Muninn

Spent the weekend in Kanghwa-do with a friend. I have never been one for the usual tourist destinations so many of the highlights of the island listed in tourist brochures went unseen. The highlight for me was the hike on the first day through some hills on a small country road in the south of the island, through some farmers’ fields and along the southern coast of the island to a popular beach. Since the island is so close to North Korea, the coastline was actually a military restricted area but we walked unmolested along most of it. A man on a bicycle passing by told us it was restricted but we learned from soldiers at the next checkpoint that he was a high ranking officer out on a bike ride. When we told the biker/officer we were trying to walk along the coast to the beach, he let the soldiers further down the path know that we were harmless and to let us through. The many empty checkpoints and observation boxes along the coast had human shaped plastic scarecrows that could be set up to look like people were manning the positions.

We ended up not climbing any of the hills on the island, which in any case average around 350 meters. I’m actually glad, the hordes of other climbers, all clad in standard Korean hiking uniforms and equipment reminded me of climbing on Halla-san in Cheju-do where we essentially stood in line to get up the mountain behind hundreds of people (including groups of women sweating through their heavy make-up). Much more enjoyable was the wonderful and quiet stroll along forested country roads we got on Saturday afternoon when a local told us how to get through the hills to the coast the fastest way by an older road not marked on many maps. I recommend these country strolls in Korea as a wonderful alternative to the industrial tourist staircase that is so much hiking in Korea. You can often find yourself behind so many mountaineers you might have guessed you were on a subway stairway at rush hour if it weren’t for the fact that everyone is wielding useless metal poles and carrying plastic mats to keep the rear of their expensive and fashionable hiking pants from getting any dirt on them when they sit down.

A few places that got saved on my GPS from the weekend:

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I haven’t had a chance to blog much about it but I made a trip of almost a week to Cheju-do. The original purpose was for a Fulbright researcher conference where all the junior researchers presented on the progress of their research but I went early with one of my fellow researchers because the conference was only a few days after April 3rd. This year is the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the April 3rd, 1948 uprising on Cheju island. We went early to participate in various memorial events, visit the Cheju 4.3 peace park, and the huge museum just opened in the park, and I was also able to attend an international conference on the uprising. I may blog more about Cheju 4.3 over at Frog in a Well - Korea but in the meantime, here is a quick google map mashup of places visited, something I was able to create quickly since I saved various locations on my GPS reader.

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I spent a few hours in the Shandong provincial library here in Jinan this morning to pass the time while I waited for an appointment with a professor at Shandong University. After spending less than ten minutes to get a one year library card for 15RMB (Using my Chinese name 林蜀道, American passport, writing down Harvard as my 单位, my parents’ Oklahoma address for my home address, and my Korean cellphone for my cellphone—it is so incredibly refreshing to be in a place where I can do this kind of thing without a citizen registration number or even a local address. Note: if you want to check out books you have leave them a 100RMB deposit.) I poked around the various reading rooms in order to see whether this might be a useful place to visit more often when I move to Shandong later this year.

In order to enter the “Shandong local materials” room on the fifth floor I had to sign in at the door. I like the fact that people I have met in China over the years are not often surprised to see that I can write Chinese characters, in stark contrast to the amazement this frequently generates if I write in the simple Korean writing system in Korea or the mix of writing systems used in Japan. However, around two thirds of the time, when Chinese people notice that I’m writing with my left hand they will express their surprise by telling me, “You write with your left hand!” I usually just smile, agree, nod, and keep writing instead of adding that, unlike many of my fellow lefties in places like China, I was not subject to abuse throughout my childhood that forced me to use my right hand.

Today however, there was an interesting addition to this common exchange when a cleaning lady who had come over to watch me sign in added her own observation.

Librarian: 你是用左手的！ You use your left hand!
Me: 对. Yup.
Cleaning Lady (with confidence): 对，他们都是用左手的！ Ya, they all use their left hand!

