Our First Year: Everywhere

Vietnam Past And Present

In the warm, sweaty heat of Saigon, locals zip around chaotically on motorcycles, while others take midday naps in the middle of their shops. Cafes are everywhere and can be anything from a stand that sells Vietnamese coffee to an indoor, air-conditioned restaurant a la French Cafe. Like Bangkok, food is on carts throughout the streets, while fantastic restaurants are just as easily found.

Prices are cheap - like Thailand of 10 years ago. Maybe cheaper. We can get a snack for 60 to 80 cents and a good meal for $2.40 per entree.

The chaos of the traffic is deceiving. Initially, it gave me the impression that perhaps Saigon was a little uptight. However, on a Saturday afternoon, strolling the streets, it was clear that things lean more toward Thai "sabai sabai" (relaxed).

Although the average person seems reticent to communicate - perhaps because English is not widespread. However, those who speak English - hotel staff, restaurant staff, etc - are extremely friendly and polite.

I expected some French influence in the city, but not nearly the amount we've seen here. In Vientiane, Laos, there are only a handful of French colonial buildings and a circle and spoke intersection reminiscent of Paris and l'Arc d'Triomphe. But that was about it.

Saigon is littered with 19th and early 20th century French-style architecture - sometimes in the middle of a block with nothing else colonial. It's almost like finding a little pocket of architectural wonder among the blah typically Asian cement and tile buildings. Churches, government buildings, hotels and a number of beautiful parks all bear the mark of Vietnam's colonial past.

Of course, when we talk about Vietnam in our country - and here - it's not the French colonial times that come to mind. The Vietnam War - here referred to as the American War - seems burned into the psyche of both countries.

With the normalization of relations by the Clinton administration, everyone decided to let bygones be bygones and to go back to the business of business. America now has positive political and economic relations with quickly developing Vietnam.

However, the war remains a centerpoint of politics - and particularly foreign policy in both countries.

I believe that when we discuss issues like Iraq, Afghanistan and any other military involvement we've had in the past 40 years, Americans - particularly my parents' generation - are deeply concerned with avoiding another Vietnam. In fact, all the debate of Iraq - and the unfortunate way it progressed and ended - was an echo of the politics, fears and change in the American political psyche caused by Vietnam.

Much like the Vietnam War, Iraq and Afghanistan weren't just issues of two armies fighting with limited objectives. Guerilla warfare and factioning made things unclear and infinitely more challenging that anyone had predicted going in.

Today, it's hard to understand why we even fought in Vietnam in the first place. Textbooks and history writers tend to belittle American leaders' belief in the Domino Theory - the fear that China and the Soviet Union would turn country after country into communist nations. They felt that we needed to "contain" the spread of communism - and thought Vietnam was a necessary place to draw the line.

Eisenhower initially began aiding the South Vietnamese army at the request of the French who fell at Diem Bien Phu - losing their colony to communist insurgents. Kennedy increased our involvement because he and the American intelligence establishment thought that the Kruschev and the Soviet Union were backing the Vietnamese insurgents.

Had they understood the break in relations between China and the Soviet Union, they may not have taken the situation in Vietnam so seriously. Only it was fully apparent to the U.S. for several years. In reality, the Viet Cong were supplied only by China - which historically annexed Vietnam several times and considered it part of its sphere of influence even when Vietnam has not been within its formal control.

Nonetheless, Kennedy cast the die, and Lyndon Johnson rolled it - escalating our involvement from advisors and support to the South Vietnamese army into full-scale combatants. Johnson set aside advice from both the Defense Department and the CIA saying that America needed to keep its troop presence low to remain a non-combatant, or to enter full-force with lots of bombers to win the war swiftly.

Johnson believed that America couldn't stay on the sidelines, but that Congress and the American people would never approve of the scale it would take for a swift and successful offense. So, he went the middle road and began what - as predicted - was a bloody and losing ground war.

Johnson's decision traumatized both nations.

What he didn't understand was the Viet Cong were more determined than anyone could have imagined and prepared to use guerilla tactics - including manipulating civilians - to get their way. America didn't have the skills or understanding to combat an enemy that hid under guise of plain clothes and among civilian villages in jungles and swamps.

When Nixon's determination to withdraw troops, yet win the way and come away with a peace treaty meant he had to bring the Vietnamese to the negotiating table in a new way. He did what the CIA and Defense told Johnson would be necessary - he bombed the shit out of North Vietnam. By 1972, he had a treaty in his hand - so America packed up and went home. Once gone, the North Vietnamese, violated the treaty knowing Congress would never authorize the money and forces needed to enforce it. By 1975, Vietnam was under communist control - and disappeared behind the Asian Iron Curtain.

That's not exactly how the War Remnants Museum here in Saigon presents it. Today we visited the museum marked by American military helicopters, jet fighters and tanks in front of the building.

While the museum was highly propagandist and lacked context for so many aspects of the war, it was also interesting to see another side of the story.

It's hard to find any reason to justify or be proud of America's use of chemical weapons like Agent Orange and Napalm. Worst of all, the diseases and terribly disfiguring birth defects caused by Agent Orange were devastating. The museum outlined how the toxins seeped into the water supply, rivers, soil and continued to damage people for decades. This I believe.

For the first time in my life, I was at a war museum at which America was the enemy and our actions were portrayed as criminal. It was an odd and awkward feeling. I reminded myself that much of the civilian casualties they portrayed occurred in part because of the way the Viet Cong fought the war. The museum didn't discuss how they used civilians. Nor did it discuss how they tortured Vietnamese civilians, American POWs or South Vietnamese POWS.

It did portray the way the South Vietnamese army tortured North Vietnamese POWs. Of course, it was brutal. Everyone was brutal. There was nothing to see that anyone had any reason to be proud or happy about.

As an American - and I daresay as any nationality - it's difficult to come to Vietnam and not consider the war and its effects. Vietnam has been inextricably shaped and in some ways defined by the war.

Americans - and particularly our parents generation - still look back on that time and try to make sense of it. They have strong emotions and vivid memories of an event and times that ripped the fabric of the country and society they had previously known.

So it is here.

I have no real insight to offer, or fantastic conclusion to bring any kind of closure to these thoughts. I can only say that some wounds linger. Despite them, people move on.

Vietnam today still has symbols of the Communist Party on the streets and Ho Chi Minh on the money, but there's nothing about Saigon that appears communist. It's a city with bustling business, international brands and have's and have nots. We haven't seen any abject poverty, but clear and distinct financial gaps between some very successful and those peddling their wares on the street.

I find Vietnam much like I found Laos - communist only kinda' sorta. In fact, in Laos, it seemed to be pretty much in name only - mostly to keep peace with the neighbors.

It seems Vietnam has opened, modernized and reformed in pace with patron neighbor, China. It seems in the end, economics always wins. Which makes you look back and wonder what all the bloodshed really achieved for anyone.

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Mr. And Mrs. Saigon

On April 29, 2009, I took Emily to the Los Angeles Farmer's Market for dinner. It had been exactly six months since our first date - which ended with the two of us sitting on a curb in Thai Town eating coconut sticky rice with our hands and talking about life, travels and so many things. By April, we already knew we would get married, it was just a question of time.

I told Emily the Farmer's Market was just a quick dinner on our way to an event. She didn't question it - perhaps because it's conveniently located to so many of LA's nightlife spots and perhaps because we had grabbed cheap eats there before and after things we'd done before.

That's why she was surprised when I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me in the middle of dinner - of what is essentially a food court. Since she had already selected her wedding/engagement ring (she only wanted one - but chose one with three pieces), it was our six month anniversary, we first talked about marriage while eating pizza at the market on New Year's Eve and then we picked out her ring from a jeweler there - I was surprised at how surprised she was.

Luckily, my (our) good friend Conlan (the person, not the dog) was hiding on the sidelines with his camera to document the whole thing.

