Wise, witty and completely delusional

[tomcwren]

The most deadly disease of them all

I’ve started reading again and I’m pushing myself to keep on reading Mohandas Gandhi’s The Stories of My Experiments with Truth. I’m pushing myself because it is ‘slow’ to me in a sense given that most of the autobiographies and biographies I read are from the likes of Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and typically other entrepreneurial leaders. Generally their stories include the highs and lows of wealth, power, fame, massive legal battles, a fair amount of drugs (Branson), the risk of losing everything they love (all) and so forth. All pretty interesting to me, at least. Gandhi’s book, like himself, is rather modest. That is not to say I’m not enjoying in, in fact I’m really enjoying being able to experience from his writing the world as he saw it – especially as it spans the 19th and early 20th century and covers his journeys across the world. He is a person I have huge respect for and my respect for him continues to grow the more I read. Perhaps I’m writing this entry a little prematurely as I haven’t yet finished his book, but Gandhi used a word that jumped out of the page as I was reading. He said ‘disease’. I felt obliged to go on to look at how and why he said it, and how it is still remarkably and sadly relevant today - especially given the seemingly increasing tensions in certain areas of the world (I began writing this just a day after the tragic events that happened in Paris (and the equally tragic killings in Nigeria which, naturally, didn’t make our mainstream news)). To dive into the history of humans quickly. If we look to when our time began, conflicts often happened over desperation, at least in the early days of humanity. Man killed Man often to save his family and to gain access to food to provide for his family. Man killed Beast for the same reasons, for the safety of his family, and food for his family. Once these basic necessities are granted, the need for conflict (if there ever was a reason) should no longer exist. Unfortunately, at some point, whether it’s ingrained in our DNA (possibly) or if it can be taught/learnt and unlearnt (most likely), other factors such as greed can and do enter into play. This can be greed for power, greed for more food than we need, the greed of killing for fun, etc. Whatever the reason, the need to kill man or beast in the way we previously did no longer exists. Unlike our ancestors, we now understand the world to be spherical. We have vastly improved farming methods that produces enough food to feed the whole world. With rare exceptions wild beast do not present a threat to us. Why does conflict still happen? But I digress, back to the topic of this entry – Disease. Gandhi was talking about the ‘disease’ of colour prejudice. As were happening to other ‘coloured’ people in South Africa where Gandhi was at the time, and across so many other parts of the world, people were and sadly still are treated differently because of colour. As well as colour, one can include race, religion, political view, gender, sexual orientation, age, level of education, size, disability and any other almost unlimited number of factors, and this ‘Disease’ evidently still manifests across society again today, just as it did in 1895. The disease I refer to, taking Gandhi’s mention of the word and extending it to a wider context, is prejudice. The underlying prejudice of one person over another is extremely dangerous. We strive to cure cancer, HIV/AIDs, malaria, etc. but we are missing perhaps the most deadly disease of them all. Prejudice is a disease in the sense that it seemingly appears in a person and can cause all types of negative impacts; on both the person with the disease and, often more the case, the people that are in the ‘way’ of the disease i.e. those around the host. But the good news as proven so many times over – there are ways of curing it (or at least keeping it dormant). Note: Whilst I realise a disease and a virus are medically very different, in this context I use disease to represent disease and a virus and to mean roughly the same thing: professional friends don’t shoot me – that would be prejudice against me for my lack of medical knowledge ;) As mentioned, most of us now have no need to kill to survive. Food is abundant in large parts of the world, though sadly waste is too. There is no longer the need to keep a spear by the fire in case of attack by a wolf, a lion, a snake, or any other deadly potentially animal. Yet conflict and war is still common place in many parts of the world, and to me at least not always as obvious as guns versus tanks. Whilst many people blame religion for most wars of the world, I believe the underlying factor to blame for basically every act of conflict in modern times is prejudice (modern as in at least as far back as since time has been recorded). Jihadists, the Crusades, The IRA, ISIS, The Tamil Tigers, etc. Yes, these are all apparently religious fundamentalists ‘fighting for their religion’, but what about the colonialists? The former and current world powers of which my own beloved United Kingdom has been one of the very worst perpetrators? Was religion really involved there? Not really – to me, it was funded by greed first and foremost and then accepted by prejudice, often under the banner excuse of what makes one different to another – they had the choice of colour, religion, etc. and simply could take their pick. We know that throughout history various empires clearly deemed it acceptable to rape, pillage, murder and enslave a population for the ‘good of the country, the empire, the king, religion’, whatever it was apparently in the name of. Again, what made this acceptable? Prejudice, because the victims were somehow different to the perpetrators. Greed also has a major part to play in all of this too. In fact, to me greed and prejudice often (but not always) go hand in hand. Exceptions to this rule would be genocides such as those that occurred in Kosovo and to a similar extent, the Holocaust. These are horrific examples of prejudice, arguably where greed didn’t play a part or was minor. So if you accept my point that prejudice is the underlying factor in all conflict, at least in modern times, then it would be fair to say that prejudice has been responsible for surely many, many millions of lives, wherever conflict has occurred and still continues to do so. Prejudice is very deadly. However – let’s not prejudice off so lightly here. Prejudice isn't restricted to just the battlefield or concentration camps. Whilst I hate to get drawn into these sort of debates and I especially dislike it when people ask me effectively (and sometimes in these exact words), “which side are you on?” I would like to make a statement here. I find it a matter of complete ignorance and hypocrisy when I hear supposedly well educated people mention things such as, “Well the moderate Muslims aren't doing anywhere near enough” and, “If ‘they’ are here they are all and always will be a threat”. Far be it from me to stand up for Islam, or any religion for that matter, but such statements like this are beyond ridiculous. Those that comment often fail to realise (most likely ignore) that even rounded up to the nearest 1%, the total number of ‘Muslims’ who have committed crimes such as suicide bombing is 1% - and that’s rounded up – in reality it’s closer to 0%. Before my time, ‘terrorists’ most terrifying the UK were the IRA. These people were apparently ‘Catholics (who are also Christians)’, and killed innocent people. Again, is it fair to say that ALL Christians should be ‘A threat as long as they are in this country?’ Of course not, this would be absurd to most people. Now to the other statement I hear – “Muslims should do much more to stop terrorism”. I agree in principle that it would be an ideal scenario for those good people who go to Mosques and are within communities where hate preachers spread hate were able to oust these evil people. However, I say this with a caveat and with some questions for you, the reader. Did people know the IRA existed and had evil plans? Surely. Were these evil people all ousted by their communities to the authorities? Occasionally. Should everyone be expected to put their lives and their family’s lives at risk by coming to the police with accusations against people whom they believe to be mass-murderers? I for one wouldn't tell anyone in this situation that they should be expected to risk their life and come to the police. Whilst it would help the situation, how can we possible place this terrifyingly high burden on any good person? Finally on this point, without appearing to bash any one religion or race and without getting drawn into yet another debate - the KKK. How on earth they still exist in any form is beyond me. If a terrorist is termed a person or group who commits atrocities against those of different race, religion, etc. and hides behind a mask to cause terror of some description, does the KKK not have the guidebook to this? It is to my knowledge still legal to be part of the Klan, but to be associated with the likes of Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers and many other terrorists groups could put you in jail without trial… These groups have all committed atrocities in the name of their perverse, twisted ideologies, but only one has been properly outlawed. They all deserve equally the same love and respect from the rest of the world – absolutely none. I do believe in the right to defend, but at the expense of innocent people it is indefensible in my view. Equally, I can to an extent understand how people commonly referred to as terrorists in some parts of the world are deemed ‘freedom fighters’ in other parts. I mention many words above with inverted commas because it would not be fair to say “he was a Muslim, therefore all Muslims are threats”, “he was a Catholic, and therefore all Catholics are dangerous”. In fact, if one really wanted to stereotype about the average perpetrator throughout history of such acts of violence, the most common theme (apart from them all being human), is that most have been men. Would the world be better if women had more power? That’s another blog entry I’m gladly going to take on in the near future. Moving away from the mention of race and religion and back to focusing on prejudice again. Having spoken about conflict and war and again about terrorism in some detail, I’d like to look at perhaps less obvious prejudice. Prejudice doesn't have to kill to take a life. Prejudice happens in all walks of life, across the world. It can be something as simple as a person not being able to receive healthcare in a country because they cannot afford it. You may argue that those who earn money deserve the healthcare over those who don’t work, for example. My questions back is how can an unborn baby be less deserving of medical help than another unborn baby? How does that work? Prejudice can be a situation whereby people believe it to be ‘fair game’ to send abusive messages to someone famous, because they are famous. It can be a newspaper running an article that is worded in a way to appear to suggest a group of people are all of a certain disposition, based on a test group of typically less than 0.0001%. Some of these sorts of statements are incredibly dangerous, not to mention just plain awful ‘journalism’. In reference to the start of this entry, it is sad that food waste is common in many places where food is so scarce in others. This simply shouldn’t happen anymore. I’m not suggesting that prejudice is directly to blame for all of this. However, if you agree with me that war is caused by prejudice however you dress it up, then defence budgets are no longer needed. By freeing up defence budgets alone to divert to overseas and also domestic aid, the number of people needlessly suffering because of factors out of their control would dramatically drop. So is prejudice deadly beyond war? Absolutely, it’s a major killer and a dreadful Disease. I have some good news! Like pretty much any deadly disease, people throughout history and still today are searching for a cure. Whilst the entry so far has been fairly melancholy, I have some good news. We are at war with Prejudice. We have social scientists who dedicate their lives to tackling this most deadly of diseases. They don’t always wear white coats and work in laboratories – they are more often seen in the streets, supporting communities, helping people, breaking down the walls of hatred. Despite what much of the mass media suggests, as a species we are taking major in the fight against this disease. Black people in most parts can take the same bus as white people, gay marriage is becoming increasingly acceptable, slavery is illegal in most or all parts of the world (though we know it still happens), poverty is being hit hard across the globe, the number of charities continues to rapidly rise, etc. We can look to places and people who, if anyone does, have a right to be prejudice against others. For a moment, I’ll briefly refer to Cambodia, the people of Hiroshima in Japan and those that were at the Gay Pride (Southern Decadence) festival in New Orleans in 2014. Passing through these places last year, I saw mostly the opposite of what others would expect to see. Both Laos and Cambodia were badly hit during the Vietnam – USA war, neither countries being involved. The people of Hiroshima still feel in their minds and can physically see the scars of the A-Bomb that was dropped on the city in 1945, killing so many and destroying the lives of many more. The members of the parades at Gay Pride in New Orleans that I saw were subject to quite frankly disgraceful abuse from those who oppose homosexuality on the day – and probably throughout their lives too. Could we blame the people of Laos and Cambodia, the people of Hiroshima or the members of the Parade for holding some form of prejudice against other? Well no, I don’t think so. Yet, remarkably, I didn’t experience an ounce of hatred with these people. In fact, in Laos and Cambodia, Westerners (including Americans) are treated with the same smiles and hospitality as anyone else. In Hiroshima, the call from the city for global peace, particularly against nuclear weapons, is clear – the message they give is not one of resentment, but instead they tell the world how bad war and bombs can be. I found it absolutely hilarious to see people at the Gay Pride festival show pretty much nothing but love with kisses (and probably pity) to the very people who told them they were going to Hell because of their sexuality – amazing! There is a near infinite number of other areas for inspiration for us all, if you can see past mass media’s typically negative messaging. The internet and social media for example offer us an incredible chance to get to know and learn about other people from across the world. To protect each other when needed, to support each other and to share with each other. Yes the internet is used as a tool for terrorists amongst other bad things, but there’s so much good we can and do use it for. Remember the BP Oil spill in the US? Within days a team of students, academics and industry-people joined to find the solution by joining together online. Would the West help those in trouble when the government is preventing freedom of speech? Read about the Arab Springs and you’ll see how people from across the world provided those who were being oppressed with internet capabilities after governments there blocked access. This enabled people who were being oppressed to show the rest of the world what was happening and and ask for outside help. Ever heard of Open Source technology? Look it up, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Not everyone is determined to make as much money as they can and live for solely their own good. Away from the internet now, in my country the UK I am hugely proud of the National Health Service. Despite some of its downfalls (though I feel these are often overhyped anyway) it is a creation that I am proud to call British. The idea that no matter how rich or poor you are, what skin colour you are, how old or young you are, whether you are gay, straight, overweight, disabled, famous or even a criminal, you are still entitled to healthcare because you are a human. It’s humanity at its greatest. If instead of fighting for oil, fighting ideas, attacking religions, discriminating against other races, hating the poor (and rich) and simply talking negatively about others (bitching, in general) we took up arms in the metaphorical sense to fight prejudice, the world would be without doubt a much better place. It’s happening already – let’s keep battling to find the cure. Final note: If you’re still with here, thank you for sticking with me on this. As per usual, I’ve expanded on my points well beyond what I originally intended to speak about and have left promises for other future subjects. Being concise has never been my forte! To wrap up this entry, I’d like to share this video with you which I hope leaves you with a smile on your face to last the rest of the day. Please click/copy and paste the link below (tumblr doesn't want to do the linking for me!) http://youtu.be/Dz9pwjx9vSg?list=LLIaNYWb5DPApM8nz34cXdyA Tom

[tomcwren]

