Heard on Domestic Flights in the US

[Announced on the plane before take off] Ladies and Gentlemen, due to a technical malfunction, we regret to inform you that the lavatory on this plane is not available. I repeat, there is no lavatory service. We ask that before boarding, you use the facilities in the airport next to Gate ##. Alternatively, when the plane lands in about 1 hour, you may also use the facilities in our arrival airport.


[When asked to help find overhead cabin space for hand baggage]
Well what would you do at home? You'd keep looking until you find some space, wouldn't you? Please just keep walking along the aisle until you find some space.


[When a passenger asked for hot chocolate]
Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be offering a modified beverage service today. Passengers will have a choice of bottled water, canned juice, and peanuts. Please note that as this is a short flight, it will be inconvenience for us to prepare hot water to serve hot beverages. We would appreciate your cooperation. If you would like any snacks, Trail Mix can be purchased for US$3 a pack. Please provide us with exact change.

[While waiting for shuttle flight from Boston to La Guardia]
Ladies and Gentlemen, the time is 1.15 pm and your flight XXXX was supposed to be boarding at this time. Unfortunately we have been informed that the inbound aircraft from La Guardia has not yet left the airport. We do not know when the aircraft will be able to depart, passengers please remain seated at the gate area. The expected travel time from La Guardia to Boston is 45 minutes therefore we expect a delay of at least 2 hours.


Oh my flight! Boarding! and crap, there's no food! and crap, i have to pay for a headset! I miss international asian airlines!

Those Little Devils

I am in the U.S. for my semi-annual catch-up trip. It's not the weekend yet so I am cooped up in the hotel room ordering room service and working on late proposals, so I take a break to do a 20-minute pilates workout and watch primetime TV.

Nothing says "Welcome back to America" to me more loudly than primetime TV. The birthplace of soap glamoperas, reality TV, Donald Trump's new hairpiece, among other things. I found my attention unwillingly compelled by the following offering - (not new, I know.. )

Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, gainfully employed adults who are upstanding citizens of the community are asked to pit their knowledge against a class of 11-year-olds. Each question that is asked is worth an increasing amount of money, that the player bets against his own answer or by "copying from his classmate". If the player bets incorrectly, then he walks away with US$25,000. If he bets correctly and makes his way successfully past all questions, he could win up to US$1mm. If the questions are "too difficult", the player can walk away from the game with what he has won, and say to the camera in front of national TV "I am ____, currently a _{job}_ in {employer}, and I am not smarter than a 5th Grader."

Example of the questions, ranging in difficulty from 1st to 5th grade (i.e. primary 1 to primary 5):

"How Many N's are there in the word ENVIRONMENT?" (correct answer: 3)
> This question was worth US$50,000.

"Which U.S. state is named after an English king?" (correct answer: Georgia)
> the participant here is a high-school teacher and his answer was.. New York. The kid got it right, by the way, and the teacher bet on the kid's answer by "copying", so the boy saved the teacher's butt

"All Birds are Mammals - True or False." (correct answer: False)
> The kid got it right, the participant walked away from the game.

"On What Continent is Mount Kilimanjaro?" (correct answer: Africa)
> Adult answer: (after some hand-wringing deliberation, he "copied" the 5th grader's answer)
'Asia'
> The kid got it wrong.

Granted there are questions in here that are specific to U.S. history..
eg. during what decade did James Marshall discover the first nuggets that sparked the California gold rush? (ans: 1840s)

Also there were specific questions on U.S. Geography...
eg. what was the manmade structure in New York state that connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes? (ans: Erie Canal)

Does it take a 5th grader's intelligence to decide if you're going to be displayed as an ignoramus on National TV? Or a representative blow to the collective credibility of American teachers? Or to walk away with a boatload of cash knowing that you did it by beating 11-year-olds? How about the mischief-makers who decide to mess you up with a purposefully wrong answer? For that matter, what kind of teacher would voluntarily want to be on this show?

As it turns out, the list of participants that flunked out in the episode I watched include:
1. a high-school teacher (his students were in the audience)
2. a CFO of a technology company
3. a consultant


One reason I've always liked Jeff Foxworthy's comedy is his willingness to make fun of the perceived ignorance of the "deep south" - which, more than anything, is a reflection of his intelligence and perception - because we all know that Southerners are a lot more than rednecks. That said, I can't help noticing his wry slings at the contestants, and their complete unawareness of his veiled (and not-so-veiled) insults.

