Solomon Islands - The Final Word

I've really enjoyed learning about the Solomon Islands over the past few months.  We haven't had the greatest summer in England this year, so it's been nice to transport myself on a virtual journey to the soft seas of the Pacific ocean!

I was starting from scratch with the Solomon Islands, to be honest, so I've learned a lot about this island nation and it intrigues me - I hope that, one day, I'll be able to visit for myself and understand the real context of everything I've been blogging about.

Summary of the themes

To summarise my virtual learning journey to the Solomon Islands, I started with a bit of history and the first European contact with the islands, during the period of Spanish exploration in the 16th century.  I also learned about the shameful 19th century tradition of blackbirding (kidnapping of Pacific islanders to work on plantations in Queensland) and the fascinating story of Jack Renton.

August saw the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Tatarstan and I took this opportunity to learn about different swimming styles and the contribution made by the Solomon Islands to the Solomons/Australian crawl!

Solomon Islands Fish and chips

In any virtual journey to the Solomon Islands you'll be sure to learn about the Pacific battles in World War Two.  The seas around the Solomon Islands are full of wrecked battle ships and submerged aircraft, as Guadalcanal became a major theatre of war between the Japanese and Allied forces.  As part of my research, I watched Terrance Malick's The Thin Red Line - a beautifully shot movie, which captures the surreal timelessness and brutality of war.

I couldn't really find a national dish from the Solomon Islands that wasn't essentially palu sami (which I've made several times before), so I created my own dish, Pacific-style fish and chips, using ingredients that would be more common in the Solomon Islands.

As usual, I did all of this with a fabulous soundtrack and I managed to find lots of great music from the Solomon Islands, including the lullaby Rorogwela which was sampled by Deep Forest in the early 1990's.

Books

I read four books as part of my research into the Solomon islands - here's the list:

Devil-Devil by GW Kent

Lonely Planet: Solomon Islands (1997) - ed. Mark Honan and David Harcombe - although this edition is almost twenty years old, I still found it very informative and, interestingly, it's hard to find a more modern guidebook on the Solomon Islands.  I guess the rule of 'profit margins' has taken over and publishers are less keen to take on more exotic projects these days - in any case, I love reading guidebooks from the mid-90's as it coincides with the period when I started travelling and, therefore, leads me virtually down alternative paths that my life might have taken!

Solomon Time (2002) by Will Randall is one of the few travelogues based in the Solomon Islands. The story of an English school teacher who gives up his life in the UK, to set up a chicken farm in Rendova, it was an amusing read, but I can't say I learnt a lot from this book.

Devil-Devil (2011) by G.W. Kent - unfortunately, I didn't find time to blog about this wonderful book by GW Kent.  It's a detective novel set in Malaita and Honiara and I really enjoyed reading it, although I don't usually read that genre.  I loved the characters and I learnt a lot about Solomon culture as well - I'd highly recommend this series of novels!

The White Headhunter (2003) by Nigel Randell - a really informative and 'heavy' read, which I used for my blog post about blackbirding and Jack Renton.

Movies

I watched three movies in total, that were somehow connected to the Solomon Islands:

The Thin Red Line (1998) dir. Terrance Malick - see the link to my blog post on this above.

Operation Pacific (1951) dir. George Waggner and starring John Wayne and Patricia Neal - this was a more traditional war movie and, as it turns out, was set more around the Philippines than the Solomon Islands.  It was interesting to compare the approach to war movies in the 1950's, when everything was so romanticised and the late 90's, when the real horror of war was more in focus.  It's not a bad movie, as they go and very typical of that era.

Tanna (2015) dir. Bentley Dean and Martin Butler - the London Film festival is on at the moment and I've always intended to go to a showing, but somehow managed to miss this in previous years. Unfortunately, they didn't have any movies from the Solomon Islands on the programme this year, but they did have this wonderful movie from neighbouring Vanuatu, so I decided to watch it as part of my research into the Pacific region.  It's set on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu and a representative of the community in which the movie is shot came all the way to London to talk to us about his culture and traditions.  It was a truly memorable experience and it's a really beautiful movie.

I'm going to try to make a visit to the London Film festival an annual outing that coincides with whichever place I'm blogging about in future (or as close as I can get, culturally).

Other themes

As usual there were many other themes that I didn't have time to blog about, but if you're interested in continuing a learning journey about the Solomon Islands, I would suggest the following additional themes:

Diving
Headhunting
Futsal
Tattoos
Coconuts
Albinos
IATA codes
Missionaries in the Pacific
The Malaita Massacre
The shark callers of the Pacific
The Lau people
Crocodiles
DBS - Distressed British Subjects
The Chinese in the Pacific
Kastom
Te lapa - navigating with underwater lightening strikes
Quonset huts
The Marching Rule movement
The Kakamoras or pygmy people
Nguzunguzu - traditional carvings on war canoes
Pijin English
Richard Francis Burton - the British adventurer and orientalist
Evil spirits like the basana
JF Kennedy's time in the Solomon Islands
Cargo cults

Réunion - The Final Word

Proposed flag for Réunion

I've found Réunion a fascinating place to blog about - as I've been researching for this blog and learning more about the interesting mix of cultures that Réunion has inherited, I've been mentally planning a trip to the island, at some unspecified time in the future!

