Hairy Business: Dispatches from Awesomeville

Having survived the rapture, I am ready to impart some great wisdom I have learned in the past six months living and working in an anonymous city in South Asia. I hope that it is insufferable to all:

Now that I’m on the exact opposite side of the world, being very, very important, you’d think I’d have better things to do than keep up with media developments from the United States. You, my dear, seriously underestimate my commitment to (obsession with) popular culture. No enforced piracy laws = fifty cent dvd’s = catching up on every tv show people have told me I must watch (my friends have not lied about the awesomeness of the wire, parks and rec, dr. who).

No matter how sweaty, gross, tired, and frizzy you are, as a white lady, you will get catcalled constantly. It stopped being a compliment pretty quickly, because it has literally no meaning. These boys have the internet; they know what actual hot ladies from the USA look like. They should know better.

Some things are universally enjoyable, no matter what language you speak. Pixar movies = anyone will love them even if they can’t understand a lick of English. Cute videos of animals on youtube = hours of shared laughter. Fantasia = boring to children in all languages. Curb Your Enthusiasm = pretty sure only appealing to East Coast liberals. Bob Marley = mention his name near the beach and you’ll make really fast friends.

Children being delighted by Toy Story 3

Bob Marley mural. Guess what that hotel is popular for?

Food Subcategory: (1) Americans do not pickle enough things. You can pickle: garlic, lime, mango, coconut. And it is all delicious! (2) The egg hopper may just be the perfect breakfast food. It is an egg cooked and contained in a round pancake thing- a perfect egg delivery system. (3) cardimum tea makes everything better.

Perfection.

Your sense of appropriateness can adjust really fast. Here, there aren’t the same hang-ups about being fat and skinny. It’s more like eye colour, where it’s very easily commented on without judgment. So, I can walk into work and have someone say to me “your belly looks big today,” (while pantomiming a fat belly to make their meaning clear because of the language gap) and I can smile and agree that I have put on a coupe of kg instead of locking myself in the bathroom to cry. My tri-shaw driver can ask me my age and after I respond say “oh you look MUCH older” and I can say “thanks” instead of punching him repeatedly. And, when my friends here tell me I look much prettier in my facebook pics from home than I do here, well…. I still tell them to fuck off, because what are friends for?

I now believe in Jewdar. I was working in a pretty Muslim area a couple of months after I came here, and a man came up to me real close and asked “are you from Israel?” Instead of crapping my pants, I said “No. America,” and he moved on (I don’t think most people here get that Jews can live in other countries too). I’ve had several other experiences throughout the country where men (from here and other countries, Muslim and Christian) have asked me if I was from Israel. For the most part, it hasn’t been threatening (mostly curious), but it does rattle me a bit. I am 95% sure that most of them have never met a Jew in their lives. So, I’m wondering, do Jews just give weird Jewey vibes, or do I have the map of Israel on my face?

No matter how shitty things get, some people just have a killer sense of humour:

Monkeys are cute when separated by the protective bars at the zoo, but pretty terrifying when you are surrounded by twenty sets of their little beady, crafty, deceptively strong eyes.