| ZEEN: Auslanders Raus!
January 17, 2005
[$3] This is one of Steve Kostecke's zeens. He's a main doer in the ULA. Even though he lives in Thailand (drinking and teaching English...for years now!). He even edits and produces the Slush Pile! Those things come here on a boat from Asia. Crazy.
Steve is one of the best travel writers today. He writes about real travel. The sleeping-in-the-bushes kind. The run out of money and start working at Burger King in Germany at an army base kind. That's what "Auslanders Raus!" is about. (Over 50 pages. 5.5x8.5.)
He also does the very best writing on SE Asia anywhere. He has several other zeens on Seoul and Laos and such. I'll list them shortly. I sold out and new copies are on the boat headed this way! He covers the Asian urban office-work scene, the cellphone/scooter dating scene, the gutters'n'bar-girls drinking scene. It's seedy but somehow hope isn't entirely chased away. To me it seems like that's what keeps letting him see things somewhat clearly. He does very sharp, clear reporting on the culture he sees. Sure, it's the Ex-Pat's point of view. But this kind of remove isn't so bad for giving a good picture of a place if done right. The drinking and low-living doesn't even hurt that bad, as long as hope doesn't depart. Of course it tells as much about us as about them.
It's sure not the fancy-lad, funded type of travel writing which makes me say WHAT? at about every other piece of info from an Ami in another country.
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