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Tied up next to the Steel Bridge is the first ship I've seen there in months. Its name is Golden Venture, a very shiny Panamax bulk carrier so new that the grain pouring into its massive hatches this morning was probably harvested before the ship left the Chengxi Shipyard at Jiangyin, China.
Jiangyin is the name of the backwater planet in Firefly where the locals kidnap useful people like Doctor Tam from their ships and put them to work.
In real life, Jiangyin is a small city in Jiangsu province and home of one end of a very long, very beautiful suspension bridge across the Yangtze. Jiangyin is just upstream from Shanghai--whose name, interestingly, still has some currency as a verb in English, meaning, basically, to kidnap useful people and put them to work on their ships.
Well, I'm sorry to say that this Golden Venture, being on its first voyage and all, has accumulated no stories. But it seems to be named after a notoriously awful ancestor.
( There is a thread of human bondage here. )
What I'd like to know is why anyone would ever name another ship Golden Venture after that. Ships roll off the lines in shipyards all over the world, day after day, and I'm sure that naming them is an onerous business. But still, how hard could it be not to choose the name of a doomed ship of criminality, desperation and death? Why not Golden Bough? Golden Mean? Golden Rule? Golden Years? Golden Girl? Golden Hind? Golden Door? Hell, Golden Showers would be better than this.
The only thing going into its hold here in Stumptown today is a whole lot of golden grain. Let's hope it stays that way forever.
Jiangyin is the name of the backwater planet in Firefly where the locals kidnap useful people like Doctor Tam from their ships and put them to work.
In real life, Jiangyin is a small city in Jiangsu province and home of one end of a very long, very beautiful suspension bridge across the Yangtze. Jiangyin is just upstream from Shanghai--whose name, interestingly, still has some currency as a verb in English, meaning, basically, to kidnap useful people and put them to work on their ships.
Well, I'm sorry to say that this Golden Venture, being on its first voyage and all, has accumulated no stories. But it seems to be named after a notoriously awful ancestor.
( There is a thread of human bondage here. )
What I'd like to know is why anyone would ever name another ship Golden Venture after that. Ships roll off the lines in shipyards all over the world, day after day, and I'm sure that naming them is an onerous business. But still, how hard could it be not to choose the name of a doomed ship of criminality, desperation and death? Why not Golden Bough? Golden Mean? Golden Rule? Golden Years? Golden Girl? Golden Hind? Golden Door? Hell, Golden Showers would be better than this.
The only thing going into its hold here in Stumptown today is a whole lot of golden grain. Let's hope it stays that way forever.
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