Expat Observations from a world traveler 2006 (WARNING: OT & Long)

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Monday, September 11, 2006

I am sorry, I have no change!!!



In many places around the world, countries experience shortage of cash. You hear the expression ?cash-strapped countries? quite often. That can affect you even if you have plenty of it. It basically means that you need to watch what notes you get at the local exchange offices once you arrive there



So, after you change your hard currency into local money at such an exchange booth and the smiling clerk hands you wads with 500s or 1000s, you will soon realize that you now have a very annoying problem- people outside just have no change for all these bills.

Which, at times, may mean that you practically have no money, so to speak?



Most people have problems because they do not have enough money, but now you have a problem because you have ?too much? money, or rather, you have such large denominations that the locals who only make some $2-5 worth of local currency a day, simply do not have the cash to give you the change for your transactions with them. You gave them $20-$40 in their money which can be a few thousand or so. How do you expect them to fork out the difference to pay you back?



Please get smaller notes. This will not be said to you anywhere at those booths as they are happy to get your dollars and send you on your way, but it is a very valid advice. Get as many smaller notes as you can so that you would not be held up at all these different places while the owner is running around the street visiting other stores in the desperate plea to break your 1000 pesos, kyat, baht or whatever currency you gave him into something more ?malleable?.



Worse yet, is you being in a taxi and giving the driver your money and him declaring ?I have no change? to you at your final destination. Usually he means it. You have a business meeting to attend to, people waiting for you and now you are involved in an altercation with the taxi man who does not have enough money. Yes, you can tell him that it is his responsibility to have change, not yours and he will often agree but the country just does not have enough money. And he has no such large money, either.



If you do not have smaller notes and are in a taxi, please ask the driver if he has change. If he does not have it, please ask him to stop at a gas station somewhere so that he could break down your ?huge? bills. Better yet, when exchanging your money, get one half in large denominations, one quarter in smaller ones, and the rest in really small ones and plenty of coins. You will be doing yourself and the people who provide you service a big favor by having smaller bills.



The large ones can still be used at big departments stores and when paying hotel bills for a week or so. But even then, you will additionally encounter problems as some department stores may insist on smaller bills. Why do you think some countries are poor? They do not have money. As in having money for giving you change, got it?



Yes, I know, carrying wads of smaller notes can be a pain in the neck but not as much as being rejected for a product or a service because your 1000 currency unit notes are something they rarely see let alone can deal with.



Some developed countries have laws making it illegal to reject national tenders no matter what denomination they are, but in many other countries such laws apparently do not exist or are not enforced. ?I have no change for your money so why don?t you buzz off- I am not selling you anything?.



Please get smaller notes or suffer the consequences.
 
Jaywalking in Oz.



Jaywalking can kill you.



I must confess that I am guilty of occasional jaywalking when living in foreign lands. In many countries it is not a crime and many people do it and no one cares. You join the crowds bolting across the street and do as they do. Heck, some roads do not have pedestrian crossings for a kilometer or two, so what are you going to do? When in Rome, you jaywalk if Romans jaywalk.



There is a hidden danger, though if it becomes a habit. If you visit a country where traffic direction is the opposite of what you are used to, you may get hit by a passing vehicle because you will be looking in the wrong direction to check if one is coming. After having jaywalked in the countries of the Persian Gulf (along with millions of workers from the Indian Subcontinent) I forgot that it was not really a good thing to do and tried to do so in Australia. I looked to my left (as I would in the Gulf) and, having ascertained that there was no traffic coming my way, I was about to take the first step only to miss a bus that was coming from my right at a breakneck speed.



You see, I forgot that Australians drive on the left side of the road. And the huge bus missed me by about a foot. Had I taken the step, I would not have been writing this article now.



If you get used to loose regulations in many Third World countries regarding jaywalking, please be careful when you go to other countries, Third-or Second World or, whatever, where traffic moves in the other direction. You need to keep in mind that now you have to be looking to your right, not to your left. Better yet, do not jaywalk. The cops can give you a ticket or, in worse cases, doing so can cause serious injuries or death.



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Saturday, September 09, 2006

Get up and Go to Work.



When visiting a foreign city, try and do this: one day that you are there, put on clothes that resemble working clothes- a suit or something, take a briefcase or a folder, get up at 7:00am, brush your teeth, have breakfast and ?go to work?.



I did that in Auckland, Buenos Aires and a few other major cities. I joined the crowd of people walking towards downtown, me being part of it just like a small jet being part of a mighty stream. I looked at people to my left and my right, at their stern faces as they were rushing to their offices and looked at myself in the display windows. I too, was going to an office. I looked the same way they looked. Serious. Stern. My empty briefcase was swaying businesslike in my right hand. What office was I going to? Well, any office. Note some big buildings where everyone is going to, follow the people there, get inside the elevator, listen to people talking about their daily worries at work, again watch the strained expressions and sleepy eyes, get off on some floor, walk around, and then?split. You have played the game long enough. Less than one hour will do. Now you know what it is like to LIVE there. Even for a moment. And you can now go and have an early lunch. It was not real. The working part was a self-induced ?nightmare?. You can now go back and change your clothes to something more casual and revert to being a tourist.



It is a simple exercises but I loved it. The pretense was most profound and the reversal to the tourist status was like being awakened from some narcotic dream. Please try it on your next trip abroad. The whole experience may turn out to be more impressive than any guided tour to some museum ever could be.
 
Millionaire Status Now!



Living like a millionaire now!



When I hit my mid twenties, I realized that getting rich was harder than I thought. I also realized that I was not motivated enough to be rich. And not smart enough. And not have the right background/connections. Etcetera, etcetera. So, I asked myself- Can I live rich without being rich? What can I do that the rich do, and still not have to sacrifice a big chunk of my life trying to get rich.



The answer is this- obtain a middle class status in the First World that enables you to have about $2000 disposable income, and spend it in the Third World. It took me some years to achieve it and then, once I did, it was smooth sailing from then on.



The rich enjoy respect and admiration- this can be obtained by moving to various Third World nations where a Western face at a local department store commands the same respect as Donald Trump?s face would at a New York department store. They think all western people; especially, the ones who had money to come to their country are billionaires. Let them keep their illusions. At least they will respect us for that.



The rich live in a big house/villa on the beach - these can be rented cheaply; we are talking a few hundred bucks a month in many Third World nations.



The rich have millions. You, too, can exchange your hard currency and become a millionaire. Nineteen thousand dollars is one million Philippine pesos. One thousand dollars is ten million (!) Indonesian rupees. So, you can now be talking about all these millions you have in the bank. And you can have them NOW!



The rich have boats and practice expensive sports. You can do the same. You can also rent a boat for very little or have a boat captain for very small money every month in some cheap out-of-the-way nation. You can rent a jet-ski for very small money, too. Golf memberships in the West are astronomical, but not in some small Third World country where you become an honorable member of the local golf club for peanuts. You can now go and play golf like a pro and pay very little for the pleasure. And a safari in Africa nowadays is a bit over $1000 excluding the airfare.



The rich shop for nice clothes, luxury motorcycles and other things. You can visit some countries where markets are flooded with tax-free Chinese clothes as well as Chinese motorcycles and a huge variety of every possible type of item at rock bottom prices. Almost every luxury item has a cheap Chinese version of it. Shirts or pants for $3-10 a pair. A jacket for $6. Brand new Harley Davidson-type motorcycles for some $1200 only (brand new). Used motorcycles can be had for as little as $200! Household appliances can be bought for one fifth of what you pay for them back home. I once saw electric shavers for $4. Not a bad deal.



The rich fly around the world and stay at luxury hotels. You can do the same. There are ways to accumulate miles and fly around the world either for free or at very discount rates. Shop around for cheap airfares. Or get a courier flight where you pay one half of the fare. Then, you can even fly around the 1st world, but stay at youth hostels- some $22-27 a night. After you check into the fleabag hostel where you leave you clothes and get a bed to sleep, you can now go to the lobbies of luxury hotels and have a meal, walk around and absorb the atmosphere. You can go to night clubs and order a drink and check out how things are there.



The rich stay at luxury resorts. Check out some unknown resorts in the most mundane vacations spots- some industrial city in Cambodia, some small town in Africa. A beach in Albania. Try and get a hut there and stay on the beach. You will have the same sea, same white sand, and even a swimming pool nearby but instead of paying $1500 a night as the rich do, you will be paying $15 a night ( if not a week). You just need to know where to look.



The rich have luxury vehicles. Oops! Here I cannot help you. There are no knock-offs for BMWs or Mercedes Benzes. However, I have been able to get a chauffer to take me to a hotel from the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (and back in the morning) for some $27. Not a bad deal. The Mercedes Benz was old, but it was still a Benz. And I was sitting in it like a VIP.



I have seen some places where you can buy locally assembled vehicles such as jeeps with re-built Japanese engines for some $3000 or less ?brand- new?. There are ways to do that.



