Into the World: The Random Thoughts in My Mind

Correlation between Happiness and Poverty: Satisfaction with the Status Quo?

2012-02-25T10:52:00.002Z

"I remember those days when we were just playing around in the little stream around our house...there were no pollution, no social pressures, no corruptions...sure, we were poor, but everyone was really happy because everyone was equally poor..." Speaking with the likes of my parents' generation, spending their childhood in the pre-economic reform, pre-Cultural Revolution mainland China, these are the kind of nostalgic thoughts that are often fondly remember and recall. The younger generations, too used to being surrounded by hardly comparable materialistic wealth, quietly react to such fanciful descriptions with scoff.

It is fair to say that, in the last few decades of global integration, the change in individual mentality has been even more dramatic than those in political or economic structures for the group of rapidly emerging developing countries like China. The ethos of modern-day Chinese is not that different from their counterparts in the developed world. "Progress" for both hinges on continued improvements in the living standards, most obviously defined by greater availability of physical objects such as convenient electronics for everyday use and better social infrastructure.

The mentality is, in sum, one of continued displeasure with the existing situation at hand. Sure, life is better now that it was in years ago, but what is preventing it from getting better, and making more drastic improvements in shorter amounts of time? The emphasis on looking beyond what one already has is fundamentally a source of displeasure and unhappiness for most of the population. And thanks to race to the economic top among nations and individuals, the constant unhappiness is integrated with the socio-political environment.

Against the background of such a way of modern thinking, the Economist magazine recently released a graph showing that the degree of "happiness," as defined by the percentage of surveyed citizens calling themselves "happy" in a random-sampling poll, has fairly remarkable negative correlation with wealth, as defined by the country's GDP per capita. In other words, the magazine blandly noted, with a simple economic regression, that throughout the world, poor people tend to be happier, or at least so they say they are.

The very existence of such correlation may be the reflection of just how far globalization has come, especially in the developing world. In the isolated China of the 1950s and 1960s, very few common people had an exact idea just how wealthy the developed world is. Without a concrete standard of comparison, the people can credibly believe that they are indeed living a very good life, and despite all the inconveniences they faced, their level of materialistic wealth was what is considered "normal" and perfectly acceptable.

Fast-forward three decades, every family knows someone who has been or lived abroad, in developed states such as the US or Japan, and through first or secondhand information, everyone can easily put a finger on where and how just how much behind China is compared to the developed world. Current level of materialistic wealth becomes insufficient as everyone knows or has seen just how much more others can have. Greater understanding of economic inequality across the globe, gained through faster and more abundant dissemination of information, may be the culprit of greater "unhappiness."

The correlation between perceived inequality and unhappiness could very well be just as noticeable within a country as it is throughout the world. A corollary of the Economist data given could be one that shows that higher Gini coefficient, denoting greater internal wealth gap, would lead to lower overall happiness within the country. One would venture to say that such an amended portion would hold for all countries irrespective of overall wealth denoted by GDP per capita or some other indicator. Unhappiness is generated from relative wealth, not absolute one.

Yet, the unhappiness should not be considered purely in the negative terms. Dissatisfaction with the status quo can be transformed into positive energy that lead to the strive of the poorer individual or nation to catch up with those above them on the wealth scale. The Unhappiness can be translated into greater effort or even efficiency at the individual level, and, holding the overall economic and political environment constant, greater economic growth for the country. Perhaps attempting to show a correlation between lower happiness and greater economic growth rate would be possible as well...

How is London Such a Massive Tourist Draw?!

2012-02-21T12:04:00.002Z

On a standard Sunday afternoon, the sidewalk on the Westminster Bridge simply becomes invisible. The massive hordes of tourists, of every skin color and speaking every language under the sun, spill onto the bridge, their camera clicking away at the sights of the Big Ben and the Parliament on side, and the massive wheel that is the London Eye on the other. Peddlers dressed up as British loyalty pose for pictures with the delighted tourists, while right there on the bridge, the visitor can purchase anything from an ice cream cone to a little gamble on the which-of-the-three-boxes-has-the-ball game.

Yet, such sight of London as the cosmopolitan destination of global tourism is but another five-minute stop on the self-guided walking tour of the entire city. West from the modern skyscraper district of Canary Wharf and historical heart of the the Tower Bridge and its adjacent medieval castle, to the east with the underwhelming sight of the Buckingham Palace and its changing guards, seeing all the major sights of London could not possibly take more than a few hours if the convenient tube was used a couple of times.

Even for the first-time visitor, each of the sight is not worth dwelling for more than a couple of minutes, especially considering how most of the most important ones, like the Parliament or the Buckingham Palace, does not grant the privilege of witnessing their internal grandeur to the vast majority of eager visitors. For others, such as the St Paul's Cathedral, the inside would not merit more than just a few pictures. Perhaps the only way to make the walking tour any longer is to simply get lost in its crooked streets.

The sheer blandness of London is especially evident when one is the tour guide trying to show visitors around the city. The guide does try to show his or her best effort to explain the excitement of living in the historical streets of the metropolis, among the ghosts of great personalities of the past and influential centers of decision-making even today. But even the best effort to be excited cannot hide the general complaints even the die-hard Londoners will readily expose about their hometown.

The frequent closures of the tube, the lack of convenient shopping options late at night, the danger of some neighborhoods, the lack of delicious meal options...the list goes on and on. The visitors with even minuscule opportunities to speak with locals will undoubtedly have to be exposed to such complaints, and likely to be unhesitatingly agreeing with such sentiment by the end of their one-week trip. The faceless mega-city, for all its residents and visitors, often acts as a black hole for all positive feelings and expectations.

As an alternative, one can argue that the unique lifestyle offered by London could still be counted as a fascinating element for the first-timer. Sure, the British pub culture, with locals watching soccer (sorry, "football," that is) and sipping UK-brewed ales amid gold-gilded wooden frames of historical yet very much local watering holes would be an unmissable experience. But how much of the experience is actually fun without the very act of getting drunk or watching others get drunk? One is forced to wonder...

All this is not to say that one should not visit London. London, after all, is London, one of the most economically powerful and influential cities of the world, commanding over a culture and language whose offspring we all ascribe to in some way or the other. But just because it is what it is does not make London any different from other large cities around the world. The expectation that the city, and Europe as a whole, for that matter, is simply surreal and beyond normal human comprehension is simply absurd.

To be frank, London, with its history of being a small little forge on the mighty Thames River, should be regarded a little local town that just happened to be caught up in the waves of human migration during the era of colonization and globalization. Its massive hordes of foreign visitors and residents, just like its exorbitant prices for everyday goods, are nothing but an unfortunate side effect to an unprepared and sudden shove from the world over that pushed it against its will into the global spotlight...

Jeremy Lin and the Paradox of "Asian Athlete"

2012-02-15T17:12:00.002Z

The gap that separates a globally known superstar and the endless queue of nobodies waiting to get their shot at fame, in professional sports at least, is a matter of a few stellar performances dished out in the most unexpected way. The "unexpected" factor goes up further if the amazing performances come from those who are least expected to make those amazing performances. And for the minimally perceptive public to list those with the least likelihood to "make it big," it rarely takes more than a few stereotype-based "criteria."

As far as basketball, a sport requiring physical explosiveness and agility, not to mention height, physical appearance by itself is enough to make certain predictions regarding potential success. The easiest of those "physical appearance" classification is race, by which East Asians, with statistically proven lowest average height, not to mention worst records for every sport and activity testing endurance and speed, without a doubt comes at the heavily disadvantaged very bottom for predicted success in basketball.

Sure, in every classification there would be outliers with freakishly "un-Asian" characteristics, as in the case of Yao Ming with abnormal height when it comes to basketball. In such circumstances, success can be understood, but in terms of DESPITE the racial disadvantages. And then came Jeremy Lin. His presence in basketball, not to mention success, is an enigma by itself, considering a family background completely unrelated to sports (both parents are very much average height, working as computer engineers).

To put it in a highly racially-stereotyped way, while the African-Americans in the NBA were busy honing their skills on the street playing street-ball since a very young age, Lin, like many other Asian kids growing up in strict upbringing of a Tiger-mom style parenting, probably did not...or at least, not nearly as much as non-Asian players in the league. And surely enough, having gone on to play for a Harvard basketball team not known for producing professionals probably means equally concentrated and consistent academic efforts.

Asian, Harvard, not particularly tall (Lin is 1.91m), normal Asian family background, and indeed unprecedented (never have there really been a successful Asian point guard in NBA history) are all factors that make the sudden breakout of Jeremy Lin unexpected, even for those who do not particularly pay attention to sports like myself. What his sudden fame illustrates is not really anything about NBA or sports in general (he could just be another outlier with regard to a factor that no one has really considered).

But it does say plenty about what it means for one to step out of a "socially predefined role" based on existing racial (and any other crudely put yet widespread) impressions held by the general populace. The "wow"s Lin earned in the last week is may be characteristic of an America where prevalence of individualist principles leads to respect for those who are and seeks uniqueness at a personal level. But even in a conformity-obsessed Asia, the Jeremy Lin phenomenon is receiving serious and highly positive attention from the public.

Essentially, every single shot Jeremy Lin sinks in a game, for those paying attention to his endeavors (basically at this point, everyone), he is creating some sort of hope for more permanent breakdown of a self-fulfilling prophecy: no longer will the Asian simply takes it for granted that they have certain unchangeable limitations, such as their biological build hampering performance in sports. And the resulting "hope" is not simply limited to Asians. All, of any physical diversity, would come to realize the power of later-day efforts in suppressing the disadvantages of "nature."

That hope, as the rapidly growing commercial and media value of Jeremy Lin demonstrates, has been aggressively and pleasantly absorbed by large number of people across the world. What he represents is not just a successful sportsman, but a belief, a force that breaks down unseen emotional and socio-cultural barriers that constrains both horizontal and vertical social mobility of a wide range of people. It is not simply about race, it is about everyone who is now coming to realize the folly of their own self-restraints in life. And that, ultimately, is the meaning of the Jeremy Lin phenomenon.

Small Country's Destiny Revisited: the Case of Luxembourg

2012-02-12T20:30:00.002Z

The main street of Luxembourg City looked rather deserted on a cold wintry weekend, with windchill sending temperatures down to negatives even on the Fahrenheit scale. Yet, the wealth of the tiny Western European country could not have been more evident. Luxury cars from the "normal" Mercedes, BMW, and Audi to the more flashy Lamborghini are ubiquitous, yet blending in with the old town with visual evidence of ducal glory dating from the 8th century in a perfect mix of tradition and modernity. In a continent dominated by wars among major powers, the tiny country somehow survived AND became its wealthiest...

