A classmate from 1984-85

In the past two years, I have been Googling for my old classmates from the American University, 1984-85. I have managed to all of them--from Bangladesh, Colombia, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe-- but one person who eluded me was Mala Somasunderam from Malaysia. I had last seen her 15 years ago, when she visited me in Hong Kong and I paid a return visit to her in Kuala Lampur. When all my Googling efforts failed, I tried the old fashioned method of mailing her a letter. It worked.

While in school, Mala told everyone that she would one day marry a millionaire and drive around in a chauffeured BMW. And that's what she did. I was met at the KL airport in the largest BMW I've set my eyes on, housed at the Hilton (in an executive suite), and chauffeured around. Certainly not the style of travel I am used to. Mala proved to be a generous host.

Mala

Mala took me to Malacca, a seaside town which, in terms of colonial history, bears a remarkable resemblance to Sri lanka. Both places were ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British in that order. The local architecture was a legacy of these European styles. The Chinese population appeared to be dominant, as in Penang, and I also saw the shop houses that I had seen in Penang.

We also visited Genting, only 50km from Kuala Lampur and, at 1800 meters, a welcome escape from the steamy capital city. I battled with a slot machine at the casino, happy to lose Ringgit 50 while expecting to hit the jackpot any minute.

Since my last visit 15 years ago, I saw remarkable changes in Malaysia. The new airport is a treat, unlike the Hong Kong airport where passengers are required to descend to a train and ascend again when going to a distant boarding gate. The highways and other infrastructure facilities appear to be well maintained. There is a nice blend of ethnic groups, although descendants of Indian and Sri Lankan immigrants appear to feel that they are third class citizens (after the dominant Malays and the Chinese). Corruption, especially among politicians, appears to be rife, but Malaysia is so rich in resources that corruption does not appear to affect the country's development. In fact, Malaysia would be a good act for Sri Lanka to follow as the latter aims to quadruple tourist arrivals.

Just Do It

As the lunatic Gaddafi prepares for a bloodbath in Libya, the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union are moving at their usual snail's pace, denouncing Gaddafi and planning sanctions. Even the declaration of "no fly zones" (that would ground the Libyan Air Force and prevent it from attacking it's own citizens) may not happen because the two despotic countries in the Security Council, China and Russia, are blocking the move.

On a previous occasion in 2008, after the disastrous cyclone that hit Burma, the UN and Western powers dragged their feet in coming to the rescue of the Burmese who had been completely neglected by their authoritarian government. An air drop or a naval supply of food and other supplies would not only have helped the starving people but would have also humiliated the murderous Burmese Generals, making them lose face and weakening their grip on the country.

I am no admirer of President Reagan, but he acted swiftly when Libyan agents bombed a nightclub in Germany in 1986, killing two American servicemen. Reagan bombed Gaddafi's compound with the intention of killing the dictator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Libya

A few air raids on Libyan air bases and the Tripoli home of Gaddafi will do the trick. Just do it.

A weekend in Penang

On checking-in to the Bayview Hotel in Georgetown, Penang, we were handed a slip of paper titled "The Innkeeper Ordinance"., which had this little gem of colonial English.

"No innkeeper shall be liable to make good to any guest of such innkeeper any loss of or injury to goods brought to his inn, not being a horse or other live animal, or any gear appertaining thereto or any car or carriage, to a greater amount than the sum of Ringgit Malaysia Five Hundred Only (RM500)".

I have no idea what that legalese means, but, despite never seeing a horse at the hotel during our stay, we had an enjoyable time in Penang.



At a nearby hawker's compound, we came across a stall selling attractive lampshades. Similar to Christmas decorations in Europe, these lampshades had attractive Malaysian designs. We bought 10 to be given as gifts.

Penang is not typically Malaysian because the Chinese appear to outnumber the Malays. To our delight, we also saw South Indians (mostly Tamils) everywhere, and walked to Little India to have our meals.



