Mythbusters

Bad Advice

In my what feels like an eternity but is actually only four months in Cambodia, I have received a lot of horrible advice and misinformation which the givers believe to be truth. You could call these myths. I have examined these myths, and attempted to determine their validity. I will now pass the results of my research on to you, with the goal of hopefully entertaining. (Clearly, I have done nothing interesting or meaningful in the last month, so I’m stretching for blog content. I swear one of these days I’ll actually write something about the meaningful and interesting work I am doing, but mostly right now it consists of convincing the students not to be scared of me, planning for things that haven’t happened yet, and searching for a space where I can have clubs.)

Myth #1: Eat rice until you are full, or else you will get sick.
After experimenting with this one I can conclude based on both scientific logic and pure personal experience that this myth is busted. I ate rice until I was full several nights in a row, and not only did I still become sick, but I also became fat.

Myth #2: You should not eat a large breakfast or you will become fat.
In some sense this may be true. I guess if you eat huge portions of rice several times a day and do not exercise your caloric intake will simply overwhelm your energy expenditure and you will gain weight. However, the whole kick starting your metabolism thing seemed to be lost in translation.

Myth #3: If you only drink coffee in the morning you will be a bad teacher.
My former co-teacher, who I decided it was best not to work with because he has a bad attitude and has already worked with a Peace Corps volunteer, so he knows all the tricks I have up my sleeve, asked what I was drinking in my travel mug this morning. As always, I told him it was coffee. He responded, “Ah, you drink only coffee and you are a bad teacher, but I eat bread with coffee so I will be a good teacher.” He knows all the secrets of good teaching…

Myth #4: If you eat mangosteen dipped in sugar it becomes poisonous and you will die.
We busted this one during training by doing it. However, I have now heard it from three different sources, so I wonder if in high volumes there is some truth to this. It sounds a little like the pop rocks and coke debate to me.

Myth #5: Tiger balm cures all.
Definitely not true. It is really good if you have itchy mosquito bites, and smelling it helped clear up swollen nasal passages when I had a bad cold and laryngitis, but I definitely do not recommend rubbing it on the outside of your nose. I got tired of holding the jar in front of my face so I could breathe and thought if I just rubbed it outside my nostrils I could rest my arms… bad idea. I also do not recommend it for open wounds and doubt that it cures broken bones or serious genetically predetermined afflictions.