quicko: land

I had a great conversation with one of my American ex-pat friends the other day and she has got the most fascinating ideas on land and how it shapes culture. We focused on American and Australian mentalities, but you could really apply the idea to any culture. I'll touch on a couple of her ideas in a nutshell, but leave the rest for her to write an impressive dissertation on someday!

So, if you think of America, consider the soil. It's really, really fertile and amazing for growing crops. I didn't realize this, but my friend pointed out that part of Indiana has actually got the most fertile soil in the world. Her idea is that (again, this is the condensed version!) the ease with which Americans grew crops led to ideas such as the ability to control nature, and, if so, then surely we could control everything else. She pointed out how surprised and frustrated Americans are when the weather doesn't cooperate -- in little daily matters, but also in big ones, like Hurricane Katrina. Americans tend to think we've got the ability to reckon with nature.

Australians, on the other hand, reckon that nature is nature and best left well respected. The land here is not friendly -- the vast, vast majority of it is very arid, dry and untameable. There are dangerous creatures, plants and seas. Australians know they won't win, and they don't try to beat nature. This leads to a more carefree attitude -- if you know you won't win, you don't have to get so bent out of shape trying to.

And it's interesting, too, to consider a population map of each country. Americans are spread out all over our continent -- from sea to shining sea, if you will. Australians are gathered in small, dense pockets almost exculsively along the perimeter of their immensely vast island.

Americans favor a hearty "this land is your land/this land is my land" approach to both nature and life. Go back to that sea to shining sea idea again. My friend pointed out that if you set it ("America the Beautiful") against the classic Australian "In a Sunburnt Country," the opposing images are deeply striking. Americans picture "purple mountains' majesty" and "amber waves of grain," while Australians see "ragged mountain ranges" and a "pitiless blue sky."

Take a look for yourself:

America the Beautiful
By Katharine Lee Bates

O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.
O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!
O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!
O beautiful, for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

My Country
by Dorothea Mackeller

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze…
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Interesting, isn't it?