As it happens, I have visited a few of the places I've blogged about, having become really interested in these places as a result of my 'armchair learning' experience.  The places I've visited so far as a result of this blog are: Hong Kong, Iceland, Jersey, Quebec and Barbados and I'm hoping to visit Korea and Mongolia later this year!

Of course, there are quite a few places I've blogged about that I may never get the chance to visit (I'm thinking of places like Kiribati, Liberia and Yemen), but a visit to Réunion is a distinct possibility and, as with any of the places I've blogged about, I'd love to visit sooner, rather than later, before Réunion changes too much!

The Themes

During my time blogging about Réunion, I've learned about the history of the island and how Réunion is part of France, although it lies thousands of miles south of Paris, in the Indian Ocean. I've learned about the role that Réunion has played in the cultivation of vanilla, a notoriously expensive plant that originates in Mexico and is incredibly difficult to grow.  I also learned how to make Canard a la Vanille, a typical Réunionnais dish and this was my first time to physically handle vanilla and cook with it.

Books

I read the following books, as part of my research:

Some of the books I read as part of my research on Réunion

Insight Guides: Mauritius, Réunion and Seychelles (2009) - the second edition that Insight guides have published about the Mascarene islands - very informative, as Insight guides usually are.

Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid (2004) by Tim Ecott - which has chapters on Réunion, but also covers Mexico, Tahiti and Madagascar.

La Grand-Mere Kalle (2006) by local writer Yves Manglou - which brings to life the mythology of Réunion.  You can read my blog post about this book for more information.

Island Born of Fire (2006) by R.B. Trombley - a scientific book about the geological make-up of the island - a little bit over my head and difficult to read, but interesting all the same.

The Age of Kali (1998) - a collection of travel essays by William Dalrymple - I'd never read Dalrymple before, but I definitely want to read more! His essays are mostly about India and Pakistan, but he does include a couple of interesting essays on Sri Lanka and an essay on Réunion called The Sorcerer's Grave.

Movies

I could only find one movie which was set on Réunion, Francois Truffaud's La sirène du Mississippi (1969), which I also blogged about.

Music

I also had a wonderful time listening to the music of Réunion and I created a play list, which includes songs by artists such as Firmin Viry, Granmoun Lélé and Faham.

Other themes

As usual, I came across other themes that were interesting, but I didn't have time to research into further - if you want to continue your own learning about Réunion, I would suggest the following 'other' topics:

Edward's Dodo by Roelant Savery (1626)

The Euro and how Réunion was the first place to adopt this new currency
The pirate La Buse and his hidden treasure, which people believe is still buried somewhere on the island
Les enfants de la Creuse - Réunion's own stolen generation of children who were removed from their parents and brought up in France
Volcanoes
The Dodo and how it became extinct
The French code noir which sought to prevent the intermarrying of races
Réunion during World War 2
The Kerveguen sugar empire

The Final Word on Métissage

One thing that came through strongly during my research on Réunion was the importance of métissage in the identity of this far-flung French outpost. Métissage is the French word for mixing and it's a good way of describing the development of culture on Réunion, which has mixed elements of Africa, Asia and Europe to produce a new culture, totally unique to the island.

Expeditus, photo by Jean Poussin

An interesting manifestation of métissage is the cult of St Expédit, the island's unofficial patron saint. According to William Dalrymple, in his book The Age of Kali, the cult of  St Expédit on Réunion started in 1931, when a mysterious package, supposedly containing relics of a Christian saint, arrived on the island from the Vatican and bore a stamp saying spedito, which is the Italian word for expedited or  'sent quickly'.

The cult of St Expédit took such a hold on the island that the Catholic Church was forced to create a 'back story' for the saint and aligned St Expédit with the Roman soldier, Expeditus who became an early Christian martyr in 4th century Armenia.  Whether it's true or not, Dalrymple's theory is an interesting one and I do love a good mystery!

In modern times, shrines to St Expédit on Réunion are usually painted blood red and people pray to the saint for all kinds of things - the cult of St Expédit lends itself to Réunion's métissage culture, mixing African ancestor worship, Hindu reincarnation's of Vishnu and Tamil interpretations of Christianity.  Statues of St Expédit are sometimes mysteriously beheaded and there is something distinctly un-Christian about the magical powers and ability to answer prayers, that St Expédit has been credited with.

The cult of Expeditus is also really popular in Chile, for some reason and I find the whole thing fascinating but also slightly bizarre!

Image credits:

Although I've been using a coat of arms to represent Réunion during my blog posts, I have since discovered a proposed flag for the island, so I wanted to represent this in my final blog post.

The image of Edward's Dodo, the 1626 painting by the Flemish painter, Roland Savery is in the public domain.

The photo of the Expeditus statue has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Jean Poussin and you can see more information on this image here.  

