deconstructing jessica

so i just saw an episode of dangerous grounds on travel channel tonight, and it was so contrived that it became funny, and not in a good way. i mean, i get that it's a tv show and they're trying to ramp up the hype and all that, but it was rather amusing to hear of ex-headhunting 'tribal' borneo folks (who wear t-shirts and shorts like the rest of urban civilisation) and having to trek and camp out in the jungle when all they had to do was ask for directions (because in the end, they ended up hitching a ride back to their car, care of motorcycles from a village they eventually found).

and what kept me scratching my head the most was when the show's protagonist kept saying how rare liberica beans were, and how he could be the one to bring these beans to the states. it doesn't take much googling to see that, (a) it already arrived there years before the show's

production date, and (b) i guess it's rare elsewhere in the world, but over here it's like at every street corner under the common poor man's chinese beverage term of kopi that it's hard to think of it as being (as he said) "exotic" or hard to find.

i also found this article that seems to perfectly describe what a typical kopitiam looks like, and how it's brewed (oh that 'sock', i've seen that stupid sock for decades and pooh-poohed it as a sign of being broke, because why else would you be dripping beads of sweat and sitting in a non air-conditioned place being stung by mosquitoes just to drink the oh-so-ubiquitous-here kopi?)

but i suppose, despite the show's obvious bias towards perceived 'danger', it was interesting to learn that the way we view arabica and robusta beans here with high regard might be the way americans perceive (literal) shit like kopi luwak and plain old liberican kopi.

disclaimer: i actually prefer tea. and i'm not even a tea fanatic at that (i don't go crazy over how it's roasted or what leaves i'm getting) :p