Surrounded by Sheep

Poop Group + 5 Differences With Grad School

2011-10-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

October is just flying by. I looked at the calendar today and couldn't believe it was already the 25th! Personally, I blame the weather. Every fall I look to chillier temperatures and changing leaves to signal the passage of time, but it's been hovering at or above 20 degrees for all of October so it still feels like I just started (cue the boos and rotten tomatoes from all of you living in colder climates). Anyway, undoubtedly time has passed quickly because I've hit my stride here at Stanford, a lot of which has to do with the research group I've gotten involved with - the Poop Group.

In case you didn't know, I'm aiming to do my PhD here in water and sanitation in the developing world. Invariably, that has to do with either cleaning poop or preventing poop from spreading, hence the name the Poop Group. It's a really special group; the people are smart and insightful, and I can see myself thriving here for years. I covered how I'm not sure if I can stay (hint: it rhymes with bunding), but at the moment I'm just worrying about what I can control. Following that thought, I'm preparing myself for when funding does appear by organizing myself and my thoughts: I spent my weekend writing my funding research proposal despite not having any competition to enter it in.

Except I hit a roadblock. I couldn't narrow myself down to an original topic. Every time I read something, I thought, "Wow, what a great idea...why couldn't I think of that?" So, I did what I always do in these situations. I took a step back and I prayed for guidance and for wisdom.

Now, when they say God works in mysterious ways, they definitely mean it. As I began my search for an original topic, I came across an article on anal cleansing techniques in Kenya, an area where there's a large gap in literature. As I read more and more, looking for bits and pieces in the literature and getting more and more excited, I knew I had found my topic. The ideas in my head were connecting faster than a bullet train in Shanghai - "I could look at this, or this. Hmm, I wonder how this affects this?" Essentially, I see it as an unstudied pathway for contamination; no one's looked at it before because it's taboo and, frankly, it's gross.

So, while I had always considered myself a water person, I now face the prospect of devoting the next five years of my life towards bum-wiping practices. And you know what? I absolutely love that! If I can contribute to global knowledge in this way, then I'm honoured that this is my part.

God definitely works in mysterious ways.

Of course, as is tradition, here's five things that I've already noticed are different about being in graduate school:

Undergraduates are annoying. This is probably pretty obvious. Any time you move 'up' a level, you belittle the level you just came from. This really hit home for me when I was eating lunch the other day. I was in an undergraduate dining hall ($5.95 for all you can eat? Hells yeah!) and I couldn't help but overhear this nerdy, probably freshman, kid try to strike up a conversation with this girl.
Guy: "Have you read Ayn Rand? I really don't think her theory of objectivism..."
Girl: "Hmm no, I haven't."
*Awkward silence*
I thought this was the most hilarious thing since sliced bread (that's not a typo, sliced bread is hilarious). Boy am I glad to be done with those times in my life.

Everyone is working on something cool. All of my peers work in labs or groups or on projects that are at the forefront of their fields. Cancer biology, radiology, materials science, environmental engineering...I don't think I've ever walked away from a conversation about someone's research thinking, "Man that topic sounds so boring."

There are a surprising amount of older people. I half expected this, but I was still surprised at how many people had been working for a while and came back to do grad school. If I had to venture a guess, I'd probably say the distribution was bimodal, with a fair amount of people just graduated and a fair amount of people in that 26-28 range who've done other stuff.

There are a surprising amount of married people. I guess this is kind of similar to #3, but for the first time ever many of my peers are married. I haven't quite figured out how this changes dynamics (it hasn't really yet for me), but it's neat to have a more diverse background of people to share experiences and get perspectives from.

You can take library books out for entire terms! This is my most exciting one. Are you like me? Do you hate having to return your library books every three weeks? (*crickets chirp*) As a grad student, you don't have to return books until you're bloody damn well done reading them. I think I just might read my books twice, just to get the full value out of them.

So as you can see I'm adjusting pretty well to ~~extended-library-privilege~~ graduate life. My research stuff is rolling and I'm already feeling that smug sense of superiority over undergraduates. Clearly, I've arrived.

Stolen Recipes - Heidi's Sweet Potatoes

2011-10-17T18:16:00.001-07:00

I love cooking. And from time to time I'll be so impressed by something I ate that I'll try to make it myself at home. Stolen Recipes is a series about these attempts at expanding my cooking repertoire.

In my second year at Waterloo, I had a Thanksgiving potluck at my house for all of my friends from out of town. All of my four roommates went home for the long weekend, so obviously I took the opportunity to hold a huuuuuuge party! Actually it was more like an intimate dinner party. I remember playing Cranium.

Anyway, I always remembered this one sweet potato dish that my friend Heidi made that year. So, when it came for me to go to a Thanksgiving potluck this year (with the Canadian club at Stanford), I figured, why not try my hand?

Ingredients You're Supposed to Use

As many sweet potatoes as you'd like (I had 5)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons of honey

juice of 1 lime (~ 1 tablespoon)

4 minced garlic cloves

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon of chili powder

1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of allspice

Here's a note from Heidi on the spices:

Feel free to play around with the spices too - I've done it with just cinnamon & ginger before and it was still yummy :)

Preparation: Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Step One: Unfortunately, my spice collection when I was trying to make this wasn't quite as varied as the recipe needed, so I thought I would just add a little bit of what I had and rely more on the natural sweet potato taste. The only spice I had in the house was oregano (talk about unprepared) so, after some googling to find out that that combination wouldn't be awful, I mixed the oil, honey, lime juice and oregano into a bowl and hoped for the best:

Make sure you get the honey that comes in the bear bottle.

Step Two: Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them up into 1" chunks. Obviously if you cut them smaller they'll cook quicker. I happened to have some squash too so I added that in as well (it's the lighter orange).

I might have left them a bit too big.

Step Three: Coat the pieces in the bowl and spread them out on to a baking tray.

This is the fun part, the sweet sticky fun part.

Step Four: This isn't actually a step, it's just a picture of my setup. My kitchen is really small :(. Also, you're supposed to spread them in a single layer on a baking tray but, unfortunately for me again, the only piece of bakeware I had was this glass dish so I had to make due with what I had.

Don't do what Donny Don't does. Use a baking tray.

Step Five: Put it in the oven! I lowered the rack so my big bowl was in the middle. Now it's very important here to keep an eye on them and stir a couple times - they tend to stick because of the honey. You should only need to keep them in there for about 45 minutes (or until the desired tenderness).

I also realized after I had put it in that I don't have oven mitts.

Here's a picture of what they looked like at about halfway cooked: You can see that the lighter orange squash pieces are more soft, but some of the sweet potatoes are still harder. In my case, mixing also allowed me to get a more homogeneous batch of pieces.

You could say the squash pieces got squashed!... I'll show myself out.

And voila! Your kitchen will smell of sweet potatoes and your stomach will be growling. Pair with some lovely turkey and cranberries and you'll have yourself a fine Thanksgiving dinner.

EAT ME

Despite all of my deviations from the recipe, they tasted maaarvelous! I think you can't really mess up sweet potatoes too much. They're like God's gift to unprepared cooks.

Thanksgiving + 5 Things I Hate About Living in the United States

2011-10-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! As I finish my second week of classes and begin my third, I'm glad that Thanksgiving's here so that, in spite of the uncertainty in my studies, I can reflect on what I am thankful for. I'm really thankful this week for being able to indulge my intellectual, athletic and my spiritual sides:

My intellectual side was stimulated when I attended a really neat seminar on Friday by Aquacue. It's a startup that takes data on water use at the household level, performs analysis on the data, and then provides the analytics to households or water utilities managers in order to better manage their water. They help people find leaks, optimize usage and change behaviour. I loved this idea because it's everything I'm about. I'm a big proponent of utilizing today's technology (in Aquacue's case: cell phone technology, cloud computing and social media) to help solve environmental problems. In my experience, the environmental engineering field is really slow to adopt these kinds of changes, so I'm excited to hear about the innovation that is happening to it. The seminar reminded me how fortunate I am to be at this school so I'm thankful that I have the opportunities that I do right now.

My athletic side was also stimulated this week. I found great mental relief this week by going to the pool regularly. I swim 1000m (10 laps of the olympic sized pool) and it takes me a long, long time. The first time I did it it took me 43 minutes, which is more than 4 minutes a lap. I was never a really good swimmer but, like my quest to find a PhD supervisor, I considered it a work in progress. So the next time I did it I got it down to 41 minutes. And then on Friday I got it to 38 minutes! It's getting there, but there's something very satisfying about setting a goal and reaching it. Besides that, it was a great week for watching sports as the hockey season started again and I watched my first college football game! Stanford's quarterback Andrew Luck is a special player and it was a treat to be able to watch him before he goes first overall in the NFL draft. I'm thankful that I get to stimulate my athletic side with the world class facilities I have available to me here.

Finally, I'm very, very thankful that I've been able to find a home church and fellowship group to be apart of while I'm here. Yesterday at church I heard the head pastor speak for the first time. And lo and behold it's famous Christian author John Ortberg! He delivered a masterful sermon about common misconceptions about the bible where he tackled its supposed literal truth, the alleged contradictions and its applicability to life in the twenty-first century. Needless to say, we were all blown away. So I'm thankful that every facet of my life has been taken care of.

That said, life here in the U.S. isn't all roses and daises. Since I've moved here I've had to get used to some pretty annoying things. So, in the interest of equal time, here are 5 things that I hate (so far) about living in the United States:

Expensive Health Insurance. For my first year here my health insurance is over $3,000. And that doesn't include dental subsidies or vision or anything like that. And there's these weird rules like I had to get a second shot of some vaccine I had as a kid and get a test for something I didn't need to in Canada. Health insurance, why you have to be so complicated?
Can't Stream Hockey Night in Canada. I know, I know. Last week I fawned over how consuming media was much easier with an American IP address. Well, now that hockey started I'm eating my words just a little bit. I forgot that, to stream HNIC from the CBC web site, you need a Canadian IP. On the plus side, maybe I can actually afford to go to a hockey game in real life down here...
Imperial Units of Measurement. Though I'm gradually getting used to the use of miles for distance (and fortunately Canadians use feet and inches for height and pounds for weight), I still cannot for the life of me figure out what the temperature is. This has been especially crappy this week since it rained all week and was pretty cold some days. I mean, do you really even feel the one fahrenheit degree of difference? Why did they make the increments so small?
Crazy U.S. Politics. The two-party system is at the core of the craziness with politics here. There is such divisiveness that people flock to the extremes, demonizing the other party rather than focusing on the common ground. It's such a dysfunctional system and it continues to baffle me.
All the Bills Look the Same. I'm always fumbling in my wallet every time I have to pay for something in cash. With dollar bills, I can never tell if I have a lot of money or if I just have a wallet full of ones. The one plus is that I have much less change. Not sure if that's worth it though. I know they're supposed to be adding tinges of colours to bills, but I haven't noticed a difference yet.

Back to Thanksgiving. Tonight I'm going to a dinner sponsored by the Canadian club on campus so I'll get my portion of turkey. I'm making these sweet (as in awesome) sweet (as in sugary) potatoes from a recipe I got from my friend Heidi, who made them one Thanksgiving in Waterloo. I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving as much as I'm going to!

The Ethical Dilemma + 5 Things I Love About Living in the United States

2011-10-02T21:15:00.001-07:00

For a week where I only had nine hours of lecture (only three classes), it felt like I had a lot of ups and downs. At first I was freaking out because I had too much free time. I figured I should be working in a lab or participating in research or something that would help me reach my goal of getting into the PhD program.

I should backtrack. My program is a one-year Master's where, if you want to continue to a PhD, you have to fill out a form indicating so around January. However, PhD students aren't admitted without full funding (i.e. enough money to cover tuition + living + a stipend). This funding can come from three sources: a scholarship or award, the professor's own grant funding or a teaching assistant position. Herein lies the source of my anxiety. As a Canadian student, I'm not eligible for the major PhD scholarships in the U.S., so I have to rely on my Canadian funding (which is about a third of tuition) and essentially the professor's funding. So I have been scouring the internet for all scholarships open to me and also doing my best to show my professor that I'm serious and would be an asset to her team.

This led me to an ethical decision I had to make on Thursday. My professor is very popular, so there is competition from my classmates for research opportunities in her group. On Thursday, she held open office hours so anyone could go talk to her about research. A friend of mine, also interested in working with the professor, didn't know about it. The best career move would have been to not tell my friend, but it would also be a pretty jerk move on my part. So what did I do?

We'll get to that at the end. Let's proceed for now with the five things that I already love about living here in the United States.

1. Netflix - I heard many great things about Netflix in the U.S. and, their separation of streaming video and DVD rentals notwithstanding, they delivered on my expectations. It's great for watching almost any genre of movie and catching up on television shows that I've heard about but never got the chance to watch. I've already watched a handful of documentaries (finally saw Food Inc, for example) and am starting Friday Night Lights. I wish they had the current seasons of things (like Breaking Bad), but I can't really complain about their massive library. The quality is good and their recommendations are pretty spot on. (By the way, in case you wanted to tell me they have Netflix in Canada, I know. The library is much smaller and much worse)

2. Amazon.com - Amazon in the States has everything you could possibly imagine. Here's a list of things I bought off Amazon since I've been here:

A book on data visualization
A microwave
A set of sheets for my bed
A textbook for my microbiology class
A cooking pot
A 24-pack of CLIF energy bars

And it's only been three weeks! Plus, with Amazon Student, I get free 2-day shipping on anything. Definitely made it easier to get the little things I need without having to go to the store.

3. Pandora - Pandora is an online radio service that suggests songs to you based on only one song that you input. It uses things like rhythm, beat and harmony when suggesting songs, so I find it much better than Grooveshark for music recommendation purposes. For someone who's not really an audiophile, I was really impressed with how easy and accurate it was. There are loads of other services too, like Spotify, Rdio and Last.fm, but with Pandora I just put in the name of a song I liked and instantly I was listening to stuff I liked. I don't know if it's that easy with the other services, but at least I didn't have to sign up for Pandora before instantly using it (I signed up after I realized how much I liked it).

4. Other Online Retailers - You may be seeing a trend. I love online shopping, so for once it's nice not to have to pay exorbitant shipping to ship stuff to my house! I anticipate I'll be getting a lot more of stuff from retailers like Forever21 and American Eagle, where I've shopped before only when there was a free shipping sale. A lot of the time, the prices are just cheaper when you have an American I.P. too. I think most retailers aren't eager to adjust their prices to reflect the equality between the Canadian and American dollars.

5. Biking - I'll add this last one so it doesn't seem like I'm a huge nerd. I guess this isn't really an American thing, but more of a Stanford thing. Stanford is flat and big, so naturally biking is the most preferred method of transportation. It's really changed my life, actually. I don't walk anywhere! And I only really learned to ride the bike this summer (I never learned as a kid), so for me it's been a reclamation of a lost part of my childhood. I'm exploring different buildings, going outside my comfort zone and taking it off sweet jumps (okay, not really, but I just love that scene from Napoleon Dynamite).

Back to the ethical decision I had to make. In coming to the States I was starting new again. In my experience, every time you move you get to recreate who you are to some extent. No one knows who you are, so you get to decide who you are, even if it's not who you were. But who I am is someone who's watched way too many after-school specials as a kid. I knew that if I intentionally didn't tell my friend about the professor's office hours, it would surely come back to me in some sort of karmic retribution. I know this because it happened to Zack Morris, to T.J. Detweiler and to Urkel.

So I told her, and she went, and it turns out the professor was thinking of her all this time and even suggested a project she could work on with a Post Doc. This is, of course, the kind of opportunity I was hoping for. So did I mess up my chances? Who knows. I think time will tell. Even if I did shoot myself in the foot, I would probably do it again. Sometimes in the after-school special, you don't get rewarded for your honesty.

Then again, sometimes it just takes a while.

On The Necessity of Democracy

2011-09-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

I was asked recently where I plan to live after I finish graduate school here in the United States. Would I return to Canada or stay in the U.S.? I think I surprised the person when I answered, "Possibly neither of those."

This summer, as I followed the political posturing during the debt limit ceiling debacle in the U.S. Congress, I became increasingly disillusioned with democracy in America. Did I want to live long term in a country where the will of the people makes it logical to put unnecessary warfare before the health, well-being and education of its citizens? Or where the front runners for a major party openly and bafflingly demonstrate ignorance of basic science and economics? It's scary.

It became clear to me that in a democracy where corporate lobbyists and unbalanced media distort the equality of every voice the increased probability of having national interests hijacked by vocal, uneducated minorities (who are easily swayed) is what upset me about the whole situation. It happened in Canada too, with the HST being repealed by referendum in BC. Here was something that was a long-term policy solution endorsed by economists. Shouldn't we have deferred to experts on matters that aren't our expertise or, at the very least, given it one or two more years before striking it down?

