May Term 2011

One of the ironies of a visit to Hanoi is the importance here of Ho Chi Minh, the founding father of the modern Vietnam. What’s ironic (at least to me) is that he is so strongly identified with Hanoi–yet his legacy is a city 1,000 miles from here (Saigon), where he was less well identified … Continue reading »

The 120-mile Cu Chi tunnels that we visited today may well be epigrammatic for a history of Viet Nam; the tunnels show the determination of the Vietnamese people to persevere in the face of great odds against invaders. The tunnels, about 40 miles from Saigon, were dug in the hard clay soil beginning during the … Continue reading »

I’ve been to Saigon as recently as two years ago, but the phrase that came to my mind two years ago—let Saigons be Saigons—has developed a new meaning for me: The end (especially for the Vietnamese) of what they call the American War. For the Vietnamese, the wars are in the past, partly because even … Continue reading »

One of our students pointed out that the Singapore we’ve seen is a city designed for tourism. I had to counter that we arrived here on a late Friday and we were leaving early Monday morning; hence, what we would see were primarily tourist sites—and the tourists, whom Singapore, knowing tourism is the world’s largest … Continue reading »

Salamat Pagi from Kuala Lumpur The morning paper (a cross between the National Enquirer and USA Today) has been following a local controversy that tells a lot about Malaysia. On Saturday, a Malay paper had a headline that asked, “Can Malaysia become a Christian country, with a Christian Prime Minister.” The article outlined a cabal … Continue reading »

Another wonderful day that began with the “other” weather in Penang–we had a severe thunderstorm last night, providing us with hot, humid, and rainy weather, rather than the hot and humid that is the standard fare. That put an end to the original plan I had, which was to bike in the morning–that, and the … Continue reading »

Some like it hot, one of the students reminded me, was a movie set in a sleeper traincar that resembled the one that took us on our 22-hour ride from Bangkok to Penang, our first stop in Malaysia. It might also refer to the weather, which is hot and humid—really hot and humid, almost what … Continue reading »

Before I tell you what it was like to join the 5 million cars on the streets of Bangkok and tell you what it means to be in a Kingdom, let me finish part of what I told you yesterday about agriculture in Thailand. I looked at the CIA factbook this morning, and learned four … Continue reading »

It was 42 degrees when we left Chicago almost two days ago; it’s over 90 here in Bangkok, and that’s only one of the many contrasts between being at 12 degrees latitude and being at 40 some in Chicago. We’ve had an eventful day—beginning with our arrival at the hotel around 1:15 a.m. We had … Continue reading »