Motorcycles and the art of imitation Ray-Bans

It was black and white, short in stature, but a bit taller than the Z50 I'd ridden before. 
Dual springs at the back, drum brakes that never seemed to work properly, and a big two-stroke pipe with one of those old-school chrome heat guards that seemed to transfer a broad hot threat into something more like a branding iron. 
The engine capacity had been bent into the heat guard bright work. If the bike tipped on your uncovered leg it'd be known that you were packing 80 cubic centimetres of Japan's finest. 
It had a clutch. Like real race bikes did. I was nine, and it was as cool as hell. 

Wanna know how I got these scars?

I pity my mother sometimes, when I casually inform her of my plans to dirtbike across Cambodia, and she tells me to "be careful", but she has to carry at least some of the blame. She grew up riding bikes on the farm, and had ridden every motorcycle of mine by herself right up until I left the country. Back on the farm, she had a jump out in the back paddock that she kept secret for years. She thought it was a secret, anyway. Pa let on that he'd known about it. He'd been using it too. 
So when I was nine, dad handed over $550 for a 1975 Yamaha MX80. It was two stroke, but still pretty quiet, and had a hinged seat that would flip-up to reveal the tool kit and oil tank, because pre-mixing fuel is obviously for peasants. It would happily flog around the paddock all day long, and needed nothing but juice, a wet chain, and the occasional carb-cleanout. We could push it the half-kilometer up the road and ride it on the old service track beside the railway line almost the whole way to the next town, and if the train was coming past, we'd race it. Of course. Two up, it'd match it with pace and smoke output. You should know at this point that it was a steam train. 
Yes, Drysdale is a magical place.
The faithful little beast died a slow death. 
It started with one kick, then two. Then you'd have to kick it over repeatedly until you were almost at idle speed anyway. 
The brakes didn't brake, and the clutch was broken. If you pushed off with your feet a bit you could still shift it into gear. The process became more complicated when the compression got so bad you could only get it going from push starting it. And then one day, it didn't run anymore. Just like that.
Dad was a farmer, and could fix almost anything with fencing wire and combo pliers. But the little bike was out of his league. Either that or he finally got sick of the noise. 
That bike was awesome right up until the day, the very minute that I rode my mate John's KX 60. 15 years younger than mine, and probably three times as fast, I just couldn't understand how something with a smaller engine could be so much faster. 
I wanted more, but it wasn't in the budget. 
There was a GS125, which was a poor excuse for a paddock bike. That didn't last. 
A GS500 got me on the road, and it wasn't a bad learner bike. For one, I didn't look like an ape when I was riding it, like my equally tall mate Steve did on his GPZ. It wasn't really fast, although it was pretty fun to flog down the GO road on a summer afternoon. Midweek, of course, when the beaches aren't full of Mebournians. There was this one corner, closer to Lorne that Torquay. I only think of it because I saw it in a magazine over here (Malaysia) advertising tours and I recognized the spot immediately. Long left, that was broken in the middle by a short bridge. The turn tightened left, then you had to change direction real fast, sit the bike up for a second, and then a tight right-hander, with the Southern Ocean smiling at you through the gaps in the armco.
I don't remember the corner being downhill, but there it was, plain as day. I do remember slamming down gears and having the rear wheel snake about behind as I tucked left, and not feeling one ounce of fear. No, that was reserved for another right hander just out of the Skeene's Creek turnoff, where Steve removed his indicator (and a bit of paint) from his GPZ one day. I very nearly repeated the process on Melbourne Cup Day-Off about nine months later. Out of a left, slight downhill, big sinkhole right in the braking zone. Oh, and a really, really obvious, scary looking ocean at the bottom of a considerable cliff. 
The downhill made me nervous, the sinkhole made me unsettled, and the ocean made me freeze up.
The fear factor. I could have gotten around it faster if I'd just looked at the apex instead. 
I don't know why they advertised that corner in particular, because I can tell you where the tourists all wind up. It's past Lorne, but I couldn't tell you how far. The road's a fair margin wider, because the big buses stop there so people can take photos of the koalas. Which they do, while walking backwards onto the road to catch the perfect angle of the little fat furry fellas. There's no braking quite like the oh-look-there's-an-asian-with-an-SLR-in-my-lane kind of braking.
The GS went to an old friend, or perhaps a friend from an old life. Now it's painted black, which could mean that he did and could just as easily mean he did not fix all the oil leaks. 
I had a Yamaha Win briefly. 100cc (that is, 0.1 of a litre) single cylinder, four speed, four stroke, which spells "slow" in any language. It'd sit on 85 ok. It hit a hundred, once. 
Mrs Welsh and I were in Kep, a sleepy coastal town down south of Cambodia. We'd done about a thousand kay through Vietnam, crossed the border at Prek Chak - with a slight in wait no-man's-land while the guard went to retrieve the Officer-in-charge from the bar - and spent two days in Kep waiting for the blood to return to our butt cheeks. To say that Vietnam has some shocking roads is like saying Genghis didn't mind a fight. The seat on my Win suited something else. A wall, perhaps, or a sewer. 
We had a flight to catch and bikes to sell, and we could take a direct route to Phnom Penh, or go via Kampot, which I had suspected would be a much better quality highway. Some Cambodian highways are in fact very good, as are some Vietnamese ones. Picking the right road makes a big difference to the trip. 
So we asked a local, which in South East Asia results in bad information about 78% of the time. The 12% is Myanmar. They're really helpful over there. 
So we ask him, is the direct road good, or should we take the longer way back because we're in a hurry and a bit over the "suspension" that my bike and Jem's scooter had, or rather did not have whatsoever.
No, they said, lying through their teeth, the direct road is fantastic. Easy. No problems. 
There was also no roadsigns, no tarmac, almost no traction, and thick chocking dust every time you got near a truck. Oh, and all of the trucks in Cambodia. 
Liars. 
Hours later we finally pop out onto the Kampot-Phnom Penh highway, which told me that 
a) the locals were wrong
b) the road was perfect and
c) we have been running almost parallel to a billiard table-like utopia that we would have taken had we detoured the mere 30 kilometres to Kampot like we were going to in the first place. 
Mrs Welsh has come to the same conclusions, and as a result is 
a) angry
b) tired and
c) riding as fast as her not-that-ancient scooter will possibly go. Which according to my wheezing, melting Win was about 105. 
Thankfully the red mist cleared before she ran out of gas, and when we stopped at the bowser we realised my key had vibrated clean out of the ignition barrel. It took a few minutes to work out that it didn't really matter, because like every good Win still kicking between the Bodge and Siam, you could start it with a screw driver, the end of a spoon, or probably a hundred other things, and any spare keys you might have, including the one for your hotel room. That, and the Win didn't sound quite as sweet anymore.
$35 at a mechanic down by the Russian market got a new piston, bore, and valve guides installed. He even ran it in for me, winding up the throttle stop and having his wife tip water onto the cylinder head so it didn't over-heat and cook the new rings during the bedding in process. Stellar.
The bike didn't fare as well in Cambodia, but ripping down a mountain pass just south of Loc Lac it was in its own. With my bag strapped to the tank, hunched forward to the bars, I attacked the corners. The little single blasted out its tune, hard on the gas early in the corner. The pass opened up to a long straight across the top of a massive dam wall. We held it wide open, roaring past a tour group parked up on their CB250s. They smiled. We smiled more. We'd overtaken many just like them. They were pillion passengers, and had no idea what they were missing out on. 

