Blame it on its immersive 3D-ness or maybe the soft spot I’ve had in my heart for blue chicks ever since Smurfette.  The injustices of the indigenous aliens  in the film was so obvious to me. Yeah, I would hijack a helicopter, ride a dragon-thingy and put my own life at risk to fight for what I believed in.

Or would I?

The American-inspired Malaysian flag coupled with Sarawak, one of the two states of East Malaysia, outside a courthouse.

Soon after walking out of the theater in Kuala Lumpur, I booked a flight to Borneo, the third largest island in the world and split up between Indonesia, that crazy rich dude of Brunei and Malaysia. Y’see, in Sarawak the same blatant inequalities of Avatar are happening; that is, the oldest rainforest on our blue planet is getting demolished by money-blind corporations and destroying the homes of indigenous people who thrive on the land. Slap ‘em blue and pin a tail on the Iban people and you’ll get a true 3-dimensional experience of Avatar‘s Nav’i. Whatever the reason, I found myself feeling that I, like the film’s protagonist, was a world-apart from problems like this, even on my own planet.

Yes, life ain’t the movies. But it isn’t acceptance of the world’s misery that leads me away from activism; it’s detachment.

So I ask you to crank up your imagination one more time. Put on the glasses, hook in, wear it, breathe it and live it.

This is your world:

Nicholas Mujah and his beat up Isuzu Trooper.

The Trooper

You are five-foot-three, but you are a giant to your people. You haven’t slept in three days. You’re driving to Sri Aman, a market town in south central Sarawak and you’re tired. But you’ll never admit it. How can you? There are people that are worse off and need your help. Your people. You must be strong. Your Isuzu Trooper rattles and shows all the signs of its 30-plus years and turns into a gas station. You’re halfway there; there’s two more hours of driving until Sri Aman — and countless hours of paperwork waiting for you.

You’re 100% Iban, the warring tribe who once ruled Sarawak, and you’re proud of that fact but those days are over. You tell the gas attendant in Iban to fill up the tank, handing over 50 Malaysian ringgits. You got enough cash in your wallet, thanks to your wife who runs a retail store. You might be the president of SADIA (Sarawak Dayak Iban Association) and lead a staff of five people and have the help of a few lawyers but you’re a volunteer.

Mujah is covering 210 cases of Ibans fighting for their rights.

You stare into the distance and wonder how the widow is holding up; one of the villagers from this Sri Aman case who had their land demolished. You can’t help but be haunted by her grief-stricken face that she continues to wear ever since she came back home to find her rubber plantation wiped out, her means of survival gone. You tell yourself that you should be used to it by now but every time you get to the scene of a crime, the freshly chainsawed trees and bulldozered homes, you still have to fight: Fight the tears, fight the emotions, fight the hopelessness of it all.

500 villages. 15,000 Iban. And the complaints keep coming in. Villagers making their way to your office, calling…And the cries of help aren’t all you hear. You get the rare death threat.

You open the door of the Trooper, remembering how this junk car saved your life.  It was late at night and you were on your way home. You joke that the car is more recognizable than you across Sarawak in Iban communities. Nobody can drive this car and get it going. But you couldn’t drive ahead when those gangsters pulled you over. You were behind the wheel powerless. It was only a matter of luck that local Ibans saw the trooper and knew what was happening, grabbing a crowbar and saving your life. You’re the driving force, but the people help you in return. You can’t let them down.

It looks like it’s going to rain. You turn the key in the ignition and the car wheezes and stutters. Nothing.

But there are limitations. You’re 50. You have a law degree but you can’t practice and never step foot in a courtroom. You prepare affidavits and debrief witnesses. The police harass them daily to move from their land. They’re scared. You understand this. You were more than worried when the local cops jailed you up for two weeks without legal reason. You don’t want to blame the government; it’s the corporations. But your people are unprotected. Nobody is saving them. How do you fight all that power and money?

The Iban waiting for justice outside a courtroom.

You turn the key again and your car goes into seizures. Nothing. Again.

Population-wise, the Iban are the majority. This is a war. They’re scared and the companies count on that. The only way to get defend your land is to sue them, but cases, with all the appeals, is a lengthy process. On average it takes six years. In the meantime, your people are homeless and lost. People who don’t have the luxuries of citylife and are content with basic means of survival. To take that away is downright inhumane.

You close your eyes. You turn the key again and the car finally starts up with a cough, as if the trooper was fueled on hope alone.

Village chief Augustine Akuli.

The Headhunter

You’re Augustine Akuli and 68 years old. And you have to start from scratch. You are Tuai Rumah, or village chief, but that means nothing if there’s no village. You have spent the past 30 years cultivating 20 acres of rubber. The rainforest is considered a preserved area owned by the government. But who did all the preserving? You, the Iban, took care of the land.  And it was yours, with a specific land title to prove it. But one day Indonesian immigrant workers came with chainsaws and severed our way of life.

What happened to Pulau Galau? In Iban it means the islet of forest, the land promised by the government. And it’s all forgotten.

The indisputable evidence: the land title of the Iban in Sri Aman.

Sure, they offer to pay 500 ringgits per acre — and it’s a lot of money. But what about your children and your children’s children? In total four generations are uprooted by this. Loggers used to compensate but not anymore. You hear stories. Payment isn’t guaranteed.

Playing ball: The crowd that hopes for compensation and has already given up hope.

You’re frustrated and you find comfort in anger. Anything, as long as it doesn’t dip into despair. You’re outside of the courtroom, a familiar place as your case has been going for several years. As usual, there are two groups collected outside the courtrooms: the defeated ones that are hopeful for at least some money in return and the ones who will fight against all odds to reclaim your right.

What can you do? The rubber plantation is replaced with corporate palm oil trees, guarded by ex-cop and ex-military men. You can’t work there. Getting paid 10-15 ringgits a day? It’s work for the immigrant workers. You can barely survive on that; you live in Malaysia where 10 kilos of the cheapest rice costs 24 ringgits in the supermarket. You must fight.

You smile at the notion of going back to headhunting. Your forefathers were a feared group who partake in a long-forgotten practice of bringing back the heads of your enemies as trophies. No, some traditions are lost for a reason. But you wouldn’t imagine that you would have to continue to hunt, to hunt for something you didn’t think you had to: a land of your own.

