A funny little travel thought: Many things most American’s find quaint, rare and cool are how people in the developing world live everyday.

1. Farmers Markets

Parking lot gatherings of small, local fresh veggies and fruit sellers are all the rage in America these days, especially for the yuppie, slow food, whole food crowd.  Every town in America is trying to organize and grow these ‘Farmer’s Markets’ to add to their hip, creative class vibe.  Organic is in.

Elsewhere in the world, these types of markets are the only places to buy food, unless you want to hunt down much more expensive food at the supermarkets in a distant big city.   Plus, all the produce at many of these markets in Africa are likely 100% naturally organic (mostly cause they can’t get fertilizers).  [Photo of a pepper seller from a market in Chang Mai, Thailand]

2. Overland Train Journeys

There’s only a handful of epic passenger train routes across America still remaining today, and our obsession with cars will likely bring an end to these ol’ passenger lines one day.  The image of staring out across vast open spaces through a wide train  window as it ‘clickity-clacks’ down the tracks seems so 19th century to us.

Well, in Asia and Africa the BEST and cheapest way to travel is just like that, and most people use trains to travel, over the more expensive airplanes.  I’ve crossed India north to south and east to west via trains and the 2-day epic train ride from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia is probably my favorite single journey of my 3 year trip around-the-world trip.  Trains are my absolute favorite way to travel.  [Photo from the train journey from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia, taken somewhere in Tanzania]

3. Coke in Glass Bottles

Coca-Cola is an American invention and it’s iconic curved glass bottle logo is likely the world’s most famous trademark.  Yet, when most Americans come across a proper glass bottle of Coke, they usually pause before taking the first sip to admire the look and feel of the “good ol’ days.” Old glass Coke bottles sell as collector’s items on eBay for ridiculous sums of money.

Elsewhere in the world, the only way to get a Coke is from a worn-out, scuffed-up glass bottle with a tight fitting bottle cap top.  They’re cheap (probably averaging 20-30 US cents a bottle, often times cheaper than water), plentiful (you can get Coke everywhere, and I mean everywhere in the world), and I’m certain Coke tastes better in a glass bottle. [Bottles in Shanghai, China. Photo courtesy of Gregory Perez]

[A new, ongoing  series about what I'm doing....right now.]

Playing a 19th Century British Soldier (huh?) in the soon-to-be-released Bollywood film Veer, staring Bollywood heart-throb/badboy Salman Khan. It an epic, period film about the uprising of a band of rebels against the ruling Maharaja who is aligned with the British crown (think Braveheart, but with more song-and-dance numbers).

[At one point, the director was placing me in my position, and said, "Ah, our Mongolian British Commander, excellent."]

Keep your eyes on your local theater come October.

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2) I lived in the Tibetan refugee community of Munjikatila in Northern New Delhi for a few days, upon arriving in India.  One evening, I wandered into a random Tibetan cafe for dinner.  It’s important to remember that the Dali Lama is the most revered icon in their culture and most Tibetans keep a photo/alter to him in their homes or businesses, despite the fact it is illegal inside of the borders of Tibet (on orders of the Chinese government).  Despite its illegality, their reverence for him often overrides the law.  Outside of Tibet however, upon walking into this cafe, I found someone who this particular Tibetan family seemed to hold in a bit higher esteem.Even now, looking at this photo nearly a year later, it still cracks me up.

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#1 Taken in a tourist market in Hong Kong, this place caters to the American in all of us. I can pretty much say there is not a single person of the 1.3 billion people in China that would fit in this shirt.

#2 In a country notoriously known for fake products, a pharmacy tries to set things straight. Sign in Macau, China.

#3 This one had me laughing for days. Ok, so Chinese pirated goods are pretty rampant and I got this gift wrapped present (below) while in Hong Kong. I recognize some of the designs on the package from other places, which leads me to believe that the “Espana” and little “cute precious moments” doll characters were stolen from existing wrapping paper and then the ‘pirate designer’ decided to add his own touch of English to really bring his message of LOVE home (look carefully at the English words by the ribbon; that’s really printed on the paper).

#4 English menus in China are an endless source of amusement, but most blunders do not make me laugh as much as this one did. I assume what we’re trying to order here is “Potato with crab,” but…well…see for yourself.

