Javanese: Indonesia's respectful language

Javanese is a language spoken by about 75 million people but in a limited geographical area, namely the Indonesian island of Java. Odd as it might seem, although the capital of Indonesia and its largest city, Jakarta, is on Java, the official language of the country is not Javanese but Indonesian, which is a form of Malay.

Java was once a Hindu kingdom where in ancient times its language was Sanskrit, which was the classical language of India. Javanese – derived from Sanskrit - is known to have existed as a written language from early in the 9^th century AD, and it has been written in three distinctive scripts, namely a simplified Indian form, Arabic, and the Latin alphabet.

Some European languages, such as French, use different words for “you” to distinguish the status of the person being addressed. Javanese goes much further than that and uses completely different verbs depending on the relative status of the person being addressed and the speaker. For example:

“Aku ngekeki kancaku buku” means “I gave my friend a book” – the two have equal status.

“Aku njaosi bapakku buku” means “I gave my father a book – the recipient has higher status.

“Bapak maringi aku buku” means “My father gave me a book” – the recipient has lower status.

(In these examples the word order is the same as in English)

One could say that Javanese is a language that has politeness built into its structure.

Indonesian Malay does not make such demands on the speaker/writer, which is one reason why it is gradually ousting Javanese as the preferred language of the younger generation living on Java.

© John Welford

The totem poles of Stanley Park, Vancouver, Canada

Stanley Park is one of the main attractions in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with around eight million visitors every year. It covers about a thousand acres of a promontory on the north side of the city, looking across Vancouver Harbour to North Vancouver.  The park was opened in 1888 and named in honour of the then Governor-General of Canada, Lord Stanley of Preston.  The collection of totem poles at Brockton Point, to the south-east of Stanley Park, is one of the most popular features of the park.

When the park was first created, the promontory’s natural woodland was used by a number of First Nation people, including the Musqueams. A plan was drawn up in the early 20^th century, by the Art, Historical and Scientific Association, to create an “Indian village” as a tourist attraction, but fortunately this voyeuristic proposal was soon dropped. However, the plan included moving several totem poles to the park from other places in Canada. In 1922 the first four poles were bought from a site at Alert Bay on Cormorant Island to the north of Vancouver. These were created by the Kwakwaka'wakw people, who have also contributed some of the later additions.

In 1962 the poles were moved to their present position against a wooded backdrop, protected by a narrow water feature to guard against vandalism, looking out across the water towards the high-rise skyline of downtown Vancouver. Some of the poles are original and date back about a hundred years, but others have been replaced by replicas or newly commissioned poles. There are now eight poles in the collection, none of which relate to the original occupiers of the site, but three gateways carved by Musqueam people were added in 2008 to make good this anomaly.

The full story of the totem poles is told in the exhibition mounted in the visitor centre close to the site. Visitors can learn the significance of the poles and what each element means. The poles were not objects of worship, nor were they merely decorative, but represent the traditions and culture of the communities that created them. They do have a religious significance in that the carvings of animals and birds relate to the spirit world. Typical representations are of grizzly bears, wolves, beavers and ravens. Some poles include boxes to contain the remains of a dead chief, and some were originally part of a chief’s house or would have stood just outside to tell the story of the chief’s achievements.

The most vividly painted totem poles at Brockton Point are relatively recent and are startling works of art in their own right. On one pole the Thunderbird spreads his wings, carved and painted in 1955 by Ellen Neel, who is believed to have been the first woman to carve totem poles professionally. On another pole the Quolus bird perches on the head of Red Cedar-bark Man, who was revered by the Kwakwaka'wakw people for having given them the secrets of canoe building.

The totem poles at Stanley Park have much to tell about the people who created them, and form an open-air textbook of native culture for those who are willing to learn what they mean. There are other sets of totem poles in the region, most notably at Alert Bay mentioned above, but the Stanley Park collection has the advantage of accessibility, being easily (and freely) visited by anyone living in or visiting British Columbia’s largest city.

© John Welford

Dead ringer: the origin of the term

The term “dead ringer” is applied to someone who looks remarkably like someone else, especially if the second person is a celebrity. “Dead Ringers” is also the title of a BBC radio show, although in this case it refers to professional impressionists who can be “soundalikes” of well-known people as opposed to lookalikes. But where does the term originate?

