Lost in Translation...maybe

Spending time in Penang has been a wonder and a great enjoyment, although at times it has been a little puzzling. The local "can" is a trip for example but it's not just here that has them. I did wonder how many people speak English or a variant globally and from my pretty basic Google search, it looks to be around 1.5 billion or 20% of the world's population (see here and here). Of these probably a quarter are native speakers, the remainder speak English either as a second language or an official language of the country (where for example many dialects exist so English becomes the lingua franca). Obviously many of these latter countries are ex-colonies but it certainly has spread the language far and wide.

As I mentioned before, there are local varietals. Take 'can' for example, this is what Merriam Webster's dictionary says:

'intransitive verb. archaic : to have knowledge or skill. auxiliary verb. 1a : know how to She canread. b : be physically or mentally able to He can lift 200 pounds.'


Manglish on the other hand is a little different but essentially similar so whilst you think you get what the other person is saying, somehow it doesn't quite go all the way. There's a neat book called 'Honk If You're Malaysian' that tries to explain. 

It cannot because the English spoken here is a dynamic evolving language not the one written in the OED for example. Here is an example of the use of 'can':

'English: Would you be so good as to turn on the tap, please? Of course!
Manglish: Can on the tap-ah? Can!' 

Hope this helps.

History is a bit difficult to follow too. Winston Churchill once said 'history is written by the victors', as did the first Indian leader Nehru but these quotes simply followed Bonaparte's dismissive put down: 'what is history but a set of lies agreed upon'. So those history books that you read at school were pretty likely wrong or at the very best put forward only the history of one side, ignoring and maybe even demonising the other. Having visited Rome many times and taking in the majesty of Trajan's Column at the end of the Forum, you do wonder if you know some of the story behind it, just why Trajan chose to destroy and entirely eradicate the Dacians (modern day Romania) with the only reference to it remaining being the hieroglyphics on the side of the column. 

Nobody knows all the details. Perhaps the written histories have been lost over time. This is quite likely as only fragments of Rome's long and fabulous history have survived. Sacking by the Goths, Visgoths, Vandals, Huns and probably any other barbarian tribe that happened to be passing in the late 5th and 6th centuries didn't help; but also a specific and deliberate erasure of bits of history that the next major incumbents (the Catholic Church) found distasteful or which presented the Romans in a better way than the new church wanted. OK to talk about feeding christians to the lions in the arena (Romans are bad guys) but probably not so much about all the learning and medical advances that the 'evil' empire promoted (Romans were innovative and enlightened). That may encourage people to learn more about the Romans and appreciate what they brought to the world... and maybe think twice. That wouldn't support the contemporary initiatives at all. 

This isn't unusual in a post colonial world or in a world where major change has occurred. The new incumbents recreate a recidivist form of history that makes them look better. The Soviets for example had to acknowledge the Tsars of the past but their take on things were that these Tsars were an unelected elite that just kept fighting wars against other countries' unelected elites in order to maintain control over an empire of starving serfs. Of course the irony of this point of view was totally lost on the Soviets themselves; as they were in fact doing the precise same thing.

This is all a roundabout way of talking about Singapore's 'creation'. Colonial history has it that Stamford Raffles founded the colony in 1819 taking a malarial swamp and turning it into THE entrepôt of the Far East. Subsequent history is broadly aligned as probably there is so much of it written down, however pre-history is substantially lacking as virtually nothing is written down and I can imagine those first colonial settlers thinking there's nothing here, let's do something. But there was pre-colonial history and here is Wikipedia's brief take on things. What is not stated is how many people were about at the time. Now there's 7 million but back then were far fewer.

Singapore's geography of course has always meant that it has acted as a significant entrepôt for the region. The Romans had heard of it but the Chinese, Indians and Middle Easterners were very familiar with it. Pre-steam engines, traders could only trade abroad courtesy of the seasonal prevailing winds. This meant an annual trip with a 6 month wait for the winds to turn the other way and therefore something approaching permanent settlement by non-native traders. None of this was apparent to the British when they arrived however. All they saw was swamp. Hasn't that changed? You should see Sentosa Island these days; more Las Vegas than anything else.