Look a little closer and you’ll find a couple more amusing Chinese>English translations on this menu. I’d offer to fix them, but I’d deprive future tourists of hours of amusement. Found in Lijang, China.

#5 For those who may not know, my last name is “Stoll” (It’s German). Continuing on with some translation blunder in Chinese>English signs….this one, well the jokes on me….I was greeted by this sign in a bathroom in Zhongdian, China.

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Some sample picts:

(L to R: Tibet, China, Zanzibar)

( L to R: Armenia, The Emirates, Switzerland)

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First, watch it to see just how good I am at karaoke (as a matter of fact, I’m not shy to say, that the first time I saw this video I mistakenly, thought The Beatles WERE actually there.)

Second, and more importantly, pay attention to the karaoke music video at the end of the film. Karaoke music videos in Asia are hilarious. They either can’t afford or choose not to buy the rights to the actual music video or there is no music video, so they substitute extremely low-budget videos set to famous pop songs, and the videos often don’t have anything to do with the song or make any sense for that matter. I find the “music video” for La Bamba absolutely hilarious.

Click on the image below to see the video on link directly to it by clicking here.

Where I come from in America, licking a stamp is so common it is pretty much a cliche, and most Americans have some childhood memories involving stamp licking (Mine happening when I was about 12 and had to lick 500 stamps for an event at my church and there was so much glue on my tongue by the end of the task, that I licked a hotdog and it stuck). On the other side of the world in Hong Kong, where most days things seem very similar to life in America, I sometimes forget that the smallest cultural differences are actually often the most problematic.

I asked my local friend Catherine to take me to a post office to mail a couple post cards and a parcel, and upon arriving, I asked the postal clerk for eight postcard stamps. He counted them out and passed them my way, and as he weighed my parcel, I absent-mindedly picked-up a stamp, brought it up to my mouth, and licked it…

As the postal clerk glanced up and saw what I was doing, my action was met with a paniced look of shock. Startled he pushed his chair back from the counter, gasped for air, and as politely as a man who had just had his pants pulled down on live television, he said, “Sir….sirr….um….there is ah, ah, water over there….,” pointing to a little moistened sponge that sat on the counter.

“Huh?” I looked up still unaware of my social faux pas. As I paused with the second half-licked stamp hanging from my tongue, I glanced over at my friend Catherine whose face had the unmistakable look of horror, disgust and shock, as if she had just watched me eat a pile of steaming, live cockroaches. “U…use….this….” she stammered, as she pointed at the same moistened sponge and took a step backwards.

You see in Hong Kong, a city that still has scars from the SARS and Avian flu epidemics—and with a long, sordid history with food sanitation and health—there is a much higher level of caution towards germs and dirt in ways I’ve never considered at home in the US (For example, everyone uses straws to drink out of cans of Coke and bottles of juice because who knows where top of the can has been, and it is a common cultural practice to re-wash the dishes you get at a restaurant right at the table, upon first arriving and before using). By licking the stamps, I was breaking a minor but significant cultural norm, that gave the postal worker a partial heart attack and a reason to nearly lock down the post office and quarantine me, my stamp, and my post cards.

As the second stamp cleared my tongue, I still had yet to recognize what I had done, and as I followed the motion of his hand pointing towards the wet sponge on his counter, I said, “Oh, ok, thanks,” and after a short pause I proceeded to press the half-licked stamp right onto his wet sponge….

For the story’s sake I wish I could say I was then arrested, quarantined, deported, and the post office was burned to the ground—but unfortunately (or fortunately) for me I didn’t really realize what I had done until I walked out of the post office—but I imagine the postal worker, incinerated his sponge, quit his job, and became a monk—all because I was just trying to send a letter home to my mom.

Name: Davey “Dance” Fishel

Hometown: New York City, NY USA

Where he is traveling: Europe

Davey Dance will make you smile. He is a friend of mine from college. He is traveling in Europe, is a film director, writer and editor, and he just moved out of Paris headed to an editing job in Germany. In the meantime, he’s made a really funny set of videos that involve him, an iPod, a famous landmark and an improvised dance route to a hit pop song.

