Retire to India

Most Indians don’t eat lunch at 12:00. Early risers eat lunch before 11. Late risers eat lunch after 2pm (sometimes as late as 4pm). 

So if you’re a just right riser, like me, it’s easy to get a good seat at the just right time for lunch – noon. Call me prejudiced if you will, – wait, I change my mind. Don’t call me predjudiced – that sounds racist. And I’d feel better if you put down those bricks and bottles. That’s better. Now what pithy, unprejudiced remark was I about to make? (Suddenly all I can think about is black lives matter and power to the people.) Oh well, pretend I said something clever and let’s move on. 

In India, after a busy morning of sticking it to the man, you’re ready for a nice light lunch. 

You want it light since breakfast tends to be pretty sizeable and dinner is The Most Important Meal of the Day. (I know, Kellogg’s has been hollering for decades that breakfast is the most important meal for the day – not dinner. But which one would you rather skip?)

The hands-down favorite Indian lunch item is Kentucky Fried Chicken.

They call it KFC and most fans have no idea (or care) what the K stands for.  But I didn’t come all the way to India to stand in line at a KFC. Or a Pizza Hut (their hands-down second favorite). What I want to know is what have they got here that’s really, really good that you can’t get in the States?

Number Three Choice: Naan! 

It’s like pita bread but chewier. You order some tasty, sloppy curry, beany, ricey indian dish and use your naan as a spoon. Comes in plain, buttered and garlic. Garlic’s the best. 

Number Two Choice: Momo’s! 

They’re little steamed dumplings filled with fresh vegetables and chicken or pork (if you go to a Hindu stand) or beef (if you go to a Muslim stand). You can eat one or two if you’re only a little hungry. Three or four if you’re moderately hungry. Thirty or forty if you’re really hungry.

And The Number One Choice of Tourists Writing This Blog: Curd! 

But I’ve already covered curd. (See February 1 post.)

(What do you mean you don’t want to? All you have to do is scroll back to February…oh, so “that’s too hard” is it? Why, back in my day, we had to walk five miles to the city dump and root around for hours to find previous blog posts…oh alright, here:

In America, we have yoghurt, In India, they have “curd”. Same kind of thing but three, maybe four times better. At least in the rural areas it is. (Probably due to the fact that the milk was still in the cow a few hours earlier.) You can find curd in Indian restaurants as well – where it’s only twice as good.

Truth be told, all of my Top Three can be had in America but like fish and chips in London or pastry in Paris, momos, naan and curd are quite a bit better in India.

I see everyone hated my jolly blog about Indian junk food, so I’ll quietly avoid that topic until you’re all in a better mood, then…whamm-o!

But everyone likes bugs, right? Well, in India they have over a dozen different insect species (by my count). Too many to show them all here so I’ll only show eight. 

Anywhere you go in this life, you’ll find bugs. Bad bugs and good bugs. The bad bugs are mostly mosquitoes. But I’ve found two natural ways to rid yourselves of these carnsarn pests.

Number one way is to shake all the mosquitoes out of your blanket at bedtime, get inside and wrap it completely around your whole body and head. Then laugh as you hear the buggers buzzing around outside trying to get in. 

If you don’t like the idea of breathing your own breath all night (though it does help you fall asleep pretty quickly due to the lack of oxygen) you can try something even better – deet. A dab or two on your arms, neck and legs and mosquitoes will avoid you like poison. 

It is amazingly effective for over 10 hours. I’ll just check the good old internet to see if you might want to squirt a little in your mouth and eyes for good measure. Hmm…according to wikipedia, it’s not as natural and homeopathic as you and I thought.  “…diethyltoluamide…used in Vietnam…hm…hm…” Sez it’s okay to spray on your clothes as long as you don’t wear your clothes… aw, stupid internet. How did we get off on this tangent? Forget about mosquitoes, let’s talk about all those good bugs. Here’s an Indian butterfly. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen outside of a butterfly store.

They come in all the popular colors and are, according to this boy, easy to catch. 

This looks like a leaf but it’s not, it’s a bug. Taxonomic name: Leaf Bug (according to the same boy.)

This one’s my favorite. I call him Bitey. He was given to me by that same young boy and was my pet for a few hours. Sadly, we lost touch.

We have praying mantises in America but I can’t remember ever seeing one.