Whilst we were visiting we went to a museum, the name of which eludes me and which dealt in sections with the early history and pre-colonial history. One section dealt with the traders that came from overseas and what they brought to the island. The Middle Easterners brought tons of stuff. Africa brought ivory and gold; the Middle East brought frankincense, pearls, turtle shells, corals, perfumes and oils; South India and Sri Lanka brought cotton, textiles, gemstones, ivory, ebony and pepper.

The Chinese brought tons of stuff too: silk, tea, cotton, iron, porcelain/ceramics, musk, clay, sable, bronze ware and beads.

As for the Europeans, well...

Made me think of Monty Python again.

   

Tennis in Singapore

Viv and I recently visited Singapore again, ostensibly to play in a tennis tournament but really because we wanted to visit again. The tournament was slated for Saturday/Sunday and the rest of the team would arrive on the Friday however we had decided to go a couple of days earlier and leave a couple of days later.

The team

We'd booked to fly on Air Asia, a Malay airline that recently was recognised as being the biggest low cost airline in the region. Low cost it was but it was also very efficient. New planes. Pleasant staff. And if you wanted, you could get chicken rice on board for an extra 12 ringgit. Beat that EasyJet.

All this has come at a time when climate change is front and centre on almost every consciousness... in the West maybe, but not in the East. Planes and in particular private jets are getting a slating for their contribution to climate change but the reality in the East is that India is building more than 100 new airports, China is busily creating dozens of new airport hubs in China to assist in the massive increase in new tourists from the region. Same in Korea, Japan, you name it. Everyone now wants to travel and travel by air. Hence Air Asia's amazing growth trajectory.

As for Singapore, it is pretty amazing what this city state has done in pretty much only one generation. It used to be a swamp in the main but today 25% of the landmass is reclaimed and swamp is nowhere to be seen. It always was an entrepôt of great importance due to its geographic location, and today it is the same. Last time we visited, we went for a cocktail at the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel to look at the downtown concrete jungle on the one side and then the thousands (really) of ships at anchor waiting to come into the harbour. All lined up.

As with shipping, ditto airport. Changi Airport has 5 terminals and is building a 6th to accommodate all the regional air traffic. Singapore Airlines of course is HQ'd here but it again is a major hub to everywhere. Direct flight to New York is only 18 hours!

In addition to the new 6th terminal is a new facility/building/structure that just opened called The Jewel. It is a shopping mall and restaurant complex with a huge waterfall in the middle (man made of course) that seems to be something to do when you have a layover at the airport. It was jammed with people when we went. Impressive for sure but I couldn't really figure out the point of it all. But Singapore has succeeded because it plans, takes big steps and then makes them work.

In The Jewel

What Singapore does it seems to me is to build massive Fields of Dreams and then successfully manages them. The Marina Bay Sands complex for example includes the Gardens on the Bay with the triffid like metal trees and high level walkways that have become a major tourist attraction in their own right. We went and I couldn't figure why I'd want to come here rather than walk out into a real jungle then realised that much of it was air conditioned, there were few bugs and other deadly critters, no chance of getting mud on your shoes, and within a short stroll in any direction was any amount of food and drink that a heart could desire. So jungle light then.

The weird trees at Gardens on the Bay

Then there's Sentosa Island. Again this used to be a scrubby, swampy little island. Now its like Hilton Head in South Carolina or Marco Island in Florida. Or Las Vegas. Shopping malls, fantastic public transport (OK everywhere has fantastic public transport in Singapore), theme parks, casinos, shuttle buses, beaches, dozens of resorts, marinas and condos that foreigners can buy (so they are eye wateringly expensive). Everything planned down to the last detail. Beach is not great but I guess all that can be done, with the view out to sea being over the shipping parking lot I mentioned earlier.

The container ship parking lot in the background

Singapore is no longer just an entrepôt, it has become a destination in its own right. It has worked too as there were tons of tourists... mostly westerners. Working against regional tourism is the fact that Singapore is relatively very expensive, but not for westerners. So Singapore really is.... Asia light. It is a destination for westerners looking for an Asian experience. But not too much of one. Rather like Hong Kong.

