Wiping the Backside of Asia

As I sit here in the dark with my vodka and cherry juice, I am thinking of Sir Barry Cunliffe, who in his great archaeological study of European history, Europe Between The Oceans, first demonstrated in magnificent detail that Europe was merely 'the western excrescence of the continent of Asia'. Vodka, of course, is a northern Asian brew — the word means 'small water' or 'distillate'; cherries are a central or west Asian fruit, named by the Greeks κέρασος (kerasos) — maybe they should really be called 'kerries'.

Earlier in the day, I had contemplated the oddness of a statement by a so-called Biblical historian in which he averred that direct contact between Asia and the Mediterranean was doubtful. Well, as my father used to say, one studies history in order to understand one's place in time, and geography in order to do the same for space. Without either, one's dimensions tend to be insufficient.

And so it is here. Europe, the western excrescence of Asia, was the origin of none of the world's major religions. Indeed, all of them come from a narrow belt that starts on the west coast of Asia (which lies along the Mediterranean Sea!) and proceeds westward in the direction of Japan. This too is a surprise for many, who fail to note that Jerusalem (31°47'N, 35°13'E) is only a little south of Tokyo (35°41'N, 139°46'E) and less than a third of the globe away.

How can Asia not have had contact with the Mediterranean when the east coast of the Med is actually Asian? What of the seven churches of Asia, all in Turkish Anatolia and just a bit south of Troy? Such odd thinking is sometimes justified by people saying, "Oh, the normal idea of Asia is something more oriental, you know, east of Suez."

I laugh at that idea. Why Suez was picked is obvious — the city is mostly in NE Africa but has parts in western Asia. Only Russia, of all the 'European' states, is wholly east of Suez. The reason I laugh is that Russians have forever denied that they are actually north Asians — although a good look at the map will tell you this is true.

And so, back to my vodka and cherry juice.

Sanctimony Redux

If love makes the world go round and sanctimony makes the world go mad, then it might be interesting to map human responses against the shape of the world. We would be able to develop a geography of emotion, a dark grimoire which uses the spiky bits of the human mind as keys to the lumpy bits of the universe.

North

Does the North of that storied isle begin at Cambridge? It is an interesting place, the isle of Ely where the monks hid from authority and built themselves a legendary centre of learning. Of course, that's not all true.

Yet I can't help but think, as my mind roams northward out of Londinium from the fastnesses of the old Arsenal, that there must be some point at which North must begin. North is not necessarily 'north of the border' — it is an idea, an idea of wilderness and wildness.

That's probably why the dreaming spires were never thought of as wild in that particular sense — the denizens of those halls were part of civilisation and not beyond the pale.

The Neglected Ocean

Someone just pointed out to me that Perth, Western Australia, is an Indian Ocean seaport. Heck, so is Adelaide, capital of South Australia. In fact the Indian Ocean stretches from 20°E to 146°55'E, which makes its westernmost port probably Port Elizabeth in South Africa.

Most of human trade and civilisation over the span of our history has traversed this neglected ocean. Egypt's only ocean access is to the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian peninsula is almost entirely surrounded by it. Few know how large the Chinese presence here used to be, still is, and continues to be. There perhaps more than 50,000 Chinese (mostly Cantonese) on Madagascar, and another 35,000 on Mauritius. Singapore is an Indian Ocean city.

This is why geography is both romantic and important. These are the huge stories hidden in plain sight. Or plain sites.

Continental

Every time the World Cup comes along, I think of the accidents and incidents of geography that I have wondered about since I was small and learning the stuff in school. I've always wondered about continents, empires, and the paths of human migration. But the list of continents always fascinated me.

The Earth, seen from space by an alien visitor, would appear to have at most six large bodies of land: Eurasia (about 55m sq km), separated from Africa (about 30.2m sq km) by the Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal and Red Sea; North America (about 24.7m sq km), separated from South America (about 17.8m sq km) by the Panama Canal; Antarctica (14m sq km), not connected to any other major land mass; and Australia (7.6m sq km), suspiciously close to islands like New Guinea. I don't think any alien would see Europe as a continent; the geographical lines of division just aren't clear enough. But if you chopped Europe off from Eurasia (for the sake of argument), then Asia would still be the largest continent, and Europe (at 10.2m sq km) would be the second smallest.

Taking a look at maps doesn't help very much, because the venerable old Mercators most people use seem to show North America as larger than Africa and Europe as this enormous thing through which the Greenwich meridian runs. But China alone (roughly 9.7m sq km) is almost as large as this imaginary geographical European continent, and the current Russian Federation, most of which is in Asia, covers 17.1m sq km. The only sense in which Europe is a continent is in that waffle of 'shared cultural and political heritage' — a waffle that actually has a fair amount of truth in it.

Why is Europe still given such special status? Perhaps it is because in 1900, when the big geopolitical maps were first drawn to define the modern world, Europe contained 25% of the world's population. Now, it contains just a bit more than 10%, a percentage that is falling by about 1% every decade. Perhaps it is colour: Europeans used to be thought of as fair-skinned Nordic types, at their darkest perhaps Mediterranean. Now, a quick look at any European football team will show that they are a lot darker. (Especially France, that little state which claims to be the heart of Western Europe.)

It is all still a mystery. They have an awful lot of football teams in the World Cup, and in the qualifying rounds and final tournament, more teams per capita than any other continent. I mean, poor Australia gets only 1 team (two if you include New Zealand), and has to compete with the rest of Asia. It all comes down to heterogeneity defeating homogeneity; China, Russia and India are big, but have no representation this year at the World Cup.

The world is a wonderful place. I am glad to be in it.

Whose World? What Cup? (Day 01)

Yeah, I stayed to watch both of the opening matches in the latest season of 'World Cup: The TV Series'. It comes round every four years, as evidence that football is as good as all the world's other sports combined.

Last night, a wannabe North American side (Mexicans won't settle for 'Central American') clashed with a South African side (strangely enough, called South Africa). A South American side (from somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, literally) clashed with a Western European side (Western enough to have an Atlantic shore). Both matches were draws which did not draw, being action-packed but somehow lacking entertainment value.

I staggered off, feeling, "Whose World? What Cup?"

As usual, there was no answer.

Geographical Node

I am a little node in the system of the world. And it is wonderful to see where the traffic comes from, that stops at my little port for a brief stopover averaging a minute or so. I got curious and had a quick look; here is the list of origins (in alphabetical order) that my readers come from:

Anonymous Proxy, Argentina, Asia/Pacific Region, Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Satellite Provider, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Unknown, Vietnam

What I'm really curious about is how they got here and why some of them return. There's someone in Oslo who visits once in a while, someone else in Imperial College (London) and someone in Toronto. My friend in Birmingham is obvious; so is the man in Sydney. But why Adelaide? And who is the dedicated Linux user with the unknown browser? The Internet is a lot more interesting now than it was 20 years ago...

Middle-Earth

For today's episode of beautiful distraction, we turn to the work of Peter Bird, Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, at the University of California at Los Angeles.

He has a map which juxtaposes Tolkien's Middle-Earth with modern Europe. View it in all its glory: a copy can be found HERE. Don't mind the typos; it's good enough that someone made the attempt. And it all makes a lot more sense. Or is that 'lotr' more sense. Heh.

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Acknowledgement: Never would have found it without this guy. Well, this post anyway. And ignore the stuff about Bali; wrong archipelago.