It Takes a Village Idiot

Do you have turnstiles where you live? I have lived in Winnipeg, Ottawa, Paris, Montreal, New York and Barcelona, and they're in all of those cities, so I figured they were pretty ubiquitous, but perhaps, like my students who assume that every country shares an undying love for a million different types of pork products, I have misoverestimated their popularity. I say this because I go to the airport twice a week for work and every time I see somebody standing baffled in front of the turnstiles that lead to the train. These are not the confusing metro turnstiles with the ticket slot on the left. (Yay for me! I am the 15%) Just the regular, stick your ticket in and go through kind.
I witness all sorts or travel-related stupidity at the airport. Like the inability to transfer from the train to the shuttle bus. (One train, one shuttle bus. Even your mathematically challenged writer figured that one out the first time.) I think that when we travel, we often forget to pack a few of our IQ points. They're right there, next to your socks. Grab 'em.
Today at the airport, I got to see a whole different kind if stupidity: hippie stupidity. It's perhaps the least surprising kind, but one of the most entertaining/annoying brands there is! Riding in front of me on the shuttle, one free spirit, her hair wrapped in an "ethnic" cloth, turned to the black woman next to her and struck up a conversation, asking where she was from.
"Cameroon," the woman replied. At the girl's blank look she offered, "Africa."
"Oh. I have some friends from Benin."
The two countries are separated only by Nigeria, so that displayed some geographical acumen. But then she continued.
"Do you have a favorite dance?"
The middle-aged, elegantly dressed woman looked up from her cellphone, bemused.
"Dance?"
"Is there one kind of dance you like?"
"Like a tribal dance?"
"Yeah."
"Well," she said patiently. "There are a lot of tribes with different dances."
At this point the we came to a halt, and I got up and ran from the bus to avoid strangling the girl.
As I reflected on my exasperation, I realized that what bothered me most. Hippies disguising their one-worldy ignorance in childlike naivety comes with the territory. But what left me aghast was that the hippie girl was Asian. Then I considered my own prejudice: that a non-white living in Europe would have more cultural sensitivity just because of the color of her skin. Granted, this is based on the assumption of a certain experience living in another culture, but if anyone should be aware that your skin color does not solely determine that experience, it's me. I guess everyone's a little bit racist.