#nobeard #stillcool

$350 for the Win and the NotHonda Cub scooter, with Vietnamese rego, at the Aussie Bar in PP, in an awful rush. We had wanted to sell them to backpackers headed back into Vietnam, but I was bed-ridden with the worst stomach bug I've had in the three years I've lived in Asia, and probably all twenty seven years that I've lived. Our hotel room had two beds, and I'd rather not tell you exactly why that was a God-send. So we lost some money on the sale, but we didn't have to do a round trip, and had the satisfaction of knowing, even just for a week, that those bikes were ours. 
I have a Yamaha Nouvo, automatic, 110cc scooter. I've knocked it off the stand once, lost the keys twice, and it's come home in the back of a ute three times. It also towed my busted XR250R through KLCC, with a 100kg (probably) mate Tim steering the stricken Honda, so I can't really complain. 
The Honda is the best bike I've ever owned, but it owes me a small fortune and is still in bits. I don't want to talk about it. 
Jem has a bike now too, a KLX150. A few motor mods to the toy Kwaka and it followed me on the XR most of the way around Malaysia. It's got real hand guards and a full sport exhaust, probably Chinese made and perfect, to match the bigger piston I installed. It's got a little steel rack we had the spare tubes strapped to on the trip. It's got a ding in the fuel tank, and a broken tail light lens where Mrs Welsh did an 8-point cartwheel down a muddy hill behind Ampang. On that bike, today, I had a revelation. 
I was cutting through the traffic, making progress. The bike sounded good - it'd been a while since I'd ridden anything with a clutch. The bigger piston, but standard camshaft, means that most of the power is down low, so you don't need to rev it. You just give it big gulps of throttle early and it gets by just fine. 
It was cool. And I was cool.
The scratches didn't matter. We took the E12 back, high above KL, with that fantastic view of the twin towers. When the traffic banked, as it always does, we rode over the kerb to make the next turn. Under the Jalan Kutching bridge, where my scooter failed two years back just hours before my flight to a football tournament. Open it up down Jalan Parliamen, past the grassy fields and trees lining the botanic gardens. The air's a bit cooler there. The bike doesn't care. 
I thought of Tim. He's riding the same green beast that I am though jungle tracks in East Timor. I bet his bike doesn't care either. And that's cool.
In this world, particularly in our western countries, everything is being wrapped in cotton wool. Some of that is necessary. Some of it is suffocating. 
Motorcycles don't care. Motorcycles are cool. 
Yesterday I saw a DTM, horrible knock-off Chinese dirt-come-street bike (motard, for the initiated) being flogged around KL. The bloke had ditched the exhaust and routed it under the bike, Paris-Dakar style. It sounded crap. And it was cool. He knew it.
Two days before that I saw a bloke riding a Hayabusa around the narrow suburban streets that wind around the traffic jams. He was riding a bike that was still the world's fastest within the decade past, and was built before ABS and traction control had seen its debut on Japanese bikes. And it was pouring rain. Cool. 
Harleys, you know, I really do hate them, but they're still cool. My mate with the postie bike? Cool. My other mate who bought a dirt bike, stuck road tyres on it and never got it dirt again? Still cool. Fast, too, really, really fast. And then the other mate, ex-motocrosser, who brought his old BMW R75 out on Melbourne Cup Day-Off ride, and rolled around at the back of the pack? Yeah. He's cool. 
I'll never work out what it is, and I'm not sure I want to anyway. I don't think it's the danger, although there's definitely a lot of that. I don't consider myself to have a death wish. It's not out of rebellion, although motorcycling is rebellion personified on so many levels. There is just something endlessly appealing about the fantastic thing that is to have two wheels and an engine. 
It's tremendously complicated, but beautifully simple.
It's cool. When I'm riding one, I'm cool. And I'm so certain of it all that I don't even care if I'm wrong.