That is the helicopter view though for one of our tennis buddies had contacted a Singapore tennis friend to hook us up with some tennis and entertainment around the tournament. In addition to it being very kind and fun, it was informative too enabling us to peek under the hood so to speak to see how Singaporeans actually lived.

They do very well indeed!

One guy that we met turned out to be an airline pilot and had rearranged his long haul flight to play in the tournament. He was a very strong player. As it turned out on one of the days we were waiting for our friend to pick us up and we could hear this low rumbling roar sound (we were in a car park) and this beautiful, low slung, gleaming sports car approached with me thinking 'Wow' when it stopped, the window rolled down and there was the airline pilot who asked if we needed a lift. He pulled away with a very jaunty vroom.

Beyond that though are of course very many similarities with the rest of Malaysia. Great local food, but not as great as the mainland. Western food is better though. Because of the shortage of land, clubs go up not out. The tournament was played at a swimming club which had 3 tennis courts on the 6th storey roof. The clubs really are home from home for the members though as they are packed all day. This club had 4 pools including a 50 metre lap pool in its main facility and another in the annexe across the road.

At least I wasn't foot faulting

I felt that we had just peeked a little into the real workings of Singapore not just the superficial aspects of the city state.

Every day we learn a little more.

Another Road Trip

It has been a while since we went on another road trip from Penang ultimately down to Singapore via the orang utan reserve at Bukit Merah, Taiping, the Cameron Highlands and Malacca accompanied by our Bermuda friends Charmaine and Dave. I did the Track My Tour thing here but wanted to add some other bits as an afterthought.

Orang Utans

Everyone has seen these hairy but gentle apes on TV programs like the BBC's Earth or something like that and to my surprise we discovered that there's a refuge just over an hour away in Bukit Merah. I thought it was great as the apes are housed on an island but visitors are within a caged tunnel so you can view but the apes are free to roam. It is home to the early stage apes saved from death in the wild. There is another 2nd stage which gets the apes more used to fending for themselves and then its vroom, out into the big wide world.

The island at Bukit Merry

Except if you're a full grown male that is. The really big ones get to 200 kgs (that is huge!) and they don't much like moving around in the trees as that's a heck of a lot to swing from branch to branch. They also don't like the rain largely because they are massively hairy and if wet, that adds another ton of weight for them too. So all those pictures you see of those cuties swinging and playing are the tiddlers, before they are grown.

Growing up is tough too... and this isn't a comment aimed at the orang utans alone. It applies across the spectrum. They live in single grown male family groups and the only way for an adult male to live past a certain age is to kill the alpha male and take his place otherwise it is curtains for you! The one on the island comes in at a growing 145 kgs and he made it to number 1 by killing the former alpha male who was the 200 kg guy.

Talk about survival of the fittest. There must be an analogy to all grown males there somewhere.

Tea in the Highlands

One of the many things the British did during colonial times was to create hill stations. The Cameron Highlands is an example in Malaysia. Actually so is The Hill in Penang. At sea level it is hot and sticky and in past years, colonials may have ranked at the top of the social tree but they also ranked at the top of the diet for a multitude of bugs, bacteria and various viruses. You can see it anywhere there's an old church and cemetery. In Bermuda the big killer was typhoid and it seemed that almost everyone in the graveyard was less than 23. My doctor once told me during a physical that if I didn't die of a particularly nasty disease before I hit 70 that I should be OK for another 30 or 40 years. Not sure about that but I suppose that means if you have good resistance to fell diseases, you'll survive. At least from fell diseases.

The hill stations are particularly nice. Including Penang, I've now been to three (Penang, Cameron Highlands, Sri Lanka... the oldest) and I can certainly see why they would be popular. So much cooler, fewer bugs and great views. Also tea. Now of course tea isn't indigenous but introduced and even now it forms a massive part of the local economies. More in Sri Lanka than Malaysia but when we visited the Cameron Highlands, what is apparent is the massive scale of development. I should have thought about this before as every time you buy veggies in the supermarket here, all the local ones come from some Cameron Highlands farm or other.

