Mallacka in Mallaysia

Malacca or Melaka seems to be a fit place to end our stay in Malaysia, which bills itself as “Truly Asia.”

An old city at the southern entrance to the Straits of Malacca, through which pass over half of the shipping of the world, Malacca traces its history back to the 13th century or so, when an Indonesia prince (the connections between Indonesia and Malaysia are pretty strong even today; Bahasa is spoken in both countries, both are Muslim, and Sumatra, one of the over 2,000 islands that constitutes Indonesia, is 1-½ hours away by ferry on the other side of the straits) came here and had his dogs outfoxed (that sounds wrong) by a mouse deer, a small and now endangered species, under a Malacca tree. The sultan built a dynasty that lasted until 1513, when the Portuguese wrested away control of the city, beginning several centuries of Portuguese rule. The famous Cheng Ho, featured occasionally on the History Channel, visited here, and has a small corner in the history museum. There’s a rebuilt Istana (palace) of the sultan, which I can see from the window in my hotel, but Malacca is one of the four states in Malaysia now with no sultan.

Notable Portuguese were the Duke of Albuquerque, who was the second governor, and Francis Xavier, the Jesuit who was instrumental in bringing Catholicism to Asia. The priest was in fact buried in Malacca for 9 months, but was finally interred in Goa. Although the Portuguese rule ended centuries ago, there’s still a gate from the old fort, a bastion rebuilt (as part of the push for tourism), and a church on top of a hill that’s hollow and roofless, but picturesque, rather like its counterpart in Macau, also Portuguese. On a cruise on the Malacca River, the guide explained that his heritage was partly Portuguese, and there are descendants still in town.

The next stage marked the showdown for supremacy in colonial Asia between the Dutch and the British. The Dutch evicted the Portuguese, and built their own church, their own statehouse, and several other buildings that remain today, characterized (and standing out because of it) by large windows; the philosophy was that air could circulate better.

Finally, with the British already established at Singapore and Penang, the Dutch in 1824 exchanged Malacca for British possessions in what was becoming the Dutch East Indies, and Malacca became part of the Straits Settlements until 1947 (with the exception of World War II, when it was part of the Japanese empire); the British Club in town was where independence was proclaimed.

All periods are represented, which is to say, Malacca is an historian’s treat. From the Portuguese period, the church and fort; from the Dutch period, the red brick Stadthuys and the Church; from the British period some stately mansions (including the Majestic Hotel, a colonial bungalow that when David and I stayed here in 1997—in it—was the cheapest hotel in town; today, after extensive and expensive restoration, it is the most pricey hotel in town; glad we stayed in it when we did!)

I was heartened to learn that Malacca and Penang acquired UNESCO grants to preserve the heritage, and we were able to see some of the results: the area around the waterfront is being rehabilitated and renovated, and the houses already completed will certainly do as much for the important tourist dollars as the malls that are otherwise omnipresent in the bigger Malaysian cities. There was a Carrefour in the three-story mall across from our hotel, located in what was a hawker area when David and I visited here in 1997. Tourism has come to replace trade; the once prosperous harbor has silted up, replaced by Penang to the north, and more impressively, the city of lions (Singapore) to the south.

Of course, the foreign and colonial patina was marked, but the dominant population then as now was not foreigners, and that’s one other thing that makes Malacca attractive to me. There’s an old Chinese area in the town that has become a lot hokier than I remembered. On the boat ride, we saw an all-Malay area. Of course, there’s an Indian section, too. As befits a country that is 60% Malay, around 30-35% Chinese and 10% other (mostly Indian), all areas are visible and obvious.

The official line is that Malaysia is a model of peaceful mixing of races, one the world should emulate. We heard the story time after time, and the message is certainly true. As I’ve noted, the “mixing” isn’t as thorough as in the United States, though. Malays get favors in government jobs and education and in financing from banks; Chinese have a strong hold on business; Indians seem to do a lot of the service jobs. And the country has had a troubled history of race relations in the 1960s especially.

It does enjoy some wonderful natural scenery, even from the train, where there were broad plantations of rubber and palm oil. Then, there’s a whole side of the Peninsular Malaysia we did not get to—Muslim sultanates and spectacular beaches that you can see on the Travel Channel at least once a week. The country has at least one big advantage in attracting tourists from the Middle East—it’s proudly (but secularly) Muslim, and the obvious efforts that Mahathir made to replace the British administrative buildings with a distinctly Malay appearance is noted and noteworthy. Like many of the developing countries, it is heavily dependant on spending by the developed world. I found out, for example, that the Dell factory we visited has gone from 7 lines to 3. Even Singapore reported a first quarter decline of 7.8% this week.

Perhaps that’s one reason the cities have so many malls, and such spectacular ones. So many, indeed, that I’m tempted to call the country Mallasia.

We spent all day on the train getting to Singapore, where we’re going to spend a few days.

Best wishes for a wonderful weekend.

A Confucian Saying Comes True in Kuala Lumpur

I’ve used the Confucian saying before to introduce a topic, and I’m going to do so again: the Old Sage remarked, “It is a pleasure to welcome guests who come from afar.”

The person who demonstrated the truth of the saying was the alum I mentioned in my last blog, Johnny C.H. Lai, an IWU alum who is a Malay Chinese living here in Kuala Lumpur.

I’d been in touch with Mr. Lai on and off since he graduated, and in fact tried to connect with him when we were here four years ago. At that time, he was on holiday, but this trip, he was here. Having him as host, as you’ll see, also shows the difference between going with a packaged tour and having a real experience.