Why social morality has failed (and that's just fine with me)

By now you should know who Julien Blanc is. I figured he was a bit of a prat just by looking at the hipster spelling of his name, but then it turned out that he was born in Switzerland, so I guess that judgement would be unfair to the Swiss. Although, they unleashed this twit on us. So perhaps they should shoulder some of the shame. 
Julien was in Australia recently, for those of you who prefer to dwell under a rock, and the Social Justice Warriors were out in force to impede his tour. With the help of some unfortunately un-creative placards (you couldn't do better than #takedownjulienblanc? Are you aware that hashtags don't actually work on cardboard?) they loudly voiced their disapproval of the whole shebang. And then got a bit annoyed when the police showed up and protected the misogynists from mob justice, or as the police referred to it, "maintained law and order". And then all his shows got cancelled, and he was kicked out of the country.
Win, I guess. 
I was aware of the existence of groups like Real Social Dynamics years ago. It was the subject of a CSI Miami episode I watched. Guys with backpacks who manipulate women into bed with them, for the purpose of, well, getting women into bed with them. They're not really "family" type guys. Advised methods are (apparently) lying, manipulating, being verbally/physically/emotionally abusive, and presumably identifying girls who had a poor relationship with their fathers. But you, with the help of RSD, can be the guy that gets every girl. You can be Ryan Gosling, or George Clooney, without having to look like... well, Ryan or George, I guess. 
So anyway, they're gone now, never to return. And if you believe that then I have some bear-repellent socks that I'd like to sell you. 
You see, there is this thing. It's readily accessible to anyone living in a developed country, and anyone who earns more than $50 a month in a developing one. It's called the internet, and you've probably heard of it. Much like you've now heard of RSD, and how it can teach you game. 
I read an article in the kind of magazine you find laying on the counter at christian bookstores and on the IKEA coffee table that you find in the foyer of modern looking churches. It doesn't matter what the name is, because they never seemed to get a run of more than a couple of years anyway before they declare bankruptcy/lose their charity status/come to the conclusion that you can't run a business without treating it like a business, shut down and everyone on the editing team gets hired by the next magazine that springs up to fill the gap in the market. 
Rinse and repeat. 
The article was about Marilyn Manson (always a favourite) and the protest surrounding his latest tour in heartland USA. Churches banded together against the common enemy, and a great amount of anti-MM publicity was generated. At some stage it was pointed out that this was actually his follow-up tour, and presumably everyone felt a bit silly. 
Marilyn Manson didn't engage with churches (or the debate) for two good reasons. The first is that he's a genuinely intelligent guy, and figured that no-one on the church's board of elders was going to buy tickets to his show no matter how much he conversed with them. So there would be no positive outcome had by entering the debate. 
Secondly, he's an intelligent guy, and saw that there would be no negative outcome from not engaging in the debate. He wasn't breaking any laws, and he had a perquisite tour in the same area which went ahead without a hitch. Plus the church had unwittingly given the tour the perfect pitch: Manson VS the establishment. Manson VS the stuffy, boring churchies. Manson VS The Man. They perfectly re-enforced in the minds of all the goth kids what they already suspected: the church hates you, and your parents don't understand you. But Marilyn Manson does, and he's here to join your struggle.
So he sat back and enjoyed the sort of publicity that money can't buy. 
Now I personally don't have a problem with Marilyn Manson. Beautiful People is one of the best driving songs ever made. But I can understand how and why people would have a problem with him, and would prefer that their children didn't listen to his music given its somewhat anti-social subject matter. But we look at the above example, and remember that this happened on his follow-up tour. Nothing was prevented, and nothing was achieved. Except perhaps to widen the societal gap between well-meaning church people and goths... as this was in the olden days, before the invention of the Emo. The two should not be confused. 
I digress. 
There is a reason I am talking about creepy rockers and sexist Swiss dudes in the same post. Whether you agree with either of the causes is irrelevant, because the flaws in the battle are the same. 
The call to arms for causes such as these will always fail, and make things worse at the same time.
"But you're an idiot," I hear the masses cry, "we won! Hooray feminism! Down with the misogynists! That prat Julien can't even visit the UK!" And then everyone high-fives and breaks for chai lattes and gluten-free biscotti, seemingly oblivious to the consequences of globalism and the existence of the internet. 

If you listen very carefully, you can hear the number of online memberships increasing 

What has been achieved is simple: RSD has been promoted, and the existence and tactics of RSD justified to those who would seek to gain game. These who seek out RSD are probably not the George Clooneys of this world. I was going to call them nerds with no social skills, but I browsed a few articles and saw a distinct lack of awkward looking guys. So we'll just call them narcissists instead. Anyway.
We've proven to them through positive social action that yes, it is them VS women, no, women don't like them, and no, they have no chance in hooking up without resorting to these tactics... which we could agree are at least somewhat immoral. 
Now before I get shot, pay attention to this:
Whether that is right or not is totally irrelevant.
100%. Because regardless of whether or not that is the case, there is a group of individuals that believe that is how it is, and will continue to structure their world view (and therefore their actions) around that belief. But we protest against Julien because what he does is wrong, or at least bad. Regardless of your views on casual sex, we can agree that deceiving people to get what you want is generally a bad thing, and society could band together to make a stand against it without criticism from any parties. Which is more or less what we did. But I'm still calling it a big fat failure.
The belief that causes people to band together in the name of Social Justice is fundamentally flawed. 
Firstly because there is no level of morality that everyone agrees on. We live in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-national society. We can't even agree on what to eat. 
Secondly because it undermines law. People have said a lot about our friend Julien, of how he's violent, sexist, and has purported every crime you can imagine, including rape. And yet there has been no charge laid against him. None. So either he is completely above the law, or he's a wanker who talks a lot of crap, and a lot of that crap has been blown out of proportion. Being a tool and talking smack is not strictly illegal, which is proven regularly by Neil Mitchell's (or 100 other media personalities) absence from prison. But there are some laws against sexism and inciting violence and/or hatred... of which he has not been formerly charged. If what he has done is illegal, charge him. If it isn't illegal, and you think it should be, petition the government to change the law instead of banning people on an individual basis.
The third reason is this: the people you would seek to conform to this level of morality remain completely unaffected by it. 

