Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (37 page)

In the case of the people of the Caucasus mountains of Georgia, it was common for World War I deserters from the Russian military to assume the identities of deceased elders to avoid detection. Once these Georgians assumed new identities—and once Georgia became part of the Soviet Union—they had little choice but to stick with their new identities from then on.

NO KIDDING

So what area of the world really can claim to have the world’s greatest life expectancy? The islands of Okinawa in southern Japan. On these islands, the average life expectancy is 81.2 years, compared to 79.9 for all of Japan and 76.8 for the United States. The islands have maintained a family registry system since 1879, so the ages of all its citizens can be verified.

Okinawa also boasts a larger percentage of centenarians than just about any place on earth—34 per 100,000. The U.S., by contrast, has just over 10 per 100,000. Elderly Okinawans also have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and other chronic illnesses related to aging. And unlike centenarians in other parts of the world, Okinawa’s centenarians tend to remain healthy late in life and only experience a rapid decline in health shortly before death. To what do researchers attribute their long lives? Good genes, a healthy lifestyle and diet, a cultural emphasis on preventative medicine, and access to good healthcare. (Proof that good genes aren’t enough by themselves: Younger Okinawans, who have abandoned the traditional Okinawa lifestyle, have a higher mortality rate than their counterparts in the rest of Japan.)

What did U.S. presidents Tyler, Fillmore, and Arthur have in common? No vice president.

LONGEVITY RULES

So you want to live to 100 without moving to Okinawa? Here are some tips, including a few that may surprise you:

1. Don’t get fat.
Obesity is the #1 factor in reducing life span. Follow a diet low in fat and meat, with lots of fruits and veggies.

2. Don’t smoke.
Du-u-u-uh.

3. Keep calm.
If you can’t avoid stressful situations, find a way to “go with the flow” when you’re in them.

4. Keep moving.
Exercise keeps you flexible and strong.

5. Have sex.
A study in the
British Medical Journal
showed that men ages 45–59 who had sex once a month or less were twice as likely to die as men who had sex twice a week or more. (Sorry, no data available on the benefits for women.)

6. Stay together.
Long-term relationships are more important for men than women, who seem to survive without their spouses just fine. But according to research, single men are twice as likely to die early than married men.

7. Have children, but have them later.
This just in: Many female centenarians didn’t have kids until after the age of 35. In fact, women over 100 are four times more likely than the average population to have had their first child after 40.

8. Hit the sack.
The American Cancer Society reports that people who sleep seven hours per night have the lowest mortality rate. But don’t overdo it: Nine hours is as bad for you as four.

*        *        *

“Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” —
Mark Twain

On a diet? King penguin chicks may go as long as five months between meals.

MYTH-CONCEPTIONS

“
Common knowledge” is frequently wrong. Here are some examples
.

M
YTH:
There is a “dark side” of the moon.
FACT:
Pink Floyd was wrong—there is no dark side. There’s a near side, which always faces Earth, and a far side, which always faces away. When the moon is between the sun and the Earth, the far side is sunny and bright—we just can’t see it.

MYTH:
The main cause of hearing loss is aging.

FACT:
Many people’s hearing does start to go as they get older, but it is not a natural aging process. The primary cause of hearing loss is cumulative exposure to loud noises.

MYTH:
Raindrops are tear-shaped.

FACT:
Small raindrops are spherical. Larger raindrops are oval, flattening out in the middle. Really big ones resemble parachutes.

MYTH:
Spicy foods can cause ulcers.

FACT:
An ulcer is caused by a bacterial infection. Spicy foods may aggravate an existing ulcer, but they won’t give you one.

MYTH:
Show business is the largest employer in Los Angeles.

FACT:
Hollywood may be the entertainment capital of the world, and everyone in L.A. may
want
to be in show business, but the largest industry in Los Angeles County is manufacturing.

MYTH:
Adding salt to water will make it boil faster.

FACT:
Actually, adding salt makes the water take
longer
to boil. But that’s a good thing—it boils at a higher temperature, which makes the pasta (or whatever’s in the pot) cook faster.

MYTH:
Red-headed people have bad tempers.

FACT:
Many cultures have myths about redheads (the ancient Greeks said redheads became vampires after death). Hair color has nothing to do with emotion…although a 2002 study
did
find that redheads require 20% more anesthesia than blondes or brunettes.

Skiers beware: There are about 250,000 avalanches every year in the Alps.

THE NUTMEG WARS

In the 17th century, all Europe was mad to have the little brown nut from Indonesia—nutmeg. Especially the Dutch, who monopolized its cultivation and, in doing so, built their tiny nation into one of the wealthiest trading powers on the planet
.

B
ACKGROUND
Spices have been used by human beings for millennia for food preparation and preservation, medicine, and even embalming. But until modern times they were largely an Asian commodity, and controlling their flow to the spice-obsessed West meant power and fortune for the middlemen. Over the centuries these hugely successful merchants were Phoenicians, Persians, Arabs, and later, Venetians.

Many of the great European explorations of the 15th century were driven by the need to bypass the Arab and Venetian monopoly. Crying, “For Christ and spices,” the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama shocked the Arab world when he sailed around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in 1498 and showed up in the spice markets of India. It marked the beginning of the decline of Arab dominance and the rise of European power. For the next 100 years, as Spain and Portugal fought for control of the spice trade, the tiny countries of England and the Netherlands looked on in envy, waiting for their chance to get a piece of the action. It came first for the Dutch.

THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY

Always in danger of being overwhelmed by their much larger neighbor, Spain, the Portuguese began subcontracting their spice distribution to Dutch traders. Profits began to flow into Amsterdam, and the Dutch commercial fleet swiftly grew into one of the largest in the world. The Dutch quietly gained control of most of the shipping and trading of spices in Northern Europe. Then, in 1580, Portugal fell under Spanish rule and the sweet deal for Dutch traders was over. As prices for pepper, nutmeg, and other spices soared across Europe, the Dutch found themselves locked out of the market. They decided to fight back.

Boing! Boing! The rubber used to make SuperBalls is called Zectron.

In 1602 Dutch merchants founded the VOC—the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, better known as the Dutch East India Company. Other trading nations had formed cooperative associations like it but none were more successful than the Dutch. By 1670 the VOC was the richest commercial operation in the world. The company had 50,000 employees worldwide, with a private army of 30,000 men and a fleet of 200 ships. Yet even with that huge overhead, the VOC gave its shareholders an eye-popping annual dividend of 40% on their investments. How’d they do it? With sheer ruthlessness…and nutmeg.

MUST-HAVE

By the time the VOC was formed, nutmeg was already the favored spice in Europe. Aside from adding flavor to foods and drinks, its aromatic qualities worked wonders to disguise the stench of decay in poorly preserved meats, always a problem in the days before refrigeration. Then the plague years of the 17th century came. Thousands were dying across Europe, and doctors were desperate for a way to stop the spread of the disease. They decided nutmeg held the cure. Ladies carried nutmeg sachets around their necks to breathe through and avoid the pestilence in the air. Men added nutmeg to their snuff and inhaled it. Everybody wanted it, and many were willing to spare no expense to have it. Ten pounds of nutmeg cost one English penny at its Asian source, but had a London street value of 2 pounds, 10 shillings—68,000 times its original cost. The only problem was the short supply. And that’s where the Dutch found their opportunity.

BRUTAL RULERS

Why was nutmeg so rare? The tree grew in only one place in the world: the Banda Islands of Indonesia. A tiny archipelago rising only a few meters above sea level, the islands were ruled by sultans who insisted on maintaining a neutral trading policy with foreign powers. This allowed them to avoid the presence of Portuguese or Spanish garrisons on their soil, but it also left them unprotected from other invaders. In 1621 the Dutch swept in and took over.

Once securely in control of the Bandas, the Dutch went to work protecting their new “investment.” First they preempted any resistance by the islanders by executing every male over the age of 15. Village leaders were beheaded and their heads displayed on poles to discourage any rebels who might have survived. Within 15 years, the brutal regime reduced the Bandanese population from 15,000 to 600. Next the Dutch concentrated all nutmeg production into a few easily guarded areas, uprooting and destroying any trees outside the plantation zones. Anyone caught growing a nutmeg seedling or carrying seeds without the proper authority was put to death. In addition, all exported nutmeg seeds were drenched with lime to make sure there was no chance a fertile nut would find its way off the islands.

71% of corporate pilots have admitted to falling asleep on the job.

I’LL TAKE MANHATTAN

The Dutch had their monopoly…almost. One of the Banda Islands, called Run, was under control of the British. The little sliver of land (a fishing boat could only make landfall at high tide) was one of England’s first colonial outposts, dating to 1603. The Dutch attacked it in force in 1616, but it would take four years for them to finally defeat the combined British-Bandanese resistance. But the English still didn’t give up; they continued to press their claim to the island through two Anglo-Dutch Wars.

The battles exhausted both sides, leading to a compromise settlement, the Treaty of Breda, in 1667—and one of history’s greatest ironies. Intent on securing their hold over every nutmeg island in Southeast Asia, the Dutch offered a trade: If the British would give them Run, they would in turn give Britain a far-away, much less valuable island that the English had already occupied illegally since 1664. The British agreed. That other island: Manhattan, which is how New Amsterdam became New York.

MONOPOLY OVER

The Dutch now had complete control of the nutmeg trade. A happy ending for Holland? Hardly. By the end of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company was bankrupt. Constant wars with rival powers, rebellions from the islanders, and plain bad luck—some might say bad karma—eventually broke the back of the Dutch spice cartel.

Strike 1:
In 1770 a Frenchman named Pierre Poivre (“Peter Pepper”) successfully smuggled nutmeg plants to safety in Mauritius, an island off the coast of Africa, where they were subsequently exported to the Caribbean. The plants thrived in the islands, especially on Grenada.

Off to a good start: As a child, Houdini often broke into his family’s locked cookie cupboard.

Strike 2:
In 1778 a volcanic eruption in the Banda region caused a tsunami that wiped out half of the nutmeg groves.

Strike 3:
In 1809 the English returned to Indonesia and seized the Banda Islands by force. They returned the islands to the Dutch in 1817, but not before transplanting hundreds of nutmeg seedlings to plantations in India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Singapore.

The Dutch were out; their nutmeg monopoly was over. While they would go on to have success trading steel and coal (not to mention tulips), the Netherlands declined as a colonial power, and they never again dominated European commerce.

Still have a craving for spices? Turn to
page 190
for the strange history of six others
.

*        *        *

MORE FAVORITE FOREIGN PHRASES

KUSAT’ SEBE LOKTI (Russian)

Translation:
“[Don’t] bite your elbows.”

Meaning:
Don’t cry over spilled milk; don’t get upset over things you can’t control.

TRITTBRETTFAHRER (Germany)

Translation:
“Running-board rider”

Meaning:
Someone who benefits from someone else’s hard work.

YI LUAN TOU SHI (China)

Translation:
“[Don’t] throw an egg against a rock.”

Meaning:
Don’t create problems for yourself by assuming you’re stronger than you are.

KINGO NO FUNI (Japan)

Translation:
“Goldfish crap”