Evolution of an Embryonic Expat

This book is about my experiences as an Expat in a number of different countries. In some cases I lived there for a period of time; like Taiwan for a year, Kuwait for 11 years, Qatar for a year and now Korea for almost a year. In other cases like India, I traveled back and forth between there and Kuwait for a year. Other places were extended stays or multiple visits. The Evolution of an Embryonic Expat is an unfinished book in the works, raw and mostly unfiltered so you can watch me write and add to it. I have grouped my experiences by country and as I am inspired I write. There are bullets of ideas I intend to develop, digging them up from graves dug in my memory. As I work those bullets into my tome I add more that come to mind. When I update I add the date of the draft. I would appreciate any comments you might have. Cheers, Bobby

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Mexico

Maybe northern Mexico is not in the same category as exotic spots in East Asia or the Middle East. But as a young lad it was a good place to learn first-hand about a culture pretty distinctive from my own. In early high school I met a family of four; Mama O'Neil, Papa O'Neil, and two daughters one of which was my age but so spoiled rotten I had no interest in her. However, I guess her father saw in me a son he never had and in spite of plutonic limitations between his daughter and me, I was invited on several trips to Mexico with them. We would drive from Phoenix heading toward the town of Gila Bend and pick up Route 85, south toward the even smaller town of Ajo which means garlic in Spanish. Naming the town garlic I suppose must have been some sort of statement made by folks whose resources got them no farther than that lonely spot of nothing. The Arizona desert in that region is an acquired taste seasoned with sagebrush, mesquite trees and a variety of cactus. The mountains are only called mountains I think because they are rocky and barren and thrust out of the ground angrily. Hills, in my mind, are covered with grass, roll gently and sooth their way past the window as you drive by. These mountains while rough and craggy are the result of volcanic activity that was more of a quiver than those eruptions responsible for the majestic Rocky Mountains further north and into Colorado.

The daytime temperature in summer is just shy of what I would expect hell to have and looking off into the distance the rising heat shimmered; it pooled on the horizon in a mirage taking on the appearance of a far-off lake. Staring down the distant road ahead you could watch these lakes evaporate before your eyes as new ones formed further on. Some 40 miles or so past Ajo, and generally that's exactly what we did, we reached the town of Lukeville on the Arizona side of the border with Mexico. Across the border was the more substantial effort to civilize the desert with an assortment of humble abodes the existence of which always brought the word "Why" to my mind.

Not far into Mexico on a stretch of hot, dry desolation was a small checkpoint manned by a gent in an official looking uniform. Inside his hut, not much larger than an outhouse, was a small desk and typewriter. Sitting next to the desk was a stack of yellow cards about the size of a postcard with all the questions you might expect to see entering customs at an international airport. The routine was to fill out a card which had a handy paperclip affixed to it. Once you completed the form, if you were wise and short of time you would attach a one dollar bill to the back of the card with the provided paperclip. When El Official took the card, the dollar bill disappeared and like greased lightening he hammered out a typed version of your card and gave you an entry permit good for X number of days visit. If you failed to value the paperclip at a dollar or more and handed him a card and empty clip, your time in that hut might be extensive. Many Gringos see this palm greasing as pure corruption. However, my perspective is a bit different. Folks like El Official were paid a pittance with little chance of improving their lot in life. The amount collected in what is known as La Mordita (the bite) was very low and in my view represented a system of payment by those that actually utilized the service. So while it was technically a free port of entry, I never begrudged the man eking out a few extra tacos to feed the family.

Having completed formalities we would strike off down Mexico Route 8 and head for the Gulf of California coast. The mind numbing desert at last would be broken up by the fishing village of Puerto Peñasco sitting on rustic unspoiled beach that lined a deep blue sea. Gringos called it Rocky Point, but I've always preferred the Spanish name. The sun made the water shimmer like a sheet of diamonds that far out on the horizon morphed into clean clear blue skies with puffy white clouds drifting slowly overhead. In those days there was not much to define the town; I recall unfinished cinderblock buildings on dirt roads and sad efforts to landscape with palo verde trees and colorful plastic flowers. There was a protected bay that sheltered small fishing boats and a maintenance yard for repairing and restoring commercial shrimping boats.

The O'Neil's had an old mobile home and covered patio overlooking the beach in Puerto Peñasco. It was no palace but provided shelter and a good place to shower, cook meals and socialize. The weather was almost always accommodating and I generally slept on the beach with a single light blanket and a towel full of mounded sand for a pillow.

Each morning Roberto Delgado, a local fisherman of good cheer would pass and slap me on the rump on his way to his boat. "Adalante hombre blanco!" he would belt out in passing and I would wake to a new day of adventure. There was a group of local kids roughly my age that I somehow fell in with on one of my first trips to the sleepy village. They introduced me to life's simple pleasures Mexican style and we managed to have fun in spite of having no financial resources.

There was a sheltered bay that ebbed and flowed with the tide in a way that gave us a mode of transportation to town. We could choose to hike the circumference of the bay to get to town or wait for the tide to come in and swim across. Swimming across was much more fun and provided other forms of entertainment like playing King of the Mountain on the small fishing boats anchored not far offshore. I remember the shrimp boats, much larger mostly old fashioned wooden vessels, jacked up on supports in a neat row along the beach. There was a buzz of activity as craftsmen and dry-docked sailors worked to refurbish the boats in advance of the coming season at sea. When our rag-tag gang of street urchins swarmed one of the small fishing boats, the sailors would whistle and shout to their neighbor boats, yelling bets on the Gringo kid or one of the local kids all wrestling to be the last one standing.

Town was not a particularly inspiring place consisting of a main street lined with small mundane shops, all in want of a fresh coat of paint, the tatered colors now all variations of what was once white. The panadaria, bakery in Spanish, had a good range of things exotic when compared to American supermarket baked goods. I loved the homemade quality of these breads; and I wondered how they were able to produce something so tasty in their simple ovens that the big stores in the US just could not match. The pastries were sweet but not too sweet. The small loaves of bread reminded me of the bread our neighbor used to make when I was small. The price of these breads and buns was dirt cheap and the small group of us would chip in and buy a couple things each to nibble on.

Once, three of us were sitting in the shade on the sidewalk eating our baked treats when a man and woman from the US walked by. Assuming she would not be understood, in a normal tone she said, "Harry, look at the one in the middle! He looks just like an American!" I put an oblivious look on my face and she likely told friends later about the one kid she saw that was obviously the unfortunate result of some drunken American's fling with a prostitute.

On the way out of town we would stop at the fruit and vegetable stand and buy some lemons. We timed our trip back to coincide with high tide and once out in the bay we would break the lemons in half, passing them around. Then we would dip them in the sea water and suck on them as we leisurely floated and paddled our way slowly across the bay; the buoyancy of the salt water allowing easy floatation. The salty lemon was one of those treats I've always wanted to repeat but somehow never have; however it remains one of the fond memories I'm sure I share still with my now grown Mexican friends wherever they may be. It was during these Mexican adventures that I learned to speak some Spanish. My motley gang of compadres spoke no English at all which helped my Spanish efforts. While none of the guys could speak English, one fellow could sing one Beatle's sing after another in what seemed to be one long multi-syllable word, "IwaaaaanaoooldyooooraaaAaaaAaannnd." He didn't understand the words but he had memorized all the songs and was quite the entertainer.

Summer evenings were a time for socializing. The blistering sun had set and with it the heat fell to more comfortable levels. Competing mariachi music could be heard coming from different places around town while old men sat on porches swapping lies and telling jokes. The mood was jovial in spite of an obvious dearth of fiscal means. I recall party-bound senoritas walking along the side of the street, dim streetlights minimally spaced in accordance with the town's financial limitations highlighting them as they passed below. They had the eager look of unabashed self admiration mixed with the proper amount of restrained demeanor expected of young unmarried Mexican maidens; decked out in their finest gaudy dress and respectable low heeled black dress shoes. Their hair made up in a way that looked like terraces with the upper most level a fountain of hair spilling down their back like a waterfall. Flowers adorned one side just over the ear and their walk indicated a full awareness of the young Gringo's stare.

On those warm evenings I would often accept invitations to feasts my young compadres' families would prepare in my honor; meals I knew they could not comfortably afford but for me to have refused would have been an insult. The roasted chickens, it was claimed in toothless laughter, were scrawny seagulls caught on the beach. Food was set out on a long table made of 4x8 sheets of plywood on top of saw horses for legs and aside from the "roasted seagull" included the most wonderful handmade tortillas, Mexican rice, frijoles, pico de gaillo, salsa pecante and local white cheeses that you crumbled onto your tacos. The concrete patio was bordered by strings of colored 60 watt bulbs, red, green, blue that combined to yield a light not so offensive as a bare white bulb would give. In one corner was an ancient record player with a stack of 45 LP's adjacent to it. The big vinyl covered boxy speakers, frayed at the corners from years of use and when stored formed one oblong unit with the record player, were set as far apart as the wires would allow; and salsa music punctuated the warm fuzzy evening of grinning, eating and dancing.

Those trips south of the border were an exotic escape that taught me to appreciate the genuine warmth and friendliness of the Mexican people. In that town no one stood out as particularly well off and I am sure life was a struggle for many of them. Yet music was everywhere as was laughter and simple pleasures and the impression it made on a 17 year old Gringo is there still all these many years later.

In those days my real life was back in Arizona where I attended high school; distinguishing myself by rarely completing homework assignments and yet squeaking by exams with just enough margin to justify advancing me to the next level. It was pretty obvious to all concerned that I was not college material which in my youthful exuberance I did not recognize as a defect. There were two main roads to adulthood after high school at that time. One was the road to college which as indicated earlier, for me was not well lighted, had many potholes and debris strewn over an unpaved surface. The other road however was wide, well lighted and recently paved. It ran as straight as an arrow directly to basic training in one military branch or another. The Vietnam war was roaring along at full speed as I approached the end of high school. Not being college material in the late 1960's meant unless you were missing some major limbs the US Military would find your material to be just fine. Like most of the other sheep in my class not deemed to be college material that well lighted road to boot camp was the path of least resistance.