At least he was nice enough to wear his douche uniforn 

In the same way that laws only affect law abiding citizens, and locks deter friends and honest thieves. The notion of what we should not do is ignored by everyone who does exactly that. 
The fix, I would suggest, is a moral standard taught and enforced within a community, rather than a society. But first, a bit about me. 
I'm generous. I enjoy serving people food in my house. I respect people, but I don't really respect titles. I'll go out of my way to help someone, in spite of the financial repercussions. I'm not trying to tell you I'm Jesus reincarnate, and I am in fact far from perfect. But these were all things instilled in me by the little community I grew up in. Commonly referred to as The Welsh Family. I have a lot in common with my father (and it has only taken me fifteen years to be okay with that) and I have sharp contrasts to him as well, but generally speaking the moral compass which my parents instilled in me still holds the same calibration.
We tend to do as our parents did. (Note: "did" =/= "said")
I've met enough people living on the poverty line to know that this goes for both positive and negative things. If you're fifteen and female, and your mum's thirty, odd on there's a baby shower imminent. If your dad's a noisy alcoholic who has frequent run-ins with the law, I'm not going to be surprised to see you loitering outside the local centre for legal aid. 
Therein lays the answer to the problem. 


While I don't believe its effective (or even possible) to directly overcome a problem with society, I do believe its possible to overcome a problem within a community. This could be family, a football club, a township, a church, anything. If you want to prevent ol' mate Julien from growing in popularity (and your sons from being chauvinistic morons) then you need to teach your sons to respect women. And the best way to do that is to respect women. On the flip side if you don't want your daughter to fall prey to assholes, then you need to teach her to respect herself, and that she is more than the sum of who she is sleeping with. 
I find it so strange, and so moronically hypocritical that for all the #stopjulien signs, no-one is talking about the second half of the equation. I mean short of a rape charge the process is consensual. Dishonest and deceptive, yes, but there's enough people jumping around screaming about it that you'd think it was black magic. 
If we can teach pensioners not to give their bank account details to Nigerian Princes, then surely we can teach our daughters not to jump into bed with a guy who for all intents and purposes is acting like a knob. 
I used to know a guy called Chris. Chris was one of the most talented footballers I've seen playing at a local level. I'm surprised and a bit disappointed that he never got drafted. He told me something I've told a lot of my (so to speak) footballers since. 
Football is a simple game. All you have to do is beat your man. If everyone can do that, you win the game. 
You can't change society at society level. You can't stop people en masse from smoking or doing drugs, and you can't get everyone to turn around and stop poverty, reject materialism, or end the deforestation in the Amazon. 
But you teach your kids. It's not a matter of 'can'. You. Teach. Your. Kids. It never stops. And further than that, you teach anyone who looks up to you. Constantly. 
And if you want to teach them something positive, then all you need to do is something positive. 
Now that might not be waving a placard at an RSD conference, and it's probably not telling someone that Julien Blanc, sexism, deforestation, materialism, or ignorance of poverty is wrong. 
But if you can teach someone why it is wrong... 

Everything wrong with society can be explained by coffee (alt: Why Nespresso is carried by the the first of the four horsemen)

This is absolutely the wrong place to order coffee



Everything that is wrong with society can be explained by coffee.

I was thinking about repeating that line, but I guess most of you would have read the title so it should no longer be necessary. If you have not read the title, you may find familiarity between the way you live your life and the problems associated with the existence of instant coffee (if there are more ingredients in your coffee than 'coffee', you desperately need to re-evaluate your priorities) which I'll write about another time.

As I'm in love with the sound of my own voice (and I talk a lot of garbage) I've frequently explained to people who have stood still in my proximity for slightly too long my problem with attractive baristas. Basically it goes like this: if I enter a cafe, and an attractive, somewhat bubbly late-teen barista smiles at me, I'm immediately disappointed and lower my expectations. I might even be so moved as to order a can of Coke, or a cup of tea instead, as no-one can stuff that up.

Burn the leaves? Yeah, I don't believe you.

On the other hand, if I wander in and am greeted (or better yet, ignored) by a grumpy, balding Italian, someone who looks malnourished, anyone with dreadlocks, or better yet, facial tattoos, then I might order two. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. The Italian was trained to work an espresso machine before he was on solid food, anyone with dreadlocks was obviously hired for their skills and not their merits of socially acceptable presentation or pleasant smelling hair, and obviously a man who has facial tattoos (somehow girls get away with the 'behind the ear thing' quite easily) and can still get a job in customer service must have a pretty convincing skill resume. So that's a win, and I prepare for delicious caffeinated deliciousness.

So if you missed that, here it is: If you're both attractive and a barista, I automatically assume you don't know what you're doing. I'll still probably order from you, because I'm not all that discriminatory, but I am definitely judging you.

But let's skip back. I've wandered into a cafe, made my order, received a milky/lukewarm/burnt to hell/lemon bitter mess that doesn't deserve to be served in the same cup as coffee, and as I sip politely, my eyes boring holes into the hipster-approved unpainted brick walls, the evaluation process begins. Have I brought this on myself? Should I have known better? Have I mistakenly ordered coffee from a burger joint, or somewhere that has deals on jugs of Carlton on Thursday nights? Does it specialise in seafood? Is it in fact a particularly trendy fish and chipper? Has McDonalds really upped the decor game at McCafe? Did O-week students cover up the Gloria Jeans sign as a prank? Or have I forgotten that I still live in Asia?

Once I've passed the checklist of self-accusation, I start to get a little annoyed. Perhaps offended. There's two reasons for this.

Firstly, someone has bought, paid for, built up, worked at, and in general sacrificed irreplaceable time in making a business which makes a rubbish product. You have the room, the chairs, the food, the fridges, probably even a chef, surely it's not that much of a larger step to purchase some decent bean and make sure your staff don't have thumbs where they should have fingers.

Secondly... ever heard the saying 'that man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot'?

