Cars often pick up bits of road tar and asphalt, dried bugs, tree sap, or other debris that’s hard to remove with regular car wash soap.

Old women crouched over bags of Siamese rice, skeps of red and green peppers, purple egg-plants, bristly rambutans, pineapples, durians.

“I was as bug-eyed as a frog, seeing everything like it as in slow-motion in a movie. Not every day some kook points a gun at me. I'm really glad you've got that Supergirl speed.”

Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.