Not really quite what it looks like

Things are not what they seem. Look at this map from google... if you compare the relative size of the UK or France with that from Colombia, it looks like they are about the same size. France looks even a bit bigger. However, Colombia is 4.6 times larger than the UK in area and 1.6 times larger than France...

Area of Colombia: 1'138.910 km²
Area of the UK: 243.610 km²
Area of France: 675.843 km²

Now, while the UK is only 907 km from South to North (measured using Google Earth) and France 954 km, Colombia however is 1805 km long!!! WOW!!!

Or is it an optical illusion?

Not really quite what it looks like

The Giant Blue Cockerel at Trafalgar Square

A Madman's Diary by Lu Xun

This is the second book in my quest to read the best 100 books of all times. It is a short story published in 1918 by Lu Xun (1881-1936) and as in the previous book, I had not heard of the author before... and it surprises me to realize the extent of bias towards Western culture of my high school education, since in six years of literature classes at school back in Montería, I do not remember to have ever dealt with an author that was not Hispanic, American or European. The interesting thing about Lu Xun is that he was an innovator breaking from the traditional Chinese ways... and he must have been really brave to pull this off, in my opinion.

I must say that A Madman's Diary is hilarious! It is so uncommon to find a book that could actually make you burst into laughter. I could count a couple... I think it is really hard to be humorous in the written form; I mean, to the point of making you laugh out loud. All in all I rate this story very high, just for its entertaining value and without regard for its historical or literary context.

I do not want to give you any spoilers but the story is about this young man who thinks the entire world is full of cannibals, even his older brother is conspiring against him. Unfortunately for him, he IS their next meal!

Save the children...

Lu Xun

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

I begin my journey to read the best 100 books according to the Norwegian Book Club. This list was compiled in 2002 by asking 100 authors from different countries to select their top 10 books and it is supposed to include books from all cultures and all times. I have decided to read them all in order to diminish my ignorance levels and become a better man. The list does not have a ranking so I decided to read them in alphabetical order by title, the first one being A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, published in 1879.

As of the day I saw the list for the first time I had never heard of neither A Doll's House nor of Mr. Ibsen. I must say this little book was a pleasant surprise. It is a play in three acts narrating the intriguing drama of a young married woman. It is not until the last act that you understand what this play is really about: a critic to society and the institution of marriage, in particular of women being oppressed, minimized, and underestimated by their husbands and society. In this case not really because of physical abuse but mostly because for her husband, she is just a pretty face with a vagina. It must have been extremely controversial when it was played for the first time, I wish I had been there.

As relevant then as it is today, unfortunately.

Exotic tulip

From Confucius to me

A few days ago I heard a Confucius quote on a TV show. Submerged in my own ignorance, I started wondering whether he really existed or not, if there was any evidence of his historicity. As I wikied him I learned that there is absolutely no doubts that he actually did exist, but that his genealogy is the largest and best documented of any person in the world. His genealogy includes about two million people after 83 generations and spanning more than 2500 years!

I thought, how cool it would be to know my own genealogy back 25 centuries or more: where would this take me? Back to the deep jungles of the Caribbean Andes, or to an ancient Iberian? Maybe somewhere else in the world far and remote, I mean, a lot can happen in 2500 years.

You could say that the first clue of my ancestry could be found in my last names, Cardona and Londoño. The Cardonas were a noble and old family from the times of Charlemagne. In the 8th century Raimundo Folch went to Cataluña to fight the Moors, and he did so well that Charlemagne made him Viscount and great Lord of the city of Girona, in the region of Cardona. The first Cardona in Colombia was José Solís y Folch de Cardona, who was a Spanish colonial administrator and viceroy of New Granada in mid 18th century, or that's what some people say on the internet. The Londoño last name is Basque and apparently it was some kind of small village. The first Londoños to arrive to Colombia during the late 17th century were the brothers Agustín and Juan de Londoño y Trasmiera. I think it's very unlike that I could trace my lineage directly to Raimundo, there are probably millions of Cardonas in Latin America alone. On the other hand, it's a bit more likely that on my mother side they could trace their genealogy to the first Londoño in Colombia; since they come from the same region were the originals settled down, a region called Antioquia. However, when I see myself in the mirror, I understand that very little or nothing can be told from my last names alone. I am a mix of races, part of me is Native American, part of me is from Spain, part of me might be African as well. Who were my Native American relatives? Which tribes in particular did they come from and which language did they speak? How long ago did it happen?