The rich date gorgeous members of the opposite sex. Again, there are many 3d world countries where women and (men) would love to date a 1st world citizen no matter how old or ugly. There are places in the Arab world where a blond 50+ year old European woman can hope to find a passionate young Arab stallion in his twenties or thirties to be her lover. The same goes for Western men who are now a hot item for young East Euro and SE Asian girls. All they have to do is place themselves in those circumstances and, instead of busting their behinds trying to get rich for 20 years, just realize that they are already rich/ and famous if they put themselves in the right place on Earth.



If you follow you that formula, you will have a wacky but successful and extremely interesting life. You will not be admired by an average subway-riding, 9:00-5:00 Joe and you may not even be able to have a family in the normal 1st World sense. And, also, you will have very few people opining you are doing the correct thing with most of them actually thinking that you are insane. Let them. It will be a life in which all things will be had, albeit temporarily, and, sometimes, almost illusorily, but hey, isn?t reality an illusion and isn?t everything temporary, anyway? The idea is to approximate a millionaire?s lifestyle so much that when we reach the end of our lives, we will see that his/her life and ours have not been that different.



So, if you are ready, start working on how you can get some $2000 a month of disposable income as soon as possible. It is not easy, but still easier than trying to make a million dollars and spending a few sleepless decades trying to achieve it. We can start living like millionaires now if we play our cards right.
 
Wednesday, September 06, 2006

My Experience with Islam.



All images of other cultures are somewhat false and the more remote the culture, the more grotesque the stereotypes. If, in addition to that, some elements of the culture happen to be an enemy of your country, your country?s propaganda machine will make the culture look as monstrous as possible. This goes for all propaganda machines. In the Middle East they often see an average western man as a whiskey-guzzling barbarian and western women as floozies that would sleep with anyone at the drop of a hat.In order to understand or criticize Islam one should know it, and most critics of it do not know it.



How many have read the entire Koran or lived in the Middle East or any other Islamic country and spoken the local languages with the local people? I would dare say, very few.I have lived in several Islamic countries and I have read a big portion of the Koran and must say that I am not going to completely dispel the stereotypes, but rather give their milder version. People in the Islamic world are traditional. They did not invent Islam- they were born into it. Their parents and societies taught it to them. Therefore, they have a uniquely Islamic view of the world. In it, they basically see the world as composed of three great religions- Islam, Christianity and Judaism. People outside of these three religious are called Infidels. Therefore, Buddhists and Hindus are Infidels. However, the more extreme Muslims do call anyone who is not a Muslim, an infidel. These are the people that the US army comes in contact with.



Muslim extremists are probably the modern version of old Christian extremists- such as the Crusaders or even the Catholic/Protestant fanatics in Ireland. They use the religion for their own selfish ends and in the process, give it a bad name.Still, it is true that if you are not a Muslim, you are not seen as an equal. Islam is right and other religions are wrong. People always ask you ?Are you a Muslim?? and if you say you are not, they smile, but you can see that they feel bad about the fact that you are not one of them. This is how people in the Islamic world think. People will have to revert back to Islam sooner or later since every human being is born as a Muslim.As long as you are not a Muslim, you will never really be a close friend with any Muslims. That is the honest truth. However, you will still have a pretty pleasant life amongst them provided the country is peaceful enough.If you are a non-Muslim woman you will, in a way, face less discrimination in the Islamic world than if you were a man. You can actually marry into a local family. The religion will allow it. A non-Muslim man cannot marry a local woman, though. That is why you see quite a few Western women in Egypt and Oman and Turkey with local boyfriends but virtually no Western men with local women.



Muslims as a rule are modest. They are also very tolerant. They may not accept you as a close friend or a brother-in-law, but they will generally treat you nice. Being arrogant is seen as a very bad thing in Islam. Many rich Arabs in Saudi and the UAE are very humble people and are soft and polite in their dealings with other folks.Muslims are also non-violent as a rule. You hardly ever see fights or shouting matches unless it is an actual political demonstration. Most people like to get along and live in peace with each other. Another surprising thing is that gossiping and saying bad things about a person in his/her absence is seen as a terrible transgression. So, generally, people do not talk about you behind your back and there is little back-stabbing going on.Living in the Muslim world is not easy, but one gets used to it and forms a sort of a working partnership with the people without getting too involved with anybody.



One also needs to understand that having a religious discussion with any Muslims is more often than not an exercise in futility as well as a dangerous undertaking- it may get you fired or thrown out of the country. Islam is right, other religions are wrong. That?s it. So, just stay away from such verbal engagements at all times. Just talk about local food, dances, weather, sports etc.Also, a lot of things that Westerners think of as Islamic, such as wearing veils or being violent are in fact either tribal traditions or corruptions of the original teaching. Islam does not teach killing of the innocents and /or oppression of women in the way you see the Taliban do it.Islam also prohibits racial discrimination, something that Christianity does not expressly do. It does not mean that racism has completely disappeared among theMuslims, but it has been far less pronounced in the Muslim world than in Christianity.



Racism is, in fact, a sin in Islam. There are no Black mosques and White Mosques in Islam unlike in the American South where there are still Black and White churches present.There are different Muslim countries and different variations of Islam, too. In Indonesia and Malaysia, Islam is different from its Middle Eastern variety, in that it is less strict and people there are more open to other cultures; the same goes for Muslims in India and Africa. However, they are still Muslim, so please keep that in mind and do not attempt to change them.Living in Muslim countries can be a safe and enjoyable experience as well as very rewarding culturally and financially. But you also need to know your place and stay in it. I have learned to do it, and also, to keep my mouth shut and be as professional and as discreet as possible. And if you are a man who plans to convert to Islam to have many wives, you also have to keep in mind that it is going to cost you. There is a bride price that you must pay, and it is not cheap.



In short, if you want to learn about Islam, stop listening to the CNN and read more about it on your own. If someone offers you a well-paying job in a peaceful Muslim country, accept it, by all means. However, do keep in mind that not all is perfect with the way that religion and way of life is being practiced, just like there are problems with all religions- we still have not come up with a perfect way of following each one. In general, I have learned that I can live anywhere as long as I remain discreet, friendly, keep a certain distance from most people and basically, keep to myself. That seems to be the best way to do things if you want to survive anywhere.
 
An Aquarius in a WC.



When visiting the so-called developing countries, one of the most embarrassing things that can happen to you is encountering a toilet that does not flush. Forget about toilets that do not have toilet paper- that is a given. That is why I carry tissue with me. But the ones that do not flush can leave you in a really unpleasant predicament.



Think about it: you are invited to dinner at someone?s home, or are a customer at a small restaurant or a hotel somewhere, and then, after having eaten, you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and do your thing only to discover, to your utter dismay that their toilet does not flush. What will you do?



?Excuse me; your toilet does not flush!? No, I?d better not say that. I will embarrass the host. ?Excuse me; do you have a bucket somewhere?? Sometimes, there is one in the toilet, but it takes time to fill and while you are filling it, you?d better close the toilet seat since the odor is filling the room very fast, and what will they think of you if the bathroom ends up smelling like a zoo cage? And what if there is no bucket? ?Excuse me, do you have a bucket?? Please give me a bucket fast!



Now, they are looking for one while you are standing there half-naked, peeping through the half-opened door, and then they bring you a small can, the one they put paints in, you know the kind, and then, you grab it with one hand while your body is inclined at a very awkward angle so that they would not see your private parts, and start filling it up. You are all crouched up in the bathroom with your pants down, but the can is not big enough, the water is splashing, the waste is swiveling inside the bowl and not going down as quickly as you would want it to. Do not give up, fill it up again, and again and again, but you are all wet by now and sweating. Finally, after several attempts, you have managed to send nature?s deposits on their way to the sea, but your host is giving you funny looks like you are the one who is acting funny and are weird.



I cannot think of anything more humbling, or an experience that renders you more helpless than coming in touch with such a toilet. Actually, being in a rural area or a slum is much less likely to allow you to run into such a situation since their bathrooms are basic- either they are holes in the ground , or they are bowls without a tank with a big dipper that floats in a huge bucket that is especially provided for such purposes. The problem starts when you move into the so-called upscale areas where the toilets are supposed to be flushing but they aren?t. They start when you visit your accountant friend?s home for dinner or go to a new restaurant in town or stay at a new hotel they have just built.



So, what should one do? If you feel that you are in a situation where a non-flushing toilet is likely to be present; go and check their toilet. Excuse yourself and go and try and flush it. Flush it two times. Why? Well, because, sometimes, there is no water in the pipes and you are just flushing the left-over water from the times when there was water in those pipes; and next time it may not flush. Your host may be surprised at hearing the toilet flush twice ( if it does), but hey, at least he will not be there after one hour watching you make an Aquarius out of yourself with pants down and your nose stuck into the crack in the door and beseeching lips mouthing the words ? Bucket please!? ?Do you have a bucket??



