#5 Jesus
Remember that Mitch Albom (yeah, YOUR MOM’s favourite author) book called The Five People You Meet in Heaven? Yeah, guess what? Jesus isn’t one of the five. Why? Where did he go? He went backpacking.
Jesus just loves cheap independent travel. The last time I saw Jesus; he was on the top deck of a Junk, cruising Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. I asked him to help snap a photo of my friends and I (didn’t you know? Us Asians are all about cheesy group photos). Jesus duly obliged and mentioned something about growing up in Colorado. Prior to visiting Vietnam, he had been working for a year as an aid worker for a Christian relief organisation on the Myanmar border (well, that’s Jesus for you). But before that, I bumped into Jesus in Byron Bay, Australia. He was playing acoustic guitar and singing a little song about beers and bongs and peeing in his pants. I also spotted Jesus down in Coffs Harbour but that Jesus wasn’t doing anything remarkable. He was just sort of shuffling around the hostel in his sandals, looking for cereal. Jesus has also been spotted tubing in Vang Vien, Laos; another friend spotted him in LA and six years ago, while on a short weekend break on Perhentian Island, I saw Jesus walk on water. Actually, he was walking on a wooden plank across a small stream but from where I was lying - flat on the sand, smokin’ a little somethin’ somethin’, it really did look as if he was walking on water.
Right then, I don’t know what is it with these blokes and looking like Jesus – the long scraggly hair, long beard, long, thin faces and sad, you-have-killed-me-WHY-JUDAS-WHY eyes. When it’s hot enough, you might even be privy to see their bony torsos – torsos that look as if they really did suffer for all of Man’s sins. Dude, eat a steak, find a cheap barber and stop freaking me out already. I’m on holiday. I don’t need to be reminded that I’m going to Hell.
#6 Third Culture Kids
This person provides you with a great opportunity to come across as the moron that you truly are. For example, take that Chinese guy who doesn’t know a thing about China and speaks Portuguese. You ask him, “Hey man, so where are you from?” And he answers, “Brazil”. You, assuming that Brazil was the place he last travelled to, go on to say, “No man, I mean, where are you from?” And again, he answers “Brazil”. Before you can repeat your question for a third time, he explains that while he is of Chinese descent, his family has been in Canada for two generations but he has lived in Brazil since he was 9 months old and no, he has never been to China. To make you feel better about being an idiot, he mentions his interest in getting in touch with his roots with a much-practiced benign smile. At this point, you wonder whether you should ask if he’s referring to his Canadian roots or Chinese roots but as the concept of human immigration becomes all too much for you to process, you nod and quietly slink away. The next morning, you greet him with a pat on the back and a “Ni Hau Ma?” but soon realise that you must have said something wrong; so you quickly follow this up with a hesitant, “Uh....ohayagozaimasu?”
[Part Quatre and Part Cinq coming up.....well, soon enough]
[Part Quatre and Part Cinq coming up.....well, soon enough]
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