Pop quiz: What’s the first thing you do after waking up in a strange land? If you are a normal person, you check to see if you still have your kidneys. (I think we’ve all read that stupid story.)
The second thing is you try to determine where you are. Here’s a handy dandy guide of how to tell if you are in Asia.
First thing, check your airplane. If it looks anything like this, you might be in Asia:
Yes, that’s the actual plane I caught to Malaysia.
Second, take a look around at the buildings. At the top of this post is a shot of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. If the buildings show any sign of creativity and/or insanity, you’re probably in Asia. Most of the buildings in the US are gleaming, squared-off, chrome and glass castles invariably emblazoned with the names of evil insurance and banking corporations who should have been more careful about what they were doing with our money in the first place so that they wouldn’t need to get bailed out with more of our money and still decide to stick it to us in the form of higher fees and ridiculously usurious loan rates so they can build more shiny monuments to their stunning assholery.
Uh, sorry. Where was I?
Yes, Asia. That’s right. The final way you can tell you are in Asia are the language and food discrepancies. At the movie theater yesterday, I asked for a small popcorn. This is what I got:
Yes, a small “cup corn.” I strongly believe that there’s a missing part of Genesis 11, in which God confounds the languages of man, “that they may not understand one another’s speech.” If there was a Genesis 11:10, it would probably read, “And just for the purpose that one day a healthy career may be had by Andrew Zimmern, the Lord did also confound man’s food. For nothing shall be more amusing than a peanut-shaped man making strange faces whilst eating the sustenance of distant lands.”
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Good luck to you, and your kidneys.