Better yet, if you can do it at all, try and get rid of bodily wastes at home or where you know a functioning toilet is present. That will save you a great deal of embarrassment when you are out there attending to more important functions than being an odorpus Aquarius in a malfunctioning WC.



<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/1880_town_outhouse.jpg/450px-1880_town_outhouse.jpg" alt="" />
 
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Monday, October 30, 2006

How to Stop Sasha Baron Cohen from Making Fun of Kazakhstan.



The government of Kazakhstan is up in arms. A man in remote England is making fun of them by posing as a Kazakh journalist. He has set up a site in broken English, and is ridiculing the country and its people right and left. They feel insulted and are trying everything possible to stop him, but to no avail.



You see, Kazakhstan is a newly independent country that most Britons know very little about. Britain had never colonized it, so there is no large Kazakh community in the UK or anywhere in the English-speaking world to protest the mockery that the nation has had to endure because of Mr. Cohen?s nefarious activities. And what?s more, just to show you how ignorant the British public can be, he is now filming a movie about Kazakhstan in Romania of all places. Don?t the Brits know that Romanians look nothing like Kazakhs? Kazakhs are relatives of Mongolians, and Romanians are arguably related to Italians. They obviously do not know such a simple detail because there has been, in fact, another British movie about Kazakhstan that I saw on TV once although I can?t remember its name. It portrayed a British commando who went to that country to help them overthrow a despotic government and to set up a new pro-Western democracy. The movie was filmed in Bulgaria of all places. Why didn?t they go to Mongolia to film it? It would have looked more credible then. Bulgarians look nothing like Kazakhs, but Mongolians do. But the movie created no uproar even from the most educated and liberally minded Brits who would be fuming if someone showed, say, an African country- by filming a movie about it in Cambodia. There would be angry comments in the press and the studio would be pelted with eggs. So, why is there no outcry about pseudo- journalistic antics of the new anti-Kazakh burletta?



I will tell you why. Because very few people outside of that area- especially those in Britain- know where the country is, what the people there look like and how things there are. There is little trade between the two countries so damage from a Kazakh boycott of British goods is not likely to be significant. Too bad for the poor Kazakhstanis! They are now a laughing stock of the entire world. With total impunity on the part of the perpetrator- the witty and caustic Sasha Cohen, a.k.a. Mr. Borat. A person who is building a career out of disparaging someone?s beloved motherland.



The Kazakh government is not amused at all. Their culture, political system and way of life are being poked fun of in the most shameless and disrespectful fashion. They are lodging protests in all possible places and expressing their indignation to the international organs of the media, political bodies, and governments, but to no avail. They can?t fight the freedom of speech in Western countries even if it is being abused to make them look like backwater savages from some remote desert kingdom.



However, there is a sure way to stop this slander even though they still have not figured it out. The Freedom of Speech in the West has limits that the Kazakhs still don?t know about. All you have to do is use the modern political correct weaponry to silence Mr. Cohen. Namely: just call him a bigot. You may have, undoubtedly, noticed that Cohen is not making a show about Pakistan or India or China. He would be taken off the air in about five minutes if he ever tried to do so. And his show would be called discriminatory, bigoted, and most of all, racist. And once that nasty word creeps into the collection of adjectives that people use to describe you, there is no arguing back. If you are ?white? and you make fun of a protected country that is ?not white?, even if you have a reason to poke fun of their politics, you get called ?a racist?. And it is just like calling someone a heretic in the 16th century- how can you argue with that? Once you are a witch, you are done for! You get burned big time.



Yup, if he started posing as a Pakistani journalist, that would be the end of the show and his career. And I would not be surprised if his very life would not be threatened after that, and he would not be afraid to step out of his house and onto the street. But he was smart- he has chosen someone far more removed from the Western life and is now picking on the weak guy- the jumping off country of Kazakhstan. Now where on earth would that be?



I am sure that very few Brits know it, but Kazakhstan is, in fact, an Asian country whose native population is about as Asian as one can get. Sure, there are some 120 other ethnicities there, but the true Kazakhs are of the pure central Asian stock. And Mr. Cohen is, in modern Western terms, a Caucasian, a white man, making fun of Asians. This makes him what? That?s right! A racist! So, the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan as well as all its organs that are unhappy about the continuing harlequinade, had better learn how to scream ?Racist!, Racist!?, so that they could keep up with the rest of the world. Send a few thousands of letters to the studio and hire some sandwich men to stand outside it with the placards ?Racist Show!? ?Down With Racist Bigots!? hanging from their necks. Claim openly that he is being racist towards Asian people. You will see how quickly Borat?s Show will collapse and he will go the way Benny Hill went when he was accused of being sexist and insulting to women.



Too bad the Kazakhs are too innocent to ever have heard of political correctness the same way as most Brits do not even know what Kazakhstan is. Someone had better contact the Kazakh authorities and quickly recommend they follow that route. I mean, they need to do it pronto! They will be surprised how swiftly and effectively they will be able to deal with the issue and how soon Borat?s show will meet its demise. It is just like spraying DDT upon a worm. It curls up and dies. So, spray some PC DDT upon Sasha. Call him a racist, please! Do it quickly before it?s too late and the reputation of the country is totally ruined.



Kazakhs have the Baikonur cosmodrome, and have been launching rockets into space for decades. If they are such good rocket scientists, surely launching a PC rocket straight into Borat?s Show should be a breeze for them.



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Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Christian Fundamentalist Propaganda and Public Ignorance



Some two decades ago, I was watching a famous preacher on TV. The topic for that day?s sermon was ?India?. According to the preacher, India was poor because it was not Christian, and he was inviting people to go there and teach Christianity. At the end of the speech, he raised his voice and shouted something like: ?Jesus will take that country out of poverty!?, ?Jesus will make India advance!? The people in the audience were nodding with meaningful expressions on their faces- ?That?s right! Amen! Jesus will help India!?



?Wait a minute?, I said to myself- ?doesn?t the audience know that there are many countries that are even poorer than India and that are Christian, to boot? Don?t they remember that just some time ago, there was a huge drive on TV to gather food and medical supplies to be sent to starving Ethiopians most of whom were Christians?" Were the people, enthralled by the charisma of the evangelist, so uninformed and with such a short memory as to not have been aware of such important details?



On another occasion, I was reading a publication by a very radical Christian organization in which there was an article that said that the Jews had suffered the Holocaust because they would not accept Jesus. Ha! You mean, if the Jews had converted to Christianity, the Holocaust would not have happened? Dream on! Don?t they know that the Nazis were very busy asking foreign governments to give them the names of converted Jews ( which they duly received) so that they could send them to the gas chambers along with the non-converted ones? Don?t they know of so many devoted Christians who had ended up in Auschwitz along with the Jews? The authors were probably not aware of such niceties of history or thought the readers were not aware of these small details, either. Is ignorance really such bliss when they can mislead you by having you believe such worthless statements?



And if the Holocaust was the punishment for not becoming Christians, what did those who were, in fact, Christians, suffer for when genocides were carried against them? I mean, the Armenians, for one. At the beginning of the 20th century as many as 1.5million very Christian Armenians were annihilated by the Ottoman Turks. What was that for? That shouldn?t have happened- they had accepted Jesus and thus, they should have been protected. Why did they perish? And, one also forgets the massacres of the Huguenots in France when Protestants were being killed in broad daylight by the hundreds of thousands. What was that for? For not accepting Jesus, either? Hmm. Who do these fundamentalists think I am? Some kind of dodo?



Two decades after that speech, India is doing very well. The reason for the economic progress of the country is the move from a very staid socialism to a more dynamic, market -driven economy and the relaxation of restrictions on foreign investment. That, coupled with a strong IT base, has moved the country out of poverty. And the country is still predominantly Hindu with a strong Muslim minority.



And Japan, a Shinto-Buddhist country, may have suffered a setback in the 1990ies, but it was then and still is the world?s second largest economy. How come that preacher did not mention that in his sermon, and why didn?t anyone in the audience question him about that?



Today, many African and Latin American countries who are devoutly Christian- Guatemala, El Salvador, Kenya, etc. are still mired in poverty and corruption. And the long suffering regions of Sudan where so many people have been dying of starvation - did you see the horrid pictures of people eating leaves from the trees?-are mostly Christian. So, what gives, preacher?



I respect, and see good in any religion, and if there is Heaven, I believe that good and upright people will go there regardless of what they believe in. I also believe that people who work hard and are honest in their dealings with others will prosper, no matter what their religion is. And that misfortune can befall any group regardless of their faith. However, those Christian fanatics who claim that the sufferings- political, economic or otherwise, of others are due to the fact that they did not convert to these preachers' particular religion make me mad. Not only they are totally disrespectful of the distress of others, but they display morbid ignorance of world history and politics.