Today, two years later, Emily and I sat on the edge of a planter on a thoroughfare in Saigon, eating street snacks and talking about where we were. It felt like our first date all over again, only we were in real Asia. It seemed inevitable that we would do something like this - but two and a half years ago, I would never have imagined being here today with her, living this amazing life.

Of course, the day didn't start this way. It started in our dark hole of a room in Singapore. It involved instant coffee, work, emails, calls, packing, errands, taxis - all the stuff that happens on a travel day.

It also started in a clean, modern, English-speaking, first world city and country with manicured landscaping, water you can drink from the tap and incredible infrastructure. Beautiful, beautiful infrastructure.

We don't really think about where we're going and what it will be like anymore. We're usually focused on where we are and what we're doing until suddenly, we're heading to the airport. We put surpringly little thought into what we would find in Ho Chi Minh City - aka Saigon.

Having realized somewhere in the airport terminal that we were actually headed to Vietnam, I decided to read some of the Lonely Planet Vietnam on the flight. But then a nice Singaporean couple our age sat down next to me and we chatted the flight away. Not only were they charming people, but they offered fantastic perspectives on life in Singapore and the way they and their peers approach life. This pair of engineers worry that their careers could be too boring and that work may not always be steady - especially as they advance in increasingly specialized work such as quality control.

One wants to live abroad for awhile, the other wants to stay in Singapore, not needing anything else. However, if they were to go abroad, he could maybe deal with Taiwan since he likes the food and they speak Chinese. Both expressed surprise that America elected Barak Obama - they didn't think a black man would become president. It deeply impressed them. She really liked Ronald Reagan, while both thought Bush Jr. sucked. They had opinions, insights into their country and views of the world. Most importantly, they emphasized that they have to be aware of all world events, because everything affects Singapore.

The flight...flew by...and we landed in Vietnam with little more preparedness than our visas and hotel address. Luckily, nothing was challenging. We breezed through the nice, new airport, got our bags and grabbed a taxi to our hotel.

The past two weeks have been filled with less than thrilling hotels. We usually stay places longer than a week, so it felt weird not to unpack. In Singapore we had a little closet space and in Penang, none at all. Our hotel in Singapore had shockingly rude guests who at different times, slammed doors, smoked in the hallways, yelled down halls at 1 am, and let their two year-olds cry, squeal and run through the halls at 5am. Our hotel in Penang had a barely opaque bathroom door. We'll leave it at that.

We hoped our Saigon hotel would be a little nicer. It turned out to be one of our best hotel rooms. For $42 a night including taxes and breakfast, we have a junior suite filled with beautiful hardwood, a giant king-size bed, panoramic windows with a view of the city and every modern convenience you could want - including great WiFi. We went from bumping into each other getting ready to go out in the morning to spending our time in different rooms of what feels like an apartment.

"I don't really want to leave. I would be fine to stay here all day and just enjoy this," Emily said.

It's true - it was a hard fall from a house in Bali to relatively small hotel rooms - and then a kick in the teeth to pay as much as we did for it in Singapore.

Hotel-wise, Saigon is a nice step up. It's one of those days when you feel a little like an imperialist, but you don't mind. We had no idea how much our money would get us in Vietnam - inside or outside the hotel.

It turns out we overpaid for our taxi from the airport - $15 when it could have been half as much. Our snacks around town cost 40 cents here and 60 cents there - for real, fresh food. A bottle of water cost 20 cents. It's cheaper than Bali.

The truth is, we have no needs, expectations or plans for Saigon - or Vietnam in general. Neither of us have been here before. We have no more than some Vietnam War historical knowledge to guide us. This is the first time since Turkey that we have no linguistic advantage - and it happens to be a country without much English.

We're just going to check it out and absorb some Vietnam. Two years ago, I put a ring on Emily's finger - today, I'll hold her hand as we try to cross the chaotic, unforgiving streets without getting killed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Was The Best Of Food, It Was The Worst Of Food

Going from Bali to Malaysia to Singapore has been walking up the development staircase and falling off the edge of healthy eating. Bali easily had the healthiest, freshest food of our trip while Singapore and Malaysia compete with India and Greece for the worst for us.

It's not that we don't enjoy it. Healthy and tasty often have an inverse relationship. But Singapore and Malaysia really rate poorly when it comes to freshness and health - especially within their ethnic cuisines.

Noodles, rice - steamed and fried. In spicy sauce, fish sauce, thick sauce, soy sauce, chili oil and just oil. With tofu, chicken, beef, pork, mutton, lamb, goat, crab, lobster, fish, processed fish cakes, mussels - innards... Deep fried, fried, roasted (in skin or fat), steamed, boiled, stewed, sauteed - and did I mention fried?

Vegetables? Some. Sauteed and fried. Deep fried too. There always has to be a deep fried option. Oh, and covered in Malay or Indian curries too.

Why taste the veggies themselves when you could be tasting curry, sesame oil - or really any oil for that matter? Singaporeans don't settle for plain, boring veggies....

If you're someone who looks at the local cuisine and becomes aghast, it helps to know there are a couple of things at work.

First, there's my theory about financial status and food. Cultures that have traditionally known poverty tend to have a lot of traditional foods that helped them stretch their dollars.

Soups, for example, can take a few veggies or a little bit of meat and make a lot of food of it. Dumplings take a little bit of expensive meat and surround it with cheap flour and fat to give it substance.

Within my own cultural context - Eastern European Jewish foods - chopped liver uses a relatively cheap cut of meat and flavors it up with fat and onions. Blintzes surround some cheese mixed with sour cream and butter with a flour-based crepe that gets fried in chicken fat or butter.

Tasty? Yep. Horrible for you? Definitely if you're sedentary. However, if you don't have a lot of food, want to feel full, and need enough energy to get through a hard day - particularly if it involves physical labor - these foods will do you.

Contrast this with French cuisine. France has been relatively wealthy since the Renaissance. It has fantastic growing lands, slow flowing rivers and always a substantial, but never overblown population.

Its cuisine centers around fruit, fresh vegetables, salads and delicately prepared meats. And bread and cheese. Lots of cheese. While the French of course have some things that are on the "bad for you" side - their food is largely lighter, healthier and more varied than much of the world.

Bali too - while never rich - has an island highly capable of food production, incredible home and property ownership and a moderate population. They eat tons of fresh fruits and veggies and not nearly so much meat.

Turn back to the cultures of Singapore - Indian, Chinese, and Malay. All traditionally poor. Two have always had huge populations competing for resources. And the Malays who have had great land and plenty of space just so happen to use the most fruit and veggies in their diet.

Cultures build cuisine around their socioeconomic histories.

The cultures of Singapore mastered using cheap ingredients into a lot of tasty food. Fat gives things weight - fills you up. Starches are good for energy - they get you through the day. When you're working fields, carrying cargo, constructing buildings, fishing, and ditch digging, fried foods, starches and heavy, fatty sauces are your friends.

Only today they're sort of a death sentence.

As many of us know, tastes don't change in a generation or even two despite upward mobility. Food is part of our cultures. Everyone has their foods special to different occasions and times in life. We pass recipes down like family heirlooms. For many of us, they are our inheritance and part of the way we link generations and people.

Even though they can afford "better," most Singaporeans still love their bee hoon noodles, spicy seafood laksa soup, chicken biriyani, murtabak, popiah spring rolls, mee rebus noodles crowned in curry and topped with a hardboiled egg, steamed buns filled with plum sauce-laden pork, fried dumplings and fried oyster omelets.

Guess what? Success means they can now afford to have all they want of their flavorful foods.

A nurse I once recruited explained to me how Singapore's incredible rise in income has led it to having one of the world's highest rates of kidney dialysis. She knows - she was a manager at one the National Kidney Foundation dialysis centers. They are so well designed and advanced that medical leaders from around the world - including the United States - come to see them.

A great accomplishment....sort of.