I'll not elaborate on that period of time God tested me with a three year enlistment in the US Navy; except to say the best two things I got out of the Navy was GI Bill funding for college and my rear end. Remarkably I never went abroad at a time when virtually everyone in uniform did. On balance I do not regret that my global forays were put on hold then as the military's international objectives and mine were not well calibrated. I like to visit and experience different lifestyles and cultures. The military generally likes to visit our lifestyle and culture on others. Anyway, my travels abroad would wait until I finished serving my sentence in the Navy. After I was released I bumped and skidded along looking for myself and eventually I was found in Southern California. College and use of my GI Bill stipend seemed a good way to get income and meet girls at the same time. When I started college I didn't really have the focus needed to actually advance methodically to a degreed conclusion. My interests were piqued though when I came across two classes that were offered. One was Eastern Civilization, or the study of Asia. The other was Physical Anthropology which I learned has almost nothing to do with what I would have enjoyed studying if I had instead taken Cultural Anthropology.

In case you, like me back then, do not know the difference, Cultural Anthropology is that branch that studies the way man and others from his village live. My mistake was in not researching the difference and thus missing this more interesting class; and I have to believe the films of Africa and the East Indies must have become much more sophisticated than the ones we enjoyed in primary school geography class what with the improvements made in telescopic lenses and such. Anyway that was the class I thought I was getting into but instead ended up in Physical Anthropology. How I managed to stay the course is beyond me because that has to be the most difficult class I ever encountered before or since. It was like a medical course for an ancient veterinarian looking at the physical structure of early man and the great apes. Supraorbital torus, sagittal crest, occipital buns, prognathism,... the exciting list of bodily characteristics we had to memorize goes on and on. I limped away as proud of my grade as a war veteran must be when they get a ribbon or medal. Like that veteran I was glad to have survived and didn't wish to face such a fierce battle ever again. Eastern Civilization though perfectly lined up with those internal itches I had been longing to scratch.

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Taiwan

The Chinese part of Eastern Civilization is what really set a hook in my jaw I guess because I could see parallels between what I learned there and stories my dad told about his time in WWII era China. Getting more and more drawn in I decided to move from the two-year community college to a four-year university that had more to offer in the obscure discipline I was now pursuing. Not far into my studies an opportunity came up to join a seminar on China Studies in Taiwan, a politically charged event that organizers hoped behind the scenes to somehow influence American policy toward China and Taiwan. The invitation came to me by way of the Chinese Language Department at San Francisco State University where I had transferred in order to study Mandarin Chinese.

The invitation basically said: The ROC's National Chenchi University and China Youth Corps is sponsoring a Seminar on China Studies for Sino-American Youth. The goal of the seminar is to promote mutual understanding and to acquaint young Americans with Chinese culture. Invitations will be extended to all well-known colleges and universities throughout the United States for the selection of 50 young people who are between the ages of 20 and 40. Applicants should also meet one of the following criteria. 1) They should be scholars, experts, professors or students who are engaged in research on Asia or China or in study of the Chinese language, or 2) journalists interested in covering Asia or China, or 3) have studied the Chinese language for at least 6 months.

This was before the US, much to the chagrin of Taiwan's government, established relations with Mainland China. I applied, was accepted and went to Taiwan as one of the fifty American students. We were introduced to our Chinese counterparts upon arrival and launched right into an intensive, high pressure study of Chinese culture and the evils of Communism, specifically the Chinese Communists.

For six weeks we were paraded before television cameras as we were introduced to various heads of government or attended cultural events. We were given lectures of Chinese food, calligraphy, art and music. We were bused to scenic parts of Taiwan like Taroko Gorge, Marble Mountain, Sun Moon Lake, coastal fishing villages and industrial centers and military bases. Everywhere we went the message was somehow conveyed to us that all of this is threatened by Mainland China. After one evening of dinner and too many toasts with rice wine, we boarded the bus for the return trip to the dormitory where we were being housed. Settling into our seats, one of the hosts, a man in his late 40's who had accepted far too many after dinner drinking challenges earlier, boarded the bus and broke down in a sobbing tirade. "Why do you want to abandon us??!!, Why do you want relations with the Communist?? If the Communists come here to Taiwan I will kill myself! I will not live under Communism!!" His colleagues quickly escorted him away and the episode was downplayed. It was clear however that his intensity of expression reflected a level of fear felt by all of the Chinese participants.

The seminar was a well organized attempt to influence the next wave through the US State Department's China Desk. We fifty Americans had been drawn from major universities across the US and had been vetted for our academic direction and aptitude. Our professors had written letters of recommendation for each of us and it was expected that a significant number of us would in time be in a position to affect change in a direction friendly toward Taiwan versus Mainland China.

Evenings required that all partcipants adhere to a curfew which I recall was set early enough to be annoying. It did ensure that we would seek out ways to entertain ourselves as a group at night and one particular experience was unforgettable. On the Chinese side was a young man who at one time had been an aspiring Buddhist monk. He had four distinctive round button-like scars on his upper arm at the shoulder. They signified some sort of rank as I recall, but he had moved on in life and was no longer a monk. That evening several of us were gathered in a lounge and the subject turned to supernatural things like walking on hot coals and such. Mr. Monk decided to demonstrate "rooting" himself and sat in the middle of the floor. He sat cross legged with arms folded across his chest and closed his eyes in meditation for a few moments. Then he asked the four biggest American guys to try to lift him off the floor. Grunting and groaning and pulling and straining those four could not budge Mr. Monk even though he was small, thin and could not have weighed much over 100 lbs. After they conceded defeat and sat down, Mr. Monk again meditated briefly, then asked four frail looking ladies to try. However, they were instructed to use only the little finger of one hand, one pinkie inserted under each armpit and each knee. When given the go ahead they bounced Mr. Monk around like he was a helium balloon. The demonstration was just that and did not include any instruction on how to perform the same at a party in order to impress the ladies. I am therefore unable to do the helium balloon part although four grown men would probably now struggle to get me off the floor. I owe that to years and years of rice and potato therapy and an occasional beer.

Another memorable time with the group was on an outing to a youth camp on Sun Moon Lake. The lake is nestled in a beautiful forested mountain area of Taiwan. The lush green growth came close to being more of a jungle than forest with abundant wildlife that remained hidden as well as abundant insectlife that did not. At night the noise of vast armies of gigantic flying insects banging into the screens of open windows competed with a cacophony of chirping and tweeting and grunting of creatures I could only imagine in the darkness of the forest. The windows remained open throughout the sweltering night reminding us of the humility endured by so many in the world that cannot afford air conditioning. All-in-all the screens served their purpose as most of the insects were the size of a dinner plate and would have needed an open door to get in. One night as I pulled back the cover of my bed however, a large spider jumped up and scurried across my bed, hit the wall with a thud and slid to the floor. Each room was equipped with cans of insecticide and each of us four occupants converged on the beast in a spraying frenzy he had no hope of escaping. Placing an empty waste basket over his inverted carcass ensured that he would not regain his senses and attack one of us in the dark.

Diligent inspection of all sides and angles of the bed I was to sleep on found no friends or relatives of the creature and at last I settled down to sleep. Because it was so sweltering hot we all slept uncovered in our underwear on top of our beds. I suppose a good hour had passed since the execution but a mental video clip played over and over behind my closed eyes and I could think of nothing else. The bewailing of hungry organisms unable to reach me through the screens masked the muffled sound of two roommates creeping over to my bed in the dark. Stifling the laughs they would soon unleash they ran the end of a string up my bare leg launching me to an immediate upright position with both knees pumping up and down in a dance I hoped would shake the monster off me. My screams were both heartfelt and feminine, reaching octaves that would make any fat opera soprano proud; and hit a pitch that did not escape the worried camp counselors that rushed to rescue whoever it was being murdered in our cabin. The night passed slowly after that and it was with mixed feelings that we waved goodbye to the staff of that beautiful place of untamed nature the following day.

When the seminar ended I decided I needed to learn to speak Chinese. The best way to do it was to remain in Taipei where on the whole, English speakers were not that common. I reasoned that if I wanted to eat, and my girth will now attest to the affirmative, I would be forced to absorb some level of language ability. Playtime was pretty easy to sort out but supporting myself took some imagination. Somehow I was introduced to the idea of teaching English which would not pay well enough for me to flatulate through silk but it would allow me to eat regularly. Teaching English came in two flavors; classroom and individual tutoring. I never found that wealthy, beautiful businesswoman that finding me such charming company, would finance outings to exotic places, pay me a tidy sum and listen to my jokes as long as they were in English. Classroom teaching therefore was my only option.

Students in Taiwan all studied English although unfortunately their public school English teachers were other Chinese who had learned English from other Chinese. Certain sounds it seems just cannot be formed in a Chinese speaker's mouth; think becomes sink. Thousand become souzand and so on. Read they could though, and grammar was something they knew the rules of far better than I. High schoolers and above loved to find Americans to chat with so they could practice English. Children would follow me in the back alleys and like a verbal game of badminton we would back and forth with heh-loh... hello... heh-loh... hello...heh-loh... hello...which would go on as long as I would let it. Finally when I quit responding they would run away giggling over their close encounter with a real foreign devil.

In Taipei there were a number of private English schools called bushibans. I reasoned that as a native English speaker one of them would succumb to my sales pitch, carefully crafted to avoid the subject of credentials. I had never taught anything in my life. However I had spent years as a student and had even attended some language courses along the way. How difficult could it be? There was a large bushiban near the Taipei Hilton where I occasionally went to drink red wine and chat with the prostitutes who fully understood I was not a potential client.

One night I ventured into the school and was quickly ushered in to meet the headmaster. He looked like a cross between Buddha and Jabba the Hut and his English was impossible to understand. Within 15 minutes he handed me two textbooks and motioned for me to follow as he groaned his way out of his chair and headed down a dark hall, set between bare bulbs at either end. My assumption was that I was being led to another interview as we climbed a set of stairs and entered straight into a classroom of some 30 waiting adults. The room looked like a classroom found anywhere in the world, each student sitting in a chair with an extention attached to allow notetaking. The front of the class offered ample room for the lao-shr, or teacher, to pace back and forth importantly as they gazed down upon their charges. Buddha the Hut introduced me to the class, nodded his head slightly in my direction, walked out and closed the door behind him. I was left standing in the front of the class with sixty eyeballs focused on me expectantly. It was immediately clear that one, I had been hired and two, I was now in charge.