However, the thing that angers me the most is that they take me, or any reader or listener, for a fool because those who can actually fall for their outrageous claims must be, in fact, complete fools.
 
White Bums in Sydney - the End of Western Civilization?



I am in the middle of Sydney, Australia. It is a cool, wintry day in August. The skyscrapers around and above me are filled with light , and a huge moon hangs over the city as the lazy puffs of vapor, coming out of the chimneys and exhaust outlets, rise into the crisp, southern skies.



I look around me and I see what I did not quite expect to see in Australia ( maybe because I had been watching too many re-runs of Crocodile Dundee)- I see many people jostling around, but they do not look like Paul Hogan; most of them have Asian faces, that is. They appear well dressed and happy, their clothes are crisp and stylish, the expressions on their smiling faces seem to show deep satisfaction with their lives. Around me, there are stores and restaurants selling mostly Chinese and Korean foods. They are all full, and there is no place to sit. There is only one word to describe downtown Sydney- prosperity, and it is Asian prosperity. I, in fact, feel that I am in Seoul or Hong Kong. Except that here I do not see nervous people or hustlers. They all look relaxed and rich, or at least, very comfortable.



A young Asian couple, hand in hand, a pretty girl and a bespectacled young man, stroll purposefully past me. They have that successful and confident-of-their-future look as they animatedly gaze at, and discuss various expensive items in display windows. I watch them go into a store. I walk in after them and check out the prices. A silk tie is Au$175?! That is about $140 US. For a tie? In many places in Asia you can by a similar tie for just a few bucks! Most customers, who are Asian, look enthusiastic, and I see no shock on their faces as they carry shopping bags full of the outrageously priced items out the doors of these ultra expensive, glitzy stores. I am a traveler on a $100 a day budget which includes my small hostel room, so I watch those shoppers with envy, and sigh at my own small expense account as I walk down to the rail station, since I think it would be too expensive for me to take a taxi.



All of a sudden, I hear a voice with a Crocodile Dundee accent - ?G?d evenin? mate, ( ?mate? is pronounced as ?mite?) woudj?u by aynee chance be ible t?spare two dollars? ? and I see my first Caucasian face in a long time. He looks like a typical Outback Aussie, with a weathered countenance and a shuck of gray hair. I?d say he is in his early sixties. His clothes are old and worn, and the expression on his face is wistful- the same that I would see on the visages of poor Bangladeshis working in the Middle East. He looks at me sheepishly, while laughing Asian passer-bys give him a wide birth. ?Jis? two bloody dollars, please, mite? he looks at me again, while crouching as if expecting me to hit him.



The Australian $2 coin is one of the smallest, so, I guess, local beggars prefer to ask for those rather than for the one-dollar ones. If in the US, they ask you for a quarter; here, there are no quarters, only 20c coins. Everything is rather expensive, too, and the 20c and one dollar denominations are larger in size, plus their purchasing power is not that great. Thus, the beggars have discovered that the $2 coins were the easiest and the most sensible ones to try to get from the people they ask for money.



I give him $2, he thanks me and walks away feebly into the throngs of briskly walking East Asian pedestrians who, upon seeing him, shun away again and speed up as if they saw cholera. As I myself walk away, I hear more ?Good evenin? mite?s? being uttered by the hobo towards the smooth flowing torrents of gallant and well -groomed Asian shoppers. ? Wou?j?yah spare two dollars, mite? I need t? get t? Canberra!? Eventually, his piteous figure disappears into the dynamic and wealthy-looking sea of the Asian pedestrians.



?It?s pathetic!? ,I mumble to myself and decide to postpone my return to the hostel. I take another look around. At the corner, I see another ?Paul Hogan?, sitting on the asphalt of the street corner, with cardboard signs around him asking for small sums of money. A relatively short distance away, there is yet another one- this one looks like one of those Scottish warriors from the movie ?Braveheart?. He is looking up at the affluent Asian crowds above him with the wet eyes of a puppy asking to be petted. As he is ignored, he lowers his gaze in the shame and resignation of defeat. I throw him a coin and he gives me a look of unbelieving gratitude. ?Thanks, mite!?



It does look like the precursor of things to come- the ?Caucasian race? turning into sorry-looking beggars as vibrant Asians stride confidently towards the future of material comfort, professional success and happiness, leaving the pitiful Caucasians behind to beg on the streets of Sydney, Auckland, and many other ?formerly? Western cities. Is this the end of the Western civilization as we know it?



It may sure look like it in Sydney, and if I were an Australian who does not travel, I would probably get that same impression. However, I am a traveler, plus I do read the news and do quite a bit of research on the Web. This is an illusion. The thing is, the Australian government does not want poor or uneducated, unskilled Asian people in the country. Or any other poor and unskilled people there for that matter. The only Asians ( or non-Asians) that are allowed to move or travel to Oz are the ones who are either wealthy or professional. Or tourists with money. No bums, Asian or otherwise, from other countries are allowed in, as a rule. Hence, the only beggars there can be the poor, bummed out locals, and these end up in the downtown areas because that is where the crowds are. Downtown locales are popular with tourists and recent immigrants, but not so much with the natives or those who have been in the country for a while, for these have long ago moved on to the wealthier, and more comfortable, suburbs.



But even in Blacktown, a largely immigrant suburban enclave on the outskirts of Sydney, bristling with vivacious and enthusiastic crowds of Indians, Filipinos, Sudanese, Fijians and Samoans, all briskly going about their business with self-assured expressions of purpose and gusto on their faces, I eventually come upon a pale face of a young Caucasian beggar who comes out at me from the shadows of the bushes near the station.

?Couj?yah spare two dollars, mite? I need t?get t? Sydney?.



I guess they all stake out places where there are the biggest crowds no matter what their ethnic composition is. Those beggars are something else! And the impression they make on the visitor to Australia is both comical and tragic. But most of all, they do give you the wrong impression of the demise of the Western world which may be exploited by quite of few propagandists for dubious purposes. I do, therefore, wish the Australians would import a few beggars from Asia just to be fair.
 
Sunday, October 22, 2006

How to Score with Russian Women



Many American men complain that they went to Russia and got taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous local women. They post articles on the Web warning other American men not to go there, and are telling all sorts of horror stories. Here is my advice on what to do if you like Russian women and are planning to tie your destiny with them and consequently, their country. If you follow this advice, you will maximize your chances of having a normal relationship there which will grow into true love and which will last a lifetime. Please keep in mind the following points:



1) There are gold diggers there, but about as many as in the US or many other countries. However, if you are a money-oriented person, and think that you will impress people with your money- you will attract just that- a person who will use you for your money. Isn?t it logical? Many Americans are money-driven, and they think that if they are successful businessmen and are into careers, Russian women will like them. In other words, they approach Russian women the way they would approach American women.? I am this and that and I have this car and this house, do you like me now?? Sure, a gold digger will be the one who likes you. Then, do not complain when you get taken for a ride.



In Russia, as a rule, a foreigner could not get by with just his native language and score with the local girls. It would be impossible. One had to speak Russian. So it would be with you. You are in their country that is ?temporarily? in a political/economical trouble. But they are developing awful fast and getting richer by the year. So, if you go there thinking you do not have to learn the language or the local culture because you are a big shot American ?savior?, you will be taken for a ride. And then, who do you have to blame? Think about if a rich Arab or a rich Japanese would go to the US, and then not speak English and think that because he is rich he should not follow the local culture/learn the local language, and that he could date local girls and score with them. Good luck! He would probably just get a hooker that would take him to the cleaners. And who would be to blame?



Or think about you being a rich New Yorker going to the South and trying to show off- ? I am a rich Yankee, Come on you miserable rednecks, give me your girls, I will save them from the horrors of the Appalachia!? See how long you will last before you get shot!



When you go to Russia, you need to speak Russian. Broken Russian will do. But speak the bloody language, please! Take some courses. Buy books, study their culture and go there to try to fit in. People there generally like foreigners from the West provided they try and adopt themselves to the local culture. Otherwise you will just attract a gold digger.



This is what the girls there are attracted to for the most part:



1) Your looks. I mean it. Do not be fat. If you are balding, think of a hair transplant or any kind of hair replacement. Do not dress in sneakers and jeans. It means you do not think appearances matter. Look good. Dress well, for heaven?s sake! Have some class in clothes and footwear. The more of a gentleman you look, the more they will like you.



