Hand work

With this voyage comes many opportunities for self-discovery and to try new things.  New food, new behaviors.  New constraints and disciplines on board, with limited resources.  New opportunities on land.

In Viet Nam, I got a manicure, my first ever.  My fat, stubby fingers with the ragged nails are not something I've been interested in pampering, but why not?  For three bucks (four with polish, evidently,  five with a generous tip), why not indeed.

I think you need to go with a friend, for a spa date.  The Saigon Spa is up two flights of stairs, and was deserted except for me.  They post a woman downstairs to reel in customers, and they call someone from a back room to do the manicure.  She did not speak a word of English.  Background music of American tunes from the 60's played on Vietnamese instruments.  The song I slow-danced to on my first date with the high school boyfriend who would become my husband (and later not my husband).  Music from the years of American escalation in Viet Nam, music that took me from innocence to outrage in my years from high school to graduate school.

There is a lot of solitary time in a manicure, soaking and drying.  There is a fine line between relaxing and depression when you are half way around the world, alone in the company of a thousand, in a country which tugs at your conscience and memory.  Who knew a manicure could be so powerful a thing?

On to Singapore, where I found a street artist offering henna tattoos.  "Trust me," he said.  "I am the best.  I do all these free hand!"  I have had bad experiences with "Trust me."  His photo album was impressive, but he makes no money from the lookers, only from the ones who do, ultimately, trust him. We negotiated a little on the size and style and he did a beautiful job.

Trusting was the easy part.  Keeping my left wrist from bending, and my arm from being bumped in the crowds of Chinatown was a challenge.  Using only my right hand the rest of the afternoon was a challenge.  I found some bargains worth pulling out my stash of USD for, which meant going into the bottom of my pack and going into the hidden zippered places of my wallet.  I found pictures worth taking one handed.  I found a 7-11 with Slurpees!  (Asia is full of 7-11s, but this is the only one I saw with Slurpees.

Back on the ship, I put the hem on my new skirt.  I sewed every stitch by hand, including overcasting the (6) seams so they won't fray.  No pattern.  There's a pocket inside to hold my passport.  I used my "graduate" scissors from the office.  Ideal for moms.  We don't let Jim use them.  He has to use the boy scissors.

Handwork score card

Manicure:  won't bother.  Just calls more attention to the dirt under my nails, and I'm not comfortable with having someone working on me.

Henna:  I discovered a common thinking pose is chin in my left hand, elbow on the desk.  Turns out this is ideal for showing off the tat as well.  Fun as long as it is temporary.  An Indian friend tells me it may darken in the days to come.  (The picture is of day 1, before the dye chipped off.  It's not that dark now.)

Skirt:  I like the skirt.  A pattern would have helped, as would a measuring tape, room to lay out the fabric, and an iron. Although it goes with all the t-shirts I brought, I reserve the right to cut it up for a shirt once I get home to my seven sewing machines.  Trying new things doesn't mean I can't go back to the old me.

In a tight place

After a few weeks of choppy seas and cooperative technology, today found us heading up the Strait of Malacca towards Myanmar at a leisurely pace with calm waters and a recalcitrant printer.

We are proceeding at a leisurely pace because we have time to kill.  Our itinerary shows us docking at 0800, but that’s been changed to 1400.  It has been tough on our Field Office people, who scheduled travel out of Yangon months ago.  Those people will have to leave the ship by launch (small boat) while the rest of us bide our time. 

The waters are calm because the Strait of Malacca is very narrow and shallow.  No room to build up waves.  They are also full of pirates, but no one seems overly concerned.  The children are hoping for Johnny Depp and the adults are hoping the pirates stick to commodities other than people.  Open waters tomorrow; in the meantime, it’s odd to be at sea with no rocking at all.  Doors stay where you put them, and no one goes flying off the treadmill.

