by Dr. Iain
Corness
Pascal Schnyder, of Casa Pascal Restaurant, is already
well known in Pattaya. The restaurant is now firmly entrenched in the
‘Fine Dining’ section of Pattaya restaurants, and Pascal is always
seen at such events as the Chaine des Rotisseurs dinners and similar
gastronomic celebrations. Food is his life, and while some say you are
what you eat, Pascal sees it differently. “You are what you speak,”
says Pascal, and for Korean born Pascal, this has an enormous
significance, because Pascal was a Korean orphan.
When baby Pascal was two years and four months old, he
was adopted by a Dr. Schnyder and his wife, a childless Swiss couple. So
this small Asian baby came to Switzerland, to grow up speaking
Swiss-German. I asked Pascal directly just what did he feel his
nationality was, and he replied, “I am Swiss. You are what you speak.”
Using Pascal’s definition, he is definitely Swiss, not Korean. He had to
go to a language school for two months in Korea as an adult, to try and
learn enough of his ‘native’ tongue to be able to speak to his
in-laws, the Korean parents of his Korean wife, Kim!
Now
while many might think it very ‘romantic’ for a young Asian orphan to
be picked for a ‘better’ life in Europe, life for Pascal was not so
easy. Certainly he had arrived in a country and a family offering a better
standard of living, but Pascal does not describe his life as an Asian in
Switzerland being quite so easy. “It was (sometimes) not a nice
experience, but anything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger,”
said Pascal, showing a philosophical side that many people do not see.
“I felt exposed because I was different from all the others. It made me
feel I had to prove myself.” It was probably also the catalyst that made
him look for siblings. “I missed having a brother and a sister,” said
Pascal and I was left with the feeling that in some ways, despite being in
a loving family, the young Asian boy grew up somewhat lonely.
The local expat community often feels that they are the
victims of racism in Asia, the ‘white face’ making them easy targets,
but it works the other way too, says Pascal. “Children can be good
friends but bad enemies,” he said. Since he spoke perfect Swiss-German,
English and French he could understand the deprecating remarks said about
him. Yes, racism was alive and well and living in Europe!
He first showed an interest in food and cooking when he
was only eight years old. He remembered he had been in hospital for two
months after having been hit by a car. On getting out of hospital he was
asked what he wanted to eat as a change from hospital food (the same all
over the world - bland and tasteless) and he replied that he wanted
butter-head lettuce with spring onions, from their own garden. “That was
my first culinary memory.”
That dish did become a favourite and the growing Pascal
used to like to make this salad at home himself, but his mother would say
that he would put too much vinegar in it. Now he knows why he did that in
his youth. “Korean food has many fermented vegetables in it, and you
don’t forget the taste as a child.” He has, however, grown out of
that. “My taste (now) is European, I have no Korean taste. I would eat
Korean food maybe once a month - and then I have a problem with my
stomach!”
By the time he was 13, he realized that his interest in
food was more highly developed than that of his peers. “I was at a
holiday camp and we were asked to write down our favourite food. I wrote
beef tenderloin with wild rice, but then saw that all the others had
written things like french-fries or sausages.”
When his secondary schooling was over, Pascal knew that
in the kitchens was where he wanted to be and he was enrolled as an
apprentice cook in Lucerne, where he was to stay for the next three years.
Like all young chefs-in-the-making he then had to slowly work his way up
the culinary ladder. This included the Geneva Noga Hilton Hotel where he
became a Sommelier waiter. From there to the bustling kitchen in
Switzerland’s best hotel, the Dolder Grand in Zurich. The Ramada
Renaissance is also on his resume, as are private restaurants such as the
Zeughauskeller Zurich.
He had met Kim, his wife-to-be, a Korean girl who was
studying in Switzerland and the two returned to Korea - Kim to break the
news to her parents, and Pascal to learn Korean to be able to speak to
them and to see if he could uncover a little of his roots. “It was a
very emotional thing,” said Pascal, “It was not a nice thing to dig up
the past. It’s anything other than a fairy tale.” He found the
orphanage that had been his home - abandoned! He found two women who had
been older children in the orphanage who had looked after a baby called
“Koh Ba Woo”, the name of a comic strip character in Korea, and it is
assumed that this was the name the orphaned baby was given, now thought to
be Pascal. But no more details. The question in Pascal’s mind, “Why
was I given to an orphanage?” remains unanswered.
Putting his questions behind him and looking ahead, the
young man with his young bride went to Hong Kong, continuing to climb the
ladder through five star hotel kitchens until he eventually came to
Pattaya and the Dusit Resort and then finally his own restaurant, Casa
Pascal, the culmination of the young couple’s dream. To invest in
themselves, Pascal and Kim in their own business.
It is a long way from a Korean orphanage, via
Switzerland, to Pattaya, but I get the feeling Pascal is here to stay.