Diabetes and obesity spiked in Singapore as Chinese fatty pork went from being a once-a-year treat special to Chinese New Year to being a weekly meal or even a daily lunch. Instead of having a lotus moon cake only on Chinese Moon Festival in fall, people can enjoy them any day of the week in any quantity they want.

Oh, and Singaporeans LOVE sugar. It's not coffee and tea that keep them going all day, it's all their very sweet drinks along with their standard morning kaya (coconut custard jam) toast with heaps of butter and a soft-boiled egg.

Combine that with moving from shipyards and pulling rickshaws to driving air conditioned taxis and working in 90-story office towers and you have everything it takes to need a fantastic system of kidney dialysis clinics.

Not that Singapore is in any way alone in its problems.

Of course, Singapore has one other food-related issue that sort of makes the food an extra bit unhealthier - everything's imported. Singapore doesn't grow or raise a morsel of food.

The government decided that since the country could never be anywhere close to self-sufficient, that farming was simply a poor use of the little land the country has. Farmers were forced from their farms and transplanted into condos in tall buildings. It took the government years to catch and confiscate all the pigs and chickens people hid in their bedrooms and balconies.

One unfortunate result is that produce gets sprayed to enhance its shelf-life. Food comes from as near as Malaysia and as far as the United States and Brazil. Go to a supermarket and choose whether your prefer American, Japanese, Australian or Argentinian beef. You can select among cucumbers from Britain, Thailand and Mexico. Don't worry - none of them are fresh, they just look that way.

But what else are they going to do? That's just the way it works for an island-nation like this.

For people like us who are just passing through, it doesn't matter anyway. We've thrown caution to the wind and decided to just enjoy some of the local specialties we'll never see in other places. I do love a good steamed bun filled with lotus seed paste while walking down the street - one of my favorite breakfasts.

At the same time, I give younger Singaporeans credit. Singaporeans love cuisine from all over the world and they truly have everything - from Italian to Spanish tapas to sushi. They are some of the most international eaters ever. Younger Singaporeans seem to particularly gravitate toward world cuisines - and also to things much healthier than fried breads with fried meat inside.

Salads, sandwiches, grilled chicken - they have all that too. And there's more and more of it all the time. They manage to support a lot of Subways and Kenny Rogers Roasters too. Go Kenny.

Emily and I have very much enjoyed our stay, our snacks and our meals. However, my body doesn't like me as much as it did in Bali. We'll be looking to Vietnam for some freshness, veggies and maybe some cut-up fruit vendors on the streets. Please!

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Stay Classy, Singapore

For the third time this trip, I feel like I've come home. Singapore and I lived together on and off for two years. For 1.5 I went back and forth between Singapore and Bali - recruiting nurses in Singapore for U.S. hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, and then enjoying my beloved house in Bali whenever it wasn't necessary to be in Singapore.

As anyone who read the last four posts can tell, I love Singapore. Not in the wholehearted adoration and bewitched love affair way I love Bali, but in a sense of deep friendship and admiration. Singapore was helpful and good to me. It remains a place I find fascinating and strangely wonderful. It has always seemed to me that a place like Singapore shouldn't be possible.

So many things make Singapore unique, but what most impacts me is the feeling of safety and trust. It may be like living in "The Truman Show," but Singapore is the only place I know that lacks darkness and malevolence. The idea that someone could be lurking or attempting harm is almost unimaginable. Despite being busy in places, it has a strange calmness - almost a stillness to the environment. This, in a very vertical city-state of almost six million people is almost unimaginable. Yet there it is.

After Bali and Penang, Singapore feels like the center of the world. It's a country, it's a city, it's a capitol. It has all embassies behind shopping malls which line up on both sides of the Prime Minister and President's official residence. Parliament sits along the river and across the street from some retail shops - just down the street from one of the big computer malls.

The convenience and modernity is refreshing. We've used the post office a few times because it costs about half the price of Indonesia and mail reaches home in about three days. We can use our Visa debit cards as easily as at home. Unlike Bali, ATMs give respectable amounts of money. We can go to the movies. We haven't had Internet this good since Istanbul. In fact, I would say, I haven't seen Internet this good since France - which was possibly the best of the trip. Best yet, there's free WiFI in every public place imaginable. We can work anywhere and everywhere.

Although there are cultural differences, they're sort of faint and barely noticeable. The thing about Singaporeans is that their similar enough that you mostly don't notice the differences until you get to know them well enough and see their Asian family structures. But in the course of everyday conversations and total conceptual outlook, there's really nothing we can ask, say or explain that they don't get - or have context to accept. They're like Southeast Asian us.

Shopping and food abound in Singapore - which makes it fun and interesting for a short-term stay. On every block there's some piece of clothing that turns Emily's head or some tasty treat that might turn either or both of our heads.

I have rekindled my love of the Singaporean ice cream sandwich - a rectangular hunk of ice cream literally hacked off a block with a meat cleaver put inside either two wafers, or a special green, pink and white swirled sweet piece of sandwich bread. They take the sandwich part of ice cream sandwich very literally - and I love it. In addition to the standard flavors we have at home, they add a few very Singaporean twists including sweet corn, taro, durian, red bean and my standard order - mango. All for S$1

I have also rekindled my love of enjoying refreshing chinese iced teas while walking down the street on a hot, humid Singapore day.

Best yet, by its very nature, Singapore likes to mitigate problems. The power cord to Emily's computer quit two days ago. I'm not sure if it was fed up with all the travel or was just tired out, but it flickered out and died. In Bali, we would have had perhaps a day or two of calls and driving around to try to replace it. In Penang, we would have had to go on a mission. In Singapore, we walked to the computer mall at the corner, went up the escalator, asked the first store we spotted and they had an entire case of choices. We were up and running in no more than 15 minutes.

On Sunday, I realized we needed visas for Vietnam. Embassies can be painful. In Bangkok, it took several trips to the Indonesian Embassy to get everything in the order they wanted to get our visa processed - including getting the right amount of US dollars, since they wouldn't accept Thai baht or anything else.

I have spent longer in the express lane of Trader Joe's than I did at the Embassy of Vietnam in Singapore. The paperwork was simple, the people friendly, there was no line and when I didn't have the right amount of cash on me (because Vietnam is an expensive visa), the Singaporean consular staff said, "No problem, you can bring it with you when you pick up your visa, sir." It was like the Four Seasons was running their embassy.

Thank you, Singapore.

Emily and I arrived in Singapore this past Saturday morning and spent our weekend wandering various parts of the city-state. We wandered the neighborhoods, took a boat tour on the river and harbor, walked the malls and the Esplanade and absorbed the texture of Singapore. In truth, Singapore has few sites of cultural and historical significance. It's all about appreciating the Singapore of today and its unusual nature.

In the course of a year of travel, it's sometimes nice to have a little piece of "normal" where everything works the way you expect it would. Singapore is that - and so it has a touch of home with its strange stability.

There's one other element of home that has made our visit great. My/our friend Tony Cohen lives here. Tony - who I've known since seventh grade - arrived in Singapore during my final two months here and we had a pleasant overlap. Happy and successful in his job, Tony has remained in Singapore all this time.

We saw him briefly in Kathmandu when he was passing through to go on a trek around the Annapurna circuit. Then we saw him during our one-day stopover in Singapore almost two weeks ago. But being here for a week, we've had the pleasure of seeing him several times - including going over to his place for a dinner he made for us. That was a real piece of home.

We have had no great adventures in Singapore. There's no amazing discovery or calamity to report. We've been able to work smoothly - and Emily has a few more classes than usual, so the high-functioning technology helps her. We're enjoying the ease Singapore offers and its interesting society.

The only downside has been our rather lame hotel room. In 2004, when I first came here, hotels were a fantastic deal. A four star hotel cost about $70 a night. Today, the hotels I used to frequent cost $175-$250 a night - beyond our budget. For more money than I used to pay, we get a rather lame hotel room. Not disgusting, not horrible - just shockingly small and blah for the money. Our highest cost hotel room of the entire trip is one of the most disappointing. At least it has a good location.