The Writer

You’re a journalist. But not anymore. You decided after a 12-month tour through Asia that you’re done with it. You were honest with yourself: You wanted fame; you wanted the world to know you and, instead, you got something better: you got to know the world. You’re done writing. But you have one last story to tell — and this time it’s not about the money, it’s not about the byline, it’s about a belief.  You find an untold story that needs to be told. And you spend time with the Iban and you scribble hard in your notebook like your pen is running out of ink.

And you can’t help but have the journalist-part of you flood with questions, but this time they’re all directed at yourself.

You stand in the fire and keep asking yourself, “What can I do? What can I do? What the Hell can I do?”

———————————————————————————————–

And now it’s time. Time to click a new web link, time to turn the page — time to detach.

I know, it's been almost a month since we've updated. However, Tiff's operation to remove her double chin has been a success, after stretching out with a long-necked Padong villager. For the past month we've been hitting up villages in Laos and Northern Thailand.

The picturesque town of Vang Vieng is overrun with cafes full of drugged and drunk tourists watching Family Guy episodes next to bars blasting club music. The place has sold its soul. Some facts: Buddhists believe Hell is located on the opposite side of Bodhgaya, where Buddha got all enlightened; maps show that place to be the U.S. The Chinese word for Westerners? White devil. All I'm sayin'...

I liked that the village school children had easy-to-remember monosyllabic names. There's no PlayStation, but they all loved playing this sandal-throwing game. We find that the easiest way to get welcomed into a village is through the kids. They're always the friendliest, versus the paranoid adults.

We noticed that a lot of the older women in villages tend to wear just their bras as a top. (Yes, like that Seinfeld episode). You won't see this on any National Geographic covers.

It's relatively easy to smoke opium in Laos. Gotta love the Golden Triangle. Regardless of what our blog's slogan says, we did not chase the dragon. Happy pizza in Cambodia and Special Lassi in India was fine enough. I'm over it.

But I'm not over the southeast asian food. Me trying to eat my breakfast in peace. Three countries in a month is a lot and it was nice to not have to learn too many new phrases to speak Lao, since it's kind of like hillbilly Thai.

We stayed away from the commercialization of villages and avoided tours and visited 'em ourselves to avoid the zoo-like atmosphere. Villagers feel weird about it; you feel weird about it. It's plain weird -- and lazy. Everybody goes to the same places to do this (Mnong Noi in Laos and Chiang Mai in Thailand) and turns a village into a touristy gift shop.

80% of the people in Laos live in villages. Anyway, when my brother visited, he left us a few glowsticks. I liked to hand 'em out to the locals and pretend to be a powerful wizard. Then I would cast a spell while showing them my rave moves.

Swigging on the potent fermented rice wine of Lao Lao, their unofficial drink, made for a fun bike ride home. Moments before this, Tiff had to show a kid how to eat a Mentos by putting it in his mouth for him. Adorable.

After Laos, we hit up Fang, just minutes away from Burma. There about 10 major hilltribes up in Northern Thailand; this one is Lahu village. Tiff gave out durian-flavored candy to the little 'uns. I think only village children would appreciate these awful smelling sweets.

"You need to patiently wait for the oldest member to buy, then the rest will follow," says Raj, a Sikh, Punjabi Thai resident, while making some fabric sales to the Lahu, who are preparing for their Black Moon festival, when they dance in the pitch dark and worship the spirits.

We slept in this dinky hut with Jackit (pictured here) and his wife and sister, who looove beetlenut and now have brightly stained red lips. (We thought our guide dropped us off in a village of cannibals). It was surreal sleeping with the family in that cold, cold tiny bamboo hut. Photo taken around four in the freezing morning. I love fire.

Jackit escorted us through the mountains to another village. This was one of the best experiences: Trekking from one village to another with a Lahu farmer, carrying a customary huge knife, who we couldn't communicate with.

We attended a wedding at a Karen village (originally Tibetan, who left Burma and are now Christian converts), but a day early. The bride and groom were elsewhere. Oh well. We came bearing gifts (locally-made pillows as gifts) anyway. The people here were incredibly kind-hearted and contagiously happy.

We stayed with "Walker," an eccentric Thai, who treated us like family when we told him that we, too, meditated. When I asked him about the rumor about monks being able to leave their bodies and fly around the world, he replied, "My friend who's in the air force saw a monk once sitting on a cloud over Chiang Mai." And another story about him being visited by one. He's trying to start a donation-based tourist guide service. Tiff (the designer) and I (the writer) created a professional-looking brochure to help him get started. We also made one with our hilltribe guide Amara, one of the nicest and friendliest guesthouse owners in the country.

After all that sleeping on floor, Discovery Channel crap, we made our way south toward Malaysia and stopped over at the resorty Phi Phi (pronounced, heh, "pee pee") island during V-day. Few words: Perfect sand, bluest waters, pricey, lots of topless sunbathing and fake boobs. Those damn Europeans...

In total, we spent about two months in Thailand. Here are some crazy Chinamen performing in Hat Yai, near the Malaysian border. We're now in Kuala Lumpur (about 58% Malay, 28% Chinese, 8% Indian) to celebrate Chinese New Years properly.

We don’t do this often but here’s some promotional crap.

If you’re planning a trip to Northern Thailand, skip Chiang Mai and head to Fang.  Look for Amara to visit the hilltribe groups; quite possibly one of the few ways to visit with a clear conscience — she’s been friends with many of the nearby villagers for 20 years and she treats them like people, not like a museum exhibit. Tell the cab driver Fang Garden Guesthouse (about 12 km south of the bus station) or call Amara at 053-346-220. Be sure to hire Walker to add to your local experience; you pay for your own food (bought cheap at the market), for fuel and the rest is donation-based so the dude can eat. Here’s his address:

295 Moo 11, Nongyao Village, Soi Wat Sanpahak, Chotana Rd, Maesoon, Fang, Chiang Mai.

This is a better alternative than whatever your damn Lonely Planet guidebook tells you. Trust me.

Afterward, Tiff’s explanation in sign-language that her boyfriend was mentally unstable and my pride-choking apology squeezed out just enough sympathy out of one stubborn guard to let us finally leave. No, I haven’t been meditating.

Riding with the daredevil motorcyclists. And those helmets never fit me right.

And all things considered, our first impressions since entering the Vietnam through the south, admist the rice paddies and Mekong Delta, have been pretty much spot on; the promise we heard from the “me love you long time” warm welcome lasted throughout our two-week visit.