From locations around Spain, France, Italy, and elsewhere Davey dances to the tunes of Tom Waits, The Postal Service, The Beatles, and even Vanilla Ice.

The results are hilarious, and you can see them all here. Below I tried to choose my favorite, but it was a tough call so I chose three: #1 (in Paris) is my selection for the the “best dance moves” category, #2 (at The Vatican) wins in the “best dance in a crowd” category, and #3 (in Barcelona) wins in the “best background extras.” Watch all the videos yourself, and comment on your favorite in the comments section of this travelogue.

Keep dancing Davey, and maybe I’ll have to submit my own dance video to your collection.

(Careful good readers, don’t click the links unless you’re ready to lose an hour of your day….)

Davey Dance Blog -6- PARIS – Katerine – “Apres Moi”

Davey Dance Blog -1- VATICAN – Tom Waits – “Chocolate Jesus”

What you can do now:

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  • Davey Dance, a travel video series I guarantee will help you lose an hour of your day.

A good friend of mine Scott, is, among other things, possibly the world’s biggest fan of Mentos candies. (You know, the ones that come in the roll, with those campy commercials, “The Fresh Maker?”) Scott, in his time, has won numerous Mentos contests (including a year supply of Mentos, I think), knows all kinds of Mentos trivia, owns a Mentos swimming pool, and, probably most notably, has a renowned collection of Mentos from around the world. His collection is much more interesting than it may initially seem. Since Mentos is a worldwide product, its flavors are often geographically specific to local taste, and flavors found in one country may not be available in another. Since Scott is happily working in Iowa City, USA, he doesn’t have the ability to travel to the far reaches of the globe to hunt down every last flavor to satisfy his Mentos curiosity. Like any good candy-obsessed entrepreneur, Scott invented and regularly promotes his “Mentos Ambassador” program to travelers he meets.

Here’s how it works: Travel the world, find a new Mentos flavor, send two rolls to Scott (one for the “archives,” and one for him to try), and if you succeed in finding him a new flavor he’ll christen you an official “Mentos Ambassador,” and you will get a special laminated membership card. His program has brought him some pretty cool Mentos flavors from “Chlorophyll” found in Europe to most recently “Pine Scent” found in Japan (apparently tastes like pineapple). Though I am unsure of the statistics on how many can claim such a title, I’m certain its pretty prestigious.

Since I’ve been rounding the world for about a year now, I’ve come across many a Mento (Scott, what do you call one individual candy? Mento? Menti?). So I mailed him off a package a few weeks ago from Asia. As reported on his blog, the packaged landed in Iowa and I’ve earned my Mentos Ambassador card! Check out his blog post to read more about my shipment.

Anyone else need anything?

-

A bed sheet in a children’s sheet set, elsewhere in Japan (courtesy of tarobot)

A bowling alley in Osaka (courtesy: petitshoo)

Throughout our time traveling across Japan, it was quite common for us to see English-usage slips and/or creative English-usages like these in signage, packaging, and advertising. At first what is often amusingly dismissed as bad English, is a bit more interesting if you dig down a bit. First, you have to consider the fact that the Japanese are pretty darn smart, run the world’s second largest economy, and practically invented the word “perfectionist.” So with all that going for them, what’s the deally yo?

The first thing I learned is that English in Japan is COOL. It adds the air of sophistication and the same air of “cool” or cosmopolitan flair as adding a bit of French or Italian to your product might once have done in the United States (before every bistro and cafe on every street corner was doing it). By sprinkling in a bit of English into your otherwise Japanese sign or even your business card, one can add a bit of international sophistication to whatever you are selling.

Secondly, as Canadian Writer Will Ferguson points out in Hitching Rides With Buddah, they’re not making the signs for foreigners like me.

“Harder to understand are the bizarre English slogans of American companies operating in Japan: ex: “I feel Coke!” I was bothered by this–after all, you’d think that if anyone would get it right it would be American companies–but then, one day, I realized these slogans were not aimed at me, but at Japanese consumers. And Japanese consumers have all studied basic English they can remember and recognize beginner phrases such as “I feel_____,” “I speak_____” and “I am______” That the actual slogans used make sense is not important. They instill a sense of cool cosmopolitan awareness in the consumer and in the product. Once I realized what they were doing these oddball phrases seemed less like a joke and more like a brilliant marketing ploy.”