Even as tourists quickly poke fun at the description coded by UNESCO at the World Heritage-listed Luxembourg Old Town proclaiming the country to "have played significant role in European history," in terms of defining what the existence of micro-states means in the modern era, the millennium-old living example of Luxembourg is perhaps playing a very significant role. It, along with states such as Monaco and Andorra, represent the rare breed of small states where performance in external relations has not be the determining factor for sovereignty. Indeed, its continued survival seems to be guaranteed even as it lives in a "tough neighborhood."

Nearly two years in Taiwan, the traveler was convinced that in order for a small country (relatively small economic size, population, geography, and overall "strategic depth") to survive, it has to play off major powers or simply be at the mercy of the major powers in its effort to maintain geopolitical significance and sustainable sovereignty. Indeed, Taiwan was the perfect case for East Asia, being surrounded and influenced by regional powers such as Japan, China, Russia, and the US. Its economy and political integrity depended on relations with all these states.

There is a striking similarity between Luxembourg's situation in Europe. Being one of the smallest states on the continent, it is subjected to overwhelming power of not only the major European heavyweights of neighboring France and Germany, but also tiny compared to "middling powers" (at best) of Belgium and the Netherlands. As a political vestige of Europe's Dark Ages, its very survival is a matter of amusement for the foreign travelers, and perhaps a result of geopolitical motivation in neighboring states rather than the "power" of the Luxembourger leaders and citizenry.

If anything, to the casual observer, Luxembourg's situation in Europe is much more precarious than that of Taiwan in East Asia. While more than 10% of Taiwanese citizens reside abroad (mainly in China) for business, much more of the Luxembourg citizenry are permanently residing abroad, pursuing more exciting employment in various areas of the EU. Luxembourg economy, with its strong off-shore banking sector is notably much more affected by economic performance of its clients than Taiwan's high-tech manufacturing.

Yet, despite being surrounded by major powers, each of them with multiple times the geographic, demographic, and economic size of itself, Luxembourg is sitting very comfortably in the middle of the neighborhood, simply enjoying the unparalleled wealth at the personal level. By being absolutely nonchalant about political affairs, so much as to not even retaining any sort of regional, not to mention international, voice in diplomacy, the country is becoming some sort of liberal safe haven free of all criticisms from abroad.

So, the situation of Luxembourg denotes a model of how micro-states may "behave" successfully in a geographic arena of semi-permanent power struggles among bigger states: it is, to put simply, do nothing at all. Take no sides in conflicts, be open to investments and cooperation from all sides with no reservation, and never attempt to emphasize (or even have in the first place) its own international political agenda. By doing nothing, the likes of Luxembourg, along with Monaco, and to lesser extent Andorra, became special economic regions with high standards of living.

Can such model be exported? Surely, for a place like Taiwan, to not emphasize its own interests abroad would certainly mean death at the hands of an invading force. but what about countries with less pronounced conflicts? Places as diverse as Rwanda, Singapore, and to lesser extent, Hong Kong, can benefit from toning down their fierce pride in attempts to stand out in their respective world regions. A lack of political stance may be the true beginning of widespread economic integration with all major regional powers.

Solitude and Sincerity, Sobriety and Superiority, Snow and Superbowl

2012-02-06T18:01:00.002Z

A snowy weekend in London, and the only thing that seemed to have been more exciting than some people seeing the first snow in their entire lives were the excitement brought, at least for some, the Superbowl, or finals match of the American football match, occurring halfway across the world in Indianapolis. For some, it was a time to great homesickness, missing the beers, the couches, and the screaming with childhood friends who they grew up together watching the Superbowl every year. For some, perhaps, it was a time to put behind that rusty annual routine and get on with being a more locally integrated expatriate for once...

With more life experiences, one comes to see more and more aspects of it being a reflection of true dichotomy, as opposed to any sort of spectrum with many grey zones. For every football game, there is a victor and a loser; and for every country, there seems to be an increased split of those who love it and those who despise it. Gone are the days of "middle ground," of compromises, of cooperation while putting aside differences. To the half of the population ending on the "right side," history grants them the right to knowledge of the future, and for the defeated, well, there is only voices of "best luck next time...if there is a next time."

The most straightforwardly simple situations are often the most splendidly surreal depiction of such dichotomy in life. My past weekend was such an example. On Thursday night, I would feel just how routine-like and lonesome my life in London has become after weeks of superficial compulsory "going-out" routines. Then Friday night, I find myself caught in the middle of one of the largest clubbing events I have experienced since coming to London. Another night later, I find myself talking to a nice Brazilian kid about how going out in such nasty weather is just "crazy talk."

And then, another night later, I was attempting in vain to advise a fellow traveler on the possible options for going out to watch live Jazz shows in London's various bars and pubs. One may call it "mood swings," but the back-and-forth of the quiet moments and the, well, more boisterous ones, in good and bad ways, just like two even-handed football teams battling it out on the gridiron, with scores for one side going up in balance to a prior increase in score for the opposing side. Not one side shows clear advantage until the very end of the match.

The dichotomous up-and-down swings, of course, are not without its justifications, provided by so many, yet just as black-and-white pieces of outwardly expressed bits of one&s own psyche. "To be social or not social" is always a good one for determining just how much a person is "socialized" within a society, but not always a good one. After all, simply wanting not to be alone cannot justify lengthy episodes of drunkenness or random conversations. The content of one's minds has to correspond to the contents of the situations.

A classic alternative explanation is the dichotomy of self-pride vs inferiority-complex. Crudely put, the very idea of bragging to a willing audience is like getting high on drugs. People feel so good from talking up a storm retelling their awesome endeavors, pushed on by a wowed group of listeners. In contrast, those who are unable to come up with similar stories, whether in response to mesmerizing tales of others, or simply disappointing the high expectations of the willing listeners, are bound to feel slightly ashamed.

...and that is just like the football team with the high expectations going into a major game, only to be thrashed by the opponents, or in some cases, win in a very unconvincing manner, only to be doubted by the fans and media, lashing out against their mediocrity. The braggarts, as the football teams with the high hopes, are bound to be dejected and decreased in morale after a few disappointments. And even worse, those with nothing to brag, and the underdogs who forever continues to be underdogs, will live out their lives in sorrow through self-fulfilling abject failure...

That is, all in all, the dichotomy of life, something that one comes across in various fashions in various places, with various people in various circumstances, but never fully realizing its presence and influence until reflections and realizations much later in the progress of time. Just like football, there would be celebration and dejection, but just like the snow, the ugliest and the most beautiful sights are all bound to disappear at some point, only to return at a later date. A football season would not be erased from the history books, but with each year, a new chapter of unpredictability is written. Life should also just be like that...

Freedom to Choose a Partner in Life as a Universal Human Right

2012-02-01T16:12:00.002Z

The idea of "feudalism," as marked by the inflexible, hierarchical, and often hereditary relationship between a wealthier and more powerful lord and his poor and submissive servants, as opposed by the foundation of modern republican nation-state, is often just as socio-cultural in nature just as it was political and economic. Yes, the overthrow of the established elite aristocratic class was a means to break their monopoly of political control and means of economic production, but what really distinguish the so-called "feudalistic" society of the middle ages and most of the modern and developed societies is just as much in the field of "common attitude" as by wealth.

The definition of what constitute that "modern attitude," of course, varies from society to society. In some, the values of individual freedoms are maximized and completely decriminalized as long as the freedoms of one person does not interfere with those of others. In some, the idea of conformity to the generally practiced norms of society in all aspects of life, generates collective social conscience. And still in some, modern attitudes are redefined, but at the same time not constrained, by reexamining classical values of the past.

But the premise of all such examples are the same, the modern society, just as any society of the past, relies on a set of what is considered right and wrong accepted by the vast majority of its constituents to operate smoothly, without constant accusations of unfairness and immorality. While no universal legal code as such exist, any blatant opposition of the widely accepted established values with direct intent of restricting social freedoms can simply be defined as violation of a universal human right.

Under such definition, the modern human would view the hereditary nature of the feudal lord-servant relationship to be restraining the social mobility of the servant, and thus violating human rights through unnecessary limitation of freedom through coercion. The exact same logic works for situations as varied as Internet censorship in China to outright racism, expressed even in the most subtle of methods. Those who seek to violate such rights may not receive legal punishments, but are sure to receive social rebuke if known to a globalized citizenry.

One such violation that has yet to receive much-deserved public attention, especially in the Western world where such idea has already for centuries been considered outdated and worthy of ridicule, is the institution of arranged marriage. The idea, still very much in vogue in the upper social echelons of places such as the Indian subcontinent, is intrinsically a feudal idea of preventing social mobility by ensuring that certain "good" families, as defined by their positions in social hierarchy, maintain high social position down the generations by bonding only with other "good families."

Scarily enough, the feudal institutions has evolved along with modern society. Even in republican and democratic societies, a political oligarchy of literati and businessmen have come to exert almost complete political and economic control of a state, bolstered by presence of large populations who seem largely content with their complete lack of real voice with the functioning and future course of the nation. In such societies, arranged marriage has not only stayed, but is even making a comeback.

The newly rich and powerful, mentally congruous with medieval lords, are more and more willing to segregate themselves socially from "the others" in the background of an increasing discrepancy between haves and have-nots. A violation of a universal human right, one that is even considered ludicrous in some parts of the modern world, is now being framed as a matter of social necessity to protect the political and economic oligarchy against populist and potentially violent encroachment of the "uneducated, unknowing" general populace.

And today, the oligarchy is trying to sell this inhumane institution to the younger generations as something normal and acceptable. Using the unparalleled power and wealth, the establishment, in the form of family friends, older relatives, and even parents themselves, is forcefully reverse the negative global image of the institution. And if the younger generation does not resist, then one day, a human rights violation may indeed, in the public opinion of the majority, become part of the universal norm...

Soft Power Revisited: "Majority Culture" vs "Minority Culture"?!

2012-01-29T17:21:00.004Z

The rising importance of "soft power" in modern society is unmistakable and unavoidable. In an era when more deadly weapons and less urgent conflicts make wars among established nations less likely, the battle for supremacy between nations is increasingly shifting to ones dominated by positive image and cultural influence. While one may not feel just how fierce this quiet cultural battle is, when one finds oneself living in the supposed "cultural melting pot" of Europe and America, the issue of cultural interaction and communication becomes a matter of daily life.

Yet, occasionally, it is more interesting to see how some cultures do NOT interact, and attempt to stay insular in an otherwise extremely multicultural atmosphere. Instead of "melting in" and mixing with elements of other peoples and customs, the similarly "foreign" cultures imported to a third country may implicitly but surely, battle for influence, both in order to remain true to itself, and to attract the liking of other "foreigners." Certainly, some will be more successful than others in this persistent cultural battle, but none can completely conquer the others because no culture would abandon its own identity just to "fit in better."

Moreover, the cultural battle is not simply about the pride of a people originating from a faraway nation in being recognized by others across the world. It has much more of a commercial necessity, with many of the poorly integrated members of an immigrant society seeking to use the cultural exoticism for a sustained living, whether it be an ethnic market, souvenir shop, or a restaurant. To have one's culture understood and liked by the others, even at a highly casual way, for them becomes a serious matter of financial life and death.

