Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

When in China, one does what the Chinese do.  And when it comes to doing, eating takes up a huge chunk of the average Chinese's time and money.  The results of the devotion is apparent in how large shopping malls, most of which filled to the brim with different eateries, are popping up across the country.   Yet, for the Chinese, that is not enough to justify their love of food in special occasions, and interestingly enough, the author had firsthand experience of the lavish extremes that his extended family, like many others, are willing to go to celebrate their love for good food.

"Since the regular room is booked out, we will move you into a two-bedroom suite for your stay," the receptionist casually mentioned upon the author's check-in.  The author, for his business trip this time in the Philippines, was placed into a gigantic service residence unit.  Wowed by the sheet size of the bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom...the author was just giving himself a tour of the place when he noticed a little dark alley on the side of the kitchen, away from the bedrooms and the main door.

On the road, the biggest enjoyment a traveler can possibly have is food.  Going to new places and indulging on the delicacies that raised a whole new unknown civilization cannot be underestimated in its value in communicating with the locals.  It is like the Chinese says, "民以食為天" (people see food sky/heaven).  The centrality of gastronomy in not only the cultural expression of a place, but also the economic realities of the common people residing there  provides possibly the most concentrated and succinct method to get know the good and bad of a foreign location.

Sri Lanka is scheduled for another presidential election on January 8th.  As a result, the streets are filled with campaign posters and pictures of the two main candidates, more notably that of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent.  His party's blue flag grace the man streets of the country's main cities, with campaign personnel busying themselves plastering posters with photos of him shaking hands with notable foreigners or cuddling a small child on the campaign trail.  His campaign team is on the road through main towns, drawing huge crowds with fiery speeches.

"It's only 3km away, that's only a short walk from here," many Sri Lankans met on the road often says something of this sort to the author.  No joking, no exaggeration of self-pride, but just stating what is to them a simple matter of fact.  And they certainly back up such talks with action: the author, on his bus trips, has seen too many locals, in their simple worn-out flip-flops, walking next to major highways, appearing in the middle-of-nowheres between towns that are not particularly close even by driving.

The Christmas markets of Metro Manila are not for the fainthearted.  The streets, usually crowded already with the high density of population, are extra packed with people doing their last-minute shopping for gifts.  Unlike elsewhere where Christmas is a matter of adopting a foreign culture into a consumerist form , Catholic Philippines are religiously tied to the celebrations.  And when it comes to Christmas, people simply let out.  A taxi driver said it the best, "the Filipinos will be impoverished after the Christmas holidays."

On the hotel TV's broadcast of Chinese stations, there was a program on the follies of Chinese emperors of the past.  One particular episode discussed how absolute adoration of the emperor (at least in superficial terms) made the personality of the emperor so lofty and self-righteous to the point that his altered  decision-making patterns turned a peaceful and prosperous nation into one ravaged by war in matter of years.  The professor repeatedly warned the audience of detrimental effects that creating a cult of personality can have on the direction of a polity.

In Malaysia, there is a often a belief that the tripartite racial division of the country also has a rural-urban dimension.  While the Chinese and Indians make up (almost) a majority in the country's big cities due their traditional roles as businessmen and white collar professionals, the Malays dominate the rural regions, where they have lived and sustained themselves through agriculture for centuries.  The urban-rural nature of the division lead to large income gaps between the Malays and the non-Malays and contribute to under-representation of Malay leaders in the country's economic life.

In economics, there is something called "Dutch Disease."  It is an idea that a commodity boom lead to a huge surge in inward investment and the resulting increase in demand of the local currency makes the currency so expensive that it practically kills off all other industries that depend on international markets for survival.  The death of other exporting industries than set off a chain of destruction that wreck havoc on the entire economic system, to the point that only the commodity-producers and their related industries survive as viable portions of the economy.

About a year ago, the author spoke to a newly joined foreign coworker of his on the conditions of his current residence.  "It is a very organic place," the coworker remarked with a polite smile, continuing on to mention how cheap the local neighborhoods are for renting out living quarters.  As far as the classic spectrum of safety vs cost is concerned, this coworker is probably taking one extreme end, and in the process internalizing certain risks of personal well-being.  The author, at the time, questioned the wisdom of such decision.

Two years ago, this blog touched upon the then-quite-new idea of the Single's Day as new haven for Chinese online consumerism .  Some two years later, this "holiday" manufactured by the Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has not only remained strong and growing as the world's largest annual event of online sales, but has also begun to spread its idea to the non-Chinese world.  Out here in the depth of Southeast Asia, ecommerce firms such as Lazada has latched on to the idea, and now, trying to run with it in a decidedly unfamiliar environment for Single's Day adherents.