The book further points out that despite the mandated 10+ years of English classes in Japanese school, the fundamental Japanese perfectionism leads to a “grammar-sharp and language-shy” population. We found that true, and despite this English education its often difficult to get more than a few simple sentences out of any randomly selected person on the streets, let alone directions to the bathroom.

But, I will admit, in some cases its not an attempt to add some “coolness” to a Japanese sign targeted at the “grammar-sharp, language-shy” Japanese people, its just a matter of no one checking the English in an expedited attempt to make a simple sign. In the case of an often-photographed sign we came across in one of Kyoto’s many temples (see below), you can see what can only be a sloppy translation job done by a guy who probably just wanted to get home for the day. I imagine it was well past 8pm (a normal end of the work day in Japan) and this guy had one last sign to translate. He started out eager, but then possibly bogged down in dictionaries, grammar guidebooks, as he was nearing the end of his day, he just sort of hastily translates it, starts to run out of room and lazily drifts off into an end-of-the-work-day haze.

(Photo courtesy of mrjorgen)

I could explain more, but I think you understand my hot communication, and so on…

The (I am not making this up) Japanese Vending Machine Manufactures Association reports that there is somewhere in the realm of 5.5 million vending machines in all of Japan. That’s 1 machine per every 23 people in Japan–or that roughly means 1 vending machine every 2 feet in Tokyo.

At on average 150 Yen ($1.25 USD) per drink, they are a bit pricey, though I probably spent somewhere in the realm of $75 (USD) while in Japan trying out all the different drinks and concoctions available. By concoctions I mean: there were hot drink machines, cold drink machines, soup machines, food machines, underwear machines, dried fish and peanut machines, coffee machines, ice cream machines, porn machines, ramen noodle machines and more (yes, you read that correctly, I did not mean to write ‘corn’). The drinks were various from pop (like the Coke Big Boys below) to fruit juices (possibly the best apple juice I have ever had, ever), sports drinks, energy drinks, corn chowder drinks, red tea, green tea, corn tea, brown tea, ice tea, hot tea, milk tea, and just plain tea. Oh, and beer, see photo below. (Oh, to be a teenager in Japan.) Enjoy the photos. Click the following link for a collection elsewhere on the web of some of the strangest Japanese vending machines.

If someone wants to try to explain why this is the case culturally in Japan, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

In A Shopping Mall in Tokyo

Japanese English provides some good laughs to many foreigners, here is a case-in-point. We were waiting in a shopping mall in Japan when I came across this little translation blunder. This is a construction wall (you know the kind they put up to hide new construction, like in a shopping mall) I can’t read Japanese, but my assumption is that someone didn’t read the sign and decided to learn.

Craft Store. Shibuya District. Tokyo.

No one would argue with me that the Japanese culture is obsessed with cute things. Here is a cute little frog/alien picture frame/height measuring board for your cute kid with a “cute” idea on how to have some cute “fun”. Seems kid and adults in Japan, have similar ideas of fun.

APA Hotel Bedstand, Ita-bashi. Tokyo.

This was good for hours of laughter. As we inspected our new hotel room in Ita-bashi, we came across this little package right next to the Gideon Bible. None of us could read Japanese, but by the looks of the picture it appears that what we’re dealing with is a depressed raccoon. The raccoon is so depressed, he has decided to kill himself. Thank god the APA Hotel provides sterile suicide bags WITH directions. Seriously, click on the photo for a bigger version and look at the picture and directions, and try to figure out what this is for.

Ok, in all actuality, for those of you who are curious: Turns out this bag is meant to be used if there is a fire. Here is my take at the translation of the step-by-step instructions (you can follow along with the step-by-step photos):

* Step #1 Fill bag with air.

* Step #2 Flee the building with the bag over your head.

* Step #3 Die of asphyxiation as you stumble down the stairs as the smoke-filled hotel burns to the ground.

* Step #4 Be reincarnated as a raccoon.