Quebec - The Final Word

The time has come to say au revoir to Quebec and it's been an amazing learning journey - as well as physically travelling to the place I've been blogging about, I've also had fun on my journey through Quebecois music, literature and cinema. I've seen Le Vent du Nord live in concert in Bury (near Manchester) and the Institut Francais in London is showing a retrospective of Xavier Dolan's movies - although I've now seen all of his movies, I'll looking forward to finishing my Quebecois experience with a few trips to the cinema in February and March.

I learned quite a bit about Canada, as well as Quebec and I learned about memory and Quebec's motto, Je me souviens. I learned about the other Titanic, The Empress of Ireland and about religious beliefs in Canada.  I learned how to make the traditional Quebecois dish, La Poutine and I learned about the significance of winter in Quebec and how it's become so unpopular, especially in a busy city like Montreal.  Finally, I learned about Quebec in other words, like joual, bougeotte, pure laine and tabernac.

The Canadian flag turned 50 this month

As usual, there were many areas of research I didn't have time to go into, so if you're interested in learning even more about Quebec, I would recommend the following topics:

The North American number plan for dialling codes
The Huron people and the origin of the country name, Canada
British-French relations
The French in North America
Hydroelectric power
Pepsi v Coke and the 'rock and roller cola wars'
US invasions of Canada
Nunavik
The snowy owl and the white lily, Quebec's symbols
Ann Coreo and Lily St Cyr, the exotic dancers of Montreal
The Jews of Montreal
Marc Lepine and the Montreal massacre

Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67 in Montreal

Mattieu de Costa, the freed African slave who was fluent in Mi'kmaq
The architecture of Moshe Safdie
Failed attempts at gaining independence from Canada
Quebecois soap operas
The Americanisation of Quebec
French-Canadian media and newspapers
The Desjardins group of artists
Ice-hockey
The Mohawks of Brooklyn
The Cirque du Soleil
The 1885 smallpox epidemic, which resulted in 3,000 deaths

Final word on the Mohawk nation

Flag of the Iroquois confederacy

I only managed to scratch the surface in terms of my learning about First Nations people who live in Quebec and I'd like to return to the First Nations some day and do more research on native American culture.  Around 1% of Quebec's population is native American and I'm quite interested in the First Nations people, who are distinct from the Inuits or Metis peoples.  First Nations in Quebec include people from the Algonquian and Iroquoian groups.

Contact with Europeans has rarely worked out in favour of the First Nation peoples and there is a still a lot of tension between First Nation communities and neighbouring 'white' communities.  I watched a really interesting documentary on YouTube called Acts of Defiance which documents events around the Oka Crisis, which began in July 1990, and the impact that this conflict had on the Mohawk people of Kahnawake.

Watching the documentary gives you a real understanding of the cultural gap that exists between First Nations people in Quebec and the dominant French/European culture.  Mohawk people belong to the Iroquois league or Haudenosaunee, which stretches from the St Lawrence River in Quebec, to southern Ontario and northern New York state.  Haudenosaunee has issued its own passports since the 1920's and attempted to send a delegation to the League of Nations, post World War 1.

As well as Mohawk reservations, Quebec has also granted a certain amount of sovereignty to the Cree people in Eeyou Istchee/Baie James and these communities are represented by the Grand Council of the Crees, which has embassies in Montreal and Quebec City.

Although I've called this my final word on the Mohawk nation, what I really mean is that my final word is that I would like to do some more research on the Mohawk nation and the other First Nations of Canada.  

Liberia - The Final Word

I've been blogging about Liberia for over two months - probably my longest time ever on one place, but I have been incredibly busy with real-life travel during this period.  Having done no less than 12 trips in 7 different countries, it's surprising I found time to do my research and blog at all!

It's been a great learning experience - not only about Liberia, but about West Africa and I've read lots of books and watched several movies set in or somehow connected to Liberia.  I learned about the history of Liberia and explored three of the most popular questions about Liberia on online search engines.  I learned about the importance of masks in West Africa and I read about Graham Greene's walk through Liberia in the 1930's.  I learned about international measuring systems and I learned how to cook palava, a popular West African dish.  I also blogged about ten random facts that I learned about Liberia. 

Kolahun by ChrysteleC

As usual, even with a long period of research, there were topics that I would have liked to explore further, but didn't have enough time.  If you wish to continue researching into Liberia, I would suggest the following topic areas:

- The difference between freedom and liberation
- Mangroves
- African airlines
- Polygamy
- FGM (ie. female genital mutilation)
- the flags of Liberian counties
- the role of the Blacksmith in traditional African ceremonies
- Firestone's presence in Liberia

The Final Word on Press Freedom

Monrovia Market by ChrysteleC

Blogging about Liberia, which was symbolically named after the concept of liberation, has made me think about the question - How do we measure how free/liberated a country is?

There are several (predominantly Western) indices which attempt to define how 'free' a country is.  One of the most well-known indices is The Press Freedom Index - which is compiled by the French-based Reporters without borders (Reporters Sans Frontières). 

Reporters without borders is a non-profit organisation which monitors attacks on press freedom worldwide.  Each year they publish the Press Freedom Index, which tries to measure press freedom of speech around the world.  70 journalists were killed in 2013, the highest number being 10 in Syria, followed by 8 each in India and the Philippines. 



