This was uploaded as a joke-post on Facebook. Unfortunately the Selfie Culture is
now so entrenched that I think most people viewed the photos as normal holiday
snaps, while secretly feeling them a tad indulgent.
Parody, subtlety and metaphors are old turds that the social media cistern struggle
to flush down:

An exhibition of European Travel photos inspired by the new wave of ‘trash & selfie’ tourism currently plaguing Asia.
Famous icons are rendered ephemeral via the imposing juxtaposition of vainglorious humanity.

Held at the Tandas Centre on Kampong Kolam from July 14th until August 12th.
Entrance fee is one penny. All proceeds go toward convincing a European artist to paint a mural of a green man into the traffic lights at the intersection of Chulia & Beach Sts.

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the works to be displayed.

• Grand Mosque Muscat, Oman
• Westminster
• Sacre Coeur in Montmartre
• Eiffel Tower
• Arc de Triomphe
• Notre Dame Cathedral
• The Pantheon
• Strasbourg Cathedral
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Free tai chi class at the Cheah Kongsi with a Master from China. 7.30 – 9.30 pm. tonight.

After almost 20 years in Malaysia we still can’t break the habit of getting to events on time.

We walked through the Kongsi gates and onto the MSG-soaked fluorescent lawn at precisely 7.29 pm.
“Perhaps this is the wrong place,” Veronica suggested. Noting that there was no one around.

It was then that I realised our mistake. Doh, we’re on time. Stupid. Penang people are always at least 30 minutes late for everything.

Several years ago we raced down to Bayan Lepus to attend a wedding starting at 7.00 pm sharp. It started at 10. Everyone else arrived between 9.50 and 10.00 pm. Depending on the nature of the event, there is an unwritten understanding among Penangites as to how late they need to be.

In the courtyard in front of the temple, a lone security guard confirmed that indeed, this was where the tai chi was to take place. He then got up and started mimicking some tai chi postures with hilariously exaggerated movements.

At around 8 pm the local folk started appearing out of the cracks in the cities’ walls.

At the risk of sounding a touch conceited, the ensuing histrionics were stunningly predictable.

The Chinese adopt their roles in these tai chi theatre pieces to the point where you’re convinced that it’s all some rehearsed parody.

I’ve been to hundreds of these tai chi classes over the years. Run by the Chinese, for the Chinese, in China and Malaysia. The same characters appear in every class like it was some Chinese Opera with the King, Queen, Warrior, Villain, Hero, Peasants etc.

First to appear is The Uncle. The thin man of 70 with wispy white hair, a white t-shirt tucked into silky blue track suit pants, gym shoes and possibly a limp that he’s carried for 50 years after writing off his first Boon Siew. He’s quiet, respectful and usually totally ignored. He seems to accept this isolation as though it’s forged through request.

The next to appear are The 3 Maidens. They are nice, they smile, they wear white t-shirts with yellow embossing and they are volunteers for a Buddhist charity like Tai Tzu or Save the Japanese from Themselves or whatever. They are sweet and they usually bring cakes for everyone else. Their tai chi is always very ‘Yin’, very soft and to the alpha males who are yet to appear on stage, they are at the bottom of the tai chi peaking order. In my opinion, they are closer to the top by a process of attrition.

Next to come are The Newbie Enthusiasts. The middle-aged, educated males who have invested an interest in tai chi as a possible antidote to mid-life crisis. Unlike the solo uncle, they are happy to talk to anyone and smart enough to express a degree of emotion completely foreign to most Chinese, humility. They do however possess the common Chinese trait of listening without hearing. The combination of their recent discovery of tai chi and their genetic pre-disposition to the art, totally over-rides any knowledge or skill a Westerner may have accrued during 3 decades of regular training. Tai chi development is an inch wide and a mile deep. They only know about the inch and yet they start telling me about the mile.

