January 2010

Finally, a verdict!

January 22, 2010

It’s not India, it’s not Cambodia, nor Thailand, nor Vietnam. Yes folks, the verdict is in: SFO it is!

I know, crazy, right?

Well, after spending the whole day toiling over my options, it just seemed like the best solution. The India Visa office told me to expect another 3 to 5 working days for processing, which means it might be ready Wednesday or Friday of next week! Considering my flight home is already booked for Feb 3rd, this would have given me 3 to 5 days in India at the most! A little nuts for the travel time involved to get there and the travel time back to Singapore to get home.

And then I explored options for diving in Malaysia, and Thailand and Cambodia but I just wasn’t feeling the excitement. I was pretty indecisive between all options, so much so that it was bordering on apathetic (and that’s not a good sign). And I was trying to figure out why! Why why why? Well, first, I really want to go to India and since that doesn’t look like an option, the other places just seem like fillers until my flight home. And I’ve had this nagging feeling of danger the whole time I’ve been in Asia. I don’t know if it’s gut instinct or just that I am not made for traveling on my own, but it really does creep me out to be watched and leered at all the time. I had thought that because I’m Asian, I would blend in just fine but I still feel like a fish out of water here and don’t ever feel safe walking around, especially in the evenings. I’m usually pretty brave but there is something different about traveling in this part of the world that has made me really uneasy.

So, with lots of support and listening and patience from the boy and my mom, I’ve decided to spend a few days in Singapore to shop, eat and absorb as much warmth as possible before heading to cold rainy beautiful SF.

As well and maybe most important, I’m running out of my favourite facial sunblock cream. You can only get it in the US. The panic! How would I have coped without this sunblock?! Hardship, I tell you! Hardship!

AND OH MY GOSH, after months and months, I get to see Bear! And after 8 months on the road (from Africa, to Italy, to Canada, to Buenos, to the Philippines, to Indonesia, to Malaysia and then Singapore), I get to unpack my suitcase for real and live out of a proper closet for a while. I can shower without wearing flip flops and can maybe-hopefully-soon get a gym membership and a phone plan somewhere. =) Oh the pure perfect luxury of home. =) Home, home, home!

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Perspective

January 22, 2010

It’s been nearly three weeks since we all left the Philippines. The month-long holiday with the family was slated to be life changing but I didn’t really know then just how much. During my travels, I will sometimes browse through our pictures and laugh and cry remembering it all. The love of cousins, the wisdom of aunts and uncles, the sheer joy of our dancing and silliness. It was all just so amazing.

With some distance of time and space, the more important things come to the surface. Perspective. Wisdom. Insight. Gratitude. My cousins have all grown up in pretty humble conditions and my parting words to all of them – young and old – was to dream big. Dream big. The status quo does not have to be the status quo forever. Just like my parents dreamt big, they too can dream big and have something better, different, bigger than what they have now.

My little cousin Joy, a few weeks after we left, sent me an email. She’s 11 and so full of laughter and love. She said that she missed our time together and wondered how she could email DJ because she can’t write in English (this was all in Tagalog). She told me about all of her wishes and dreams. First, she’d always wanted a rolling backpack with wheels. She’d wanted it since the first grade and finally, four years later, when my Aunt was able to go abroad for a few months, Joy got her rolling bag. She also told me about how she’d love to see Boracay. She asked how much it cost, if it was nice, how she’d really like to visit it in the future. And then she said that her goal is to have a bike someday.

I read this and choked. She’s nearly 12 and has never had a bike! She’ll be starting High School soon and to think that throughout her whole childhood, she didn’t ever have a bike! I emailed my Mom and asked her to send money on my behalf so that Joy can have her bike. I gave the gift with the message that now that she has her rolling backpack and bike, she can dream EVEN BIGGER. Dream even bigger Joy.

And it has all gotten me to thinking a lot about how to make a difference in the lives of young girls in third world countries. How do you motivate them to work hard at school, so that they earn the scholarships that will get them the education that they need to pull themselves and their families out of poverty? Is it a parenting thing? A personality thing? Is it discipline and mentorship and guidance? Is it funding? What kind of funding? I don’t have the answer.