Back at the office, my printer has shown a new side to its quirky personality.  In Singapore, it spontaneously stopped working again, and I left a note asking whichever IT person came back to duty to look in on it.  My first print request was five different jobs of labels for our alumni coordinator.  As with so many small jobs coming to me, I had to reformat, and the reformatting tools I enjoy at home were nowhere to be found.  MS Word, you are a fickle friend!  After reformatting 15 pages of labels separately and adjusting long addresses to fit (no, it’s no problem at all!  I am the cheerful one!), the first job of four pages came out printed on both sides of the page.

This is not possible!  My printer doesn’t print duplex.  For 7 weeks, my printer didn’t print duplex.  For anything over four pages, I had to print even pages first, then odd, or the pages came out stacked in reverse order.  Jobs with odd numbers of pages got an extra run through for the last page.  Since I have approximately as much room on my desk as the fold-down tray in front of the average airline seat, collating and stapling is a particular challenge.  So it was both a puzzle and a blessing to find my printer can print two sides of the page all by itself.  When set to “print one side only.”

My motto is “It’s always a good day to learn something new!”  Sometimes I say this through clenched teeth.  The choices for printing continue to be one side only and “manually print two sided,” which prints the odd pages and then has you run the paper through a second time to print the evens, which doesn’t work.  Clicking on “Advanced settings” revealed a “print both sides” option was checked.  So “print both sides” plus “print one side only” allows my printer to print in duplex.  And this is the new default setting, which is loads of fun.  If you add “print one page,” it still prints the entire multiple page job.  I had to create a new document to print the final page of labels. 

At the next opportunity to show off, the printer made four copies double-sided then jammed.  And jammed.  And jammed.  Jam on the left.  Jam on the right. 

Oh, how I have not missed my days peering at the inside of the printer at UVA, looking for new doors to open to reveal the stubbornly hidden jammed paper! 

Here, as there, there are diagrams that do not look like the printer in front of you.  Knobs to turn, doors to open, doors that will not open, doors that should not be opened.  Jams hidden behind the toner cartridge, jams visible but not accessible.  Jams that require you to go down on your knees, jams that require you to be eye level with the floor, jams that require you to wedge yourself into tight spaces. 

Yes, folks, we have them all!  And, reams of wasted paper while the printer rejams itself over and over. 

At 5:30, I pulled the plug, the forbidden last resort solution to the re-jam.  This is printer time-out, a chance for the printer to cool off and think about what it has done.  A chance for me, too, to come back to the puzzle with new focus after breathing some air not pungent with toner.  I was rewarded with a piece of paper stuck in a place heretofore unrevealed (these are notches on the belt of an administrative assistant, and despite what it seems, there is a limit to how many you can get) and a record run of 14 double-sided copies without a jam.  Maybe tomorrow we will be friends again.

One hidden blessing of the ship’s schedule is that working through meals is a poor option.  Get to a meal late enough and there’s nothing left.  Tonight I arrived in time for the voyage’s first photo-worthy sunset.  Everyone with a camera was crowded on the port side snapping away. 

It was not a surprise to me that our super efficient waiter had cleared away my unfinished dinner and drink, wiped off the table, and reset the chairs by the time I got back. The ship throws away 40 pounds of food a day, so why not my dinner as well? (New weight loss plan.)

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.  We’ll see.

Figuring out Singapore

The hop-on, hop-off bus:  it hits all the major tourist spots, it comes with a smattering of information about the city you're visiting and you can make unlimited stops.  Such a deal!  (And for just a little bit more, the promise of additional routes, or tickets to attractions.)

The map of Singapore given to us on landing was an advertisement for City Tours, and I succumbed. The ticket is good for 24 hours, which took me from 1 PM Wednesday to 1 PM Thursday.  It was only a few bucks more than a one-day pass on the subway, so I plotted a route and hopped on.

Snake-eye view of Singapore from the hop-on bus

Here are some interesting facts I learned about Singapore.

85% of Singaporeans live in public housing.  Unlike public housing in the US, this housing is comparable to private housing, and only about 30% cheaper.  A "four-room flat" in public housing can cost $250,000, and prices start around $75,000.  I don't know if that four rooms is a 2-bedroom apartment or whether the designation is four bedrooms.

25% of the land in Singapore is reclaimed from the surrounding ocean.

