assorted observations

I usually keep a pen and paper in my camera bag as we're walking around, so that I can note random things that I want to blog later. Most of the time those observations fall easily into our daily recaps, but I've been building up a backlog, so I'm going to just jot them down here...

Airport security varies a lot from place to place. I've accidentally gone through security with a full bottle of water (Bali) and I've been asked to shake my Kleen Kanteen metal water bottle to verify its emptiness (Singapore). The security team in Kuala Lumpur made me take out my extra camera lens so they could examine it (no one ever travels with multiple lenses, really?) while many other airports don't even make us separate out our laptops and toiletry bags. Gate-level security checks seem to be popular in Southeast Asia; I'm not sure if it's supposed to be more secure or what, but it is annoying as I'm used to filling up my water bottle after getting through departure terminal security. Practically no one makes us take off our shoes, and if you start to remove yours without prompting, you're basically broadcasting the fact that you're American.

Singapore and Malaysia's populations are very mixed ethnically, but all the groups appear to coexist peacefully, at least on the surface. I was amused by the advertisements for "Hari Raya mooncakes" in Malaysia; since the end of Ramadan coincided with the Autumn Moon Festival this year, some marketing geniuses decided to try and sell mooncakes (halal, of course) to Muslims as well. It seemed to be working quite well, actually.

In Malaysia, D and I would generally just start out by speaking to people in English. Most of the time, if the person was of Chinese descent, they would look at us, and respond in Chinese. Occasionally, they would look at us, and respond in Hokkien, which sounds a lot like heavily accented Taiwanese, so that worked pretty well too. It's interesting that they assume anyone who looked East Asian would speak Chinese. I wonder what it would be like as a Japanese or Korean person in Malaysia.

In Chiang Mai, there were many tuk-tuks and taxi drivers roaming the city streets. Most of the time they would try to take us to the Tiger Kingdom, but they would also ask if we wanted to see the "Long Neck Karen". Apparently there is a hilltribe in Burma called "Karen", and the women have artificially elongated necks. They achieve this by adding metal rings to their necks gradually over time, starting at the age of seven or eight. Some have fled the political turmoil in Burma and escaped to Thailand, where they have the dubious choice of living in refugee camps, or being paid to live in "tourism villages" created by Thai entrepreneurs. We chose not to go and gawk at these poor women, but I'm sure lots of tourists who haven't heard about the exploitative nature of the villages end up going. We also decided not to visit the Tiger Kingdom as it sounded similarly artificial; apparently you pay to have your photo taken with a certain age of tiger (most people choose the babies and the adults) and some reviews complained that the tigers looked drugged or otherwise unhappy. However, we did go to the Elephant Camp; despite a few reports which complained about the condition of the elephants, it sounded like the majority of the people who went thought that the elephants were happy, well-fed, and well-treated. After having seen them, my biased opinion is that the elephants seemed fine, but I'm not an animal behavior expert by any means. Anyway, we've discovered that trying to be educated and non-exploitative tourists requires a lot of research!