When we told our Couchsurfing host in Damascus that in Canada it’s customary to bring your own drink, and sometimes even food, to a party of barbecue, he looked shocked.

“What would you do in this situation,” I asked him.

After a hearty chuckle, he responded,” I would thank the invitation, but I’d stay far away from that party.”

In Syria, hospitality is a sacred thing. It’s a code of honour that runs in their blood for generations. The traditional Syrian home, from simple abodes to sprawling palaces, has a room dedicated to guests. It’s usually decorated with the best furniture in the house and its door remains unlocked.

According to tradition, anyone passing by could come in and stay for one day or one year. And, historically (but not really practiced today) the host would ask the stranger who he is and why he came after three days.

It’s hard to spend one day in Syria without being disarmed by her people. Only two hours into Damascus, our first stop, we bumped into Aesha, a girl we briefly met in a bus in Beirut. “So luck! So luck see you”, he gushed as if we were old, long-lost friends.

Mixing pantomime and English Level 1 vocabulary, we ambled in the city’s crowded streets, armed linked with Aesha as she paid for our snacks and our nuts before we had a chance to reach for our wallets. “You my visit, my guest, I pay for you, please!”

We didn’t resit too much, since it’s all very cheap. But hours later, we ate at a restaurant. Aesha didn’t eat and only helped herself to some water. But before I could swallow my last forkful she was before the cashier asking for the bill.

Roberto couldn’t let a 22-year old student pay a relatively high bill and ran after her

“No no no no no, you don’t have to pay, plese, you student, no need”, he entreated.

“Yes, yes please, please, my pleasure, please”, she responded.

Long, awkward minutes passed with slight variations in vocabulary and progressively grander gestures from both parties. Aesha finally gave up when the restaurateur advised her, with a defeated demeanor, to let it go. We picked up one Arabic word from his speech: amerki. They’re Americans, we assumed he said. They’re like that.

To be in a country where stores are decorated with fountains shaped like Arabian coffee pots, the local symbol for generosity, makes us reflect on our own attitudes back home. Where we eat alone in front of the computer, or feel slightly offended if a guest doesn’t bring a wine bottle. Where each one pays, to the nearest dollar, for what he consumed at a restaurant.

Short of cash, you say? The buying power of the average Syrian is far, far lower than our own.

Wajdi, our host in Damascus, spends many days fasting, Ramadan or not. “I don’t like to eat alone. I prefer to wait until I get home at night to eat with you.

“Food is something to be shared,” he said, night after night, in a fabulous restaurant or with a package of warm takeaway shawarma at home. And he always insisted on paying. And we, irreversibly Westernized, had a monumental difficulty in accepting.

Post Scriptum:

This post was published in an Internet café in Homs. After we sat down, without warnign or request, we were given a bottle of Syrian beer by the owner. “Welcome,” he said, a word we hear constantly, even by those who don’t speak English. As we prepared to pay for a combined total of six Internet hours, a scan and several printed pages, we were surprised again.

“How much”, we asked.

“No, free”, the owner replied..

“Free? No possible, free! 6 hours Internet, printing, scan, no free!” we protested.

“Today, first day business. Thank you, thank you very much, please welcome”,he said, handing us his business card.

But the merchants ask to be photographed, offer delightfully fragrant blossoms, and create skillful arrangements to adorn women’s hair or as offerings to the gods. And the experience transforms little by little.

This little market in Madurai is like much of India, a pocket of beauty amid so much chaos, an ugly place that’s surprisingly photogenic. You only have to know how to look.

Here’s a selection of pictures from that day. To advance, click the arrow on the bottom right.

[View with PicLens]

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When we travel, we discover that the way we do things isn’t always the correct one. That our culture is only one among so many. And that human beings, fundamentally, have the same needs no matter their differences.

All this is very lovely. But when I hear an Indian burping loudly on the table beside me, it makes me, like my mother, want to scold him and follow up with a lesson on good manners.

