golden triangle

my mom was watching a chinese tv travel program of a chinese justin timberlake lookalike visiting the golden triangle, which apparently is the largest producer of opium in asia (and the 2nd largest in the world after afghanistan).

anyway, so said tv host tried a local food, marijuana chicken, even though he was hella freaking out about about all the drugs (and why you would go to the opium capitol of the world wanting to do drugs, yet do pot instead of opium [or heroin] is a little weird too). he was acting scared for some unknown reason, he asked the local market vendors is they were selling any, and he was like "omg! this place is crazy!!" (chinese tv is super dramatic; it's actually hard to take it seriously sometimes) anyway. probably because he ate only a tiny portion, he didn't experience any effects from the chicken. so he goes to a table of three white women tourists (from australia it sounded like) and asked them if they knew this place was big on drugs and if they had tried any. they giggled and said no. so he asked if they wanted to try some of his marijuana chicken. they said no. so what does he do? he ladles a big bowl of the stuff and pushes it into each of their faces encouraging them to eat some. ... smartly, they decline.

undaunted, he goes to a table of male tourists. he finds out that they also did not come to the golden triangle to get high on drugs. in fact, only one of them says he's ever smoked pot before. so of course, chinese justin timberlake tries to push it on them. they also decline. tho he tells us later that one of the guys agreed to try some, but only off camera.

i'm not sure if marijuana is legal there, but i don't think it is because the govt has way cracked down on the people growing drugs. but even if it were legal, i don't think trying to get complete strangers to try drugs is ethical.

no worries, tho, at the end of his program he adds a quick one-liner voice-over psa "don't try drugs!"

(btw, if you're ever in whittier, go to the golden triangle restaurant. it serves burmese food and is excellent [disclaimer: that was the only time i'd ever had burmese food, so i don't know how authentic it was, but either way, it was yummy!])