Now comes the first of The Alpha Males. He’s a silverback in dark silks with thick thighs and a thick head. When he struts across the lawn he imagines that all eyes are upon him and everyone is excited by his presence. To the contrary, the Chinese aren’t stupid, they all think he’s a dick-head too.

The group grows quickly until there are around 40 people. They gradually take up their positions on the large concrete quadrangle in front of the main temple. The Master arrives. He looks unremarkable with a noticeable expansion of the lower dantien. I suspect that Malaysian street food agrees with him.

The Master begins by wasting at least 5 minutes getting everyone to line up in rows. This happens in every Chinese tai chi class. They are obsessed with this regimentation and the students always behave like it’s the most difficult task of the night. The feng shui is finally acceptable and we begin with a salute. The big gorilla, who has positioned himself at the back, to no doubt keep an eye on everyone, suddenly yells out – ‘Show respect to the Master’. I glance over and see smoke starting to billow out of Veronica’s ears.

We do warm ups. It’s external posturing with no internal nurturing. They grind their knees with gusto. Veronica and I watch on. The knee is a hinge joint not a ball and socket joint. I blindly followed my early teachers doing these masochistic loosening exercises for years and finished up with ‘swimming knees’. The kuas are overlooked and the structure encouraged to collapse at the knees.

Then it’s time to stretch and bounce ( ouch ). They can all stretch low, irrespective of how awful their tai chi is. Years of defecating over holes in the ground has ensured that the pelvis is open and their feet are left flapping outward like a clown.

I’m starting to plan our exit strategy but decide to scan the cast of characters again to see how many more of the usual suspects are present.

Miss Torpedo is here. She’s always at this type of class. Tall and skinny, she stands up the front and has more angles than a Mathematics text book. She can reach up higher than everyone else and go lower than everyone else. She moves faster and harder. She has 6 elbows and her pony tail flashes when she punches the air with all her little might. The qi is caught somewhere between her ego and annealed shoulders. There is nothing about her that has even an inkling of what tai chi is about but in her mind she is a star.

If this was a Chess Board and I was a Knight, then I could take The Disco Man with my next move. He’s in front to the right and is an unmistakable presence. What he sees others do and how he interprets what he sees are two entirely different concepts. The Disco Man is able to abuse motion in ways that most other people couldn’t even begin to exaggerate. Legs and arms defy every physical law as he all but dismantles himself in the search for grace.

The Athlete is here too. Young, fit, handsome, strong, he can ‘really’ do tai chi. He’s the golden boy. He doesn’t need to say anything, just smile and accept all the admiring glances.

The Snake is always present. He’s late fifties, a little over-weight but he can move around close to the ground. That’s his thing, slithering through a form. I love to keep an eye on him for those little moments when he over does it and falls over, hoping no-one will notice.

Wu Shu Boy never fails to attend any class where a genuine Master is present. He does Kung Fu and now he’s mastering Tai Chi. He will always want to lead students in their training when the Master has gone back to China.

The Master, who seems content to let senior students do most of the work, finally comes forward to demonstrate the Form. He’s the real deal. A powerful unit with genuine fajing. His tailbone doesn’t tuck well, which is either a long held bad habit or the unbending shape of his back but either way, he appears to have compensated well for any structural fault there. He’s impressive albeit a touch lazy. I can tell that he rarely practices these days. As is so often the case with well regarded teachers, they tend to oversee rather than be directly involved. It’s been an ordinary night but the opportunity to watch a real Master perform made the outing worthwhile.

As a teaching project I really failed to see the point. Any new students to tai chi appear to have only learned to contort their bodies into unhelpful positions. It’s external nonsense. Chen Style is not something that can be taught satisfactorily to students who lack foundation.

We left and I’m sure that most present would agree that we played the role of token Westerners to perfection. Two white people who had no understanding at all about the Chinese art of Tai Chi.

Thought I’d share again some of the more relevant or amusing things
plucked from my scribblings over the last couple of months.
It’s a strange existence living in two parallel universes but life is never dull
when we’re sweating.
I figure that we are now dual-fuel humans. We run on oxygen in Melbourne
and carbon monoxide in Asia.