Tea harvesting in action. No technology here

Sadly they are really, really ugly.

Endless greenhouses. They are everywhere

Tacky Stuff

I know that we are all sophisticated and would normally look down our noses at tacky stuff. I mean who needs another fake handbag or pair of Gucci shoes? We wouldn't go there, would we? Also who would want to ride around a Unesco World Heritage city that was one of the oldest European settlements in the Far East riding around in a floral pink trishaw decorated with little ponies also pink and a soundtrack of Asian rap?

Nyonya Cuisine

The term nyonya refers to Chinese immigrants who came to Malaysia during the 19th century mainly to work in the mainland tin mines or to escape one of the endless wars or famines prevalent in China. They settled and in many cases married locally and generally found they couldn't get the same ingredients for their cuisine as back home so they adapted to what was available locally... hence nyonya cuisine. The nyonyas are also known as Perankans and other names too, but this one seems to to be the one used mostly for cooking.

Some well known dishes have a nyonya twist. I am thinking of curries here and of course beef rendang is a nyonya curry varietal. So when I saw the chance of having a day of cooking classes, yes please!

Heavy coconut cream? Yup. Thanks Kathy, nyonya chef supreme

One thing we'd omitted to pay attention to was the fact that much nyonya cooking is really heavy so it was a little rash to expect to want to do anything energetic after eating as we'd originally planned. If you have the chance to try nyonya cooking, try it!! You do like chillies though, don't you?

Markets in particular Night Markets

One thing I have discovered here is that whenever guide books say such and such Night Market is a blast and shouldn't be missed, you should take that with a distinct pinch of salt. For sure markets and in particular night markets are busy places with hordes of probably mostly tourists scouring through endless stalls of vendors selling... well junk really. You may want a fake handbag for example or yet another little zip bag with elephants embroidered onto it, or some such like that. But you can go to daytime markets for that too. If you're expecting an authentic cultural experience, forget it. This is all about selling stuff to you.

The Jonker Street Night Market in Malacca was like that although the upside to all of these places is that the street food is fun, very creative and often very tasty. And at the end of the day, yes it is still pretty fun too. Remember that decorated pink trishaw I wrote about before? Well they also have fairy lights on them for nighttime so in addition to all the other stuff, they are a cascade of lights too!

First take wooden satay sticks about 8 inches long. Lay them in what looks like a waffle press like this but in the specially crafted grooves. In the little holes that are under these grooves, crack small quail eggs and wait for a second or two et voila you now have a yummy snack of 5 cooked quail eggs on a stick that you can drench in your favorite chilli...

Cricket

There's a guy at the Penang Sports Club, John, who is a long time ex-Singapore hand and at some point was the President of the Singapore Cricket Club. Now I've been playing cricket for over 50 years and know quite a few club presidents. Most are nice guys but have had a history of presiding over, say, Leigh on Sea CC whose pitch is one of the two connecting pitches on the big field at Chalkwell Park in Southend on Sea. My home town. It has a nice elevated view of the Thames Estuary too but can in no way compete for the location of the Singapore club. My goodness. It reminds of the story of the rollers at Centre Court Wimbledon. The lovingly maintained grass courts depend on this big, heavy roller to keep the surface so pristine and one year someone asked to borrow the roller for Court One. The groundsmen said OK, hasn't been asked for before and then tried to move it over discovering in the process that the roller was too big for the exits. It simply could not be moved from Centre Court. This caused much head scratching until the early records were consulted and it was discovered that because in the old days there was no lifting mechanism capable of moving the thing far away from Centre Court, they simply built the stadium around it. Yes folks, the roller came first.

It strikes me that Singapore CC is very much the same. It occupies an unbelievable location on the Esplanade and if you know Singapore and can visualize the sky scrapers and development in the city, you'd be amazed that such an anachronism could still exist. But exist it does and it is, yes, right there in the middle of the most expensive, most exclusive, most desirable, most demanded part of town. I guess they simply built the new city around it.

