First first nots etc.

I am yet to blow my nose in India. I have, however, in an attempt to alleviate my snotty, dribbling proboscis wiped it on my shirt, on my hand, probably on my elbow, definitely on a towel, snot-rocketed, sniffled my heart out, scrunched my nose and upper lip adamantly, and, yes, even swallowed some. You’d think there’d be some multinational drooling over the potential of the tissue market here, but I’m guessing it’s a cultural thing which is the direct result of an economic thing—similar to how they eschew forks and knives for fingers…and they probably have better things to think about than tissues anyways. But not me, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about tissues and what happens to the mucus in these people’s noses throughout the course of a spicy meal, of which there are many, or flu encounter.

I am also yet to wipe my ass in India. This is, luckily for both of us, a happier story. Instead of toilet paper here they have hoses, almost shower heads really, next to the toilet that you use to “hose off”. Not too bad actually, except that I can’t use toilet paper to blow my nose, although I could see what effect spraying my face with one of the hoses has. All-in-all, this emphasis on getting by without waste is especially appropriate considering I don’t think the trash gets far beyond the street corner where it’s burned, eaten by animals, picked through by people, or incorporated into the landscape. And recycling falls under the same policy. And I live in, according to some source somewhere, the second most livable city in all of India, after New Delhi. Makes you wonder what the world will be like in fifty years, although most things make me wonder about that.

Something else entirely, but still related to thinking about the world in fifty years: one Home Depot = (approx.) 800 small, kiosk shops in India. Today I walked by a shop, probably about 300 sq. ft., that simply sold door handles. And it wasn’t as if this shop was in an area reserved for handyman type things, it was next to a pick-the-live-chicken-you-want-and-we’ll-kill-it-and-cook-it-store and some “Cell phone Mega World” (both approx. the same square footage as door handle store). So basically, and I hope Sam Walton is listening unless he’s dead which I think he is and good riddance I hope his kids burn in hell with him, if someone constructed a giant dome above these shops and charged everyone to sell underneath their dome, well, this thought doesn’t make much sense. But the thing is that slowly all these small shops will get engulfed and melted and deranged until they form a Home Depot unless of course the world ends first, which might have to be the case because there’s 4 times as many Indians as Americans and that means 4 times as many Home Depots and is that what anyone but Home Depot CEOs want? Maybe? This is scary. I’m not too hot on the idea of door handle stores either. I didn’t talk to anyone today really, so I think that’s starting to show through.

I ate dinner at pizza corner this evening. I’d really rather not discuss the actually food. The ambiance was satisfactory though; there was air conditioning and lots of happy birthday signs (no actual happy birthdays though I don’t think) and families and a TV with a cricket game on and free newspapers. The whole meal with soda and garlic bread cost about US $6, which was, unfortunately, not really a good deal. The memorable event though was that I failed to leave a tip because I wasn’t sure if people tipped at restaurants in India. I decided they didn’t because in Taiwan they didn’t and they’re both in Asia, right? Regardless, the person I texted inquiring about tip-policy didn’t get back to me until about ten minutes too late. So I am a white, rich (Jewish) bastard who can never show his face a pizza corner again, not even his my birthday.