First Week in Dundee

Dundee was one of the city in Scotland that I did not know before I actually came for study abroad program. It was a city that is famous for 3Js: Jam, Jute and Journalism. However, except for the 3Js, I felt I knew nothing and even for the 3Js that I did not know any details. If the fact that Dundee was the sunniest city one can find in Scotland counted, then I might just knew one more thing about it.

After my first few days in Dundee, I noticed the route seemed complicated and the reason might be the city had been early developed, so it was not organized into blocks like some of the modern cities did. Then, the traffic looked kind of chaos because on both sides of the narrow road would be the place to park the cars and in between there would be two lanes for the incoming and outgoing traffic. However, the locals seemed very comfortable with the system. 

Another interesting system is the bus in Dundee. On the bus, I did not find anything that would indicate the name of next stop, but somehow people managed to get off at the right place. In addition, people in Dundee would stand and line-up when there were several people getting off at the same bus stop which was never the same back at home. Another thing I noticed was some people would talk to each other even if they were strangers. It made me felt that this city was friendlier than the big city like London.

Apart from my own observation, I learned much information about Dundee in class, especially about one of the famous 3Js and that was Jute. My professor, Dr. Salvo, led us to Verdant Works which was a museum that one can have more understanding about Jute. I never know what jute is before I came to this museum and was amazed by everything displayed in it. The guide was nice and told us with abundant information about the history and relations of Dundee and Jute.

      Jute was originally grew and collected in India. Then, this raw material would be shipped to Dundee. People in Dundee would process the raw material into jute bundles and then sell them.  There were many things made by jute and I found the most interesting product was the cover of the wagon. I never know the cover of the wagon was made by jute and also, never give a thought about it. There was a nice and witted old lady who had been working in the Jute mill when she was fifteen years old. She demonstrated how the machines for processing the Jute. The machines were only one third of the scale of the real one, but they were already loud. People who worked in the jute mill would tend to lose their hearing due to the noise of the factory. 

        Most of the workers in the jute mill were children and women because it was legal to pay lower wages to them. It seemed like the women had been treated unfairly, but if one gave a thought from the other side, he would find that the women actually kind of controls the economic in the family. I was surprised how women were allowed to work at that time because my impression of women for that early period was they had to stay at home and raise their children.  

The trade relation Dundee and the rest of the world - by author

Dundee is a city that keeps on giving me surprises everyday as I know more about it because it looks like an important and industrialized city before. I have no idea it has trade with many places until I saw the map of the trading relationship of Dundee and the rest of the world. This city may be small, but it certainly is amazing!