When I see a man collecting audible phlegm in his throat before firing it with gusto on the sidewalk, I’m urged to start a little chat on the basics of hygiene.

When I feel a woman madly shoving me to steal my place in line, my instinct is to yell, “Hey sister, can’t you see I was here first?”

And when I’m surrounded by stares when I walk on the street or sit in a restaurant? Inside I scream: “Did you lose something on me?”

Cast your mind on Archana, a graceful Indian dancer who, during a study stint in France, was horrified when a classmate blew his nose in class. The Russian man, in turn, found the comely Archana revolting when she issued a sonorous post-meal belch.

It’s so hard to accept our cultural differences. It takes work to see strange habits with anthropological eyes. In my case, anything involving bodily sounds and fluids hits hard. And I spent my days judging, condemning, and criticizing each of these gestures.

And that is exhausting.

Here’s the rub: the strange one around here is me. I’m the uninvited guest who is in no position to criticize the habits and the culture of one billion hosts.

Especially considering that I too, by ignorance or neglect, did things that are here considered rude. Yet I never got a moral lesson from an Indian when, for example, I eat with my left hand – which is reserved for hygienic tasks, never to carry food to the mouth.

No, I got no sermon and no disproving glances. Indians are far too polite to do that.

I now recall, with some amusement, the time I went on an exchange to the U.S. as a 15-year old. I was warned in a printed pamphlet that the habits, nutrition, and climate of a new country can cause a raft of symptoms, like lethargy, irritability, drowsiness, and others. This condition was called “culture shock.”

Uh-huh. The country of Nike, McDonalds, Kleenex, and Madonna. Those savages.

I started to like India more when I saw that their tourists can be just as goofy as our own.

Indians, too, flock en masse to touristy spots in India. They also eat at overpriced yet bland restaurants overlooking the sea. They buy plastic made-in-China knick-knacks from souvenir hawkers.

And they hold the sunset in their hands or pinch the top of a palace for pictures. Just like we do.

This made me like India more because it demystified a frustratingly opaque people. Since I arrived in the country (through Tamil Nadu state), I haven’t been able to see past the culture shock. I saw a people with markedly different customs and ways of interacting from the other countries I visited.

And these were so alien that I had no inclination to try to understand them.

I saw a society that made the collective decision to make their cities look like garbage dumps. And this is fine for severely under-developed places like some regions in Africa and Papua New Guinea.

But those are places where large-scale social organization is still relatively new. They were clusters of unrelated tribes clumsily packed into nationhood.

Indians, on the other hand, have had organized societies for millennia. They comprise the fastest-growing free-market democracy in the world. Is this the best they can do, I wondered.

Seeing Indian tourists in an Indian touristy town was that critical jigsaw piece that gave me the first idea of what the whole should look like. It afforded that lovely event of long-term travel when one stops admiring how different people are, and starts to marvel instead at the similarities.

Hey, they’re not that weird, I finally reckoned.

And there’s an added bonus: Indian touristy towns were built primarily for Indians. In Mahabalipuram and Manniyakuram, for example, the signs are mostly in Tamil, with the occasional Hindi translation for the truly foreign.

I can still feel like the intrepid traveler despite being every bit the camera-toting, flower-shirted tourist.

Another reason to like India a bit more.

(see comments for details)

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1. A motorcycle can easily carry a family of five.

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2. The role of police is not to protect citizens, but the highest bidders.

why? Bribery has long been a part of Cambodian society. The police and the military have been known to kidnap and threaten citizens for cash.

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3. The sompeah – the act of putting your palms together – is the most dignified way to greet someone.

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4. Talking slower will not make someone learn to read a map.

why? There is no free and compulsory education in Cambodia. Parents must pay for school. Most Cambodians are poor and therefore have little formal education. It seems strange at first that the average Cambodian can’t read a map, but few have been trained in that kind of abstract thinking.