But I do feel that it’s important to empower young women at an early age. It’s important that they get the education that they need to feel good about themselves, so that they don’t marry early and have children too early. It’s important that they have a sense of self worth, a sense of confidence and purpose, a sense that they can achieve their goals and dreams. How do you communicate that to an 11 year old? How will it all stick? Is it a matter of making sure that they have their basic needs met, so that they can concentrate on the aspirational ones? What do they need? Hope? Pressure? Proof of past successes? I don’t have the answers but I’d really like to find them. It’s the kind of work that I think really matters and would make a real difference.

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The Islamic Arts Museum in KL

January 22, 2010

Yesterday, I spent three hours at the Islamic Arts Museum here in KL. I think it’s my favourite museum of all time. It’s tiny but beautiful. What I love about it and why I like it more than the crazy big beautiful museums in Europe (like the British Museum, for example) is that I learned SO much during my time in there. Instead of treating their artifacts like collector’s items and then letting the public take a look, this place made it a real point to educate the visitor about Islam.

I learned about the six different types of calligraphy used in ancient versions of the Qu’ran. I learned about hajj (the pilgrim’s journey to mecca), I learned about mosque architecture and I learned about prints and textiles and geometric design. I think I lapped up every word/diagram/exhibit in that place. Such a feast for the mind.

I’d post pictures of the place but I accidentally locked myself out of my Flickr account and Yahoo is being very unresponsive in helping me to solve the problem. =P Anyway, it’s a really great place and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting here.

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Doin’ it like Zimmern and Bourdain!

January 21, 2010

Tonight I had one of the best meals yet, in KL’s Jalan Alor street, a carnival-like night market of hawker stalls featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Malaysia episode. I met with Uncle Jack’s two nephews for a meal of authentic proportions! To eat Malay style, you can’t be afraid to get dirty – food stall dirty. I tried frog’s legs congi, fried oysters, fermented boiled egg and lok lok (which is a food stall version of fondue but with every possible vegetable, meat and seafood – including jellyfish! – you can find on a stick, boiled/fried and then dipped in chili, satay or sweet sauce). And all eaten on multi-coloured plastic lawn furniture in the middle of the street. So fun and so delicious!

Frog tastes like chicken, oysters taste divine, jellyfish taste like crunchy sugarless gummy bears and fermented black eggs taste like ammonia and sugar soaked egg yolk. What a feast for the senses!

And, I had durian! YES! DURIAN! Usually deemed the “stinky fruit” it has a very distinctive odour and in my opinion, is not at all as bad as its reputation. I can’t decide if it’s sweet, sour or bitter and maybe it’s actually everything all at once but durian isn’t just a fruit. It’s an experience. It’s smooth and sticky and fibrous and thick, a solid, liquid fruity piece of protein all in one little bundle of yellow buttery joy. I actually think that people just don’t know how to react to the myriad of flavours that comes at them when they eat durian (Andrew Zimmern from the Food Network’s Bizarre Foods couldn’t stomach durian and had to spit it out!). It doesn’t actually taste bad – it’s just very different from any other thing that I’ve ever eaten before! It doesn’t taste like a fruit nor a vegetable, and it’s thick and heavy enough to be eaten as a main meal (actually, TJ and J said that sometimes they eat durian with rice!). Maybe this is why it’s revered as “the king of fruits” in Southeast Asia. They even have all-you-can-eat durian buffets here!

So great! Great great great to get a local flavor for a new place. And now my hands and breath and probably my entire room smell of durian. They’ve actually banned durian from hotels because it is THAT pungent!

Thanks J, TJ and S for taking me out! So sweet and so so fun!

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Asia is …

January 21, 2010

… a great place to learn the difficult art of patience.

Like yesterday, when the bus to Melaka left 45 minutes late. Why? I don’t know. I think the driver was having a smoke.

Or today when the commuter train didn’t show up for a half hour. I could have walked to my destination.

Or in Ubud when the water shut off in the mid-afternoon. Why? I don’t know.

Or today when the cab driver insisted I pay him 10 RM instead of the 5 RM on the meter. Right. 100% tip. I’m generous, but not that generous.

Or the traffic. Everywhere. Enough said.

Today, I am a more patient person.

Breathe.

