Hey there all. I hope that the week has been good to you. As for me here, it has been tiring to an extreme. The National University of Singapore (NUS)/ University Scholars Program (USP) has begun, and most days it seems I have been out of the apartment by 6:30am, and back around 10pm. Today I am off, and am frantically getting my clothes washed since I leave for Malaysia in the morning for 4 days, and then come back for one and then fly up to Thailand.
On Sunday night the program began with everybody flying into Singapore. There are 34 participants from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Belgium, Hong Kong and the US. We are spending three weeks looking at the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN), development and tsunami issues. So what has happened?
On Monday the Secretary-General of ASEAN came and spoke to us, which was interesting. It was a very good introduction to ASEAN, though nothing too exciting to add in here. That afternoon we went to see the housing programs in Singapore. Very interesting, and unfortunately I forgot my camera this day, so there are no pictures, and my flash drive is at SIIA and I have not been there this week to take pictures from the participants. 85% of the population here lives in public housing, which is subsidized by the government. To get housing through it, though, you have to get married or be 35. Otherwise the state feels you should be living at home with mom and dad. The housing is regularly upgraded by the government, though the residents have to pay money for it as well. It was mentioned in passing that if the residents vote for the "opposition" party in the elections they were pretty much guaranteed to be neglected until they rectified their ways. More on that below.
On Tuesday was more lectures, and a trip to see the Singapore Port Authority. As you may well imagine, there were lots of shipping containers and big ships. It was really quite interesting to get an introduction
to shipping and how it works. I have only ever seen the shipping yards from the distance in the past. The woman who gave us the tour was very much a nightmare, though. We arrived for the tour and she put us all around a lego-block model of the port and described its basic structure. She then demanded to know what we wanted out of the tour and explain that she did not want to be doing this for us, and it wasn't her job. We all stared at her. So she got angry. The truth was, none of us had any idea of what to ask. So she got angrier and angrier at us. Finally she stalked off to the bus and then yelled at us for not being cooperative and yada yada yada. When we got to the port, it was easy enough to come up with questions and the day went ok, but she certainly left a sour taste in all our mouths. And she was in the public relations office. I later heard that the port is losing market share quite rapidly, even if it is still the biggest in the world. No wonder, if that is standard practice from the PR department.
The next day was a day trip to Bintam, Indonesia to see the tourism industry there. Ever wondered what $1,800 a night will get you in Indonesia? Here is one of the sitting rooms. There is a private pool, jacuzzi, and it looks over the South China Sea. Very nice. There is a private spa room, and indoor and outdoor shower, private steam room and another TV room.
This was at the Banyan Tree Resort/ Spa on the island. It is a big destination from Singapore since it is only a one hour boat ride from Singapore. We got an introduction to the company and high-end tourism industry. It is a little different than the $2 a night guesthouses I generally stay at when traveling. They also gave us an introduction to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, and then I was able to speak with the CSR manager for some
time. I had never spoken to somebody in the field, only heard about it at various times in the past, so it was interesting to get an introduction about it from him. Basically it is a corporate theory that these groups should give something back to the world besides the pleasure of certain individuals working and making money for them, whether it be through education programs, environmental work etc.
It was then to the
mangrove forest. The highlight there was the Mangrove Snake here. Unfortunately my camera is incapable of focusing on anything except the first thing in front of it no matter what I do, so it is blurry. The boat tour
was very nice, though, and the snake didn't jump in the boat and bite anybody. And even if it had, according to the tour guide "the are not so poisonous". Great.
Thursday was rough. A full day of panel discussions on economic topics. The presentations were a little dull for me, and combined with my fatigue, staying awake was a chore. The discussions after they presented were very interesting, though. Being engaged there was no problem. The first was on "Economic Cooperation within ASEAN", and the second "Challenges and Opportunities in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region". I will hold myself from giving you all the riveting synopsis of both.
And then Friday it was off to Bintan, Indonesia. We took a tour there of some industrial parks and met with some industry people in the industrial parks. Bintan is part of the "
growth triangle" idea from the 1980s. Google it for more information on that. We then had a couple Indonesian men perform a cultural show in the rain for us. Dancing, fire eating, glass eating and opening coconuts with their teeth. It was fun. We also had a good lunch of snails, shrimp, fish and other assorted food that falls in the "stuff that swims" category. For dinner we had what is called "steamboat" here, but "hotpot" in Taiwan. Basically it is a soup broth that is boiling on the table and you toss lots of stuff in and eat it. The highlight there was when about 3 cockroaches ran across the table in the middle of dinner.
And finally yesterday we met with three members of Parliament here. One was from the ruling PAP party. One other was a non-constituency member, and the third a nominated member. It was fabulous, and I learned a lot. In order to get some other dissenting voice in parliament, there are three guaranteed seats for the opposition, though they are not allowed to vote or anything, only ask questions. They get these seats (non-constituency) if they fail to get 3 or more elected seats. There are currently 2 opposition MPs, so there is one non-constituency MP. The other 2 are allowed to vote. So the PAP holds the other 82 seats. The nominated MP is just that... A person the government nominates to be in Parliament and ask questions. The conversation was very eye-opening and fascinating. I knew nothing of how the system here works, and it was great to hear them speak and ask questions of all of them.
So there it is... The last week. I was planning on posting this yesterday, when I got home at 1pm, but that did not work. I ended up having to work until 6pm, and then I was invited over for dinner at one of the participants houses, who was also interning at SIIA before. We had a wonderful dinner and then sang Karaoke until 12:30am.
Now it is time to start getting ready for Malaysia tomorrow.
Smoking a hookah on the street in Kuala Lumpur. There was great food to be had at these little restaurants, as well.
We ate here. Now, a central question that was never answered to my satisfaction is, why? The place was absurd. And on top of that, they insisted on turning on a karaoke machine in the room we were in and blaring bad American and Chinese songs. I mean, what really is so bad about talking over dinner? Though I am getting a little used to the karaoke thing since my landlord just bought one and occasionally starts singing at 7:30am on Saturdays and Sundays.
Finally, I was not going to include it because the picture came out all blurry (I had my camera on the wrong setting) but I feel I would be not living up to my responsibilities if I did not. This was one of the "big draws" at the restaurant above. They dress some poor guy up, attack him to a wire with a bowl of Tom Yam soup with dry ice in it and he "flies" across the restaurant. It was really silly. And as for the obvious question about the restaurant... Does it ever fill up? Everybody I talked to says no. But in case you want a restaurant that seats 5,000 for a wedding, here you are.