Note the boat tugging the house in the background. How the agoraphobics travel in Vietnam.

But we both feel like Vietnam could pass for a southern province of China. You’re hit with similar smells, that die hard spirit, exotic landscape, spices in food, mannerisms and, oh, the yelling. Throughout our travels, we have never been helped so freakin’ aggressively, without being dished a bill afterward. It was strange; charlies jumping out of nowhere, yelling at us “come here,” wanting to honestly help. Or maybe we’re just jaded as Hell.

We have gotten to the point that any assistance we get from strangers is unexpected. But I think anybody would be put off and suspicious of somebody that screams at you, angrily giving you not a helping hand, but more like a helping fist. There were so many instances when this happened and I wouldn’t be surprised if their Vietnamese barking translated into this:

“No wonder you’re so skinny; you’re too stupid to eat! You wrap the spring roll in the lettuce first. Let me show you, dummy.”

“Put your stupid bag over here. It’s going to rain, even that handicapped man on the street corner knows this.”

“Your mother is a whore; by the way, the bus station that you’ve been looking for, for the past 30 minutes and in the rain, is one block north”

It truly is amazing how much they cart around with a single bike.

Plus, we started meeting other American tourists in larger packs for the first time. After touring through Asia for the past almost-9 months, Tiff and I have a theory on travelers here. Asian lands are visited by more tourists from a country that has direct relationship with it, let it be business-related, historical, a bloody war, watching Apocolypse Now… I’d like to chalk it up to our horrible grasp on geography; it’s difficult to visit places that we don’t know exist. (Seriously, point to Laos on the map.)

Bravely keeping watch, without a full metal jacket.

And we had a great time discovering the south. After hitting up touristy spots in Cambodia (it’s difficult to leave the beaten path in a landmined country), it was refreshing to go off on our own and feel like explorers again. Whenever I see a string of internet cafes, pizza parlors, aussie bars and french cafes, I feel like I’m wasting my damn time. On occasions, we have difficulty finding local cuisine, which to me is sad.

Enjoying the de-lish street food.

We hit up a small village town, where a lady wanted to marry Tiff off to a toothless 30-year-old, and privately chartered a boat while I sampled different wines that all tasted the same; let it be made of banana, coconut or cobra. I think we can safely say that we are well-seasoned travelers at this point and can find our way through or to anywhere.

When it rains, I magically transform into a fairy. Man, I look ridiculous; I'm throwing that thing away.

But the weather became a downer when we moved up north and it also rained whities, becoming more and more riddled with foreigners. But we still managed to have a great time. I didn’t get to test my new motorcycling abilities (I learned how to drive manual in Cambodia) in the jampacked two-wheeler city of Hanoi, but walking through it was enough. Plus, driving was out of the question when the city was drowning in 2,000-Dong (10-cent) homemade bia hoi, or homemade fresh beer.

"Crap, where'd I park it again?"

And for the first time on our travels, we went on a tour! Being on a penny-pinching budget and my newly developed antisocial behavior with Westerners tend to prevent this from ever happening, but it was the cheapest way to see Halong Bay, a must-see destination. To our surprise we had a blast. Our room on the boat was fit for a captain, the other travelers were worthy as Facebook friend add-ons and the landscape rivaled the picturesque Li River and karst scenery of Yangshuo.

We kept an eye out for Halong Bay's Tarasque, or the Vietnamese Loch Ness monster.

"Get off my lawn."

Enchanting.

In our last 5 days, we spent about 70+ hours on the bus and we’re going to keep up the pace through Laos.

Anyway, I’ll finish off with a picture of Tiff’s innovative solution to the neck-breaking, head-bobbling that happens while trying to sleep on a bus: tying her head to the seat like she’s a mental patient on suicide watch. My approach? Lots and lots of vodka shots with locals and drunkenly passing out. To each their own.

T-Dawg representin' at Angkor Wat.

Every traveler we have met along the road had these lovely words to say about Cambodia: “Just go to Siem Reap, see Angkor Wat, then leave.”  And we we thought they were a bit harsh; there’s got to be more to the entire country of Cambodia. Right?

…right?

What you can't see: Ugly construction infront for Angkor Wat's facelift and our own tired, droopy faces from waking up for the lamest sunrise.

My Shorty sidekick having an Indiana-Jones-moment.

This is what we knew of the country before entering:

1) U.S. fed Cambodia all the mine-leftovers during the Vietnam War.  Most of the country is still armed and dangerous — and everybody warns, “Do not walk on any unbeaten path, even to take a whiz on the side of the road.”  (In other words, if it was a game of minesweeper, there would be “1″s all over the damn place. I followed the advice and kept all my body parts intact; I have no thoughts of running, or limping, for Miss Landmine.

2) Some crazy loon by the name of Pol Pot killed like 1/4 of the population 35 years ago. (What’s more of a travesty? We watched Killing Fields in Cambodia. We both think it was over-rated, horrendously directed and has probably the worst movie music.)

3) That it’s the new hunting grounds for disgusting pedophiles, as seen in that Dateline episode that came out awhile back. (Tiff kept the nationwide Child Safety Protection phone number on-hand, to save a child and to save me from commiting homicide.)

And we left the Land of Smiles and Carebears and Gumdrops for this depressing land? We crossed the land border and spoke with a local that spoke English, asking him how one says “hello” in Cambodian?

“Su-ah-sa-dai.”

“Did you just say say, ‘Suicide-Die?’”

Two curious things: 1) My weird-rabbit-face and 2) the inappropriate hip-touching by the other officer.

Speaking of land border crossings, we actually had to cross into Cambodia twice — once to extend our Thai visa. The first time I had to bargain for the price of the visa and had a hissy fit with an Army Major because he was making us stay for a day and spend some money, which he had no authority to. Only until we realized that we hurt his national pride did he let us go.

“I thought you did not like my country and that’s why you just use us to go back to Thailand.”

“Noooooo,” we cooed, “we are coming back later. We’re going to return and spend 30 days here and lots and lots of money.”

And I think that’s how I will remember Cambodia: As the forgotten middle child of Southeast Asia.

The not-so-forgotten faces of the Bayon Temple.