I have learned that if you pretend to be what people already think you are, the ruse is fairly easy to maintain. Assuming the position I stood tall, met them all eye to eye and with one eyebrow raised I took on the look of authority.

Class, can you show me where you left off last in the textbook?

Page-ah twennyfree several responded and all books opened to a big picture of an American house cut-away. It looked like a picture of a girl's dollhouse in that you could peer into each room of the two-story, traditional East Coast style house. Below the picture were a series of questions designed to elicit sentences composed to describe the household scenes.

You... there, first row; can you tell me what is happening in the dining room? I asked.

Dey are eat food.

Yes they are eating food. Can you see what they are eating? You, second row on the end.

I sinkso it big chicken.

Yes that would be a big chicken but I think it is a turkey. It looks to me like it is holiday time; and since that is an American house it is probably a turkey. Do you have turkeys in Taiwan?

We haf chicken but no so big.

No I wouldn't think so.

In order to remain in Taiwan I had to register at the police station and apply for a small foreign resident's booklet that looked like a mini-passport. There was a form to be filled out and eight photographs submitted. I had met a Danish fellow that was essentially doing what I was and also needed to register. We decided to make the trip together and share a taxi there and on the way, he discovered he had only seven photos. I on the other hand had far more than the required eight. The only thing the two of us had in common as far as looks was that we were both pink people. But this was a real dilemma so I handed one of my photos to him and said, they think we all look alike anyway; as he nodded in agreement and accepted it.

At the police station we stood side by side at the counter facing the officer on the opposite side. We slid our forms and our two stacks of eight photos forward. With a practiced hand the officer pulled the applications close and fanned our photos out just above them. Tap, tap, tap his finger counted the eight photos of me. Tap, tap, tap his finger counted the seven photos of my friend and one of me. We did indeed look alike to the officer. The ID booklets were issued a few weeks later and to our relief both had the correct photos. I don't recall ever having to show that ID to anyone but it would have been awkward if my photo had ended up in my Danish friend's ID. Imagine if he turned out, like so many Danes before him, to be some sort of international terrorist; smuggling out of date dairy products across borders to be sold to unsuspecting mothers of small schoolchildren. I've never since played Russian roulette with a camera!

I mentioned earlier my trips to the Taipei Hilton for the purpose of drinking red wine and chatting with the prostitutes there as they plied their trade among the visiting patrons of the bar. In Taiwan, China really, having a baby girl was considered a liability while having a son assured there would be someone there to take care of you in your old age. Most of the prostitutes I met had been sold by their families at early ages and raised specifically to be prostitutes. One lady of the evening I called Squeeky. She was deaf but yet she was fluent in two dialects of Chinese, English and Japanese. She could not of course hear the speaker but could read lips. I often wondered what she might have been under different circumstances had she benefited from an education. How does one learn multilingual lip reading when they are completely deaf?

It is my opinion that Hollywood has done more to influence world perceptions of America than any other factor. I find those perceptions disturbing more often than not and such errors were especially pronounced among the Chinese I met. Regional differences between places like California and New York were lost in a soup of common misconception: We throw our elderly away in old folks homes as soon as they become a nuisance; we all swap wives at parties and generally during our waking hours focus almost entirely on finding solutions to glandular discomfort. We all become rich at the expense of others in whatever group we might be associated with, family, work or friends. Hollywood does few favors with the picture it paints of us for those that don't have another reference point. Other myths and beliefs hold as well with the less educated. Most of it was just ignorance and that was the stuff I enjoyed playing with.

Once I had a urinary infection for which I was prescribed something to ease burning. One side effect was that it turned urine into what looked like 30 weight motor oil. Public toilets in Taiwan did not bother to address privacy so urinating was a communal activity of sorts where no one had any secrets. Knowing I would have my privates stared at by a group of old Chinese men I saw enter the restroom ahead of me, I popped a piece of dark purple candy in my mouth. I waited for everyone to be in position and I took my place in the center of the group; each of us firmly gripping those extensions we occasionally use to think with. Jaws dropped as I sprayed the wall with 30 weight motor oil while making a real show out of spitting purple splats at the same time.

Immersing myself in Taiwan where so few people spoke English did indeed force me to learn to communicate in Chinese. Every day I would launch a new adventure armed with a folded piece of paper and a pen. On the paper I had written one or two sentences I wanted to use enough that they would stick between my ears. During the day I would find excuses to use those sentences several times and normally after about ten times they were mine; I could use them or recognize hearing them quite easily. Eventually I became fairly comfortable with carrying a conversation in Chinese. Of course I would not care to discuss aerothermal characteristics of rotating equipment but I had no problem navigating through my day. The Chinese though never would have guessed that was the case. Once I boarded a bus in Taipei and a young lady was standing with two guys just past the driver. As I approached them she said to her friends without any hint of discretion, "Ni kan! Ta shr numma hongda!" (Hey look! He is so red!) I responded, "Wo jrdao wo shr hongda". (I know I'm red.) Her embarrassment and "Wo dwui buchi!!" (I'm sorry!!) was one of those rare moments in life one gets far too few of.

Taiwan was once called Formosa, from Ilha Formosa which means beautiful island in Portuguese. Half of the island is tropical and the other half semi-tropical. Ninety miles wide by 240 miles long, it did not take long to go from one end to the next. That trip however was not made on superhighways but instead a narrow road that in places did not look like it could accommodate traffic from both directions. Somehow though it did and a cross country bus trip was sure to be an exciting adventure, especially in the mountains.

It was indeed a beautiful island with mountainous scenery that looked vastly different than anything I had ever seen. From roads cut cloud level through solid marble mountains in Taroko Gorge, you could see almost iridescent lime green bamboo forests stretching as far as the eye could see. The wind would blow across the top of this forest like waves across an ocean and reminded me of the way wheat fields across America's plains blew in similar waves.

My time in Taiwan was primarily limited to Taipei which at that time had none of the trappings of Western culture like Burger King or McDonalds. This was in every way a completely Chinese place. The streets were clogged with small cars and even more small motorcycles. It was not uncommon to see an entire family of five people perched precariously on a small motorcycle with the dad driving the thing. Also competing for street space were bicycles and hybrid contraptions made from bicycles but having a small truck bed on the back half. I remember seeing scrawny little old men pumping away uphill on one of these truck-bed bicycles, with four 50 gallon barrels of restaurant slop in the back. Some of these old timers looked to be in their eighties but I would not have wanted to anger one of them. The slop they carried was collected for the pig farms. Human waste too was carted about in the same way, called night soil it was used to fertilize the fields.

Using human waste for fertilizer meant the vegetables needed to be carefully washed in a bleach solution to avoid catching some life threatening disease. It also meant that a walk along the road next to those fields could be a less than pleasant experience if the field was freshly fertilized. This of course was in the countryside which was located not far beyond the city boundaries. Land was at a premium and the transition between urban and rural was more interlocking than generally found in the US; one block might be a rice paddy followed by a block of red brick or concrete surfaced apartments.

My initial accommodation in Taipei was in one of the seedier sections known for colorful ladies and men of questionable income. Not everyone fit these categories and some residents simply did not have the means to live in a better neighborhood. In Taipei one did not always rent an entire apartment and such was my case as well. I had the luxury of having my own bedroom furnished with a desk, chair and a Japanese straw tatami, a hard mat about 3 inches thick, laid on the floor for sleeping on. The apartment's other bedroom was occupied by eight young Chinese gents from Malaysia all of whom slept on towels, whenever it was they did sleep.

I don't recall ever being aware of them taking a break from all-night games of mahjong, a Chinese game resembling a cross between dominoes and playing cards. At intervals amid whoops of delight and moans of disappointment I could hear the hard plastic mahjong tiles being shuffled and mixed for another game; which at 3:00 in the morning can be as off-putting as someone banging pots and pans against each other. They seemed to do everything together which most of the time involved playing mahjong or some other form of gambling. I think Chinese will gamble on anything, even betting which raindrop would slide down the glass of a window first.

On the whole I was like the guy in the old time movies that died in his sleep but didn't realize it. When he woke up he wandered about the house and the entire movie was about no one being able to see him; which he was oblivious to until the end of the show. I too walked around the apartment without any acknowledgement at all that I existed. I was invisible to them. Others in the building were more engaging which in retrospect I find odd, but that's just the way things were.

The individual apartments in our building did not have private bathroom facilities but instead each floor of four apartments shared one men's room and one women's room. Contrary to American expectations the toilet was not an elevated seat type affair but rather a porcelain hole installed flat on the ground. Chinese who grow up with these contraptions are quite comfortable squatting down on their haunches, taking aim and completing their mission with no problem. The toilet is meant to be mounted facing the front with the wall behind, outstretched arms perched on bended knees affording the means to shift one's center of gravity and maintain balance. That I suppose works fine when you have never used anything else. But if you are a Westerner who last comfortably squatted when you were about 18 months old, your center of gravity is in a place that causes you to tip forward or backwards but certainly not balance in a way that allows accurate targeting. My initial experimentation included facing forward but twisting to one side or the other so one arm could be braced behind against the wall. But since only one arm at a time could be used this way it soon fatigued. I tried to quickly switch arms but since it was at an awkward position and higher than I could actually raise my arm behind me, early attempts were followed by the need to immediately take a shower and remove evidence of the failed attempt. Soon I discovered that it was easier to mount the thing backwards which allowed me to then brace against the wall with both arms. After some time I had sorted out a procedure that did not meet the manufacturer's specifications but nonetheless allowed me to get in, conduct business and get out without spilling over sideways in a most disquieting splash.

Showers were something that needed to be loosely scheduled. Informal chat with neighbors revealed when I might take showers without making enemies. The shower was a tiled space with a curtain that could be drawn for privacy. Mounted on the wall adjacent to the shower was a metal box about one foot wide, two feet tall and maybe eight inches thick. At the bottom of the box was a lever with a knob on the end. This boxy device was a tank-less, on-demand water heater. To start heating water I had to first turn on the tap so there was some flow. Then I moved the lever to the right where it fell into a stop and the gas turned on. Next I would pull the knob which sparked electrically and lit the gas burner whereupon I moved the lever completely to the right which locked it in the on position. Water really did heat instantly and I've always admired the clever way that heater worked without waste. When I finished my shower I had to remember to turn off the water heater or expect an irritated knock on my door pointing out my failure to do so.

