Weekend in Singapore

I used the “force” a while back to get my non-existent scissors through airport security.  We were headed to Singapore for a long weekend.

Singapore is a stark contrast to Indonesia in so many ways.  It is fascinating how you can go so developmentally far in just a 75 minute flight.

This county is one of the most densely populated countries on earth with some 5500 people per square mile, and yet, they’ve nicknamed themselves “A City in a Garden.”  There is green space everywhere. Parks and sidewalks and pedestrian zones.  The mass transit system is clean, efficient and cheap.  The three of us spend 7 bucks on subway rides for the weekend.  Cabs were more expensive, but still fairly affordable. A 30 minute cab ride cost 25 bucks.

The roads are wide open. The cars are new and everything moves at speed.  The government discourages a lot of cars and the cars they do have are new.  I don’t think I saw a car older than 2010 all weekend.  They’ve got a sizable tax on cars that increases with the age of the car, so there is an increasing incentive to get rid of it after a while. That tax must also extend to motorbikes because there were far fewer of those.

Singapore is a maritime crossroads and at times has been occupied by a world of leaders.  Muslims, Indians, British, Japanese.  It is a hugely diverse country.  You can walk down a street and find a Mosque, Buddhist temple, Hindu temple, Catholic church and a Synagogue all within walking distances to each other.  Apparently they all participate in each other’s festivals, too.

Also, as a result of being at the crossroads is the food!  You need to bring a second stomach for the

amount and variety of food you can find.  There aren’t really a lot of food carts, but many areas of the city have a multi-story, semi-open building dedicated to food stalls selling the world’s great street food from traditional dim sum to dosas to pig’s organs soup. I don’t know what they rent a stall for, but it is comforting to know that each vendor has clean running water and a toilet near by.

Singapore owes its status to it’s long time leader. Mr Lee Kuan Yew.  He’s probably the closest one could come to a benevolent dictator.  In old fairy tales, we often read about “good kings” who ruled wisely and their people prospered. I’d often wondered if good kings existed, but this is close.

Mr. Lee rose to power in a quasi-communist movement back in the 50 and recognized after WWII that unless Singapore stood up for itself it was going to forever be trampled on by the powers of the day.

He set about making Singapore as self sufficient as possible.  When they realized that they were beholden to Malaysia for water, they secured new sources of freshwater and invested hugely into desalination plants.  They designed the city to be user friendly and Mr. Lee was an early advocate of the green movement. There was a strong rule of law and corruption of any sort was not tolerated.  He knew that there was a history of many different religions and cultures, so he melded them together and placed the state ahead of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. English is the language of trade, but there are 4 official languages.

I’ve been told that if you don’t have a place to live, you’re given a place.  If you’re able, you’re expected to work.  Taxi driving positions are apparently reserved for those in need of a job. This does present a problem as your driver may be less than linguistically or geographically literate.

There is free health care up to a certain income and after that one is expected to buy into the national program. Same with housing.  There is an expectation that you’ll buy a house and there is a lending program through the post office to make this happen.  

Mr. Lee was Prime Minister until 1990, but was still an active in Singapore politics until this past February when he was in the office the day before he died.

But, enough of the promotion of Socialism.  I know you really want to know what to do when you’re there.  So, here goes…

Orchard Road is the big shopping area.  You can find nearly all the western goods you’d ever want here.  Shop after shop after shop.

If you want anything else, go to Mustafa’s.  Based in Little India, this would seem to have any product you could want from anywhere in the world.  I wrote a few posts ago about the wall of Head and Shoulders at Target.  Mustafa’s has several walls of dandruff shampoo from africa and the himalayas right next to their equally impressive H&S display.  Noodles, and spices and candy and fresh fruit.  Row after row.  Floor upon floor.  You will lose yourself here.

Little India itself is pretty impressive. Go on a weekend and it feels like you could be in Delhi, though cleaner.  And no cows in the street.

 

The Sri Veeramakaliamman temple is worth a look.  Just drop off your shoes and walk in.  Don’t take photos, though.  Right across the street is MRT. This is a long established dosa place with lines out the door at all hours.  You will often share a table with whomever comes in next.  The tastes were great.

