Of Eliot, Elephants, and Expat Mascots

Valentine's Day is upon us. But before gushing about my beloved el-e-phant and all it means to me, I want to talk El-i-ot, as in George: another extraordinary creature with a prominent schnoz. She is coming to mean a lot to me, too.

Somehow I missed out on the works of George Eliot (the nom de plume of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans) when I was a student.

As an expat in England, I lived in fear that someone would someday expose this lacuna. I tried to make up for it by faithfully watching all the episodes of the BBC adaptations of Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss.

But I still didn't pick up the books.

Years later, I am back in the United States and, Kindle in hand, have decided there can be no more excuses, especially as Eliot's oeuvre can be downloaded for free. While I have yet to tackle Middlemarch, I'm now halfway through The Mill on the Floss.

And I've already made some significant discoveries.

For all these years, I've missed out on Maggie Tulliver — a lively and free-spirited child, as smart as a whip, said to be based on Eliot herself. As the daughter of the man who owns the mill on the River Floss, Maggie is the novel's protagonist.

I've also missed out on an exchange that could have enhanced my understanding of why people travel.

Courtesy The Dunktionary

I refer to the scene toward the start of the novel when Maggie pesters her father's head miller, Luke, to tell her whether he's read any books apart from the Bible. He confirms he hasn't, so she offers to lend him one of her picture books, called Pug's Tour of Europe:

...that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know, and one sitting on a barrel.

When Luke owns up to having a low opinion of Dutchmen, Maggie says: "But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our fellow-creatures."

Animated Nature, by William Bingley
(available from Google Books)

Seeing that Luke has not been swayed by her appeal, Maggie wonders if he might like to take a glance at Animated Nature instead:

...that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail — I forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them, Luke?

To which Luke responds that he "can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work" as that's what "brings folks to the gallows."

Now, I have to hand it to Maggie. For a youth who has spent her short life in the provincial St. Ogg's, she really knows her onions. She understands the basic reasons why people might venture to other places: to see and get to know their fellow-creatures.

Plus can I hear Eliot gently mocking us by insinuating that we sometimes conflate our fellow humans with strange animals? ...

Hang on a second, a kid is tugging on my arm. Goodness, it's the insatiably curious Maggie. She says she has a question for me:

Why an elephant, ML? Why not a kangaroo or a civet-cat, which are also featured in Animated Nature?

I'm not used to interacting with fictional characters, but what the heck, makes a change from talking to myself:

Maggie, you have a point.

Like the elephant, the civet is native to Africa and Asia, two continents that remain inscrutable to many of us Westerners.

And the first Europeans who saw kangaroos did not know what to make of a creature that has a head like a deer but without the antlers, and that stands on two legs like a human but hops around like frog. They could come up with only one word for it: "astonishing."

Wait, there's another voice cutting in. No way: it's GEORGE!!! She's saying she has a question for me, too:

As you know from making it halfway through The Mill on the Floss, Maggie has a strange and twisted relationship with her doll. Could it be that you, too, have an elephant toy or figurine to which you have a preternatural attachment? Perhaps you keep it hidden in your attic ...

ML's elephant collection

Ahem, George, I haven't got an attic, but I suppose you might mean metaphorically?

I don't mind telling you that I've collected a number of elephant objects, but only since the launch of this Web log last year. I find one or two of them colorful or cute, but that hardly qualifies as an elephant fixation.

Besides, I've met people who are far more elephant besotted than I am: Véronique Martin-Place or Beth Lang, for instance.

And then there's Ona Filloy, a New Zealander who lives in a Victorian house in Brisbane. She and I have exchanged several messages about her elephant curios: a magnificent ebony-and-ivory elephant head and lamp ...

Oh, wait. George is looking impatient. She wants to ask another question:

Then why, perchance, did you settle upon the elephant as your mascot for experiencing life in other parts of the world?

Hmmm... For such a formidable intellect, I find her a bit nosy (hahaha). Still, let's see if I can impress her:

George, I thought you'd never ask!

I could give lots of reasons, but here are three you should find compelling:

1) By reviving the expression "seeing the elephant," I'm hoping to put the trials and tribulations of the modern-day traveler in perspective.