I'm not in fact suggesting this man/lady/ladyguy is an idiot. But I am suggesting they are not a barista. So either they've fallen into the trap of apathy, or they are depriving society of a plumber, accountant, or sandwich artist. If a plumber installed gutters that leak, or the Subway guy put the ham outside the bread, you'd rubbish him. And so you should. You entered a contract with that man when you agreed to pay him for his work, and if I said no pickles, then I expect no pickles, and they're gherkins anyway so change your sign 'cos this isn't America.

Basically, a barista who is bad at making coffee is holding our global society back. There, I said it.

I should clarify. I can't use an espresso machine. I could probably fix one, or at least turn it on. I'm pretty good like that. But I don't know how to use one. It's not my job. There are people who have devoted their lives to coffee, and I'm happy to fund their lifestyle buy purchasing my lattes from them. Sometimes I fix their cars.

Anyway. I promised explain everything in relation to coffee, and I'm probably incapable of that, so I'm just going to throw in an analogy that links life and coffee instead. Pay attention, you might learn something.

Imagine your new job, girlfriend, car, sporting club, or circle of friends in the form of an espresso shot. The first half of the shot is called a ristretto. It's sweeter than an espresso, and contains less caffeine.
This is the first week of the relationship. The honeymoon period at a new workplace. The test drive, twice round the block.
But if you run the water through the bean a little longer, say, 8-10 seconds instead of 4-5 (and I'm sure someone can correct me on that exact number) your ristretto becomes an espresso. The taste changes, and the bulk of the caffeine is delivered. The levels of acidity (that is, the bitterness) become more apparent and you get a truer sense of what the bean is capable of delivering.
This is the hard-earned win, besting the opposition when the cards were stacked against you. The completion of a road trip, your overloaded wagon having never missed a beat. The apologetic embrace that follows the relationship's first tiff.

If we just drank ristrettos, our coffee would be sweeter. But acidity isn't necessarily bitter, and sweetness isn't always energy.

If we judge life on our first glance, our first feeling, we risk losing out on the full, rich experience. The sweetness can be appreciated, but understand what it is: a first glance, and nothing more. Don't devote your life to chasing the sweet, or the new. And don't be so quick to compare The New to The Familiar. It's this new, sweet feeling that has ended marriages, turned friends away, made relationships sour, and caused unnecessary debt on new vehicle purchases.

So drink the full shot of life, and find all it has to offer you.


Next time I'm gonna talk about milk. Or Nespresso. Seriously, there is no need for all those stupid little cups...

Fade to Grey

I often find myself staring out into yonder. People watching.
I see people going about their daily lives, living out the daily grind.
Funny how that means something different to everyone.
I see a man watching the traffic go by, and I wonder what he's thinking.
A poor man, guiding in a rich man's car. Waiting for the menial sum to be pushed out the window afterwards. Why is that? What caused his world to be that way?

It's easy to excuse the poor as a simple people, with simple thoughts, and not the lofty ideals notions that we possess. When we see a plot of land, we see a house or a development: an investment for the future, or another piece of the puzzle that is our life's goals.
A poor man sees a plot of land... What does he see? What does he think? Does his simple life dictate that he holds simple views? Does he possess the capacity to be financially successful? Is he limited by his resources, or are his resources limited by his mindset? Or is he a victim of circumstance: a rich, influential, intelligent man, trapped in the body of a peasant?

Depending on which scale you measured by, my wife and I are either moderately well off or obscenely rich. Monetary stature aside, one area of true richness we hold is in the friendships we've made.

Over a beer or three, a friend and I talked about life.

My friend is a well educated man. Now by that I don't necessarily mean he's a Rhode Scholar. He is academically clever enough: but the wisdom I refer to is drawn from years lived abroad, in different countries and cultures, working with people to find solutions to whatever problems they may face. He has formed what many lack, and what is almost impossible to teach in a lecture hall. He has what I would refer to as a balanced world view, something many professors, lecturers, and leaders of nations have failed to grasp - and yet which is something that is required to prevent prejudice, judgement, and racism within yourself.

On this fine afternoon, we saw fit to cover the big issues. One of which was the issues of bar girls.

'Bar girls' is an innocent enough term in Australia. When applied to Thailand, however, it takes on a different angle.

You see, a bar girl starts the night serving beer, and talking to the patrons. It's very common for people to go to a bar by themselves- think of travelling businessmen, for example. There's nothing sadder than a man sitting in a bar by himself, drowning his sorrows. Someone to talk to is nice. So the girls will sit by him, across the bar, hanging on his every word. He opens up, because... well. His wife/friends/parents/boss doesn't understand him anyway, and buys her a drink, and buys many more for himself and for her. And her wage is justified again.

Now, during the course of the night, should someone take a particular fancy to that bargirl, her full attention can be purchased from the bar for the remainder of the evening. This purchase is referred to as the barfine. Following the payment, a second, personal payment will be negotiated with the bar girl as to the end result of the night's activities.

If you have an inkling that what I'm referring to is prostitution, then you're pretty much on the money. But if you're thinking this girl is a prostitute, then you're only half right.

My friend works in different countries throughout south east asia. To his credit, he's gone to the effort of learning the language of at least one of the countries that he has lived in. So he's in a bar, having a beer, and quite bored. So he begins chatting to one of the bar girls. He's talking in her native language, which is making things a lot easier on her behalf.

The direction of the conversation soon turns to what brought her to be working in a girly bar in Phuket.

I'm from the country, she explains, and I send money home to my family. I can make money here I could never make back at home.

So, what of the mechanics of this whole thing? Do you have much say in who you go home with at the end of the night?

She explains that she's not planning on working here for long. She'd like to meet someone one day, maybe marry a guy who once came to the bar. Other girls she knows have done it, and are living a good life. And besides, it's not like she'd go home with just anyone. She wouldn't go home with a jerk, just the nice guys. She'd never leave with someone she doesn't feel safe with.
Kinda, if you think about it... the sort of guy she'd like to stay with.

