Taipei, Taiwan; September 12th, 2001

On the morning of September 12th, my New Zealander friend was walking to work. An old chinese man flagged him down and made the hand/arm gestures of a plane flying, followed by a massive explosion. He then pointed at my friend and laughed.

Being abroad is an extremely bizarre way to experience war--especially when you are from the United States. You are uncloistered from the American propaganda machine. There are no flags in your front yard. There is no FOX news. There is no patriotism. There is no enemy...

There is only international CNN, which ex-pats would watch as though it were a baseball game. My Australian friends would say, "Let's watch the war."

And we did.