Ever since a college roommate introduced me to the world of coffee addiction I have spent a good amount of my college and graduate student life studying in coffee shops. I have spent hundreds of dollars on beverages such as coffee over the years but only a small percentage of this has been to feed the addiction. Instead, I have always thought of it as a kind of tax, or perhaps a rental fee for the space I occupy in a coffee shop to talk with friends and most of all to study.

Why not study at home? I do study at home as well, but there are a number of reasons why many of us spend hundreds of hours a year studying outside of our homes. Sometimes I have only a few hours between engagements and like to use the time for a reading session in a comfortable place. Sometimes I like the mix of background noises provided by the average coffee shop. Sometimes I want to get away from the potential distractions of the internet and the risk of napping on my bed or a couch. Sometimes I like being around other people. Sometimes my desk is a complete mess and I want a clean surface to work on without having to clean up my room. Why not study in a library? I very often too, especially when they allow me to bring in coffee or other beverage and especially when they are 24 hour libraries with coffee shops open until 3am. Sometimes though, there are no seats available in a nearby library. Sometimes they are closed. Sometimes I am not near a library.

Coffee shops, of course come in all different kinds. Sometimes they have rocky little round tables that are useless for putting anything on. Sometimes they have horrible light for studying. Sometimes their music is really annoying. Sometimes their coffee is way too expensive to become a frequent haunt. Sometimes they are too popular and can’t be guaranteed to have seating available just when I want them. Sometimes they close long before I am ready to go.

Sayaka and I once discussed what we thought would be the absolute ideal student coffee shop and how we might make it a profitable business. Here are some of the things we thought it should have: 1) largish stable tables with room for a computer and a book 2) bright but not obnoxiously bright lights suitable for reading 3) decent chairs not designed to make you leave quickly 4) strong wireless signal provided under three possible systems a: whenever you make a purchase of some minimum amount you get 1.5 hours of wireless or b: you get an unlimited usage of the wireless for a reasonable (that is to say, not the ridiculous prices they charge now) subscription rate c: have “free wireless happy” hours during those hours the cafe is not crowded to attract customers 5) sell healthy snacks/sandwiches 6) nap couches/seats such as those provided in various Japanese 24 manga lounges 7) printing and photocopy services 8) some computers for quick “shots” of internet for those who did not bring laptops 9) group study rooms

Japan and Korea seem to have the kinds of places that provide some but not all of these services. What the above looks like is something like a mutant combination of the Japanese/Korean coffee shop/manga cafe/PC lounge/karaoke rooms

The place which comes the closest I have ever seen to this kind of ideal coffee shop is right here in Seoul, Korea located near Exit 4 of Shinchon station:

Meeple - http://meeple.co.kr/

Meeple is a coffee shop and cafe but provides most of the things I listed above: 1) It is nicely lit 2) Offers array of drinks and foods with decent prices compared to nearby coffee shops (2800 coffee, compared to over 3000 for Starbucks, their delicious teas are more) 3) Has completely free and strong wireless connection with no stupid subscriptions 4) Two computers for free use 5) Printer/photocopy machine 6) Coffee shop lounge area 7) a kind of TV lounge with wide-screen TV 8) Plugs in the floor near all tables in the coffee shop and most interestingly: 9) Over a dozen study rooms which can be occupied free with a drink or food purchase. These study rooms contain 2, 6, or a dozen chairs, whiteboard, plugs, table, and a phone for room service (much like a karaoke room has).

I don’t know if they can survive the ruthless competition in the neighborhood. There are at least half a dozen coffee shop chain stores (including Starbucks and Caribu Coffee) located on the same block and they are located in the B2 basement instead of on the street-front but I think the concept is great and could well attract students from the nearby Yonsei, Sogang, Hongik, and Ehwa universities.

