Whoville

Photo by: mirandaceleste

When I think of the Welsh and Wales, I think of the Whos of Dr. Seuss' Whoville in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Specifically, those in the 1960s animated television show. The Grinch has taken everything away, all the tinsel and trappings, yet the Whos don't skip a beat, they don't even notice, and they gather together in the centre of town, hold hands, and sing -- and their singing floats up and up to the sky.

In Cardiff, people walk down the streets laughing, relaxed, shop cheerfully in drugstores, young fathers proudly push their children in strollers. Down at Mermaid Quay, the captain of a tour boat jokes over his mic to a quiet midday Cardiff Bay that his boat can't be missed -- it's the one with the handsome captain.

A businessman walks through Sophia Gardens and stops to pick up a discarded pop can. There is a sense that if a child were in trouble, fifty people would drop everything and run to that child's rescue. Every time I pull out my map on my circuitous bike trips, someone stops to make sure I can find my way.

The Whos melted the icy heartless Grinch, so it's no wonder that depth of sentiment leaves me in a sense of awe.

The very funny travel writer Bill Bryson wrote in Notes From A Small Island -- about a much too short visit to Wales as part of his travels through Great Britain -- that he was endeared, on watching a soap opera in the Welsh language, that the Welsh had no words for 'dirty weekend' and had to revert to English to describe the illicit liaison.

In a well-observed piece for the TimesOnline last year, Hugo Rifkind pondered 'Why Wales Is Suddenly Cool,' and one of the reasons he came up with was that the country hearkens back in a consciously-retro way to simpler times and values.

Jim Byers, travel editor for The Toronto Star, simply says "This place is seriously undersold."

Amen.