Asia
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Rabindranath Tagore
“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (nicknamed Rabi) was born the youngest of thirteen children on May 7, 1861 in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta to Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devi. He was a Bengali polymath that helped reshape Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism. He would become the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He also introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best…
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Terra-Cotta Rock and Rolla’: Qin Shi Huang
(To the tune of Billy Joel’s classic rock and roll hit: “Christie Lee”:youtube.com/watch?v=ru-gkHHwDb4) Let me tell you a story, About a man who was king! He lorded ancient China, In the dynasty that was Qin! The man was born in two-six zero In the time of BCE. And he conquered all the nations! So they could all be Chinese! He expanded China’s borders, he also affected economy. He standardized the education, by burning books and the scholary… He searched and searched for a death cure, sought to beat mortality. Sent Xu Fu to seek an elixir! But Xu Fu would found the Japanese! Qin Shi Huang, Qin Shi Huang! Qin…
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Miyamoto Musashi
There is a tale that is told in the islands in the east where the sun rises. It is a tale based on truth, but it is as shrouded in myth and mystery as any creature that haunts our dreams. It is a tale about Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest swordsman who ever lived and died under the mortal sun. The tale tells of Miyamoto’s duel with Sasaki Kojiro on the small island now called Ganryujima, centuries ago. Kojiro issued the challenge, to Miyamoto, offering time and place and eternal glory for the man who walked away. Kojiro, known as the Demon of the West for his fearsome prowess with the…
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Attila the Hun and the Sword of God
When Attila was a young boy his mother would have told him the story of an ancient Scythian sword that was forged by the Gods for Scythian kings. During his childhood, the Sword of God was that of legend since it had been lost, and the children would often hear the elders exclaim “Look for it, search for it, for he who finds God’s sword will rule the world”. The Sword of God, also called the Sword of Mars and the Sword of Attila, was forged from the iron of a meteorite by the Gods so that the Scythian kings would have the power to conquer all nations. Legend says…
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The Shardana
In honor of “Talk Like a Pirate Day” I have decided to write a story about the Shardana, a race of ancient pirates. In order to talk like them you would have to learn a long dead language, I am afraid.The Shardana, or the Sherden, didn't exactly leave behind anything for us to definitively talk about who they were or what they are about. The first possible reference to them was in a letter from an Egyptian mayor, a guy named Rib-Hadda, to the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, wherein he refere [...]
