Category: History & Literature

Posted in History & Literature

Helen

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Helen of Troy is infamous for her pivotal role in the Trojan War after she left Sparta for her new lover, Paris of Troy. She was deemed the “most beautiful woman” in the world by Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who made her fall in love with Paris in return for him choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess.

Helen is said to have been so beautiful that she had “the face that launched a thousand ships” (in reference to the Trojan War and the massive navy of Greece). Using this statement, clever authors such as Isaac Asimov and W.A.H. Rushton invented the “Helen (H)” unit – an international, standardised measurement of beauty. As Helen launched a thousand ships, a milliHelen (mH) of beauty equates to the amount of beauty required to launch a single ship.
For example, according to The Iliad, the total number of ships that joined the expedition to Troy was 1186. This means that Helen had a beauty rating of 1.186 Helens – ergo, capable of launching more than one thousand ships.

The unit also goes both ways as negative Helen units are possible. For example, -1 mH would mean “beauty” (read: ugliness) that drives a single ship away. The units can be subdivided further, such as a picoHelen (10^-12) being the amount of beauty that “tosses an inflatable tube into the pool”.
Another interpretation of the Helen is the number of women that said woman is more beautiful than. For example, during Helen of Troy’s time (1100 BC), about 50 million women existed on Earth. Therefore, 1 Helen is amount of beauty sufficient to be greater than the beauty of 50 million women.

Finally, beauty is considered to be on a logarithmic scale of base 2. Simply put, for beauty to increase by 1H, the woman must be the most beautiful of double the number of women. In practical terms, the most beautiful woman who ever lived (using the cumulative female population of the world) has a beauty rating of 1.34H. The most beautiful of a dozen women would be 0.14H.

Posted in History & Literature

Dokdo

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Dokdo is a small island in the East Sea off the coast of Korea, lying at 131°52´East longitude and about 37°14´North latitude. It literally means “solitary island” in Korean due to its rocky, isolated nature. The island is actually in two parts: West Island and East Island, which are connected by an underground rock formation. 
The island has been Korean territory for two millennia, with records going back as far as the 4th century showing that fishers from Ulleungdo (a much larger island also in the East Sea) documented the existence of the island and fished around the area. The island is also visible from Ulleungdo on a clear day so it would have been easily spotted and recorded.

Despite the incontestable evidence, in the last few decades Japan has been arguing that Dokdo is Japanese territory. The Japanese government denies the current evidence and claims that all evidence is faked. However, the claims made by Japan are extremely obtuse and bearing on childish. There are many reasons they seek control over Dokdo, such as the rich fishing area around it, the abundant hydrocarbon reserve underneath it and also rearing the ugly head of colonialism.

Almost all historical records and maps up to the 19th century clearly indicate the island as “Korean territory”. For example, in Map of Three Adjoining countries by Hayashi Shihei, a Japanese scholar and cartographer, shows the land in the Far east divided in to colours: yellow for Joseon (Korea) and green for Japan. It is one of the earliest complete maps of Japan. Here, the islands east of Korea, including a large island clearly marked “Ulleungdo” and many surrounding small islands, are all marked yellow and labelled “Korean territories”. There are also records of the Shogunate querying the Tottori clan (who controlled the Shimane prefecture at the time) whether Dokdo and Ulleungdo were Japanese islands, to which the Tottori reply “No, those islands have never been under Japanese rule”. Finally, legal documents by the Japanese National Land Registry in 1877 state that Ulleungdo and Dokdo are not under Japanese rule.

Things became complicated in the early 20th century with the Japanese invasion of Korea. Starting from this period, Japanese maps began marking Dokdo (and Korea and Taiwan and all other colonies) as “Japanese territory” after invading each land. But after their defeat in World War II, Japan was forced to return all land that they stole in the war as ordered by the Treaty of San Francisco. This treaty outlined what the new definition for “Japan” would be by drawing their border again. This treaty states that “Japan is defined to include the four main islands of Japan and the approximately 1,000 smaller adjacent islands, including the Tsushima Islands and the Ryukyu (Nansei) Islands north of 30° North Latitude (excluding Kuchinoshima Island); and excluding (a) Utsuryo (Ulleung) Island, Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo) and Kuelpart (Jeju) Island…”.
After the Korean War, the UN set a zone called the Korean Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) to mark the areas to be protected by the air force. The KADIZ also includes Dokdo in its boundaries.

There are hundreds of pieces of evidence that support the rightful ownership of Dokdo as Korean land, yet Japan continues to argue in an attempt to bring back its old habits of colonialism. It is sad to think that after the Colonialism times and the Pacific War, where so many innocent people were sacrificed to fill the greed of a corrupt country, Japan has not learnt a single lesson.

In short, the controversy around Dokdo is essentially the same as someone claiming that your finger belongs to them and arguing that you should go to court to prove that you own it. 