We have to go back to medieval times when medical science was nothing like as advanced as it is now. If somebody relapsed into a coma they were quite likely to be declared dead, after which they would go through all that that entailed, ending with burial in the local churchyard. Also common at that time was grave robbery, with bodies being dug up at night so that any treasures that had been buried with them could be stolen. The robbers were sometimes horrified to discover that there were scratches on the insides of coffin lids, where the “bodies” had “come to life” and desperately tried to dig themselves free, only to succumb to suffocation.

This possibility was so worrying to some people that they gave instructions that – when they died – their grave would be equipped with a bell above ground level and a string would link the bell to their wrist. Should they recover from their coma they would ring the bell and hope that somebody would hear it and dig them up before it was too late. Bizarre as this notion might sound, there were actually occasions on which this ploy worked and people were saved from a very unpleasant death.

Knowing that this was a possibility, people might imagine that someone who looked someone else, who was known to have died, was in fact the same person, “resurrected” by having rung the bell above his or her grave. That would make him or her a “ringer”, but surely he or she would be a “non-dead ringer”, as opposed to a dead one!

Logical or not, that is the origin of the term!

© John Welford

Serving the perfect curry

A scientist at Warwick University, England, has come up with a recipe for the perfect curry, not in terms of its ingredients or method of cooking, but determined by the rules of mathematics.

Apparently the ancient Greeks had the right idea, although their connection with curry is one that would not strike many people. However, they did know all about proportions and devised what is known as the “golden ratio”. When applied to curry eating this means that you should load your fork with exactly the same quantities of meat (or vegetables), sauce and rice. This, says the scientist, one Dr Mark Hadley of the university’s Department of Physics, produces not only the tastiest mouthful but it looks good too.

Dr Hadley goes further by stipulating exactly how the perfect curry should be arranged on the plate. The circle of rice, for example, must be 61% wider than the mound of curry placed on top.

If you use a plate that is 27 centimetres in diameter, the bed of rice must be 22.5 centimetres wide and no more than five millimetres thick. The mound of curry must be 14 centimetres in diameter and 2.4 centimetres thick at its highest point.

So now you know! Next time you serve a curry, make sure that you use a ruler as one of your cooking utensils. Your curry won’t be perfect unless you do!

Incidentally, isn’t it good to know that our university research departments aren’t wasting their time with anything trivial?

© John Welford

My favourite teacher

Naming my favourite teacher? This is tricky – there are several to choose from. However, I think I have to go for John Bristow, who was the senior English teacher at Poole Grammar School during my time there between 1963 and 1971.

I always had favourite subjects – nothing unusual there – but history was a strong contender and I got on well with all the history teachers (I ending up marrying the daughter of one of them, but that’s another story!). The reason why I decided to study English at university, rather than history, must go down to the tuition and influence of John Bristow.

The thing about his teaching style was that there was nothing forced about it. He clearly enjoyed literature, and he passed that enjoyment on to his pupils. Apart from music, what other traditional school subject studies a form of entertainment? Much of what counts as “Eng Lit” was written with the intention of creating pleasurable feelings in those who receive it, but it is very easy for a teacher to forget that and make the study of literature into a chore. John Bristow was quite the opposite. As a result, I read literature these days for fun, including what people regard as the “classics”. 

My wife cannot understand why I like to analyse poems. She reckons that a poem should be read and appreciated for what it conveys as a first impression, and not pulled apart and have its entrails examined. That is because she did not have a teacher like John Bristow when she was at school. He made the analysis of poetry interesting and rewarding, because he was able to make a poem reveal so much more than a first reading can give. For me, close analysis increases enjoyment if done sensitively and carefully.

The other string to John Bristow’s bow was drama. I got involved with drama quite early at the Grammar School, and continued to perform in plays until I left. He was excellent at getting the best out of his cast by trusting them to get it right and by listening to their ideas as well as by imposing his own. Some directors are dictators and others are team leaders. I have come across both, both at school and later, and respond better to the latter approach although I appreciated that others might not agree.

He never seemed to get flustered, even when things went wrong. A play that I did not take part in (“Unman, Wittering and Zigo” by Giles Cooper) involved the set of a school classroom, with the desks raked upwards so that all the “pupils” were in the view of the audience. During one performance part of the set collapsed, with boys falling all over the place. I don’t know how he did it, but Mr Bristow somehow ensured that the show went on with hardly a pause.

John Bristow did have a few annoying habits, one of which was to smoke like a chimney during rehearsals and stuff the fag ends in his trouser turn-ups. What his wife thought about this is not on record, but can be imagined! 