Since this blog previously remarked on how mass media uses clear double standards to judge whether a certain case is more worthy of coverage than another, the public's fear of an Ebola epidemic, despite news of optimistic recoveries and winning battles, has been continuing unabated.  More and more stories of lone travelers landing in other parts of the world, bearing fevers and other, more mysterious symptoms, have only served to stoke repeated feel of crisis among the general populace.  The sheer unpredictability of where the disease may land next have kept the public concerned in ways that exaggerate the lethality of the disease.

Walking down the streets of Indonesia, it is often difficult to tell who is Muslim and who is not.  The ethnic Chinese (mostly not Muslim) as well as the country's large Christian minority existing from days of Dutch colonialism, mingle easily in the Muslim minority, each dressed so similarly that it is simply impossible to tell their religious background.  Coming from Malaysia, this is by all means a pleasant surprise.  The differences among Malaysia's race is too often visually expressed through different ways of dress, with the Malays, women in particular, following modesty in fashion terms.

It is funny how sometimes a news item becomes a big one when it hits some sort of threshold.  A couple of recent ones comes to mind.  One was the confirmation of the first Ebola patient in Texas, and all the sudden all major international news outlet treat the event as an "escalation" of the disease as it is no longer confined to some poor African nations.  The other is a viral campaign by a Norwegian NGO that faked a wedding of a preteen to a 37-year-old.  The faked event caused an outrage in ways, as predicted by the NGO, in ways thousands of similar (and real) instances of it goes unnoticed in Africa and South Asia.

On Day 2 of his trip in Nepal, the author decided to take a long detour to the eastern regions of the Kathmandu Valley, hours away from the capital city itself.  In a country where public transport is minimal, the author had to reserve a long-distance taxi in the city's main square.  In his quest, he came upon a friendly driver of late 40s, who immediately gave a round-trip price with several stops (waiting time for him) in between.  Without asking for any prepayment of the fairly large sum by Nepali standards, the driver took off for the suburbs with the author in tow.

Having the traditional Nepali fare of daal bhat (light curry with rice) in a local restaurant in Kathmandu, the author was lucky to share a table with a couple of Nepali businessman in the widespread pashmina (fine cashmere textiles) industry.  Suddenly, one of the guys pick up his phone, and to the author's surprise, starts going off in a fluent conversation in Mandarin.  Inquired afterwards, he divulged that he is based in Shenzhen, just home for the long seven-day golden week China is celebrating for the Oct 1 holiday (for Founding of the People's Republic in 1949).

The front-page covers of the Philippine Star newspaper this morning was a gigantic picture of the masses of protesters occupying Central, the ground zero of Hong Kong's ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations .  The newspaper noted Filipino solidarity with Hong Kong in its pursuit for full-fledged democracy, noting shared political values and the Philippines' own struggle for democracy in the past.  The newspaper's reactions to the demonstrations, in this case, have been highly aligned with those of the major media across the world, whether televised, printed, or social.

One of the first thing a visitor to major towns in Peninsular Malaysia's East Coast would be the flags hoisted on steel poles.  The Malaysian national flag, the state flag, and...umm?  Is that a little Palestinian flag flying below the state flag?  Support for Palestinian freedom seems like part of daily lives here.  Shops and hotels seem to always have donation boxes for the Palestinian cause, and banners point out how Malaysia ought to be the second home for Palestinian refugees.  Indeed, Malaysia has pledged medical and financial support for Gaza during times of Israeli invasions , but the rhetoric in KL has never reached this magnitude.

There is an identical white flyer (likely illegally) pasted on many telephone poles on the outskirts of Ipoh's New Town.  The content is written 100% in Chinese, with no Malay or English translation.  It advertises hiring of "male publicity officers" (男性公關) who, so duly pointed out, will enjoy salaries of more than 10,000 Ringgits per month ("generous tips" in exact wording), flexible working hour in an, ehm, "exciting job opportunity" (刺激的工作機會).  Given the relative absence of conspicuous nightclubs and lounge bars in this part of the city, such an exciting opportunity was definitely abnormal.

The author, as the adventure traveler that he is, often gets the question of where his "most interesting" destination have been.  Generally, without a doubt, the answer has been North Korea, a foreboding land for most who has the yearning to go but no courage to do so.  The author's own trips to North Korea occurred both from the Chinese and the South Korean side, years before the existence of this blog, and thankfully, before the more stringent regulations governing travels to the Hermit Kingdom today.  It was a different time when curiosities of foreigners was keeping a modest state-led tourism sector growing at steady pace.