Monday, September 29, 2008

Cultural learnings: be careful in the bathroom

(More dispatches from the Future by the Alien)

Although redbox challenged my karaoke preconceptions(videoke!), the office restroom helped me get to know my fellow man a little bit better. It all started with a routine trip to the "comfort room" to relieve myself of some pressure. I had just come from a meeting, so I had a notepad and my blackberry. Since I needed my hands to take care of the business, I placed my stuff on top of the urinal.

Important cultural note: phillipino males do not flush when they finish their business. They flush before they start. Perhaps it's left as a "how do you do?" for the next visitor. Not yet fully acclimated to local tradition, I did not participate in the pre-flush.

Cut to slow motion: my blackberry begins falling from its precarious perch. I reach to break its fall, my notepad falls to the floor, and my blackberry plunges into a miso soup of my own making (and the guy before me). It sits there quietly next to the blue deodorizer that does seem to be the same around the world. My dignity is 13 timezones away as I realize that I can't just leave it there.

I fished it out as delicately as I could and rinsed it in the sink while trying not to destroy the delicate circuitry not designed for multiple underwater immersions, neither salt nor fresh. This leads to my next discovery - no paper towels.

With my dripping wet blackberry, I head to the "pantry" . Office life revolves around the pantry. Office policy prohibits eating at your workstation so the pantry is constantly packed with people who don't look like they're going anywhere soon.

Nothing is self serve, as there are three gentlemen lounging at a table waiting for someone like me to show up and ask for something. So I oblige and ask for a paper towel. One of the guys smiles and nods and returns shortly with a glass of water.

I don't think I'm going to get a towel.
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Friday, September 26, 2008

Karaoke Pilipina

(Special Report by The Alien from somewhere near Manila, The Philippines - some time and dimension near our own)

Typhoon Ofel is raging outside, and I'm nursing a headache from too much "videoke" and way too much San Miguel beer. It wasn't Karol's, but the next day felt the same. RedBox was Manila's answer to our favorite uptown joint. Imagine private rooms for your own karaoke enjoyment, but not the cramped boxes you see in the Korean and Japanese places. This was widescreen TV plus high-backed pleather spacious booth. If you don't feel like karaoke, there was also a poker table (bring your own cards and chips). Pick your songs with a handy remote (English, Philipino, Japanese, and Korean!). One of the other rooms had a pool table. This is full service, baby.

The song selection was... strange. Every Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow song you never heard before. If you want to find a song by the Clash, be sure to look under "T" for "The". I learned two local hits - Picuh Pizza (sung to the tune of I Will Survive) and I Love Manila. My team shamed me with their dead-on renditions of Umbrella, Always, some Spice Girls song, and some Paris Hilton song (although I didn't recognize the titles, I knew all the words).

But the best part was the video behind the songs. There was this blonde lady who showed up in just about every one of them. She always had a pensive/sad/missing absent boyfriend look. Sometimes she was sitting on stairs. Sometimes walking by the beach. I think she was dipping her feet in the pool at one point. If the lady wasn't in the video, then there would be montages of Australian beaches, the Grand Tetons, and the White House. But the most important part was that it had nothing to do with the song.

Somebody had a phone that could record movies, so unfortunately there is a grainy film of me just waiting to be posted online (my own zabruder). Trust me - you will not be getting a copy.

No zombie brothers, no Hell bathroom, no Jimmy-style southern hospitality. Just four hours of karaoke stylings, with the aftermath of Typhoon Nina waiting outside (her sister Ofel was due the next day).
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