Ultimate question:
What's a representation of the average American intelligence:
a) the show's creators?
b) Jeff Foxworthy's comedy?
c) the 5th graders?
d) cos it sure as hell ain't the adults.

Why Don't You Go With Him?

It was said as simply as those six words.

It wasn't the first time the idea was suggested, and it certainly wasn't the first time I had considered it.

But it seemed that the germ of a possibility so alarming, at the time incredulous and fantastic, hadn't faded away into thin air like the other ideas I had.

Sometimes, the situation around you, and the dizzying variety options that are available, seem to be nothing more than a big game of trade-off. All of them different equations that sum up to an algebraic zero-sum game of life.

Stay with this job and gain security, or take another and get more money. Move to that apartment for more comfort, or stay in this apartment and save on rent. Take this new project for experience, or stay with current portfolio for expertise. Eat the dessert and enjoy it, or decline and preserve a figure.

How many of us are actually faced with an option where the + column is more than the - column? When the credits are more than the debits?

Of course, the prevailing wisdom is "do what you want". Yet want, is a fickle thing. Want, is the motivator for the adventurous heart, and also the voice that stills the hand. Let's face it, we want everything - it's a question of what we want MORE, or LESS.

Do I want to be happy? Loved? Free? Financially secure? Healthy? Have children? Professionally successful? Intellectually fulfilled? Spiritually at peace? Inspired? Content?

This is the gordian knot that I've been trying to unravel for the past year. Short-term vs long-term, money vs life, security vs adventure.

I know, and people have told me, that it all boils down to expectations and detachment. Don't expect too much, they say. Detach yourself from material things, and the decision is so much clearer. It only takes a second to decide, as the prevailing wisdom goes.

So the second is drawing nearer, as I am pondering which path to take.

There are several job options, all of which have varying levels of stress, commitment, locales, and monetary incentives. There are trade-offs among all of them. Beneath that, the more fundamental decision of whether to continue in this career or strike into a new one, or go into academia. And even deeper, the decision to consider "me", or consider "him", or to put "us" ahead of all else.

He has gotten the opportunity that he has been looking for. A chance to go with a global NGO to places where he can be a part of the greater picture, helping to rebuild the world from its mad-made and human disasters, a little bit at a time.

He will be gone, far away, for a long time. I will see him again, of course (for the alternative is impossible to contemplate). But he will be away experiencing the wonder of a different world, whilst I would be here, still working on the pluses and minuses of my little decision matrix, secure in my own little world bound by my comfort zones. Missing the loving warmth, and the soul-stirring inspiration from a new experience shared with another. Yet still secure in that the mortgage is getting paid, savings are growing, families are supported and the safety net is intact.

I don't know which way to go. And as time goes by, the not-knowing is twisting the gordian knot tighter and tighter.

So why don't I go with him? I can think of a million reasons why not, but none of them are comparable to the one reason why I should.

That maybe, just maybe, this is the chance that I've been unknowingly waiting for. All my life I've made decisions that I thought were difficult ones, fraught with potential missteps and probable failure.

Somehow, my gut tells me, that this would not be one of them.

Not a damsel hanging on to her man, wilting away in her own linens while he toils away with the dislocated and disadvantaged. But being a contributor myself, somehow, some way, to the greater good. And for my inner satisfaction. Save my own soul.

So dare I? Go with him? Dare I take that leap.. Across the divide between the known, and the unknown.

Watch this space. Akan Datang.

Lakeside

Somewhere in the middle of the South Island (New Zealand), we decided to camp. The air held a chilly bite that stung my nose slightly, not in an unpleasant manner – this was the bite of fresh air, carrying with it the timeless notes of the huge glaciers that lie less than an hour’s drive away. It smacked of the pristine sharpness that lingers after a lightning storm – there was no scent, yet it was unmistakable that we were in glacier country.

We stopped at a campsite by a lake. It was surrounded by a narrow rocky beach, embraced on both sides by the towering cliffs that could only have been carved by millennia of creeping ice. It would have looked like it hadn’t been touched by man since then, if not for the large parking lot and the landscaped flat grassland next to it that marked out a designated camp site. Despite this, it was a pleasant spot – there were few people this time of the year. The sun was shining, it warmed the air and we were tempted to spend some time here.

A solitary white car by the parking lot closest to the beach had its doors open, a Japanese girl was camping out in her car after driving around New Zealand for 4 months. She nodded, and went back to her sandwich. Sitting on top of the hood of her car, she turned her gaze towards the lake, her lips in a pensively unsmiling line, her jaws moving meditatively while chewing her sandwich. Some ducks waddled up to her car, they were ignored.