Lofa by ChrysteleC

In 2013, Eritrea came bottom of the list of countries ranked by the Press Freedom Index, as they had done in 2012, when I was blogging about this country.  North Korea frequently takes second-last place, when it comes to press freedom.  Liberia came 97th on the list of 173 countries and is considered to be in a 'satisfactory' situation. 

The West African country with the best record is, perhaps not surprisingly, Cape Verde - which came 25th on the list, ahead of both the UK and the US.  Gambia has the lowest ranking of all West African countries, coming 152nd and is considered to be in a 'difficult situation'.  Although it's only one way of measuring 'freedom', I think the importance of independent reporting is a good indicator of how comfortable a government feels with internal criticism. 

There are other indices, which attempt to measure freedom and I had a lot of fun playing around with Freedom Meta-Index - this allows you to define your own criteria, eg. 'freedom of expression' and 'drugs rights', to see how free different countries are. 

The Music

I must admit, I didn't spend a lot of time listening to Liberian music - Liberia doesn't seem to have the 'big stars' that exist elsewhere in West Africa, although I could sense that music is as important to Liberia, as to any other nation in the region. 

I did quite like a musician called Shadow and he seems to be very popular with Liberians, so I'm going to leave you with one of his latest videos, from YouTube.
Image credits:

There are a limited number of photographers who have shared images on Flickr which were taken in Liberia but, nevertheless, I've managed to find some really beautiful images to illustrate my blog posts. 

For this final blog post I wanted to highlight the work of a relatively new member of the Flickr community, ChrysteleC - who joined Flickr in 2013, although I think the photos were taken in 2006.  You can see more of ChrysteleC's work on her photo stream.  Thanks ChrysteleC for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

Jersey - the Final Word

I've tried to be 'tight' with my timing on Jersey and it really feels as though I've merely scratched the surface in terms of my research into life on the island.  My blog posts can only capture a fraction of my learning experience and this 'final word' is an attempt to summarise the learning journey I've been on for the past month or so.

A summary of the themes

During my research on Jersey, I learned about Jersey's legal status - not part of the UK, but being closely linked culturally and politically.  I also learned about Jèrriais, the native language of the island, now considered to be severely endangered.  I learned about Jersey's reputation as a tax haven and I learned about the Occupation of the Channel Islands by the Nazis, during World War Two.  Finally, I learned how to make Bean Crock or Pais au Fou and Jersey Wonders, traditional recipes from the island. 

Tools for Research

I read the following books:

Tools for research in the afternoon light

Insight Guides: Channel Islands (2007 reprint, editor Brian Bell), which was useful for background research on topic areas.

Living with the Enemy (2002 reprint) by Roy McLoughlin - a useful overview of life in the Channel Islands under Nazi rule.

I also read Night of the Fox (1986) by Jack Higgins, the well-known author who has made Jersey his home.  It was an interesting novel and not the kind I would normally read, but I enjoyed it.  Perhaps most interesting was how a standard plot was turned on its head - somehow the 'good guys' seemed to be the deceptive ones and the ones who made the confession at the end - except it all turned out in their favour, whereas, normally the confession scene happens just before the bad guys get caught!

Finally, I read This is how you disappear (2007), a book of poetry by Jersey-born Jeremy Reed - but more about that later . .

Apart from The Others (2001) dir. Alejandro Amenábar and starring Nicole Kidman, there don't seem to have been many movies set in Jersey.

Nevertheless, I had great fun watching the very first series of Bergerac, the 80's detective show, which brought the island to British TV screens.  It's a bit dated now, of course, but I enjoyed John Nettles' performances and was surprised to learn that his birth-mother was Irish, although he was brought up by adoptive parents.

It was great to see the island on film and funny to think of the image Bergerac portrayed of Jersey, as a hive of international espionage, drugs, homosexuality, inheritance disputes and Korean war veterans!  I didn't watch the TV series when it was aired, back in the day, so it was all new to me and the kind of experience I would have completely missed, if it weren't for this blog!

I also loved the theme music - reggae meets French accordion - it's very catchy!

Unfortunately, other musical experiences were thin on the ground, but luckily the island's reputation has been saved by the wonderful Nerina Pallot who was nominated for the award of British Female Solo Artist at the Brits in 2007.  I particularly liked the song Patience, which is from her debut album, Dear Frustrated Superstar (2001) - I'm pasting in a clip from YouTube below, so you can hear for yourself.