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5. If you walk off the path and hear a click, don’t move. Call for help. You might get lucky and simply lose a foot.

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6. Smile during any disagreement, not matter how acrimonious.

why? It’s part of Southeast Asian culture to hide your emotions under a mask of calm. In Cambodia, this is taken to the absolute maximum. No one dares lose their cool, lest they “lose face.”

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7. Revenge is best served after several years of simmering spite.

why? An excerpt from Survival in the Killing Fields, the chilling memoir by Haing Ngor:

“Kum is a Cambodian word for a particularly Cambodian mentality of revenge – to be precise, a long-standing grudge leading to revenge much more damaging than the original injury. If I hit you with my fist and you wait five years then shoot me in the back one dark night, that is kum… It is the infection that grows on our national soul.”

It is thought that the Khmer Rouge turned simple peasants into thoughtless killers by stoking their kum against the city-dwelling elite, who were “corrupted” by the imperialist West. Survivors of the genocide called these brutal Communists kum-monuss: revenge people.
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8. If you want to beat someone up, you must insult him publicly first. Otherwise, you’re just a goon.

why? Ngor was arrested and tortured three times because one of his former colleagues told Khmer Rouge cadre Ngor was a doctor – and anyone with an education was targeted for execution.

Before taking his revenge on the mole, Ngor had to declare war on him before a public. That is the Cambodian way.

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9. Being invaded by several countries over many centuries results in one kick-ass cuisine.

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10. “No” only means “no” if said in Khmer.

why? Cambodian street sellers are a persistent lot. You can say “no” five times and they will still try to sell you bracelets, books, souvenirs, or massage. But say “aw te, aw kun” or simply “te!” and they will back off. Maybe it reminds them of a scolding by stern parents?

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After one week in India, I’m still waiting for the payoff.

So far, three cities in, I’m not seeing many reasons to stay:

The cities are congested, filthy, and stifling, with few redeeming features.

The ancient temples I’ve seen pale in comparison to Hindu monuments in Cambodia and Java (maybe I should have visited India first?)

The food is lovely, but not many measures better than what I can get at Indian restaurants in North America.

Rarely has the service been memorable. Mostly, the onus has been on me to not displease the person I’m paying.

There has been one bright spot: some people I met in Chennai who showed me a level of warmth and hospitality rarely seen elsewhere. But they were highly Westernized young Indians who rebel against tradition.

So what is the point, I’m tempted to ask, of staying?

I’m entertaining two theories:

1. India is for those who enjoy the things India exports: yoga, meditation, smoky incense mysticism, bearded gurus, pink elephant gods, Bollywood dancing. Nothing I’m passionate about. Hence my disappointment.

2. India is an acquired taste. You have to sample it several times, grimace at the initial bitterness and learn to discriminate its subtle delights. It’s a country that rewards those who give it time.

For the moment, I’m willing to err on theory #2.

We’ll see if my patience is rewarded later on.

Whatever claim you make about India the opposite will also be true.

This makes it a pretty difficult country to write about. But by my own logic, it also makes it a very easy country to write about.

And yes, there is tons to report after a mere few days in the country. The problem is that few of it would go beyond the most cliché.

To say India is land of contrasts is not only old-hat, it’s also vacuous. It offers little of value.

Anyone can see the blaring gulfs between neighbouring realities: The land of Buddha and Gandhi still has a merciless caste system. You walk past a fetid slum where children defecate on the sidewalk and step into a movie theatre with designer toilets and food served to your seat.

You see men beach-bathing in the skimpiest underwear, but who would never wear shorts on the street lest they look like riffraff. Cows and goats loiter the streets like so many stray dogs. Indian homes are spotless but public spaces filthy. Raw sewage attacks your nostrils and incense soothes them.

Wouldn’t be caught dead wearing shorts.

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But this does nothing to explain the country; it’s expository information. So many people know what is India. Few are those who can tell you why is India.

