2. the behavior of an animal in defining and defending its territory.
3. attachment to or protection of a territory or domain.
And let's follow that up with a basic truth: the concept of territoriality applies to human interaction as well. We build fences around our houses, put up NO TRESPASSING signs, and feel more at home in our native towns, counties, states, provinces, and (naturally) territories than anywhere else.
It's that specific aspect of territoriality I want to discuss, actually.
Traveling and living in foreign countries is a growing experience. It's a baptism by fire, a crash course in open-mindedness, cultural exposure, language barriers, communication disasters, culinary misadventures and homesickness. You feel it the moment you step off the plane. Everything's new, and it's scary. People are talking in tongues you can't understand. The signs are unreadable. Often the people themselves look completely alien to you, and it's a lead-pipe cinch that they'll think and act in different ways. This makes travelers apprehensive and twitchy and throws us all off our chumps. Eventually, with successive jaunts and expeditions, we get used to the otherness and can relax and enjoy our trips with relative ease.
But one fear never goes away.
In addition to the surface nervousness that traveling engenders within us, there is also something more primordial: a creeping, furtive sort of nervousness, an ever-present low-key fear. It's not just the unfamiliarity of our surroundings. It's the simple fact that we're off our home range. We're on someone else's turf, so to speak. We're in a foreign land, with different laws, mindsets, philosophies, mores, and etiquette. We're in someone else's backyard, and they know it like the back of their hand, and we don't. We, the interlopers, won't be torn limb from limb if discovered by the natives, as happens to wild animals who stray too far from their territory. But the inchoate threat of such still lingers in the reptilian parts of the human brain, and we feel that fear whenever a foreign shore heaves into sight on the distant horizon.
Even after living in South Korea for something like three nonconsecutive years, I still get the willies on occasion. If I could speak the language better, I wouldn't have 'em so often. But even if I was a whiz at Hangul, that primordial fear would still be there. I'm in Asia, where the rules of the game are elementally different from what I know. The sun still rises and sets, and the tides go in and out, but those are the only similarities. The Koreans have their own ideas about commerce, social relations, gratitude, etiquette, politeness, interpersonal nuance, humor, entertainment, morality, fine dining, hard work and whatnot. Furthermore, the Korean civilization is thousands of years old, far outstripping my own country's paltry history. The enormity of those ages weighs upon my shoulders like a millstone at times.
I feel the opposite effect whenever I return home to the States. I exhale literally and metaphorically. Everything makes sense again, imperfect as it may be. The signs are legible. People's slang terms are comforting. That sense of oneness with my surroundings comes flooding back to me. I feel ready to turn and do battle with whatever extraterritorial threats hounded me home. Your turn, you bastards. You're on my block now.
And you know what? I think that's a good thing.
Culture shock, homesickness, and otherness are shoots which spring from the same seed: territoriality. The feelings of attachment or protectiveness we harbor for the land of our birth. It exerts a powerful, formative influence upon us, and rightly so. The stark reality of it is impossible to deny, deeply biological as it is. Americans have their territory, Koreans have theirs. I'm intruding, plain and simple. Never mind that the immigration office stamps my passport and lets me live and work here for a year at a time. I'm an alien freak. I have the children's stares to prove it.
Of course, there are other, darker shoots of that same territorial seed. Things like bigotry, prejudice, and racism are also tendrils of territoriality. But there are positive effects as well: patriotism and nationalism, for example.
Many will disagree with me on this. Some of you may be shaking your heads right now. In your minds, the argument is coalescing: "Some of the most horrendous atrocities have been committed in the names of patriotism and nationalism!"
They have, no doubt. But I still say that devotion to, fondness for and belief in one's country and culture are healthy things for an upstanding, free-minded individual to have. I think that notion of otherness isn't a stumbling block, but rather a step stool. It's a platform with a telescope, a hill to climb, steep and rocky perhaps but a great place to pause and peruse the sunlit uplands beyond.
I believe (especially as an American) that we're sort of shamed into forsaking our nationalities when we're out on the road. We're encouraged to forget who we are and where we came from, and be totally open-minded as we view other countries, cultures and customs. Viewing anything through the lens of the culture we were born into is frowned upon. Bigotry, it's called. Prejudice. Willful ignorance.
I disagree.