NEIGHBOUR #1:

I’ve been plotting the execution style murder of one of our neighbours for a
few years.
Every day at precisely 7.05 am, this elderly gentleman revs the living shit out
of an old car parked right in front of our house.  He never drives it anywhere,
it just gets mercilessly revved for 20 minutes each day while our house soaks
up all the carbon monoxide.

Veronica has consistently defended the old guys right to life, insisting that a
better solution is for us to get up and leave the house every morning before
he starts his car.
When I recently suggested that he may well be the same guy who ‘sings’
Karaoke here every Saturday night, Veronica’s immediate response was.
“Kill him”.

Speaking of death, despite the poor air quality and high levels of cigarette
smoking, not as many people die of lung related diseases here as you would
assume. I once believed that they must have iron lungs but I now understand
that it’s because they die of liver cancer before their lungs get the chance to
collapse.
Interesting too, they die of liver and lung cancer here but hardly anyone dies
of a brain tumour.  Just saying.

NEIGHBOUR #2:

Recent generations of Chinese living within the Malaysian diaspora mostly
value chattels by their price tag. Aesthetics have little to do with anything,
beauty is redundant and craftsmanship an emblem of past hardships.
Paradoxically, their ancestors effected a world of extraordinary charm and
artistry, as evidenced in a crumbling George Town now inherited by Hokkien
slum dogs and lazy Facebook barbarians.
Our next door neighbour has known only concrete, smoke and struggle
throughout his 70 years. His world is without choices. Without disposable
income or a proper education, he is like a caged bird who loses the will for
flight.
Now his little xenophobic heart has to deal with two migratory cuckoos
sharing his nest.  What to do?
Complain bitterly about the fact that we have too many plants on our front
porch.
Living in Penang is a wonderful experience but you do have to be tolerant
of people who possess little logic and even less empathy.

THE EARTHQUAKE:

A sacred mountain suffers the indignity of a small group of climbers posing
naked at the summit. It’s portrayed as more disgusting than racism, sexism,
religious bigotry or corruption. In fact, this disgraceful act is probably
responsible for the deadly earthquake that shook Kinabalu. The God’s were
not amused.

Meanwhile, a wealthy real estate Developer pays the obligatory
‘commissions’ to the applicable bureaucrats and then his Company goes to
work raping the jungle-clad hills with its 20 storey cock. The God’s are not
alerted to this misdemeanour by the local press who act as regime managed
engineers of public outrage, implacably fanning the sparks of superstition
and stupidity that set the masses on fire.
What should we think next?

INDIA:

We had the pleasure of travelling through India with 23 friends this August.
I have since concluded that there are two kinds of people in the world –
those who have been to India and those who haven’t. It’s like nowhere else
and nothing can prepare you for the onslaught.
No fancy words, photos or film can possibly come close to describing the
mayhem and sensory overload that India provides.

My video will show us sitting on rickshaws in Varanasi but it’s only a biopsy
of the total experience. You would need a dozen sets of eyes to absorb half
of what’s going on around you. The arrant chaos overwhelms you to the
point where you just start to laugh. This is torrential life. A veritable flood
of humanity.  An effulgent synergy of man, beast and vehicle pervading a
landscape subjugated and moulded by repetition and rhyme. Every man,
woman and child knows precisely what they’re doing but, to the man from
Cranbourne, the sheer multitude of souls in collision makes it appear to be
utterly out of control. These people are remarkable.

The Aeroplane & Kolkata –

We are the only two white bait in a sardine can chock full of farting Sikhs,
ubiquitous BO and the ferocious snorting of phlegm. We haven’t even left
Malaysian airspace and I’m wondering how the hell we’re going to survive
a full month in India.

The plane speaker crackles to life. Indian Authorities request that the
cabin be sprayed before landing. Seems to me like sterilizing your rubbish
en route to the tip.