Some pictures:

After my week-long adventure with my father in Alabama, I am visiting my parents and sister in Oklahoma, in a place called Bartlesville. I have never lived there (I refused to move to America when my family moved there from Norway when I was about to begin my senior year at the International School in Stavanger) and I don’t think I surprise my friends or family when I say that I really don’t care much for the place. When I pass through to visit, I spend most of my time indoors with family or in the library, where these days I continue to work on a translation project and, during my breaks, annoy my sister, who works behind the reference desk. This weekend I leave for my two years of dissertation research in Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan.

But in the meantime, what sort of place is this town of Bartlesville?

It is the kind of town where it is apparently necessary to place signs on many of the doors of office buildings and other businesses to indicate you don’t want people wandering in bearing firearms.

It is the kind of town where a novel in the local Mid-High school library may get banned for containing two lesbian characters, who, shock and horror, kiss. At least a few local librarians and other concerned community members are showing their opposition to the ban (including my sister) but we’ll see how things turn out. As one editorial by a concerned mother puts it in the local Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise,

“How sad it is to me that people are outraged for a parent to try to protect her child from the message that ‘being homosexual is ok and acceptable.’ God’s word teaches us otherwise. What has happened to our nation in 400 years? We have gone from fearing God’s word to ridiculing it.”

Oh, what a travesty that a junior high school child might haplessly stumble upon a novel in their own Mid-High school library with two lesbian (though one was apparently “experimenting”—even more frightening!) characters. Who is responsible for installing that sort of smut? If only this book was removed then surely the children would be safe to walk the library aisles and bask in the grace of God’s law.

It is the kind of town where, as happened to me only a few hours ago, should your lunch at the Subway sandwich store amount to $6.66, you will be invited to buy a cookie, or at least accept a trivial $.01 “miscellaneous” charge so that the number of the Beast will not mark your purchase.

It is, as you can see, almost like another country.

I have been working on a translation here at the public library in Birmingham, Alabama. There are large murals painted on the interior walls of the research library where I am sitting as I write this and it struck me that I couldn’t figure out what concept united all the murals.

They were painted by Ezra Winter back in the 1920s. Each mural appears to be representing a nation or culture, but I was puzzled by the choices made.

To represent the English we had Lancelot, a fictitious legendary figure. The Russians got Igor, the Spanish got Don Quixote, the Germans got Faust and Margaret. I thought the theme was fictional characters from literary works, but there were real historical figures as well: John Smith and Pocahontas for Americans, Dante and Virgil for Italians (though I realize they are probably taken from within the Divine Comedy), and Confucius for the Chinese. See the full list here.

I concluded that they were all chosen as figures which might reasonably pop up, fictional or otherwise in a classical education. However, I still found the choices somewhat bizarre when juxtaposed with the nation or culture they are supposed to represent.

I confess I didn’t recognize the characters for Japan: Otohime and Urashima Tarô, until I looked up the familiar story (J) online. The two are apparently now available in Hello Kitty versions.

The only Otohime I remember coming across in Japan was the device occasionally found in bathrooms to conceal the noise of one’s bowel movements. Only now do I realize that the name was not just a “Sound Princess” (音姫) but was at least potentially an additional play on the pronunciation of a version of the name of the mythical characther (乙姫).

On my way back to Boston I’m staying two nights in Reykjavík. I’ll takes some notes while I’m here and post them when I get back in town:

Sept 6

- In only a few hours this island has really caught my interest. However, I clearly need to come back with a whole lot more money. Unless you just want to hit the “blue lagoon” heating swimming area on the way from the airport, be prepared to rent a car or spend serious money to get to any of the beautiful areas on all the postcards. Come to think of it, the same is true for Norway.

