for being such, and hopefully it won’t be as time-consuming as the search for clarity concerning Toulouse.

Bergen, Norway is mentioned on several sites as being the Seattle of Europe for its heavy rainfall and general overcast-ness. Apparently the terms ‘City of Rain’ and ‘the Seattle of Europe’ are synonymous. I guess that would make sense, as Seattle is known as ‘the rainy city’. Does that make Bradford the Chicago of Europe? The UK is supposedly the windiest country in Europe, and Bradford is a pretty windy city, though apparently Newcastle dwellers purchase more anti-flatulence products. Nah, I’m not seriously trying to garner that title for Bradford, though as you’ll see in the next paragraph, it certainly wouldn’t be the most whimsical christening. But just before that – remember when I said the phrase ‘the Chicago of Europe’ sounds farcical? Apparently Mark Twain wouldn’t agree, as he used that precise description on Berlin, Germany, so I will of course defer to his opinion, though he admits the parallel does break down. Really I just wanted to get Bradford into this somehow.

One blogger has named Belgium the Seattle of Europe simply because it rains a lot there, and a few others have done the same with Amsterdam. The site I mentioned before that ‘may harm my computer’ says – going by the two-line description Google gives of search results – that Seattle “seems to be closer to Amsterdam than Toulouse”. I feel like this website contains all the answers to every question this post has raised and could ever raise, but I won’t see them because the site potentially contains malware. Typical.

We persist. A columnist calls modern Switzerland the Seattle of Europe, but fails to elaborate, unless it’s because of the ‘viable economy, no visibly poor, and “an amazing ability to reconcile modern technology and modern economics with traditional mores and the visible presence of the past”‘; in short, the ‘consummation of the bourgeois revolution’. I wouldn’t know. Any Seattle-ites willing to venture an opinion? I’d welcome it on any point of this two-part discursion.

Back in North America, Austin is called the Seattle of the south, Boston the Seattle of the east, Halifax the Seattle of Canada, Iowa the Seattle of hardcore, and Machinima the Seattle of media. Pity most of the links are now dead. I do know from The Classic Crime that Seattle has a big music scene; punk-rock according to them, but also jazz according to Doc Wiki.

France itself has several claimants to the throne other than Toulouse, such as Champagne, for reasons unknown, or Rennes, in which apparently it rains much also.

It’s interesting what you can learn about something by who or what is named or names itself after that thing, though one must always be wary of such secondhand information, the Christ being example par excellence. What’s also interesting is that this naming business brings to mind what the lecturer in my Australia class (yes, I have a class devoted solely to the entity that is Australia, but in the interest of keeping this parenthetical aside shorter than what I want to say about it, let’s save all that for another time) was talking about last week. When people move to a new place, especially one where they will live for a long time or even the rest of their lives, they give names to places and things based on where they’ve come from, to increase familiarity and make the new place home. Australia is rife with such examples, and perhaps there is some of that in all these ‘Seattles’ as well. Even if the people moving to Europe or the region in question are not from Seattle, they may be comforted by assigning their new home a somewhat familiar name. Or perhaps calling it that prior to moving makes it less intimidating a change. But I also think there’s more going on than just that.

Despite the smacking satisfaction of discovering something very similar to something previously known, and the accompanying temptation to call the new by the name of the old (which explains why How I Met Your Mother has been able to make doppelgangers a recurring motif throughout the show), such expressions at times thinly veil a degree of arrogance. By calling something new to me by a name less new to me, I am not merely making the new seem familiar, I am implicitly asserting that the new offers nothing that the old did not already. To be so colonial with cities is heinous; to do so with people, unforgivable. Sadly I am certainly guilty of the latter. After a certain point (somewhere between five hundred and a thousand Facebook friends, I reckon), not all those you meet are ‘new’ people, but rather new versions of old friends; they fall into various categories. And yet, gratifying though this may initially be, it is ultimately dangerous, as those new acquaintances will surely fail to live up to the identity of those we’ve associated them with, for they are not them, and it is also demeaning to them, for, again, they are not them. The same applies to cities. There may be similarities, but reducing the identity of a thing so complex, diverse, and wonderful as a city to a single story is woefully unhelpful. In the words of one commenter on the Seattlest website, “[I]t indicates a deep lack of civic self-esteem.” Even if the intent is by the city itself to boost its repute by attaching itself to the name of a better-known city, this still shows a lack of self-esteem; a lack of appreciation for own uniqueness. That this too applies easily to people, I doubt I need to highlight.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of sister cities. Such programmes can provide excellent cultural links, but this would never lead to one city being called or even known by the name of the other. After all, what parents would give their children the same name (besides George Foreman, that is)? Their kindred-ness is evidenced by their similarities and love for each other, not identical names. So in answer to the question topping the Seattlest page – ‘sister cities or identity thieves?’ – I must reply that it is neither, it is simply a case of mistaken identity.

