I just knew I wouldn’t be able to trust Moreno and his Napoleonic dilly-dallying, but rest assured, El Oso is back and better than ever. Such a breach of confidence will never take place on this blog again. Moreno has been fully reprimanded and now walks along Brooklyn’s lonely streets with his tail tucked between his legs listening to Belle and Sebastian.

Further punishment for our Reagan-loving imbecile is to direct all faithful readers to THIS brilliant high school video of Moreno and his cronies lip syncing to Mana’s classic, Rayando El Sol. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one of the three is Moreno.

So where was I? Ah yes, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which I have since learned is never ever called Kuala Lumpur except by babbling freckled Americans, but always KL. And you do not annunciate clearly “KL,” but rather just mumble something that sounds like “kill.” And this apparently distinguishes the chic world adventurists from the absolute poppy-cock tourist wannabes. Since I refuse to cooly mumble that I have just descended from “kill,” I am clearly a poppy-cock.

Kevin Silberman, might I add is also a poppy-cock. After an exotic 12 hour, Conradesque river boat journey into the heart of Sumatra followed by a 20 hour dirt road bus ride with only the finest in retro upholstery he is now feigning sickness.

“My joints hurt,” he exclaims. Then, “I have hot flashes.” But fear not all you Kevin-supporters, I am buying him a pregnancy test tomorrow.

Let me not digress. As I said, I was in Kill and I was alone. The sun was setting majestically over Merdeka Square wherein lies the highest flagpole in all the world. Kuala Lumpur also claims the highest twin towers in all the world. It is a high city, of this there is no doubt. Having taken my picture of this highest flagpole and the majestic retiring sun behind it I was on my way when I heard a voice from behind calling for me.

A giant man child – at least six feet eight inches - came running up to me with the agility of a small chimpanzee. His face looked Asian, maybe even Malay, but his Frankenstein-like body was from another planet and his voice had the stern gravity of an Eastern European.

“Will you take my picture?” he asked. And then added, “with the flag and the museum behind me.”

I took his picture and then made to leave, for whatever reason I wasn’t really in the mood for small talk, but my Frankenstein friend surely was.

“So … where do you come from?”

“Um, America … from California.” I don’t know why I always have to say ‘um’ before saying where I’m from. I’ve noticed that Kevin does it too. Maybe it’s from embarrassment over our government. Unlike those who come from Canada or France or most other countries in the word, traveling Americans conceal all pride in stating where they are from. If the pride exists in the first place anyway.

“And are you traveling alone?” he went on.

“Um, yeah, I’m meeting up with a friend in Singapore, but I’m on my own in Malaysia.” From his reaction you would have thought that I just told him we went to the same elementary school. “Really? Just like me!” His smile was gigantic, all of a sudden he was filled with energy. “So, where do you go now?”

Truth is, I had no idea where I was going. I was also still skeptical whether I wanted anyone’s company. It was my last night in Kuala Lumpur and I wanted the freedom to see all that I had yet to see without compromise. I lied and said, “actually I was just going to use the internet to write some emails for a couple hours.”

“That’s great!” he exclaimed. He was still obviously very excited. “May I come with you?”

“Yeah, of course.” And my mind tried to think of where there was an internet café and how honestly the last thing I wanted to do on my last night in Kuala Lumpur was stare at a computer monitor in the silent company of a German Boo Radley.

So there we were, me and my Asian Frankenstein – to be fair he actually looks much more like Arnold Swarzanegger than Frankenstein but for the first couple hours of his company I just couldn’t get used to his huge stature. Walking through busy China Town and its millions of 5 foot inhabitants they all craned their necks upwards to stare at my peculiar friend and then back down at me, slightly comforted to see a normal white guy.

I lied and said that I knew a cheap internet café near the Petrona Towers and we became acquainted while walking through the city. “I’m half Filipino, half German,” he explained.

“So your dad’s the tall one huh?” I smiled, stating the obvious.

