Tag: politics

Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen

Originally, Copenhagen was to be the European starting point of a trip to Iceland I was planning for late summer in 2025. When, in the spring of 2025, Minh and I decided to buy a parcel of land and build a house, that trip was put on hold. In February 2026 the house was finally – well, mostly – finished and we were able to move in.

At that point I got back to trip planning. First, although it had been the center of my earlier travel idea, I scratched Iceland from my itinerary. I decided that renting a car and driving solo around the island, stopping to see scenic wonders along the way, might be a bit too much to handle for my going-on 77 years old physical equipment. As much as it annoys me to acknowledge this, I am simply not as physically capable today as I was even 10 years ago.

I am, however, still capable of travel somewhat less strenuous than a solo drive around Iceland.

Instead of a way point on a journey to Iceland, Copenhagen became the starting point of a European trip that, in addition to Denmark, included visits to Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. The fact that Vietnam Airlines introduced a direct flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Copenhagen sometime in 2025 encouraged me to keep Copenhagen on my itinerary. Although Denmark had never been on my Europe must-see list, I decided it would be an interesting place to begin my travels.

After the long haul from Vietnam, I arrived at Copenhagen Airport on 30 May 2026 at 07:30 in the morning. Fitful sleep is the best I ever manage on long distance flights, and I did not even achieve that level of “rest” on this particular flight. So I was especially fuzzy around the edges as I emerged from the plane. I was relieved that the pleasant looking, graying women at the Passport Control window did not become frigid when I handed her a US passport. Not that A Dane would have any reason to be fed up with Americans. Right? Whatever, entry to the Schengen Area took no more than a couple of minutes (and as I write this I cannot help but think of the hour it took to make my way in a massive line through Passport Control in Hanoi when I returned to Vietnam a couple of days ago). Unfortunately, entering the Schengen Area no longer results in a physical stamp in one’s passport – it is all a digital transaction with data encoded in the passport entered into a computerized database. Nowadays it is virtually impossible to fill up a passport with the visas and entry-exit stamps that document travels. My old passports have become a sort of collector’s item.

When I emerged into the airport, I was struck by the fact that the arrivals area was relatively small, far removed from the cavernous terminals that are so common in airports today. And there was no information kiosk. Virtually all airport services were automated – it was difficult to find anybody to give me information about anything. I did find an ATM from which I hoped to draw around $100 worth of Danish Krone. Alas, muddled as I was, I was mistaken about the exchange rate and drew DKK 5,000 thinking that would cost me USD 80 or 90. Wrong. The transaction cost me almost USD 800. Suffice it to say, I had no shortage of cash during my 8 days in Denmark.

Purchasing a metro ticket that would get me into the city of Copenhagen required the use of a ticket machine with instructions that I found impenetrable. Maybe if I had slept more on the plane… Eventually, I spied two Metro employees standing near the ticket machines – an impromptu information kiosk? – and one of them helped me buy a ticket. He worked so quickly that I had on idea what he did and had to start over the next time I wanted to ride the Metro. On the good news front, the train I boarded at the airport ran directly to the stop for my hotel; I did not need to change trains.

I arrived at the hotel well ahead of the 14:00 check-in time, so I ended up walking around the neighborhood for a couple of hours while the hotel worked on making up rooms. First impressions: Copenhagen – at least the area in which I found myself – was quiet, uncrowded, and affluent. It was a rather blustery, cool, overcast day, not raining, but hardly very welcoming to a tired, first-time visitor. There were several small (man made?) lakes near the hotel and the paths around these were crowded with joggers and bicyclists. Young, svelte, fit looking, Nordic type joggers for the most part. Lots of blond hair. I cannot remember ever seeing so many people out jogging in a reasonably small area. I eventually walked in to a place to get some lunch, lots of whole grains, vegetables and nuts on the menu, and found the place took only cards. Not encouraging, considering my recent ATM misadventure. I ate something that was tasty and, no doubt, good for me before heading back to my hotel where I finally got into my room and a rest at around 12 noon.

To be continued…

The Christiansborg Palace pictured here is the third iteration of a building of this name on this site. The previous two palaces, the first of which was completed in 1745, were destroyed by fire. The palace pictured here was completed in 1928, and in the process of excavations for the building, buried ruins of castles from as early as the 13th century were discovered. The Palace was intended to be the home of Denmark’s monarch, though it seems the royal family has never resided in this building. Today, Christiansborg Palace houses all three branches of Denmark’s government: the Prime Minister’s office, the Danish Parliament, and the country’s Supreme Court.

Meiji Jingu: On Sacred Ground

Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii is pictured here. Gates like this are called torii and are found throughout Japan at the entrances and within Shinto shrines. As entrance ways, torii mark the spot where visitors pass from the mundane world of humanity to the sacred ground of the shrine. The torii shown here stands at the entrance to the Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) in Tokyo, one of Japan’s most important shrines honoring the spirits of the Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken, his wife. After passing beneath the torii, one walks through a breathtakingly beautiful wooded area before approaching the shrine itself several hundred meters from the entrance.

The sacred path to Meiji Jingu.

Born in the sequestered imperial compound in Kyoto in 1852, Emperor Meiji ascended to the throne in 1867 and ruled until his death in 1912. “Meiji” is not the birth name of the young man who became the emperor of Japan at age 15; rather it is his reign or era name that was assigned to his reign in 1868. A tradition that originated in China more than 2000 years ago, the Japanese have adopted and adapted the era name concept to suit their own purposes. Since I am definitely not up to speed about how this complicated scheme actually works, suffice it to say that imperial era names serve as a kind of calendar, allowing historical events to be dated by the year of the reign era in which they occur. This system remains in use today in Japan.

