Over the last week, I have made a few quick assumptions that I could not support after looking for confirming evidence. While researching and writing, I saw several White people in traditional German costume around town. I don’t have a sophisticated enough eye to tell the differences between Central European folk costume, but it resembled the Czech and German garbs that you see occasionally in Texas for some celebration of the heritage of the settlers in places like Fredericksburg or Ennis. Perfect, I thought: a local celebration of the German administration! Surely there will be liederhosen on small Asian children, a joy for all. Fifteen years is not a long time in the history of a place, but localities celebrate all sorts of short-term chapters as if they were the core of their identities.1
Nope, it was a Bulgarian dance troup in town for the inaugural Mariana Islands International Dance and Arts Festival2.
Under the Spanish, the largest, most southern island of Guam administered colonies were administered. This hands-off approach meant that there was substantially less development on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.
National stereotypes are a risky shorthand. You can always find confirming evidence. “Man, Koreans be taking pictures” is pretty harmless, but it’s also important to notice that everyone is taking pictures.3 A lot of the humor in Ted Lasso comes from gentle national stereotypes - the blunt Dutchman, the exuberant Mexican, the wine-snob French guy, the genial midwesterner.4 A true stereotype about Germans, though, is that they love infrastructure projects. In a relatively short time, the Germans built docks, government buildings, and roads, that allowed the Japanese to jumpstart their conversion of the island into agriculture much easier.
However, there is little of the physical structures left on the island after the Battle of Saipan and decades of subsequent development. If you don’t read the historical markers around Garapan, you could easily forget they were ever there.
The Germans started the tradition of using the latte stones as a symbol of respect to the native Chamorro in public buildings. There is also a prominent political family with the last name Hofschneider, but they are islanders.5 Besides that, little remains.
Corsicana celebrates Derrick Days, though the derrick phase of dominance of Corsicana’s oil fields only lasted about 6 years. The cross-country cattle-drive era only lasted about fifteen years. That length is ten years longer than the Confederacy and there is an awful lot of that still around.
The other international folk dance troupe was from South Korea, which makes much more sense.
They do be, though.
I made another wrong assumption watching Ted Lasso and wrote a whole piece about how they botched the ‘Sense and Sensibility First Edition’ thing, but then I zoomed in on the title page and realized I was wrong.
With Ruchi Sunak at 10 Downing and Barack Obama a recent resident of The White House, the dissonance of present and historical surnames for a particular place is becoming less stark, but for most places at most times, there has been more of a match. For example, former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori.
Love these reports, Jim. Also, great point: “The cross-country cattle-drive era only lasted about fifteen years. That length is ten years longer than the Confederacy and there is an awful lot of that still around.”