So I thought as I went for a lunch with a friend to a hard-to-find Korean restaurant while skipping the most massive Chinese New Years celebration the city of London puts on this same day and roughly around the same time. The friendly little cafe on a rather unnoticeable side street two blocks away from the British Museum turned out to be one of the most relaxed and friendly ethnic places I came across in London, greatly satisfying at least the atmospheric portion of our craving for Korea.

But a lazy Sunday afternoon was also somewhat true not only for the few customers, but also for the restaurant owner. With no Korean customer, a few Japanese businessmen, and many open seats in what aptly can be described as a hole-in-the-wall, the reservation I made for lunch to make sure I have a spot was not even worth confirming for the server as she showed us to our seat in the back. It was a massive contrast to the previous weekend when I went to Chinatown for lunch, where me and my friend was hurried through our meal only to see the long queue outside every little eatery on the New Year-decorated area.

Of course, this is not at all to say that Korean culture is less attractive to foreigners than Chinese culture is. In fact, after one sees the negative images of the word "Chinese" gets after being persistently associated with a politically controversial government in Beijing, one wonders just how and why people still would feel affinity to China in the first place. Barring intervention from the government organizers and pressures from China, the Chinese New Years celebrations in London should logically become a venue for certain NGOs venting their anger regarding human rights or Tibet.

On the other hand, it could pretty much be said that Korean cultural power is expanding just as much and as fast as Chinese economic power as its cultural exports of pop music and romantic dramas have now truly started to make inroads outside of the traditional Asian market with government support. The only reason that it is "Chinese" New Year, rather than "Korean" New Year (yes, they do also celebrate it) that is being celebrated in the West, is, perhaps, ironically, the greater number of Chinese emigrants fleeing their homes due to political and economic instability.

But for now, our little piece of Korea in the heart of central London still feels like a isolated little boat inching forward in a turbulent foreign sea. Cultural acceptance requires continued exposure and massive amount of communication. Some, like the old Chinese immigrants founding the Chinatown, were forced to do so for generations as a matter of survival. Others, who can be perceived as "minorities" today, will gradually catch up, eventually wearing away the first-move advantage of an increasingly commercialized and meaningless Chinatown culture.

Good One-Percenter, Bad One-Percenter...

2012-01-25T17:39:00.003Z

In a day and age where tens of thousands of well-educated college students go on demonstration to protest the disproportionate amount of global wealth held by the elite "1%," it is glad to see, perhaps a bit ironically, that the very icon of someone, at least in financial profile, leading the pack of the global "one-percenters" is, in fact, receiving a rather pleasant reception from the student population. In his quick, 3-second move from the lecture hall from which his delivered his web-broadcast address to his awaiting black van was anticipated by a massive crowd clicking away on their cameras, waving, and chanting in joy.

If there is anything that can be said of Mr Bill Gates' few-hours-long visit to the LSE, it is about just how divisive a term like "1%" really is, even for people who belong solidly in the 1% (such as Mr Gates) or the people who are very likely to belong in the 1% in the near future (the excited LSE students flanking his van and updating their Facebook status immediately after the 3-second "event.") Sure, there were a few dissident voices in the background ("say, isn't that black van a little bit too big for someone who preaches environmentalism?"), but the whole process remained remarkably calm and uneventful.

Now imagine if the CEO of Goldman Sachs, not Microsoft, was here at the LSE delivering exactly the same speech at the same place to the same people. The crowd outside the black van will still gather, and they probably would still have their cameras clicking away, but the atmosphere will not be one of "It was AMAZING, I saw a billionaire" and end of the story. There would bound to be name-calling banners, of student organizations chanting anti-corporate slogans, and plenty of post-event Facebook status updates dripping with cynicism and criticism.

...And all that would only happen if it is assumed that the CEO of Goldman Sachs would be able to deliver his speech, with LSE budging the pressure of cancelling his very appearance for fear of prolonged student protests and somehow managing to promise the CEO his personal safety while he is on the LSE "campus." For now, let's just say that the very idea of Goldman Sachs CEO appearing in the LSE for anything other than an Investment Society private event is highly unlikely. LSE grads may become 1% later on, but for now, as poor students, that still like to think they have certain ideals.

The whole scenario, then, begs the question of what, exactly, is the difference between the CEO of Microsoft and that of Goldman Sachs. Certainly not the amount of wealth they generate for themselves, their employees, and the society. And also not in terms of the social, political, or even cultural impact they bring about on a global scale. Both provide very utilized services and products to worldwide clients, and both contribute heavily to employment and tax revenue income of whatever countries they decide to operate within.

Some idealists then go on to point out what they believe to be the differences. One, they would say, created a business empire and changed the lifestyles of billions in one of the all-time greatest rags-to-riches stories. The other simply inherited a pile of cash given by a group of duped and partially informed "investors" which he went to multiply rapidly by creating elaborate mechanisms that operated based on deceiving both the public and the government. The morality, or lack thereof, behind accumulation of wealth is all that makes the difference.

Yet, the same idealist seemed to forget none of the Microsoft products were actually "invented." They were assembled from a hodge-podge of different technological breakthroughs that already existed at the time. Mr Gates and his team were clever enough to put them in a single package, and then improve upon the original package over decades of increasing usage. The ingenuous assembling of existing techniques is also exactly what investment banks have done to expand their grip on global economy, in much of the same way Microsoft created a near monopoly in operating software.

In essence, who Occupy Wall St protesters and the media labelled the "1%" is not a general term for those who control the global means of production and inflows of wealth, but entirely a social construct based on people's hatred for the existing social order. Perhaps Mr Gates was smart to foresee the breakout of such immense and irrepressible emotions over the public perceived unfairness of wealth distribution and preemptively market himself as a "man of the people" through his Foundation. But at the core, business is business, and feeding a few more of the starving and putting a few more of the disadvantaged in college is not going to change business operations, whether it is for Microsoft or Goldman Sachs.

Commercialization of Chinese New Year and Death of Unified Chinese Identity

2012-01-22T10:44:00.004Z

除夕 (Tsu-shee), or the eve of Chinese New Year (春節, "Tsun-jae"), is today, and atmosphere certainly showed on the main street of the London Chinatown. The usual suspects of red lanterns and shops going on New Year sales aside, the crowds filled the street, filling nearly all eateries to the maximum capacity. Not only were the British Chinese present, the tourists from China, as well as non-Chinese British residents and tourists alike congregated to make the red, gold, and people-filled little district quite picturesque in a highly China-esque way.

Indeed, on this Year of the Dragon, even the least knowledgeable foreigner with access to a bit of information outlet could not have avoided the bombardment of the Chinese New Year-related activities. On one hand, foreign dignitaries, from the UN secretary to presidents of major powers, have wasted no time courting the favors of Chinese officialdom and people with official new years greeting videos partially done in badly pronounced Chinese. All emphasized the need for closer relations with China and the Chinese communities for future development.

As for development, service industries across the world have taken an aggressive step further. A "golden week" of Chinese new year holidays means a massive flow of newly wealthy Chinese tourists abroad. And after witnessing the unparalleled spending power of the massed Asian hordes during the New Year vacations, and with no other significant groups to cater to, stores in major tourist destination for the Chinese are busy hiring Chinese-speaking staff and draping their facades in Chinese red and gold colors to lure in the Chinese money.

And of course, the Chinese themselves are actively involved in all the action. Whether it is in China or abroad, the Chinese consumers are increasing converging with developed country consumers in the matter of taste. Chinese New Year presents of today are just as likely to be a bottle of wine from France as a bottle of traditional Chinese rice liquor. The Chinese government, of course, would use the increased spending power of its citizens, to go on a "charm offensive" promoting Chinese culture.

However, lurking beneath the perceived growth of economic power of the Chinese populace and the soft power of Chinese culture is an increasing divisive vision of what "China," as an ethnic and cultural entity, really symbolizes. The Chinese-speaking world can no longer agree to be "all Chinese" and the mutual hatred by Chinese of different origins is reaching a high new level. For one, the recent trend of the Taiwanese increasingly refusing to identify culturally with the Chinese is a worrisome sign.

However, it is the recent episode of conflicts between mainlanders and locals in Hong Kong that are sparking widespread debate and outrage in the Chinese cyberspace. The story begins with a mainland tourist in Hong Kong eating in the subway, an act that is strictly forbidden in Hong Kong but widely practiced in places like Shanghai and Beijing. A local's attempt to stop the mainlander was met with ridicule, and a violent verbal exchange quickly ensued. The whole story could have ended right there with netizens from all sides criticizing the mainland tourist for refusing to adapt to local customs.

But a certain Prof. Kong of the renowned Peking University, himself a direct descendant of Confucius, lashed out against the locals of Hong Kong for being "dogs." The issue suddenly became one of the mainland academic community and populace against the Hong Kong government and people. The exaggeration of such small incident, initiated by a few "bad apples" and resolvable through a few quick apologies, somehow becomes massive national controversies when taken to the Chinese-speaking world. When the pride of the Hong Kong residents over their perceived superiority over the mainlanders gets insulted, all hell breaks loose.

Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has their sense of superiority, whether it be Taiwan or for the overseas Chinese. But if we cannot sit aside those differences in a time of happiness in unity like the Chinese New Year, then the concpet of Chinese New Year itself may become culturally meaningless and blindly materialistic like the kind of Christmas celebrated in Asia. And, worse, the concept of "China" may soon become a purely evil political one rather than exotic cultural one.

When Did "Patriotism" Become So Black-and-White?

2012-01-17T15:28:00.004Z

While economically the world continues to live through the uncertain futures of the Great Recession, it seems that in the political front, there are increasingly optimism and hope that the next few years will offer the sort of global conciliation and peace needed to create the stable environment desired for economic growth. Over in the Middle East, the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq finally seems to be drawing to a close, despite the indefinite presence of myriad local ethnic conflicts. The tension with respect to Syria and Iran, while leading to local bloodshed and show of force, has yet to become seriously disruptive on a global scale.

Over in Asia, the two traditional hot-spots, Taiwan and Korea, are also somewhat "cooling down" vis-a-vis the major powers involved. The presidential election of Taiwan reaffirmed the strength of forces favoring preservation of economics-focused status quo, much to the relief of Washington and Beijing. And the sudden transfer of (hereditary) power in North Korea has yet to produce inflammatory or aggressive stances on any side. State-level actors, and lower level actors constrained by the state, are all playing nice.

And surveying the current sources of conflicts in the world, the vast majority has shifted from governments (whether it be North Korea, Iran, China, or the U.S.) to a much more defused bunch consisting of private individuals with strong radicalized beliefs willing to act upon them even at extremely high cost. Of course, terrorist organizations beginning with a few ideological guys with some extra cash to spend would be the most obvious examples to raise here, but even as the terrorists have repeatedly proven, in the current age of technology and global trade, organizations are not needed for extensive damage.