 

Chinatown is equally active.  Lots of community activity and shops. If you go in the evening, there is honest-to-god C&W line dancing with honest-to-god Chinese cowboys at the community center plaza. The streets have the usual tchotchkes, but some great food and the Buddha’s tooth temple is an interesting sight. Lots of shiny gold statues.  

The Bugis Street Market is a great place to look for bargains and souvenirs.  There is a ton going on here.  Ladies, get your nails done cheap.

It was raining on the day we planned to go, but we hear the Botanical Gardens are a nice place to go for a walk and picnic.  It’s free and easy to get to on the train.  We saved that for next time.

Instead we went to Gardens by the Bay with the Flowerdome and Cloud Forest.  These are the largest green house and tallest indoor waterfall in the world.  They have really nice gardens and as a bonus, they’re air conditioned.  

Nearby is Marina Bay Sands, which is a pretty interesting hotel. You can see it in the photo up top.  If you stay there you can swim in the infinity pool at the top.  There is an observation deck that anyone can go see.  I can’t believe that there is not a way to bungee jump off the end.  That seems like a natural.

At night, you can see the Singapore Night Safari.  This is a zoo based on the premise that many animals are most active at night, so the place doesn’t open until 6 at night and closes near midnight. Admission gets you a tram ride with english speaking guide.  You can get on and off and walk around as well.  Indeed, there are lots of animals to see and they are well presented. They high point had to be the fruit bat exhibit.  A great opportunity to be 2 feet from and feasting bats.  There were bat fights and bat shenanigans. It was cool!  

Wanna know what’s not nocturnal?  Human children. Know that there will tantrums.  If you stay a little later, the place clears out and you almost have the place to yourself.  

A few miscellaneous tips, there are lots of vegetarian places to eat, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Take cash.  Despite Singapore’s financial prominence there were a surprising number of places that didn’t take credit/debit cards.  They did have a NETS system which seemed to be some sort of socialist payment system.

We were there for 2 nights and could have used more time there. Maybe on another long weekend.

Ramadan

Ramadan started this week.  This is the Muslim holy month of fasting.  I’m told life is going to change.

The Islamic calendar is a lunar one and Ramadan starts with the new moon. One would think that because the new moon is printed on calendars and that people have been figuring the position of the moon for eons, that they would have figured out when Ramadan begins.  Persians and Arabs were some of the earliest mathematicians probably for just this reason.  But, in this is a holy time and not a scientific time, so the scientists and the math wonks take a back seat to the more spiritual.

Because the new moons are printed on your calendar, everyone has a pretty good idea of the start of the holy month, but here in Indonesia the start is by government decree.  This decree came two days before the start. Apparently the government has a panel of 19 skywatchers from all around the country and they all look at the moon to see if it is totally invisible or not. Then they gather in a room and discuss and come up with a day to begin.  

There is a split between those who believe that the actual date should be when the moon is totally invisible and those who believe that the actual date should be when there is a sliver of a moon starting to show.  If you wonder what Muslims the world over fight over? It is stuff like this.

At any rate, the month has begun.  People have been stocking up and shopping and getting excited.  Food prices are creeping up.  We heard last week that even though it is a month of fasting, people actually eat more this month than usual.  They just eat it all at night.  The eat from dusk to dawn and don’t sleep and then work all day at their normal jobs.  By mid-July, they’re all a little fatigued.

We’ve been told that people just get a little bit squirrely with all the fasting and lack of sleep.  Sure enough I came home to a house that was just a tad bit off from usual.  Cloth napkins lying on the couch. Bathroom cleaning supplies still scattered on the floor.  Fried rice made with everything but the seasoning.  I don’t fault her.  She’s a mom and has probably been up since 2:30 AM cooking an early breakfast.

And here’s something I learned.  After everyone breaks their fast, the young march about the neighborhood banging drums and shouting and shooting off fireworks, entreating others to come to the mosque for the last prayers of the evening.  If this goes on nightly, it will be a long month for the dog.

I heard from my office staff that the last prayer of the day is a special one.  There is usually a special talk.  There is great debate about which mosque to go and who the best Imam is and which one makes you do and abbreviated 8 rounds of prayers instead of 23 rounds.  It’s too much up and down for many. They tried to explain, but I really don’t understand why it’s 23 instead of 24 or 20 or 25.  Something about perfection, but it was lost on me.

