57 Reasons Why I Like Living in Brunei by Steve Ryan copyright 1997
1. Everybody drives on the wrong side of the road but head-on collisions are very rare.
2. If you wake up in a grouchy mood, it passes quickly when you see all the middle-aged businessmen marching around wearing black fezzes, bright green/purple/yellow/blue primary-colored pajamas, and gold-embroidered skirts.
3. You get an automatic wakeup call every morning from the muezzin at the mosque, even if you forget to set your alarm.
4. Peaceful. Only the military has any guns, and they never shoot them.
5. It's really a change to live in a country where the one guy worth more than $30 billion is a decent, polite, college-educated human being who is genuinely concerned about the welfare of others and not an evil, petty-minded, greedy monopolistic geek peddling lousy software.
6. It's a hoot to see cute giggly teenage Muslim girls wearing their head scarves and generally acting like, well, cute giggly teenage girls.
7. The Government can hang anybody they want, but they never bother to.
8. No obnoxious drunks. (OK! Very few, then!)
9. Very little crime. But they cane the HELL out of anybody who steals your stuff or vandalizes your new car.
10. Admission to the big Jerudong amusement park is free, and so are all the rides.
11. No rednecks, baseball, or tractor pulls.
12. Chinese, Malaysian, Bruneian, Thai, and Filipino girls are so cute.
13. Gurkha soldiers are pleasant chaps and smile all the time, even when marching in formation in the hot sun wearing throat-cutter kukris.
14. No poverty or homeless people spare-changing you.
15. Sultan has more airplanes than the national airline, and cooler ones too.
16. No irritating politicians, deranged TV evangelists, or tiresome election rhetoric.
17. Many amusing English mistakes in local newspaper every single day.
18. All Bruneian bigshots and Gov't Ministers drive fast Turbo Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs, and Jaguars so police never dare to run speed traps.
19. Only 150 Americans here so each of us is considered very interesting, especially to the local female populace.
20. Sultan will wave back to you if you wave to him on the street or while driving.
21. No American football, golf, or basketball shown on television. Traditional national sports in Brunei are spinning big wooden tops (no kidding) and kicking a rattan ball over a badminton net.
22. Kids wear the funny fezzes, pajamas, and head scarves too.
23. Police cars are all BMW 735i's.
24. Weird plants, bugs, and animals everywhere. Big troops of proboscis monkeys in the Temburong forest!
25. Free bananas and coconuts.
26. You can safely see creatures that would give Jacques Cousteau nightmares, just on a visit to the Fish Market.
27. Water taxis have rowdy drivers that enjoy splashing and rocking other boats with their wakes.
28. Fun to learn to shift gears and adjust the radio with your left hand.
29. OK to either A) drive like a maniac, or B) poke along at 15 MPH looking at all the weird stuff by the side of the road. Nobody gets mad; everybody does one or the other.
30. Geckos scuttling all over your house instead of cockroaches. They make funnier noises, too, like: "Chuck - CHUCK!"
31. Cobras and pythons generally stay in the jungle and not in town. But no problem to go find some to play with if you really want.
32. Three words: It's Not Houston. Three more: Or New York.
33. People like to set things on fire over here. It's ok to burn things in your front yard in huge flaming pyres, and nobody gets excited even when the roadsides catch fire, which they frequently do. You can also quickly spot roadside satay snack vendors by spotting the dense smoke and flames billowing from their grills.
34. Cops are polite even when they catch you doing something you're not supposed to be doing.
35. Monitor lizards walk funny, all bowlegged with their stomachs held up as high off the ground as possible.
36. Technical mistakes during local TV evening news are hilarious.
37. Get to see lots of funny-talking British expatriates and ridiculous-looking tourists wearing black socks and shorts.
38. Demonstration of even the simplest UNIX computer-hacking tricks draws genuine gasps of awe at your technical prowess.
39. They have no shortage of HBO, CNN, Discovery Channel, fast computers, and Jolt Cola.
40. Dirt-cheap pirated software and five-dollar bootleg first-run videos even in the big reputable department stores.
41. Funny to watch women who are 4 feet tall wearing head scarves and big sunglasses trying to drive huge Mercedes.
42. You can take up as many spaces as you want when you park and nobody will try to kill you.
43. Odd, interesting local language but everybody speaks English readily.
44. America considered a weird scary faraway place that few people are ever likely to go to.
45. Plenty of unusual odors you have never smelled before. (Some, you never want to smell again.)
46. At night every bush and hedge in your yard buzzes, chitters, hoots, chirps, croaks, whistles, creaks, moans, honks, rattles, hisses, hums, grunts, etc. etc.
