Mekong Market

TODAY in Vietnam I watched the locals do their grocery shopping from their boats. This is the largest floating market in Vietnam and it is not for the housewives but wholesale. Boats laden with hundreds of melons trade with the banana sellers while smart entrepreneurs snake their way in between the large house boats with snacks and drinks.

Everything is interesting in this market: the boats where families live, eat, bathe; the long spears that have the proprietor's wares on display to declare what it is he sells; the small boats serving juice, waffles, or other snacks; the glimpses of life on these "houseboats" where mothers feed their babies and young men steer with their feet.

The Muddy Mekong

TODAY in Vietnam I watched fishermen and families ply the mighty (muddy) Mekong river looking for edibles amongst the floating plants of the Mekong Delta. This is Chau Doc- the mouth of the Mekong River. Just up a ways is the border with Cambodia and just down a ways is the largest floating market in Vietnam.

I took a river boat down the Mekong, past the market, through the brown swirls of the river that is so often a part of all those Vietnam War movies. Small houses on stilts with fields in their backyards line this huge river. This river starts in China and flows through 5 countries, irrigating, feeding, and supporting the life along its banks.

Party Time!

TODAY in Hong Kong we finished the semester with a fizzle. I always have a little potluck party at the end of the semester in my classes. I asked everyone to bring something to share. Of course it is not surprising that not everyone brings something. But usually those who do go all out. In California I have so many students who work in restaurants or who love to cook that we have a veritable meal and I don't need to eat dinner the night of the potlucks. I always bring cookies or, as in the case of 3 of my classes that are all the same day, cheese cake. Unfortunately, I forgot the sugar in the cheese cakes and had to sort of add it by guesstimation later (didn't really work), but it was not too bad and I think the students appreciated it.

For this class, I added some jam to sweeten the cheese cake, which did not sweeten the aesthetics, but at least the students are too polite to complain! This class too was a little better about "potlucking"- they actually realized that you need more than one small bag of M&Ms to share with a group! See, someone brought several packs of snacks, a little baggie of Almond Rocca, and there are probably about 16 little tiny cookies in the rolls of cookies there.

In my writing class, there was one bag of M&Ms, one bag of Skittles, a can of Pringles, about 5 packs of rice crackers (2 per pack), and a small box of soft cream cakes. And my homemade Chocolate chip cookies!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but after the potlucks I am used to I was disappointed. It is pretty funny, actually, when you have this great expectation and people bring out of their purses or bags a small snack size bag of M&Ms to share. But there are more than 16 M&Ms in a bag so at least everyone got one!

Back to High School

TODAY in Hong Kong I am struck by how similar to my high school my university is.  The students groan at the thought of homework, they giggle at the words "girlfriend" or "boyfriend," and they will only interact with others of the same sex.  The school is similar to a high school as well as there are lockers lining the halls (yes, halls, and not those "hallowed" ones they have at Stanford with columns and arches), and young hipsters schlepping in front of you or chatting in a group that barely moves to let you through.  

There is a large "canteen" or cafeteria that is much better than my high school caf, but it gets AMAZINGLY crowded at lunch. Overwhelming.  The school has a small fast food eatery that serves sandwiches, pasta, other stuff.... so far I like their hot dog the best.   There is also a Chinese restaurant that is subsidized so it is possible to get great dim sum for a pretty good price, although it too gets over crowded.  And there is a staff lounge that has a cheap afternoon tea set of tea and sandwiches with the crusts off.  I believe these are the only eateries available.  Of course we are connected to a mall that has its own food court but when you only have an hour for lunch- at the same time as the rest of the world, it is hard to make it there and back.  I usually just bring something from home and work through my lunch so that I have less to take home.

There is a lot of work.  I have 7 classes plus work in the Self Access Language Centre (the SAC- which always elicits a giggle from me when my boss says things like "let's meet in the SAC" or "We need to figure out what we want to do in the SAC"! (Didn't I say it is like I am back in High School!?)

Most classes meet only once a week so I am having a hard time learning everyone's names.  There are only 16 students in a class, but they aren't very imaginative with their English names so I may have 3 Wilsons in 3 different classes so I get confused. Thank goodness they do use English names though!

In the most serious case of faking, one can produce milk without a cow.

TODAY in Hong Kong, a Hong Kong child has fallen ill due to tainted milk. In school, I am teaching my students to listen for implication in a given talk.  Everyday the newspaper's front page has articles on the situation. What are some implications that we can find in these articles?

