July/August 2008 Editor's Letter

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For our Asia issue, our first thought was: Don’t be dull. We wanted to surprise you. So, for example, instead of another story on the Olympics, we bring you a sport that you won’t be seeing in Beijing—

nor anywhere much, since it’s played only three times a year: elephant polo. It sounds like sheer frivolity with a troubling circus aspect, but in fact it’s been saving pachyderms since the 1980s. On the cover is a member of another—human—species in need of conservation. She’s an elderly haenyeo—a “sea woman” from the South Korean island Jeju-do. Haenyeo dive daily, without air, for seafood, ensuring Jeju’s livelihood and making it a rare matriarchal society, but a threatened one since the young women are proving to be more of the office than of the sea. Not threatened at all is the thriving subculture of the Indian subcontinent known as the Laughter Club—there are over 6,000 groups, and counting.

Laughter Club is also the title of a soon-to-be-released documentary by first-time filmmaker Neil Davenport, who tells here of his initiation into the world of laughing, his growing expertise in various laughs (Chili Pepper, Milkshake, One Meter, Lottery, Gibberish), and the subsequent immersion that led to shooting the movie (hot tip for an Oscar nod). In the Compass, he also contributes what I’m fairly sure is the first-ever guide to laughter tourism—and do look for the cameraman’s POV, also in that Compass. Neil told me that young Stefan Merrill Block wasn’t much on camera technique, but he was great at narrative structure. The reason for this became clear when the novel he’d been writing on the road (The Story of Forgetting) came out this spring, to rave reviews. Before meeting Neil, I knew a little about laughter gurus, but, at the risk of blowing all travel ed cred, I admit that not only was elephant polo new to me, but I hadn’t heard of the haenyeo either—and kopi luwak, known around this office as cat poo coffee, rang only a vague bell. Maybe that should vex me, but actually it makes me glad. I hope my selective ignorance persists, so I can still be surprised, despite the gross availability of information. I also hope that with this collection of amazing stories, we manage to bring a little fresh perspective to even the old Asia hands. —Kate Sekules

The "May/June 2008 Editor's Letter" originally appeared in the July/August 2008 issue of Culture+Travel. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Culture+Travel's July/August 2008 Table of Contents.