observations

• Anti-Nike demonstration

Bob Nozick used to remark how when he was a kid he would like going around having an opinion on everything. I am not trying to have an opinion here, but I found the demonstrations amusing. Stepped out for lunch onto the main street outside the embassy today and there was this long line of trucks (with so many workers, so many many) with people holding signs like "f*** john richards" (nike's main representative for indonesia), "go to hell nike" and "nike = sweat shop".

of course what i found ironic is that if it were really a sweat shop, why are they demonstrating to get their jobs back? but i guess it's just emotion, and people say things when they're pissed off. it's impossible to trust anyone anyway, nike says the stuff was bad quality, could be true, maybe not. i'm not privy to case details. no opinion, just irony.

also why let us know? i don't recall nike being in our building, and last i heard nike wasn't a singaporean company. it would perhaps be more effective driving to the HQ and making the din there instead of wasting fuel driving around. but exposure is so important in this media mad country, and god knows what urban improvements they can make with the budget they spent on political banners. i have never seen something put up so efficiently before. i think the slogan should be, "i can make urban improvements as effectively as i put up banners."

• black magic women

lunchtime conversation of the day. very scary. must be careful of who you meet here. i tried to see what i could find:
http://www.baliblog.com/travel-tips/black-magic-in-indonesia.html

• wikipedia

tried writing an article on wikipedia today. with the behemoth it's become, there's now a huge community of law enforcers. it can get rather stifling for creativity when your article is default-threatened with deletion a matter of seconds after you write it (making all that effort seem like a waste). last i heard the founder left, because there appears to be so much argument between the moderators. give someone power, i say, and they all become regulators. i guess i can understand that with all the reputation wanting to make sure it's neutral, accurate, and that is why it probably behaves differently from what it used to when it was an upstart. now it's cull, cull, cull and not create, create, create, but i tried to fill a gap. but still, when you want to know about something, it's the first website you go to for a summary. anyway. in addition to writing the article, i have to put up a justification for it. oh well. why do people do this for no pay? idealists or bored, all.

• soccer

was surprised by the turnout of uzbek vs saudi. mainly because uzbek hit the post 5 times and had a goal disallowed the whole crowd was rooting for the. exciting

• painted veil

simple storyline, good old fashioned values and people going to poor places off the beaten track, gets me going everytime.

• newsweek article on "family" capitalism

argues that SEA is going down the path of latin america. interesting facts put forward: Singapore has the Gini coeffient of urban Argentina (?). Interesting opinion put forward: 2nd generation (or 3rd generation) family businessmen (sons) are better off going to law schools or making political connections than applying your latest McKinsey or Harvard MBA techniques for efficiency, because by definition, a sprawling conglomerate is not efficient. Make friends and keep the business, or streamline and lose most of it. Also of course argues such a holding structure is not efficient for the economy as a whole, but from a self-interest perspective, why should they stop themselves from helping themselves to the spoils.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762114/site/newsweek/
read this and the linked articles.

interesting because recently met some rich kids.

the problem with a desk job

is the desk. god knows how much i feel better walking around thinking, writing on a board, making a presentation than sitting down trying to maintain good posture. THAT, is why i feel so tired and unable to think. i have now found the secret to thinking in the workplace.

i have always studied on my bed. new alternative office arrangements should allow for some place where you can stretch out at work. they have it in business class, why not in business?

the taxi driver test

the past few days i've just been remembering some things, trying to find some meaning in what has been a difficult few days.

today of course i flagged down a taxi and told him that i wanted to go to the bung karno stadium in senayan, jakarta. "to watch the match?" he asked. there, football is the first ice-breaker here, as it was with some of my older colleagues. just something we have in common. he was of course, going back to watch the match on tv, live matches are a luxury (though not expensive), but after a long day of driving it's preferable just to kick up your feet and watch it on tv.

anyway, there was a lot of pride in tuesday's result against bahrain, but it would be difficult against saudi arabia. he also warned me that people burnt chairs and riot when they got angry, citing the recent case of persijia (jakarta) vs one of the surabaya teams. and he told me to be careful, generally. and his embarassment that the lights went off and the world saw it. the shake of the head, and then the discussion turned to floods and flooding.

