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Question: What do you do if...
· you feel like a run but you don’t
want to run alone, and your only friend who's also into running runs marathons
in 2 1/2 hours and you don’t
or..
· you think running your ordinary 3-mile
loop is exceedingly boring,
or..
· you’ve just arrived in New Delhi,
you don’t know a soul but you feel like a run and you want to meet people?
Answer: You go Hashing
anders
The History
So what exactly is Hashing? In spite of the somewhat
suspicious sounding name it has nothing to do with the narcotic drug made
from hemp. Instead the name traces its origin to the English slang term
"hash house" meaning "bad restaurant". The story of Hashing started in
1938 in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. A group of English expats
led by a man called Gisbert started feeling bored and decided to do something
about it. Being English they knew about the games "Paper Chase" and "Hare
and Hounds" and decided to do something similar. This group of expats used
to eat lunch together every day at a restaurant called The Selangor Club,
jokingly referred to as "the hash house" so it was only natural to call
their newly started club "The Hash House Harriers". (A harrier being a
dog used for hunting hares.) The club managed 107 runs before everything
ground to a halt by the Japanese invasion. It wasn’t until 1946 the club
was able to reunite, sadly without the founder of the club. A.S. Gispert
didn’t live to see his creation spread to most countries on earth on all
continents including The Antarctic. He was killed in action on Feb. 11th
1942 in the battle of Singapore.
Progress
To start off with, The Hash House Harriers
could be found only in Kuala Lumpur. It wasn’t until 24 years later, in
1962 the next branch opened in Singapore. After that another five years
passed before the first non-Asian Hash started in Perth in Western Australia
in 1967. In 1974 there were about 35 Hash Houses around the world but after
that the hashing scene really took off. In 1992 there were more than 1100
branches in over 135 countries, not counting the Vimmerby HHH founded in
1991.
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