Joshua Kurlantzick's piece Dazzled by Asia
Friday, February 12, 2010
An article worth reading
This is a fascinating article that I think anyone from the West studying in Asia (or just anyone in general) should read. I think it would also be worthwhile for my Malaysian and other Asian peers to have a look to see how "Asia's rise" is framed back in the US, or at least in the Boston Globe.
I'm Back
I woke up this morning and felt terrible for a) waking up at 1:30 in the afternoon and b) the fact I don't blog at all and I should. I was paging through GQ and it had a blurb from Stephen King on how to avoid procrastination and remain committed to things you love doing. I, like Stephen King, love writing, but I'm also a 21 year old college student who would much rather spend time customizing a C300 on Mercedes-Benz's website or figuring out how I get invited to get a Centurion Card, as opposed to doing actual things that somewhat actually benefit my existence.
Since I last wrote my life has consisted of: spending three weeks in India, Christmas in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; New Years Eve in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; going to the awesome temple structure Angkor Watt in Siem Reap, also in Cambodia; visiting the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia; making new friends from the new group of exchange students; going to class; being sunburnt on the way to class; and continuing to enjoy my life in Malaysia.
I don't have any class next week because it is Chinese New Year, or the Lunar New Year for everybody else. I should be going to Bali or something but instead I'm just going to cruise around Malaysia. I'm reading Kerouac's On the Road right now and am tempted to go to the bus station, pick out a city name I like, and go there. However, I think I'll pass on that strategy as I wouldn't want to end up near the Thai border to Yala. I think I'll head south to KL then Malacca early next week.
Stephen King said his goal for every day is to write five pages. That's it, write five pages and be done. Well, clearly I'm not going to be writing five pages, but I will make it a goal to try and put something on here every day even if it's just a minor thought or a link.
Also, I'm renaming the blog because I realized from 12:00 AM - 1:59 AM my time, my AM is your AM, which defeats the purpose of everything.
Things I'm thinking about/interested in right now:
Trying to sell Chip my waterboiler that is in no way approved for consumer usage in the US
andd
and hell, this picture too.
Ian
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Failure
Okay. So I didn't write any worthwhile blogs, or even go to the Cameron Highlands. Sorry.
Tomorrow I leave for 22 days of cruising around South India. I'm flying into Kerala and have my first nine days mapped out. After that I have no idea where I'll be going. I don't know how I feel about the uncertainty considering every travel book I read on India states something like, "India is NOT the kind of place where you can show up and figure it out as you go." I think I'll be all right though. I keep thinking how cool it is going to be to enter a country with over 1 billion people and I won't know anyone. I like it.
I'm excited, but I'm not looking forward to spending Thanksgiving in an airport and sleeping there. I do hope however that it will top spending Christmas Eve in a dive bar in Prague (sorry Marketa).
I'll be back in Malaysia around December 20th.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
ian
Tomorrow I leave for 22 days of cruising around South India. I'm flying into Kerala and have my first nine days mapped out. After that I have no idea where I'll be going. I don't know how I feel about the uncertainty considering every travel book I read on India states something like, "India is NOT the kind of place where you can show up and figure it out as you go." I think I'll be all right though. I keep thinking how cool it is going to be to enter a country with over 1 billion people and I won't know anyone. I like it.
I'm excited, but I'm not looking forward to spending Thanksgiving in an airport and sleeping there. I do hope however that it will top spending Christmas Eve in a dive bar in Prague (sorry Marketa).
I'll be back in Malaysia around December 20th.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
ian
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sorry.
I'm sorry it's been over a month since my last entry. The semester is over and I'll be off to the Cameron Highlands for a few days while I wait for my passport to get back from the Indian Embassy. I'm off to India at the end of November. I can promise a quota of two blogs before I leave for India. The Laos entry, and then who knows what else. I'll think of something.
I guess I've got nothing better to do right now than to write something. It's about 11:40 PM here in Penang and I'm waiting for an acceptable time back home (14 hour time difference) to call my brother to wish him happy birthday. If he's the same way I was when I was 15 on Sunday morning, he'll wake up 20 minutes before kickoff for the Vikings game and then move to the TV room still in pajamas around 11:45 AM. It's his golden birthday today. He probably doesn't read my blog, but in the meantime, happy 15th birthday Ryder.