- Even in the short fifty or so kilometers from the airport to Reykjavík and the view from the edges of town I’m already fascinated by the Icelandic landscape. In some areas it looks like the tundra of Northern Norway, in others the rocky but bright green grassland of Jæren south of my hometown. In some places along the coast it is all rocks covered with lichen and mosses of many colors. Barren and pointed hills rise out of nowhere, and you can catch glimpses of massive asteroid crater like pits of dark sand, or shaded black fields dotted with bright white pillars of steam. From the town’s harbor you can see a towering mountain hanging over the waters edge off to the North. That mountain looks so familiar, as if it were a cliff along one of the fjords back in my own Rogaland county. However, it seems darker and somehow more impressive. When I returned to my room after an early evening walk I caught a glimpse of it again in the distance, but only as a completely black background to the city, disappearing into a soft blanket of white clouds above. Everything contributes to a kind of desperate but somehow empowering feeling of loneliness, which I really find moving. Like I said, I really need to return with more money so I can visit the many different areas of the island and perhaps hike some of its hills. As for a place to live though, I think I would miss the forests too much.

- Reykjavík, or at least the center of it, doesn’t feel any bigger than any medium-sized Scandinavian fishing town, but imagine if you will a medium-sized fishing town where everyone dresses way cooler than you.

- Laugavegur The “Main shopping street” (which they kindly announce in English on signs at either end) Laugavegur reminds me a lot of the main shopping street in Sandnes outside my hometown. It’s cute, but not exactly impressive. There are, however, a number of cute coffee shops, fancy clothes stores, and delicious smelling Thai restaurants.

- Internet The “Kaffi vín” towards the eastern end of Laugavegur has an unprotected open wireless network, you can download your email here from the pavement outside. There are lots of internet cafes around but why pay?

- Gothic Is it the “desperate but somehow empowering feeling of loneliness” I was talking about the reason Reykjavík seems to be a mini-gothic capital of the world? Or is there just some kind of gothic get-together going on this week?

- Food Icelandic bread isn’t the greatest, but otherwise the stores are stocked with many if not most of the same things (and in many cases even brands). Lots of yoghurt products…yummm… Prices in the grocery store ranges from (Norwegian prices +10%) to (Norwegian Prices +100%), that is to say, expensive.

- Icelandic, with its close connection to Old Norse, is easily one of the most bad-ass languages in the world. I also feel like I’m in some kind of weird drugged dream whenever I hear it spoken. Often times I catch the beginning or end of a sentence or a conversation and I could swear they are speaking regular Norwegian. Then when I tune in for the rest, their perfectly understandable speech degenerates into complete nonsensical combinations of familiar sounds, which just adds to my fascination. Add to this the fact that Icelandic gains instant sexiness from its frequent use of the letter ∂, with a slash through it. Oh ya, the funky p (which I can’t figure out how to type on this keyboard) is also kind of neat but ∂ is still my favorite and I think we should all reintroduce it into our own alphabets.

Sept 7

- Bicycle Rentals and Hitler You can rent a bicycle at Hverfisgata 50, which runs parallel to Laugavegur. They rent out mountain bikes with a lock included for 2000kr per 24 hours which I found to be great if you want to bike around the town’s back streets and visit its parks and museums. I would have used it for a day ride out of the city but today the weather was terrible in the morning. The door to the mountain bike store had strange yellow index cards wedged into various posters hanging there. If my Icelandic-guessing engine is functioning, each card posed strange open-ended questions like, “Is Israel part of Europe?” and the more bizarre, “Was Hitler evil?” (Var Hitler vondur?). This reminds me of the kind of tactic used by any cause trying to problematize some widespread idea, e.g. “Did evolution happen?”

-Back-streets and Houses I spent the morning biking around the west and northwestern areas of Reykjavík. The older houses often have a pretty normal scandinavian color and design found in other towns, but as to be expected there is much less wood. Instead, what looks like wooden boards from a distance on closer examination turns out to be sheets of metal siding. Newer houses and larger structures in the town mostly seem to be made of stone. There is a surprising amount of graffiti in a town of this size, both downtown and in the neighborhoods. There is much the same in many places in Stavanger, Oslo and other Scandinavian areas but I somehow expected there to be less here. There quite a high density of schools and lutheran (the state religion) churches in the city given its small size. They also have quite a few parks, both in the interior of the city and along its coastline.

