Hoi An isn’t called the City of Lanterns for nothing. This is why a walk in the old city streets at night is not to be missed.
In addition to being featured in shops, lanterns light the entryways to pagodas.
They add distinction to restaurants and bars.
And, of course, there are the streets. The magical, glorious streets.
I don’t know how I let myself get talked into signing up for Vietnamese cooking lessons, but I did. And I’m glad of it. The cooking school is run out of this charming restaurant in the old town of Hoi An.
Here, we met our guide for the evening, who (as it turns out) would also be our instructor once we arrived at the cooking school. The school was the highlight of a journey that included a guided tour of the market and a delightful boat ride up the Thu Bon River.
The market building in the old city of Hoi An is a two-block-long structure filled with small shops containing merchandise of every description, overflowing into narrow aisles and piled high above our heads. We learned how to tell good vegetable peelers and carrot-rose makers from bad ones, and how long a container of freshly grated coconut is good for (answer below).
The answer is: two days. On the first day, the liquid around the grated coconut is clear. The coconut is good. On the second day, the liquid turns milky, and the coconut is still good. On the third day, the liquid becomes yellowish. Don’t buy that one!
After the market tour — no, we did not buy a vegetable peeler, a carrot-rose maker, or any shredded coconut — we hustled to the waterfront.
The cooking school, it turned out, was not at the old-town restaurant but rather at a place significantly up river. Wonderful! A ride on our very own boat to our very own cooking lesson, followed by dinner.
The boat dropped us off at a private dock. The building and grounds of the Red Bridge Cooking School were lovely. (And yes, there was indeed a red bridge!) After a welcoming drink on the terrace and a tour of the extensive herb garden, it was off to school!
Dan and I each had our own burner, and we worked separately, but side by side. Our instructor was very encouraging and helpful. We made rice pancakes. Using them, we made vegetarian spring rolls. Later, we used the rice pancake dough, cooked thin, and cut it to make rice noodles, which became the basis of another delicious course. There was also a chicken dish somewhere in there. And something involving shrimp and squid. Then, it was off to the terrace-restaurant for a final course of fish — a surprise dish that we were too full to do more than taste a bit of.
It was all delicious!
My husband and I visited My Son before we truly understood the full antiquity and diversity of the many ethnic groups living in Vietnam. I don’t recommend this approach. But the obvious care with which the site has been and is being restored speaks to the importance of this ancient site and the respect the Vietnamese have for it.
The sign above, located at the drop-off point where visitors must leave their cars and buses, gives some indication of the extent of the site. This drop-off area is still some distance from the actual historical site. A special electric vehicle brings the visitors along a specially built road to the actual sanctuary. Isolated towers may be seen in the distance, Piranesian ruins surrounded by jungle.
At our destination, we learn that My Son was built by the Cham people during the thousand-year heyday of the Champa kingdom (or kingdoms; apparently, scholars disagree), from the fourth to about the fourteenth century A.D. The Champa kingdom in central Vietnam, where My Son is located, was defeated by the Vietnamese from the north in 1471, and the Cham people fled south. Many still live in southern Vietnam.
My Son was only ever a temple complex, at a short remove from the capital city. The Cham were, at that time, Hindu. (Most of the ones living in the south today are Muslim.) And the magnificent red-brick temples of My Son were Hindu temples and other religious buildings.
Located deep in the jungle, the temples of My Son were allowed to fall into ruin for centuries, until the late 1800s, when the French attempted some restoration. But war put an end to that, and when the North Vietnamese used the site as one of their bases, the Americans bombed it. Bomb craters are still visible. Several of the temples were severely damaged.
Perhaps this is fitting for a site largely devoted to Shiva, the god of destruction and war. But the site is beautiful, the temples magnificent even in ruin, and the complex an important monument in the history of civilization on Earth. As visitors and citizens of a diverse and wonderful world, my husband and I are grateful that My Son is now being carefully restored as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Before leaving, we were treated to a performance of Cham music and dance. Quite a treat!