Once word spread quickly through the building that a typhoon was approaching which in the US is called a hurricane. There was not much for me to do in preparation for its arrival other than stay indoors and wait it out. The apartment building had a flat roof with a waist-high wall running around the perimeter. The roof was accessed in the middle through a door that opened between it and a central staircase; just like those doors you see in the movies when the good guy has escaped to the roof and the bad guy is hot after him. That door the bad guy bursts through at the top of the stairs is just like what we had. When the typhoon hit it was a frightening display of God in a bad mood with eerie wind noises and creaking of the buildings structure. The roof drains had evidently not been cleaned in some time and were completely clogged. I don't recall how many hours passed during the storm when suddenly the apartment door burst open and a two foot wall of water gushed in.

Water was cascading down the stairwell like a waterfall in the forest. Later investigation showed that the roof had filled up with water which blew through the door to the stairwell. It was substantial enough that as it careened down it blew open the doors of all four apartments on the top two floors. Where they all found one I have no idea, but all eight of the guys in my apartment had a broom. As the wall of water continued pouring through the door, they worked in a sweeping frenzy trying to hold it all back. It was a completely fruitless thing to do and in no way made any impact on anything other than the need to feel they were doing something useful.

Outside were unimaginable noises, one of which was the murderous scream of a huge pig caught in the river's current where there had been a street below. I remember watching the pig flow by trying desperately to climb on the tops of vehicles that were almost completely submerged but it was simply swept passed to its doom, I'm sure. [ Continue to fluff this out]

The apartment landlord was a gentleman in his mid thirties with business interests that were a mystery to me. He made offers of temporary employment that he explained would only involve me delivering packages to places like Hong Kong for which all expenses would be paid and I would receive payment as well. Visions of my blond hair bobbing up and down as I ran through a sea of black hair through back alleys, followed by shrill whistles being blown behind me prevented me from accepting his generous offer.

The neighborhood consisted of blocks of concrete apartment buildings that looked like something out of a documentary on the old Soviet Union. These were functional abodes not encumbered with creative design, fronted by narrow streets and sidewalks dotted at intervals with potted plants, bushes or trees. Each block had a small store set in what appeared to have originally been planned as a room in just another apartment; and indeed may have once been one. The front wall would be missing and there was a counter behind which sat the proprietor. Shelves lined the walls and held everything from soap to bottles of Shaoxing rice wine and Kaoliang; a liquor made from maze that after unsuccessful attempts to make it palatable, my friend used as a solvent to clean the parts of his electric razor.

On the counter was an abacus made famous by the Chinese long before calculators or even slide rules were invented. Chinese shopkeeper fingers could fly through mathematical calculations on an abacus in a way impossible to follow. The resultant amount was almost always higher than the buyer wished to pay so it was followed by haggling back and forth in raised voices that appeared on the verge of physical conflict. The heated exchange eventually reached common ground when a price was agreed, usually halfway between either side's prices. Once a price was reached it was all smiles again and usually the proprietor would toss some little something extra into the bag a a gesture of goodwill.

One day as I was returning to my apartment and approached the walkway outside to the stairs, I heard a scream from inside the apartment on the floor above. The scream was followed by a couple running out onto their balcony, drenched in something. At almost the same time the door to the stairwell burst open and I was almost knocked down by churning knees and pumping elbows as some guy flew by in what turned out to be an escape. It seems he was the old boyfriend of the young lady now wet and screaming on the balcony, standing next to the replacement boyfriend. The jilted boyfriend had just thrown acid on them and while the new boyfriend evidently survived, the girlfriend I was told some days later did not.

About that time I heard about an American professor that had just arrived in Taipei and found himself caught in a game of political ping-pong. This was a time when the US had not yet abrogated the treaty with Taiwan in favor of normalizing relations with the mainland but there were indications it would happen. I no longer remember what perceived offense caused the reciprocal slight but no one met the confused professor at the airport upon his arrival. He made his way to a hotel and after sleeping off the journey succeeded in contacting the school where he had been hired to teach. They minimally met his contract conditions but provided none of those courtesies one would expect; and the good professor aside from being shown where he would live and where he would work, was left to his own devices.

I contacted him by telephone and explained that my call was purely made for humanitarian purposes; that I was in no way associated with his school but that I was willing to at least show him the ropes that I had been shown. He eagerly agreed and we met. Doctor Feelgood as I came to call him, had once been an Assistant Press Secretary to President Johnson and had been contracted to teach Media Relations at one of the big universities.

Chinese friends try to find something I won't eat snake alley; Kung fu kid like an airplane prop

Taiwan at the time of my adventure there had the highest incidence of hepatitis in the world. Toward the tail end of my adventure there I began to experience stiffness in the neck, flu-like aches and urine that looked more like Lipton tea. A visit to the clinic resulted in my invitation to go straight to a room in the intensive care unit which differed from the standard care unit only in that the sign said Intensive Care Unit. Probably too there was a higher charge associated with ICU but it was by no means restrictive as far as visitors or anything else I could discern. After I was situated in my bed, relaxing with a jar of saline solution dripping into my arm, visitors began showing up to pay their respects. Hepatitis not only turns your urine to tea, it also turns pink people into yellow people and my first group of Chinese visitors all agreed that at last I looked normal. One suggested I dye my hair black and put a rubber band around my eyes to complete the look... chortle, chortle. Had I not felt like refried dog poo-poo I too would have thought it was as funny as they did. I've always thought it odd that when you are really sick, look and feel as bad as you possibly can, your friends feel the need to come for a visit and chat.

Not having a visible means of support resulted in many Chinese thinking that I must be in the CIA. "Aw yew Ceea Aiya Aya?" they would ask point blank as if I would break down and say, Wow... yes! But hey! Please don't tell anyone okay? We need to keep this a secret between us because if word gets out the Commie spies from Red China might infect me with hepatitis or something worse! It was a bit like only being able to reply yes or no to the question, "Do you still beat your wife?" I never really found a satisfactory way to respond to the question. The harder you try to deny being a secret agent, the more it looks like you might be one.

One evening a nurse came in to load a new jar of saline solution in my IV. I've always watched nurses thump a syringe several times to remove any little air bubbles before giving an injection. In movies, murders are sometime affected by injecting air into a victim's vein; death then coming quickly on the silver screen. But on this occasion as she worked quickly I noticed about four inches of air in the line which I realized would shortly be in my arm. "Ni kan!! (Hey look!) I yelled, pointing to the deadly slug of air. "Meiyou gwenchi" (It doesn't matter) she replied as she spun around and headed out the door.

I was stunned. Obviously, I realized with a cringe, she had been sent to assassinate me thinking I really was CIA, as I braced for the sure death I knew from many movies was about to come. But it didn't. After an hour or so waiting to die I began to believe I might actually survive the attack and by morning I was confident she had missed her target. When my doctor dropped by to read my chart I questioned him about air in veins and was told it takes a lot of air to kill. If enough air gets to the heart, it will be churned into foam which causes the heart to cavitate. The bit "Miss Mengele" put in my arm, he assured me, was not enough to do the deed.

By this time I was using a Chinese name... Li Ling... which I had come to know was often thought to be a girl's name; much as Carroll or Gene might be thought of in the West. Language alone won't get you a job overseas. Must have a solid skill and language ability is icing on your occupational cake

<a

Venezuela

My time in Venezuela was truly the right adventure at the right time for me. Having grown up in Arizona’s somewhat fusion culture of North American and Mexican I have always had an affinity for life south of the border. Venezuela captured my imagination with its beauty, smells, music, food, drink and diversity of urban and rural pockets of life.

As it happened I worked for a small boutique engineering company owned by a former university professor and his wife. They came originally from another colorful country, far, far away where they and many of their compatriots were not encumbered by moral dictates or ethical restraints. The good Doctor would do anything to make a buck and found in me the flexibility to adapt to most any scheme to which he had sold my talents. I was passed off to clients as an expert in a wide range of subjects but fortunately what I lacked in credentials I was able to make up in resourcefulness. I had once been sold as a construction engineering designer to a well known refinery in the Middle East. As Project Manager I was given responsibility for the design of an electrical and instrumentation maintenance facility. I’ll not now expand on that, another adventure worthy of documentation other than to say with chest puffed up with pride, that I did indeed pull it off. In the end the client had as fine a maintenance facility as any refinery in the world.

In Venezuela my role was sold as an expert on material control. There was a refinery in the town of Anoco about 400 km from Caracas. The site was some distance from civilization and operated with a certain level of autonomy based primarily on the fact that it was so remote. The oil company that owned it had policies in place requiring that equipment and parts procurement must be done at the corporate level. That I am sure was to allow various blanket purchasing agreements to be used and thus pricing benefits enjoyed. However, the rugged rough and tumble engineers on that refinery, who might in an earlier age have been cowboys or even mercenaries in a couple of cases, were not bothered by such imposed restrictions. If Juan felt it would be a good idea to have some spare parts for a particular machine to which he had some attraction, he would somehow affect the purchase of those parts. Pedro might also strike upon the same idea and would also manage to secure the spare parts of his dreams.

There was a fairly large room that had been set aside at one point with some thought given to organizing a small warehouse for these items. Over time though organization gave way to lack of discipline and a small mountain of unopened boxes began to grow in the center of the room. It came to a point where perhaps Juan’s machine would require the part that he had so cleverly anticipated and ordered. But by this time the part was buried among hundreds of other parts all in their original packaging and impossible to find; at least not in time to repair whatever machine was now broken and required the part. The only logical solution therefore was to special order another part and wait for its delivery.

Ultimately rational heads prevailed and it was recognized that a Material Control Specialist was needed to sort out the mess. Material Control Specialist you say? “I can do that!” I said and began a series of trips to Anoco, Venezuela where my skill and subject matter expertise was given the respect and admiration that it deserved. Here again I faced a dearth of credentials that was compensated for with common sense. Four workers were assigned to report to me and at my expert direction, opened each box and carefully inventoried its content. Shelves were put in place to hold the parts and in the end a well organized mini-warehouse of spare parts stood where chaos had once ruled. Everything was categorized and entered into a simple index-card filing system based on what I remembered of my elementary school library’s Dewey Decimal System of book storage and retrieval.