Arriving into Kolkata after midnight, was like driving through a war zone.
It was all but deserted with every building, road and vehicle looking like a
bomb had exploded nearby. Why on earth did we choose to come here?
We had figured that any city that has districts called Dum Dum and
Ballygunge, has got to be worth exploring and when the sun came up
next day, we fell in love with the place.

It’s ironic, we’re in a place where everywhere you look there is a photo
opportunity and yet we are the centre of attention. The unfamiliar is of
interest. A local cannot possibly understand what we find fascinating
about a hand pushed cart. Similarly, we don’t know why two old white
people from Cranbourne could possibly warrant a second glance, let
alone persistent stares.

We wandered the streets of old Kolkata by ourselves for a few days and
then with a complimentary guide supplied by our local Operator for
another. His name was Bikash, but my spell checker changed his name
to Bike Shop.
We had a great day exploring the city with Bike Shop. We had a driver
too. He would turn off his engine to save fuel while waiting for the traffic
lights to change. When the lights changed to green, he turned the
ignition key, put the car into gear and beeped the horn. All in one
continuous, unconscious action. Kolkata streets are noisy.
I remember a guy once telling me that he was going to Culcatta to
‘find himself’.

We stayed in a large family home in one of Kolkata’s more affluent areas.
A mental picture of this neighbourhood approximating Toorak would be
a major miscue.

Our host’s father was into munitions ( he wasn’t impressed by my quip
about supplying Pakistan with nuclear weapons ) and the other person
sitting at the table was a mechanical engineer specialising in cancer
research. Both nice people with lots in common but curious that one
makes a living out of the potential to destroy human life and the other
is committed to saving it.

Discussing wildlife in India with them and the subject of leopards came up.
I asked if there were any still left in the wild. I learned that they are nearly
all in designated reserves now as encroaching human habitation has
diminished their habitat and food sources. Now they eat children quite a
bit, so they moved most of them into nature reserves. I asked if they were
called Leopard Colonies but, as is the norm in Asia, my attempt at humour
fell on deaf ears.
I claim it’s cultural differences but Veronica insists that it’s because I’m just
not funny.

Delhi –

I’d rather spend a couple of nights in a public toilet. Delhi is essentially a
shit hole. It’s hard work.
You soon get a strong sense of your own worth. You are nothing to anybody
except that you take up space and you may have a wallet.
Delhi is a dodgy city. A giant dodgem ride. Whether you’re driving, walking
or talking, it’s all about territory. If you get your nose slightly in front, then
you have right of way.

In Delhi everyone is a beggar. The woman in rags holding a naked baby, the
old man sitting cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard at the railway station,
the toilet attendant, the grubby faced children tapping on car windows, the
cripple, the holy man, the shopkeeper, the tour guide, the waiter, the
businessman, the politician, they’ve all got their dirty hands out.
The tourist is nothing more than cold white meat and every vulture wants
a piece of your remains. They will find you, they can smell you and they
are hungry.

In Connaught Place the touts swarm around you like Mosquitos.
” Hullo sir, tuk tuk ?”
” Shops are closed sir, follow me to the tourist centre.”
” Where do you come from sir ?”
Beggars, scammers, pedi-cabbies, street vendors, even the stray dogs eye
you off as a potential touch. You daren’t stop, look unsure, consult a map
or make eye contact. You literally have to swipe them away like flies. I
even resorted to confusion as a means of defense by responding in
Chinese but that only incited more interest.

Body language is the window to your intentions and Delhi’s array of
parasites are very good at assessing your vulnerability. The best form of
defense is to have a distinct plan. Walk with clear intention and treat the
mosquito swarm with utter indifference. Any level of engagement or
emotional response supplies leverage. You must totally ignore them
without looking like you’re trying to ignore them.