I think you have to judge the entire world from the perspective of your own tiny slice of it, because you'd have to be a robot to do otherwise. Only a mindless automaton is capable of ignoring its own heritage and upbringing and judge something with perfect objectivity. As G.K. Chesterton warned, "Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out." Stay judgmental. Be biased. Cultivate prejudice. You need a basis, a foundation upon which to judge what you see, and your background is well-suited to it. As long as you're a righteous human being (and I already know that you are), then you won't fall into the bottomless pits of prejudice or racism or ethnocentrism. You'll be fine. Rock on. You need that cultural context of yours to form sound opinions of what you see and hear abroad.
D'you see what I'm saying, here?
I'm starting to think I'm the last person on the planet who feels that way. The paradigm is shifting. The world shrinks, technology advances, airplanes and boats and cars and trains move faster and with less energy, and the information superhighway reaches ever deeper into our lives. As the lines between cultures and continents begin to blur, the zeitgeist has changed. In talks with many of my more liberal friends, they have expressed nothing but disdain for the concepts of patriotism and nationalism. They shake their heads and say things like, "Murrica! F*** yeah!" in satirical tones. Some of the more extreme among them have expressed outright approval for a sort of "world culture," in which national boundaries are swept aside, the myriad cultures of the globes are integrated and amalgamated, and a sort of homogeneous global culture ensues, freeing humanity forever from the damnable vices of bigotry and racism.
Phooey to that, I say.
I don't know about you, but the whole notion of a "world culture," gives me the heebie-jeebies. You should take pride in your homeland. You should have some prejudice in its favor. You should be leery of the way other people do things. You should believe your country's the best in the world simply because you were born in it, as George Bernard Shaw once so scathingly wrote.
"Why?" I hear you ask. "Aren't you being an arrogant, ethnocentric pig? Won't people hate you for thinking that way? Aren't you being close-minded? Shouldn't you travel with an open mind?"
To which my answers are: No, yes, no, and yes.
Being territorial—feeling uncomfortable in another country and safe and secure in your own, cleaving to an intrinsic, instinctive, subconscious kind of nationalism—isn't arrogance. It's only natural to believe that your country's the best. You did grow up in it, after all. But it's not just natural—it's evolutionary. This is your territory. It's your home, and it's a part of you, from the tip of your hairs to the marrow of your bones. You were fed on it, suckled by it, knocked about by it in your youth. You've breathed it, swam in it, tasted it and slept in it your whole life. It knows you and you know it, and you have each other's backs. You should love it to death. Stepping out of your territory is frightening, strange and potentially life-threatening. That makes the challenge—and rewards—all the greater.
People will hate you for feeling that way. They'll call you a racist pig, a jingoistic idiot, an ignorant, short-sighted, narrow-minded fool. Don't listen to 'em. You know in your heart that you're not a racist. You know people are people, no matter where they're from. You know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and you don't attribute either of those things to a human individual just 'cause they're from a particular place. And as long as you know it, no one can touch you or make you feel like you're a bad person.
You're not being close-minded. You're open to new experiences. In fact, that is the whole point of traveling: to get out of your comfort zone. To leave your territory, those familiar shores and welcoming skyline, and venture into the unknown. There's the rub. Be territorial. Love your homeland, be wary or even leery of other people's, but don't let that stop you from going. Go there and find out how it really is. Then you can decide whether or not your preconceptions were accurate. What you're doing, if you're doing it right, is giving other people's cultures and societies the respect they deserve without fawning over them, worshiping them, or paying them lip service for political correctness's sake. By the Great Green Arkleseizure, folks, you're allowed to have an opinion. Just make sure it's founded on your own experience and a thorough knowledge of circumstance, not sweeping generalizations or assumptions. Just look at Paul Theroux. That's precisely how he writes his travel books. He's judgmental as hell. He'll lampoon anybody, be they an individual or a government, foreign or American. The point is to go and see, and then judge harshly...based on what you know is right.
That, my dears, is how you travel with an open mind. You have a context to work with: your culture. Hold that culture close to yourself, cherish it, be proud of it, but keep your heart and mind open. Let the ambient weirdness trickle in. You'll learn some startling things. Some of them will be as stupid or wrong or yucky as you always suspected. Many of them, however, won't be as bad as you thought—and more than a few will be the exact opposite. You'll see sights you never dreamed existed, taste the milk of human kindness, add more capital to the bank of experience than you ever thought possible. But don't forget where you started. Don't lord it over anybody, don't put anyone else down, but for Pete's sake, don't be afraid to flaunt it. You are who you are. Be proud. Don't skulk about. Tell people. Everyone's just as curious about you as you are about them, or ought to be. They're all nationalists at heart, too. They may dislike you just because of the color of your passport. But you can forgive them for that, 'cause deep down you're judging the hell out of their clothes, their dirty fingernails and their country's cockeyed ways, and you can laugh inside at the crazy two-way nature of the universe.
