China in Transit

Hangzhou

Spring break and I'm in Hangzhou, China (jet lag's going to be hell when I get back). Well, I was when I wrote this. God knows where I'll be when I get wifi again, if I'm even able to post this on that. Guess I should get used to using Baidu instead of Google.

Hangzhou is bound by a large, gleaming lake (west lake, in Chinese) and a set of low mountains. Every inch of it is stuffed, trees packed around the towering buildings, little markets tucked in the alleys, cars crowding the roads and throwing up a ruckus of honking. The view from the mountains would be lovely if it weren't for the gray cloud that has settled in the city, giving off a dull reddish glow where the sun's light refracts off the particles. We came during one of the better times, too; it was possible to see the sun, and the sky at the very top was faintly blue. High rise buildings clutter most of the space, now, but there are faint remains of Hangzhou's past, and it is possible to imagine the village that would have once existed. 

At night, outside the hotel, standing on the corner of the street, Hangzhou has a decidedly modern air. I am hardly the best judge, as Washington DC is generally not afforded that appellation, but even New York didn't have quite that feeling of newness. Hangzhou, lit up by vehicles stuck in traffic, is a city with its knees bent, poised to spring forward, despite the ragged street stands and the laundry hanging to dry on balconies many meters from the ground. It's the traffic lights, I think, LED boards that flashed words as well as the standard red, yellow, and green, and the sleek high speed trains that sped over rails, and the trees in raucous bloom under store signs in bubbly fonts, and the occasional steel and glass building, and the elementary school with a playground on its green-tiled roof.

It helps that the dark masks the wear of some of the buildings, and makes the ubiquitous air conditioning units--few buildings in China have central heating--less obvious. Nothing can alter the fact that there is too little parking for too many cars. But then, maybe the excitement of darting across roads and trying to drive on a street that effectively only has one lane adds to the feel. The bicycle lanes, at least, were inviolate, blocked off by a low fence. I say bicycle, but that gives a misleading image, as motorcycle riders are common among all demographics in China and make up a significant fraction of the lane's traffic.

We don't stay there long, just enough to rest and see some of my mom's old friends. Much of the city looks like any overcrowded American city, which is what registers first, but a closer look reveals plenty of differences. It will always be a bit of a shock to see an ashtray in front of a "No smoking" sign. The hotel room we stay at has twin sized beds (or something like that) and provides, in addition to the usual toiletries, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair combs, bathrobes, and slippers. Even better, the shampoo and soap aren't that individually packaged stuff (usually rubbish) I normally see, but actual shampoo and soap that were probably bought from nearby stores. There is also a heat lamp in the shower, which I personally really like. Public toilets are the strangest. I actually support having what amount to porcelain-covered holes that you squat over, since never having to touch a seat or a flush with your skin is more hygienic, but they really could provide toilet paper. Really.

They also never give disposable chopsticks, unless everything else is disposable, which led me to realize I have always been given disposable chopsticks in America (which is, when you think about it, an odd idiosyncrasy.)

It's the most arbitrary things that remind me that I'm a second generation American. Slippers in Chinese hotels, and sweets that aren't too sugary, and the unanimous understanding here that "I'm on my period" means no ice cream. I toy with the idea of living in China for the coconut milk, but it isn't worth the overpopulation.

We end up spending most of our time there stuck in traffic, driven by Didi (the Chinese Uber) drivers who are paid astonishingly little, especially since they are prepaid based on the distance. It seems every hour is rush hour; what should be a fifteen minute drive turns into a one hour one. It's a relief when we get on the train and speed off without interruption at 350 kilometers per hour.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Huangyan

My parents have no past waiting for them when they visit China. Huangyan, my father's hometown, is the China-under-construction, all new houses and railroads being laid. His childhood has been torn down, the pieces placed in museums for strangers to point and stare at. When we go to Yuhang Museum, he reminisces excitedly with my cousins, and pulls me to each exhibit. Look, he says, eyes sparkling, those are the games we used to play. My sister died operating a water pump just like that. I always used to follow behind my father using that plow and pick up small fish to feed the ducks. It required technical skill to operate that plow, so he always drove it.

I look at my father under the dim lighting of the museum, as he laments the limited preservation of his childhood toys, and try to imagine him in the place of the fake people. I can't. (How could I? He exists in my present.)