- The Culture House The Culture House can be found at Hverfisgata 15. It houses an exhibit of Iceland’s prize medieval manuscripts, information on the history of the Sagas, and an area dedicated to the history of book writing. There are also temporary exhibits on the 2nd and 3rd floors, a gift shop and a small cafe.

The “Medieval Manuscripts: Eddas and Sagas through the ages” on the 1st floor was wonderful. It gave an interesting overview of the history of the sagas, and had many of the rare manuscripts on display, but at least half of the exhibit was historiographical. There were sections on the role of these various texts in the romanticism and nationalism of Iceland and the North, their appropriation by the Nazis for its Aryan crusade, role in pop culture, and even a description of how the street names and layout in Reykjavík were structured to mirror the sagas and nordic myths (see separate posting). Translations of captions into English were available throughout with Danish also in the manuscript display rooms (many of these manuscripts were returned by Denmark in the early 1970s). Most of the manuscripts on display are early 13c and almost all in Old Norse. Latin works were quite rare in Iceland, which probably has to do with the particular relationship between Christianity and society on the island and perhaps the generally non-Latin educated nature of much of the writing class.

I really think the exhibit was great for several reasons: 1) It had a tight narrative which combined history and historiography in a way that the visitor never felt patronized. 2) It combined informational captions, maps, displays, lighting and artifacts skillfully. However, it also made good use of documentaries shown by TVs, the occasional iMac set up for visitors to check out online resources (For example: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi (If you understand Icelandic, check out their online section of Folklore recordings here and their Digital Manuscript Collection) and a flash story site called “Europe of Tales“). Perhaps the only thing I could complain about was the use of some images without providing context. For example, when describing the medieval parliament, they used a painting depicting it made during romanticist movement of the 1800s. That would have been nice to include for context, because the image and the way it portrays the parliament are useful in understanding the nationalist idealization of Iceland’s independent commonwealth period prior to its subordination to the Norwegian (late 13c) and later the Danish crown (14c).

Currently the 2nd floor has a fantastic exhibit “Reflections on Iceland” which I really enjoyed. It had put maps and travel literature about Iceland on display from throughout the centuries. It was interested in giving the visitor glimpses about what others had to say about the island and its people throughout the ages, both good and bad. The descriptive captions were in Icelandic but along the wall was a packet of laminated sheets with English translations of everything. What made the displays especially effective was that they lined up the works roughly chronologically and put works which referred to each other in juxtaposition. For example, one caption would describe how one writer, who may never have actually been to Iceland, said this, that or the other, then next to it we would find the next publication by some author determined to refute the slanderous writings of his predecessor. I only wish that much of this display’s information and captions were available online, something I will have to check when I post this and get online.

The 2nd floor also had an interesting exhibit dedicated to the Mormons of Iceland and, in particular, the migration of over 400 Icelandic Mormons to Utah. It followed their history from conversion to their long and troubled journey via England to the United States.

- Outdoor Picture Exhibit Throughout the downtown area there is currently an outdoor picture exhibit. These are a great way to give visitors and residents a feeling of connection to the past. The pictures dated from around 1905 through to the 1970s and offered scenes of importance and the every day often with interesting trivia added about the development of a particular sector of the city, and important events that had left their mark by pointing out things in the background.

During World War II Britain invaded Iceland and would have done the same to Norway if the Germans hadn’t gotten there first. They later turned control over to the US, which became the only military defense for the island until this year (the American Icelandic Defense force is shutting down completely this month, I believe). In one picture around the time of the 1944 declaration of an Icelandic republic, which finally severed the final tie that the island had to the Danish crown, I was surprised to learn that the Danish king, then in his own German-occupied Denmark, actually sent a letter of congratulations to the Icelandic people. It is not the benevolence of the king which surprises me, there isn’t much he could have done about it, but rather that he could do such a think while he was in a post-1943 (when German control strengthened in Denmark) occupied Denmark sending congratulations to the inhabitants of an island occupied by his occupier’s enemy.