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Wisdom from Ganesha Bookshop in Ubud

January 20, 2010

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The flip side of the coin

January 20, 2010

So, I’d like to take this opportunity to rant a little. All of this Asia travel comes with the goods and bads. There have been great foods, cheap accommodations, beautiful tropical scenery and relatively good weather. But then there has also been the heat, the pollution, the insistent hawkers and all the people trying to rip me off. Fine. It all comes with the territory; all part of the adventure. But I am really getting sick and tired of being leered at, whistled at, followed and basically harassed by men. It is SO annoying.

Traveling as a woman alone in Asia can be tough work. Maybe not as bad as traveling through the Middle East as a lone woman but definitely worse than doing Europe. Maybe men just aren’t as exposed in Asia, or maybe I’m just not used to the blatant hawking and cat calls and rude stares (that the local women have perhaps learned to deal with on a daily basis) but honestly, it’s all enough to make me go mad. I’m so much more cautious because I have to be, and it makes me less open to meeting potentially nice people along the way. Because of the random jerks that I’ve met thus far (whose intentions have been less than good), I am less apt to trust any other man that strikes up a conversation. And that annoys me. It annoys me that my gut instinct is to be judgmental, cautious, suspicious. I don’t like traveling this way. =(

For India (if I actually end up getting a visa in time), I’ve got a new strategy. I am going to be married. That’s right. Tomorrow, I am shopping for a wedding ring. Preferably simple and gold, just like the locals would have it. This is the best traveler tip that I’ve gotten so far, from a guy I met who traveled to India with his girlfriend. He told me to go and buy a decent looking wedding ring and to be armed with a story about meeting my husband and our two kids at some town nearby in a few days. Brilliant! Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! That plus a shawl, sunglasses and hat should do the trick. =)

Of course, this plan could all go bust if I don’t get my visa in time. Plan B is to go get my diving license somewhere off the coast of Thailand or Indonesia. We shall see how the drama unfolds!

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Random tidbits about Asia

January 19, 2010

Sometimes I am guilty of taking Asia for granted. Because I remember a lot of my early childhood from the Philippines (we lived there till I was 5), much of the scenery and culture in Asia feels familiar to me. We spent weekends in the province among rice fields and bamboo cottages. We pumped water from a well, tended to chickens and pigs in my grandparents’ backyard and have been part of most 3rd-world-country dodgy activities that the west would consider illegal (i.e. lighting large home made fireworks in the front driveway on New Year’s Eve). I’ve seen dirt and poverty and pollution. And foods like salted shrimp paste and rambutan and durian don’t surprise me. But traveling through Asia this time around has really helped me to see this place differently. I can decipher the things that are similar across countries and all the things that are different. Though I hate to generalize an entire planetary region, there are several themes/foods/behaviours that ring true for many of the Asian countries I’ve visited thus far. Here are a few:

Rice. If you’ve ever learned about how rice is harvested, you probably have a greater appreciation for the staple crop. Growing rice is HARD WORK! It is laborious and backbreaking. It takes a whole community of people to tend to rice fields, to plant the seeds and to harvest the crop. We take it for granted that it is so plentiful but oh my gosh, it is a crop grown with the labor of love.

Night markets. What is it about westerners and night markets? I am staying in the middle of Chinatown in KL and at night the place is full of westerners buying fake Rolexes and Billabong shorts and LV rolling luggage bags. I understand it feels exotic but there are markets like this in every major city in the world, including San Francisco! The best part about these markets aren’t the things you can buy but the crazy foods that you can try. Fried scorpions in Beijing, durian in KL, snake-skin fruit in Bali and fried salted fish galore everywhere.

Strange dessert foods that I loooove! Warm soy bean curd with brown sugar syrup (I used to have this for breakfast as a child in the Philippines and found a cart selling it just around the corner here in KL!), red bean pastries, sweetened cooked corn kernels in a cup (there is actually a fast food chain that sells this like McDonald’s sells chocolate covered sundaes), salted dried tamarind fruit, bubble tea (sweet juices with tapioca balls), black rice pudding, fried bananas.

Scooters. Everywhere. They serve as long-haul buses for entire families: the mom, the dad, the two babies, the toddler, the 2 roosters, the couch and the neighbour. They are utilized to the max and can dramatically change the economics of an entire community.

Fantastically prepared fruits and vegetables. Avocado juice (avocado blended with milk and sugar is amazing), salted pineapples, sweet mango with pungent shrimp paste, banana pancakes, ginger teas, sticky rice cooked in fragrant banana leaf, purple yam pudding, vinegar and sour green mango, jackfruit in warm rice and sweet milk.

