When you travel, most people you run into are travelers. And I’ve realized that 90% of all the conversations go like this:

- Hi, where are you from?

- I’m from [Insert the name of your country]

- Ah, the country of [a stereotype remark]

Call me ignorant, informationally impaired or just Vietnamese, but after a while, I – a girl who had no idea where Middle East was and used to think that Austria and Australia were the same – quickly remembered the countries not by their geography but by the stereotypes. Here are few of them.

Argentina: Sexual Tango dance.

Australia: Hey, mate.

Belgium: French fries, waffles and beer. They have like 500 brands of beer in this small country. And anyone knows why Belgium’s national food is known as French?

Brazil: Pele, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho. Carnaval and Samba. Sun-kissed beaches and tanned hotties.

Canada: Justin Bieber.

China: T_T

Colombia: Thanks to Hollywood portrayal, Colombia is known as the land of cocaine lords. I remembered an anecdote about a group of Columbian travelers. In a place where drugs were strictly forbidden, they were still fully stocked and even offered it to strangers. When asked how they could sneak it in, they just laughed and said: “We are Colombian”.

Croatia: The world’s biggest knot of tie. No offense, but I’d feel pretty depressed if that’s the only thing my country is known for.

England: Football and irresistibly sexy accent <3

Egypt: Pyramids. And now: Revolution!

France: Paris – the city of light and romance. I personally think that French guys are quite slutty.

Germany: Beer! Oktoberfest!

India: Crazy, dirty, diverse, beautiful, spiritual and cheap. Ubiquitous yogis and drug. Simply backpacker’s heaven!

Iran: Flying carpet, Aladdin (one beautiful country that I’m dying to visit).

Ireland: “Here’s to a long life, and a merry one/ A quick death, and an easy one/ A pretty girl, and an honest one/ A cold beer – and another one!” That old Irish quote is quite enough to sum up about the most jolly and proud nation on Earth. And yes, we all love St. Patrick’s Day.

Israel: Judaism, Jerusalem. A typical Israeli can be found everywhere: a 21 to 24 y/o good-looking lad who just finished 3 year national service, traveling with a guitar and marijuana.

Italy: There is no need to say how amazing Italian cuisine is. They are also known as a country of dream lovers with a romantically excellent Prime Minister.

Jamaica: Dreadlock, Bob Marley.

Japan: Hello Kitty, Penis festival.

Jordan: Petra.

Korea: Gay boy-bands, Korean dramas, girls with heavy plastic surgery. Yet awesome Korean cuisine saves the whole nation. And well, screw the West with all the debates over homosexual marriage. In Korea, they even let a man marry a pillow!

Laos: Water festival.

Madagascar: Beloved for just being Madagascar <3

Monaco: As the second smallest country in the world with the population of 30,000, Monaco associates its fame with Grace Kelly and gambling.

Morocco: Casablanca.

Nepal: Everest, The land of living goddesses.

New Zealand: Kiwi.

Peru: Machu Picchu

Russia: Vodka.

Singapore: An OCD country lah.

Thailand: Lady boys, muay thai, awesome street food.

The US: One good thing about being an American is that you’ll never have to miss American food while you are away from home. There is a good chance that their national food is fast food.

Vietnam: Vietnam war. In fact, that one and only thing is so penetrating that I think I have to thank the America for making the war so geographically educational.

Afghanistan: Don’t worry, you are not going to meet any travelers from Afghanistan.

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1. To be continued.

2. Feel free to add to the list.

(If you get bored half way, which you probably will, please scroll down ‘til the end to see the surprise).

The difference between the last post and this post is that the former was written by a teenager and the latter is being written by a 20-something adult. 19 Sep 2010 was my 20th birthday. Yeah now matter how much you hate it, I’m still ONLY 20.

I never have a thing for birthdays. I mean, what’s it so interesting about a day that a new victim of life is born, together with thousands of other new victims, just as any other day? I don’t celebrate my birthdays for many painful reasons that need not to be recalled. Oops, I’m digressing again. Anyway, listen, Allen, when I said that it was the best birthday I’ve ever had, you’d better shut up and acknowledge my gratitude

So my birthday started on Sat, 18/09 when I went out for lunch with Guru– a really nice guy that ol’ good Preetam introduced me to – at Oberoi mall. I wanted to shop for a dress. I was freaking broke at that time, but I wanted to give myself a gift for my birthday. I wanted to look beautiful at least on that day. [OK I lied, I do have something for birthday, I just don’t want to celebrate it]. I swear I wasn’t hinting or anything, but Guru probably felt bad when I mentioned it, he decided to buy me a book. I was so clueless that I even followed him to the bookstore. When he handed me the book: “Maximum city: Bombay lost & found” wrapped, I was really touched. I never expect to receive anything from anyone. It’s an amazing book and I really enjoy it. It’s probably just one random chivalrous act of Shetty’s, but it means a lot to me.

Unable to find a dress that fits me, I came home and had my messy hair done instead. It was the first time I’ve been to this salon and I swear never to come back again. They can’t do anything other than cutting and straightening at a suicidal price. They don’t speak a single English word, and they took my orders by uneducated guesses. The girl who straightened my hair was probably a novice. She made me scream in pain every 2 minutes. She then looked at me through the mirror and giggled with the hair stylist! I felt like murdering them. When they finished with my head burnt hot like hell, somehow I still thanked them and even gave tip!