You see, today we have the luxury of traveling in vehicles that fly even faster than birds. But even though this makes life so much easier, we are constantly grumbling about it.

We forget that our counterparts in your century, who came up with the expression "seeing the elephant," had it so much worse.

I'll give you two quick examples:

1. Emigrants who set out for California. Perhaps there are some 21st-century adventurers who would prefer to dine with the Donner party than have Christmas dinner in an airport because of flight delays, but I haven't encountered them yet. The Donner party is, of course, just one among many who trekked some 2,000 miles across continent in the mid-1800s in hopes of seeing the elephant. But they are distinguished for their botched attempt at taking a "shortcut" to California, only to get trapped in the frozen wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. (No, you don't want to know what they ate!)

Print of an original painting: "Antietam,"
by Thure de Thulstrup, courtesy The Old Print Shop

2. Young men who fought in the U.S. Civil War. The expression "seeing the elephant" has a secondary meaning of seeing battle for the first time. If today's soldiers could time-travel onto the battlefield of Antietam, the scene of the most brutal hand-to-hand combat in U.S. history, don't you think they'd appreciate their unmanned aerial vehicles even more?

2) The elephant, with its massive size and theatricality, is the perfect symbol for why most of us travel.

As Maggie intimates when she offers Luke her picture books, most of us go abroad because we yearn to see great sights and to be entertained.

As the largest land animal, the elephant is symbolic of that yearning. It represents the kind of fear-laced excitement most of us will never experience unless we seek it out, which, for most of us unimaginative types, entails venturing to points unknown.

Today we no longer approve of training elephants for circuses. But the same qualities that made the elephant such a successful performer for Astley's Royal Amphitheatre in Lambeth — intelligence, personality, and a certain quirkiness — are also on display in the wild.

Audrey Delsink, who has observed many an African elephant, has a favorite story she likes to tell about a proud elephant bull. She and several others were sitting in a land rover [a kind of horseless carriage] watching as Charles (that's what they called him) tried, but failed, to push over a large tree. Charles looked up, saw them laughing at him, and walked over and pushed a smaller tree right down on top of their car! Delsink claims he then sauntered off with a toss of his head and a self-satisfied swagger.

Notably, the only other animal on Maggie's list that can hold a candle to the elephant in these respects is the ocean sunfish, which with an average adult weight of 2,200 pounds, is the world's largest known bony fish.

But as I think as you can see from watching this little movie (yes, we now have moving pictures!), its antics are less than enthralling:

3) The elephant is super trendy nowadays.

George, welcome to the era where actors, actresses, musicians, sportspeople and other popular entertainers are the new Greek gods. We call them celebrities ("celebs" for short).

Right now among the celebs, elephants are all the rage. Here are some recent examples:

1. Elephants keep turning up at celebrity nuptials. At the end of last year, a celebrity couple included an elephant with an elaborate headdress in their wedding celebration in Los Angeles (the closest thing we have to a Mt. Olympus, which isn't very close since it's terribly flat).

Said couple weren't the first — another pair tied the knot with elephants and camels a few months before them; nor will they be the last.

A celebrity super couple — think of them as our Aphrodite and Ares — are rumored to be planning a Hindu-style wedding to take place this year in Jodhpur, India. Will the groom ride in on an elephant? Ladbrokes in London is offering 10-1 odds.

Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox

2. An elephant is reputed to have bonded very closely with a celebrity heart-throb. A young deity with the face and reputation of Eros says he accepted the lead role in a movie called Water for Elephants because he fell head over heels with his co-star: a 9,000-lb. elephant named Tai.

George, I know you are thinking: so what? There's no reason we mortals should feel compelled to mimic these gods and their frivolities. (This blog even has its own label for that: Dumbo Culture.)

But George, hear me out. You Victorians took for granted your ivory cutlery handles, musical instruments, billiard balls, and other items. Little did you know the toll it was taking on the elephant population. Allow me to share a chilling statistic: in 1831, ivory consumption in Great Britain amounted to the deaths of nearly 4,000 elephants.