- Kaffitár The rain compelled me twice to seek the comfort of coffee shops. I spent a few hours today continuing my reading the second volume of Ingar Sletten Kolloen’s biography of Knut Hamsun. In one very nice coffee shop on Laugavegur, Kaffitár (a chain I also saw at the airport and shopping mall, unless it just means generic cafe), I was surrounded by Macintosh users downloading their internet from the cafe’s free internet connection. If you buy coffee, and you are faced with several options, the one starting with “Sel…” something is “Dark Roast”

- The National Museum After more biking around in the early afternoon I paid a good 3 hour visit to Iceland’s National Museum. My notes on this got long enough for a separate posting which I’ll upload separately.

- See some pictures from my two days in iceland via the picture page, or directly here.

UPDATE: Nathanael of the Rhine River blog has a few notes on the Gothic architecture of Reykjavik.

- These first two street signs are to be found in my hometown of Stavanger, Norway while going for a walk in my neighborhood last week. I wanted to start a little collection of pictures showing how Norway is crazy about its viking past. However, I just have to concede that Icelandic national identity has completely out-done all the other Scandinavian countries in their endless use of viking images, words, and symbols. There is everything from Viking beer to Viking hotels, and every other thing seems to have the words Saga, Edda, famous vikings, or one of the Norse gods in it.

If you want street signs examples, there are plenty of them. I’m sure the whole Nordic pantheon must be represented within just a few blocks of the downtown area of Reykjavík. I’m not always familiar with the spellings, but I’m pretty sure they are the same guys. It would actually be great fun to teach kids some of the old myths, and then drag them through the town to look at signs and have them identify things. For example, “Hey kids, what is the name of this health food store from?”

Then you could cruise up on the hill to that funky Lutheran church and point at the massive statue in front and say, “Hey kids, who is this big hunk of a viking? I’ll give you a clue, he wasn’t no Lutheran, and he sold a map to Columbus…Hey no cheating…nobody is allowed to look at the names on any of the streets connected to this roundabout or the name of that bed & breakfast across the street…Hey Jón, I didn’t say you could read the inscription on the back…”

The Culture House (which I mention in my posting on my “Notes from Iceland”) had a great little section talking about just this phenomenon in its great historiographical section:

“In the first half of the 20th century, street names in Reykjavík drew heavily upon the sagas, and the layout was even intended to reflect their plots. Skarphé∂insgata (”Skarphedin’s street”) lies east and south of streets named after his parents, Bergpórugata and Njálsgata and between the couple is Barónsborg kindergarten, recalling their fate when they lay down to die in their burning farmhouse with their grandchild Thord Karason between them.”

Ok, so imagine working at the kindergarten and giving some new parents the tour, “Oh ya, did I mention that our kindergarten is conveniently located in such away to remind everyone of the burning corpses of Bergpóru (sp?) and Njál?” Above the caption was a map to show some of the examples:

Yesterday afternoon, I paid a visit to Iceland’s National Museum, located just next to its largest university, the University of Iceland. The museum is in nicely designed church-shaped concrete structure with three floors, a gift shop and cafe. The upper two floors are the permanent exhibit with temporary exhibits on the first floor.

Like many nationalist historical museums, the permanent exhibit tries to describe the centuries needed to accomplish “The Birth of the Nation” which, appropriately, was the title of the exhibit. The structure of the Icelandic national historical narrative is very similar to that of the Norwegian one (and dozens of other national narratives around the world). There is a glorious, if violent golden age which is celebrated as the source of national virtues, symbols, and heroes. This is followed by a decline and corruption of this noble tradition, followed by a long dark domination by a foreign power when the culture and independence of the nation are suppressed. The nation then emerges once again from the darkness as its glorious past is remembered and the national spirit awakens during its struggle for freedom from its oppressor.