Hoi An, Vietnam is a centuries-old trading port dating back to the Champa empire of the 15th to the 19th centuries. With the defeat of the Cham people and their relocation farther south in Vietnam in the early nineteenth century, Hoi An became less important politically and commercially, and has survived nearly intact until now. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The old city is physically delightful, its narrow streets framed by houses and shops that range from decades- to centuries-old, and no more than two or perhaps three stories high, with lots of trees and colorful lanterns adding to its charm.
One of the main points of interest is the Japanese bridge. Inside the bridge, there is a “guardian statue at either end: a monkey and a dog. Here’s the dog.
You can see that there are lots of tourists in these pictures, indeed, in the entire old city. Many, if not most, of the businesses in the old city cater to them.
You may have also noticed that there are a lot of lanterns. But more about that in another post.
Most people are familiar with the image of St. George and the dragon. Here’s one, for example, in Budapest:
Pretty classic, right? Guy on a big horse slays a wicked-looking reptile with a long spear from a pretty safe distance. (Well, not so much for the horse, of course, but they have to put the man and the beast into the same statue, right? So there are space constraints.
There’s a classic St. George on the facade of Casa Amatller in Barcelona, too. (Casa Amatller, designed by the architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch in about 1900, is right next door to Gaudi’s somewhat more famous Casa Batllo.)
Despite the lack of a horse, it’s pretty easily recognizable. The guy’s on the top, and he has armor and a shield. And (if you look closely) the obligatory spear, with which he has skewered the beast through the head and the heart.
When it comes to St. George and the dragon, let us be clear, there is not much of a contest. The beast is ferocious, but we are given the surety that the brave-hearted (and well armored) man wins.
But the artist is playing with us, as it turns out. There are not just one but three St. Georges with their dragons on the facade of Casa Amatller.
This second St. George appears to be a parody. It shows a rather extreme version of the man-over-beast story. The man is a performer with a tambourine not a spear, and the beast has turned into a dancing bear. No harm to anyone here. Not a chance of nightmares. But look at what has become of the man. He makes a living with this defeated creature, but that’s all. If the beast isn’t much of a dragon, neither is the person much of a man.
The third St. George speaks to me deeply. Here, the man wears only a thin cloak, and he is wrestling with a beast that is his own size, maybe bigger. It’s not clear who will win. Look closely. If the man is strangling the dragon, the dragon also has his claws into the man, raking his arm. Leaving wounds that could be slow to heal.
This one, at least, is an even contest.
This one feels real to me, for we all struggle with our beasts. We all struggle to be more than beasts ourselves. Every psychologist will recognize this conflict. Every artist will see in it the creative process. Even Plato described the act of creation as “reason persuading necessity.”
For a long time, I placed this image of the creative struggle on the top of my home page, but it’s dark, and it’s difficult. It may capture you, and it may draw you in, but not in a way that will invite you and make you feel at home.
Please do come in. Please do feel at home in these pages. There is much of beauty and of joy here. But let’s just remember that it’s not a dancing bear lurking there in the dark corners–it’s a dragon.
This is the first in a series of posts describing the history of the world of Freeing Eden from the late twenty-first century until the time of the story. This part covers the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. I wrote the initial draft of this a few years ago, but despite the intervening time, the section about the twenty-first century still rings true–or at least believable–to me. How about you?
21st Century
By the middle of the 21st century, improved space-based optics enable the identification of potentially Earth-like planets in remote star systems. This development sparks some excitement, especially in the United States and in Russia, both of which countries have experienced setbacks in world influence. Amid great fanfare, they agree to cooperate to send unmanned probes to remote star systems. Not to be outdone, the Chinese independently also establish a program of exploration.
Exploration of Earth’s solar system also continues. A treaty is reached for cooperation in research and settlement in the solar system and in space that is similar to the ones already in place regarding Antarctica. Small international scientific research-oriented bases are established in orbit around Earth, on Mars, and on Luna, all environments inimical to human survival and therefore extremely costly and difficult to maintain.
Continuing experiments to validate (or disprove) string theory finally yield results. Space is proven to be ten-dimensional, with time itself providing the eleventh dimension that some theorists of the last century had insisted upon. The most advanced computers can now manipulate the mathematics of the structure of the universe as it is now understood.