sustained conversation brings out the flaws in my badly accented and poorly constructed indonesian sentences, so he was clever enough to ask where i was from. "singapore", i said, but my parents are indonesian. "singapore, ah, i want to work there". yes, singapore, the place that everyone wants to work in. "better than living from hand to mouth everyday here." fyi, a taxi driver typically takes back 10% of the metered fare here, and 15% over Rp300,000 ($50) made in a day. all other costs are covered. however, this is data from one of the most reputable taxi agencies in jakarta, blue bird, where drivers go through at least some rudimentary training in service, so one can imagine that the taxis which charge "tarif lama" with a lower initial flag down of Rp4000 (the one that i take) earn less. compared to minimum wage it's pretty good already, and taxi drivers are the entrepreneurs. they are employed, and they have dreams of going to singapore to drive. how he is to accomplish it, i dare not ask, but at least he has this dream. so a tip goes a long way (and is often expected here), on a trip of 13,500 rupiahs, just not asking for the change for 1,500 doubles his earnings from the trip. whether it is appropriate or not, i am sure an economist somewhere will give you some justification on either side.

so he asked, what was i doing working in indonesia? i can't be here to "cari makan" (look for food), because the wages have got to be higher in singapore. i gave him some bullshit about mutual understanding and interest which he probably didn't buy (nor did i). why was i here? economic rules dictate that i should be in london, new york and hong kong, just as economic rules dictate that maids come from indonesia and the phillipines and go to singapore. what large forces these are. i was a civil servant of some sort i said, serving some master. we all are maids or drivers of some sort, and we have some dream, to go to singapore for you, and for me, maybe become big fuck enough so that i can command some of these economic forces in my favour. but unlike him i have some sort of luxury (just like he has by simply having a job, he is not one of those 13% unemployed shut out by the riots against the reforming of the labour law), i can choose maybe to sail against the winds a bit, what they call pumping in windsurfing. i don't know where the winds will take me too, eventually. it might be better to chase the dream, save up, and buy a liner.

i arrived at the stadium, godspeed to me. the queue for the tickets was crushing, and touts were everywhere (and the forever entrepreneurial underemployed, taking the opportunity to sell keropok and fake bambang jerseys (i have not seen a single original indonesian jersey except the one on the player's backs)). buses were coming in from nearby cities, made possible because this was a weekend match. it wasn't the world cup, but for these people the world cup is a thing they see on tv, the asian cup is something they wear face paint and come down for. pure passion. the ticketing system was horrible, i had reservations, but forget it, it doesn't work like that here. impressed by the stadium though, it is currently more modern than the national stadium and it's massive, 100,000 people.

my mac

there are many things my mac is proud of when it comes to work. colleagues gasp in awe when they see how nicely even powerpoint graphics are rendered on my computer vs theirs. also, when i transfer files and eject thumb drives with intuitive use of spotlight and finder in a few seconds.

unfortunately, my laptop faces compatibility problems with lotus notes and access to the IE secure server (which I am sure would be solved if I had a token), but then again there are probably other applications i would like to use for business purposes which do not work on a mac too. if my work consists solely of pdfs and presentations then a mac wins hands down for document handling and quality, and the formatting changes aren't too bad. it's when you venture onto exotic business application territory that the mac starts to infuriate.

so i guess i need a conventional laptop. i haven't tried vista out yet but i wonder if i can get used to windows again.

that said, my colleague does great graphics and seems really good at condensing huge chunks of text into very appealing visuals. "in ac nielsen, we used to do 200 charts a day". i've always been a lister and i'm trying to work on my infographic skills now.

soft power

met someone from JICA today, japan international cooperation agency. having been around a bit I know japan has tons of such altruistic agencies, i usually see them funding some conservation project somewhere (e.g. angkor) for example, and if you look at their foreign aid stats, they're number 1. by a long way. i wonder how much not having an army contributes to your desire to make friends by throwing what's supposed to be your defense budget around helping other countries. if you look at it it's actually quite effective, a lot of countries listen to japan.

i just felt a certain feeling of respect at someone from MITI who can tell me a lot about the japanese economic story. they worked hard at it.

hard power

I keep thinking I'm a realist until I read stuff about East Timor. Maybe I still am, because I am pretty skeptical about East Timor's chances in this world. Singapore did make it as an island state, but East Timor has a far bleaker location. It has some oil, but not the capacity to develop them, and Australia has the upper hand in dictating terms.

America has a strong tradition in undermining the UN, and certain ambassadors to the UN have always took great pride in "effectively" undermining the institution, to make it wholly ineffective in whatever resolutions in wished to undertake. And thus by proxy, the invasion of East Timor was legitimised, and the massacres, because in foreign policy, making friends with a country with 200 million people and pro-western is far more important than suspected communist sympathisers who will be no-hopers in the country league (and not much oil). Surprisingly, it was Australia's pressure which brought East Timor's considerations onto the US radar.

