'A Master of Southeast Asia'

I had a late last night in America that consisted of a posse of Tarheel alumni taking on Williamsburg, Brooklyn in formal attire (Williamsburg is a hipster hub; we had on slacks and vests whilst being surrounded by flatbill hats, mustaches, and thick framed nonprescription glasses). The night included me getting a drink poured on my head by a girl for air guitaring the Van Halen solo from ‘Beat It’ in the face of her boyfriend who called our crew awkward, and although the bouncer found it funny I was asked to leave, because they were both apparently regulars, and I was but a mere North Carolinian in transit (luckily the drink was clear, so really it just sterilized my hair).

After waking up surprisingly un-hungover, I hopped on the metro to get to JFK airport, and then waited for 2 hours. When I arrived in Milan after an 8 hour flight, the hallway of the airport had a perfect view of an amazing sunrise over the Alps. Too strung out, I failed to get a picture. I waited in Milan, amongst many Milanese for my next flight—they reminded me of well-bred versions of the Jersey Shore folk, with a little higher clothing budget and less steroids.

After another 6 hour flight I was in Bahrain, which is when it started becoming apparent that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore; there were many forms of man-dresses—some white, some brown, others decorated, but all of them were remarkably clean. There were quite a few women in Hijabs, which I can’t say I have ever seen more than one or two of at a time. There were also a bunch of Indian folks head bobbling to each other. I’m sure I will have more to say about this ‘head bobble’ as I see more of it in action, but for the time being, youtube it. It apparently means yes, no, hi, maybe, as well as more nuanced and elegant ‘fuck-offs’ or other things in certain situations. One Indian guy seemed to ask one of his South Asian brethren to watch his suitcase, which received a head bobble response; 2 minutes later, this dude left the suitcases unattended (maybe that time it meant ‘yeah sure, but only for 2 minutes’).

I also met a self-proclaimed Miami club promoter of Pakistani descent who was going back home to meet a candidate for his arranged marriage. He claimed to have been born and raised in The States, but he had weird gaps in his English, made strange cultural references, and started showing me pseudo-red-carpet photos of girls that he had allegedly hooked up with. Then he went and changed into a man dress—all this aggregated to make me believe he was a spy, but I don’t think there is much espionage work to be had in Miami, so who knows.

After finally shedding him (he was a stage 2 clinger), I picked up an Arabic magazine that was sitting next to my seat. There was a section on staying fit in urban areas; the first suggestion was washing more vigorously in the shower, because it burns more calories. I also noticed a Chili’s, where instead of whatever kind of art a Chili’s has at home, there were pictures of the handsome, mustached members of Bahrain’s royal family.

I arrived in Mumbai after yet another flight. At this point my body didn’t know what to think; it was day time, and I hadn’t slept in God knows how long. After finally being let into the concourse, I decided to just get coffee and try to hold out for a bed later that night in Thailand. An older gentleman was brought over next to me in a wheelchair.  The coffee and 2 all-nighters had me feeling chatty, so I struck up a conversation.

Come to find out, this guy, Ken, was shot in the head in the Vietnam War. After waking up in San Francisco weeks later he was left without the use of his right side, his speech faculties, and his reading and writing ability. All he could say was ‘great,’ but he didn’t know it—he thought he was still speaking fluent English. After months of speech therapy he started getting his language back, and he battled the next 10 years to reteach himself to read. His writing is still heavily impaired, partially because he was right-handed, and his vision has been cloudy since the injury.

Since then, Ken has been hoarding his disability checks and spending 5 months a year in Thailand; his extended passport included pages upon pages of Thai visas. He told me that after spending 10 years going back and forth to Thailand that he felt he was “A Master of Southeast Asia.” So I’m figuring from this that he speaks Thai, lives in a teak hut, and drinks rice whiskey in the Northern Jungles with people that have never seen a car, but apparently his definition of 'Master' differs from mine. Come to find out, he speaks no Thai, uses a travel agent, and his only two suggestions for places to go were Pattaya and Patong, which I later found out are the first and second largest sex tourism hubs in Thailand.

I arrived in Bangkok after another 5 hour flight, took the metro to a hostel, and passed out for the next 12 hours. I woke up feeling like a refreshed ‘Master of Southeast Asia’ and ready to take on crazy-ass Bangkok.