#shittyT-Mobile! You would've thought hanging off the cliff this high up at the #GrandCanyon would've guaranteed me some phone signal at least!?!? Nope #usa #cliffhanger #travel #travels (at Grand Canyon, Arizona)

[tomcwren]

Food for thought

A short entry today, from my seemingly-favourite-but-certainly-not-place, Starbucks. Well one of the many Starbucks in Japan, to be precise. I'm waiting for transport to my next destination, so I'm using the time to catch up on some stuff. Feeling fairly uninspired I ordered a small cake a few minutes ago. Arriving with my cake came a small square of another cake, included on the plate with a cocktail stick pushed through it. I don't know if this is common for Starbucks or indeed any coffee shops/cafes, but I think it's genius. I know the markup in these places is very high and that's fair enough, they pay for the most desirable spaces in train stations, airports, etc. So giving away a tiny piece of another cake in the hope of alluring me to at least consider another cake, whether this time or next is amazing. I can't remember where I read this, but somebody said that the most profitable question in the world, ever is, "Would you like fries with that?" This of course refers to McDonalds, who perhaps coined this phrase globally and have gone on to make BILLIONS from cross-selling. And what if you don't happen to want fries with your burger? Well, you feel happy and valued that you were asked the question, even though you were being sold to which normally we all get annoyed by! Food for thought, literally ;)

[tomcwren]

Bullets were too expensive to use to kill them…

They were forced to kneel down in front of their grave and then hacked to bits by whatever tools were cheapest. If you have just shuddered, don’t worry. It proves you’re human. I haven’t introduced the context of this yet, but if like me the thought of knowing of anyone or even anything (living) being hacked to bits is horrible, then I have to warn you this entry is pretty shocking. I’m writing this quite retrospectively. I was too horrified on the day to write it up and too angry for the next week to write anything meaningful. It’s only now (4 weeks on) that I can sit down, chill out and write about what I saw, heard and felt. The context of all of this refers to Cambodia, and, more specifically, the infamous ‘Killing Fields’ that too little of the world’s population know about. It was a sunny day before I left my hostel in Phnom Penh, the capital city of the great country of Cambodia. The people here are amongst the friendliest people I have ever met. Extreme poverty (and I mean extreme) meets with vast wealth in this city of over 1.5 million people. I genuinely saw more Range Rovers here than I have in all my time in London, it’s incredible. This is sad to see, because I can’t fathom how there can be such wealth without some corruption. I would hazard a guess, but I believe there is a lot here. However, the abundance of Range Rovers is beaten by some way by the abundance of smiles of the people here...the trend continues with the poorest people I meet often appearing the happiest. All of this exists some years on since a vile human-being called Pol Pots had his evil ways with the population here and with other parts of Cambodia. This is the man that once said "it is better to kill an innocent by mistake than to let an enemy escape by mistake". When I arrived at the Killing Fields, the sun almost as if it was part of a pre-set mechanical device, withdrew from the sky and hid behind the clouds. Fitting really, that the sun left us just as faith and humanity left the poor people whose lives would end so tragically here during the second half of 1970s. For those that aren’t knowledgeable in the area and the history, much as I wasn’t before I came here, The Khmer Rouge lead by a man called Pol Pots - a man educated in Europe and who lived a pretty good life, especially by Cambodian standards. Upon seizing power, Pots began his debaucheries by unleashing hell on the Cambodian people – his own people. I think it is right to compare what happened to that of the sins of Hitler and the Nazi party against the Jews. The scale, the evil and the complete lack of even an ounce of empathy are to me identical. It is sad that so few of the world’s population know what happened here. Pol Pots devised an evil plan that would apparently lead Cambodia forwards and to be a richer, more powerful country. Like most deranged lunatics, his plans were utterly flawed in almost every respect. He and his team decided that the population of Cambodia was at the time too big – food supplies would not be enough to leave enough surplus to sell to other countries and make profit. Agriculture was key to his reforms. Unfortunately, anyone even remotely educated and anyone who in his frantically paranoid brain whom he felt was against his plans, also weren't part of his plans. He turned his country people against each other. The desperately poor people in rural areas were told that they were poor and dying due to the greed of those educated, generally educated city-dwellers. This was the backbone of the atrocities that followed. Propaganda in it's most pure form. Pots designated hundreds of fields across the country where the bodies of the ‘obstacles’ would be buried – I'm using the term obstacles, as to me this is how Pots treated those outside of his Master Plan. To say he treated millions of people as badly as livestock is being overwhelmingly kind to him. To say he treated them like common vermin is, amazingly, still being kind to him. Either my vocabulary isn’t strong enough or there isn’t a word that exists for the lack of humanity shown to these people by him and his team. Hundreds of thousands were brought to these fields and prisons across the country and tortured, raped, abused and killed. ******************* Don’t read this next bit if you’re already struggling******************* If all of this wasn’t shocking enough, the audio guide at the site brought me to a tree. The tree was covered in bracelets and flowers left by people who have since been to the site as a mark of respect. I have a good/bad trait of being able to hold back the tears when I am sad, particularly with family and friends. I didn’t have a tear in my eye at the fields, although my throat was particularly sore. It’s only now when I allow myself to realise the horror whilst I sit in this coffee shop surrounded by business men and women, friends joking around and smiley attentive staff in Vietnam – a tear in my eye is desperate to escape my eyes, just like the children, women and men were desperate to escape the horrors that occurred at these fields. The horrors I saw were simply marks on the tree. The marks were left by the teeth and bones that were shattered against the tree by the soldiers carrying out Pot’s evil work. Babies and toddlers were smashed against the tree like coconuts – Pots’ reasoning was that the children would one day seek revenge, so they had to be eliminated. ************************Sorry to have to share that with you************************** I have to praise the centre and the people that run it. The fields now have been kept in such a way to show the horrors to the world but also to pay respect to those whose lives ended here. I have chosen not to share any photos out of respect for those that died there – my blog entry is to get my thoughts out of my head and to share with anyone who may be listening (or reading). In the centre of the fields is a Buddhist / Hindu memorial building. Housed in here are hundreds of skulls, bones, fragments of clothing and memories from those who were killed. I remember looking up at the building, which is quite spectacular as it points up to the sky and thinking, “If there is really a Creator(s) up there, he/she must still be weeping all those years on for what his creation did to itself here”. I looked into each skull and imagined how this person would've certainly been smiling at me, as it was once the skull of a Cambodian. It was so hard to see, here are their bodies now on show to remember the horrendous ending they certainly had to their lives. An extraordinary thing happened whilst I was there taking a couple of pictures for my own personal memories of the site. My iPhone started recognising the skulls as skulls and not just objects in a room. It began it’s clever ‘yellow squaring’ around each skull, alerting to me that it was aware these were people and thus helping me take ‘a good picture’. How can an iPhone recognise these as people whereas Pol Pots and his team didn’t? Instead he saw these as annoying obstructions to his evil and vile plans? The atrocities aside, the rest of the world didn’t do much to help. In fact, despite the UK, the US, Europe and other developed countries knowing all too well about what was happening here, it was Vietnam that actually took down the Khmer Rouge from power whilst the rest of the world sat back. Hmm, the greatest democracies of this world and world who are all about freedom...? Make your own opinion...? I could go on more, but I think I have my points across and I don’t want to upset you any more whilst you read this. As always, I try and find positives in such events. There are some, if like me you look for them and can accept the possible reasons how this happened on such a big scale. As part of the audio guide, I read how one man who was a young boy at the time was kept in the prison for stealing food for his starving pregnant sister. Then a stranger in the prison begged the prison guards every day to release the boy, for he was too young to understand this and go through with it. Risking his life to help the boy, the stranger was soon sacrificed by the guards for his pestering. Even in the face of the worst atrocities, many great people emerge. Just as Ann Frank forgave her tormentors during the Second World War, this man gave his life for someone else he didn't know. We should not stop to hate people in our lives, but we should stop those people who hate. They give all of us humans a bad reputation and I don't like it! I was also mildly relieved to hear how many of the soldiers defected from committing the crimes. Before you judge them, picture their situation. Poor, oppressed by the government, their parents dyeing and then they are told by the government that it is the educated city people to blame, who they are told are ruthlessly sacrificing their families for their own greed. Yet despite this horrific brainwashing, they realise that no matter how greedy these people apparently were that they do not deserve the fate Pol Pots is throwing down upon them – they didn’t just stop committing these crimes, many were killed for refusing to continue the evil work. They laid their own lives down for the people who they believed were to blame for their families being poor - I think that is a major sacrifice! Atrocities like this still happens across the world today, let’s not be ignorant like our governments were at the time. Is Pol Pots and like-minded real life evil scumbags winning? I can’t answer that. I’ll point at the public displays of disapproval that happen across the world whenever wars are declared, the endless amounts of charities and good causes out there, the fact that literacy rates are climbing higher and higher all the time. There’s still far too much wrong with this world, but for every school I saw and every happy child I see (particularly in Cambodia), I have a certain sense of smugness. A smug feel as though like you I'm part of the good side, the 99.99% who give some shit about the world and the people. Every time I saw a happy kid in Cambodia a thought of “FUCK YOU Pol Pots, you lost”, popped into my head. It felt great! Don’t be depressed. If we can learn anything from this, we should look at the people of Cambodia today. Happy, smiling and without harbouring any hatred for people, these are some of the best in the world. Like Laos, I love the people here. Unlike the racists (stupid fools) I sarcastically referred to a few posts back, these people have made a decision on their values and it is that people are generally good, no matter who they are. I respect them tremendously for that and I love Cambodia.

