The hash experience

There's this thing on island called hashing.

Actually, according to that very helpful link, it's not just on island, but all over the world, as apparently men running through rugged natural/urban environment toward beer and bonfires seems to be a somewhat universally attractive pastime.

It was started by British expatriates, of course, in Malaysia, sometime in the 1930s. They were tired of sitting around the dive bar known for its "hash" food, and decided it would be a good idea to try out an old British school yard game -- hounds and hares.

Now, 70 some-odd years later, people around the world -- or, it seems, mainly Western expatriates in far-flung locales that provide scenic places for their version of tribal ritual -- run an array of hashes, which seem specifically designed for the amount of misery and/or filth they can inflict on the runners.

Trails are marked by the hares ahead of time. And there are all these very specific rules for following the marked trail -- there are little dots in flour along the way, which might, but might not, take you the right direction. The guys who set the trail typically try and find all sorts of ways to get people off trail, like setting three marks up a huge hill, which you have to climb most of the way up before realizing the marks disappear at the top.

When you're on the right trail -- or think you are -- you shout "on on" to whoever is behind. When you're not on the right trail, you yell "on back." If you're lost there's another call out, but I can't remember it at this late hour.

Ostensibly the goal is to catch the hares -- or the trail setters -- who get a 10-minute head start, and have the advantage of knowing where the fuck they're going.

The real purpose, as the guys who brief all the newbies (called FNGs for Fucking New Guys/Gals) will tell you at the start of the hash trail, is to get to the beer at the end.

I don't buy this entirely -- because there are easier ways of getting to beer than setting round-about hash trails through thickets of sword grass, jungle ravines, rivers and waterfalls -- but it sounds good.

The real motivation behind hashing, like anything, seems to be its ritualistic protocols.

Hashers are known by creative handles, some earned during foibles in the wilderness -- like the guy tonight who ran wrapped in a McDonald's flag, only to have it surface before he did, creating a momentary incidence of self-inflicted waterboarding. I'm not sure what his eventual name will end up as, but I was rooting for McGitmo.

Other guys -- Tampon, Silent But Deadly, Menstrual -- seem to be the typical male-humor equivalents of Mary or Susan.

At the end of all hash trails, when you get there, there's a summary gathering of hashers, who indulge in a bevy of hedonistic rites. And, there is a lot of beer.

They call it religion -- which is funny, and also true.

After I crawled my way up the last miserable hill, wet, scraped and inappropriately out of breath from navigating a rocky stream bed for what seemed like forever, I made it the "on home" site. At the top of a flat ridge, overlooking the dark skyline, the mud-scarred travelers were already gathered around the fire, making jokes, yelling into the flames, and occasionally singing chants with incomprehensible but still clearly profane lyrics.

Before things really kicked off, however, the FNGs had to be initiated. They were pulled out of the circle, asked their name, what they thought of "this piece of shit trail" -- to which the correct reply was always something a long the lines of "it sucked ass", and then had to tell a joke, sing a song, or a show a body part.

And the body part, as we are all reminded at the beginning, couldn't be a joke.

Through a kind of hyperventilation loophole, I managed to wriggle my way out of participating in religion (for the second time) tonight.

Heidi wasn't so lucky, but she got out of flashing anything beyond her sports bra, and only had to tell half a joke before the punchline was spoiled.

I sat in the back, unnoticed, eating junk food and recovering.

Watching the men and women holding beers, reciting familiar chants on cue, whenever a new FNG approached the bonfire, I was reminded of all the religious rituals I've ever witnessed and not participated in.

It was like a backward Easter Sunday hike -- the prayers were different, but everyone knew the words.


(Also, no, those aren't my legs. They belong to my slightly more physically fit and narrow sister, but you get the idea.)