If you see one in India, you can just pick him up and put him on your shirt – he likes that. And he’ll stay there like a badge. A very quiet type of bug. But slowly, without your noticing, he’ll start climbing and climbing until he’s way up high on your hat, waving his gun and shouting, “Top of the world, ma!”

How about this one? A solid gold bug. 

Even close up, it looks more gold than bug. But underneath you can tell it’s a bug alright. (Anyone know what kind?)

And here’s my favorite favorite. Lightning bugs. Never saw these growing up in Seattle. I’d heard of them but thought they were a fictitious animals like flying “horses” and sea “lions”. Neat idea but get serious. Bugs with lights on their rear ends?

In India, they appear by the thousands. Each twinkling on and off for hours after dusk. Definitely makes the top ten list of “Things That Make You Think You’re Dreaming”.

Here’s their theme song.

No, no – put your wallet away, it’s free! (One of the perks for being such a loyal reader.)

Okay, I admit it. There are more bugs in India than I let on. Let me know if you want to read about each and every one of them. No problem.

Remember this New Yorker cartoon?

It works for blogs, too. Maybe I’m back from India. Maybe I’m not. Nobody knows. Here’s a recent shot of me somewhere. 

Here’s another.

And another.

See? You can’t tell where I am. (On the other hand, I can’t tell where you are so I guess we’re even.)

Uh-oh, this post is beginning to drift. Better get to the point. And the point, as I was saying, is Indian food. If you’re like me – and who isn’t? – you’ll like Indian food. Especially Indian junk food.  My personal favorite is Uncle Chipps.

Uncle Chipps are like Lay’s potato chips (they’re even owned by Frito-Lay) but they’re better. Their ad jingle goes “Bole mere lips…” (which means, “Sez my lips”) “…I love Uncle Chipps.” That message says it all (the tune could use a little help). Here’s a happy birthday card a friend made for me.

You can find lots and lots and lots of spicy, snack chips like these which nobody likes except, evidently, the 1.3 billion Indians who live here. 

Homemade doughnuts are pretty great, too.

The place I get mine kind of overdoes the hole part but the rest is really something to write home about (as this sentence proves).

Then there’s Elephant Ginger Beer.

A little light on the beer, a little heavy on the ginger but just the right amount of elephant to create “the flavour* you’ve been enjoying for 150 years”. Made by those fine people at Elephant House. (More on that when we get to Sri Lanka.)

If you’re looking for the world’s best ice cream, it’s at the Natural Ice Cream Parlour* in Delhi.

They have ice cream flavours* you probably haven’t tasted: jackfruit, litchi, muskmelon,… as well as some you probably have: chocolate, strawberry, vanilla,…  I give Natural three stars – the most stars any ice cream can have. (All ice cream gets one star, even I can make one-star ice cream.)

Just about every giant ice cream company earns my coveted two-star rating. “Good enough” is something they can print on their package along with a picture of my face and two thumbs up. 

But only the top two or three thousand ice cream makers have ever achieved the dizzying heights of my three-star rating. Look for my face embossed in gold with the words “Overpriced because it’s The World’s Best”. (Also shows me giving it three thumbs up.)

We must return to the fascinating subject of Indian junk food sometime when I’m more awake than I am now.

*Their spelling, not mine.

(Now where was I? Vijayawada, right, thanks.)

After one very hot day, Vijay (our host) suggested we drive to the beach. All in favor? – YAY! Opposed? (crickets, crickets…)

Vijay is a prominent figure in his village but if you think Vijayawada is named after him, you are wrong. No one thinks that – and I asked everyone. It’s probably like Indians thinking Santa Fe is named after Santa Claus. Wrong.

The east side of India is an almost unbroken stretch of beachfront property. About 2000 miles worth. (The west side of India has even more.) The first time we visited Vijayawada, Vijay’s energetic young team showed us how to play cricket. 

On my turn at bat, I told the bowler (pitcher) to go ahead and burn it in.  He did, it bounced in the sand, knocked my wicket off and I was out.  Didn’t even get to swing and I was out! On my next ups, he bounced me a big fat meatball and I whacked it over everyone’s head into the Bay of Bengal. Bad form but deeply gratifying.

This trip, we visited a beach at Visakhapatnam. (You may not believe this but I actually mispronounced the name of that city the first time I tried to say it. Boy, did I ever get the horse laugh!)

