Frank Stockton was a storytellerd who wrote a lot of great stories. Sadly, a number of them are not much read anymore. I do not know if this is because they are out of fashion or simply out of print. Stockton’s stories found it its way to my readings bacause of the books of jack Zipes – who collected and re-shared a number of fiary tales from across the centuries. Among those stories could be found the tlaes of the tale of the Bee Keeper of Orn; the Griffin and the Minor Canon; and the Banished King.
The story was about a ruler of a kingdom where nothing good was happening. He banished himself from the kingdom for a year and travelled to different lands. Along the way he was able to get a travelling companion – a Sphinx. And one of the lands he went to was the land of the Gaumers or dwarfs. This was what he saw :
By the way,” said the Sphinx, after they had walked an hour or more, “if you want to see a kingdom where there really is something to learn, you ought to go to the country of the Gaumers, which we are now approaching.”
You will notice,” said the Sphinx, “that the little houses and huts are gathered together in clusters. Each one of these clusters is under a separate king.”
….
“They do not think so,” said the Sphinx. “In each of these clusters live the Gaumers who are best suited to each other; and, if any Gaumer finds he cannot get along in one cluster, he goes to another. The kings are chosen from among the very best of them, and each one ….
is always very anxious to please his subjects. He knows that every thing that he, and his queen, and his children eat, or drink, or wear, or have must be given to him by his subjects, and if it were not for them he could not be their ruler. And so he does every thing that he can to make them happy and contented, for he knows if he does not please them and govern them well
….
they will gradually drop off from him and go to other clusters, and he will be left without any people or any kingdom.”
What an interesting form of government. Of course one way or the other we do practice what the Gaumerians did. A great number of friends and family have left the Philippines. To search for a better life: Seeking greener pastures : Not happy on how things are run in this country: Seeking what the Philippines cannot offer – higher wages, health care or a better education system . Then you have what can be seen as secession or parting away from the Philippine Republic – so far all have been unsuccesul and the longest one is still happening in Mindanao.
Secession is not the Gaumerians way of doing things. For most Filipinos it is also not.
Filipinos have decided to stay or leave the country. A Grand Uncle mine migrated to the United States working first in Alaska before settling down in Washington State and eventually coming home during the last years of his life. An uncle of mine migrated to Guam and eventually settled in Hawaii, he visited the Philippines once when my Grandfather died. And then we lost contact with him for years and we learned only of his death several years after his death. MY cousins on both sides of the fanily migrated to the United States. And a great number of friemds from grade school, high school and college moved to the United States. Although there are friends and family who have stayed, carving a life for themselves in the Philippines, still a great number of them – friends and family – have not.
To adapt a phrase from the Mentat Thufir Hawat of Frank Herbert’s Dune – Parting with friends ( and family) is a sadness. A place is only a place.
Still with the rise Internet Technology and as of late Social Media, There is a digital tin cup and string connecting people from across the oceans of our world. And it is a pity if it should one day be defiled by excessive or grossly too much business, propaganda and spam.
