Cardinal Rule of Diplomacy

I have, today, learned a great lesson of diplomacy – one which is well-hidden, because I think if they knew it, everyone would want to join the diplomatic community. And we can’t have that, now, can we?

Anyway, I thought I’d let y’all in on the secret:
Listen to speech = get food

It is a remarkably simple yet effective rule. No one, after all, wants to sit all day and listen to speeches, so in order to bribe them into it, you feed them. The more important the person speaking, the more people you want to come, so the better food you provide. Allow me to provide some examples from personal experience…

First, I attended part of a conference for Russians to air their issues with the Latvian government, which is a pulse the embassy wants to keep its finger on. So, I sat there listening to a “simultaneous” translation (they were really about two or three sentences behind – I could tell that much) of various people talking about the state of Russian-speakers in Latvia. The issue is interesting… but everything gets old after a while. My companion left after an hour, but I saw that there was going to be a coffee break… and being a poor college student, figured and hour of speeches was worth some free eats :). And it was. They had plenty of coffee, as well as mounds of pastries, of which the conference goers were expected to make a light lunch. I joined them with great joy :).

The second instance was this evening. I just got back from hearing the Russian ambassador speak on the state of Russia-Latvia relations (yes, it’s a big deal here – more on that in a later post). After leaving the speech, I was greeted by a lady with a tray of wine glasses. I obtained a glass of white and meandered into the next room, where I found a table set with zillions of hors d’oeuvres. There were little rolls of ham or turkey filled with some sort of creamy cheese, sausage balls, lightly fried crab claws with more (and better) meat on them than I’ve ever seen (or tasted), little pastry shells with a creamy filling… not to mention veggies of all types, smoked salmon, pickles, olives, etc. For those who were around for a while, they also offered coffee and little fruit and nut filled croissant-like things. …The highlight of the evening was meeting the Russian ambassador. The cream-filled pastry shells ran a close second :).

I hope this new knowledge doesn’t draw my deal Lit.-ish friends away from their certainly *ahem* important pursuits… but the SI program does have its benefits ;).