It’s hard to be hard in the face of poverty but any demonstration of
compassion will incite a manic feeding frenzy that will tear your carcass
to shreds. You are the prey.
If witnessing poverty first hand is distressing, then there are smarter
ways to respond than by helping to perpetuate begging and the
exploitation of children on the street. Better to contact an NGO group
and assist by supporting infrastructure projects.

Group arrives from Australia –

They’ve built an elevated rail line right next to our Delhi hotel, the
Jaypee Siddharth.
Trains rumble passed every 30 – 60 seconds.
Is this a problem?
Not if you read the hotel’s in-house information folder.
” And we have an open air restaurant that offers impressive views as the
racing metro creates a pulsating imprint. ”

Leaving the hotel room for dinner at the open air restaurant with the
pulsating imprint, I was obliged to remove the room key card from the
power slot. Unfortunately this meant no power to the room for charging
phone and camera. I decided to try my Medi-care card in it’s place.
It worked. Finally the Australian Health system is starting to provide
benefits.

One of our group, Chris, had the pleasure of witnessing two Indians
attempting a Western Breakfast. They  both picked up large bowls and
added cornflakes, coco puffs, muesli and wheat flakes before moving
along the buffet bar to add tomato, corn, peas, alfalfa sprouts, onion,
mung beans, yoghurt and warm milk. They then sat down to enjoy the
kind of breakfast that foreigners eat.
After a few mouthfuls it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right.
So one of them got up and added a couple more spoonfuls of peas.
That’s better.

Rajasthan –

Rajasthan has the most significant assortment of forts and palaces on
Earth. They are stunning.
We were about to ride up to a fort in Jaipur on the back of elephants.
I warned everyone that being behind an elephant when it farts is a very
unpleasant experience.
Meredith chipped in – being behind me when I fart at the moment is not
too good either.

In Jaipur they have a 14 year old Maharaja ( king ) who will become the
most eligible bachelor in India. Don and Robyn suggested they should
introduce him to their daughter Melanie.
Someone then said, “What about Nathan ( Melanie’s boyfriend ) ?”
Don turned around to Nathan and said,  “See you Nath.”
I asked, “How do you put up with Don, Nathan?”
He shook his head and said, “Mel’s a great girl.”

We stayed in some amazing hotels in Rajasthan, including an actual palace
in Mandawa, complete with a four poster shower. Astonishing though, for
all the intricate workmanship that’s gone into creating the palaces and
forts, they can’t get the plumbing right in a 4 star hotel.

Visiting China, you eventually become ‘templed out’. So too in India, no
matter how incredible the next edifice, you start to become a bit
‘forted out’. I joked with Eric, who suffers severe back pain, that he’ll
probably even stop taking Panadeine Forte now.

Comparisons with China are inevitable. In China you mostly need to travel
off the beaten track to find anything resembling the old ways and then it’s
often just locals living in high rise apartments dressing up in traditional
costume to perform for the tourists.
In India, the exotic travel posters are not the exception they are the rule.
It exceeded all my expectations. The real India is everywhere. From the
millions of cows who nonchalantly roam down even the busiest of streets
to the rickshaw pullers who work the laneways exactly as they did 100
years ago. Half a billion women dressed in the most colourful of saris.
The holy man sitting cross-legged on the footpath savouring a chilim.
The half naked little ragamuffins weaving through traffic to solicit a few
rupees from gridlocked drivers. Brightly painted buses bursting at their
rusty seams and jammed atop with hordes of noisy commuters. Crowds
bathing and washing their clothes at the Ghats. Groups of orange clad
Hindu worshippers, high on bhang, chanting and dancing as they pass in
procession. Whole families living under canvas on dusty footpaths or
under metro bridges. Camel drawn carts. 6 people on a motorbike with
a pig. Chaotic streets encrusted with such a multiplex of electric wiring
that it almost dims the sun. Forts and Palaces so massive and so grand
that you are left wondering why it took you so long to realize such things
existed. Old men in long flowing white dishdasha and orange turbans
sitting smoking at desert road stops. Walking across the busiest pedestrian
bridge on earth, teeming with flower sellers, rickshaw pullers, beggars,
Hindu Sadhu, shapely Tamil girls in glitzy saris and every imaginable mode
of transport choking its gridiron artery. Ancient streets selvaged with
crumbling haveli, donkey drawn tilbury, betel nut stalls, smouldering mud
ovens and the ubiquitous rabble of cows. A blue smoke-stained door jamb
framing an old lady in a ruddy sari slowing stirring a cast iron pot of yellow
dhal.
It’s as if impossibly exotic post cards are springing to life all around you.