Of course several years had gone by since elementary school and with them detailed memories of the actual complexity of a Dewey Decimal System; which was a good thing because it resulted in a far simpler and more user friendly system. Juan, Pedro, Ramon and all of the engineers that had contributed to the original mountain of spare parts were most pleased. Not only were they now able to locate the exact part they wanted, but having accumulated an absurd abundance of like items were able to sell off enough inventory as scrap to fund a rousing night of drinking, dancing and fiesta style debauchery. I was a hero... albeit a hero with a hangover.

Anaco in those days was a quaint town, arguably just a small village. I recall a main street leading to and away from a town square in the center that was comprised of the type of vendor stalls found at a flea market. The surrounding countryside was green with scrubby trees scattered about. In the populated areas mango trees were everywhere it seemed and were laden with fruit that no one seemed to care when you picked some. The trees were mature and thick, lining roads and filling what might otherwise be empty lots or gardens next to buildings. Ripe mangoes hanging at almost eye level was a treat I looked forward to when visiting Anaco.

Very near the town square was the hotel I used for my stays in Anaco: one of two that had electricity. In the center of the room was a single clear 60W light bulb suspended at the end of a wire from the ceiling. Taking a shower was not for cowards and not up to any standards that I am aware of. The toilet was next to the shower and on top of the toilet back was an handful of fuses like once found in Volkswagen cars; ceramic body with a strip of copper spanning from one end to the other. Above the toilet was a fuse box for an on demand water heater that was built into a shower head the size of a dinner plate. It must have been female, it was so fickle. To start this adventure you first had to replace the fuse in the fusebox that was undoubtedly already blown. Then you needed to start the flow of water which did indeed get warm. The shower head was attached to a pipe that protruded about about two feet from the wall and was wrapped with a coil of regular household electrical wire just like the one that powers your lamp or stereo. This connected to the heating coils inside the shower head.

Without fail, at that point where you were completely lathered in soap, you would hear a crackle, sparks would fly and the fuse would blow. If you wanted to finish the shower with warm water you had to step out of the shower, dry your hand off so it would not drip into the live connectors and pop a new fuse in place. The whole time you are wondering if you will end up like a beetle that gets fried in one of those electric bug zappers.

In the evenings I would leave my room and stroll the short distance to the square with Indian vendors selling their wares on tables. Food stalls were also there as well as a few small restaurants. It has always amazed me how far and wide the Chinese have dispersed. I do not believe I have ever visited a country and not found at least one Chinese restaurant. Anaco too had a Chinese restaurant although the food was not something someone from China would recognize. I've found that to be true in most countries; the Chinese are quick to adjust their recipes to local tastes. One visit was enough for me. The Chinese don't always have an easy go of things when they immigrate to a new land; and I can imagine it would be difficult to introduce a strange cuisine to people in a small town in rural Venezuela. It reminds me of a true story I was once told about three Chinese brothers that moved to an all White American town in the middle of Iowa. The three gents were named Chung, Tung and Fung. Together they pooled the life savings of their family back in China and opened a Chinese restaurant in a good location in the town. However, they just could not get many customers. All of the hopes and dreams of Chung, Tung, Fung and their entire extended family were riding on the success of this business venture. Soon it was obvious they were in trouble so they agreed to hire a consultant to study the business and make suggestions.

The consultant came and performed interviews with people in the town. He studied demographics and business models of other successful restaurants in the area. After a month he made a presentation to the brothers on his findings. Gentlemen, you are Chinese and must be aware that you have moved into an all White town where you do not blend in. The residents are not necessarily prejudiced against you but they are unfamiliar with other cultures. What I have found is you must make an effort to assimilate into the community and to start you must change your names to something more American. So Tung from now on you will be known as Tuck. Chung, after today you will be called Chuck. Feng, unfortunately you must go back to China.

True story, ahem... ahem, I swear.

Also in Anoco was a rotisserie chicken stand that offered chicken no different really from rotisserie chicken found in other countries. What set this place apart however, was the green sauce served with the chicken called guasacaca (wah suh cah cah) sauce. While the pronunciation sounds more like something to avoid stepping in, the taste is beyond wonderful. The Internet abounds with recipes which differ immensely from family to family. Some day I will make a concerted effort to find or develop one to my liking but I doubt I can ever achieve what has grown in my mind to be far better than it probably really was.

In the morning I would drive to the refinery and along the way came to the intersection of two country roads leading to godknowswhere Venezuela. On one corner was a vendor with a crude hand painted sign that read, “Perros Calientes” (hot dogs). That might not be considered the American breakfast of champions but that is what I had each morning. The guy sold the most wonderful hotdogs. The buns were homemade and the completely assembled unit was a bun, weiner and homemade coleslaw with mustard squirted liberally all over it. Doing a search on the Internet for Venezuelan hot dogs will turn up a surprising number of hits. Incidentally so will Cuban hot dogs, Colombian hot dogs, Chilean hot dogs, Brazilian hot dogs and almost any other country you can think of. Be extremely careful ordering a hot dog in China however as they may serve you something entirely different that might actually have once barked.

On the way back to town from the refinery in the afternoon there were vendors along the same road selling coco frios, which were coconuts with a straw inserted through a hole. The coconuts were kept in a bath of ice water so the coconut milk was icy cold. On hot steamy afternoons when it was too early for beer, coco frios were a pretty good replacement. But then if it was the right time for beer, Venezuelans were certainly not opposed to drinking the stuff.

One day at the refinery the lead engineer and a two of his engineers invited me and one of my coworkers to join them for an afternoon beer drinking session. We drove in two pickup trucks over rough dirt roads that although then dry, obviously often were not. Their driving showed a familiarity that only frequent use brings as they expertly swerved around potholes large enough to lose a wheel in. The journey was through raw countryside broken by fences built to establish homestead claims. Swiftly bouncing and jostling and swerving to miss cows, goats and chickens, suddenly the truck bound through an opening between the trees. The drivers drove over a downed power line that appeared to have been there for some weeks and into the courtyard of what seemed to be a country inn and cantina. Chickens scattered in a clucking frenzy of flapping wings and floating feathers as the two trucks slammed on their brakes and expertly slid the last three meters into perfect side by side parking positions. Yes, this was familiar territory to the drivers of the two trucks.

Relieved to have survived what I had not been sure I would, upon entering the cantina I headed toward the room marked Hombres with the black silhouette of a cowboy on the door. The others strolled toward the back corner of the room and settled around a table that looked out through open windows across the dirt courtyard to the trees beyond. I soon joined my compadres who had already ordered a round of Polar beer, mine included. Polar, which means the same in English or Spanish sounds better in the latter and is pronounced po-larr emphasis on the second syllable. Polar is outstanding in and of itself but in Venezuela the beer arrives with about a quarter inch layer of ice frozen on the bottle. How they achieve the layer of ice without freezing the beer is beyond me but if you enjoy cold beer, there is no better way to have one.

I thought it odd that the proprietor did all the work delivering beer, cleaning tables and working the cash register while two very attractive young ladies, I assumed were his daughters, stood about just staring at us. Our group whiled away several hours telling jokes and stories and laughing and lying and we drank more beer than we should have; but other than well earned hangovers that were to come, no damage was done to anything as a result. The following day commiserating with the others who were equally hungover, it came out that rather than being the proprietor's daughters in the cantina, the Inn was actually a house of prostitution. My mother would be proud that my inexperience prevented me from recognizing the difference.

Triga me la propana

Trip through countryside, asphalt poured roughly onto dirt – Fidel Castro lookalike and goons in brush

Fly to Simón Bolívar International Airport (Venezuela) in Maiquetía, Venezuela, spend the night in Caracas, fly to Barcelona, Vn and drive to Anaco. Polar Beer CARACAS: Trade show at Poliedro – hospitality suite and Richard L drinking fountain Tree frogs in Caracas

Valle Verde Argentine BARBACOAS (Parrillas), yucca, arapas and warm cheese

Arepa with Richard L., Doug H, Gene E - drunk pushed dbl parked car down hill <a

Kuwait

In 1998 I was working for a non-profit organization in Houston that was in the business of process improvement. Their product line included those cutting edge business improvement tools like Knowledge Management, Process and Metric Benchmarking, Business Research, and so forth. While they were structured as a "non-profit" organization, that should not be construed as some altruistic higher calling to do good for good's sake. I have never before or since worked for any organization more consumed by a carnivorous pursuit of revenue. Many companies have profit sharing programs to encourage and reward employees that produce above and beyond. This organization, as a non-profit, called the same thing "gain sharing" which was meant to camouflage the fact that it was a business in the business of making money.

In my role there I somehow received an email from a Kuwaiti Project Manager for a business process re-engineering project in Kuwait. One thing led to another and I went with a small team to help produce a schedule for that project and then ended up relocating to Kuwait. When our team of six arrived on the job four of our members were from the hinterlands of America. They just could not seem to get comfortable in what they found to be such a strange culture. Meanwhile, the other two of us had grown up on the border with Mexico. We both had a lot of experience in Latin America and one day it hit me that Kuwait's culture was very much like Mexico's with the exception of religion.

In both cultures women live varying degrees of sheltered lives, not always to their benefit I might add but in fairness many were quite happy with the arrangement. Lunch in both cultures is not until maybe 2:00'ish and there is a nap time or siesta in the middle of the day. Social activities in the evening do not really start until after 10:00 pm be they Middle Eastern of Latino. The comparisons go on and on, including architecture and even some common words between Spanish and Arabic.

It does not take much effort to realize that the Islamic Moors were in Spain for 600 years; after which the Spanish gently nosed around the New World to see how they might help... and possibly find anything of value they could carry back to Spain. The result of all that washing back and forth of cultures was some pretty serious cross-pollination. I felt right at home in Kuwait. After all, I had grown up in the desert of Arizona making trips into Mexico as a youth; the architecture I had always thought to be Spanish architecture had obviously originated in this part of the world; and there was an international element to the adventure that I found stimulating.