Other Themes

As usual, I couldn't cover all of the themes I would have liked to, in such a short space of time, so here is a suggested list of additional Jersey themes which you can explore in your own free time;

Sleeves and Knitwear
Potatoes
Witchcraft
The Battle of the Flowers
The Jersey National Trust
Dutch Elm disease
Limpets
The St Ouen Wreckers
Lily Langtry, the Jersey Lily
William Prynne
Durrell and conservation
Smuggling
The Chausey islands
Salvage Rights
The Channel Islands on the Vinland map
The Clameur de Haro
The Beast of Jersey
Conway's Jersey Temple in Henley-upon-Thames

Dinner Party trivia

And here are some tidbits of information about Jersey, that will no doubt impress your fellow guests at upcoming dinner parties:

Jersey folk are nicknamed crapauds - the French word for toad - especially by their traditional rivals in Guernsey

The combined population of the Channel Islands is 160,000 people - an estimated 100,000 people live on Jersey

St Helier has over 50 international banks

John Copley's Death of Major Peirson (1793)

Jersey's most famous painting is John Copley's Death of Major Peirson (1793) - which depicts the 'Battle of Jersey' when locals defended the island from a French invasion

New Jersey in the United States was land given to Sir George Carteret, Governor of Jersey by Charles II, in recognition of his (and the island's) support of the Royalist cause

Whilst Jersey supported the Royalists in the Civil War, Guernsey supported the Parliamentarians

The Channel Islands were famous for their knitwear, hence the use of the word Jersey to mean jumper or sweater - I suspect that the Irish word for sweater, which is geansaí, comes from trade and contact with neighbouring Guernsey

There was a thriving illegal tobacco trade between Jersey and Devon in the 17th century

The first Red Pillar Post Boxes, those famous icons of London and England, were erected in Jersey in 1852

The differences in wildlife distribution between the Channel Islands is inexplicably large, eg. there are no magpies on Alderney and Jersey is the only island to have moles

Jersey was known as the Isle of Congers (eels) during the Middle Ages

Jersey has 350 miles of road

St Helier, the capital of Jersey, was named after a Belgian monk

There is an Irish community in St Helier which dates back to Napoleonic times

When Lord Carrington heard that the Jersey-born actress Lily Langtry had lost her parrot, he famously quipped 'I didn't know she had a parrot, but I'd heard she had a cockatoo'

Jesse Boot, the founder of Boots chemist's, married a woman from Jersey and is buried on the island

The Final word on Elegies

I want finish with a bit of poetry by one of Jersey's most famous literary sons, Jeremy Reed.  I don't often read poetry, as part of my research for this blog, so it was a pleasure to spend time reading This is how you disappear - Reed's book of elegiac poems from 2007. 

The collection reads like a who's who of London's gay artists, musicians, film directors and surrealists poets, many of whom were close friends of Reed's, some of whom died during the AIDS epidemic of the 80's and 90's.  Of course, I was already familiar with some of the people Reed writes about, like Derek Jarman, whose work I really love and Dusty Springfield whose music has been enjoyed by many of us.

I was much less familiar with some of the other people that Reed has written Elegies for - for example, the surrealist poet David Gascoyne, the US lyric poet John Wieners and the experimental musician John Balance.  It's a beautiful collection and my first taste, not only of the surrealist movement, but also of a gay London world that might otherwise be lost in the fog of memory.

I'm going to leave you with an excerpt of Reed's Elegy for John Balance and a YouTube video of Coil's At the Heart of it All.


'As you were carried off alone
in a black carriage led by a black horse
along a puddled drive to disappear
at the third bend - a stand of trees
commanding view and winter clouds
big on us, like they'd never clear'

Image credits:

The photo of my research tools was taken by me.

John Copley's Death of Major Peirson is in the public domain and, therefore, copyright-free. 

Honduras - The Final Word

It's time to say ¡hasta luego! to Honduras - I hope you've enjoyed this virtual journey around Honduran culture, just as much as I have. 

A summary of the themes

During my research about Honduras, I learned about the country's turbulent history and the origin of the name, Honduras.  I read about the inspiring community leader, Elvia Alvarado and the impact of liberation theology on the politics of Central America.  I read a novel by one of Honduras' most famous modern writers, The Big Banana by Roberto Quesada.  I also learned about the hazardous journey many Central Americans make to a new life in the United States, as documented in Enrique's Journey by Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist, Sonia Lazario.  And I learned how to make Enchiladas Hondureñas. 

Tools for research

I read five books as part of my research about Honduras:

Lonely Planet: Honduras and the Bay Islands (1st edition, 2007)

Books I read, as part of my research

Don't be afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart (1987) - the story of Elvia Alvarado, translated and edited by Medea Benjamin.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy

The Big Banana (1999) by Roberto Quesada,  Arte Publico Press

Enrique's Journey (2006) by Sonia Nazario, Random House Trade Paperback edition

The Mosquito Coast (1981) by Paul Theroux - I read the 1982 Penguin edition.  I didn't blog about this book - it's one I've read before and I read it again for sheer pleasure, it's still a classic story and I'd highly recommend it. 

I also watched several movies as part of my research:

Walker (1987), directed by Alex Cox (who did Sid and Nancy)- although it's mostly set in Nicaragua, I found this movie to be a fascinating portrayal of the 19th century filibuster, William Walker, who tried to take over Central America in the mid-19th century.  The style of the movie was Acid Western which is a genre I'm not very familiar with. 

DVD cover of El Espiritu de mi Mama

El Espíritu de mi Mamá (1999) by Ali Allie was a beautiful movie, probably the most famous one to come out of Honduras in recent years.  I had to order this one from the US, as it's not readily available here in the UK. 

The Mosquito Coast (1986), the movie based on the book, directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. 

