If you could have been born in Middle Earth...

[Mumriken]

Perhaps the city of Umbar, some time during the latter parts of Gondorian rule?

I bet that would be an exiting city, a melting pot of different cultures and peoples; a place where goods and services from all around Middle Earth would be readily available for a price; a place where there's a little something for everybody, be they into history, art, partying, war or adventuring; a place where there's nice sunny weather, beaches, good food and drink, good women, and a bit edgy too, certainly not a quiet and safe old folks retreat.

I'm quite sure Tolkien would have hated multi-cultarism.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mumriken

I'm quite sure Tolkien would have hated multi-cultarism.

You are probably right. He didn't like cults, and several cults would have been reprehensible to him.

[jallanite]

Despite Mumriken’s opinion, Tolkien’s attitude towards what would today be called multiculturalism seems to me to be supportive.

Read letter 53 in which Tolkien supports multiculturalim as opposed to what he calls “Americo-cosmopolitanism”. Tolkien also writes:

Col. Knox says ⅛ of the world’s population speaks ‘English’, and that is the biggest language group. If true, damn shame – say I.

In his lecture English and Welsh Tolkien summarizes what he calls “this legal oppression of the Welsh language″ which he deplores. Tolkien notes:

Governments – or far-seeing civil servants from Thomas Cromwell onwards – understand the matter of language well enough, for their purposes. Uniformity is naturally neater; it is also very much more manageable. A hundred-per-cent Englishman is easier for an English government to handle. It does not matter what he was, or what his fathers were. Such an Englishman is any man who speaks English natively, and has lost any effective tradition of a different and more independent past. For though cultural and other traditions may accompany a difference of language, they are chiefly maintained and preserved by language. Language is the prime differentiator of peoples –not of races–, whatever that much-misused word may mean in the long-blended history of western Europe.

The full paper is available at http://demo.ort.org.il/clickit2/file.../948358249.pdf .

[crescendo.]

After giving this some thought I would probably be an elf and live in Ithilian. Seeing as the elven colonies were beginning to fall after the destruction of the ring and by the time Galadriel left the leaves of the beautiful Lorien began to fall, I would start in Ithilian to mingle the remaining Elves among men. But if it's before the war, I'd be an elf in Lorien. A handmaiden to Galadriel.

[Nogrod]

I will have to echo Skip here... Umbar, or maybe Dol Amroth. They bring to my imagination places like ancient Alexandria or Rome even. Minas Tirith might be an option but it feels too rigid and "nationalistic" (yes, a bad term but I hope you get what I mean), and clearly too far from the Sea.

Bilbo said you should be careful with the road you take as it might take you anywhere - but with sea it is even a more awesome idea. One has to live by the sea to feel the world is open.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I will have to echo Skip here... Umbar, or maybe Dol Amroth. They bring to my imagination places like ancient Alexandria or Rome even. Minas Tirith might be an option but it feels too rigid and "nationalistic" (yes, a bad term but I hope you get what I mean), and clearly too far from the Sea.

In the good name of Ulmo, if Minas Tirith is "clearly too far from Sea" for you, I shudder what you would say about Rivendell...

Though I concur with the idea of the Sea. I always considered Hithlum to be a pretty nice place, but the best thing related to it is Cirith Ninniach - and here comes the Sea. Then again, it was generally rather a bleak place otherwise - most of all, no people. I think I could otherwise do without the Sea, and just stay in some place like Rivendell/Lórien (even Rhosgobel)... maybe the White Towers would be actually good, if one can see the Sea from there, but still be quite close to the calm and safe hills and valleys of the Shire (I would not like to live in the Shire itself, too "civilized" for me, but in some deep forest on the edge of the Shire, happily - to stalk Hobbits, sort of behave like the Elves who pass through; therefore the White Towers sounds like a good place). Shores of Lake Rhun (especially if there really is this forest by its north-eastern edge) also sound nice.

I think the problem with the Sea in Middle-Earth is that generally all the locations by the Sea are somewhat lacking in other aspects. Like, there usually isn't anything else except for the Sea. For example, Grey Havens would fulfil some good criteria for me (Elves, Sea), but it sounds like a grey and depressing place otherwise, so... With places like Umbar I would have the issue that, if I ever decided to leave our world and move to Middle-Earth, I would do so for the reason of getting away from our overcrowded, commerce-inflated cities, and going to Umbar of all places certainly wouldn't help it. No, if I moved to Middle-Earth, it would be away from civilization: no Gondor, no Númenor, no early Arnor, no big cities, especially not human ones.