What is it about South Africans abroad that make them so easy to spot? On home ground, one looks pretty much like the other (despite some minor differences in size, colour and fashion sense), so why is it that when they’re overseas they’re more conspicuous than a Yank in full Nikon/Hawaiian-shirt battle-dress?

I’ve spent many happy hours in airports playing 'spot the sarfeffrican' and, lemme tell you, my success-rate is pretty damn frightening. I’ll catch a fleeting glimpse of someone in the duty-free shop and confidently put money on the fact that he/she’ll be standing on my foot in the queue for SAA-whatever in two hours time. I’m rarely wrong.

Impressive as this undoubtedly seems, there’s really nothing to it. You just need to know what to look for.

Let’s take Bangkok as an example. Great place. A lot of tourists take advantage of the stalls along Sukhumvit Road and in Patpong to load up on cheap clothing and accessories. And why not? Why should anyone pay a thousand bucks and more for a pair of sunglasses with a fancy 'G' on it?

Fair enough. But only a South African turns up at the airport to catch their flight home actually wearing every single item of contraband they’ve bought over the last two weeks.

Crass clichés of kitsch
Dressed from head to toe in patently obvious knock-off gear, they pose in the check-in queues like garish advertisements for provincialism, crass clichés of kitsch.

From his Billabog cap to his Ferrori jacket, his Oakey sunglasses to his Tag Hewer watch; from his Levin jeans to the soles of his Reebuk takkies, his ensemble screams out: "Look at me! It’s my first time out of Benoni ever, and I have no taste at all!"

Why do they do it? Is it the shock of finding themselves in a foreign country and still actually being able to buy anything at all that drives them to such extremes of counterfeit sartorial madness?

Perhaps the Bellville-Boykie-Westrand-Cowboy gene-complex lurking in their DNA has mutated out of control in a foreign clime? Whatever it is, it’s a dead give-away, and it’s embarrassing, and I wish they’d all stop it. Immediately.

But, tragically, even if the homeward-bound Sarfeffrican arrived at the airport in a Saville Row suit with a set of Louis Vuitton luggage in tow, they’d still stick out like a boep in a bulimia ward.

It’s also got a bit to do with size, sure — male or female, black or white, there’s a physical bulk to the children of Africa that few other nations can match — but it’s got far more to do with houding.

Expressions of ferocious purpose
Where fat Americans are normally to be found slouching petulantly along, bleating and whining like lost sheep, the South Africans charge through the departure halls like prop-forwards on amphetamines, wearing expressions of ferocious purpose and certainty no matter how profoundly lost and confused they might be.

While a Dane will stand at the information desk and painstakingly look up every word of their query in a well-used Dansk-Thai dictionary, the South Africans truly believe that English (even Brakpan-accented quasi-English) need only be spoken very loudly to be universally understood. Thus:

"Sawadee ka, sir. Can I help you, please?"

"JISLAAIK, JA! TELL ME, SISSIE, WHERE IS THIS BLERRIE TERMINAL ONE, HEY? I TUNE YOU, THIS DONNERSE MAP IS SOMMER KAK, AND NOW I’M MOS GETTING LEKKER BEFO…"

"Escuse me, sir?"

And so on.

Faces, too, have their stories to tell. Show me a face that looks like it’s been hacked out of an old tree-stump, a face flushed red with the lingering memories of a million Texan plains and klippies-en-cokes, and I’m not about to mistake it for any English Rose.

Haircuts that still remember the Group Areas Act; enough jewellery to keep a coven of chiropractors in profit; tight shorts and ski-pants on butts that should know better; cosmetics applied with a plasterer’s trowel. These are a few of my least favourite things.

Misplaced manne and dipsy dames
Ja, they’re a strange bunch, these misplaced manne and dipsy dames. So why, I wonder, do I feel a smile threatening to crack the carefully neutral façade of my airport-face every time I spot one of them? Why do I feel that much more impatient to get on the plane and fly back to millions more just like them?

I’ll check the time on my Polex, fiddle with my Ray-Cans, and tap my Nikea-shod foot until they call the flight. Then I’ll stand in line, jammed between Mrs Molefi’s 50-kilo handbag and Kaas Visagie’s sweat-stained joggers, waiting for that endless, cramped journey back to my basket-case country to begin. And I'll be grinning like an idiot. Because it's at special moments like these that the beauty of an eternal truth comes shining through:

Be it ever so weird, there’s no place like home.