To wrap up, some evaluations. Firstly I propose that we dispense with calling a city a Seattle merely on account of its abundant rainfall or even amplitude of overcast days. Rain and clouds are not unique conditions; most of the world experiences them, and many places experience them in plenty. That Seattle is already known as ‘the rainy city’, I cannot do much about, but let us not behave as if it has a monopoly on the condition, nor as if that is the defining characteristic of Seattle. Even without having been there it is clear to me that there is far more to this urban area than the weather. If we were to select a proper noun to denote a general meteorological temperament, surely we would wish not to rob that noun of its other connotations by using it for such a purpose. In other words, calling Bergen the Seattle of Europe does Seattle a disservice, because it dispenses with all the characteristics of Seattle not mirrored in Bergen, which are likely everything but the rain; it does Bergen a disservice for the same reasons as well as the implication that Bergen has nothing worth knowing in its own right, by its own name; and it does the rest of Europe a disservice by ignoring all its other rainy cities.

At a more basic level, the phrase invites confusion, as it relies on everyone possessing the same primary connotation of Seattle; that is, rain, when in fact we have already seen that there are a number of viable connotations one could hold. ‘The Seattle of Europe’ could be a rainy city, a musical city, an aerospace city, a coffee-drinking city, or any other type of city that springs to mind in relation to Seattle, accurate or not. Ideally it would be all of these things for it to indeed be a true Seattle, but could that ever really happen? Would that even be desirable? Not only with regards to rain, but whenever describing, let us be wary of reductionism.

As for the aerospace parallel between Toulouse and Seattle, I have not much left to say. Seeing as its usage seems to be not very widespread but rather contained to the industry which it describes, the potential for confusion is mitigated. Those using it would know what they are talking about, as would those listening to it being used. The fateful instance of me in class which led to this lengthy endeavour was probably a one-off.

You may’ve guessed by now that I will not be introducing the city in which I now live as ‘the Seattle of Europe’. However all this has made me want to visit Seattle even more, to see what all these imitators yearn for. How about you? Have you come across any other cities that come up a lot in the descriptions of other cities, or places in general? Do you have places you fondly refer to by the names of places you used to know?

[I also realise that I love writing about cities; after all, I love cities (making it all the more interesting that my favourite album from my favourite band is called Cities). Perhaps I will make it more of a habit.

Thank you all for reading.]

Toulouse: The Seattle of Europe? Part 1

Today in my cross-cultural management class the professor mentioned offhand that Toulouse is ‘the Seattle of Europe’, and I had no idea what he meant by that. Maybe I would’ve had some clue if I’d ever been to Seattle, but alas that is one place in the US (and the only region of the US, actually) that I’ve yet to visit. I’d like to – Adam Young’s lyrical invitation would suffice, but I also know that Starbucks is from Seattle, and Starbucks is one of a few things that make me feel cool, ambitious, and full of potential. With these sentiments as a backdrop I naturally wanted to know what the professor meant by his statement, but like a 21st century university student I, rather than simply asking, resolved to Google it when I got home.

(Kids, whenever you find yourself resolving to Google something when you get home – or more likely, Googling it right then on your handy-dandy smartphones, while my dumbphone looks on exressionlessly – that you could actually ask someone, get your nose out of that screen and ask them. You need the practice.)

I have just Googled it now, and though the answer is proving recalcitrant, the search phrase ‘toulouse “the seattle of europe'” seems to have yielded some fruit. The top hit apparently ‘may harm my computer’, but seeing as only four results have appeared and two are about Norway, it’s tempting. The second hit is a thread about south France on a hot springs forum – how unexpected, and potentially gratifying on other counts than my current objective – in which the OP describes Toulouse as “a 2000 year-old city that still has plenty of buildings that are really ancient. It is also the Seattle of Europe, since that’s where Airbus is located. I did not go on a tour of the plant since I am a Boeing fan, especially since they located their new facility here in coastal South Carolina, and I might have slipped and said something and gotten ejected.” Nice aviation pun.

