HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
OBSCENE VILLAGE NAMES
FOR 200
Sometime in the 6th century AD, a certain nobleman by the name of Baron Focko founded a settlement in what is now the municipality of Tarsdorf in modern day Austria, and named the settlement after himself. It is located just four kilometres from the border with Germany, and 32 kilometres from Salzburg, a city synonymous with the movie classic The Sound of Music. Historians deciphered that his Latin name was Adalpertus de Fucingin, and when proper records of the settlement were kept, the name of the village was first recorded as Vucchingen in 1070, then Fukching in 1303, and Fugkhing in 1532. Finally, as the Austrian language evolved, the spelling of the village name was changed to the unfortunate Fucking in the 18th century.
Nobody initially thought anything about the new spelling of the name, since the correct pronunciation of Fucking in Austrian is actually “Fooking”, and certainly Baron Focko would have had no “Fooking” clue of the trouble his name would bring to future generations of his village descendants. But thanks to globalisation brought about by events such as World War II, the Cold War, and the rise of social media, the lives of Fuckingers have invariably changed forever. First came the curious British soldiers, then the Americans, and then a whole horde of Instagram junkies. Residents of Fucking now have to pay higher taxes than their other Austrian brethren – money that is mostly spent to replace village signs that have been stolen on more than 15 occasions over the years. Some of them have also had persistent nightmares from viewing free live sex shows at the signs, passionately performed by mostly British tourists, who for some reason seem to get a hard-on from road signs with obscene names. In fact, the village is now so famous, even tour buses regularly make a pit stop there.
Every two years without fail, I will make my way to Munich, as part of a contingent that participates in the largest logistics and transportation convention in the world. Spread out over four days, the convention brings delegates from all over the world for meetings, networking and information gathering. In 2019, I decided to take a few days off before the event to bring my wife and my in-laws to visit parts of Germany and Austria. After landing in Munich airport, we were to pick up our rental car, and spend a few days touring Salzburg, Mondsee, Hallstatt and Bad Gastein, before heading back north across the border to Lake Konigsee and finally back to Munich. Oh, and did I mention the short detour to a certain interesting village on our way to Salzburg?
Prior to this trip, my in-laws had never set foot in Europe, and my wife and I thought it was a great idea that our first destination, by way of an introduction to the continent, was to be a village with the most obscene sounding name. Quite what possessed us to bring our conservative parents there was probably beyond comprehension, and probably had something to do with spicing up my wife’s Instagram feed. In any case, the look on their faces when they saw the road sign was priceless.
Fucking is a really small village, with just over thirty buildings and a population of just above 100, which is probably the minimum number of people you would need to qualify for an orgy anyway. When we arrived, we took exactly three minutes to drive from the entrance of the village to the exit. Along the way, we noticed that there were no Fucking souvenir shops, no Fucking supermarket, no Fucking convenience store, and no Fucking sex shop. You therefore cannot get any Fucking postcards, any Fucking groceries, any Fucking condoms, or even a Fucking sex toy. No wonder then the desperate vandals stole the Fucking road sign!
Just like my in-laws, the people in the village are known to be very conservative. Our visit and we-fie exercise at the hallowed village sign was met with disapproval by a local resident on a bicycle, who shook his head in disgust as he passed us. Apparently, villagers have even had heated arguments amongst themselves whether to change the name of the village to deter tourists from coming. If you ask me – why the reservations? In the words of the great Mel Brooks, “when you got it, flaunt it!” For starters, you could build a Fucking hotel?
Anyhow, after Fucking, catch us next time as we head to the Great Lakes region in Michigan to Climax.
NOTE: In November 2020, the Austrian village of Fucking released a press statement that the village will be called Fugging with effect from 1 January 2021.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Elephants are majestic creatures. The largest of the land animal species, these gentle giants have long roamed the African and Asian savannahs and forests, but their populations have unfortunately dwindled as a result of human activities and the ivory trade. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the African elephant populations are currently in a vulnerable state, and the Asian elephant populations are endangered. It is against the background of these harsh realities that elephant sanctuaries and conservation centres have been set up in several countries – to protect existing populations, nurse injured animals back to health, and care for those abandoned by their parents.
The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage is one such sanctuary – an orphanage, nursery and captive breeding ground for wild Asian elephants, located at Pinnawala village, in Sabaragamuwa Province of Sri Lanka, about 100 kilometres northeast of the capital Colombo. Founded in 1975, Pinnawala now has the largest herd of captive elephants in the world, with close to 100 of these beasts in residence. You would think that with such noble ideals the orphanage would be universally held up in high regard, but it also has its fair share of detractors, primarily animal rights activists that feel the animals should be better treated. To put it in another way, the orphanage has its own elephant in the room, even though the adult elephants there would never fit through the doors.