So I decided to look for genetic studies on Colombian populations to see if the level of mixture had been estimated before. I found a recent study in PLOS genetics published in 2008: Geographic Patterns of Genome Admixture in Latin American Mestizos, a paper lead by Colombian professor Andrés Ruiz Linares at University College London. They found that in a region of Colombia (coincidentally close to where my family comes from), people were roughly about 60% European, 30% Native American, and about 10% African. I should not be very different from that, I dare to say. The study also said that the majority of the mixture happened from Spanish men mating with Native American and African women. In another study I read that in the population of people from Antioquia the male Y chromosome is about 94% from Southern Spain, 5% African, and 1% Native American. On the other hand, the mithocondrial DNA, that is inherited only by mothers is in about 90% of the people Native American, identical to the Embera people.

My dad told me once, I'm not sure I remember correctly, that one of his grandmothers was nicknamed “la india”, because she might have been all Native American... if this is true, probably I have a higher percentage of Native American in me. My plan is to later on purchase the National Geographic service to find out my ancestry on both my mother's and father's side.

 This is my dad dressed as a Native American in one of his anthropological expeditions to the jungle

Why I didn't like Christmas

I must confess Christmas holidays was a time I literally hated. I never enjoyed it, as a matter of fact, during most of my childhood I was scared of Christmas and New Year's celebrations, and later when I became a teenager it became a time of very uncomfortable decisions.

The main reason why I was scared of Christmas was the fireworks. There were two kind of them that I was particularly scared of, the first one is known in Colombia as carpeta (meaning literally: a folder). This was a small amount of gunpowder wrapped in paper in the shape of a triangle. Once ignited it exploded with an incredibly loud BANG! The second one of these scary things was called volador (meaning: flier). This was a rocket that exploded in the air with multiple BANGS! There was absolutely nothing pretty about them, no colorful lights to awe the spectators, just one loud horrifying bang. Well, my gentle soul was terrified of such type of fireworks and during Christmas there were more carpetas and voladores that could be exploded in one single night. Every single Christmas my drunk uncle came home with bags full of those, and there they went happily to blow these things up at the balcony for hours until sunrise. I had not choice but to find the most distant and dark corner of my house to hide terrified of the incessant explosions. Until this day the smell of gunpowder still sends shivers through my back and set me on alert, ready to take flight.

As I grew older and became a teenager I might have been able to tolerate the fireworks better, but with it came an equally displeasing discomfort. My parents separated when I was still a baby, and during most of my childhood I spent the holidays with my mother and her family. When I became a teenager my father returned to my hometown, at least during holidays, so I was put in the awkward situation of having to chose with whom I wanted to spend the holidays: with my dad's family or my mom's family. This was terribly uncomfortable for me because even though I had a choice, I knew that my mom didn't want me to go with my dad's family. She never said it but I could clearly feel it. On the other hand, I didn't get to see my dad so often so he expected me to spend the holidays with him. It was extremely uncomfortable having to decide whether I was going to be on Christmas Eve with one family or the other one, without hurting anyone's feelings. It was never easy, and that completely ruined my holidays every time. Nowadays that I have been living in Europe, I have had the chance to spend very peaceful Christmas. And even though I wish I could spend it with both my mom and dad, and even though I miss them so much... I'm kind of glad I don't have to make that choice or relive those uncomfortable situations any longer.

 Merry Christmas to all and a Prosperous 2013!!

Six months in London and two poems on the Underground

Ice Rink at the Natural History Museum

It's exactly six months since I arrived to London. To commemorate I'll leave you with two poems I saw on the Tube some of those days.


