Asians For World Peace

Consider the irony:
A boy, a man, a machine. Guiding a large group of late-teen to early-twenties Japanese girls down the Colorado River outside of Moab. Trying to entertain those on my boat while I don’t speak Foreign and they don’t speak Regular. I teach them the commands for “paddle forward” and “paddle backward” and they have a great time gettin’ jiggy widdit. I enjoy the sun, the canyon walls, and the alien rock formations without conversing too much with my floating geisha house. I imagine the other boymanmachine guide on the second raft is having a similar experience. The only real difference between our two boats is that the guide on my boat (that’s me) has dirty blond hair and a wiry, bony build that makes him look like a three-dimensional stick figure, while the guide on the other boat is kind of squatty, brown haired, and looks like the kind of guy that could knock a cow out with one punch.

Trip ends. Boats on ramp. Before the asian ant army marches onto the tour bus, one of the girls asks me (through a series of hand gestures and giggles) if she can get her picture taken with me. I say “hai” and she pulls a water bucket over for me to sit on. I sit down, she hops on my lap, and Chuck, our Texan atheist salesman mustachio bus driver takes the photo. Me smiling politely. Her flashing the mandatory tilted peace-sign. She gets off my lap and before I can stand there is another Japanese girl jumping in to fill the space of the previous one. I look over and see that every single one of the dark-haired girls, even the ones that weren’t on my boat, has lined up to get a photo taken with me. I feel like some sort of perverted mix between a mall Santa Claus and Kevin Bacon. I’m eternally working the tip and therefore always obliging the guests so I stay seated and smile through about fifteen peace-sign flashing lap wigglers.

None say a word (just sit, peace, and smile) until the last girl. Surprisingly, she talks to me in decent, yet heavily accented English.

“Which one are you again?” she asks.

“What do you mean?” I respond, not knowing what group of somethings she’s trying to distinguish me from.

“Which guide are you?”

“Oh, I’m Hasen.”

Her reply drops my jaw, “Oh, you Americans all look the same.”