But Earth is unable to solve its climate-change problem. Agreement after agreement is reached, but one government, or all, or the worst offenders, continue to mandate less action than needed, and in some cases, take less action than mandated, until a “point of no return” is passed in the middle of the century. But the point of no return is not the point of total disaster—not yet. Although climate-change effects are measurable, they are small enough on a worldwide scale, or local enough as a disaster, or slow enough to allow local action such as building dikes, for most people to ignore most of the time. Yet global warming becomes, according to scientists, essentially inescapable. Pollution of the air and waters also continues. Especially among the poorest and most vulnerable peoples, population growth continues. As in the previous century, there are humanitarian crises in the poorer regions, with potable water in short supply, occasional disease epidemics, continuing conflict, and deaths. Increasingly erratic weather triggers population migrations. In response to the changing climate, agricultural production becomes unreliable—in one place, flourishing where never before possible; in another, failing because of insufficient water.
The rich continue to get richer while the poor get little relief. As oil becomes a scarce resource and poverty becomes endemic in many third-world regions, terror groups and rogue governments continue to threaten the wealthier countries.
22nd Century
Sea walls are built to protect the streets of certain parts of New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, London, and other low-lying coastal cities around the globe. Even so, these places are flooded in severe storms, which occur more frequently than previously. Coastal areas where water rises from the ground, such as much of Florida, are abandoned. Conditions generally continue to deteriorate but at a slow pace. The world government moves to Geneva. Much of humankind’s scientific endeavor moves to research enclaves in higher-altitude areas such as Denver, including significant research departments of many of the world’s major universities.
Sub-atomic engineering provides the first prototypes of the rotational drive—a device that works by rotating matter from the three dimensions of regular space to three of the other seven special dimensions, all of which are tiny, tremendously shortening interstellar distances. Although scientists of previous centuries had predicted that the energy needed to bypass light speed would be greater than all the energy in the solar system, this has fortunately proved false. The early scientists had based their calculations on housing the drive in normal space, but the heart of the rotational drive is actually in quantum space, where statistical uncertainty sampling provides a basis for implementation of the rotation algorithm with almost no energy cost. Toward the middle of the 22rd century, the first human-scale (non-quantum) rotational drive prototype is produced and is used on a limited basis for research and for exploration. The research stations on Mars are now easily reachable.
Scientists receive the first results from the previous century’s interstellar probes and begin to discover more habitable planets using the rotational drive. Early in the century, several planets are identified that are quite Earth-like and have no sign of intelligent life.
Advanced digital printing techniques allow mass production of the rotational drive at low cost. Manned exploration of the stars begins.
In preparation for possible terraforming of dozens of new planets, a few limited terraforming experiments are conducted by the research stations on Mars. These are gratifyingly successful, but at much larger cost than anticipated. Scientists find no “tipping point” at which terraforming can transform the entire planet into an environment suitable for human habitation. It is much more economically feasible to discover, catalog, and settle the new planets.
Hundreds of planets are explored, and by mid-century, dozens are determined acceptable for human habitation as-is, or nearly so. Discussions ensue regarding whether and how to go about settling these planets. A treaty is signed by most of the nations on Earth that limits any kind of exposure, much less settlement, on planets with any signs of extraterrestrial intelligent life; however, no clear cases of such planets are identified. A few planets are found where the evidence is in one way or another equivocal (very ancient ruins of what appear to be built structures in one case); these planets are declared off-limits.
Enthusiasm builds for settlement of other planets as a goal in itself—a new frontier, a new beginning. A sense of optimism about the future, after so many dark years, begins to grow. Some groups, backed by wealthy individuals and consortia, begin exploring and settling some planets on their own.
When this news breaks out, discussions ensue regarding the minimum requirements for sustainable and equitable settlement, and whether private settlements should be allowed, and if so, what regulations should be enacted. Concepts of minimum viable population are discussed, and guidelines are promulgated that establish a baseline population of at least one thousand to ensure viability of the settlement population under most normal conditions.
Emotional momentum builds for outward migration, while conditions on Earth continue to slowly deteriorate. The governments of the larger, more powerful nations—those that are most interested in establishing settlements on other planets—create the International Settlement Control Board (ISCB), an international regulatory body to grant charters and to coordinate settlement efforts. There is heated debate regarding what groups or organizations may be granted charters for settlement (and have their settlement subsidized) by the organization. Private exploration and settlement drops off. As citizens of various nations, the people behind these efforts also fall under the aegis of the treaty to which their nations have agreed, and the minimum-viable-population requirement greatly limits the number of these private activities.
