Push-button people push buttons to get a response

even where no buttons exist. Familiarity breeds contempt in one world as surely as Asians breed rice in another. I think Europeans and their like thrive on individualism and discord, whereas Asians and their like thrive on conformity and order, the closer the better. Westerners like ‘their space’. Asians hate to be alone more than anything else in the world. For me the goal is to have a mobile phone that works anywhere in the world and never have to use it. For a Thai the goal is to travel with as many people as possible. Problems in Asia only arise when the pecking order is not clearly established. Marriage is a special case in both hemispheres. Offspring and their parents are typically closer than the spouses themselves in Asia, the blood connection speaking louder than promises that can be broken. In the end it’s no different in the West when things fall apart; the kids are the fruit that endures the uncertainties of transient attraction. Still, though blood is thicker than water, sperm is thicker than blood. The hand I play is more important than the hand I’m dealt. The people I choose are more important than the people I’m stuck with.

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