Visakhapatnam was made famous during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War for being the place where a Pakistani submarine was spotted trying to sneaky-pete around the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Navy sunk it. (If that’s the right term – a submarine’s already kind of sunk.)

We spent a couple hours cavorting on a beach which we had all to ourselves. Then we got to tour an Indian submarine. A pretty head-clonking experience for a bunch of big-headed Americans. (It would have been pretty cramped for Indians, too. Imagine 80 sleeping sailors leaping up at the call of “Battle Stations!” (CLONK!) Then, everyone dashing off at full-speed through steel hatchways and under iron pipes making all kinds of coconut head-pocking sounds.) 

After the team finished their business, the ladies went shopping while Vijay and I sat in air-conditioned comfort at this very Hollywood-like restaurant. 

Jumping around chronologically, here’s a previous group of ladies posing in their saris. The lady on the end didn’t know it when this was taken but she would very soon marry Vijay (who had no clue at the time either.) A little village girl photobombed the shot.

So I took a picture of her and her friends.

Then we all had ice cream. A good day.

Nice and Hot.

As you’ll recall, I first came to India about five years ago as an escort for a group of ladies having a womens’ conference. (You don’t recall that? I’m not surprised. I couldn’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday.) 

My only responsibility was to prevent mashers from mashing anyone in our group. Although the Indian men I’ve met in my travels have been unfailingly courteous, I was told that mashing had been enough of a problem in prior women’s conferences to warrant masculine accompaniment. 

“Why such atypically rude behaviour?” I asked. What I was told is that some Indian men compare the modest way their wives and sisters are dressed to the y-chromosome stimulating images they see in western movies and advertisements and assume American gals want to be mashed. Seems a bit far-fetched to me.

Hospitality is not taken lightly in India. Could it be that the masher is simply fearful of disappointing their fair guests by not accomodating them? I merely suggest the possibility. You are free to draw your own conclusions. 

In any event, I have now provided my services to three women’s conferences in five years without so much as a pinch. 

Vijayawada is about halfway down the east side of the subcontinent. The name means “Land of Victory” having something to do with a war they won 500 years ago and are still celebrating.

At the conferences, Indian women come to learn American teaching methods. Along with the instruction, there’s food and music. That’s the other place I come in. I play guitar and we sing kids songs in Telegu the main language spoken in Vijayawada. (One of the twenty-two main languages spoken around India.) 

Sometimes women come to us, sometimes we go out to them.

On one trip, we went up into the hills of the Eastern Ghats. In this particular part of the range, most villagers had never seen an American. The kids had never even seen white people before and they weren’t sure what we might do. Play guitar for them. Eat them. They weren’t sure. They put up a nice pavilion for us and hoped for the best.

Our ladies taught, I played kid songs, we ate and a swell time was had by all. Except for this tiny tot.

She never was quite sure about us – especially about the guy with the feather in his hat.

At another village we were invited to, I could have cooked an egg on my face. My guitar kept slipping out of my arms from the non-stop sweat pouring off my body. It was like playing a wet seal. They had a new outdoor thermometer installed so we could all admire just how distressed we were. 39C with 65% humidity made the heat index 139 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s my personal best – a record I am very satisfied with and one I am determined never to beat.

Next week, a cool visit to the Bay of Bengal.

You may be wondering, “What’s with all the bangs?” Bangkok, Bangladesh, and now Bangalore. To answer that, one must look at the original sanskrit. There one finds it has no meaning and the four-letter prefix is a coincidental spelling of land areas hundreds of miles apart. (Don’t look at me, that’s what the internet says. I thought it would mean something cool like “Land of the Merciless Parrot”. If I’d done my research first, I wouldn’t be stuck with such a stupid intro. Oh well, too late now.)

As of 2021, forty-six cities in India have populations of over a million. Number three on the list, with about twice the population of Los Angeles, is Bangalore. It has been called Bangalore for hundreds of years but there’s a nationalistic push to restore all the ham-fisted British place names to their more culturally significant Indian ones. So Bangalore has been re-christened “Bengaluru” or “town of boiled beans” (says the internet with a completely straight-face). 

It’s the capital of the southern state of Karnataka and, as one quickly discovers, Karnataka is Sanskrit for “hot-hot-owtch-hot”. So come in January. 