My flatmates (Ashwin, Allen & Titus) had got us on Blue Frog’s guest list. There I met Nitesh – one of my first friends in Mumbai who had totally abandoned me b/c of his busy schedule. Nitesh was the photographer for Blue Frog that night. He must have been shocked to see that I was still alive that the first question he asked was: “What are you doing here?” Interesting question, what am I doing at a club? Not for clubbing of course. “I’m just wandering here to see if any drunk manager gets interested in me and gives me a job, on my birthday.” He ignored the mocking part. “Wow, your birthday? Sorry I forgot. Happy birthday!”

Blue Frog was damn packed. Thanks God I haven’t never been a dancer so I didn’t mind having no space to dance. I just stood there and stared at people, like an experienced Indian. Allen introduced me to his friends: Luke and 2 beautiful young ladies called Janet and Devaki. When Allen told me that Luke is an actor, I didn’t really pay much attention. There are too many actors in Bombay! They made quite a scene at Blue Frog when all of them sang Happy birthday to me. Some strangers around started joining them. Even though I was really really embarrassed, I felt like I’m on the top of the world.

When my flatmates figured that I’d got enough boredom at Blue Frog (which I didn’t), they took me out for late dinner/supper at Sarovar. There they started texting with chicks, all of them T_T

I got really jealous! Thanks God Julia – my ex-roomie and my girlfriend here – came to rescue.

The next day, Sunday, we went out for andaa paav in the rain. I bought myself a proper cake and had Swapnil – a very close friend of mine here – come over. So I had all my close friends (in Mumbai) around, I had good food, I had people sing Happy birthday to me and I had a cake It was the best birthday I’ve ever had.

Something interesting happened later. I met Nitesh the other day and he asked: “How did you know Luke?”. I was like: “Huh? Who is Luke?” It took my senile memory awhile to recall. Nitesh had to educate me everything all over again. It turned out that he is quite famous here, I just don’t know him. Aww, I had Luke Kenny sing Happy birthday to me, how awesome is that?

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1. When in India.

If they agree, they shake head. If they disagree, they shake head. If they don’t understand, they shake head.

2. When you ask the way.

If they know, they show you the way. If they don’t, they still show you the way. If you ask: “Are you sure?”, they shake head.

3. When you eat out.

If you don’t tell them not to put chilli, they put chilli. If you tell them not to put chilly, they still put chilli. If you point out, they say: “This chilli is not s-pi-ceee.”

4. When you go street shopping.

The price is 1000Rs. If you pay 1000Rs, you get it. If you pay 500Rs, you also get it. If you pay 250Rs, you still get it.

5. When you drive.

If it’s green light, they sometimes go ahead and sometimes stop. If it’s red light, they sometimes stop and sometimes go ahead. If they are caught by police, they sometimes pay fine and most of the time bribe.

6. When you are a tourist.

A guy approaches to ask if you need help. If you say Yes, he follows you. If you say No, he says “It’s ok” and still follows you. In the end, he asks for money for stalking you around.

7. When you use mobile.

If you activate a value added service, it is activated. If you don’t activate the service, it is still activated. If you want to deactivate the service, you have to send an SMS. It costs.

8. When you go to a group meeting

If you come on time, you will have to wait. If you come 30mins late, you will still have to wait. If you come 1 hour late, they already changed to another location without informing you.

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Oops, I planned to make it 10 but it seems like Indians are better than I thought

*** This story was written as an assignment for journalism class, when my teacher asked us to write our first memory with media. I just want to share with you guys

I was 4 when I first learnt how to read. To celebrate that, my uncle decided to show us, my 6-year-old brother and me, his old book collection and let us pick any book we liked. My brother chose first. He picked a series of about 60 Japanese comic books; and I picked a handbook titled: "Funny quotes of 60 GREATEST MEN". My family made a fuss about it. They were all like: "Wow, she is only 4 but already inspired by great men." I couldn’t tell them that I picked the book just because there wasn’t any comic book left, and this handbook was the shortest one I could pick.

Since my family was so obsessed by the idea that I’d also become great one day, they subscribed me a lot of newspapers to read. I wasn’t very happy with that idea. Name me any alive normal human being that was interested in reading newspapers at 4! But I didn’t want to lose the potato chips my Mom bought to improve my reading session either! So I pretended that I read something. The only page I read was the funny stories section.

As I read more and more, I aspired to write funny stories. After few first attempts, I was foisted with the talent of creating funny stories that can make nobody laugh. I almost gave up when I got my first piece of writing published. It earned me 50.000VND, equivalent to around 3USD at that time, which was enough for me to buy potato chips for the whole month. I realized that the easiest source for ideas was what my great Grandma said when she watched TV. My favorite was when she complained: "People in the TV are so rude. They looked at me, I said Hi to them but they didn’t even reply." or when she complimented: "TV is great. If you shut down the image, it sounds exactly like a radio."

Soon enough, people started to recognize me as a funny person. Sometimes it’s cool, like when you in a gathering and you can make everybody laugh. But sometimes it’s not. I remember when my best friend told me that he was sexually harassed by a gay, as usual, I made a joke to cheer him up :"Look at the bright side, you are so hot that even a gay wants you." He didn’t talk to me for a week.

However, no matter how much potato chips I could buy with my funny career, I never thought that it’d lead to anything serious. But it did! I started to hang out with media people and they encouraged me to write, I mean, serious writing. They gave me an assignment to cover the story of a girl who was heavily abused by her own parents. The story was shocking, the pictures were terrifying. It was an unforgettable experience to see for the first time that my writing can make people cry instead of laughing.

This was when I realized the power of writing. It can make people cry, it can make people laugh, and it can make me indulge myself in. I write more and more, and now I’m writing my first book. I used to wonder what would happen if I didn’t pick that random book at the first place; but now it doesn’t matter anymore. I love writing, that’s all, and I will continue doing so as long as it still helps me buy potato chips. J/k