Huangyan is an amalgam of old practices and modern conveniences. The high school I visit has neither air conditioning nor heating in an area where temperatures range from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius, but a shiny new promethean-like board stands in the corner. Fingerprint recognition technology releases students and clocks out teachers, but the toilets are essentially a long pit that water rushes down to flush periodically. There is heating at my cousin's house, where I'm staying, but they rarely turn it on--in fact, they're uncomfortable when it's on--and I eventually get used to wearing my coat inside. They wash their clothes--which are as good as mine--by hand, in stone sinks facing their garden (leftovers of a farming past). It's a small village, where we get barbecue lamb kebabs off the roadside and doors are left open during dinner.

My cousin is a teacher at one of the schools, which is how I got admission to that high school for a day. The students there have stereotypical stereotypes about Americans. They bombard me with questions: Do you have a gun? Do you often see guns? Is everyone tall there? Do you have a boyfriend? Isn't school a lot less stressful there?

Everyone, especially the teachers, have a blanket assumption that America has "freer", less difficult schools, a stereotype we also hold. But, though we don't have such stringent uniform requirements and we don't stand to answer questions, I wouldn't really say they were that different. The students talked when the teacher wasn't, laughed when the teacher fumbled with the hi-tech board and went up to help. When I was brought in, they gasped loudly, and made comments during my short introduction before one of the students, Cai Pingping, claimed me. The vast majority of the students copy their homework. It had but the trappings of being more orderly; there was, I think, less class discussion, and less walking about, and the students did classroom chores. (And it might be fair to say elementary schools, which are about as orderly as the high schools, are more stringent than ours.)

Their schools are structured somewhat differently from ours. They have about twelve required classes and several elective periods (most of which amount to watching TV), some of which they only have once a week. Class sizes are much worse than ours--forty to fifty people are squeezed into each classroom. The students stay in the classroom, where their piles of workbooks rest, while the teachers rotate, so that they are left alone whenever there isn't instruction. They start the day with morning exercises and then have forty five minute periods followed by fifteen minute breaks. Lunch is three vegetable dishes and one meat dish shared between two friends, plus soup and rice provided at a central station. After lunch, they have an hour and fifteen minutes of nap time.

Yup, nap time. When I ask, surprised, about this, my seat mate asks, "How do you concentrate in class after lunch?"

(cough we don't cough)

Most high schools are boarding schools. The paradigm for building schools seems to be to surround a courtyard with the classrooms (I didn't learn where the students slept). This means every classroom has windows on both sides. Speaking of things classrooms should have, each has a water cooler (which is also a water heater) in the front.

I was gratified to discover that their foreign language abilities were worse than mine, though to be fair, the best students and even second best students went to different high schools, so I wasn't seeing the cream of the crop. Still, it's nice to for once not be blown away by other people's English abilities.

Despite being fluent in Mandarin, I often had my own language problems. Everybody in Huangyan speaks the regional dialect most of the time, even the children, though they are educated in Putonghua. It's one of the last things remaining, and even that is a dying language, strange though it is to speak of a language so many people use as "dying". But it is, and they know it, because Huangyan dialect shows have cropped up in recent years.

Thousands of years of history are slipping out of their grasp, and it left so quickly that now that people are beginning to miss it, there is little remaining for them to hold onto. Only a single street has not been torn down, and is now being fixed up for display. Out of the windows, lines hang with drying clothes, where a couple residents still linger.

Essentiali

Imagine a language where a word's spelling is a clue to its meaning.

That sort of exists, you might say. Latin roots, in languages like English. Radicals, in languages like Chinese.

But we still have to straight up memorize thousands of words blindly. Not in Essentiali. Each letter is assigned a (very broad) meaning. To create words, meanings are chosen and pieced together in a pronounceable way. Then, a suffix is added to denote whether a word is a noun, adjective, etc. In common speech, the suffix is dropped if it would be unambiguous to do so. The tense is added on the left. Words are arranged vertically and the columns are read from right to left.

Obviously, as meanings get more specific, they will get longer (and if they don't fall into categories but meh), but I think of that as a plus because words that are more specific tend to be less common, and common words should be shorter. They are in most languages anyways.

There are, of course, exceptions. Some words (such as if and then) are neither suffix nor letter, and some words (such as the names of sentient organisms) are phonetic approximations of borrowed words.

So far, I have yet to run into trouble, but then, I haven't made many words.

