The world below
I had a really interesting flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Everything was just right for me to see the tundra in its full glory as we passed over Alaska and crossed the Bering Straits into Russia. There had been snow, but not recently, so it stuck on the frozen ponds and rivers, and on cleared ground, but it didn't stick on the tundra. The contrast highlighted every detail of the landscape.
The tundra is an expanse of slight hills, separated by the most sinuous rivers I have ever seen. Based on the sinuousity of the rivers, this must be the flattest landscape in the world. Every river had cut-offs within cut-offs. Ranks of oxbow lakes floated away like bubbles from every bend. The hills looked very strange to me. They were drained by these sinuous rivers, and I could not understand that. Surely hills mean straight rivers? Then it hit me. The hills don't control the rivers: the rivers control the hills because they aren't hills: they are living things: mounds of whatever organisms make up the tundra. Lichens? Moss? Whatever they are, they grow up in these strangely striated humps, separated by the winds and bends and oxbows of the tundra rivers.
The only trees in the landscape are along the rivers. I assume that is because the rivers drain the land enough that trees can grow. Everywhere else is the endless frozen swamp. I kept thinking: human beings moved, fairly rapidly, into the new world across this landscape. I can certainly understand why they moved fast. I would not want to be on foot there, trying to cross rivers that looped back into my path over and over like frozen serpents. I'd get out as fast as I could. I can't understand why they even braved the crossing at all. Historians focus on how people got across the straits: did they walk on a land bridge, or did they take a boat? Having seen what waits on both sides, I think the real question is: how did they cross that wasteland? You have to wonder what even drove them onto it. It's now been demonstrated that humans in North America have only aboue 12,000 years of genetic isolation from humans in Asia, so the weather and landscape were, if anything, worse at the time humans walked across.
On the other side of the Straits, we flew amongst the islands of Russia, where the snow on the sea ice is formed into great stripes by the kadabatic winds. Another treat for the crossers; horrific icy winds in the winter blowing at a hundred miles an hour. Did they wait until summer to cross to avoid the wind? But the swamps would have been thawing then and the rivers running. So did they cross in winter, in the icy winds and the blizzards?
I didn't see any indication of human habitation or other human activity now. I imagine the Inuit might call it home, but oh I am glad I don't.
Well I am in pleasantly warm (and disgustingly smoggy) Hong Kong now. The newspaper said yesterday was the worst air quality on record in Hong Kong. I could see it as we landed in Hong Kong Airport. The smog looked like Beijing's.
I have a room on the 23rd floor of the Park Lane Hotel, overlooking Victoria Park. Right below my window there is an abandoned-looking amusement park and a playing field. Every morning I look out the window on groups of people on the playing field. Yesterday one group practiced with the katana, and another did judo. This morning it was tai chi near the road, and people with brightly colored fans practiced a dance further on. That seems to be the unifying theme in China, wherever you go, communities of people are drawn together in public spaces to move in unison. You want to go down and join them.
I found the fried dough stick shop this morning, and recognized once more: there is no better food on earth than fried dough. It IS the perfect food.
The tundra is an expanse of slight hills, separated by the most sinuous rivers I have ever seen. Based on the sinuousity of the rivers, this must be the flattest landscape in the world. Every river had cut-offs within cut-offs. Ranks of oxbow lakes floated away like bubbles from every bend. The hills looked very strange to me. They were drained by these sinuous rivers, and I could not understand that. Surely hills mean straight rivers? Then it hit me. The hills don't control the rivers: the rivers control the hills because they aren't hills: they are living things: mounds of whatever organisms make up the tundra. Lichens? Moss? Whatever they are, they grow up in these strangely striated humps, separated by the winds and bends and oxbows of the tundra rivers.
The only trees in the landscape are along the rivers. I assume that is because the rivers drain the land enough that trees can grow. Everywhere else is the endless frozen swamp. I kept thinking: human beings moved, fairly rapidly, into the new world across this landscape. I can certainly understand why they moved fast. I would not want to be on foot there, trying to cross rivers that looped back into my path over and over like frozen serpents. I'd get out as fast as I could. I can't understand why they even braved the crossing at all. Historians focus on how people got across the straits: did they walk on a land bridge, or did they take a boat? Having seen what waits on both sides, I think the real question is: how did they cross that wasteland? You have to wonder what even drove them onto it. It's now been demonstrated that humans in North America have only aboue 12,000 years of genetic isolation from humans in Asia, so the weather and landscape were, if anything, worse at the time humans walked across.
On the other side of the Straits, we flew amongst the islands of Russia, where the snow on the sea ice is formed into great stripes by the kadabatic winds. Another treat for the crossers; horrific icy winds in the winter blowing at a hundred miles an hour. Did they wait until summer to cross to avoid the wind? But the swamps would have been thawing then and the rivers running. So did they cross in winter, in the icy winds and the blizzards?
I didn't see any indication of human habitation or other human activity now. I imagine the Inuit might call it home, but oh I am glad I don't.
Well I am in pleasantly warm (and disgustingly smoggy) Hong Kong now. The newspaper said yesterday was the worst air quality on record in Hong Kong. I could see it as we landed in Hong Kong Airport. The smog looked like Beijing's.
I have a room on the 23rd floor of the Park Lane Hotel, overlooking Victoria Park. Right below my window there is an abandoned-looking amusement park and a playing field. Every morning I look out the window on groups of people on the playing field. Yesterday one group practiced with the katana, and another did judo. This morning it was tai chi near the road, and people with brightly colored fans practiced a dance further on. That seems to be the unifying theme in China, wherever you go, communities of people are drawn together in public spaces to move in unison. You want to go down and join them.
I found the fried dough stick shop this morning, and recognized once more: there is no better food on earth than fried dough. It IS the perfect food.