Go west, young man
Henry and Sophie, his girlfriend, have a holiday in Portugal, where they have a so-called enlightening moment in the southern community of Mértola. The Church of the Assumption of Mary was once a Moorish mosque, prompting my coursemate to wonder if Islam would define what was West and what was not the West. Sophie didn't think long and hard about it. (There was little time for sightseeing.) She brought up the subject during dinner, where she wondered what would be the outcome of comparing the intellectual achievements of Athens (under Pericles) and the remote African kingdom that Haggard vividly described in his books. She was attempting at post-imperial construct, which Henry didn't figure it out at first. (It must be the wine.) I would struggle for words as well.
I imagined myself in a Mediterranean coast, which would seem to be too exotic for a European destination. It might be a setting of another Young-adult (YA) novel, it could be Alexandria, Egypt. The Lighthouse of Alexandria was once the most famous landmark in this part of the world, and some suggested that it didn't end up in ruins. There may be a desert island somewhere in the distance, drifting aimlessly for weeks. It might vanish (during high tide), and the lighthouse (or its remains) could survive the centuries. It would be hard to classify Alexandria as a Western community, as Ramses and his descendants could have declared themselves as Western people. After all, they believed that the deserts of Egypt could be the center of the universe. They may have no idea about the kingdoms in the Far East, even the Greek city states.
You're a Tylorian (or an Arnoldian)
Professor Stone read Sir Edward Burnett Tylor's "Primitive Culture", which prompted him to believe that the ever-changing definition of what was Western (and not Western) would be a waste of time. My tutor enjoyed watching Indiana Jones risking his life, while he searched for faraway societies, but it was rather a difficult quest for perfection. It might be completion, I told him. He had an amused look, and it was hard to tell if it was my naiveté.
The professor had a holiday in Ubud a few summers ago. He was about to finish his itinerary when a Swedish backpacker suggested the temples in Java. It wasn't part of the plan, but he was glad to have a change of mind at the last minute. He was marveling at the obelisk-like temples in Yogyakarta a few weeks later. It was an evidence of an immense, ancient population, he thought. He wouldn't call it Western, which was how his upbringing (and years of studying) taught him. He wondered if the inhabitants, who built these stunning temples, were thinking of the same thing. And Western wasn't an adjective back then.
Professor Stone encouraged me to read Taylor's masterpiece, even Matthew Arnold's "Culture and Anarchy". I might have to plan my holiday (and bring along a paperback copy of Tylor's book and Arnold's). I've a gut feeling that sightseeing would provide some clues. It might be a statue that many tourists would overlook.