George, the sad truth is that as a result of the fashion for ivory, the elephant population is now at risk.

But several celebs are doing their best to change that. One or two of them have recently adopted elephants in support of their conservation.

But I digress. My real reason for applauding the celebs and their predilection for the pachyderm is a matter of self-preservation: I'm hoping to get a celebrity endorsement for this blog.

On that note, and without further ado, I offer my valentine to the elephant. (Yes, George, we still celebrate Valentine's Day, despite dropping the "saint.")

So, George, what do you think of my reasoning? ... Yoo-hoo, George, ayt? ... George, please come back! Was it something I said: about the ivory, about your proboscis? I promise to get cracking on Middlemarch to atone ...

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Question: So now it's your turn! Do you think the mascot for expats, rex-pats, and repats should be:
a) an elephant
b) another creature ____________
c) a range of creatures, as in Maggie's book.
Extra credit: Name the bird in Maggie's book that "sits on its tail."

An American Woman's Conversion to Football Fandom/Part II

NOTE: I'd like to extend a special welcome to followers of Pond Parleys, which published a version of this 2-part post on 7/11/10 (or 11/7/10). Pond Parleys explores the allegedly special relationship between the UK and USA. 

Am I looking forward to the World Cup championship game between the Netherlands and Spain? And how! Did I ever think I'd be writing this? Not in a million years! Herewith, the second part of the unlikely tale of how I came to join the ranks of football fans the world over. As explained in Part I, Why I Never Liked Football Whilst Living in England, I never paid much attention to the sport despite nearly a decade of exposure; on the contrary, I developed an abhorrence for it.

In Part II of my tale, I have settled back in the United States, the 2010 World Cup is upon us, and I find myself uncharacteristically drawn to this high-profile game, like never before.

PART II: How I Came to Change My Mind About Football, or At Least the World Cup

I can't pinpoint the precise moment when it happened — or the precise reason, for that matter, especially as football still has all the same drawbacks I noted before: goals are few and far between, the fans are predominantly male, and jingoism reigns, particularly between the English and the Germans.

All I know is that my conversion took place as a result of my no longer seeing the elephant. Ironically, even though the UK is considered the cradle of the game (the English have been kicking balls competitively since at least 1314), it wasn't until I returned to living in the States that I felt comfortable giving the sport a chance. Though I have yet to make any fellow converts among my compatriots, I've got my pitch prepared (no pun intended). My top three reasons for fanning football are:

1) It's the World Cup, stupid. Living in England, I couldn't see the World Cup forest from the local English football club trees. But once you see the forest, there can be no turning back. Watching the very best players in the world compete, even a hardened skeptic like me begins to see why they call it The Beautiful Game. All that talk about poetry and magic, Spain's choreography and the marvels the Dutch team — it's not just drivel. (Of course, following the World Cup also represents a minimal commitment to the sport, since it happens just once in four years. It has yet to be seen whether I maintain my dedication to the sport during the interval.)

2) It's a much-needed distraction. Where do I start: the economy, the oil spill, the war in Afghanistan, the heat wave plaguing the East Coast. When the news is consistently rotten, there's nothing like a soaring soccer ball to lift the spirits, not to mention the vicarious pleasure of seeing a team, and a nation, carry off the trophy. And how thrilling for a European team to win outside Europe (a first!) and for that team to be taking its very first drink from the cup. Cheers and more cheers!

3) It's way better than the Olympics. If you are the kind of person who has been there and done that and seen the elephant, then chances are you are a hybrid of nationalities, which makes you an ideal supporter of international sporting events. You're game to throw your support behind almost any athlete or team as long as they're the world's best (and aren't cheaters). The Olympics provides many such events, but that's the problem: there's too much choice. There are mainstream sports like soccer (men's and women's), but then there are also strangely compelling fringe sports like curling and synchronized swimming.

The FIFA World Cup, by contrast, is a singular occasion. There can be no bigger stage, literally as well as figuratively, than the vast pitch on which this ultimate sporting drama takes place.