Although hotel rates - and apartment rental rates and real estate prices in general - have risen in Singapore during the five years since I left, I blame the US Dollar. In 2004, I got $1.72 SGD Sing Dollars for $1 USD. When I left Singapore in 2006, it was $1.67 SGD. Today, it's $1.23 SGD.

Why don't I blame the Sing Dollar? Because it's held at an abstract constant. Singapore is one of a very few countries in the world without a central bank. It decided that central banks are dangerous and lead to currency inflation. Therefore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore that issues the currency is charged with making the necessary trades to maintain a basket of foreign currencies that can keep the Sing Dollar at a constant abstract value.

In other words, the Sing Dollar doesn't fluctuate - everyone else's currency does. Another Singapore innovation and curiosity.

As expected, we have little curiosity left. I know Singapore very well and Emily finds it enjoyable, but not a place with much that she needs to see. A week has been ample time to experience and enjoy.

Still, it's good to be back where the people pine for the good old days when things went better when everyone did what they were told, no one questioned, everyone worked hard, and people had values. Singapore's motto could easily be: "Who needs the existential crisis?"

Well, not us. Not this week, at least.

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The Singapore Story - Part 4 (Final) - Uncertainties And Questions

"We built this city...we built this city on rock and roll!" came pouring out of the taxi's radio last week as we rode into town from the airport. Conlan and Emily snickered in the back. It was just one of many shockingly cheesy 80's and early 90's hits that we heard not only in that ride, but everywhere we went.

Since we've been here, we've heard early 90's Mr. Big hit, "To Be With You" many times over.

When I lived and worked here, my friend Alex reported being shocked by the way a group of people at a popular bar began rocking out to the self-titled 80's smash-hit, "Big Country." Oh, yeah! I guess in a tiny country, Big Country sounds exciting?

Also when I lived here in 2006, one of the nurses I recruited just adored Australian pop-band Savage Garden. We don't need to go into all the great music she sang...

The thirst for antiquated, Western pop seems insatiable in Singapore. Strangely, it's not only part of Singapore's unique charm, but it lies at the heart of one of Singapore's biggest issues.

Unlike Hong Kong that formed as the organic synthesis of east and west over more than 150 years, Singapore was turned into a modernized east-west amalgamation in an incubator. In fact, the creation of modern Singapore itself is essentially like crushing a piece of coal into a diamond in an hour or less.

In the urgent need to diffuse cultural divisions and create a popular attachment to a new nation, leaders had to find ways to prevent any one culture from dominating the others. The attempt to transform the island's Chinese, Malay and Indian inhabitants into Singaporeans meant deemphasizing everyone's cultures.

English became the national language because it didn't belong to any of the ethnic groups and they already had familiarity. However, language usually reflects culture. In this case, Singapore had a language and no common bonds to link people other than the dire economic and political situation facing the fledgling nation in 1965.

As economic development occurred, it became a default solution to embrace Western culture as a common medium. It had already worked for language and who didn't like modern malls, shopping, cars, and technology?

Singapore already had exposure to Western music and culture through its years under Empire. Why not enjoy American and British music? Singaporeans already spoke their language and studied their history and literature?

The search for a Singaporean identity became increasingly linked to Westernization and modernization. Only cultures are formed with time. No one can become Britain, France, Germany or America without British, French, German and American cultural-historical experiences. We are the sum of everything that came before us.

Singapore could adopt only the things available to it - the trappings of Western culture. Consumerism, pop music, education, literacy, science, technological advancement. It could adopt the form, but the substance could never be the same because Singaporeans are people who come from different backgrounds and who have their own cultural wisdom, values and emphases.

In fact, it was these values that led to their success. Lee Kuan Yew has said that he, being an atheist, used Confucian values to guide him in his approach to society and the people he led. Indeed, Singapore was built on the backs of people whose work ethic, togetherness and collectivist values came from their Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim values. Their ability to band together and to work willingly under patriarchal leadership came largely from their Eastern outlook.

They used Eastern values to play a Western game successfully. The first world city-state they created came from their Chinese, Indian and Malay hearts. However, their work yielded fruits foreign and strange to all of them.

As a result, Singapore lives in something of a vacuum. The cultural demilitarized zone Singapore's leaders created in the 60's has evolved into a shallow culture of shopping and consumerism. Younger generations who grew up in a state-of-the-art, modern English speaking Singapore are largely disconnected from their cultural pasts, with nothing substantive to replace it.

Perhaps this is why in 2006, Lee Kuan Yew told the International Herald Tribune, "We don't have the ingredients of a nation, the elementary factors - a homogeneous population, common language, common culture and common destiny."

At this point, it feels as if Mr. Lee's longtime and necessary focus on Singapore's economic development has become the tiny nation's default raison d'être. The people of Singapore initially came together in their drive to survive and overcome. Now that they have succeeded, what remains? Economic success is the easiest thing to hang their hats on - because it is the only quest they have been on together.

However, even that may be a house of cards. As Lee Kuan Yew ages, he is trying to leave his final words and notes to the little nation he will inevitably leave behind. In his recently published book, "'Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going," the Minister Mentor warns Singaporeans that their country is not comparable to other similar-seeming small nations as many critics say it is.

I tend to agree with him.

Unlike Hong Kong that once had Britain and now China behind it, or Israel with strong American support, Singapore stands alone. It buys its water from Malaysia, imports all its food, and all of its industry relies on trade. Singapore has absolutely no natural resources other than the orchids it famously breeds.

After all, Singapore was never meant to go it alone. The British ruled it along with the Straits Colonies turned British Malaya. Singapore tried to cast its lot with Malaysia before its rifts with the Malaysian leadership. Prior to the British, the Portuguese and Dutch made attempts to colonize the little island, but found it too exposed to attack to make it worth keeping. Malay rulers too were tired of intrusions from foreign colonialists and pirates. They left Singapore for almost 500 years.

Because the British had more strength and determination than any other power, they were able to make Singapore a valuable open trade port - which remained its primary occupation until well after Singaporean independence.

It wasn't until the Singaporean leadership decided to clean up the island and court foreign corporations to open factories and offices and invest in Singapore that anything began to change. Singapore didn't fully take off until one of its finance officials came up the brilliant idea of becoming a foreign exchange center.

The idea was simple. London conducted the world's foreign currency trades during its banking hours. San Francisco took over when London closed. When San Francisco closed, trading stopped until London opened. Enter Singapore.

The Singaporean financial sector boomed when it became an international FOREX hub, after which it added a stock market and commodities trading.

Only, with the increasing role of technology allowing for global trade in real time from everywhere at any time, Singapore's value as an international trade center has diminished.

Foreign companies that initially enjoyed cheap Singaporean manual labor, and later affordable skilled - English speaking - labor have found Singapore less and less financially advantageous as the little country has taken the first world by storm.

Additionally, China has changed its face. Once distant and removed from the world scene and international commerce, China has had its coming out party. Singapore for many years enjoyed its special role as an East-West bridge country that linguistically and culturally had one foot in each door. Today, its services as an intermediary are less in demand.

Singapore's role and niche are constantly in question.

Its assets remain in place. The Sembawang shipping yards on Singapore's north shore remain busy and valuable as is its bustling international port. The Singaporean people are more educated and talented than ever.

Only where does it go? In the changing tides of the world economy and business trends, how does tiny Singapore stay on top?

Worst of all, if Singapore - which has built a culture built on a foundation of economic growth and first world development - should experience a decline, what will become of its people? Have young Singaporeans taken on enough of their grandparents ethics and values to band together and persevere? Or will they find themselves caught in the worst of all worlds: lost in the void between the forgotten culture of their ancestors and the Western culture they never really had?