The country was as confused as we were at times. Temples of Angkor depicted Buddhist and Hindu images and sculptures, while our wallet held three types of currencies (Thai baht, Cambodian riel and American dollars) which were all accepted. The people were friendly and surprisingly innocent. Some favorite moments:

When we gave some cheese to Guan, a cute 12-year-old girl who was selling bracelets at one of the Angkor temples, to try for the first time. “You eat this with bread, right?” she said like a smart cookie, after showing us where she hid when the corrupt cops came looking for more bribe money to sell goods at the temples. (She pays $30 a month to the police.)

Also, we enjoyed watching a group of villagers begin their first trip on an escalator inside a Phnom Penh shopping mall, afraid of being eaten alive.

An impromptu performance of Cirque de Soleil's "O."

And in the southern beaches, I had fun with four free-spirited young dudes, who called for me to join in with them and splash and play like kids in the ocean.  These guys are so damn acrobatic. I tried my best to learn to do a backflip while launching off Rien’s shoulders, while Nok made it look effortless.

Young 'uns playing at crocodile stone.

Or just hanging out with some of the poor village kids, who shared a beach with a mutli-million dollar resort, as if life was trying to teach them a hard lesson early on.

We only spent a little over a week in Cambodia. Near the end of it, we both caught a belly bug — but I really wish the food quality was the only thing that made me sick to my stomach: Twice we ran into kid prositutes. When I realized that a 5-year-old girl (in lipstick and a short skirt) wasn’t just being playfully cute but actually making a pass at me; the unexpected happened: A child took away some of this grown man’s innocence.

We find that traveling has really taught us the difference between knowing and experiencing. For me, I feel like only when the injustices of the world are more tangible, does my world slowly peel away into something more real.

Walking past the photographed victims from Tuol Sleng S21 Prison, a high-school turned infamous torture camp turned museum, and stepping through blood-stained rooms filled with unspeakable devices.

It didn’t help that our morbid fascination had us digging up facts and stories on the Khmer Rouge genocide (Tiff really dove into the historical aspect while I read a memoir), making our Cambodian visit, at times, as depressing as we predicted.

I guess nothing can really prepare you from the ugly parts of humanity.

Tiff acting like monk-paparazzi paid off gloriously.

So we learned a lot of their horrible past and present (plus good bits), but at least we left knowing that it was a bit rash to sum up Cambodia with a snapshot of Angkor Wat. There’s definetly more to say — left undiscovered by us– that can’t fit on a postcard.

In two days we cross the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

So Christmas and New Years made a lasting impression for us; my dear brother decided to fly and tag along. My bro Brian in a nutshell: Fun-loving, honest, nice and funny as Hell.

A welcomed third wheel at this point of our almost-9-month adventure.

Where did we go? I’ve decided that I won’t go into details on the remote islands/beaches that we end up exploring because 1) the locals aren’t that short on business and 2) I can’t stand Western foreigners at this point.  Besides, finding your own piece of paradise is half the fun.

Heaven shining above Tiff, Brian and some Buddhist shrine in a cave.

We had originally planned to hit up the Full Moon beach party in Ko Phangnan. However, when we discovered that it was not just a full moon, but a blue moon (the yearly event when there’s a 2nd full moon in a month) AND on New Year’s Eve, we decided to stay clear of it — and every friggin’ tourist and their mom visiting the country. We decided to hit up the more remote spots and the places the locals spent their holidays. And it paid off.

Getting hang-time at an undisclosed island...

We walked on the finest white sands that crunched underneath like deep snow and avoided the tsunami of whities. Except for the damn Germans… Tiff was quick to note the strange relationship with Germany and Thailand. Thailand has been their Hawaii for quite some time now and the two are in bed business-wise. The two cultures couldn’t be more different though. Thailand, known as the Land of Smiles, is filled with some of the kind-heartest people and Germans are, well, not known for their over-welcoming charms. Playing my part as the blunty-rude American, I mentioned after my own warm “hello” and flashy grin to some defensive Krauts: “Y’know how I could tell you were Germans? Because Germans don’t smile.”

Germans aren’t known to simper. Fact. But, yes, I’m more of a dickhead Yank than I realized. Whatever.

Our gluttonous Christmas dinner.

We hit up this one hotel called Brassiere beach — overlooking a pair of small islands nicknamed “booby islands.” And with the help of my employed brother, we rented out a double-D-large-villa room, which was a welcomed change of pace from our bug-infested budget accommodations. For Christmas dinner, our ladyboy hosts, who I believe had well-mascaraed-eyes for my brother, decided to torture us with a whale-mouthful of a seafood feast. We miraculously and quite painfully finished everything –I don’t even want to look at another crab. But it was nice to stuff our now-skinny-asses and try to get bon-bui (fat).

.

Roughing it on the smooth sands of a beautiful beach.

We spent New Years on an island surrounded by the clearest and bright-bluest waters, which had to be filled with electrolytes or some shit because I’ve only seen that remarkable shade of blue in Powerade. And we went snorkeling — when we weren’t busy drowning ourselves with local Samsong Rum and cheap Chang beer — and felt like we had plunged into an aquarium.

Some subterranean brotherly love.

Tiffany rode on a whale. Brian made out with a mermaid, only to discover it was a merman sporting a seashell bra. I found Nemo — and contemplated on spearfishing it. All in all, it was magical.

Photo courtesy of high school teacher Ferdinand, a German that redeems his countrymen.

My Little Mermaid. Sing! Sing! Sing!!!

And we partied it up. I’ll spare you the pictures of the aftermath of the New Years Eve party on this small island (i.e. me running into the ocean in my underwear) but I’ll just say we had a great time. And the local bucket is a ting-tong-lethal concoction:  coke, M150 (like Red Bull but laced also with a form of amphetamines illegal in most countries) and enough rum to tickle your gag reflex afterward. My brother blacked out some time after we played with the fireworks and before deciding to spar muay thai with an aggressive local.

Kids, this is your brain on bucket.

The highlights of the evening were when locals kept rambling on in broken-English (sidenote: their extra-nasalized language makes Thai people sound like coneheads when they speak English sometimes) to my brother, who would drunkenly remark aside, “I have no fuckin’ idea what he’s saying to me” and then conclusively respond with a yell out “shodee-kap!!!” (cheers) to the slurring Thai. He’s never at a loss for words; I’ll give him that.

So I exclaim the same to the rest of you entering the new year: shodee-kap!

Party-time? Excellent.

Before I begin gushing about our fantastic island getaway, I do need to finish talking about India. So here’s a huge post covering, not one but two countries. Merry Christmas.