2) Your personality.



a) In America you need to blow your horn and act independent and arrogant to show you are somebody. Not there. You need to be humble. This is what they like. Polite and friendly, too.



b) Be a humorist. I mean it. Joke, act like a clown sometimes. They love clowns (in moderation, of course). They absolutely go crazy if you have a sense of humor, are witty and can crack a few jokes here and there.



c) Have some talent. If you play a musical instrument, and sing songs, that will awe them. If when you go out you can play the piano or the guitar and sing songs, particularly Russian songs, you will conquer the girls in a heartbeat. They will be yours! I mean it. If you are an artist, show them your art. They will be awe-struck!



d) Be a happy and positive guy, and jovial as well, Create parties there. Take them to restaurants. Be romantic. Take walks by the river or in the woods with them. Buy them some little things. Flowers and all. Write some cute notes and send them those. They will melt!



e) Be intelligent/intellectual. Try and have conversations on all sorts of different topics. Politics ( Russian politics in particular, arts, literature, etc) Take them to a museum and show them you enjoy arts and all. Study about Russian artists, poets, quote them ( in Russian, please).



3) Only after that comes your career. And please talk sparingly about it. Show them that you work to live and not live to work.



The Russians are not a Germanic civilization. They are Slavs. In a way, they are closer to Latins than Anglo- Saxons. Soul is what matters to them, not the anal behavior that so many people of Anglo- Saxon countries display. Some Russian girls who marry Brits complain that they ( the Brits) are as cold as dead fish and just work. They are anally retentive- ?just like ?Nazis?. If the women get no warmth or humanity out of a husband, but just business and money and anal-ism- being overly punctual, being a cleanliness freak, a stickler to details and all that, your relationship may fall apart. Please read up on their culture before you go and try and act their way, not your way. If you think you can get something without giving up something, you are dead wrong. You may have to give up some of the American habits and behavior if you want to accommodate them, and want them to fall in love with you.



When you act like them( displaying the good aspects of them- soulfulness, humor, friendliness and communality, romanticism, artistic-ity, aestheticism, culture, refinement, depth of thinking, poetic dreaminess), you will attract the good in them and find a very nice woman among them with whom you will chime. And who will love you eternally. However, if you go there and do not make adjustments, are always in a hurry, always talking about business and money, do not respect their ways, and do not learn Russian, you will only find the woman that is interested in a money-making man- in other words, ?an American woman from Russia?, so to speak. And then, don?t start posting on the Internet about how you got taken to the cleaners.



I will challenge you to find even one American man who went to Russia, learned the language, met the girls the natural way in their environment, speaking their language and following their social rules, who got taken to the cleaners by a gold digger. Impossible!. But arrogant fat ( oftentimes, nor figuratively) cats , who were throwing money around, speaking English only and acting like they were God?s gift to Russia went down big time. Their country? Their rules. Don?t ever think you will be an exception to that principle.



If you are, however, a lupine businessman type whose only interest is making big bucks and who has no time for soulfulness, humor, culture and romantic aestheticism, don?t go to Russia. Your choice should be Chinese girls. From China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Or the Vietnamese ones. Even the Japanese. These do not like jokers or funny, friendly guys, as a rule. These are seen as not worthy of respect. They like sullen- looking, glum and busy fat cats. These will be running business with you, working hard and being happy with you the way you are. You will find no gold diggers among those as a rule- mostly good business partners and good wives. Just make sure you are really successful and are making good money. And working your rear off for 12-15 hours a day.



So, look at your personality and see if you really fit in with the Russian women?s predilections of a man. If not, do yourself a favor- do not waste your time with them. Or waste their time with you, for that matter.



<img src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_C-7jylP6Cw0/SGFvT7CrEJI/AAAAAAAAAok/E6rHua3lF44/s400/RussianRecruit.jpg" alt="" />
 
Saturday, October 21, 2006

Balkanization of America? Nah!



I have been hearing the term "Balkanization" increasingly being applied to the US. Basically, what is meant by this phrase is that the US will fall apart along the ethnic lines, just like Yugoslavia has. I think it will not happen. Here is why:



An Albanian family living in Serbia for 200 years are not Serbs, and never will be. A Croatian community in Bosnia are not Bosniaks even if they had been there for 500 years. They are Croats. Hence, if things get bad, they are told to go back to their country. But in the US, even the most virulent bigots will never say that a person whose family was born in the US are not Americans. This "US birth + You are an American ?factor is what has kept the melting pot melting for so long, even if not perfectly so. No such luck in the Balkans. Hence, you had deportaions and massacres of all these groups beyond the borders of the newly revived, monolithic, ethno-religious states.



What will happen in the US is that you will have visible ethnic minorities joining their hyphenated sub-streams, and these sub- streams will be fighting the white mainstream for jobs, money, acceptance, etc. But that has been going on for centuries already. Nothing new about that. That is not Balkanization. That is Americanization. And this policy was started by the English settlers. They were simply very intolerant of anyone who was not one of them. And all this continues until today.



However, no matter what happens in the US, the groups will not exist in territorial, political states. Plus, you also need armies to create mass genocides and deportations of ethnic groups from one area to another. Any chance of that happening in the US?



Here is what would happen if a real Balkanization occurred in the US in its US equivalent: in the South, all blacks are deported from the states where their communities are smaller than those of the whites. If they are equal in numbers, the states break up and separate, and new, one-black and one- white, states are born in their place. They call themselves Black Alabama and White Alabama, respectively. In the East, all gentiles are deported from NY, and all Protestants are kicked out of Massachusetts. The state of New Israel is established in New York, and New Catholic Italo-Ireland in Mass. In California, all the whites are kicked out to Colorado, and all the Hispanics are sent out of Co. to California. It is done militarily, accompanied by civilian massacres and pogroms.



Each of such new states acquires its own army, and then, declares independence. The Spanish language becomes the medium of instruction in all Californian schools, and anyone who is not Gomez, Lopez or Rodriguez are sent out militarily across the state borders. Asians are all sent to Hawaii, and the state of New Amero-Asia is established there. All non-Asians are kicked out of it. The ones that try to stay are shot and buried in mass graves. The New Amero-Asian army roams the countryside shooting anyone on site whose eyes are round.



After all is said and done, the US has fallen apart, and all these new countries finally patch up their differences, establish diplomatic relations with each other, and then, life just goes on after that. That is the Balkan scenario. Is it applicable to the US? Nah! Those who even remotely compare the current ethnic situation in the US to the Balkans have never been to the Balkans. Yes, people are teed off about the illegals, but the kids of illegals are Americans. End of the story. In the Balkans, the kids and the great-great-great-grand kids of illegals or legals are still not locals. That is the difference.



America will never become balkanized in the real Balkan sense of the matter. It will just be doing what it has been doing- slowly but surely melting people into either the mainstream or any of the dominant sub-streams- Hispanic, Black, Asian, etc. Kind of looks like the Balkans, but it's not quiet the same.
 
Friday, October 20, 2006

The Internet is a Boon To Creative People



Boy, how grateful I am that there is the Internet! When I was a kid, I really did not know what to be when I would grow up. I had too many interests, and was, basically, jack-of-all trades, but a master of none. That proved to be a very difficult character trait as far as succeeding in today?s society is concerned. I am a writer, but not a terribly good one. I also like to write about things that I think are important; not those that the market needs. Hence, my chances of being published and having a best-seller are not that great.I am also a poet, but not a very good one, either. Also, I enjoy writing poetry about deep things that most readers are too tired to understand or enjoy. They enjoy sexual poetry or something very radical. So, again, I was probably destined to be unpublished.



I am also an artist, but not a terribly good one. I was never focused enough to get into a lucrative art field such as medical illustration or commercial art, and even to become a fine artist. I am just not that good. I do not know anatomy, and, basically, I create folkloric stuff that again, not many people are interested in.Anyway, I was probably fated to be a failure in all of those talents and skills. Unless of course, I would have chosen to prostitute myself and do what the lowest common denominator of the market wants me to produce. However, with the Internet, we are given the third choice of independent online publishing. We may not be on the New York Times? list, but people are reading us. And that counts for a lot.Yes, it did truly change for me in the 1990ies with the advent of the Internet. I only seriously went online in the late 1990ies, but by doing so, I was able to redeem the creative oblivion and being unknown to anybody that plagued me for decades. I could publish my writings online, and tens of thousands of people have read them. This way, my ideas were able to help someone to deal with his/her problems the way I had dealt with mine.The mistakes which I have made in my life and my ways of dealing with those are not wasted happenings anymore. They now serve as warnings and advice to people who might make similar mistakes.



Because of my writings, I feel that I am contributing to mankind by helping people to live better lives and not screw them up the way I had screwed up mine so many times. In a way, I now feel that my mistakes and the unfortunate events that happened to me had not been in vain. They are helping not only my progress, but other people?s progress, as well. If I suffered did not suffer for nothing. I suffered so that others would take heed and not go down the same paths. If I enjoyed and seen and experienced great things, I can now help other people find those and enjoy them as well.How very fulfilling it is to know that your sacrifices and hard lessons, as well as your adventures and enjoyments have not been in vain!My poems are now being read and commented upon. People are being inspired by them. The ideas that I have are being communicated poetically to other people. This makes me happy and proud of what I have been experiencing and observing for it has not been all for my sake alone.My father used to write poems on scraps of paper and then, one day he passed away. Both my mom and I collected them, had them typed and put on a CD, and then, published on the Internet. Now, over a hundred people have read them. It may not be a lot, but the poems are out there and the beautiful way in which my father had seen the world is now being shown to other human beings.



