Posts From the Way Back Machine #5: The Devil's Brew

Editors note: Ian continues his belated Hong Kong posts with a description of his most traumatic Hong Kong culinary experience.

Hong Kong is known for its unique and exceptional cuisine. Its most famous drink is Milk Tea (港式奶茶, lit: "brown lactation of Qu-Jiang-Wang"), an ubiquitous beverage available at any restaurant on the island. Wikipedia describes this drink as "black tea sweetened with evaporated milk," a description I find so sufficiently lacking in cautionary horror as to be downright irresponsible.

Vignette: The Milk Tea Experience
As background, I have tasted a few strange and repulsive things on this trip, yet many of my best experiences have involved indulging in regional specialties. As such, it was with a cautious optimism that I ordered my first cup of milk tea. My hope quickly turned to trepidation when the server set a metal cup filled with steaming brown goo in front of me. Hesitantly, I lifted the cup to my mouth, and my trepidation gave way to abject terror. The milk tea lurched forward against my lips, releasing a barrage of potent volatile organic compounds that overloaded my olfactory bulb and left me momentarily stunned. Slimy tendrils snaked under my incisors, then braced against my molars and forced my jaw wide, permitting the rest of the sludge entrance to my once guarded mouth. Now inside, this noisome substance skittered about, coating my tongue, lips, and palate with a thick, greasy paste. Having thus marked the bounds of its new territory, the milk tea settled down in the back of my throat, where it invoked squatter's rights. After two months of continued horror and countless legal battles, I am still trying to get the taste out of my mouth.

DIY Hong Kong Milk Tea
Despite my having devoted 200 words to the subject, the milk tea experience is impossible to fully relate without resorting to neologisms or fancy poetry. For the sake of you, dear reader, I offer the following instructions detailing how I assume this beverage is produced, such that the courageous and foolhardy among you might experience it for yourself:
1) Visit into the bulk-tea section of your local whole foods or equivalent. Fill a bag with a mixture of the darkest, smelliest black tea leaves available.
2) Dump the tea leaves into an old gym sock, then stuff the sock into a teapot and fill with boiling water. Let the sock steep for three days.
3) Empty the teapot into a rusty, unseasoned cast iron pan. Reduce the liquid by two thirds.
4) Fill a cup one-half full with syrupy, tongue-coating condensed milk. Slowly add the tea-reduction, stirring as you do so. Add sugar to taste.
5) Enjoy(?)

If you followed the directions correctly, the resulting cup of "tea" should look like the one below:

Repugnaodiurancivomitudinal (adj): Of or relating to the gustatory experience of milk tea.

Posts From the Way Back Machine #4: Rhymes with Chariman Mao

Editors Note: In this latest installment of our Hong Kong retrospective, Ian offers insightful commentary on some general Hong Kong strangeness.

A lot of what we saw in Hong Kong were little things too brief to warrant their own posts. I've collected five of our favorites and done a short write-up for each.

Item #1: Snowman Bao

He's smiling because he knows none of us like bao enough to actually eat him

Hong Kong has a lot of bakeries - there were four within a block of our apartment. Anyone who's ever been to China (or Chinatown) knows the Chinese are fans of sweet and/or savory stuffed buns known as 'bao.' A few of the bakeries in Hong Kong like to get a little creative and shape their bao into assorted figures and animals. Presumably this appeals to youth who, after being exposed to countless violent video-games and television programs, prefer a graphic demise for their bakery treats.

Item #2: Very large time-piece

"I said I have a really big clock"

I have two theories to explain this thing:
1) There is long-standing animosity between Japan and China, which can express itself in unexpected ways. Japan has a well known love/fetish for miniaturization and very small things. This monumental chronometer may be a subtle jab at the Japanese aesthetic.
2) Hong Kong strives to provide free or subsidized public services to its residents. Standardized time is a convention that generates tremendous social value, and has a strong network effect. However, most Hong Kong residents live in lofty high-rises, rendering a stationary, normal-size public clock illegible. This giant clock may be the first in a planned network of thousands, designed to insure that anyone can see the time by glancing out their 45th floor window.

Item #3: Safety Eggs

Humpty Dumpty: Never Forget

After an outbreak of Avian Flu instilled panic throughout Hong Kong, the government has taken a major focus on poultry-related food safety. While most of their public awareness campaigns have proved effective, their efforts to ensure that all eggs be equipped with safety harnesses and hard hats has largely been viewed as a failure.

