When The Lion Roars..

**The video has been fixed.  Everyone should be able to access it now.**

My first video post!  Like any ready reporter, my video was rolling milliseconds after it all began.  I had to duck, jump, run from security forces, and…

The real story begins like this: I was standing in line for some Ban Mian -- a delicious noodle dish with minced pork, egg, and dried fish -- dreading the impending six and a half hours of teaching when everything exploded.  Having lived in Singapore during the Chinese New Year period, I knew what was happening but I wasn’t sure why it was happening now, at 11:00am on a Sunday morning.  I watched as parents quickly grabbed their tear-prone children and tore them out of the seats and charged for the exits, leaving their plates of food behind (I briefly wondered if it would be bad taste to take their food).  Instead of the heroic and inquisitive reporter who charges to the scene, I thought to myself, “Goddamn it.  Goddamn it.  It’s 11:00am.”

A lion dance had just erupted outside of the food court.  Without warning, symbols had begun smashing and big bass drums were beaten by a cadre of red clad hooligans.  When you are quietly absorbed in a Sunday morning’s atmosphere, the last thing you want is a drum attack.  That’s exactly what it feels like.  Like your head is being attacked by drums.  Carrying my noodles, I slipped out the door to go back to work.  But then I thought, “This is pretty unusual.  I should catch it on video.”

The “drum attack” is necessary; it provides a rhythm for costumed lions to dance to.  Two lions, with teams of people inside, dance and roar in order to bring good fortune.  Evidentially, the people inside of the lions are both well trained and very fit.  The lions frequently rear up on their high legs, to a height of about 3m, and constantly jump and shake.  It’s acrobatic.

Like I said, the dance is meant to bring good fortune.  During the 15 day New Year Period, bands of lion people will drive around the city in pickup trucks, banging drums and symbols and shaking lions, meant to disperse good luck to everybody.  I had gotten quite used to this back in January, but I was totally shocked and blindsided by the Sunday morning display.  My colleague told me this: “When a new business opens, they‘ll hire a lion dance to bring good luck.”  The lions obviously bring some immediate attention -- it’s hard to not notice a maniacal pair of lions dancing inside a shopping mall -- and the dance is supposed to help the business begin prosperously.

If you pay attention in the video, you’ll see people delivering oranges to the lions.  A gift of a pair of oranges is very symbolic in Chinese culture: it is meant to wish prosperity and auspicious fortune to the receiver.  The lions will theatrically pretend to eat the oranges, and then leave a four digit number shaped of orange wedges.  My colleague told me that “then people will go and gamble on these numbers.”  I asked of her: “Isn’t it strange that everybody around will get lucky?”  

This is what I wanted...

And this is what I got...

The Strange and Silly at Haw Par Villa

It's strange.

It's frightening.

There’s nothing like spending your day off exploring the paint peeled edifices of a run down theme park, created by self made millionaires answering to no one.  There’s something about crumbling theme parks and frivolous spending that excites me.  For those of you in Asia, you may be familiar with the apparently magical properties of Tiger Balm, a muscle cream.  The two men who invented it, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, made gigantic amounts of money on the aforementioned balm.  One of these brothers, wanting to build a mansion, bought a tract of coastal land in south western Singapore.

Now, when you have a lot of money, and nothing to spend it on, some pretty weird stuff can happen.  For most of us, if we want to be heard, we’ll talk to our neighbour, the editor, or the internet.  But, when you have a lot of money, and you want to spread a message, you have an invariably limitless opportunity to do so.  Deciding that traditional Chinese values weren’t being propagated, our two brothers decided to build a park designed entirely to do just that.  They built their theme park -- note: not an amusement park -- to raise awareness of traditional tales and legends of Chinese morality.  Education can’t be all fun...  