*  *  *

The other day when I was watching one of the semifinal matches, and the TV cameras were taking an aerial shot of the pitch, I suddenly thought to myself, that's what it must be like to be an alien surveying the Planet Earth. (Thanks to the buzzing of the vuvuzela, it's not so far-fetched to imagine cruising along inside a flying saucer.)

And do you know, I believe that if I were an alien, I would find the World Cup more riveting than anything else than the planet has to offer — certainly more than the spectacle surrounding the basketball player LeBron James (my goodness, how parochial!) or the vision of Roger Federer bombing out of Wimbledon (tennis, now that's an acquired taste!). But this sport, it's something else: on the one hand, it's simple and basic (hey, anyone can kick a ball); on the other, it's extremely diverting. Did that bald guy just make a goal with his head? And how is it that some of these earthlings have developed the talent of using their feet as though they were hands — now that's something worth beaming home about!

---

Stay tuned for Part III, to appear in time for Brazil 2014, in which I will attempt to bend the case for football still more, stressing its potential for opening up intergalactic communication and fostering truly universal harmony.

Questions:

Do I sound like a true convert?

Are there any more reasons I should have in my arsenal? (Hahaha, couldn't resist!)

Last but not least, Spain or Holland? The writer of this blog is pleased to join arms, as it were, with a distant cousin of the pachyderm, a cephalopod who goes by the name of Pulpo Paul, in declaring: Viva España! (If you don't believe me about the cousin thing, then I urge you to take a close look at the proboscis pictured above, which for all the world looks like an octopus's tentacle — it functions like one, too.)

An American Woman's Conversion to Football Fandom/Part I

NOTE: I'd like to extend a special welcome to followers of Pond Parleys, which published a version of this 2-part post on 7/11/10 (or 11/7/10). Pond Parleys explores the allegedly special relationship between the UK and USA. 

Netherlands or Spain? I'm mulling it over. But first I need to contemplate how I underwent a transmogrification from someone who paid no attention to someone who actually cares: from football skeptic to fledgling football fan.

In America, of course, we call it soccer. But I'm content to say "football." If there's one thing I learned from living in England for nearly ten years, it's to use the English language with precision (in which case, shouldn't it be "foot-and-head ball"?!).

Anyway, it's too hot on the East Coast to do much thinking, or as one East Village bar posted on its door: "It's too hot to think, so let's drink!" So, herewith, an attempt to tell the rather twisted tale of conversion to football fandom, though perhaps it's more typical than I'd imagined? Part I today, and Part II — How I Came to Change My Mind About Football, or At Least the World Cup — tomorrow.

PART I: Why I Never Liked Football Whilst Living in England

This little tale of mine begins on a dark and stormy night in the latter years of the 20th century. I am living in football-mad England but am rapidly developing an aversion to the sport, squandering my first real opportunity to see it played at a professional level.

Chalk it up to my contrarian nature. I'm not one to throw myself into chanting, banner waving, and other tribal behaviors before I've had a chance to study and make an appraisal. And it did not take me long to find things I was less than enamored of, including:

1) The game itself — the endless running up and down the pitch with hardly any scoring. I can't tell you how many times I got up to make a cup of tea, or dozed off, just as the one goal of the match was being made.

2) The fans — mostly male, many of them yobbos (at least that was the term in my day, I guess they are now called chavs?) and hooligans, not exactly the most appealing lot to a young American woman.

3) The jingoistic tabloid coverage — particularly when it comes to England playing Germany. I happened to be living in London in 2006, when these archest of rivals competed in the semifinals of the European finals at Wembley Stadium. The British mass-circulation paper The Daily Mirror ran a front-page headline "Achtung! Surrender!" over a photo of two England stars wearing World War II helmets. Just before England met Germany in this year's World Cup, John F. Burns, the London bureau chief for the New York Times wrote an article contending that such "rib-poking" has provided catharsis for the two nations over the years. Who am I to contradict Burns? He certainly knows English culture better than I do. It's just that I keep thinking about the late historian Howard Zinn and what he said about harmless pride becoming an "arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves." Yellow Red card!

