Philippines

The Philippines (named for famed murderer/record producer Phil Spector) is an island nation located in the western Pacific Ocean. The country is comprised of 7107 separate islands, but remember you guys, it's quality, not quantity. If you want to see a whole lot of Filipinos hanging out in one place, your best bet is Luzon, the archipelago's largest, populous-est and [another superlative] island, located 250 kilometers from Taiwan across the Luzon Strait (which Wikipedia describes as "an important strait," but frankly I don't see it). Luzon is the location of Manila, the capital of the Philippines and the center of the 11th-largest metropolitan area in the world ("Bigger than Kolkata!" "What's Kolkata?" "It's in India!"). Filipinos speak way too many different languages, but the most popular is Tagalog, which I haven't researched, but I think is kind of like when you imitate Spanish by just speaking English while doing a really terrible, vaguely racist Spanish accent. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can just speak any language and Filipinos will be able to understand you as long as you're doing your best Antonio Banderas impression. At the very least, they might think it's funny.

These particular Filipinos will probably not be amused by your Antonio Banderas impression (unless it's really good).

Malaysia

Malaysia is a country in southeast Asia consisting of Malaysian Borneo (located on the northern portion of, you guessed it, Borneo) and Peninsular Malaysia (which, when highlighted on a map, makes the Malay peninsula appear to be wearing a sock). Though east and west Malaysia are currently separated by the South China Sea, works are underway to connect the two with a really huge series of ziplines. Okay, so I just made that up, but it would be totally badass if it were true. Malaysia is considered to be a megadiverse country (probably not nearly as cool as it sounds) by whoever decides which countries are considered to be whatever that is. A former British colony, Malaysia gained its independence from those limey such-and-suches in 1957 and has since become something of an economic powerhouse in its own right, now possessing a top-notch infrastructure (despite its notorious dearth of ziplines) and even its own space program (Author's Note: Wow Malaysia, that's awesome! Maybe someday you could do something really momentous, like going to the moon or something! Hahaha, just kidding. Seriously though, you guys are adorable).

The capital, Kuala Lumpur, is home to the Petronas Towers, which used to be the tallest buildings in the world, but now they're not, so nobody cares anymore.

Laos

Laos! (often spelled [incorrectly] without the exclamation point) is a country in southeast Asia where many of the people are Laotian and almost as many live in crippling poverty, which many human rights organizations have categorized as a Class 1 Bummer. Laotian heritage dates back to the Kingdom of a Million Elephants, established in the 14th century, but don't let that fool you - the average Laotian is actually rather unlikely to be crushed to death. So they've got that going for them, I guess. Along with neighboring Cambodia and Vietnam, Laos! was part of French Indochina until World War II, when the French reluctantly gave up on their benevolent efforts to teach southeast Asia a thing or two about wine. The capital is Vientiane, a city in the Mekong valley whose name means "City of Sandalwood." As such, the whole place smells just like one of those scented candles. It's pretty awesome.

Vientiane: Lao for "smells fuckin' great!"

South Korea

South Korea is a country in southeast Asia, located on the half of the Korean peninsula where people are allowed to do things like dance and brush their teeth unsupervised, but totally suck at marching (there's always a trade-off). Following a messy breakup with North Korea in 1948, South Korea has devoted a lot of time to telling its buddies what an asshole that guy is. South Korea has planted roughly an assload of land mines and guard towers and such along the 38th parallel to discourage any group of North Koreans from mustering the gumption to pick up a missile, get a running start, and throw it across the border (despite having what most military experts describe as "a little bitch" of a missile program, most of North Korea's weapons are still fully capable of exploding). Despite this constant siege mentality, the South Koreans have become a thriving economic power within Asia and even co-hosted the first Asian World Cup in 2002 where they demonstrated their unparalleled ability to cheat at soccer.

The South Korean capital is Seoul, site of a series of brutal monster attacks in 2006.