Indignant at this futile effort, the ducks stepped back on the rocky beach. A blonde girl was reading – sunlight was at its brightest splendour this time of the day, and she dared the cold by lying out on her blanket clad in a bikini. She wouldn’t have been out of place on a Hawaiian beach commercial, except there were no palm fronds, only temperate forests. There were no curling surfs, only a still and motionless water that stretched out towards the horizon.

We walked up towards the water, and noticed a little wooden jetty. A slightly sun-tinged old man was sitting on the edge, with his legs hanging over the side, peering into the water. Curious, we walked up and peered into it with him. Under the pier was crystal clear waters, untouched by pollution, slightly marred by the ripples left behind by a wandering black swan.

“What are you looking at?”

“They won’t come out when it’s too bright. Just wait. They’ll be out soon enough.”

As if in answer, a stray cloud crept in front of the sun. As the shadow crawled across the jetty, then across the water, they seemed to appear out of the darkness with a soundless, eerie grace.

Morays, of all sizes, swirling around the jetty beams. Their graceful tails played with the wisps of floating algae clinging to the jetty. Their bodies twirled around each other, then parted – came together in another knot, and parted again. A smooth elegant dance that had no start and no end, as one with the icy waters that were their home. We watched, entranced, as they swam in search of food. Their smooth twisting bodies alternatively formed figure-8s, then S’s, then O’s, in such beautiful motions that we forgot about the time.

As the stray cloud finally moved on and the sun was able to shed its rays again, the morays darted back under the jetty, once again out of light and out of sight. I looked at Jo and sighed with regret – it was too beautiful but too short.

In a strange serendipitous response to my thoughts, the blonde girl got up from her blanket and her book, and strode towards the jetty with the slow but confident move of someone who has been here before. In almost as smooth a motion as the morays, her arms raised as she reached the end of the jetty, and her lithe form sprang and sliced into the water like a perfect arch. When her head finally broke the surface of the water to gasp for air, I was already taking off my shoes and socks. Surely this was the way! How many times in my life can I say I swam in a glacier lake? And got to see morays up close?

In my bathing suit, I crept gingerly over the pebbly beach and let the water edge lap at my toes. Then another step, and the icy grip of the lake latched on to my ankles. My mind says “Get Out! Too Bloody Cold!” but the lake wouldn’t let me, I kept going.

The allure of this pristine crystal water, the blue sky, the hovering mountains, the quacking ducks and the absolute peace of stealing a moment from Mother Nature, was too strong. Every step I took into the water, I lost feeling in another part of my body. But my heart would beat a little slower, my breath deepened, and I felt like I could taste the biting air that hung over the lake. All my senses above the water were sharpened, I could see the crisp outline of the faraway outcropping. Each branch of the trees at the lake’s far edge was visible, each duck’s feathers so stark against the blue of the water. Entranced, I kept going and the water reaches my chest.

Then I felt it. A light smooth brush against my calf, so fleeting I thought it was a muscle twitch. I looked down, and there it was. A moray swam past my legs, then circled back to under the jetty’s shadow.

I don’t remember the last time I felt so elated, to be so close to something so elusive. I couldn’t reach down to feel it, my back was still numb from the cold. But I looked at the duck floating next to me, and I laughed joyously. “Did you see that?!” I asked, and the duck quacked in discontent and paddled away. I looked back at Jo, and he was laughing at me. “Had enough? Still feel your toes?”

I laughed again, and I turned to look back at the majestic mountains, the blue endless lake, and the row of ducks that have paddled off in annoyance at tourists. It felt so natural to be a part of this beauty, even if nothing on me would have been beautiful at that moment – not the goosebumps, the old bathing suit, the extra cellulite. But there, it didn’t matter. Goosebumps, cellulite, even a runny nose, were all part of this.

This moment was true. This moment was beautiful, timeless and endless. I was beautiful, timeless and endless. With a slight skip, I launched forward and the icy water closed over my head in welcome.

Midges aka Kiwi Flying Ninjas

Midges are insects. They are almost known as sandflies in some areas, and have the look of a fruitfly, the bite of a mosquito, and the dexterity of a housefly. No, they don’t suck your blood. They do, however, leave a little red bump not unlike that of a typical mosquito bite, and the itch will make you want to tear your skin off, again not unlike that of a typical mosquito bite. But here’s where the resemblance ends… for Midges, the little critters of hell, the banes of my existence, have all the lethal power of Ninjas, in the insect kingdom. I am quite serious when I say Ninjas, as the following Ninja Principles in Midge Behaviour have been observed during the time that I have spent battling them while enjoying the beauty that is New Zealand:

Dress in Black

That’s self-explanatory.