It's perhaps worth noting that of all the reasons I came up with not to like football, none of them included the argument that has surfaced recently in right-wing circles in the United States, which is that football is collectivist and carries the threat of socializing Americans' taste in sports.

If I had to dig a little deeper into my reasons for not liking the game, I think it probably had to do with what drew me to try living in England in the first place. The moment they entered a football stadium, normally reserved English people would unleash emotions I didn't know they had, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

As an expat, I had a choice: keep skating along the surface, or else try and go closer to the beating heart of my adopted culture and see what makes it tick. But I had traveled to England in hopes of having romance and adventure — what I like to call seeing the elephant. Observing violent male bonding rituals wasn't on the agenda. (And I'm sure it didn't help that my arrival in England coincided with football hooliganism reaching new levels of hysteria.)

So I gave football a miss and moved on to cricket...which I didn't take to either, but that's another blog post (and a half).

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Coming Soon: Part II — How I Came to Change My Mind About Football, or At Least the World Cup, and This Blog Picks a Favorite!

Where Has All the Valor Gone?

Shortly after I posted my Memorial Day thoughts questioning whether modern-day soldiers are seeing as much of the elephant as their predecessors did, an article, "What Happened to Valor?" appeared in the New York Times magazine reporting some rather striking statistics:

Despite its symbolic importance and educational role in military culture, the Medal of Honor has been awarded only six times for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. By contrast, 464 Medals of Honor were awarded for service during World War II, 133 during the Korean War and 246 during the Vietnam War. “From World War I through Vietnam,” The Army Times claimed in April 2009, “the rate of Medal of Honor recipients per 100,000 service members stayed between 2.3 (Korea) and 2.9 (World War II). But since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, only five Medals of Honor have been awarded, a rate of 0.1 per 100,000 — one in a million.”

The reporter, Katherine Zoepf, goes on to say that one reason for fewer medals may be the nature of modern warfare: it no longer necessitates coming face to face with an enemy in bloody combat. She cites Michael O’Hanlon, a defense-policy specialist at the Brookings. He argues that counterinsurgency efforts, which place greater emphasis on avoiding the use of force (to minimize civilian casualties), call for "a quieter daily kind of courage," one that rarely requires "that moment of extreme valor typically honored with a medal

Upon learning these stats, I had a series of contradictory thoughts (it turns out that, when describing this particular elephant, I can be all of the blind men at once!):

1) First, I felt rather smug about my powers of deduction: from a drop of water, I had inferred the Niagra, as the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes would say. I wondered if my next post on this topic should be called "Seeing Mr Snuffleupagus" — the Sesame Street character who looks like an elephant at first glance (he has a nose that he drags along the ground but no tusk or ears, not to mention a dinosaur's tail). What got me thinking along these lines was Mr S's appearance at a benefit gala for military families, held in Manhattan on June 2 and sponsored by Sesame Street. Upon noticing that the Wall Street Journal gave Mr S pride of place in their write-up of the event, I started to think that a muppet that goes by the nickname of Snuffy might be a more apt symbol for modern-day military service than the elephant (very yesteryear).

2) But, not so fast, my friend! Many combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan dispute O'Hanlon's arguments, and it turns out they have a good point. Indeed, another reason for the current paucity of medals might be a lack of valor not on the part of soldiers but on the part of the top military brass. The Pentagon is afraid to give out such medals without being 300% sure that an act of valor occurred — and who can be sure of anything in the fog of war? What's more, because of the Pentagon's recent experiences with Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, it is hesitant to publicize or otherwise herald tales of heroism, for fear of later embarrassment. (Both Lynch, in 2003, and Tillman, in 2004, were initially celebrated as war heroes.)

Those who believe that the Pentagon has become overly cautious and bureaucratic on medals often point to the example of Rafael Peralta. Despite horrific wounds, the 25-year-old Marine had the presence of mind and courage to scoop a live grenade from under his body to save the lives of his comrades. Yet he has been denied the Medal of Honor.