Of course, the real reason it was struck down wasn't because of economic incentive (though that played a role as certain industries were hurt more than others supposedly gained); it was due to dishonest politicians who promised the HST wouldn't be brought in. But the whole thing left me uneasy; the movement was based on revenge rather than reason. "Democracy is prone to such movements," I thought to myself. In a system of where each person has a voice, invariably the loudest ones will be most influential; unfortunately the loudest and most confident ones are often the most ignorant and least knowledgeable.

In a circuitous way, this leads me back to the beginning of this post, when I was asked where I want to live after I graduate. Is it bad that Asia jumps immediately to mind? In a place like Singapore, where one party has ruled since the country was formed, you can have a Western standard of living and live comfortably as long as you forego that great pinnacle of Western civilization - democracy. But is it all that bad? Sure, you give up a few civil liberties, but in exchange you receive a low crime rate, a clean city and world-class amenities. And with China trending upwards and the U.S. trending downwards, who's to say that the U.S. will continue to be a superpower at all? Maybe it's Asia's time now.

To me this viewpoint is new; if you had asked me during my time in Singapore if I could have lived there permanently I would've responded with a resounding, "No." But as I started to think more logically, the idea grew and grew. Why not live in a place where the the best economists run the economy? ...where leading urban planners plan the city? ...where education and knowledge are more powerful than ignorance?

Of course I'm aware of the adage that if you let the someone take an inch, they'll take a mile; the implication being that I shouldn't be so eager to give away my hard-earned civil liberties. And of course I'm sure my position would be much different if I were an oppressed minority. If I were Indian or Malay, why would I want to live in Chinese-dominated Singapore where the government is much less likely to do things that I agree with? But I'm not. I'm a foreign-educated Chinese person. And I could probably stretch my personal capital much further in Singapore than in the U.S., where I'm less desirable.

I don't know if I ever will live in Singapore again, but the important thing is that I am not outright dismissing it as an option any more. When I was younger, my parents told me to keep my Hong Kong ID updated in case I ever go back to work in the future. At the time, I thought that was insane; why would I ever leave North America? But the current state of the U.S. and the high quality of life in Asia (coupled with attractive avenues for future research) have led me to re-think things. Who really needs to chew gum, anyway?

This is What a World-Class Campus Looks Like - The Environment & Energy Building

2011-09-19T12:10:00.002-07:00

This is What a World-Class Campus Looks Like is a new series where I show you all the stuff that blows my mind about the Stanford University campus.

The Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment & Energy Building.

When my parents came to visit Stanford, I made sure to take them to see the new Environment & Energy building in the Engineering quad. This is the building where my program is located and where I'll have lab classes. I wanted them to get a sense of what makes this school different; it's not just the increased prestige and opportunity, it's something you can appreciate on a day-to-day basis.

Before you even enter the building, you get a sense from the surrounding buildings that the architects used their full arsenal when designing the Engineering quad.

The nearby Huang Engineering building, with arches, patios and a hexagonal library.

The nearby Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology - note the solar panels on the roof.

The first thing you notice, as I mentioned before, is that the building is separated, not by department, but by global research area.

Innovation doesn't discriminate at Y2E2.

There are four atria - each representing a different global system - and the offices and labs are clustered around these classifications.

The green atrium basement - representing Fresh Water.

The blue atrium basement - representing Marine and Oceans.

Looking up from the blue atrium basement up to the sunlight above.

They really take this theme to heart. In each atria there are murals which represent the connections to people who are grouped in the other atria. How's that for interdisciplinary research?

If you're going to commit to an idea, you might as well make it all-encompassing.

Of course, everything else is also top-notch. The classrooms are new, the building is energy-efficient and there are Macs everywhere. If they want the researchers to be modern and cutting-edge, then the building goes a long way in making you feel that way.

Text in the red atrium describing all of the energy efficiency innovations in Y2E2.

A monitor showing how energy efficient Y2E2 is being at any given time.

The scale for the efficiency light.
Right now it's at the design goal. Y2E2 is using ~56% less energy than a typical office building.

Of course, the savings aren't just limited to energy. Water gets in on the act too!

After we visited Y2E2, my parents thought it was the most interesting part of campus. They expected the history and the prestige, but they hadn't grasped the attention to detail with which Stanford applies to every facet of its education.

In my welcome package, I received a letter that said:

We offer the finest faculty as teachers and mentors; abundant resources so you can pursue ideas you find intriguing; and our support for you to fully realize your aspirations. During your time at Stanford, remember that you are never alone. Ask for help when you need it, and you will find many people ready to extend a hand. Indeed, the entire University community takes responsibility for—and pride in—your success.
...
From now on you can reap the benefits of Stanford’s reputation, and you have the reciprocal responsibility for adding to its legacy. We hope that this fact will inspire rather than intimidate you.

In other words, we're giving you everything you need to succeed - now go do it.

The Summer of Jeff - Being a Vancouver Tourist

2011-09-08T22:28:00.004-07:00

The Summer of Jeff is a recurring segment detailing the exploits of my summer off between Waterloo and Stanford.

It's been a busy summer for Vancouver sight-seeing. My girlfriend was here in May and a bunch of my relatives were here in July for my sister's wedding. So, since I haven't really travelled much this year, why not write about Vancouver's sights and sounds?

Why not start by celebrating a recent milestone, the Olympics!

The Olympic Cauldron

The cool pixelated killer whale statue near the cauldron.

And since you're downtown, why not help yourself to a Japadog? It's a Vancouver specialty: Japanese pork hot dogs (they have other kinds of meat too) with special toppings like seaweed, Japanese mayo and radish. The price is a bit hefty for street meat, but it's a unique fusion experience like no other!

The japadog stand with helpful pictures.

The Terrimayo Japadog.

Of course, your cravings for Japanese aren't satisfied with a Japadog. You've got to have some sushi at one of Vancouver's ubiquitous sushi establishments:

Asa Sushi in Kerrisdale

Rice burger at Guu Garden Downtown

After stuffing yourself with Japanese food, you might as well burn it off by enjoying some of Vancouver's fantastic outdoor activities.

Go swimming at the Kits beach outdoor pool.

Or just take a stroll in the Botanical Gardens at Queen Elizabeth Park.

There's nothing like a nice hike in Stanley Park.

Or, head out of the city to Lighthouse Park in North Vancouver, my favourite spot for a hike.

You can see why it's my favourite spot.

And when you've done all that, you might as well go see some of the touristy things. The biggest tourist trap is the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Lots of people say the Lynn Valley one is just as good (and free to boot!), but I have to say the Capilano Suspension Bridge people have done a good job at making it an 'attraction' rather than just like a provincial park.

My brother and I on the bridge.

The new Cliff Walk structure, where the platform is suspended just by those steel cables.

If you've done all of these things, you've probably seen most of Vancouver. Yes there are some more beaches you can go to, and you can have some fantastic Chinese and Vietnamese food as well. And you can go to Granville Island too and see UBC and the Art Gallery and shop on Robson and go to Fisherman's Wharf., too...

Hmm, maybe I need to write another post about Vancouver soon!

Is Having Some Good Intention Better Than None?

2011-08-29T16:19:00.001-07:00

I was inspired to write this post over dinner with some friends. I was telling them about how Zynga, the company in charge of Farmville, makes almost a billion dollars in revenue. Specifically, I was ranting about their support for social causes. In 2010, Zynga introduced special crops in Farmville that could be purchased with real-world money; 50% of the proceeds went to various charities to support relief for the earthquake in Haiti. This past year, Zynga implemented a similar measure to support the Japanese earthquake relief, though this time 100% of the proceeds went to the charity (they were highly criticized for keeping 50% of the donations the first time).

Now I understand that Zynga doesn't have to do anything for these causes (though it does help their reputation) and that those people in Haiti who now have access to banking and food (Zynga donated to a microfinance chariity and a food provision service) don't care where the money came from, but for some reason it bothers me so much that for some people the only way they donate their money is if they can get a special virtual daikon or sugar beet. Especially the first year, where a whopping 50% of the money went straight into Zynga's pockets. Zynga's $850 million-deep pockets.

Maybe I'm being too elitist. If this spreads awareness about causes or facilitates wealth transfers from people who otherwise would not be donating their money, and as long as Zynga chooses reputable charities, then what's the harm? Aren't these good intentions better than none?

I don't think so. What I worry most about is the attitude towards helping people this fosters. People are willing to support these things blindly without knowing the real implications. There's a somewhat ignorant mentality where people think that as long as they're supporting something, they're doing good. Well no, you're not, dipshit. Do you ever wonder why Africa's still a mess even though they've been receiving aid for so long?

Regional conflicts and disease epidemics play a huge role; but sometimes it's due to the aid industry itself. For example, everyone loves the idea of building schools. Everyone identifies with that cause. And for years aid organizations would bring in foreign contractors or cadres of travellers on voluntourism trips to build these schools. Some NGOs still do this today. But what about local contractors? What about local construction workers? They lose their jobs and their livelihoods because of the influx of free labour. Same with textile workers and garment workers. If people can get free "Vancouver Canucks - 2011 Stanley Cup Champions" t-shirts and hats, why would they pay local people for clothing? I think the worst example of this I've seen is this project - Knickers for Africa - where people recycle old bras and panties and send them to Africa. Seriously. And so by giving countries fish, we kill their ability to go fishing.

That's why I think sometimes having some good intention can be a lot worse than having none. I'm not saying that aid is wrong or broken - there are loads of examples where NGOs are doing it right - but people need to be mindful of the implications of what they're doing. Whether you want to buy a virtual daikon or build a school in Haiti, do some research and make sure you're not just contributing to a cycle of dependency. If you've got some good intentions, then follow through and make sure your money goes to where you want it to. If you're not going to turn your good intentions into reality, then it's best just not to do anything. In other words, don't be lazy.

The Summer of Jeff - Environmental Modelling

2011-08-18T19:23:00.001-07:00

The Summer of Jeff is a recurring segment detailing the exploits of my summer off between Waterloo and Stanford.

I'm going to tell you a story about the first model shoot I ever did.

Around the beginning of April I got an email from this woman saying I was recommended by the department to be the representative for Environmental Engineering in the Waterloo Engineering brochure that they send to prospective students. It involved an interview and a photoshoot, after which I would be profiled briefly in the brochure. So, in the spirit of Waterloo, I figured, "Why not?"

They wanted it to be 'in my element', so I rattled off a list of typical Enviro-y things (you know, wading through poo, that kind of stuff) and they thought the idea of me in hip waders in the river would be fantastic.

Trying to remember what Tyra said about 'smising'.

We picked Laurel Creek as the shoot location. The pictures were taken near Needles Hall, right next to that creepy gazebo. The water was pretty icy, colder than it should be for early April. It would've been nicer if more of the foliage was in, but at least there was a red contrast in the tree branches. It made for a pretty good location.

Me, pretending to write stuff over and over again.

The photographer was really professional. He apparently also does all the promotional work for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I think I started to like him after he said that Dion Phaneuf was kind of a jerk. He also had all this really high tech equipment. Every time he took a picture with his camera, it went immediately to this iPad wirelessly so he could look at the pictures. I was pretty impressed with that.

He said not to look into the camera. My eyes were too mesmerizing.

I had to answer all these questions for the interview too. It ended up being like two pages of text, even though they only needed like a snippet for the brochure. Still, it was fun to reminisce on my time at Waterloo. I certainly got a lot out of my time there, what with my cultural exchange, international co-op, intramural sports and academic research.

See me trying to determine the flow rate via the depth-area method?

In the end, it was a fun thing to cap off my time at Waterloo. I joked with my girlfriend that she wasn't the only model in the relationship anymore (she was in the Fashion for Change show) and she just laughed at me.

So that's it. Now I can add that to my resume: Jeff C. Ho. Student, Hockey Player, Model. It's got a nice ring to it eh?

P.S. You can see the Engineering Brochure here if you want to see what the final result was.

The Summer of Jeff - The Visit to Stanford

2011-08-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Summer of Jeff is a recurring segment detailing the exploits of my summer off between Waterloo and Stanford.

At the end of May, my girlfriend and I took a trip down to San Francisco to meet with a professor and to see the campus. Boy, was I in for a treat!

First off, the campus is gorgeous. The colonial architecture and ubiquitous palm trees form a combination that to me is emblematic of what I see in the school. The building style is a nod to the past - history, money, establishment - while the arboreal choice is an acknowledgement of the present. This is California. Things are different here than on the East Coast. We can save the world AND wear flip flops doing it. Maybe it's because at Waterloo the campus looked like this, but I have the feeling that I'm going to like the change.

Photocredit: Katrina Koo

Forgive me for being pretentious, I'm just really excited. Besides the campus itself, the building where I'll be having most of my classes, the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (affectionately known as 'Y2E2' on campus) is almost brand-new and is a dream to behold. It was designed to be a multi-disciplinary building, housing research groups from many faculties (Fun fact: Stanford has more graduate students than undergraduates!). You can really tell they put a lot of thought into the design as the building isn't segregated by department, but by world problem:

"Five focal areas define the building’s layout, reflecting the themes of the environmental initiative—climate and energy, freshwater, land use and conservation, oceans and estuaries, and sustainable built environment."

(Quote from The Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building, Laying the Foundation for a Sustainable Future)

There are four atria that allow sunlight to illuminate both the ground floor and the adjacent, glass-walled meeting rooms. It even has this funky meter that tells you how energy efficient the building is at the moment. Needless to say, the facilities, in line with the overall campus, were top notch.

Having gushed enough about the physical facilities (and I didn't mention the world-class athletic facilities!), I was most impressed by the calibre of the students. I was able to sit in on the professor's research group meeting and the first guy (a student in the group) who presented was detailing his research project for a Gates Foundation research grant of $100,000.

Bill Gates, after pimp slapping the shock off my face.

The student was a Masters student, probably at the same level I'm expected to be in a year. And he's designing a new product that can be used for hygienic disposal of fecal waste in the urban slums dominated by the world's poor. I was floored. I was overwhelmed. I kept thinking, "I'm in the big leagues now. This is what NHL players must feel like when they finally make it to the show." (I'm pretty selfish like that).

But regardless of how I felt, I knew I was in the right place. The campus, the building, the students...Yes, it overwhelmed me, but how many small kids from East Van get a chance to be somewhere like this? And as I followed that train of thought, I arrived at the inevitable conclusion. This is my time. I've got my one shot.

I better not blow it.

The Summer of Jeff - Chinese Wedding Traditions

2011-07-27T18:51:00.002-07:00

The Summer of Jeff is a recurring segment detailing the exploits of my summer off between Waterloo and Stanford.

Photo credit to Ian Chian

As you may or may not know, my sister got married this past Saturday.

It was a wonderful wedding that I thought was equal parts creative and traditional. The programs for the church ceremony, for example, were made into little fans by gluing popsicle sticks to them. Though this was mainly done for practical reasons (it was a hot day), it was also a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the groom's surname. Besides the programs-turned-fans, it was quite traditional. It took place at our church, there was a string quartet and the bride wore white. My sister really has a way with planning these kind of things and I like to think that God smiled down on her efforts by doing his part in providing what seemed like the first sunny day in weeks.

The programs for my sister's wedding.
Guess who tied the bows on those bad boys?

But this post isn't really about the kind of stuff you see on TV. It's about the wedding traditions you didn't know about until today. This post is about the Chinese wedding traditions. Though the wedding ceremony was traditionally Western, the wedding banquet and all the accompanying ceremonies were traditionally Chinese.

Did you know that the groom's family has to deliver a whole roasted pig to the bride's family? And then the bride's family gives back the head, the right paw and the right hind leg? Nope, I'm not joking. And before the wedding, both the bride and the groom pour tea for both sets of parents as a sign of respect? Even I got to take part in a tradition - it's tradition for the future brothers-in-law of the groom to receive money for new shoes before the wedding (and I got a sweet pair too!).

It humors me that someone put a bow on the giant dead pig.

Yep, I really just wrote this post so I could put this picture up of this giant pig. So if you're Chinese and getting married soon, or know someone who is Chinese and is getting married soon, remember to honour the tradition of the whole roasted pig. Because, frankly, it's one tradition that is too delicious to pass up.

The ABCs of South America Summary

2011-05-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

We've come to an end to my ABCs of South America series and I hope you've enjoyed reading the random mishmash of stories from my trip. Here's a summary of all the letters for the sake of completeness:

The ABCs of South America (14) - Lessons Learned

2011-05-14T13:16:00.002-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

X is for eXactly One Year of Traveling
When I touched down in Vancouver on August 21, 2010, marking the end of my South American trip, it also was the end of my spectacular year of traveling. By my count, I visited thirteen countries on four different continents. That's more than most people get to in a lifetime! Looking back on it now, it's mind-boggling how fortunate I was to be able to work, study and vacation abroad and experience so much in such a short amount of time.