Posted in History & Literature

Pizza

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Pizza is a food that has a diverse range from cheesy, party-purpose takeaway pizzas to classy, traditional woodfire pizzas. Although it is considered an Italian food, the modern pizza could not have been born without America.

The Mediterranean countries have a long history of making flat breads such as focaccia and coca. But one of the most important ingredients in pizza, tomato, was introduced to Europe only in the 16th century from the Americas. However, Europeans thought for some time that the fruit was poisonous and did not use it for cooking purposes. But by the 18th century, the poorer population in Naples, Italy began creating a dish consisting of flat bread with tomato paste, giving birth to the pizza. Pizza was not a luxury food to start with, but rather a poor man’s food as it was simple and cheap to make. There is even a story of how King Ferdinand 1 disguised himself as a commoner to sneak into Naples to indulge in some pizzas – a food banned from the royal court.

Nowadays, it is common to see at least 5 or more toppings on pizza for a rich taste, but the traditional pizza never has more than three toppings (this is still true in Italy). For example, the two main types of pizza considered as the “true pizzas” by Neapolitans, are: the marinara pizza (tomato, garlic, oregano and sometimes basil) and the Margherita pizza (tomato, mozzarella, basil). The story behind the Margherita pizza is that it was served to the Queen Margherita of Savoy (Queen of Italy at the time), thus the name. The pizza represented the Italian flag by using three ingredients: red tomatoes, white mozzarella cheese and green basil. As the Kingdom of Italy had only been formed a couple decades before this, the pizza was highly symbolic (Italy was very passionate about its flag to promote the unification of the various regions after the Kingdom formed). Today the two pizzas are the most popular pizzas in Italy and are officially protected products as “traditional Italian foods”.

The current record for the largest pizza was a pizza made in Johannesburg, South Africa, that had a diameter of 37.4 metres and made of 500kg of flour, 800kg of cheese and 900kg of tomato puree.

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Capuchin Crypt

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In Rome, Italy, there is a small church called Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. The church itself is not that different to the many beautiful churches in Rome, but it is special because of what lies beneath it. After walking down two staircases underground, one is faced by a door leading to the Capuchin Crypt.

Once inside the crypt, one can see why it is so famous – it is an ossuary, the burial place of human skeletons. The Crypt is made of six small chapels, each decorated with the skeleton of over 4000 bodies. Ribcages are organised into hearts, thigh bones are used to frame pictures and tailbones are used extensively with skulls to produce elaborate works of art. Even the bones of the fingers are used to create elaborate patterns on the wall. The chapels also have intact skeletons still dressed in brown friar habits (religious robes) from the 17th century. They also contain the remains of babies.

The reason why some skeletons are dressed as friars is that most of the bodies are those of Capuchin friars, buried by their order under a church according the regulation of the Catholic Church. In 1631, Capuchin monks brought 300 cartloads of deceased friars and buried them in the crypt. As monks died over time, bodies that were buried for the longest were exhumed to make room for the new bodies. This led to the accumulation of thousands of thirty-year old skeletons and so the monks decided to honour those friars by decorating the chapel with their bones. Among the buried are also bodies of poor Romans whose bodies no one cared for.

In the last chapel of the crypt, the Crypt of the Three Skeletons, the central skeleton stands out as it is enclosed in an oval of femurs (thigh bone) and holding a scythe and a scale. It is a symbol of death, reminding those that gaze upon it that all humans are mortal in the face of time. The room also contains a plaque with the following message in five different languages:

“What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be…”

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Teddy Bear

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In 1902, former United States president Theodore Roosevelt went on a bear-hunting trip to Mississippi. Although his competitors had already killed a beast, Roosevelt remained unsuccessful. To help their dear president, some of his men hunted down a black bear, captured it and tied it to a tree so that Roosevelt could come and shoot it. However, he declared such an act unsportsmanlike and refused to shoot the animal (but he did order it to be killed to be put out of its misery).

A pair of New York toymakers by the names of Morris and Rose Michtom had a brilliant idea of exploiting this story and created a stuffed bear, nicknaming it a “Teddy” bear in honour of Theodore Roosevelt. At the same time, a German toymaking company called Steiff also began making teddy bears and exported them to America. Both are considered the original teddy bears.

Today the teddy bear is one of the most popular, classic toys for children, offering them a soft, fluffy object to hug and love (often growing attached to it). It also created a new image of cuteness, as evidenced by characters such as Winnie the Pooh, to an otherwise ferocious beast that is capable of mauling a person to death within minutes.

