Nurture versus Nature or Superman the Shoe Salesman
After the Boston bombings, there were a number of people I knew that immediately spouted their conspiracy theories. And several of them argued that Americans somehow brought this upon themselves.
Of course, they are Americans but hold themselves separate and superior from the rest of us. Which is odd because several of them stopped formal education at high school.
The most recent events in London made me think of the whole nature versus nurture argument.
And oranges.
And Superman.
Because there’s this orange from Spain called the Valencia orange that’s supposed to amazingly delicious and sweet. They were hybridized in America from orange trees in Valencia, which in turn came from India.
Those same trees were planted on the island of Curaçao, where the soil there caused these delicious, sweet, bright orange, oranges to transform – on their own – into small, bitter, green, “oranges.” They turned into the Laraha fruit.
These fruit are so bitter that it’s said that goats on the island would rather starve to death than eat them.
Let me stop for a second and paraphrase a joke that I heard once, which says that: If Krypton never exploded and Kal-El/Superman stayed on the planet, what if he became a shoe salesman?
After all, he’s only Superman because he came here; home he would have been Al Bundy.
As the son of recent immigrants, I wonder about my possible pasts: what if we never came here from Taiwan? Who would I be, what would I be? It’s pure dumb luck, my lot in this world.
Turning back to the recent events of England, it was odd hearing the attackers speak clear British English. Is there some inherent glitch in people like this or is a unique combination of nature and nurture. I’m guessing that’s the case.
Wonder what these people’s lives would had been had they not gone to the UK. And what then?
I’ve no answer.
Suppose not everything that heads off to distant lands become better with time, like rum.
Location: heading to the gym
Mood: muggy
Music: Who killed tangerine? The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen
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2 replies on “Laraha, Valencia, Curaçao, and Superman”
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[…] …the liquor comes from the island of Curaçao; when Spanish sailors went there, they planted sweet Valencia oranges but the soil there transformed them in to these tiny bitter oranges. Him: Why do you know […]