The alphabet, with IPA equivalents:

Prescriptive grammar

i_like_sleep505: haiiii

oxford_commonica: hey how r u

i_like_sleep505: p good
i_like_sleep505: u?

oxford_commonica: same
oxford_commonica: bit sleepy

i_like_sleep505: Ik always

oxford_commonica: ik*

i_like_sleep505: srry autocorrect

oxford_commonica: y r u on ur phone?

i_like_sleep505: wifis down

oxford_commonica: oh i c
oxford_commonica: brb

i_like_sleep505: mk

oxford_commonica: kk*

i_like_sleep505: whatevs

oxford_commonica: ;( mk means undrstndng, kk means ok

i_like_sleep505: * eye roll * ur such a nitpicker

oxford_commonica: it mattrs!
oxford_commonica: and its not ur thats a pssesive

i_like_sleep505: shut up
i_like_sleep505: u no wat i mean

oxford_commonica: but thats not _right_

i_like_sleep505: fck off

oxford_commonica: :-(

i_like_sleep505: nxt thing u no ull b crrcting my emojis

oxford_commonica: emoticons*

i_like_sleep505: :-/
i_like_sleep505: go away

oxford_commonica: lol

i_like_sleep505: oh i gtg
i_like_sleep505: dinner
i_like_sleep505: ttyl

oxford_commonica: bai

Bonds

Aluminum was bouncing. He liked bouncing - all his relatives did, as far as he knew, and he did too. Some people, he knew, danced - he had watched them dance, and it looked rather tiring. But Aluminum bounced, happily.

And yet there was something missing - or, more accurately, he had something too much. Three things, in fact. The three extra electrons in his outer shell were constantly on his mind, though he wouldn't do anything violent to get rid of them, not like Sodium. He wasn't that kind of atom.

"How's it going?" asked a neighbor, momentarily taking his mind off his electrons.

"Pretty good," he said, bouncing in place. "Meet anyone interesting today?"

"Saw some pretty big molecules," said the friend. "Bunch of chains, didn't stop to talk."

Aluminum nodded, but suddenly his attention was taken away.

It was two atoms, together about as big as him, clinging together as they zoomed by. Time seemed to slow as he gazed at the three lovely holes in each one, and he felt his electrons give a twinge. Oh, how much he would like to put them into her holes.

Nitrogen.

He had to act quickly; the atoms were moving towards him with alarming speed. "What sweet holes you have," he said, his electrons twitching. But they were still too far away, and his electrons could not reach her. "Won't you let me fill them for you?"

The two Nitrogens looked over at him. They looked at each other and giggled, and then - oh, joy! - they were flying at him; one at him, one at his neighbor. Aluminum blinked and then there was a crash and a flash of energy rushing over him, and the most wonderful feeling as he reached for her, and then, feeling her against him, stuck his electrons, almost involuntarily, into her three precious holes. Pleasure crashed over him in a wave; his electrons had fled.

When the heady rush and whirl of bliss faded, Aluminum found himself attached to Nitrogen. He smiled at her, letting his contentment swirl around him.

"You're so long," Nitrogen murmured at him.

"I'm the right length," Aluminum returned. He looked at the place where she had once had three holes; holes now filled by his electrons.

Her electrons.

"I feel so complete," Nitrogen marveled, his electrons filling her, charging her. She leaned against him happily and he leaned back against her.

"I never want to leave your side." Now that his electrons were gone, he felt an overwhelming attraction to her. They clung to each other, their electrons whizzing around.

And they never let go.

A Scientifically Inspired Divine Explanation

To be honest, I just got too lazy to make up a religion and didn't want to copy an existing one.

A Scientifically Inspired Divine Explanation

"In the beginning, there was only Mafaiei. Of course, beginning isn’t quite the right word, because there was no time. But in the time before time, there was nothing but Mafaiei, the creator. No time passed for Mafaiei, because there was no time, and thus she did not age, and was not immortal, and did not experience time. She merely existed.

Then, one day—and of course, day isn’t the right word either, because there were no days, and there was no time, and nothing had passed—Mafaiei clapped her hands. She clapped her hands three times, in rapid succession, and each time she clapped her hands there was a shockwave, and of course there was nothing for the shockwave to travel through but herself, and then in a giant explosion that seemed to engulf her, the first Senti were born, and with them, time and the universe.

The first Senti were Nikolai, Tikolai, and Pikolai, and, along with Mafaiei, they manifested themselves in the physical realm as the four fundamental forces and when they are in the physical realm they have different names, but in the metaphysical world they are Nikolai, Tikolai, Pikolai, and Mafaiei.