But how would this priceless sensation, this ability to learn about others, to understand how things are done on the far side of the world, down in the dust or up in the snow, on top of the mountains and in the deepest valleys and over the silvery lakes—how would it be possible if we had one world culture? Where would your identity come from? What would you take pride in? How would you build that base, that context, from which to travel and peer into other people's lives? How could you judge their shortcomings—and their wonders? What use would travel be if everyone else thought and slept and breathed and loved the same way that you do? It wouldn't, and that's the truth. It wouldn't be any use at all. I don't want a world that's all the same. I don't want a world where I never feel ill at ease or out of place. I want a world full of mystery and weirdness and otherness to explore. And I want a patch of dirt that I can come back to and feel at home in, unconditionally—but with a host of foreign friends and experiences rattling around in my head, heart and soul. I think it's grand that we're all different from each other, and that we have a little fear and perhaps aversion to one another (and our respective nations). Just because we travel and learn about the world doesn't mean we should lose faith in who we are and where we came from, or our belief in our own greatness. I think that sort of national pride fosters healthy competition, self-confidence, cultural self-esteem, and most importantly, our curiosity about each other. It makes the sun brighter, the water clearer, the air fresher and our friendships warmer. But maybe that's just me.
I don't know if anybody out there's been keeping up with international news lately, but if you have, you might recognize this fellow:
His name is Toru Hashimoto, and he's the mayor of Osaka, Japan. But let me back up further.
While keeping this blog I've alluded several times to the ongoing friction between Japan and both Koreas. Each has a long list of grievances with the other. The most prominent bone of contention is probably the Occupation. I've written it with a capital "O" because that's how Koreans refer to it. I've never heard 'em say "the Japanese occupation" or "World War Two." It's just "the Occupation." Neither North nor South Korea has forgotten the 35 years of oppression they endured at Japanese hands.
Compounding matters is the issue of "comfort women." (This must surely ring some bells, right?) It's widely known that the Japanese military kidnapped thousands of women and girls from their conquered territories in East Asia and pressed them into sexual slavery. Korea was no exception. Many elderly Korean women have come forth in recent years and told horror stories of the indignities they were subjected to.
But matters aren't as simple as that. There's still a great deal of debate going on about what exactly happened. Historians on both sides of the Sea of Japan have argued that the comfort women's recruitment was voluntary, and the 200,000 women involved came of their own free will. Others, of course, vehemently deny these allegations and insist that the Empire of Japan committed a brutal war crime, violating these women's human rights. To my knowledge, no reparations have been called for; a simple acknowledgement of guilt is all the Korean protesters are looking for.
Most everybody in Korea (except for those historians I mentioned) is united in the belief that Japan kidnapped their women. Most young folk in Japan don't dispute the matter. However, the nexus of Japan's right-wing party, which has long been defined by its hardline nationalism, insists that Korea is making much ado about nothing. Their arguments have run the gamut: at times they've alleged that the comfort women came voluntarily; at others, they hold that, yes, even though it was a terrible thing to take these women by force, it was necessary to keep up the morale of the soldiery.
This is where Mayor Hashimoto comes in. He created quite a buzz during a recent press conference when, instead of apologizing for some off-color remarks he made earlier, actually wound up making some more. He essentially said that, while what happened to the comfort women was a terrible and inexcusable thing, there's no evidence that the Japanese government was directly involved.
Many in Korea beg to differ.
This recent gaffe has got me curious. I've often longed for a chance to go to Japan and figure out what they think of Koreans. You know, hear their side of the story. I'm not saying that they're not to blame for what happened to the comfort women; I'm just curious to know what the average Japanese man on the street thinks about all this, now that I know what the Korean one does.