The other 10 or 12 percent of the population take a back seat here in Jakarta. Many restaurants close up during the day.  Those that stay open draw their curtains or put up a screen so as not to tempt any of the weak to eat.  We all try and eat respectfully.  There are hardliners who march about vigilante style trying to keep everyone holy.

It’s only been a few days. We’ll see how the month progresses. 

Down at the D.M.V

Not really at the DMV, but it sure felt like it.

After being here nearly a year, I finally got my Indonesian driver’s license. I’m afraid this blurb will not do the experience justice.  

From previous entries, you’ll recall that Jakarta is a city of 20 some million.  No one really knows.  And, while back in the states, DMV offices are branched out into the city, in Jakarta, there is one. Yes, just one office serves the entire population.

This city adds 1200 new vehicles per day. If just half of the 20 million people have or want a license and they need it renewed every 5 years and there are 220 working days in a year, that makes about 9000 people needing a license each day.  And, since they all know it will take a while, they all show up as early as possible. When one shows up at 9:30, you can imagine the line that has already formed.

The DMV here is not really a building, but rather a campus dedicated to the provision of driving documents.  It is massive and surreal. Large, tall concrete semi open structures seemingly built to hold heat.  The ceiling fans are distantly placed so as to be totally unhelpful. Rows and rows of hard plastic benches.  A fake, random and non-native maple tree with orange plastic leaves sits in the corner.  

Everywhere you look there are lines for various tasks required to get your license.  Getting a form line. Turning in a form line.  Eye test line. Pay your money line  Photo and fingerprint line.  Receive your license line.

Rows of holed windows line walls.  At intervals, official voices bark out names, volume unassisted. The sound trailing off into the space and the background noise. No one hears anything  An odd 8-bit chorded sound track is on auto repeat and plucks at the last nerve anyone has left.

There is one room labelled “Simulator room.”  Apparently this is a splendid boondoggle.  A former government official received a large kickback for allowing a contract of driving simulators that promised to allow everyone to take their driving tests without having to venture out into the the Jakarta traffic that they rode in on.  Alas, the software and technology were so glitchy that they are unusable and thus collect dust.

And, as always, all sorts of enterprises have sprung up around it it try and make some money.  ATMs offer a ready supply of cash to help grease the wheels of bureaucracy. There are photo copy booths. Food vendors line the streets selling food while you wait.  Hawkers even sell pencils that you’ll need to fill out forms.

The Indonesian government won’t allow open necked photos or t-shirts or photos of women with bare shoulders or, curiously, people wearing flip flops, though they only take a head shot. The result is a massive cavern of damp people and wallets full of the wilted photos.

I know many Indonesians can spend a day here just getting something done.  My pembantu, spent the better part of a day only to find she’d been in the wrong line and so had to go back the following day to finish up.

Fortunately, we had a facilitator.  Many expat companies hire these people to walk their employees through the process.  They handle the paperwork and know how to get things done.  Our guy worked for the embassy and seemed to know everyone.  We only had to wait in one spot for very long.  We were in and out in an expedient three and half hours!

S.A.M-Travel Insecurity

I read on the news wires recently about how the TSA failed to find some 90% of illegal items when inspectors tried to get them through.  

Here in Indonesia it seems they’re actually getting better.  Or at least their practicing to more stringent standards.

When I first started traveling from here, my bags would be scanned, but I was never sure if anyone was at the screens looking at the images.  I never took off my belt or emptied my pockets.  When I set off a detector, I was given a wand over that usually confirmed that I had some metal on me, but they never asked to see it.  It seemed like they just wanted to confirm that their big metal detector was working okay. They’d wave me on through.

Lately, though, they’ve made me take out my laptop and take off my belt and empty my pockets.  They even made me take off my, mostly plastic, watch.  This watch never sets off an alarm at any U.S airport. On a recent trip from Jakarta, though, it set off the alarm and they made me go back through.

There are still some gaps in the net, though.

On the same trip where I had to remove my watch and walk back through the magneto portal, I caught up with my baggage and a security guard waiting for me.