And now, for a long, long time, these Senti built the physical universe. Tikolai and Pikolai made the atoms and made them bigger and bigger, and Nikolai held the atoms together, and Mafaiei the creator and destroyer tore the atoms apart and made the stars.

But then, one day (and one day still isn’t the right word as the Senti have no sun and thus days), Tikolai said, ‘I’m bored.’

Nikolai turned to him in shock. ‘Bored? How could you be bored? There’s so much we can do, and it’s all so interesting!’

But Mafaiei shook her head. ‘There is much to do for you, but remember that there are only so many varieties of atoms before they get too large.’

Tikolai nodded. ‘Besides, it used to be hard to figure out how to make more, but now we’ve gotten the hang on it. Mafaiei, won’t you make something else to do?’

Mafaiei thought about it. ‘I know. I’ll make us some more company. But it’ll take all four of us.’

‘What kind of company?’ Pikolai asked.

Mafaiei smiled. ‘I won’t tell you.’

It was the hardest thing Mafaiei had ever done, and Nikolai, Tikolai, and Pikolai all complained that they didn’t know what Mafaiei was doing throughout the process until she told them she would make a mistake if they didn’t be quiet. But finally, Mafaiei watched with satisfaction as the four new Senti moved.

‘What are you?’ Pikolai said after a moment.

‘I’m Adenine.’

‘Guanine.’

‘Cytosine.’

‘And Uracil!’

‘Uracil?’ Mafaiei gasped. ‘What?’

Uracil giggled. ‘I’m sure Thymine will appear sometime. She’s just taking a very, very long detour.’

‘How could this have happened?’

‘Well, you could say I’m just a little easier than she is.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Mafaiei said as she watched Uracil run away and the other three chase after him. ‘Oh, dear.’

But it wasn’t so bad. At first, when Thymine came back, the fighting between Uracil and Thymine was awful and Mafaiei considered undoing time, and she would have, if she hadn’t spent so much effort creating them. She was closest after, during one of their fights, Uracil threw Thymine into the physical world, but Pikolai was entertained and persuaded Mafaiei to relent. But finally, Thymine did Uracil a humiliation, and they drew up surrender terms that allowed Uracil to continue his role in creating the Senti that manifested themselves as proteins but only as Thymine’s servant.

But Uracil was not done with his mischief.

You see, just as the Senti had their physical manifestations, the physical world had its metaphysical manifestation, which was as a long thread woven from filaments of wood with no ends or breaks, and everyone was happy with this beautiful continuous, single-threaded universe, and for the most part, they just let it evolve and now and then watched it weave itself.

And so when Mafaiei checked on it, she expected to see nothing more changed than maybe a new pattern or something.

She screamed.

In place of the single thread was a sort of tree, splitting at the top into woven branches splitting into woven branches splitting into woven branches, and as it spun itself upwards, its branches continued to split.

‘URACIL!’

The whole crowd of Senti gathered to watch the tree. It must be noted that the tree was very little to them, as a sapling is, but it was a very large tree with a great thick trunk and huge spreading branches. Uracil came up, a penitent look fixed onto his face.

‘I only wanted to see what would happen!’

‘If you what?’

‘If I cut it.’

There was an eruption—even those created in part by Uracil were properly horrified.

‘But I only cut it a little, down the middle!’

Mafaiei staggered back. ‘The universe has fractured,’ she announced. ‘From now on, there will no longer be just one universe, but many, stemming from the same root, and the number will grow and grow and grow.’ And already they knew that in the physical world, an explosion of change had happened with that initial cut.

Amidst the shouting, a voice asked, ‘Can’t it be fixed, Mafaiei?’

Mafaiei shook her head heavily. ‘From now on,’ she said, ‘all change is irreversible, because for each change, another universe is created.’

Uracil had done it unknowingly, but he had gotten his revenge on Thymine and all the Senti for expelling him and making him Thymine’s servant. Because though there were many universes—an ever-increasing amount—the Senti had lost much power; their identities were fractured. Some Senti didn’t even have power in certain universes, because their manifestations didn’t exist there.

And so, though Mafaiei continued to create and destroy, and though Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine continued to guard the varied Senti of the earth (and sometimes create their own), and though Estrogen continued to bless the pregnant, the Senti could no longer direct their physical manifestations with the precision of before. And because of that, life has since mostly progressed without egregious Senti influence."

-----------

The little boy looked up at the girl as she finished the legend. “Is that all? Tell another, please!”