After groaning and dragging ourselves out of bed, Erick and I took quick showers and made our way out to the windy brisk Tokyo morning. The cavernous streets lined with the towering skyscrapers of the Ginza District held a few passing people scampering on their way home from what appeared to be last night’s party. Otherwise the lack of cars and pedestrians stood in sharp contrast to the masses of people, vehicles, lights and noise that had greeted us a day earlier, upon our arrival in Japan.

My brother, Adam, had been living in Tokyo for the last four months, studying at Shenshu University, and he and his Japanese speaking-ability joined Erick and I for a few weeks of travel across Japan. The cast of characters also added two ladies: Jenni, my brother’s girlfriend from Omaha (USA), and Maya, a friend of mine (who incidentally is an Indian-Chinese Canadian who grew up in Atlanta, was schooled in Holland and Boston and now lives in Hong Kong). All of us arrived at the Tsukiji Fish Market as the sun just began to rise in the midst of whirring carts, reversing cargo trucks, thousands of pounds of ice, and hundreds and hundreds of unbelievably expensive raw tuna carcasses.

Tsukiji is the world’s largest wholesale fish market and one of the largest wholesale markets of any kind. Our friends at Wikipedia report that the market does about $6 billion dollars (US) of business each year. It opens each day around 3am and at 5am the tuna auction begins. Large, frozen, and hollowed tuna bodies are laid out in neat rows as busy wholesale buyers scurry between them scribbling fervently on little notepads in chicken-scratched Japanese characters. The auction process reminds me of a cattle auction that I once attended as a kid, but these tuna go for a bit more per head, around 120,000 Yen per fish (that’s about $10,000 US).

We made our way out of the auction house and into the densely packed narrow aisles that slice like a grid through literally thousands of small shops selling over 400 kinds of seafood. Yellow fish, salmon, octopus, crab, sea weed, scallops, mussels, caviar, jelly fish, snails, shrimp, sea cucumbers, tuna, star fish, and more. Slices of freshly cut tuna are eloquently laid on lit beds of translucent ice chunks, squirming eels slither in rat’s nest-like balls in white styrofoam basins and scampering live silver fish flop around in empty gray plastic tubs with their gills squeezing for their last breaths—a fish out of water, the fact that this could be foreshadowing via metaphor of my next few weeks in Japan, as a non-Japanese speaking tourist, was not entirely lost on me.

After our group split up, explored, snapped some photos, and poked a few fish ourselves, we set out to find, “The Best Sushi In The World.” It was 7am.

My brother took us to what we were told was the best sushi bar of them all, a quaint little place that sits about 12 people with four sushi chefs wielding dangerously sharp knives, cleanly slicing thin pieces of raw fish and neatly placing, rolling and squeezing them between and on top of sticky balls of vinegar and sugar-laced white rice and paper-thin sheets of dried seaweed (nori). It was 7:10am, but a line had formed in front of the door and snaked back on itself, not unlike the black eels we had just seen. We got in line and waited an hour and a half. “This better be good,” I thought, though the line this early, added to the whole argument as “The Best Sushi In The World.”

When we finally arrived at the door, we were hustled inside with some quick Japanese words. Since we had a party of 5 and the entire place only sat 12, we were separated and spread along the sushi bar. My brother had prepped us for the experience, explaining that there were many different kinds of sushi, but if we wanted a wide sampling we could order the special set that contained a variety of 12 sushi pieces. “Set-o” he taught us how to say it in Japanese to our non-English speaking chef. The cost $36 (US). I figured, “Well, when in Rome…” (”when in Tokyo,” really.) It was 8:30am.

“Set-o.” I said. The chef nodded and went to work crafting a dozen fresh pieces of sushi, setting them in front of me as a cup of steaming hot green tea landed at my spot on the bar. I was wedged with a bag on my lap and a sushi diner cramped on either side. I fumbled with my chopsticks in the tiny room, like a man does with a pool cue when the pool table is wedged in the back of a bar with a low hanging light and placed too close to the walls. We ate quickly because there was an unarticulated pressure to hurry, since the eel-like line outside was growing quickly and the raw fish fillets spread along the sushi bar weren’t getting any fresher.