You might think ‘since that’s where Airbus is located’ is a fairly straightforward phrase, and perhaps to you it is, but it took me further Googling to fully flesh out this hot spring soaker’s meaning. As usual Google did not disappoint; in fact, I didn’t even have to click on a hit, so capable are their data-gathering bots these days.

Are you ready? Toulouse is not just host to an Airbus plant, it is the headquarters of Airbus. The headquarters of Boeing is in Chicago (gotcha!)…but only since 2001, before which it was in Seattle; in fact, Boeing was founded in Seattle. I suppose that excuses the seeming outdatedness of the expression, as presumably (read: if Wikipedia can in this instance be trusted, and I believe it can) Airbus, being only  about forty years old as compared with Boeing’s near-century, was founded in Toulouse. Not to mention that Chicago is already known for plenty else, the esteemed deep-dish pizza among the foremost, and anyway ‘the Chicago of Europe’ sounds farcical. [If you have a comment on this last point, you may want to save it until you’ve read Part 2 as well.]

So there you have it. Rival airplane manufacturer – and it was only after coming to Toulouse that I learned how strong the rivalry is (and that classifications such as 737, 747, and 777 apply only to Boeing models; Airbus uses A320, A350, A380 and the like, and yes, I did learn that from an Airbus employee here) – homes make Toulouse ‘the Seattle of Europe’, and of course the European is named after the American, though in this case considering the corporate age difference I can’t really complain.

If you are satisfied with that explanation and in general enjoy resolution, read no further. I myself am not satisfied and intend to delve further, with no guarantees of ultimate resolution.

It’s probably just that part of me that screams, there’s always a deeper meaning! Everything is connected, everything can be explained! that is egging me on now as always. But you see, we weren’t talking about Airbus and Boeing in my cross-cultural management class. We weren’t talking about airplane manufacturing. I suppose we were talking about globalisation and, at that specific moment, tourism, which is connected to the decrease in flight prices, but our focus was people, I thought. Maybe my memory fails me. Someone said something, and it was in reply to this that the professor said, ‘Yes, well, they do call Toulouse the Seattle of Europe,’ but I can’t remember the comment that led to this reply. Still, bad memory or no, I can’t shake the lack of final-puzzle-piece-falling-into-place feeling from all I’ve said thus far. Perhaps the professor’s comment was truly offhand, as I flippantly wrote at the start. It’s those kinds of comments that drive people like me crazy.

Beyond that, I don’t find the existence of the factory or even headquarters of a rival in a duopoly adequate grounds to refer to one city by the name of another. The Airbus HQ is not the defining characteristic of Toulouse nor, I think I’m right in saying, its sole sustenance. As the aforementioned bathing traveler noted, it has over two thousand years of history, and even now, there is much tourism, shopping, and other commerce, not to mention my university-dominated immediate environs. And I’m sure there’s more I have yet to discover.

Okay, as I’m basically talking out of my- well, just talking, I suppose I should go looking for some sort of evidence. Google once again avails itself, and I find this very knowledgeable-sounding blog entry. I know blogs aren’t the most reliable of sources – after all, if I’d left the previous paragraph alone, you might’ve departed being disastrously misinformed! – but on this one I’m flying by the seat of my pants. Said blog informs us that in the US, “for every aerospace job there are 1.9 indirect jobs created and 1.5 induced jobs; thus one aerospace job creates 3.4 jobs.” Taking into account the 21,000 Airbus/EADS employees in Toulouse and its population of about 1.1 million (the figures are all probably a bit higher now), 9% of the metropolitan area population, or 25-30% of families here depend on this activity for a job. So it’s a little more essential than I thought.

That’s a lot of data you probably weren’t that interested in, but I think we can both agree it’s a lot better than me rambling about shopping and drunken student life. At the Toulouse Wikipedia page, which I should’ve visited far sooner than this, it says that Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of not only Airbus but also a major positioning system, a satellite system, the largest space centre in Europe (visit-worthy?) and several other satellite subsidiaries (it also calls the ‘world-renowned’ University of Toulouse “one of the oldest in Europe (founded in 1229) and, with more than 97,000 students, the third-largest university campus of France,” so, holla). This is all starting to make more sense. Now it’s Seattle’s turn.