A view of Penang from my hotel window. The rows of shop houses can be clearly seen.

The next morning, after the obligatory conference presentation (which is the usual excuse for my expense paid travel!), we walked back in the direction of Little India, passing hundreds of shop houses on the way. I have seen more stylish versions of these shop houses in Singapore, where many more appear to have been torn down, but, in Penang, their survival is guaranteed, because UNESCO got there first and declared Penang a World Heritage Site. So, the developers and the wrecking ball have been thwarted, and the Penang's unique flavor, giving an idea of what Singapore may have been 40 years ago, will live on. Thank goodness for that!



These shop houses are not merely tourist attractions. They are homes, and also workshops for all sorts of craftsmen such as mechanics, artists, rattan furniture makers, and printers. There were second hand bookstores, travel agencies, money changers, barber shops, and restaurants. Not in the best shape, these shop houses were evidence of a community that continues to uphold old values while surviving in a fast changing world.

As in Hong Kong and Singapore (but, alas, not in Sri Lanka), the colonial street names had been saved. There's even a Downing Street! Not only the shop houses, but grand, colonial style buildings, such as the Town Hall below, could also be seen all over town. Many of the streets were lined with large shady trees, which we call "mara" in Sri Lanka. Colombo's streets were lined with these trees but have been all but cut down now.

We found this interesting stationary store, which was really an Aladdin's Cave of items that we had not seen in ages. I last used Venus pencils ("Made in Britain") 4 years ago in school, and was thrilled to see them on sale here. (I thought the company may have disappeared now.) When we were admiring the rare fountain pens and bottles of Quink, the kindly shop lady gifted one of each item to us.

The shop house verandahs provided welcome relief from the sun.

Perhaps the biggest treat, for me, was the profusion of stores that sold used books. Undoubtedly, the king among them is Sam's bookstore on Chulia Road. Sam, a genial South Indian, not only sold books but was also knowledgeable about them because he read the, too. The last time I actually discussed books with a dealer of used books was in New Orleans, many, many years ago. (In Sai Kung, I donate my books to the Leisure Book Store, but am unable to buy anything from them because they mostly carry thrashy Brit books. And not a hope of discussing books with the people who work there. I like the cat, though.)

Sam the bookseller



On Saturday, a local English teacher, Bien Kee, escorted us on a conducted tour. We first went to two Buddhist temples, Thai and Burmese. This large reclining Buddha was at the Thai temple. This statue is made of plaster, and I marvelled at the even larger reclining Buddha in Polonnaruruwa, Sri Lanka, which is carved out of solid rock. Plaster vs, rock, there's no comparison.


With Bien Kee

We had three meals at this South Indian vegetarian restaurant. The vadai, dosa, and other items were a treat, but the big surprise was the cost, about a quarter of the prices we pay for Indian food in Hong Kong.

A mosque in Little India

A Chinese temple

Fawzia at the Chinese temple

More shop houses serving as stores

A tiny grocery store of the type we often see in Sri Lanka

A store selling colorful Indian clothes

Kien Bee took us to the Pinang Pernakan Museum, which used to be the home of a rich "baba", a Chinese Headman who must have been a Triad leader. Displaying the wealth of a bygone era, the house has Chinese wood-carved panels, English floor tiles, and Scottish ironworks. Lavishly furnished with period furniture and artifacts, the house had been recently renovated by a rich Chinese family. The Malay man who showed us around was also an artifact from the past, domineering and "do as you are told" type. While we observed him with amusement, the young Americans who were with us seemed to find him irritating.

Below are some photos from the Museum.

The center courtyard seen from one of the the dining rooms

The lovely ironworks around the inner balcony

The various outer buildings

View from a bedroom

Fawzia admiring artifacts

With a rickshaw

The hotel had a spa and I indulged in Thai oil massages on subsequent days. I have taken massages all over Asia but these were the best. The so called Thai-style massages are a torture, simply wracking ones body, but the oil helps to smoothen things out.