Even attempting to explain India is disingenuous, since “India” is a geopolitical entity, a huge grab-bag of ethnicities, languages, and customs. A cook in Tamil Nadu has little in common with a banker in Calcutta.

But since opposites are also true, those two will share a lot of traits.

The country is too big, the traditions too fluid, the mythologies too permanent for summarizing. Thinking otherwise is just irresponsible.

I have two months here. If by the end I’m able to understand just a fraction I’ll consider it a great feat.

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No-one ever goes hungry in Singapore. No-one’s ever given the chance.

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Act 1, Scene 1

They call it street food because you can vaguely see the street from your table. Lau Pa Sat is the main “hawker centre” in Singapore’s financial core, an old market converted into a food court with close to 50 stalls spanning Asian cuisine.

Each stall is neatly enclosed with glass and a luminous sign showing pictures of their fare. Desmond, a local lawyer we befriended, negotiated the clutter of tables and humans with ease despite his wheelchair.

“The first order of business is to find a table,” he counseled.

A tall order. The place was mad with the lunchtime rush. But I spotted an empty table among the throngs. How civilized, I thought. They place a wet napkin pack at each place of an empty table.

When I quickly took a seat, a severe Chinese man shook his finger while barking something in Singlish. I knew it was Singlish because Wikipedia told me they sometimes add urgency to sentences with “lah” or “mah”.

“That table isn’t free,” Desmond said. It’s Singapore custom, we learned, to reserve a seat with napkins while you shop for grub.

Act 1, Scene 2

“So what’s the local specialty,” I asked Desmond while eyeing some red lacquered ducks hanging seductively from hooks at a nearby stall. I could almost taste the Chinese five spices.

Lawyers are good at reading body language, and Desmond promptly ordered one. He wheeled himself to a neighbouring stall and ordered two more dishes: fried oysters and char kway teow. Then he dropped by a fritter stand and bought three battered and fried bananas.

Singaporeans are in a hurry. Always an appointment to catch, people to see. Unlike their Southeast Asian neighbours, you rarely see a Singaporean just sitting around. As such, they don’t have much time to eat, which is why they generously lubricate their food to reduce chewing times.

We felt like we had made out with greasy frying pans, but it was all very tasty. The duck, especially, was stupendous. There was food left on the plates. Two bananas uneaten.

“Shall we get something else,” Desmond asked. We politely laughed at his little joke. His face turned puzzled.

Singaporeans don’t joke. Not about food.

Act 2, Scene 1

Late nights mean late breakfasts, so we usually hit the streets around noon with bellies full. But when we hooked up with a gentle Singaporean boy we hosted in Montreal via Counchsurfing, he was hungry for lunch.

“There’s a place here famous for carrot cakes,” Daniel said after we met at a hawker centre in Little India. “Want some?”

“Get some for yourself and we’ll have a taste,” I replied.

He vanished for five minutes and returned with two plates. One had a stir-fried mess of white starchy cubes, grated carrots, and spring onions. The other was the same thing, but blackened by soya sauce.

Those are carrot cakes.

“When I was younger, I liked the black one more,” he said. “Today I prefer the white.”

Indeed, the white one was more savoury, loaded with garlic and spices. The black brother was notably sweet. Both were fantastically greasy.

He excused himself again and returned with rojak, a fruit and vegetable salad topped with peanut sauce.

We left two-thirds of each plate untouched. Any more would require an emergency stomach pump or bulimia. “Should we get something else,” Daniel asked.

Okay, they like to mess with tourists, we thought. It’s the national prank. You gotta have some outlet among all this order, all this cleanliness, all these rules.

Daniel got up, and again, after five minutes, returned with two bowls. One was filled with a black jelly-like noodle with ice cubes. The other a white, airy cream. Grass jelly and bean curd.

Both desserts were left 80 percent intact.

