Page 22 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • June 6, 2012 ing a katana and told that Japan attacked Russian in 1904 and the United States in 1941 as a sort of Western wannabe fashion statement. That is not how it happened. Having spent the interim between the first two episodes and the second two episodes tunneling through the archives at the Hoover Institute at Stanford and checking out the Herbert Hoover show of propaganda art, I can state that Ferguson’s knowledge of Japanese history is burdened by the sort of clichés about which he warns others. Significantly, Ferguson quotes Mahatma Gandhi, who, when asked his opinion of Western Civilization, suggested that the British might consider trying it some time. Ferguson refutes this with an overview of French – not British – tropical medicine in Senegal, where dozens of courageous French doctors and pharmacists died fighting yellow fever, malaria, and plague. See, he tells us, Western Civilization really did a lot of good. Then he fast-forwards to the attempt to use athletic, naïve Senegalese soldiers as assault troops at the Chemin des Dames in April 1917 during World War I. The Germans shot the Senegalese to pieces in a hopeless frontal attack that failed. The Senegalese turned tail, beat up French doctors, and used their French rifles to commandeer trains to take them back to Africa until they were rounded up and shot by their own side. Not incidentally, the Germans also used African troops, but only in Africa, and those particular Africans were superb soldiers for the Kaiser – possibly because they were not channeled into machinegun fire as cannon fodder, but allowed to deploy and fight from cover with some respect for their lives. Those Africans were so fond of the Germans that they dreamed of vacationing in Germany. The Africans, however, do not want them back as colonialists. Ferguson then explains that religion is flourishing in America, but dwindling in Western Europe, and notes in his conclusion that China now has a substantial and growing Protestant Christian population. He is a “conservative” historian, and his numbers reflect that. He says there may be as many as 30 million Christians in China, while other figures indicate 300 million – almost a third of the population. That is quite a difference. One Chinese factory alone has printed 70 million Bibles in Chinese. At the end, Ferguson says the West is still be best, but that Chinese air pollution and Islamic militancy could give us a bad time if we refuse to wake up, work harder, and save more money. I hope both my kids watch this show. My wife and I did some field research in the interim between episodes. First stop: the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Japanese landscape architect Makoto Hagiwara built the garden with his own labor and money. In 1942, he was rounded up for the relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans. He lost the garden and never got it back. Next stop: the Empress of China Roof Garden Restaurant at 838 Grant Avenue. My wife made friends with Winnie, a restaurant employee, after Winnie dropped off what I suspect was a hastily customized fortune cookie for my wife, Shizuko. The fortune read, “You are never selfish with your advice or your help.” Bingo! My wife asked Winnie for some advice, which turned Shizuko from a dreaded Big Mama to a beloved Big Sister. The restaurant’s staff is now trying to find out what happened to Ducky Louie, a Chinese-American child and teen actor who played once with John Wayne and three times with Anthony Quinn. The food at the restaurant was authentic and excellent, and the view of the harbor was superb. The whole place was elegantly decorated and scrupulously cleaned. All of the servers spoke some English, and they were fascinated with my granddaughter and wanted to know all about New Jersey. On Grant Avenue we dropped $1 on an elderly Chinese man playing the erhu – a one stringed Mongolian fiddle – and he switched from a haunting Oriental melody to “Yankee Doodle” in tribute. We all chortled. He did, too. The ambiance of the Empress of China Roof Top Restaurant, and of Chinatown in general, was of focused energy and keen intelligence. We rated this as our top experience in California. We then wanted to see a Chinese garden. My daughter found a place called Hakone. After taking the first step through the gate, my wife loved the place. Hakone is three times the size of the Japanese Tea Garden, -- 15 acres as opposed to five acres -- and many of the structures were built from American materials in Japanese style with the advice and skills of Japanese architects and gardeners. When Hakone fell on hard times, a coalition of wealthy Americans and prosperous Chinese-Americans took it over from the heirs, turned it around, and eventually entrusted it to the community at Saratoga, which operates it under supervision of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “I respect those Chinese very much because they had the vision and integrity to save this place,” my wife said. No comment was necessary about how Mr. Hagiwara lost the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park to the public domain. We saw some other great places, but that about covered the Orient. Our surmise is that while Niall Ferguson knows a lot about German history and is not afraid to criticize England, Gandhi got it right after all: Western civilization should seriously be tried some time, before it’s too late. Pearl Harbor was really not intended as a fashion statement.
