Borat and the Kombai Tribe

Now that I'm landlocked and not actively engaged in international travel, I have to get my curiosity fix from TV and movies - just like most everyone else. Still, I enjoy living the experience vicariously through people on camera who know what they are doing and explain it quite well.

Borat is the main character in a movie more properly known as "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" played by a British comic, Sacha Baron Cohen. It is totally gross and definitely adult's only entertainment, but it teaches us a lot about the American character. We feel obligated to teach and inform strangers that don't know our customs, are blatantly racist and sexist and won't flinch if someone wants to purchase a firearm to kill minority or ethnic group members.

Cohen plays Borat, an uniformed, Jew-hating journalist who pretends to be making a documentary for people back home about America. Except for a few other actors, everyone else is a non-actor ala "Candid Camera" and they let their true feelings shine through. Of course many of these set pieces are very embarrassing and the participants feel like they have been misled once they see the edited version on screen. Cohen recently accepted an award for this movie and thanked everyone who didn't sue him.

Interestingly enough this movie has been very popular in many countries including Israel where it was #1 for awhile. Seems that the Jew-hating Kazak journalist is actually a practicing Jew himself and when he speaks in a language we think to be Kazak, he is actually speaking Hebrew. His sidekick, played by an American actor is speaking in Armenian when he replies - even the surface insanity is less bizarre than the undercurrents. If you are easily offended by real people and male nude wrestling, this is not the movie for you.

The Kombai tribe has been featured on the travel channel where two (again, British) adventurers join an indigenous group/family living a subsistence lifestyle in the rainforest/jungle of West Papua on the island of New Guinea. Mark Anstice, a former Special Forces officer and adventure traveler joins up with Olly Steeds a television journalist to live with the Kombai to learn their ways and, in particular, how they can survive in a less than hospitable environment. Until about 25 years ago when they were "discovered" by a Dutch missionary these people had no contact with the outside world and live very much like our stone age ancestors.

In this instance the foreigners come to learn and not to convert. They are accepted as tribe members and are expected to work to help support the group, gather food, build a tree house (they are also known as the tree people) and are welcome in ceremony, tribal warfare and everyday gossip. After-hours, at night or when it is raining, time has to be filled with song and storytelling because there is no television, internet, cell phones or books. The people have no written language, no army or police force, no doctors and a life expectancy of less than 50 years and have been known to eat their enemies although the delicacies were grubs or pork.

The series is still being shown on TV and Mark and Olly who lived with the Kombai for a number of months have returned safely home. They learned how to survive, but more importantly, that people are people no matter where you go, what color they are or language they speak or how disconnected from modern life you could ever be. Borat is still at the movies and I'm sure will be on DVD soon.

Live life, experience the unusual and if you can't travel, do the next best thing.

(by Marc Adami, Guest Columnist)