{"id":7976,"date":"1998-07-22T20:39:31","date_gmt":"1998-07-23T01:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=7976"},"modified":"2025-03-11T09:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T14:50:14","slug":"7976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/1998\/07\/22\/7976\/","title":{"rendered":"The very model of a model International Commissioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>International Conference and Laos (Reminiscences 2025)<\/p>\n

During the 1990s especially, I tried to combine my interest in marketing with my avocational interest in Scouting.\u00a0 That resulted in my seeking Scout contacts and buying Scout souvenirs.\u00a0 My troop usually had foreign neckerchief slides, for example, and frequently foreign Scout patrol patches.\u00a0 We had two iterations of Red Back Spiders (Australia\u2019s contribution; second deadliest) and the Ferkana Patrol (Turtle in Maltese), and frequently used the more colorful Canadian patrol patches.\u00a0 I was most enamored of the Macanese epaulets for leaders, and for years used them in place of the (boring) red epaulets that were official BSA.\u00a0 The uniforms and neckerchiefs I bought contributed to several camporee exhibits.\u00a0 Mrs. Hoyt and I parleyed a visit to a world camporee into a visit to Angkor Wat.<\/p>\n

One of the highlights was definitely attendance at the Asia Pacific Conference in 1998.\u00a0 It was meant to highlight Hong Kong Scouting after the handover.\u00a0 In the run up to 1997, Hong Kong Scouting had purchased a lot in central Hong Kong and built a multipurpose building: Scout office, hotel, and offices, probably to maintain funding because of the uncertainty of finances after 1997.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Behind me was Kai Tak, the most exciting airport in the world<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had enough contacts to get myself invited as a member of the US Delegation, with the rank of \u201cInternational Commissioner\u201d from the W.D. Boyce Council.\u00a0 It was obvious I was outside the circle of professionals and niche volunteers, but it got me to Hong Kong for a wonderful conference that helped me understand why Baden Powell resigned from the British army after World War I and thought Scouts could be a force for peace.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I remember\u2014more than a quarter of a century later.<\/p>\n

First, there were giggles about US Scouting.\u00a0 Part of it was for its top-heavy use of professionals.\u00a0 Volunteers, even at the highest level, ran many Scout national organizations.\u00a0 I met some of them. Another giggle came from what the other organizations referred to as the 3 gs\u2014God, Girls, and Gays.\u00a0 Most other organizations, even then, were coed.\u00a0 While there might be separate religious-based national organizations, we had an interfaith service that was genuinely religious and genuinely inclusive.\u00a0 What a change from the traditional BSA (at best) non-denominational service!<\/p>\n

Second, it was an adult gathering, and adults were treated like adults.\u00a0 We were broken out into subgroups for some of our meals.\u00a0 I remember sitting with the Head of Singapore Scouting (volunteer), his Australian counterpart (also a volunteer) for a potluck.\u00a0 Not mac and cheese or hot dogs, but dim sum and other Asia dishes.\u00a0 And there were adult beverages served.\u00a0 It was the best fraternity party I can remember since college.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong Scouting was at its finest.\u00a0 While most uniforms were Scout-like (based on the Great War uniforms of BP), I doubt BP would have objected to the formal tailor-made uniforms that distinguished our hosts.\u00a0 I was glad to have been invited to participate, and to look at HK a year after the handover.<\/p>\n

It was also an excuse to bring David, and depart Hong Kong for an introduction to another part of the former French Indo-china: Laos.<\/p>\n

Once a prosperous and large kingdom (the Land of a Million Elephants), \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Laos today is one of the poorest countries we visited.\u00a0 Its distinctive houses on stilts allowed the family to live above possible floods, but, equally important, made for animal or car storage underneath.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>The “big” cities are pretty small–We stayed in Luang Prabang for a few days, and used it as a base for a memorable trip up the Mekong to a cave full of Buddhist statues.\u00a0 In fact, much of what we saw related to Buddhism–or to the half century it was part of French Indochina.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Luang Prabang was the capital under the French, and thus has what used to be the king’s palace.\u00a0 The communist Pathet Lao took over the country in the 1975, and the palace is now a museum.\u00a0 It’s a nice mix of French colonial and Lao, and I remember sitting in the palace while David \"\"<\/a>explained patiently his dissertation on turn of the 20th century art.\u00a0 \u00a0The trip on the Mekong took us to that cave, but we also stopped for a look at farms in the countryside, confirming our suspicion that the Lao People’s Democratic Republic is among the less developed countries of the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Vientiane, the current capital, was also on the itinerary.\u00a0 Among its claim to fame was that it houses the largest Buddhist temple in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International Conference and Laos (Reminiscences 2025) During the 1990s especially, I tried to combine my interest in marketing with my avocational interest in Scouting.\u00a0 That resulted in my seeking Scout contacts and buying Scout souvenirs.\u00a0 My troop usually had foreign neckerchief slides, for example, and frequently foreign Scout patrol patches.\u00a0 We had two iterations of … Continue reading “The very model of a model International Commissioner”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-end-of-independent-hong-kong-1998-and-laos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7976"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8811,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7976\/revisions\/8811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}