I find it only natural that the venerable Mr. Lee should worry at the end of his life. The Singapore he and his associates built is a tightly constructed machine with many moving parts that can fail. He is now at the point where he sees the remaining dangers, but is past the point of steering Singapore's destiny. He must eventually leave his most beloved child - Singapore - alone to lead chart its destiny without him. What must be difficult for him is that he so much to be proud of, but no assurances.

The good news is that Singapore is far from down for the count. In fact, its well-educated, largely successful population may figure out as well or better than their Minister Mentor how to navigate the challenges ahead. Although Singapore is not a Big Country, it fortunately did not build this city on rock and roll. Singaporeans are aware of their history, and more importantly, they have something to lose. And that is always a powerful motivation - especially for people who had nothing before.

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The Singapore Story - Part 3 - The Darker Side

"I have two children in Australia. They studied there. I told them to stay there! It's better for them to build a life there," our 60 year-old taxi driver told us.

"Why?"

"Because Singapore is changing. It's okay now, but it's changing. Who knows about ten years from now? I don't think it will be better. Better they build lives in a place where there is more room for them."

I assumed he believed that Singapore was too restrictive and that he wanted his kids to have a more liberal environment.

"Where do you think Singapore is going?"

"It's not like it used to be - when everyone listened. The old Mr. Lee (Lee Kuan Yew, denoted as "old" because his son Lee Hsien Loong is the current prime minister - that and he's 87) and that generation of leaders - Rajaratnam and them....they knew the people's hearts. They told us we were one family - we were in it together. They told us what to do and we did it. Now, people have all these ideas and questions. It was better when everyone listened and followed."

And there it is.

Only, as much as a statement like that would ordinarily make me and Emily cock our heads and drop our jaws in incredulity, we actually adored this man.

"Singapore now, it's all about money. Everyone wants to be better than each other. Everyone wants to be number one. They want money, money, money. We used to take care of each other, help each other out. Mr. Lee told us that our families were most important. You must be a good husband and wife to each other. A man can earn $10,000 in a day, and he can bring it home, but if he isn't good with his wife, he can't raise a family well. If a husband and wife are good with each other, and their children listen and do as they say, you can have a very good family.

"Families today, they don't care. See this...this is Orchard Road. It is filled with malls up and down. All this shopping. On weekends, young families, they take their children to them and spend all day. Shopping, shopping, shopping. Where is the value in that?"

In short, he longs for the gold old days when Singaporeans worked hard, worked together and were united in building a future that had the promise of something more than just material gain.

And it all worked fine so long as Lee Kuan Yew was at the helm and everyone did as they were told.

Our taxi driver is what Singaporeans were - and the heart of what made Singapore what it is today. We love him. Something in it all made him almost huggable.

That's the good side of Singapore. But an engineered project of this nature doesn't come without costs. In Singapore's case, there are a few dark elements - that parts people prefer not to discuss.

Like due process stuff that started it out.

"I'm not saying everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honorable purpose," Lee Kuan Yew told the New York Times in September, 2010, "I had to do some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial."

At the beginning in the mid to late 1960s, Singapore was under siege. Malaysia expelled it, and then hated Singapore as it moved forward independently. Indonesia had issues with British Malaya becoming independent. Suhkarno, its founding President developed a police of "Konfontasi" (Confrontation) in which a barely cold war with Singapore and Malaysia developed and included actual skirmishes in Borneo at the border of Malaysian Sabah and Indonesian Kalimantan.

Meanwhile, the Chinese communist party engaged strong efforts to turn Singapore communist.

Lee Kwan Yew - who grew up in a family completely loyal to Pax Britannia - believed in capitalism and independence. He and his people feared both communists and Singapore's neighbors. After all, no one wants konfrontasi.

With enemies outside and within, Singapore's leaders decided to turn tough.

In 1968, two Indonesian marines landed in Singapore and committed murder. Singapore sentenced them to be hung. Despite Indonesia's official protests, Singapore hung them in a public square - just to make the point. No lawlessness, no capitulation, sovereign Singapore.

During the period of communist activity, Singapore's government made strong laws against communist activity and jailed numerous activists without charges or due process.

In the process of controlling the feared communist insurgency, Singapore made stringent laws on becoming a political party which continue to make it difficult to form opposition parties.

At the same time time, Singapore cleaned up corruption among police and government - at times forcing resignations of top government officials in instances of graft or wrongdoing. It may be hardline, but the government is very honest.

Freedom of speech is not absolute in Singapore. It's one of the most common and strong Western critics. Lee Kuan Yew has defended this practice saying that not all forms of communication and expression are in Singaporeans' interests.

For example, Singapore has always required periodicals to print letters to the editor from the Singapore government should the government disagree with an article about Singapore or its officials. Singapore does not require edits or retractions - but feels it deserves an opportunity to rebuttal. If a publication does not grant a rebuttal, Singapore reduces or cuts-off its circulation. At one time, Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal both had restricted circulations in Singapore.

Unlike the United States and Britain, Singapore does not make public figures exempt from libel and slander. In America, the President is considered too public to be subject to libel. People have to make up their own minds about what is said about the President. This largely extends to celebrities. The higher a person's public stature, the less likely they are to be able to sue for libel or slander - which of course, tabloids rely on.

Lee Kuan Yew has many times sued people for libel and slander and won. He donates money from his suits to charity. He has said he did it to prove a point - that honesty and fair speech are important.

Although no formal laws govern the contents of the press in Singapore, one may find that the media here are generally quite complimentary and favorable to the government.

Freedom is present in most ways, but not absolute.

In 1994, an American teenager named Michael Faye brought Singapore's criminal laws into view of Americans and the world. When Faye - whose father was working in Singapore - vandalized a car. Singapore's Vandalism Act called for punishment by caning. Despite protests by the United States and a personal appeal by President Bill Clinton to punish Faye in the U.S. per U.S. law, Singapore upheld its ruling and caned Faye.

Caning and capital punishment are both part of the Singaporean penal system and are both executed swiftly once conviction and any appeals are through. Unlike our legal system, appeals usually take no more than a year.

All of this is dark and bothers many westerners.

However, what I find darker is the part few people notice at all - the foreign workers.

From the 1980s onward, Singapore's economy began to outpace its population. There simply weren't enough Singaporeans to perform all the work there was to do. Singapore developed a system of immigration to bring in foreign workers.

Singapore is nothing if not honest - and so it is always upfront about the terms of working in Singapore including pay, accommodations and rights. In this way, it's amazingly open and comfortable with a system of severe stratification.

Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan workers are allowed in for usually a year at a time to work construction, including sewer work, gardening and ditch digging. Thais are allowed to come for construction as well. These groups must live in company dormitories and are not allowed to walk freely in Singapore except for part of the day on Sundays.

Burmese workers face the same, only they come to be nursing assistants and personal caregivers to the elderly.

Indonesian, Filipino and Sri Lankan women are allowed in on annual visas to work as nannies and maids. Their employers can fire them for any reason, at which them they are immediately deported. Some are allowed out on days off on Sundays - but not all. Employers can set curfews or even forbid their household help from going out. Pregnancy is grounds for immediate termination and deportation.

Some Filipinos with professional credentials are allowed to come to Singapore. They typically work as nurses or in IT. Occasionally, they may be sponsored for permanent residency, but not citizenship.

Indian and Chinese nationals are admitted for professional jobs. They must possess degrees and be capable of technical work. Because of their ethnic similarities to the Singaporean population, Chinese and Indians can usually stay for several years and may be sponsored by their employers for permanent residency and even citizenship.

Because of the current economic crisis and record 15 percent unemployment in Singapore, the number of workers allowed in has been greatly reduced. However, not as much in the construction and manual labor sectors as Singaporeans generally do not want those jobs.

