When I suggested Carolyn could have rented my room in 1997 during my sabbatical, I can document it. There were two trips to Southeast Asia with my son, David. One followed immediately from the January jaunt in India (described earlier), and the other, at the end of an extensive stay in Korea, Manchuria, then joining an IWU May Term in Beijing, and leaving them in Bangkok.
Let me dwell on the SE Asian parts, which sort of blend together.
As we were taking the train from Bangkok that would ultimately leave us in Singapore (thence home via Hong Kong), I was reading Megatrends Asia, a book touting the Asian Economic Miracle we were seeing on our trip. Bangkok was a city of cranes, and Malaysia, with its mix of Bumiputra (Malay) and Chinese was constructing an incredible infrastructure (and building roads in India).
As I think I mentioned, expats we met encouraged us to visit Pulau Penang; we did, and I fell in love with the old colonial architecture. It was, I thought, the Hong Kong I might have seen before the Viet Nam war changed Asia. I would later learn its business friendly areas would attract major manufacturing, including the Dell factory I would later visit with students.
We whisked through Kuala Lumpur, the then capital, a mix of Indo-Asian buildings, but a relatively modern city (founded in a mining boom late 19th century) with a distinctly Muslim flavor. Malacca lived up to its billing with its multicultural history of Portuguese, Dutch (better museum on the Dutch East India Company than I found in Amsterdam), and British past (love the monuments to Victoria’s Jubilee), and thence to Singapore, the miracle nanny state, ruled by Lee Kwan Yu since its independence in the 60s, a respite from the chaos of Asia.
On the second trip, David and I spent a little more time reconnoitering, staying in KL in a bungalow hotel out of the time of the Raj. The bar was full by noon. We also spent a few days in Chiang Mai (reacquainted via Japanese TV with Sibelius’ 5th symphony)
The treat on that May/June trip was a continuation to Indonesia, where we spent some time with the Scout organization. We went to one of their camps on Friday; noon prayers meant they deposited us until they were done. They saw to it we went to Jogjakarata, where we saw two of the great ruins of antiquity: Borobudur (reconstructed Buddhist temple, regaled by a local guitarist’s rendition of “Country Roads”) and Prambanam (a Hindu temple); ironically, Indonesia, the fourth largest country is predominantly Muslim, but we did see the Sultan’s palace.
Then there was Bali, truly a gem. My disappointment was my recognition that the equator means 12 hours of daylight, not the long tropical sunsets I hoped for. A ride through the Hindu villages (the Muslim conquest didn’t go much beyond Java) pointed out why the anti Dutch war for independence spared the island (and the subsequent bombings brought home that the terror was real).
As if we hadn’t seen enough, we stopped in Manila, with another stop to visit with Scouts. In some ways, Manila was the most Americanized place we went, not a surprise given the half century of American possession of the islands. The Scout uniforms resembled mine from the 50s, and I could find baseball scores in the paper, which was quite unusual.
I knew I’d be back to many of these areas in the subsequent decade, and I’d bring students to share the amazing sights, sounds, foods, and business energy I’d encountered.