He picked me and colleague Carrie Trimble up last night, with the intention of showing us Kuala Lumpur. The city is full of malls, and interesting ones at that, but he took us to one that really creates “buzz.” I knew that when we drove up to the entrance, and looming over us at the entrance was a three story high sphinx, with an entrance framed with columns as though we were at ancient Thebes. I’ve been to Harrod’s in London which has somewhat the same approach, but on a scale of one with the Sunway Mall (where we went) around a 20.

Trimble and Hoyt at the Sunway Mall Hotel with Johnny C.H. Lai, IWU class of '95, and his friend, Agnes.  Lai hosted the two professors when they were in Kuala Lumpur as part of a May Term class.
Trimble and Hoyt at the Sunway Mall Hotel with Johnny C.H. Lai, IWU class of '95, and his friend, Agnes. Lai hosted the two professors when they were in Kuala Lumpur as part of a May Term class.

That was our introduction. As we walked past the elephants and elegance, we came to one of the atriums, and there was a crowd gathered. When we looked down, we saw it was a book launching, a Chinese translation of the letters of Dr. Mahathir Mohammed to world leaders. Dr. Mahathir was supposed to speak—and the talk was supposed to start in five minutes. I know not everyone would be as impressed as I was, but having followed the former prime minister’s career, I knew he was the man who, as I said yesterday, put Malaysia on the map. And I had a chance to see him in person! About two minutes later, he walked out with his bodyguard, bounding as few other 84-year-olds can do, to the accompaniment of great applause. He was shorter than I realized, but that’s in his favor too. I confess to being star struck. Who would have predicted it (though I thanked Mr. Lai for his courtesy in arranging the visit!)

The daze continued afterwards, as we continued to walk through the mall. We came to the ”ice atrium” which had a full-sized hockey rink (Hockey? When it’s 95 degrees out? Well, there is a professional team in Phoenix.)

But the complex was more than just an over-the-top mall. It included an elegant hotel (pictured elsewhere), two theme parks (one water based, one with roller coasters and other non-liquid treats)—AND a university. Now that’s buzz.

Mr. Lai and his girlfriend took us to another KL activity—a hawker food court, where we tried a variety of interesting local dishes—jellyfish, for example (which is Chinese, but served in a Malay peanut sauce).

We agreed to meet again today after our trip.

I had arranged a choice of two bus trips, one in the afternoon to Petrajaya, the new administrative capital near KL, and the other to a nearby Forest Research institute, which has a rainforest/jungle with a canopy walk. Most of the students opted for the jungle, which is hard to duplicate in central Illinois.

When we got to the van at 8 a.m., the guide told us the jungle walk, which was the feature we were most interested in, was under construction, but the company would try to find something suitable to replace it if we went to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple within a cave near here. We agreed to go and see what happened. Well, the Caves were really south Indian, who constitute the majority of the Indians in Malaysia. We climbed 272 steps to get into the cave, which was a nice morning exercise.

The driver then told me that we could kill an hour and then be taken to the only rainforest in a major city (KL) and go on a scheduled nature walk. Since that was close to our hotel, I said, “Let’s go back and let our students do what they want to do.”

Which meant Carrie and I would be able to visit with Johnny (whose girlfriend said he counted down the days until the IWU group and his former teacher arrived). Since he had offered to take us to the Scout office, I asked one of the other students, an Eagle Scout from St. Louis and former Philmont staffer, to join us.

We did get to the BP House, which is the headquarters, but there was no Scout shop there (the store was in the Central Market, which we would visit before dinner), which gave us just enough time for Mr. Lai to suggest we go the Genting Highlands. Built by a Malay-Chinese gentleman, the highland’s name in Chinese in “the head of the clouds.” He took us to an Indian restaurant for roti canai, martaback, and other delicacies, then drove to the funicular for the longest cable car ride in southeast Asia—nearly two miles—that took us to the gambling and hotel and shopping complex (complete with a statue of liberty!) that, at 6,000 feet, left me lightheaded but, for the first time on this trip, cool.

We came back, joined the group for dinner, and a visit to a mall (that had the Scout store) and the local Chinatown before Mr. Lai told us he had to get home and get ready to go back to work tomorrow as an independent graphic designer.

As I said, it was a pleasure to be welcomed as a guest who comes from afar. We leave KL tomorrow morning so I better get packed.

Selamat datang.

In front of the former British government buildings in Kuala Lumpur.
In front of the former British government buildings in Kuala Lumpur.

Selamat Datang

I’ve just said hello (and goodbye) in Bahasa, which is the language of Malaysia (and after a fashion, of Indonesia as well). We just entered Malaysia at Padang Besar after a 17-hour trip from Bangkok on the train. We had a sleeper compartment (the seats changed to a bed) for around $33. I still remember the first time I came here—1997. I was on sabbatical, and had a ticket from a conference in Mumbai to Bangkok, and then a ticket from Singapore to Hong Kong.

The challenge was the over 1,000 miles from Bangkok to Singapore, through a country I’d barely heard about—Malaysia.

I’m as delighted to be here as I was the first time. I’m checking in from Kuala Lumpur, after two long (almost too long) train rides—from Bangkok to Penang (about 20 hours) then from Penang to Kuala Lumpur (only 9 hours, but it got in here at 5 a.m.)

Students toured a Dell factory in Pulau Penang.

I fell in love with Pulau Penang (an island that with some mainland constitutes a state in the 13-member federation of Malaysia) that time, and I’ve been back 3 times since. Nothing has dampened my ardor. I think my students were as awestruck as I am. Here are some of the reasons why:

1) our site visit graphically demonstrated the truth of Friedman’s the world is flat. We toured the Dell factory which makes 95% of the US laptops and ships them to Nashville or Reno for redistribution. They make the laptop to order within a day. I remember getting mine within a week from the time I placed the order. The Penang area has become a mecca for high tech, and perhaps that’s why Dell located there (AMD, a supplier, was there first). The work force, mostly Muslim women (around 5,500) get around 300 a month, plus overtime. The parts come from all over the world, illustrating the principle of the “disassembly line.” The result is an affordable computer, customized for each order.