Zipping around on a motorcycle is definitely the way to travel here. You stay cool the entire time which is well worth the occasional near-death experience. (One has to chuckle at the funny turns life can take for its inattentive subjects – windshield bugs, your skull,…)

I had a couple of girlfriends in Delhi a few years back, Aasha and Ushaa, who recently moved to Bangalore. So I went down to visit them. 

Noel Coward must have been referring to Bangalore when he wrote that only mad dogs and Englishman go out in the noon day sun. Being neither, most of my days were spent inside with the girls in ice-cold lemonade comfort.

Both Aasha and Ushaa had become quite a bit heavier since I saw them last. As a result, I was not able to carry them around on my shoulders the way ladies like. 

Still, this did not dampen our mutual affection and I found they were old enough now to appreciate magic tricks.

I don’t really know any magic tricks but, as I discovered with my own sons, there’s a certain age where that doesn’t matter. Just saying it’s a magic trick earns their admiration. When performing magic in public, there’s always some sneering jerk ready to pounce on the slightest misstep so he can shout the secret of your clumsy sleight. As a result, real magicians need to be very practiced in misdirection. Not so with three and five-year olds. “Is that a spider on the wall?” is all that’s needed to take their eyes off your hands long enough for you to pop the coin in your mouth, pocket or sleeve  and Presto change-o!  The rupee has vanished! 

It helps to be as astonished as they are – feigning that you, too, have no idea where it could possibly have gone.

All parties quickly look around (there’s that spider again) and suddenly, you see the coin behind Aasha’s ear! Ushaa claps delightedly and checks for money behind her own ear. Aasha is also impressed. 

“Why is it so wet, David Uncle?” 

“Yeah, I noticed that, too. Maybe you didn’t dry behind your ears after you washed.”

Well, that’s about wraps it up for beautiful Bangalore!  

What do you mean gypped?  History, hot motorcycles, cute girls, magic,…what more do you want? Oh well, alright then. Here’s a picture of a shopping area. (Shopping. Shopping. Shopping. That’s all Americans think about.)

There are a lot of places in Bangkok where you can stand and convince yourself you’re in Chicago.  In fact, if I had to live someplace on this side of the world that wasn’t India, Bangkok would be the place. The cost of living is about twice as high as India but since the cost of living in the US is about six times higher than India, I’d still get by pretty well on just my social security.

As in India, the people in Bangkok like Americans. Right after checking into my hotel, I went out to look around and was immediately made welcome by the Hey Hey Baby. 

She’s this tiny tot who waves and shouts, “Hey! Hey!” to every passerby. Surprisingly, they all just pass her by. I get my camera ready and sure enough, when I come into view, I get the same hearty salute.

“Hey! Hey!” sez she.

I stop. “Hey-hey to you, too!”  

This gives her pause. “Uh-oh.” she thinks, “Is that in the script?” Her eyes dart toward her mother. No help there. Beads of baby flop-sweat begin to form.

“Hey-hey” I say again quickly and move on. Relief. Back to work. “Hey! Hey!” I hear her shout to the next customer.

Climbing the stairs to the elevated train, I head for the shopping district.

The nicer malls in Bangkok are just like the nicer malls in America – but even nicer as here they employ armies of sweepers and dusters who keep them mirror spotless. For example, notice anything odd about this shot?

Correct. The picture’s upside down. That’s how squeaky clean the malls are.  

Here’s a pretty Christmas display don’tcha think? A giant ornament made out of machine guns.

If you like crafty stuff (which I don’t) they have acres of small shops devoted to local artisans. If you like techy stuff (which I do) – same thing.  

After buying everything they had, I decided that I might as well finish off frying my poor credit card by having lunch at a 5-star hotel. 

The white-coated dining room staff of the Peninsula Hotel could have come straight out of central casting for Downton Abbey. Here, “sir” is used as a proper noun. (“Would Sir care for another wafer thin mint?”) They were so dignified and deferential, I half expected to hear myself referred to as “your grace”. (If recurring visions of me in my dusty Adidas, wrinkly shirt and crappy feather hat still cause any of them to startle awake at night, I apologize.) 

I’d round off each day with a contemplative cigar on the veranda of the Bangkok Christian Guesthouse. Quiet, clean, $29 a night. (This is a shot of the veranda view, not the hotel.)

