In the summer of 1996, a group of backpackers was hiking in northern Thailand, trudging across mountains into villages populated by Thai "hill tribes." When they arrived in one hillside town right at twilight, one American member of the group posed an immediate question and asked to have it translated.

"Can we smoke opium here?" he asked.

It was patiently explained to him that the groups in this region were committed to shaking that generations-old habit — but that the parade of foreign tourists looking for an "authentic" hill-tribe toking experience was making that effort more onerous.

I was one of the backpackers in that group, and I thought of that moment in a suburban New Jersey multiplex a few days ago while watching "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and its fiction-drenched forays through a very real American landscape.

Halfway through the movie, when Borat and his corpulent "Kazakh" crony are cowering in a Jewish couple's bed and breakfast, wondering what "evils" they will suffer at the hands of the obviously Satanic Semites, it struck me what "Borat" is actually about. It's not simply broad bathroom humor, nor is it only tightly focused satire aimed at highlighting American ignorance.

It's about turning the tables on the Ugly American abroad.

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THE OCCIDENTAL TOURIST

Think about it: By the droves, we stream forth into the larger planet as representatives of a nation whose popular culture treats foreign societies as playthings. This perhaps isn't surprising in a land where the main "Italian" experience many of us have is at the Olive Garden. One need only look at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center to prove this point; it's a place where "Morocco" — as opposed to Morocco — has an emergency exit, and you can be sure the "Chinese" food in "China" won't upset your stomach.

You wouldn't think a nation of immigrants, in possession of such a rich tapestry of varied traditions, would end up this way. But as someone who has traveled around the world for work, I have a mental catalog of scores of transgressions by Americans who either travel to — or judge ignorantly — foreign lands.

There's the American visitor in Beijing who asks, everywhere she goes, whether someone's slipping dogmeat into her meal. No matter that dog is actually a delicacy in parts of China, and a Chinese would no more "slip" it into your meal than an American chef would surreptitiously substitute filet mignon for ground chuck.

There's the childhood friend who questioned my judgment for traveling on a Pakistan International Airways flight to Islamabad. "Aren't you worried you'll get blown up?" he says, ignoring the fact that — even if you actually believed all Muslims to be terrorists — a plane TO the Pakistani capital with one American aboard (me) probably wouldn't be targeted.

And there's the Beavis-and-Butt-head Americans visiting Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics who went around saying to every Aussie they encountered, "Foster's: Australian for beer" — to the point that one newspaper had to point out that other beers were actually far more popular to Antipodean palates.

Is it any wonder that someone would want to do the same thing to us?

Enter Sacha Baron Cohen.

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THE VISITED

"That would not be funny in America," a humor coach tells Borat in the movie, referring to some of the character's ample off-color humor. And he's right: Many of the things we do abroad would not go over well in our own backyards.

Borat and his corpulent traveling companion barnstorm through our heartland, missing cultural cues at every turn and misunderstanding everything they see. When they find themselves at that Jewish bed and breakfast in Middle America, they are horrified. They hole up in their room in the dark, talking about the weird practices of the locals they have come upon.

"Let's go back to New York," Borat deadpans. "At least there's no Jews there."

Funny, but it's no different than American package-tour visitors abroad: "Isn't that quaint?" "Can you believe they eat THAT?" "This whole country is full of obnoxious people." "Mandarin Chinese sounds like dogs barking." But it doesn't go over quite as well when the locals who are taking the hits are us.

The message that "Borat" offers is piercing: Without any ill intention, Borat and his crew blithely overrun the normal folkways of American society — just as we do in other countries. Yes, some of us in America are embarrassing — homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, whether we're at home or abroad. But most of us aren't, and we're embarrassed by those who are.

Yet the movie takes our lives — recognizable American lives — and turns it all into someone else's collection of anecdotes. It feels deeply uncomfortable; this is, after all, our world that they're misunderstanding.

But what's far more sobering is that, to some extent, we deserve it.

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Ted Anthony is the editor of asap.

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