Guard:  “Sir, is this your baggage?”

Me: “Yes.”

Guard:  “Are there scissors in here?”

Now, it is hard to convey, through this written medium, the power of the “Force” at work in this situation.  But, let me tell you it was amazing!

Me: “No, there are no scissors.”

Guard: (To Monitor watching Guard.  In Indonesian.)  “He says there are no scissors here.”

Monitor watching guard:  “Okay. Let him pass then.”

Guard: (To me)  Okay, sir. Thank you. You may go now.”

And, so I moved on.  

This was all witnessed by my incredulous daughter who muttered all the way down the concourse.  

“We are going to die, we are going to die, we are going to die!  It would be so easy to do something.  I can’t believe anyone can just talk their way out of an inspection!”

“Is that a handgun in your bag?”

“No. It is not a handgun.”

“Okay. These are not the droids we’re looking for. Have a nice day!”

America: Head and Shoulders Above the Rest

Secret Asian Man returned to North America for a brief time recently for work and pleasure.

It was so refreshing to walk in cities with only limited amounts of trash in the streets.  Clearish streams and rivers instead of chalky-silver fluids running in blackened streambeds. Driving within the lanes at speed without fear of hitting stray cattle or pedestrians or motorbikes.

Now, Indonesia is not a poor country from a resource vantage point.  Plants sprouts instantly out of the soil even with the pollution.  Food grows year-round.  There are vast natural resources.  

But, their resources do not compare to the abundance found in America.

Mrs. S.A.M did not accompany me, and so, sent a list of things she wanted from the Land of the Free including Head and Shoulders shampoo.  I marked one day as a shopping day and headed to Target, the home of all things abundant even when one is not coming from a place of scarcity.  

In the shampoo aisle, I found myself wishing for an abundance of time for there was a 6x6 wall of all manner of Head and Shoulders. I was absolutely paralyzed.  

I reached for the “Classic” version, but paused as my eyes roamed my other choices.

I knew that that I didn’t want to smell like “Green Apple.”  I don’t think that anyone should.

I pondered what “Ocean Lift” smelled like.  Did I want that?  I was about to crack open a package for a sniff when I caught sight of the Head and Shoulders/Old Spice version.

Now, I liked the boisterous attitude of that muscled Old Spice Guy and I’d been trying to work on my abs.  Perhaps this shampoo was my key to a washboard gut.  But, perhaps that was too much to ask for.

There was also H and S, Dry Scalp edition.  This seemed unfair.  For what is dandruff, if not, at least partly, a dry scalp.  What did normal Head and Shoulders do if it didn’t help with this anyway.  

There was 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner and also a version that conditioned while it cleans.

What?

And then there was size.  Do I get a jumbo size that might last me a year or a smaller size that lasts a few months?  The miser in me kicked in.  What was the price per ounce?

I tell you it was simply baffling.  It was a 15 minute process.

Going home, though was like slipping into a pair of your favourite jeans.  How comforting to know one could have anything and more?  I mean really, green apple scented shampoo?

It was nice to have a front porch to sit on.  In Indonesia, I sit behind 10 foot walls.  Everyone does.  Only the guards know the neighbors. Or, at least they know the neighbor’s guards.  On my porch, I get to chat with neighbors and watch the world go by.  

One evening, an obviously psychotic gentleman marched up and down my street all night. His mutters punctuated by persecutory rants about Vietnam.  He shook and rattled all the recycling bins, but never took anything from them.  I wondered what was going on in his altered reality.

That same night, another man, possibly just as psychotic and clearly quite inebriated wandered, zombie-like,  into the orange glow of the light overhanging  the intersection.  He paused and gave a far off stare before turning around and stumbling back down the middle of the street into the darkness.  A friend and I followed him and watched him pass out in some bushes just before the police rolled up to assist him.

As noted here before,  here in Indonesia, the mentally ill are often locked up out back of a family’s home and kept out of sight and out of harm’s way.  In America, it seems, our mentally ill are cage-free, free-range and clearly unmedicated.  In a country of abundance, there has to be some happy medium somewhere.

Ah, but ain’t that America.