The year spent traveling made a huge difference to me personally. Since then, I've become more confident in myself and my ability to be successful anywhere. It helped shaped my career path and spurred in me a passion for the Third World. I wrote about my travel experiences in my application to Stanford and I'm sure that it played no small part in my acceptance there.

Y is for Yellow Shirts
When you travel for one month with someone, you eventually get into stupid arguments. One of the more inane arguments my brother and I got into was whether or not yellow shirts look good on Asian people. My brother opined that yellow shirts never look good on Asian people because their light skin blended in with the colour of the shirt! I disagreed and bought this shirt:

Z is for Zanahoria (Spanish for Carrot)
Something I'll cherish a lot from the trip was the opportunity to practice my Spanish. I hope to target my research towards Spanish-speaking countries, so the time I spent in Peru and Bolivia was invaluable. I ended up taking a second Spanish course during my last term of undergrad so I've hopefully developed enough of a foundation to aid my Masters research!

Why I Support the Dean

2011-04-17T12:18:00.003-07:00

If you've been stuck at a computer the past week as I have, then you may have read a story about an engineering student team at the University of Waterloo being suspended from competition over a member's bikini picture. It was in the local paper, Jalopnik, and even made FOX news. Most of the responses have been in support of the student and against the Dean's suspension decision, with levels of indignation ranging from begrudging acceptance to downright outrage. You can read one such response here. But I'm writing this post to present the other side of the argument and explain why I support the Dean in his decision. Every argument has two sides and I hope that, even if you disagree,you can understand the other perspective.

Firstly, I want to clear up a misconception about the supposed charity she was supporting. I was able to find out for which organization the bikini pictures were from a friend who knows the girl and chatted with her about the photo shoot. The pictures were for Unigirl Canada, a for-profit organization that takes photos of college and university girls to sell calendars with only 10% of the profits going to charity. From the organization's website, their self-stated goal is to "provide Canadian students with a sense of real-life beauty and offer young women across the country the necessary exposure to help them make it in the rough and tumble world of modeling." The charity portion, while admirable, is only marginally part of the organization's aims. At best, Unigirl Canada is an organization supporting the modeling careers of women with a portion of profits going to charity and at worst it is a business profiting from the bodies of young women (the girls don't get paid) that hides under the guise of charity. This is why I think writing "she took the pictures for charity" is highly misleading. This wasn't Red Cross; these were personal reasons for the photo shoot.

Secondly, I want to draw the distinction between the Dean's stated reason for suspending the team (misuse of the Student Design Centre (SDC) for an unauthorized photoshoot) and the likely underlying reason (he was stated as saying the incident was "denigrating to women" and described the bikini pose as a "setback" to the work the university has done to promote an open and welcoming environment for men and women).

Addressing the former, arguments against the Dean have focused on the fact that other groups (e.g. the photography club) have taken photos around campus without asking permission and therefore this photo shoot should have been allowed. I don't think this is very persuasive, given that the photos were for a for-profit competition (i.e. not for personal use only) and contained the Waterloo logo (on the car); these aspects distinguish the shoot from others. Ultimately, use of the SDC is a privilege granted by the university, not a right, and UW has the right to revoke the privilege for what it thinks is abuse.

Furthermore, to argue that no sponsors have publicly rallied against the photos is to be presumptuous that no sponsors had a problem with it. If I were a sponsor, why would I risk backlash by announcing it in public? It would be much easier to privately e-mail the Dean or to just withdraw my funding later. In the end, it comes down to professionalism. If the shoot were done in front of a co-op employer's logo for similar purposes without prior authorization, then the discipline would have been the same.

Next, I'd like to tackle the issues regarding the Dean's statements that the images were "denigrating to women". The responses to this statement can be categorized into two groups, depending on whether you thought the images were offensive or not (I think they were). Obviously if you thought the images were offensive then you feel the photo shoot was wrong, but I'm going to argue why, even if you don't think the images were offensive, the Dean's decision was the right one.

Before that, however, I want to briefly explain why I feel the images are offensive to women. I anticipate backlash for this because I am not a female engineer, but I'm merely expressing my opinion and speculating where I think the Dean is coming from. As both a brother, boyfriend and roommate to female engineers, I have seen how hard it is to maintain femininity in the profession. And I have definitely seen it from the other side, too; I've seen how male engineers can belittle a female engineer's accomplishments for the way she looks or criticize a female engineer for not dressing a certain way. I believe these attitudes stem from a fundamental lack of respect for women in engineering and that this lack of respect is reinforced by the objectification of women. When women are promoted as objects, it reinforces the notion that her worth is measured by her body instead of other aspects of who she is. As a result I feel that it is sad that this smart, talented girl felt it necessary to express her femininity in a way that reinforces this disrespect for women.

Whether you agree with the previous paragraph or not (and it's valid not to), I still think the Dean was right in implementing disciplinary action against the photo shoot. The faculty advisor to the team put it best when he wrote, "they failed to fully appreciate the ease with which these photos could be taken out of context". This lies at crux of the Dean's decision. I wish we lived in a time where a woman could be free to express her femininity without criticism, but unfortunately the reality is that we're not there yet. Nowhere is this more evident than in the lewd comments made from anonymity on the news articles. The first one I read was along the lines of, "Which of the guys on the team must she have slept with to be on it?" which is not only disgusting but typifies the environment we still live in. If you must express your feminism by posing in a bikini next to a car for your own personal reasons, at least don't draw in the university and the sponsors into your decision.

Finally, the harshest criticism of the Dean has been his response to suspend the entire team rather than just the members involved. This I acknowledge is debatable and I support less than his reasoning for the discipline. That said, it once again speaks to the professionalism that UW is trying to maintain. There are very few workplaces I can think of where you could set up a photo shoot of a girl in a bikini posing with the company's and partners' names without even asking for permission. It was definitely a momentary lapse in judgment, but arguing that "it was for a good cause" (it wasn't) or "that it wasn't a big deal" (I believe it was) doesn't mean that there shouldn't be repercussions. Given the stakes (the university's reputation) and the flimsiness of the defense, I'm not surprised the Dean threw the book at the team. He probably wanted to make it harsh enough that no one would think about doing something similar again; he e-mailed the entire faculty with the news, after all.

In conclusion, I just wanted to present the reasons why I support the Dean in his disciplinary decision. Given the backlash against the Dean and his actions, I felt at least someone should be arguing the other side. To me, this incident is a case where a student used university space for personal reasons without authorization and in a way that could be misconstrued and hurt the school's reputation; for this, she and everyone around her were made an example of to prevent further incidents.

**Edit**

In email response I got from the Dean, he had this response to add about the punishment being dealt to the whole team:

"On the last point of why punish the entire team , you got part of the reason. The other aspect relates to the concept of the teams as self governing units. The Faculty deals with them as teams and not as collection of individuals. The space in the SDC was allocated to the team and when the space was misused , the team's access to the space was withdrawn for a couple of months."

The ABCs of South America (13) - Footvolley in Brazil

2011-03-26T14:46:00.003-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

U is for Upchuck

I would say I'm a pretty good traveler. I can handle a lot of things and it's not really in my nature to complain. I don't think I threw up during the entire year of traveling abroad.

My brother, on the other hand, is not quite so blessed. By my count, he got sick three times during the month long trip in South America. And, of course, being a good brother I remind him every time I can.

Airports do not make my brother happy.

Neither do bumpy airplanes.

Nor do salt hotels with no heating and no running water.

Yeah, he was cursing that last one for a looooooong time!

V is for Volleyball soccer (Footvolley)

One of the coolest things about Rio de Janeiro was the vibe on the beaches. It was such a vibrant culture that for me really epitomized the spirit of Rio. And a key aspect of the beach culture was the ubiquitous game known as footvolley.

Essentially a mix between volleyball and soccer (i.e. volleyball with anything but hands), it was quite a spectacle to watch these two teams duke it out. With no big spikes like in volleyball, the players had be much more strategic with placement and touch. I found it to be much more exciting than the power versus power usually employed in beach volleyball.

W is for Wanton Soup

As I've indicated before, it sometimes bothers me that Asian people are everywhere. However, on my South American trip I couldn't have been more glad of that fact. Three times during the trip - once in each country - we got tired of the food and sampled the local Asian food for a taste of home.

Chinese food sign in Bolivia

We had the chaufa (Chinese fried rice) in Peru, the wanton soup (wonton soup) in Bolivia and fresh sashimi in Brazil. They all weren't very noteworthy. I really thought the sushi would have been better in Brazil, since they have the largest Japanese population outside of Japan...but nope! If you ever go, stick to the local cuisine, please!

The ABCs of South America (12) - Salty Snacks in Bolivia

2011-03-01T11:18:00.003-08:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

S is for Salteñas and the Salt Flats

South America loves its pastries.

In Peru they have empanadas. In Brazil they have pao de quiejo. And in Bolivia they have salteñas. The ones we had were in Sucre, which claim to have some of the best in Bolivia (though don't tell the people of Cochabamba that!).

How did they taste? Eh. They were quite different from empanadas. The dough was sweet, so they have a McGriddle-esque feeling, and their filling is less paste-like and more a soup-like. Think of them as chili wrapped in sweetbread.

About to bite into some soupy mess!

Fortunately, most people don't go to Bolivia for the food. One of the most well-known things about Bolivia is the massive stretch of salt in the southern part of the country. This place, known as the salt flats, is called Salar de Uyuni. It is the largest salt flat in the world, at over 10,000 square kilometers, or roughly the size of the Sahara desert in Africa.

Yep. It's pretty desolate.

How did this come to be? They must be close to the ocean, right?
Nope. The salt flats are 3,500 meters above sea level and Bolivia is a land-locked country.

It turns out it was once a part of the ocean, in prehistoric times, and somewhere along the way it got disconnected and the water just dried up. This left vast amounts of salt on the ground, which is now harvested and exported. Fun fact: these salt flats contain 50-70% of the world's lithium!

The salt on your french fries? Straight out of one of these piles.

But, of course, you didn't come here to read about fun facts. You want to see cool pictures! For some reason, the most popular thing to do when tourists visit (and this is pushed hard by the tour guides) is pose for perspective photos. So we happily obliged:

Starting off with a standard jumping pose.

Moving on to some aerial kung-fu.

FINISH HIM.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Props were encouraged.

It wasn't all fun and games though. We stayed two nights in the salt flats and boy was it cold! Reaching temperatures of -20 degrees celsius with no central heating, we were pretty close to roughing it.

We did have pretty sweet beds in the salt hotel though.

T is for Telephone

Surprisingly, T was one of the hardest letters of the alphabet for me to come up with something. I'm not exactly sure why, but I eventually did come up with something notable from my trip: the telephone booths in eastern Bolivia and western Brazil (as far west as Sucre and as far east as Bonito, from what I could gather) were all animals!

Hello, I'd like to speak to Toucan Sam please. I'd like to follow my nose.

Quickest rates in Brazil, what a lie!!

From the now defunct Tyrannosaurus Telecom.

The ABCs of South America (11) - Rio de Janeiro Baby!

2011-02-20T20:09:00.001-08:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

Q is for Pao de Queijo

If you've ever read any of my posts, you'll know that my favourite thing about traveling is trying the food in different places. I'm an enormously adventurous eater when I travel and I find it difficult traveling with anyone who isn't. It really bothered me once when I traveled with someone who would eat a grilled cheese sandwich every day for lunch even though we were in a different country! (Sorry Graham)

My eating habits didn't change when I was in Brazil. I've blogged about feijao preto com arroz and churrasco before and today I'm writing about another Brazilian specialty that caught my tongue: pao de quiejo.

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside... it melts in your mouth!

Pao de queijo is loosely translated from portuguese to 'cheese bun' or 'cheese puff', but I first learned it as 'cheese ball'. These things are everywhere in Brazil and they're a part of a typical Brazilian breakfast.

Casa de Pao de Queijo: the Tim Horton's of Brazil

R is for Rio de Janeiro

Brazil's largest and most well-known city was the final stop on my trip across South America. We were only there for three days, but we made the most of it, soaking up the Brazilian sun, sampling the Rio nightlife and hitting up the iconic landmarks.

And what's more iconic than the statue of Christ the Redeemer? The 30m high statute is located on top of a 700m mountain for all of Rio to see. We joined the hoards of tourists posing in front of it:

Rio de Janeiro: Jesus is huge there.

Christ the Redeemer looks over all of Rio (and over us two hooligans too!)

Another one of Rio's landmarks is Escadaria Selarón (Selarón's Steps), a set of world-famous steps covered with tiles by artist Jorge Selarón. He originally put only tiles with the colours of Brazil's flag, but now people send in tiles from all over the world. Most importantly, it was he locale for the music video of 'Beautiful' by Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell, which inspired this photo:

Represent.

Of course, no review of iconic Rio landmarks is complete without a ride on the cable cars to visit Sugarloaf, a peak right where Rio meets the ocean. Known as Pão de Açúcar in Portuguese, you know it's famous because it's been mentioned on The Simpsons! (Homer's kidnappers arrange to rendezvous on the cable cars)

Simpsons did it!

The view of Rio from the cable cars. If you look closely, you can see Christ the Redeemer on the mountain in the background.

Mmm...Sugarloaf.

After a day out sightseeing, we thought we'd cap the day in Rio by sampling some of the local nightlife. That of course means heading to Lapa, Rio's clubbing district.

Starting the night off right with some more churrasco.

Lapa at night near the old aqueducts. They party in the street in Rio!

A samba club with live music.

Live samba in Rio.

And finally, what would a visit to Rio de Janeiro be without a trip to a beach? You may just have heard of the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches of Rio.

My first time at the Atlantic Ocean!

To say people in Rio are pretty good looking is an understatement.

Shops line the beaches. Coconut juice FTW!

Chair rental near the soccer/volleyball courts on Copacabana.

Beautiful people on Ipanema.

Gorgeous Ipanema surrounded by the beautiful Rio landscape.

The vibrant culture of Rio's beaches is certainly addictive, but there are so many things amazing about a trip to Rio. Brazil's most famous city has something for everyone! I really can't say enough good things about the city.

It's going to be the upcoming host for the next Olympics AND the next World Cup, so you may just have the excuse to visit in the near future!

The ABCs of South America (10) - Piranha Fishing in Brazil

2011-01-29T09:21:00.006-08:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here

O is for Obrigado

Obrigado is Portuguese for 'Thank you'. It's one of the few radically-different-from-Spanish, Portuguese words that I had to adjust to when we went to Brazil. In the middle of the trip (about two weeks in), we went from everything being in Spanish to everything being in Portuguese, so I had to catch myself many times saying 'Gracias' before 'Obrigado' came out more naturally.

The 'Word Lens' app for the iPhone. Would've been handy then!

As a person who was enjoying being relied on for his one-semester-of-Spanish abilities, it was kind of disappointing to go back to square one again. When my brother and I were in Peru alone, I felt like everything depended on me to some extent - whether or not we would get a good rate in our taxi, what kind of food we would eat for dinner, which way to go to get to the museum...and I thrived on it!

There's something very satisfying about applying something you learned in the past to a new and fresh situation before you. Every day in a foreign country is full of thousands of these situations! My time in Southeast Asia, and this trip to South America especially, really cemented in me the yearning to learn different languages. And while I picked up relatively little Portuguese (limited to 'Obrigado' and a few handful of other different-from-Spanish words...probably on par with my Indonesian at the time), I hope to be able to pick up fluency in at least three or four languages. The first step has begun with taking SPAN 102 this term!

P is for the Pantanal and Piranha fishing

The letter O was probably less interesting for you if you only come to my blog to look at pictures. So to balance out O, the letter P will have plenty!

The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world. The name comes from the Portuguese word for wetland/bog/marsh/swamp, pântano. If you don't know what a wetland is, it's an relatively shallow area that is partially submerged with water most of the year (Thanks Barry Warner!). Specifically, the Pantanal is submerged 80% of the year, leading to weird species like the Lungfish which can breathe air. It spans almost 200,000 square kilometers, which is roughly 27 times the size of the Greater Toronto Area (the GTA) or equal to the size of Southern Ontario. That's a lot of wet swampy area!

Just imagine driving from Windsor to Algonquin park to Ottawa and only seeing THIS.

There is a lot of biodiversity in the Pantanal, so we waded through a bunch of parts and preyed on some Caiman (crocodile relatives)!

I think I'm pretending to be a flamingo.

Afterwards I wrestled the Caiman to the ground. NBD,

The coolest thing we did in the Pantanal though was Piranha fishing. No, we weren't pansying it up by fishing off of some boat or off of a dock. We waded in about chest deep with bamboo rods and string and hooks and cast our lines, Brazilian-style.

Everyone trying their hand at our fishing spot. We had to watch out for Caiman!