Teamwork is effective

They don’t come at you one at a time. No kamikaze assignments for these buggers – one for all, and all for one. They fly around in a group looking for targets, rest on a surface and take off from it, as one. Slap one, and six will land on the same spot. Wave them all away, and they scatter in what you think is chaos, but really is a cunning flight pattern that eventually resolves into a larger nimbus of black buzz that surrounds your head, slowly but surely honing back onto the fleshy targets that they spot.

Be As One With Your Surroundings, make not a sound.

It doesn’t matter how many times we inspected a location before camping. Midges are not to be seen when they don’t want to be. It doesn’t help that they are black, and one-tenth the size of a grain of rice, and are almost invisible when in flight. They blend perfectly into the dark corners under the bushes, the quiet corners of a leafy canopy, within the grains of sands on the coves by the Milford Sound, and hiding under the hand grip of the glove compartment in the car. Sitting quietly, waiting, for the unsuspecting humans to let down their guard. Their flight is soundless, barely visible, leaving the target ignorant of their power until a bite is felt.

Neutralize the Enemy’s Strengths

This is a very simple, yet profoundly powerful: Bite humans when they are sleeping.

The ones that have achieved the level of Ninja Master have proven that with their training, they are even more accomplished – bite at areas that are not covered by the sleeping bag e.g. behind the ears; on the eyelid, etc.

Create maximum impact with the least effort

They get the target where scratching is almost impossible to relief the discomfort. Or, where scratching will cause pain and not relief. Examples of target areas: inside of the wrist, underside of the chin, behind your ears, on your eyelids, in between your toes, in your armpits. And the bites last long after you have left midge-region, and no amount of itch ointment, moisturizer or anti-histamine will relieve. Not to mention the little scar that some of the bad bites will leave behind – a little circle that constantly taunts you about being victim to the little buggers.

Retreat with Speed and Leave Nothing Behind but Confusion and Destruction

“There it is”

*slap*

“Ow.. dammit, there it goes! Get it again!”

*slap*

“Got it!” – “No you don’t, there it goes… Can’t reach it! Dammit I’ve got another one on my neck..”

*slap*”

“Holy shit they’re all in a cluster on the dashboard… the fucking nerve…”

“Slap them with the map..”

*slap*

“Oh stop it they’re now flying all into my face!”

*frantic waves*

“Don’t move you just aggravate them more…”

“Aggravate them? How about them aggravating me?”

“You’re only aggravated cos you let them get to you… calm down and they’ll leave you alone.”

“I was all calm last night and they left 4 bites on the bottom of my feet.. how to scratch that?!”

“Ignore it, think of something else.”

“You try ignoring it when you’re walking around on itchy feet… dammit, there’s two more..”

“Stop moving like this, I can’t see the mirror!”

**CRASH**

The Ninja team calmly retreats into the backseat cupholder, silently congratulating each other on a job well-done

You can try to guard yourself against them if you wish.

It is not for me to tell you how futile it will be, it is for you to find out.

For it is only when you feel the bite, Grasshopper, before you know how to live with it.

Such is the power of the Midge Ninja. Learn from them, for they have lived for generations before, and will continue to bite and annoy for generations after.

P.S. For more information about where the Ninja Midges reside, please go here.

Further Below Down Under

There are New Zealand travel articles a-plenty. It is a beautiful land, boasting a variety of scenic vistas, complex ecosystems, physically extreme challenges and soul-waking adventures. Middle Earth, Samurai Japan, Narnia - name an alternative world that needs realism, and New Zealand probably has the location for it.

I was in New Zealand in December of 2005. I’m not writing about destinations in New Zealand, I probably won’t do it justice. Besides it’s a place better experienced and visited, then read about.

So I’m writing about Midges, Morays, and Moonrocks. These were what made New Zealand memorable for me – the rest, is for me to replay in my head as my own silent movie, and for you to read about in guide books.

North Island:

Auckland

Coromandel

Taupo

Tongariro Crossing

Picton

South Island:

Nelson

Abel Tasman National Park

Glacier Country

Wanaka/Manapouri

Milford Sound

Te Anau

Christchurch