Any individual with access to a little cash can purchase crude weapons of destruction and transport them to where it is necessary for destruction, while remaining completely undetected. All that is really necessary besides a little cash is a large dose of radicalization, giving an individual the ideational fuel needed to walk straight along a path of destruction. Unfortunately, looking around everyday life, one simply finds a ubiquity of such thoughts permeating daily lives. One can simply drop in to listen and instantly pick up the most violent strand of radical militancy.

Chief among such radicalism is an increased tendency toward black-or-white patriotism, by which one can define as a love of one' country expressed in either (1) complete approval of EVERYTHING done by one's country while tolerating no criticism, or (2) complete disapproval of EVERYTHING done by the national government while tolerating no positive comments of the status quo. While sounding like polar opposites, the two types emerge from exactly the same type of reasoning, grounded not in well-founded academic or factual logic but upon repeated experiences in emotional interactions with others of different views and backgrounds.

And, perhaps ironically, "the others" in such context often represent foreigners with limited knowledge of one's country, the very group one is supposed to educate about one's country and be educated about foreign lands in order to become true global citizens. Yet, instead of responding to the often partial comments of a partially-informed foreign friend with sensitive care and friendly remainders of alternative explanations, the back-or-white patriot often take such comments as a direct assault or complete approval of his or her country.

Responding to the ill-informed comments of foreigners, the patriots then go around emotionally attacking or supporting what they call the foreigners' fundamental bias against his or her great land. Any of his or her fellow citizens daring enough to agree with the criticisms, or contradict the praises uttered by the foreigners, even in the slightest part, would quickly become "traitors" in the eyes of the black-or-white nationalist. Social fractures, both internally within the collective citizenry of a certain country, or externally across different nationalities, would deepen with the presence of these unwanted patriots.

It is not difficult for anyone to join the ranks of such illogical nationalists. The internet and mainstream media, with their so many outlets promoting national greatness to an excess degree, is a great place to start. Isolating oneself to one's compatriots while simply dismissing foreigners as empty-minded is a great way to cement such blatant radicalism. And as small individuals built up such unwanted sentiments in their daily lives, there will be times when words will not be sufficient to keep it in check. The resulting actions will be more damaging than that of any state-owned military...

KMT Reelection in Taiwan: 4 More Years of Peaceful Coexistence with China?

2012-01-15T10:14:00.008Z

Gone are the days when any analyst seeking to get a clear picture of Sino-Taiwanese relations would have to first look into the military aspect. Are the American aircraft carriers going to enter a war in case of mainland invasion, and how much advanced weaponry can the Taiwanese procure to deter the potential invasion, thankfully, are no longer the primary concerns when we address the future developments across the Taiwan Strait. Indeed, even as the PRC government continue to point thousands of missiles at the end, there has been more talks of non-violent means of resolving the decades-old "problem."

And the Taiwanese presidential election results published yesterday indicates that on that aspect of toning down the traditional militant stance, both sides are increasingly converging toward a single view. The reelection of "moderate" (at least with regard to China relations) president Ma Ying-jeou shows that the the Taiwanese public, in their current economic instability, does not have the excess energy to devote energy to a more flared-up cross-Strait relations. Questions of economic health rules the agenda, and trade, not potential war, with the mainland, is a big component.

However, for the leaders to Beijing to be simply convinced that Chinese soft power has won over the Taiwanese public, and the existing status quo would comfortably remain for at least the next four years would be a grave underestimation of Taiwanese influence on the mainland, especially at a grass-roots level. Certainly, it could be said that the Taiwanese could be more reliant on the mainland for economic stability than the other way around, but for non-economic factors, the evaluation is much murkier.

For instance, take the issue of the very process of election in Taiwan. Unprecedented in the history of China, the state-owned TV stations and state-monitored major portal websites were actually allowed to do LIVE coverage of the Taiwanese elections, with all the boisterous debates of netizens, and millions of excited commoners glued to the screen to check on the current balance among the major contenders. Add to that the presence of two million Taiwanese citizens interacting with the mainland middle class in the major urban centers of the mainland, and there forms a primitive yet all-too-functioning election atmosphere too reminiscent of similar times in places like the US.

With Chinese citizens speaking out for their favorite candidates (even though the choice is pretty much unanimous on the mainland with near 100% support for Mr. Ma), the only thing that is missing is the ability to vote. Combine that with mainland coverage of all the random election stories (e.g. conspiracy theories, celebrity endorsements, voter turnouts, the list goes on and on), and the excitement for the election on the mainland, barring actual street rallies, is not any less than what is found in Taiwan.

If such excitement does not constitute Taiwanese soft power, what else can? The systematic support for the political process (if not the views) of Taiwan demonstrated by the people (and to an extent, the government) of mainland China is unprecedented in the history of relationships between independent sovereign entities. Much as Hong Kong pop culture claimed the eyes and ears of the mainland people, the Taiwanese election culture has claimed the hearts and souls of the educated elites of the mainland.

And it is not difficult to envision that Mr. Ma, riding that wave of domestic and mainland support, will seek to take a much more "independent" stance on relations with China. Already in his victory speech, he has promised to continue the process of having Taiwan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a FTA that includes the US and most advanced Asian economies but blatantly excludes mainland China. Facing the small country's destiny of having to rely on major powers for shield, Mr. Ma's Taiwan may secretly pick the US even for economic support.

Ultimately, what "peace" means across the Taiwan Strait would depend on how the government in Beijing responds to such undermining of CCP authority through indirect political influence and economic distancing. Certainly, gone are the rhetoric of missile tests, invasions, and wars, but for a country so deprived of suitable soft power weapons at the grass-roots level, mainland China would have a much harder time neutralizing the threat from a "war of ideas and minds." How Beijing reacts to the behavior of an emboldened reelected Mr. Ma would be the determining factor for peace or non-violent conflict in the coming years.

"Dominant" vs "Auxiliary" SNS and the Future Convergence of all SNS

2012-01-11T16:00:00.006Z

Around Day 27 of my 30-day, 30-country mega-trip across continental Europe, my usual (and often exclusive) source of self-expression, i.e. Facebook account, suddenly was suddenly disabled without prior notice or warning. After contacting the customer service personnel, the account was not reinstated until this morning, nearly a week later from the mysterious suspension. In the mean time, there was a frantic effort to set up and expand other SNS accounts to replace the inflows of readers entering this blog from Facebook.

As much as the amazing power of the user-generated contents (UGC) in social networking is confirmed, the propagation of the UGC through cyberspace is by all means quite murky. One can share a link as many times as possible in as many places as possible to get maximum possible exposure of the link among the largest possible group of SNS users, but the fact the link pops up on the front page of everyone's favorite SNS all the time does not guarantee that the link is clicked on, no matter how interesting the content really seems to be.

In fact, sharing certain links, as one comes to find out over time, is pretty efforts in vain when targeting certain locations or segments of audience. The reason could be as simple as the fact that the link is blocked as "harmful" in the eyes of automatically set up filtering systems (especially in the case of China), or the audience that comes across the link would "mentally filter" out the content as inappropriate for the given destination. The latter is especially true for the many people taking advantage of active use of SNS by large populations for business purposes.

And whats most important to understand, if one tries to replace the power of one SNS with those of others, is that having a largest number of users or even a rapidly expanding membership does not automatically equal greater clout or potential dominance of a certain SNS. Increasingly, there is a trend of a netizen holding a "primary" and one or many "auxiliary" SNS accounts to boost online presence. However, the auxiliary accounts supplementing the main one would be used to communicate with a very small, well-defined, and most likely unchanging group of well-acquainted people.

Thus, one sees the continuing expansion of regional or country-specific SNS such as Cyworld in Korea or Mixi in Japan, as well as purpose-specific ones such as Linkedin for business despite the increasing dominance of Facebook and Twitter at a global level. Users, despite spending most of social networking time on Facebook or Twitter, need to at least infrequently maintain the auxiliary accounts to communicate with the holdouts, and increasingly, coerce the holdouts into accepting the mainstream dominant global SNS sites.

The limited purposes of the auxiliary SNS can easily be seen when the same link is shared across them and the dominant SNS. By monitoring the sources from the audience clicked on the link, one can easily determine, by the sheer disparity in number of entries, the differences of dominant and other SNS. The dominant SNS is the only place that the SNS user would go to leisurely browse new materials (as the content of the shared link) while they only head to the other ones to fulfill a specific mission or purpose.

Eventually, however, as more and more holdouts from smaller SNS joins the dominant ones to increase their own "social capital," or quit SNS altogether, it becomes less and less necessary for active SNS users to go back to their auxiliary SNS accounts. Ultimately, these accounts will remain in place but abandoned in reality with no more actual sign-ins. The global SNS arena, barring the few exceptions that do exist because of "country-specific regulations" (again, as in China), will be consolidated into one or two SNS, which will have increasingly overlapping memberships.

There may never be one SNS left standing (likely due to personal preferences for certain functions), but one thig is clear: the greater convergence of SNS means one's social capital is more and more concentrated within one SNS account, and if that account is blocked (as in the case of my Facebook), one's SNS presence may be drastically reduced immediately. Perhaps for that reason, it is better to actually maintain presence and constant updating within multiple accounts to reduce such "social risks."

A 30-Day, 30-Country European Trip Drawing to a Close...

2012-01-08T02:36:00.005Z

All good things have to come to an end, and as I spend my final night here on the Continent awaiting my morning flight to London from Berlin, I still somehow lament the unlikely finale of a trip that was at the same time too long but also in a way a bit too short. Yes, I am ready to go back home, settle down, and get some studying done again, but the accumulation of the many experiences and stories of the road must still be regurgitated, digested, continually reflected, and if anything, requires further reinforcements to prove them to be generally valid rather than simple one-time exceptions.

But before I go on, here is the final authoritative list of countries touched and visited on this trip out of London and terminating here in Berlin: (1) France, (2) Belgium, (3) the Netherlands, (4) Germany, (5) Denmark, (6) Norway, (7) Sweden, (8) Finland, (9) Estonia, (10) Latvia, (11) Lithuania, (12) Poland, (13) Ukraine, (14) Moldova, (15) Romania, (16) Bulgaria, (17)Turkey, (18) Greece, (19) Albania, (20) Macedonia, (21) Kosovo, (22) Montenegro, (23) Croatia, (24) Bosnia, (25) Serbia, (26) Hungary, (27) Slovenia, (28) Austria, (29) Slovakia, (30) Czech Republic.

Unbelievably, in the one month-long trip, I actually managed to average one country per day, and given the fact that I visisted more than one city in some counties (e.g. Warsaw and Krakow in Poland, Lviv and Kiev in Ukraine, Dubrovnik and Zagreb in Croatia, Hamburg and Berlin in Germany, etc), I actually managed average more than one city a day despite the fact that all journey up until this very last flight back to the UK are done with sometimes extremely slow and clunky trains and buses.