I had finals and now they're over. I've got about six weeks to do whatever I want, so I'm going Eastward to India to see what's happening over there. I don't have a plan yet, but I'll be starting down in the Southern tip near Trivandrum, working my way up the coast on buses and trains to Mumbai, then cut into the interior on my way to Agra and Delhi. Who knows what then.
Besides traveling to India I guess my plan for the next few weeks is to be fiscally responsible, finish reading Crime and Punishment (2 bucks at the school bookstore), and work on learning Arabic. I've learned a few things here and there, but with learning any new language I've been prone to making mistakes. There's a Palestinian guy who sells delicious scharwmas at this hawker place I go to. I keep getting "how're you," and "I'm fine," mixed up. So I walked up to his stall today and said enthusiastically in Arabic with an American accent, "Hello I'm fine! I'd like a scharwma." At the time he didn't respond with the normal response, but gave me a puzzled look and said "all right one scharwma." I didn't realize I had screwed up until I had finished eating and had that "damnit you're a jackass Ian" a-ha moment.
The Vikings play the Lions today. Go team.
I've got nothing else interesting to say for now.
I'll still do my three things thing even if I'm positive noone actually looks at them.
Learn something about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan
This
and the future.
ian
I guess I've got nothing better to do right now than to write something. It's about 11:40 PM here in Penang and I'm waiting for an acceptable time back home (14 hour time difference) to call my brother to wish him happy birthday. If he's the same way I was when I was 15 on Sunday morning, he'll wake up 20 minutes before kickoff for the Vikings game and then move to the TV room still in pajamas around 11:45 AM. It's his golden birthday today. He probably doesn't read my blog, but in the meantime, happy 15th birthday Ryder.
I had finals and now they're over. I've got about six weeks to do whatever I want, so I'm going Eastward to India to see what's happening over there. I don't have a plan yet, but I'll be starting down in the Southern tip near Trivandrum, working my way up the coast on buses and trains to Mumbai, then cut into the interior on my way to Agra and Delhi. Who knows what then.
Besides traveling to India I guess my plan for the next few weeks is to be fiscally responsible, finish reading Crime and Punishment (2 bucks at the school bookstore), and work on learning Arabic. I've learned a few things here and there, but with learning any new language I've been prone to making mistakes. There's a Palestinian guy who sells delicious scharwmas at this hawker place I go to. I keep getting "how're you," and "I'm fine," mixed up. So I walked up to his stall today and said enthusiastically in Arabic with an American accent, "Hello I'm fine! I'd like a scharwma." At the time he didn't respond with the normal response, but gave me a puzzled look and said "all right one scharwma." I didn't realize I had screwed up until I had finished eating and had that "damnit you're a jackass Ian" a-ha moment.
The Vikings play the Lions today. Go team.
I've got nothing else interesting to say for now.
I'll still do my three things thing even if I'm positive noone actually looks at them.
Learn something about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan
This
and the future.
ian
Monday, October 12, 2009
Last Day of LKM 100 Bahasa Malaysia
A few weeks back I wrote about my language course Bahasa Malaysia. Today was the last class before the final exam. The picture includes the classroom, students from China, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, along with the professor Puan Wan (in purple) from Malaysia. Not in the picture are the students from Iraq and Yemen. Also I guess the student from the US isn't shown since I'm taking the photo. Being in such a diverse classroom was a really cool, enriching experience. I look forward to taking LKM 200 next semester.
Ian
oh and three things...
BBC's Day in Pictures
Cool Hunting
ListenToYouTube
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Distracted, Twins Baseball, Negara Amerika, and Blog Addition
The Laos blog is on its way; just I suffer from lack of motivation at times. I returned from Laos with the usual enlightened feeling I have after traveling, but my energy was soon devoted to upcoming tests, my research paper on ASEAN’s relationship with Burma (Myanmar), another paper on the state of Indonesia’s economy after the fall of Suharto, the Aceh region in Indonesia, sharia law, the insurgency in the south of Thailand, teaching myself bits and pieces of Arabic, and the Minnesota Twins. Following the Twins has actually has brought some lifestyle changes as on Wednesday I woke up at 7 am to watch the game via MLB Gameday, the intensity of watching the page reload reminded me of asking girls out via AIM when I was 14, and on Thursday I woke up at 5:30 am to go to McDonalds to watch the Twins game. Chip Krachmer will be proud to know that in the 3.5 hours I sat in McDonalds I ate one sausage egg McMuffin with cheese, one sausage McMuffin with cheese, three hash browns, two ice cream cones, one cup of coffee, and one glass of orange juice. Sorry arteries, it had to end sometime. But I digress. The Laos blog will be up eventually.