The sushi was good. Was it the best in the world? I’m not sure yet. My favorite: the semi-fatty tuna roll. My least favorite/most hated: sea urchin. (Sea urchin is brownish orange, has the consistency of toothpaste, and tastes like shit. Or fish. Or fish shit.) I have been traveling for six months and the only thing I’ve had so far that I will never eat again is sea urchin. I had it in China and hated it. I had it again here, but mostly because the chef, who was standing right in front of me in a very small room, had an exceptionally sharp knife and didn’t speak any English. Thus I ate ANYTHING he put in front of me.

Nearing the end of our sushi breakfast a friendly English-speaking Japanese couple sat down next to Maya and I and struck up a conversation. The husband and wife were nice to share with us a bit about the sushi bar, what we were eating, and asked about our initial thoughts on Japan. As we were getting ready to leave the wife leaned over and asked us if we had tried a certain type of fish she had just been served, saying the name in Japanese. “Um, no,” I replied, not really understanding her. “We haven’t. What is it?” I ask nicely. The woman looked at us a bit nervous, glanced quickly to the side a few times, and using her hand to cover her mouth so her neighbors could not see, she said, “It’s…” mouthing the rest of the sentence towards us. I wasn’t able to read her lips, but as a courtesy I nodded.

“Would you like to try it? You really should,” she told us. “Well, um…” I paused.

“It is only good absolutely fresh,” she said. “And this restaurant is the only place you should get it because it is the best and the freshest,” she insisted. The line outside snaked back further and turned another corner, the crowd grew more impatient as they waited.

“Well, we couldn’t, we must get g….”I said, as she cut me off by offering up a taste. The small, white noodle-like thing slid a bit around the plate. “Well, if its the best in the world….” I said and used my chopsticks to grip the little elongated bite and put it in my mouth. It didn’t taste like much, it was a bit slimy, and tasted similar to some of the strange sushi pieces I had in my “set-o.” I asked, “What kind of fish was it again?” “White fish,” the woman assured. “White fish,” I thought. We thanked the couple, paid our bill, and slipped out of the restaurant into the early morning sunshine.

As we wedged our way between the crowd, clinging tightly to our bags, Maya poked me in the ribs, exclaiming, “I can’t believe you ate that!”

“Ate what?!” I questioned.

“The…um….from the lady,” Maya smirked.

I stopped. “What? What was it? I couldn’t read her lips, what was it?”

Maya laughed. My stomach sunk and my face dropped. “What was it!?” I demanded.

“It was….um…um…” Maya paused purposely and glanced cautiously to the side a few times, whispering so that no one might overhear, “The woman said….it was…um…. FISH SEMEN.” She smiled proudly.

The next hour was spent in search of a stomach pump and a Coke machine. In the end, I survived. The lesson here is: When in search of “The World’s Best” anything, you better damn well make sure that you actually want it.

(click the photo below to see more photos from the Tsukiji Market)

Well, turns out he was in Germany (sorry for that let down, that would have been some trick, eh?). A few years later, I set out on a summer road trip of my own to explore the western United States. With all my possessions in my trunk and the wind at my back, I planned to drive from Iowa to Hollywood and back. Since I was on my own, I realized there was a potential for a similar situation to that of my friend visiting Germany: I would do many exciting things and see famous landmarks, but, without anyone there to take a photo, there was no proof I was ever really there.

Since I had no friends of my own, I decided to buy one. I pulled off the road near Council Bluffs, Iowa and stopped at a roadside flea market. There I purchased a stuff cow (side note: I have a long sordid history with cows that I will not bore you with). Total cost: 10 cents (US). It was the cheapest friend I’ve ever made.

I then took the cow with me on my 4,000 mile (6400 km) drive and instead of having the cow take photos of me, I photographed the cow in the places I’d been. Proof, that if the cow was there, then I was probably there too. Months later—and 6 fuel injectors, a rear window, and gallons and gallons of gas—I completed my adventure successfully.

Six months ago, I set out on a trip to see the world, the goal: circumnavigate the globe, meet new people, see new places and have new experiences. Though I’ve declared this trip an “independent” round-the-world trip, I am not truly alone, cause the little cow is coming with me….whether he likes it or not.

See more cow photos in The Cow’s Photo Galleries.

Keep an eye out for more cow photos as my companion and I venture around the world together.

This actually is fun to watch, and is pretty amazing if you think what had to occurred between each of these 1/8 of a second cuts. I love the seals.