Built in 1937, Haw Par Villa has many recreated scenes and exhibits mostly drawn from Confucianism and traditional Chinese folklore.  Let’s face it; everyday folklore can be have some nasty bits (see Little Red Riding Hood) and the theme park spares no exception.  Inside, you’ll see dramatic battle scenes, a massive one tonne grinning gorilla, mythological creatures ranging from frightening to farcical, a tepid turtle pond, and the coupe de grace: the violent Ten Courts of Hell.  Inside are dramatic representations of the consequences of leading an immoral life: if you are ungrateful, you will have your “heart cut out,” or, if you are a drug trafficker or a tomb robber, you will be “tied to red hot copper and grilled.”  

I had been recommended to go here by a Singaporean friend after I told her I was tired of seeing boring tourist sites.  Right away, she said this was a strange place to see.  Thinking that strange was subjective, and at best I could catch up on some folklore and legend, off I went.  She was not kidding: the place is really strange!  Years of mismanagement and plummeting ticket revenue have left it in a sorry state.  As I walked up to the gate, no one was there to charge me (free admission!).  Inside, I saw about eight other people, and two of them may have been workers.  The broken steps, the peeling paint, the overgrown weeds, and the sludge in the turtle pond are all evidence of the park’s sorry decline.  Wandering around this half abandoned park, I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter at some dioramas and stare in bewilderment at others.  The eerie emptiness that pervaded the park made me want to hurry through and get out of there, but I made sure to read each sign so that the founders could rest in peace.


When I told two friends where I had gone, they were shocked.  Both had been taken as young children to see the vicious depictions in order to learn about proper morality -- and proper punishment!  It seems the Boon Brothers’ dream lives on.  There’s nothing like a dismembered corpse to teach children not to spread rumours!

Batman, Spiderman...   Turtleman?

My Typical Saturday.

Now that I've been in Singapore for a little while, I've settled into my new place and my new job.  Life here is unlike what I am used to in Canada or what I had gotten used to in Korea.  Singapore has a big, no, a massive city feel to it, with many people going many places at all times.  Obviously, this is different than my hometown, and being the first large city I've lived in, it can feel alienating at times.  It is also very different from Pohang, in Korea.  Although Singapore is a very multipolar city with many different cultures, religions, traditions, and people, it lacks the authentic cultural exchange that Korea offered.  When I lived in Korea, I felt like I was getting a large dose of what it means to be Korean; from food, to tradition, to idioms, to habits, practices, and more.  Singapore's diversity and size mean that the heterogeneous mix of cultures blend into one mosaic, one melting pot, in which you do get exchange, but not in an authenticated form.  Instead, you experience a mix of ideas and feelings and traditions.  Oh, and delicious food.  Definitely the city with the best food I've ever lived in or traveled to.  Authentic Malay, Indian, Chinese, Hainanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, French, Western...  a food post will come in the future! 


Below is a chronicle of this past Saturday.  See the captions for explanations.

Sunrise in Singapore, 7:15 am, from my apartment's window.

Walking to the bus station, the park near my house.

Still on the way to work...

The new complex where my school is...

The school!

My classroom!

Some incredible pepper crusted duck / mango sauce, given to me by a student's grandmother.   Food is the best.

Ulleung-do

The tiny town of Dodong-ri, Ulleung-do, South Korea.

At the moment, I am feeling reminiscent towards a particular island I visited in the fall of 2011.  To some Europeans, it was Dagelet, to some Japanese, Takeshima, but to me and the Koreans:  Ulleung-do.  This obscure little island is forlorn, way out amongst the middle of the East Sea (to Koreans), and by that, I mean the Sea of Japan (to everyone else).  It was to this little island that my girlfriend, a friend, and I decided to go when we had a long weekend break.  

