By Hannah Kim

``No risk of nasty niffs under the mistletoe," touted Holiday Inn. Believe it or not, the InterContinental Hotel Groups chain rolled out its Fresh Breath Menu to ``help single workmates increase their chances of stealing a quick festive kiss" this holiday season, while on the opposite hemisphere, Pyongyang's hotels are reportedly serving garlic juice and mugwort herbal tea ― to prevent the swine flu outbreak from becoming a deadly epidemic in the already impoverished country.

Though I'm still unsure whether I should laugh or cry, it's certain North Koreans haven't forgotten their roots. Dangun, the legendary founder of ancient Korea, was born from ― according to the creation myth ― a bear that metamorphosed into a beautiful woman after enduring unbearable ennui in a cave on a bundle of mugwort and 20 bulbs of garlic.

Mind you, garlic has been canonized as a panacea for many centuries in various cultures: Egyptians tucked some into King Tut's afterlife, Early Greek soldiers and Olympic athletes ate bulbs to build strength, and Europeans sought it during the Black Plague. Oh, and did I mention traditional Palestinian grooms used to ``wear a clove of garlic in his buttonhole to guarantee a happy wedding night?"

So could it be that North Korean health officials are connecting the dots between South Korea, garlic and immunity from the SARS outbreak? (No big shocker here that South Korea consumes more garlic per capita than any other country.)

Or are they desperately resorting to adopt former South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's policies for the treatment of the AIDS epidemic? (The member of the African National Congress emphasized the consumption of veggies such as garlic and beetroot to stave off dependency on antiretroviral drugs.) Dubbed Dr. Garlic or Beetroot by her critics, the 69-year-old died from liver disease last week and received more censure than eulogies for up to 365,000 premature deaths during her tenure from 1999-2008.

Juxtapose all this news to that of a farcical story of Italian Prime Minister's garlic-ban in Palazzo Chigi (the premier's palace). Widely known for his aversion to pungent smells, Silvio Berlusconi seems to have influenced other garlic-haters (and allies) such as Carlo Rossella, a prominent television executive, to launch a campaign against ``stinking garlic" in Italian cuisine in 2007 ― when South African AIDS victims were despairingly consuming it for their dear lives.

``So it goes ..." Vonnegut might say; just ``the way of the world," Congreve may add.

But as humanity stands ten days away from the juncture between an end and beginning of a new decade, indulge me whilst I gravely contemplate upon the irony of life ― through examining the lives of three men and a poem.

Published in a series of poems entitled ``Life and Death" are these immortalized words by the English literary critic and editor William Henley in the final stanza of ``Invictus": ``I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."

Composed during his confinement at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (from 1873-75), the poem embodies the invincible spirit of the author who at the age of 12 fell ill with tuberculosis and survived on an amputated leg. Henley remained so sure-footed despite his disability that Robert Louis Stevenson once said his larger-than-life presence ``could be felt in a room you entered blindfolded." Besides publishing notables, including Kipling, Wells and Yeats, Henley became the inspiration for Long John Silver in ``Treasure Island."

A century later on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela too was ``unbowed" during his 27 years of imprisonment in a tiny cell for fighting social infirmity. Assuming presidency in post-apartheid South Africa, Mandela magnanimously laid the groundwork to build reconciliation rather than retaliation, regardless of the past. He not only retained the Springbok national rugby team, but paved way for their championship in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. His graceful gesture to heal a nation torn by racism and remnants of irrevocable mistrust is what inspired the making of the Oscar-worthy film directed by Clint Eastwood, "Invictus," in which Mandela (Morgan Freeman) gifts the poem to the Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), before he leads the South African team into victory.

Interpreted in a defiant and starkly contrasting light, however, "Invictus" the poem was the final handwritten-statement of incarcerated felon Timothy McVeigh prior to his lethal injection in 2001. His Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 and wounded more than 680 (on April 19, 1995), yet instead of showing remorse, McVeigh is reported to have appeared ``unconquered." His murder rampage later inspired two Columbine High School senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, to gun down 12 peers plus one teacher while injuring 24 students at their school near Denver (on April 20, 1999). Eight years later, Cho Seung-hui mentioned ``martyrs like Eric and Dylan" before shooting 32 people and afflicting too many others at Virginia Tech (on April 16, 2007).

It's definitely not the usual rosy Christmas story I'm telling here, and is perhaps too depressing. But this past decade was fraught with too much terror, not to probe our differences, and question why it's so difficult to see that garlic, by any other name, (and however intolerable), is also a stinking rose.

Hannah Kim is a 2009 master's graduate from the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, specializing in legislative affairs. She spearheaded the passage of the ``Korean War Veterans Recognition Act, U.S. Public Law 111-41." She can be reached at hkim@remember727.org.