If the sheer speed of progress was one defining characteristic of the trip, the sheer differences of conditions and cultures encountered during the whirlwind tour of the Continent was definitely the other. The differences are especially sharp in mentality. On one hand, some countries are leading the world in modernity through the acts of recognizing and actively preserving their traditions. They are moving toward worldly humanist principles that move beyond narrow nationalist concerns. These countries deserve our respect and our emulation.

But on the other hand, for every admirable quality some on the Continent offered, there were always other, equally noticeable elements of malign. A traveler had to keep his vigilance at the highest level in some parts of Europe, mostly dealing with random incidents of locals sacrificing their countries' reputation for personal benefits of ill-devised financial scams, or more benignly but just as annoyingly, a prevalent outward expression of racism. A clearly misplaced and irrational sense of local pride alarms anyone with an internationalist mindset.

To make all the observations and their meticulous recording happen, I must thank the "friends" who accompanied my journey faithfully to the end. My informative travel guide book, who saved me repeatedly when I was completely lost in completely unknown lands, situations that would lead anyone to be discouraged and question the very purpose and motivation of the trip being undertaken. And of course, there is this laptop that recorded every touristy and strange picture I bothered to take on the road, and allowed me to jot down every thought in my mind as I continued my journey.

In fact, amazingly, this trip was the first one in which my laptop actually accompanied from the beginning to the end. While previous trip also found me recording my thoughts in Internet cafes every other night, the freedom to write anywhere anytime gave me the flexibility and ability to capture those fleeting thoughts at an almost real-time basis. The result was a much fuller and extensive, albeit a bit delayed and outdated stream of reactions as I traveled across unknown lands and get myself into feisty situations.

All in all, though, to sum up such wealth of experiences in a few words is unfair and impossible. But looking back at the very purposes of the trip detailed before its beginning, I feel that at least one of them is achieved. That is, I have witnessed and confirmed firsthand the true diversity of European peoples and nations, politically, economically, socially, and culturally. And the differences are worthy of continued observations, if the second European tour gets underway later this year...

Collective Conscience as the Fundamental Basis for a Morally Ordered Civil Society

2012-01-07T17:49:00.000Z

The communist leaders of Eastern Europe had a knack for building monumental structures. From massive office and apartment towers in the style of “Soviet classical realism” to the various sculptures of brave World War II soldiers and anti-Nazi civilians commemorating communist heroism and victory, the architectural vestiges of communism are still very much visible across the East. Yet, in the anti-communist drives of the wildly capitalist post-Cold War atmosphere, many in the East have been busy tearing down these last remainders of their dark past.

For some reason, East Berlin proves to be a startling exception to the trend. The communist victory monuments and showpiece TV towers have not only been maintained after the collapse of the East German regime, the government and the people of the united Federal Republic have come to embrace them as symbols of reunification. Unlike in the other parts of the East, the communist past have not been simply and completely denounced in the negative superlatives of “utter oppression” and “thorough poverty.”

That is not to say that the Germans do not have a sense of reality like the other Eastern Europeans. Berlin was the absolute center stage of Cold War standoff in Europe, with large numbers of protests, demonstrations, escape attempts, persecutions, and executions related to the decade-old conflict. However, the Berliners have not forgotten that it was the Soviets who liberated their city from the Nazis, and it was also the Soviets who numerically suffered the most in the hands of the Nazi war machine.

All things have their positive and negative aspects, and it is necessary to separate the two, denouncing the negatives while praising the positives. While decades of American anti-communist propaganda have made speaking NOT critically about the Soviets as something practically political forbidden, here in the political heart of Germany where the detrimental effects of Cold War is much more deeply felt, there instead seems to be truly and widely accepted and practiced sense of objectivism in judging the events and actors of the past.

A short observation of everyday life here in Germany, and to a lesser extent, her southern brethren Austria, can make one feel that it is entrenched social practice for the public to automatically follow those values of objectively define what is right and wrong. The foreign traveler would be amazed to find that in major cities here, the suburban railways and subways do not have ticketed entrances. There are simply ticket machines on the train platforms and a few small machines to validate those tickets.

There are no one checking the tickets on the platforms and onboard the trains, and in smaller stations, there is not a single railway employee present. Riding the convenient trains halfway across the city without any valid ticket is easy (and if caught by spot-checkers, one can easily feign confusion and buy a ticket on the spot). At any “regular” country would have this system, the railway company would probably have to drive up enormous amount of cost to hire large numbers of spot-checkers if it is to get any ticket sales revenue at all.

But amazingly here in the German metropolis, one can easily spot locals who miss trains because they cannot buy the ticket from the platform machine fast enough. And they do so not because they are afraid of fines or other punishment, but because they objectively know that it is simply wrong and inappropriate to ride without a valid ticket. It is the same logic for keeping the communist symbols intact. What is positive must be preserved and practiced, even if individual or collective self-interest may narrow-minded say otherwise.

A “civil society” is, ideally, one in which all members can subject themselves to a certain standard of behaviors that can lead to smooth, productive functioning of social order. The standard, while not arbitrary, should also be enforced by a shared sense of conscience, in the form of an unwritten “social contract,” among the people rather than some form of top-down legal or armed coercion. The ability of the common citizen, rather than “wise” leaders, to, as a collective, objectively decide and put into practice the right and wrongs of everyday life is the first step in creating that lasting “social contract.”

Invading Europe en Masse: East Asians as the Foot Soldiers of Global Capitalism

2012-01-06T22:10:00.000Z

The yellow faces come in many forms and many languages, but there is no doubt where they come from. The definite voices of spoken Chinese, Korean, and Japanese echoes through the major tourist sites of the Continent, even, in some broken, ill-pronounced forms, among the local tour guides and shop owners seeking to get some extra businesses from these arrivals from the other side of the world. And the Oriental hordes have made their presence felt.

In sheer numbers, a crude observation show them to be just as numerous as, if not more than, visitors from other European countries, much more cheaply and easily reached from these destinations. And the willingness of the Asian hordes to spend and consume at these tourist destinations have completely beat out European tourists. The Asian tourists are snapping up expensive local produce, luxury brands (cheaper than their home countries), and pieces of kitschy souvenirs in quantities inconsistent with the state of the world economy.

The Europeans have not lost on the significance of these hordes and are working quickly to accommodate. In the heart of Athens, Prague, Krakow, or Budapest, it is hard not to find shops with at least some simple signs (usually along the lines of “sale” “tax free” “can use credit card”) written in these three languages. Tour guides speaking these languages are nearly always available, and there are even exchange bureau that readily changes Yuan, Won, and Yen into local currencies.

However, to simplify these hordes as short term tourists just in to spend a few euros and go home is, unfortunately, definite over-simplification. Along with increased Asian tourists is a dramatic increase of local businesses catering to the Asian crowds. Chinese restaurants and sushi bars are popping up everywhere to represent the largest group of foreign restaurants in Europe aside from American fast food chains. And much unlike the American fast food chains, these Asian restaurants are actually all run and staffed by Asians.

And increasingly, the “Asian lifestyle” is becoming more and more integrated into the local community. Just as many non-Asian faces grace the inside of these Asian restaurants as Asian faces, and many of these consumers are not even tourists. Outside the obvious tourist zones, new forms of non-immigrant “Chinatowns” are emerging in surprising places like rural Albania and Bosnia, with Chinese merchants peddling to locals all sorts of manufactures imported from Chinese factory.

Aside from the grass-root import-export scene, large businesses from the Orient also dominate in conspicuous ways. Throughout the Balkans and former Soviet territories, Chinese car brands Great Wall and Geely feature prominently on the streets and large advertising billboards. Locals play around Taiwanese-made Asus and Acer laptops. Heavy construction equipments have obviously Japanese brand names. And the Korean giant Samsung seems to put up their flashy blue sign on a tall building in every Eastern European city.

Surely, to group together all of “East Asian” presence here in Europe would be to ignore the massive competition that exist among the firms hailing from each East Asian economy, and the fact that the different ethnicities of East Asia do not really interact or even cooperate as they continue to dominate the local business scene. However, despite the generalization, one thing is for sure: the locals here are learning not to just look west toward Western Europe and America for economic development. The yellow peoples from the East are becoming as important for their economic future.

For an East Asian, no matter where he or she hails from, the powerful demonstration of East Asian economic ascendance here on the streets of Europe has to be a point of massive pride. For decades, the Caucasian world was the undisputed economic centers of the world, and any non-Caucasian wealth was considered some sort of “exception to the rule.” But in the coming decades, if East Asia can true work together as an intertwined economic bloc, she can fundamentally challenge and destroy this Caucasian-dominated world economic order...

Doubts about Free Flow of People and Goods in Europe: Where is the “U” in EU?

2012-01-05T20:50:00.000Z

The international traveler is often keen on comparing the prices of basic commodities among different countries, often as a simple-minded effort to gauge the local standard of living. Here in Europe, the same basic travel necessities a traveler comes across in different countries, such as a bottle of Coke, a kebab, or a bar of soap with the same brand name, happens to fluctuate enormously from country to country, even if the towns of different countries use the same currency and are literally less than an hour away from each other.

Massive differences in prices between short physical distances are especially the case across the old “Iron Curtain” between the long capitalist Western Europe and the “transition economies” of the East. In one instance, the traveler snacks on a hot dog and a bottle of diet Coke first in Slovenia, costing him a total of 1.40 Euros. Then the traveler heads to Austria, a couple of hours to the north, and orders the same thing. He is shocked to find that the same bottle of diet Coke by itself cost 2 Euros, and the hot dog is another 1.50 Euros.

Finally he heads east for an hour to Slovakia, again buying the same two items. The price of the Coke goes down to 1 Euro and the hot dog is now 60 cents. Within four hours of train travel, there are three vastly different costs for the same goods. All uses the same ingredients to produce the same goods, and the location where the goods are sold is the completely the same (near major train stations of capital cities in little street side kiosks). All three countries use the Euro and are part of EU, so free travel exists among their citizens.

From strictly an economic point of view, this phenomenon makes no sense. In the common market that is EU, all raw materials to make the Cokes and hot dogs should come from the same sources (or at least, sources of great physical proximity) so that the production and transportation cost of the goods should be about the same in all three countries. And even if the goods initially have vastly different prices, people from the countries with more expensive prices can easily, quickly, and cheaply move across the border to take advantage of the cheaper prices.

Eventually, from the economic standpoint, cross-border production and consumption should bring the prices of hot dogs and Cokes to around the same among the three countries. Such is what one sees within any country, and EU, despite cultural and language barriers, have the same characteristics of a large country (free movement of people and goods) to make the same economic logic work. So, then, why are the prices so different for the same goods in three close neighbors.