2) Penang is now a UNESCO world heritage site, and I’m glad it gained that distinction because it has marvelous old colonial architecture. It’s older than Singapore, and was the first British colony in the eventual British Crown Colony (I think it was the Straits Settlements and Malaya—the old Sultans remained in power as heads of states with British advisors, the Straits Settlements being Malacca, Penang, and Singapore). There’re wonderful old colonial hotels (Mrs. Hoyt and I stayed at the Eastern and Oriental, an 1885 gem, that was reopened in an indication of the multiple ethnicities of Malaysia); historical sites that one stumbles on (Dr. Sun Yat-sen made Penang his home in exile for about five years as he raised money trying to overthrow the Qing dynasty and establish a republic. He was the president of the Republic after 1911 and is revered in both mainland and Taiwan, no mean feat); and preserved architecture that looks like I thought Hong Kong ought to resemble—and probably did in the 1950s! I was glad to see one of the old buildings (that I’d considered buying and restoring for my 29 servants—that was one reason I did not buy it) had been saved and restored by a well-known American company—and it now is the most elegant of KFCs in the world!

3) Penang is predominantly a Chinese city in a majority Malay (Muslim) country. Penang area is around 1.5 million people, half Chinese, but Georgetown (aha now you know it was British, and the rail station is on the mainland, across from the island, and it’s called Butterworth!), but as I said, it’s a diverse mix with great ethnic foods and ethnic sites. There’s a Burmese Buddhist temple which is even more over the top in its showiness than the Thai Buddhist temple across the street. I was so impressed by the Burmese one that I was inspired to visit Burma a few years ago. Our guide called Penang a food paradise, and then proved it. We had one dinner by the ocean at a hawkers (food court) where the guide (Chinese background) ordered dish after wonderful dish of some of the best food that we had on the trip. I managed to convince him spaghetti and French fries (staples in Bangkok because we were Americans) was not the reason we’d come to Asia. As my grandson is fond of saying, “Yum yum.” Wisdom comes from 2-year-olds.

It was difficult leaving 19th century environs (Fort Cornwallis, named after the governor of Bengal, the very same Cornwallis who lost at Yorktown and was posted in India had an encampment that paled before the reenactments we’ve gone to at Fort de Chartres, which is roughly the same period!) Chinatown to the train—and not just because the train was a sleeper, but left no space for bags, and got into Kuala Lumpur (meaning muddy waters) at 5 a.m.

Malaysia was a country that had not crossed my radar before I stumbled upon it, but it’s impressive as a predominantly Muslim country that is quite progressive. It helps that it had, for many years, an intelligent Prime Minister who was even more powerful than the Sultans. Dr. Mahathir Mohamed was determined to put Malaysia on the map as more than, “O, we’re the country close to Singapore, which you’ve heard of.” He was the one who built the Petronas towers, which were until recently the tallest buildings in the world (now, there are tallest with antenna, tallest with hotel, etc.). We got in and went to breakfast and I told our guide I thought most of our students would enjoy an Indian breakfast—murtabak (mutton and chicken filled pancakes, made mostly by Muslim Indians), various breads so called, made with banana or eggs, dipped in dal or sambal, nasi lemak (coconut rice) and mango lassi, along with dosa (rice-based pancakes)—I better stop writing about food! To their surprise, most of the students, and all the A students (of course) enjoyed the meal! I know I did.

Touring KL gives one a sense of the desire of Dr. Mahathir; the buildings are impressive, and in the Malay style, with specific roofs. There’s also some Moorish-British architecture that’s also distinctive—in fact, some of us commented that the old train station looks more like a mosque than the National Mosque we toured. Malaysia also has a king—the nine sultans rotate the position every five years and get to live in the palace; every hour there’s a changing of the guard, including mounted soldiers; the uniforms are pretty spiffy, but it’s not the UK.

One other place we toured that I thought was interesting was the memorial to soldiers, a monument designed to honor not only WWI and WWII soldiers, but also those who died in the “Emergency.” What delayed Britain’s exit from Malaysia was an ongoing civil war against Communists that resembled the American War in Viet Nam, but had a different result.

Malaysia is a secular state, but as I said, it has a Muslim majority that has ruled the country from the beginning. Our (Chinese) guide in Penang said that Muslims are tried under Muslim rule, and that if you marry a Muslim, you must convert. The government gives preferences in government jobs and in university admission to Malays. Our guide here in KL said that if you call someone a Malaysian, you mean they’re Muslim; otherwise they’re Malaysian-Chinese or Malaysian-Indian. He noted that the Chinese do well because they have been successful in business and help one another out. We saw three clan houses in Penang, and I know we’ll see some in Malacca when we get there—it’s where the “fraternity” exists by last name—in Penang there were 24th generation Chinese!

We’re meeting an IWU alum tonight, James Lai, who graduated around 1995. He’s a graphic designer, and should have interesting things to share with our students about what it’s like to live and work in KL, his home town.

Incidentally, it rains 300 days a year in KL—and, no coincidence, it’s raining right now.

I should point out for the parents reading this blog that at the Khoo family clan house in Penang (they’re the wealthiest clan), the building features prominent Confucian virtues, including one of a daughter who stays up all night to fan her parents so they can sleep. If your child does not share his or her copy with you, let me know; I have a copy which I’d be glad to share with you so that you can have proper filiopiety exhibited in your household.

Selamat datang.