To say Kuwait is desert is like acknowledging that the North Pole is polar. Kuwait, considering the natural land, offers but one redeeming quality; and that is that it abuts a beautiful sea that stretches from Iraq in the north to Saudi Arabia in the south. What the Iranians, and ironically Americans, call the Persian Gulf here is known as the Arabian Gulf. Whatever you choose to call it, looking out from the coast of Kuwait it is a beautiful body of water. The landscape problem begins when you turn around and face land. To be fair, Kuwait City and Fahaheel, further down south, have done a remarkable job in recent years with landscaping. In Kuwait City there is a palm tree lined walking and biking path that runs along the water for some kilometers. At night the palm trees are lit with spotlights that are truly stunning. The entire way is paved with red bricks in an interesting pattern with cozy seats built around the palms and along the short wall that runs the length of the path. At night those seats hidden by shadows or otherwise obscured are occupied by young lovers stealing moments together that might not find the approval of their parents; or in some cases perhaps their spouses.

Outside the city, and you don't need to travel far to be there, the land turns to a flat baked earth that for as far as the eye can see appears devoid of vegetation save a few scrub bushes and an occasional short desert tree next to a road. Often flocks of sheep can be seen grazing on nubs of greenish brown nothing barely sticking out of the dirt. With the sheep a lone Bengali shepherd dressed in a dirty dishdasha, or robe, will be there tending to them. His skin weathered into dark wrinkled leather with a ghutra sitting on his head like an Italian tablecloth awaiting laundry day. On dusty days he will pull a corner of that Italian tablecloth across his face leaving only his eyes exposed to the elements. It is a scene not unlike those described in the Bible and I suppose the boy David's life was pretty much the same before he became king. Camels too can be found wandering about in loose herds. God must have been in a silly mood when He invented His camel, or perhaps it happened like this:

One day in heaven some angels were standing around chatting about horses and what improvements they thought could be made to them. Obviously it would be handy if they could go long distances without needing water and if they were to cross the sands of Arabia, some modification to those feet would be needed. God just let them go on for awhile and then He said, "I'll tell you what. I think maybe you're right. I'd like all of you to meet as a committee and agree on improvements to my horse." So the committee met in several workshops over the next couple of weeks. They discussed all their individual ideas for improving the horse and in the end God got a camel.

Leaving behind the excitement of watching herds of camels and flocks of sheep graze on dirt, we head back to civilization and soon encounter enormous villas, clustered together in neighborhoods that don't always have paved streets. This occurs more on the outskirts of town and it seems strange to see homes that obviously cost a fortune, lining what the owners apparently hope will one day be a paved street.

Closer to town the streets are indeed paved and as modern as those found anywhere in the world. As we advance into the metropolis we find a more concerted effort to bring green life to the area. There is a tree that was introduced maybe a decade or so ago from the genus Conocarpus erectus more often called by some variation of the name mangrove. It is truly a gift from God in that it grows incredibly fast and can be used as a hedge, a bush or if left untrimmed grows into a tall, bushy green tree up to 20 meters or 60 feet tall. It never looses its color or its leaves and seems immune to the heat. That in its many forms appears all over Kuwait and in my opinion has done more to illeviate visual boredom than any other plant found there.

The villas that populate the neighborhoods are palaces that range from large to larger and compete with each other in unbelievable opulence. Many are walled in a way that shields the privacy of occupants and yet showcases the villa. Like the walking path described earlier, night lighting is also used to great effect on these huge abodes and adds a dimension to the otherwise desolation of Kuwait's endless raw dirt. Villa interiors sport polished marble floors with intricate designs. Often wide sweeping staircases float down from the upper floors with detailed banister rails of wrought iron and copper or antiqued vine leaves laced throughout. Ceilings reach the height of about 12 feet or 4 meters with decorative plasterworks that are sometimes layered in a way that allows subdued lighting to be hidden. Artisans from India and some of the other Arab countries still excel in a craft that has all but disappeared in Western countries; sculpting crown molding from plaster and false pillars accenting the wall. Baroque Italian bathroom fixtures are quite popular and it is not uncommon for them to be gold plated. The heat and desolation outside is compensated for by an interior environment most people in the world could never imagine.

Kuwait is a conservative, Islamic country not given to open mixing of the opposite sex. Homes are very private places that outsiders rarely penetrate. For socializing most villas have what is called a diwaniya, a large lounge with couches or overstuffed chairs lining the perimeter of the room. The diwaniya normally can be accessed directly from outside which then avoids the need to parade guests through the house. Inside, coffee tables are spaced at intervals and it is in the diwania that guests are entertained. Some villas, if the family is conservatively observant, will divide the diwania in two parts, one for men and the other for women and children. Only maids then transverse between the two as they cater their sirs and madams with sweets and tea.

Children run screaming around inside the walled-in garden sounding like children anywhere. One or two maids will provide some modicum of adult supervision and ensure that all whims are met sufficiently. Most Kuwaiti children do not generally play in the streets until in the case of boys only, they approach their teens. Bedouin children are an exception to this however; and can be seen at a very young age running loudly with several of their mates up and down store aisles pushing adults out of the way. Lovely children these are.

In Kuwait, laws are more like goals. There is a Arabic word, wasta, which means connections, influence, relationship. Wasta is something everyone aspires to have some of because when something is needed, it is wasta that often provides it. In Kuwait anything can be sorted out if there is enough wasta. That applies to run-of-the-mill traffic violations, to finding a job, to getting a visa and even at the extreme, to murder.

I've lost count of the number of maids that in some mental state of psychosis were discovered by their kindly and benevolent sponsor to have hung themselves or jumped off the third floor of the villa they worked in. Frequently the body has signs of cigarette burns or bruising that no doubt was all self inflicted. The embassies of countries like India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines have hundreds of runaway maids living in their basements. The governments of those countries won't make a fuss about it for fear their nationals will be barred from working in Kuwait thus cutting off vital hard currency those nationals send home each month.

I could probably write a book about the bad side of Kuwait to which many maids there would no doubt quickly raise their hand if called on to testify. The horror stories related to Kuwait and her sister Gulf countries are well documented and the simplest Internet search will turn up as many stories as one might desire reading. That then relieves me the responsibility to expand on the topic here where I am attempting to highlight the humorous aspect of my life abroad.

While sad stories make the news, happy stories generally do not. My time in Kuwait was for the most part a happy story. It's like looking back on what used to be considered a normal childhood. In retrospect I remember fun things and even stories involving stitches at the emergency room now bring smiles when retold over glasses of wine and finger food. Kuwait was like that. There were some skinned knees, cuts and bruises but they were the exception and not the rule.

Those of us from the UK or US and other Western countries really do enjoy a privileged place in Kuwait; nestled of course below the Kuwaitis, a number of whom consider themselves to be shining examples of superiority to the rest of mankind. Not all, mind you but a significant number. Generally expat life in Kuwait is devoid of any social interaction with Kuwaitis. There are exceptions but not many. For the most part, Kuwaitis run with other Kuwaitis. Western expats, some Indian uppercrust and other assorted flavors of Arab nationals socialize on a variety of levels.

My wife is a zealot for games. It matters not what the game is, she will play it. Her favorite however is a Chinese game called Mahjong which looks a bit like a cross between playing cards and dominoes. The game consists of tiles about the size of dominoes with suits and characters and symbols and rules so complicated I doze off before they can be effectively explained to me. Once a week my wife hosted a group of ladies who all came armed with a dish of food and a glazed look in their eyes. For hours and hours they would play that game, escaping just in time to go meet their husbands returning from work. The group consisted of many nationalities, some I don't know that I could pronounce the name of. In some cases only enough English was spoken to allow them to play the game and excuse themselves for potty breaks. On another day each week an equally diverse group of ladies came to play a card game called Hand & Foot. Through these ladies husbands were introduced and social events like bar-b-ques, holiday buffet dinners, or dance parties were held. Smuggled or homemade libation flowed freely and friendships were built that last for years.

My best friend in the world was a South African bloke named Francois. As an American I had not been exposed to any White South Africans because they were reportedly all so naughty with their apartide that the US cut off any relations with them. Let me not imply that apartide was not a terrible thing. But I will state absolutely that the majority of White South Africans I met were God fearing, genuinely good people. Francois was a case in point. He came to Kuwait as the General Manager of a gasket manufacturer whose labor force consisted of Filipinos and Indians. Those workers were housed in an apartment building that was the epitome of filth and degradation, lorded over by a camp boss from another Arab country. After surveying the worker accommodation, Francois called the camp boss in and asked how in the world he could possibly let people live in that squaller. The camp boss replied, "Hey! They're only Indians and Filipinos!"

Francois sack him on the spot. Then he called all his workers together and told them, "I've just sacked your camp boss. Do you like living like you do?" Of course they did not and he then reached an agreement that he would supply the materials to repair and paint the place if they would do the clean-up and not charge him for it. In the end Francois got one Indian and one Filipino cook so the men had dinner waiting for them after work. He got them recreational equipment like ping-pong and a foosball table. He set up a room where they could watch TV on their spare time. Those men loved Francois like a father and would have killed for him if need be.

During my years in Kuwait I learned that if you age grape juice under the right conditions it develops flavors and complexity far beyond what it has when you first buy it; and is usually just best for drinking after about three months. Because alcohol is strictly forbidden in Kuwait, I found my aged grape juice to be quite popular at parties. Francois was the type of guy that could insult you and you found it funny. Whenever I opened a bottle of my old grape juice Francois would race me to the bottom. I still remember him sticking his empty glass under my nose and saying, give me some more of that nasty swill.

For those unfamiliar with South Africa, like I was, The Whites are from many different countries but the main two groups are originally British and Dutch. The Boer wars, two actually, were fought between the Boers or Dutch farmers, and the British. It was a nasty period and strong emotions can still be stirred up, especially after several glasses of my aged grape juice. Today, if you ask a South African of British background if animosity lingers still, they will for the most part say no, that's been over for a long time. If however you ask an Afrikans... a White South African of the Dutch persuasion, they will grit their teeth and mutter words I can only guess the meaning of.

Francois if he were still with us and sadly he's not, would be over 70 now. He was in school at a time when those divisions were more pronounced and even the Brits recognized it. His father insisted that Francois attend British schools which was not something he was keen at the time to do. When he asked his father why he had to go to British schools his father told him, "Because you need to understand just how those bastards think!" Francois never indicated any malace toward anyone and if he harbored any resentments at all they were very well concealed indeed.

