Job In Tourism > News > Editoriale > We are in 2012, the Year of the Dragon

We are in 2012, the Year of the Dragon

Di Antonio Caneva, 13 Gennaio 2012

I have realised that this year will be the fifteenth since the publication of Job in Tourism; I am reflecting on the beginnings, and on how fast these years have past, bringing, on a general level, deep changes to society (not always positive ones) and to our own way of operating (suffice it to think of the Internet).
Issue number zero of the magazine 15 years ago was met with flattering appreciation; I particularly remember three letters of encouragement I received (people still wrote letters in those times) which inspired me to persevere: one from Accor’s kind sales director, who later left the company to set up her own business, and from whom I never heard again; another from the manager of a four-star hotel in Romagna, who did not at all enjoy good luck professionally, and the third – the one I felt was most important – from Amato Ramondetti , the chairman of Turin Hotels, and we all know how it ended.
Were they right? Were they wrong? Was I correct in heeding their suggestions? I don’t know.
We incline to automatically accept things said by people who are known to be credible (especially when they confirm our own ideas), while instead we should regard them dispassionately.
In a recent interview, I was particularly struck by a statement by Massimo Cacciari, philosopher and former mayor of Venice, who, with his usual air of superior aloofness, at Don Verzé’s funeral, reported a quote from Don Milani: ” if our hands are not dirty at the close of our life, it means that we kept them in our pockets” as if implying that, whatever the case, the end justifies the means. Well, over Cacciari philosopher I prefer his simpler fellow-townsmen who, in my times, lived by the culture of serenades from a boat and favoured the bacari to indulge in ombre and chicchetti (went to wine shops for drinks and snacks).
For the Chinese, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, a particularly favourable year. Trying to break away from the greyness that surrounded us (even in the whiteness of the mountains), I mentioned this to my wife, who retorted. “For whom? For the Chinese?”
Maybe the common sense of ordinary people has more worth than the wisdom of philosophers and solons.
I wish everyone a serene 2012 and, these days, this would seem to me an appreciable goal.

Comments are closed

  • Categorie

  • Tag

Articoli Correlati