People keep reminding us that India is a country of extremes and it really is difficult to explain our experience.  Or as one local shopkeeper said, “This country doesn’t function. The day it functions, I will leave because it will no longer be India.”

Holding hands while wearing a "Straight" shirt? Talk about sending mixed signals.

I had lived in a country whose population of deities rivalled the numbers of its people, so that, in unconscious revolt against the claustrophobic throng of deities, my family had espoused the ethics of business, not faith.
- Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children

Tiff and I have had numerous debates about India and its “spirituality.” How can a country who has so much blind faith that one bathes in the Holy Ganga, a river so disgusting that locals joke that bacteria doesn’t even want to live in it, waters with such high fecal contamination that it should be the Goddess of the Runs. And yet when the sun sets, the holy city of Varanasi is overrun by gangsters.  (Although not an inconvenient place to die; there are almost 200 funeral cremations performed a day there.)

An easier stroll during the day, without the million mosquitoes.

I think we have a difficult time remembering the good times. I try to recall our stroll along the river and this is the first thing that pops up: Tiff and I having a relaxing conversation and enjoying the peaceful waters, sitting on the stairs. Watching an Indian man walking toward us, as he approaches he climbs two flights of stairs to get in striking distance so he can lay a finger across Tiff’s knee while he passes. (Never successfully.) And this happens a lot. (We met a young Israeli girl that lives in Goa, who carries around stick for this.)

A picture of inside a train station. And a really lost cow.

But with some extra effort, I remember us walking, watching a casual game of cricket being played near rubble — and smiling because they were having fun, not trying to win (similarly, I like Bollywood dancing the best: they don’t do it to look cool, they move their body out of true joy) ; I remember us, sitting on the steps and talking with a Hindi-speakin’ Indian woman who lives in Vancouver and venting together about some of the bullshit of India. (A fantastic ploy rickshaw drivers use: when you ask how much you owe them, they say, “as you like,” and work on your guilt. Brilliant.)

…no people whose word for ‘yesterday’ is the same as their word for ‘tomorrow’ can be said to have a firm grip on the time.
- Midnight Children

Surprisingly all our trains, which run notoriously late in India, arrived and departed on schedule. (Except for the last leg into Kolkata, its arrival was delayed for about 8 hours.) I loved riding the trains in India; lying on my bunk bed and just watching everybody walk past, the food vendors, snake charmers, the eunuchs… it’s better than TV.

"Jumpin' Jiggawatts! Take me back to the future, cabbie."

We didn’t stay in Kolkata very long (I watched City of Joy), but we did roam the streets long enough to get a quick taste of the only city that still allows human rickshaws.  I feel bad enough when rickshaw cyclists pull our collective fat ass around, but I don’t understand how anybody can employ a human rickshaw. This is like getting somebody to piggyback ride you from place to place and it’s at the same pace as if you were walking your own shamefully lazy self. Backwards? Yes. India? Totally. We walked away (on our own two feet) from the country happy to leave, with just the easy-to-remember horrible moments but when I think about it now, I would want to return again in my lifetime to explore the south — and I loved some of our experiences, which could have only taken place, well, in India.

Our food paranoia in India made us look fantastic in swimwear.

But Thailand is the easiest freakin’ traveling. I feel like we’re traveling in Europe by the number of Europeans we meet versus local Thais. However! We did meet up with one of Tiff’s friends, who lives in Bangkok and, only upon further questioning, is a direct descendent from the King of Siam (y’know from The King and I). We picked his brain as he drove us around, while matter-of-factly pointing out statues (“Oh, that’s my grandfather.”) around the Grand Palace. My number one question: “Have you ever made a mistake at a club — because its dark — and found out that you wer—”

“No, never. But all of my friends have once. Me, never.”

I always knew about the accepted third gender, or ladyboys, in Thailand but I was surprised by how many I (non-sexually) bumped into. And Tiff’s friend had a well-trained eye. Tiff and I have a difficult time identifying them sometimes, but, man, this dude… literally seconds pass as he checks the rearview mirror, as three girls cross the street at night. Then, “The one in the middle is a ladyboy.” Us: “Nooooo waaay.” Him: “You don’t understand. I can not make a mistake in the club.” Then admitance: “OK, one time I was fooled but it didn’t matter because she was a celebrity and I recognized her afterward.”

Our humble home for three weeks.

For about 22 days we have been at the relatively remote beach on Ko Chang island. It was great to just relax, meditate, read and talk to people that we would see again the next day.

Deadend Seafood Restaurant. Fantastic garlic shrimp.

We met so many interesting people, including a South African who worked for a secret society in Texas, incorporated by rich oil men, country singers and politicians (Bush attended the year before) who just eat tons of steaks, rough it in the wild, and drink for an entire week. It takes two years as a maverick (sorry, invite only) to officially join, in which they can’t refuse a drink from any other member; And a Canadian who was a prime-time host on CBC, living the highlife and dropped everything; And sisters from the Bay Area, who replied, after Tiff mentioned SF was her hometown, with “I got a big San-Fransisco-vibe from you,” a response that couldn’t be more San Franciscan. And so on…

Pen and I playing with our food.

But I enjoyed my time with the staff the most, especially this moody 17-year-old named Pen. After a few weeks, we slowly became friends, when I asked him if he could teach me how to fish. So many nights at 1am, we walked the shallow waters and he taught me.

Actually, Pen caught that.

Now I know how to spearfish, net and gut everything from fish and squids to stingrays and barracudas. Plus, I learned how to catch prawns with my barehands (then eating them alive) and to properly kill a fish with your fingers. Then we would eat our catchings the night afterward. (Stingrays are freakin’ delicious.) In other words, I became an island boy.

Tiff posing with a dead squid. Absolutely heartless.

And then Tiff made it look easy by outdoing us and all my nightly efforts when she just stumbled on to a dying, humongo, beached squid. She killed it with her mind. One of my favorite nights was when Tiff (finally) decided to accompany us two on a black moon (no moonlight). The water around us brightly lit up from the plankton as we walked in the ocean. Pen and I cast a net all-manly-like, while Tiff danced around pretending to be a fairy. However, no amount of magic dust could get this girl to accurately spear a fish. Seriously, please take a look at Exhibit A and don’t worry: No animals were harmed in the making of this film; thanks to Tiff’s constant missing.