This Week in Virginity... and Other Moral Legislation

There has been a lot of legal news in Indonesia in the last few months. Much morality has been legislated and enforced. Some of it you’ve probably read.

The government here carried out a series of execution of convicted drug dealers.  These folks were caught 10 years ago and sentenced to die.  The appeals and the general bureaucracy was quite slow, so a decade on, they finally got around to killing them.  

The death penalty for drug dealing is prominently noted on entry to the country and in various places.  Many people say that these folks were all fairly warned that it was a risk.  There are lots on the other side who say that a number of the convicted were rehabilitated and that they should have their sentences commuted.  

The government saw it differently, though, and carried out the executions by firing squad.  All the convicts were shot together.  None wore blindfolds. And all were singing together when they were killed, which must have been a rather grim scene.

The government states that 50 drug users die every day here and that there are thousands of addicts, so this justifies the executions.  One wonders, though, how many lives might be saved if there were any sort of drug rehab or treatment programs around.  There are none.  There are a number of other slated to be executed soon.

There has been a similar move toward alcohol.  There is a feeling among those in the government that alcohol is too readily available to teenagers. As has been printed here, alcohol is readily available to anyone who wants it. Teenagers here, have found that mini-marts are great places to hang out.  They give away free wifi and they also sell alcohol.  It is a toss up to as to  the real reason.  

At any rate, the government proposed rather suddenly, that all alcohol sales be banned from mini-marts and with very little discussion or room for public comment, this was passed into law. it was proposed by those who support a move toward sharia law, but then picked up and championed by more secular forces.   

I asked several people what they thought about and no one agreed with the law, but they said that it must be a good law, because no one was protesting it.  And, so just like that there was no alcohol available at Mini marts.  

The day after the mini mart legislation passed, a group of men who were not the police went to a local alcohol outlet owned by an ethnic chinese and told them they were breaking the law by selling alcohol.  The store owner said the law didn’t apply to her because she wasn't a mini mart, but the group of men said it didn’t matter and relieved her of 50 cases of beer which they promptly took down the street and drank.

There is new legislation now that would ban the sales of ALL alcohol anywhere except for tourist areas like Bali and at 5 star hotels.  There is a separate proposal that would ban public intoxication.  It is a toss up as to whether this will pass. As far as I know the penalty will not be death.  I’ve seen no laws proposing the opening of any treatment or education programs for adults or teens.

In an odd twist on the whole morals thing, while there is a strong move to control substance use, there is a movement to legalize prostitution in some areas of Jakarta. City officials admit that they’ve no way of fully stopping these transactions and feel that if they legalize it in certain areas, health and government workers can contain the practice and better monitor for STD’s and provide religious guidance to workers.  HIV rates among sex workers approaches 65% by some estimates.

And then there's this. Perhaps you’ve seen in the news, the calls to ban the practice of the “two-fingered virginity test” for female military recruits. It seems this is a long standing practice that serves as screen to prevent “naughty” women from entering the armed forces on the grounds that such women are mentally unfit.  Despite the calls to ban the practice, the military says it will continue the practice apparently building a well-behaved, compliant and sexually humiliated fighting force.

And in Aceh, which is province in Indonesia that was fighting for independence.  This fight ended, though when the government agreed to let the province impose sharia law there.  

Recently they have instituted a law where all education will be same sex and that women will no longer be allowed to ride on motorbikes with men as this is unseemly.  Also, because straddling a motorbike may threaten a woman’s virginity, and because they value purity and chastity more than safety, they will soon begin enforcing a long-standing law requiring women to only ride side saddle on a motor bike.  I have not seen how this will work if a woman is driving the motor bike.

Kathmandu

“Buddha was Born in Nepal” was emblazoned on the front window of a bus.  One of the first things I saw when I woke in Kathmandu, Nepal.  And thus begins this tale of suffering, death and rebirth.   

Twenty some years ago, some friends and I landed in Nepal.  Jet-lagged, we woke at dawn and took a walk to SwayambhunathTemple perched on a hill overlooking the city.  We climbed the 360 steps to the top in a morning mist.  There was group there with drums and other instruments singing.  We wandered around the various ancient temples, spun the prayer wheels and watched the city wake up below.  It was a magical experience.

