More Language Humor

I truly admire how hard people work at overcoming the language barriers that divide them, and how often their efforts succeed, despite the use of less-than-elegant communications. Two examples from Thailand that struck my funny bone:

While riding on the Bangkok sky train recently, I discreetly peered over the shoulder of a Thai woman to read the English dialogue she was studying and practicing intently. The lesson was entitled, "Discourse with an Old." Since the lesson was accompanied by a sketch of a Western-looking geezer, I surmised that the phrase "an Old" was intended to refer to an elderly person. The dialogue began with the Thai speaker asking, "How old you?" (English teachers in Thailand, as well as writers of English language texts, often are Thais with limited English skills themselves.) After the elderly man responded, the next question is the one that really got me giggling: "You have cataract on your eye globes, is that not right?" (Can you just imagine all the readers of the dialogue eagerly awaiting an opportunity to practice this exciting phrase on an unsuspecting Western man?!)

The second example comes from our Thai driver, who told me recently about another driver's attempt to explain to his boss that he needed time off from his driving duties in order to attend the cremation of his recently deceased father. The only problem was that the Thai didn't know the English word "cremation," so he told his boss he needed time off to "barbecue" his father. Despite this awkward phrasing, the boss quickly grasped what the driver was saying and agreed to the request.

Hello Bali!

Doris and I have just returned from a glorious week at a resort in Bali. We now know a lot more about this tropical paradise, which is one of roughly 13,000 islands comprising Indonesia. We spent a good deal of time just lounging on the beach or around the pool at the resort, sipping tropical drinks:

. . . but we also hired a car and driver and took some excursions. Some of the more interesting things we learned during our visit:

-- It's difficult to adjust to Indonesian currency. It felt truly weird to give, as a tip, a piece of paper currency with "10,000" written on it, despite continually reminding ourselves that this equated to a little more than one US dollar.

-- Bali is 90% Hindu and 10% Muslim, resulting in a very tolerant environment, which is in considerable contrast to some other parts of Indonesia, where religious violence instigated by Islamic fundamentalists is a recurring problem.

-- Kite flying is a routine source of entertainment for the locals. The wind blows almost continuously in Bali, so we often would see one or more kites somewhere in the sky.

We also learned that the Balinese consider monkeys to be sacred. In fact, we visited a "sacred monkey forest," populated by more than 400 wild monkeys of all sizes. At one point during our tour of the forest, as I was fiddling with my camera, an adult monkey leapt onto my shoulders.

Doris kept her cool and snapped some photos (these could have come in handy when filing a life insurance claim), while I tried to remain calm, pretending I didn't mind having an animal on my back. I had read the sign at the entrance to the forest, warning against touching or playing with the monkeys, as they might react in an unpredictable manner and could pose a health risk. My biggest worry was getting bitten. Fortunately, I avoided this fate, although I had to spend the rest of the day touring with a lot of dirty paw prints all over my t-shirt.

Pictured below is a graveyard in the monkey forest. No, this doesn't contain the bodies of rabies-infested tourists. It does include the grave of our tour guide's mother, however:

Our guide explained that people are buried only temporarily, until the town's next cremation ceremony is scheduled, at which point the bodies are exhumed and burned. I'm inserting a photo showing the temple area in which the bodies are prepared for cremation.

A stone statue next to the entrance shows an evil spirit devouring a child. Now, how inviting is that?!

We passed many rice fields on our tour and watched some people harvesting rice:

We also visited a stone sculpting shop:

Pictured below is a beautifully carved piece depicting the Indonesian version of Romeo and Juliet:

We also stumbled upon an open-air performance by elementary school children. The little girl dancers were amazingly talented, and we enjoyed seeing the non-performing children just as much.