Well, now's my chance. Summer break's coming, and I'm spending the month of July at home. After that, though, I'm heading for Japan to meet Miss H and our mutual friend from Bucheon (whose codename I've forgotten). We'll spend two days in Tokyo, going to Disneyland, checking out the sights and sounds of Shibuya and Shinjuku, eating ramen and sushi and perhaps even fugu, and then we'll split. Miss H and our friend will head back to Korea to work (suckers), but I'm a free agent. I reckon I'll ride the shinkansen (bullet train) down the length of the country, see Kyoto and Osaka, visit Miyamoto Musashi's grave, go to Kumamoto and lurk outside my idol Eiichiro Oda's birthplace, stand beneath Rashomon, et cetera, et cetera. Then I'll take the train to Fukuoka and ride the high-speed ferry back to the Korean peninsula. Perhaps I'll chill with Adam in Busan for a few days and then take the KTX back to Seoul. Who knows? I have yet to plan it all out.
But I'm going to Japan, that's the main thing. And may many adventures, new experiences and lucrative travel articles come of it.
We were given, in bartender's school, a very clear list of directives regarding customer service, proper conduct at work.
Don't give out free drinks.
Keep cigarettes and lighters on hand for the customers.
Serve the ladies first. It's polite.
Greet the men first. Then they won't feel like you're trying to steal their woman.
The most emphatic of these directives, one of the few that appeared on the written final, was this:
Don't talk about religion, politics, or social issues.
The School of Hooch is neither the first nor last place to discourage that sort of discussion. Politics is one thing you should never talk about in a barbershop, either. Not unless you enjoy looking like a shorn sheep, or losing a couple of ears. It's generally discouraged during awards ceremonies and speeches, too. Or it used to be, anyway.
Why? What's the reason for this? Why is politics—a broad term with many meanings, but generally describing the legislation and policy-making needed to govern a people efficiently, authoritatively and with a modicum of public satisfaction—such a taboo topic? How could something so important, so integral to our daily lives be forbidden in polite conversation? I'll tell you why. It's possibly the most subjective concept that ever existed on the face of the planet. Knocks the Duracell vs. Energizer debate into a cocked hat. Everybody's got their own idea about how a government ought to be. All of us think we know how politicians should think, work, and act. Everyone has their own views on taxes, power structures, checks and balances, and hot-button issues. It's because the political process is so important to our daily lives that it's a taboo topic. Take a firm stance on one issue and it's odds-on there'll be somebody in the room who flat-out disagrees with you, and will demonize you for it, too. Everyone's got an axiom to grind. People have taken to avoiding the subject of politics merely to avoid spending the rest of the evening shouting at one another.
This is one of the reasons I decided, early on, that this would not be a political blog. I have very, very specific political views. They are so esoteric that an above-average number of people would become inflamed if I flaunted them publicly. I am so outspoken that I would hotly defend against any attack, and consequently this blog would descend into an endless, self-perpetuating, vitriolic debate. That kind of thing gets old after a while.
I have a friend of sorts. His name is Bart. (Not really, but that's pretty close.) While I would call myself a conservative (with a few liberal tendencies), Bart is über, über liberal. He is constantly posting things on Facebook which I find objectionable: news articles from the Huffington Post, lambasting Arizona's recent immigration law; statistics from various pollsters confirming how much better a job President Obama is doing as compared to his predecessor; and news articles lauding the sweeping health care reform Obama signed into law not too long ago.
I never fail to take him up on these. And so, inevitably, we turn a simple link into a foot-long discussion thread, arguing back and forth about policy, and ideology, and procedure, and proper administration of government, and whatnot. We point out the flaws in each other's arguments, throw statistics at each other (well, he does; I'm well aware how easy it is to lie with statistics, so I tend to avoid them), and just generally have at it.
It's getting tiresome. He has his views, I have my views, and each of us is convinced the other is dead wrong. Our discussions, I'm sure, leave both of us feeling drained, exhausted, angry, perturbed, and somewhat hostile toward each other. (Sounds kind of like Congress, doesn't it?)
These dogfights of ours have brought something to my attention. Were it not for politics—if, perchance, Bart and I were totally ignorant of the political process, government, policy-making, agendas, public action, democracy, even Washington, D.C. itself—we'd probably get along just fine. We'd be chewing the fat about the weather, the last movie we saw, San Diego's shot at the Super Bowl next year, and humdrum stuff like that. Same goes for a lot of my liberal friends. We hang out, we talk, we drink, we debate, we do stuff together, all that jazz.