All of this got me thinking.

We live in a polished, western world. Even those of us who have left the western world still see everything through our own western lenses. Culture, whether it be ours or theirs, never goes away, and never stops influencing how we view a given situation.

"You grow up your whole life with people telling you that things are black or white," he says.

This girl's a bargirl.
This girl's a slut.
This one's a whore.
This one... well, she's just looking for a man.

"But it doesn't work."

Life, he says, is grey. You can't make a judgement on something by what you see on the outside.

In that moment he spoke of more wisdom that I've read in any textbook, heard from a pulpit, or spat from my own mouth.

You don't know, because you don't know her.

Or him. Or them. Or anything.

Maybe. Just maybe.

If we looked at life as though it were grey, maybe we wouldn't see bargirls. Or whores. Or bums, peasants, beggars, queers, slags, or druggos.

We'd see people.

But all we see is problems.

Food culture.

I should really take photos before I stir it all up 

Roast pork wan tan mee, from the food hall near the office blocks. Chicken rice, with chili and lime sambal, from pretty much anywhere. Penang char kuey tau, preferably from Penang, but the place in Lucky Garden does a pretty good one too.

Tai bu mee. Pudu noodle, as my wife calls it. House-made wan tan noodles, soup with shrimp wan tans, sliced roast pork and minced pork gravy stuff on top, generous application of pickled jalepenoes, usually washed down with one of the (terrible!) sweet kopi ais – iced coffee. They use a cloth bag full of ground bean set in a pot of boiling water. Then they mix it with sweetened condensed milk. Because diabetes is for life, and not just for Christmas.

Anyway. I'm eating there one day, and there's a bloke sitting next to me in a business shirt and tie. The weather is stiflingly hot, and the hole-in-the-shed-wall of a place we're eating this delicious feast of the gods has neither AC nor fans, but here he is, patiently waiting on his bowl of steaming goodness while Jem and I shovel ours down our throats as fast as physics allow while letting slip occasional moans of gratefulness and indescribable satisfaction. Anyway, shirt guy is looking at me with a curious angle on one eyebrow. I stop wolfing for a moment and smile at him.

“How'd you hear about this place?” he says.

“Luck,” I reply, “we found it when we were looking for the market.”

He does the eyebrow thing again and leans back from the table a bit.

“This is the most authentic tai bu mee in the city,” he says.

“I walked a long way to have lunch here. My father used to eat here, and HIS father used to eat here too.”

Roast duck. Oh, sweet duck. What did you do that God would make you so delicious? Is there a verse missing in Genisis 3? Did I miss that in Sunday school?

“Cursed are you, oh duck,” saith the Lord, “For your sins, ye shall fly across the lands, seeking safety from the pit of Man's bellies. But your deliciousness shall know no bounds, and neither shall thine fleeing...”

I almost feel bad. To hell with steak, I could eat duck for the rest of my life and die happy. Morbidly obese, but if that's the cost of happiness, then put me down for five, please.

The other day I was on Zuckerburg's method of global productivity theft and I saw a post from a Malaysian I know who lives back home.

It's normal here, like everywhere else I presume, for some people to post pictures of their dinners before eating it. Now it may only be in Malaysia that people go to the extent bringing the SLR and five different lenses out to document their order, but Instagramming your food is pretty standard.

Ol' mate back home was pre-gramming, though. He was posting pictures of the food he was going to eat tomorrow. There's some excitement levels without parallel on display here. It was food I recognised, too, roast pork, and ducks hanging up on hooks in the glass windows of the little food carts that you see anywhere in Asia.

But the following day, no lunch-o-gram was to be found. The shop had sold out, you see. I can only presume every Asian in Geelong has cleared them out before he arrived.

So I did the only thing an Australian male could do, and sent him pictures of my lunch – roast pork rice, with fresh sambal on the side. And then I took some photos around the shop.

Big trays of beef rendang. Curried mutton. Brianni rice. Piles of uncooked wan tan mee. I thought I had him on the ropes.

I was wrong.

“Are you sure you want to come home, Joshua?”

The roast pork turned to ash in my mouth. The smell of duck made me sad. The fish heads peered up from the baymaree, YOU'LL MISS US WHEN WE'RE GONE they mouthed, in a silent, dead fish kinda way.
Game. Set. Match. The slender Malaysian man in the corner, tapping on his phone between consultations.

Well. I used to be sure.

It's been said you can never judge another's culture without bias, because you can never un-learn the culture of yourself. But everyone tries, and you make discernment on what you see all the same.

I don't get why being thirty minutes late to work is ok, but it's frowned upon to arrive on time, but leave at six.

I don't get why people slow down to take photos of accidents on the roadside.

I don't get why 'yes' means yes, no, I don't know, I'll check, we don't have that, I can't, and maybe.

And I don't get why in spite of crazy working hours, everyone takes their full hour at lunch time. But I kinda wish I did.

I'm not really employed at the moment, but for a while I was working underneath perhaps one of the most successful PR men in SEA. An older Australian man, who claims five divorces as the only reason for him to keep working as his age. He walks by his secretary's desk and pauses. Looks at her, and smiles.

He turns to me.

“You know,” he starts, “one of the things I've learned over the years, is that it doesn't matter what is happening, or how busy you might be. Whatever crazy situation you find yourself in, everything will always stop for makan.(eating)”

His secretary smiles.

“Of course,” she says, swallowing her noodles, “lunchtime is sacred.”

I don't get a lot of things I see here in Malaysia.

I parked my junk of a scooter outside an upper-class plaza in KL. Between a Harley bagger and a shiny Kawasaki. The guard approached me, and told me I couldn't do that. I pointed at the other bikes, but he kept saying no until I took of my full-face and he saw I was white.