From a crude analysis, it seems like the assumption of free movement of people and goods is the invalid part of the whole logical process. Young locals in Slovenia and even Greece marvel at the high wages, in the order of three to four times of the average salary in their home countries, given to them when they were working in Germany or Sweden. If there is indeed a free movement of labor, the wage differences would not be so big, at least in neighboring states, because the citizens of countries with lower cost of living can drive down wages across the border b working there and living in their still cheap home countries.

The fact that both costs of living and wages remain so far part among the Western and Eastern members of the EU, years after they are supposed to be integrated in a common resource and labor market, shows that the barriers to movement still exist so much as to make the concept of common market largely unworkable in reality. And the reason may not be economic at all. The nationalistic identities of the different peoples crammed into this little corner of the world still plays the dominant role.

The Slovakian worker, willing to work at a third of the wage of a local in Austria, still may not be hired (legally) by the Austrians because problems of communicating may make him or her not even a third as efficient and productive as a local. The Austrian consumer may not be keen on buying Slovakian vegetables at his or her local supermarket even if it is a third the price, simply due to some sort of long-held distrust or worse, a sense of superiority. Until these cultural factors are obliterated, ture economic integration of the EU may only be an empty dream...

Three Things an International Traveler Tends to Forget after Being on the Road for Too Long

2012-01-04T14:12:00.000Z

The travel guide books tend to make it clear how difficult it is to travel, even in convenient and relatively safe continent that it Europe. “Even for 3 weeks, travel seems to become...work,” the books say simply. And after personal experiences doing exactly the many things the travel books recommend travelers to do, the travelers would unequivocally agree with the books’ sentiment. But amid the tiresomeness and desperations of continued travel, what becomes more important, upon retrospect, are things that the travelers seem to forget when they are on the road.

(1) When the travelers are still energetic at the beginning of the trip, they tend to carefully track their spending and remember to budget for how much to spend every day and each destination. Three weeks later, that financial meticulousness goes out the window as fatigue sets in. The travelers would eat whatever whenever they want; they would stay in much nicer lodging because they cannot be bothered to seek out those cheap places in dark corners of the city and then share facilities with strangers who would inadvertently disturb their much needed rest...

And scarily enough, the travelers would stop realizing just how expensive the accumulation of nice food, nice lodging, and an occasional taxi ride or two are becoming until they are reminded of the numbers. Especially here in the Balkans, the Western travelers like to rationalize their little luxuries because saying how they are so much cheaper than “back home,” only to be informed by the locals in response that the average monthly wage is 500-800 Euros. Only then, the travelers remember that they are spending more than a month’s salary for the locals every few days....

(2) Traveling around Europe, entering another country, getting another stamp in the passport, and coming across another language or currency becomes a thing of routine for the travelers. Then the travelers, with the matter-of-fact voice, start talking about transporting themselves from one country to the other, they get the “complaints” in response, from friends back home and from locals alike, of how they never been to even the countries neighboring their home countries.

And interestingly enough, money and time never seem to be the reason why they have never done so. And for the many citizens of EU, getting the paperwork is not the source of obstacle either. Often it is much simpler than that, in the realm of “lacking motivation to go” or “lacking some sort of justifiable rationale to travel.” To the frequent traveler, such excuse is just outright puzzling, but on second thought, the traveler has to, in a way, be grateful of his own privilege for having the adventurous mind for travels.

(3) Indeed, the locals’ lack of willingness to visit their neighboring countries often contains an element of massive gap in mutual understanding incongruous with the tiny physical distance. Travelers from massive entities like Canada, the US, Russia, or China are surprised to find just how much prejudices and stereotypes, not to mention real cultural differences, exist among proximate clusters of tiny countries, each smaller than even half a state or province back home.

But these gaps among tiny countries of Europe can be much more deeply rooted and divisive than any form of regionalism in those massive countries. The Slovene and the Bosnian, for instance, is readily bashing the Serb for being mentally backward or averse to multicultural community building. Yet, such sentiment confuse the foreign travelers, who see three peoples who speak essentially the same language and, not withstanding recent history of conflicts, did live within the same political entities and socio-economic circles for centuries...

Sometimes it feels like the foreigners on Euro-trips are going through “the Amazing Race” with themselves as the only competitors. They, perhaps, are just too preoccupied by getting to all the amazing sights, not forgetting to checking out all the dazzling varieties of different peoples, or, more realistically, simply too tired and too crunched for time, to think through the underlying meaning of those sights and differences. Maybe what is forgotten on the road can be regurgitated and recalled when the trips come to their inevitable end...

Figuring out How to Deal with Racial Slurs against Asians

2012-01-03T22:22:00.001Z

Many non-Asians traveling through the less touristy parts of Asia often complains that they receive too much unpleasant and unwanted attention from the locals simply because of skin color. Of course, the source of the attention is justifiably obvious: the locals simply have not come across many foreigners before and are expressing their surprise/curiosity/”joy” of seeing foreigners in ways that the foreigners would consider them rather obnoxious.

The Asian travelers, unfortunately, usually do not understand just how unpleasant it is to be on the receiving end of such unwanted attention against foreigners because they tend to always end up in places where Asians faces are common. In Asia, they can blend in as locals. In the West, they can be one of the millions of Asian immigrants. And in popular vacation destinations such as Athens and Istanbul, the foreign crowds, whether it be tourists or businessmen catering to the foreign crowds, are often predominantly Asian. Locals in these locales would never verbally target Asians because they are so used to seeing them.

When the Asian travels to the Balkans, then, the normalcy of being Asian suddenly gets thrown out the window. Curious eyes fixate on the Asian face as soon as the Asian steps out of the bus in the “tourist backwaters” of the region, whether in Tirana, Skopje, or Pristina. Then the words are bound to follow, often excited yelled out by excited twenty-somethings walking down the street, “Ching Chong Ching!” “Hey, Jackie Chan!” “Yo, Chinese!”

Frankly, as racist as these comments obviously sounds, the Asian would actually be just as excited to hear such things as the locals are excited to utter them. After all, wherever the Asians tend to go, they are the quiet, low-key hard workers, not troubling anyone else and getting out of the way of everyone else in order not to be troubled. For places with large number of Asians, the locals understand as much, and would not go out of their way to bother the Asians.

But in the Balkans, the locals, perhaps seeing one or two Asian faces in year (usually in the form of Chinese import-exporters selling made-in-China toys and clothing), still get a kick out of openly insulting Asians, even if they are ignored by the Asians. It is not that they are more racist than non-Asians in other locales, its just that they do not have enough experience dealing with Asians to understand how to properly interact with them, especially considering that Asians in the Balkans do not tend to stay for a long time.

But what is equally, if not more, unfortunate is that the Asians coming to the Balkans do not know how to properly deal with these seemingly racist locals either. Used to being treated with (at least nominal) respect by non-Asians in other regions of the world, the first instinct of the Asians when hearing such racial slurs on the streets is to quietly throw an angry stare at the speaker, ignore the comment, and then move on. In the West, where people are constantly educated to be racially sensitive, such method works very well.

One has to realize that part of the role that the few lone Asians have to play in regions with little Asian exposure is to pioneer local understanding of Asian peoples and cultures. Under such context, the stare-ignore-keep moving method can only give unknowledgeable locals the impression that Asians are indeed an unfriendly bunch, and treating them with open distain and name-calling is highly appropriate. If so, no matter how many Asians travel through the region, the insulting comments toward them would not lessen.

Instead, there has to be some sort of friendly communication with the locals to rid their minds of those superficial racial stereotypes. Even a kind smile to those who make the insulting remarks may potentially help. Yet, with the Asians’ deeply rooted reflex to remain hostile to those who refuse to respect people of other skin colors, combined with the huge language barrier, it is difficult to see how true communication to educate the locals can take place...A solution remains to be found.

Humanitarians Must Minimize the Pompousness of Their “Selflessness”

2012-01-01T18:24:00.000Z

Sitting in the city center of Sarajevo, right in front of the bustling main bus and train stations, is one of the most massive gated compounds one could ever imagine in the middle of a city. Surrounded by tall white walls and patrolling armed guards in military uniforms, the compound consisting of three well-maintained concrete towers stretched well over two and a half standard street blocks on what must be some of the most expensive real estate in town. In front of the big entry gate, the golden letters marked “EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

One would normally be awed by the sheer size of the buildings, especially considering that this is Bosnia, a country where there is barely any presence of American citizens outside the few, like myself, who drops by from nearby countries to check out the well-preserved ancient townscapes of Sarajevo. But the American representation here in Bosnia is nothing compared to the grand residence of UN and NATO representatives in downtown Pristina, not even attempting integration with the local community with its high concrete walls topped with barbed wires.

There is an obvious irony here. The Americans and Europeans build high walls and hire armed guards obviously so that their personnel working within the compound can be protected from still active radical elements of Serbian nationalist elements. However, had they instead built their offices with less grandeur, attracting less attention from the locals, the radicals seeking to attack the personnel would perhaps not even find the target for their militant revenge.

And, of course, the high walls can only protect the Westerners when they are inside the compounds. Across the street from the EU compound in Pristina, there are two five-star hotel towers conspicuously sticking out next to an otherwise low-rising pedestrian shopping street for the locals. To see local peddlers working next to hotels that they, and most of the local populace, can never afford to stay in their working lifetimes, brings a certain degree of worry that the Americans and Europeans, who gained local respect for establishing peace and maintaining independence in Bosnia and Kosovo, are unnecessarily distancing themselves from the locals.

After all, the above-average number of Western personnel still here in the Balkans is to help the locals maintain political stability and increase economic development. In other words, the central role is a humanitarian one, supposedly selflessly guiding the locals toward true self-sufficiency by pumping the necessary financial resources and professional knowledge. The productive assistance they provide to the locals is the only source of legitimacy they have to maintain such heavy and obvious presence here.

Yet, the conspicuously massive compounds on the streets of Pristina and Sarajevo are, if anything, great symbols of arrogance and condescension toward the locals. They demonstrate incredible powers of the West over the locals when the locals, by allowing the West to help them, already humbly acknowledged such power. By emphasizing the condescending power in such obvious physical ways, the Westerners are perhaps beginning to earn the ire of the locals...

And the actions of the Westerners here do indeed reinforce the physical symbols of grand administrative buildings. The five-star hotels here, after all, exist mainly for the Western “experts,” who sees such treatment only as appropriate for going to developing countries. So much money, which could have otherwise went into productive projects directly improving the lives of the locals, were and are still being wasted on providing the Westerners on humanitarian work here lifestyles that would even be considered extravagant in the West.

In Pristina, a major thoroughfare leading out of the city is named after Bill Clinton, and there is even a statue and huge poster of him on a nearby building when such adulation does not even exist in the US. But unless the Western “humanitarian workers” start to reform their condescending and extravagant ways while working here in the still developing Balkans, it would not be surprising that the admiration the West earned during the late 90s may simply evaporate in the near future.

