LuminosityItalia

Chamber of Commerce panel On July 20, Mariella and I, owners of the new Chaoyang Creative Works PR and content agency in Milan, attended a meeting on business startups hosted by the Milan Chamber of Commerce. I understood little because it was in Italian, but you don’t need to speak the language to sit through two hours of Power Point presentations that contain a bewildering number of lists and requirements. The opening speaker noted that bureaucracy is one of the main barriers to startups and innovation in Italy – and that was immediately followed by presentations with a mind-numbing range of bureaucratic hurdles that must be cleared to start a new business and try to get a financing boost. One of the speakers told the sparse crowd of hopefuls that it takes six months to get a company registered, and it is even better to wait until next year. What does that do to the few young dreamers with a new idea in the audience? Are they still going to be on fire next year? ...

The Luca Ferraris Vineyard in Castagnole Monferrato in the Piedmont region of Italy has a surprising American connection The story traces back to the nineteenth century when Luca's great-grandfather Luigi Ferraris emigrated to America during the gold rush. Striking gold, he sent the money back to his wife Bruno Teresa, giving her the chance to realize her dream. After her husband passed away in 1921, she bought the house in Via al Castello that until recently housed Luca's winery. Two years later, Luca's grandfather Martino purchased II Casot, at the time nothing more than a simple rural hut in the middle of 40,000 square meters of land.  Martino planted vines and bought barrels to make wine with his own grapes in his own cellar. He started by selling his wine to wholesalers in the area, then later began to increase his business by selling larger bottles to individuals traveling back and forth to Turin every week on horseback. Today on that land is home to their  ...

Palermo Central Train Station Read Part I Part II As we stepped out of the town hall fortress, we pondered what to do until we left by overnight train. A cappuccino was certainly in order. A nearby café fit the bill, and as we relaxed from the stress of the trip and yet another government office, I noticed several older guys in aviator sunglasses – another signature fashion statement of the city – who were watching the street and their cellphones like movie-character mafiosi. I chastened myself for stereotyping, but also noted would be hard for criminals to find new career path even if they wanted to. The battle against the mafia might be on, but few are likely to retrain and become accountants, especially in a place with 30 percent unemployment. Sure gangsters must be plentiful. What else are they going to do? Reportedly they have literally moved up the food chain to bring their business acumen to supermarkets, offering to supply tomatoes you can’t refuse. After booking the over...

"Nine out of ten people here are jerks." Such is the sanitized translation of what the cab driver said as he took us to the train station in Palermo. Himself Sicilian, his actual comment was more colorful, related as it was to the human anatomy. “See what I mean,” he said with resignation as he blew the horn at a driver blocking a long line of waiting traffic. “Nine out of ten.” Our sojourn from Milan to Palermo was necessitated by yet another a crucial document in a mountain of forms, papers and seals I need to get married, help start a small company in Italy and actually do the work. Palermo was the only U.S. consular office the country that could get me in right away. I got the document as planned, so it was a success. An added bonus was the string of characters we encountered from the moment stepped off the overnight ferry from Naples. I wouldn’t call them jerks, but I would describe some as odd. It was if we were sometimes actors in an absurdist p...

I'm no snob and really don't know much about opera except it's supposed to be boring and “you have to wait until the fat lady sings” – a reference to an interminable Wagner opera that ends with a fat lady wearing horns giving the much-awaited finale. That's where the saying comes from. So it was with mixed feelings I put on my best clothes and headed for the La Scala Opera House. It's not every day you get free tickets to opening night at the world-famous venue. We had to pass through a phalanx of security – with the Milan Expo opening, an anarchist group called Black Bloc is plotting mayhem – to mingle with mighty and their mates. But I think maybe half of the dark-suited men the lobby crowd were personal bodyguards for people such as Georgio Armani and the President of the Republic. I was seated next to a Chinese guy who told me his boss from Shanghai in the row ahead was the sponsor of the season opening for Turadot, Puccini's final, unfinis...

By sheer luck, Italian national day was in the first week of my residency in Milan, so we went down to the center of the city as groups gathered to strut their stuff. As near as I could tell from the the Italian posters around town, the day marks “Liberation from Fascists and Nazis” on April 25, 1945. Sounds a damned good thing to celebrate. The first fellow we encountered was a well-dressed older man handing out small slips of paper. Apparently they outline his philosophy of life, which it seems holds that sex is the most important thing there is. I give him credit: He looked well into his 60s. My colleague Mariella declined his request to give him a business card. Then there were the pro-Palestine demonstrators, the communists, the trade unions, the mainstream parties and a whole lot more. Finally we got a glimpse of the few remaining partisans who actually fought for freedom. And speaking of freedom – what a refreshing thing to witness. After eight years in the thrall...

For many  women in China, fashion is comfort – inspirational and aspirational, it gives tangible assurance that they have made it somewhere, have gained their own identity amid an ocean of similar people. Millions of Chinese have the same first and last names, even – masses with the family name Wang or Zhou or Li. There are only about five or six last names used by the true Han Chinese. And there are more than a billion of them. Those on the Mainland have no sacred spirits to worship, no everlasting icons to give them comfort in the stark awakening from a bad dream at 3 am. Along with the all-important family, it is material things and money that give them something to hold onto. So when female friends and colleagues in China heard that I was moving to Milan they were mightily impressed. I would actually gaze upon the fountainhead itself, the actual headquarters and flagship stores of global glamour giants like Prada, Gucci, Versace. Yes, I made it to the Galleria ...