But in the back of our minds, there's a tiny, insidious seed of hostility. It's the hostility we feel toward one another for holding the views that we do. The contempt. The anger. The offense. We can pose and posture and equivocate all we like, it makes no difference. We can say "you're entitled to your opinion," and "you're perfectly free to hold the views you do," and all that conciliatory garbage. But the fact remains that we're on opposite sides of the fence. And secretly we hate each other for it. Politics can ruin friendships, drive lovers apart, spoil parties, destroy reputations, deadlock governments, even (in the case of radicals and extremists) kill thousands upon thousands of people. At its very core, it is a double-edged sword. It allows us to govern populations, administer aid to millions, protect the general interest, secure the future of nations and peoples. And yet, if we let it, politics can blind us to the simplest wonders of life: friendship, companionship, love, perspective, hope and truth.
This bothers me. Some of you readers out there, I know, have a much different outlook on life than I do. Your views on religion, politics, and social issues are probably as disparate from mine as night and day. And if you knew what I think, what I believe about the political process (and those hot-button issues)...well, you'd probably hate me for it. The only reason you tolerate my existence now is because I haven't told you what I think. We're strangers, you and I. We've never met in person. We're not as important to one another as lifelong friends would be, or even casual acquaintances who met on the street. Ours is the most fragile, ethereal, nebulous relationship in the world. Its dynamic consists solely of voluntary intellectual exchange. I read what you write and you read what I write. And I write insubstantial things. I prattle on about harmless, irrelevant issues which nobody can take a serious stance on. And, I'm told, I do it rather well, with an eloquent flair and a thoughtful touch. Were I to tell you what I think about, say, abortion, or illegal immigration, or health care, or war-fighting, or guns, or international relations... ...well, you'd probably hit that little "X" button in the top right corner of your Internet browser. After clicking the "un-follow" button, of course. Just because we disagree. Politics is a hell of a thing, isn't it?
Well, now that we've got the depressing stuff out of the way, I'll say good night. Some Like It Hot is on and I'm going to go watch it with the folks. There's a bourbon sour with my name on it, too. They ran the Kentucky Derby today, or so I'm told. Have to raise a glass to Entrepreneur Chick's beloved puppy-dog Emerson too. And all the Russians who undoubtedly spent the day parading through Red Square with their missiles and tanks. Cheers.
So, says the storyteller, sitting in a chair on the back porch, a gin gimlet in his hand, did I ever tell you about the time I was in a play?
It was 1992. I was six, and in first grade. I had been tapped to perform in Oakview Elementary's Thanksgiving play. And get this: for some mysterious reason, I was picked to play an Indian.
This wasn't the most politically correct play, either. In the early 90s, political correctness hadn't evolved beyond an amorphous invertebrate thrashing its way around a primordial soup of bull-squeeze. Be it otherwise, the ACLU would've been on this play like white on rice. I don't remember much of it, unfortunately. I don't think I had any lines. My memory of the affair is almost completely gone. Most of what I know I gleaned from the videotape.
Yes, Mom rented a camcorder and taped the whole affair. Of course. I can't hardly stand to watch it, even now. It mostly consists of me, my costars and I, wearing brightly colored headbands with feathers stuck in them, dancing around in a circle in front of 300 people, kicking our legs up, flailing our hands around, and singing in little-kid voices. "Hiya, hiya ah hiya hi-ya-ya-ya Hiya, hiya ah hiya hi-ya-ya-ya!"
You honestly can't blame me for mentally suppressing this, can you?
I didn't win an Academy Award for my performance. Before and after the big dance number, my costars and I just sat around looking complacent, grinning like woodchucks and waving to our mothers. I highly doubt that Squanto would've recognized us. Even the Pilgrims would've laughed themselves sick. If there were any history teachers in the audience, I didn't see 'em. They probably excused themselves before the intermission.
That's the only play I've ever been in. I have since become afflicted with chronic stage-fright, which still hasn't wholly deserted me. Class presentations scared me stiff; standing in front of more than three people was torture; I died a thousand deaths before every piano recital. The only thing that didn't scare me was reading aloud. That's because I knew I did it a million times better than anybody else in class. It's called "inflection," people. You may have heard of it.
Since I've tagged this post with a "humor" label, I shall leave you with a joke. I went over to my buddy John's house one afternoon a while ago. His father was busy doing some landscaping. John objected to this. Why? John's father had removed a bush from the side of the driveway. John claimed that this bush provided him with a landmark vital to the act of reversing his car out of the driveway. John's father was nonplussed.
"You know," he said, "they have these things called mirrors."
"Yeah," I agreed, "you might wanna look into 'em."
Next up: a long-overdue book review. Stay tuned.