He took it with seriousness though and explained for his dimwitted American friend that, “yes, my father is very tall. You see, he met my mother in the Philippines while on vacation there and then brought her back to Germany. But then they divorced while I was still very young. I stayed in Germany with my mother and my father went back to the Philippines and married his new wife.” He said all of this with an awkward solemnity that seemed strange compared to how cheerful he was when we met.

“So they sorta changed places huh?” I smiled … again, stating the obvious. He didn’t smile. And I realized that I was only adding to the immense fodder of experiences this guy has had with poppy-cock Americans. I thought of asking him where in Europe the Philippines was just to surrender completely to his preconceived notions of an Amerikan, but I resisted and made an effort to pass for reasonably intelligent.

Apparently I did a satisfactory job for, while drinking an espresso in the courtyard under the Petrona Towers, he confided: “You know, I think you are the only intelligent American I have ever met.”

I have had many conversations with Germans like this before. It’s flattering to be included in their fraternity of cerebral superiority but from there it always descends into an elitist and ethnocentric ‘we versus them’ attitude as if logic itself was a German invention. “I think that many Germans are so intelligent and efficient because of our language,” he was saying during one point in our conversation. “I mean, if you think about it Oso, what we are able to think is limited by our language and if our language can only express simple thoughts then we can only think simple thoughts. And everyone knows that the German tongue is the most complex and precise language on the planet.”

It’s not a bad point and in fact I’ve often thought it myself at times. I think that anyone who has met a good number of Germans and has come across even a spattering of those German words that are translated into entire English paragraphs has probably thought the same thing. Frankenstein – whose nickname turned out to be Indiana, go figure – was a shining example of German intelligence. He spoke four languages fluently as well as a spattering of Tagalog, Japanese, and Mandarin. He was studying to be a mechanical engineer (also typically German) and was more up to date on politics and current events than I was even though it is what I studied in college.

Yet I tried to remind him, with the utmost diplomacy, that stereotypical German logic and intelligence was not always utilized in the most humane ways. That perhaps German society does not have the most inclusive or multi-cultural history under its belt.

He replied: “That is true, you see, but the problem is that so many people who come to Germany do not try to assimilate to our way of doing things.”

“Like the Turks?” I chimed in. I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation again. Couldn’t believe how many staunchly anti-American, supposedly leftist, young Europeans I had met on this trip only to reveal that they were part of this perverse anti-immigrant new Right that is encapsulating all of modern Europe.

A few days later I would meet a Belgian girl who was exasperated by how many ‘dangerous’ Moroccans and Turks had been invading her once quiet neighborhood and how they are taking all of her resources and did I know that in Belgium they have to pay 50% of their salary to support these lazy violent Moroccans?

I would go so far to say that despite the great amount of recent protectionist bibble-babble in the States, we have actually made greater gains toward multi-cultural society than our friends across the Atlantic.

In fact, it has occurred to me during this trip that I am greatly interested in public policy related towards multiculturalism – meritocracy and affirmative action and the like. A comparative study of Malaysian and American policy towards multiculturalism was my Ph.D. thesis of the week while I was there, but I have since moved on to the sexuality rites of Sumatran tigers.

Anyway … so our espresso fueled conversation has shifted gears and Indiana and I are no longer talking about national identity nor linguistics. What are we talking about?

Ozomatli. For whatever reason Indiana is the singular Bavarian fan of the California Chicano group Ozomatli. He even goes so far to say that he loves their spanglish lyrics and salsa beats. “The girls love it when I dance to Ozomatli,” he explains to me. And I believe it. Indiana is full of confidence, just bordering on cockiness; but there’s something about the guy that’s so damn likable. Before I knew it the clock struck 11 and I had to wake up by seven the next morning to catch my bus. I explained this to Indi, but he insisted on us first taking a picture together. The German-Filipino giant and his intelligent American freak show. I asked some Chinese tourists to snap a pick of us (Indi was clearly dying to show off his Mandarin but resisted) and then we parted promising to keep in touch. It was a nice and unexpected night of company.

To be continued …