Speaking of little girls, it's really difficult to differentiate between very young girls and adult women in Indonesia. Man, these people are just so tiny compared to Americans! Here's a photo of Doris standing next to the sales lady in a Crocs shoe store:

We enjoyed watching women balance things on their heads—sometimes baskets and, in one surprising case, a load of lumber:

Near the end of the day, we toured a Hindu temple overlooking beautiful scenery:

The temple grounds, again, were populated by monkeys, including this blissfully incontinent mama:

These particular monkeys, though, had evolved beyond the simple pleasure of startling tourists by leaping on their backs and had engineered a profitable scam involving the Balinese grounds keepers. As one enters the temple grounds, a sign warns against wearing eyeglasses, jewelry, hats, etc. I suspect most tourists think these rules are designed to avoid offending the religious sensibilities of the Balinese people. As our tour guide explained, however, the warnings are aimed at the practice of monkeys in stealing these items from visitors. We saw this happen to a Japanese man. Before the man knew what was going on, the thieving monkey was sitting in a nearby tree, bending and chewing on the man's eyeglasses.

A grounds keeper quickly appeared and tossed a bag of peanuts to the monkey. The monkey took the peanuts in exchange for the glasses, and the grounds keeper then offered the glasses (broken lens and all) to the Japanese man in exchange for a monetary "reward," which the man readily paid.

We ended our day of touring by watching a Balinese play and fire dance. This lengthy, culturally significant performance by a large number of local men, involved a lot of rhythmic chanting, singing and yelling in Balinese and is difficult to describe. The best summary I can come up with is men's glee club meets high school marching band on acid:

The final scene in the play involves a Balinese man stomping out brush fires with his feet (see earlier reference to acid).

We felt reasonably safe throughout our trip, despite driving past "ground zero" at one point, marking the spot where, in 2002, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group detonated a car bomb and killed more than 200 people—many of them tourists. As our tour guide reminded us, when we avoid places because of past terrorist activities, the terrorists win, so I felt that, in some small way, we thumbed our noses at those whose aim is to instill fear.

Stalking Big Game in South Africa

Having spent all of last week in Pretoria, South Africa on business, I drove about two hours to Pilanesberg National Park on the weekend in hopes of seeing some big game animals. I had been to an "animal safari" in England with the family many years ago, but I always suspected it wasn't the same thing as seeing animals in their natural habitat. I can't remember precisely what creatures we saw in England, aside from monkeys that were fascinated by our windshield wipers. Whatever animals were involved, you have to wonder whether they were disappointed, having arrived in England, to discover they'd be living out their years in a cold, damp climate. All things considered, I think the typical animal safari has a lot more in common with a zoo than with the wild.

The Pilanesberg experience, on the other hand, lived up to my expectations. Over the course of four to five hours, I drove a vehicle throughout much of the park, which is quite large (more than 570 sq. km. in area). I've known others who spent two complete days touring the park, and they undoubtedly increased their chances of seeing what's known in Africa as the "Big Five" -- the five wild animals that hunters traditionally have coveted the most -- the lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino. I saw only two of the animals on the list, the rhino and the buffalo, but then hey, I saw giraffes, too, and why aren't they on the list? (On second thought, I guess mounting a giraffe's head on a game room wall wouldn't leave much space in the room for anyone else, so maybe the giraffe's omission isn't unfair after all.) I didn't hold out much hope for seeing a lion, and even less for seeing leopards, since they're nocturnal. As for elephants, I've seen many of these in Thailand, so I didn't mind missing them. Enough with the words. Here are my favorite photos:

My trip to Pilanesberg will always be etched in my mind for another reason: it's the first time in a long time that I went tent camping. I had tried to book a chalet in the park, but all of them had been reserved already, so I paid an extravagant price for two nights in a "safari tent."

It was advertised as being "electrified," which turned out to mean the tent had just one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling and no heat or electrical outlets. It also had blankets but no sleeping bag. It's winter in South Africa right now (southern hemisphere, of course), and while it's not cold in the same way as a Michigan winter is cold, temperatures fell from mid-80s during the day to the low-40s at night. So, here are the key lessons I learned from this camping experience:

1. No matter how frigid it feels in a tent in the morning, that's nothing compared to the bracing cold you encounter when you unzip the flaps and step outside.

2. In the dark of the African bush, you can easily spend 45 minutes weaving your way uncertainly back to your tent that you're shocked to discover in the morning is no more than 100 yards from the common toilets.

3. Despite having gone unobserved by me for more than 20 years, the Milky Way galaxy is still there.

4. When the only light bulb in your tent burns out when you're trying to pack your bag in the pre-dawn dark, the backlit feature on a Blackberry is invaluable.