A Pig’s Pilgrimage in Greece - Discovering Heroes

Prologue: In K-12 years, I was quite chubby and lazy, and thus won a cute nick name “piggy Shen” amongst the friends’ circle. Grown up in cosmopolitan cities like Shanghai, New York and Boston, my impressions of a pig have various versions - money boxes, cartoon animation, and the movie “Babe” - A little pig goes a long way.

First day arriving Delphi’s Lower Sanctuary of Athena Pronaea, our alumni group and the professor were eager to look for the Kastalia Spring, where prayers purify themselves before they see the Oracle in ancient times. On the way, we bumped into a huge pink pig, in her own grace. Knowing little how fortunate she was to wander this sacred land, she seemed innocent and happy in her own territory.

Brad, our alumni association representative, fled by and jokingly asked, “Where is our swan for dinner instead of this fatty animal?” “All swans belong to the Queen in England. I prefer eating pork in any case, as simple as it gets. ” My Londoner answer probably did not qualify for the American Ivy League entertaining standards. Having observed him and being taken good care of in the past few days, I esteem Brad as the “Charioteer of Delphi” –eternal energy, victory symbol, and divine love. Later on when we went out dinner at Dakos, Brad picked pork amongst all the fancy Cretan food dishes. We had a good laugh.

Nafplio, the capital of the prefecture, is my favorite place during the week-long Classical Greece alumni group study tour. It has neoclassic houses, picturesque streets, the central Constitution (Syntagma) Square with fascinating mosques and outdoor café tables just like a fairy land. We got Greek traditional sweets to take away. Certainly the best Baklavas I ever had and shared as we sat on the side bench of the Square. Drinking oozo two nights in a row in this funky bar called Mistake, we fantasized like Dionysius.

The fairy tale world continued as a few of us climbed the 857 steps to the Venetian fortress of Palamidi crowning the city. We wandered round the battlements of Acronafplia (14^th c.) and popped over to the fortified islet Bourtzi (15^th c.), afloat in the middle of the bay. A new sight or sensation kept coming across our path. As the last two in the group, Elliot and I tried hard to avoid running out of breath while shooting each other with bullet questions. Elliot, the Silicon Valley boy, is a director for product management at Linked-In with lots of interesting stories. Our battle conversations went much faster than our speed of climbing, almost as if we were doing the Minoan Youth Boxing – Who are the heroes?

Brad, as usual, almost flew all the way to the top, capturing scenes and precious moments along the way. His big camera rarely got any rest with the poetic space around just like his non-stop 10 years of athletic coaching career before he became an alumni association officer. On this “flaming red Argive earth” celebrated by the poet and the photographer, “where the poppy flames still brighter”, are heard the most sublime voices of the Greek land – Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles. We had to touch the gigantic slabs in order to comprehend the deep sense of security they offered the Mycenaean. We entered the acropolis through the Lion Gate, the oldest sample of monumental sculpture in Europe. Mycenae was the most powerful city-state in Greece up to 1100 BC when it was destroyed by fire. Centuries later, the tragic poets Aeschylus and Sophocles brought the city back to life with the magic of their verses.

The grace and elegance of the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus is mixed paradoxically with its almost overwhelming power. I entered the theater as a spectator, fellow alums like Dave, Jose, Alina and Catherine entered as singers, actors, and poets. Dave morphed into Apollo with the lyre and laurel reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets. Jose, in his crouches at the centre, played Agamemnon, confronting an audience of thousands with his feet on the earth and his eyes closed facing the sun – a primitive experience that took us back to the very beginning of the theatre. Although well over 2000 years passed since the theatre was built, I can strong feel the presence of those who created and beautified it, perhaps because the work they bequeathed us remain vital and timeless as our alums brought it into live.

The presence is catalytic. Mythical heroes and gods, ancient poets and citizens have become as one with the marbles. They breathe, embrace, inspire… even an illiterate pig. Today in the Acropolis, the Parthenon is alive – with cranes dancing and saws singing. Great lives were captured – the heroes of the past and the present.