And that fish was handicapped. Y’see, Pen would take the fish off the net, which was now crippled, and let Tiff go after them since they were too slow to escape back into the sea. Too sporting? I say “shush” to the fish-empathizing members of my audience.  We ate it. Besides, even the Dalai Lama eats meat. Give it a rest.

The epic last supper at the Treehouse.

Pen’s bro Tae, a hardworking 22-year-old, was a sweetheart and bought tons of food for our last dinner there. He spent thousands (the kid only makes 7,000 baht a month) in preparing for it and it was one of the sweetest gestures we have received on our travels. And it was worth the, uh, horrible food poisoning I had afterward. Anyway, Tiff and I would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas! So here:

Next up: Long Beach in Ko Chang. Thank you, Google Image.

I got no pictures for you. I’m tired; don’t be so needy.

So the 10-day meditation retreat was un-freakin’-believable. On a personal note, I’ve never felt more mentally healthy in my life. And I was pretty mental. For those who are close to me know that I’ve been struggling with bipolar –or whatever-the-hell these psychobabblers tell me I got–for a long time; after years of therapy and enough medication to kill a small horse, nothing ever did the trick. Psychology and western medicine is how old? Yeah, there’s a reason why this meditation hippy-shit has lasted for 25 centuries. So James got all spiritual and found God in India.

Anyway, this stuff doesn’t really fall into the purpose of this blog. This is about my travels; plus, I always hated bible-thumpers.

The camp was like part spiritual summer camp and part prison. The males and females were separated and we were to have no contact with our fellow inmates. Plus, many of the participants were 18-20 year-olds, who belonged to this summer “self-confidence camp” thing. Keeping to myself was the easiest part of it; however, I did break the rule three times during my stay there:

1) When I had to ask the only other foreigner at the retreat for toilet paper. Indians wipe their ass with their left hand and water. Great for the environment, but seriously, screw the Earth; I want to wipe my butt. The TP-handoff felt like we were doing a drug trade in the prison yard. Later, I created a shiv out of a small Buddhist statue.

2) When the damn 18, 19, 20 year olds got into my room and ransacked my bag. I feel like the young men in India are waaay more immature than some of the ones in America. I think it’s because of the great divide between the boys and girls in society. Nothing starts mental growth faster in a teenage boy than a hot girl that walks to a group of guys and says, “You guys are so immature.” The first few days the kids kept wanting to talk to me and catch eye-contact (which is against the rules). When I found my bag searched through, I went berserk and yelled at a bunch of people; the teenagers avoided eye contact and kept their distance from the mentally unstable Korean after that. Plus, I got a chance to put my meditation into practice to wash away my psycho-anger.

3) I picked a flower and left it on Tiff’s cushion in the communal meditation hall — because I’m a freakin’ sweetheart.

So we arrived in Bangkok a few days ago from Kolkata. It was like time traveling. I nearly wept when I saw how clean the bathrooms were and ran out after accomplishing my dooty to tell Tiff how excited I was to see free toilet paper.

It’s very modern here and clean. And super-duper touristy. There are so many lonely men in Bangkok. It’s pretty pathetic. Or as Tiff says, “Jeez, this is a long way to travel just to get laid.”

I got sick of the scene in about 30-mins. Now we’re in Ko Chang, an island southeast of Bangkok and hitting up a remote beach with no internet, so I’ll be unplugged for about a week or two. My immune system feels like it got kicked in the nuts. And we need some serious rest. I did the math the other day: Around 70 cities in 7 months. Insanity.

This is about the equivalent of moving to another city every 3 days. I just wanted to pick a nice beach, meditate, continue to work on my writing project, gain some of my weight back, relax and not worry about shady people for awhile.

We’re wiped out.

I’ll properly blog when I get back — wrap-up India, tell you my thoughts on Bangkok, including hanging with part of the royal family and stories of ladyboys.

An Indian parade. Look like a friggin' rainbow marchin' on the street.

Today is our last day of freedom. Tomorrow begins our 10-day spiritual journey at a Vipassana meditation center. What will we be doing? Well, it looks like a holy-shit amount of meditating.  Here’s the breakdown:

4am-6:30am: Meditating
6:30am-8am: Breakfast
8am-11am: Meditating
11am-noon: Lunch
1pm-5pm: Meditating
6pm: Tea break
6pm-9:30pm: Meditating

This is for TEN days. The only change in schedule is on the 4th day, when at around 7pm, I BLOW MY BRAINS OUT.  Today we’re both just trying not to think about it.  Honestly, I hope I have the strength to go through and not act like an escaped rehab patient.

Your majesty addressing the people of Bundi.

While in Bundi, where Kipling stayed in Rajasthan, we met this Korean dude, who was seriously dressed like a pirate (i.e. hoop earing, bandanna, baggy pants…), that escaped from a two-month meditation camp in Southeast Asia. I don’t blame him. Before we ended the conversation, he scoffed at our malaria paranoia: “It’s rare, just don’t go to jungle. I’m scared of ‘elephant leg.’ Bug bites you, your leg swell up. For the rest of your life.”

I googled it and couldn’t really find it. Whatever; I said, “If I’m in the jungle and I run into a village with inhabitants all with huge calves, I’ll walk the other way.”

A view from our rooftop hotel room. The Bundi palace all lit up.

"John Indigo" and I dancin' to some Punjabi tunes. He taught me how to head bob.

Women are treated horribly here. All I read about in papers here are honor killings, tortures and rapes.

On the right, one of many of India's Secret Men.

This includes using the caste-system as a stepping ladder and hopeless corruption. It didn’t take long for us to discover that this nice quaint, somewhat touristy town was ruled by three brothers and their gang. Everyday at 7pm, they mosey on over to the villages and collect protection money.  Men are killed.

Some more racial profiling: The black-faced monkeys are nicer than the red-faced ones.

Dressed up as a cow, trick-or-treating.

The Nepal-India Sonauli border? Insanity.

It’s been 10 days since we’ve crossed over into India, which was no easy feat in itself. I thought the brazilian couple we met in Nepal were exaggerating when they made references to Apocolypse Now.  If you ever make the trek, remember to bring enough cash. We found out the hard way that there wasn’t a working ATM in a 10-mile radius.

Another thing to remember: Not all immigration officers find it funny when they ask you for the purpose of your visit and you respond, “to steal your women.”

While all the foreigners are purchasing traditional Indian clothes, locals are buying Western clothes across the bazaar.