3) I was less struck, however, by another argument that Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans frequently make, which is that they have become the victims of their own success. Congressman Duncan Hunter, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine, told Katherine Zoepf that in today’s all-volunteer military, an action that would have been considered heroic in the mid-20th century is seen today almost as routine conduct, "just being a Marine." With all due respect, Congressman Hunter, but my years and years of living in Japan — where U.S. Marines stationed at Futenma and other U.S. bases in Okinawa were constantly causing scandals and headlines — will forever make it difficult for me to associate that particular branch of the American armed forces with rising standards of behavior. I understand that acts of valor are something different, but still...

4) That said, I do buy another argument made by many younger servicemen, which is that Pentagon officials are frequently disrespectful, even dismissive, of their eyewitness accounts of acts of valor. In today’s military, younger servicemen sometimes have far more combat experience than their seniors now working in the Pentagon, who often progressed through the military hierarchy in a time of relative peace: after Vietnam but before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Having lived in a hierarchical society like Japan, I know that nothing goads your superior more than the knowledge that you've experienced something he or she hasn't--particularly when it comes to seeing the elephant. Could their seniors be jealous? Uh... yeah.

---

In a blog post for the National Review responding to Zoepf's article, David French wrote:

Why is the military awarding so few medals of honor? Are we less courageous now? Or is the military stifling valor awards in a labyrinthine bureaucracy dominated by rear echelon second-guessers?

This blogging business makes strange bedfellows, but as First Lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve and a senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, I think French has the creds to ask such pointed questions. Why, indeed?

Al and Tipper: Just the Latest Jukunen Rikon

I'd like to slip in a few comments about Al and Tipper Gore's impending divorce while it's still big news. Was I surprised? Yes, mainly because I hadn't thought about either of the Gores let alone the state of their relationship for quite some time. Was I shocked? No, not really--something I put down to living in Japan for so many years, where one soon becomes inured to jukunen rikon (late-life divorce).

Jukunen rikon gets less attention than that other growing category of Japanese divorce known as "Narita divorce," when a newlywed couple bids sayonara at Narita New Tokyo International Airport, having just returned from a honeymoon trip outside of Japan. During the honeymoon, it dawns on the newlywed bride that she's made a terrible mistake in hitching her wagon to a boring salaryman.

Grey divorce, by contrast, occurs when a middle-aged Japanese woman, having toughed it out with such a salaryman for a good 30+ years, can't face living with him for another 30+ years upon his retirement--Japanese are of course blessed (cursed?) with having the world's longest life expectancy for both sexes.

Whether it's an early or late divorce, Japanese women tend to initiate the divorce proceedings.

I have no idea whether Tipper initiated this idea with Al, but their talk about having grown apart (and the fact that there doesn't seem to be anyone else) suggests to me that we have a classic jukunen rikon on our hands.

So rather than feeling shocked or saddened, let's think creatively about Al and Tipper's announcement. If we're lucky, perhaps it will:

1) inspire an American television drama similar to the Japanese drama, Jukunen Rikon (illustrated above--actually, doesn't that couple look a little like an Asian Al and Tipper?).

2) lead Tipper (or another woman of her status) to write a bestseller +/or start up a blog, to help guide other older American women who are thinking of changing their lives. She could even borrow the (translated) title from one such Japanese book: Why Are Retired Husbands Such a Nuisance? Chapter headings (blog post tags) could include "freedom," "identity," and "need for fulfillment" for starters...

3) raise our awareness that a drift to older divorce is happening throughout the Western world (similar trends have been noted in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Italy, and France)--thus that if it comes to a relationship near you, it's not that unusual and certainly not the end of the world. Dierdre Bair makes this point very well in her recent New York Times op-ed, "The 40-Year Itch."  Upon learning that divorce lawyers' waiting rooms are coming to resemble geriatrics units, Bair decided to write a book on the phenomenon. She talked to hundreds of men and women who had divorced after long marriages. "For them, divorce meant not failure and shame, but opportunity," she reports, going on to say we should wish Al and Tipper well as they begin new chapters of their lives. Or, as their counterparts in Japan might say, gambatte kudasai.

Goodbye to Hello? 5 Reasons to Lament the Demise of Hello Kitty

The New York Times recently reported that after 36 years, the white cartoon cat Hello Kitty may be running out of product lives. Sales of this multi-billion dollar global commodity are down, and Sanrio is looking for the Next Cute Thing to replace her.