I’ll spare you the nitty details of that search. I think it’s fair to say that Seattle, while perhaps not the centre of the American aerospace industry – other cities such as Wichita, Kansas, claim a share of it – is certainly a major centre, with Boeing, involved in both air and space, and defence, formerly and still at its heart. According to one website (not Wikipedia, in fact, though as this is not an academic paper I’m not refraining from citing that notorious fountain of knowledge), the Seattle metropolitan area has the highest concentration of aerospace industry jobs in the world.

This is all far more satisfying. Seattle is a centre of aerospace industry in America with Boeing at its core; Toulouse is a – and even the – centre of aerospace industry in Europe with Airbus at its core. So to call Toulouse ‘the Seattle of Europe’ is, I must say, fair enough.

(If you sensed a looming ‘but’ at the end of that sentence you are correct, but I shall save said looming butt for Part 2. You could head straight over there, or you could take a brief interlude to listen to some of what has formed my conception of Seattle.)

First Full Day

My first morning in Europe, 15 September, I was able to wake up well-rested and go get some breakfast at the uni’s cafeteria-like place. It’s pretty small; they definitely depend a lot more on cafés and students cooking for themselves than in Japan or the US.

Their breakfast options were fairly standard Western-style so I won’t dwell on it. I will say that so far, the food has been better than I was led to believe. You cynics. Afterwards we moved out of our ’emergency accommodation’, had some difficulty finding our way back there, and moved into our respective housing facilities. I’m on campus, between the library and the sports center, which is pretty much the ideal location, I think. My department of study is also just a few steps away, so I could probably live most of the year without even leaving campus. Wait – I need food. Scratch that. I wouldn’t want to be so cloistered, anyway.

I enrolled without much difficulty and was thankfully not asked to procure my high school diploma which is in a box somewhere between the East Coast and Tokyo, and was issued my student card, which is my magical key to all things good.

After enrolment we hit the town for the first time in search of power converters, the number one essential item on our lists. Each person we asked seemed to name a different store, but we did get a good tour of that area. The discovery of the day was probably a store called Poundland (there’s also Poundworld) which – can you guess? – sells everything for a pound. To other students I was tempted to explain it as being similar to a hundred yen shop or dollar store, but caught myself, realizing that wouldn’t mean any more to them.

Phew. (Anything from anywhere can be plugged into that – just watch the voltage.)

I have yet to meet another American here, by the way. I’ve met a few Japanese, though, which is a higher priority for me. English was guaranteed – it was Japanese I wasn’t sure about. There are significantly more Chinese than any other Asian race, but a few Japanese as well, and they all seem to be in Peace Studies like me. Haven’t seen any Koreans yet though, pity. I like Koreans, although you could argue that I haven’t met true, home-bred ones – are they quite different?

I suddenly realized this morning that the American flag is not on the wall of countries international students are coming from. When I first saw it I only checked for the Japanese one. I still didn’t say anything. Unpatriotic much?

The converters ended up being at a place called Argos, which is a truly impressive store. Rather than aisles, it has merely tables of catalogues and computers. You flip  through the catalogues or search by table of contents, look up the product on the computer to get a code, then take your codes to the counter and pay. You then wait with your receipt and order number at a different counter for them to bring out your merchandise. It’s like the fast food version of department stores, come to think of it. I guess they have it in some other countries but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a brilliant idea, very easy to manage. Aisles are difficult to navigate, a point I’d have pounded home that evening.

The formidable Argos catalogue.

It’s not very often in life that one gets to be completely new to a place, so I’m trying to milk it for all it’s worth. Believe it or not, this is not something I’m accustomed to. I’ve traveled a lot but mainly between two countries I know, more or less. This is different.

Most notably I’m having the uniquely tourist experience of asking clerks what certain coins are. British coins are cool, but a little inefficient. The one pound coin is more than a millimetre thick, so with just a few of those your wallet starts feeling pretty full. The two pound coin has both gold and silver in it, something I’ve never had before. Seems like it should be worth a lot more.

British currency. Using it like a pro now.

It’s fun to play dumb (or be dumb, rather, there’s nothing fake about me not knowing a two-pence from a fifty), and good for starting conversations. So I have to enjoy it while I can, because after a few weeks of being here it would just be weird.

While we’re on this topic of new experiences and observations:

The weather here is quite cold, rainy, and windy, even in September. Very temperamental. It’s been more or less sprinkling this whole day, but continues to fluctuate between hard sheets and light drops. It depends on the wind, I guess. Not many people use umbrellas, which I’m into (not using an umbrella, I mean).