Singapore has no qualms about its system of workers and immigration. It feels that workers are given the opportunity to earn more than they would at home and are informed completely about what their work entails. Foreign workers make knowing decisions. Singapore is for Singaporeans - and select foreigners with the high-level talent it needs. Singapore feels comfortable in being discriminatory with the ethnicities it allows to immigrate. Why shouldn't it choose people who better mesh with Singaporean people and culture?

For an American - particularly me - this is one of the harder things to accept about Singapore. A few of the Burmese nurses I used to recruit broke my heart with their stories. Their lives are rough. However, despite the tight conditions - it's true that they would rather live restrictive lives in Singapore with more opportunity than live poor, oppressed lives at home.

Amazingly, all of this didn't end my love of Singapore. In a strange way, it opened my eyes. It made me question my values and the assumptions with which I was raised.

In some cases, I judge. Locking people up in dormitories 6-7 days a week doesn't feel right to me. However, the government demanding a letter to the editor rebuttal....why not? As a former newspaper reporter, it's almost shocking I say this - but if a publication is to be a truly free forum of speech, what's the harm? Is the newspaper not restricting free speech if it doesn't print it? Let people decide for themselves.

Overall, Singapore's structure and success are on display in front of a backdrop of hard structure and rules. Yet it works for people - like our taxi driver who when we told him that his $750 bill for a three day hospital stay was cheap by our standard, thanked us for informing him. He was getting annoyed with his government, and now he'll happily return to voting for the party that's always run Singapore.

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The Singapore Story- Part 2 - Social Controls

I love Singapore because it's a mind-bender.

On my very first visit in 2004, I spent most of the time wondering how such a place exists and what makes it work. By 2005, I was living in Singapore and had ample time and ability to come to understand the strange orderliness and success of this little multicultural island city-state with its almost eerie utopian feel.

Singapore is almost unnerving in that it feels somehow fake. Most Westerners complain that it has no soul, people feel robotic, it's a little too clean. There's no angst, nothing goes wrong, everything is systematized. Perhaps because we typically complain about societal tensions, dysfunctional systems, political problems and other social ailments - the absence of these things not only scares Westerners, but almost makes a place feel empty.

Until you see the carefully crafted utopia of Singapore, you never fully know how much the rough edges of life are in fact, part of the enjoyment of it. Indeed, our art, literature, theater and music are all reflections of the dissonance and imperfection of our world. Our "problems," human failings and struggles are in fact what bring meaning to our lives. Through the arts, we turn them into expressions of beauty.

Singapore has only recently begun to throw money into arts schools and music venues in the attempt to create arts in a place that produces none. In a system that strives - and in many ways succeeds - at eliminating human strife and struggle through a careful system of controls, nothing flowers.

Reactions to the Singaporean social-political experiment range widely. I've heard everything from brilliant to abhorrent. In some ways it's a mixture of things crossing the spectrum.

Here's how it works.

One of Singapore's first challenges was reducing tensions between its three ethnic populations - Chinese, Tamil Indians, and Malays. The little resource-less island cut loose from both Malaysia and Britain would go nowhere fast if its people were constantly battling among themselves.

Singapore's leaders understood this. The multi-cultural, highly educated group of leaders that founded Singapore were Oxford educated economists, lawyers and political scientists. They decided to use a system of economic incentives to lead people into choices that were "good for them."

The move toward homeownership using the Housing Development Board (HDB) government built condos and the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) which supplied the easy-to-obtain, low-interest loans eliminated homelessness and caused people to become attached to their new country. By mandating that an HDB condo block can have no more than 70 percent of any one ethnicity, Singaporean leaders began breaking down racial divides.

Given this was successful, it went further.

Singapore's leaders - including its atheist prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew - believed religion is valuable because it instills morals and values. The government decided that it would find construction of places of worship for any and all religious groups, with one catch: places of worship could only be constructed in neighborhoods not traditionally of a religion's core ethnicity.

In other words, Chinese Taoist temples could only be constructed in traditionally Malay or Indian neighborhoods and Hindu Temples could only go up in Chinese or Malay neighborhoods.

People became forced to mix - and to recognize each other's right to worship. The hope was that eventually, there would be not just tolerance, but appreciation for the fact that all Singaporean ethnicities had important traditions and religious values.

Initially, Singapore allowed private schools to instruct in the ethnic languages of Singapore. There were a number of Chinese schools. After a decade, leaders realized that because public schools students were receiving English-medium instruction and some private school students weren't, it contributed to divisions that were classist and well as racial. Despite painful political arguments, private schools were mandated to teach all subjects in English.

Similarly, at one time students were required to take their ethnic "mother tongue" as a second language. In the 1990s, this requirement was loosened to allow anyone to take any "mother tongue" - which allows Indians to study Mandarin and Malays to study Tamil if they so choose.

To prevent discrimination in the workplace, only English may be spoken within government agencies and major enterprises. The only exception to the rule is that employees may speak a "mother tongue" language to accommodate elder citizens who have poor English skills. All business and government paperwork must also be in English except for government forms designed to assist non-English speaking elders.

Singapore also accommodates it Muslim population with prayer rooms in all workplaces and office buildings and special adaptation to workplace uniforms that include head scarves for Malay women.

But the real twists start to occur in the system of financial incentives designed to create socialist outcomes using capitalist methods.

Singapore's version of Social Security is called the Central Provident Fund (CPF). Like Social Security, everyone contributes via deductions from their pay or through tax payments. Only instead of paying the costs of other people currently receiving benefits, Singaproeans' contributions go into a CPF account in their own name - like a savings account. Through the guidance of DBS, the government bank, Singaporeans can choose how they will divide their CPF monies between health care, retirement and downpayment for their first and second homes.

Retirement money can be invested in a list of approved securities and financial investments so that their money grows faster, but within the bounds of what Singapore considers safe.

The government tutors people through the process of building financial security - ensuring they become homeowners and provide for a healthy retirement.

Everyone in Singapore has insurance coverage through their government plan - but their CPF money funds their plans. So, when Singaporeans seek healthcare, their insurance accounts get debited.

So, how do they avoid going poor from healthcare?

Hospitals offer tiered service. People can choose to have a first-class private air-conditioned suite for a premium nightly rate, or stay in an 80-bedded open, fan-cooled ward for a much lesser rate. They see the same physicians and get the same quality nurses. Surgeries and medicine are the same. It's like an airplane - the first class, business and coach passengers all get to the same destination, but pay different prices.

But what if someone can't pay even the lowest rate?

Family members can transfer money to one another. So, if Grandma needs surgery but doesn't have enough in her CPF account, the kids and grandkids can each kick in a little from theirs. If Grandma has no one, then she qualifies from the Singaporean version of Medicaid - the ultimate catch-all used by less than two percent of the population.

Everyone gets care, but through the choices and responsibility of private citizens. It's all a part of Lee Kuan Yew's "No beggar bowl" society. Everyone provides for themselves.

So much does Singapore believe in this, that it created, among other things, ice cream sandwich carts throughout the city for elders and those who don't speak great English to operate. My favorite mango ice cream sandwiches are part of a plan for those who don't have access to better jobs to still have employment.

Singapore cares for its environment and quality of life using a stick and a carrot. It builds fantastic, cheap public transportation backboned by its fantastic, clean and efficient subway system. Taxis too are plentiful and very reasonable for those who want extra convenience.

However, car-ownership is very costly. Singapore issues only 500,000 or so license plates for private cars. If no plates are available and a person wants to register a car in Singapore, they can buy a license plate from someone else who has one.

Additionally, through heavy taxation, cars cost about double what they do in the United States and all cars must be retired after seven years. Singapore also has a system of tolls that increase with the amount of traffic in an area aimed at discouraging congestion.

The result is that people can have cars, but they have to really want them. They can pay less than a Singapore dollar to get around, if they choose public transportation. Subways are even wired to allow mobile phone and wireless Internet use. For most Singaporeans, the choice is obvious - because the government wants it to be.