Intervention seems to be one thing, it is perhaps too much to expect governments to dabble in the issues of a small state (although Australia may have its own reasons for being in Timor, they withdrew from the Convention of the Sea so that they would have a free hand in drawing maritime boundaries to place the oil fields where it needed them). But for them to give support by deflecting international pressure from the massacres and providing arms and training seems pretty unfair. Thus, moral concerns dictate that I am probably not a realist. Maybe because I am influenced too much by the deaths of a few.

They shouldn't be a country in theory, but what can you expect from a people who have been pissed on and massacred every few years. They deserve their independence, though they really should stop fighting each other now.

everyone generally perceives temasek holdings as having making some failed strategic moves recently, what with the botched buyout of shin corp etc, and the pressure they are facing in indonesia to get out of either indosat or telkomsel. i'm sure everyone would like to see them fail the same way they would prefer nadal to win at wimbledon.

but this paper has it right. amidst all the talk that temasek would be forced to sell its stake at a loss, temasek has survived the fall of a prime minister, and right now the military leadership in thailand is unsure of the next step to take, and temasek still has their strategic stake in a growing sector. who's the real loser here?

and look at their track record. regardless of how they achieved it, if you're judging them by their bottomline, they're pretty decent.

aku memang pencinta wanita!

had one of the most funnest days today. i was just reading blogs in the office yesterday and felt pretty down because it reminded me of all the issues i had to worry about.

today, we went up to sentul and gunung pancar for some fresh air. i ended up doing the spa thing and having a massage + body scrub and hot spring. then went poking around the pine forest for a bit.

went for karaoke as well, and i now have a repertoire of indo songs okay! see:



the chorus lyrics, especially cute:

aku memang pencinta wanita (i like girls)
namun ku bukan buaya (but i'm not a buaya)
yg setia pada seribu gadis (loyal to a 1000 girls)
ku hanya mencintai dia (i only love her)

and i agree with the youtube comments, the girl in red is damn hot. go irwansyah!

i also sang the duet!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xeBQGr98Wo

i'm going to post new songs everyday! new hobby!

naff: i just like the pretty girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5wQalyc0w

tompi: jazzier vibe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWSzIc-RPNU

i have a love affair with wimbledon (again, see previous posts, i do nothing on this blog but repeat myself). i never actually do set out to watch it, and trying to watch it in london involves waking up really early in the morning to get tickets. luckily for asia, it comes on during prime time.

bartoli is really like monica seles no? i remember actually being sad when monica seles got stabbed, (it was so random, and someone who kept winning suddenly couldn't, and all cause the psycho was a steffi graf fan, like wtf, so wasted.) and then everyone changed their style of tennis and all the commentators were laughing today cause she was using 2-handed forehand and backhand. it's true though, i think in the long run it's dead but you still have to give respect to a style that can work if you know what you're doing.

poor countries actually conserve things quite well. every bottle, newspaper is conserved out of poverty. then as they start growing richer, it goes to hell in the handbasket, until they're rich enough to care again.

i name it the j-curve of environmental friendliness.

i walked out to the call of the adhan today, and it seemed everything fell together. i started thinking today, and i got ideas for papers, which were reviewed by the time i got back from work. i succesfully concluded my tenancy and the landlord managed to find things to return to me. i finally got down to work on the presentation.

i walked across the rocky road out of my place and went to get rice. you don't need to order many dishes when you have such wicked chilli. there's a lot of thinking, a lot of thinking about what i like about this country, what could and should change, but it's all up to them isn't it, what they want to keep and what they shouldn't.

i saw the children in madrasahs on cnn waving back and forth while reciting the koran. call it brainwashing, i just found it a very interesting sight because they seemed genuinely happy to recite it.

well, let us hope everything still remains in place when my results are out next week.

i remember 2 days ago reading an article by the straits times indonesia correspondent about how indonesia has (not) progressed much since the asian financial crisis, in terms of the lives of the ordinary and poor and even with respect to the indicators.