The girl looked at her employer’s son, and said, “But I finished dusting ages ago. I really should get to making mid-day, and you know you aren’t supposed to go to the kitchen. I’m not here to tell you stories.”

The little boy pouted. “You just want to make sure you have enough time to sneak into the library.”

Jenine smiled guiltily. “And you need to go to the library yourself to keep up with your studies.”

“But you can just tell me stories! Why can’t you teach me, Jenine? I’m going to ask mami if you can teach me instead.”

“Shoo! You’re going to get me into trouble!”

Weird Frozen-inspired Idea

This idea has been bugging me for a long time and it's really annoying so I'm going to mention it. I don't know why; I usually don't come up with these things, but I couldn't help it. It's a completely alternate plot that just keeps the titles (and music) of the songs with lyrics.

The story is about a princess (we'll call her Anna) and her mother (we'll call her Elsa and give her ice powers, even though it feels wrong that they aren't sisters). In the beginning, when the princess is young, her parents play with her a lot and they have a close relationship. But after an attack by a minority group, the mostly benevolent queen instates even-harsher-than-normal policies against all minorities in her kingdom. These cause discontent, and as the princess gets older, her parents have less time for her because they're dealing with these people.

(Do You Want to Build a Snowman?)

Then, making everything worse, the queen's husband (not sure what his title is) is kidnapped by bandits (who happen to mostly be ethnic minorities) and dies in an escape attempt. The queen becomes colder and begins to really crack down on those populations, neglecting her daughter; her powers have also attained a tendency to do destructive things while she struggles to create just snow.

(The super-sad part of Do You Want to Build a Snowman?)

In addition, her daughter was closer to her father and has a rocky relationship with her mother at the best of times. She tries to be the daughter she knows her mother wants, but she never quite succeeds and the pressure is hard.

The tradition in this kingdom is to, on the oldest child's 18th birthday (Anna's is in winter), choose the next queen from a pool of people chosen for the skill, a pool that automatically includes said child. Anna is very excited, hoping her mother will notice her and be proud of her.

(For the First Time In Forever)

But one of the people also under consideration is talented and gets along immediately with the queen. Anna spots the queen with the boy (Hans) and believes that she has been replaced in her mother's heart.

(Love is an Open Door - though I was thinking more of the "mental synchronization" part)

Anna runs away, telling herself her duties as a princess are over because there is another person who will take the kingdom and probably would do a better job than her. She takes enough money to support herself, as well as some jewels, and plans to find work as a tutor or historian. She dies her hair, putting on makeup and changing clothes to disguise herself. When she is not recognized in the marketplace, she realizes that she no longer has to seek her mother's approval and is more daring than she ever has been before.

(Let It Go)

In the meantime, the queen is extremely worried when she realizes Anna is gone. Under Hans's reassurances that they'll be alright for a few days, she dashes off in search of her daughter (on awesome ice-stuff, of course).

In Anna's spree of trying new things, she ends up more than a little high and drunk and gives at least half of her money and a ring to a cute little boy (possibly named Olaf - this one doesn't fit very well).

(In Summer)

Spurred on by her semi-drunkenness, Anna meets a person named Kristoff (definitely Kristoff) and flirts with him. He ends up taking her to his family/village (they're all related anyways), who soon recognize her as the princess. She, too, recognizes them as part of the minority population her mother has been persecuting and freaks out. But they tell her that they don't care about who she's related to and decide to take her in despite that, proclaiming that every friend of Kristoff is their friend. She, drunk, thinks it's great that they're adopting her.

(Fixer-Upper)

The queen finds the ring and traces it to Olaf, who directs the queen to the village and offers to give her the money back; in thanks, she allows him to keep it and doesn't punish him. When the queen arrives at the village, she sees her daughter through the walls and announces her presence, telling them that if they do not deliver Anna, she will freeze the village and turn everyone into ice. (This would not kill Anna because the queen could thaw her afterwards.)

They deliver Anna, knowing that they are helpless, but Anna insists that the queen promise she won't harm anyone. Anna and her mother get in a shouting match, each airing their grievances, but while they are engrossed in argument, one of the villagers throws a knife at the queen.

Anna is distraught, but the villagers tell her that unless she abandons her mother, she is their enemy. Alone and without protection, Anna pretends to agree but at night steals a couple of knives and finds her mother. Kristoff and another of the more sympathetic villagers also come to see what they can do. Anna holds them at bay until they convince her that they want to help. Anna searches for the vial of tears Rapunzel gave them, which the queen normally carries with her, in vain. (I think it's implied that the flower is gone, but I refuse to accept that. Rapunzel, and her children, and so on have magic flower powers.) Kristoff agrees to take Anna and the queen on his sled to the castle.

