In Charge of International Incidents

Elga Sharpe knows how to eat the herring. And it is important to know how to eat the herring. You pick it up by the tail with two fingers and swoop it into the air just above your mouth, quickly so the sour cream and chopped onions don’t slide off. You tip your head back and then lower the fish in whole, exactly as if you were a seal.

It is a bit shocking to watch Sharpe do this, swiftly, expertly. It is not a series of actions immediately associated with a well-heeled cocktail soiree, and certainly not with Sharpe, who is a woman of notable poise. But if she is eating like a seal, then that must be the way it is done because she is the new chief of the mayor’s office of protocol, and knowing how to do things properly is her job.

Indeed, all around the room men and women in dark suits and cashmere twin sets are raising fish above their heads. A hundred or so have gathered in a banquet room of the Petersen Automotive Museum in honor of the birthday of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, which explains the proficient consumption of the herring.

The consul general of the Netherlands who put together the event is not there (a sudden illness in his family), but many of his colleagues are--diplomats from Austria, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Liberia, Honduras, as well as many members of the Dutch community in Los Angeles.

One of Sharpe’s main duties is to aid the foreign missions in the city, to help coordinate visits of dignitaries and represent the mayor at functions such as this. She is relatively new to the job--Mayor James K. Hahn appointed her in January--but she seems to know most of the people here. She moves through the room fluidly, chatting, plucking the occasional hors d’oeuvre from the endlessly circulating platters but turning up a hand at the generous portions of Danish vodka that are filling glasses in many guises. “Ooooh, no,” she says, laughing, “dangerous, dangerous. I’m working.”

An hour into the after-work event, the deputy consul general of the Netherlands is dutifully presented with a series of certificates, from the L.A. County Board of Commissioners, from the city of Beverly Hills and from the mayor’s office. Stepping behind the lectern, Sharpe, 52, quietly offers the mayor’s congratulations on the birthday of the queen and reads a bit from the document. Then, as she hands it over, she repeats these things, and a few more good wishes, only this time in Dutch. Not halting, just-memorized-from-the-Berlitz tape Dutch. Fluid, flawless Dutch.

If Madonna had just walked into the room, the crowd could not have been more electrified. After the obligatory singing of the Dutch and then the American national anthems, Sharpe was swarmed by people all wanting to know the same thing: Where had she learned to speak their language so well?

“I’m from Aruba,” she said again and again, the accent of the Caribbean rolling out the R and U like breaking waves. “So I speak the Dutch.”

And four other languages in addition to English--Spanish, French, German and Papiamento, a Spanish creole with Dutch and Portuguese influences. “In Aruba,” she said, “children speak four languages by the age of 5. And my parents always, always entertained all sorts of interesting people. So I learned early the importance of manners, and of understanding other people’s ways.”

Much of Sharpe’s background is sort of standard issue for the diplomatic corps--after graduating college in Suriname, she studied linguistics at schools in the Netherlands, France and Switzerland. She worked for the Belgian Consulate in Toronto for several years and then for Air Canada for 15 years, often coordinating the visits of foreign dignitaries. There she met and married musician Bill Sharpe. “We met at a dinner party, found out we shared the same birthday, and the rest is history,” she said. “People find out we’ve been married 22 years, they say, ‘What? To a musician?’”

The two moved to Los Angeles in 1986 when Sharpe headed language and translation services for Warner Bros., the 1994 World Cup USA Organizing Committee and, most recently, DreamWorks. After taking several years off to be home with her son, who is now 10, Sharpe began watching Hahn’s campaign. She had closely followed the career of his father, longtime county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, she said, “and I decided I wanted to work for this man.”

So she submitted her resume and waited. After a month or two, she got the call.

“Elga is a key part of our team,” Mayor Hahn said. “She is the perfect liaison between my office and our large international community.”

Since then, Sharpe has been out and about virtually every day and every night attending consulate functions and meeting the 86 career and honorary consul generals in L.A., overseeing the reception of dignitaries, including an unofficial visit from Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Queen Rania al Abdullah, and filling her new office and database with names, numbers and resources that range from private lines to the State Department to dictionaries in every language to etiquette guides. Her first call, she said, was to Ginger Barnard, who has worked with the diplomatic community for more than 20 years. She soon became assistant deputy of protocol for Los Angeles County.

“Whenever I have a question, and I have many, I ask Ginger,” Sharpe said. “She knows everyone and everything.”

In dress-down Los Angeles, it’s hard to imagine a definition of protocol beyond VIP parking passes. But when you consider that more than 36% of county residents were born in other countries, well, then it becomes less an issue of not enough protocol than of too many protocols. Barnard has a half-dozen etiquette books in her office, as well as guides to every country imaginable.

“Letitia Baldrige is usually pretty good,” she said, “but mostly we use ‘The Modern Guide to Business Etiquette.’”

Which makes perfect sense, since everyone, including Sharpe and Barnard, agrees that modern diplomacy, especially in L.A., is much more about business than image or manners. The diplomatic uniform--blue blazer, gray trousers for the men, dark suit for the women--these days is reserved for visits from heads of state. West Coast business is more Banana Republic than Brooks Bros. Still, there is protocol that must be adhered to, and Sharpe and Barnard are there to make certain that no faux pas are made.

“Here we are a little more casual,” Sharpe said, “but still you have to follow the rules.”

Such rules as when to sit and when to stand, and not to shake the hand of a head of state before it is fully extended, rules like who gets gifts and what sort (never give a Chinese diplomat a clock, Sharpe said, because to them it is a symbol of death), when a curtsey is appropriate and when it is not.

“I would always tend to overdo than underdo,” she said. “But that is just me.”

Before a visit from a foreign dignitary, Sharpe briefs the mayor on phrases and customs and what to expect in terms of ritual. She also is in charge of arranging meetings between the mayor and the diplomatic community, of deciding what countries the mayor will visit, which international events he will attend, and when he will meet with each consul general.

She spends a lot of her time saying no, in the nicest way possible.

“There are almost 90 national day celebrations alone every year,” she said. “There are worthy events going on every single day. But this is just one part of the mayor’s duties. An important part, but just one.”

When the mayor does attend an event, Sharpe goes with him; when he does not, she often goes in his place, making presentations or simply mingling among the guests.

As glamorous as it might sound to be out one night at the Vienna Philharmonic and at a Jamaican barbecue the next, it is not the easiest job in the world for a working mother. After putting together the mayor’s annual reception of the entire consular corps recently, Sharpe was so exhausted at the end of the evening she could barely drive herself home. “And then I was so wired I couldn’t sleep until 1.” But she was up five hours later looking for her son’s science book.

“It’s still a full-time job, motherhood,” she said.

But motherhood is perhaps one of the best preparations for a life dedicated to public service and good manners. In addition to aiding the various foreign missions and visitors, Sharpe works with representatives of the 20 cities L.A. calls “sister,” including Athens; Bordeaux, France; Giza, Egypt; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Taipei, Taiwan, putting together delegations and scheduling events and talking to officials from cities interested in joining the family.

In between, Sharpe and Barnard field questions from a wide array of sources--a diplomat’s spouse who wants to know where a good hairstylist is, the owner of an apartment building who needs to know what order the flags should be in (“We get a lot of calls about flags,” said Barnard), the Chinese relations committee looking for young people in creative fields to attend a conference in Santa Barbara.

“If you don’t know, you find the answers,” Sharpe said. “In America, protocol always seems foreign, but we need to have our own. Part of my hope is not only to educate people about how those in other countries behave, but also to develop a very specific set of our own, of Los Angeles protocol.”

Forget the herring; let’s see a group of well-dressed diplomats eat a grunion or two.