101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price [9]
A. J. JACOBS is the author of The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World.
Chapter 10
Hell
Regardless of which circle you deem the worst, I think we can all agree that hell is not a great place to visit. Whether you choose to stop by the Greek and Roman Tartarus or the horrible O le nu’u-o-nonoa of Samoan mythology, you’re likely to be treated to some blend of fire, ice, and demons. Oh, and pain. Lots and lots of pain.
The many variations of hell are a testament to humans’ ability to invent unusual methods of torture. But when it comes to specifics, you have to hand it to Zoroastrianism. Its version of hell includes precise punishments for everything from approaching fire or water when you’re menstruating to unlawfully slaughtering a sheep.
If I had to pick a hell to visit, I’d probably go with the one in Michigan. Complete with a fictional nonaccredited college that offers “signed, sealed and singed diplomas,” Hell, Michigan, is a small town about twenty-five miles by car northwest of Ann Arbor that focuses more on puns than on punishments. Eager to capitalize on its name, the town has a part-time post office (for people who get their thrills through postmarks) and a tagline—“A little town on its way up.” And, for couples whose definition of romance includes fire and brimstone, Hell also has a wedding chapel.
Chapter 11
A Buzkashi Match
How to play buzkashi:
1 Kill a goat.
2 Behead it.*
3 Disembowel it.
4 Soak it in cold water for twenty-four hours to toughen it up.
5 Give it to crazed men on horseback to play a violent, gruesome game.
6 Barbecue!
An Afghani tradition, buzkashi is an animal-rights advocate’s nightmare: a sport in which three teams of horsemen compete to score goals with the body of a dead, headless goat.
But that makes it sound too easy. In order to score goals, horsemen first have to grab the goat and carry the seventy-pound carcass around a small post. Then they gallop seventy-five yards down the field and hurl the goat into a small chalk circle. All this happens while they and their horses are being beaten, whipped, punched, and otherwise attacked by the other players, who can do anything, save tripping a horse, to prevent the other teams from scoring. Few games end without a horse trampling at least one rider or, for that matter, a spectator—buzkashi fields don’t have boundaries.
Dexter Filkins, a war correspondent for the New York Times, witnessed a near disaster when a player rode his horse directly into the crowd. “Spectators scattered and screamed as the horses thundered close,” he wrote. “The referee reached for his Kalashnikov, then thought better of it.
‘ “Run!’ a boy squealed. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Run!’ ”
When the game ends—which can take days, since there’s no official time limit or set number of goals—the winning team gathers for the traditional end of the game: barbecuing the goat. Buzkashi means goat-pulling, after all, and according to a hungry old man interviewed by Filkins, “All that pulling and stretching makes it very tender.”
Note the goat
Gideon Tsang/Wikipedia Commons
Chapter 12
Your Boss’s Bedroom
This does not count as corporate team building.
Chapter 13
An Overnight Stay at a Korean Temple
In theory, an overnight stay at a Korean temple sounds like the perfect activity for anyone struggling to escape the pressures of modern life. You’ll meditate, you’ll learn about Buddhism, you’ll go vegetarian. Concerns and cares will slip away as you drift into a blissful state of conscious awareness.
Unfortunately, that’s not what it’s like.
I signed up for one of these sleepovers through a program called Templestay. Created in 2002 by the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism—the largest Buddhist order in Korea—the Templestay program aims to allow visitors to “sample ordained lifestyle and experience the mental training and cultural experience of Korea’s ancient Buddhist tradition.” In other words, it’s a chance to test-drive life as a monk.