I did all of my research listening to the music of the following Honduran bands:

Grupo Garifuna de Honduras (traditional Garifuna music - really beautiful stuff, many of the songs also featured in the movie El Espíritu de mi Mamá)

El Sol Caracol (a modern pop-rock band, that I've really grown to like - I particularly liked their song Pero a tu Lado - Only by your side - and could picture myself boogeying away to this in a niteclub in Tegucigalpa!)

Banda Blanca (a more old-fashioned show band, playing hits like the Spanish version of John Lennon's Imagine)

Aurelio Martinez (a more modern, funkier Garifuna singer, who is incredibly popular on the world music scene)


Pero a tu Lado - a song about Tegucigalpa by the band El Sol Caracol

Other themes

As usual, if I had more time, there were many other themes that I would liked to have blogged about.  Perhaps I'll come back to some of them later.  These included:

The Mayan Apocalypse
The deeps/depth
Macaws
Garifuna culture and language
The treatment of LGBT people in Central America
Diving
The banana industry
Pirates
Underworlds
Fr Jose Andres Tamayo - the eco-warrior priest
The currencies of Latin America
Tobacco
The Fountain of Youth
The 'White City' of La Moskitia
The legend of La Sucia, aka Bubbly Susan

Dinner-party trivia

And I learned some trivia about Honduras that will, no doubt, come in handy for dinner party conversations!

- The Honduran currency, the Lempira is named after a native Lenca chieftain who led a revolt against the Spanish invaders in 1537. 
- British pirates dominated the Caribbean coast of Honduras up until the 19th century
- Miskito people were so-called because of the 'muskets' that the British pirates gave them, so they could fight against the Spanish
- 30% of the words in the Miskito language are of English origin
- The writer O Henry first coined the phrase Banana Republic
- Honduras had a 'soccer war' with El Salvador in 1969 - so-called because the conflict broke out after a football match, although the underlying tensions concerned Salvadoran immigration to Honduras
- the five stars on the Honduran flag represent the five countries involved in the Federal Republic of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica)
- Honduras qualified for the World Cup only once, in 1982
- Despite being a nominally Catholic country, there are around 100,000 Protestants in Honduras
- Of Honduras' 225 native species, almost half are types of bat!
- The Tolupan people of Honduras are believed to be one of the most ancient American peoples and speak a language which some linguists believe is related to Sioux. 
- Honduras' second city, San Pedro Sula, has been called the 'Aids capital of Central America'
- The oldest clock in the Americas can be found in Comayagua cathedral - it was built for the Moors of Alhambra around 1100CE.
- La Moskitia has the largest rainforest in Central America

In the News

Since I started blogging about Honduras, more than a month ago, I've noticed the following stories in the news:

The Honduran national football team wins during a World Cup qualifying match against the United States. 

The Honduran economy is on the brink of collapse.

The government proposes to boost the economy through the development of 'Charter cities' which would be run by companies, without regard to social and human rights

The President sends soldiers to the capital to keep law and order

Honduras marks the one year anniversary of the terrible Comayagua prison fire

The Final word in Death

It's hard to research about Honduras and not come across the fact that this small Latin American country has the highest intentional homicide rate in the world. That's a rate of 91.6 out of 100,000 people, way ahead of the world's second most dangerous country, neighbouring El Salvador, which has a homicide rate of 69.2 per 100,000 people.  Cote d'Ivoire comes in third at 56.9 and is Africa's most dangerous country.

It's a far cry from countries in Europe, like Ireland and the UK (both 1.2 per 100,000 people) - the murder rate in Honduras is more than 75 times higher!  Europe's most dangerous country is Greenland (19.2) followed by Russia (10.2).  Asia's most dangerous country is Kyrgyzstan (20.1). 

The intentional homicide rate in the US is 4.2, but this runs as high as 24.0 in the District of Columbia, where the federal capital, Washington D.C. is located.  The countries with the lowest homicide rates include; Monaco, Palau, Hong Kong, Singapore and Iceland.  Japan also has a fairly low homicide rate (0.4) for a country with such a big population. 

On a slightly more cheerful note, I'm going to leave you with a wonderful manga video to the soundtrack of Banda Blanca's 'Imagenes'- enjoy and up next month is I . . .




Image credits:

Both images were taken by me. 

Guangdong - The Final Word

It's time to say joigin to Guangdong - it's been a really interesting learning experience - slightly longer than usual, because of the Christmas vacation!

A summary of the themes

During the two months that I've been blogging about Guangdong, I've tried to get my head around the sheer size of Guangdong's population and that of China in general. I also grappled with some comparative linguistics, in an attempt to understand how close (or not) Cantonese is to Mandarin.  I did some research into Guangdong's toy industry as I learned how to make Stir-fry Beef with Oyster Sauce.  

Tools for research

I read three books during my research about Guangdong:

Research on Guangdong, China

China: Culture Shock! by Angela Eagan and Rebecca Weiner (2007) which gave me a good overview of Chinese culture.

Modern China: A very short introduction by Rana Mitter (2008) - part of my favourite series of books by Oxford University Press.

I also read Fan Wu's beautiful novel, February Flowers (2006) set in Guangzhou. 