The day before my wife and I took off for our recent trip to California, we took on the first two hours of Professor Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: The West and the Rest.” The night we got back, we took in the second two hours. In between, we encountered the reality beyond television. Professor Ferguson skips past the racialist Darwinism of Victorian times, Oswald Spengler’s theories about the cultural aging process, and Jared Diamond’s belief that available protein crops and domestic animals allow specialized labor. He cuts to his own six “killer acts,” which he says allow advanced civilizations to flourish. As I remember, the killer acts were competition, education, scholarship, science, medicine, and consumerism, and what Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic. The TV program began with a comparison of Ming China and pre-Elizabethan England that was very unfavorable to England, with an implicit warning that things could be headed that way again. Ming China not only exceeded England in organization, artistry, health, and hygiene, but also in ocean-going ships. Ferguson uses the contrast between Ottoman Turkey and Prussia to show how one militaristic power was supplanted by another because the Turks, heirs of Arab wisdom handed down from the Greeks, neglected science, while the Prussians encouraged it. Ferguson speaks German well, with a Scottish accent, and while he deplores Hitler he is refreshingly free of anti-German prejudices, though he is not anti-Semitic, anti-French, or anti-American. In fact, he uses the juxtaposition of North America and South America to show that “democracy,” which he defines as both the right to vote and the right to own land, is the reason that the United States and Canada are more successful than….well, why hurt anybody’s feelings? George Washington comes off a lot better than Simon Bolivar because Washington supported a system where ordinary people got to vote and own property. Bolivar, a full-blooded Spaniard whose constituents were mostly mixed-blood Indians and mixedblood blacks, basically did not. Ferguson says that political and economic factors rather than racial composition led to backward cultures. Darwinism takes the Deep Six. Next stop: consumerism. Ferguson goes a wee bit cute on us and tells us that blue jeans and rock music brought down the Soviet Union. Having read Solzhenitsyn and personally spoken to Alexander Ginsbergh, I was informed that a resurgence of Russian and eastern European Christianity was the main factor in causing the Soviets to relinquish their role as the most oppressive and hated power in post-war Europe. My friends in Czechoslovakia and what was then East Germany concurred. I think that Poland, where the Stalinists murdered most of the officer corps and later Soviets tortured dissident trade union leaders, would have resented the Russian presence with or without permissible blue jeans. In a detour, Ferguson notes that Japan’s Emperor Hirohito wanted to dress up just like Edward VIII, who described Hirohito behind his back as “a perfect monkey.” We are then shown a middle-aged robed samurai flourish-
Western Civilization: Let’s try it some time
Troop 54 Eagle Scouts
(continued from page 19) and replaced them with 23 new trees and mulch. The project took approximately 140 person hours to complete and involved the use of many Scouts from Troop 54. Halpern chose this project because it benefitted the church, which has been so generous to Troop 54 over the years. One of his most memorable Scouting experiences was his trip to SeaBase, where he experienced sailing and snorkeling for first time. The best parts of this memorable trip were catching a tuna and grilling and sharing it with his crew mates; the numerous snorkeling opportunities, where he saw a wide array of coral reefs and sea life, including barracudas and sharks in the wild; and manning the helm of the sailboat. At Northern Highlands, Halpern has been on the honor roll for three years. He has been a member of the ice hockey team, playing forward for his freshman and sophomore seasons, and then switching to defense for his final two years. In September, he will attend James Madison University, where he plans to major in finance. Michalski is a life-long resident of Bergen County, and moved to Ho-Ho-Kus in 1998. He attended the Ho-Ho-Kus Public School, and is presently a senior at Northern Highlands. He joined Scouts as a Tiger Cub in first grade. His Mother, Kate Reilly, was a den mother for many years. As a member of Troop 54, he has acted as an assistant patrol leader and was elected to the Order of the Arrow. He attended No-Be-Bo-Sco Camp as a camper several times, and worked there as a counselor in training at aquatics during the summer of 2009. He has gone on treks at Floodwood Reservation and Philmont Reservation. He received the Arrow of Light in 2005, served as team leader in 2010, and served as assistant senior patrol leader in 2011. In 2009, he received the Mile Swim Award. Michalski’s service project involved the August 2011 renovation of East Park in Ho-Ho-Kus. During the renovation, he built four new picnic tables, made a sign commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America, and placed wood chips around the log bench meeting area with a border. He also cleaned the park of litter and debris. This project totaled over 100 volunteer hours. Hurricane Irene later damaged the area, but the tables and the sign survived. Besides winning second place in the Pinewood Derby as a second grader with the car he and his father designed, his most memorable Scouting experience was working as a CIT in 2009 with De Marco and Halpern at No-Be. Michalski is a member of the National Honor Society, Wind Ensemble (alto saxophone) and Varsity Swim Team at Northern Highlands. He has been on the honor roll every semester. He tutors other high school students in history. He attends Saint Luke’s R.C. Church, and works summers as a lifeguard. He plans to attend George Washington University in the fall. He is undecided about his major, but thinks he would like to study business. He plans to continue to be involved in the Boy Scouts of America in the future. He thanks the entire BSA Committee Board for their support and commitment to Troop 54, especially Dr. Barone and Mr. Stuhr.