[tomcwren]

Cambodia: For a country with such shocking poverty, I've been surprised to see more brand new Range Rovers here than anywhere in the world! The C word seems to be apparent here...and I don't mean a Range Rover 'convention' #cambodia #rangerover #poverty #luxury #C #travel #travels (at Central Market, Phnom Penh)

[tomcwren]

"For us to be rich in the West, does that mean people have to be poor somewhere else?"

This was the question I specifically remember asking my geography teacher when I was about 12 - I’ve mentioned this in a previous post. This will be one of my shorter posts because I want to get to the point here.

I still haven’t worked out the answer to this. My teacher I remember looked at me with fairly startled eyes (probably thinking that’s a bit deep for a 12 year old) and said she couldn’t give me an answer because she wasn’t sure.

Having been in this part of Asia now for over 4 months and having seen extreme poverty elsewhere too, if the answer to the question is ‘Yes’ then we need to rethink how we live! I suspect the answer however is ‘No’.

I always had an issue until recently with giving money to certain charities because of the sustainability of the projects and more so the not-knowing feeling of where the money went to (dictators, terrorists, towards arms, bombs, etc - who knows?)

Added to this, and aside from charity I always wondered what right we had to tell ‘poor people’ (those who don’t enjoy the same luxuries as we can), that they should be more educated, more ‘civilized’ even. Why should we whose societies are far from perfect impose that love/hate word ‘globalisation’ onto these countries? My thoughts now are a lot clearer…

Whether or not the culture, history and traditions of some of these great places and people are impacted is less my concern (although it does concern me if they are negatively impacted). What should be the main concern is that every single boy, girl, man and woman should have is the following;

Food Shelter Healthcare Education

It’s not much, in fact if we just had those in our life then we would feel extremely inadequate. Imagine you didn’t have a mobile phone - how would you live? How would you live without your car? God forbid someone took that TV off you? I’m the same, my laptop and my phone are part of my life for good or bad (mostly the latter). Notice I didn’t include Starbucks on that list ;) ?

If we can all help just a little bit at a time to help people around the world get these 4 extremely basic necessities, the world WILL be a far better place.

P.S I felt inspired to write something positive now for 2 reasons.

1). I’m soon writing about the infamous ‘Killing Fields’ in Cambodia, so I will sandwhich it with good messages as I often do in my life - the history of this country is so tough, yet the people here are perhaps the friendliest I’ve ever met.

2). I’ve just had breakfast with a very genuine dude who out of the goodness of his heart paid for the breakfast of a clearly starving and perhaps mentally ill teenager that was begging. Good for him!

3. Ok, 3 reasons - One thing I’m getting really excited about it my ridiculous business / charity idea nelfie.org. I know my parents read this blog so they may not want to read the nelfie.org blog, but know it’s all for a good cause :) For the rest of you, stay tuned as I’m posting details in the next few weeks.

(Credit for the photo goes to: http://www.pedalagainstpoverty.com/)

[tomcwren]

Incredible experience last night being served great food in complete darkness by a wonderful team of blind people which the business supports. I think these places exist in many big cities - go check one out! #DID #phnompenh #cambodia #darkness #food #nice #travel #travels (at DID - Dine in the Dark: Phnom Penh)

[tomcwren]

An example of a typical South East Asian fresh food morning market in the capital of Cambodia - Phnom Penh #cambodia #asia #phnompenh #video #market #food #nice #travel #travels (at Mok Wat Botum)

[tomcwren]

We need to start showing more love to the racists out there!

There, I’ve said it!

Bear with me on this one, it’s gonna take a while to get there – and please read to the end of this blog entry if you’ve read the title! As a precursor to what follows, I will tell you now that I love South Park.

