Cultural Displacement :: Personal Narrative Traveling Essays

Cultural Displace mentI sidestepped the bald-pated man next to me who was ordering what looked like duck feet, in fast Malaysian. Looking down at my green plastic tray, like those ofttimes found in high school lunch rooms, I power saw the square banana leaf piled high with plain white sift looking back. The thought of foods like fish eyes, stuffed animal intestine, or every kind of pickled hoof on my rice made my muzzle reflexes kick into high gear. I paid for my abysmal lunch, a meagerly dollar fifty US, smiled at the man at the register, and walked to a close table. It had been three days and I had beaten little more than white rice and clear broth for most of that time. I knew later Id be doubled over, in agonizing pain over my void stomach barely I still couldnt bring myself to eat the meals in the food court. Not feeling adventurous today? My pascals girlfriend plopped down in the seat next to me and began munching with gusto. She had been hold up at this meal her plate was covered in some dark-brown thing, it might throw away been a vegetable and I sincerely hoped it was, though chose not to ask. Instead I smiled weakly and began to eat my rice with a severely bent metal fork. Metal forks in an Asian body politic? Youre belike wondering where all the chopsticks went. In fact, I was probably one of the few people in the vicinity who actually could engross a chopstick. Theres a good reason canful this madness and it all starts with the British. Until about forty years ago, capital of capital of Singapore was colonize by the British. It seems strange but then again the British would have colonized a tea bag, given the chance. England also had colonized Hong Kong but was afraid of losing this major business and financial center to communism, a authorized fear because thats eventually what happened. Fortunately they had already created a re-create Hong Kong on a tiny island off the tip of Malaysia. That island was called Singapore. In an crusade to keep the business integrity that had been in Hong Kong, Chinese business men were brought in. The British eventually began to relinquish many of their colonies and when they finally left Singapore in the mid 1960s, the Chinese business men, who were the superpower that made Singapore the world trading center it was, took control of power.