How dirty is it here? Well, let’s just say you won’t feel bad for littering.  The chaotic border crossing was not a culture shock but more of a culture-drop-kick-in-the-nuts.  It’s been about 10 days and four cities — and one helluva roller coaster ride.

We were warned numerous times to not accept any food while on the train. Many foreigners are drugged, then mugged.

Tiff at Connaught Place, the center of Delhi, during Diwali

A fireracker exploding in my hand. Kids don't try this at home. Check out the little 'uns scared expression.

One day, you can’t get enough of it: Celebrating Diwali from a hotel rooftop, chowing on good food, watching fireworks explode, musicians drumming, all while some crazy Rajistanian puppet master depicts Kamasutra acts with his dolls.

Then the next day, your stomach starts a civil war, and everybody you meet looks at you like a fantastic ATM and tries to scam you in every way imaginable.

Holy moly: Festival of Kartik, hidden in the valleys of Jaipur.

“The Great Indian Rooster Coop…A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 per cent…to exist in perpetual servitude”
- The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

One thing that’s rubbing me the wrong way is the caste system here.  Head honchos at bus companies, counting their cash with fat fingers wrapped in gold rings like drug kingpins.  The rest of his employees, angry, unhappy in life — but finding some satisfaction in ripping us rich poor bastards off. I try not to blame them, but if anything, India has given me the itchiest trigger-finger on my anger.

And miraculously, Tiff and I are still together through all this. We have been tandem-traveling for half a year, in each other’s company every freakin’ waking minute. I don’t think married couples will even be able to relate — I’d have to have a chat with siamese twins at this point. And even after a somosa-throwin’ fight, we are still very much together — however, platonically in public. We have been in hotels where they have a rule against public hand-holding or kissing.

Oh yeah, visiting Taj Mahal was a surreal experience. The love palace looked like it was made out of sunshine kisses and butterfly tears and the stuff of 13-year-old girl dreams.

Charmin'. But with a bite.

Anyway, I’m picking my battles now. The one I chose today was over bus seats. No matter which bus you take here (local or tourist) or how early you reserve, foreigners always get assigned the back rows. Your ticket can read a low number — Hell, it can read “Seat Negative 2, on the Driver’s Lap” — you will get pushed to the back. Today, I made my stand, wanting a seat between the wheel axis for the bumpy ride.

Yes, I am Rosa Parks in India.

Monkeying around at the Temple of Sun God, or Galta

And Tiffany is Mother Theresa in Calcutta.

Look at her handing out bananas to the poor. Amazing.  Every Saturday and Tuesday at dawn, Krpa Shanker visits the Monkey Temple with two large bags of bananas and feeds the wild monkeys.

It was just our luck to run into him and for the better part of an hour, just the three of us handed out fruit.

Commanding an army of monkeys.

Once the last banana was given out, we were more than happy to leave. The large pack of monkeys were beginning to go apeshit — one even jumped on my back.

The Pushkar Camel Fair.

We’re now in the holy city of Pushkar, attending their annual Camel Fair, India’s biggest showcase for cattle. I wanted to purchase a few of these humpty-dumptys, but Tiff, forever my accountant, wouldn’t allow it. I’ll try to use her denial as leverage when I ask for a schimitar tomorrow. I’m thinkin’ either a sword or 100% silk full-body outfits, one in each color of the Power Rangers.

The fair is divided into three sections, one for camels, horses and cows.

A few early complaints: We are so tired of every single local shouting, “China? Korea? Japan?” I am beginning to answer back with the question, “India? India?” Also, We need to stop going to holy places; no restaurants here serve meat. I was salivating looking at their sacred cows today.

Sun setting over the city of Jaipur.

Next up for us? Hindu exorcism, more holy shit and this hippy-ass 10-day meditation retreat, which honors “noble silence,” that Tiff is making us attend. I wonder if I have to bring my own flying carpet.

But inner peace doesn’t sound that bad; it might save me from killing somebody here.

"Namaste."

After a 31-hour bus ride from Nepal, we’re now in Delhi, during Diwali, the Festival of Lights. I write this as fireworks blast outside for hours — persistantly as my diarrhea attacks. The city is under attack of explosion, as is my bathroom. As one can “lie dying on their deathbed,” I fear I may be sitting on my death toilet tonight. And it’s only been one day in India. 

The dusty streets of Kathmandu.

I prefered my allergy attacks in Kathmandu.

You see, the city’s street pollution is one of the worst we have experienced. (Delhi is ranking up there, too. Black snot galore).  I was sneezing non-stop for the first few days in Kathmandu. I was allergic to the damn city and Tiff didn’t fare that much better.

Enjoying the best chocolate cake at Snowman Cafe, near Freak Street, once a hippy mecca.

But the country is undeniably charming, from their sweet-natured people to the amazing Himalayan landscape. Sure, you got your dickwads and trashy alleys, but there’s a reason why it’s such a traveling fad and why hippies here — who have somehow smoked so much pot that they have time traveled from the 60′s — still hold onto Kathmandu as tightly as the weave of their dirty dreadlocks.

My pal Samundra and I playing a computer game, after he kicked my butt in Tiger Moves, a Nepali boardgame.

It was definetly a change for us to go from the reserved, paranoid people of China to encountering village children unabashedly showing us their latest Hindi pop dance moves and overly friendly family members of a guesthouse. Of course, some may have a favor or two (any 19-year-old American girls out there want to marry a Nepali man? We need to hook up a nephew in Boston), but it would be wrong to call them scheming. They really are one step removed from the innocent life of a villager. We were, on the most part, welcomed with open arms — or maybe that was because they thought we were one of them.

Tiff posing across from Durbur Square.

I am remarkably tan for a Korean at this point and Tiff belongs in the overlaping section of an Asian Venn Diagram, in terms of looks (in China she got everything from Korean to Thai). One thing we got constantly asked in Nepal was “Are you Nepali,” especially when we practiced our phrases in their language.

At Rum Doodle Restaurant. If you climb Everest, they'll serve you a lifetime of free eats and drinks. Almost worth it. Almost.

(Nepali is like a dialect of Hindi. There’s a big Hindi influence in Nepal. The locals, who unlike us, understood all the dialogue –Tiff is such a good sport– when I wanted to see Do Not Disturb, a new Bollywood flick that I found to be a remake of the French flick The Valet. It doesn’t really work the other way around; Indians don’t really understand Nepali.)