I’ve been travelling around Asia for nearly 4 months now. Prior to this part of Asia, I’ve travelled around China and parts of Europe (although more holidays than backpacking in Europe). I’ve met people from all sorts of nationalities, religions, skin colours, ages and those with all sorts of worldly views. I’ve met hippies, hardnosed business people, extroverts, introverts, self-proclaimed floaters (those who don’t know and often don’t care what they’re doing in life) and a whole load more…

And racists.

You may never have noticed this side to me – I realise this will divide the room. It’s a little controversial I know, but hey this blog allows me to voice my opinions. We DO NOT do enough for racists as a society in this world, we really don’t.

I’ve seen people in Asia (and the UK) who are desperately poor, sad and homeless. I’ve met people affected by drug addiction, by crime, by civil wars, by governments and businesses that don’t care for them, societies that ignore them and even families that disown them. But it’s the racist I feel most sorry for.

You see, to be a racist, a true racist, you have to hate people. And the ‘best’ racists hate everyone apart from their ‘own kind’, and even then they normally find something about their own kind they don’t like. Just as a smile uses less energy than it takes to produce a frown, loving is much easier than hating. You have to be really determined to live a life full of hatred. You probably can’t appreciate the effort that takes.

Unlike the slaves I mentioned in a previous entry entitled ‘modern day slavery’ (please have a read, you may find it a little shocking), racists don’t get to be picky with their beliefs . Slaves can at least decide who they like or dislike. Racists can’t. Unlike you and me who can decide who we are attracted to (at least to an extent), racists can’t. Racists can’t prejudge someone they don’t know like we can, it’s done for them by default. ‘Skin colour is different to mine = hate.’

Which of the following foods do you love? Mexican? Chinese? Indian? Thai? Italian? Japanese? French? Indonesian? Brazilian? I could go on. We all have our favourites. Now imagine that you could only ever enjoy just one cuisine in life for your whole life because your mind was so intolerant to other cultures just like a person whose body is intolerant to nuts. I know, terrible right. You’re feeling bad for racists right now I’m sure.

Imagine you have a view of the world where more and more people are against what you preach . Your views are constantly crushed by anti-this and anti-that campaigns against the very things you believe in. Imagine that what you put all your energy, passion and enthusiasm into is being beaten and beaten by the masses who are growing in strength and voice. Imagine the governments of this world are repealing old laws that agreed with your way of thinking in favour of how the masses are now thinking. Gutting right?

I type all of this with a tear in my eye for the real racists out there. Ha!

A pretty deep blog entry I know. I wrote it because I’m in Cambodia right now and it has been playing on my mind for some time, especially since I went to the infamous ‘Killing Fields’ (I’ll write about this soon). Plus I wanted to highlight to anyone misguided who ‘thinks’ they dislike other people because of what some of the newspapers and sites I know of print. Although I won’t name names here (The Sun and The Daily Mail, et al) they print enough news (if you can call it news from any of them) every day that is bound to have an impact on some people .

To go a little deeper before I return to absurd comedy, again perhaps I’m influenced in part by what my Teacher at the Buddhist retreat said to me, we are all the same when we die. So why waste our life hating and/or showing indifference to people when in fact not only are we all pretty much the same, those small differences are enough to be worthwhile to find out about each other and they are often fascinating?

A great man by the name of Elie Wiesel famously said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. Elie is a Romanian born Jewish-American, who was imprisoned in a Nazi camp during WWII and who has since gone on to receive a Noble Peace Prize, for, amongst other things, the forgiveness he offers. I mention him in particular because of those words he spoke.

To me, to love or to hate someone is to show feeling for them, to appreciate at least that they are a person. To show indifference to me disobeys the rules of human logic – I guess doctors may call this type of person a true psychopath. 

Now back to the comedy. South Park is one of my favourite shows. To many, it’s a terribly animated cartoon that is full of needless swearing and ‘fart humour’. To me, it’s a purposefully terribly animated comedy that does so well to literally tear apart those who stereotype others. Trust me, each episode DOES have a message, you just have to see through the sarcasm, offensive language and crappy animations. Please watch the short clip I’ve included here. A warning – it uses the ‘N word’ so please don’t be offended.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HuvLUhuo52w

I hope you realise this entry is intended to be as sarcastic as the writers of South Park are in this episode and reveal racists (of all creed and colour) for the ignorant fools they really are. I believe most are just misguided idiots and only a few of them are truly indifferent to others/actual psychopaths, but then I hold a very positive outlook on the world most of the time (although I’m certainly not ignorant to many atrocities committed throughout history and sadly still today for all sorts of pathetic reasons including race).

On a side note - as I’ve had a few messages about this recently, for anyone who genuinely worries I’m becoming a complete hippy out here and that sees my growing beard as a sign of something, don’t. I’m going to be a bit narcissistic here (a tell-tale sign of a psychopath) and quote something I said to my good friend earlier which I’m a bit too proud of. “Hugging a tree is nice, but it ain’t gonna save ‘em. What you need to do is first get rich and then buy the rainforest outright. Then you can go down there and tell the loggers to fuck off your property. That’s how you save trees”. I may be a bit of a ‘hippy’ inside, but I’m way too vein to ever show it!

[tomcwren]