Some nights I would be honored by a visit from the hotel cat.

PS (Looking for something exotic to bring home to the family?

Try our delicious Bangkok Bird’s Nest! At airport gift shops everywhere. Only $2,800 a box!)

r u e ? 

Years ago, Karn Knutsen, a bright BBDO art director, came up with the perfect subhead for this place: “Are You (red e)?”  And I finally have the opportunity to purloin it.  Having been a struggling ad copywriter myself, I can just see my struggling Thai copywriter counterpart jumping up in the middle of the night and knocking over lamps in the dark to find a pen to write down “The Icon of Eternal Prosperity” and then hugging himself as he imagined the reaction at the agency the next day. There’d be wild applause from the client, thumbs up from his art director and daggers from rival writers who wish they’d thought of it.  

But the teaser boards don’t actually say anything about shopping. Maybe it’s not a mall at all. Then, what is it? What is an icon of eternal prosperity beyond imagining? Let’s find out.

Before we go, quick, imagine the most spectacularly, eternally prosperous thing you can think of: 3,…2,…1,…POOOT! Time’s up. Now, we shall journey beyond your imagination.

Are you ready?

I suspended my imagination so I could see something beyond it better. Didn’t see anything spectacular – but I did see an information booth.

“Would you direct me to the thing that’s beyond my imagination? This kind of looks like a shopping mall”

“YES! MALL!” was the ecstatic answer I got from all three uniformed information attendants at once.

Deep down, I didn’t want it to be a just a mall. Then a mini-led light of hope occurred to me, “Maybe it isn’t just a mall.” Refreshed in spirit, off I went. And went. And went.

Supermalls have gotten so supersized that you are out of money before you’re barely halfway through. But I kept plowing ahead because the always-truthful outdoor boards promised that, no matter how spectacular my imagination was, Icon Siam would beat the pants off it. And, they sure tried.

One thing Bangkok is famous for is their water markets.

So they created a water market totally indoors. Not as spectacular as the real ones but lots more expensive.

And there was a centerpiece that was also pretty spectacular.

It would turn blue.

Then pink. (Let’s see you try that.)

There’s even a nice place for customers to rest from the spectacular time they’re having.

I don’t want to seem like a cynical jerk (I am, but I don’t want to seem like one). Except for the native stuff you can find in Bangkok’s real water markets, all the shops here were the same high-end names you’ll find at the megamall a couple miles from where you live. And if I ignore the build-up (tough for an ex-adguy) it may actually be the most spectacular one of the bunch. (A Disney theme park in the middle would clinch the title.)

The only thing I really liked was the unexpectantly humble mechanical doll that waves good-bye to you on your way out.

(Friendly word of advice: don’t do your Yul Brynner impersonation here.)

Bangkok gets my vote for being, simultaneously, the Most American and Least American city I’ve ever seen. Seattle comes in second.

Disclaimer: The first few pictures were actually taken by me personally (off the internet. )

The first thing I noticed in Bangkok is how mouthwatering the Thai street food is.

The next thing I learned is that Thai street food is even more eye-watering than Indian street food. So the third thing I discovered was where they put the nearest McDonald’s. And lo! To the delight of my All-American tastebuds, I found that hamburgers in Thailand aren’t made with mutton. They’re made with hamburger. 100% Australian Angus beef. Thus accounting for eight of my next ten happy meals. 

Properly cheeseburgered up, I began my action-packed tour. 

The Bangkok Chamber of Commerce must have decided, “Our job is to accommodate the most dunderheaded tourist in every conceivable way.” It’s almost like they had a life-size portrait of me there in the meeting room to inspire ideas. No matter which way I turned, there was always some obvious sign or kind citizen to help move me along. 

ME (SHOUTING OVER LOUD STREET NOISE): “WHERE DO I FIND THE TRAIN?” 

KIND CITIZEN: “LOUD NOISE BEHIND YOU IS TRAIN.”

That’s what I like. Nice, loud, simple answers.

Like England, Thailand is a monarchy and I wanted to see the king’s palace. So after getting a Kind Citizen to point the direction, I boarded a long, sleek river yacht and we powered off. 

ME: (SHOUTING) “HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN WE REACH THE PALACE?”

KIND CITIZEN: “WHEN EVERYBODY LEAVE BOAT, THAT IS PALACE.”