Before I pine on about the island`s natural beauty and Pleistocene era feel, a brief word about the confusion of names associated with all of these places.  The Koreans and the Japanese are not particularly fond of each other - to put it mildly.  I have to side with the Koreans on this one: continuous invasion and attack on the Korean peninsula throughout history, but more importantly, a brutal subjugation and rape of the country during the Second World War.  The Imperial Japanese are infamous for some pretty nasty stuff – see the rape of Nanking – and much of that reputation is justified in what they did to Korea.  Anyhow, the main point is that the two countries still bicker about what seems like trivial matters.  Ulleung-do is one of these.  However, the ownership of Ulleung-do carries some very important weight: fishing grounds.  These fishing grounds are vitally important to both countries.  Now, compound that with the fact that the even tinier islands of Dok-do (Matsushima) are almost in the middle of the two countries, and the ownership of Ulleung-do becomes paramount.  Whoever controls Ulleung-do has precedent to claim ownership to Dok-do and its fishing grounds. 

Enough of this historical context:  We left Seoul at 3 a.m. on a bus heading eastward to the coast.  Even the beer I drank in Hongdae that night didn`t put me to sleep.  When we finally arrived at the port, it was morning.  Waiting for 2 or 3 hours in this absolutely dead port was actually fun, but we were ready to go by the time we climbed onto the hydrofoil that would zip us across the water.  Our friend was terrified of boats – and heights, and… – and she was in misery by the bouncing, slamming of the boat and the braying of waves.  It truly was a hellish ride.  We arrived into a small fishing port in the middle of the pouring rain.  Settling in, we realized our entire tour spoke no English, and were all quite old.  We zipped off to see the much publicised Dok-do, and that was the last thing we did with our group (for the record, a three hour return trip to see some rocks sticking out of the ocean is not that exciting).

The humble ferry port on Ulleung-do.

We explored the island at our own leisure, meeting some new friends along the way.  The night ended with drinking on the side of the pier, with the bulbs of squid boats all around us, no one else in sight.  Only present company, a dock full of boats, and still water.  In the morning, we climbed a mountain close to Dodong-ri, the main port on the island.  From there, our eyes could see for what felt like hundreds of kilometers across the Sea of Japan.  From the summit of this tiny mountain we could see the tiny town sandwiched between great rising plateaus and peaks of rock and moss.  Beyond, the sea met the town with great ferocity, waves crashing into the reinforced pier.  But from this high outpost, the sea looked like a flat blanket.  My visceral surroundings, the waves, the mountains and the rocks all covered with moss and vegetation, I felt like I was in a world that existed millennia ago.  I had thought that this type of rugged paradise had disappeared with the ice age.  The only signs of modernity were the rugged little town below us and the windy road in and out.  This is not the type of place you should go if you want clubs, if you want beaches, tourist stalls, knick knacks, pizza, pasta, and that troupe of inauthenticity that follows popular or famous tourist spots.   However, if you want squid, if you want pumpkin, if you want astounding beauty, this must be the place! 

Ulleungdo's beautiful coastal road.

When we eventually hopped a cab out of town, and around the coast, the island`s anachronistic nature was even more evident.  Sheer rock face straight down until the ocean and the crashing waves was only separated by a tiny road.  This perimeter road had seen many boulders crash down, proven by the one lane sections of construction along the way.  The road wound around the edge of the island, sometimes through tunnels, arches, but mostly out of the side of the mountain itself.  We got out of the cab when we felt the time was right: a tiny town sitting between two mountain peaks with a rocky approach to the water.  This town had a few houses and one road leading in to the interior of the island.  Apart from these evident manmade structures, there was nothing to suggest any life: a desolate, but beautiful town.  The silence all around us was only punctuated by the sparse passing of cars.  After relaxing on its craggy beach for the afternoon, we decided to head back to Dodong-ri, the main town.  With absolutely no traffic on the road, we waited until the first sight of headlights and tried our best at hitchhiking (for the record I thought it would not work, but the others were more optimistic).  The jeep pulled over, and we climbed in.  I told him the name of the town.  He nodded, and that was the last thing he did.  He said something that resembled ``bye`` when he dropped us off.  I think hitchhiking might only exist in Ulleung-do, because I have never seen it elsewhere in Korea. 