Flirting with insanity Here I am, sitting outside a Starbucks Café in Kuala Lumpah, a city full of wealth and the capital of Malaysia. In my sights are, quite shockingly, another 2 Starbucks and a whole heap of designer brands the rich and famous wear. This is all a million miles from my humble life for 4 days during my short Buddhist retreat last week. For a few years now I’ve been more and more interested in sociology, philosophy and in particular Eastern philosophy. The draw for me is two-fold. I can see a huge influence from Buddhism on the business leaders and sales strategists I respect and read about in a Western sense, so many talk about or indirectly refer to Eastern philosophies in general. In particular on taking control of your mind and developing it. The ‘making-shit-loads-of-money’ part comes from a capitalist influence which is present as much in some parts of the East as it is in the West, I’ve come to find. On the other hand I was also interested to hear more about Buddhism, which I always assumed to be perhaps the most peaceful religion in the world. Since I’ve been in South East Asia (nearly 4 months now) I’ve wanted to join a Buddhist retreat. I’ve heard mixed reviews. 10 days of complete silence with just 2 meals per day and up to 12 hours per day of meditation. Sounds fun…or not. Anyway I decided it might be good for me for a number of reasons. I could learn more about Buddhism, I could learn some meditation techniques which judging by the amount of people I’ve met who rave about it then it must be half decent, and well if nothing else, I will have a unique experience that will be interesting in one way or another. Added to that, with my admittedly still existent stubbornness, I was going to do something I set my mind to no matter how hard or boring it was. I lasted a grand total of…4 days – not even half way. On the third day I had decided to leave, but I forced myself to stay one more night to see if my mind changed. In fact, I was even more desperate to leave. The reasons are probably very different to what you might expect. Contrary to what I was expecting, I was allowed 3 meals per day as well as regular contact with the ‘Teacher’, the Nun who ran the modest centre in Penang, Malaysia. She asked me if I am crazy if I thought it would be good to have just 2 meals a day. “We are humans. Punishment does not help the mind, instead it tortures our bodies and damages the mind Tom”, she told me when I arrived. Cool! Upon my arrival I was also told of the plan for the next 10 days of my life. I would learn more about Buddhism each day through reading, attending and observing in silence the various sessions the centre ran and I would meditate up to 5 times per day, starting the day at 4AM. I was shown to my room. Not quite a prison cell as there were no bars or mass murderers there, and it had a bed with sheets and a mattress. However, I didn’t really want to spend the best part of each day for the next 10 days here. I was told that there would be no music, no talking and loud and obviously no killing of anything. This included mosquitos and ants. I never kill anything intentionally anyway, even wasps and mosquitos, but having to be so aware whilst walking through to the front gate of the centre each day to open it and avoid the ants was hard. I don’t like to swear much and I try not to exaggerate, but they were fucking everywhere! It took all of my concentration to avoid standing on them every morning, and even then I’m sure I built up a little killing spree. I’ll split my experience into two. First the mediation aspects which are to me far less interesting and then to the Buddhism / teachings / beliefs I learnt more about. The meditation aspects were difficult for me. Unfortunately I learnt some tough news just 2 days before about my Grandmother is once again not so well. This is always hard to hear, but being on the other side of the world makes it worse. I wanted to jump on a plane to be with her straight away but my parents told me she’s not as bad as they were expecting. This made mediation for me difficult. I was told to breath in and out in a meditation position – eyes almost shut, head held up, back straight and either legs crossed (which I started but experienced pains – I’m not very flexible right now) or legs straight out on a chair. To clear the mind I was advised to imagine my breathing to be breathing in good white air and breathing out dirty/evil black air. It sort of worked I think. Music that I don’t even know the name of popped into my head from yours ago. I had finally managed to remove the thoughts of who will win the forthcoming world cup (Brazil by the way, put some money on it) and then I recalled Thomas the Tank Engine followed by some odd geography field trap where we went to the South Coast to measure long shore drift…I couldn’t clear my mind and it was going all over the place like a spoilt child after attention! By day 3 however I managed to clear as much as I could from my mind, which I can assure you is both very hard to do and extremely tiring! The meditation aspect although difficult, was good for me. I think I will continue to ‘practise’ this again as I really noticed a slight improvement each day and yes, I felt calm afterwards each time. I would recommend anyone reading this to at least give it a go with some guidance for a few days. Now to the interesting part(s). The teachings, Buddhism and most interesting to me, the mind-set of my teacher and other Buddhists she spoke of. I will say now that I don’t know if her teachings are completely universal for Buddhists, but we referred back to texts that she says all Buddhists follow, so I’m assuming the main parts are universally believed and since the retreat a few Buddhists I have met confirm that this is what they believe. My teachers name was Kelchong, a 60-something year old sweet, fairly short lady with a warm, gentle smile and a soft voice. To complete the picture, yes she also has a shaven head and wears a robe each day. She is a lovely lady and I felt bad leaving her so early. I didn’t stay long enough to meet any of the monks that practise there. Surprisingly, after the first day I wanted to leave her straight away and not keep in contact. She told me she was married for 32 years and was a millionaire with a luxury lifestyle before, serving Malaysia’s rich and famous with her luxury designer clothing brand. She has two children (now grown up). One day 8 years ago she decided that after a lot of deliberation, there was something massive missing in her life and that money couldn’t buy it. Being a practising Buddhist, she was well aware of the teachings and decided it would be best for her to leave her life in Malaysia and go to a Buddhist retreat in of all places, Scotland. For 3 years she lived almost a completely solitary life there, speaking only with her spiritual guide from time to time. To confirm, she left her family and had zero contact with her children when she did this! She said she was dragged out against her will to be a teacher back in Malaysia at the end of the 3 years retreat – she wanted to do 6 in total. She told me on reflection she was being selfish not to want to do what Buddha wanted her to do – to teach others of the ‘way of Buddha’ and to ‘give herself to help others’, a phrase she referred to numerous times throughout my being there. I found it hard to listen to her tell me she as a mother left her children completely and obviously could not be contacted. I couldn’t help but feel for the kids I’ve never met, that must have been extremely tough for them and I imagine still is. I looked into her eyes that day and wondered if this woman had just had a breakdown and this was her way out, was she in fact completely crazy? Funny then how 3 days later she almost brought me to tears as I was sad when leaving her. She taught me a great deal about Buddhism in a short amount of time – she was a great teacher, clearly extremely intelligent and very wise. As expected, I liked most things about Buddhism. Karma, giving lots and not taking too much, trying to avoid violence at all costs. Who could disagree with that? I knew Buddhists believe in reincarnation, which I don’t. But I knew that before and it didn’t bother me. However, you may be surprised to hear but it was the idea of how they believe in Karma which is where I had issues and why I subsequently left. Her teaching which she says is based on all Buddhist teaching is that Karma is ever present. Everything happens because of Karma. I came to the centre whilst she was teaching, she became a Nun, the world and everything that lives here exist in the way we do because of Karma. Fine, but she said Karma stays with us from previous lives. This is where I was particularly curious. I believe that if we are good and do good, generally good things will happen to us - my logic behind this is that good