The traffic, the new middle-class Malaysians driving locally made "Proton" cars, are a real danger, and the place isn't all that hygienic, with smelly drains and hawkers who didn't look too clean. (What else can you expect in a place that's called Little India?) Some shop houses were rundown, and the owners are probably unable to afford renovations. The Malaysian government, despite all the trumpeting of "Malaysia, truly Asia" , doesn't care much for minorities, so may not help out with repairs. But, our visit was too short, and I want to return to Penang, the sooner the better.

Brother greets brother

A friend sent me this lovely photo. The beaming face of the London cop at 10 Downing Street says it all. Who could have dreamed ...?

I watched on TV as Air Force One arrived at Heathrow. The plane glides to a halt, the door opens, and the Obamas step out, waving to the crowd. Yes, who could have dreamed that this day would come.

My Washington DC story

In Washington DC, 1984

In 1984, I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for graduate study in the USA. I was in my mid-thirties at the time, and had been teaching English in the Sultanate of Oman for three years, having previously taught in Sri Lankan schools and a university for more than 10 years.

I was admitted to the American University (AU) in Washington, DC for a masters in Linguistics. Having been an avid reader of the Readers' Digest since I was 11, and other free publications distributed by the US Information Service in Sri Lanka (a now defunct magazine called Free World and a magazine for English teachers, Forum, which is still in publication), I was steeped in the American lifestyle. I felt fortunate to be in the capital city, instead of being assigned to a school in a lesser known area.

The American University was an expensive private school, attended mainly by the spoilt children of the rich and the offspring of diplomats. I could never have gone there without the scholarship. The presence of students from more than 100 countries brought a rich tapestry of colors and languages to campus, an experience rare at other universities.


The American University, Washington DC
I arrived a week after classes had begun and was fortunate to find the last place on the sixth floor in a co-ed dorm. I was the oldest resident, one of only two graduate students among mainly freshman undergraduates, who were away from home for the first time and out to have fun. I shared a large room with six other students, one of whom happened to be the President of the university's Gay and Lesbian Association. For someone coming from Sri Lanka, where homosexual practices were frowned upon, this was a novel experience to say the least. Gary was a friendly person whose preoccupation certainly wasn't his studies. His phone would ring continuously from 6pm onwards, visitors would drop by for loud chats and laughter, and, most mornings, his bed would be occupied by a beautiful young woman. (I never managed to understand this phenomenon.) The hormone levels in the dorm were sky high and the sound of running feet and banging doors could be heard at all hours as young men and women chased each other. The result was that I had no sleep for almost two weeks. This was finally solved when I began reading a book by Henry Widdowson, a household name in applied linguistics.) Half way through the book, I fell asleep for 12 hours straight!

I had complained about the noise and the lack of sleep and was given the choice of moving to an apartment complex that the university was leasing. The only problem was that I would have to find a roommate because I couldn't afford the high rent. A couple of days earlier, an Indian student had been complaining to me about his roommate and the need to find a new place. I soon found him in the library and he agreed to become my roommate. That's how Govindan Parayil and I became friends.

The apartment complex was at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Van Dyke, a 10 minute walk from campus, uptown from the Washington Cathedral which was still under construction, and only a bus ride from the great Museums and the Washington Mall. We had an apartment on the seventh floor, surrounded by elderly, long time residents of the complex as well as students. Sidwell Friends School, which President Obama's children attend, was right next door, and in those carefree, less-security obsessed days, I used to jog on their running track. (The complex appears to have been torn down. I believe the Embassy of Taiwan now stands where it used to be.) When the leaves of the surrounding trees fell during autumn, we could see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Congress Building all lit up at night. For someone who grew up in Sri Lanka, the sight was magical.