Item #4: Santa Carnage

Santa's been hitting the nog pretty hard

China is not known for its celebration of western religion - the phrase "godless communists" comes to mind. That said, as Special Administrative Regions (SARs), Hong Kong and Macau have no beef with celebrating the largest commercial holiday of the year. We noticed that once the candy cane fueled holiday buying frenzy was over, Santa was literally thrown out on his ass.

Item #5: Greased-Up Educational Guy

A sino-Adonis prepares to show off his kickin' bod

Hong Kong has a wonderful science museum - admission is free on Wednesdays. Anyone familiar with the San Francisco exploratorium has a rough idea of the kind of hands-on science learning found there. Tiara and I are essentially six-year-olds, so we had a lot of fun. However, one exhibit was a little disconcerting. An interactive display allowed you to select a muscle group to learn about. Upon making your selection, a video screen plays a clip of a ripped, oiled, and almost naked man jumping around to demonstrate the muscles for you. In short, the exhibit provides young children with an introduction to musculoskeletal anatomy and homo-erotic video.

Posts From the Way Back Machine #3: Unchecked Narcissism

I know you're all thinking it, so I'm going to come out and say it. The only reason I'm still on staff here at Farang HQ is my looks - it sure ain't the writing. So drool on fangirls, this post is all about Ian eye-candy.

Pic 1: Ian on the Hong Kong Trail

Look out Babe Ruth, there's a new hunk in town

Hong Kong has a reputation for towering sky-scrapers and bustling city streets, but a linked network of trails ringing the island is one of the true gems. Tiara and I took a walk on the 'Dragon's Back,' which offered stunning vistas of... well let's be honest, the best views on the island weren't the verdant slopes and azure coastline, it was the towering figure of yours truly.

Pic 2: Mecha Strike Force Ian-XGZ Sapphire

Nerdeditors note: While large, this is far from a "life-size" replica. Full-size Gundam units are controlled by humans piloting from a seat in the mammoth robot's chest cavity.

Here's a picture of me next to a large/buff robot statue. I think I compare quite favorably. 'Nuff said.

Pic 3: Ian Sharp Rock Walking

Ow!

Here's a picture featuring my "softer side" - namely, the tender bottoms of my feet. That's right, dear readers, my relationship to the Greek Achilles goes much beyond my superficial resemblance to Brad Pitt's character in Troy.

For some reason people in Hong Kong think it's a good idea to walk around on really pointy rocks without wearing shoes. Either that or these are clever traps for foolish tourists, and they snared another unsuspecting victim.

Here's a low-angle shot of these "death rocks":

Seriously, these things were like three feet high and razor sharp.

That's it for the photo session, the show's over - you can roll your tongues back up into your mouth now. Our more astute readers may notice that I am wearing the same pants and same hiking boots in every photo. No, these were not taken on the same day. Let's just say you have to make choices when you're spending a year living out of a back-pack.

Know your alcoholic relatives

Malaysia has a deserved reputation for producing cheap knock-offs of designer brands. Less well known is the homage they pay to the unsung heroes of the alcohol industry, the siblings and relatives of the famous names in booze. Here are two examples of this enlightened local practice.

Stanley Morgan

The lesser known Morgan twin, Stanley spent most of his life in the shadow of his renowned brother. Though he showed little ambition to achieve the coveted 'Captain' rank, Stanley was a skilled boatswain and accomplished concert pianist. His budding music career was tragically cut short when a freak dominoes accident claimed the first, third and fourth fingers of his right hand. He lived out his later years on a small distillery in Barbados, until he was slain by one of his former crew-members over a waving related misunderstanding.

Louis Martin

One of the many, many Louis from France, Monsieur Martin was a hopeless drunk and an incorrigible philanderer. Perhaps his sole contribution to society lay in a letter he wrote to his grand-nephew, which read in part:

• Dear Remy,
• The bottle of "champagne" you sent me was as intoxicating as swine piss and tasted no better. Quit mucking about with your girly fruit juice and make something that'll give your grand-uncle a decent buzz, you worthless little [expletive deleted].

Louis Martin died of self-inflicted wounds incurred in a drunken brawl with a Versaille men's room bathroom mirror. Eyewitness reports claim he mistook his reflected visage for a "bloodshot, bat-faced, cake eating Englishman," then threw himself at the mirror in an intoxicated rage.