30% of shipping, worldwide, goes through Singapore.  They had better watch where they're reclaiming land from the ocean, because that strait is pretty narrow to begin with.  Beach Road is now downtown.  (So much for owning beachfront property!)

It is very expensive to own a car in Singapore, which is a traffic control strategy.  When you initially buy the car, you pay a tax in excess of 100% of the value of the car.  Then, you have to bid for the privilege of owning it, something that can add another $10,000 dollars.  That permit is granted for only ten years, then you have to bid for another one.  The permits are not transferable, so most people elect to buy a new car rather than reupping for ten more years with the old one.  Singapore exports most of its old cars to Japan, a reasonably close country where the steering wheel is on the right side of the car.  (What's the deal, island countries??  Is there an advantage to driving on the left?)

Another traffic control strategy in place in Singapore is the ERP, an automatic toll system that charges you as you go through checkpoints.  Essentially it's an EZ Pass, but specifically created to discourage people from owning cars, not to improve traffic flow.

Public transportation is cheap and efficient, although the toll structure discourages casual use.  Even on the buses, the fare depends on how far you are going, on whether the bus is air conditioned, on your age (for seniors) and height (for children).  Regular passengers swipe in and out to deduct the proper fare, but paying customers have to know what fare to pay.  The bus drivers do not enforce the zone system, however.  You can also get on at the rear door without paying, even when the bus is not crowded.  A couple of our students told me they had just learned you had to pay for the bus.  Even on the tour bus, I was discouraged from showing my ticket.  

The tour covered neighborhoods for four ethnic groups, the Chinese, Indians, Malaysians, and Arabs.  Historically, Singapore was laid out with neighborhoods assigned to ethnic groups, and these enclaves still serve as centers of the community, although there's no restriction on where people live.  

Civilian War Memorial

Singaporean society is deliberately multi-cultural, with four official languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil).  The CivilianWar Memorial in the center of town (nicknamed the chopsticks), has pillars for Chinese, Indians, Mayalsians, and Minorities. (It's in memory of the people who died under Japanese occupation, which was brutal.)  

Unemployment is virtually nil in Singapore, and about one-quarter of the population is foreign, many of them guest workers. There is a controversial plan to bring in immigrants to have babies, since the birthrate in Singapore is too low to fund the social programs in place.  

The unemployment rate is officially 2%, but that includes people who are self-employed, so it's artificially inflated.  (Curious way to calculate it, I think.)

Finally, the Singapore Sling was invented at the Raffles Hotel, a beautiful and pricey property in the "civic" quarter of town.  My boss, Jim reports that it costs $28 now.  (Singapore dollars are $1.10 to $1.30 per American dollar, so it's definitely a pricey drink.)  I also did not try the classic chili crab in Singapore, since that costs around $30.  

End of lesson.  Next stop on the tour:  Burma.

War and Viet Nam

On my last day in Viet Nam, I went to the Mekong Delta on a trip organized by Semester at Sea.  Our guide, in his early 40s, talked a bit about how the war (they call it “the American War” ) affected his family.

His father was a South Vietnamese Army intelligence officer, working closely with the US government.  He was even brought to the US for training.  This worked out well for a while, but after Saigon fell in 1975, Hau’s father was sent to a re-education camp for 5 years.  Then the whole family was made to go work in the jungle for several more years.  The family’s house was seized as well.  It was a very hard time, and Hau remembers foraging for food.

When Hau came of age, his father advised him to avoid military service by running away, but Hau decided to fulfill his obligation.  He says the whole family would have faced prison if he hadn’t.  But his father was so upset by the decision that he disowned his son.

Hau finished his term of service and asked the government to give his father back his house.  He said, “I am a good man.  I have served my country, and this is all I ask.”  He pursued this for about five years until the government finally gave the house back.  Because of this, Hau was able to reconcile with his father.

I find this story very moving—and astonishing.  Hau’s persistence and his success amaze me equally.  Because of his father’s work for the US, three generations of his family are denied membership in the Communist Party, a huge impediment to economic success. 