Palaces to the Lord Rama and the Lord Buddha

It occurred to me today that Bangkok, at least for the tourist, and based on our two fully-filled days, is a tribute to two rulers—the Lord Buddha in a religious sense, and the Lord Rama (the ruling dynasty) in a political sense. They’re related. The Chakri family has supplied the kings since the foundation of Bangkok in 1782. Rama IX, who has been the king for over 60 years, is the longest reigning monarch in the world.

While the kings were absolute rulers (even despots—see the thinly historical King and I) until 1932, King Bhumibol (his non-reign name) and his wife have earned a great deal of respect from the Thai people. Our guide proudly refers to him as “our king,” and the pictures are ubiquitous. At various times, he has called the military rulers into the palace and ordered them to grovel, thereby saving the constitutional monarchy.

He and his family certainly enjoy the trappings of royalty, as we’ve seen the past two days, having visited the summer palace yesterday, the Grand Palace today, and various and sundry palaces today. The current palaces were heavily influenced by Chulalongkorn, otherwise known as Rama V, who was one of the children in the King and I, where Yul Brynner, as Rama IV, King Mongkut, fell under the spell of Anna, and his son brought lots of Western influences into the then Kingdom of Siam. Under Mongkut, the Thais built a summer palace that for all the world looked like Versailles; it’s very European. The Grand Palace, similarly, has some very European buildings, but with the Thai roofs (which I learned today have a triangular shaped roof with the Garuda at the top—a bird-like figure who was the carrier of Lord Shiva [look up your Hindu/Buddhist gods]—and the Naga, a snake, at the corners of the triangle), making the appearance definitely Thai-European. We were in the palace this morning, and, ala London, there was a changing of the guard—spiffy uniforms, white pith helmets, not so spiffy drill. We were told the soldiers had no bullets, very unlike London, but then the royal family no longer lives in the Grand Palace, which is used only to house dignitaries, and possibly impress tourists, which it certainly does. The other palaces we saw were interesting, too, but less grand—a summer house made of golden teak that had been moved from elsewhere in the country to Bangkok, and still had the marks from a bomb that had been dropped on it in World War II (when, interestingly, Thailand sided with the Japanese and declared war on the United States)—it had a lot of windows, which indicated before air conditioning there was only one way to cool off, and that was to depend on breezes, or what was known as a pukka walla, a contraption which allowed a servant to foot-pump a fan. The final “palace” we saw had been the home of one of the sons of Chulalongkorn; he was an avid collector of a variety of things—including some sculptures that had once been at Angkor Wat—whose family had various homes from around the country brought to Bangkok to house his collection. The prince himself had been sent into exile in 1932; when the generals ended the absolute monarchy, the prince, as the head of the absolute monarch’s state council, was invited to leave, and lived his life in Indonesia.

The Lord Buddha received his due today from us as well. There are reputedly over 650 Wats (Buddhist temples) in Thailand, a religion the Thais share with the approximately 5 million Chinese in Bangkok—who control much of the larger businesses (as our guide remarked, they’ve been in the country for years, and they’re hard-working; we’re not). The Wat we visited was one of the Royal Temples. It’s in the grounds of the grand palace, and houses the Emerald Buddha, one of the most important relics of the faith in Thailand. The whole complex houses statuary that are the typical “guardians” of the Buddhist temples, but with the colorful cut glass and precious stones and the faces that are typical Thai. It’s a stunning display that still impresses me after years of coming here.

Finally, we’ve spent more time on the Chao Phraya, which is the “River of Kings.” We came back from Ayudhya by boat yesterday, and had a dinner cruise tonight on the river, that took us past the palaces—and the newer palaces for the rich, like the Mandarin Oriental hotel, usually ranked as one of the top five hotels in the world. The buffet, thanks to our guide, included Pad Thai, one of the most popular and famous of the Thai dishes.

Tomorrow we get on the train for Butterworth Malaysia at 2:49, an overnight train ride.

The adventure continues!

In Bangkok

May 10, 2009

Good morning from Bangkok, capital of Thailand and the first stop on our six-country odyssey. I knew we were in the tropics (13 degrees north, over 8,500 direct miles, and around 13,000 frequent flier miles) when I got out of the plane and my glasses fogged up. It was 94 degrees—11 o’clock at night—probably 99 percent humidity—and it will probably be like this through Hong Kong. My colleague, Bill Walsh, describes it as a three showers a day area, but I think that’s true if you can take only three showers a day. If you can take more…you probably do.

I knew it was May 2009 when we got to Tokyo and we had to change planes. That’s always an ordeal at Narita, but it was complicated by the Japanese government’s response to Swine Flu. We sat on the tarmac, filled out forms about where we’d been, etc., put on face masks, and had medical staff with masks come through with a heat gun to take our temperatures before we could evacuate the plane and resume our flight on another aircraft. No problems anywhere else, including at the new Bangkok airport, which is competitive with the great airports of the world.

It’s been five years since I was in Bangkok, but it’s still (despite the heat and partly because everything is either air conditioned or outside) one of my favorite cities to visit. We’ve eased into the rigors of the trip reasonably well partly because the city is so different from anything most of our students are used to, even those from Chicago. It’s at least 10 million people, with the usual juxtapositions of the developing world—shacks beneath skyscrapers, Beemers next to the tuk-tuks (motorbikes with a chariot-like rear that haul 3 people through the city), open markets selling the most wondrous fruits (some you know, like fresh pineapple; some you don’t, like durian, the fruit that “smells like heaven, tastes like hell” and is banned from hotels), restaurants wafting wondrous smells, etc. Since I arrived here for the first time in the mid-1990s, the city has acquired a lot more freeways and built a skytrain, and that’s made the traffic (which includes bright pink cabs), somewhat more tolerable, but like most Asian cities, one must plan on a long trip any time you take a ride.

