Travel

[Yw-slayer]

Same for my homeland actually. A lot depends on the lens through which you view things, and at what time it's deployed.

[IMOA]

It was interesting because I’ve never had such a reaction in any of the other Asian countries I’ve travelled to so it is something that quite noticeably specific to Malaysia. I think you’re right, it does date back to things like Pauline Hanson and also our governments often didn’t get along well with Mahathir (one of our prime ministers famously called him recalcitrant) but uff is all 20 odd years ago. What did surprise me though was on the one hand they would complain about things like preferential treatment for Malays for things like access to university places, higher prices they have to pay for new property etc, very real hard racism, but at the same time the impression is that Australia is racist when none of those things would ever happen in aus. Just goes to show that Australia desperately needs to do some PR in Malaysia and it will take a long time to turn that impression around.

[Yw-slayer]

It's somewhat complicated. Suffice to say that issues in both countries (or indeed in any country) certainly aren't going to be fixed any time soon.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Racism isn’t all bad. It does give people some protection in the old days... those cavemen who were overly friendly to outsiders back then probably all got eaten or killed... hence nowadays a bunch of ‘villagists’ or racists survived.

I do think Asian people are particularly racist... I’ll just speak for Chinese people, we tend to have bunch or stereotypes for various regions of people in China..., not to mention people outside of China with different color skins. But Chinese people usually are very politically correct and won’t say anything nasty in front of your face.

Anyway, evolution will take time.

[MR2 Fan]

also from Billi "Hitler was ok I guess"

[Crazed_Insanity]

Why you gotta be like left media spreading fake commentary?

Anyway, Hitler probably wasn’t all evil. Probably could’ve been a decent artist and saved the world from a lot of pain had that academy of fine arts in Vienna accepted him...

Speaking of which, someday, I’d like to visit Vienna.

[Yw-slayer]

Vienna is pretty and boring. The food is also generally dire.

Greg, we're going to Tokyo in April without the kids. Looking at Hyatt Centric Ginza, Grand Hyatt, and The Westin. Do you have any recommendations?

[Dicknose]

Vienna is ok... I kind of like Innsbruck, but realise I like smaller Austrian towns... like Imst. Its not much more than a large village!
Austrian food is just enjoy the meat... none of it is going to blow your mind, but lots of it is good food. And have a beer (or Almdudler if skipping alcohol)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Anyway, not going to Vienna anytime soon. Right now, one of the cheapest entry into Europe from US is probably Barcelona. Airfare is only like $400/p... so we booked a Mediterranean Cruise starting from Barcelona and then goes all the way to Greece and back. Since there's no way for the flights to make the cruise boarding time on the same day, we've decided to stick around Barcelona for extra days...

So are Spanish food any good? Wife hates Mexican food, don't know why, but seems to like spanish style tapas here in the US. Wonder what's it really like over there...

1st time venturing into Europe for myself. Wife's been there when she was a kid... hope my 3 years of high school spanish can be put into good use...

[Yw-slayer]

I don't like Mexican food, but Spanish food is awesome.