Journal 5

What are aspects of "White Tigers" which you can personally relate to?

When I was five, living in the small town which is now known as the city of Larvik, Norway, my father had to sell me in order to buy a fishing boat to feed our family and our village. My father was the best fisherman, but his boat had been stolen by bandits. He said to me, as we parted, "Jon-Erik Markssen, we will have you come back some day. For now, we need the fish, I hope you understand." Before I left, however, my mother carved her rosemaling into my back, so that I would always remember from whence I came. Instead of using paint, however, she used cobalt mined in the hills to give my back a beautiful blue hue.

I was taken by a silver-haired giant, a man bigger than those in my village. We eventually arrived in Tromsø, which is far to the north. He was soft spoken, but he spoke often enough to teach me lessons and to tell stories of his own lifetime that always had a way of coming back to being about me.

The giant fed me meatballs with creamed cabbage or fishball stew daily. I also drank heavy cream, as is the custom of my people. This allowed me to grow large enough to withstand the bitter colds of winter. During the three months of sunlight every year, I would stay awake almost constantly, running around. The giant had me do this because he said I needed to grow callouses on my feet, in case I had to walk atop the glaciers without shoes. In the winter, I learned to grow my feet large, so that I did not have to cut down a tree to make skis nor snowshoes; trees are not abundant in my land. When I turned 13, I began to grow a beard. My giant, who was starting to look less giant every year, told me that I would have to shave or grow the beard. "But Olav," I asked, "Why cannot I stop its growth as you stopped the growth of moss on all but the north side of the trees?"

"No, Jon-Erik, you must let it ride ('sail' in our language)." So in the winter, I let the beard grow to keep my face warm.

When I turned 15, my giant sent me out to find my own way. He said there was a boat waiting for me at Ålesund, a town midway between Tromsø and Larvik, on the western coast. As I walked amongst the fjords, I noticed little people hiding behind rocks and bushes. I learned to make myself walk quietly with my large feet, so the little people could not track me as well. After a few days, I reached Trondheim, on the outskirts of which I stumbled upon the little people's village. They were not people, I learned, rather they were Trolls. They talked to me in a language I could only half understand. As they were a kind race, I decided to stay with them for a year, knowing that my boat would still be waiting for me. I learned their language. It was not hard to learn, as it was half Norwegian and half Lapp--half I already knew. The Troll leader explained this to me: "Jon-Erik, our language is as it is because we have to deal with both the Norwegians and the Lapplanders. A Norwegian cannot speak with a Lapplander, but we Trolls can speak to both. And now, so can you." I learned the value of language, as I realized that while their language consisted of two halves, I actually now knew three complete languages.

The Trolls taught me how to care for people. It was their job to help people stranded in the wilderness, which in our land usually gives people little time to survive. I also learned about the Northern Lights. The Troll leader had me watch these lights one day, and as I sat there with my head tilted up, he chuckled and went to his family's hut. I sat alone outside, watching the strange lights flowing through the air. I saw my family in the lights. My father now had several boats and was providing enough fish for the entire village, which was growing larger. My mother's rosemaling, which still appeared on my back, was beautifully displayed on bowls, shoe horns, wooden keyholders, and other objects, and I knew that they were happy.

I left the Trolls and headed out to Ålesund. As I hit the coast in Kristiansund, which lies shortly to the north of my destination, I was astounded at the weather. A local fisherman told me that there was a phenomenon called the "Gulf Stream," which brought warm water from across the ocean. This town not only had little snow in the winter, but it also had different species of fish than from other parts of my land, where the water is usually cold. The fisherman told me it was similar in Ålesund, only less so as Kristiansund had the conditions best. The fisherman told me he had business there, so he would accompany me on the last leg of my journey before I reached the boat.

As we reached the city, I found it to be much larger than the one I was just in. "Tell me, kind fisherman, why is it that your city is so much smaller though the weather is mildest in our land?"

"Ah, Jon-Erik, it is because we would not want to call attention to this area, lest we give outsiders a reason to try to steal it."

With that, we came to my boat. The giant was there, his arms folded and laughing as I approached. I saw that I was now as tall as he, and almost as large.

"You are almost a man," he said. "Here is your boat. You will fish for food, and here are two buckets of water."

I set out on my journey. When I could no longer see land, I looked in my buckets, hoping to quench some of my thirst. One of the buckets indeed had water. The other, for some strange reason, was full of lye! Perhaps someone had switched the buckets. I also noticed that my fishing gear was not on the boat. I wanted to panic, but I remembered quickly from my training that panicking is unproductive, and usually deadly either on snow or in water. So instead, I sat and thought about my options. As I thought, my boat seemed to come atop a school of fish, and all the silvery backs were going in circles around my boat. One of the fish popped its head out of the water and addressed me, "Young sailor, are you not hungry? You should be fishing us right now."

"Yes, I am hungry, but I seem to have misplaced my tackle."

"Okay then." The fish went back into the water, and it appeared to talk to its schoolmates. Quickly, it jumped up and into my boat, saying "værsegod!" So many fish jumped into my boat that I thought I could never eat all of them before they spoiled. But only a couple had stayed on the deck--the rest were in my bucket of lye. Through some magical process, the fish had now become lutefiske, the traditional food of my people, which could last for very long periods of time. I would not go hungry for the rest of my journey.

My journey took me to far away lands, but these are the ways in which my training was similar to the story of Fa Mu Lan, whose ancestor, incidentally, I met on the island of Taiwan, and whom I later married. We made our life together on the land between our ancestral homes, in the town now known as Los Angeles.

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