In addition to pronouncing laws and otherwise helping keep the peace, Red Riders often carried messages and packages between towns. It was just such a package that had brought Rhiannon home to Redbrook. She suspected that the only reason the Edarebians permitted them to exist at all was that the Riders were all young women, and for some reason the Akademe mages and their Swordwulfen soldiers seemed to think that young women with no real possessions beyond their cloaks and their horses could not possibly be a real threat. She didn't even carry a weapon, unless you counted her belt knife or her handaxe, neither of which had ever harmed anything more biologically complex than a willow tree. She carried simple things, mostly. Old recipes, fresh spices that had survived the blight. A few letters; Shiry's daughter was developing a fine voice for festival songs, and the local dyemakers could expect new-woven cloth in a fortnight or so. A basket of breads and sausages bound for her grandmother's house beyond the coppiced trees. Simple, but powerful. --- ## Afterword I bet most readers recognized the fairy tale this story is riffing off of, even though the universe and situation is a far cry from the Renaissance-era German countryside. _Red Riding Hood_ has permeated our culture in a way that _Hans My Hedgehog_ hasn't. Fairy tales aren't really the point I had in mind when I wrote it, though I do love _Red Riding Hood_ and was very deliberately trying to figure out how to incorporate some of its motifs into my worldbuilding. Rhiannon's story arc is much longer than what made it into this very short story, but since I wrote _Witchery_ I've been contemplating the downfall of the Edarebian Akademe. Those two ideas blended into _Red Rider,_ which is really an evaluation of the power of culture. Culture is one of those things that is easy to define in pieces but hard to really explain and encapsulate. It can be fuzzy around the edges and in some ways it changes more than it stays the same. But that doesn't mean it's not _important_. The most recent example I've seen of the phenomenon described in _Red Rider,_ of a conquered people holding onto themselves through food and clothes and songs, comes from an article I read recently about [Ukrainian coffee](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ukrainian-coffee). Coffee culture is a bit of a mystery to me — I have a heart condition that makes caffeine a no-go — but from what I can tell the "Ukrainer" is a mix between Turkish coffee and espresso. It's becoming a national drink, particularly on the front lines of the war. This is less because it tastes good (it's almost definitely too bitter to be anything but foul) and more because it is pretty effective at keeping soldiers awake. In some ways, though, that's secondary to the fact that it is uniquely Ukranian, invented by a Ukranian coffee expert first to help himself stay awake and then sent out to friends on the front lines. It's a drink made with love, and the fact that it tastes foul is probably part of its charm — the same way Baltimoreans love our Natty Boh (my grandpa worked at the old brewery, before he died) and Chicago natives drink Malört with pride and no little masochism. This sort of legendarily bad drink is the stuff legends are made of — legends of machismo, to be sure, but also of camaraderie and of shared experiences. In a situation where _identity_ is in question, that sort of thing really matters. The people of Ukraine are currently fighting a war to prove, among other things, that they _have_ a unique culture worth defending in its own right. There's a similar story behind the marketing of pad thai, which – unlike bitter coffee – happens to be one of my favorite foods. It was invented by the Prime Minister (or, well, the WWII-era military dictator) of Thailand for the _explicit purpose_ of becoming the newly-renamed Thailand's national dish: > Phibun believed that a strong national culture, including pad Thai, was key to Thailand remaining independent. At the time, Thailand was surrounded by European colonies, facing an increasingly imperialist Japan, and filled with Chinese culture. Somewhat ironically, Phibun's nationalist fervor included fining people for wearing native clothing instead of European trousers and skirts. He was driven out of office after the war, after letting Japan essentially occupy the country. But he defended his mandates as being necessary to save Thailand from becoming _culturally_ too Japanese, and while many of them were rolled back after the war, the new government leaned into pad thai as a way to export Thai culture abroad and increase tourism. It worked. Defending culture comes with costs, though. Take for example Canadian regulations designed to protect Canadian sports culture: > Dropping regulations designed to protect Canadian channels from the overwhelming influence of our southern neighbour could produce some instant benefits. Namely, new channels with more programming, and the other knock-on effects of letting "market forces" dictate what television shows are available. America is very good at exporting media; it is in fact [the world's largest exporter of intellectual property](https://www.uschamber.com/intellectual-property/the-state-american-intellectual-property-protecting-american-jobs). Being such a cultural powerhouse means that bright minds in other countries growing up exposed to American culture, and therefore [more willing (and able) to immigrate](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/1999/06/carringt.htm). Soft power of this sort is sometimes known as [hot dog diplomacy](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hot-dog-diplomacy), a reference to the informal meetings between world leaders that often include bits of American culture like hot dogs and baseball. Apparently it's been [waning in recent years](https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/04/11/american-soft-power-and-cultural-diplomacy-event-4378), but that's far beyond my personal expertise. All I know is that stuff like Japanese anime, Chinese costume dramas and Korean k-pop is getting a lot more popular than it used to be, and it feels like that means something subtle about the balance of power in the world. Red Riders – like [witches](https://eleanorkonik.com/witchery/) %% ( [[2022-07-20 Witchery]] ) %% – specialize in subtle. The Edarebians killed off everyone capable of anything more overt.   ## Further Reading - If you're curious about Redbrook's namesake red dyes, check out the [weird reasons the ancients chose certain dyes](https://eleanorkonik.com/dyes/) %% ( [[2021-03-15 Dyes]] ) %%. - For a neat overview of the history of couriers and transporting information, check out my article about [sending information in low-tech societies](https://eleanorkonik.com/transporting-information-sending-messages-in-low-tech-societies/).