Smile! It ain't easy!

I remember reading somewhere that when the Olympic Games came to China, one of the first things the organisers did was to 'teach' people how to smile.
It struck me as funny. Isn't it natural for people to smile?
I do.
I smile when I meet my friends, colleagues, the security guard at work, my mailman, the flower-seller on my street. Hell, I even smile at the istriwallah who loves to snarl a new and 'improved' price every time I take my clothes to him to iron.
Then I travelled abroad. And I realised I was in desperate need of some of China's 'how to smile' classes.
I remember my first day on foreign soil. I had decided to take a stroll along a pretty river-side path. While taking in the sights, I passed many of the locals who had come out for their evening constitution or to take their dogs for a run.
I observed them casually, and I walked on - not a glimmer of a smile on my face. I didn't think I had to smile at them. After all, I didn't know any of them. And I don't smile at strangers. I've been conditioned so.
I mean, think about it. Back home, if I randomly smiled at a stranger, I would either get a puzzled look as thanks for my efforts or maybe a vague mutter that hinted that I was a few marbles short of the full set.
So you can imagine my surprise when, a couple of strides into my poker-faced walk, I was hailed by a series of cheery "hellos" and "good days", with a few "great evening to be out" and "lovely weather we are having" thrown in.
Thinking back, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. It's not like I haven't heard of how friendly foreigners are. Many of my friends had told me about it. But since they had either gone abroad on work or as tourists, I had assumed the friendliness they encountered had been a result of either work-place courtesy or the joy of a tourism-dependant country excited about all the moolah they were going to blow on their shores.
So it took me a little while to understand that courtesy was just the way of life on these foreign shores. I came across it every other minute.
I would walk into a store, unwittingly ignoring the person behind the counter, only to have him or her approach me with a beaming smile to enquire about my day and if I was having a good time.
I soon began to change. I greeted every shopkeeper I met, every shop assistant who came to help me, and smiled at EVERY SINGLE PERSON I met while out on my evening walks.
But I must admit, the 'smiling' didn't get any easier. I had to constantly be on my guard, and keep reminding myself to acknowledge other human beings. A moment of forgetfulness and I would lapse back into my poker-faced days!
And just as I was getting the hang of exercising my facial muscles, I came back home!
Needless to say, once on homeground, a few hard stares and dark mutters soon killed my budding smile. A fact I feel sad about.
Courtesy breeds courtesy. And in India, where we mistrust strangers, it's something we desperately need. My logic: if you smile at a person, you would think twice before being rude to the very same person.
How different would government offices be, if the employees smiled at everyone who walked in the door? How much safer would the roads be if people acknowledged others as human beings deserving of some courtesy?
It's not a cure-all; just something that will make each day a little better and a little brighter.
Maybe it's time one of us tracked down the telephone number of the people who taught the Chinese to smile!

Flying to Kiwiland? Check your shoes!

"Check your shoes before you step on to an airplane headed to New Zealand."
I heard the same cautionary line from one too many people when I announced I was heading to the land Down Down Under, and my curiosity was piqued. 
Why were my shoes of such critical importance? 
Then I learned that even a speck of soil on my soles would get me slapped with a fine of $400 once I landed in Kiwiland! 
Ridiculous, I thought.
I soon found out that the 'ridiculousness' didn't end there. 
My wooden bangles, my cane boxes, my funky seed earrings, my mum's homemade scones, none of these could be packed into my suitcases - for fear that they would introduce pests and diseases into the tiny island country. 
I never knew my wooden bangles could be WMDs that could decimate an entire flock of sheep. Oh, the horror!
And if I did try to sneak in any prohibited item, I was warned the MAF would get me.
MAF? The Men Against Fun? The Mean-spirited Action Force? The New Zealand version of the bogeyman?
Turns out, the expansion is a lot less threatening than the abbreviation. MAF is just the sinister-sounding version of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry - the department that protects the country's natural resources.
But don't assume their bark is worse than their bite. These government officials mean what they say. If a scrap of what they deem to be 'goods that pose a bio-security risk' is brought in undeclared, you could face anything from a $100,000 fine or five years in prison! Whoa!
So I needn't say that I practically sterilised all my stuff before boarding the flight, and that 18 hours later, I was shaking in my shoes when I approached a MAF guy to show him a tiny little wooden jewellery box my mum had presented me.
The relief I felt when he smiled me through was almost comical.
However, a few days into my stay in New Zealand, I realised why everyone was so anal about foreign particulates being introduced into this pristine land.

Kiwis love their country, and not in the blase 'this is our motherland so we love it' way that we Indians do. They plain adore it, and are proud to call themselves Kiwis.
They've tried to put their stamp on everything - from wines to clothing to the language. I came across vegetables proudly labelled "Grown in South Island" - and they were flying off the shelves, leaving imported goods languishing in the supermarket aisles.
Even the humble burger has not escaped the 'Kiwi' touch!
Turns out, McDonald's realised they could boost sales by tapping into the Kiwis' strong vein of patriotism, and so they introduced the KiwiBurger. The addition of poached eggs and beetroots had Kiwis walking tall with pride as they munched on their favourite fast food.
Most advertisements on television extol Kiwi virtues, most businesses tom-tom the fact that they are totally Kiwi run, and the locals try their best to buy Kiwi-produced goods.
And why not? They live in a beautiful country that's blessed them with everything they could ever need. 
And perhaps because they are such a 'young' country (one of the most recently discovered) and because they are small in size when compared to other countries, they don't want to be found lacking.
Some may call their obsession with all things Kiwi overcompensation, but I call it pride. We all need some of that when it comes to our homeland.
So I plan to clean my shoes thoroughly every time I board a flight to New Zealand. That's the least I can do to honour such a proud people and such a beautiful land.