Here's me with my first piranha catch!

Me and my brother joking around

All of the fish everyone caught!

Posing proudly with all the fish that were caught.

...and dinner is served!

Every time I tell people I went piranha fishing they're incredulous, but this post is the proof! And now, it's just another story from my South America trip...

The ABCs of South America (9) - Night Horrors in Bolivia

2010-12-30T19:36:00.003-08:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

M is for Macaws and Machu Picchu

In the Pantanal in Brazil, I saw the most brilliantly vibrant macaws I'd ever seen. They really stood out. Whenever they flew, your eyes were drawn to them.

They look almost fake in these pictures.

Photocredit to Reid Irwin for both photos.

And the letter M wouldn't be complete without Machu Picchu, the grand Incan city built among the mountains in the Sacred Valley of Peru. Up the valley from Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incan empire, it is notable for its extremely well-preserved buildings and unspoiled treasures.

I actually took this picture! It's not from a postcard or anything!

It wasn't even found until the last century, when an explorer accidentally found it through some rudimentary communciation with a member of one of the hill tribes. This is actually important as it meant that the Spanish conquerers never got a chance to loot or destroy the city when they invaded, one of the principle reasons why Machu Picchu is so well preserved.

All of the buildings are still standing. Also it's cold.

I was reading up on what the city was used for and found a couple of theories. Some surmise it was a getaway for Incan rulers (citing the abundance of rooms and picturesque location) while the most common belief is that the small city held religious significance (citing the several temples on site). I could definitely see the latter theory holding weight, since it would be a pretty significant hike to reach it. What an epic religious journey that would be!

Here's the sundial at the center of the city. They worshipped the sun so it was kind of a big deal.

I could probably write a whole blog post on Machu Picchu alone, so I'll just summarize with this: if you get a chance, you've got to go see it. Like the Great Wall of China, it's just as epic in real life as you imagine it is from the pictures. You won't be disappointed.

N is for NIGHT BUS GATE

NIGHT BUS GATE is the name of a particularly bad night bus journey we experienced in Bolivia. I touched on "The Beef with Bolivia" in Part 2; night bus gate really was the culmination of all of the bad experiences in Bolivia.

Just stopping for a pee break in the Bolivian desert. No big deal.

It started with a civic worker's strike that cut out one city out of our tour. We were supposed to go to the city of Potosi (the highest altitude city int he world - 5000 masl), but roadblocks set by the striking workers meant that that route was blocked. So instead, we took a bus back to La Paz and flew to Sucre, our intended destination after Potosi. Due to the urgency (we left as soon as we heard about the strike), we had to take a 15 hour overnight public bus to La Paz. My brother would later recall this ride as the only time in the entire trip that I was angry.

I was the Bulk. Bolivian Hulk.

It was a combination of things, really. Firstly, it was a greyhound-style bus but since the strike was so pervasive, there were people standing in the aisles. Eventually they had to sit down (it was a 15-hour ride for goodness' sake!), but this meant that the bus was pretty tight. Secondly, there was this Spanish music that kept playing (and looping). Normally this would be fine, except the volume of the music kept changing. It would get quieter and quieter, eventually turning off, and then, inexplicably, turn on again really loudly! Thirdly, it was SO bumpy. It was a dirt road the entire way there, so you can imagine.

Unfortunately, this wasn't even the worst night bus we took on the trip. Just three days later, when we were supposed to depart Sucre to Santa Cruz, another part of the tour unraveled and NIGHT BUS GATE began. Our tour guide called the airline in the morning to confirm our flight and was told that it was delayed one hour, so we deferred our hotel departure time by one hour. You can probably see where this is going. When we arrived at the airport we were told that our flight had left and, after exhausting all other options, we found ourselves readied for an 18-hour bus ride.

This picture was taken right before NIGHT BUS GATE. It was the only good thing to come out of the experience.

Though this was a private bus, it was much worse on morale than the first night bus. For one, there was no heat on the bus and it was an absolutely freezing journey. On top of that, the crappy windows on the bus wouldn't stay shut - it was very common to wake up and find that the window was wide open and letting in the below-freezing wind from outside. For another, the road conditions were even more terrible than the previous trip. Not only was it the same type of dirt road, but it was a really windy road through the mountains. And on top of everything was the ever-present feeling that this was supposed to be a half-hour plane ride instead of an eighteen-hour bus ride.

People were cursing our tour guide (conveniently, this was the point where we were switching tour guides, so she wasn't present on the bus). During that night I also felt a few times that thugs were going to board our bus and rob us. Every time we stopped I was thinking, "Oh crap, why are we stopping?" I remember waking up in the middle of the night, not really knowing where I was, and thinking that I was in some sort of shipping container that was being tossed around by a bunch of mechanical arms. It was a really bumpy ride.

And...that's it! Cool animals, epic attractions and horror stories! That's why you read my blog, right?

Grad School Update

2010-12-23T17:12:00.002-08:00

Oh hello.

It seems like I was here just last November. School or work just consumes my life and blogging drops on the priority task list. In any case, school's done for the term and I'm home in Vancouver now stuffing my face with birthday cake and in a festive mood.

The past month I've been consumed with applications to graduate schools. My plan has been to apply to three American schools - Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT - and three Canadian schools - UBC, U of T and McGill. So far, three applications are done: UBC, Stanford and UC Berkeley.

I discussed this at length with my parents yesterday. Stanford is my clear number one because of a number of factors. For one, it has the prestige that I'm looking for for the next stage of my academic career. For another, there's a professor that I've been in touch with that is the best in her field and, should I be admitted, would consider me as a student. And lastly, it's in beautiful sunny California!

UC Berkeley and MIT both have the prestige too (they're all top 5 schools for graduate study in environmental engineering), but I would probably have to change my research interests a little bit to suit some of the research being done there should I be accepted. That is perfectly fine for me too! There a lot of brilliant researchers there.

UBC is probably tied with Berkeley and MIT after Stanford. There is a really neat inter-disciplinary program called BRIDGE there that I think would be really cool to be apart of and there is a professor there too that I think would be good for me (and we've been in touch a few times). Plus there's always the factor of living at home and the potential path of going for my PhD in the states after I get my Master's in Canada (akin to what one of my professors did).

In the end it would be amazing to get into all of these schools and, while I have ranked them based on my initial information, really I don't have enough information to make an informed decision. If the best case scenario happens and I get into all of them, I would obviously see how each one fits with my ability and personality to see if I can find the right fit.

As for my odds for getting in? I really don't know. For the Canadian schools I should be alright, but with the American schools the competitiveness really is orders of magnitude greater. I could get into all schools in the first round or be rejected by all of them and I wouldn't bat an eye. So I'm playing the waiting game, seeing how I measure up to the best students from around the world and waiting for some dominoes to fall.

I'll continue my South America stuff soon.

Nazis and Communists - The Alan and Devin Story

2010-11-01T15:45:00.001-07:00

Note: I originally meant to post this in April, but thought that my flatmates might not like me writing about their idiosyncrasies publicly. I had a roommate in New Zealand that didn't really like me talking about him, so I thought I was doing the right thing by withholding on the post. However, since I got the green light to go ahead with it after they got jealous about me posting this , here it is:

In Singapore, we live four to a flat and two to a room. This post is about my two flatmates who live in the other room and their hilarious hijinks.

From left to right: Devin, Alan.

Alan is an environmentalist. Devin is not. Devin watches Jersey Shore. Alan does not. Alan is a Communist. Devin is a Nazi. Only some of these sentences are true.

The point is that Alan and Devin are very different people.

Devin is hilarious in a way that I wish I could be. He rides that fine line between making everyone around him laugh and majorly alienating specific people with his jokes (I mean this as a compliment, seriously). Here's an example: in our house we have a running joke about how Alan is a card-carrying, red-blooded, keeps-a-copy-of-Mao's-little-red-book-close-to-his-heart-at-all-times Communist. I don't even remember how it started exactly, but it's just evolved to the point where the whole house now does it. Alan Mao, Comrade. Vladimir Sovran, Comrade. I just can't separate the two ideas in my head!

The part that I envy is that Devin has an uncanny ability to choose the right person. Alan is a tough guy and he can handle it. So Devin comes off as the funny guy AND not a jerk. I can't say that that's always worked out the same for me. I think what also makes it work is that people who really know Devin know he's a good guy.

Don't believe me? When we went to Kuala Lumpur, I woke up at 6 or 7 AM on Sunday morning to go line up for Petronas tower tickets. It's first-come, first-serve to go up to the sky bridge and if you don't go early they sell out. I really wanted to go since this was my second time in KL, but extenuating circumstances (i.e. going out late the night before) meant that no one else was really in any shape to come with me to wait in line.

Except Devin.

It's 6 AM and the sun is just rising in KL. Devin's obviously happy to get his photo snapped.

Devin and I went got the tickets for later in the day and every one of us got to go up and see Kuala Lumpur from the Petronas Towers. Other people might remember Devin for his love of lizards or his pale skin, but I'll remember that early morning in KL.

What I'll remember most about Alan is not, surprisingly, that he's a Communist, but his tremendous ability to think of witty comeback lines. I've mentioned how him and Devin are very different. Well where Devin succeeds at walking that fine line between hurtful and hilarious, Alan crosses the line.

He's smiling here, but that's just because he's gone off on a racial epithet about your mother.

A great example is that night when we were in KL. We were drinking on the rooftop of our hostel and the two Americans who were with us wrote 'Hockey sucks' on the table. When it happened, I could see the anger rising in Alan's eyes. The veins on his forehead were ready to burst and all of his brain power was pushed toward thinking of a comeback. Oh he came up with one alright.

"Obama=Nazi"

The hurtful words hit the Americans like a ton of bricks. There was an shock wave that reverberated all the way back to Singapore. Women and children were crying out, "Did he just write that?!"

I'm being facetious, of course. In actuality it was probably one of the highest ratios of time spent thinking to severity of burn I'd seen in a long time. He tried changing the writing to "boboma=hazer", but the damage had already been done. Give him credit though, he took the ribbing we gave him after pretty well. And he even found a positive out of it. 'Nazi' became his de facto insult after that. I don't remember exactly when Alan called Devin a Nazi but, given the running Communist joke, it just seemed to fit.

Alan may be a Communist and Devin may be a Nazi, but they're both my flatmates and I can't imagine not living with them. While I was a bit apprehensive about living with three other Canadians on exchange, I can see now that it all worked out for the best. It was a wild ride while it lasted, but, like authoritarian regimes, all things must meet their end.

The ABCs of South America (8) - Paradise in Brazil

2010-11-01T10:52:00.002-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010.
You can start at the beginning here.

K is for Karen

A collection of stories from my South America trip wouldn't be complete without mentioning a special girl I met on our tour. There were a lot of girls on the tour (we were two of only four guys out of sixteen people total when we joined, and one of the guys was part of a couple!) and all of them were a pleasure to travel with but Karen and I had a special relationship.

Us at the Bolivian Independence Day Celebrations

Not, not like that, jerks. Being the only other Asian person on the tour, she became our defacto big sister, usurping the role from our actual big sister of the same name.

I think she fit in quite well. :)

What a typical big sister, giving me the old bunny ears.

There's even an awkward family photo. Aww!

Since she was from New Zealand, I was able to tell her all the random stories I had from my time there. For me it was really refreshing because after traveling for a long time, it was difficult to talk to people without sounding like one of those jerks who thinks their life is more amazing than yours. It's not that I wanted to constantly bring up my travels, it's just I had nothing else to talk about!

She was also easy to talk to. She was smart. Witty. We had a back and forth banter that you rarely develop over a few weeks. After traveling for most of the year and seeing new friends come and go, I had become pretty good at not becoming too emotionally invested in the new people I met. But with Karen it just flowed naturally. And with all that time spent on buses and trains, we began joking about what our hypothetical first date would be like:

Nuala in the background disproves of our first date hijinks.

Here is an entirely unposed picture of me checking her out.

She's burying me in sand here. I've got a uniboob.

We ended up spending so much time together that, by the last night in Rio, the other people on the tour (drunk at the time) were telling me to "Go for it Jeff! Kiss her!" I guess they just figured two Asian people were perfect for each. Racists. (Just kidding Tim!) And I make this a boring story because, for the sake of her boyfriend back home, I didn't do anything.

It wasn't too hard a decision, though; she's my sister for goodness' sake!

So that's the story of my good friend Karen who will always lend me a couch to sleep on should I ever return to New Zealand. She made my trip more meaningful than I had expected it to be and I'll cherish the memories we made for a long time.

L is for Lopes Mendes

Moving on, Ilha Grande is an island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. There are no cars on the island, and it's home to Lopes Mendes, voted by Vogue as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. Judge for yourself:

It was near empty. Heaven.

The sand was white, the waves were relaxing...

...And it was full of beautiful people! (you have to hike to get there)

Honestly, it was probably the best beach on the entire trip. Copacabana and Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro were also great, but just the entire day at Lopes Mendes was spectacular. After a two-hour hike up and down different parts of the island, you emerge on to this beautiful beach, ready to relax and melt away all of your cares in the sun.

Our perfect spot..

You can swim, build sandcastles, surf, or even get buried in the sand:

Boobs are extra.

There was a bit more to Ilha Grande, but honestly Lopes Mondes was the most memorable part of the island.

Social Media for Social Change - Connecting not Convincing

2010-10-23T12:40:00.003-07:00

Earlier this month, noted author Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) wrote an article for the New Yorker in which he argues that, contrary to popular belief, social media has not revolutionized social activism. The main thrust of his argument was that social media does not inherently provide the necessary requirements to create dramatic social change.

"The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo," Gladwell argues.

Smartphones. The true equalizer.

(http://www.newyorker.com/images/2010/10/04/p233/101004_r20052_p233.jpg)

In a retort to Gladwell's piece, Dr. Pamela Rutledge of the Media Psychology Blog wrote that there were multiple avenues to creating social change and listed four ways that social media improved them. It's a reasonably compelling piece and a worthy foil to Gladwell's article from the other side. But which viewpoint is right? How much of an impact does social media have towards driving social change?

The answer lies somewhere in between the extremes of Gladwell and Rutledge. Gladwell argues that the organization and passion required for serious and momentous social change can't be spread through the weak ties of social media, but Rutledge counters that social change comes in many forms and that the dramatic social change we'll see in our lifetimes won't happen the way it did in our parents' generation. Each maintains their thesis too strongly, however, and as a result both neglect social media's most important use to the agents of social change.

For Gladwell, social change MUST occur at a grandiose level - a movement, a rally, a "fever" - and anything less than personal sacrifice is not worthy of being graced with the label of social activism. He dramatizes social change for effect. While it's true that attacking entrenched social norms takes passion and gusto, change need not occur in the dramatic fashion Gladwell describes.

Despite Gladwell's assertions, activism that challenges the status quo isn't always high-risk. Social change doesn't always have to stand up against dramatic pressure or threats of violence. Is improving the money Canada spends on foreign aid not social activism? If that isn't dramatic enough, how about changing the definition of marriage? Or electing a black president? Social change, whether dramatic or not, can occur without high-risk to those creating it. Rutledge recognizes this weakness in Gladwell's argument and sums up my feelings quite well: "Things don’t have to happen like they did in the past to be powerful, valid, or effective."

What Gladwell misses is that social media does more than just link acquaintances. It has the ability to link people with the same passions; there are more meaningful shared experiences online than he purports. Gladwell elevates face-to-face interactions far above online ones, but many people can feel connected online without ever having met. One needs to look no further than impassioned fan clubs or online gamers to see that.

In 2009, the NBC TV show Chuck was about to be cancelled. To save their beloved show, ardent fans started an internet campaign spread by Twitter and Facebook encouraging people to go to their nearest Subway, buy a sub, and leave a comment indicating their participation in the campaign. Subway, one of the NBC's sponsors, ended up negotiating a deal that renewed the show for a third season. This isn't an example of dramatic social change in the least, but it demonstrates that people can connect to other like-minded, passionate people without ever having met them in person.

A sample of the 'Save Chuck' campaign on Twitter.

http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/chuck-twitter.gif

Though Rutledge is closer than Gladwell on the real importance of social media to social change, she is also too myopic; to her, increased awareness and mass popularity lead DIRECTLY to eventual social change. In one of her examples, she argues that someone who furthers a Twitter post on Iranian elections 'buys-in emotionally' to the cause, moving the person eventually toward social action. This view is is nobly optimistic, but naive. This is the biggest criticism I have with Rutledge's article. Just because a person makes a small donation doesn't mean they'll feel connected to the cause. Fads come and go.

Rutledge also argues that social media helps to increase awareness which helps to sway popular opinion. She writes, "[Popularity due to social media] matters when it comes to changing public policy where the majority view is what ultimately legislates change." Again, reading an article on social change posted by someone on Facebook doesn't mean someone will be compelled to bring the issue to government for institutional social change. Rutledge is dreaming if she thinks that people thinking about the cause on one day will impact people's lives halfway across the world.