The movies I watched as part of my research included:

Happy Together (1997), dir. Wong Kar-Wai and starring Leslie Cheung (the famous Cantopop star) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, about a gay male couple who are trying to get by in Argentina. 

Jet Li in Once Upon a time in China

Once Upon a Time in China (1991), dir. Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li.  I never imagined I would enjoy a martial arts movie, but this movie was both funny and interesting to watch.

And I absolutely loved Ip Man (2008), dir. Wilson Yip and starring the rather gorgeous Hong Kong actor Donnie Yen. The martial arts scenes in the movie were beautifully shot and the story was incredibly moving, being mostly based on the famous master of wing chun, Yip Man (who also trained Bruce Lee)

Other Themes

If I had time to continue blogging about Guangdong, I would be interested in the pursuing the following themes:

Tea
Chinese Protestants
The Taiping rebellion
The demise of China's nationalist party, the Kuomintang
The growing African population of Guangzhou
Ching Shih and female pirates
The Dynasties of China
Wedding photography
Chinese football
Chinese surnames
The Canton Fair - China's biggest trade fair
The exotic animals of Qingping Shichang
China in the Olympics
Kwang-Chou-Wan (Guangzhouwan), the 'French Hong Kong'

Dinner Party Trivia

As usual I learned some trivia about Guangdong which, I'm sure, will come in handy for dinner party small talk:

- Guangdong's economy is equivalent to the economies of Indonesia or Turkey
- Guangzhou is known as 'the flower city'
- Overseas Chinese are called Huaqiao 华侨
- There is a 7th century mosque in Guangzhou - Arab traders settled in Guangdong 1,000 years before Europeans arrived on the scene
- Chinese law stipulates that all citizens must be cremated after death - however, exceptions are made for ethnic minorities, eg. Tibetans.
- Although only 1% of China's population is Christian, that still amounts to approximately 1.4 million people
- In 2012, Ireland helped China establish its first national equestrian facility

In the News

I've also been keeping an eye on news stories related to China over the past two months and there's been quite a lot going on, including:

- Protests in Vietnam over the Chinese Navy's activity around the disputed Spratly Islands, which both countries claim as part of their sovereign territory
- The 75th anniversary of the Nanking Massacre
- A knife-wielding madmen who stabbed children in Henan province - although this happened around the same time as the terrible shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newton, Connecticut, I wouldn't have been aware of the stabbings in China, if I hadn't been following Chinese news
- A craze amongst China's nouveau-riche for European-style butlers
- Panic-buying of baby milk in Australia, as Chinese visitors stock up on the Australian brands, not trusting baby milk produced in their own country
- Demonstrations in Guangzhou about press freedom
- A landslide in Yunnan province
- Coastal China's lowest temperatures in 28 years
- Chinese workers kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region
- Another year of slow growth in China's economy - 2012 saw the lowest level of growth in 13 years


The Final Word on Liberty

I was really interested to read about Isaiah Berlin's 'two concepts of liberty' in Rana Mitter's Modern China: A very short introduction.  According to Mitter, China scores very low in 'positive liberty', which would include things like press freedom, the right to demonstrate and form political parties opposed to the governing party.  However, arguably, when it comes to 'negative liberty', ie. the right to be left alone, China might score a bit higher, in the sense that the state in 21st century China doesn't tend to interfere in the personal choices of its citizens (marriage, fashion, access to music etc) in the same way as in, for example, Saudi Arabia.  I thought this was an interesting theory and it reminded me a lot of how the state operates in Russia - I guess there are many similarities.  Whilst I think Mitter might be on to something, I can't help thinking that China's one-child policy and state control of the Internet constitute restrictions on its citizens' negative liberty. 

A Cantopop Swansong

And, of course, I've been listening to lots of Cantopop.  I listened to Hong Kong stars like Sammi Cheng and Leslie Cheung.  Leslie was a great artist in many ways, an actor, as well as a singer, he did a lot to challenge Chinese preconceptions on sexuality, starring in ground-breaking movies like Farewell my Concubine (1993).  He suffered terribly from depression and tragically killed himself on April Fool's day in 2003, by jumping out of the window on the 24th floor of Hong Kong's Mandarin hotel.

But I'm going to leave you with a Youtube video by one of the most famous Cantopop singers of all, Roman Tam, whose music I've grown quite fond of.  Unfortunately, I can't find my favourite Roman Tam song, World of Love on Youtube, so I'm posting another really beautiful song, so you can get an idea of what his music sounds like.


Image credits:

The photo of the books was taken by me.   

The image of the still from the movie, Once Upon a Time in China is from a photo taken by me. This image is being used to illustrate this blogpost and promote Tsui Hark's film. By publishing this image, I'm not condoning or encouraging reproduction of this image on the Internet or anywhere else. This image is not meant to bring the actors into disrepute or suggest their endorsement of this blogpost, but is meant to highlight the performances of these actors in this movie.

Eritrea - The Final Word

I'm really reluctant to say goodbye to Eritrea, as I've enjoyed learning about this small country and I'm curious to know even more!

