Traveling in a culture as differnt as this requires a few defense mechanisms to help maintain balance--granted a difficult concept for some of us who are imbalanced in our native habitat... but I digress...

Prime Defense Mechanism #1: gallows humor. Everything is fair game and almost all of it is done with neither malice nor forethought.

Prime Defense Mechanism #2: mimicry. Head bobbles and linguistic copying chief sources of material--"Come, come... okay... okay..."

Prime Defense Mechanism #3: blogging. 'nuf said...