Act 2, Scene 2

The cash register at Ah Chew Desserts randomly selects a customer for a chance to win a second treat. I was chosen after paying for my almond paste with sesame rice balls and Daniel’s mango with sago pellets.

The owner told me to insert a rubber ball into a glass case filled with pegs. Quantum physics and gravity would then bounce the ball around until it fell into one of eight slots on the bottom. My ball fell into “Grass jelly with fruits”.

The owner then stamped the back of my receipt: valid for a free dessert up to 30 days from date of first purchase. Awesome. I could come back tomorrow.

Five minutes into my tasty almond paste – more of a cold soup, really – a waitress brings a bowl heaping with grass jelly and cubed pineapples, strawberries, and watermelon. She demands my stamped ticket.

“What,” she asked incredulously when I told her I didn’t want it right now. “You’re only having one?”

A hawker stall in Singapore. Every seller is given a letter grade on cleanliness.

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Act 3

Il Lido is a restaurant at the Sentosa Golf Club, a rich man’s playground at an islet south of Singapore’s mainland. We went as guests of local lawyers and entrepreneurs we befriended.

Desmond, a consummate lover of fine wines, suggested we all order the tasting menu, as he had brought four wines to pair with each course.

It started with a slice of pan-seared tuna, then two grilled scallops with crispy prosciutto, followed by tagliatelle with tomato lobster sauce, beef tenderloin steaks, and finished with lava cake and ice cream. Capuccinos and dessert wine for the cap.

In Singapore, any discussion, no matter how arcane, will inevitably turn to eating. Everyone’s an expert. No one is ambivalent. Consensus: the food was average and portions too small.

The backpackers were bursting at the seams, but abstained. We didn’t want to appear weak.

The bill came. There was little arguing over who pays. One person volunteers, and the rest vow to send their shares over internet banking.

One of the guests looked at me and said, “Do you want some real food now? We’re going for dinner. There’s some good beef noodles there.”

Politely declined. The next day, we heard the three who went ordered five dishes.

Epilogue

Declining food in Singapore is is as effective as asking a computer to hurry up. Insisting is just as foolish.

It’s a city that is a country and has no countryside, no ancient mythologies, no history as a nation older than 190 years. Food, brought by its three main ethnic groups at a variety, cost and quality unrivaled anywhere else, is what unifies them.

Food is how Singaporeans express affection. It is how they honour guests. It is what they know best.

It’s the foreigner’s task to channel his bewilderment – and upset stomach – into flattery.

And if he wants to be stinking rich, figure out how these people never get fat and make a pill out of it.

When I crossed from Cambodia to Vietnam, the culture shock was far greater than when I crossed the other way.

There are two ways to explain this.

1. It was a matter of relative durations. We had spent only one week in southern Vietnam before going to Cambodia. A country that was supposed to be a quick side trip kept us for one month. We were exposed to Cambodia far longer, and hardly had time to absorb Vietnam. We got used to one culture, so the change to the other was jarring.

Or 2. It was the people. Cambodians are meek and polite, at least with foreigners. It’s normal for people to mask their true feelings under a façade of extreme politeness. They are big on “saving face” by avoiding public conflicts that can lead to embarrassment.

Vietnam, on the other hand, is far less ceremonious. People are more direct. Bus drivers bark at you to get off quickly at the last stop. People grab your wrist to look at your watch without asking. Shoving in a crowded market is interchangeable with saying “excuse me”.

The first explanation places the responsibility of the culture shock squarely on us. The transition from one place to another was coloured by the choices we made. The second one assumes culture shock is a function of the culture differential between county A and B. That is, it’s entirely affected by the customs and habits of a place as compared to your own. And that the shock would be the same for everyone.

Like many things, the real explanation is blend of both.

While we were touring Indonesia, a German couple we spent the day with were suspicious of the Indonesian affability. Everywhere they went, locals asked them their names and where they were from. They were sure it was a ploy to sell them something they didn’t want.