Cheap movies. Though I don’t agree to purchasing pirated originals, I was shocked to walk into what looked like an HMV only to realize that I was browsing new release DVD copies that were selling for the equivalent of $1.50 USD each. In the last two weeks I’ve seen the latest Harry Potter, Revolutionary Road (which is SO very depressing), the latest two Batmans and Underworld Revolutions for basically nothing.

Terribly unethical tobacco advertising. On TV tobacco advertisements are the equivalent of a mini Survivor Man movie. They are disgustingly aspirational – touting adventure, ruggedness, masculinity and escape. One shows a man trying to climb a snowy mountain. He is overcome by an avalanche but manages to dig his way out to victory. Then, BOOM, the “International” tobacco brand is plastered across the screen. Tobacco is so very cheap in this part of the world. Sadly, affordably addictive.

And now some interesting differences…

In Bali, even though I didn’t have international TV at all (not even the BBC or CNN), watching local TV was fascinating. In one commercial break there were at least 3 or 4 different advertisements for what looked like psychics or fortune tellers or prophets of some kind. They all touted things like success, health, happiness and love (guessing from what I could make out of Bahasa Indonesian). You could text for a quote, or perhaps an appointment? So interesting!

Kuala Lumpur (which means ‘muddy conglomerate’ because of the original site’s rich deposits of tin and silver) has been a real surprise! I had always known that Malaysia is a Muslim country but never really thought about how that fact would translate when I got here. It is so very multicultural and much more liberal than I originally anticipated. There are people of all shapes and colours, veiled and unveiled, Asian and Western. And the architecture is different from any other place I’ve seen in Asia because it’s Islamic. Typically Islamic art has focused on the depiction of patterns and Arabic calligraphy instead of living figures because it is feared by many Muslims that the depiction of the human form is idolatry and a sin against Allah. Thus, Islamic art and architecture will usually showcase beautiful floral and geometric designs (like the Petronas towers).

And well, the Philippines. I could go on and on about how it is different but I would be a little bit biased with my insider’s view. I would have to say that of all the strange foods that I’ve seen in other parts of the world, the Philippines tops my list for having the STRANGEST dishes of them all:

balut: a boiled, half fertilized duck egg with yoke and baby chick inside (I used to eat this as a child but can’t bring myself to have it now as an adult!)
kare-kare: meat (usually oxtail and innards) with coconut and peanut sauce
sisig: crispy fried (usually spicy) pork ears
dinuguan: pork blood stew with liver and meat
buro: fermented fish and fish eggs (the smell is just ridiculous!)

If you’re brave enough to try any of the above, you are invited to come with me when I go back to the Philippines next year!

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Videos from Bali

January 19, 2010

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Faith and Spirituality in Bali

January 18, 2010

A few days before leaving Ubud, a friend and I took one last tour to see Tirta Empul, the Holy Spring Temple and Pura Besakih, the Mother Temple. And my were we lucky! This past weekend marked temple celebrations across the island and we were fortunate enough to witness ceremonies and offerings everywhere we went. It was stunning to see whole villages of people, dressed in their finest silks and jewels, walking miles across town with baskets of fruits and flowers to offer thanks to the gods. The smell of incense permeated the afternoons, gongs rang and drums echoed down the streets, and colours, so many colours spilled over everywhere! Though I can’t possibly begin to understand the complexity and history behind Hinduism, it was a blessing to be witness to the beautiful traditional dances, gong ensembles, processions, prayer ceremonies and cleansing rituals that we saw this weekend.

At Tirta Empul, it was youth day. Hundreds of young adults came to wash away their impurities, ward against black magic and bathe anew in the natural spring waters. It was touching to see so many young people rooted in their faith and traditions. They laughed and giggled while in line, but when it came time to pray at the fountain mouths, there was a solemness that came over each and every one of them.

Dan Beuttner did a TED talk on living happier and longer and one of the major conclusions that he came up with after studying centennials from all over the world is that belonging to the right tribe and being a part of a faith based community can add years to your life. I couldn’t help but remember this as I humbly watched the elaborate celebrations happening this past weekend. Even for just a few days, people forgot that they were poor and hungry and came together to give thanks. There is a simple abundance in the acts of faith and gratitude, and both bring true richness to this place.