The Stars and Bars

I was mistaken for Korean for the third time today, by my cab driver. He proceeded to bash the United States. "They talk human rights, then their kids shoot other kids," he said. "Is that human rights?"

He also expressed concern that my fellow Koreans were being corrupted by American culture.

* * *

Later, I flew out of Changi Airport to Cambodia. I did something that probably means I ought to be on a watch list: I agreed to check in someone else's bag. She was distraught, a Singaporean woman whose son had just left his Chinese flute on a cab. Later, she and her family treated me to dinner in Phnom Penh: Cambodian chicken, Cambodian fish, Cambodian eggs and Cambodian rice. All hormone-free, she explained, and tastier than their Singaporean equivalents.

* * * *

"There's something pointy in your bag," the woman at airport security insisted. She dug into my backpack--and pulled out a Confederate flag. She held it high for inspection: for the first time, the Stars and Bars flew over Singapore. She gingerly poked herself with the miniature flag pole, then carried it over to her shift supervisor, who decided it wasn't a weapon and allowed me to keep it.

They probably thought it was the flag of an innocuous nation in Europe.

I looked around to see if any Americans were present and shooting me dark stares. None in sight.

Of course, you may be wondering what I was doing with a Confederate flag. Would it suffice to call it a good luck charm during the World Series, meant to aid my friend Craig win his furniture? I picked it up in New York a few days before that, not realizing I would soon unintentionally become an international representative of the South. It's a mid-length story related to Robert E. Lee, AK-47s and the Battle of Shiloh; too sleepy to relate it, but at least I had better luck traveling than my colleagues on the Trent.

Enjoy the Experience

I just arrived at my fourth hotel of the day. First, the one in which I briefly showered, changed and edited ditties in Manila. Second, the one I had ostensibly reserved here in Singapore, named for Captain Sulu's old ship. It, however, blamed a burst water pipe on the 24th floor and sent me somewhere else, except it was the wrong somewhere else: there are two Park Royals in town. At any rate, I'm now settled in a triple, very sleepy, not really ready for five meetings today, including with my old friends from ACS who came to Worlds last year.

Also, I should note that Manila seemed less shopping mall and more parking lot to me, but that may simply have been the road to the airport. A variety of public transportation options, too. Little sidecars attached to taxi-like motorcycles ("tricycles"), open-air SUVs with passengers crowded to the edge, a hammock strung on the back of a pickup truck... the last wasn't exactly public, but seemed like a very good idea.

Last thought: it's love at first flight with Cebu Pacific. When checking in, I had pointed out my pillow (it usually comes up) and how nice it would be to have a row in which to sleep on it. "I'll block one off," said the woman behind the counter, smiling. She really did it, and I stretched out and slept for three solid hours. A bargain for a flat bed.

Speaking of bargains, Singapore's Budget Terminal offers this slogan when you disembark: "Enjoy the experience." The experience was fine. Dozens of cabs. And an immigrations officer who didn't mind that I had filled out my form in green pencil.

Macaroon #4

Yesterday, I lost very profoundly at a game of "Xs" and "Os" at the YBM Teachers Banquet. "The average goldfish lives only two months before being flushed down a toilet," was the statement, and I, for reasons I can't fathom, thought it sounded reasonable, though I did pause to second-guess whether the test-writer had considered goldfish that didn't live in human custody. I should've gone with that second guess. In any case, maybe it's a good thing I don't compete in the Super Quiz anymore.

I'm about to board the least expensive international flight of my life--a $70 fare from Manila to Singapore, on Cebu Pacific. I don't know anything about the airline. Maybe it'll serve sandwiches and be delightful. More likely, I'll pass out on board. My only sleep since yesterday has been on a bus in Seoul this morning and on the cab to Manila's airport a few minutes ago.

Manila is this strange combination, for me at least, of Asia and South America. The language here is enough like Spanish to give me a bit of a headache when it blares on the radio, though that may have been the sleep issue. Neither my cab driver nor I had a watch or a working cell phone, so I spent the whole drive either sleeping or convinced I was running late (the driver had guessed it was 6:30 when it was actually 5:45).

"My hotel's near the giant mall," I said to the principal of the International School of Manila today.

"That doesn't help," he said, "That's all of Manila."

He seemed interested in the Scholar's Cup, which was great--it made this pitstop between Seoul and Singapore very worthwhile. I hope to see a team from Manila in Seoul on May 31.