When they get there, however, Hans proves oddly obstructive and reveals that the vast majority of the soldiers have been lured away. Anna suddenly realizes from things he said and the villagers said that he's been in communication with them, and that he convinced the queen to leave in hopes that something would happen. Kristoff swears he didn't know; Anna knows she doesn't have time to worry about that and tells Kristoff to distract Hans while Anna runs carrying her mother to the infirmary, pursued by the people Hans snuck in with her that are now trying to stop her. She is met by a servant who smuggled her sword over, hearing about the fight. Anna thanks her and tells her to get somewhere safe.

Anna wants to wait to hear if her mother can be saved, but remembers Kristoff. The door is blocked, but Anna climbs out though the window and then, holding her sword in her mouth, climbs across the windows (her childhood antics coming in handy now) and into a hallway. She runs to where she can hear a commotion. The door, she discovers, was blocked because of Kristoff. The few soldiers remaining are still fighting against Hans's fighters, leaving Kristoff alone against Hans and losing. Anna charges in to rescue him, incapacitating Hans. With her help, they soon defeat the rest of Hans's fighters.

They are sending someone to get rope for the non-killed fighters, but the queen rounded the corner just in time to see the last one fall and she now binds them using her awesome magical icy powers. Anna stands in front of Kristoff protectively. To everyone's surprise, the queen thanks Kristoff. Anna apologizes for running off and yelling at her mother, and fluffiness ensues.

In the last scene, the queen publically announces that she will change her policies towards ethnic minorities and thanks Kristoff for his part in saving her life. She creates a new office for relations between ethnic groups and appoints Kristoff (temporarily) to a high position in it. She also explains what Hans did and that there will be another ceremony to choose her successor since this one was interrupted.

And while there are lots of problems ahead for all of them, they all lived (for the most part), happily ever after.

Mareftia Map

Fractures in a Dream is set in a civilization called Essential. They call their world Mareftia, on which there are three continents: Teipin (where Essential is), Anamyarit, and Lokhejs. Teipin is usually separated into Sunrise Teipin, Central Teipin, and Sunset Teipin. Central Teipin is by far the smallest, consisting only of the band of mountains  in the middle of Teipin (created when the two parts of the continent collided with each other). Sunrise Teipin is often further divided into Polar Sunrise Teipin and Equatorial Sunrise Teipin.

Civilization originated near the big lake in equatorial Teipin, along a river leading from it to the ocean. Civilization spread quickly across Teipin and to Lokhejs, but Anamyarit was too far initially. The empire with the greatest impact, the Dinnu empire, had its capital right where "Teipin" is written in Essentiali. At its height, it covered all of Sunrise Teipin. It was only after the Dinnu's collapse that a huge migration happened (populating both Central Teipin and Anamyarit) and Anamyarit got its first written language. Scholars debate whether any of the cities that previously existed there could be considered civilization.

The Dinnu were also notable for being the first civilization to recognize the right of all species to civilize; previously civilizations usually repressed the attempts by other species. The Dinnu, instead, invented a language made of taps of varying lengths and helped these species to civilize. The main reason it managed to get so powerful was because it, though this method and the species' power, took many "subordinate civilizations", many of whom had their own subordinate civilizations.

I did not name the plates, just drew them to vaguely place a few islands. As you can see, sunrise is on the left, because most of their landmass is on what we would consider the southern hemisphere and therefore the pole on the top of their globe is the one we would call the south pole.

When I drew Anamyarit, I drew it to fit perfectly with Teipin, then moved them apart and flooded the edges (the islands on the sides are where the mountains once were). Essential is marked on Teipin by the sign. Those black dots are what happen when you draw mountains with pencil and scan it into the computer. I did not draw all the islands, all the lakes, or any rivers.

Having looked at this map again, though, I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it. It looks like it would fit somewhat well in a "what Americans think the world looks like". That's probably because I was lazy and mostly copied our plates. On the other hand, I've grown attached to this, and there are already a lot of similarities between their world and ours. This would not come at all as a surprise to the religious in Essential, because they don't believe different worlds split up until what we call the Cambrian explosion. Therefore, everything pre-Cambrian explosion, and quite a bit after that (the Senti are still mostly in control, so they mostly do the same things in each universe) should be the same.

I'll probably do whatever people tell me to :)