Then there are the rules. Everyone has heard of Singapore's heavy fines for things that seem almost silly. The government fines people up to 500 Singapore dollars for infractions such as spitting, urinating in public, spitting out gum on the sidewalk (it used to be gum was banned), littering, J-walking, urinating in an elevator, public defecation, failing to flush a toilet and failure to wash hands in a public restroom.

Shocking and abhorrent by American standards.

However, you have to look at it in context. Singapore was trying to bring together three ethnicities into one Singaporean people. Each had their bad cultural habits. Chinese spit nasty red betelnut juice on the sidewalks. Indians were a little free with the public toileting. No one was big on washing hands.

Singapore not only needed to get people off each other's nerves, but it needed to reduce communicable disease in a tropical country that sits one degree north of the equator. In an effort to form new, more considerate and healthier habits, the government became strict. Today, fines are rare - however, police gave fines rampantly during the 70s and 80s until the culture changed.

The thing is, that there's not a fine for an action you or anyone likes.

Restrictive? Yes. Free? Not so much? Acceptable here? Absolutely. It's a system of benevolent Asian patriarchy which people readily accept and respect.

The benefits are also staggering - particularly in the disease and sanitation department.

The clean, high-functioning city state and its fantastic economic success - a median annual income of $29,000 per year with a goal of $45,000 by 2020. The United States reported $39,000 in 2009.

Is the quality of life better? Are people programmed? Is it free? It depends on your standards and point of view. These remain debates - especially as many of the concepts are difficult and sometimes distasteful to foreigners. I can say it's enjoyable - and more importantly, I can say it's extremely civilized.

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The Singapore Story - Part 1

It would be easy to visit Singapore, look around, see an ultra-modern, spotlessly city with some stringent rules and take it at face value. Singapore the short story is a highly successful, first world city-state in Southeast Asia with a great banking and tech sector and some questionable approaches to human rights and civil liberties.

I would guess this is the story 90 percent of the world - and maybe the same percentage of Singapore's visitors know.

Singapore's designers are happy to share if you want to know more (they are proud of their work), but aside from the human rights part - this is the story they want you to know. If you come here and think this, then they've done their job well.

But it's a simplistic story and one that belies the tremendous significance of Singapore.

Because the real story is complex and in fact deserves to be considered in its entirety, I plan to tell it in a series. After all, as anyone who buys the easy story will tell you, there isn't that much to do in Singapore. However, there's everything to learn.

The story goes something like this:

"We had nothing! Absolutely nothing! And we didn't know what to do. Malaysia kicked us out, the a British were leaving and we had nothing," the old tax driver told me one night in 2006.

Old taxi drivers - if their English is good - are the best. They are Singapore's most accessible historians and disseminators of rare and useful information.

"Mr Lee (Lee Kuan Yew) stood up and said we needed to get along and work together if we didn't want to starve," the old Chinese man said.

He was talking about 1965 when Malaysia expelled Singapore from the federation.

"We didn't have enough water, we couldn't produce enough food. We were poor and we didn't have enough jobs. No one knew what was going to happen. Mr. Lee and his people, they told us not to fight among ourselves, because we had to work together. We had to be neighbors. We needed each other. No one saw it this way at the time," he said.

"They were very, very smart - Mr. Lee and his people. They gave us jobs. They told us 'You dig this ditch' 'You help build this building' 'You wash laundry'. Then they gave us taxis and told them to drive them. They gave us jobs. Later, when they turned it into Comfort (now the largest taxi company in Singapore), they gave us our businesses. We bought our taxis from them - they helped us. And we went from nothing to having our own businesses."

My taxi driver was one of the few left who own his taxi. Comfort Cabs eventually was spun into a private corporation, traded on the Singapore stock exchange. It stopped selling drivers their own taxis and have them rent or lease them instead. Either way, it put 15,000 taxis on the road and almost 30,000 jobs. The original guys who owned their taxis and were given stock in the company are some of the wealthiest cab drivers you'll ever meet.

"Singapore has changed so much since then. We worked very, very hard. Mr. Lee and our government worked very hard too. We have so much now. You would never even recognize it from when I was a child. The young people today, they don't know how hard we worked. They don't know how bad it was. They have everything and they don't know how hard their grandparents worked - and how scared we all were."

This man is the kind of person who is the heart and soul of Singapore. He did what so many of his generation did - he bought in to his government, trusted without question and reaped the rewards.

That's because his government did right by him. It's also because a rare combination of brilliant and motivated people came together to form and transform Singapore using ideas and methods never before conceived, let alone used. Singapore, in a stunning way uses Western capitalism to achieve socialistic goals that are in keeping with the Asian values of its people.

I've heard many criticisms of Singapore - some valid and some not - including Singapore not being a real democracy, not respecting civil liberties, being too strict and that it's people are like sheep.

While there are grains of truth in all of these, the criticisms don't understand the realities. They are Western viewpoints based on ideals and values that Singaporeans didn't feel applied.

In 1965, when this dirty red sandbar of an island was cut loose from the country it intended to be part of, Singapore was little more than a port town filled with immigrants who didn't like each other all that much. Much of the city was poor and dirty. Chinatown was a tenement slum housing up to 30 people per apartment. Disease was rampant, police corrupt, and there was little order or force of law.

Lee Kuan Yew and his team of Oxford educated social elites took on the task of building Singapore through their ideals.

The first and foremost was homeownership. They realized that no one sends their sons to fight and die for a country that isn't theirs. But if they own a piece of it, things change. Not only does it create attachment to the country, but also incentivizes them to take care of their neighborhoods which includes not fighting with or rioting against your neighbors.

Singapore decided to build blocks of condos and to sell them at affordable prices to everyone. In order to make sure everyone owned their home, the government created the Development Bank of Singapore which willingly gave low-interest home loans to almost anyone wanting to buy a government- built Housing Development Board (HDB) condo.

Then there was another twist of social engineering - no more than 70 percent of a condo block can be occupied by any one ethnicity. People had to move, shuffle around and not only live, but own their homes next to people of other races. Chinese, Malays and Indians had to identify as neighbors in the most literal of ways.

Eventually, the HDB program extinguished slums and eliminated homelessness. Most importantly, it turned people from transient workers and immigrants into Singaporeans. Housing bound people together. Suddenly, they had something at risk.

That changed attitudes.

But that alone didn't turn Singapore first-world. Lee Kwan Yew realized Singapore needed foreign investment in order to get jobs. That meant Singapore had to inspire confidence. It needed to be presentable.

Over the course of several years, the dusty red sandbar got a makeover as Singapore planted trees, lawns and shrubs. "Greening Singapore" not only made it a suddenly attractive city, but it got rid of dust and disease. Trees sucked up swamps and reduced malaria, typhoid and other diseases. When Japanese, American and British executives came to Singapore, it looked decent enough to take seriously.

It also had two magic assets that made it much more attractive than any other Asian country: British common law with full property rights and English. Singapore's decision to implement its colonial language - English - as the new national language was a measure to prevent any one ethnic group from dominating. Everyone would have to bend equally. Everyone would be unified in their experience of being equally uncomfortable.

Only it was a golden asset. Malaysia chose Malay as its national language - leaving Singapore alone as the only country to fully bolster the intangible assets left to it by the British.

As major companies built factories, they found Singaporeans were good communicators, adaptable and hard workers. As a result of their presence, Singapore began to develop and became increasingly more pleasant environmentally.

The ball began rolling.

Meanwhile, Singapore's government began creating jobs with taxis, public transportation, HDB construction, new military, the Development Bank of Singapore and numerous other projects.

People like my taxi driver did what they were told and made money - more than they had ever made with a better standard of living to go with it.

They trusted their government and its use of paternalistic democracy and capitalism - some people say like sheep, others say like people with nothing else to lose.

