150,000 Dead, 435 Tourists
Two weeks ago, I woke up thinking my roof was collapsing. Cheap plaster flaked into my eyes; my whole bedroom shook. My upstairs neighbor's four-year-old was jumping up and down and up and down, all the while shouting one word over and over: TSUNAMI! TSUNAMI! TSUNAMI!
Of course, on went the television as I logged on to my computer. There it was. A huge wave like God's palm spanking South Asia's ass. Surely, a tragedy. Then the phone rang. It was a friend of mine whose uncle-divorced from his aunt, woke up at 50 and decided he was a homosexual-was on his annual Christmas sucky-fucky jaunt to Bangkok. And now some sky-high waves and a whole lot of tectonic madness was putting the damper on his spinning-basket-fuck dreams. My friend's family was frantic. Though Bangkok wasn't hit, though that's where everyone was fleeing to, they made international phone call after international phone call. It turns out the uncle, like everyone else, was watching it all on tv, probably drinking a Mai-Tai.
As humanitarian aid was mobilized worldwide, the tone in Europe (the landmass I live on) was panic, Save the tourists! the battle cry. The media was full of politicians and relatives, all weeping and wringing hands: Just bring my son the sex tourist home safe and I promise he'll never abuse cheap pan-Asian package trips again!
In all, only 435 foreign tourists have been acknowledged by their home governments as dead. Six thousand others-mostly courteous Swedish couples and obese swinging Germans, in addition to motley Italians, Norwegians, Danes, Czechs and Poles-are still officially regarded as "missing," though hope seems to be as spent as a three-baht whore.
New Year partying was tempered this year throughout the EU, with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urging people to give their money to the victims instead of purchasing fireworks or alcohol to usher in 2005. Sweden flew flags at half-mast on New Year's Day, and some Stockholm bars reportedly closed out of grief.
While the true, bleedingmost heart of the West has to go out to Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and all those other weird places your average American can't locate without a blinking map on Fox, Europe's response has been very interesting. Like watching someone slowly wake up into banal reality. Suddenly all these Asian nations-inexpensive if you're on the Euro and long popular for their luxury resorts, mindless excess of all kinds and, not to forget, underage whore-sex-have suddenly, in the wake of this absolute disaster, been contextualized. Humanized. Yes, all you Europeans in your Speedos with your by-the-hour boys and Red Bull & Vodka cocktails, there is more to these places than you thought. There is a world beyond the capitals and the seaside compounds. Locals exist on their own. In 2005, let's hope you give as well as you get.