In the Norwegian case, the Viking age, when we raped, burned, and pillaged Western Europe are the “good old days.” Mongolian nationalists know exactly what I’m talking about when they think of their own “good old days.” I mean, this was the period when we showed the world what it really meant to be Norwegian. This is the age from which the national symbols, stories, and heroes are taken. This is followed by the “500 years of night” when we were under the control of the Danes and our language and culture were suppressed by those evil Danish overlords. Apparently nothing of any real consequence happened at night, except that Reformation thingy. We then have a century of a kind of pre-dawn frost under Swedish domination, during which Norwegian nationalists rediscover their pure language and culture and rant about those horrible centuries of damaging Danish dominion and followed by full independence in 1905.

The Icelandic case shares much of this story but with less raping and pillaging, more democracy, and Norway gets to play a brief role as the bad guy. The roots of the Icelandic nation, if I have absorbed the narrative correctly, is to be found in the democratic and individualistic glory of the Commonwealth period, dating from the settlement of Iceland in the late 800s until it finally came to an end with Norwegian domination in the mid 1200s. The democratic legislative/judicial role of a kind of parliament (the althingi-mabob, can’t remember how to spell it) is a central source of pride. The next great source of pride is the incredibly rich production of literature - which all of Scandinavia and Germany have shown their great respect for. This glorious age was followed by the dark ages of domination first by Norwegians and then the Danes. Lots of nastiness ensued, granted, not all of it Danish. The Black death came late in the early 1400s and carried off half the population. The Reformation thingy went really bad. A Danish monopoly on trade for two centuries begins in early 1600s. Volcanoes erupt in late 1780s, including one under a glacier which all caused a terrible mess. Then, by a series of steps towards independence beginning in the late 1800s and later in 1905, 1918, the nation finally completed its lengthy birthing with the founding of the republic in 1944 while, perhaps a bit ironically, under US wartime occupation.

The museum was wonderful, especially since the population of the entire country is smaller than the last Tokyo suburb I lived in. Like the Cultural House, they did a fantastic job of presenting the materials with lots of little subject-specific areas. They also had about two dozen short documentaries available for viewing at screens place throughout the museum. Each screen had 1 to 3 mini-documentaries, which in turn were divided into 2-5 chapters. Each chapter in turn had supplementary pictures and texts covering aspects that were mentioned during the documentary chapter. It was interesting, effective, and in case someone is hogging a screen with documentaries you want to see, at the end of the 2nd floor there is a “Reading Room” with half a dozen computers that have all the documentaries viewable (unfortunately, all the books in the Reading room were in Icelandic, and thus, unreadable). They also had “touch and feel it” rooms with various clothing and other items. They had little telephones you could pick up which would tell about the daily life and stories of one particular individual (such as a fisherman). They had examples of their four kinds of national dress.

I was also impressed that the visitor was not treated like an idiot (although the little cartoon-like figures in the documentaries were slightly cheesy they helped the viewer recognize and identify players in the sometimes complicated power struggles described). I’ll give one cute example. One of the mini-documentaries surrounded the theme of Christianization of Iceland around 1000. The documentary faithfully described the process as it is recorded in the sagas (I can’t remember which, but every documentary had a “references” button with a full Icelandic language bibliography). It basically says that the entire country converted together (allowing pagan worship in private) because that was the reasonable thing to do. “An unlikely story,” I thought to myself. Then I noticed the title of the last chapter was, “Is the story true?” When it started playing, the English language voice started, “An unlikely story?” It then confesses that we cannot always trust the stories handed down but that overall, the process of Christianization did proceed quickly and with relatively little violence. How many Korean, Chinese, and Japanese museums have I visited where I wish I could push the “Is the story true?” button…