Right now, the taint du jour is melamine in milk. According to experts, melamine has been an additive since 2005! Evidently New Zealand helped bring the issue at this time to the fore because a big milk company in NZ has a minority share in one of the Chinese giants. They don't have a large enough share to force the company to disclose t heir practices, but they were finally able to get the Chinese government to do something. Implication: There has been this practice since 2005, Chinese people have brought it to the attention of authorities, but it wasn't until it became known INTERNATIONALLY that anything is being done or that any one hears about it.

Yesterday in the paper milk middlemen were saying that they had been told only this past week that the large production factories would no longer be buying discounted milk that failed quality test. Implication: They WERE taking bad milk. The paper had a quote from a milk dealer who said that when his milk did not meet standards, he was told to put his milk in a different place and unload the milk into a factory container. Both companies USED to buy sub-standard milk for about half the price of good quality milk. Producers for both companies have admitted that they have added melamine for the past few years.

However, with this new policy of not accepting low quality milk, even at half the price, dealers bemoan the fact that "while before wey lost about 1 yuan for each kilogram of bad milk, with the new policy we lose everything!" Oh, sorry.
They were told that the low quality stuff would be mixed with the good, or used for milk powder. That's okay then.
And sometimes it was just off or bad smelling milk- and mixing it with good at a ratio of 1:5- no one would able to tell, right?

Now you may ask, as I did, WHY would someone put melamine into milk. Well, evidently it raises the protein levels. Therefore, when someone waters down milk to get more milk to sell, the nutritional values also get watered down, and it can't pass the test for protein levels. SO, they add melamine. BUT, that's not all! They add melamine or protein powders to boost protein levels, they add oil to increase fat percentages, and whey powder to fake the lactose level. And do you think they add expensive Canola oil? Of course they use industrial oil!

Since the price of grain has gone up so much, many cows were killed as farmers could not afford to feed them. Implication: there is less milk available. This is probably why now there is so much of this going on. Maybe they changed to ration from 1:5 to 1:1 bad to good and it actually has had an effect (like children dying). And now it has spread to Hong Kong.

information from the South China Morning Post

Eat Eat Eat - The Singapore Way

One of the best things about Singapore is the variety of street food you can get all in once place under a roof that keeps out the rain! Street food is practically the national food here in Singapore, but to keep it safe, clean, and off the streets (out of the way of traffic, etc.) most vendors have moved to these big market places that hold several vendors hawking their snacks. The food is still cheap, still tasty, and still without air conditioning, but you can choose Indian and Malay and Chicken Wings and coffee drinks and bubble tea all at the same place and eat it at a table!

The People of Singapore

Today in Singapore I visited the Asian Civilizations Museum and the Peranakan Museum.

Many people in Singapore are proud to call themselves Peranakan. This term refers to offspring of the the original people who came here from foreign lands and married with local ladies. There are Indian Peranakans, European Peranakans, Chinese Peranakans, and Malay Peranakans. Each brought their culture, cuisine, and religions to this region to make it a highly diverse city where several languages hold sway.

Malay and Chinese are the official languages while English is the common language they all share (and Singlish is their own special brand of English that is recognized as a World English and therefore considered an acceptable standard English.)

It seems like the education system here is light years ahead of Hong Kong and the States. Their mathematics program is being copied in other countries and they have dealt with this Medium of Instruction issue in a way that HK could learn from.
School in Singapore is year-round and all students have to study their maternal language and their own religion. When I was at an Indian temple there was a group of school children learning about the gods depicted in the elaborate temple's roof decor.

Chinese kids learn Chinese and ... Buddhism I guess. And there are Christian studies for Christians as well.
Everyone speaks English- or at least Singlish as well as have a handle on their own ethnic language and culture AS WELL AS see themselves as Singaporean and have a pride of nationalism. Remarkable.

It's a Jungle Out There

TODAY in Singapore I went for a hike through the wilds of the reservoir. There is a suspended bridge that goes across the canopy for a view of the water in the distance and the green treetops below.

Singapore is SO green! and having the chance to hike through the steamy jungle, with monkeys and monitor lizards all around, was heaven.

I got lost a couple of times and ended up hiking for twice as long as planned, but it is really hard to get too lost. There are several trails and cell phones work; besides, I met an intelligence officer of the Israeli Army who had GPS on his phone!! But really I think it was my 0wn good sense of direction that got us back on the right road!

The first problem was that I got dropped off from the taxi in a place that was supposed to cut a couple Kilometers off my walk. I followed the sign that pointed to the hanging bridge, but ended up at the normal starting point! Meaning backtracking and going back the way I came but somehow I was on a different path? still haven't figured out what happened.