The Value of Patience...and Good Judgment

2011-12-30T10:51:00.004Z

Being on the road, the traveler often comes across situations where his own decision-making. And when the wrong decision is taken, the cost is unbelievably high in monetary terms (not to mention damages to self-confidence)...but it is those wrong decisions that tend to be, ultimately, the most memorable ones. And the same wrong decisions, by pure "virtue" of their being incredibly BAD decisions, lead to the greatest adventures...but at the end, with the wallet all beat up, the traveler has to realize where is that fine line between "adventure at all costs" and "sound financing while on the road."

Yesterday was that sort of day. The traveler planned to travel from Pristina, Kosovo to Dubrovnik, Croatia by transferring once at Podgorica, Montenegro. When the bus from Pristina arrived in Podgorica at 2am local time, the traveler, to his dismay, realized that the daily bus between Podgorica and Dubrovnik, becomes once every two days during winter times, and with New Years holidays coming up, it meant that he has to idly stay in Montenegro until the 2nd of January if he waits for the bus to start up again.

For the traveler, time was of the essence. In a city with little budget options, hotel costs can easily go up to 50 Euros a night. Two nights of hotels and bus ticket, plus food, would easily add up to 130 Euros even without adding in the time cost. So, the traveler decided to get a taxi to Dubrovnik instead, in what later, with a little bit of classic East European-style deception by the taxi driver, proved to be one of the worst one-time conscious decisions the traveler has made during this entire trip. If it were not for the sheer beauty of Dubrovnik awaiting me at the end of all this, the pain from this one would have stuck for quite a while.

So, back in Podgorica at 2:30am, the traveler negotiate the taxi fare to Dubrovnik down to about 110 Euros, gets in the taxi for a what is said by the taxi driver to be a 5 hour drive, and takes off into the twisty, pitch-dark mountain roads of Montenegro. 3 hours later, the taxi driver wakes up the sleeping traveler, telling him in broken English, "it is finished" (i.e. "we are here"). Rubbing his eyes, the traveler looks through the car window to find the Montenegrin border checkpoint on the way to Croatia.

The half-sleepy, half-puzzled traveler tries to question the driver why he stops at the border, getting the response that the driver cannot go over the border. He, with English vocabulary words and many gestures, tells me not to worry, just cross over the Montenegrin border on foot, walk "maybe 90m" to the Croatian border checkpoint, and then grab a taxi from there. He adds that the taxis on the other side is plentiful and the taxi ride from the Croatian border to Dubrovnik should be very cheap because its only a 10 minute drive.

Annoyed by the taxi driver only mentioning this now rather than before the whole journey started, the traveler still had no choice but to get out at that point. The driver bid his friendly goodbye with a warm handshake, leaving the traveler to handle the border himself. The exit from Montenegro was without incident, but as the traveler began trekking from the Montenegrin checkpoint to the Croatian one, he quickly realized that the walk is nowhere near "90m." In that single pitch-dark twisty mountain road between the two checkpoints, the traveler ended up walking more than half an hour.

Then came the Croatian border, with time now at around 6am. The surprised Croatian border official, after hearing that I walked from the Montenegrin side after getting off a taxi, looks at me like I am crazy, stamps my passport, and with a cynical grin, tells me that its too early to call any taxi right now, and that I can keep walking the 44km to Dubrovnik. Then he, with no other offers for help, simply waved me off into Croatian territory, with another twisty pitch-dark mountain road ahead.

The story ends with the traveler unsuccessfully hitchhiking along the road, eventually hitting up a nearby post office with a phone to call in a taxi from Dubrovnik. At 9am in the morning and another 40 Euros later, the weary traveler finally get to his final destination. For all the time he gained, he lost too much in energy, money, and courage to try similar thing ever again. The shell-shocked conclusion to the whole heart-thumping episode is, well, be patient, and be more thoughtful with decision-making...sigh...enough said.

Emigrants, be Proud of Your Homelands!

2011-12-29T00:23:00.000Z

When I first arrived in America as a young 12-year-old boy, my family lived in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in southern part of Boston. The neighborhood school was filled with immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially the Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia, and Serbia. As fellow students of ESL classes, I spent years with them, earning American culture, English language, and talking about the homelands we left behind. And talked we always had about our homelands, with bit nostalgia, and plenty of gratefulness that we all got out.

Once the Albanian told me about the view of America people had back home. He said with a certain degree of cynicism, “back there, everyone thought America is a land where money grows on trees and the roads are paved with gold...I mean, literally.” The naiveté of the comment had such a huge impact on me that six years later, it became the first sentence of a college application essay that got me into Yale. The optimism with which new immigrants approached America cannot be better summarized by that comment.

And then, eleven years after the 12-year-old Albanian uttered that line to me during recess at a public middle school in Boston, I am sitting in a restaurant in Tirana, Albania, enjoying perhaps the best full-course lunch I had during this entire European trip for a mere 7 Euros. The atmosphere is non-deceptively friendly, the setting spotlessly clean, and the staff perfectly fluent in English. The restaurant is everything one can ask for back in America except the price tag is maybe 30%.

In fact, the city of Tirana brightly sparkled just like this restaurant. Under the warm winter sun, the fountains and the parks are filled with families on outings, the outdoor cafes inundated with friends chatting and laughing over cups of freshly brewed coffee, and the streets buzzing with pedestrians and cars going about daily business. The city hums with productive activity, yet simultaneous shows its friendly, laid-back side full of people confidently enjoying their leisure.

Sure, there are clogged streets and run-down buildings, but the cars and buses clogging the streets are brand-new, and even the most decrepit building has bright-colored paint consistent with the overall optimistic feeling of the city. All in all, Albania, at least here in Tirana, is not at all as described by my middle school friends a decade ago. It is a country rapidly moving forward through relentless development, with stylishly dress locals finding their bright future right here in their homeland.

Emigrants, in general, have a tendency to exaggerate; they exaggerate how wealthy and full of opportunities their destinations of immigration are, and they exaggerate the backwardness and poverty of the lands they left behind. Yes, indeed the employment rate and per capita income of immigrant-receiving developed countries may still be relatively high, but there is no guarantee that the quality of life is indeed worse in the “impoverished” homelands. Albania, with her cheap prices and leisurely lifestyle, may be a perfect example.

Ultimately, what drives and motivates emigrants to emigrate may be overblown imaginations rather than any sort of hard facts based on on-the-ground reality. Too long have people from the developing world held steadfastly to their inferior complex: that their countries always are and will be worse off than somewhere else out West. From their standpoint, it makes sense. They, as emigrants, must find some way to rationalize why they emigrated in the first place.

But today, as the gap between the haves and have-nots quickly shrinks, it is fine time for the mentality to change and the complex to disappear. I ask that emigrants everywhere to stop irrationally narrow-mindedly concentrate on the perceived greatness of the West. Go back often to your homelands for visits, in the past decade or two, the grimmest places may have become as trendy and fashionable as any town in the developed world. I know, 100% sure, that when they go back, they, as Albanians will of Tirana, will find renewed pride in the positive changes of their homelands.

Celebrating Xmas: Commercialism or Culture?

2011-12-26T15:31:00.003Z

Being used to the heavy Xmas decorations and cheesy seasonal songs being blasted everywhere, the traveler feels a little empty moving through Turkey and Greece in the past couple of days. Over in Istanbul, it was just another day at work, everything operated as if nothing special is happening, save for extra-busy working conditions dealing with hordes of (mostly Asian) tourists. Over in Athens, the main sights are closed for the two-day Xmas holidays, but as for everything else, the cafes, the souvenir shops, and indeed the daily routines of the common people, operated in completely normal ways.

Yes, in this corner of the world, there was absolutely no catering to the Xmas celebrations happening elsewhere. No Xmas songs, no Xmas lights, not even a word of "Merry Xmas" from the locals. The reason seems rather plain and simple: Muslim Turks (obviously) do not celebrate Xmas, and for the Orthodox Greeks, their Xmas falls on Jan 7th (a fact that I did not know until I was told so in Ukraine). From a pure religious standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense for the locals to go all-out elated for a holiday that is not even holy for them.

But the reasoning should come out pretty differently if one is to look at the economics. Both Greece and Turkey, especially during this time of financial crisis, have been even more dependent on a strong and resilient tourism sector (and understandably so, both Istanbul and Athens haven unbelievably superb tourist resources and fine weather for this time of the year). And the majority of the tourists, of course, are foreigners, who more often than not, tend to celebrate Xmas (and are abroad for their Xmas holidays).

If the Greeks and the Turks market their goods and services along Xmas lines (e.g. Turkish carpets sold as Xmas presents, and Greek bistros with Xmas menus), one would believe that they can increase the spending of the foreign tourists. The increase in sales should be affirmative, while the cost of Xmas-themed marketing should be next to zero, needing only a few clever Xmas phrases, menus, lights, and cardboard cutouts. Businesses in tourist areas exist to maximize profits, obtained from foreign tourists, so why do these business-owners resort to clearly beneficial Xmas marketing strategies?

Mind-boggling as it is, the answer can only be one thing: that, for the locals, preserving their own cultural identities remains much more important and meaningful than selling a few more goods and services. Perhaps they fear the wrath of their own God for punishing their unfaithfulness if they do even pretend to celebrate Xmas, perhaps, in a more straightforward and down-to-Earth way of thinking, they are just afraid that they are no longer really themselves if they start celebrating other people's holidays.

Indeed, religion is strongly part of cultural identity in this part of the world. Through religious lenses they define themselves, their places in the world, and their nationalistic worldview. To put unnecessary confusion into that integrated sense of national consciousness for a few extra penny from the foreigners, if seen this way, would be highly debasing, and in their mindset, not particularly different from selling their souls for some short-term or one-time financial or materialist interests.

But the Greeks and the Turks are not the only nationalists out there. In the Far East, there are certain nationalities who are so nationalist that they start burning their neighbor's flags for their fishing boat captains getting arrested by their neighbors, and spend majority of TV airtime discussing semi-fabricated historical greatness, but when it comes to Xmas, the East Asians took it up without a single bit of hesitation, with stores hanging Xmas decorations as if Xmas has been around Asia for thousands of years.

The Asian tourists, while busy taking in the amazing sights of Greece and Turkey, should also reflect on the non-existent Xmas atmosphere and what is really means. While of course engaging foreign cultures is necessary, blindly taking up foreign traditions while giving up one's own is, as locals here long realized, ultimately detrimental to one's national and individual identity. More mental caution, less blind commercialism is needed in Asia so that there can truly be a balance of internationalization and tradition.