He had the idea of doing a musical at some point, although it never happened during my time. He therefore developed the habit of accosting people at odd times during the school day and asking “can you sing?” As it happened, I could, so it was a bit disappointing that the proposed venture did not come off.

So there you are – John Bristow was my idea of a darned good teacher. He did it by not appearing to make any great effort. Perhaps his ability as an actor (he sometimes took parts in plays as well as directing them) meant that he could perform the role of a teacher without appearing to do so. He was just a “natural” who inspired by making people want to follow his example as a connoisseur of literature.

© John Welford

Standard 10

When visiting the Banbury Rally in Oxfordshire, I could not help but notice this Standard 10 from the 1950s. It was parked in a row of cars from the past, many of them being models that I remember very well from my childhood days.

The Standard 10 was particularly memorable to me, because my father bought one when I was very young, and it was the family car for about ten years before he fell in love with VW Beetles.

Our Standard 10 was blue, its name was Oscar (named after Oscar Wilde, who was one of my father’s favourite writers) and the number plate was PLJ 483 – a detail never forgotten in more than half a century!

I don’t ever remember Oscar breaking down or having an accident. He took us on family holidays from Dorset to Wales on many occasions, with the four of us and all our luggage, much of it on a roof rack - apart from the surf board which somehow slotted alongside the front and rear seats on the driver’s side.

I remember being very sad when I saw Oscar being driven away after he was sold. It seemed as though an old friend had gone for ever. 

However, several years later I was walking through a boatyard a few miles from our home when I saw an empty boat trailer with a familiar number plate on the back – PLJ 483. So Oscar had learned to tow boats in his old age! Unfortunately I never saw Oscar himself, but it was good to know that someone else was now appreciating him!

And all those memories came flooding back when I saw this exhibit at the Rally. If this Standard 10 could still be running, despite being about 60 years old, then maybe Oscar is still around somewhere too!

© John Welford

How to play Windmill

This is an unusual solitaire (“patience” in the UK) game for several reasons. For one thing, it uses two packs of cards but you don't shuffle them together. For another, you take no notice of the suits as it's only the numbers on the cards that matter.

Start with one of your packs and take out an ace; it doesn't matter which one. Place this at the centre of your board. Now shuffle your pack (just the one, remember) and deal two cards leading away from the central card in four directions, to make a windmill pattern. If there is a two (of any suit) at the end of any of the windmill sails, place it on top of the ace. If there is a three, either at the end of a sail or exposed by your removal of a two, place this on the two, and so on. Kings are also removed, and placed between the sails. These are built on downwards, so a king is followed by a queen, and so on.

When you can place no more cards, fill the gaps from the pack. Don't fill a gap until you have finished placing all the cards from the sails, etc, that you want to play. Also, do not play a card from anywhere until you have finished rebuilding the sails. These rules apply throughout the game.

Continue to deal from the pack, one card at a time, on to a wastepile, but use the cards you turn up to either play to the central “ace” pile or to any of the piles started by the kings. Again, remember that suits don't matter in this game.

Eventually, if you succeed, you will have one pack of 52 cards built on the central ace, and four other piles from king to ace. During your first deal you must not go beyond the first queen on the central pile, because you need the kings to form your other bases.

When building on the central pile, you may use any card you turn up, any card at the end of a sail (or exposed when the end card is played), or any card (except a king) that has been played to a king pile. A card on a sail always has priority over a king pile card when it comes to building on the central pile. When dealing from the pack to replace cards taken from sails, you must replace "inner" cards before "outer" ones, so you cannot cheat if a playable card turns up and then looks like getting trapped by an unplayable one.

Playing the Second Pack

When you have played all through the first pack you can start on the second, continuing to discard unplayable cards on to the same wastepile as before. You should be careful not to complete your king piles too early, because once a pile has been completed (i.e. it is surmounted by an ace), it is out of the game and its cards cannot be added to the central pile.

On the assumption that your first pack got the central pile as far as a queen (but no further, remember), you must now find a king to place on the queen and so get the second "suit" started.

Another no-no is that cards cannot be moved from the central pile once they are placed there. You are not obliged to place a card, and sometimes it can be in your best interest not to do so. 

End Game

When both packs have been played through, you may turn your wastepile over and go through it one more time, but if this fails to make the game come out, give up and try again; or try a different kind of solitaire!

This is not an easy game to play, mainly because you have to keep your wits about you at all times. If you forget that one pile is building upwards and the others downwards, you are in big trouble. You may also find it easier to place your king piles elsewhere than between the sails, as this arrangement can be confusing. 

© John Welford