To use another television example, in Community, two of the main characters make a model of the BP oil spill to raise awareness for the cause. One of them (Annie) opines, "I'm so glad this tragedy overshadowed Haiti. I didn't have any ideas for that." The line plays off the volatility of popular opinion; just as the tragedy of Haiti was sinking in, the oil spill happened and the focus of public awareness was shifted. Rutledge is right in pointing out that social media can increase awareness, but expecting that increased awareness to lead to more is folly most of the time.

The oil spill that made us all forget about Haiti.

http://www.adannews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/BP-oil-spill1.jpg

The key that Gladwell misses and Rutledge never fleshes out is that social media's purpose is primarily to connect people who already have similar passions and interests, not to provide a way for people to convince others of their own. Gladwell expects social media to organize people who aren't connected by the same zeal toward social change (and scoffs when it doesn't) while Rutledge expects social media to spread the enthusiasm of the most passionate to motivate others toward social change (and will be disappointed when it doesn't).

One denigrates social media for doing something it isn't meant to and the other praises it for something it's not likely to achieve. Ultimately, social media is about connecting, not convincing.

Social media's most important use to social change is strengthening ties between already strong ones. Agents of social change can bond, relate and encourage each other in their endeavours. They can feel validated in what they are choosing to do by connecting with other like-minded people through social media. Gladwell and Rutledge were right that social media can help social change, just wrong in the way that does.

Blog Action Day 2010: If I Can I Do It, So Can You

2010-10-15T14:07:00.002-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day 2010. It's an annual event where bloggers around the world post about the same issue in an effort to raise awareness and start a global discussion around an important issue that affects us all.

I had never heard about this before I found out through twitter, but this year's topic is one that is pretty important to me. This year's topic is Water.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

It's a pretty amazing concept. If you go to the official website, you'll see that over 5000 blogs in over 130 countries with over 38 million readers have participated in this global discussion on Water. (As a side, I registered my blog as having a tidy 10 readers). As someone who believes that social media has tremendous potential to impact and and influence social change, I couldn't help but lend my small voice to the cause.

So today, instead of posting stories from South America or inane stories of my life, I'm posting about Water and my connection to it.

If you know me, you know that I study Environmental Engineering at university in Canada and that, since I'll graduate in eight months, I'm at a bit of a crossroads as to what I should do next. The main question I want to answer is "How can I best use my talent and temperament to be a positive force for change in the world?"

Originally I wanted to go into research by pursuing graduate studies. I figured that that would be a good way to come up with new ideas to help solve the problem. Then I realized that the problem was not with new technology, but with governmental policy. So I thought doing work in Economics would be a good way to influence policy. And now I'm thinking that I really need to see the problem firsthand before I can even think about trying to solve it. I'm going to apply to an Engineers Without Borders long-term volunteer placement.

A woman in Ethiopia wakes up at 2am to begin the 6-hour trek to get water.

I didn't come to this decision instantly. It was a long process, building step by step to the point where I realized that this was something worthwhile to devote my future to. I'm just a regular guy who learned about what was happening and decided that something needed to be done.

It starts by making positive choices at home. Drinking tap water instead of bottled water. Thinking about where our food comes from and choosing more local produce. Donating to organizations like Water.org and charity: water. And then it gets bigger and bigger. Volunteering to raise awareness. Fundraising for the cause. And before you know it, everyone's involved and the number of people who don't have clean access to drinking water ISN'T more than the number of people who are on Facebook (1 billion to 500 million).

What I'm trying to say is that it isn't beyond our reach to solve this problem. We have the technology and the resources to give everyone in the world clean access to drinking water - it's such a simple thing and yet the problem still exists.

It starts with changing our habits. If I can do it, so can you.

The ABCs of South America (7) - Brotherly Love in South America

2010-10-12T21:02:00.003-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

Welcome to a very heartwarming edition of the ABCs of South America.
Today's post is about how special it was to be able to go on this month-long trip with my brother and how it'll probably be something we remember for a long time.

J is for Julian and Jeff

I was watching the Amazing Race this weekend (the new season featuring Youtube sensation KevJumba and his dad) and it made me think about how my brother and I would do in the Amazing Race. Though we got through our trip without any crazy meltdowns (and nothing as bad as that watermelon to the face, ouch!), I like to think that we would be up for the challenge. We did face quite a bit of adversity at times on the trip and I think going through it we got to see how each of us faces hardship and ultimately we grew together as brothers.

I've touched on our altitude sickness in Cuzco before; it was the worst the day after Machu Picchu. I remember when we got to our hostel and we were both utterly exhausted. But we really didn't want to just sleep the night away - we had come so far! - so we headed into town to grab something to eat and we eventually settled on this hole-in-the-wall place near the main square.

For some reason the scene is very vivid in my mind:
We had each ordered the daily special (menu del día) for something like 30 cents Canadian. The TV was blaring some Spanish action movie while locals in the sparsely populated restaurant (restaurant is a bit generous, it was more a small room) eyed us. I remember making a joke about them probably never having seen Asian people before. Feeling nauseous, I had hardly any appetite and barely touched my food; we eventually took a cab back, ultimately defeated by our bodies.

This story isn't really notable for its location or for its cuisine or even for its hardship (just wait for the NIGHT BUS GATE story). What's special about this story, at least to me, is the bond it reinforced between Julian and I. It was just him and me, you know? Us against the world (OK just Peru). And we got through it just fine. The Spanish held up; we didn't get mugged or even ripped off. We went to a random restaurant in a random city in Peru and ate a random meal. I don't even remember what we ate, except that there was soup.

What I do remember, and what I'll always remember, is that my brother and I were exhausted, and sick, but we went out and experienced something new nonetheless. It may not have been amazing, but this was our race and we finished it.

Julian and Jeff, you are team NUMBER ONE.

The ABCs of South America (6) - National Independence Everywhere

2010-10-08T17:26:00.002-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

I is for Iguazu Falls and Independence

I is such a fantastic letter.

Iguazu falls is a series of waterfalls on the border between Brazil and Argentina. It's twice the size of Niagara falls (in surface area) and FIVE TIMES the flow (i.e. The amount of water going over Iguazu in one day takes five days to go over Niagara). Add that all up and it puts Niagara to shame.

I was going to upload some pictures, but none really capture the sheer size and majesty of it. It doesn't all fit nicely into one photo. If you REALLY want to see photos, you can see the photos in my Facebook Album here. It's something you really have to see in person! And if you ever go, just FYI, the Argentinian side is cooler than the Brazilian side.

I will leave you with one story, however:
When we visited the Argentinian side, we went on this boat ride into the mist of the waterfalls. It's kind of like the Maid of the Mist at Niagara falls (if you've been), except you get MUCH wetter. Anyway, that's not the point of the story. When we were on the boat, there was this guy that looked EXACTLY like the doctor from Human Centipede (the horror movie where the evil doctor sews people together to make a human centipede). That's not even the best part! HE WAS WEARING A RAINBOW BEANIE:

He's thinking, "I sure do miss my three-dog."

The beanie makes him look much less creepy and evil.

OK I bet for most of you who read that anecdote, it went *swoosh* over you head. But for the ONE person who read it, saw the photos, and went "YES! AMAZING! I TOTALLY SEE IT", I salute you, sir.

Moving on to the second I of the day, Independence. During our trip we happened to spend three Independence days on our trip. The first was Peruvian Independence:

Translation: "Let's Celebrate Together the 189th Anniversary of the Independence of Peru"

The second was Bolivian Independence:

They celebrate Independence right in Bolivia.

And the third was Argentinian Independence:

Everyone was at Iguazu Falls for Independence Day :( So crowded!

Three Independences in three weeks, that's gotta be some sort of record.

Whew, and that's the letter I.

Stolen Recipes - Merlinda's Chicken and Sticky Rice

2010-09-27T13:39:00.002-07:00

When I was in Malaysia over Christmas visiting my friend Karen, I was welcomed into her home and ate a few meals with her and her family. Most of the cooking at her house was done by her nanny who, now that the kids are grown up, serves as the family's housekeeper. Merlinda - the housekeeper - made this fantastic dish with chicken and sticky rice, similar to the sticky rice you'd get at a Chinese restaurant, that I just adored.

As I left Karen's home and went to volunteer at the Juara Turtle Project for New Year's, I kept in touch with Merlinda via texting and we became friends. She even began to describe me as one of her 'kids'! (which, honestly, felt kind of premature at first but still I was touched). All the while we were in contact I never forgot about that chicken.

Anyway, after I came back to Canada, Merlinda signed up for Facebook and added me as a friend. This is when I asked her for the recipe for the chicken and sticky rice, promising to record my attempt. And that takes me back to last week, when I successfully made the dish using her recipe:

Recipe
2 Chicken legs (drumstick and thigh)
2 cups of sticky (glutinous) rice
3-4 chinese sausages
2 water chestnuts
1/2 cup dried shrimp
3-4 spicy peppers
(also 4-5 mushrooms if you're into that sort of thing)
soy sauce

The numbers aren't super precise as I didn't get an exact recipe from Merlinda, just some general tips. I also didn't have water chestnuts or shrimp when I made it last week because I was just trying it for the first time.

Preparation: Soak the rice (and the water chestnuts and dried shrimp) in water for about 20 minutes. Also, if you have time, marinate the chicken in soy sauce the night before.

Step One: Brown the chicken in a pan (I put green onions in too, but you don't have to) and set aside. The chicken will be about half-cooked after this. If you didn't marinate the chicken the night before, I usually just add soy sauce at this stage.

It should smell pretty good right about now.

Step Two: Fry together the rest of the ingredients and add some soy sauce (two tablespoons or so).

If you don't use exactly one of each colour pepper, you're doing it wrong.

Step Three: Get some aluminum foil and put all the ingredients together.

I had some more aluminum foil to cover the top too.

Step Four: With your ingredients all wrapped up in aluminum foil, steam for 2-3 hours.

I used a pot of boiling water and a steamer tray.

Step Five: Take it out, unwrap and enjoy!

The suspense is killing me.

Ta-da!

Finally, I had it taste-tested by the person whom I knew would be the best critic - my friend Karen. She took one bite and said it was good, so it passed the Karen-test! Hooray!

The ABCs of South America (5) - Delicacies in Peru

2010-09-23T19:27:00.004-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

G is for Guinea pig

If you thought this letter would be about cute guinea pigs that Peruvian kids kept as pets, you'd be wrong. Here is cuy, the Peruvian delicacy of deep-fried guinea pig:

Avert your eyes, herbivores.

Honestly, my brother and I only had about 5 days in Peru and, while we meant to try it, we never did. On the last night, the night we were supposed to try it, we both felt really sick and couldn't stomach anything other than soup.

Looking at the pictures of it on the internet (the above is one I found online), I'm kind of torn - either I missed out on an important cultural experience or dodged a greasy messy bullet. Hard to say, really.

H is for Heladeria and Hammocks
Heladeria is Spanish for ice cream store! Once we got to Brazil, out of all the cold Bolivian weather, we ate ice cream ALL THE TIME!! (We ate it a few times in Peru too.) Seriously, in Paraty and Ihla Grande, there was a time where we went for ice cream 5 times in 2 days. Think about that.

My brother dropped his ice cream, but it's OK: 19/20 scoops is still 95%.

The flavours, the variety, the freshness, it was all so delicious. My favourite was Maracuja, aka Passion fruit. I think what really sold it for me was the fact that it was a) pay per kilo (which I love for its fairness) and b) super cheap. You could get like three big scoops for like nothing!!

Ice cream. Even for times when it's cold enough to wear scarves.

The other H is for hammocks. When we stayed in the Pantanal, we stayed on a ranch and slept in hammocks for two nights:

Boys and girls in the same room. *high pitched OOOOOOOOOOOHHH*

Most people ask me how it could've been comfortable sleeping two nights there and I felt the same way at first - apprehensive. But after the first night went by and I felt so refreshed, I had been converted. I mean, there's a reason people fall asleep in hammocks on summer days; it's because they're bloody comfortable.

The only gripe I had with it was that it did tend to get a bit cold at night. I quickly learned though that the key was wrapping yourself in the blanket. You lose a surprising amount of heat through the bottom of the hammock!

One caveat though with the hammocks. I'd been told that sleeping on them for a few nights is OK, but if you ever were to do it long-term, you'd get horrible, horrible back pain. (I used horrible there twice for emphasis - See? I'm a writer!) I've yet to confirm this so maybe once I do I'll write another blog post about it.

The ABCs of South America (4) - Snorkeling in Brazil

2010-09-10T08:10:00.005-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

Today's post will be presented in Hi-DEF.

D is for Dourado

Dourado has two significant meanings for my trip. The first is that it's the name of the city where we first had churrasco. The second is that it's the name of a fish that we saw when we went snorkeling:

Dourados are yellow and have the face of an old man.

In Brazil, we went snorkeling at Rio de Prata, a crystalline river where you don't even have to swim to see fish. With buoyancy from your wet suit, you can just float down the river at a nice leisurely pace, looking at all fish swimming by you.

I tried to reach out and grab one but I missed.

E is for Empanadas

So unlike Thailand there wasn't that much street food that was particularly unique. However, they did sell empanadas on the street. Apparently the name comes from the verb empanar which means to wrap in dough (thanks Wikipedia!). It's kind of like a Jamaican patty. The filling can vary, but most of the times we had it it had beef in it with olives and beans and other random things.

1.30 Peruvian Nuevo Soles is only about 50 cents Canadian.

F is for Feijao preto com arroz

Feijao preto com arroz (Portuguese for 'black beans with rice') is a really common Brazilian dish.

It's so common I didn't take any pictures of it and had to find this one.

At almost any Brazilian food restaurant, some form of rice with beans will be offered. The nicer places will have black beans, the crappier places will have brown beans. It's a Brazilian staple.

And the taste? It's something that really didn't sound too appetizing at first (at least to me since I don't really like beans), but works surprisingly well. It grew on me; by the end of the trip it was one of the things I knew I would miss. I had some when I went to that Brazilian restaurant in Vancouver, but it just wasn't the same...

Once I learn how to make the sauce, it'll be feijao preto com arroz every day! I'll apologize to my roommates in advance...

The ABCs of South America (3) - Gluttony Everywhere

2010-09-06T09:08:00.002-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

C is for Churrasco, Caiman, Caipirinhas, Ceviche and Chorizo sandwiches

This is a post about food! All of the things named above are things that were consumed on our trip.

First up! Churrasco refers to grilled meat (typically beef) and it's something we ate a lot of in Brazil. To eat churrasco, you typically have to go to a churrascaria, which serves all-you-can-eat churrasco (and there's normally a salad buffet too). We went to three during our two weeks in Brazil - once for lunch and twice for dinner. The lunch was cheap, like $8 Canadian; the dinners were $15 and $20 or so - all phenomenal prices for an awesome all-meat buffet.

You might be thinking, "It's probably all crappy cuts of meat" but you couldn't be further from the truth. They always have some amazing cuts available. The best cut is picanha (sometimes referred to as top sirloin) and it certainly lived up to its reputation. I was also partial to the filet mignon, lamb (of course!), pineapple and cheese (straight up balls of cheese). Churrasco is so awesome that I even went to a churrascaria when I got back to Vancouver.

And I haven't even mentioned the best part!
In Brazil when they make churrasco, they put the meat on a big sword to grill it, so when you go to a churrascaria they bring out the big swords and cut the meat straight off on to your plate. I give a hearty thumbs up to meat on swords.

This guy gave his hearty thumbs up too.

Next up is Caiman, a member of the alligator family seen here:

We literally saw hundreds of caiman in our wildlife excursion. And yet this is the only picture I have of one.

When we were in the Pantanal in Brazil (the world's largest wetlands), caiman were everywhere! The town we were in right after the Pantanal, Bonito, was the only place I ever saw caiman on the menu in Brazil, so it was pretty special to have it. It kind of tasted like pork, but maybe with a hint of fishiness. It came in this weird cheesy sauce with rice and fish sauce:

It also came grilled, but that was for lame people.

The next C is for Caipirinha, the national cocktail of Brazil. It's pretty simple to make: a shot of cachaça (sugar cane rum - ~42% alcohol), sugar, ice and a boatload of limes. Some people didn't like caipirinhas because they were too strong, but I really enjoyed them; they're a perfect summer drink. I brought some cachaça to Waterloo with me, so if you're in Waterloo, come by and I'll make you one!

Don't expect me to look like this guy though.

The penultimate C is for Ceviche, a Peruvian delicacy where raw fish is marinated in lemon juice and mixed with onions and spices. We had it in Lima and I found it quite enjoyable, though my brother was unimpressed. It had a tangy taste and a soft texture; it'd be perfect for a hot summer day.