A man cleans the sacred path with a song by Empress Shoken and a poem by Emperor Meiji in the background.

Meiji’s reign encompassed a period of rapid change and transformation in Japan. For hundreds of years prior to his ascending the throne, Japanese emperors lived in seclusion in Kyoto where their functions were ceremonial; they took no part in actually ruling the islands we call Japan. Political power was in the hands of a Shogun supported by feudal vassals called Daimyo. Pre-Meiji Japan was a closed society that had limited contact with nearby China and Korea, and even less with peoples elsewhere in the world. Foreign traders were limited to doing business in a single city: Nagasaki.

As a schoolboy, I learned of how in 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan at the head of a squadron of gunboats, his mission to demand that the Japanese open their country to US trade. We were taught to be proud of this example of our country fulfilling its Manifest Destiny, how it illustrated the growing power of the United States in world affairs, and our civilizing influence that brought progress to a benighted, backward land. I have no idea if American school children today learn about the “opening of Japan” and, if they do, how this story is presented. I do know that I now view the tale of Commodore Perry as an early example of arrogant American militarism and imperial designs bent on imposing American power on another people.

This tea house, located in a quiet garden off the wooded path leading to Meiji Jingu, was built by Emperor Meiji for his wife Empress Shoken.

In the event, Japan’s isolated, closed system was destabilized by Perry’s arrival and the threat inherent in the steam-powered warships he brought with him. His visit and those of various Europeans during this time period led to internal turmoil and finally helped to trigger great changes that began with Emperor Meiji’s ascension to the throne. His 45 year reign is referred to as the Meiji Restoration, and during Meiji’s reign the emperor emerged from seclusion and began taking a direct part in the governing of Japan. Beginning its pursuit of modernity with a mature, highly sophisticated culture and society, but well behind the United States and the great powers of Europe with respect to science and technology, Japan developed into an industrial and military powerhouse in a matter several decades. Japan’s rapid rise to great power status was one of many factors that set the world on a path to devastating global conflict in the first half of the 20th century.

Mejii Jingu.
The original shrine was destroyed by bombing at the end of WWII. This majestic reconstruction was completed in 1958.

Initially, it was advisers of the young emperor driving change, but as Emperor Meiji aged, he became directly involved in decision making. Not long before heading to Japan, I bought Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912, a book by the late Donald Keene, a preeminent American scholar of Japanese literature, culture, and history. Keene’s introduction to the book suggests Meiji was a complex man, enigmatic in many respects, whose life and historical record are very difficult to assess. One thing is certain: Professor Keene went to great lengths in his effort to understand Emperor Meiji. The digital edition of the book weighs in at about 950 pages, and while I am definitely interested, so far I have not gotten up the gumption to dive in.

Russian Embassy, Beijing, China

Looking for something else, I happened to run across this image of the huge Russian embassy compound in Beijing. Beyond the fact that China’s relationship with Russia is in the news these days, there is no particular reason for posting this photo. It was taken in February of 2012, several months before I departed from Beijing and China for good.

For more than 200 years the site was home to the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission, which acted as a sort of unofficial representative of the Russian government. After the Russian revolution in 2017, people fleeing Russia found refuge at the mission. In the 1950s after the establishment of the PRC, the Mission was closed and the property and buildings were turned over to the USSR. An embassy housing the USSR’s and later Russia’s diplomatic mission to China was built and opened for use in 1959.

Government House, Annapolis, MD

Annapolis is the capital city of Maryland and home to the US Naval Academy. It is a lovely, manicured, very affluent small city. The Maryland State House, the oldest state capitol building in continuous service in the US (since 1772) was covered in scaffolding while it got a facelift. So I had to make do with this photo of the entrance to Government House, Maryland’s governor’s mansion, located across the street from the State House.

In one of those historical ironies that I very much enjoy, the next resident of Government House will be Maryland Governor-elect, Wes Moore; he will be the state’s first African-American governor. The man who designed Government House, completed in 1870, was named Richard Snowden Andrews, an architect and, during the Civil War, a general in the Confederate States Army. Hope you are rolling over in your grave, traitor.

Poster Art, Ho Chi Minh City

Poster Art, Ho Chi Minh City

You see political poster art of the sort in this picture everywhere in Vietnamese cities, from billboards on the tops of buildings to posters along the walls of construction sites. This particular poster, according to a Vietnamese friend, announces the selection of a Party committee for Ho Chi Minh City for a five year term and celebrates Vietnam’s industrialization and modernization efforts. And the poster urges citizens to do their part to support modernization of the country.

Red Flag, Yellow Star, Hanoi

Red Flag, Yellow Star, Hanoi

The building in the background is the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long, part of the imperial structures that served as the capital of Dai Viet from the 11th to the 18th century. The building, very much in a Chinese style, is in the center of Hanoi. The boys in their bright tee shirts with a yellow star against a red background – the Vietnamese national flag – were part of a coed group of 20ish kids, I presume a university class on an outing. All of the boys were wearing the red tees. I rather liked the contrast: young people wearing the symbol of modern, socialist Vietnam against a traditional background representing the country’s imperial past.