Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
The Indian Ocean is the third largest on the planet, with the Indian peninsula hanging down into it like a turmeric-scented uvula. In mediaeval Europe the initial impetus for the age of exploration was to seek the riches of India. Her spices and minerals were passed from merchant to merchant across land and sea from India through the Near East up into Europe, where they had a vague notion that India must be a land of immense wealth. Up and down the Western coast of India sit rich trading ports: Bombay, Calicut, Cochin, Gwadar; as well as the goods coming down the Indus River from the cities of the Punjab. The climate in this part of the ocean is very predictable and conducive for trade too. In the dry season the winds quell and the waves flatten, allowing vessels to carry people and goods from India to Arabia, vessels that would be deemed unseaworthy anywhere else. When Vasco da Gama first reached the Kerala coast he remarked on the low quality of the local vessels, hundreds of years inferior to his new carracks, but which were used to make month-long voyages across open ocean. He declared it madness but these were just much kinder seas than his. And then during the summer months, when the wet season comes and the monsoon descends, trade would simply cease. With sailors returning home and waiting for it all to blow over. Even today the spice trade continues, now not for cinnamon and coriander, but for heroin and methamphetamines. These narcotic spices and grown in those lawless valleys of Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush, and transported through Persia down to the coast under the auspices of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (I'm sure its halal heroin don't worry). They can then be transported to mule ships in the Arab countries in secret via ramshackle wooden "dhow" boats, again benefiting from the sea's natural serenity.
Heading East again we duck South under Sri Lanka and then Southeast down the Strait of Malacca, the next of our chokepoints. Sitting between the Malay peninsula and the island of Sumatra, the strait is the busiest natural waterway in the world, being a conduit for the exports of the Far East. The jewel of the strait is the island of Singapore that sits on it's Eastern approaches. A hub of finance, trade and culture, Singapore was built by the British in 1819 under the exquisitely named "Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles" to be the imperial nexus of power projection into East Asia. However it was not the only attempt to build such a hub. The British also saw great success with the port at Hong Kong, which was by far the richest city in China until the end of the 20th century: for illustration, in 1993 Hong Kong amounted to over a third of the GDP of the rest of China, all concentrated on the tiny island (in comparison it today comprises just 3%). The third attempt was less well-fated. Today basically unheard of, the island of Labuan off Borneo was meant to become a second Singapore. It had the right recipe of a natural deep port at "Port Victoria", sheltered harbourages and support from the local chiefs. However these dreams never came to fruition, despite the efforts of the man known to history as "the White Raja", Sir James Brooke. I shan't go into his exploits fully here, but Brooke was a the pinnacle of Victorian heroism. His escapades include wrecking his ship off Borneo, working for the exiled Sultan as a privateer to destroy Filipino pirate lords and restore the Sultan to the throne of Brunei, for which he was made the Rajah of Sarawak where he was worshipped as lord until eventually ceding the territory to the Crown. He did however retain the title of "Rajah", which would be passed down to his son and grandson.
North of Singapore we reach the contentious South China Sea, where the Chinese are currently building islands out of sand and concrete to then "discover" and claim for the Chinese State. These islands are then used to bully surrounding countries and to ward off Western navies. This very science-fiction strategy is unfortunately working, with the world police-force of the US Navy being unable to operate with impunity in the area any longer. It is China's maritime aim to have full dominion over the "Chinese Seas" west of the "first island chain" (Japan-Okinawa-Taiwan-Philippines-Borneo) within the decade. The other strategic aim of the Chinese state is of course Taiwan, an emblem of Chinese obstinacy and the insurmountable gap between Western and Chinese thought processes. Us Westerners often see the rise of China as something unexpected from a previously poor nation, but this is not true. Chinese dominance over world markets has been steadfast since the times of Caesar, with much of their immense wealth and vast exports being mistaken by Europeans as the aforementioned "riches of India", when in reality they were passing from the Chinese heartland to Europe via India and the Silk Road.
Our route now takes us out into the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean, and over to the Eastern Seaboard of America, which I'd say is the current centre of world culture. The tech giants of Seattle, the innovators and scientific sophists of San Francisco, the glittering stars of Hollywood and Los Angeles. Ever since the 80s what happens here impacts every human alive. And the infrastructure that made their rise possible is coming up next: the Panama Canal. In 1881 after the riotous success of his Canal in Suez, the very same man "Count Ferninand of Lesseps" (a rare aristocratic survivor of the French Revolution) started work on his new canal project across the isthmus of Panama. His plans would be thwarted however, after the climate, diseases and wild animals of the area proved too much for his imported French workforce. The enterprise collapsed in 1892 during the "Panama Affair" when the Count, his son, and lead engineer Gustave Eiffel (of tower fame) were found guilty of the misappropriation of state funds and imprisoned. The Americans would eventually pick up the project and complete it in 1914, but not without their own scandals. After the previous affair the ruling Colombian Government refused to allow the Americans in, and so the Yanks sent down their new navy to "liberate" Panama from Colombia, granting it independence in exchange for American control over the canal region in perpetuity, a right that would only cease to be enforced in 1999.
The canal is the last of our six chokepoints, and from here on the route takes us North through the Caribbean and up the Eastern Seaboard of America, crossing the Tail of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic. The Grand Banks are a large region of shallow water and sand bars that is famed for its bountiful fish stocks. John Cabot the Navigator (a Venetian explorer who should rightfully be more well known) first discovered the banks (and indeed Canada) for Henry VII of England in 1497; and its endless supply of seafood was what initially sparked interest for America in the eyes of the English. An interest that would lead to further exploration and the eventual British colonisation of America in the centuries to follow.
The Atlantic Ocean is the most enigmatic of the world's seven seas, its name means "adventure" for us who live on the fringes of Western Europe, holding connotations of hope, progress, profit and death at various times through our history. The glory of Atlantis, the faith of the pilgrims, the tragedy of the Titanic and the horrors of the WWII convoys but to name a few. For Britain especially, "that precious stone set in the silver sea", conquest of the Atlantic has, and is, as important to our prosperity as it is futile to obtain. Having made two transatlantic crossing myself, I can say the temperament of the Northern Atlantic is surely capricious, one hour as calm as a millpond and the next wailing with the fury of Poseidon. It's untamability gives it that enigmatic spirit that I can only described as "adventure", and with it an irrefutable allure to those people who live upon it. And thus it was in their attempts to tame Atlantis, that the British accidentally spread across the world's seas setting up shop around the globe and constructed this: the World Axis. Of the six chokepoints (The English Channel, Gibraltar, the Suez, the Gate of Tears, Malacca and Panama), Britain controlled all except Panama, securing an iron grip on world commerce. And before the building of the Panama Canal, when a circumnavigation had no choice but to head through the Straits of Magellen South of Patagonia, we held all the keys (via the Falklands). And while Britain has now lost her preeminence, the importance of the axis remains. The politics of the route is of vital importance to world affairs: instability in Egypt or Panama, a resurgent China in the Chinese Seas, the opening up of new passages North of Canada or Russia due to climate change. And so as we round the coast of Kent and make our final passage past those White Cliffs of Dover, we would do well to remember that:
It is on the seas, under the good providence of God, that our wealth, prosperity and peace do depend.