I passed the Hotel Prince yesterday, where last year's SCUP teams stayed on arriving in Korea (I got evicted due to a room mixup). It was odd to think that we're almost halfway between world competitions. It was odder to think that there'd been a world competition at all. I was a little--distracted--the last time around.

Yesterday's banquet at YBM was inspiring. I'll write more on that later, I hope. Afterward I settled down in the lobby of the hotel where it was held and edited children's workbooks over three cups of coffee and six macaroons. A local band covered American songs; they crooned "even heroes have a right to bleed" around macaroon #4.

The Secretary's Way

Yesterday, Alaina at YBM asked me a question she gleaned from the book she was reading, a Korean business publication called The Secretary's Way. I put it to you: would you prefer to work with someone immensely talented but not entirely loyal, or someone a measure less talented but much more loyal?

Jordan's Furniture Bets Obama will Strike Out

Boston, MA – Jordan’s Furniture has announced a follow-up to its successful Red Sox promotion: any customer who purchases furniture during the month of November will receive a full refund if Barack Obama wins the presidency in 2008.

Other furniture stores have not matched the promotion, though industry sources suggest that IKEA may endorse Al Gore.

The promotion has generated controversy. David Gergen, former presidential advsior and a professor of political leadership at the Kennedy School of Government, warns that, “Massachusetts electors may be swayed to break with the popular vote in their state if they purchased particularly expensive mattresses.”

“We took an insurance policy just in case, just like we did with the Red Sox,” said Jordan’s Furniture owner Eliot Tatelman. “This one cost less.”

Obama has not specified whether he shops at Jordan’s. However, he will be making a previously unscheduled visit to the Jordan’s Furniture factory in Cambodia to discuss worker’s rights and free trade.

In a press statement, the rival Clinton campaign noted that “Senator Clinton shops at a variety of furniture stores, including Jordan’s, and is supportive of most things with which she does not disagree.”

A Headmaster in Malaysia

Once, I wrote a story featuring a character named Malaysia. I don't remember her so well; I think she had something to do with an epidemic raging in New Mexico. I was going through a phase in which I thought I could describe landscapes. I've mostly given up since, but for the sake of argument: a long rim of palm trees, and clumps of tall apartment towers with open-air stairwells. That was my view on the train from Kuala Lumpur Airport to the city center.

A poster in the airport proudly noted that it was voted the best in the world in 2006 and 2005. This year, it took third to Seoul Incheon and Hong Kong. Notably, I started in Seoul this morning and connected in Hong Kong, thus apparently completing the "Top Airport Trifecta." All three are very well-lit, with wide open spaces in which you could fit Air Force One or the entire LAX international terminal.

It was an uneventful journey, unless you count my carry-on tumbling down an escalator into a woman in a veil. (I think she forgave me. I hope so.) On my second flight, I sat next to a Texan who chatted with me industriously before switching his attention to a movie about a haunted hotel room. Where are you from? he asked me at one point, a question my friend Tracy can certify I'm increasingly not very good at answering.

In other developments, DemiDec opened a school in Seoul this week. Yes, it puzzles me too.

This is a good moment to look back at how I ended up in Korea in the first place: one Randy Xu, now in China hedging funds, an agent of chaos who led his Decathlon team to a third place finish in Texas in 2000. Randy had a car accident that led him to need a lawyer that led him to e-mail the Harvard alumni list that led me to e-mail him a reference that led him to recognize my DemiDec connection that led him to work with DemiDec. A few months later he suggested that we go teach in Korea for three weeks as a kind of vacation.

It's been a very interesting three weeks.

And Again

Dante Coffee. Down the street from NTU. The producers of my life are saving money on new sets.

The Streets of Hsinchu

In Taiwan, after a massive day: I woke up Sunday morning in Boston and somehow it's become Tuesday over there. Slept some in the back seat of a cab and on a red-eye flight from Vegas that featured a barking toddler. "Woof!" he cried, over and over, as I tried to edit.

Searched for a shower at Incheon Airport on landing this morning. Helpful flight attendants pointed me toward the basement, in which I discovered a miniature hospital. The receptionist advised me that the neraby sauna was shut down. Couldn't tell if they meant permanently or just until later in the day, but I had a meeting anyway coming up in Seoul proper, and went without.

Now at a hotel, the worse for wear but with reasonable water pressure, called the King Dom. Tomorrow morning, the schools of Hsinchu. For now, I sleep in Hsinchu. I was going to write about the streets of Hsinchu, but I'm too sleepy. They were bright.