I blame my otherwise-wonderful pre-secondary education for spending too much time on the nebulous area of "social studies" than on teaching us world capitals.
So it should come as no surprise that in reading the astoundingly good Vietnam War novel Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, I would be a bit lost as to the relative locations of events. But even I was taken aback at how repeatedly adrift I felt while reading the novel, which floats among the Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam, Kuala Lumpur, and lots of places in between. Having finished the novel last night, and still basking in the glow of just how outrageously admirable the writing was, I looked up a map of Southeast Asia and realized I should have done so long ago.
Oh, that's where Thailand is! Indonesia is right above Australia! I am a moron. Denis Johnson is a god. The above map is for you all to memorize. There will be a quiz. No. 2 pencils only, please.
5 comments:
I know people from Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines so I have been looking more at maps too.
Now see, if you used to play Risk all the time in high school instead of going to class, you'd know that Indonesia is above Australia. It's the only way in, so you should probably put a lot of soldiers there if you want to hold the continent and receive two bonus armies per turn.
Also, if you want to get from Europe to North America directly, you have to take the Iceland-Greenland passage. There is no other way.
I realized my ignorance when my friend in Singapore said he went to Indonesia and I was like, holy crap, how long did it take to get there? And he was like, "about 15 minutes."
That mention of Risk just made me smile. I used to play that a bit with my sister when we were younger. That's the only reason I know where Kamchatka is. =)
I only know places that were on "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"
God, I'm ignorant.
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