A summary of the themes

I've managed to stick to just over a month, this time round and, during that time, I have learned about the different ethnic groups that live in Eritrea.   I've learned about Eritrea's 30-year struggle for independence but I've also learned about Eritrea's great potential as a tourist destination and the state of tourism in Africa and around the world.   I taught myself how to make a traditional Eritrean dish, Tsebhi Derho with Injera and I read some Eritrean plays, notably The Other War by Alemseged Tasfai. 

Tools for research

Books I read as part of my research on Eritrea

I read several books whilst researching Eritrea:

Ethiopia, Eritrea & Djibouti (Lonely Planet, 2000 edition) for background research.

Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning by Roy Pateman, for a more serious look at the history of the conflict in Eritrea.  Pateman is a good advocate for Eritrea and his book contains a lot of interesting information.

Ciao Asmara by Justin Hill - a more light-hearted account of the time that Justin spent working in Eritrea as an English teacher.

My Father's Daughter by Hannah Pool - a really moving account of Hannah's search for her family in Eritrea - she deals with the themes of adoption and cultural identity - highly recommended!

The Other War by Alamseged Tesfai from Contemporary African plays (Banham & Plastow ed,)

Three Eritrean Plays (from Hdri publishers in Asmara) with plays by Solomon Dirar, Esaias Tseggai and Mesgun Zerai

I also watched one movie set in Eritrea, Heart of Fire (dir. Luigi Falorni in 2009).  I really enjoyed the movie and I thought the child actors were fantastic - it was also great to hear Tigrinya being spoken on film, as I'd never really heard spoken Tigrinya before (only in song!).  I'm embedding the trailer, from Youtube, so you can hear for yourself!




Other themes

If I had time to continue blogging about Eritrea, I would be interested in researching the following topics:

Italian colonisation in Africa
Press freedom (Eritrea is currently bottom of the list on the Press Freedom Index - even worse than North Korea!!)
Diving for pearls in the Dahlak Islands
The Great Rift Valley and the world's highest cities
Orthodox Christianity
The bee-keepers of Saho
Consensus democracy
Women in the military
The world's hottest inhabited places (which includes Dankalia)
Trade in Salt
The Land of Punt
The Tacaruni people, originally from Nigeria, who got stranded in Eritrea and settled there

Dinner party trivia

And here is some trivia about Eritrea that you can use to impress people at dinner parties!

Pages from an Eritrean newspaper

- Eritreans use the word Gedli when talking about their 30-year struggle for independence.
- The Horn of Africa was known in ancient times as  Bilad al-Barbar or 'land of the Berbers'
- The Italian census of 1939 showed that half of Asmara's population was Italian - no wonder that Asmara was known as piccola Roma.
- Eritrea has one of the largest armies in Africa, despite its relatively small population (5 million)
- The US government considers Eritrea to be a CPC or Country of Particular Concern because of restraints on the freedom to practice religions other than the main religion of the state.
- Seyoum Tsehaye is a jailed Eritrean journalist, who was awarded 'Reporter of the Year' in 2007, by Reporters without Borders.
- Eritrea's highest point is called Emba Soira and is more than 3,000 metres (almost 10,000 feet) above sea level. 
- The Hedareb tribe use ritual scarification - the Italians called them the 111 tribe, due to the three linear scars that men carve on their faces.
- The Kunama tribe are mostly animists and believe in a supreme deity called Anna.
- One of the Dahlak Islands, off Eritrea's coast, in the Red Sea, is called Nora!
- The only newspaper in Eritrea is the state-run Haddas Eritrea.
- Traditional Eritrean houses, known as Hidmo, require the felling of 100 trees to build, with a lot of wasted wood.  Eritrea, like many countries, has suffered from massive deforestation - whereas 30% of Eritrea was covered in forests, a century ago, nowadays, only 1% of the country is forested. 

The Final Word

One of the things that surprised me most about Eritrea is that fact that cycling is considered to be a national sport.  I guess it's another legacy of Italian colonisation but, if the country's national cycling tour, the Giro d'Eritrea is anything to go by, Eritreans take their cycling seriously.  The first races were held in 1946 and 1947, but didn't happen again until 2001 and have been held every year since.  I can imagine it's quite a tough ride, 700 miles in ten stages, including some very mountainous terrain.  It's quite reassuring, in a way, after reading about so much war and suffering, to also read about something as mundane as a cycling tournament.  I'd recommend this Guardian article from 2006, which cleverly captures the mood in Eritrea when the Giro is in progress!

An Eritrean Swansong

And, last but not least!  I've had a great time listening to the music of the Asmara All Stars and the beautiful voice of Eritrean songstress, Faytinga.  Eritrean music sounds different than music in other parts of Africa - the high-pitched female voice reminds me of Bollywood, or traditional Chinese songs - the rhythm is more Arabian than African.  It certainly makes for an interesting combination of sounds.  I'm going to leave you with a Youtube video featuring Faytinga that I found really touching - it's called (simply) Eritrea -  I hope you've enjoyed my 'journey' to Eritrea as much as I have - next up is F . . .



Image credits:

Both photos on this blog post were taken by me - please feel free to reuse them with the Creative Commons License:

- Attribution (especially to this blog post)
- Share Alike
- Non-commercial