A Song for England

An' a so de rain a-fall
An' a so de snow a-rain

An' a so de fog a-fall
An' a so de sun a-fail

An' a so de seasons mix
An' a so de bag-o'-tricks

But a so me understan'
De misery o' de Englishman

By Andrew Salkey


Two Fragments
 
Love holds me captive again
and I tremble with bittersweet longing

As a gale on the mountainside bends the oak tree
I am rocked by my love

Sappho translated by Cicely Herbert

Tax avoidance in the UK?

The other day I was happy on the second floor of the double decker bus, on my way to work, when I saw on a bus stop the following poster:

It reads in small letter: if you have declared all your income tax you have nothing to fear. What is that supposed to mean?

Just to find out a few days later that companies like Starbucks using the loop-holes in the tax system, have paid no taxes on their entire revenues EVER in the UK!

And they try to put fear in the hearts of the populace? What hypocrisy.

Way to go Britain... way to go!

Golden Thistle

I am fire
I am an ardent sun in the winter
A cool breeze in the summer
A golden thistle in the spring
A scarlet oak leaf in the fall
I am the sound of brass, flutes, and clarinets
A dancer in the night of storms
A creator underneath the sun

Colombian samurai – Chapter 1: man and sword

Slash! Slash! Swish! Slash!

The ancient blade was blood thirsty, hungry for muscle, vein, bone. One thousand years of slumber. Awaken Kyōkimon, kill. Cut evil. Cursed blade of madness. Bath in the warm blood of your enemies like you once did.

A man of unlikely origins at an unlikely place with an unlikely destiny. A no one, a shadow in the wall, a wingless mosquito, once barely a man. This man was born in a small city of Colombia. This man became a samurai and it is the hero of this epic tale, this tragic tale, this sad tale of insanity. For being a hero is the most unfortunate of fates. An unfortunate tale that must be told indeed.

It was the 1st of July of 2012 when our hero, Tito Córdoba, and the one thousand years-old sword, Kyōkimon, met for the first time. Tito was at the British Museum strolling around a Sunday afternoon, fascinated with the sight of the Rosetta Stone and the Mosaic Mask of Quetzalcoatl. A day like no other. It was 17.00 when Tito entered the Japanese gallery.

You see, when men or women have been trained in the art of war since childhood their mind, body, and senses are finely tuned with the intent of people. Tito felt an aggressive intent, a killing intent. Was it a subtle smell, a fingerprint molecule expelled by an evil creature? An infinitesimal anomalous disturbance in the room's temperature caused by this creature excitation? Who knows, but Tito felt the presence of a murderous being, hidden, lurking.

Too late. A head rolled on the floor to rest at Tito's feet. A child's head still with a smile on its little pink chubby face. ROAR! ROAR! SMASH! Shattering glass, screams, shrieks. The alarm went off. People ran but some could not scape death.

At the end of the room a human-like creature stood with what might have been a stomach and some intestines from a person in its mouth. It was twice the size of a man, thrice the speed, ten times the strength, a hundred times the savagery. Dripped ruby blood. Where it came from? What was it doing at the British Museum? It will all make sense later, I promise. The beast, swallowed the guts and found them delicious.

In a glass case, Kyōkimon. Black scabbard, night of ends. Sleeping within, the purest steel, silvery, tears of the moon. And madness, raw and undistilled madness made metal.

Behind the glass case and at the other side of the room, Tito stood, a samurai without sword, without master.

In between him and it, a mother knelt clutching the headless body of her child. True terror was the only expression on her face.

The creature was known to science as Homoabiectus terribilis. A monster that might have diverged from Homo erectus five hundred thousand years ago, or might have not. A monster nonetheless. Like an avalanche, it sprinted toward the woman, propelled by irrational anger and an appetite for death. Sharp blackened teeth, open jaws seeking flesh.

Slash! Slash! Swish! Slash!

“Three steps to madness.”

Blood gushed out a chest, a neck, an arm dropped to the ground. Homoabiectus found eternal peace.

Tito did not know, but Kyōkimon had brought the ultimate punishment to five thousand and one enemies. Tito did not know the blade's name nor its history, yet he could feel its voracious thirst. Tito did not know but the more Kyōkimon cut, the sharper its edge became, the greater the horror that would befall the bearer. A samurai without a sword any longer, a samurai without a master.