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Right And Wrong

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Hwang Hee was one of the greatest scholars in Chosun (modern day Korea) and served as a minister for 18 years. There is one famous tale that shows his wisdom and character.
One day, two of Hwang Hee’s servants we’re fighting over who was right. They came to Hwang and asked him to judge who was right.
When one child stated his opinion, Hwang said: “You are right”.
Then, the other child retorted in a heated manner and Hwang said again: “You are right”.
His cousin who was observing this asked: “Surely one was wrong for the argument to have started. Why do you say that both are right?”.
Hwang smiled and replied to him: “You are right also”.

There is much to be learnt from Minister Hwang Hee’s broad-mindedness, benevolence and wisdom even now, over 500 years since his time. Arguments are destructive acts with no gain. Instead of debating the right and wrong of every little thing, it is far more effective to seek relative and absolute knowledge.

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Charon’s Obol

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According to ancient Greek mythology, a person’s soul must cross five rivers to enter Hades’ underworld after death. Charon ferries souls across the first river, Acheron, also known as the river of pain. To use Charon’s services, one had to pay a silver coin (obolus). If one could not pay the fee, one could not cross the river and would circle the Earth for eternity. Thus, the ancient Greeks had a custom of putting a coin in the deceased’s mouth for their journey.

Even for something as unavoidable as death, Charon asks for money. This not only shows that the ancient Greeks had a good understanding of market economies, but also teaches us something important about capitalism.
Just as the reaper takes a fee, nothing in the world is free. A market is the most effective economy system that man has devised and no other system (especially communism) has overcome it. But we have a tendency to denounce corporations for only taking advantage of poor, helpless citizens. Although there is corruption in reality, corporations are still subject to the invisible hand and bound by the basic principle of capitalism, supply and demand.

We only see the negative sides of capitalism and decry Charon’s greed. “How could you ask a helpless soul for money? Is that not robbery?”, we cry. But such words can only be said by someone who has devised a better system than the market, or found a way to keep Charon well-fed. Instead of criticising the economy or policies, it is far more efficient to think of a way to improve the market system. Blindly criticising and trying to destroy capitalism like Karl Marx did will only result in splitting the world in two and cause everyone to starve to death.
The reason being, money is an invention as important as fire to mankind.

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Failure

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When inventing the light bulb, Thomas Edison succeeded after more than 2000 experiments. A young reporter asked how he felt every time he failed, over and over.
Edison replied: “Fail? I have never failed. I have merely taken two thousand steps to invent the light bulb.”

You have never failed. You are just taking the steps to success.

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Flower Language

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Roses are the most common flowers used in modern society to profess one’s love. However, many people do not know the true meaning behind each flower. For example, every colour has a different meaning for roses.

  • Red rose: true love, passion
  • White rose: eternal love, innocence
  • Black rose: death, farewell
  • Yellow rose: friendship, jealousy, betrayal
  • Pink rose: grace, gratitude, youth
  • Mix of red and white roses: unity

As seen from above, a rose can mean love, friendship or even separation. It is also important to note that roses are traditionally given as a bouquet of one, six, dozen or any multiple of six. 
The following is a list of common flowers and what they symbolise:

  • Acacia: secret love
  • Bellflower: thinking of you
  • Cherry blossoms: beautiful mind, purity
  • Chrysanthemum: peace, love, mourning (used in funerals)
  • Cosmos: forever, devotion
  • Daffodil: Chivalry, respect, unrequited love
  • Daisies: innocence, modesty, beauty
  • Edelweiss: memories of an important person
  • Hibiscus: rare beauty
  • Lavender: silence, devotion
  • Lilac: memories of youth, first love
  • Lily: innocence, chastity, purity
  • Magnolia: unrequited love
  • Pansies: memories of love
  • Sunflower: happiness
  • Tulip: declaration of love (red), hopeless love (yellow), broken heart (white)
  • Violet: faithfulness

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Darkness

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When you close your eyes, what do you see? When you look into the night sky, what do you see? Most people describe darkness as pitch black, but this is not quite true.
The colour that we see in perfect darkness is not black, but more of a dark grey colour. This colour has a special term called eigengrau, which is German for “intrinsic grey”. Similarly, when you look into the night sky the actual colour is a deep navy.

The reason for this is that the brain uses relative contrast to determine true black rather than the absolute brightness. So when you see darkness, the optic nerve still fires off some signals that the brain interprets as eigengrau. When you see a black object, the brain compares it to the surrounding to cancel this effect out to see true black.

The night sky is lit with stars and the moon, giving it a darker colour than eigengrau due to contrast, while retaining the blue hue produced by the dust diffracting light in a particular manner. Because of this, ninjas actually wore dark navy clothes instead of the black that we associate with them in the present.

An interesting point regarding darkness is that people often see it as a symbol of the negative side (e.g. The Dark Side). However, darkness is technically the opposite of light. It is in fact defined by the absence of light, which in other words suggests it is the default state.

The default state of the universe is nothing.