Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Corporate denizens from around the world have an almost identical habit of getting absolutely wasted and hammered whenever they do not have to work the day after.  It is not because everyone is secretly alcoholics waiting for that right moment to get in touch with their dark side, nor even because most of these people are truly so fond of intoxicating beverages and equally intoxicated company of others that they must carry on such rowdy affairs week after week, year after year.  Instead, the motive is one of release, of even temporary escape from dark realities of bondage to stressful work and hierarchies .

Another little known anti-Islamic expression in the West triggers another anti-Western riot in the Muslim world, this time culminating in the disgraceful death of the highest-level American official in the hands of young extremist rioters, storming an American diplomatic compound supposedly protected both by heavy local police presence and international law that the newly formed democratic government in Libya surely have to and willingly abide by.  Ironically, the riots only made the previously unknown anti-Islamic film more famous among the common people in the West.

Walking down the streets of central Saigon has a tendency to bring one to other places in the (ex-) Francophone world.  At times, the shady boulevards littered with Neoclassical masterpieces, turned into museums, bars, and political institutions, reminded of the French Concession in Shanghai.  Some of these buildings feel so dilapidated that their plain sight brings one back the rundown yet previously elegant main streets of Casablanca.  Yet the well-manicured parks and horticultural street exhibits are just like those found in the central parts of Montpelier...

A previous post commented on the seemingly constant presence of inter-racial tension in Malaysia , where nearly equal numbers of Malays, Chinese, and Indians jostle for economic and political positions as they co-developed within the same, yet divided society for generations.  However, that post was written with the assumption that each of the three races mentioned tend to look and act as a unified bloc, with individuals that place their own racial identity above anything else as they strive to move upward in the social ladder of the complex multicultural society.

“See, sometimes foreigners just do not ‘get’ Korean music.  They just don’t seem to understand it!”  As an avid follower of Korean pop music that has been all the rage across Asia in the past decade , I still frequently hear about such genuine anxieties in heated discussions with those with keen interest in continued global expansion of K-pop across the world.  They see a clear “glass ceiling” for just how much Korean pop music, and Asian pop music in general, to expand beyond Asia .

Occasionally (perhaps a little misleadingly) abbreviated as “the Eid” and better known as the “Hari Raya” to Muslims in Southeast Asia, the three-day festival marking the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, is a time of, as much as it is possible in the Islamic world, gaudy commercialism.  With a four-day weekend, many jump on long-distance buses and reunite with their families in their hometowns and celebrate the end of fasting with a big family feast and many exchanges of gifts.

Language acquisition is about immersion in an environment where people constantly use common vocabulary from that particular language...yet, being in Thailand for little more than a day, and your foreign male tourist literally manage to pick up one single word...not "goodbye," not "hello," and not even "thank you" (tried and failed on that one).  Instead, it is a word that even short-term foreign expats in Thailand manage to pop into their conversation...in English.  The keyword of the day was "farang," a term for Caucasians derived (supposedly) from Arabic transliteration of "Franks."