The Search for the Red Dragon

How does the foreign visitor feel when he steps into your local pub for a quiet beer?
When a foreign accent is heard in the local, we're all curious to know where the speaker is from. The visitor will soon find him or herself with instant friends and a whole bunch of questions to answer about nationality, what the figgin's are they doing in Aberbachgenbach and what do they think of warm flat British beer. Gaúchos are as curious as the Welsh about foreign accents. I only need to open my mouth here and I get the same questions. After a visible double-take when they hear my Portuguese (but I don't have an accent, do I?), the questioning usually starts with, "You're not from here, are you?", good observation, very astute. Next comes, "Are you English?" (or "American?") followed by a list of questions about what I do, what brought me to Brazil, do I like it and the one guaranteed to annoy me most, "Are you Gremista or Colorado?", in other words, which of the two local soccer teams do I support. I live in Brazil and I hate soccer. After 11 years the questions are a trifle tedious, I just try to be polite. Whiz back a little and take a look at that first question again. My answer is, "Não, sou Galês, de País de Gales", (and that is NOT pronounced like strong winds) which is mostly met with blank looks, not because they don't understand my Portuguese, but they've only a vague notion of what or where ‘País de Gales’ is. That vague notion is connected with Pelê's first World Cup goal and Prince Charles and the late Lady Di. Then they more than likely come up with something like, “Ah! País de Gales! That’s in England, isn’t it?” ! This assumption that the whole of the United Kingdom is "England" has, besides making me recite the entire history of Britain to countless Brazilians, made me quite fiercely nationalistic. A manifestation of this is the CYM and Red Dragon stickers on my car, something I never had when I lived in Britain. Okay, so I never had a car when I lived in Britain. Neither did I have a Red Dragon flag but I do now, it goes around with me on my 'culture' lectures to English language or university students and gets a good airing when Brazil plays Wales in a friendly. I'm not talking about rugby, Brazil has never heard of rugby. Then again, I hate soccer, remember?
So here I am, telling the students about the Celtic peoples of Britain and the Angles, Saxon and those blasted Jute foreigners, who stole our lands and then called us the waellas, foreigners, and some young lad asks where I was born. Then I get in a Branston Pickle and have to try and explain a whole load of other stuff. You see, well, am I really Welsh? What is being Welsh or Celtic?
If anyone's dad had been in the Armed Forces, they'll know what kind of life I've had, what with moving every three years or so. In 1963, the order came, "Go East young man! And take your family with you." He did. Consequently, instead of being born in Aberdare County Hospital, like my brother and sister before me, I was born in a British Military Hospital – Hong Kong. "So you're Chinese then! Ha-ha-ha!", quips the usual wit. Ha-ha-ha, yes. I became Chinese in July 1997, notice my epicanthic folds and yellowish skin tone, goes pretty weirdly with my Celtic red beard. I´ve often thought about applying for a Chinese passport just to have a good conversation piece. Am I then Welsh or Chinese? Both my parents are Welsh, as are all four grandparents, but that's as far as my ancestral knowledge extends. In class, I tell my students that I'm pure Celt. "We, the Welsh, the Celts - the true peoples of Britain, myself and my Scots and Irish brothers and sisters. Descendants of Arthur, William Wallace, Mel Gibson, Taleisin, Owain Glyndwr, Mervin Francis, Bob the Bruce, Lloyd George (who knew my father), and their women friends. Sorry I'm not up on Celtic heroines, there are Boedicea and Catherine Zeta-Jones of course.
I'm just as likely a descendant of an 19th Century Italian immigrant peasant hoping to make his fortune in pizzas at the height of the industrial revolution. Giuseppe Paura, finding Welsh palates preferred boiled sea-weed and rare rabbits on toast, in order to survive and provide for his ever expanding family, was obliged to join hundreds of black-faced Welshmen and descend into a big pit (probably not The Big Pit, Blaenafon, Mon-Sat, 0900-1600, last descent 1500, closed Sundays and Bank Holidays), to dig out that black stuff that made Britain Great. Or I am a direct descendant of Boedicea, last of the Great Celtic Queens (that's not entirely true, as my great-uncle Geraint used to have a pretty good act at Penrhiwceiber Working Men's on Saturday nights). Whatever my ancestry, I ended up being born in a far flung, who-flung-dung, British colony.
First century queen, fourth century Roman soldier, sixth century Saxon pillager, fourteenth century Norman lord, nineteenth century pizza man, despite all the possibilities, I still like to think I'm pure Celt. Another thing, I can't speak Welsh, yes I am ashamed, I know all you Sons of Glyndwr will be saying, "About as Welsh as Edward II!", he was only born there. I can´t speak Chinese either. I can, however say LLanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerwchwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, and I’m pretty fluent in Portuguese. I blame Henry VIII for my lack of siarad Cymraeg linguistic skills. Though he was the great grandson of the Welshman, Owen Tudor AND his father, the seventh, unfurled the Red Dragon on Bosworth field in 1485. Why then do I blame him? I read somewhere that Henry VIII banned the Welsh language. Generations grew learning only the English Tunge. I guess though, by the 70s Welsh was okay to learn again, thus I had plenty of opportunity, but as a young lad, languages were too much like hard work. I really have only myself to blame, not Harold Godwinson, Edward Longshanks, Longshanks' boy (Shortshanks? The first 'Prince of Wales'), or Henry Tudor Number Eight.