So what if it is not many? It still counts.My art has also been seen and commented upon by thousands of people. At one online gallery that I placed my paintings with, they had several million visitors a month. Many of those have seen my artworks and my name in the gallery. If before I had no chance of ever getting my art into the public eye, now I do. I have even been able to sell my artwork on E-bay. So what if it is only one? While I do not have worldwide fame yet, I know that this artwork now decorates someone?s home. And if many people around the world have seen my paintings, it is, in a way a small "worldwide" fame. I am still not a smashing success, and, maybe, I am not even aspiring to be the next Hemingway or Picasso or Robert Burns. But I am not a failure anymore; I am no longer a wasted talent destined to never be seen or heard. I am being read, people see my art and people even send my poetry to other people to read. Thanks to the Internet, I am no longer a failure.
 
Thursday, October 19, 2006

On Middle East, Visas and Duty Free



Always Prepared in the ME.



Working in the Middle East can be lucrative, but it can also be uncertain. One never knows what may happen from one day to the next. I guess uncertainty is universal nowadays, but it is especially so in this part of the world.



I am not talking about political uncertainty alone. It may happen that you may not be rehired for the next year?s contract. It may also happen that someone does not like you for some reason or that you may have some incident at work involving a local that may end up in your early repatriation.



When I was in Kuwait, there was an employee that had a run in with a Kuwaiti which pretty much sealed his fate- he did not have his contract renewed. Prior to that, his wife had had a child and he had bought an apartment full of furniture. Now he was stuck with all the furniture and had to think how to get rid of it before the departure- not an easy task if you ask me.



I had another coworker on a Saudi military base that had bought a car and rented a luxury apartment in Jeddah. Some time later, he had a run in with a Saudi supervisor who afterwords had him kicked off the base. He was then transferred to Dhahran and had to rack his brains over what to do with a lease on his apartment as well as the loan on the vehicle. Eventually, it all worked out but why the headaches?



Then, we had repeatedly received consular warnings from the US diplomatic missions urging us to leave the country. Many people have consequently left. And those who were traveling home light went without much headache.



So, while in the Middle East, I have learnt to always remain as unattached as possible. I would rent cars instead of buying them and tried to live in company -provided housing or those places where no lease was necessary- where you simply paid month to month. And the places were furnished. People would say that it was very wasteful of me to do that but for me that was the price that I paid to keep the peace of mind in the face of uncertainty.



I also did not buy any expensive goods and, instead, acquired all kinds of cheap Chinese products that I would not miss if I had to go. I did not have a personal Internet connection or a landline. My phone was prepaid and I went to cafes to send emails. They had some pretty good monthly deals and I found it to be a refreshing experience to go out to surf- just like one goes out to eat. The fewer attachments, the better. I also ate out at cheaper local restaurants interspersing my diet with once- a week hotel buffets. The rest of the money I stashed away. When we were finally laid off and not rehired for a long time, I left without headaches and with plenty of cash in the bank to tide me over till the next contract.



One should always not be paranoid and live in constant fear. That is another extreme that is simply not advisable. Instead one should, as they say, hope for the best, but be ready for the worst, and that includes being able to get out quickly and effortlessly and not getting too comfortable with all sorts of middle class trappings in a country whose permanent resident you are not. If you look and think hard enough, you will be able to live a very comfortable ?portable? life and quickly get out should circumstances change. Then, if you try and get another Middle Eastern job, you will be able to being in a new place while using OPT- other people?s things- that is: rented cars, rented furniture and apartments coupled with cheap Chinese appliances and clothes. I found that to be the most headache-free way to live and enjoy my life in the rather unstable Middle East,





Can They Get You a Working Visa?



In some so-called developing countries, the enthusiastic employers who want to hire you can exhibit gross ignorance in how they are supposed to go about issuing you a working visa or a work permit.



A case in point is Thailand. It is a constant complaint of many expatriates there that they would be hired only to find out that their employer had no earthly idea as to what is involved in the immigration formalities that you need to go through, and that he/she is now beset by as many headaches as you are. Some are not even sure that you are qualified to get such visas and permits. How would they know? They are not foreigners and they have never gone through the process themselves. Some supervisors who knew something about the immigration procedures may have gone on to bigger and better things, and you are now facing a personnel officer who cannot even speak English and who has been hired through personal connections, but is completely incompetent. You then end up at the mercy of his/her incompetence. That means they send you to the Immigration and the Immigration sends you back asking for this and that paper and then you keep going back and forth and the assistant that the boss sent with you adoes not now anything about how to obtain the paper.



How about, in the worst case scenario, you find out that you are not even qualified for a work permit? That is after you have moved to the country and spent several months there. And if you are working in the meantime without the work permit, you run the risk of breaking the law and being fined.



Eventually, in most cases, such immigration nightmares end with you getting all the visas and permits you needed; however, if the bosses are in the dark as far as the procedures are concerned, it is a very unpleasant situation to be in.



So, whenever you get hired to work by a local employer or even a foreigner, please find out if he/she can properly process your papers and if he/she has done so before. If this is a small company and they have never done it, think twice about accepting employment with them. It may not be worth the headache.









The Culture Shock?s Undiscussed Stage.



There are many books dealing with the culture shock, and generally they all agree that you go through these stages- euphoria, followed by disappointment and resentment, followed by adjustment and then, eventual relative peace and enjoyment,



I have discovered that after the resentment and before adjustment you go through the stage of sarcastic derision. The new country ends up looking ridiculous and its people seem so stupid that you start making fun of them and deriding them. It is not exactly resentment because derision can be so funny that you may actually enjoy it.



This is when you start making jokes about the natives that are funny to you but not funny to them. You start laughing at the way they walk and talk and think. You sometimes laugh so hard at the way they misunderstand you or make comments about you and ?your people? that you come home with a big smile on your face.



The derision stage can last from several weeks to even several years and then you slide out of it into the adjustment stage. However, do keep in mind that when you deride the locals in their country, or even after you leave it and find the locals in your country, you are inviting trouble. People can get offended and attack you verbally or even physically. I have had it happen to me and since then, I keep my jokes to the circle of expats in bars and clubs and even then I watch the barman and stop talking when he or the waitresses are around. The locals? ways are not funny to them and your mocking of their country may end up costing you dearly.



If you are one day laughing sarcastically, or not so sarcastically in the taxi at everything around you in the new land, rejoice, for you are now out of the resentment period. However, do not tell anyone among the natives why you are laughing. Hold your laughter until you get back home and chat on the Net with the people back in your country, or call your mom and tell her just how ludicrous these people can be. If you can, do it in some language that your hosts cannot understand.



The derision stage is real and you will go through it. Hold on to your seat and enjoy it. It is part of the culture shock and you will soon be over it.





Duty Free, etc.



You know, duty free may be a good deal in Western Europe, Japan or the US, but for the life of me, I have no idea why anyone would want to buy anything except only a few items in the duty free areas in most of the world countries.



Take souvenirs, for example. Why would you want to buy them in the duty free section if you can get those three or four or five times cheaper outside the airport, in town? The same goes for bags. Gee, why would you want to buy a bargain $200 bag at the Duty Free if so many stores in town will sell it to you for $30 or less. Admittedly, it may not be exactly the same bag, but it will be pretty darn close and you can then use it for the same purpose as you would have used the more expensive ones.



Electronics for some reason do not look so cheap, either. You can scout the Internet and get them much cheaper. The only good thing the Duty Frees are good for is items that are simply not available anywhere near where you are heading to. For example, caviar may not be available in many places in the Middle East or SE Asia. Plus it ?will? be cheaper if you buy it there. Some famous alcoholic items will be cheaper, for example Black Label- it is, in fact, cheaper. Chewing tobacco or snuff can be unavailable in many countries except in some big duty frees. However, outside of those items, I do not see much benefit in the Duty Free sections.



By the way, neither Australia not New Zealand seem to have chewing tobacco or snuff as they simply do not form part of the culture there and will not have a market. Dubai and Bahrain Duty Frees, on the other hand, are excellent for such items as well as for caviar.



(cont.)
 
(cont.)



Caviar needs to be declared when you come out as it falls under ?food? but chewing tobacco is not considered ?plant product? by many customs. I have, on numerous occasions asked customs officers about that, but it?s still worth asking when you go through the customs. You never know what they have in mind.



Anyway, outside the occasions when I wanted to buy those items, I do not spend much time in Duty Free sections. And, by and large, I would not buy anything since often I would see huge lines in the Goods to Declare lines formed by those who had bought something in those.