Our guide says business is way down, and certainly it is for tourism, which is not just one of the world’s biggest businesses, but one of Thailand’s. The combination of the global economy and the political unrest that it’s caused here (plus the political turmoil that closed the airport in December) has scared away tourists.

We’re not able to visit any businesses (for class purposes) because it’s the Buddha’s big day here—birth, death, and enlightenment—a big day especially in a country that is 95 percent Buddhist. Small businesses are open, including the Tony’s Fashion House that I think every tour group gets taken to (and some get taken at) that is one of the many tailors (Thai silk is a specialty). The Buddhism here is quite different from what one sees in East Asia. It’s incredibly colorful, and I’m sure the pictures you’ve seen of Thailand show the Wats (temples), with gold chedis and prangs.

Our day was pretty full, so we didn’t have time to experience jet lag. We left here at 7:30 yesterday morning for a trip to Ayudhya, which was the capital of Thailand from the 14th century until the Burmese leveled it in 1767, and the Thais moved further south (Bangkok itself dates from the early 1770s, when the Chakri family became the rulers and moved from Thonburi, across the river, where they built the Grand Palace, which I’m about to visit later today). My son, David, once described SE Asia as the “Balkans of Europe,” and having been to the Balkans last summer, I can understand what he means—in the sense that the borders shift historically, and the “tribes” have had a history of warfare—the Burmese and the Thais have warred for centuries.

Ayudhya reflects the influence of Buddhism in SE Asia, as all the Wats were built in stone, and their remains are all that are left. When I saw Ayudhya, it was one of the inspirations for me to visit some of the other great ruins (Borobodur in Indonesia, Pagan in Burma, and the most wondrous of all, Angkor in Cambodia), so it was a treat to return—especially with a digital camera, which reduces the 8 rolls of slide film that I used to take to a doable card which enables me to erase mistakes). The chedis and prangs still tower in the sky, the outlines of the rest of the temples still there, with fragments of the destroyed Buddhas (I think I was told that precious stones or relics of the Buddha were in the statues, which is why the Burmese lopped off the heads!)

The highlight was an elephant ride through the ruins. That’s something you don’t get to do at home, and we all took advantage of climbing aboard and imagining lumbering through the jungle from Pagan, Burma (or for the European-minded, over the alps with Hannibal). We took a boat back along the Chao Praya, the river that cuts through Bangkok, which was a nice way to leisurely adjust to being 12 hours time away from you.

You’re about to begin your weekend. We’re about to have breakfast and to be taken someplace spectacular that none of my students have seen before.

Professors Hoyt and Trimble at the entrance to the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
Professors Hoyt and Trimble at the entrance to the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

Confucius lives next door during the new Tet Offensive

Let me combine two thoughts for my last blog entry. One involves the new “Tet Offensive.” In 1968, the Viet Cong mounted the “Tet Offensive.” Set to coincide with the Lunar New Year (“Tet”), the 1968 version assaulted the major U.S. bases, including the U.S. embassy, which was occupied in the middle of Saigon. Amid U.S. claims that we were “winning the war,” the Tet offensive caused a rethinking of the support in the U.S. for continuing the war, and ultimately led to our stating, “We won,” going home, and in 1975 watching the North Vietnamese tanks breach the Presidential Palace (now known as the reunification palace).

Today’s “New Tet Offensive” is mounted by marketers on an increasingly wealthy population. 35% of the urban population is thought to be “middle class,” officially making the $350 a month that is classified as the entrance into the middle class level. The Tet holiday, about to start, is a 10-day (or two-week) celebration of the Lunar New Year. Children return home to spend time with family, the nucleus of a Confucian society. You may remember last year a massive snowstorm crippled China during Tet and left millions stranded. Gifting is important.

Here, where the poverty level is officially 13%, down from some 40% a decade earlier, people are preparing for Tet. The stores are decorated, as are homes. Most pronounced here are kumquat trees, with an orange/tangerine-sized fruit. The airlines have put on 30 extra flights, the trains have added, etc. One important (recent) addition is the return of the overseas Vietnamese. Once denounced as traitors, the Viet Kieh are now welcomed as part of the effort to modernize the country. In fact, quite recently the government allowed foreigners to own land (for 50 years) under specific conditions. The overseas Vietnamese have been important for a long time; I remember in 1995 when I was here, I learned that the Kieh Viet remittances were instrumental in supplementing income and allowing people to buy motorbikes which they could not do on their local salaries. The Overseas Vietnamese are numerous. Many fled the Communist regime during the war or after 1975 and settled in the United States. I learned last night there were 4,000 Vietnamese in Lincoln, Nebraska!

It’s really neat being here close to the Lunar New Year, and I realized I’ve never been in Asia this close to the New Year before. It has become a marketer’s paradise. As one of our speakers just described the consumer – materialism, conspicuous consumption, and individualism are rampant (We won? Can Wal-Mart be far behind?)

As for Confucius, I read an interesting book several years ago, entitled, “Confucius lives next door.” The book described the persistence of Confucian thought in Japan. It’s true here, too. There’s one Confucian saying that I’d like to address in the rest of this blog: It is a pleasure to welcome guests from afar. That’s certainly true for my experiences in Vietnam, which students at IWU, who are Vietnamese, enhanced by welcoming me, either in person, or through their parents. They let me meet people who are locals, not viewed from the bus.