So what is being Welsh, English or Chinese? After years of living in any land, one tends to absorb and adopt the customs and characteristics of their host's culture. I'm now speaking Gaúcho Portuguese and drinking chimarrão, a green herb tea, drunk through a metal straw from a gourd - the Gaúcho equivalent of a nice cup of tea - because it is here in the pampas of the deep south of Brazil that I've made my home for the past fourteen years.
Let's go back to the history lesson. Henry Number Seven, some hundreds of years ago, defeated Richard Number Three on a field near Leicester. Having ousted the Englishman, Henry proclaimed that he had restored the true British - that is Celtic - Royal line which had been robbed from Arthur by the Saxons and later the Normans. Henry probably read a lot of Geoffrey of Monmouth's best sellers (another Welshman?). It is also said, as I have previously mentioned here, that his army rallied under the Red Dragon banner. Apart from my car stickers, I have around the house Y Ddraig Goch, on mugs, tankards, t-shirts and horse-brasses. I even have one tattooed on my left shoulder blade. Now there's patriotism for 'ew. I learned some time ago that this very Celtic symbol was imported by the Romans, I went to see my personal tattooist. Take it off, it's bloody Roman! Well not really, I didn't get Y Ddraig Goch tattooed on my back because I'm intensively patriotic, I just think it's a pretty natty design. Don't we just have the coolest flag in the world? Where did the Romans get it from then? Maybe they stole it from the Celts in the first place. On consulting Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, I discovered that the Red Dragon is 'Anciently the badge of the Parthians'. Those other adversaries of the Romans, maybe related to the Celts way back before Rome got big. “UP YOURS ROMANS!” they shot.
Aside from not speaking the language, I have lived in the Land of My Fathers only 14, non-consecutive, years of my 42. When the Famiglia Fear, with its new addition, left the Fragrant Port in the far East, it established itself in Pontypridd. My first Welsh home, one of a row of 8 or 9 new houses in a street of older terraced houses. I wasn't particularly aware, at that time, that I was a Welsh bachgen, born Chinese. I remember though, a young, half-English, half-Greek, Charles, chauffeur driven to Caernarfon, to become our Prince. Hundreds of us kids from Coed-pen-Maen Primary lined the road to wave little paper Red Dragon flags at the row of long black cars that drifted past on their way north.
At 9 years of age, my Welsh formation was interrupted when, once again, the Vice Marshall, Royal Air Force said to my father, "Go east young man!". Not as far as Hong Kong this time, but to Aphrodite's birthplace, that idyllic Mediterranean isle which later became overrun by a Turkish occupying force followed by Club 18-30 holiday louts.
In Cyprus, between catching lizards, singing negro slave songs at school assembly, o Lordy, pick a bail-a-cotton, HO-OO scale war games in the back yard and Scaletrix and a Mamod steam engine on the roof, I didn't pause to contemplate my nationality. Thrown in with a whole bunch of kids from all over our Sceptred Isle at the British Forces school of Curium in Limassol, I was fully aware of being Welsh, but never gave a thought of what it was to be Welsh.
Two and a half years later, due to an inconsiderate Turkish invasion force, we were flown out on a noisy Hercules transport plane, leaving most of our possessions behind, and bussed from RAF Brize Norton to a wonderful new house on the married quarters estate at RAF St. Athan, South Wales. Here I could start being formed into a real Welsh citizen again. Not.
Due to its proximity to one of the largest Royal Air Force bases in Wales, a large number of Llantwit Major Comp.'s pupils were from all over Gran Bretagne, their dads having been fortunate enough to get a 'plum posting' to the wonderfully verdant Vale. Once again I had Jocks, Geordies, Brummies and Scouses for classmates. Rugby wasn't even on the menu. ‘East Camp’ married quarters was an estate of brand spanking houses. Everything was new. In the playgrounds there was shiny paint on the swings and slides and on a contraption I'd never seen before, a rolly-polly barrel, fixed that you could stand up on and run while not going anywhere. Me and my brother Kev had a shed to play in where we once again fired up the Mamod and fought HO-OO battles on the desert sands (stolen from a near-by building site). Over the back way of our house, there were fields and fields and a small wooded area. In those fields we played soccer, not rugby, and launched bangers from a goal post 5 inch mortar. My dad used to practice casting with his beach rod, lead weights into tyres, gangs of kids would shout: 'Have you caught anything yet mister?'. Also in those fields were concrete machine gun bunkers, a permanent reminder of the Nazi threat to South Wales during the war. Beyond the fields was a river where we caught small flatfish which we threw at the cows on the opposite bank. Walking further still, we didn't because we never found a way to cross the river, would bring us to Cardiff Airport, now Cardiff-Wales International Airport. I flew from Belfast to Cardiff Airport once and saw our old house, the fields, the bunkers, the river and the cows, all HO-OO size.