Too bad Lima's always grey and cloudy in the winter.

The last C is for Chorizo sandwiches. In the last post in this series, I was bemoaning the fact that there wasn't really any Bolivian dish, like the Peruvian Ceviche, that was really memorable or special. Well I half-lied. One of the best things I ate in Bolivia was a chorizo sandwich in Sucre (it's apparently a Sucre specialty). It's street food, and the ingredients aren't anything special, but it was so amazingly delicious that I went back to have another one before we left.

It's really just a chorizo sausage (or two) on a kaiser-like bun with a slice of tomato, some letuce and some onions. They key is in how they cook the chorizo - it's deep fried in a vat of greasy oil; they even spoon some of the oil/sauce on to the sandwich. It sounds gross, but I assure you it's absolutely amazing.

Don't let this unimpressive photo fool you. You'd step over your own mother just to get one!!

And that's the way Jeff C's it.

The ABCs of South America (2) - Frustration in Bolivia

2010-09-05T15:10:00.004-07:00

The ABCs of South America is an alphabetical arrangement of the most memorable parts of my South America trip in the summer of 2010. You can start at the beginning here.

B is for Bowler hat ladies and the Beef with Bolivia

When I arrived in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, the first thing I noticed was that a dominance in fashion exists there that is different than any other place I'd ever been to. There is one 'look' that is sported by upwards of 90% of the city's elderly women. It consists of a few dozen alpaca sweaters, a long loose dress and typically a neutral-coloured shawl. But the most important piece is the one on top - the unforgettable bowler hat.

An elderly woman looks on in Oruro, thinking, "Damn my hat looks good."

The popularity of the 'bowler hat lady' look is probably due to its versatility. The Bolivian fashionistas experiment with lots of accessories to accent their looks.

A bowler hat lady in La Paz experiments adds sunglasses to her look in the shade of a La Paz street.

The interesting part of the bowler hat phenomenon is that it is more than just a style of dress; it is a status symbol. Anecdotally, I learned that the reason they're so popular is because having a tall, cone-shaped head is linked with intelligence and status in Andean culture. The ladies often wear the hats high on their heads so as to give the appearance of having a cone-shaped head. As well, the style of the hat often tells you more about the relative affluence of the lady wearing it. The length of the brim, the height of the hat, the colour - all of these things seem to determine how important the lady is.

My brother stands beside a gang of Bolivian bowler hat ladies.

But besides bowler hat ladies and a few sights, Bolivia was largely forgettable as a tourist destination. It's less developed than Peru or Brazil and, due to the a few things that went wrong on that leg of the trip, it is associated with unpleasantness in my mind. This is what I have dubbed, "The Beef with Bolivia."

The beef with Bolivia grew steadily and eventually just became an ongoing list of grievances. Firstly, we were forced to take two more overnight buses than scheduled. The first was because we had to take a detour due to road blockages from striking civic workers. Fair enough, but the second was because of some incompetence from our tour guide regarding our flights. So, with an extra 33 hours of overnight bus (15 the first time, 18 the second), you can see where most people would develop a beef. I was pretty accepting compared to some of the other people on the tour. For most, the 18-hour bus ride debacle become known as "Night Bus Gate". You can read more about it when I get to the letter 'N'.

Besides the night bus incidents was just a general lack of distinctness and comfort in Bolivia. There was no food or sight (besides one day in the Salt Flats) that stood out as a 'must-eat' or 'must-see'. It was also really cold a lot of the time (due to the high altitude) and my brother got really sick one night in the Salt Flats. The combination of extreme coldness and no running water meant he spent one pretty miserable night making trips back and forth to the bathroom. He and the other people on the tour understood that Bolivia was a less-developed place but really the experience paled in comparison to other parts of the trip.

An impromptu dance session by the side of the road to combat the blistering cold. Just to show you it wasn't all beef.

(Editor's Note: Probably not every post is going to be about just one letter of the alphabet; it's just the first few letters have given me a lot to write about!)

The ABCs of South America

2010-08-25T23:47:00.003-07:00

So I went to South America.

But before that, I spent the time here in my home and native land getting myself together. After bumming around in Vancouver in May and visiting Toronto in June, I had by July come to the conclusion to apply to grad school after I graduate. To that end, I applied for the International Fulbright Science and Technology Award in May and wrote the GRE in June.

Meanwhile, my brother had some time off and wanted to go on a trip in August. While I didn't really have it in me for another trip, ultimately it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. My one semester of Spanish would help and, honestly, how many times do you get to travel with your brother? So we planned a cross-continental trip that would take us from Lima, Peru through Bolivia to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The first week would be on our own and after that we would join a tour from La Paz to Rio.

In this post and the ones to follow, I'm going to go through the ABCs of my South American trip in order to give you a sense of where I went, who I met and, most importantly, what I ate. To give you a taste, here's the first one (after the break):

A is for Altitude and Alpacas

After the second day of our trip, we pretty much spent the next 10 days of our trip above 3000m. Cuzco, Machu Picchu, and most of Bolivia are really high above sea level. When you're in a plane you can always see the ground below you. Usually you're supposed to have at least a day to acclimatize to the altitude, but since we were on a tight schedule we had no time to spare. So of course we got altitude sickness. It was pretty bad in Peru; beyond the normal 'going up a flight of stairs and feeling winded' experience, we were just perpetually tired and even a bit nauseous. We were better by Bolivia though; probably in no small part due to our consumption of copious amounts of coca tea (a local remedy made from the leaves of the coca plant, which is actually what they use to make cocaine with).

The altitude made the first half of the trip quite cold temperature-wise, despite what you might think of South America. In one part of our trip in Bolivia, the night was up to -20 degrees celsius! Since it was winter, this means that we had to buy lots of alpaca-wool clothing to keep warm. Llamas and alpacas are pretty common around the Andes (in and around Bolivia and Peru) and especially common in the rural areas. In Machu Picchu they were just roaming around the grounds!

You'll find alpaca clothing in all of the markets and shopping districts in Peru and Bolivia (though llama stuff is cheaper in Bolivia). From bags to hats to fetuses (yes true!), you can find all things alpaca in these two countries of South America.

Whew, now wasn't that fun? It's nice to have something to blog about again.

22,723,200 Seconds

2010-05-10T19:22:00.008-07:00

When my plane was landing, I caught my first sight of those mountains. You know the ones, the beautiful, blue, snow-capped mountains that you can always use as your compass if you get lost. Those mountains. And my smile got a little bigger.

I raced off the plane, my strides becoming more quick with each familiar airport landmark. The native statues. The familiar green carpet. A Tim Horton's. I rushed out and took a breath in the crisp Vancouver spring air. I was home.

It's been 22,723,200 seconds or 378,720 minutes or 6312 hours or 263 days or 37 weeks (rounded down) or 8 months 20 days since I last stepped foot on Canadian soil. To take it further, I've only spent at most 3 weeks in Vancouver since August 2008.

I wanted to write up a post about how I feel about the whole trip but it's been so much I don't even know where to begin. How about at the beginning.

I circumnavigated New Zealand. I ate fish and chips in Akaroa, soared above Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, kayaked around Abel Tasman and went in search of kiwis on Stewart Island. I saw where Frodo began his journey at Bag-End, where he escaped the Nazgul on the way to Rivendell and where his friends did battle as he destroyed the ring. I watched Canterbury defeat Wellington for the Air New Zealand Cup and Pakistan tie the Black Caps in three 5-day tests. I got to be apart of an amazing church in Christchurch and visited probably the most famous one in the world in Sydney. I got to spend four amazing months in a country that not only loves its sport as much as Canada does but does so in the same extremely large shadow set by its next door neighbour. In the end I feel like I really got a sense of who Kiwis are and they're not that much different than us Canucks.

And then I began my next adventure. I was lucky enough to explore some of the countries of Southeast Asia. I learned about the innovations in water reclamation in Singapore. I lived luxuriously, frugally and simply (during multiple visits) in Malaysia. I devoured any and all food with chili. I helped saved sea turtles. I sat around a fire on the beach and rung in the new year with Malay fisherman who only knew how to say 'Captain Morgan?' in English. I spent two weeks teaching a village how to preserve their natural resources. I crashed one motorbike and burnt my leg on another. I successfully bargained at a market with rudimentary Indonesian. I despised the Jakarta airport. I made a fool out of myself by kissing a German girl who had a boyfriend (to be fair, I didn't know at the time). I had a splash war with Thai kids while floating down the river on a bamboo raft. I saw an elephant pooing 5 feet away from me. And in all these things I saw the state of southeast Asia as it is today. Some parts are developing faster than others. I saw the intense poverty and the incredible corruption. The filth, the ugliness and the spirit. I saw the indomitable spirit, the beaming pride and the ingenuity of the Southeast Asian people trying to overcome years of subjugation. I understood that they are just trying to find their way in the world.

And just like that I'm sitting on my couch with the sun shining through the window in my living room. I'm aware of the cliches but I am different than when I left. I have a better idea of how I can achieve what I want. Before, using my degree to help others was a vague goal I didn't know how to reach. Now it's a tangible possibility. Not a possibility, a definite thing. A definibility. A definiteness. Damn words. Southeast Asia must have ruined my vocabulary. Must have lah!

In the end, I'm back and more motivated than ever to accomplish that which I want to accomplish. Look out, world!

4 Things I Learned about Indonesian Culture by Watching TV

2010-04-28T09:11:00.007-07:00

This is Cinta Laura. She is the Indonesian Miley Cyrus.

In the middle of my two week trip in Indonesia, a friend of mine became really sick and needed to be hospitalized. She was OK, but I spent two nights at the hospital to keep her company. As a result, I got to watch a fair amount of Indonesian television and this was where I first saw Cinta Laura, an Indonesian pop star whose whiny voice sparked ridicule amongst most Indonesians I met.

But this post isn't about her. After a while, I started to notice that the same types of commercials came on over and over again. I figure advertising is a window in to the wants and desires of a nation. Look at North American commercials: most of them are about beer, fast food, and feature scantily clad women and ridiculously fast cars. Does that properly sum up North American "culture"?

With that, here are my observations about what Indonesians are obsessed with based on commercials:

1. Cigarettes

A refreshing breeze. Bubbles carrying people away. Swimming in crisp, blue water. Then a logo, a half-second flash of some text, and on to the next commercial.

Only by slowly trying to read the text at the end did I figure out that these were cigarette ads. The logos were for brands I didn't know and the text was an anti-smoking warning. These were by far the most frequent type of commercial shown.

You don't expect these types of commercials because in North America, cigarette companies are banned from advertising in print, television, radio and even sponsoring events. But in countries like Indonesia, where people start smoking from the age of fifteen, the culture of smoking is much more prevalent. But is it this culture that drives the advertising, or is the advertising creating the desire to smoke in Indonesians? It's most likely a little bit of both, but regardless it provides an insight into the Indonesian culture.

It's a shame this hot girl will die of lung cancer.

2. Soccer

These ads were much more obvious than the cigarette ones. Some were for domestic soccer (the Indonesian Super League) and some were for the World Cup in South Africa. There was even one that combined the two themes, using the South African theme (Lions and Elephants and Zebras) to advertise domestic soccer.

I asked some of my Indonesian friends and they said that soccer is Indonesia's most popular sport. A couple of my friends played futsal, an indoor variant of soccer. With this widespread love of soccer, combined with the fourth largest population in the world (behind only China, India and the U.S. and ahead of Brazil and Pakistan), you'd think Indonesia would be a international soccer powerhouse. Nope. They didn't even qualify for the World Cup this year. In fact, none of the southeast Asian teams did, despite all professing a love for soccer. Maybe it's all the cigarette smoking?

Even their soccer league is sponsored by a cigarette company!

3. Skin Whitening

I've touched on this before. I didn't realize how prevalent skin whitening creams were until I went to Indonesia though. I had seen the print ads in Singapore, but until I saw all the commercials portraying users of the cream as fun and attractive, I didn't understand what white skin represented.

Let's go back to Cinta Laura for a second. She is exactly like many Indonesian celebrities, that is, half-white and half-Indonesian with light skin that is seen as attractive. All of the prime time actors and actresses, the singers and musicians, even the news anchors! They all have the same complexion even though almost every normal Indonesian I met was dark. An interesting cultural quirk, eh?

I don't think the guy was noticing her beautiful white skin, he was blinded by the light reflecting off her.

4. Coffee

I'm not sure why instant coffee is so popular in Southeast Asia. You've got Nescafe so popular to the point where it has become a genericized trademark for coffee in Malaysia. You've got tons of kopitiam (coffee shops) in Singapore that really only serve on type of coffee (instant). And then there's Indonesia which pretty much follows suit with its neighbours.

It's not like Indonesia doesn't have specialty coffee. They've got kopi luwak which is coffee that is made from beans that have been digested by this monkey-looking thing. Delicious, right? But even then, you can't go one commercial break without seeing at least two coffee ads: one with the wife making it for the husband in the morning (Fun Fact: Any Indonesian ad with two people kissing or alone will always have a close-up of their hands at one point to show that they're married) and one where a bunch of people are sitting around drinking instant coffee because it's cool and it's hip.

Oh suuuure, the bad guys are dark. Racists.

Thirty Thoughts on Thailand

2010-04-24T05:00:00.082-07:00

So here at NUS, there's a week before exams start so you can forget everything you learned in the term. Naturally, I (like most exchange students) took the time to travel (and eat!).

I went to Chiang Mai, the hub of Northern Thailand. Originally I was supposed to spend 2 days in Bangkok and then 3 days in Chiang Mai but due to the escalating violence, we decided it would be more prudent to spend 5 days in Chiang Mai instead.

We did SO many things! The highlights included an elephant-riding trek, bamboo rafting down a river in a splash war with Thai kids, going to three different night markets in three nights, eating TONS of food, taking a Thai cooking class, watching a Muay Thai fight, randomly meeting up with Singapore friends and having a drink together, a Thai massage, seeing the Myanmar border, visiting tons of temples, enduring all of the heat, drinking tiger penis whiskey in Laos... and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff.

With that, enjoy my thirty thoughts on Thailand. (I'll upload a few pictures, but most of the pictures will go up on Facebook, check for them there!)

1. They love the king here (the Thai King not any other king). We watched a movie to escape the heat and, before it started, everyone in the theater had to stand up and sing the national anthem while watching a vignette of the king performing various humanitarian acts (helping orphans, caring for the sick). So very patriotic!

A billboard featuring the Thai King. Text reads "I'm the Thai King and I'm awesome" (not really)

2. I really don't get lady boys (if you don't know, they're boys who dress like ladies and they're everywhere in Thailand) and why they're so prevalent.

3. Speaking of which, someone told us that the phrase 'Same Same But Different' (a popular t-shirt meme) originated from lady boys.

4. A tourist picked up a a lady boy, so the story goes, and they get a room. The tourist finds out the 'surprise' and shrieks, "Are you a man!?" The lady boy responds with, "I am same same but different."

5. Walking down the street at night, you see quite a few Thai prostitutes. Young girls, too. It depresses the hell out of me and I'm sure there would have been even more had we gone to Bangkok.

6. What also depresses me is how many old white men with young Thai girl 'couples' there were.

7. The two major beers brewed in Thailand are Chang and Singha. Singha is the better one (though Chang has a delightful elephant logo!).

8. The local beer in Laos is called Beerlao.

9. Went on an elephant trek, but didn't witness anything overtly cruel (something I was worried about). My elephant's baby even joined us for our trek, so at least they don't separate babies from their mothers...(which is a big problem)

Baby elephant that joined us for the trek

10. Chiang Mai has a LOT of white tourists. Seems like you can't go anywhere without seeing them.

11. Most of them are really hippie-ish, as in they're really white people with things like dreadlocks, awful tattoos, showing way too much skin and wearing local clothing (while looking really out of place) that all seems (at least to me) to be trying to portray an image of 'look at me, I'm ADAPTING to local culture!' when really it's just a white tourist who thinks they're Thai if they come to Chiang Mai for a week.

12. Speaking of tattoos, if I ever wanted a tattoo before (I did), I definitely don't want one now. Seeing all the hippies with bad tattoos (worst one I've seen is a tie between a dolphin with a strawberry and a crazy deranged clown), not to mention the old people with wrinkly ones, has put me off.

13. The easiest way to get around cities in Thailand (in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and I'm told other cities as well) is by songthaew, which is like a mix between a taxi and a bus. You flag one down (it's a usually red pickup truck with a covered back and two benches in the carriage), ask the driver a street or location, and if he says yes then you'll get in the back. The standard flat rate for going anywhere is 20 Baht (like $0.60 Canadian) per trip, though it can be more if you go further out of the city.

