Little Reminders You are in a Different World

Unfamiliar landscapes remind me that
"You are not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!"

My Chinese friend reaches across me and picks up my empty tea cup. She takes the cup to the thermos on a side table and pumps the lid several times, then presses a tab at the front briefly -- just long enough for the hot water to coat the cup, inside and out. She pours the water out into bowl set there to catch waste water. Then she opens a packet of instant noodles and drops them into my cup. Once more she pumps the thermos. Once more she fills the cup -- this time to the brim. She sets it in front of me, adding a plastic spoon. "Wait two minutes," my friend tells me, "and it will be soup!"

It's the little things that most remind me that I am living among different cultures -- in a different world from the one I was raised in. Last night, I had drinks at the yacht club with a couple who have been sailing their own yacht for ten years. They talked about how they would wake in the morning and go through a process of discovering they were in a new place. I know that experience well; when performing on tour around the US and abroad (on and off for some 30 years), it would take awhile after waking to figure out where I was. The "yachtie" couple delights in exploring new ports, though they sometimes forget they are visiting foreign countries. Being on a boat -- like being in a car or RV on a long trip -- things become settled into their places. You know where your toothbrush is; you can usually find the scissors. Things become 'shipshape' after awhile. I have that experience now as I feel increasingly comfortable in the apartment I have rented on an island in Malaysia. It is well-outfitted with luxuries like a hot water shower and a washing machine, broadband internet access, cable TV -- all the comforts of home. I even adopted two kittens. I forget I am not "at home."

The seats become beds on trains in Thailand

What are those "little things" that are so different? I have come to accept that I must turn on a switch to power the electric hot water heater for the shower, then turn it off again when done. Unlike the U.S., I have only cold water to wash the dishes. If I'm feeling ambitious, I will throw the cutlery into a large pot, fill it with water, and boil the utensils for 15 or 20 minutes to sterilize them. But often, I will just soap and rinse -- the dishwashing liquid bottles claim their contents to be antibacterial. In China, the bottles would have pictures of vegetables being washed -- a good idea anywhere because who knows who has been touching food on its way from farm to store? I read recently that a few Americans die every month from bacteria in rat urine left on cans. So now I wash the cans as well before opening them.

The most shocking difference, of course, to most Westerners is the traditional Asian squat toilet, really just a hole that you attempt to hit. In China, especially in drought-stricken or desert areas, this can be a gutter that is washed out infrequently. The smells can be unbelievable. Waiting at ferry terminals in Thailand and Malaysia -- tourist centers featuring fancy duty-free shops and chain restaurants like Starbucks and KFC -- I am surprised (and disappointed) that there are no 'sit-down' facilities. In bus and mini-van terminals, I ask the way and find I must wend my way to a table where I have to pay for entry, or go through a family's kitchen or a filthy storage room to a rickety door and a windowless room with no lights, or else go outside on a narrow path through bushes to behind the fancy storefronts where sits a shack in the back. There are, of course, many many exceptions: the Western throne has become ubiquitous in newer buildings. That's part of the shock: you spend time in Western style hotels, apartments, and restaurants, then start to travel and inevitably, encounter the unexpected. But that's part of the attraction of travel: to see and experience new things you have never dreamt of before.

Ferry terminal in Asia. Workers generally
 have a more relaxed attitude towards time than
their Western counterparts.

With writing assignments, correspondence, and the fun of Facebook communications keeping me at the computer for most hours of the day, I rarely go out. When I do, it's usually just down the hill to a new grocery store just built a few months ago. I watched the store grow from a cement pad. Metal siding was added to form walls and roof. That was it -- then trucks arrived with boxes of stock and the doors were opened. Now when I need to shop, I am reminded about just where I am by the head dresses worn by the Muslim girls who act as cashiers and the bottles, cans, and packets labelled in Malay (Bahasa Melayu). There are no fruit or vegetables in this store (though there are two larger groceries in the city); I must go next door to an open-air stand where bunches of bananas hang suspended from bamboo poles and the flies buzz around. The surface of the electric weighing machine is never cleaned. Or I could go down the street to where a man in rubber boots stands with a cleaver in his hand, chopping chicken carcasses for hours, blood draining into the gutters around him.

Why do I keep assuming that all the world should be hygienic, sweet-smelling, sterile? It's the richness and variety of flavors, colors, smells, cultures -- and arresting images that suddenly make my heart pound --  that make living 'outside your comfort zone' in a foreign place such a stimulating, exciting experience!

Copyright 2011, TF (teviot@facebook.com)