The only disappointing thing about the museum is perhaps partly due to the fact that the theme of the exhibit was “the birth of the nation.” You see, once the nation is born, there isn’t much else to say, is there? This means that the 20th century, as in the case of many other historical museums got very little space. I get the feeling that the museum’s designers just took all their 20th century material, put it in a pile and said, “What should we do with all this stuff?” Then, after a few desperate moments of silence, perhaps someone piped up with the idea, “Hey let’s put all this stuff on a kind of revolving conveyor belt, kind of like in the airport baggage claim or like one of those sushi restaurants!” Apparently everyone thought that was a good idea because that is what happened to Iceland’s history in the 20th century. I was a bit depressed to see a little pile of items labeled “World War II” as its place on the conveyor belt creaked slowly by me. There was a little more than just the conveyor belt, but considering the huge changes on the island in the last hundred years, a lot more space could have been given over to it.

I was well on my way to spending a lazy Saturday reading on the couch but the wonderful weather outside convinced me I should hop on my uncle’s bicycle and go for an afternoon ride. I have blogged a little bit about some of these delightful afternoon rides that I took to Mosterøy and Rennesøy last summer. Today I rode along the western coast, passed the airport and Sola beach to the area known as Ølberg, now perhaps best known as the location of a small beach, harbor, cafe, and a few recreational cabins.

My hometown, Stavanger, is on a peninsula, north of which are to be found countless islands and the thousand meter tall cliffs that hang over the deep fjords such as Lysefjorden. To its south until one reaches the town of Egersund there is a stretch of land known as Jæren. The land south of Ølberg already resembles the larger region of Jæren and the terrain, which is mostly farmland up this point, is dominated by rolling hills and very rocky grassland, dotted with the occasional grazing grounds for sheep. The coastline is also very rocky, and one can occasionally find fascinating layered rock formations there.

After basking in the sun on the rocks near Ølberg, I rode a few kilometers south to the village of Tjelta before turning back towards Stavanger. Tjelta is a strange place and along the coast there I found a number of huge houses that I could only describe as decadent. Apparently some rich construction magnate lives here. He may have been the old man I saw driving an antique automobile back and forth along the road I passed. He may have been related to the child I passed who was driving a full-sized golf cart down the hill towards another house (the kid could not have been more than eight or nine years old, his head barely reached over the golf cart’s steering wheel. I almost fell off my bike staring at him in wonder).

One thing I thought about as I rode was how the landscape of Norway’s coastline still bears the scars of World War II. I must have passed at least half a dozen German bunkers on ride today. The thing which stands out the most at the small harbar at Ølberg is the bunker on top of the hill. Throughout Stavanger and the entire region (probably most of the more strategically important coastline of Norway) the empty shells of these bunkers can be found along the beaches, coastal cliffs, and embedded in the hills near the coast. Some of them have been filled in by local farmers, others serve as hangouts for local youths and gangs and are filled with graffiti and trash. The remains of the bunker at Ølberg was somewhat more elaborate than most, as a number of passageways and the concrete base of what may have once mounted a coastal cannon or other structure also remains (some more pictures here, here, and here) They are a constant reminder of the fact that German forces once occupied the country and peered across the water on the lookout for any potential British invasion force.

I’m sure these bunker remains and other similar sites are to be found in many places around Europe and these visual reminders of the war must invoke complex memories for many. For children, however, these sites are often just exciting or mysterious locations to play games or engage in mischief. In my own case, the German bunker in my grandmother’s neighborhood where I played every summer as a child (on the hillside less than 60 meters from where I now type this blog entry) was filled in by a local farmer. That didn’t stop me and another childhood friend from trying to pry loose a large rusted piece of something (it was a long tube of some kind) from the rocks in the bunker. We imagined it was part of some wartime weapon. As I lifted the piece and my friend tried to remove some of the rocks under it. However, I lost my grip and the rough edge of the rusted metal badly tore the skin from the back of my friend’s hand as he tried to remove it. I took it at the time as a sign that such things are best left undisturbed.