14. Thai girls are some of the most beautiful Asian girls, though I met a Korean girl on my trip that made me reconsider.

15. In Thai, 'hello' is 'sawadee-krub' or 'sawadee-ka' for girls. 'Thank you' is 'khob khun krub/ka'.

16. There was one McDonald's close to us in Chiang Mai and the one time we went in there (nothing else was open), there was this fat (>250 lbs) guy in there.

17. Speaking of met expectations, I came to Thailand not especially liking pad thai and I left feeling the same way.

18. One night we went to this centre with a bunch of bars and in the middle was a Muay Thai boxing ring. The fights did not disappoint. Saw two skinny Thai guys go at it, then a kid fight a midget (or dwarf, thanks In Bruges!), then a white British guy fight a Thai guy (whitey lost).

Best comment when I told someone that story: "Jeez I hope you didn't hurt the kid, Jeff!"

19. Could actually get a bit of the technique from what my friend Anisha showed me once. Blocks, jabs, defensive kicks and stuff.

20. Posed with one of the fighters after and he said I should fight him in the ring! I politely declined.

21. Love night markets. We went to three different ones in three nights during our six night stay. Among the highlights were lots of street food and I got a shirt with Mao as a DJ.

Red Bean Stick Rice triangles with shredded coconut on top

22. We just missed Songkran (the Thai New Year) where everyone sprays everyone else with water (symbolic cleansing turned fun water fight), but got a taste of it during our bamboo rafting activity down a river where a Thai kids camp was also rafting. Lots of water splashing there.

23. Thailand uses a different calendar (or a different starting point?) so here it's the year 2553, not 2010.

24. Had a chance to cross the border into Myanmar but declined because I didn't want to support the military regime with my visa money.

25. DID, however, cross briefly into Laos. We didn't do much there, but I've heard it's essentially a poorer Thailand.

26. Food highlights of the trip include: kao soi (a Northern Thai specialty - noodles in soup, kind of like laksa), pad thai (of course), lots of curry, mango sticky rice, papaya salad, lots of fresh fruit smoothies, Thai street meat, Chiang Mai sausage (has a hint of ginger in it), Tom Yum soup (of course), this delicious honey basil chicken and 7 Baht (<$0.25 CAD) ice cream at McDonald's

27. The White Temple in Chiang Rai (a city north of Chiang Mai) was quite neat architecturally but the murals inside had weird images of 9/11, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Neo from the Matrix and George Bush with Osama Bin Laden (not kidding about that last one).

28. Most locals assumed I could speak Thai for some reason. Usually I'd just smile and nod.

29. Had a delightful Thai massage on the last day. No, not that kind. This one they like stand on you and extend your limbs and stuff. Best move: me sitting up, the lady pulling both my arms back with her feet pressing against my back. Amazing stuff.

30. In Laos, they give us complimentary whiskey that had been fermented with weird things. Of note where snake, geckos, scorpions and, my personal favourite, tiger penis.

The eponymous tiger penis of tiger penis whiskey.

I think I'll end this post with this picture:

Thought I was kidding about #27 didn't you?

5 Reasons Why I Hate Being Asian

2010-04-13T20:09:00.078-07:00

In the interest of equal time, here's 5 Reasons Why I Hate Being Asian:

Being here in Singapore has given me the realization that certain Asian traits really bother me. While there are times I'm proud to be Asian, there are an increasing number of cultural aspects that are getting on my nerves. With my time in Singapore almost over, here are five reasons I hate being Asian:

1. Image is Paramount

I hate that lots of stuff in Asian culture is centered around the image you project to other people. In everyday interactions, it is an annoying but indistinct trait; manners and politeness are present in every culture. But when that mindset seeps into every part of culture and begins to encroach on the ideals of fairness and decency, then that's where it becomes something I hate. You saw it in the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony with the lipsyncing little girl and the computer-generated fireworks. You see it when people plagiarise in order to seem smarter than they are. You hear it when you ask a Singaporean what their dreams are and you get back "Oh to have a good job, nice house and car and family" - all status symbols to show off to others. I see it when parents compare children and gloat that their child's accomplishments are better. These aren't all specific to Asians, but it's something I'm not particularly fond of being associated with.

The two little girls in the Beijing Olympic Lip syncing controversy (the inset is the girl who actually sang).

2. There are a LOT of Asians

No matter where you go, there'll be Asian (typically Chinese) people. Because we're everywhere, we aren't special. Not unique. You can swing your arm out and probably hit two or three Chinese people right now. From where you're sitting, I'm guessing you can see at least one Chinese person. And they'll have black hair and brown eyes. Not that there aren't some spectacularly unique Chinese people, but I'm just saying there's a reason people (even Chinese people) have difficulty distinguishing them.

A picture I took on China's National Day (Oct. 1) in 2008 in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

3. Generally Selfish World View

OK. This one obviously isn't true of all Asian people, but I find it's an underlying theme in Asian culture. Let me give you an example. In Chinese churches, where Christians are supposed to put others before themselves, I feel there is a palpable struggle with donating your money or your time when it is inconvenient to you. I may be projecting, since I know my dad thought my Indonesia trip was a waste of time before I convinced him it was related to my field of study and would therefore be beneficial to me in my future career, but I feel as if Asian culture is less inclined to give. Maybe this has to do with the fact that there's the culture of hard work and things have to be earned. I'm not saying that all Asian people are less likely to give, but I think because of the culture they're less likely to give when it hurts. I see this exhibited on a global stage with China unwilling to compromise or be a part of UN discussion unless it benefits them. Despite wanting to be seen as a world power, they don't want to take the responsibility of one. Their intransigence on climate change is one such example.

Smog from a Chinese factory.

4. Caucasian Culture seen as Better

This is one that isn't specific to Chinese people. I've seen this in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore too. The 'West' is better. White skin is beautiful. KFC and McDonald's are 'higher class'. White significant others are seen as more glamorous. Asian people have this sense that they're not as good and I guess it comes from the colonialism and the subjugation and probably #5, but it's not something I enjoy being under the influence of. I feel like this one, combined with the fact that there are tons more Asian people, creates the culture of timidity.

A skin whitening ad, showing how you too can have beautiful white skin.

5. Culture of Timidity

I suppose this initially stemmed from the image-being-important culture and then later on from the inferiority felt as compared to the West but this is one reason I could never live in Singapore long term. I'm already sick of the culture at school. People don't ask questions in class. They never ask why. There was this big news thing here where this girl got molested in public and no one tried to help her. I feel like working here, the professional culture would be just awful for innovation. I'm loud and boisterous when the need arises. I like to be challenged. Singaporean culture seems to stifle people like me.

Image from Wong Fu production "Yellow Fever", which suggests that the reason Asian males aren't as desirable as Caucasians is because of their timidity.

I want to mention in closing that I have not changed my stance on being Asian. I am proud to be Asian. It's just I recognize that there are good AND bad things about it.

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings

2010-04-10T23:39:00.003-07:00

It's Sunday and I just got home from Church so that means I'm rambling about my week.

It's been almost 3 months to the day since I last rambled on a Sunday. I got caught up on posting my Indonesia stuff (and even that took me like a month since school was a mess in March) and never got around to posting stuff like this.

A couple of Sundays after church a bunch of us went to eat dim sum here. It was pretty good and they had all the regular things, but it was kind of pricey.

Today I came home from church and saw that the Canucks were handling the Flames handily 6-3 with, most importantly, Henrik Sedin notching 4 points to take the league lead by 3 points. It made my day!

Last night I found out that the protests in Thailand had turned violent. A bunch of people were killed (18), including a Japanese cameraman for Reuters. While I respect what they're trying to achieve (they want to call elections because the current government took power without a proper election), I hope they can negotiate a peace settlement real soon. It's been said before, but I hope the Thai king (who is mainly a figurehead) will put an end to this (in some other big riots in the past, he criticized the two sides and then they stopped). Add in the fact that the Thai king is in the hospital now and, should he die, his son is not as well-loved by the Thai people as much as his father is and you've got great impetus to end this quickly.

Another impetus to end this quickly? I'm going to Bangkok on Thursday and I'd really like not like to get HIV (the protesters were throwing blood) or shot. I'll be sure not to wear red (the colour of the protesters) or yellow (the colour of the government-supporters).

To be honest though, I'd only really be scared if there were bombings or something. If you see large groups of red-shirted or yellow-shirted people, just get the hell out of there. I think it's likely we won't spend too much time in Bangkok proper, but see some stuff just outside the city.

This upcoming week is the last week of classes, and two of my classes don't even have lectures. The other two, however, have decided that a last minute assignment is in order. Who uploads an assignment on Saturday!?

Besides the Thailand trip (I'm leaving Thursday), I'm also going to Kuala Lumpur one last time after my exams are over May 4. Karen (a friend of mine from Waterloo whose family lives in KL) is going to be back and I'm looking forward to relaxing on the beach before I go home.

Speaking of which, I go home May 10. I'm really looking forward to it.

I still don't know what I'm doing this summer - I've got a couple of leads at universities and consulting firms, but honestly it's all up in the air. If I can't find anything, I think I'll just go home, study up for the GRE and re-evaluate from there. I think it would be really cool to maybe do some missions with ICC with my church, but I really don't know at this point.

Coming up I think I'll have a post on some Singapore posts I'd been thinking about for a while, including some lovely posts about my roommates here in Singapore <3.

OK I think that's enough rambling for now.

Reading Week in Indonesia - The End

2010-03-29T22:30:00.004-07:00

This post is the ninth and last in a series about my reading week in Indonesia. You can start at the beginning here.

There are probably a couple more things I could've written about, but I think the posts I've put up give a pretty good description of the things we did, why we did them and what the results were. We didn't set out to change everything immediately, but I think we made a good first step and established some good things for the future. We painted a mural, cleaned the river, visited a school, put up trash cans and signs, restocked the fish and planted trees and had a great time doing it all.

The IIWC slogan is "Individually we change ourselves, together we change the world" and at first I thought it was kind of corny but I really felt like our camp embodied this phrase. We grew together, exchanged culture and grew as individuals while at the same time working together towards a common goal. I'll never forget the two weeks I spent in rural Indonesia and hope that I can go back one day and find that what we did made a difference in changing attitudes.

Tune in next time for more on Singapore as I enter exams and get ready to head home after eight months away.

P.S. There are a bunch more pictures from my Reading Week trip but I'm going to upload them all to Facebook (there's stuff with the kids in the village, our day trip to the UNESCO World Heritage site Borobudur, and a few other environmental awareness activities we did, as well as general hijinks which include a bunch of pictures of me looking stupid), so go check them out there!

Reading Week in Indonesia - The Fish Restocking and The Tree Planting

2010-03-24T22:28:00.103-07:00

This post is the eight in a series about my reading week in Indonesia. The previous part was about how we took some practical steps toward preventing further pollution by introducing garbage cans and signs. If you want, you can also start at the beginning here.

When the leaders told me that part of our project involved fish restocking, I was sceptical at first. From school, I know that excess pollution requires biodegradation by bacteria, algae and other organisms. Since these use up the dissolved oxygen in the ponds, there is less oxygen available for other animals (like fish). Also, if too much algae grows, it can form a scum on the top layer of the pond, blocking out light from other organisms. So you can see my reluctance toward introducing a bunch of fish that will likely die. I assumed that was the reason there weren't any fish in the pond.

However, after asking I was told that the main reason there weren't any fish was that the local people like to take them! As well, many of the ponds don't have enough pollution to serious harm the fish. This all came from our camp co-leader, who fittingly studies Fisheries at a nearby university. I trusted his knowledge. With that, let's get on with it!

We started out by going into the nearby town (Salatiga) to buy fish.
Now it was important to buy the right kind of fish - these fish were specifically for aquariums and such...not for eating!
We had about 300 fish.
Back at camp, Ta'in first started out by putting the bag in the ponds so that the fish could acclimate to the temperature of the water.
Soon we opened up the bag and the fish were free!
Everyone got a turn at releasing the fish:
You can see them swimming as a group (in the middle).
Yeaah, we're pretty gangster, don't mess with us.
Or our fish.

The same day, we had gotten a bunch of trees on our trip into town.
We loaded up 100 trees in that burlap bag, as well as the 300 fish from earlier and the two people (Ta'in and me), on to a motorbike.
We made it pretty much the entire way home (like 25 minutes) without stuff falling but, wouldn't you know it, like 20 meters away from home stuff fell out. (It was ok though)

So instead of just planting the trees ourselves, we incorporated the children too as an educational activity.
Each kid got two trees and we gave the rest of the trees to the local leader to put where he saw fit.
The kids were a handful!
Walking down to Senjoyo from our campsite:
Not going to lie, the girls were generally better behaved than the girls.
Picture posing time!
You don't know how long it took before we could get the kids to stand still for this picture. They kept jockeying for position in front of the camera, to the point where they would be right up like a foot in front of the camera so they could be in the front of the picture. Haha!

Here's us actually planting the trees. We volunteers dug the holes and the kids just plunked them in.
We had some of these cheap trowels to dig with, but the soil had a decent number of rocks in it (because it was next to the river) so the trowels weren't very useful.
It was tough work, but we planted a good amount of trees before it started thundering and lightninging (it's a word!) and we had to head back.

On our way back, the kids are fascinated by my awesome stories:
Lastly, the fruit of our labour:
For each kid, at least one beautiful tiny tree and an experience that I hope they will remember for a long time.

You can move on to the conclusion (The End) or go back to part seven (The Trash Cans and The Signs).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The Trash Cans and The Signs

2010-03-19T03:06:00.059-07:00

This post is the seventh in a series about my reading week in Indonesia. The previous part was about how we visited a school. If you want, you can also start at the beginning here.

In addition to painting the mural, we also sought to increase visibility of our message in other ways while also providing a practical solution to the problem. This culminated with our implementation of trash cans and the putting up of signs with our message. I mentioned previously that one of the problems before was that people were unaware of the impact they were having, but another major problem was that the places to dispose of their garbage weren't easily accessible enough. We felt that putting up trash bins and signs would help this.

First the trash cans. Here's our design:

One side has the 'guy throwing trash in trash can symbol' from the mural and the other side has the IIWC logo. The top says 'Jagalah Kebersihan' or 'Keep Clean'. This is pretty much how we designed the mural too.

Here's us doing our painting on the trash bins (we had 3, which we brought from the city):
Each group of 2 worked on one can:
I've become an expert painter now:
The final result!
Here's our implementation of the trash cans. We put one here near the swimming hole:
One here near where everyone does their washing:
And one here near where everyone buys food and such:We consulted with the local shop owners and they were very supportive of what we were trying to do. They said they would empty the trash cans at night (as well as to lock them up so they don't get stolen).

Just a few hours after we put them there, they were already being put to good use!

OK next, we also decided to put up signs reminding people not to throw trash just anywhere. First we had to buy the material for the signs:
Then we had to form the signs (don't want people cutting themselves on the sharp edges!)
Everyone painted their own sign (our leaders came up with the Indonesian slogans for us)
It was a pretty relaxing activity compared to the physical work from the first half of the week.
Again, me demonstrating my painting pro-ness:
Here's my finished sign!(It reads 'Buanglah Sampah di Tempah Sampah' or 'Throw Garbage in (the) Garbage Can')

The top one reads "Don't take the fish" (from when we restocked the fish) and the bottom one reads "Don't throw garbage into the river".
KEEP CLEAN!Also, the sign at the beginning says "Don't dirty Senjoyo".

This was one of those activities that really fit in well with the overall goals of the project. Implementing the trash cans was practical, visible and easy enough to do. At first, I was worried that we would just be putting them there and no one would take care of them afterward, but after we talked with the shop owners, who were worried about protecting the natural environment of Senjoyo as well, I felt optimistic that things would actually change. When I first heard about the project, I didn't really know how much of an impact we would have, but seeing people use the trash bins and take responsibility for their actions was a big step forward.

You can move on to part eight (The Fish Restocking and The Tree Planting) or go back to part six (The School Visit).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The School Visit

2010-03-14T00:41:00.005-08:00

This post is the sixth in a series about my reading week in Indonesia.
The previous part was about how we cleaned up the river. If you want, you can also start at the beginning here.
We didn't do manual labour all the time we were there. One of the goals of our project was to educate the local people on the importance of the environment. To that end, we visited a school and, in addition to showcasing our culture (hence the jersey), we educated them on the environment.

