Category: May Term 2011 SE Asia and China

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 sad fact that as we get closer to the equator, daylight gets shorter; it wasn’t light until around 7, and by then, traffic would make bicycling too much an adventure.

The rain stopped before we left, and the “regular” hot and humid weather returned–which, in turn, made our visit to the Dell factory a challenge, because the visitor guide said “long pants, real shoes, real shirt.” When we got to Dell, as it turned out, I recognized our three hosts from my last trip. Two were in HR, and they gave us an overview of the company. Dell is a Fortune 40 company, with headquarters in Austin, Texas (the mother church), somewhere in Europe, and Asia Pacific, in Singapore. The factory is under the Asia Pacific region, and now supplies Asia Pacific with servers and desktop computers. Last time I was there, the Penang factory was the major assembler of laptops for the American market; in fact (I checked when I got home), mine was made there–and I received it less than a week after I placed the order. I remembered that the plant managers last time had talked about an imminent change, because stockholder pressure was being exerted to outsource manufacturing. Dell was one of the few computer companies to manufacture its own machines.

Last year, the company switched the production to Xiamen, China, and relegated the Penang facility to Asia Pacific. One of the results was the reduction of the staff from almost 4,000 employees to around 600. When I asked about managing a multiethnic work force, they told me that by law they had to hire at least 30% Muslims, and had an extra long Friday lunch hour, which is one of the times of day Muslims pray (and Friday is the holy day). Starting workers get 600 ringgit’s a month for a 6-day week (Monday is the off day), which is about 2,400 U.S. dollars. As I mentioned, the average income in the country is around 14,000. The visit once again confirmed my mantra over the past few years that “what was, isn’t, and what is, might not be.” Even in Asia.

We spent the rest of the day visiting and viewing in Penang, a city of around 1 million people that has made a special point of being an attractive free enterprise zone for multinationals–high tech companies such as Western Digital, Intel, Hewlett Packard, and Sony, which we saw on the way to the airport. The managers praised the well-disciplined work force, and the HR manager told me he was in charge of helping employees become better prepared for the future. That was the message of his presentation, and the vision/mission statement of the parent company.

They also told me that the plant was already doing some contract manufacturing for other brands, and had a plan to continue to seek ways to use its assembling skills, not to mention the space that once housed 4,000 employees.

The rest of the day was spent not in the present/future, but in the past–the 250-or-so-year-old history of the once-British colony. Mr. Light helped the sultan of Perak break free of his payments to the King of Siam in the 1780s in return for the Sultan’s giving the British East India Company the rights to the island of Penang. Thus began the gradual British establishment of Malaysia–Malacca came during the Napoleonic wars (to keep it out of the hands of the French, the British conquered it from the Dutch; after the wars, they exchanged it for Bencoolen), and later added Singapore. When the East India Company could not protect Penang, it called in the British army, which established a garrison at Fort Cornwallis.

The main visits demonstrated the Chinese impact (which still exists) on the city. One was the restored (for $7 million) house of the “capitan” of the Chinese community, sort of the political administrator who reported to the British (there was also a Muslim capitan and an Indian one, but the Chinese were the most numerous and the ones most responsible for the wealth of the colony). He married a Malay woman, and the house is now a museum to the Boba/Nonya culture that emerged. One thing I noticed was that in the shoe collection, there were no shoes for “bound feet.” Back in history, one of the Chinese emperors liked women with small feet, and thereafter, non-peasant women had their feet bones broken and bound to make “lily” feet, a practice that did not end until the 20th century, but the Malay wives had regular feet.

The second tour was of a “clan house” for the Khoo family. You might have seen it in The King and I, shot in Malaysia because the Thais refused to allow the film, which is still banned in Thailand, from being shot there. The clan, from Fujian (Hokkien in the Fujian dialect), established a welfare/education society for ancestor worship and fellowship. One fascinating feature (to me) was the hall of scholars, where the Khoos are listed by generations (now on the 43rd generation) together with their accomplishments, mostly academic. Schools included the Middle Temple in London for barristers, as well as commonwealth schools in England, Australia, and Malaysia–the emphasis on education is soooo Confucian.

I still marvel in driving around the heritage district at the old colonial bungalows. There are streets full of two-story buildings, with the second floor built over the street, shading against heat and rain. Happily for me, in the old district, residents cannot tear anything down, which means the clocktower to Victoria, the old government buildings, and the homes of the rich and famous remain.

It’s almost as good as going to a museum for me, and you know how much I love museums!

We are about to depart for Kuala Lumpur, so I hope we will have adventures there that I can share in the next few days. I’ve been to Penang maybe five times–not often enough, and as you can tell from the blog, never long enough.

Some like it hot, one of the students reminded me, was a movie set in a sleeper train car 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 I understand you’re about to get at home.

28 hours ago we were visiting the Weekend Market in Bangkok, a sprawling center that houses small shops selling everything from cute dogs to pewter buddhas and everything in between. Professor Sikora and I took advantage of the eateries there to sample squid satay (barbequed squid on a stick) and we took advantage of public transportation to get there; Bangkok has a highly-developed skytrain system, which allows you to look down on stalled traffic—and feel like a local because you can navigate by yourself. We did take a cab back to the hotel to make sure we got back in time because we were leaving for Malaysia at 1 pm.

