I guess it’s what folk do

Well, I’ve been in Budapest from 21st May 2012 for a few days holiday and some dental work. You can get stuck on the dental work, I’ll remain stuck on the holiday. I mean I don’t know what it is with people – the moment they hear ‘dental work’ – ooooh wow  – that becomes some sort of magical thing for everybody to enquire about or to exchange notes etc. It’s like conversations about the bledy weather, in England – everybody just homes in on this sort of thing. Yeah.. yeah by now, someone is about to assist me with some wonderful theory or research knowledge about why people do these things – as if I’m really interested. And I’m betting that some one who reads this is gonna take the mick by asking me about this in a few weeks or months.

Right – well having distracted myself by anticipating the thoughts of others on my opening line, I should try and settle down a bit to write what I wanted to write in the first place.

At Hotel Budapest, I could not help but notice the numbers and types of people who passed through this hotel. Look, I did not make a statistical analysis of it for a doctoral thesis – all I did was look at faces, posture, apparent ethnicity and some other characteristics.

Basically most (approx >65%) of the folk who passed thru this hotel at this time of the year, when I was here for one week, appeared to be:

1. Over 50.
2. Caucasian
3. Chinese or Japanese origins.
4. Females > males in numbers.
5. Females over 60-ish tended to suffer with osteoporosis and some kind of arthritis.
   1. Tended to wear their hair in a short cut – as if to say women over 60 ought not to wear their hair long – and it doesn’t matter one jot my preference about hair length on women, I’m must making observations.
   2. Tended to be more grossly overweight – just by looking at arms, abdominal girth and sagging chins.
6. Males and females tended to smoke equally.
7. Overall people tended to smoke more here in Budapest than in my hometown back in England.
8. The Japanese-looking bunch arrived at the hotel more frequently in coaches and arrived mostly around 21:00 – 22:00.

Next on 22nd May I was at a Spa and that was another interesting experience. I got there at about 14:00. I observed that at that time of day most people there were around the age group of 45 – 60. There were some younger folk but they were in the minority. There were  mostly people of European origins there. Few Japanese. They all sat around or immersed themselves in ‘healing waters’. Well – you know – all this is meant to be therapeutic to nearly everything under the sun.

So all this began to get to me. I certainly was part of no ‘group’ – I came alone (with my son). I obviously stuck out like a sore thumb – being apparently so-called ‘Asian’. But thankfully I did not get a feeling of a million eyes looking at me – a pleasant surprise; expecting different having lived in England for so long.

Well I my observations led me to think that the group of older folk I encountered did a few things, in common. I don’t know how they came to be selected. But what bugged me was whether they were observant of the things that were common to them as a group. In fact did they see themselves as a ‘group’ – I wondered.

I dunnoh man, I mean it gets a bit scary when people are gathered together based on certain physical characteristics. And it would be even more scary if they did not glimpse the very characteristics that were common among them. What makes us different from sheep or dog? Intelligence?

Chrysst!! I mean the more I try to differentiate the human animal from other lower animals the more similarities I spot. Well I do spot a few differences as well but the similarities seem to become more prominent. And this tendency as I see it to form into herds has me very concerned.