Asians were the first people to get to America. We crossed through Siberia to reach a huge land which was completely empty of humans. And this amazing discovery came from clues found in a toilet.
Scientists found a coprolite, which is the polite way of saying “old human poop”, in the back of a cave in Oregon used as a caveman toilet, according to the latest issue of Science magazine. They noted that the fossilized poop was 13,000 to 15,000 years old and was clearly Asian.
Now I know what you’re going to ask – how does one tell? Fossilized particles of semi-digested MSG? Sachet of chilli sauce found nearby?
No. “The haplogroups, or the DNA types, are similar to what you find among certain Asian groups,” Professor Eske Willerslev told the BBC.
Not sure exactly what that means, but we need to make ABSOLUTELY SURE this information gets nowhere near Beijing. Those guys would immediately send gunships across the Pacific and claim that America has been “an Integral Part of The Glorious Motherland since time began”, etc, etc.
If China took over America, the flow of that country’s creative contributions to world culture, such as the bacon milkshake and America’s Funniest Home Videos, would surely dry up. On second thoughts, maybe not a bad thing.
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Good morning, boys and [CENSORED]. My name is [CENSORED]. Today, we at [CENSORED] will be talking about the importance of [CENSORED].
As you can see, we helpfully pre-censored the previous sentence for government censors from mainland China who know how to read. There has been a major jump in blacking out stuff in that country.
I first realized this after hearing from a reader who went to see the new comedy movie “Men in Black III”. It starts with the heroes going to a restaurant in New York’s Chinatown where space aliens disguised as waiters attack them. This key scene is missing in the version screened in Beijing.
The movie mags report that the China film authorities insisted it be removed as inaccurate. Space aliens would NEVER disguise themselves as Chinese people but would select lower life-forms, such as bacteria, Westerners, dogs, Indians, amoebas, Australians, primordial slime, etc.
Movie distributors, after being unable to provide a single real-life example of a space alien taking over the bodies of Chinese waiters, reluctantly chopped it out.
While writing this, I heard from a colleague that censorship in China has just escalated from “ridiculous” to “facepalm”. Sina Weibo, China’s copy of Twitter, added the words “the truth” to its list of illegal terms. Any citizens who searched for the phrase “the truth” received no results and a message: “In accordance with relevant laws, regulations and policies, results of the search for ‘the truth’ cannot be displayed.”
So there you have it: In China, a search for the truth leads nowhere. It’s official.
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The orthodox chief priest of Georgia has just issued an official decree saying that the new ID card system in that country “is not the work of the Anti-Christ”. Quite right. ID cards are fine, not like credit cards, which surely ARE the work of the Anti-Christ.
We should be suspicious of anything that comes from banks. JP Morgan Chase has just admitted that its estimate of how much it lost in an unauthorized trades scandal earlier this year was US$4 billion off target. FOUR BILLION. I’d love to overhear these guys’ having budget discussions with their wives. “Hi honey, I only spent about 20 bucks at the bar this evening. No, wait, it may have been four billion and 20.”
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Two days later, the business news reports said JP Morgan Chase is asking certain staff to return two years’ pay to the bank. I had no idea bosses could even do that. A human resources specialist told me it was only possible if you warned the employees right at the beginning of their contracts. “Here’s your pay, and please don’t spend any of it, as we may want it all back after a few years.”
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The editor of the Times of London lost his cool with the wet English weather and simply ordered the rain to stop. “Let us make our position crystal clear: We are against this weather,” said a tirade in the editorial column the other day. “It must stop raining, and soon.” This will definitely work. I’ve met UK newspaper editors: they’re so scary no one can disobey them, not even the weather angels.
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Watch it. The Asian testicle-biter fish may be spreading around the world. No, that’s not a nickname for my kids, although it could be. I refer to the pacu, a large sharp-toothed fish known to give nasty surprises to wading fishermen in Papua New Guinea. It turned up recently in a river in Ohio, the US papers reported. I assume some unfortunate redneck went into the water as a baritone and come out singing soprano.
Panicky locals are wondering if it’s safe to go in the water. It strikes me that entrepreneurial Asians could make good use of these fish. Last time I was in Indonesia, a shopkeeper tried to persuade me to put my legs in a fish tank where fish would “nibble off the dead skin”. I declined, as I have no idea how much of my body is functionally deceased, but suspect it is a large percentage.
They could make good use of the pacu fish at those sex-change hospitals in Thailand. “Just sit down in this fish tank for a moment, sir, and when you’re done, report to the cashier’s window.”
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Sign seen at beach in Thailand: “No swimming if you can’t swim.”
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Fat and poor? There’s something new to blame: your language. A researcher found that people who speak languages without a future tense (Japan, Germany and China) eat carefully and save wisely. But people who speak language with a future tense (such as English) eat too much and don’t save enough. English makes its speakers fail to connect today’s actions with tomorrow’s consequences, researcher Keith Chen concluded in a Yale University report.
Abandon future tense now! If you’re going to dinner tomorrow, say: “Let’s went for a meal 48 hours from yesterday.” You’ll soon be skinnier and richer. That’s because you’ll sound like such a total wacko no one will want to eat with you.
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An armed raider was in the middle of a shop robbery when his mother turned up. A Mrs Mitchell of Mississippi, US, snatched the gun out of the hands of her son, 22, scolded him, and marched him out of the store, watched by a stunned cashier. The whole thing was caught on video. This is one of those cases where the villain has received the ultimate punishment without any help from the courts. For the rest of his life, this poor robber is going to be interrupted in his work by sniggering bank tellers, shop staff, mugging victims, etc., saying: “Run! Your mommy’s coming.”
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A man was charged with “failing to wear a helmet” even though he was in his car. It has been more than 100 years since motorists were required to wear helmets and goggles to drive cars, but police officers slapped a summons for that offence on Amit Saini, 26, of Haryana, India, according to the Times of India last week. They definitely need to update the laws in that country, before some poor guy is charged with “failing to keep his spear sharp”, etc.
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Thought for the day: Why do buses go twice as fast when you are running after them than when you are sitting on them?
(Nury Vittachi is a columnist who spends his time travelling around Asia. Send ideas and comments via www.mrjam.org)