The Vietnamese approach to the war seems to be, “it’s over, move on.” Certainly there are war museums, and the old news footage they show has a strong anti-American slant, but in the present, there’s no animosity towards Americans.  As Hau said, “Viet Nam is a small country.  We can’t exist on our own.  We have to get along with everybody.”

I was talking about this with one of our professors, who made this observation:  for me, there’s nothing between the Viet Nam war and my trip to Viet Nam.  Those are my only two points of connection to the country.  But for Viet Nam, the American War, destructive as it was, was only one of many wars.  Not their first, not their last.  Since then, they’ve invaded and they’ve been invaded.  There’s also a big element of civil war in that conflict.  The Americans spent a lot of time and money intervening, but we did not divide the country into two.  The South had benefitted from capitalism and many in that area worked willingly with the US.

Earlier in the week, I visited the Reunification Palace, which was the South’s government headquarters before and during the war.  It’s four floors plus a basement.  The top floor is a rooftop garden.  The three floors under that are largely ceremonial.  It reminded me of the Shogun’s Palace in Kobe (someday, perhaps I will write about that, too), with rooms for presenting credentials, and waiting, and being received by the President, the Vice President, or the First Lady.  A cinema, a room for gambling.  Several dining rooms and conference rooms.  A private apartment and a library/classroom.  In all three floors, there are only two for conducting what looks like business.  The President had an office (with a secret passage to the basement for a quick escape), and there’s a map room.

In contrast, the basement is a hive of radios and phones and teletype machines.  And maps.  While the President was in his chair on a raised platform receiving guests who sat in chairs with varying heights indicative of relative power, the Americans were in the basement, running the war.

It’s a jumble of images, not easy for me to sort out.

Water puppets in Saigon

Meanwhile, back in Viet Nam...

In our global society, sometimes it seems like there are few surprises.  Most everything I saw for sale in Japan or China or Viet Nam, I could also buy in the US (with the exception of foods).  My home town has lots of choices of ethnic food.  And people throughout Asia are driving the same cars, using the same cell phones, and listening to the same music as Americans do.

But I am told that water puppets exist only in Viet Nam.

I saw two different water puppet performances while I was there.  These pictures are from the theatre attached to the history museum.  They have an open air stage with rows of simple chairs, which give it a garden feel.  Before each little story, a woman gave us the plot line.  Fortunately, the plots are pretty simple to pick up, because I couldn't get onto the woman's wavelength.  Something about her intonation made it very difficult to tell she was speaking English.

The second show was at a fancy theatre, with a live orchestra and plush movie theatre seats.  I loved having the orchestra, which played a central role in commenting on the action, as well as providing background music.  But the juxtaposition of plush seats and a pond of water was jarring for me.  (I was asked to step in to lead a trip of students to dinner and the show; I am not becoming a water puppet junkie.)

Several of the stories were exactly the same at both theatres, which leads me to believe that they are beloved folk tales.  Here, the man and his wife argue, a cat comes to steal one of the ducks and causes mayhem.  In another, the man is fishing with a net and the wife the idea to fish with a basket.  The fish jump wildly, the woman finally catches one, and the scene ends with the man being overwhelmed by the fish jumping into his net.

All of this is accomplished by four (or six, in the larger theatre) puppeteers who are standing waist deep in the water.  You never see them until they come out at the end to wave and receive your applause.  The puppets are on long rods the color of the water, which you also do not see.  The dragons spit fire and water at each other, the fish jump, the swimmers do acrobatics and wind up making a tower.  It's very impressing stuff for eight hands and a few rods.

In America, puppets are generally for children.  (Ignore Avenue Q.)  In the rest of the world, they have a more central place in the culture and in religion.  In Viet Nam, they are literally making waves.

One Fine Day in Singapore

If this is Wednesday, this must be Singapore.

The pace of this trip is hard to keep up with, but there's really no mistaking Singapore for anywhere else. 

The ship terminal looks like a ship, sailing.