in that respect, reform has been slow. it seems a lot has changed, politics and press wise. there is a great deal of criticism and focus whenever something goes wrong in the country. for example, one particular case is the lapindo mudslide disaster, which followed an earlier earthquake in the region, where a drilling company accidentally released a huge volume of mud which is still flowing, burying entire villages and important infrastructure in east java. the company is associated with the coordinating minister for welfare, aburizal bakrie. other stories i have come across here are a car hurtling down 6 stories off a multi-story carpark because the barriers were too thinly built. and this in addition to the big problem with flooding and traffic jams in jakarta, as well as power cuts. add that to the various political problems in outlying areas, and the constancy of natural disasters (flood, tsunami, earthquake, airplane crash), and it seems like a real mess.

in any case, there is no doubt there is freedom of the press. in that respect atrocities are no longer easy to cover up. the tone in the press, however, tends to be negative. combined with a democratic government, sen predicts that famines shouldn't happen (and they don't), and they should mitigate atrocities. however, i can't help feeling a huge sense of cynicism and mistrust between the people and the politicians.

i think a lot of effort and time have been spent ironing out politics and the details of a new power structure. i think it's necessary, given the vacuum and this chance to sort out a new, less repressive structure. and i feel now they are moving slightly, with the new investment law and the current government being pro-business, and they are reforming, and going ahead with some tough policies, like raising oil prices and being fiscally sensible. being fiscally sensible, however, means they cannot just throw money at problems, and the amount of problems coming at them sometimes overwhelms the resources that they have. and i can understand their anxiety at globalization. people focus a lot on liberalization and i think that is essential. however, i think it is possible to be intelligent about it and negotiate from a position of strength. i have no doubt that china and india are globalizing, but they are clever enough to do with some restraint, such that they benefit too from the FDI. they are here just building FDI to pre-crisis levels (it is still less).

so i guess it is right, the mistrust has to go first. otherwise the government may be tempted to be too plebeian first when that hasn't worked in the past. for example, aburizal bakrie may not be the most sensitive bloke in the whole world with his comments, considering he is welfare minister, but he is right, he hasn't run away from the problem by declaring bankrupt and is putting up his own money to solve the lapindo problem.

it still has a lot to offer. nightlife and food, some of the best in asia. as i said, reminds me of 1960's singapore in a wong kar wai film.

story from today:

"recently, i was at senai airport in johor to board a flight to tawau, in Sabah. I arrived about 10 minutes before the airport's check-in counter had opened. A sign at the counter had the sign "tutup", which in english means "closed."

a few minutes later, a fellow singaporean man from my group joined the queue with his girlfriend. he said to her: "hey, we are in the wrong queue. we are going to tawau, but this queie is for those going to tutup".

they then walked away to look for the correct queue.

wicked awesome

this is a long overdue post

got sparked because this girl from georgia just emailed me. i met her at the globe and it started when we made eye contact, and we (i) didn't know what to do with it (typical) so she just came over to say hi, and remarked that asians sometimes can look really serious sometimes. anyhow, it did break the ice and i sure wish i had an ability like that.

she seemed unnaturally interested in asians though, as i left my name in her autograph book and impressed her with chinese characters.

merchant of venice speaks directly to me. i enjoyed it more than othello:
"he was wont to call me usurer, let him look to his bond." haha.

it's only a problem play insofar that that antonio's fate is left ambiguous and because of shylock's forced conversion, but i'm sure that wouldn't exactly be interpreted as tragedy. portia was brilliant, considering that the real portia fell sick and nerissa had to play portia and jessica had to play nerissa and jessica was well, jessica, and jessica had to meet nerissa in scene 5.

now that i'm actually back up and running and taking buses and taxis across singapore, sometimes i draw a link. i see things and i want to write them down, and at first i think it is because somehow something in the soil touches me.

objectively though, what are the things i've seen? much has changed, the shops have changed, the big ferris wheel is up, and i must say i'm happy with the diversity of shops and the new architecture up in singapore (the supreme court, for example, i felt was very well done). but i know singapore in a different way i know london. maybe memory formation hasn't occured yet, or maybe i haven't had a chance to miss it. when i passed by the white sign by the armenian church, i remember that it wasn't always there, i first discovered it in this "singapore search" thing way back in school. i remember crossing the junction to the hotel to attend the lse induction program. i look for the stamford road bus stop and i find it has been replaced by a tunnel which isn't very useful (and now the road runs through smu). i see the class benches and i am reminded of how class benches are such a hwa chong thing, and how nice it must be to have class benches in school.