“Malay, cannot,” he says, “Indian, Chinese cannot, but you sir, can.”

I hate that his job is to discriminate.

But then, I've never seen a homeless man turned away from a mammak. He goes to the owner, who points him to a chair, and serves him. I've tried to pay for his meals in this situation before – always, always the owner has refused.

Food is a right. Feeding is a responsibility, carried out by the lowest earning restaurateurs in the city.

I don't know why we don't see things the same way.

But I really wish I did.  

Car trouble. Myanmar. Toe surgery. Fail.

The Magnificent Volvo has suffered a minor setback. The alarm system has gone kaput.
On the one hand, that's bad, because broken things inevitably cost money. And on the other hand, it doesn't really matter. Who ever wired up the system failed to include any sort of immobiliser in it. So while the alarm sounds, you can still put the keys in the ignition and drive the car away.
I did exactly that, and the guard at our house didn't even look up from the morning paper. I'd hoped a short drive would enact some kind of override, and the alarm would stop. It didn't.
So I (literally) ripped the alarm out and we continued, still with the hazard lights flashing away, and that's how it's stayed for the past two weeks.
I don't want to spend more money on that stupid thing. It cost $1000+AU at the last service, and it didn't even grow wings and fly after that.
So if you need a giggle, think of Jem, driving the twenty five minutes to work every day with the hazard lights on.
Which, being Malaysia, doesn't even raise an eyebrow with the police.

Ah, the beauty of Myanmar, caught mid-sneeze

Myanmar was interesting, for most of the time. It has incredibly lovely, helpful, genuine people, and
about 20 bazillion temples. If you like temples, and would like to hate them, go to Myanmar. Temples (or Pagodas, for that matter) now make me feel nauseated.

Things to do:
Walk around:
Meet people. See them smoking cigars, carrying huge baskets on their heads, smiling, being helpful, and sneaking out in pairs to go sit up at the temples with their boyfriends/girlfriends. Funny stuff.
Ask someone about An Sung Soo Chi:
She's the national hero. For a long time I wondered why the government hadn't killed her off; she caused them a fair bit of grief over the years. Now I know; the whole country would have revolted against them.
Buy some Ann Sung Soo Chi merchandise:
I bought a coffee mug. Jem was given a keyring, with the head of Ann rising out of the centre of a rose. Classy, and understated.
Eat:
Everything. Have a quick look around the restaurant to ascertain basic hygiene standards, and then tuck in. Mildly spicy, so after two years in Malaysia I had no problems ordering the 'hot' food. Pork option universal. Generally nothing has fish-head in it, it's just fresh, simple flavours. Wash it down with Myanmar Lager: it's probably cheaper (safer?) than water anyway.

I went for a walk around, and found a protest. Workers were upset about their factory being closed, and were taking part in a hunger strike to promote their cause. This was in the centre of town, beside the second largest Pagoda. Before the end of the day, a government official had come down to address their concerns, and the strike had ended.
It's a nice though that the government now responds positively to a cry for help from the people, but I'm not naive enough to think this is the case Myanmar-wide. There's a whole people group that are currently not recognised by the government... because they're muslim, not buddhist. Yeah... not convinced. I was approached by a local journo who gave me the basic run down. Apparently having ten day growth and a backpack on makes you look like a reporter. I must remember that.
"Hello, would you like to come and see the protest?"
"Yeah, what's going on over here?"
"Hunger strike protest. They don't wan't money, they just want jobs... are you, maybe, a reporter?"
"Oh me? No, sorry. I just have a camera..."
"Oh, haha, I thought you were freelance..."
"Well, I'm if you mean 'free' as in 'no-one pays for it', then yeah, I guess I am..."

"Dey took err jerrrrbs" IRL edition


Anywho. We stayed in Yangon, where accommodation is crazy overpriced, (we're talking Melbourne prices for third-world spec rooms... yep, it's a joke) we stayed in Mandalay, where they make awesome velvet thongs, and Bagan, where you will learn to hate Pagodas. It's kinda cool though.
There's thousands of brick temples there. It's as though for a one hundred year period, 50% of the population made temples, and the other 50% made bricks. And it's not all nice stuff either, there's plenty of horrible stories of brutality from the rulers of the time pushing to get them up. Mmm.

 At some stage, 'enlightenment' meant 'sticking neon lights behind Buddha'. I have no explanation as to why I found that so amusing.

 Green dude approves, but it's fair to say he's biased.

This church in Mandalay looked way too much like the preacher robot from Futurama


We were about done in Mandalay when I decided to remodel my toe. Toes and number plates don't mix, so be careful not to kick them in an uncovered state. Ironic that the worst injury I've ever gotten from a bike was getting on the bloody thing.
So after a day or so of bandages, I got sick of not being able to fit my foot into shoes, and walking meant that the wound kept bleeding, so I took Luke Wilko's advice and sent Jem for superglue.
Enter Jem, finding a dinky little hardware shop in Mandalay..
"Can I help you?
"Um, yes... I'm just looking for superglue."
"Ok, what do you need to use it for"
(Jem is slightly taken aback by the perfect english spoken by the female store clerk)
"I need to glue my husbands toe back together."
(without hesitation) "Here, use this one. It's made in China, it's much better quality than that Thai made stuff."
FYI, superglue is less painful than stitches, and so, so much faster than waiting for the wound to seal up. 10/10 would use again. No side effects I'm aware of. The pink elephant that has been following me is apparently from something else.

Umm... mum asked me about my uni studies. I am still technically studying, but if I were to give myself advice three months ago it would be something like this: Don't muck up your credit card so you can't order books until week five and then work on a movie set for two weeks and then try and catch up for one week and then go on holiday for another two, or you may find yourself failing a semester in it's entirety.
Just sayin'.

Mandalay. One of the Pagodas. The one on the hill. That narrows it down, right?

