They might be tacky, but this is why I buy souvenirs

There is coconut candy from the Mekong Delta in my kitchen drawer and a bottle of Kowloon Soy Co. Gold Label soy sauce in the cupboard. They’re my travel souvenirs, tangible reminders of where I have been.

Credit: Jamie Brown

Every time I sneak another sweet, I’m swept back to the Hai Van coconut farm on the Mekong Delta and the family of sisters who wrapped them by hand, freshly made and still warm. And every time I reach for the soy sauce, I remember the little shop in Hong Kong where I spoke to the fellow who had made it; one of the last remaining local producers on the island.

These things inform my eating and my cooking, and make me feel warm and fuzzy every time I open the cupboard or the drawer.

Souvenirs are funny things. An entire industry has been generated by our need to say “I was there”, and to prove it with something small, mass-produced and badly painted.

Yes, I bought the small Eiffel Tower replicas on my first trip to Paris, and still regret not buying the bedside lamp version that lights up and sparkles at the press of a button.

Yes, I bought an Eiffel Tower souvenir in Paris.Credit: iStock

I bought a souvenir moose in Canada, but that didn’t make it home because it was actually made of chocolate (as in chocolate moose). And no, I did not buy a kitchen apron in Florence emblazoned with the full-length naked image of the Statue of David, but only because they didn’t have my size.

Souvenirs appeal to the obsessive collector that lurks within us all. Buy one snow dome of silver glitter raining down upon Moscow, and you will buy 300, one from each city you will ever visit. It’s also very tempting to purchase something papal in Rome, or something royal in London, if only ironically (there’s a big market in ironically motivated souvenirs – I think they’re on to us).

Some of the best souvenirs are bought by necessity, like the coasters I bought to protect my fancy hotel bedside tables from teacup rings.

The corkscrew I suddenly needed for a picnic in Vienna – for obvious reasons – is still my favourite. And I have numerous small, sharp knives bought in villages and markets for the purpose of cheese.

Back then, I didn’t worry too much about New York’s Statue of Liberty souvenirs being “Made in China” instead of in a local workshop. Now, my real souvenirs are bought as close to the action as possible, to assuage guilt and support local economies. I treasure a small, inscrutable painting that I bought from an artist on the streets of New York, and a little clay teapot that no longer has a lid from a ceramicist in West Lake, China.

It can be a tricky business bringing souvenirs back for friends and family, but my wife cracked it once. Decades ago, she purchased a set of traditional green-stemmed wine glasses of Alsace, for her wine-loving father. They were pretty cheap as wine glasses go, but much care and paranoia went into lugging them home.

He treasured them, bringing them out for special occasions, over many years. When he died, she asked her siblings if she could have them, and now we treasure them, too. Not only because they are souvenirs of a magical trip to Alsace, but because they remind us of all the times we sat around the Sunday lunch table on the farm, as her father poured another glass of wine.

They’ll eventually go to the next generation, along with the story – souvenirs not just of another country, but another time.