One of current students told me, “My parents want to meet you.” When I called the father, on Sunday, he told me to phone him when I was done with my tour and he’d come meet me. He picked me up and we went to Hoa Kiem Lake, the center of the old city, for tea. He’s a government official (assistant to the Prime Minister of Vietnam) with a master’s degree in economics from Williams College, a Ph.D. in econ from Hanoi National (where he’s taught) and a Fulbright Post Doc at Johns Hopkins in Washington. We wandered around the city, had dinner at a quiet Vietnamese restaurant (without foreigners!), and I told him I’d like to see the water puppet show, which I’d remembered as one of the great entertainments the two times I’ve been in Vietnam before. He bought two tickets but admitted he’d seen the show hundreds of times before and did not need to see it again. He did, however, bring me back to the hotel, where I found a faculty member who wanted to see it, then drove us, waited, and took us back.” You don’t need to do this,” I suggested, knowing that as his son’s teacher, I would merit the attention.

The following day, he invited me back to have dinner at his house with his family. He explained that his “family” (extended) had combined to “invest” in my student’s American education (as his father and uncle had gone to school in the U.S., their sons would have to do so or lose face). His daughter, he proudly told me, had placed second in the English competition for 5th graders in Hanoi. After dinner, she absented herself “because it is a school night and I have homework to do.”

Last night he asked if I would meet his mother, who lives with a younger brother along West Lake, not far from here. I did so, and met a young man who would like to go to the States to study (as father and uncle had). Interestingly, the uncle, being of the right generation, had studied in Prague, when Vietnam was an Iron Curtain country. Dad is arranging for a driver to get me to the airport, and had lunch with me this afternoon and left his brother to make sure I saw the two temples near here that were high on my list of things to do. The temples date from the 11th century and the founding of Hanoi. Teacher, and elder, and guest from afar – a powerful combination in a Confucian world, as the next example also illustrates.

Last night a December graduate of IWU from Hanoi who was home awaiting his departure for graduate school at the University of Nebraska picked me up on his motorcycle and asked, “What kind of food?” I said, “Vietnamese of course,” and off we sped, like locals, to a restaurant where he introduced me to his girlfriend (a student at UN – I see the picture perfectly); the three of us sampled a variety of the local cuisine, including some dishes I’d not had before (Vietnamese food is quite varied – lots of seafood and noodles; the primary noodle is called pho, pronounced roughly fuh – and quite good). On the way back, he offered a tour of the old city. Motorcycles zoom in and out where cars fear to tread (or are blocked), so it was quite an exciting ride. My colleagues were impressed that I’d been able to do it – and survive. We have a farewell banquet tonight, which I leave for departure to Narita in Tokyo, then to Dallas and then home. As always, I’m Hanoied at having to leave, but it will be good to get home and think about coming back to Asia in May.

Yi lu ping an, as we say in Chinese. A peaceful journey – and chuc mung nam moi. Happy New Year. And congratulations to my new and old Vietnamese friends on the New Tet offensive.

Next to Last Day

We’re spending the last days in “school” meeting with professors and businessmen, and visiting businesses.

Here are some random thoughts on what I’ve seen:

Vietnam is developing, but not developed yet. The stock market for example lists 350 companies (and stock trading companies – there are 150 of them) and is open 8:30-11 five days a week. It used to be open only Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

We visited GM Daewoo, which is the second largest automobile company (after Honda). The plant can produce up to 10,000 cars a year (Mitsubishi manufactures 120,000 per shift), or rather assembles, since it doesn’t “manufacture” anything. It did have a 200% growth over 2007, but it shows that the automobile industry is not highly developed. That’s fortunate; neither is the infrastructure. I can’t imagine all the motorbikers converting to auto drivers. Hanoi, at least the old quarter has streets that are barely a horse cart wide. One might have to destroy the charm of the old city (charm based in part on its Vietnamese history and its French history – the French part is old boulevards, tree lined streets, and colonial mansions (some of them once occupied by the French now housing the comparable Vietnamese departments).

We also visited Deloitte, an accounting firm, which has a history dating (as does Daewoo) to the mid-1990s, when Vietnam “opened”. It’s opening was hastened by agreements with the U.S. ending the U.S. boycott, and more recently, by Vietnam’s admission to the WTO. Deloitte has offices in HCMC, Hanoi, and Haiphong, but has a cluster arrangement with SE Asia that taps into Thailand etc. The company has major multinational clients, but not many in the small and medium sector, which is very large, but small here is SMALL.

We were encouraged to be careful in our questioning, because Hanoi, as the political capital, has more State Owned Enterprises than does Saigon. Certainly, the transformation of the economy here has featured the privatization, or as they like to call it, equitization of the. In 1990, there were 12,000 SOEs, a number that has shrunk to 1,500 today. The remaining companies are bigger and more diversified – e.g., Vietnam airlines is into banking, but one of our speakers noted that the SOEs have gone from trying to become more efficient and competitive to raising more capital. We visited the Vietnamese Post and Telegraph department, which is struggling with the Internet and DHL; it controls fixed lines, but fixed lines are at least as outdated here as they are in the States.

Vietnam has moved beyond the “American War.” Over half the population has been born since the reunification of the country. The United States is also Vietnam’s biggest trading partner, and one of the largest investors in Vietnam. Not surprisingly, Taiwan is the number one investor, followed by Singapore, Japan, and Korea. One interpretation is that some of the non-U.S. investment is from U.S. subsidiaries, who are not prohibited by U.S. law from bribery. The country is around 70% rural, and is true elsewhere in Asia, there are great gaps between rural and urban centers. We’ve been in luxury hotels in urban areas (I am in awe of the retractable roof on the swimming pool here), but as I mentioned did get to a school that Cargill built because the area was too poor to build a school. While the income average is under $1,000, but $2,000 in Hanoi and $3,000 in HCMC, the average is kind of misleading – you know the joke about averages? If one hand is in boiling water and the other in freezing water, the “average is temperate.”