 

Temples, pagodas and... oh hey, it's a lizard... nice.

We bought some paintings from here. They're pretty sweet.

mmmmm.... vomitous

The outside is calm, but the inside threatens violence should he spit red beetlenut slime in front of her just one more time...

Got swagger?

 For those concerned, this man isn't drowning. He's actually fishing. I'm aware that seems unlikely.

 'Do you like stairs? You'll LOVE Myanmar!'

 Saturated dude with large fish indicating previous picture of different person was indeed fishing and not drowning

I talked to this guy on the street. He told me that he realised I was busy just then, but should I ever be back in Yangon, he'd like to invite me to his house. Although he couldn't give me his phone number (he didn't have one) and he couldn't give me his email (he didn't have one) but if I took his photo, and asked around, someone would know where to find him. He's known on the street, you see...

So, yeah. Hopefully some updates will come a little more often now. But, you know me. So let's all just hope together.

Wanna see a cow race?

Leong's bike ground to a halt, kicking up a cloud of red Cambodian dust. He points to the dried rice fields on his left. My eyes are drawn to a massive crowd of people standing in the middle of the field.

With a smile that seems to cover his whole face, he says words not usually put together:

“Wanna see a cow race?”

On the rare occasion a man is asked whether or not he wants to see a cow race (or, for that matter, a racing cow) there is only one answer he can possibly give.

So we doubled back, and began to cut across the field towards the mass of villagers gathered.

Pulling up next to the cart selling iced sugar cane juice, (which I usually hate, but three days of eating trailbike-thrown dust made it taste incredible) it was immediately clear that whatever the focus of the day had been before we had arrived, it had now changed. We were swamped.

Small children dared each other to approach, pushing one another forward before chickening out and retreating behind the nearest adult. I fished around in my bag for half a packet of jubes and a few packs of peanuts, and eventually managed to give them away by kneeling down, head bowed, before the intended recipient snatched it from my hand and darted back to safety.

We smiled and shook hands with the gathered friendly locals and immediately regretted not knowing any khmer (Cambodia's native language) whatsoever. A much older Khmer man in a weathered camouflage jacket (apparently oblivious to the thirty-something degree heat) approached me humbly, bowing his head as he clasped my hand with both of his, and if his beaming toothless grin was anything to go by gave me the warmest of greetings possible, seemingly honoured to have simply made my acquaintance. Knowing full well Cambodia's history, and (to put it bluntly) the rarity of someone his age, I suddenly felt very small, and then incredibly inadequate of doing this occasion due justice. A man like him would have some stories to tell.

Our guide Leong worked his way through the crowd.

We're on the final leg of a three day trailbike trip through southern Cambodia, and making our way back to Phnom Penh. My oldest friend was getting married, and as best man I thought the buck's party would be better spent in south east Asia than on a pub crawl through Melbourne. So, with him having never left Australia (but for a short trip to England, which absolutely doesn't count) I dragged Neil out into the middle of nowhere to celebrate the closing of the longest chapter of his life. Fortunately, we found a cow race, and the trip was a great success.

Leong calls us over. The locals have directed us as to where the best place to capture the race is. They factored in wind direction, so we wouldn't be covered in dust. I'm fairly sure they didn't understand what we'd been up to in the previous days. They pushed us well back from the track, signalling that they really couldn't be too sure as to where the cows would run though.

The wind changed, and they hurried us to the other side of the field. And then I saw the racers.

Two bulls strapped to a cart. A muscular Khmer atop of the cart, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and sporting some of the finest mutton chops I've seen since the last time I went to the Drysdale RSL. Wielding a stick that is probably best described as a goad, they cut an imposing figure.

The bulls ambled their way to the opposite side of the field where their opponent was waiting, and the anticipation grew.

I was assuming all this time that the bulls would run side by side, drag racing style. I was fairly confused when this didn't happen, and the bulls and carts tore past one after the other, the pair behind almost pushing into the cart in front. They crossed the finish line, the crowd erupted into cheers, and then were promptly chocked out with more red dust.

Neil, Luke (our fellow groomsman) and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. We had just witnessed the craziest race any of us had ever seen, and had no idea who'd won.

Leong came to the rescue.

Should, by chance you have met Leong, you would understand why I haven't tried to quote him directly in what he said. He's got a strong twangy Cambodian accent at the best of times, and when he talks quickly sounds almost exactly like Jar Jar Binks. Except that Jar Jar is slightly more comprehendible, and everyone wants to kill him. Leong, on the other hand, is a top bloke.

Leong explained that when the bulls race they tie a piece of bamboo between the two carts. Should the bamboo fall, the cart in front is declared the winner. Should it stay up, as was the case here, the cart behind is crowned victorious.

The crowd gathered around the cart. I walked past the bookie, dealing out big handfuls of rial. A man walked past me, big grin on his face, fanning himself with a massive wad of cash, like some sort of a Cambodian TAB commercial. I see a kid I've previously given a small packet of peanuts to, following me around like a pup, unopened packet still in his hand. If I was his age, I don't think I would have saved it to take back to the family. I feel pretty small again.

After another 20 minutes of smiles, shaking hands, and shy children, it's time to go.

Whenever we're cutting through a village on the big dirt bikes, kids run out to the front fences to wave, and the younger adults usually give us the universal 'do a wheelie' charade act, waving their arms in the air. Leong obliged, Neil took off with him, and Luke tried to do the same. Immediately Luke was choked out in the dust, and his bike ground to a halt. I was fifty meters away filming, and he couldn't hear what I could hear over the noise of the other bikes.

We're in the middle of nowhere. I can't even see the village from where these people must have travelled from. We've got 100 or so northbound clicks to ride to get to Phnom Penh before dark, through fields, goat tracks, railway lines and through villages. 

There's five hundred or more Cambodian villages in field for a cow race.

And right now, every one of them is laughing at Luke stall his bike in the dust.