Phaic Tăn

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**Title** **Phaic Tăn**
Phaic Tăn: Sunstroke on a Shoestring
Author	Tom Gleisner; Santo Cilauro; Rob Sitch
Country	Australian
Language	English
Subject(s)	Fictional country
Genre(s)	Travel; comedy
Publisher
Released
Preceded by	Molvanîa
Followed by	San Sombrèro

Phaic Tăn is an imaginary country created by Australians Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, and Rob Sitch, and is the basis for a parody travel guidebook Phaic Tăn: Sunstroke on a Shoestring. It is the effective sequel to Molvanîa which was also published by Jetlag Travel and written by Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, and Rob Sitch.

[edit] Country profile

Phaic Tăn is said to be situated in Southeast Asia. Place names in Phaic Tăn initially seem to be Vietnamese or Thai, but they form English language puns, hence the capital is called "Bumpahttabumpah" ("bumper to bumper"). "Phaic Tăn" can be read as "Fake Tan". Also, the districts are the mountainious "Sloh Pan", the fertile "Sukkondat", the hyper "Buhng Lunhg", and the exotic "Thong on."

The Kingdom of Phaic Tăn is a composite creation of a number of stereotypes and clichés about Southeast Asian countries.

The country was formerly a colony of France, but was liberated in the early 20th century through student and Communist uprisings. A Marxist dictatorship under Chau Quoc continued until his death in 1947, which prompted the country to launch into a lengthy civil war. Eventually a CIA-backed coup ("operation Freedom") made the country into a military dictatorship which it remains to this day. The country has a popular royal family, though the current king has been deposed no less than 25 times.

Like Molvanîa, the humor of the book comes from the guide's attempts to present Phaic Tăn as an attractive, enjoyable country when it is really little more than a squalid, third-world dump. The country is frequently plagued by monsoons and earthquakes and many armed militia groups still patrol the streets.

The Phaic Tanese language is a tonal language with four tones, sharing similarities with Chinese, and on average is spoken with 192 syllables per minute. (if you are embarrassed about inability to speak, take pride in the fact that the majority of children don't master a complete sentence until at least 16. I don't blame them, archeaologists have uncovered a 187-symbol plaque that translates roughly as "Beware of Dog".)

The Phaic Tăn people are presented to be extremely superstitious, and obsessed with the concept of luck. The index of the book contains a list of almost 6,000 numbers the Phaic Tănese consider lucky, plus two considered unlucky (3 and 6). Turning left while driving is also considered unlucky, which causes a lot of traffic problems. Also unlucky is asking for a non-exotic massage, having more than 5 holes in Quic Pot, and to lose a lottery.

The Phaic Tăn website features a spoof soap opera called Pyangtru Yix Qaugen (Hospital of Hearts) in which the characters (Doctor Lahbkot, 3-star General Kpow and his "attractive" young millionairess wife) speaks in what appears to be a dialect of Chinese spoken in Taiwan and parts of Fujian, Vietnamese and some heavily accented garbled sounds made to resemble Korean, subtitled in a stilted form of English, with curious turns of phrase and double entendres. This is either a parody of the English subtitles often encountered on kung fu movies, or an attempt at Engrish.