The train ride, as I mentioned, was about 22 hours, which included time to navigate a border crossing and a customs/immigration check that led to two stamps in our passports. The air-conditioned ride got us about 8 degrees closer to the equator, and a direct distance of almost 600 miles, although if you look at the map, you’ll see that we made a dog-leg turn that probably makes it closer to 700 miles. When we got here, we came to the Bayside Resort Hotel which is at Batu Fehringi (foreign beach), a good 15 minutes from historic Georgetown, but in a rather posh part of the island along the ocean. We had enough time for most students to take advantage of the ocean or the pool—or both. Our introduction to Georgetown consisted of a tricycle ride (the bike apparatus is behind a two-wheeled cart) that took us around some of the historic area to our Chinese restaurant. Tomorrow we’ll get the day tour after our visit to the Dell laptop facility before our flight to Kuala Lumpur.

The differences between Thailand and Malaysia are apparent even from the train (which goes through some of the worst parts of towns, just like in the U.S.) Thailand is about 95% Buddhist, reflected in the number of Wats (temples); Malaysia is about 60% Malay and Muslim, reflected in the mosques (although the 30% Chinese are concentrated in some of the cities, including Penang and Malacca, which historically were part of the “Straits Settlements”, together with Singapore, rather than one of the Sultanates; the sultanates still exist, and one of the sultans becomes King of Malaysia every five years).

There’s a lot more wealth apparent in Malaysia; the CIA factbook gives an income of over 14,000 for Malaysia, about 6,000 more than Thailand. In addition, only 13% of the workforce is in agriculture, which contributes 9% of GDP, a closer correlation than in Thailand. I remember going on this ride in 1997 with my son David. I was reading Megatrends Asia, which extolled Malaysia as a progressive Muslim country, which was considering a major infrastructure loan of over 400$ B to India. It owes a lot to the strong rule of Mahathir Mohammed, who was prime minister almost as long as Lee Kwan-yew, his equally strong counterpart in Singapore.

Penang was and is one of my favorite cities, with its strong heritage mix of ethnicities and the presence of a lot of colonial architecture; the stately British government buildings surrounding the maidan (a parade field), with a clocktower the grateful citizens built in honor of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee; Fort Cornwallis (he became governor of India after Yorktown), reflecting the importance of Penang at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca, currently and historically one of the most important trade routes for East-West commerce; the shop houses with the second floor extending over the street, allowing pedestrians to be sheltered from heat and rain; homes of the rich families still preserved today.

Tomorrow we’re touring the Dell factory, then, after a tour of historic Penang, we will take a plane ride (happily) to Kuala Lumpur, until recently, the capital of Malaysia and still its most important commercial hub.

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 numbers that will help put it in perspective. First, agriculture contributes about 11% to the GNP of Thailand, but employs 40% of the population, which is to say that 60% of the population contributes 90%. Third, if labor costs were as at the cannery/plantation (around $2,500) but the average income is over $8,700, then a lot of people have a much lower than average income. However (and this is a typical economist trick—on the other hand), unemployment is under 1.5%.

This morning, and most of the day today, we were one bus on the road to  three royal residences. The first, the Grand Palace, was built by the first King of modern Siam (the country became Thailand in 1939) when he moved the capital across the river from Thonburi to Bangkok in 1782. The Grand Palace is probably the “face” of Thailand, with its temple complex housing the Emerald Buddha. It symbolically states that the King of Thailand fits squarely into the Hindu-Buddhist tradition of the Ramayana, the great Hindu books about the battle between good and evil. The current king is Rama IX, with all the kings having been named “Rama.”  The temple part houses the statues of Rama and other figures from the Ramayana, such as the monkey king, Hanuman, who leads the forces of good. The chedi and stupas (the tops of the temples) and much of the temples, in fact, are covered with glistening gold leaf and colored cut glass that make this one of the more colorful palaces in the world.

Exiting from the temple part of the complex, we left the world of the Ramayana (the book has seven volumes, I believe; when I read the abridged version, I was reminded of the bewildering complexity of German folk tales, on which several Wagnerian operas are based!) for the later efforts of Siamese kings to prevent absorption into the European empires by adopting many features of Europe (see The King and I for a thinly fictionalized version of the story of Mongkut’s bringing in a school teacher for his many children). In the newer part of the palace (the only part regularly used today—as a guest house for royal guests), the buildings are a Thai-European confection, with European palace buildings topped by the traditional Thai roofs. The whole palace is guarded, but the changing of the guard is performed by troops with modern rifles, with dress uniforms including a white pith helmet. It won’t confuse you with London, but the similarities with European practice are there.