The night before, I was busy planning what to do to showcase 'Canadian culture'. I had my hockey jersey, but beside that I didn't really have too much to show the kids. So I came up with the ingenious idea of teaching them about the seasons! In Indonesia, they only have 2 seasons - hot season and wet season. So I dutifully set about drawing typical scenes for each season:
The next day, we headed out early to one of the local schools, all decked out in our cultural attire:
Here's my full get-up:
Not quite as impressive as the Japanese yukata, but it'll do.
Here's the school! (Tegalwaton is the name of the village)
Waiting outside the principal's office before going in:
My lesson plan! (The actions in the middle are part of the banana song, something totally unrelated to the seasons)
After that, I planned an activity where the kids would draw and colour maple leaves.
This group of girls was so bad! They were trying to talk in English, but they only knew the bad words like stupid!
Here's me showing a group of kids what to do:
Ta-da! Every kid got to put his or her leaves on the tree. And yes I know the colours are all wrong, but we only had so many crayons...mmkay?

Then, after a brief talk about the environment, the kids drew their favourite season:
Afterward we posed in front of the school with the principal:
We hung around after and the kids were glad to pose for some pictures!
The Asian peace sign is alive and well:
And a big group shot in front of the school:And that's it! To be honest I was worried about whether our message would get through, but I think our talk had a good mixture of fun, activity and learning so it wasn't too overwhelming. When we finished the mural, the kids understood the message we were trying to convey so I think we got through despite the language barrier. Oh and if you were wondering, I spoke mostly in English (except a few words like hot and cold when describing the weather) and Ta'in the camp co-leader translated.

You can move on to part seven (The Trash Cans and Signs) or go back to part five (The River Cleanup).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The River Cleanup

2010-03-09T00:11:00.006-08:00

This post is the fifth in a series about my reading week in Indonesia.
The previous part was about how we lived in the camp. If you want, you can also start at the beginning here.

Besides beautifying the area to provide a visual reminder to keep the area clean, our project had us also physically clean the river (and surrounding area) of plastic, as much as we could. By itself, cleaning the river would've been discouraging, since the river got dirty again; however, because we partnered with some local Indonesians and we were very visible during our cleaning, I feel we led by example and showed the village locals the importance of maintaining the environment.

We didn't really have any special equipment, or even enough pairs of gloves for everyone. We did most of it by hand:
I tried to be creative and sharpen one end of a stick into a point to pick up all the little bits of plastic, but it didn't really help:
We also cleaned up garbage in the surrounding areas (i.e. not in the water).
It was mostly shampoo and soap packets (due to the proximity to the bathing pool) as well as plastic from food wrappers:
Ta'in (our co-leader) was really into it, diving in and collecting a bunch of trash:
While we were working, the village leader came by to say hello.
Here's us taking a break and chatting with him. I believe he asked me at this point if I knew Kung-fu.I do, by the way.

After cleaning up some of the ponds and the areas surrounding the ponds, we moved on to the river proper. As mentioned before, the trash in the river causes blockages in the flow patterns. So we mainly tried to break up these obstructions, but it was difficult because things like rags and clothes were tangled up with leaves, branches and other plant material.
There was another group that we were cleaning with - a volunteer group of local Indonesians (they are the ones with the spiffy jackets) who were from around Java and were in our village working in schools and such.

People hard at work (Taka only has one glove here, we split up the the gloves we had):
Here's an example of garbage creating a flow obstruction:
Despite the cold water and the sometimes-smelly obstructions (the sweet smell of biological degradation, oh it brings me back to the days I worked at a wastewater treatment plant...), we were all in good spirits:
Sometimes the flow obstructions were so dense that we had to use tools to break them up:
Upstream in the river, it was a bit harder because there was this retaining wall next to the river. It made it harder to transport the trash out of the river.In this picture I'm using an oil can from the river to hold some of the debris. I'm so smart!!

It didn't help that, because of some of the pipes laid here that move water to surrounding areas, debris gets stuck more easily.
We all had to work together to get the river clean.
When we finished, we all posed for a group shot:(the local kids in the back wanted in on the picture too!)

Afterwards, we all went for a swim in one of the ponds. It was really refreshing!
I'll leave you with this final thought. At the beginning of the post I mentioned that we were very visible to all of the local peoples during our cleaning. At first it was kind of odd, having all these people watching us as we were cleaning the river. They must have thought we were crazy.

BUT after we finished, we saw other people (local villagers) also wading into the river and trying to clean up as well:This was definitely an encouraging sign! To me it says that they understand the importance of keeping the river clean, which is something I wasn't really sure we would be able to get across.

You can move on to part six (The School Visit) or go back to part four (The Life and The Food).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The Life and The Food

2010-03-05T22:45:00.026-08:00

This post is the fourth in a series about my reading week in Indonesia.
The previous part was about the mural we painted to increase environmental awareness. If you want, you can also start at the beginning here.Taking a break from the project for a moment, I'm going to give you a picture of how we lived and what kind of food we ate.

This was our home for two weeks:A living room in the house behind the village leader's house. A grandma lived in the room to the right. On the first night we put down mats (think the type of mats you bring to the beach made out of wicker) to the left where we would sleep.

Here's our sleeping area:All of our bags and stuff were on the left. There were 7 of us sleeping so we all got cozy. On the wall, we posted the rules, the schedule of activities, and the schedule for cleaning.

This is the view looking out from our adopted living room, looking toward the leader's house.
Turning left from the previous picture:We handwashed all of our clothes, so we made good use of these clothes lines during the two weeks.

Walking out of the leader's lot, down the street in the village.
One thing that was different than most of Southeast Asia was that in the particular place we were (in the middle of a bunch of hills and valleys), it actually got cold. Now, by cold I mean probably like 20 degrees, maybe like 18 at most.You can see from here that the other people were cold, but I enjoyed it very much coming from perpetually-30-degrees Singapore.

This was our kitchen, where we cooked pretty much all of our meals:It had an earthen, uneven floor and was pretty basic. The only running water was from a hose in the corner.

Though our leaders had the forethought to bring a gas-powered stove, the local family cooked with this traditional oven:

Oh yeah, there was also a pen of goats there as well:Iing (the camp leader) said that since there aren't really any banks out here in the villages, people use livestock as their savings. When they have money, they buy a goat; when they need money, they sell a goat. Reminds me of this.

The family also had a bunch of chickens, who would cock-a-doodle-do every morning at 4 AM. Between the chickens and the goats (and they had some cows too), I think they were considered rich in these parts.
So I mentioned we cooked every meal. One of the camp's goals, besides to increase the environmental awareness of the local people, was to foster cultural exchange. To that end, each person cooked things from their own country:This is some Indonesian food - Terung Sambal (Eggplant with Chili Sauce), Tahu Goreng (Fried Tofu) and some beans.

Esther making some chili sauce (there were no counters or anything, so we just prepared food wherever there was space):
Me, making some telur (egg):
Atsuko and Taka, making some Japanese Eggplant Tempura:
Deep-frying some tempe (a type of soy-bean paste kind of like tofu):(You'll notice that a lot of the Indonesian food is fried or deep-fried...that's just how it is)

We would buy the ingredients locally from down the street:

OK some people have been making fun of the way I like to take pictures of food. To them I say whatever it's my blog I can post what I want. With that, here are some pictures of food:

This is kang kong, a leafy, spinach-y vegetable common in Indonesia:
Deep-fried Tempe and Eggplant:
A complete meal:
Taka, displaying Japanese fried rice (with an egg and chili sauce on top):
Taka and Mari, engrossed in making Okonomoyaki , a type of Japanese pancake:
What a typical dinner looked like at the campsite:
Of course, we didn't cook all the time. Here's one night where ordered satay, an Indonesian delicacy:
One of the days while we were out we had Mee Ayam (Chicken Noodles) at a restaurant:
I think this is deep-fried kerpupuk , this shrimp cracker that is ubiquitious in Indonesia (they had it as an appetizer at the restaurant):
We sampled lots of the fresh local fruit too. Here's us sampling fresh rambutan (our neighbours had a tree):
And our leaders diligently breaking open a coconut for us to enjoy:
Mmm..cool, refreshing coconut juice:
That's it! You can go back to part three (The Mural) or move on to part five (The River Cleanup).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The Mural

2010-03-02T23:25:00.031-08:00

This is part three of the series about my reading week in Indonesia.
Start from the beginning, here, or go back to part two, describing the situation our project was sent to address.This post is about one of the first activities we did to encourage the people who use Senjoyo to keep the place clean. Around one of the pools (one that hundreds of people pass everyday and is visible from far upstream) we painted an environmentally-themed mural. The mural served two purposes - one it painted over the grafitti that was previously there and two it illustrated the consequences of the peoples' actions if continued to throw garbage into the river. A key part of designing the mural was that it had to be simple enough that kids could understand.

Before we could paint the mural, though, we had to scrub off all of the previous stuff. Some stuff had been painted before by IIWC, our organization, but it was rushed and not done very well so they thought we should clean it off and improve on the job the previous people did.
We used sandpaper. It ended up being pretty rough on your hands and you had to scrub pretty hard to get the old stuff off.
We were all in good spirits, though:
Even posing for a bunch of pictures together:
I decided to make it a little more fun by scrubbing a design into the wall. Here's the door I scrubbed:It's like I'm entering into Narnia!! (not really)

Here's the path up the hill that kids take to school; as you can see they pass right by the wall where we're going to paint our mural.
When we scrubbed off the green stuff, it kind of left this particulate dust on our skin. It was green and pretty gross, though I did feel a bit like the Hulk.
Ahh a clean canvas, perfect for painting:
The paint was whatever was left from some other IIWC projects, though we bought some more otherwise the entire mural would've just been yellow.
Our leader, Iing, drawing the images we had planned out the night before.
On this wall was to be the IIWC logo, with four people holding up the flags of the countries of the participants:From left to right: Japan, Germany, Indonesia and Canada.

Iing, hard at work creating the symbol:
Esther (from Germany) and Atsuko (from Japan) bring this section of the wall to life:
Taka (Japan) and Ta'in (Indonesia) paint the big "Jagalah Kebersihan Senjoyo" message on the wall most visible to people walking along the river while some local kids hang out."Jagalah Kebersihan Senjoyo" translates to "Keep clean Senjoyo".

The results from the first day of painting, as viewed from the other side of the river:
Back to the mural on ther side, still in its infancy:
We decided it would be a comic strip, with a decision here in the middle and two alternate paths you could take (left or right):
Here's me, slowly filling stuff in. (You can also see we weren't able to get absolutely all of the graffiti scrubbed off)
The mural begins to take shape!
In case you were wondering, I paint with my shirt inside out.
Taka and Ta'in painting together. It was actually kind of tough since the wall was at just the height where you have to bend over to paint.
Of course, we decided to pose for a few pictures:
It was definitely a fun bunch:

OK, here's the final mural:

The middle panel:"Mana yang benar?" roughly translates to "Which is correct?"

The bad path:Oh no, if you throw garbage into the river, everyone will start! Even little old ladies!

Soon, the garbage will overflow the river and the river will become toxic.Also, funny thing, I drew that little black guy thinking that at first we wouldn't have real people and that we would only have little black people. Yeah... that changed about halfway through. Whoops!

The last panel in the bad path:The river will become toxic; all the fish will die. The sign says "Swimming is forbidden".

The good path:Even grandma loves the environment!

The river will continue to be a source of inspiration for black whistlers everywhere.
And everyone can enjoy Senjoyo forever.The sign says "Clean Senjoyo".

Lastly, I leave you with an image to mark the organization: You can move on to part four (The Life and The Food) or go back to part two (The Situation).

Reading Week in Indonesia - The Situation

2010-02-27T05:26:00.020-08:00

This is part two of the series about my reading week in Indonesia. You can find the first part here.
This post is to give you an idea of what the project I was apart of was dealing with. Here are some pictures of Senjoyo, the area with the river and the natural spring that was dirty with garbage.

First up, some pictures of the river:
Here's a picture of upstream of the area. It looked like someone (the local government? designed an overflow weir and some ponds to deal with the heavy stormwater flows that can arise.

The ponds receive the excess rainwater and slowly drain out into the river. Don't let the greenery and soil fool you. When we actually went into the river later, the blockages in the river were hiding tons of plastic, clothing and other garbage.

One good thing about the previous design is that by having lots of places where the river becomes shallow (for example, the slope in this photo), there must be a good amount of aeration occurring to maximize the biological degradation in the river. Of course, shallower water leads to larger pieces of garbage creating blockages in the flow too.

This is an overview of the main section of the river (the ponds empty into this area).

This is a picture of the retaining wall where the pond water empties into the river. From this picture I can already count 3 pieces of random plastic floating in this fairly quick-flowing river. Think about how much flows through a day!

Further downstream there's a bridge where you can cross the river. This part suffers from the same random flow obstructions. When we cleared the obstructions later, we found that they were almost always caused by some plastic oil can or a rag that had gotten caught with some rocks.

Another view of the bridge. Notice people hanging their clothing to dry.

The view downstream. Part of the urgency of this problem is that there are villages downstream that depend on this river as a drinking water source. People downstream have reported finding plastic in their pipes. It's pretty awful.

Here are some pictures of the ponds nearby:
It's a gorgeous place with lots of greenery and natural water; it's just a shame that people don't realize what might happen to it if they continue.

So in this pond, people do their daily washing. This I think is OK; I'm sure it's not great for the wildlife but it's a part of life around Senjoyo. What isn't OK is the fact that like 90% of the garbage in the surrounding area comes from this activity - the majority of the garbage we found was, ironically, plastic packages for soap, detergent, shampoo and other cleaning material.

Another pond, this one fed by a natural spring.

This pond is the swimming/bathing area. Lots of people enjoy this pond, as you can see.

All the local kids swim and use this pool.

And to capitalize on the many people who come in and out of Senjoyo everyday, there are vendors who have shops and sell food and drinks. Each also has their own garbage and plastic that often finds its way into the river.

Lastly, I wanted to stress that the warning signs were already there for Senjoyo.
In this picture you can see (in the background) the green algal blooms starting to form. When excess nutrients (carbon, phosphorous, nitrogen) are introduced to the system (either through runoff or probably pollution in this case), plankton and bacteria grow due to excess food. This is that green scum.

You can see it a bit more in this picture. Look at the surface and the floaty bits. When algal blooms form, they can often float up to the surface and block sunlight to anything in the water. They also use up the dissolved oxygen in the water as well.

This is a really good picture that demonstrates what I mean. Look at all that green crap. There's a good reason we didn't see any fish in these ponds...

You can move on to part three (The Mural) or go back to part one (Introduction).

Reading Week in Indonesia - Introduction

2010-02-24T04:46:00.021-08:00

Hey everybody!

I know that I have been neglecting blogging, but I think you'll be happy with the next series of posts I'll be getting up. They'll detail my experiences during the two weeks I spent in Indonesia. In Singapore, there's a week for Reading Week that starts February 14 (this also coincides with Chinese New Year, coincidentally) so I missed a week of class for my trip.

I volunteered with Indonesia International Work Camp (IIWC) in a village near Semarang in Central Java. I found the opportunity through Volunteers for Peace (VFP), an American organization, that partners with local organizations in countries that need volunteers and matches them up with volunteers from North America.

I spent most of my time in the region of Jubug within the village of Tegalwaton in the district of Tengaran on the outskirts of Semarang, the capital of Central Java. Nearby the place where we stayed, there was a local area called Senjoyo. I would describe Senjoyo as "the watering hole where everybody hangs out". A river runs through Senjoyo and natural groundwater springs (and rainwater) provide some pools where people wash laundry, bathe and swim. Nearby are also some food vendors nearby and lots of people have to pass by it to go elsewhere (kids pass by it to go to school).

Sounds like a great place right? The problem is that the local people throw garbage everywhere in Senjoyo. There's garbage in the river, in the pools, on the ground, pretty much everywhere. It's mostly little plastic things like packets of food or plastic bags but occasionally it's clothing and boxes and stuff like that. This was the situation that our two week volunteering was supposed to improve. It was an environmental-themed project with a focus on cleaning up the area and educating the local people.

We were a group of seven, two Indonesian leaders and five camp participants - one from Germany, three from Japan and me - all university-aged ranging from 19 to 23. What really impressed me was how well organized and put-together the entire experience was. The schedule was filled with well thought-out activities including implementing garbage cans, planting trees, restocking the fish population, painting an environmental-themed mural, putting up signs and, perhaps most importantly, educating children on a school visit.

I was also happy to see that the entire project, from inception to execution was done by Indonesians for Indonesians and we were just the help. There was also a lot of good partnership with the local leaders and villagers as well, as everyone recognized that this was a good thing and lamented that the Indonesian government wasn't the one who was leading the way. It was an amazing experience and I will cherish the friends I made there for a long time coming.

I learned much about Indonesian culture, ate a lot of good food, got to contribute something impactful and even had a bittersweet camp romance. It was a busy two weeks for Jeff, so as I digest and reflect over the next week or so in a series of posts, join me, won't you?

Jeff

*Edit* Here are the posts in order:

Introduction (this post)
The Situation
The Mural
The Life and The Food
The River Cleanup
The School Visit
The Trash Cans and The Signs
The Fish Restocking and The Tree Planting
The End