We are going to generalise a bit in this thread. Tell me your experiences in different Asian countries. When I was in India and I played guitar somewhere on a street, there were about 100 people watching me within a few minutes. When I was in China and I played guitar somewhere on a street, nobody stopped to watch.
that's because we chinese people don't like to watch others as watching a strange animal. Chinese people is very kind and considerate.
I got off a bus in Sirsa in Harayana in India and within a few minutes there was about 20 people standing about a metre in front of me just staring at me. Alot of Indians are really amazed at white people and love to stare, the parents sometimes worse than the kids. It can be intimidating at first but they mean well.
1. Watching foreigners on the street is not considered polite. Though there might be some people curious, b/c you played in the wrong place. You would have a better experience if you had played in a plaza. (A tip: A native Chinese who's playing in a random street may be considered a beggar.) 2. You shouldn't have used a guitar. (Something traditional is preferred.)
I think it was probably more because you are western... not white. It generally happens a lot all over Asia.
Not as much as in India. They literally turn around and stare the food off your plate when you are eating somewhere, even in the very touristy areas.
Yeah, they do the same in Japan. You get on a train... you're instantly a target for eyes. You walk through the streets... they stare at you because you're Gaijin. Japan is a very homogenous country, therefore anybody who doesn't look Japanese is interesting and strange to look at. They do it in Thailand too and the Taiwanese are famous for it. it's definately an Asian thing, not just an Indian thing.
Worst experiences in asia; - Catching typhoid in Nepal. Not only extremely unpleasant but also took about 6-8 weeks out of my trip. Thank god I took travel insurance out with STA. - Staying in a skanky guesthouse on the Nepal/India border in Sunauli. The guesthouse owner and his brother went outside because a beggar was banging on the door. Then they punched and kicked him repeatedly and threw him in the middle of the road where he was nearly run over. I was eating a bowl of chow mein and was thinking maybe I should get up and go outside and help the guy, but was too stunned (and too much of a coward) to do anything about it...When the owner came back in he apologised repeatedly and I was just too stunned to really say anything. It was just so uncharacteristic of what i've seen of India/Nepal. - S-21 in Phnom Pehn...Self-explanatory. I studied the khmer rogue years before going to cambodia, and it was the last country at the end of 6 month trip. So I wanted to do it all alone (until I hit the beach at Sihanoukville). I'm sort of glad I did. S-21 and the killing fields hit me much harder because I went alone. I was able to write about it better...Seeing all the bits of bone sticking out the ground and exhumed skulls, and the memorial Wat full of the skulls of all the victims...And actually being able to go into the cells in S-21...I dunno, for some reason that really hit me hard. I'd even say the experience changed me (all the stuff I studied about it years before at school and in my own time in books suddenly I was there and it was all very very real). It was a weird thing to bring my trip to a close on. - Seeing an Israeli girl get busted on the Lao-Thai border ( on reflection I never seem to have very good luck at border crossings!) for having loads of grass that probably cost her about 5$ in Lao...Was it really worth a possible death penalty? Stupid stupid girl. Thing is though I met her a few days before and remember helping her with her bag onto a bus in Pakse. So it hit home, she didnt deserve to rot in a thai hell-hole of a jail for years...The way the police treated her was absolutely sickening (laughing at her, making fun of her etc)...people always wonder why I dont like thailand. And I always explain it's not that i dont like it, ive only really passed through the place to get to laos and cambodia, it's just this experience (and the total culture shock going from india to bangkok) has just totally put me off the place for now. Thailand has never interested me in the slightest anyway. Scariest experiences - Crossing the road in Phnom Penh...I thought India was bad, well Phnom Penh seemed much worse to me! It's just a continuous wall/wave of motos and the odd car. Occasionally there are little 'gaps' in the traffic but I dont think there is any one time where part of the road is free of traffic entirely (except at night). Plus you have motos weaving across the pavement and going down the wrong side of the road at the same time...I saw about 7 or 8 accidents (none serious) outside my guetshouse in the week I was there...Most the time the policeman just laughed whenever a car drove into the back of a moto lol Fantastic place! Actually I think Phnom Pehn is one of my favourite cities just for hours of fun you can have trying to cross the road without getting killed. It's an adrenaline rush. You have to pay good money to get the same rush here in England at theme parks like Alton Towers, but then you know you most probably wont die on a rollercoaster whereas Phnom Pehn risk of injury crossing the road is probably fairly high!! That said towards the end of my stay I seemed to get used to it and put my faith in karma and the driving skills of the moto drivers of phnom pehn lol and thats all i can be bothered to write....for now!
Trekking through Taman Negara Jungle in central Malaysia during rainy season without a guide wasnt much fun. Ive never seen leaches as bad as that (it had rained all night and the morning that we had decided to go on our overnight trip into the jungle). Apart from the hundreds of leaches draining me of blood inside my clothing, having to resort to drinking brown jungle water, losing friends in the jungle because they were too tired and slow to keep up (I didnt want to spend the night out where there were supposedly tigers and other large, but slightly smaller cats)(they did sleep out there, and we tried looking for them later but lost the trail ourselves after only 5 minutes), having rats come and eat all our food during the night, and sleeping with no mattress/no pillow on a wooden bunkbed that felt like it should never have been able to support my weight, it was lots of fun! And then we got to do it all over again the next day.... when we went looking for them.... in the end, we all survived.
Maybe it's because they have different cultures. Traveling is experience another person's culture. I experienced Moroccan ways. It was bliss. Try it for yourself. _________________ morocco-emotions Casablanca Trip
Why you ppl care others' staring so much? That's nothing with politeness.They just feel a little ... you know you are foreigners,unusual to them,no matter white or black.
What Asian countries have you been too? I would be very suprised if you understand the scale of the staring, it has to be experienced for one to understand.
Yeah.cause Asia is different from Europe and America. We are yellow and you are white or black. I can remember when i was a little boy ,and lived in a small county in china.The first time i saw a white man walking down the street ,i was so surprised.And i have been staring at him.I don't know what's his feeling.But i swear I never thought he's an animal or an UFO Driver.Maybe I was wondering who he was.One of my teachers' friend?You know the county is too small ,and even now i can't understand why should him be there.Maybe that's why they staring you. And latter,i moved to Shanghai.This is a big city,foreigners are everywhere.I don't think you would be stared at here.If it happend,better to take a p of mirror...
Lived in Japan for a year and went all over the place, and when they aren't staring blankly into their cell phones typing text messages, or obviously trying NOT to stare, they'll eyeball your gijin ass like you were there to invade the island. You will be barred from entering a LOT of establishments if you are white. Korea, people are more curious, and are pretty helpful, for a price. they know the exchange rate. They know americans blow ten bucks like it wasn't shit, so they'll be glad to take it.