For one thing, the preport warnings are completely different.  Eat and drink anything you like.  The streets are safe at 3 AM, even for women walking alone.  If you lose your passport, someone is more likely to chase you down to return it than to sell it. 

However, there are plenty of warnings.

You can't enter the country with gum.  Or an apple.  Or a DVD.

Or a newspaper.

No jaywalking.  No spitting.  No criticizing the government or disparaging religious or ethnic groups.  (Comedy clubs must have a tough time here.) 

And here's one I hadn't heard of:  no outraging the modesty of a woman.  This is one that's landed quite a few Western men in jail here.  Modesty of Singaporean women can be outraged pretty easily, evidently.

All of this has earned Singapore quite a reputation.  There's a popular t-shirt calling it "A Fine City" and another, with appropriate iconography, for the "I-Fine."  (In Viet Nam, it was the "I-Pho," although the soup pho is pronounced "fa.")

As it turned out, I got over the urge to chew gum pretty quickly and got down to the business of seeing the sights.  Singapore is no sterile Disneyland of a city—there are far too many construction sites for that.  You don't see much litter on the streets, but there's still underwear hanging on the balcony. 

Singapore has grown tremendously in the last 30 years.  They have reclaimed land from the sea, and they have built up as well, with a very impressive skyline.  There are a lot of very unusual buildings, like this one, a ship stranded atop three skyscrapers. 

Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino

There's interesting use of color, rainbow hues everywhere. 

Hindu Temple in Chinatown

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, also Chinatown

In a multicultural society, there are many religious paths, and I saw a couple of mosques, a couple of Hindu temples, a Buddhist temple, and several Christian churches of various sorts today.  The Anglican church has stained glass windows of three prominent white leaders.  (Perhaps this explains why it's been destroyed by lightning twice?)

In this mosque, the layer of tiny dark circles under the gold dome is the bottom of bottles.  The architect collected bottles, then sold them to raise money to build the mosque.  I gather this was like getting your name on a brick, but without names.

On the other mosque, which is in Chinatown, there was a sign wishing happy lunar new year to our neighbors.

Somehow, it works.

Aging Aquarius

Doc Micah started us off in Hawaii with “The Volcano Song,” a little ditty his children sang in preschool.  He got his three sons, ages 9-15, to sing it in front of an audience of 500 people, an impressive feat.  We had a parody of “Call me maybe” before Japan, sung by the Resident Directors, struggling to keep their footing as we fought our way through hurricane force winds.  (If we had one before China, it escapes me at the moment.)  Here, for your enjoyment, the words to “Malaria,” sung to the tune of “Aquarius.”

When the moon comes out in Vietnam
And nights are sweltering hot,
Then bugs shall rule the planet,
And all of us begin to swat! 

It is at dawn and dusk we think of malaria
Don’t let it scare-y ya
Malaria!
Malaria! 

Malarone and doxycycline.
Larium is not exciting.
Use your netting while you’re sleeping
Wear long sleeves while bugs are leaping
Use your DEET when skin’s revealing
Stay in at night!
Malaria!
Malaria! 

When the food is looking tasty,
And water seems so clear
Beware, it might be nasty
And mi-ight come out your rear! 

So in the dawn you might wake up with diarrhea-ea
Doc Mike will have to see-ee ya
Diarrhea! 
Diarrhea!

Sympathy is notwithstanding
Roommate not too understanding
Keep yourself up off the toilet
It is best if you can boil it
Wash your hands while on your pub crawl
And take pepto! Pepto Bi-ismol!
Pepto Bismol!
Pepto Bismol! 

The saloon turns to a party house.
And you and her have gone too far.
Be sure to use a condom,
And keep out of her boudoir! 

This is the time that you should think about STD’s
Not drink ‘til you’re on your knees
Delirious!
Precarious!
Hilarious!
Malaria!

Growing up, Aquarius (the end of January and beginning of February) was a big deal, with three birthdays, my parent’s anniversary, and Valentine’s Day, all packed into less than three weeks.  From far away Viet Nam, I send greetings today to my dear sister Ellen, who celebrates her birthday today.  XOXOXO