When I first went to the Philippines, I had "open zipper syndrome." That is to say so many people stared at me when I walked down the street, I kept looking down to see if my fly was open.
It was just that sometimes I forgot I was a walking freak show, a white guy strolling through neighborhoods that tourists never visited. I tried to act normal, act like a local, but like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinnie, I just didn't blend.
So my mental coping mechanism, in this nation crazy for basketball, was to imagine I was Larry Bird. My thinking was that Larry Bird always stood out in a crowd, literally because he was 6'9", and because of his fame. But he didn't seem to let it bother him. I figured if I took this same attitude, I would keep my composure. This worked a little bit. And sometimes it didn't, like the time I came across the duck ladies.
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