IP Theft

My school in Southend was called Eton House and was for some years after I left school the cause of much confusion. At one interview when I was I think 21 or 22, the first thing I was asked was "who do I know from my school days?" Well of course I know loads of people: Pete, Kev, Gary, Ronnie. It took a little while for me to realize that the interviewer was looking for something else. As in which member of the royal family, nobility or political class was I at school with? It made me laugh sort of (I didn't get the job as after I explained and we all dutifully laughed, they lost interest completely) as I knew that our Headmaster (and owner of the school) chose the name in 1926 specifically for this reason. He felt that Southend School for Boys may not have had the same cachet and PR hook as a vague and unexplained Eton connection.

In Singapore! Bloody cheek!!

He was an interesting character all by himself. His nickname was Bubble as that was what his bald head looked like in later years but his name was SHT (before the acronym became tarred by another similar word made by inserting the letter 'I'). His twin died in WW1 and he took part in the Los Angeles Olympic Games as a 400 meter runner ("too upright, see, so no good, flagged at the end due to me gassing at Loos in 1917"). He was an unforgettable character!

Management on Steroids

I think you either love or hate Singapore. Maybe not, but its just a gut feel that I have for what they have done to transform a tiny island swamp into this sparkling megalopolis is just stunning. And to think that most of it happened after independence and the rather embarrassing split with the rest of Malaysia. I have heard it described as 'Asia Light' and the more I think on that, the more apt I think is that description. We have friends that spent a couple of years working there that seems to have given them a bedrock in life and while they visited Angkor Wat and some of the other cultural high points, I'm pretty sure they never visited a hawker centre, or Little India, or some of the more Asian bits. Certainly Singapore is in the midst of Asia, but at times it doesn't feel it.

I loved it and going back to the tacky comments from earlier, who wouldn't love to stand on a balcony 57 stories up in a 3 tower hotel that reminds you of Las Vegas? The view is stunning.

Talk about planning. I simply cannot imagine the meetings they all had. I worked in a quango for a time in Bermuda and the meetings we had barely rose above the mundane. There must have been some powerful thinkers, strategists and personalities to get this done.

Great trip though with my favorite traveling companion!!

Moving East

One of the big upsides to spending time in Penang is its proximity to other Asian countries, SE and otherwise, that we've never been to. I'm pretty sure that if you drew a circle with Penang as its epicenter that was 3 1/2 hours away, you'd get a pretty large chunk of this part of the world and its population.

The red circle is 3 1/2 hours, the blue circle is 5 1/2 hours with the arrow showing Penang

I met a guy who is a pilot for Boeing, living here but working out of Singapore, who retired from Cathay Pacific and a mainland Chinese airline and he told me the reason he went to work for the Chinese airline after Cathay was (OK money was a biggie) that the region was exploding in terms of the airline industry. 5 hours from Hong Kong were 2/3 of the global population, many of whom had never flown before but with the explosion in economic growth in the region would certainly pretty soon want to. This was the big draw and it turned out that way, except more.

That's a lot of Asia.

It has been the Emirati airlines from the UAE that appear to have made most splash in recent years (along with the Chinese of course) with the impact being a distinct tilt to the East from the previously dominant nations of the West.  Of course these airlines are massively subsidized by the respective emirates so the established airlines that are listed and intent on profitability (mainly in the west) are crying foul play. True of course but the respective nations have made their decision that this is the way they are going.

Etihad's route map from its website

It is one of the (many) things on President Trump's list of complaints about unfair play from overseas to the detriment of the US and I wouldn't be surprised if some form of actions are being taken certainly in the west to curb the global spread. However much that happens though has no bearing what happens in the rest of the world where people don't much care about competitive disadvantage, having been on the receiving end of it for so long. I expect the easternisation to continue.

Besides... and this a big besides... these airlines are way more comfortable, set out and with better service than any number of American airlines that I can mention. Fleets are newer, better seats, nicer flight staff... A great analogy is one of Grace Slick's from Jefferson Airplane who included a line in one of their songs "I don't care if there are preservatives in it so long as my lettuce is crisp". Nicely said Grace!

For us though it opens up a massive new series of opportunities for travel seeing as both Kuala Lumpur and Singapore are major airline hubs for the world.

Looking forward to seeing more!