North Korea

North Korea is a(n evil) nation in southeast Asia, located, oddly enough, just north of South Korea. Best-known for being almost completely full o' commies, North Korea has been inextricably involved in America's foreign policy since the 1950s, when Harry S. Truman sent in American troops to keep North Korea from becoming completely full o' commies (a job which they totally fucked up [thanks a lot, troops]). It is currently headed up by benevolent dictator Kim Jong-Il, a goofy little dude who has been trying unsuccessfully to bring enormous old man glasses back into style since 1993. His favorite hobby is firing missiles into the Pacific Ocean and making ominous public statements in order to appear relevant on an international scale. Most leading psychiatrists recommend both of these activities as self-esteem boosters for troubled children with comically small penises.

"Hey, you there! Yeah, you! Pay attention to me!"

Indonesia

Indonesia is a nation consisting of roughly a buttload [over 17,000] of islands off the coast of southeast Asia. It contains about 4% of the people who exist and has more Muslims than anyone else (take that, Nigeria!). Formerly known as the place where the Dutch got all their good drugs, Indonesia achieved independence from the Netherlands in 1945 when the Japanese, who were in a rotten mood and not taking shit from most anybody in those days, showed up and said "Hey guys, could you leave please?"

Hirohito: Passive-aggressive much?

East Timor

East Timor is a southeast Asian nation located on the eastern half of the island of Timor. There isn't a country called West Timor. See, there once was a time when Indonesia basically decided it wanted everything between Malaysia and Australia, and they pretty much pulled it off too, but these guys, these guys on the eastern half of the island of Timor, when people came calling and went "Hey, you guys wanna be Indonesia?", these people were like "No. We don't wanna be Indonesia." And I think that's kind of a nice sentiment, you know? Of course, that was never really okay with Indonesia, and they have been really passive-aggressive about it ever since.

"No, huh? Oh, yeah, it's TOTALLY fine. Like, yeah, whatever you wanna do is okay. I mean, we didn't really want your half of the island anyway. Yeah, I mean all we REALLY wanted was West Timor, but we just thought we'd ask, you know? Because like, we thought maybe you'd get jealous if West Timor got to be Indonesia and nobody invited you, you know? But hey, you wanna be independent. Yeah, that's fine. Totally cool.

...You fucks."

Cambodia

Mistakenly thought by many to be the subject of the Dead Kennedys song "Holiday in Cambodia" (actually written about Cambodia, NH, a bedroom community of about 34,000 residents), Cambodia is a darling little southeast Asian country nestled comfortably in the crook of Vietnam. The national language is Khmer, which I believe is Khmer for "totally unpronounceable." The capital is Phnom Penh, as in:

"Hey, where are you from?"
"Phnom Penh."
"Gesundheit."

Cambodia's ties to the United States consist mainly of the fact that back during the seventies it became of the utmost strategic importance that we go set their children on fire.

"Don't hate the player, hate the game. And the commies. Mostly the commies."

Burma

Burma, also known by the alias Myanmar (or Burmanmar, as I like to call it), is a nation of some 50 million (mostly Burmese) people located in southeast Asia, north of the Andaman Sea (which doesn't really appear to be a sea so much as a random chunk of the Bay of Bengal that someone arbitrarily decided to give a different name just to confuse everybody [Author's Note: Cartographers are dicks]). The national anthem is "Kaba Ma Kyei," which translates roughly to "Don't Cross Me or You Just Might Wake Up in the Middle of the Night with a Goddamn Tiger in Your Bed and We'll See Who's Laughing Then, You Asshole." This tends to create a really uncomfortable atmosphere at the start of Burmese baseball games.

The largest city, Rangoon, is such a shitty place that the Burmese decided to build a new capital, Naypyidaw, from scratch in 2005.

Brunei

The Nation of Brunei, Abode of Peace is a southeast Asian country consisting of the couple of dots on the island of Borneo which are not Malaysia or Indonesia. An Islamic absolute monarchy, Brunei is the domain of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, known for his comically large car collection, reportedly consisting of somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 automobiles, a number which would be impossible to justify even if Bolkiah got around by riding two cars like waterskis (as far as I know, he does not). Look, I'm not saying that he's compensating for anything, I just think it's an interesting coincidence that he also has a tiny penis (Author's Note: Sometimes Wikipedia knows things that it probably shouldn't).

Hassanal Bolkiah: A 12-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 64-year-old sex offender.