Habitable planets continue to be discovered, but expressions of interest by various groups become more numerous. Earth’s multinational regulatory body begins granting charters of settlement, giving funding priority to representatives of certain populations that are near extinction or threatened on Earth, and to those other groups that agree to incorporate such populations into their settlement plans.
As might be expected, a few settlements are lost because of factors not discovered during exploration, such as poisonous substances or microbes in the soil that were transmitted to the Earth crops the settlers planted. Scientists and engineers work out more careful planet-selection and modification strategies to ensure the safety of the humans and other Earth life that are settled there, with the minimum possible changes to the planetary ecology as a whole. The idea of massive terraforming is abandoned as unnecessary.
On Earth, oil becomes prohibitively scarce. Some regions revert to coal. This causes a significant increase in global air pollution, despite an increase in use of nuclear energy and a marked increase in use of renewable resources. Pollution of the sea causes the extinction of many marine species, with a concomitant drop-off of avian species as well. A major volcanic eruption at the end of the century further increases air pollution and causes two years so cold (in the midst of a trend of overall global warming) that crops in parts of the world fail. Settlement of the planets takes on new urgency.
The last time we visited Spain, almost exactly two years ago, we chanced upon preparations and rehearsals for the joyous Alarde festival in Hondarribia. We must, I decided, return sometime for the event itself, and Dan kindly agreed.
But of course, it makes no sense to travel to Hondarribia for a day or two, then back to California. So we are now embarked on an entire two-week vacation partly involving wine-tasting in Bordeaux and partly an in-depth exploration of Basque country, which we passed through too quickly last time around.
Yesterday, we drove through the mountains at the heart of Basque country while traveling from Azpeitia to Tolosa. Surprisingly, the road crossed and re-crossed one of the main pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela (indicated on the map by the scallop shell, the sign of the pilgrim).
Something moves me deeply about crossing the pilgrimage route. And so, I was reminded of our own pilgrimage to Santiago two years ago. We did not walk one of the established routes, except for the 3.5 kilometers at the end. No, we flew, drove, were driven, then drove again in order to get there. And then, at the end, we walked. And thought about what it meant to be a pilgrim. You can read that blog post here.
Today I am still thinking about being a pilgrim. The hero of my as-yet-unpublished award-winning novel Alien Son is named Mikel Pelerin. His surname, which means “pilgrim” in French, is not an accident. I chose it because he leaves Earth, the planet of his birth, to live on another planet, where he takes on a role critical to his new home’s survival. And is willing to risk his life for his beliefs.
Many thanks to Catherine Castle for the chance to share Freeing Eden with her readers! This post about the inspiration for Freeing Eden appeared today on her Wednesday Writers blog. Please join me in following Catherine’s blog and meeting more talented romance writers.
The history of cloning is intimately tied to the history of academic research in the twenty-fourth century and beyond. By the beginning of the century, more than one hundred habitable planets had been discovered and settled, and the expansion of humanity into nearby regions of the galaxy continued apace throughout the century as Old Earth became increasingly uninhabitable.
By the middle of the twenty-fourth century, Oxford University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with about half a dozen others, recognized that the center of human population was receding from Old Earth. They joined together to colonize a more conveniently located planet that would be oriented toward the pursuit of higher education, and in particular, to encourage multidisciplinary efforts through co-location. Intense discussions in committee fail to agree on a name for the new planet. To everyone’s dismay, some media jokester began calling the planet “Hoaxford.” Forced to make a decision quickly, the Joint Naming Committee adopted the only name they could agree upon, the singularly unimaginative name “University.”
The founding universities continued to maintain campuses on Old Earth as well as on other planets, but most disciplines, along with the institutions’ administrative functions, moved to the new planet. The charter of the planet also allowed other colleges and universities, existing or new, large or small, to establish campuses on University. Eventually, over three thousand institutes of higher education established branches on University, or moved there outright.