My favorite external part is the elephant stand, where the king can mount-dismount his elephant–the traditional transportation—not to mention the heavy infantry of the warfare in this part of the world, an area that until the Europeans conquered it was marked by Burmese-Siamese wars. Bangkok became the capital because the Burmese generals devastated the former capital, Ayudhya (again named for a place in the Ramayana). Siam escaped colonization (the Thais will point out that the country was the only one in SE Asia not to fall under European control) partly because it served as a buffer between the French in Indochina and the British in the Malay States and the Straits Settlements, as well as India.

Of the other palaces we visited (the king today lives in yet another one, and I know we will be near still another one when we journey by train tomorrow) one was built by a late 19^th century king, and, even before air conditioning, had large windows, high roofed rooms, and other features to capture whatever breeze there might have been. Given the power of the king (he was absolute ruler until a coup in 1932 established a constitutional monarchy), there were undoubtedly a number of servants whose job it was to fan the royal family. Even today, a large staff maintains the grounds impeccably. I told Professor Sikora, my colleague and co-leader, we needed to bring the gardeners home to give us the kind of yard the king enjoyed.

This evening we got to enjoy a view of the Bangkok from the river, past the royal palace with its royal barge landing, to the residence of royal commoners today, the Mandarin Oriental (formerly the Oriental hotel), which is always listed in the top ten hotels in the world. When I was here with Mrs. Hoyt in 2001, we stayed at the Oriental, where I bet we are listed among the famous people who have made it their temporary home. I might lose that bet, but I think you understand why I’m tired. Its 11:30 tonight, and we have a lot to do tomorrow. We leave Bangkok for Malaysia tomorrow, so if I don’t get online until then, may I wish all the moms out there a happy Mother’s May?

2025 Comment:  A big thanks to Johnny Simonelli and Elayna Barbara for their photo contributions to this blog!

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 an early wake up (6:30) because I had arranged a site visit to a pineapple plantation nearly 2 hours from here. The whole day, in fact, was planned as a business day because we will be in Penang, Malaysia on Monday. Through our admissions officer, Paul Schley, I contacted families of students from Bangkok, who scheduled a full day for us.

The trip to the plantation reinforced what I’ve always felt about the city of 10 million—apart from the Palace area, I am totally bewildered. It simply sprawls, and I’m always glad someone else is driving. The ride went through a rich agricultural area—rice paddies, rubber plantations, mangos, tapioca, banana trees, etc. And pineapples. CP, the company we visited, is the largest agribusiness in the world, having surpassed Cargill (which is a 110 billion dollar operation!) by virtue of its operations in China. At our dinner that evening, the daughter of the founder of CP briefed me on the history; she pointed out that the company went to the Chinese government said, “We are overseas Chinese; we want to help rebuild China.” Today, CP has a feedmill in every province, which has catapulted its volume ahead of Cargill.

Imported originally from Brazil, the pineapple has taken root in Thailand. We learned that it has a 36-month growing cycle, with each plant potentially producing a successor (called a sucker). The 4,800-acre plantation we visited uses 300-plus workers for a 6-day week, which nets them around 200 baht a day (about $7) to harvest, plant, water, nuke with nutrients or herbicides or insecticides. We watched a harvest (they spread the crop out so there’s either harvesting or planting almost every day). I was a little surprised by the labor-intensive work involved. We saw a harvester; essentially, it was a conveyer belt, with workers behind it throwing hand-picked pineapples on to it; other workers sorted the good from the bad.

From the plantation, we went downstream in the value chain to the factory, which processes the pineapple for stores around the world. We saw Kroger, Safeway, and Sysco cans. Just as the plantation was possibly the first visit to a farm for some of our students, the cannery might well have been their first to a manufacturing facility. There, about 1,500 employees process the pineapples, only 15% of which come from CP farms—the remainder from other growers. They get about $6 an hour, with free residence in the company dormitories, and we saw the world’s most popular motor vehicle, an F-150 come in to disgorge its cargo. One highlight was eating pineapple from a freshly pulled plant (our guide assured us that different provinces have different-tasting pineapples, but fresh may trump pedigree). I used to make sweet and sour pork with whole pineapples partly because it was the only known use I had for a machete. We had lunch in the factory, in the VIP lunchroom—and you can guess what we had for dessert!!

On the way back in, we stopped at a project, a new apartment building that our Admission person told me we should see. It gave us an idea of the conglomerate nature of CP (it does more than agribusiness). It is 150 apartments for rent close to the main Skytrain line. The architect told us about the award-winning design, which is meant to evoke Spain—with arches and a multicolor façade. The common facilities on the 3^rd floor include an outdoor pool that begged for a swim (I resisted). I was not surprised by his answer to my question (prompted by what I had seen in Singapore) about urban planning that there was zoning (but nothing like the 20-year-plan Singapore has). You can see it in the hodge-podge architecture around the city, where rich-rich rubs elbows with the slums.

Our students’ family hosted dinner at the Grand Hyatt, a five-star hotel not far from where we are. The dinner was a buffet, with a dessert table any chocoholic could spend a lot of time enjoying; a meat assortment—lamb chops, a pork pate, a full range of sea creatures, mango salad—well you can see why I’m in the land of Smiles. And ready for bed.