Second, my new friend and I were talking and missed the trail- there is a gate there by the way. And a sign that says "do not enter, Live Firing Range." But actually, as we learned when we returned to this spot, you just have to walk around the gate and the firing range is behind a fence so worries!

Our detour took us by rushing water and idyllic lakes edged by trees. We put our feet in the water- which is probably going to the taps of the Singaporean households, and enjoyed the detour at any rate.

There is no strenuous hiking here; the highest "mountain" is probably a few hundred feet high!
But it is mostly wild and natural. On my first foray, I was walking through the jungle on leaf strewn paths without another soul in sight. Only in certain areas was I able to see that the path was actually black-topped!

Five hours of hiking later, on the road, I saw a tail flipping around in the middle of the street. It was a squirrel! A huge truck came by and I covered my face as I thought it would be squished. The truck missed by an inch. The squirrel did not move. It missed though!
Running up for closer inspection, the squirrel was encircled by a bright green coil, a small open mouth clasped firmly on its neck. It was dead now. But the question is, would the snake escape the other huge trucks coming down the road?

Raffles

TODAY in Singapore I had afternoon tea in the famed Raffles Hotel Tiffin Room.

The Raffles Hotel was a prime destination for the globe-trotting well to-do of the turn of the century. Somerset Maughm penned several books while ensconced in the luxe colonial-style hotel. The original Singapore Sling was invented in the Hotel's Long Bar. The Tiffin Room was where ladies had tea and scones and discussed the fashions of the day, often led by local seamstress Ms. Geddes.

Walking through the hard-wood bannistered, high ceilinged, plushed carpeted lobby is like walking into another time. You can imagine the parties that were held behind the white plantation shutters or in the outdoor courtyards. You can see the men sitting in the library smoking pipes and reading the newspaper brought in from Britain. You can feel like a lady who walks with a parasol through the lush gardens of the hotel smelling the fragrant flowers and admiring the mature shade trees- rain trees they are called.

All in all, a visit to this iconic hotel is full of romance and imagination.

How green is your garden?

TODAY in Singapore, I am amazed by how green and plush the place is. The drive from the airport is quite pretty with green roadsides and lots of shade trees.

It is of course a very planned, landscaped city, but it makes for a nice, comfortable place that offers shade and flowers all around!

It is not at all as dense as Hong Kong (of course) although there are about 4.5 million people on about half as much land! And so far, not one person has bumped into me!!

There is a nice river with a cute riverfront with chi chi restaurants and bars housed in colonial-style remnants of the past, but now with waterfront seating!

There are high-end malls and shops and the whole place is quite clean (of course).

Maybe the most noticeable thing here, though, is the apparent diversity: Indians, Chinese, Malay, Indonesians, Westerners... Different faces everywhere. I like that!

China Steps Up

Today in China, a feeling of warmth broke through the hoar frost of the beleagered south for stranded drivers who have been sitting in their halted cars and trucks and buses for days. The Chinese central government had sent half a million army troops to do the job of snow plows, manually shovelling the roads and highways clear of snow and ice.

And today, the mess tents were serving many more than the green-suited members of the armed forces.

Steamingbuns, noodles, and rice were making their way to the cold and hungrypeople sitting in their vehicles waiting for the roads and rails to finally be clear.

Say what you will about centralized government, but once Premier Wen Jia Bao took the reigns to deal with this disaster, things went moresmoothly and improved immensely. Not that you can believe it 100%, but the news reports less than 100 people have died in this natural disaster. In China, that's nothing. We have people dying in New York from cold every year. How manypeople died in Katrina?

New Year's Eve in Hong Kong

Tonight in Hong Kong I celebrated New Year's Eve from the expansive patio of a friend where I could see the back of the IFC, which was the leader in the fireworks display.

This year, they had a “festival of lights in fireworks”- namely they had a sort of light show with fireworks.

Hong Kong is famous for its nightly light show at 8:00 when all the major buildings have lasers and lights going blinkety blink shine shine laser light show. So this year they had fireworks shooting off the tops of various buildings to look like a light show.

It was actually rather anti-climatic. There were no exploding flowers of lights or gently sprinkling down golden showers or really anything being shot into the sky. I could only see the back of the IFC and some buildings in Kowloon, but actually the photo in the newspaper the next day showed that I did not miss much. The fireworks only went off in streams from the tops of the buildings and out the sides of the IFC, which I could see.

But it was exciting to be with friends and meeting new people and drinking champagne after screaming the countdown together.