By the way, on several occasions Custom Declaration forms seemed to be confusing. When I was in Australia this year, I checked ?yes? on the form where it asked me if I acquired certain items abroad over a certain sum of money. I can?t recall how much it was, but I was worried about my gold jewelry which was in access of US$ 1000. Would I have to pay duty on it? It turned out that since I was going there as a tourist and was not going to keep it in Oz, I did not have to declare it in the first place. Then, also, when I was going through the New Zealand customs the form asked me something to the effect whether I had been near animals or in rural areas recently. Well, I had been, as a matter of fact. I was in a national park in Oz and then I was in contact with kangaroos and koalas- yes, I petted them. When I put ?yes? on the form and talked to the NZ customs officer, he began to smirk, asked me to show him the soles of my shoes and let me through, changing the ?yes? on the form to ?no?. Go figure what they have in mind. Weren?t those rural areas and animals respectively?



Oil Rich Countries



Aah! What prosperity and abundance awaits so many of us who end up in the countries where wealth comes from the ground! One does not realize that instead of an economy based on credit or taxes or hard work and discipline as in most of the West, the wealth seems to be jetting forth constantly from the ground, like from the horn of plenty. One soon notices that everything is cheap but salaries are the same or bigger with no taxes. Soon one?s savings account starts growing without one sacrificing his/her lifestyle. Then, services are also dirt cheap. Soon, one stops budgeting, since one still spends as one would at home, but one still can put away decent chunks of money into one?s bank account.



There are drawbacks, though. While services are, in fact, cheap, they are not of such high quality as back home. Many employees are not as motivated and will not get fired if they do not give you excellent treatment. Many are completely incompetent. Travel agents make mistakes that would cost them their careers in the West; repair shops do not repair items on time, people promise to have an item or a service ready for you on a certain day only to fail to deliver, costing you hours of lost time. The employees are either sullen and unfriendly, or smiley and friendly, but still not able to serve you properly. Many things are simply not available and if you ask them when they arrive, they will give you a date, but even on that date, the goods are still not there. The companies will not go out of business because oil money will keep them as well as the entire economy afloat. Everybody will have some kind of income whether the customer gets served well or not, so why try too hard?



Quality control on imports is very poor. I once bought a pair of sneakers in the Middle East that looked great and felt very comfortable on my feet, however, when I took them to Sydney, the soles fell off after a few hours of walking. I had to limp around until I located a store selling glue and later, had to sit on the street gluing the soles to the shoes in plain view of everybody. It was very embarrassing, and it was even more enlightening when I realized that the glue that I bought to glue those soles back on cost more than the shoes themselves. Eventually, I had to throw them out.



Many of the natives are so rich and so protected by local employment laws that they can live the lives of complete security no matter how badly they fare at work. They can show up late, leave early, screw up all they want and still be better off than you. None of the principles of personal responsibility that are so highly valued in the West apply to them. The world, in fact, owes and provides them with an excellent living that spurts from the ground in jets of black gold. The economic system for nationals of such countries can rightfully be termed Petro-Socialism and it is probably the only types of socialism that works, primarily because money generated by the oil comes from all the Western capitalists that have helped to develop the system to begin with.



It can sometimes drive you nuts, though. Hey, take a chill pill. That is the price you have to pay for living in such naturally prosperous countries and being able to put so much cash away. It still irritates me occasionally, but I have learned to take those things in stride as part of my overall petrodollar experience.
 
Saturday, October 14, 2006

More Miscellaneous Notes



One of the tragedies of Van Gogh was that during his life time he could not sell but very few of his paintings and it was only after his death that he started selling and became famous. Most artists go through that stage one way or another. Most do not become famous even after their death. And most cannot sell.



I am an artist and I have found the reason why I was not selling a lot of my works- they were either not good enough or not cheap enough. So I made them better and then I made them so cheap that people simply could not refuse to buy them. So, this year I was able to sell over 20 paintings.



As far as becoming famous, with the Internet and all, if you could post yourself on enough bulletin boards, you could achieve a semblance of ?fame? that is, in a way, worldwide- people can access your website all over the world.



The main task remains making a living of your art. That is definitely a tough thing to achieve. However, selling art and becoming ?famous? (sort of) is not a problem.



***

In the West, they make fun of the Taliban, and how it allegedly ?uglifies? people by making women dress in all these weird hoods, covering their beauty and, basically, depriving them of the joy of dressing well, among other things. However, one can say the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent of the modern Western culture, particularly the British one that derides those who dare to dress well. To think of it: I have repeatedly been told by British coworkers that I should wear subdued colors and even avoid designs on my clothes and would be given dirty looks if I tried to dress half-way decent. Every time I saw British people, they would all be dressed in grey and denim; and if you did not dress as they do, you would be a declared a freak or a queer. The exception to the rule would be if you were an obvious ethnic minority- then they would lower their gaze in guilty respect. I mean, if you were a West Indian with dreadlocks and a colorful knit cap, they would usually say nothing. I did not look ethnic enough to them, so they would give me a hard time.



And many of the former British colonies around the world suffer from the same ?sparrow syndrome?- its inhabitants dress in the colors of that most unsightly bird. I guess, if the Brits come from such a grey country with so little sunshine, it is most natural to them to look drab and insipid. But exporting their dull dressing habits to other countries is most uncalled for.



Sometimes, I also think that the modern sneakers-and-jeans culture destroys female beauty as badly as Taliban does. At least, in many of those Eastern nations women wear colorful clothes under the veils and reveal them to their family members once they come home. However, a dull-looking, sneakers-and-jeans-no-make-up girl stays the same when she comes home and is unlikely to change to anything more appealing.



***



In many countries around the world whose people are known for being tolerant, incompetence reigns supreme. Why? Well, because who screw up are usually forgiven and given too many second chances. Actually, they are given infinite chances. Hence, they do not dread being punished for their deeds. So, they screw up all the time. Services are bad, products are not delivered on time; people do not come to appointments on time and are forgiven. Hence, over decades, such tolerant societies fall behind those countries that are less tolerant and who give their incompetents hell if they do not shape up. After some time, the intolerant societies end up conquering the tolerant ones and making them their economic or political colonies.



***



Thailand used to be a very friendly country, accepting of foreigners and tolerant of people of all races and religions. It used to be that if you came to the country and learned the language, the society would be very open to you. It also had the name Land of Smiles, the name that its tourist authorities desperately try to preserve.



However, as it developed, it became more materialistic than even many Western countries and people there tuned down their smiling as they saw their forests wiped out, their cultural values trampled under the new, money ?worshiping culture and as life became tougher and tougher for an average person there.



Many more foreigners came to live in Thailand and also, the prostitution industry developed to unprecedented heights and sex tourists from all around the world streamed into Thailand in droves. Thai people have consequently begun to feel squeezed out by all these invaders and the only relationship that remained between them and the foreigners who would arrive would be that of money. Integrity and honesty that used to form part of the traditional Buddhist culture became replaced by greed, envy and money-grubbing insincerity. Foreigners would be ripped off, taken advantage off, lied to and used in the same way as they used the Thais. The advent of AIDS did not help.



Right now, I would rate Thailand as one of the least friendly countries in SE Asia to live in. The people are not what they used to be- they have become xenophobic, jealous, and it has become a shame for a Thai girl to be seen with a foreigner. Who would blame them? With hundreds of fat Westerners parading daily with their Thai hookers down the main street of Bangkok, which decent girl would want to be mistaken for one? And with so many obnoxious and smelly Western tourists of the lowest possibly classes misbehaving in all possible ways, the locals have become more and more suspicious of the Fa-rangs (the white people). I would thus classify Thailand as a formerly-friendly country and would like to give it a wide birth as far as it becoming my residence. I will still go there on vacation and to hang out but I no longer feel good as far as living there goes. There are still Westerners residing there but they are clinging to the old version of Thailand in their minds- the friendlier one-not realizing that the country has changed for the worse in so many ways.



There are other countries to explore in the region and those who like authentic Asian culture should head to Myanmar, Cambodia, even the Philippines. I would not waste too much time in the over-hyped, too modernized and too commercialized Thailand.



***

Sometimes I wonder if a bad reputation of a country in the media could be the divine way of protecting it from invasions of modernity which begin with throngs of tourists and investors. Places like El Salvador or Nicaragua or Myanmar are not as bad as they are painted in the media. However, tourists give it a wide birth. The same can be said about so many prosperous African countries where life is quite normal, and one can live very well but because of a bad image of Africa on TV and in newspapers, people just do not go there.



Also, sometimes bad events that happen on one isolated place can damage the reputation of the whole country or region, effectively keeping so many people out of it. Say, if there is war in Sierra Leone, people will not visit Cameroon. Or any place in the Sub Saharan Africa, for that matter. If there is a war in Lebanon, people will not go to Jordan. Hey, it?s the Middle East. Lebanon, Jordan, what?s the difference?



When there are kidnappings in a remote area of the Philippines, it makes the whole country look dangerous and people cancel their travel plans to Manila.