Call to prayer Dishdashas & abayas 4 wives Gulf war KT towers Liberation Tower – Sandy arrested and goes to UK for Christmas Friends come & go Kids in British school “Dad I need a rubber” Old souq Malls Trip to desert BBQ and flies South Africans and brais – Francois Interesting Expats Hm made vino and parties Church Proximity to other places for travel

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Iraq

Rapid runs from Baghdad Int’l Airport to the camp. Military dining facilities Abraham’s Oasis & the flying worms

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India

India stands out in my mind as uniquely destitute among all the places I’ve ever been. Scanning my memory banks I cannot recall a single thing that looked new and fresh. My experience is admittedly limited to the Chennai area, what was formerly called Madras until the Indians decided that was a name imposed by foreigners, and by Ganesh, they would suffer that humiliation no more. So the state government officially changed the name to Chennai short for Chennapattinam in 1996, at a time when many Indian cities were being renamed. I suppose if you can’t bother to clean a place up you can at least change the name and show that you are doing something.

The adventure began for me as soon as I boarded an Indian airliner bound for Chennai. Other airlines had long before banned smoking on board but the Indian airlines had not. Settling into my seat my bumm would sink into a well worn depression. If it had retained any cushioning it might have been comfortable. Soon after liftoff a haze of cigarette smoke would fill the air and the flight attendants would start down the aisle with the drink cart. Indians at that time did not particularly care for red wine, preferring hard spirits instead. The only perq I found in flying an Indian airline was that when I asked for red wine, often the flight attendant would simply leave the entire 740 ml bottle with me; no one else, after all would be drinking the stuff.

Climbing off the airplane in Chennai I faced vast herds of humanity crushing and maneuvering to get from one place to another. Layers upon layers of officials were in place with one eyebrow raised as they scanned me and my documents for the irregularities they assumed would be there. If such irregularities were not found it did not mean some sort of correction should not be given and done so with the air of authority only those of lesser station can muster. Pushing and twisting my way through the crowd I would find my bag and make my way toward customs. Remarkably I never had to open my bag which was fortune as it usually contained homemade red wine, manufactured under strict standards in my Kuwait “playroom”. My homemade wine was far better than the sticky sweet swill sold in the wine shops of Chennai; which really were not wine shops at all. Why they were called wine shops was a complete mystery because they really only sold hard distilled spirits, Indian in origin with very British names.

After succeeding to run the gauntlet of Indian officialdom I would elbow my way through the myriad taxi drivers all competing for my business. My ride was arrange though by the refinery for which I was doing work and the driver was always waiting with teeth flashing like the keys of a piano. My work in India involved providing backup support to an American maintenance consultant who also worked in Kuwait. When Fred left India for Kuwait I would fill in and support whatever program he had underway. Then when Fred returned in 5 or 6 weeks I would go back to Kuwait. This rotation went on for the better part of a year so there were several such trips in and out of the Chennai airport.

On one trip I was in the car having just arrived, and suddenly at the window was a boy about 14 or 15 years old, missing both arms just below the elbows. He was a beggar and seeing him standing there with a practiced look of pure pity was like a stab in the heart. I rolled down the window and handed him roughly 0 in local currency which he clasped with both nubs. We then drove away down coconut tree lined streets weaving through taxis, cows, cars, bicycles, 3-wheel auto-rickshaws, pedestrians, scrawny dogs, chickens and goats. Businesses on each side of the road outside the city were unpainted or dirty mildewed, long ago whitewashed, concrete block structures. The front of each business had metal garage door style pull down doors to secure the business from what I can only imagine would be truly desperate thieves in the night.

The drive to the guesthouse where I stayed was about an hour although in actual distance it was not that far. With streets clogged with traffic of unimaginable variety most of the trip was stop and go, stop and go. Add to the visual image a cacophony of horns being honked in anger, frustration, impatience or habit. On the way I began to suffer guilt pangs over what I by then realized had not been all that much money given the beggar boy with no arms. I expressed my guilt out loud and the driver looked at me through the rearview mirror and said, “Sir that boy will not get that money. Someone owns him. His owner intentionally cut off his arms when he was small so he would bring in more money.” I was stunned. This was not a modern country but yet how could they allow such barbaric behavior go unpunished? It is a question I still ponder.

The driver was an interesting bloke having at one time been a man of means compared to his station when I met him. The story I was told was that his son graduated university with a degree as a chemist, or pharmacist in American parlance. After graduation the our driver friend, succumbed to the son's sales pitch for the investment of his life's savings in a pharmacy. I don't know how long it took for the son to squander his fathers fortune through mismanagement but that is exactly what happened. The result was he took the driver job and was a very fine driver indeed. In addition to having a witty sense of humor, he had an uncanny ability to know things in advance that he simply should not have been aware of; like high level meetings that the CEO would be requesting before there was any other indication it would happen.

While he was very bright and a delight to chat with on the long commute between the guest house and refinery, he could also surprise me at times with a complete lack of knowledge about things I would have expected him to know. For example once after he picked my up at the airport I was whinging about the smoky flight. My fellow Americans will no doubt be asking what whinging is. I too once wondered when the Brits and South Africans I knew used it. It means to complain in a whiny sort of way and I think Webster blew it when he forgot to include it in American vernacular. An any rate I was complaining in a whiny sort of way about how smoky the flight from Kuwait to India was; to which the driver looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Why didn't you just roll down the window?" Stupid me.

My times in Chennai were mainly by myself as the only non-Indian staying in the refinery’s guesthouse. That was not always the case but most often was. The refinery contracted food preparation to a vendor who in turned subcontracted to someone who in turn subcontracted. How many levels down this went I know not but the result was the food I was offered was the absolutely cheapest thing that could be found. Every day I returned from the refinery and within an hour there was a knock on the door to my room. Smiling widely the houseboy would announce that dinner was ready.

The guesthouse consisted of two adjacent apartments on the upper floor of a 4 story building. The kitchen and dining room were in the next apartment and I would dutifully go there, sit down and wait anxiously for what always turned out to be the exact same thing, except a different color; chicken chapatti and rice. The rice was white rice and the chapatti, a flat unleavened bread, was always chapatti. But the boiled chicken in cream sauce was always different. Sometimes the cream sauce was green. Sometimes it was cream colored. It might even be blue. But it was unmistakably, unremarkable boiled chicken in cream sauce.

Great fanfare was made in the presentation of these multicolored versions of the same dish. The waiter dressed in black slacks, white shirt, black bow tie and brown sandals would appear complete with a towel draped over his arm and a look of arrogance on his villager face as might be befitting a real waiter in five star restaurant. I would feign surprise and embellished joy at discovering that on this special occasion the staff had quite outdone themselves. Chicken! Wonderful! And what a lovely color it is too! My sarcasm fell on deaf and uncaring ears. Obviously I would have to rebel.

On the final straw occasion that I was served my usual chicken, chapatti and rice, I sat and stared at it for a spell, prolonged for effect. Please bring me the check, I said in time. But sir you have not eaten, the waiter responded with genuine surprise. That is true, I replied and I will not eat here again. Report to your manager that I will no longer be taking meals in the guesthouse; as I stood, threw the napkin, cloth at that, onto my chair and marched out of the apartment, down the stairs and out to the street.

On the corner were always several auto-rickshaws called tuk-tuk, small yellow 3 wheeled vehicles that reminded me of the 3-wheeled truck mailmen used to use to deliver our mail. I negotiated a price to take me to the local Best Western Hotel, climbed aboard and off we went. The tuk-tuk driver would work his way through traffic approaching the hotel from across the street. With great skill he swung into an offensive U-turn forcing his way to the curb at the bottom of the hill upon which stood the establishment. Regardless of the agreed price, the driver would howl in protest that it was not enough; whereupon I would continue as if oblivious to his remonstration, counting out exactly the amount we had originally negotiated. With money in hand he would bolt into the traffic’s flowing current in search of his next fare.

The hotel had a reasonable look of being maintained and a circular drive up one side of the hill and down the other. At the top was the doorman dressed in what must have been considered fashionable by the Rajah a century ago with a bright red tunic over billowing white pants that closed tight at the ankle. His shoes were the type that curled in a point at the toe, the same bright red as his tunic. The turban on his head was more of a contraption than hat, with long plumes of peacock feathers, a big medallion in the center above his forehead and strands of colored beads draped in layers. In addition to the elevated structure of the turban, the gent under it was unusually tall compared to the local population, giving the appearance of a large genie just released from his bottle. In one swift motion he bowed at the waist while swiveling his head from side to side in a way that suggested it rested on some axis hidden behind his nose; one arm crossed his waist while the other shot out behind him and pulled the door open. Wrapping himself in the rotation of the door, still bowed at the waist, his open palm pointed within and invited me inside. It was hard not to feel important.

The restaurant had a fair priced buffet with a good variety of Indian dishes most of which burned with the peppers and masala that south Indians do not know how to cook without. But there were some items that I could eat without searing the taste buds off my tongue. One of my favorites was a soupy dish made from lintels called dal which was eaten with a round spongy white bread made of rice and lentil batter. Several curries were there having varying degrees of spiciness as were fish and chicken prepared in different ways. The complexity and variety stood in stark contrast to the guesthouse offerings and I found myself returning each night for a week.

One day I returned to the guesthouse and upon entering found a gentleman seated in the lounge waiting for me. As I walked in he stood and extended his arm. I shook the limp hand he offered which felt like he was handing me a dead fish. He introduced himself as the General Manager in charge of whatever it was he was in charge of, that at the lowly bottom included the kitchen help charged with preparing my meals at the guesthouse. Sir I have heard you are no longer eating here in the guesthouse. Is there a problem? he asked.

Not now, I responded. Now I am eating where there is variety and I can eat things other than chicken, chapatti and rice. Chicken, chapatti and rice were good the first ten nights but then I wanted something different. You apparently are unable to prepare anything else. We haggled back and forth about what constitutes variety and within the eventually agreed to definition, just how much of it I required. In the end I conceded to give them a chance and while the result was not something a real chef would have admitted to preparing, it was different and it was free.