My sense is that this is sort of like China in that it’s a political one-party state, but the bargain here, as elsewhere, is that in exchange the party promises increasing economic growth. So far, that’s happened. However, nearly every business we’ve visited has pointed to the chaos caused by the integration of Vietnam into the world economy. The papers are full of the problems it’s causing here (the garbage pickers are suffering).

Well, one other thing that I wanted to mention, but it’s getting late, is the usefulness of having locals who really show you around. I had two here – the family of one of my current students and a former student who graduated in December but was home. I’ll save that for tomorrow, if I get a chance, before I leave at midnight.

Good night to me, and good morning to you.

Touring in Hanoi

Ha Long Bay
Fred Hoyt at Ha Long Bay

January 11

One of the features of traveling as I do is that each day brings incredible opportunities to do spectacular and frequently new things. Sometimes these opportunities are, literally, opportune. That happened our first night in Hanoi when the only non-business professor, who is in awe of this program’s locations because we’re in the Club area (I could get used to being pampered, as we are; there’s a separate lounge for a “happy hour” that was so good we didn’t have dinner Friday night), and I went for a walk around Westlake, where we’re staying at the Sofitel. (PS — The pool has a retractable dome). The main way Americans might know about Westlake is that John McCain was shot down here in 1969, and there’s a monument to the heroic citizens who defended Hanoi against the foreign invaders.

Anyway, Professor Berman wanted to find a high school near here that apparently attracted the cream of Vietnamese society, and turned them into good revolutionaries against the French. We walked across the lake, where he thought the place was; he speaks sometimes passable Vietnamese (as I told Carolyn, I enjoy watching him interact because the Vietnamese usually look at him the way the Chinese look at me when I attempt to speak Chinese – befuddled as to what language is being spoken). We finally found a coffee shop where he engaged someone who understood, and told him it was far away, so we went into the shop for chocolat chaud (hot cocoa). He spotted a photograph that he decided he “had to have,” because it was similar to a lacquered painting he had purchased last fall when he was teaching in Hanoi. One thing led to another, and it turned out that the photographer was the uncle of the cafe owner, and would we like to meet him? Next thing we know, we’re going two doors down (past the black and white cafe, in case you’re wanting to follow in our footsteps) into the photographer’s apartment, where we were treated to his wonderful portfolio (I bought one) and a conversation, in halting English and halting Vietnamese into his life; it was neat just to see his apartment.

The next day was planned opportunity, and in fact the past two days – the weekend here before Tet, the New Year – people were enjoying the outstanding weather and doing their shopping for the holiday, which essentially shuts down the country for a week. We were scheduled to visit Ha Long Bay, a world heritage site that had escaped me in 1995 for reasons that now escape me. We had a choice – whether to spend overnight on the bay (shades of the seabase) or do a looong one day trip; the one day trip advantage was that Sunday we would have a city tour of Hanoi, otherwise we’d get back mid-day. I opted for the day trip.

Graves in every city honoring the NVM dead

Ha Long Bay is famous for the karst scenery (like well-known Guilin in China); it’s developed into a tourist site par excellence, with dozens of boats hustling thousands (it seemed) of tourists (this is a good time to go to Australia, I think; down under is up over – i.e. they’re here!) If you want to know what the bay looks like, I’ll try to send a photo with this, and if that doesn’t work, check out Indochine with Catherine Deneuve, which is a sumptuous film reflecting the French nostalgia for a colony it lost a half century ago. We went out to a cavern discovered in 1994, which is to say it was not trashed at all, and sailed the bay for a few hours and then came back to Hanoi. The road was decent, the traffic indecent, and the only major difference I saw to compare our Northern trip (708 miles to Saigon) with the South was that up here there were fewer Churches and pagodas along the road. We spent today in the city of Hanoi, which I had remembered as one of the most European cities in Asia. In fact, as we drove past one building, I remarked that I’d seen it in Bucharest last summer, and wondered where it would follow me in the future. With the French city attempting to resemble Paris (as the late 19th century European cities also did), there were remnants of France’s 150 years of rule throughout the city. The old quarter, by contrast, reflects the fact that Hanoi has been on and off the capital of countries here for nearly a thousand years; in fact, if you’re here 10/10/10, you’ll be able to join the celebration of 1,000 years of the history of Hanoi. Supposedly one of the kings of the Ly Dynasty took a boat trip on the Red River (which I can see from my window) and saw a dragon ascending; it was so auspicious he moved the capital here. I have no independent verification, and I was not around at the time! Honest.

The places we toured today reflect the tortured history of the country, which is located in an area my son David has dubbed the Balkans of Asia. There are monuments to the heroes who fought the Chinese, including two ladies who mustered a defense of the country (as late as 1979, the Chinese have attempted to cross the border here, and eventually got sent packing); there are monuments to the Vietnamese hero who stopped the Mongols (perhaps the only peoples to do so); I thought the Christian armies led by Hungary turned back the Mongols at Budapest, but someone told me that the death of Genghis Khan called off the attack as the chieftains had to return to Mongolia to vote for his successor. (In fact we stopped yesterday at a cemetery for soldiers and met a woman whose brother had died in the Vietnamese liberation – certainly appropriately applied in this case – of Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge – the Killing Fields bunch – in 1978 or so. A book I saw is entitled roughly, Vietnam at War, 1854-1980.

As you might expect, many of the museums and monuments deal with three topics: Ho Chi Minh, the “French War,” and the “American War.” Ho Chi Minh was the first president of Vietnam, and the inspiration for its liberation from the French and ultimate reunification, although he died before the end of the war. His mausoleum houses his embalmed body, embalmed by the same Eastern Europeans who did Lenin and Mao. It’s a solemn place, with the “Ho Chi Minh” mall a respectable distance away, unlike the similar mausoleum for Mao. Uncle Ho is everywhere, sort of like George Washington – in public places, on propaganda billboards and sayings, etc.