Soon, our apartment became a favorite rendezvous for friends and classmates, who came for a chat and a taste of Govindan's splendid meals. Most of my classmates were international students, and some were Fulbright scholars like me. I recall Janeth Hernandez from Bolivia, Selina Mohsin from Bangladesh, Gunawan from Indonesia, a Smith from Zimbabwe, Mala Somasunderam from Malaysia, and Xiumin Huang from China. Xiumin was the first Mainland Chinese student in our program and soon transferred to Computer Science, but we remained friends because she rented an apartment in the same complex.

Lectures were in the evening because most students were part-timers, so I had the whole day to myself. I soon got a job in the university library at the minimum wage. I was asked to shelve bound magazines and books in the library's basement. These bound volumes were very heavy but I had an Indian student named Arun to work with, and he was an easy going, happy guy whose good humour made the work much easier. At the end of one year, I was given a pay raise of .05 cents per hour!


With Govindan, at the National Cemetery in Arlington. 1985

I also had a host family. Myra (Mike) Schlesinger had worked at the US Embassy in Colombo in the 1950s, and she and her husband, the famed CBC announcer Joe Schlesinger, welcomed me to their beautiful home on Loughboro Road just a few minutes walk from the campus.

Looking back, the three semesters I spent at the American University were probably the happiest years of my life. For me, the studies were a breeze. The Museums (the Air and Space Museum was my favorite) were all free. Life before e-mail, the Internet, and cell phones seemed fuller. The neighborhood where we lived were residential and safe at any time. On my walk to campus, I would be passing tress heavy with cherry blossoms in the summer, and with icicles in the winter. The Sunday ritual was to attend mass at the university chapel with Marceline Hepie, a flamboyant friend from the Ivory Coast. Despite all my efforts, searching on the Internet and the occasional Ivorian I meet, I have not been able to connect with him.

Among my American classmates, Bim Schauffler and Ellen Stucker were the closest to us, and I still keep in touch with Ellen. They were both serious students, having to pay tuition from their earnings. Among the internationals, Mala was the exception. The daughter of a Malaysian diplomat, she lived a style quite different from the rest of us. Once, she gave me a gold plated toothbrush as a Christmas gift! Her ambition was to marry a millionaire and lead a life a leisure, which she accomplished in style: she visited me in Hong Kong about ten years ago, traveling from Malaysia where she lives, and even her nanny traveled first class. Recently, I found Selina through the Net, and she is now the High Commissioner (Ambassador) for Bangladesh in the Maldives. Xiumin never returned to China; she married Scott Overall, a lawyer, and now lives in Maryland.

I left AU at the end of 1985 to begin doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania. But, when Fawzia began to work in the DC area in the late 1990s and bought a house in Maryland, my ties to the area were renewed. Our son Ry lives there now, so my visits to the DC area will continue. AU has invited me back for their summer workshops twice, when the MA TESOL Program there began an Alumni Association, I was invited to be the first President.

Perhaps the most enduring friendship from my AU days has been that with Govindan. In fact, my decision to take-up a position in Hong Kong due to his encouragement (he already had a job at HKUST), and we have remained good friends. I was the Bestman at his wedding and the Godfather of his son. Govind is now the Vice-Rector at the United Nations University in Tokyo and stopped by for a visit a couple of weeks ago.


Govindan at the Bistro, HKUST, February 2009

Behind the smile

From the late 1980s to 1995, before coming to Hong Kong, I taught at a university in Mobile, Alabama. Among my students were young women who had once been boat people from South Vietnam, those who escaped in rickety, overcrowded boats when the communists took over their country. I liked these students because they were diligent and hardworking. They sometimes related horrifying stories of their escape from Vietnam (they were small children at that time), especially how their mothers and aunts had been raped by Thai fisherman, who often flung the adult males from the boats into the sea. After being raped, some women had been taken ashore to be sold for prostitution. The boats, often short of water and food and with engines breaking-down, had the misfortune to drift into the Gulf of Thailand.