 

 


 
 
 

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Concluding Conlan

We're fortunate when we have a handful of people with whom we share a deep connection. Real friends - the kind we share our lives with whom we build networks of mutual support - are among the most valuable of all possible riches. They aren't easy to come by and can't be put on a shelf until they're useful. Friendships are living creatures requiring nurturing, love and attention.

I take mine seriously - in part because I absolutely adore each of my friends. They each have qualities I admire, respect and appreciate. If you could bottle the essence of any one of them, the resulting elixir would cure cancer - that's how good they are.

That's why I feel so fortunate to have had a visit from Conlan. He is a quality human being.

Sadly, today was our last day together before he heads off to circumnavigate the globe with work duties in London and New York. The time flew by so quickly.

For the past two days, Conlan has been enjoying Langkawi - the next major island north of Penang. He was ready for a little beach time and Langkawi is famous for resorts and water sports on its white sand beaches. He treated himself to a bungalow in the jungle-filled hills overlooking sea at one of the island's luxury resorts where he communed with the monkeys and cicadas.

This morning, I took the 8:15 hydrofoil from Penang to Langkawi so we could meet up for lunch and an afternoon hanging around the beach. Zooming through the morning sun bouncing off the turquoise waters of the Andanman Sea, the world felt and looked brilliant.

Langkawi is an entirely different Malaysia from Penang. The large verdant island is something out of a picture postcard - a vaguely familiar one. It reminded me tremendously of the islands of Southern Thailand - which of course makes sense since Satun is visible from Langkawi.

I've often marveled at how big a difference an artificial political line makes. With some borders not only divide countries, the differences between two sides is stark. Penang feels nothing like nearby Hat Yai and with its fantastic roads, low-key feel and perfectly modern buildings, Langkawi is another world from the Thai islands I've seen.

The cultural mixture of Malaysia extends right out to the island. Of course, with a far less party-oriented or party-tolerant culture, Langkawi isn't and probably never will be one of the great party spots of Southeast Asia. What remains are astonishingly quiet beaches with resort guests laying around on lounge chairs, reading and napping in the sun.

Langkawi is exactly what so many people who mourn the overdevelopment of Thai paradise really want. It's just that it's in Malaysia which doesn't sound as sexy and certainly isn't as cheap. Somewhat counterintuitively, it's more developed Malaysia that has the more pristine and accessible paradise.

You also have to love an island with its own royalty. Before Malaysia formed, Langkawi was its own sultanate with a large degree of freedom onset British suzerainty. The sultan remains a visible figure today. His dominion seems to live primarily off tourism as well as some minor farming. The Kenny Rogers Roasters, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, KFC and donut franchise in the main town suggest people are doing alright - at least financially.

Conlan too was doing alright. A couple of days of relaxing, decompressing and enjoying some solitude agreed with him.

We spent our last 4.5 hours taking, laughing, and exploring the beach. Naturally, he photographed all kinds of sights and details as we went along. The artist in Conlan never tires - it's part of what I love about him. The way he sees the world compels him to study his environment and capture the beautiful, unique and interesting. Conlan documents, shares and even creates texture in the world.

There's something tremendously mind expanding about seeing Conlan's photos and realizing we were in the same place, chatting away - but he saw something of value at which I never would have glanced twice.

Conlan told me that he's ready to get going. Staying still too long doesn't suit him - he has a lot going in his work and life right now including a new apartment he hasn't yet fully Conlanized. He always has something he's working on - it's his nature.

Parting with a good friend is never easy. I've laughed a lot during his stay and enjoyed having someone around who knows me so well and for so long. The nice part about saying goodbye to a friend like Conlan is that it just begins the process of looking forward to next time. In this case, when we arrive home in early July.

Conlan, we'll miss you.

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Malaise-ia

"Love, we're living in a hotel room again," I said this morning. "No one's going to take our laundry away, and you had to go get coffee....I miss Bali.... I miss having a house. I miss our large, separate closets. There's no breakfast when we wake up. We don't even have breakfast!"

It was bound to happen. Bali withdrawal. You can ignore it for a few days while everything seems new and exciting, but eventually it catches up. At least it always has for me.

"Bali Withdrawal Syndrome is a serious medical condition you can get from extended exposure to Bali. Sadness, longing and the inability to enjoy whatever isn't Bali can result. Left untreated, BWS can develop into shaking, crying and total decompensation when faced with dishes, laundry, bills, and other aspects of reality. If you or someone you love is suffering from BWS, talk to your doctor about Airline Tickets."

Unfortunately, the drug companies haven't come up with a pill and some of us just suffer quietly. And not so quietly at times.

Because of my history with BWS, I knew it was possible that whatever destination came along next might get the brunt of our feelings. Originally, we intended to go to Singapore where I have suffered through BWS many times. Singapore is so starkly different from Bali that it's like going through shock therapy in a safe environment. In a weird way, Singapore is almost distracting and therefore, it buffers the symptoms.

Because Conlan had spent time with me in Singapore before, he wanted to see something new. We changed our plan to come to Malaysia first and then return to Singapore later.

We're enjoying Penang, but somehow we're not terribly attached to it. I can't rule out BWS.

Penang is a pretty and fairly relaxed place. The beaches are gorgeous and the climate and environment feel like neighboring Thailand - which can be seen from the island's north shore.

Penang has character, culture, rough edges, imperfections and a lot of activity without any pressure. The main city of Georgetown is easy to traverse on foot. The recipe seems right - but the results feel underwhelming.

More developed than Thailand, less developed than Singapore, Penang and Malaysia in general take on the strange quality of being developed without being first world. It lacks the modernity of Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok while missing the third world charms of most of Thailand or Bali.

From the many buildings with their peeling paint, decay and charred sides, it's easy to imagine Penang in its heyday. The port that's modest by today's standards was probably huge and bustling by the standards of the 19th century when Under British rule it became the key port of the Malacca Strait. Colonial times must have been interesting in Penang.

Today, instead of trading rubber and spices, Penang has several IT companies with large offices and plants outside the main city. The northern shore is largely devoted to tourism and condos for the wealthy. Although Penang certainly hasn't fallen into poverty and despair, it lacks the energy and enthusiasm that a city or an country on the rise might have.

All this to say there's nothing wrong with Penang. It's lovely, interesting and almost sweet. We're just not in love.

It's not you, Penang - it's us. We've been going through a rough time with the BWS and all. You're exactly the right island and a real catch for the right people. We had the same problem with Samos, Greece where we went right after our month on neighboring Patmos. Maybe you'd like Samos' number or email?

Two days ago, we thought long and hard about Malaysia and our plans here. We came planning to spend time in at least two places - most likely Penang and Malacca.

However, everything we've read says that Malacca is all about it's colonial spice trade history - and not so much a vibrant present. Colonial history mildly interests me and has no appeal at all to Emily.

So, we've decided to move along with our travels.

Saturday, Emily and I head back to Singapore where we'll spend six days in the city state that represents the world's largest engineered social experiment. On Friday the 29th, we'll go into a new territory and cultural sphere for us both - Vietnam, starting with Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon.

Conlan who deeply desired a beach break and some time to relax on his first vacation trip of the past three years decided Tuesday to go to nearby, very lush and tropical Langkawi Island. It's hard for us to move around too quickly with our work - especially during the weekdays. So, he's spending a couple of days there himself. Tomorrow, I'll take the ferry over, spend some final time with him before he flies to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow night and from there to London the next morning.

Less than a week after arriving, we're already wrapping up Malaysia. Emily and I spent a few hours today rapidly acquiring the three items we get in ever country - a cookbook, a decorative item for our future home and a dress for Emily. We managed to get all three in the span of two hours - a record for us.

We can't explain why Penang and Malaysia don't "click" for us. But there's no need to fight it. With just over two months left of our trip, we don't want to squander our most precious resource of all - time.

Singapore, we'll be back Saturday with a lingering case of BWS. You know what to do.

Sent from my iPad