It was our maiden trip to Sri Lanka, and we had already spent several days picking our own tea leaves and sipping chai on the plantations of Nuwara Eliya, taking residence at a boutique hotel converted from a tea processing factory. From the cool climate of Nuwara Eliya, we had moved on to Kandy for a night, where we were treated to a Sinhalese cultural performance. From Kandy, our next port of call was the coastal town of Galle, where we had arranged to meet some friends from the United States, who were here as part of their grand tour of ten Asian countries. As the journey from Kandy to Galle was to take around six hours, our guide had suggested a short detour to Pinnawala, which was just off the route, to give us a chance to stretch our legs, and to interact with the elephants. At that point we had not done much research about the orphanage, but it was a good idea to break the journey, and besides, maybe they have clean toilets?
We arrived at the orphanage around noon, just before the feeding times for the elephants. The entrance to the orphanage was along the main road, and after we paid our entrance fees, we were brought to a large open area where the vegetation had been cleared, with coconut trees and some hills in the background. Several adult elephants were moving about freely in small groups, and there were also some babies with their mothers. There were no barricades between us and the animals, although several handlers were standing around with spears in the event of any unsafe situations. It looked idyllic enough, except that some elephants had metal chains around their necks and feet, and when the wind direction changed suddenly, the unmistakeable scent of elephant de toilette overwhelmed our noses, with a smell so potent even the flies that were buzzing around us fainted.
Just off to our left and right, there were also two elephants on either side chained up to some grates on the ground, each one guarded by a handler encouraging pictures with the elephants. As if the foreigner entrance fee wasn’t exorbitant enough, tourists that took pictures with the elephants were then asked by the handlers for tips.
The feeding of the elephants was done in a large open air shed, with raised seats at the side for the audience. The young were fed milk by their handlers by means of a large bottle with an oversized teat, and they drank up the milk within seconds of the bottle being raised to their mouths. Several lucky members in the audience were also given the chance to feed them, and one by one they went up and had their mugshots with the animals.
The bathing of the elephants was the next activity, which was to take place at the river across the road from the orphanage, down a path of (you guessed it!) souvenir shops and restaurants. We walked down the path and found a curious shop selling recycled paper products, made almost exclusively from elephant dung, which was first developed when a disgruntled employee of the orphanage wanted to send a subtle message to his boss to tell him what he thought of his management skills.
Incredibly, an adult elephant produces around 200-300 pounds of dung a day, so I expect there must be an extremely high turnover for employees tasked to collect the raw materials, and probably a less than truthful job description for potential applicants. Even more incredibly, there was not even the slightest odour coming from the paper (not that I raised the products to my nose), which probably meant that they had treated the dung with some industrial grade bleach and disinfectant, and perhaps mixed in some ground potpourri.
As we browsed through the souvenirs at the other shops, we heard a commotion outside. All the shopkeepers then rushed to pull in all their products that they had laid out on the road, back to within the boundaries of their shops, telling all the tourists to stay within the safety of the shops, and to not get distracted from the shopping and buying of items. The elephants were on their way to their baths, and the handlers were shouting and clearing the way for them. Unfortunately not all the products from all the shops were brought inside in time, and some elephants walked extremely close to one of the shops, causing the sling bags hanging on the front awning to fall and get trampled upon, immediately doubling their sale price because of their authentic rugged and worn appearance, crafted naturally and not through some artificial ageing process.
We followed the group down to the river, taking great care not to flatten any raw materials for the paper shop. The elephants had gone into the water, and some were using their trunks to spray themselves, but there were two that the handlers had chained to the banks and were made to lie down. Using just their bare hands, the handlers assigned to those elephants were splashing water onto the animals. After a few minutes, they turned to the tourists and invited them to come down to do the same and bathe the animals. I watched as a French family waded in and got knee deep into the water. As they splashed the water, the elephant raised its head and its hind leg, and popped a nice round brown buoyant ball of poop into the water, which caught the current and flowed right past the hapless mother. The handler then turned to the mother, smiled, and asked for a tip of US$10. Ten dollars for doing his job? Call his supervisor!
We stayed on for a few more minutes, watching the rest of the elephants frolic in the water, before continuing on our journey to Galle. On the whole, I don’t really have an issue with the elephants in captivity, provided they are treated ethically, although it would be nice if all of them were eventually released back into the wild. But there were a few things I was uncomfortable with, primarily chaining of the elephants for photo opportunities, and to solicit for tips. It was also clear to me that not everyone working in the orphanage shares the vision of its founder, and the mission of the organisation. I hope that changes.
In the meantime, catch me on the next episode of the Shark Tank, where I will elaborate on my trillion dollar business proposition to slow down the global rate of deforestation, and solve humanity’s insatiable demand for paper products. The idea to use elephant dung to produce recycled paper was genius, but the dung from global elephant population is not enough to produce even a fraction of the amount of paper we need. Instead, my plan will utilise a raw material that costs nothing to produce, and is so much more abundant in supply – bull shit!