Bianca and I, however, took it at face value. We understood they were being friendly and curious and we loved that.

That German couple was coming from other Southeast Asian countries with well-trodden tourist trails. Like so many backpackers, they faced a barrage of touts and hawkers, many who try to open a sale by feigning friendship. They ask your name and where you’re from as a gimmick to sell a product.

Whereas Bianca and I were coming from Papua New Guinea, which sees very little tourism and have none of the touts common in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. We weren’t jaded by all the false kindliness like they were.

But nothing changes the fact that Indonesians are, by and large, an extroverted and bubbly people who love interacting with foreigners.

On both counts, the culture shock was a function of our choices – the places we were in before – and the locals themselves.

I think that being aware of this makes jarring transitions a little easier. You might still get annoyed at the (seemingly) odd customs of the place you’re visiting. But you’ll know that it’s partly your own fault.

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Photo by Daniel Grosvenor

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When selling bootleg books didn’t work, the boy turned to begging for food. He looked 12 and was still perfecting his pity pitch.

After four days in Siem Reap (and another week in Sihanoukville), I got used to saying no to child sellers and beggars. I read enough articles to know giving them money does more harm than good:

It encourages them to keep working and begging instead of going to school.

It creates a dependency on tourists for their livelihood.

It undermines the role of parents as caretakers and of NGOs trying to keep them off the street.

It encourages irresponsible parents to stay at home (sometimes drinking) while the child goes out and works.

Worst of all, it robs a child of her childhood.

My girlfriend Bianca, however, let he compassion speak louder than reason. When the boy said he was hungry, she offered to buy him lunch and eat with us on our restaurant table.

It was too late for me to protest. She was already going over menu choices with the boy. All I could do was limit how much we’d spend. No more than $1, I said. Enough for a generous portion of fried rice.

As he ate, Bianca asked him questions about his life. I welcomed this idea. It would be an opportunity for empathy-building, a way to learn more about the people we sadly learn to regard as travel annoyances.

He said he needs money to buy powdered milk for his baby sister. This set off alarms, since I had heard this from other beggars, including a woman carrying her baby.

Traveling in Cambodia, you learn quickly that Cambodians are great imitators but lousy innovators. If something works for one person, you can be sure many more will do the same.

For proof, compare the menus of any three restaurants in Siem Reap. Listen to the sales pitches of souvenir sellers. Notice how every street corner has a “Dr. Fish Massage” tank full of little fish that eat dead skin off your legs. Half of them offer a free beer with the $2 service.

The boy said his father lost his legs to landmines. He kept going, and it all started to sound a little too tragic. Instead of sympathy, I felt suspicion. This kid was combining several pity ingredients in a clumsy way. As a result, I wasn’t believing a word of it.

Then what I feared happened. Two other boys, who evidently witnessed our charity, entered the restaurant. One of them asked for a plate of fried rice while the other looked on. These kids usually move on after three “no, thanks” but this one would not budge.

And this is what I hated the most: I had to be a hard ass with the kid. I had to look at him sternly in the eye and say, “I said no. That’s final.”

As we got us and left our table, the boy’s eyes followed me with a load of rage I had never seen in this country of meek and deferential people.

“You stingy,” he spat.

It’s a lousy thing to hear, especially after buying one of his comrades lunch. And it exposed the third world beggar’s logic, which is so often kept veiled behind so many Have a nice day’s and Thank you sir’s.

And that logic is this: if you have the money to travel this far from home, you have the money to buy me food. You have the money to buy all of us food. So why don’t you?

Never mind that I worked hard for three years to save money for this trip. Never mind that I chose this country precisely because it’s cheap and I’m not rich. Never mind that I’m helping his countrymen by just being here, injecting money into their economy and creating jobs in tourism.

The boy was simply saying what most beggars think all the time, whether it’s true or not.

And that’s a hard but necessary truth to swallow no matter what comforts our faith in tourism dollars may provide.