Early in the twenty-fifth century, a research scientist at Stanford (on University), named Marco Jefferson Eddy, developed a technique for growing fully adult human clones in tanks (in vitro) in just three years. In the course of his research, he made eight clones of his own, as well as three of his colleague, Monica Nguyen. The clones were fully physically viable but were, as it turned out, incapable of any kind of human intelligence.
Meanwhile, MIT professor and neuroprogramming expert Beneficio Rossi had been researching brainscan recording, the ability to capture the entire mental state of an individual human being. The two teams integrated their projects—realizing University’s founders’ vision of interdisciplinary cooperation—and created the first human clone who was more than a genetic identical twin but was also a total re-creation of the cloned individual.
Stanford’s Board of Governors declared the project unethical and insisted that it be closed down. MIT’s governing board, to the contrary, affirming free inquiry as a basic scientific principle, urged that the project be pursued. The dispute was referred to the Governing Board of University, who declared the project fraught with ethical problems and strongly recommended that it be discontinued.
Jeff Eddy, Monica Nguyen, and Ben Rossi remained adamant that their research not be restricted or controlled by any administration or government. Claiming the inviolability of academic and scientific freedom, they were joined in this position by many other scientists on University. Powerfully funded and supported by a number of extremely wealthy individuals who were interested in cloning themselves, the group of scientists applied for and received a planetary charter. They resigned their positions on University, and many of their scientific colleagues—including a team studying Eden’s unusual physical properties—joined them on their new world. They called the planet Bigollo, the actual surname of the extraordinary thirteenth-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonnaci.
The Governing Board of University sued the Republic of Bigollo regarding ownership of the research that the various scientific founders of Bigollo took with them, notably Eddy, Nguyen, and Rossi’s cloning and brainscan programming technology. However, the lawsuit was soon bogged down in the courts of Old Earth because of jurisdictional issues.
The dispute regarding cloning was finally resolved out of court at the end of the century when the new Union of Federated Planets passed a law forbidding the use of cloning-with-brainscan technology anywhere in the Union. Bigollo, however, was specifically exempted from this law and thus became the only place where cloning was permitted.
The cloning and programming process was both expensive and imperfect. Because of minor physical differences between the makers and their clones, brainscan programming was ineffective in about one in sixty clones, leaving them as incapable of thought, feeling, or development as the clones initially created by Eddy and Nguyen. Most clones, however, when brought to consciousness at the end of the process, were so successfully programmed that they initially believed they were their makers, with all their makers’ memories from childhood completely intact.
My first book, Freeing Eden, will be released on May 29th. That’s right around the corner! So between now and then, I’m hoping to share some of my thoughts about this book, and perhaps some vital background information as well.
Yes, it’s science fiction. You can read a short description of the plot on the book page at Amazon if you’d like. In fact, I’d be glad if you would, but that’s not what this post is about. This post explores why the planet is called Eden and what makes it particularly Eden-like.
The book initially came about because I began wondering about the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. Why should it be the case that simply knowing about good and evil is enough to be banished from Eden? At this point, we are not talking about Adam and Eve having committed evil. Sure, maybe a little deviation from the letter of the instruction, but evil? That would be a stretch. And yet, they were cast out.
In order to understand why this exile might be necessary, I had first to imagine a place that would be very Eden-like. Yet it also had to be a place where real people live. What would such people be like? They would be gentle and welcoming, surely, and they would also be simple and honest. They would abhor any kind of violence to others. But wouldn’t that make them easy prey for anyone else? Particularly if their Eden was full of riches that other people might want for their own?
Could it even survive for very long?
Facing loss of the paradise they live in, and their culture that preserves it, it seems to me that the Edenians would develop a style of nonviolent resistence that might not overcome outside oppression, but it might create a kind of stasis in which what they value most is preserved despite everything.
Into this conflict-ridden Eden, I have placed the very man meant to break the deadlock and save Eden. He’s been cloned from Eden’s great resistance hero and best hope, but somehow the brainscan programming that was supposed to make him an exact double of his maker has been interfered with, so that he remembers nothing.
Can a person of such innocence remain innocent for long on conflict-torn Eden? And for him, is there such a thing as learning too much–such a thing as coming to know good and evil?
Let’s say this happens. Let’s say our protagonist comes to know good and evil–and chooses good. Now, let’s just see how long he can stay on Eden.