Our favorite restaurant, hands-down (The Nepali eat with their hands -- punny!): Blue Diamond in Pokhara with their fantastic bhaat (rice), chipati, curry...

Which makes sense: There is no real distinct face or look for the Nepali. Imagine if the Tibetans, Burmese and Indians had a threesome, and squatted over the country and plopped out these yellow-brown people all over the mountains. Actually, don’t imagine that. That was gross.

Playing with your food in Kathmandu.

There is a caste system here (36 in total), but it pretty much goes from the holy God-chosen Brahman and Limbu (the Asian-looking ones) to the lower ones, who deal with cow products like leather and delicious imported steaks (it’s a two-year jail sentence if you kill anything that moos. Holy cow.).

Being peaceful 'n' shit at the Peace Pagoda in Pokhara.

And people would believe me if I was to introduce myself as “James Limbu.” We both may kind of look the part, but it’s also part of their trusting and open nature. The Nepali have definetly charmed the khakis off foreign travelers and into a loose pair of the local dumpy pants. (I call this SSS or the Steven Seagal Syndrome, in which a foreigner abandons their own kind and nervously clutches onto another culture as a way to figure out their own identity. For example, a bare-footed foreigners idolizing a local.).

The most adorable scammers. The two little ones in the back are in on it too. They tossed away the food we offered 'em. Ah well.

Which brings me to this: It’s been almost 6 months on the road for us and it’s not the scam artists, conmen or pushy professionals that bother me the most; it’s other travelers.

Holy ritualistic stuff. D'uh.

OK, I’m far from being the perfect tourist (Tiff’s fuse on her temper with locals is miles longer than my own), but China has definetly popped my cherry. I never thought of myself as ignorant, but I have proved myself otherwise a couple of times. In China, a cabbie tested my patience for 15 minutes and I shooed him away rudely. And he totally got me back by driving crazy fast above Tiger Leaping Gorge, while smirking at me from the rear-view mirror. I’m trying to adhere to a traveling philosophy that kind of runs parellel to thoughts on pristine picnicking; that is minimize the footprint you leave behind, but I also feel like I’m finally learning how to treat people right.

One of the many traffic accidents while on the road. Yowzas.

I think as a Westerner, we are big babies and take everything personally. Another time in China, I saw a man get his foot run over by a motorcycle. A motorcycle. The driver stopped and the man waved him off. In the U.S., the “victim” would already be on the phone with his lawyer. I feel like locals here in Asia are better at brushing things off.Yeah, you might not like the phony hotel employee trying to rip you off. But they get the worse end of the stick. In terms of behavior, nothing is uglier than seeing a tourist act like a bunch of rickshaw drivers are garbage for crowding and wanting business.

It can be a dog-eat-dog world, but there’s no reason to treat ‘em like animals.

Tiff playing with a goat at a guesthouse in Pokhara.

The view from our balcony the next morning. We'll spare you from the gory details.

And there’s always a flip side.

The travelers that can’t handle the bad experiences of, say, China and take it personally on being poorly treated, will also take it personally when they visit a Nepal or Indian village and think that they’re special as a snowflake by how fantastic they are welcomed. I’m understanding how traveling fads begin for places like India; it’s always about how it makes you feel.

In truth: I’m sorely disappointed in my fellow, modern day backpackers. I was expecting adventurous world explorers, but I am slowly seeing little difference between the rough, backpackin-toutin’, bus roof-ridin’, budget explorer and the soft, fanny-packin’, airplane-flyin’, wealthy tourist.

The view from the village of Astam.

Only hitting up remote villages that make you feel like Christopher Columbus and avoiding the ugly bits of a country’s metropolis is the same as signing up for a lazy, super expensive tour package. As my ever-so-wise girlfriend says, “I want to see and experience everything: the good and the bad.” I feel the same way.

One of the main reasons that I quit my job and decided to go see the world was so I could widen my perspective in life. I wanted to know and see that the world is bigger than my country, bigger than my city, and definetly bigger than the long line at my local coffee house; that there’s bigger things to complain and think about.

This may take more than one flush.

For example, stepping in elephant shit.

One of the highlights of Nepal was, without a doubt, the Chitwan National Park. We were there for three days and we still couldn’t get used to elephants waddling down the city’s busy streets. They are magnificent and surprisingly agile for their size. Seeing an elephant casually scratch one foot with the other with such ease and human-like mannerisms caught me off-guard, like I was just mistakingly watching the cankle of an obsese American man.

Bhishma giving bunny ears. That rascal.

We went on the safari, (no tigers or rhinos spottings for us; perhaps a good thing?) but the experience of crossing a small creek full of crocodiles in the safety of a gigantic animal made the motion-sickness worthwhile for Tiff. Plus, we got to meet Bhishma, a physics lecturer at a college, and his army of students. The young girls asked Tiffany about everything, while the college boys fired question after question at me about– of course — girls and our dating system. I’m noticing that people are pretty much the same everywhere, especially horny boys.

Yes, I have a sweet tooth for Tiff, who prays to the toothache God for her cavity-ridden teeth.

For the Nepali, it seems like there are less and less arranged marriages and love-marriages are becoming more popular; however, it’s pretty much a one shot deal. You pursue a girl, you sprint to the altar; there’s not much dating involved.

It costs about 1 Lax (million NPR) for one of these. We're saving up.

Anyway, every day around 11am near the park, many of the elephants are taken to the river for a bath and tourists are able to participate and even hop on top of one for a simple tip to the driver. The best moment for me was when it went almost full body underwater and I was riding on top of it with its trunk poking out, like a submarine’s periscope.

Tamin' the beast.

It was strange to be the first volunteer that day with all eyes from the large crowd of tourists (you’d be surprised how many just watched from the sidelines) on me riding an elephant in the water as it did tricks, including spraying me with water (supposedly it’s like a blessing from Ganesh, the Hindu’s Barbar God) and flipping me over and dumping me in the murky river. Now I know what it’s like to work at Sea World.

Now we’re in India. It’s almost 3am in Delhi and the fireworks are finally dying down. Travelers love it or hate it here. Plus, the Nepali don’t have pleasant words about the “shady” Indian people.

“Do you know what INDIA stands for?” asked Suman, our dry-humored Nepali canoe guide (and sadly one of the few honest Chitwan travel guides in Sauraha).

No, what?

“I’ll Never Do It Again.”   

 The Good and the Bad. Here we go again. Thankfully, places like China have trained us on how to act properly.