Kuala Lumpur Impressions: Update

Our hostel has a communal bathroom. This is not a problem for me - I spent plenty of time in college sharing wash-areas with people dirtier than even the smelliest Canadian (ed note: see/smell Gary Yao, 1983 - present). That said, I was startled by the loud banging on the shower door during my morning ablutions. I had just begun selecting my choicest epithets for this would-be intruder when the door crashed open with a resounding crack. Standing before me was a cockroach the size of a 1975 Buick Electra. I cannot say for sure whether the creature was one of the exoskeletoned juggernauts I saw last evening - I don't mean to sound racist but honestly they all look alike to me.

Anyhow, there I stood face to face with this Kafka-esque monstrosity. Armed with nothing but my liquid soap and my Farang team issue Smith & Wesson 908 (never shower without it), I stood my ground, putting three rounds into my new friend 'Gregor' before he scurried back into the bowels of the Kuala Lumpur drainage system. Only a watery trail of sulfurous ichor betrayed the horror I had just witnessed . Suffice to say I will be changing hotels.

Lest I give an overly negative impression, our first full day in KL was otherwise very pleasant. We visited Chinatown, which was full of pushy touts but also had some good eats, then headed over to see the Petronas towers, which are 10 times as awesome as I thought they would be. I'll leave you with some pictures:

One of the two towers and a section of the sky bridge.

The foyer of the connecting building

First impressions of Kuala Lumpur

We just arrived from Hong Kong, which was, by my recollection, a verdant utopia - sort of like the garden of eden, but with better streets and fewer snakes. Now we are in Kuala Lumpur. Here is what I know so far:
1) It is hot here. This means we are in all likelihood closer to hell.
2) It is dirty here. Not in the way a sandbox is dirty, but in the way a dumpster is dirty.
3) There are people who are probably prostitutes leaning against the front of our building. Alternatively, the fashion here is very "forward."

And now a vignette:
Returning from the corner store, we crossed paths with a pair of young gentlemen who had just espied some of the local fauna. Namely, a cockroach the size of a large cantaloupe. The youths instigated an impromptu soccer game using the offending insect as the ball, until a missed kick let it scurry off down the street. Nonplussed, the monster roach rounded the corner and proceeded to mug an elderly man, relieving him of his sole earthly possessions: a half eaten sandwich and a set of wooden teeth.

Frog Porn

Poll Results: Elephantploitation

First off, we'd like to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to our poll. Here are the results:

Did you find the Elephantploitation post inappropriate?

16% - Yes, slavery is not a joking matter.
25% - Yes, elephants have real problems and poking fun at them serves no one
8% - Yes, the post had nothing to do with travel or Ian and Tiara
8% - Yes, it wasn't funny
41% - I'm just here for the pictures.

In a surprising turn, the overwhelming majority of you (59%) found the Elephantploitation post inappropriate. Based on your feedback, we immediately sacked the post's author (Ian McDowell) and removed him from the Farang payroll. Unfortunately, in the ensuing staff shortage we were forced to hire him back on as a consultant at double the salary. We can but hope he has learned his lesson.

It's also worth noting that fully 41% of respondents indicated that they visit the Farang site solely for the pictures. While we're unable at this time to increase the rate at which we add pictures to the site, we have taken this opportunity to run an explanatory article on the techno-wizardry that goes into bringing you each majestic image. Please enjoy our featurette: Behind The Scenes: Adding a picture to the Farang Blog

Behind The Scenes: Adding a picture to the Farang Blog

One of the most common requests we receive here at Farang HQ is to show more pictures on the blog. While we'd love to add more pictures, each picture we post requires an intense effort from a cross-functional, cross-species team. In this post we take you behind the scenes and show you how the magic happens.

Step 1: Our dedicated photographers snap a Polaroid of the subject.

The first step, and also the easiest, is for one of our dedicated teams of research photographers to take a Polaroid picture of the object or scene we'd like to post to our blog.

Step 2: Selection

A design professional reviews each Polaroid and typically selects one to four of the least offensive images for use in each blog post. The hundreds of rejected Polaroids are disposed of in a chemical bonfire, in a manner befitting their status as abominations.

Step 3: Enlargement


The surviving Polaroids are taken to Kinkos, where they are enlarged by a factor of 25 and printed onto high quality glossy photo paper. The resulting 14 1/2' X 10 1/2' image is then cut into six hundred and twenty five 5"X7" rectangles.