Back in present day, after the quake, damage is significant, but sporadic and inconsistent. There are neighborhoods where damage is extensive and others that seem unscathed. Cracks still materialize with each aftershock and aftershocks also bring the odd falling brick.  I missed the big shocks, so I’m much less sensitive.  Those who lived through it are acutely tuned into any movement of the earth whether caused by seismic activity or a semi truck.

Dominoes.  Building on left is still vertical. 

Quake damage

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In the capital, looking at some buildings, it is surprising that more didn’t fall as they look rickety

to begin with. In older areas of town and a number of heritage sites are woefully damaged.  It will take years of work to get them back.  Thankfully, these places are under guard now, so hopefully no treasures will be lost.

Many are sleeping with extended families in a single ground floor room.  Some can’t bring themselves to sleep inside even though their homes have been rated as safe for habitation.

Life is worse in rural areas.  It is amazing to me, with the world shrunken so with digital communication, that places can be so cut off so easily.  Villages a mere 40 kilometers from the capital city are now a 6 hour bus ride plus a 3 hour hike to reach.  I don’t know if this has reached BBC or CNN, but one village has been entirely wiped out by a landslide triggered by an earthquake and later rains.  It seems a glacier was loosened by the shaking and lubricated by the rain and just rushed into the valley below burying a popular tourist area under 100 meters of rock and mud.  An associated air blast from the slip was so powerful that it denuded and flattened trees for acres in front of the slip.

Getting supplies in has required monumental efforts of aircrews and transporters. All made difficult by a lack of open roads and lack of helicopters.  Desperate people early on had been raiding trucks on occasion making distribution even harder.

Available open spaces are dotted with tents and people seem to be settling in for a while.

At the same time, there is an incredible amount of resilience at least in the city. Some 10 percent or more fled for the country in the days after the quake.  Slowly, the city is regaining her people back. More and more shops are open. People are talking and laughing more. There are lots of veggies for sale and I saw a truckload of flat screen TV’s being loaded into a store, so there must be a demand. At night, the city has been quiet, but in recent days bars and clubs have been discretely opening.  No garish lights, but if you listen hard you can hear the strains of old cover tunes.

Rather quickly people are cleaning up.  Without waiting for an insurance settlement, crumbled bricks have been chipped free of their mortar and stacked neatly on site for reuse later.  Sidewalks and city streets are all open.  Some buildings, though notably listing, are frighteningly being used for business even though the doors don’t open all the way.

Though bouncing back, these people need help.  Aid has started to flow in. One would think that after an eternal line of tragedies and disasters we’d know how to distribute aid safely, quickly and equitably, but it still starts slowly and at the top and trickles down.  One man, being pragmatic, painted a sign outside his shop.  “Stop Praying, Start Paying.  Support the Nepali People!”

Given that tourism is so important here, I worry how these people will survive after the giant news eye turns its focus elsewhere. It may be that the next best thing to sending money is saving up for a trip to this mountain country after the monsoons depart. It would provide some much needed capital.

All around though, people are creeping back to normal.  Legend says that a woman wanted to honor the Buddha and asked the king for land on which to build it. The king said she could have all the land that was covered by the skin of a water buffalo. The woman, being crafty, cut the skin into one long, very thin strip and encircled a piece of land 150 meters around. The king stuck to his bargain and thus the Boudinath, the world's largest stupa was built. In the evenings, the Nepalese gather to circumambulate.  Walking thrice around slowly, spinning the prayer wheels as they go, or just talking with each other as a way to wind down the day. It is remarkably crowded.

I spotted a girl there in a green shirt with flashy gold letters. She’s taking it in stride.  The words on her shirt read, “Everything Happens for a Reason.”    

My last morning I tried to recreate my experience of 20 years ago. I woke at dawn and headed back to the temple. There was some effort to barricade the place, but scores of the faithful were there already. I hiked up the steps and over fallen bricks and broken glass, and there, with the sun rising, it was exactly how it was twenty years ago.  There was singing and blessings and offerings.  Forget twenty years; it’s been like that for hundreds of years.

One man told me they rebuilt everything after the big earthquake in 1934 using all the stuff that fell down.  We’ll build again.   I heard another local saying. “We’re Nepali. There is always another story.”