Thumbs up from me. (The new universal OK sign.) When I don’t know how to get to where I’m going, I like it when everyone else does and I can just hang onto the crowd’s leg. Immediately, a pair of teenagers from Bangladesh hung onto mine.

We got to the palace grounds and it was like stepping onto the set of “The King and I” – only these weren’t props, this was real, eye-bugging gold. The same gold that must have made Anna Leonowens’ eyes bug back in the real “King and I” days 160 years earlier.

My well-informed companions, let me know that in Thailand referring to “The King and I” is kind of like flatulence – people smile like you didn’t do anything but behind your back they fan with one hand and hold their nose with the other.

The Thai people are proud of their gold-y, spikey cultural heritage – and even prouder of King Chulalongkorn. Rightly so. He pulled Siam into the modern age back in the 1800’s while managing to keep it out of the clutches of the British and French. A mighty neat trick back when collecting foreign nations was all the rage in Europe. As a result, the government got a bit ruffled when Rogers and Hammerstein gave Yul Bynner’s character the IQ of a squirrel.

The movie has never been shown in Thailand. In fact, by royal decree, owning a copy of the dvd is illegal. (Donald Trump could probably get behind a law against making presidents look stupider than they really are.)  

My buddies were all for just clomping around and gawking but experience has taught me that if you can afford to hire a guide for the day, do it. Ours cost 500 baht (about $15).  Not only do you get to see everything – and budge to the front of long lines – but they answer all your dunderheaded questions without letting you see them rolling their eyes. I like that.

Once again, it’s probably past one of our bedtimes so I guess we’ll have to wait till next week for The Global Thing Across the River That’s Beyond Your Wildest Imagination.

They used to call England “A Nation of Shopkeepers”. Since nobody calls it that anymore, India might want to grab the title. There are more teeny tiny shops here than a monkey’s uncle. 

If you wax nostalgic about America’s Good Old Days when stores were small, had wooden floors, were owned by families and smelled more like produce than disinfectant, you will definitely wax nostalgic here. 

(Ever notice how wroth, skis and nostalgia seem to be the only things about which we wax?) (My 9th Grade English teacher, Mrs. Long would have liked how I made that last sentence not end in a preposition. Though, she would have given me a red mark on back-to-back parenthetical thoughts. She believed that shoving in a lot of parenthetical thoughts was bad form. This was one of the very few things she was wrong about.) (I mean about which she was wrong.) (Of course, I wouldn’t have said that to her face.) (Who you calling chicken? YOU go tell Mrs. Long she’s wrong about parenthetical thoughts and just see the kind of grade you get.) (Now where was I? Oh, yeah. I was liking parenthetical thoughts.) I think the writer who invented them should get the Nobel Prize…wait that’s not where we left off. Where the heck were we? Oh, right-right –  “America’s Good Old Days”. And I was saying how they fall somewhere between America’s Cowboy Days and K-Mart’s Double Dollar Daze. (Wait a minute stupid, that’s all wrong! NOT YOU, DEAR READER!! You’re smart. This blog is what’s stupid. It doesn’t know where it left off. Totally lost.) (Gee, maybe Mrs. Long was right about too many parenthetical thoughts…oh well. Been using then willy-nilly for over 50 years. Can’t stop now.) But shoot. Now I actually have to scroll up to see the subject line (life can be so hard)… Okay, here we are…A Nation of Shopkeepers. Yep, that’s India!

 

One thing I’m not sure they do as well here as they do in America is scout locations. Shops in India tend to clump together by type. If you’re a hardware store, your shop is in the hardware store section of town. If you’re a grocery store, your shop is shoulder to shoulder and round the corner from all sorts of other grocery stores.

You’d think competitors crammed this close together would kill each other’s business but I guess if you’ve got one point three billion shoppers looking to buy whatever you’re selling, you can blow your nose on demographic efficiencies. So every sunny morning, as all the doughnut shop owners sweep their steps, they can pause and give a brotherly nod to all the other doughnut shop owners on the street.

I’m a mall-loving, one-stop-shopping American but I have to admit, this category clumping system has been no hardship.  And the families at more than one shop know my name. 

They do have mega-malls here but they’re mostly for rich guys and tourists.

Remind me to tell you about one in Bangkok.