people attract good people as it is good to be with someone who makes you feel good. You feel good and you probably smile more and are nicer to others by way of a result. Likewise people who are rude to others probably experience more rudeness back. Think about the last time you were in a place where you thought everyone was rude to you – were you particularly nice back to them? I don’t believe in any magic force behind this – to me this is simple logic, I choose to call this Karma which clearly now I see isn’t quite the same Karma Buddhists believe in. You see, she told me that those who are healthy in this life were good in the past life. Those that suffer are suffering for previous bad Karma. The Glenn Hoddle / disabled people fiasco popped into my head at this point. I chose not to push when I heard this, but having not been able to sleep well, I fired a million questions at her the next morning during our daily discussion. “So what about those born with severe disabilities, those born in famine areas, those babies who die just after being born”, I asked. She told me that sadly that is Karma. I found this deeply hard to hear. How could she think that a baby born and abused by evil parents deserves that for something it apparently did in a previous life? No! I choose to keep quiet that day and be careful what I said, I didn’t want to offend a Nun whom was allowing me to stay freely at their centre, but it was hard to keep quiet. That night I laid in bed and all I could hear was this damn mosquito. I looked at it and thought how funny it was that this mosquito was in the room with me at that particular time. The door was closed so it was stuck in there with me. I promised I wouldn’t kill anything in that centre and out of respect I would stand by that. I was so tired I decided I couldn’t catch it and let it out the window. That lucky mosquito was in the right place at the right time. If Karma is true, then that mosquito must have done something pretty good in a previous life for the good Karma it now had, a free feast on my body as much as it wanted. The next day I woke up, the words from yesterday still chilling me about those born into terrible circumstances – abuse, hunger, slavery, etc. I already knew the answer to the next question, which was is Karma catching up with my Grandmother. “Is that why she is ill, teacher? Does she deserve this for something she did in a previous life?” Kelsong dipped her head and looked back up, “Yes Tom, Karma is with us all, all of the time. But we can pray for her and ask Buddha for good Karma and she will hopefully recover”. Sadly that was it, I couldn’t stick around with a faith that had these views. I don’t think the world would be a bad place if we were all Buddhists. On the contrary, of all the religions I know well enough, perhaps Buddhism is the one I think is best for the world – it teaches we should love everyone, not just our immediate family. But it doesn’t work for me because of the aspects mentioned. When I think about it, when I say best for the world I really mean best for the world as I see it. People wouldn’t fight and kill the way they do now, that’s good. People also wouldn’t do disgusting things to others to earn money and ‘keeping’ people poor so they can be rich(er) (check out my post on modern day slavery). This would all be good for me, personally, as I hate to see this stuff as I’m sure everyone who read this agrees. But if it was because of Buddhism, then there are also I believe costs to this. Read on… We had some great talks throughout the few days together and I genuinely believe my Teacher is a great person with a great heart, someone who is extremely compassionate. Every time she mentioned something bad with the world, I counteracted with something I felt was positive. It turned into a fun game we played. She said I was an excellent student who was learning quickly and I told her she was an excellent teacher, and, also an excellent saleswoman – which she is. She laughed when I said this, half out of finding it cheeky but funny and probably half out of sarcasm at my attempted humour. Meh! I mentioned the film The Matrix to her. She hadn’t seen it, so I explained the concept. I told her I felt as if the film was based on aspects of Buddhism, though I’ve never researched this and still haven’t. The blue pill or the red pill? To live a life of delusion (the way we do according to Buddhists) or to live a life or non-ignorance and non-attachment to anything; car, house, money, children (the way a Teacher does). Going a step further, if I’m being a little harsh, perhaps 1984 or Equilibrium is more fitting. Sadness, anger, greed, jealousy but also lust and desire for things as simple as chocolate. Oh and any form of art and entertainment, these were forbidden in the centre. Isn’t that pretty much the same as Equilibrium where nobody fights, but nobody is truly happy because they don’t know what happiness really is? Hmmm. I wanted to believe everything she taught, not least because she was a good person, but I couldn’t. On my last day I asked her for a discussion and told her straight that I was leaving. I was sad for my Nan and their teachings did not agree with me I explained. I asked her if she was sad and she didn’t really answer my question. I was surprised a little, but told her I would gather my bags and leave within the hour. Then she stood up and burst out into tears. She told me I have a beautiful heart and that she was crying because she knew there was so much sadness and suffering in this world. I was truly touched by this and I had to hold back from crying myself. It was a nice moment. She said she loved me and that she hoped I would stay in contact with her. I said the same back and confirmed I would be happy to stay in touch. I was particularly sad at this point because it was the first time I saw confirmation that this lady was still very human with obvious human emotions still inside – love, happiness and also clear sadness. I knew she had great compassion inside her already. After a few minutes and a couple more big hugs, I left and headed for the bus out of the city. I was headed to my next destination, Kuala Lumpah, armed with my Kindle preloaded with my current ‘Bibles’ – that of Richard Branson’s autobiography, the story of Steve Jobs’ life, the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King and an array of books relating to making-as-much-money-as-possible, to tips on starting a not-for-profit organisation. Kelsong told me she believed the world was full of suffering and that nothing would ease this apart from following the ways of Buddha. As I look around this city and see the very rich, the wanna-be-very-rich and the extremely poor, I can see her point in a way. But I have a positive outlook on the world for the most part whereas she and perhaps other Buddhists teachers see the world as getting worse and worse. I see that for every new war beginning in this world, there are tens of thousands of new charities and social enterprises beginning, new technologies to aid those who have lost limbs, cures for the biggest natural killers out there. I think as a global population whilst we have eons to go, there are many millions or maybe even billions who realise that working and living together in harmony can happen anywhere. Penang itself was a great example. Muslims trading with Buddhists, who were eating with Christians who were speaking with Hindus. Chinese, Malay, Indian, Indonesian, British, French, American, different ages, males and females, it didn’t matter there. I am glad I attended the retreat and am very grateful to my Teacher and the centre for their teachings and kind hospitality, but I’m also glad I left when I did. I feel if I stayed any longer it would’ve only been out of pride and my stubbornness. I expect to get some stick for leaving from certain people, but that’s fair enough – I found it difficult and I respect anyone who manages to stay a full 10 days there. I am happy to admit that I wouldn’t for certain be able to say that I would’ve managed the full 10 days, even IF I did agree with all the teachings. I am definitely too plugged in to electronics and other ‘influences’ (music, business, going out and socialising in bars, shopping centres, etc.), but I know also that I can cut out from it all if I need to. I think we can all do our bit to make the world better without selling everything we have and effectively removing ourselves from society. Give a few pence to that charity you keep seeing that you like, think about how could make your lonely relative a little happier, help that old lady across the road - it's all good Karma ya know! Now to enjoy the rest of my travels and take some of the great things I learnt from my Teacher and my experiences with me, I just need to get away from these damn Starbucks cafes with their overpriced chocolate muffins first!

