This is living..

If it is natural for a man to prefer his own kind, what would make one go the opposite route? What is that mysterious magnet that draws a man to another culture, a whole different way of living? Could it be that never having really lived in his own world, never having been fully alive, he jumps at the chance of a fresh start?
Could it be that the exotic is far more vivid and therefore stimulating to the senses, a drug of sorts, one that intensifies the world? For, as much as you have been brought up to dislike your own race, there are others who, incredible as it seems, have fallen in love with it, others who are drawn to "local" life as much as you resent it.
I have always been an outsider. But in the East, when I am moving among the squabbling, spitting, raucous, sun-toasted, earth-toned rabble I feel uncommonly at home. I wake to the scent of jasmine, saffron, cumin, coconut oil, mangoes, wafting up from under my window, the dawn light still breaking and diffuse. How the East can overwhelm a man's senses, how it can seep in, like music, or perfume, like mysterious signals to migrating birds chumming the air, beating out "home, home" across the spread of sky.Drinking tea, listening to people's singing, staring at the open endless jungle, and losing myself in the scents of swirling burning incense and cooking rice; I think to myself, this is living.