A rickety boat crowded with Vietnamese boat people

To me, being from a Buddhist country (Sri Lanka), the behavior of these pirates from another Buddhist country, Thailand, was shocking and incomprehensible. Buddhism preaches compassion and non-violence and unlike in the case of Christianity and Islam, did not convert people of other faiths by the sword. Much has happened in recent years to sully the reputations of other Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka, Burma, and Cambodia, and I'll dwell on this phenomenon later.

What made me write this entry is the recent persecution of another wave of boat people by the Thais. Again, these refugees were the wretched of the earth, fleeing Burma and Bangladesh in search of a better life. According to yesterday's Sunday Morning Post, boat people who landed on Thai beaches had been beaten, forcibly put on boats and pushed out into the sea. More than 500 are dead or missing. Some had been shot or thrown overboard.

Thailand likes to be known as the "Land of Smiles". The picture of a smiling Thai hostess, with palms folded in the traditional Buddhist sign of greeting, adorns the advertisements of Thai Airways. Thousands of Buddhist temples dot Bangkok, the capital, and the countryside. But Thailand has been a curse to its neighbors. Those smiles hide a recent history bathed in blood.

I think it all started when Thailand became a Rest & Recreation (R & R) center for thousands of American GIs during the Vietnam War. Traumatized by the fighting, they came looking for sex and drugs, and the rot began. Till recently, 9 out of 10 visitors to Thailand were men travelling alone, looking for sex and drugs. Any male visitor to Thailand, even one who has his wife or girlfriend with him, is pestered with offers of women virtually from the time he gets off he plane. When these offers are turned down, the touts, assuming one is gay, begin to offer boys for sex.

Of course, Thailand soon ran out of women to supply the insatiable demand of Bangkok brothels, so the smuggling of women from Burma and China began. According to recent reports, between thirty to forty thousand Burmese women and girls, sometimes as young as twelve years old, have been trafficked to Thailand, with thousands of new arrivals each year. Over sixty percent are under the age of 18. These young women come from minority groups such as the Shan, the Mon, and Tai, fair skinned and therefore drawing better prices in Bangkok brothels. Oppressed by the murderous Military Junta in Burma, people from these groups have no option but to go abroad, and are trafficked with promises of better jobs. many of them become infected with AIDS and then return to the pathetic lives in their own countries. Chinese girls from minority tribes in Yunnan are similarly trafficked to Bangkok brothels.

The smuggling of women isn't the only way in which Thailand exploits its neighbors. The Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, who are estimated to have killed more than a million of their own people, were supplied weapons by Thais, often by those in the Thai military, in return for teak wood and gemstone (especially emeralds) found in Cambodia. During their last days, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were cornered on the Thai-Cambodian border and managed to fight on for years only because they had the support of corrupt Thai military officers.

Teak wood is one of the most valuable commodities in South-East Asia and the teak forests in Thailand have been exploited till hardly any trees are left. So, in addition to razing the teak forests of Cambodia, the Thais have also been leasing Burmese teak forests with the connivance of the murderous military Junta in Burma.

A few months ago, I saw a documentary on Al Jazeera television on the murder of Burmese fisherman on Thai trawlers. Apparently, poor Burmese are recruited to work on these boats and a treated like slaves. At the first sign of dissent, these fisherman are knifed or brutally beaten to death. Many Burmese fisherman who escaped from these boats are stranded on an Indonesian island thousands of miles from their homeland.

As I mentioned earlier, Thailand, like Burma, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka, are Buddhist countries. Buddha preached non-violence and compassion, but all these countries are mired in blood. How could this be explained? I used to visit Thailand to attend conferences but stopped going ten years ago. I will not spend money in a country which rapaciously exploits human beings.

For the story of one Vietnamese refugee, go to
http://www.vietka.com/Vietnamese_Boat_People/ThaiPirates.htm

Impressions of South Africa

The sea near Cape Point

I went to Cape Town with some hesitation because of the outbreak of crime and violence there. The country does have a soiled past, Apartheid (discrimination against Black and colored people by the minority Whites) still a vivid memory. Even tin the travel books and novels I read --by Paul Theroux, Nadime Gordimer and Coetzee -- this violence figures prominently. On the other hand, the two people I most admire, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, are also South Africans.