47. Royal Brunei Airlines stewardesses' uniforms. I can't describe it, you'd have to be here to believe it.
48. Karaoke restaurants heavily taxed and strictly regulated as public nuisances.
49. Fun to drive by the Sultan's Palace and watch the policemen in their little guardhouses trying not to look utterly bored out of their minds.
50. Get to surprise everyone by quickly agreeing with their criticisms of the USA's interventionist foreign policies, and then enjoy listening to them complain we don't do enough to help other nations.
51. Get to watch scratchy Indian movies on TV where the hero and heroine wail nasally and dance around each other grimacing in an amusing and incomprehensible manner.
52. All Muslim, Christian, Chinese, and other folks' religious, traditional, national, and what-not holidays are recognized as official days off for the government and the banks; since these employ over 50% of the people of Brunei, everybody takes these days off. This works out to every day being an official holiday from Thanksgiving to the end of February, and about half the working days in the other months. With so many cultures, it's always somebody's holiday.
53. They have real pirates over here, which adds a definite sense of adventure to any yachting excursion.
54. If your change comes out to somewhat more than fifty cents, they'll often round it off in your favor up to the next dollar, except in the big Japanese department store.
55. Jollibee has MUCH better burgers than McDonald's, and they have killer slow-burn chili sauce.
56. No 7-11s, Stop 'N Gos, K-Marts, etc. Stores tend to have more interesting and mellifluous names like (looking out window) - SYARIKAT PERNIAGAAN ANEKA TUJUAN.
57. Interesting, colorful money with little plastic windows in it and cool pictures of Sultan, airport, oil rigs, plants, etc., that seems to spend much more readily and less painfully than real greenbacks.
This one was also emailed around when we were living in Brunei. I must admit there are some references I don't understand, but most of it rings true.
TOPIC - YOU KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN IN ASIA TOO LONG IF………..
1. The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
2. You no longer wait in line, but immediately go to the head of the queue.
3. You stop at the bottom of the escalator to plan your day.
4. You habitually punch all the buttons as you leave the lift.
5. It has become exciting to see if you can get on the lift before anybody can get off.
6. You're willing to pay to use a toilet you wouldn't go to within a kilometre of at home.
7. It is no longer surprising that the only decision made at a meeting is the time and venue for the next meeting.
8. You rank the decision making abilities of your staff by how long it takes them to reply "up to you mister".
9. You no longer wonder how someone making US$200 per month can drive a Mercedes.
10. You accept the fact that you have to queue to get your number for the next queue.
11. You have considered buying a motorcycle for the next family car.
12. You accept without question the mechanic's analysis that the car is "broken" and that it will cost you a lot of money to get it fixed.
13. You find it saves time to stand and retrieve your cabin baggage while the plane is still on final approach.
14. You think the Proton and Kijang are stylish and well built cars.
15. You walk to the pub with your arm around your mate.
16. You answer the telephone with "Hello" more than 2 times.
17. You are quite content to repeat your order six times in a restaurant that only has four items on the menu.
18. A T-bone steak and rice sounds just fine.
19. You believe everything you read in the local newspaper.
20. You regard traffic signals, stop signs and copy watch peddlers with total ignorance.
21. If when listening to the pilot prove he can't speak English, you no longer wonder if he can understand the Air Traffic Controllers.
22. You regard it as part of an adventure when the waiter exactly repeats your order and the cook makes something completely different.
23. You're not surprised when three men with a ladder show up to change a light bulb.
24. You think it is normal to wait six days to get your laundry back or pay 50% surcharge for same day service.
25. Taxi drivers understand you.
26. You own a rice cooker.
27. Due to selective memory you honestly believe you could return to the western world.
28. You can shake your hands almost perfectly dry before wiping them on your trousers.
29. Some of your luggage travels in boxes with duct tape/strings around it.
30. You don't consider the prospect of a coup as a reason to change your plans for the day.
31. YOU UNDERSTAND ALL OF THE ABOVE REFERENCES!