Three Things the Guidebooks Don’t Tell You about Eastern Europe’s All-around Sketchiness

2011-12-25T12:55:00.000Z

Sitting in the waiting room of the Sofia main bus station, the traveler gets solicited by another suspicious middle-aged man with dodgy English and even more dodgy purpose. He asks me where I am from, jot down something on a piece of paper, then walks away. Great, just great: another day in Eastern Europe, another day of being targeted for who-knows what scams the locals can dream up. The sketchiness of some locals is just too apparent, but still simply too commonplace a problem for travel guides to NOT address them more carefully to hapless, inexperienced, innocent-thinking tourists.

(1) The first kind is the most straightforward: locals squeeze foreign-looking people for money. But the methods are, from personal experiences, quite innovative. There are semi-legitimate exchange booths advertising deceptively attractive rates only to charge hidden fees (e.g. in Chisinau, every third shop on the main thoroughfare, one cannot help but wonder how many of them are legitimate, and how many paid bribes to the state to be there). The exchange booths are in many places, joined by equally dodgy-looking “casinos.”

Then, there are just outright efforts at robbery in the daylight. The traveler was again solicited by a group of locals trying frantically to tell me something in their broken English. Suddenly, an old lady walks over and pulls me away from the group. Only when we were half a block away from the group of guys she stopped and told me that one guy was distracting me while the others worked on pick-pocketing. Incidents like this, whether for scamming or stealing, make one seriously wary of talking to anyone on the street for any reason.

(2) And speaking of people soliciting on the street, the more intimate and legitimate-looking kind is perhaps more dangerous than the first. It is almost always the case that when one exit on an arriving bus or train that one is immediately greeted by warm, smiling people saying they are providing “tourist information” and immediately help the arriving travelers with their bags to the “information office.” Fortunately, this particular traveler has seen way too much of such tricks traveling in China, and has yet to see the results of falling for such a thing in Eastern Europe.

And the other intimate solicitation is simply disturbing. Even at one or two o’clock in the afternoon, attractive-looking local women talking to lone male foreign travelers at busy intersections and stations, asking if they would like to “have coffee.” The motive is quite evident. Once, when this traveler sternly rejected the offer from a woman who began to rub against me and call me “sexy.” The frustrated woman then attempted to drag me to her “scene of crime,” nonchalantly repeating, “c’mon, quick one, cheap!”

(3) The last one is not even about solicitation, its just pure sketchiness. In many Eastern European cities, the normal neighborhoods frequented by travelers may be only a couple of blocks away from the “abnormal ones” where locals are determined to punish the straying foreigners. For a traveler with previous unpleasant experiences, stumbling upon places such as Bucharest’s majority Gypsy neighborhood, which is literally a stone’s throw away from the main train station, can instantly bring about discomfort.

However, for the inexperienced traveler, they may not even realize that they have landed where they are not supposed to go until something happens. The “sketchy” neighborhoods over here are not like the violent ghettos of the US that also tend to be next to tourist spots in city centers. Over here, there are practically no physically observable differences between a “good” and a “bad” neighborhood. Houses and streets look completely the same, but the intentions of the locals residing the neighborhoods, well, are quite different, to say the least.

Of course, the traveler lists the unpleasant portions of the other side of Europe not because he discourages others from visiting the region, but to remind future visitors that they need to equip themselves with street-smarts they can never learn back home, especially if they are from relatively crime-free developed countries (Japanese and South Koreans, in particular, need to realize that their crime-free home countries make their mentality equal to those of innocent little kids...the local criminals know that very well). Only by thinking like the criminals and understanding their criminal procedures can the tourists be really safe.

Misguided Eastern Pride and Vanity of Quickly Joining the West

2011-12-23T14:57:00.005Z

On the overnight bus from Chisinau to Bucharest, the traveler started talking to a Romanian who went to visit (unsuccessfully) his love interest in Moldova. Quickly, revealing his frustration that the girl's father was against his (second) meetup with the girl, he went on a tirade against the Moldovans, who he describes as "pretty empty in the head because they are still communist over there." He went on to describe Moldova as a country "that has nothing positive except beautiful women." Yes, he is a little bit biased with heightened emotional tensions, but his sentiment, at least here in Romania, is surprisingly common.

To be specific, it is a sentiment of "we" against "them," a wholehearted attempt for locals here to separate themselves from the other former Soviet bloc countries up north, even though technically, Romanians and Moldovans practically share the same language, culture, and are of the same genetic makeup. Part of the sentiment, of course, is justified. After seeing the truly shoddy trains and buses of Ukraine and Moldova, the infrastructure here is not nearly as bad in comparison. And with Latin (rather than only Cyrillic up north) alphabet in use, and more people speaking English, the place does fill a bit more Western.

But a slightly more Western outlook still does not put sense into the sheer exaggeration locals command to display great effort in "looking to the West." One great instance is how all major hotels, travel agencies, and large department stores quote prices in Euros rather than Romanian lei. The traveler, in desperation of looking for a lodging at midnight, went to a three-star hotel to ask for the price, and was shocked to hear "61" from the receptionist. Only when he was ready to pay for the exceedingly cheap night did the receptionist start converting the price into the local currency, to the traveler's dismaying realization.

Perhaps the effort is in part done to attract more Western tourists. After all, three star hotel for 61 Euros is incredibly cheap compared to Western Europe, where a dorm bed can cost 25-30 Euros even during winter time. Catering to the bargain-hunting mind of the Western travelers, quoting prices in Euros may be a good strategy. But whats interesting is that the same people quoting prices in Euros to the Westerners are actually doing the same to the Romanians as well. With Romania not scheduled to adopt the Euro for at least 3 or 4 years, there simply does not seem to be a point to get the locals reading for the "Euro mentality"...

Indeed, the only feasible reason locals do this is to make sure everyone, locals and foreigners alike, naturally understand that Romania, even as a part of the former Soviet bloc, is different from other former Soviet countries. The people here are intent to brainwash themselves into thinking that Romania is physically Western, Romanian people are liberal-minded, and the other parts of Eastern Europe (barring oddities like Slovenia) are definitely up to "Romanian speed" when it comes to catching up with the West mentally and physically.

But walking through the chaotic streets of Bucharest clogged with excess number of cars and not enough protection of pedestrians, the traveler has to say that not only has Romania not caught up with the West in terms of mentality, but the very enthusiasm of Romanians to identify themselves as "closer to the West" betrays that they still lag behind the Westerners in terms of understanding the reality. Romania, after all, has decidedly mixed culture, like other parts of former Soviet bloc, with distinctly obvious communistic idiosyncrasies.

And her people's understanding of Western modernization still remains highly materialistic as seen by excessive car ownership and copying completely misinterpreted and misunderstood "Western" lifestyles (I have never seen a higher concentration of McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King in Europe than here in Bucharest) while the West has already moved much beyond that to focus on getting in touch with her traditional roots to find new inspirations for the next phase of modernity.

Yes, decades of communist rule in Eastern Europe has had a very traumatic effect on the local population, especially here in Romania, where dictator Ceausescu had no qualms about destroying Romanian cultural traditions. However, at some point, Eastern Europeans have to realize that their Soviet past is an integral part of their respective identities, just as their ancient and medieval traditions are. The Soviet influence can be suppressed superficially, but can never be destroyed. Until they are comfortable with this fact, they will always be vainly displaying their "Western-ness" by bashing fellow Eastern countries and quoting prices in Euros.

The Dilemma of “Transition Economy”: Rich People, Poor State?

2011-12-22T23:57:00.000Z

The conditions on the Lviv-Kiev overnight “express” train are quite shocking. As the steam engine slowly pulled into the Lviv station to pick up passengers, what greeted us behind the already seemingly two-decade-old engine was a series of green-painted metal box carriages, the design of which has not changed at all since the Soviets standardized them, eh, more than half a century ago. The carriages can be described in one word: rusty. Rust covered the creaky doors and the metal stairs leading up to them.

The inside was not much better. The curtain had 20-year-old (beer?) stains, only to be “outshined” by the 40-year-old rusty rods that are barely keeping the curtains in their proper positions. As the train slowly chugged out of Lviv station, one can hear the wooden frames of sleeping berths and windowsills making creaking noises the whole night, as if they are going to fall apart any minute. Passengers necessarily make their own beds with given sheets and beddings, while conductors go around the half-empty carriage asking stern-faced if anyone wants tea.

The distinctly Soviet nature of all this does not seem to bother my fellow passengers at all, and for a good reason. As soon as her bed is made, the stylishly dressed Ukrainian girl at the compartment next to mine pulls out her spanking new iPhone and drift off listening to music. Other passengers follow suit. All have some 21st century high-tech gadgets to keep themselves busy while the train continues to slowly inch forward with her mid-20th century “old-school” mechanism.

The contrast of the train and her passengers cannot be starker. One is sustainable inefficient “tradition” with no obvious modernization efforts in sight, while the other is racing to get on with any new trend available, much in the same way as people do in any other part of the world. The already old train feels more and more ancient when the brilliantly fashionable locals are occupying it. One cannot help by feel shame for the inanimate objects for not being able to compete...

And the train is definitely not alone. Equally creaky and ancient buses and trams run through the street, but so do spanking new Mercedes and BMWs. Public housing still are concrete boxes from the Soviet era, while newly built private housing, whether it be villas or privately developed apartment blocks, incorporate the best designs both on the outside and the inside. Whatever the private sector owns is new, and whatever the government owns is old and barely operational.

The stark contrast in a way illustrates the state of former USSR’s economic structure. Private citizens, with newly liberated entrepreneurial spirits and ability to consume goods from all over the world, are transforming themselves rapidly to catch up with the West mentally and materialistically. The state, as represented by few remaining state-operated institutions like the Ukrainian railway bureau, has no energy, spirit, or financial resources to be revamping themselves.

Certainly, it can be said that in the effort of “post-communist states” like Ukraine to engage the capitalist-dominated world economic order, the state has been the one to suffer the biggest damage. Many sources of prior income, in the form of protected state enterprises, were killed off by economic reform and previously nonexistent private/foreign competition. By at the same time, the new demands of the electorate, seeking to gain the same benefits as citizens of developed countries in the West, continue to squeeze the coffers of the state with increased public spending.

The financial gap, as a result, has emerged. Private citizens benefit from higher income and cheaper/better goods under a more global environment, but the government only sees increased responsibility and spending while new sources of revenue by way of taxation has not kept up. To prevent excess debt, minor yet “functional” institutions, like these creaky trains, can only be maintained in the current state without hope for transformation in the short term, unless major accidents raise public awareness and demand for substantial change.

But what is scarier than the financial gap is the mentality gap. While individuals, with optimism and competitiveness, continue to plow forward in their quest to obtain the very best of everything, what would they think of their “adequate is good enough” attitude of government institutions? Sure, people are still riding these creaky trains to Kiev, but are they simply doing it out of disdainful necessity? When the individuals start to perceive their government as fundamentally and overtly conservative, without correlation to political thinking, do they simply lose confidence in all government institutions and begin to see political activism as pointless?