Cape Town, on the whole, was enjoyable except for a couple of rapacious taxi drivers. We received good service at shops and restaurants, from the tour guides, and the Bed & Breakfast where we stayed was fully worth the cost. But, as I traveled away from town, I began to realize that South Africa is essentially two countries, of the wealthy (both Blacks and Whites) in their Mercedes, BMWs, and grand houses with high walls topped with razor wire, and of the dirt poor Black people, who hung around town aimlessly, walked along the roads in the blistering sun, or populated the slum townships.

The government is in the hands of the African National Congress (ANC), and the leadership is Black. They appear to be highly corrupt. The next in line for President, Jacob Zuma, has married four times, and has been accused of rape and embezzlement of $3 billion. I read that annually, 500,000 women are raped in South Africa (these are only the cases that are reported) and 4 women die everyday at the hands of their spouses or partners. The newspapers are full of Letters to the Editor, from White citizens judging by their names, complaining incessantly about the deterioration in the living standards, corruption, and crime.

Yes, except for Desmond Tutu, no Black leader appears to be critical of the falling standards. Take Zimbabwe, South Africa's neighbor. While Zimbabwe descends into hell (there was an outbreak of cholera recently, in addition to a soaring inflation, famine, and a breakdown in law and order), there was hardly any protests from South Africa. What is disappointing is the lack of a statement from Nelson Mandela. He is over 90 now, somewhat feeble, and does not make speeches,but even a short written statement from him would have an impact. A South African academic, who faced discrimination under apartheid, told me that Mr. Mandela is only seen in public when a celebrity arrives to make a donation to his Children's Fund, and that his family appears to be making the most (financially) out of Mr. Mandela's fame. (Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family, in the USA, was accused of doing the same from King's legacy.)

The disaster that is Zimbabwe should serve as a warning to all South Africans. If they don't get their act and their country together, only chaos awaits them.

Water & sky near Simonstown

A "Safari"

No visit to South Africa is complete without a safari. I was visiting Cape Town, which does not have much wildlife other than zebras, baboons, and some antelope. The best known game parks, such as Kruger, were far from Cape Town, more than day's drive. I did not want to drive because of the violence and carjackings, so I opted for a "safari" nearby at Aquila Game Reserve. I place quotation marks around "safari" because this 4,500 hectare reserve did not have indigenous animals other than zebras and antelopes. The big five --elephant, lion, rhinoceros, giraffe, and hippo -- had been brought from elsewhere and allowed to roam in the reserve.

I stayed overnight and the chalets were lovely and very comfortable and the food (two breakfasts, two lunches, and a dinner) were tastefully prepared. I also went on two safaris, one in the afternoon and the other the next morning, before breakfast. I got to see all animals up-close. The guide was a Black South African who had grown-up in a village nearby.



The dining room at Aquila


The lovely, comfortable chalets for overnight stay. The roof is made of reeds.

The view from the chalet

Zebras

The low vegetation. Aquila lacks tall trees, although there was a lake with hippos and birds.

Rhinoceros

Ostrich

A lioness in the shadow of the jeep in which I traveled. The jeep had three rows of seats. When I looked back to take this photo, I found a passenger in the last row hiding under the seat, terrified by the lioness!

A lioness at dusk

Another lioness

Up close and personal!

African buffalo. Unlike the Asian Water Buffaloes, the African Buffalo is unpredictable and dangerous, and could attack without provocation. Early morning, two buffaloes came into the area where the chalets were and we were warned not to come out till the buffaloes had been chased away.

Breakfast on "safari"

We also saw two elephants, one lonely giraffe(!), many antelope, and wildebeest, and lots of birds.

Aquila provides jobs to about 150 Black Africans in an area where the employment rate is only 10%. However, some of these people did not seem to be appreciative of their jobs. It was hard to get good service from them, not even a smile at times.