[tomcwren]

I love being a yes man... I nearly always have a lot of respect for people who just say 'yes' to any dare, challenge or invite to do something fun and exciting, obviously as long as it isn't immoral. Out here I've found myself increasingly falling into this category and things I worried about previously don't exist as issues in my head any more because thankfully I said yes when asked. And no it doesn't just include jumping off waterfalls, but that does defeat 2 of my bigger worries - heights and water. If we all said yes all the time (with the appropriate constraints) then our sillier worries would soon disappear. ...Yes!

[tomcwren]

Keep Up Media After university I moved to Manchester, a place that still holds a place in my heart. I was working for a company that I really liked and lived in a REALLY cool part of town, the Northern Quarter. Around here were independent businesses, the majority of which were well known beyond their size because they were unique in their own right. Record shops, vintage clothing, small brewery pubs and other quirky places filled the streets here. What I particularly liked here though were the small businesses online. This is the first time I ever considered making a living from trading online, and there were many people I met here who are very successful at doing it. I was lucky enough to meet a guy called James Martin who runs Sick Chirpse. It's a website dedicated to, well kinda strange stories but he's done very well at capturing and retaining his audience and I see his online following multiplying at huge amounts every time I see the site. He contacted me after I put an ad on gumtree advertising myself as a 'successful entrepreneur looking for a technical wizz for the next big venture'. We met up and several pints later came up with a name, Keep Up Media. Within 5 days we had a website, business cards and each had the title Company Director after we registered the business as a company. The best thing about it was that neither of us really knew what we were doing, me certainly less so than James as I had no experience here. I took a weeks holiday off work and we worked on content, our strategy and I began to visit businesses armed with a stack of my first ever business cards. I felt damn good! Sadly our big ideas never really materialised and I closed the company and the site a couple of years back. We had a few customers who took up our social media package - we set up their various accounts;Twitter, Facebook, etc. and designed their strategies online. The best thing about it all was that I personally learnt a lot. We somehow made money on it, but the lessons were more important. We both got a bit overexcited (I wanted to quit my job straight away), we didn't really test the idea out and I in particular was trying to operate in something I knew nothing about. Fair play to James, I'm delighted to see Sick Chirpse doing so well and recommend anyone follows the gang there, the site always cracks me up. Today, I'm at least armed with a couple of years of good sales experience, combined with a far greater understanding of business and online business - I have no excuse now, I just need to get going

[tomcwren]

Cashing in on The Football Factory Like anyone at school who wanted to make a bit of extra pocket money, I sold sweets. Selling sweets to other kids is like selling heroin to junkies (I imagine) and I earned a few quid doing it...literally, a few quid. My youngest brother who my Dad quotes as saying, "I'll be happy as long as I beat Tom" also sold sweets at school and took it to the next level. Aww brotherly love, we're best friends now for anyone wondering. He delivered bagged penny sweets for a 'sweet' profit - he did well! The first time I thought at length about selling anything was in the weird stage of whenever it was when films like football factory were coming out and wannabe football hooligans aka 12-year-olds wearing fake Burberry caps were popular. I heard a game called hooligans was coming out in Europe, but I also heard it would never make it to the shops because it would get banned before release. Ching! I bought 6 copies from a wholesaler I found online who knew he wouldn't be able to sell them to a retailer. They arrived and I spread the word to my mates and soon enough is sold 4 of the copies for a nice profit. Sadly I think it's perhaps my most ingenious piece of business to date outside of work. I must sort things out...

[tomcwren]

The entrepreneur-to-be I'm rushing to get blog entries up right now as I finally have decent wifi here in Saigon. Unfortunately I've lost the order of them and more annoyingly I can't post pictures up just yet, but I'm at least getting them up here..... One of my main passions in life is business and in particular the start-up world and the lives and lifestyles of successful entrepreneurs. I feel frustrated that I don't have anything to my name that I could say is 'highly successful', but I have in my life had a few small glimpses of success that could've turned into something. More to my name, however are loads of mistakes I've made, typically when I've got overexcited by an idea! Many great entrepreneurs and really people in general are often quoted as saying mistakes are what makes the person. Without mistakes and without taking risks, we'll never get to where we want to, whatever and wherever that is. I'm going to write up small entries of my mini-ventures I've been involved with or lead in my life. I hope in the next year so the culmination of these mistakes, risks and more now than ever my determination to truly become an entrepreneur in at least some sense, that I will achieve just that. Watch this space...

[tomcwren]

Food waste is a foreign concept in Asia I can’t speak for the whole of Asia, but from what I have seen so far - China, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam with a total population of well over 1.5 billion people in total, waste hardly exists with the majority of the population. The thought of eating fish head, cow stomach, chicken feet and bugs sounds to most people I know challenges on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here. Yet, when you think about it, most of us will eat a cows butt if it’s cooked right (rump). It is pretty bad how much food we waste in the UK, the US and other Western countries. Food is wasted for being slightly off colour, not shiny enough, past a sell by date (not a use by date), etc. From what I’ve seen in Asia, which has a combined population of 4.3 billion (the whole world has just 7 billion), food is vitally important and waste really can’t exist. For anyone reading and thinking ‘eugh, the food must be terrible there’, it’s not. It’s amongst the freshest, tastiest and cleanest food you can find. It’s just a shame that in the UK at least, we don’t get the full experience of the food from here as it is translated using added sugar, imported fruit and veg and often rubbish meat to satisfy our tastes there. I could live off the street food in Vietnam in particular. The pictures really don’t do this food justice. Oh and P.S – I’m beginning to like the taste of bugs a little too much!

[tomcwren]

Why is tinder and other sites/apps like it so popular? I know this is a bit of a random subject to write about, but I find it fascinating how so many people (especially younger people), rely on socialising and meeting new people increasingly more on social media and dating sites/applications. From a business point of view, people are getting flipping rich from this! From a world-changing, social / demographic point view, apps like these change things. I’ve done absolutely zero research as to why technology is rapidly taking a bigger part of our lives, but a few things seem blatantly obvious: - Most of us are ‘always on-the-go’ (whatever that actually means) - We all like to talk about ourselves and social media gives us a landing page to tell the world (this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing by the way. I happily use it as much as I can, perhaps too much) - The convenience of messaging someone quickly is attractive - They are great channels for keeping up-to-date with pretty much whatever we want, even if most of what is posted on social media is terrible garbage, albeit often hilarious The big epiphany for me however is that I believe most people are introverts and social media gives people a chance to be extroverts. We can say hello to people, like their ideas, pictures, statuses, etc. and tell them we fancy them with a swipe of a page. I of course rack my brains to work out how I can jump in and design an app/site that will assist us all further (to cash in, as much as anything), but when it comes down to it we should all just go and tell people what we think to their face. It’s so much more sincere and seeing a smile back feels great! Amen brother

[tomcwren]

Elephant shenanigans Man, I.LOVE.ELEPHANTS! Today only confirmed what I already knew, that elephants are surely the most graceful, elegant and awe inspiring creatures on land (the blue whale, killer whale and narwhal in the sea perhaps). We spent a whole day with a ‘parade’ of elephants (thanks Google) and were fortunate enough to spend most of the day washing, feeding and riding on the Banyoung, the second-in-command mother figure elephant at the Ran Tong elephant Sanctuary. Before today I was sceptical about these places. That they may put on a show to tourists but treat the elephants like shit doors. I don’t believe this was the case here, the elephants certainly seemed happy and responded to shouts from the mahouts rather than whips (they didn’t carry any). The elephants were a mixture of former circus and logging worker elephants, so they’ve all clearly had a bit of a tough life already with the exception of the very young ones. I felt safe and completely happy with my one, it was so delicate for such a beast. I also learnt a fair bit about elephants that I didn’t already know which was great. All in all a fantastic day and I hope what I saw – elephants being loved and well treated – continues when we left. All I know is I will certainly be adding to the voice of those who want these great creatures protected for future generations!