So, I’m not so interested in the fame, but the sponsorship money he attracted sure wouldn’t hurt (Any readers from Stride gum out there?). So thinking outside the box for a moment, anyone got a “shtick” for me? (Shtik, a Yiddish word, meaning “a contrived and often used bit of business that a performer uses to steal attention.”)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Leave a comment below. (One rule: I must be at least partially clothed at all times.)

I’ll post some photos in the next couple of days. In the mean time, for those afraid that American culture hasn’t quite reached around the entire globe just yet, see the “traditional” gift giving envelope I received the other day…Dohh!!

(click the photo to see a larger version)

So, the point of the story is: It worked. (Though any hope on that Starbucks endeavor, clearly has failed.)

One of the most difficult things for me so far in traveling is dealing with the language barriers at times, and it has been fortunate for me that English is the langua franca of the world. And I’ve come to realize how essential knowing English is to being able to operate globally. For example, in Hong Kong, you can always count on an English speaker maning the counter at Starbucks, cause how in the world do you say “venti drip vanilla double soy espresso macchiato with room con pana” in Chinese? (actually I don’t even know what I just said in English?)

Cantonese is the main language spoken here in Southern China, though English is very prevalent in Hong Kong (all street signs, subway info, most shops, and many menus are in English) so it hasn’t much prevented exploring the city, though my spoken English has had to be simplified a bit. This leads to my attempt to learn Cantonese and Mandarin, an endeavor which has proved to be quite difficult. Chinese (and its numerous dialects) is based on a tonal system, which means that the same word, depending on if your voice rises, falls, stays level, etc, as you say it, can mean entirely different things.

For example, the word in Mandarin for the number “four,” (pronounced like “si” with your voice falling as you say it), if mispronounced (as “si,” with a tone that goes down and comes back up) can instead mean, death. This of course means, that in a restaurant when flirting with the cute waitress and attempting to give her your phone number, you may instead, inadvertently, tell her to die—–which is frankly, a slightly awkward social situation to put yourself in (trust me).

Interestingly this also makes 4 an unlucky number in China, as are many numbers that end in 4, which, if also said incorrectly, can sound close to some other not so lucky phrases including: 14 (’must die’) and 24 (’easy to die’). This leads to people avoiding the number 4 when giving gifts, the removal of the fourth floor in many buildings (not all too different than American’s removal of the 13 floor), and incredibly cheap prices on mobile phone numbers involving multiple number 4’s. (9461 4444 for example). Though in reverse, mobile numbers, license plates and addresses containing lucky numbers like 8 are often auctioned off for thousands of dollars. So when speaking Chinese, it is very important to pay attention to your tones, which has been very difficult for me (and I imagine most people whose 1st language is not so tonal), and I have struggled greatly. But I am reminded that Chinese is not the most difficult language in the world, one of which I recently learned more about from a friend.

From an email from my friend Eric McDermott, who is living in Wema, South Africa and who is learning the local language of siSwati (aka Swazi or Swati) and some Zulu, which involves “clicks” among other sounds. He writes:

“To make the sound of the letter c in siSwati, you stick your tongue to the top of your mouth and then release it (kind of like the sound my Grandpa Burke would make if he was shaking his head back and forth in response to something really unfortunate happening). Zulu has the same c but also has x and q. The q is the clicking sound made by popping your tongue off the top of your mouth (that’d be what most people get from watching [the movie] The Gods Must Be Crazy – which I watched with my first family.)The x is more similar to the sound you might make to get a horse to move faster- but with more of a click to it. The ‘hle’ sound is similar to how you would pronounce an s in Spain. ‘th’ and ‘ph’ are just like p or t. All of these sounds are reasonably simple (and I like the fact that I can at least properly execute the sound on its own, since I can’t with the double-r in Spanish), but put one or two of them in the middle of a word and it gets trickier…”

Thus, if I were to order a ‘venti drip vanilla double soy espresso macchiato with room con pana’ in a Chinese owned Starbucks in Wema, South Africa, it might be easier to just ask for the #4, or, um, order a water.

Truly the Gods must be crazy.

(If you have your own language story to share, send it my way or post in the comment section below.)