Step 4: Training


The stack of enlarged photo-segments are delivered to our elephant workshop, located in Malaysia's Penang free trade zone. Each 5"x7" rectangle is shopped out to an individual elephant sub-contractor, who is then trained to reproduce the image using traditional paints. On average it takes the elephants 15-35 canvases to produce a satisfactory facsimile, though in some cases it can take upwards of 100 attempts.

Step 5: Transferring to the Computer

Once the elephants are sufficiently skilled at reproducing their section of the image, the canvas is replaced with a Wacom Intuos tablet, which translates the elephant's brush strokes into their digital representations.

Step 6: Reassembly

Proprietary software uses edge-matching detection to reassemble the 625 separate images into a cohesive whole. The accuracy of the software is about 95%, meaning some hand-tuning is required before the image is complete.

Step 7: Upload to Blogger and Post


The completed image is uploaded to the server and posted to the blog, for the enjoyment of our viewing public.

User poll: Elephantploitation

In an effort to better serve our readers, we're conducting a poll on what you thought of the 'Elephantploitation' post. To vote, simply choose an option from the poll on the top right of the main page, and click 'Vote.'

Those of you reading by RSS may have to visit the actual blog for this one.

Thanks for your feedback!

Sincerely,
Ian and the Farang team.

here for results>

Elephantploitation

If you haven't been following along with us since the first thrilling minute, you may have missed our insightful commentary on the elephant suffrage movement. Reception of the piece was universally positive, and thanks to your letters several members of the US house of representatives have contacted me asking what America can do. To further the case, I took the opportunity to interview Guntur "Bobo" Simanjuntak about the plight of the Thai elephants.

Ian: Hello Bobo, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.
Bobo: It's a pleasure Ian. Also, I'd prefer it if you didn't use my slave name.
Ian: Your "slave name"?
Bobo: 'Bobo' is the name used by my captors and oppressors. Please, call me Guntar.
Ian: I'm so sorry Gunta-
Bobo: It means 'Thunder'
Ian: Right, got it. Thunder. Cool name. Anyhow-
Bobo: Don't you have like an assistant or someone who checks these things for you?
Ian: My regular guy is out sick, sometimes it's hard for the temps to get up to speed. Anyhow, can we just get on with this interview?
Bobo: Look, I'm just saying, that wasn't exactly a little slip. Calling me by my slave name, that's really not a good way to start an interview.
Ian: You heard me say I was sorry. Not everyone is familiar with the plight of the elephant. That's what I'm trying to solve here.
Bobo: Exactly. That's exactly it. No one gives a damn about us elephants, just kids and zookeepers. We suffer silently until it's a slow news day. Then some honkey reporter waltzes in calling us by our slave names and talking about how ignorant he is, in some kind of vain attempt to boost ratings by half a point.
Ian: Now listen, I'm just trying to conduct an interview here Bobo- I mean, Guntar- aw crap.
Bobo: <rears head angrily, grabs Ian's arm and starts pulling it towards mouth>
Ian: This interview is over.
Ian: Alright people, that's a wrap, let's get out of here. Can someone hit this elephant with a taser or something?

Free the Wat Arun Duo

Tiara and I went to Wat Arun yesterday, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Bangkok. Tiara will be posting general pictures later. Right now I'd like to report on Wat Arun's dark secret: Buddha prison cells.

Here you can catch a glimpse of a Buddha trapped in a high cell. Note that he is seated in the "subduing Mara" pose, symbolic of battling against evil - presumably the evil of his captors.

Here's another picture I snapped while the captors were away. Observe the single bottle of water in the cell - the only sustenance granted to these poor statues.

At the risk of playing the inflammatory reactionary, I must again implore you to write your senator. Free the Wat Arun Duo! Stop religious persecution! Up with statuary, down with incarceratuary!

Above: Statuary freedom riders

Stop Speciesism - Support Elepehant Suffrage

Today we went to Bangkok's Chinatown. With the sole exception of seeing a vendor selling shots of Johnnie Walker Red next to fancy crossbows, it was a total bust. Save yourself the airfare and go to San Francisco.

Instead of spending more time on Chinatown, I'd like to do my part to raise awareness of a cause close to my heart. You may not be aware that in Thailand it is illegal for elephants to vote. These backwards practices are reminiscent of our country's own dark history of disenfranchisement. I'd like to ask that each and every one of you take five minutes out of your day to write your local congressman a letter explaining the importance of elephant suffrage in Thailand. Lets end this thing, together.

Translation: No taxation without representation and/or peanuts.