Say it ain't so!

Other, yet-to-be-nearly-as-successful contenders include Spottie Dottie, a pink-frocked Dalmatian; Pandapple, a baby panda; My Melody, a rabbit; or TuxedoSam, a penguin.

Tondemonai deshoo. How do I account for my attachment to Hello (as I like to call her) and why I do not wish to see her deposed by these or any future creatures Sanrio dreams up? (Jewelpet?! Let's not even go there...)

1) We go back a long ways. I knew her before she became a global phenomenon and when she was just a cute kitty. Imagine venturing all the way to the Japans in the late 1980s to See the Elephant--and being greeted by Hello Kitty. I'm full of nostalgia for those days...

2) Her brand of cute is quintessentially Japanese. At first I assumed she was designed for kids, and happily bought up Hello Kitty souvenirs (pencils, erasers, coin purses and so on) for my little nieces back home. But as I became more Japanized, I understood that Hello was also for adults. Not only did I start collecting memorabilia--including a set of winter-spring-summer-autumn dolls (which I suspect would qualify for the Kitty Hell blog)--but I came to enjoy the kawaii aesthetic the cat represents.

3) Over the years, this cartoon cat has grown on me, achieving the status of Treasured White Elephant. The Hello Kitty Junkie blogger lists 15 reasons for why the cat brings her so much happiness. For me, 10 of them seem eminently reasonable:

1. Hello Kitty reminds me of my childhood (youthful innocence).
2. Hello Kitty reminds me of Japan.
3. Hello Kitty loves everyone.
4. Hello Kitty is a universal poster child for caring, sharing, happiness, friendship… And all that other good stuff.
5. Hello Kitty embodies innocence, sentimentality and harmony.
6. Hello Kitty just wants to be loved, trusted and respected.
7. Hello Kitty is Japan’s official ambassador of tourism.
8. Hello Kitty is a pop culture icon.
9. Hello Kitty is a fashionista.
10. UNICEF named Hello Kitty “Special Friend of Children.”

4) The haziness of Hello's back story, the weakness of her characterization, and her lack of edginess only add to her appeal. When Sanrio created a talking Hello Kitty for a pilot cartoon series, it set off a fury among fans loyal to the cat’s mouthless look. It turns out that a mouthless cartoon character cannot easily break into television animation, which is where the action (and the revenue) is nowadays. To prepare her for her TV debut, Sanrio went to great lengths to invent a back story about Hello Kitty--something about how she was born in London and likes to eat cookies--but that's more than any of us needed to know. (I've also just now discovered that her full name is Kitty White, another disappointing detail.) As for Sanrio's experiments to make Hello less cute by using as much black as pink? Not good.

5) Following from 4), thank goodness Hello is nothing like Walt Disney characters. There's such a thing as having too much character. Mickey Mouse, Bambi, Lilo and Stitch: their stories get a little old after a while, and one grows weary of their company. Call it strange, but for me Hello Kitty will always be a Goddess of Blandness, and sometimes bland food is best, just what the doctor ordered. Like this blog's eponymous elephant, she deserves a longer life span than 36 years. Helloo!!!

UPDATE: Lady GaGa to the rescue! At the end of last year, GaGa went to London to shoot a campaign in celebration of the famous white cat's 35th birthday (note: the New York Times says that the brand is 36 years old--but that's okay, who's counting?). The photos have just been released (July 13, 2010), and as one might expect, they more than do justice to Hello's unique blend of Zen-plus-kitsch. Among GaGa's get-ups are some truly spectacular items: a gown adorned with stuffed Hello Kitty dolls, a bedazzled Hello Kitty belt, and some sky-high Hello Kitty-covered pumps. GaGa has also announced that these photos will feature on the cover of the special, limited-edition reissue of her hit album, The Fame. With support like that, we can safely say that reports of Hello's demise has been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, Sanrio has already reported a 30% boost in share performance.

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Question: Do you agree that Hello Kitty deserves Treasured White Elephant status?