Smells like hell?

Markets in South East Asia and Chinatowns all around the world are sometimes filled with a strong and slightly strange odor. It is the season of durians (1), the king of fruits. They look roughly like prehistoric rugby balls, covered with large trianguler spins and so generous is fragrance that they do not have to be opened to be recognised from far.

«Smells like hell, taste like heaven»! The reputation to be one of the most stinky thing precedes the encounter of this fruit by travelers. This arbitrary qualifier is a disrespectful manner to treat a fruit, little known out of Asia, but held in high regard in this continent.

The durian is originally from Malaysia and Indonesia where his name means “covered of spines”. It matures on trees reaching sizeable dimensions, at the image of the fruits that they carry. The cultivation of the durian also extended towards Thailand, in particular the South, in the province of Chantaburi, the greatest zone of current production. It’s popularity is reflected in it’s prices which depends on the variety and quality, but remains always high. It is a fruit of great luxury.

For the Chinese the durian heats the body and is often eaten with fruits reducing this effect. In Indonesia and Malaysia people believe that his consumption has aphrodisiac virtues. Despite popular devotion, he is usually banished in public transportations, hotels and other places where his strong presence is not compatible with promiscuity or lack of ventilation.

The king of the fruits is appreciated for his delicacy and his nobility by millions of Asians, often shocked and puzzled by the scatologic qualifiers that foreigners use to describe him. This huge difference in appreciation cannot be objective, it is a state of mind. In a striking way, the example of durians illustrates more subtle conditionnements of our brains, that we are often not aware of.

In himself the durian has neither nauseous odors, nor a delicious taste. These qualifications are given by our conditioned mind, in reaction to measures transmitted by the nose and the mouth. The scent of this fruit is strong, that’s all! The other appreciations refer to our life experience, analysed and filed by our brain. This system generates useful signals, like warnings or attractions. Nevertheless, if left without control, our mind also produces less advantageous associations.

Bad taste, disgusting smell, unbearable vision, unpleasant feelings, cacophonous music, these are all conditionnements related to negative experiments or not controlled associations of our brain. In the later case, and without even trying, we might miss many opportunities to discover new treasures. Indulging a durian is just one example. If we fail to open our mind and to prepare ourselves for a neutral approach, we might remain estranged to a whole culture.

What millions of humans finds delicious, beautiful, fragrant, sensual and harmonious cannot really be completely reverse for the others. The difficulty is to master our mind and to keep an open and neutral approach of new experiments. The benefits of such an attitude are immediate, for example the satisfaction to appreciate a durian.

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Durian discrimination

These are some qualification of the odor of the durian found on Internet sites :

« smelling like stinky socks » , »it smells like a poorly maintained public convenience », »It smelled like someone's 2-year-old had a stomach ailment about a week before and no one had carried off the soiled nappies yet ». « Like eating custard in a sewer ». "It smells like a poorly maintained public convenience but the taste is worse!".

References:

1(May – Octobre).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian

http://www.durianpalace.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odor

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