The other day, I went to the Avalon with a friend so he could sate his craving for Skee-Ball. After about 15 consecutive rounds, our arms grew tired. We moved on to games that involved gunning down marine life, zombies, terrorists, and other scoundrels. Then we made our way to Let's Go Jungle Lost Island of Spice, a game in which a couple of Western sight seers venture on a tour in what, I believe, is supposed to be Thailand and get attacked by gigantic spiders, frogs, dragonflies, et cetera.

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What made the experience memorable was how much it offended my culturally sensitive liberal sensibilities. The goofy intro starts out with Ben, the pasty male tourist with the badly thought out earring, visibly cowering in fear just from the looks of their Southeast Asian tour guides, who by the way, are portrayed like this:

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Ummm...yeah. The Asian guys spoke broken English and were generally depicted as being inept, cowardly, and expendable. They were killed off by a elephantine tarantula or something pretty early on, leaving the white people, who were of course spared, to defend themselves (and other Western tourists) from the savage horrors of the Orient. What would Edward Said (bless his soul) say if he were around to witness this? It doesn't even make sense. Wouldn't some bad-ass Thai dudes in camouflage be the best suited to shoot down swarms of the enormous rabid frogs? After all, it's their own country and you'd think they'd be used to them by now.

Also, what the hell is up with this thing?

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It was on the side of this of a machine that dispenses gum balls big enough to dislodge your jaw. They look like they are up to no good. Why do some have teeth, but not others? Why are their eye brows the same color as the rest of their faces?