Myanmar

I'm a big fan of not relying on the news and instead finding out about a place myself. However, going to Myanmar is a bit controversial in my head - does it inadvertently support the current government? I don't know. I will try my best to avoid buying anything that does so and pack lots of things to give away. That is if I get a visa. A little visit at the embassy today revealed the customary SE Asian official, who, sitting behind a see-through plastic wall, mumbled something, mostly to himself, that I finally deciphered as: "come back in the morning". Of course there was not another potential tourist anywhere near the counter nor any reason why he could not just accept the heap of papers I had to offer to him or for that matter, why he could not look at me while he mumbled. But I suppose that is a mute point and I will be back tomorrow.

And Then There Was Light

A, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

Our first exciting photo outing: abandoned hotel guarded by a nice old man and a furiously barking, tail wagging, large dog.

Afterwards we went for beer and murtabak, the latter being fantastic for all non-vegetarians.

Aunty Miss Chris

A lot of people we have met here are our age or older and yet I feel like a bit of an elderly aunt watching over a happy bunch of children chirping on the playground. I don't think I have a heck of a lot to show for all the things I have done in my life so far, but I have most certainly done a lot of things.

The people I meet here are experiencing my 2001 at the moment. I don't mean 9/11. I mean the first experience of being on their own, with a job, in a new country, dancing all night, taking taxis everywhere, spending nights sitting up soaking up the feeling of being somewhere totally new and different, living the life of an expat, although I must say even that has declined in quality. An young expat is really like a middle class singaporean who lives in a condo rather than an HDB flat. I think it's high time the cushy imperialist lifestyle has ended, but the point is that being an expat here is really nothing special and not that different from life back home wherever that migh be. Only the weather is better.

My enthusiasm for having conversations revolving around just how different it is to be in Singapore and how special and how lucky we all are to live "abroad" and how this is totally life changing because, wow, it turns out you can't plan every detail of your life ("at least I still got married at 27 as I planned it") is limited. I spent about 3 hrs a day back in 1993 talking to my dear friend from 9th grade about just how different and awesome we were. And I am happy to say it is resolved now. I don't want to navel gaze and discuss our specialness (which of course evaporates just as soon as you set foot in Heathrow or JFK and everyone looks just like you) but rather meet people who through their experiences, whatever those might have been, have actually become more interesting people and don't need to talk about that the whole time.

Maybe I am no longer as open minded to meet new people? Or a bit tired of it? I don't know, but strangely in NY and London (EDIT: and Boston, where I stumbled upon an unexpected gold mine) I have always met really interesting people, and different kinds of interesting people at that, not all are nomads, but artist, writers, thinkers, wine driners, engineers - people who are passionate about what they do. This crew who enjoys dancing in a plastic palace (Clarke Quay) with Asian hookers (oh my dear, how craaaazy is that?) and discussing whether it is daaaangerous to go to Thailand right now (It's NOT) makes me want to go home by midnight and watch pirated movies instead and mildly pat their head "there, there, you'll be fine".

Loved by the Ladies

There are three pictures of mine that get more hits than most others combined. One that displays my injured ankle, another one that displays a dear friend's pink tights and one that does not display much at all really. I have long made peace with the foot and opaque tights fanatics on flickr and learned never to tag a picture with the world foot or leg because it makes me feel brushed aside as a photographer when their love of my feet overshadows their love of my photographic skill. So this morning I was introduced a a new, interesting group of fans: the bisexual ladies, who are not looking for any guys at the moment (they profess) but are rather around to check out the ladies. That's perfectly fine obviously and I can't say I mind if people look at my photography and think to themselves that those are a bunch of beautiful gals. It's a compliment to the model and photographer, but if you tell me that you are arousing yourself while looking at the beautiful, beautiful ladies, I wonder whether you are really appreciating the thought I put into lighting, cropping and editing. I wish you'd praise how my artistic skill feeds your passion. Do it for my ego.

Expat Wives

By about 10 am every morning (as observed from my special window seat in my corner office) a sparse but long trail of ladies begin their daily trek to the pool. They go separately and they don't seem to communicate with each other, possibly not aware of the fact that they all have the same routine: a few lathargic laps of breast stroke, head over water, a few moments of lingering by the pool, book in hand, then back to the apartment. Later they re-emerge on their way to the gym. Some have the order reversed.

I have met three girls from our building since we moved in. One Swedish, one British and one Australian. All three came to Singapore with their husbands/boyfriends. All three worked before they came here and all three gave up their jobs in order to make the move. All three are apologetic and try to downplay the fact that they are not working. Not working yet they say. Clearly they don't know how it so happened that they ended up one of those girls who sits by the pool and has to wait out the little economic turn down until they can reasonably hope to get a job. Why is it that it's all girls? Where are the boys who came here with their lovers? Why are women still more likely to make a compromise and give up their careers or at least put a large dent into them? The girls I know are not trophy wives. They had normal jobs before their move to the Spore. It is certainly more socially acceptable for girls to admit they don't work. People, expats and Singaporean alike always ask fancy about his job, never me. Either they want to be polite and not pry into what might be a delicate situation or else they just assume that I probably don't work. And this is 2009 people.

Oh but wait. The crowd at the pool - they are actually not all ladies. There is one very tan French man, giant novels in hand, sitting unashamedly by the pool every single afternoon from 2-5 or until his wife comes home. He does not even apologize, slouches low in his personal deck char and tans fast and furiously.

Outliers

I wonder whether there is some cultural divide between what European and American kids are taught in terms of authority. Obviously I come from a culture where authority is not questioned nearly enough and kids are taught to respect certain professionals (doctors, police men, crazy men with mustaches) and not interrupt or challenge their elders. In the US according to Malcolm Gladwell only lower class families teach their kids this humility. A certain entitlement, brattiness, confidence and sense of having to question everything and everyone is taught to rich kids in the US, characteristics that hold across different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Paradoxically these are exactly the skills that let those kids succeed in life or so it appears from what I have gathered by reading Outliers over fancy's shoulder by the pool.

Maybe this will be the year I challenge my economists once and for all and demand they admit all their assumptions are bogus to begin with!

It would be interesting to study this authority and culture theory a bit more. Surely there must be a PhD out there somewhere that lets one do that? With the INSEAD application out the door I am trying to forget it ever happened and swiftly come up with a good plan B, as you can see.

Oh sweet serenity

Sunset Swing, originally uploaded by Christiane B.

I essentially never see my parents because we live on very different continents. When I do see them it is always a surprise of how they are much different from what I thought they were like. I tend to forget. Or maybe use selective memory. The mental preview of a parental visit usually revolves around glasses of wine to be drunk and do-you-remember-when conversations to be had. I tend to forget however that after the first evening of wine and chat comes the first morning of scrutiny. Sentences starting with the words "not that I want to tell you what to do" can only be explained as being rooted in memories on their part of me being small and silly. The fact that we do not own six matching plates is construed as something that is due to us not knowing that we need to want and that we need to have six matching plates. In no way does it enter the maternal side of the parental unit's mind that we are not lacking six matching plates (or clothes lines or coffee tables or side boards) because we fail to realize that we need them which in their minds we clearly do, but rather because we really, truly are happy without said items. The senior believe that their way of life, full of matching items, planned out meals and swiffered floors is just a little bit superior to ours and the reason we are not living it quite their way can only be because we don't realize that it is superior. Therefore they must educate us. Persistently. A little bit every day. Surely one day we will see that we are mistaken.