Like any proper Korean coastal city, Dodong-ri had great sha-shimi.   It means raw fish.  When most people think of raw fish, they think of sushi – which may or may not contain raw fish – but sha-shimi is the real deal.  Quite literally it is only a fish that has been sliced up.  Dip the raw slices in soy or sesame oil, with some wasabi.  Combined with a handful of side dishes, Ulleung-do’s sha-shimi did not disappoint.  Another one of Ulleung-do’s delicacies is its own variation of stone pot bibimbap, as well as a large market for dried squid and pumpkin.

It's Dok-do (and it's raining)!

Ulleung-do lacks the popular amenities that would help it become a tourist icon.  It manages well, with a small economy based around squid fishing and tours.  These are the tours that scuttle people between Ulleung-do and Dok-do, allowing them to cement their national pride over a series of rocks in the ocean.   Otherwise, you are left to explore the island – that Spielberg missed as the setting for Jurassic Park – on your own accord.  There is no airport here.  The only way on and off is on the daily ferry.  There are the occasional norae-bangs, if you can find them, and if you are into drunken karaoke.  Otherwise, you make your own experience by exploring the mountains, the trails, the temples, and the towns.  A word about the weather: it rains a lot! In fact, I`d say it rained almost the entire time.  It rained so much that one morning; I felt this irrational fear that there would be a landslide.  I couldn`t shake it.  Obviously, there wasn`t a landslide, so you shouldn’t worry about that.

Ulleung-do is definitely, without a doubt, with absolute conviction, one of the most interesting, most beautiful, and most removed places I`ve been so far.  I can`t underscore the subjective journey it was.  Whenever I thought about it, it felt like I was on the edge of the Earth.  I felt so far away from home, from the familiar, and from the normal.  Being out on that island was one of the highlights of my entire year in Korea, and it was the total embodiment of why I travel.  To see things like this: 

A view of Ulleung-do's lonely coast.

Johor Bahru, Malaysia & Singapore

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy on the days when I’m not teaching by exploring.  Last week took me to Johor Bahru, a Malaysian city just north of Singapore.  It’s reached by crossing the Strait of Johor via a causeway.  From my front door, it takes about one hour – when it’s all said and done – to be walking around in JB.  It’s actually much closer than one hour’s journey would lead you to believe.  The time is lost going through checkpoints, scanning passports, getting on and off your bus, and waiting in lines to be allowed to go through. 

          My mood was changed, for the worse, after wasting my time in immigration checkpoints to get in and out of each country.  Sure, it was inconsequential in the long run.  But to be a man who must go through the exercise each day!

Johor Bahru's accomodating entrance

          JB and Singapore have a very interesting relationship.  They give implicit consent on small issues, but they often butt heads, nay, smash heads, on the big ones.  Many low income workers from Malaysia travel through this hellish quagmire of border security every day to work in Singapore and then to return home to JB.   I can’t imagine the anguish of time lost within these gargantuan halls.  To these unfortunate workers, it is better to make a Singaporean wage and live in JB.  For Singaporeans, fed up with the prices of their decadent malls and shops (see previous post!), JB is a nice day trip for cheap clothes, food, and entertainment.  The nature of the flow of people and goods between the two is representative of the economic disparity between the countries in general.  One side sends its day-trippers for fun in the sun whilst the other sends its workers for a burning day of work.

Singapore's turreted immigration building.

          Though this tacit relationship is important for both, Malaysia and Singapore have never been the best of friends.  Singapore, standing up for its multiculturalism, left Malaysia in 1965 after Malaysia wanted to make “Malaysia for Malaysians” (at least that’s how Singaporeans explain it to me).  Singapore desperately needs Malaysia for its exports of water, as the Singaporean government imports upwards of %40 from its neighbours.  Malaysia does not like Singapore’s pole position on the Malaysian peninsula which gives Singapore a global port and control of the maritime boundaries southward.  The two periodically bicker about sea lanes, border claims, and the price of exported water.  Which have led to the creation of these two friendly looking buildings, the aforementioned immigration fortresses.

Anyhow, this is what I saw in JB:

A locked state building.

A Hindu temple. 