We took to the air on several legs of the domestic journey. One flight was
with a local operator called Indigo. No doubt inspired by lots of credo from
the Branson hand book, this trendy company was ‘like really cool and stuff’.
Apart from farewelling passengers  at the gangway with “see you later,
Alligator’ scribbled over everything, their lunch box logo promised us a
great day, unless we did something really stupid.
My favourite though was their in-flight magazine’s promotion of a new book
entitled ‘Kama Sutra for Business’. I wondered whether it gave instruction
on how to screw your competitors.

One of the real highlights of our tour was riding a camel in the desert,
20 km from the Pakistan border. My camel was called Michael Jackson.

73 kg of human being sitting tenuously astride an irritable camel with only
his testicles to emulsify man and dromedary . I quickly contended that the
Idly may have originated in the desert camps of Ghani camel traders. The
woman folk, having their culinary imaginations pricked by the recumbent
gonads hubby brought to their nuptials, were duly inspired to create the
tasty snack. It’s also possible that the concept of Eunuchs may have been
born between humps on the Silk Road.
My voice goes up in pitch as I privately belt out “I’m bad, I’m bad” rocking
high in the saddle with Michael Jackson.

The camel herders, adorned in spotless white robes and colourful turbans,
strut nonchalantly alongside their beasts. For the next half hour we will
leave our comfort zones and put all our trust in these illiterate men.
Out here in the desert they are Kings.
A dung beetle passes under hoof rolling an orb of camel shit twice his size.
The pretty girls in saris and heavy mascara appear to glide across the
shifting sand in their bare feet as they follow the convoy of camels.
It’s a piece of desert theatre played out for every captured tour bus.
“Money for photo”.

Michael cranes his neck and twists his head around to glance at the latest
batch of hapless gauchos.  His posture is part regal, part goofy yet
quintessentially exotic. This is the desert and he’s a real camel. I tap my
heels against his sides, rise up in the saddle and scream “No prisoners.”

TAI CHI IN PENANG:

We are now back in Penang and at the end of class this morning Michael
& Barbara were deciding where to go for breakfast.
“Maybe the Chinese coffee shop on the corner of Malay and Carnavon
or is it porridge today?” asks Michael.
Mika chimed in with her softly officious German accent, “Your porridge
day is Thursday I think”.
“Wow, Mika, the joys of being young. You miss nothing,” adds Michael.
“Well I’m an Anthropologist, I study human behavioural patterns and I
think you’ll find that Thursday is porridge day”.

Unfortunately, Thursday week is not only porridge day but it’s the day we
have to leave the lovely warmth of Malaysia and return to Melbourne.
Despite the horrible haze from slash and burn that is now cloaking
George Town,  the plummeting ringgit and farcical politics and the fact
that everything is harder here than in Melbourne, we don’t want to
leave.

Gems from Lotus Bud –

“India will be a very successful country in the years ahead, they are
such good liars.”

“When you’re older you tend to do things just to get your money’s worth.”

At the end of a long day and desperately tired, she was recounting our
elephant ride in a phone call.
“Then we went up the hill on envelopes.”

After the group had left Kolkata to fly back to Australia.
“I woke up during the night wondering where the tour group would be
and then realized I didn’t know where I was.”

And finally one from Eric, sitting on the bus going out to the Airport to
leave India after consuming several beers and now nursing a painfully
distended bladder.
“I’ve enjoyed everything about this trip, until now!”