I do have a shorter story though. As my intro level Bahasa Malaysia class draws to a close, we are studying Malaysian traditions and national pride. We watched a video from the Malaysian tourism department and then our professor talked about nice scuba diving places around the country. Afterwards she asked us all to write a short passage about our countries in Bahasa Malaysia. This is what I wrote:
Nama saya Ian. Saya orang Amerika. Penduduk Amerika lebih kurang 300 juta orang. Negara Amerika terbahagi 50 buah negeri. Ibu negara Amerika ialah Washington DC. Keluarga saya tinggal di Minnesota. Negara Amerika ada banyak bangsa. Negara Amerika tidak ada agama rasmi, tetapi perlembagaan milik kami jaminan kebebasan ke semua agama. Pelancong pergi ke California, New York, Florida, dan Hawaii. Burung rasmi burung helang. Saya harapan kamu melawat negara Amerika satu ketika.
Translating that with Google Translator makes for a rather hilarious text, but it gets the main points across.
The translation (via Google):
My name is Ian. I am the American people. American population of approximately 300 million people. American countries are divided 50 states. American Capital is Washington DC. My family lived in Minnesota. American countries have many of the nation. American countries have no official religion, but our constitution guarantees freedom to all religions. Tourists go to California, New York, Florida, and Hawaii. Bird official eagles. I hope you visit a country when the United States.
While I read that in front of the class, some of the Mainlanders (Chinese people) in my class took pictures of me with their cell phones. At this point it’s hard to be flattered since they take pictures of everything.
Interestingly enough some of the students in my class were surprised when my professor, translating into English line by line, said that there is no official religion in the US.
On Friday other international students and myself will be taking part in a Malaysia culture exhibition called “A Malaysian Handshake.” My role: fashion model. I’ll be sure to post a picture or two from what I’m hoping will be my big break.
A new addition to my blog: Three Things
From now on at the end of every post I’ll include three things that I think are worth taking a look at.
The inaugural Three Things:
Learn what Kerry Lugar is and what its implications are for US – Pakistan relations
How awesome Benjamin Franklin was
Autotune the News #9
I do have a shorter story though. As my intro level Bahasa Malaysia class draws to a close, we are studying Malaysian traditions and national pride. We watched a video from the Malaysian tourism department and then our professor talked about nice scuba diving places around the country. Afterwards she asked us all to write a short passage about our countries in Bahasa Malaysia. This is what I wrote:
Nama saya Ian. Saya orang Amerika. Penduduk Amerika lebih kurang 300 juta orang. Negara Amerika terbahagi 50 buah negeri. Ibu negara Amerika ialah Washington DC. Keluarga saya tinggal di Minnesota. Negara Amerika ada banyak bangsa. Negara Amerika tidak ada agama rasmi, tetapi perlembagaan milik kami jaminan kebebasan ke semua agama. Pelancong pergi ke California, New York, Florida, dan Hawaii. Burung rasmi burung helang. Saya harapan kamu melawat negara Amerika satu ketika.
Translating that with Google Translator makes for a rather hilarious text, but it gets the main points across.
The translation (via Google):
My name is Ian. I am the American people. American population of approximately 300 million people. American countries are divided 50 states. American Capital is Washington DC. My family lived in Minnesota. American countries have many of the nation. American countries have no official religion, but our constitution guarantees freedom to all religions. Tourists go to California, New York, Florida, and Hawaii. Bird official eagles. I hope you visit a country when the United States.
While I read that in front of the class, some of the Mainlanders (Chinese people) in my class took pictures of me with their cell phones. At this point it’s hard to be flattered since they take pictures of everything.
Interestingly enough some of the students in my class were surprised when my professor, translating into English line by line, said that there is no official religion in the US.
On Friday other international students and myself will be taking part in a Malaysia culture exhibition called “A Malaysian Handshake.” My role: fashion model. I’ll be sure to post a picture or two from what I’m hoping will be my big break.
A new addition to my blog: Three Things
From now on at the end of every post I’ll include three things that I think are worth taking a look at.
The inaugural Three Things:
Learn what Kerry Lugar is and what its implications are for US – Pakistan relations
How awesome Benjamin Franklin was
Autotune the News #9
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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