          
JB's old colonial era train station.

Money, Money, Money..

I’ve noticed – that in more than one country and in more than one culture – that generally Asians really enjoy shopping.  See, I would only go to a mall when I really needed to buy something.  But, maybe that’s a reflection of where I grew up, a place that had only one mall that was really worth going to.  Now if I need anything, I just need to take the MRT – subway – to Orchard Road, Singapore’s mega shopping district.  If you are looking to go, just keep an eye out for the docked spaceship on the street corner:

Ion, at Orchard.

Even its backside looks good.

Although it’s quite a show of consumerism, it’s a pretty cool place to go.  If you need to find something commercial in Singapore, it’s a rule of thumb that you can probably find it here.  If you are a suit wearing, power wielding, maniacal businessman, this is where you’ll spend your millions.  Or, if you are a humble teacher, this is where you’ll go to try to buy English books.  Orchard Rd. is home to the only bookstore with a reputable selection, albeit at remarkably high prices.  Now, if anyone wants to send me a parcel of books…
  

Glimpses of Singapore

Now, I realize that part of the allure of reading someone’s blog is the exposure to their pictures.  Stories are great, but a picture’s ability to complement is almost beyond words.  The picture can explain a thousand fold what some feeble words cannot.  One of the more astute readers asked me if I took the pictures myself, or if I “found them online.”  Unfortunately, due to a series of unfortunate events, I lost my camera.  The story is actually not entertaining at all, so I’ll spare you.  What is entertaining, or was for me at least, was this story:

          I was running in the park two nights ago, a very small park near my house, when I saw a man lying on the ground.  Immediately my experience in Korea pervaded my common sense, and I assumed he was blasted drunk and passed out.  When I ran by again twenty minutes later, and he was still there, I was worried.  He waved me over, so I jogged over.  A Chinese-Singaporean, he couldn’t speak much English.  What he did manage to say was “…police.. call police”.  I asked him “what’s wrong?”  To which he replied: “call…” and waved at the nearby community center.  Sprinting down, I grabbed the nearest person and we ran back into the park.  This guy happened to work at the community center, and could speak Chinese.  He spoke to the “Uncle” but we couldn’t find out what was wrong.  The community center guy disappeared to meet the ambulance, so I stayed with the Uncle, noting he wasn’t wearing shoes.  He couldn’t articulate what happened, so I checked his pulse, monitored his breathing, and waited.  I took off a little while after the ambulance came, so all I know is that he had tremendous pain in the right side of his body.  Suffice it to say, an interesting experience.  Outside of all the hospital trips I’ve taken with my accident prone brother, I’ve never had such a serious encounter.

          Anyway, I lost my camera, but I bought an iPhone, which has a fantastic camera.  So, here are some pictures I took on my day off.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take a lot of pictures.  Stay tuned for future pictures of Singapore’s famous skyline. 
      

I wasn't lying when I said it was hot here.

A row of traditional shop houses.

A Chinese lion, festively decorated for the New Year period.

        

The old colonial building at Fort Canning.

                                    A colonial era Roman Catholic church.

A Sad Day

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/egypt-soccer-riot-army-police_n_1249233.html

My father once lent me a book called “How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization.”  In it, the author wrote at length of the intermingling of the sport and politics throughout the world.  Citing Bosnia, Honduras, and many more, he showed how historically the sport and the fans who love it have had their ideals hijacked by ulterior motives.  When I read the recent news from Cairo, I felt sad for the victims, sad for Egypt, and sad for the sport itself.

          Already, the ruling military council in Egypt is being accused of perpetrating the violence by having outside agents infiltrate the home fans, and then inciting a riot against the visitors and the visiting fans.  The most telling quote – coming from a home supporter, someone who saw his own companions and “fans” attack the visitors – to show the presence of an outside and sinister hand at play in the riots: "This was unbelievable... we were supposed to be celebrating, not killing people.  We defeated Al-Ahly, something I saw only twice in my lifetime.  All the people were happy.  Nobody expected this."