After two years of throwing flatfish at cows and throwing bangers at people, came the fateful year of 1976. Fateful for us because, after serving 25 years and reaching the vertiginous rank of Corporal, dad was to retire from the Royal Air Force and become a Civilian. Fateful for the land because of the long hot summer.
Kev and I were sent to Bradford, to our step-Grandparents, for the summer hols. We sweated out July and August in a stone, end-of-terraced house near Great Horton Road. The best thing about being in Bradford is that we could stay up late and watch TV. News at Ten - Bong! And the Hammer House specials, usually Frankenstein meets someone.
Kev got a part time job helping fix up a burger van for a young Pakistani guy, later the van got petrol bombed by a rival fast food gang posing as the National Front or the National Front posing as a rival fast food gang. We ate dripping sandwiches, not dripping with anything but dripping. Potted meat (paté for more sophisticated folk) and fish and chips on Friday night. Beef fat sandwiches and chips fried in lard! I guess cholesterol wasn't invented in those days.
As well as a-changing, times were a-moving on, we'd been to every park within walking distance and some without, but we'd walked to them anyway. Swam every public baths, watched every Hammer House, climbed every mountain, forded every stream. Summer was nearly over, though the weather wasn't, it was a long one this, and dad came to pick us up in a transit van hired for the occasion of taking furniture to our new, civilian, house.
Back to Wales then, I was to keep my Welshness, hurrah! Nay, I was to regain my Welshness, after two and a half years in Cyprus, then another two years in a school of seisnegs, then to top it, six weeks in Brat-fud. It was nice to hear butty and boyo again, well actually it was cringingly embarrassing to hear butty and boyo again.. An all Welsh school, Y Pant, not Welsh enough to be Welsh speaking or even to have compulsory Welsh classes but just Welsh enough to include compulsory rugby for P.E.
All my friends were suddenly, Dai, Geraint, Dewi; the teachers were Mr. Jones, Mr. Evans, Miss Pugh, Mr. Owen. In Pontyclun, our new home town, there was Evans the News, Dai Bread. Okay, that's a mild lie. The pub was The Ivor Arms not The Sailor's Arms. But there was an Eli Jenkins! Only he wasn't a reverend. This reminds me of my favourite joke - "Oh! It's Evans the Spy you're after, mun!". Our Mr Evans was the English Literature teacher, Evans the English I suppose, though he wasn't. He taught us all about Dylan Thomas's Milk Wood, William Golding's flies, somebody else's Kes and another somebody else's Merchant of Macbeth and Midsummer night’s Pound of Flesh. Evans the English was also a nutter for War poems, long, really interesting (NOT!) classes of dulce et decorum est, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (whom I'd always thought was a famous hair-dresser).
The next big step in my life came in 1979, when, following family tradition, I joined up. Not the boys in Aircraft Grey for me though, I was for the boys in Woodland Green, no I didn't go to Nottingham Forrest. At the tender age of 16, covered in zits, I moved to the Army Apprentices College, Harrogate, where for the first time in my life, in recognition of my nationality, I became known as 'Taff' Fear. As I joined a 'corps', the Royal one of Signals, I once again mixed with Englishmen and had to put up with verbal abuse and endless jokes about ‘the bloody Welsh’.
After ten years between Cyprus and Northern Ireland, on being discharged, I opted to move to the Cynon Valley town of Abercwmboi, instead of plenty-a-jobs-to-be-had England. Amongst the wonderfully rich accents of my neighbours, drinking a pint of Feelin' Foul in Y Cap Goch, I was being moulded into a Valley Boyo. Alas, this didn't pay the bills and I had to go beyond the valleys in search of work to sustain my new Brazilian wife that I’d met on a motorcycle trip to Spain.
This brings us up to where we began. Failing to find a good job in the valleys or Cardiff, I sold my life's possessions and we moved here to Southern Brazil. It is thanks to the inquisitive Gaúchos, I feel more Welsh now than I ever felt in Hong Kong, Cyprus, England, Northern Ireland and, yes, even Wales. I've read John Davies' "History" and Sharon Kay Penman's Llewellyn Fawr trilogy. I am making an effort to learn Welsh through internet with an objective of, one day travelling south to the wilds of Patagonia, where, generations ago, there settled some Pobl o Cym. I will strip my shirt, exposing the tattooed Ddraig Goch, and say to Juan ap Evans, "Swmai! Sut y'chi?!" and he will reply, "¿Quien carajo te creés que sos, gringo de mierda?!".