Pity! One needs to do some research and ask around. Dangers are often greatly exaggerated and bad events in one area do not have to mar the whole region. Personally, I like going to places that are in close but somewhat safe proximity to the danger zones. They are usually virginal and pristine and if you calculate your odds well, you will have nothing to worry about.



***



(cont.)
 
(cont.)



Asian sex sites have been proliferating on the net for over a decade now, and they are getting very many visitors. I will not pass any moral judgments here, however, after having lived in Asia for so many years, I often laugh at some of the stupid things the owners of those sites try to pull on the unsuspecting surf-for-porn public.



They say that the site is updated weekly, but many have the same models month after month and year after year. They try and pass American-born models as ?pure? Asians from all these different exotic locals, whereas I can immediately see if they are or they aren?t. And many aren?t from Asia at all.



But the funniest thing of all is how they try to dump all Asians together under some kind of common porn culture. They have Filipina models with ornaments around the site that represent Chinese food containers or, worse, they try to palm one Asian off as being another. Some sites pretend to have girls performing lurid acts in Laos of all places. I know what Lao people look like. I also know that it is a Communist country that would not allow such things. But even if they somehow used Lao models to create pornographic images from them, how come they have the Japanese ? washibana?- aguiline noses, that is? I can clearly see that the faces of the models are as Japanese as they can get. Are the rest of the sex surfers as stupid as to confuse those two?



Some sites who promise Vietnamese sex actually have all these Thai models on them. I know what the Vietnamese people look like. The ones they have on some of such sites are all Thais. Dressed like Thais, with Thai faces and movements. I have seen enough of both ethnicities to know which is which.



Sometimes you have one model on one site, who is presented as a Korean, pop up on another site as a Vietnamese. Lol!



And guess what else? They have newer and newer sites with the same models and the same movies in them. They must be raking in big bucks and the average Joe six pack is probably satisfied. Heck, they all have slanted eyes and yellow skin, so who cares where they come from?



Those Asian sites are laugh, for sure. Don?t waste your money on them.



***



If you ask me what the most beautiful language in the world is, I will say to you that it is Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines. Actually, I used to like French and Spanish and Italian but when I first heard Tagalog, I was completely awed by it. It sounded just like someone was playing a piano. Try and listen to it - when you have many Tagalog speakers, like on the streets of Manila, it sounds like a piano concert. Not many other languages can sound like musical instruments, but Tagalog does. I could sit and listen to it for hours. When I began studying it in earnest, I thought that it and no other language should be called the language of love. There are so many expressions to convey love, and everything is so gentle and indirect. The entire language is basically based on passive voice with verbs being inflexed from within. Instead of saying ?I love you? you say ??Endeared I am by you?. And even when you say something like ?Take it? it is expressed as, ?Taken it be by you!? Kind of solemn and delicate. When you start learning the language and trying to put your ideas into their new piano-sounding shells, you will be amazed how beautifully they will come out. You are now Mr. Horowitz playing the piano with you mouth and joining the great concerto of the Filipino nation.



I think that any educated person should devote time to studying that beautiful language and its very rich literature. When information and human thoughts are expressed in Tagalog, they sound incredibly rich. Almost astral-like. Please study Tagalog, you will not regret it.
 
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Do Not Turn Off the Foreign Song



When I was a kid, I used to listen to music from around the world. It did not matter to me whether I could understand the words or not. Actually, it seemed even better to me when I could not grasp the meaning of the foreign language because then, the voice would become a musical instrument of its own. A voice that I could not understand and the accompaniment to it sounded awesome and exotic.



I thought other people would enjoy the world music as much as I did, however, I found out that there were quite a few of them who thought it silly to be listening to songs whose lyrics were incomprehensible to them. Many even thought of it as a sort of an insult to their intelligence. Whenever I would put on a song in, say, German, they would turn away or start looking around nervously as if something seriously bad was happening.

In other words, they did not enjoy that experience at all.



Pity! There are so many musical treasures out there and they should not be just enjoyed by those who can have the comprehension of the language of the singer. A song is not exactly like a poem which needs to be translated for you to appreciate it. A song does not have to be translated to be enjoyed. Song is part of our musical heritage, not the literary one.



So, next time you hear a ?foreign? song, do not turn it off. The voice may be telling you something even deeper than the actual meaning of the foreign language would be if you had it translated. There is a mysterious semantic undercurrent that runs deep beneath the singer?s consciousness. By not knowing what the words mean, you may be able to understand the song subconsciously, catching the profound significance that only those not familiar with the language could catch.
 
http://truthfulinsights.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html



Monday, November 20, 2006

Dental Self After Care



Dental Self-Treatment An unforeseen consequence of cheap dental care overseas can be that when you get home (wherever your home is), the pain can persist or complications develop. I had three dental bridges put in the Philippines, two teeth pulled, several cavities filled and a crown put in all for the paltry sum of USD1000. However, I had no time to wait for the thing to heal and left the country immediately after. When I arrived to my temporary home in the Middle East, I realized that not all was well. The pain from six ?reduced? teeth upon which the bridges were resting was unbearable. It was so intense that I was howling during the day and crying all through the nights. Work became impossibility.



What could I do? Fly back to the Philippines to have the teeth re-fitted? Miss work and pay huge airline fares? Go to a local hospital and have everything fixed there? Would they know exactly what the Philippine dentist had done? As I was hesitating, the pain would not let up. So, I decided to cure myself. I went to the local pharmacy and bought antibiotics. Then I bought the most potent pain killers they had. Many things can be purchased over the counter without a prescription where I am at. I put myself on a strict antibiotics/painkiller regime. After 10 days the pain subsided a bit, after another 10 days, it got even better and after about two weeks more, it was completely gone. This is how I dealt with the problem on site while I had to work. I am not recommending this as a solution for all such ills but it has worked for me.



<img src="http://www.dental-care-n-u.com/images/tooth-infection.jpg" alt="" />
 
Get Out of My Office! You are Fired...Not!



In some countries labor laws are so strict that firing someone is a difficult, lengthy and expensive proposition. However, many expats, both the managers and employees are not aware of those. Hence, western managers brought into the country fire people for the reasons that they would fire them at home for (many of which are trivial). In the US one can fire people for being late five minutes or for simply not liking them. However, ?You are fired! Get out of my office!? will not fly in many societies where you cannot do those things by law, and where unions and labor boards are so strong that their protection for employees seems to be absolute.



So, a British company in Kuwait, for example, is subject to Kuwaiti labor laws, and when in Japan, the Japanese labor code kicks in. Hence, a sadistic foreign henchman who thrives on power can no longer exercise his prerogative for kicking people out at will the way he/she could often do at home.



Even if an employee?s contract is not renewed, some countries will still see it as firing and local laws to protect the worker will apply.



I remember when a British employee did not have his contract renewed in Kuwait for no apparent reason except some complaints by customers. He was let go along with five more members of staff by a British manager who saw that as a sufficient reason to not renew their contracts. Most fired people just left it at that, but one decided to hire an attorney and fight them in court. He was surprised to see that the Kuwaiti laws favored him and he was awarded a fat settlement to compensate him for the trauma. It took him a bit of time, but not only he was awarded a tidy sum for his humiliation but the tyrannical manager was fired instead. Sorry, it is not the UK here. You can?t do those things.



I personally was once told in Japan by a British administrator that my contract for the next year was not to be renewed. The reason? Being late on several occasions. However, I contacted the labor union, and it turned out that in Japan, you cannot fire people for being late. You can dock their pay and reprimand them, but it is not a ?fireable? offense. After the union got involved, the company had to either reinstate me or pay me money for the months that I had missed while the case was disputed. ?You did not renew a person?s contract for being late? Ridiculous!? I pocketed the money. The company that initially was unwilling to re-hire me also had to pay other costs pertaining to the ?trial?.



So, expat employees ? study the labor law in your host country and know your rights! Don?t just walk away with the ? Oh, well?? if a livid-faced, saliva-spitting Western boss is firing you. Check if your offense is trivial or not by local codes. Contact an attorney, and if you find out your rights have been violated, fight! You can get big money from the company. And you, arrogant Western managers-tyrants! Beware! You are not on your home turf anymore. Wait till you are faced with the devil himself- the labor regulations of your new country. You can and will get burnt big time. Ouch!
 
Thursday, November 16, 2006

Expats Cheating Other Expats.



Very often one gets cheated in a foreign country by someone who is another foreigner and who is often from either your country or the one near yours. As a matter of fact, in many places it is far more common for expats to be cheated by another foreigner than by a native. After all a native often feels guilty about cheating a guest while a foreigner living there rarely feels guilty about cheating another foreigner. Would a German in Thailand be guilty about cheating an American? Or would one American feel guilty about cheating another in a far away land? Not always. Watch out for ?business offers? coming from mealy-mouthed foreign residents who had been in the country longer than you. They may be trying to take you to the cleaners.
 
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