The other wars are memorialized either in buildings or in the museums. In most cases, the new emperors replace the old, but in 1954, when the French surrendered Vietnam (temporarily dividing the country awaiting an election for unification that never happened), Ho refused to move into the palace that had been the home of the governor general of Indochine; he said it was too rich for a poor country, and lived in cottages on the grounds until he built a very modest stilt house that visitors still traipse through. The palace is now a guest house for foreign dignitaries.

As for the war museums, I went to one that features an enormous diorama of Dien Bien Phu, the big battle in Northwest Vietnam where, in 1954, the French lost so badly they called “Uncle” (Ho). On its grounds are remnants of the fort the Vietnamese built in 1804, an arsenal tower that is the symbol of the City. There’s a sculpture of parts from American planes shot down during the Vietnam war that’s about 40 feet high, and guns captured from armies from the mid 19th century on.

We also visited a few sites that demonstrate that while, as one of our speakers noted, Vietnam is not a small China for business, the country is indebted culturally to China. One of my favorite places is the “Temple of Literature,” which is a Confucian Temple. Vietnam instituted Confucian exams and until missionaries transliterated the language using an alphabet, used the Chinese characters. In the temple is a statue of the Great Sage, and names of the scholars who passed the examinations to become mandarins (none of your names were on it – I checked!) Having been to the Confucian in Beijing, Seoul, and in Confucius’ hometown of Qufu, I know a Confucian temple without any confusion (It’s getting late!)

Finally, we saw the “one pillar” temple, which is another symbol for Hanoi. Built early in the Ly Dynasty, it’s an obvious example of East Asian (rather than South Asian) Buddhism – the earthy colors rather than the gold and cut glass of Thailand, marking Vietnam’s ties with its northern neighbor. Inside is the Goddess of Mercy, (who became a woman in China, but not in India or SE Asia), making the site a popular one for women seeking boy children.

One transition to the next blog – I spent the late afternoon with the father of one of my IWU students, and tomorrow evening I’m visiting with his family. He pointed out that his family had pitched in to send his son to the United States, another example of Confucian society – but that’s for tomorrow, when I go back to “work.”

Let Saigons be Saigons

January 10

Hello from Hanoi, where we arrived earlier today. It’s quite temperate in this city, which is nearing it’s 1,000th birthday (that’s 1,000) unlike Saigon, which is a mere 300 years old (youngster!), and the political city as Beijing does toward Shanghai. The weather is in the 60s during the day, and the upper 40s or so at night, and that’s Fahrenheit. The locals, though, are in their woolens and down clothing – and it’s not a fashion statement. They think it’s cold, and given their warm summers, they may be right. It doesn’t snow here, and I suspect it’s in the tropics (I’ll check my GPS tomorrow)

As I was out and about this morning (which was free to us), I got up early and walked to the market (the Ben Than market has its counterpart in most Asian cities) – it’s an opportunity to buy almost anything you want – from clothing to groceries, under one roof – including a restaurant and one of my favorite places‚ the wet market (wet because the sellers feature live fish and recently killed chickens, cows, etc.) After 15 minutes of this mayhem, I hired a cyclo (the local type of rickshaw, where you enter kind of a basket and are pedaled around town. The persistent Mr. Tom promised me a guided tour for the remaining hour and a half, and took me to places I’d never been before. For around 90 cents, he helped me navigate the purchase of a baguette sandwich (I think it had pork sausage and various other meats) that I’d seen others eating on the street, but not in the hotel. Should be required eating! Only the Vietnamese rival the French for breads! One of the places we visited was an “Army market,” which, near as I could translate from Mr. Tom’s English, had been an Army market under the U.S. days (it was hidden away) and offered the opportunity to buy various Army/Navy surplus items. We also stopped at a pagoda which he said was 150 years old, and it might well have been, before he deposited me back to my hotel so I could pack for the 706-mile ride to Hanoi.

As I was pondering deep questions in the cyclo, partly to avoid thinking about the traffic that immersed and swirled around me, I thought about one of the questions I raise in class – about the social responsibilities and the awesome power of multinationals, and I thought I might share my observations of two businesses in Vietnam and what they’ve done to help make the world different/better. This, in the context of an economic downturn in the developed world that has ripple effects in the developing world (the Vietnam Times stories are about – among other things – layoffs in manufacturing and in tourism because of declining demand).

I’ve made the point with some of the Liberal Arts faculty that business support and initiative will be at least as important as individual and volunteer initiative in resolving many social problems. After all, the Bill Gates Foundation gave enough money to inoculate all the children of Vietnam against a few specific diseases.

Here, we went to a grade school outside Bien Hoa, about 2 hours from the Louis Vitton store in Saigon. The school had been built by Cargill because the government had been too poor to build the school for the children who would stay too poor without education. It was one of 29 the Cargill Corporation had built, all in the poor rural areas. The company matches the contributions of its employees, suppliers, etc., but has a full time Cargill Activities person, who seeks new opportunities and monitors existing ones.

The second example was from AA furniture. The CEO, of whom I’d spoken admiringly, told us that he was converting to the use of “green” wood – and I don’t mean the wood my Scouts use to make fires. There’ s apparently some independent organization that certifies the greenness of wood; he’s been lining up suppliers who meet these approved standards. While he admitted European customers are much more sensitive to the certification than Americans, he stated that he charges no premium for products made from the “green” wood – which is good business and, to me, good conscience.