Anyone like to watch LES STROUD BEYOND SURVIVAL? It's a great show. This guy is a survivalist and likes to show us how to survive in various enviroments. I was watching his show on PAPUA NEW GUINEA and how some tribesman were looking at doing rituals on their relatives remains by digging them up and putting their remains in a box of honor.
What made me laugh as I was watching this show was at some point, he's in this hut with a bunch of people hacking and coughing all night long, babies waking up and making noise. He mentioned that these people probably had malaria other jungle diseases. He then made a comment that if you don't mind being stared down all night long, do not set foot in Papua New Guinea. This reminded me of the time I was in New Guinea. I remember people there staring me down with these expressionless faces. At times, I felt like saying...."WTF are you staring at?" But it dawned on me that these guys just do it as part of their culture. They were not brought up to think that staring at people is IMPOLITE as we do in America. I mean they just look at you and when you look back, they just keep looking at you and don't even try to look away or nothing. Magnify this by everyone staring at you. They are a people staring culture to the max. I wondered if they would like to put me in some pot and make stew out of me, being that in PNG, there are tribes that practice cannibalism, which apparantly had been erradicated by the missionaries some time ago, but PNG is very vast and from time to time, they find unknown tribes wondering about.
Les Stroud hit it right on the nose when he mentioned about people staring at him all night long in the hut. "IF YOU DON'T LIKE BEING STARED AT CONSTANTLY, DON'T COME TO NEW GUINEA." I have noticed too that other cultures do somewhat the same thing, places like the Philippines like to stare you down, but PNG takes the cake. Their staring demeneor is quite something else. It's just plane wierd. One time, I was in the Guam airport and noticed these guys staring at me, I knew they were from New Guinea. I recognized the stare and the physical features of these Melanesians. Another point I found interesting was that Les Stroud mentioned that there were more than 1000 languages spoken in PNG. He wasn't wrong about that but when I was there, talking to the cab driver that drove me all around Port Moresby, he mentioned that there were more like 10,000 different dialects spoken throughout PNG. This makes alot more sense. Philippines has about 7,000 different dialects. Pigeon is the number one language of PNG. So if you ever go to PNG and feel you are getting stared down, just have to deal with it. Don't do something stupid like try and confront anyone for it. It's just what they like to do in THEIR country.