My bedroom at the guesthouse was more than adequate and not unlike a normal hotel room; bed, television, desk, bathroom and a balcony from which I could survey the street below. Television was limited to traditional Indian movies where in the midst of a scene, the leading lady climbs aboard some elevated place followed by the leading man leaping up there with her. The shrill nasal whine of a singer backed by wind instruments, bells and something thing went bong, bong bong to the beat, would launch everyone into a frenzied dance. Arms extended to the sides with hands swimming up and down, their heads bobbed back and forth like those little dolls you sometimes see in the back window of the car in front of you. At intervals the couple would lean in as though about to kiss, noses only millimeters away from each other only to pull back at the last moment and continuing the dance. I didn't watch much TV.

After dark when everyone had gone to bed and the lights were all out, the guard would start his rounds inside the walled-patio and garden area downstairs. In order for the building owner, also an occupant, to know he was making his required hourly rounds the guard had a headless mop handle that he would lift and drop with a boing, lift and drop, boing, lift and drop, boing. I could audibly follow him in a complete circle around the premises and since his obnoxious noise making prevented me from sleeping anyway, that's just what I did.

Guard at night with stick, boing, boing, boing.

Beggars spot me and I run thru shops and down alleys to escape. Ride to work along poop river - football playing in the poop field Hordes of humanity on streets Rows of people sleeping on sidewalks Church in the fort establishment in 1644 of Fort St George Crippled guy on homemade bike contraption that taxi cut off – describe his forgiving look/facial expression. The guy bringing tray with paint and coconut Ganesh idol in offices Eating with my hands with the engineers Everything needed paint, signs wired to posts without nut/bolts Masala on eggs & hash browns You’re not like a consultant; you’re like a real human being

<a

Sri Lanka

Frenzied Hindu ceremony with hooks through flesh, skewers through mouths Monkeys – don’t make eye contact Elephants Buddhist sites requiring the skills of a mountain climber to access Coconut liquor Sada the guide

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USA – Houston

Name change: When I was born my parents were very young. My mother was 19 and her favorite brother was named Robert Lea. She wanted to name me after him but thought if he had a son he would want to name that son Robert. She thought, we can’t have two Roberts in the family so she named me Bobby. On my birth certificate it says my name is Bobby Lynn Hitt. Bobby is normally a nickname for Robert and all my life it was a problem. Teachers would correct me for not using my formal name. I would bring notes from my parents telling them Bobby was my formal name. My uncle finally did have that son but he named him Steve.

Later I was about 26 or 27 and my passport expired. I went to the passport office to renew it and as I was filling out the forms I suddenly decided to use Robert Lea Hitt instead of Bobby Lynn Hitt. That was before terrorism was a problem. The guy at the passport office took my old passport and the form and went in a back room. Soon he came back out and asked, “Hey what’s with the different names?” I replied, “Oh I changed my name.” He nodded and returned to the back room to process my form.

Soon after that I got my new passport with the name Robert Lea Hitt. But I had never used that name before and it didn’t really feel like my name. It was never a problem until after the twin towers were bombed in 2001 but even then for me living outside the US it was no big deal. Then in 2009 I returned to the US and I could not get a driver’s license because I did not have 2 legal documents in the same name. The third legal document I had was under the name Bob Hitt. In order to get everything sorted out I had to go through an FBI background search with my fingerprints submitted. Then I had to go to court and have my name legally changed. It only made sense to pick Robert as my legal name since I already had a passport with it and that is the formal name. But I prefer Bobby and that is what all my friends call me.

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Qatar

Qatar looks like a cross between Dubai’s glitzy chrome and glass and Kuwait’s more basic down to earthiness mix of old and modern structures. While alcohol is illegal in Kuwait and available in Qatar under restrictions, Qatar is far more conservative than Kuwait. It seems to me to be more like Saudi Arabia than does Kuwait.

My eleven years in Kuwait was really quite pleasant on balance. Yes there were many, many frustrations especially when dealing with government formalities like residence and such. But those were occasions that everyone had to contend with and they did not happen every day. Qatar for some reason just did not sit well with me and I do not understand why. Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world thanks to their abundant gas supplies. In a short time the city of Doha has mushroomed into a montage of modern buildings whose architects designed as though in a creative competition; which in many ways it likely was. But in my opinion, Qatar is following the same path Dubai took and I just cannot imagine who will eventually occupy all these structures being built in such frenzy. It is as though the Qataris, envious of the modern places they had visited, decided one day that with money they could buy modernity. The problem is Qatar is one of the least exciting places to visit so the resort type developments will never attract outside investment. According to the 2010 census the total population of Qatar was 1,699,435 of which 796947 lived in Doha. I’m sure there have been a few babies added to those numbers but not enough to alter reality and the reality is there are not enough of them to populate the many developments underway.

Qatar has many ambitious programs in place that in a more pleasant environment might really achieve great things. But outsiders cannot immigrate to Qatar and become citizens and the place is simply never going to be a holiday destination. People go to Qatar to work and when they are no longer able to work there they leave. Full stop. Education city

Brit-sparring at work – a labo(u)r of love. The Pearl Quiz night Irish Pub Liquor license Vilaggio Driver license ordeal – kiss the sheiks ring Andy’s safety culture vs red lights

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Korea

Before ten year ah-go Korean man-jer he no speaka da engish berry weoh. Maybe he hab pillapino worker do bad and he muss teoh to him. He maka his face redy for angry and say to pillapino, "Why you do dis way?" But da pillapino dey unnerstan Engish berry weoh. Da pillapino guy he know dis so he speaka Engish berry berry fasah and say da reason for da bad ting. Da Korean man-jer... ooooh his head hurting! So he juz say, Okay! You no more do dis way!"

How was your honeymoon Mr. Park? Bery guud. Hawaii bery bootifoo. So now your wife has joined you here in Seoul? And tonight you will go home and she will have dinner waiting for you? Uhcorse... buh... food no so guud. She say you wan moh? I say ooOoh bery guud food buh I no nee moh. Smart man Mr. Park. This might be the one time it's okay to lie.

I am an adventurous eater and have eaten many meals with people who say, "If it crawls, if it swims, if it flies... we will eat it". I once lived for a year in a Chinese village and friends there found it quite amusing to try to find something I would not eat. Frankly, while water buffalo veins and tendons cooked 3 days in brine shrimp may taste pretty good, I prefer other more traditional dishes; although my definition of traditional is pretty wide. But Korean food leaves me feeling like I was a poor college kid who together with other poor friends, each tossed whatever we had without mold on it, into the communal pot. Korean food has no depth or complexity like say, Chinese or Thai food. I suspect it is the result of centuries of being invaded and poor farmers huddling in a hut tossing whatever meager edibles they had into a big pot, pounding it heavily with garlic and red chili peppers. After some time they developed a taste for it and started reproducing certain mixtures, giving names to their concoctions like bulgogi or bipinbop. Every day I eat in the company lunchroom and have another Korean mystery meal. It is okay and assuages hunger but I always feel like I just had leftovers when I am finished.

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Turkey

Nuttin here yet friend but be patient. I'll get to it in time. Try Mexico, Taiwan or India,. I 've covered a good bit there. (<:

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Appendix: As a Child

As a small boy in the first grade, somehow I learned the word anthropologist and the fact that an anthropologist studied man; which I took at the time to be American Indians and all those cool ghost-like things they could do in cowboy movies. I hadn't yet sorted out details but when Mrs. Ferguson asked each of us to stand up and tell the class what we would be when we grew up, my response was Anthropologist. In retrospect I'm sure that response stood somewhat uniquely in front of her against a backdrop of two foot tall policemen, nurses, firemen, teachers and so on. But the reality was and remained that I had a keen interest in the way other people, besides all those pink Americans like me, lived.

As I miraculously advanced from one grade to the next, geography class popped up along the way and was the closest thing to anthropology there was in elementary school. I loved the films that we were on occasion shown; especially those from Africa or the East Indies when the teacher warned us beforehand that we needed to act grownup during the film; to remember that what women in the film wore (or didn't) was completely appropriate for their culture; and if we giggled or disrupted the class we would be sent to the Principal's office. In geography class I remember learning that when there were battles between Indians and Pink People, if the Pink People won it was referred to as a victory. If however, the Indians won it was referred to as a massacre and was a terrible tragedy. In Arizona where I grew up we had Indians of course but thankfully they were all contained on reservations which prevented them from getting me or any of my brothers. If they had managed to get my sister, well I'm sure it would have been a bit of a loss for Mom and Dad, but we four brothers would have recovered pretty quickly.

What we learned from the discussion of most countries in geography class was pretty good. We came away with a fair understanding of the main characteristics of a people; except of course the Africans and East Indians whose one and only characteristic was that their women ran around bare breasted. Nothing else really mattered there as far as I was concerned. China was another situation entirely. Unfortunately they were Communist and had really irked the US by supporting North Korea in their war against the South Koreans and our side. When you piss off the US like that you can expect the cold shoulder and that is exactly what China got. So when it was time to study China the teacher would point to the large colorful map on the wall and say, "This geographical expression is China, the people are Chinese and they eat a lot of rice and fish. Moving right along..." and we would do just that.

Meanwhile my dad shared stories of his time in China during the war. He hated China. He arrived there in the US Navy at age 17 from the plains of Texas and found not one single redeeming value in the place. He was shocked by it all and told stories of watching women being sold as concubines; starving children swarming out from under the wharves to tear through the ships garbage; an estimated body an hour floating down the Wang Poo River; the old woman selling peanuts in the shadows and how startled he and his buddy Tom were when she reached into the light for their money revealing an arm eaten by leprosy. Dad spent 2 years in China and detested every minute of it. For 2 years he collected such stories to be used later as evidence to convince anyone who would listen, just how bad the place was. But his emotional investment in those stories made them rival anything Humphrey Bogart acted out on the big screen. I don't recall if my mouth hung open slack jawed as he recalled his sino-memories, but if it did it would only have reinforced for him that at least one person understood just how bad those commie-pinko-bedwetters really were. What he did not realize however was that he was only watering a seed planted at the time of Mrs. Ferguson; and my interest in China and the wider world began to smolder, a bed of coals waiting for the kindling of childhood emancipation to burst into flame.

© 16 July 2012 Bobby Hitt · An unfinished book in the works