It rains a lot.

The people are nice (although, granted, I’ve mostly interacted with international students, who are looking for friends, or staff, who are paid to be friendly and helpful). They’re not quite as blatantly I-exist-to-serve-you as the Japanese, but their greater degree of directness is useful. And they’re very ready to joke around, as I’ve already found. I must say, it’s nice to be back in a country where talking to strangers is allowed.

After lunch I returned to my dorm room to finish unpacking and met the till-then sole occupant of my wing, or whatever it’s called, a German guy from Munich. We’re the only two here so far; I suppose the rest will be arriving around the weekend, either from the EU or from UK – they’re the last, and probably the wildest. It’ll be interesting. I’m trying to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can, and get used to everything. Not to make it sound like I’m not looking forward to having a full house.

He told me about an International Office-led trip to IKEA that evening, so I signed up for that.

If I’d ever gone to IKEA in Japan (or America) I didn’t remember it, because it was a totally new experience and budding relationship birthed out of rapidly shifting degrees of love and hate. I’ll explain.

Thar she be.

When we first went in I was impressed by the ‘Showroom’. You walk on a set path and observe bedroom after bedroom, kitchen after kitchen displaying their products. I thought, this is how a store should be, really artistically showing off their merchandise. Plus it was like a Disneyland ride; I felt like we should be riding in boats down an artificial canal listening to “It’s A Small World After All” playing over and over again.

But that love soon turned to growing exasperation as I realized that with the items spread out over numerous home arrangements it was very difficult to even locate the items I was looking for, much less compare them with others of similar type. I started to hate what I had initially found so charming. I suppose there’s almost always a conflict between artistry and economy.

But after a bit, during which time I got to witness some of my newly-made friends, two Germans, arguing over the proper way to make spaghetti and the necessary pan size, I realized that all the products were again displayed at the end of the route, and there they were simply stacked in aisles like conventional stores. Well, almost conventional. These signs brought my opinion meter back over to the love side:

These single-handedly brought me back to the “This is my kind of store” mentality.

That’s me. The problem is I sometimes like to lie on my back before heading for dreamland.

They work in theory…does the price indicate they work in reality as well? Too much to take a gamble on.

Decisions, decisions.

In the end I was able to get all the bedding I needed and learn once again that asking is always the best way to find what you’re looking for. I bought a ‘quilt’ and quilt cover. It seems to be much warmer than a blanket, at least it has been so far. We’ll see when the cold winter nights begin moving in. At first I was concerned about colors but soon realized there wasn’t enough selection left for me to get both the cheapest and the right color. I think the problem was that I came through after the bulk of our trip group. New student orientation activities amass a force to be reckoned with, as I’ll discover most poignantly when I try to get a job.

At checkout I thought everything went smoothly until I walked away and remarked to one of the Germans, “Oh, we get to keep the bags?” (big blue canvas IKEA bags). He laughed and said, “Well, you paid for it.”

“Uh, no I didn’t.”

I’d had too much to carry in my arms, but fortunately I saw these bags lying next to the things I’d just bought, so I grabbed one and filled it with my purchases. As I left the area I had heard the buyer behind me asking for another big blue bag. It was then that I put two and two together and realized the idea was that you transfer your items to the conveyor belt along with however many bags you’ll need, which are in a big bin before the register. I’d swiped the guy’s behind me after he paid for it. Exit the scene, exit the scene.

IKEA gettings, purchased and, er…yeah.

Later that night I decided to put my second socket adaptor to use recharging my camera battery. Unfortunately the adaptor only changes the shape, it doesn’t do anything about the voltage, which was alright for my laptop because it has a surge protector, but I wasn’t sure about the charger. It said it was workable up to 240 volts, and the source is 250V. Close enough?

Sure. I plugged it in and it didn’t explode, which of course was a good sign. I used my friend’s method of dealing with voltage incompatibilities: plug it in, unplug it when it starts to smoke a little, wait a bit, repeat process. Do I smell something burning?

[Ah, if you’re wondering about the cause of the fire alarm earlier, it was apparently because someone had sprayed deodorant near the sensor. Fortunately I don’t have any aerosol cans. If I burn the place down it’ll undoubtedly be from something more electronic and foreign.]

Haha. It was fine. Seems it’s only hair dryers that are so…combustible. And that was my first full day in Europe.