when i go to people's park, and the lawyer situated within the dinghy walls, i am reminded that there are 2 singapores. as john nash's fictionalized friend, mediocrity (beer), i have utmost respect for. it is hard to explain my strange relationship with mediocrity. perhaps it is personal fear of failure, or too much arthur miller, but when billy joel plays "piano man", or when i speak to such people, i cannot help thinking that the world is built on mediocrity and normality. after all, it is not everyday that mongolian models are blown up with plastic explosives. some lawyers are about translation, checking and checking, and yeah, it doesn't seem like such a great interesting job. something like being a gp. but these are the people who will be respected in the villages, because you speak and interact with them, and it is wonderful to see how they take pride in tying the ribbons and checking documents a few times, and being an appointed public notary. sure, they charge about 130 bucks. and he too speaks enthusiastically about sending his kids abroad, to give them a better future, to break free from mediocrity, as the huge collection of college application handbooks evince. i saw an old man on the way back who looked startingly like lee kuan yew, except that he wasn't, but it all feels so familiar, people's park etc.

i think about my potential jobs and how i am supposed to explain them to someone, and it is so abstract. the new economy requires a certain abstraction or leap of the imagination. i am not a radical writer. my attraction to writing has always been rooted in memory and the past, and thus i am the sort of person that progress holds big trepidation for. so now i have an answer, maybe it is difficult for me to be optimistic, because i was happy at these moments in the past and i knew it, and i am not so sure about the future. what could it hold? more money, longer lives? perhaps the occassional moments of fulfillment. we'll see.

want to get rich right, quite easy what

no this is not spam. this is capitalism at work. economists tell you that trade benefits both people. traders will tell you that for a trade to work, you need a fool.

http://homeincomesg.com/

the canal runs through here / nozick returns

singapore brings out the opinion in me. i walked up to the atm machine in orchard at lip's prompting, i put in my card, pressed "gst credit" and got 200 bucks. was i happy? you bet, i just got 200 bucks. me, ex-ns man.

one part of me wanted to complain. i stay in landed property, i don't need the gst credits because i won't be in singapore, and i know a thousand other people who won't need it as well, but the avowed aim is probably to lessen the regressive aspect of the tax. so, there is a part of you that feels very bad, that wants to blame the government for giving you this money (what a stupid policy), when you know you're just going to use it to buy clothes.

but think about it. you don't like the fact that this money comes so easy? then give it away. why do we always expect the government to do the redistribution for us? i could have taken the 200 bucks and given it away to a charity (although admittedly, it would be hard for me to find out which particular needy person needs it). whatever it is, some moral responsibility must be taken by yourself for not redistributing if you believe in redistribution. admittedly, though, this scheme is a little like paying tax and having it returned to you, considering the non-discerning nature of the taxation.

there are a few arguments for government redistribution:
scale effects: they have less transaction costs. they can put in the money easily
selection effect: they do possess more channels and information regarding who is really needy

so yeah, in a way there are arguments why governments should redistribute, but if you are a true libertarian, then one cannot blame the government for not redistributing, you should be rejoicing that they are not forcing you into forced labour. what i mean is that there is a flipside to nozick's philosophy: your money, your tyranny, your responsibility. (and my responsibility)

singapore has nice food, but it's all a little too oily. life nowadays is about property and finance. it's depressing. i think that is why i foresee best that i have to wander from place to place from time to time.

Operation Entebbe (another digression)

Heard about it from the Last King of Scotland.
If the US needs to learn how to do special ops, they should talk to the Mossad more, (although I'm sure they do)

Ok, our very own SAF's hijack response was pretty good too.

This is different class. 4 C130's flying to a foreign country landing with no ground control at night and about a platoon of men (mixed IDF/commando). included were 4 APC's which they used to take out Uganda's air force of fighters (11 mig 17's) sitting at the airport to cover their escape, 1 casualty, who was the commander of the op, because he tio ugandan sniper. (elder bro, very handsome, of benjamin netanyahu.) talk about making sure all your men are safe.
ugandan casualty = 45. and they fight on home ground. couple of grenades settle them.

just like prison break, israeli architects were involved in building entebbe airport and they were able to make a replica in 2-3 days, and mossad extensively interviewed freed passengers.

lesson: want to rule by force, make sure your armed forces not so chui. buy fighters get them to sit around. damn cmi.

after uganda tried to complain at the UN (what, after helping the hijacking?) chaim herzog retorted:

We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.

spanish couple took this one for me. we had a laugh later when we found that everything was "made in china". my spanish sucked

ait benhaiddou





clear blue desert sky