To start, I have to confirm that I am indeed doing schoolwork. By my count, I haven’t been here very long, but genuinely interesting subject matter combined with the bookish, competitive nature of my SE Asian peer group is motivating. In the spirit of positive externalities, my shoddy religious foodhold may improve if I join the economics community in deifying Greenspan, Bernanke, Binder and colleagues. Reverence for the Fed chairman’s famed cryptic statements has apparently rubbed off on me as my writing is becoming increasingly nebulous. Nonetheless, I have the advantage of learning about monetary policy in a pass/fail bubble among students who intend on using the final paper to produce their baccalaureate thesis and gain admittance to some of the world’s most prestigious graduate schools. I believe Mr. T said it best: “I pity the foo!”
It is also worth noting that my Asian Monetary Policy professor wears very large pants. Sure, he’s wide in the middle, but it seems impractical that the legs of the pants remain wide down to hit ankles (which actually aren’t even that far from the waist of his pants anyway). Naturally, such an observation early on will prove quite crippling to the course’s cumulative impact, but I honestly can’t take accountability. They’re really big pants.
I’m also taking 3 finance courses that will transfer back to Carlson, but nothing noteworthy has really happened yet.
I started this trip in Cambodia with my friend Tom who’s traveling in Japan right now, then heading back to MN. Adventure 1: about 2.5 hours into the 5 hr cab ride from the airport in Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, our cab’s transmission went out. Stranded roadside in rural Cambodia, Tommy and I entertained ourselves taking pictures of the 10-12 random children living in a stilted hut nearby, then made earrings and necklaces for them with my handy-dandy jewelry tools and supplies. Then we got bored, flagged down a bus, and went on our way.
Upon arrival, we stayed in a great little bungalow with a phenomenal staff, wonderful little restaurant, and a refreshing pool…we each paid $17 a night, so naturally we were ecstatic and prudently invested our savings on beer to celebrate. We visited Angkor City, a 20+ kilometer loops of 11th century Buddhist ruins—the 8th wonder of the world. I felt 8 years old, climbing on the old stones and exploring these ancient monuments. Me and the other 3 billion tourists, that is, but it was still amazing. Other Cambodian highlights include great photos (Tom’s a photographer: www.pbase.com/tjh4904. His online galleries are GREAT), $2 ear cleaning service, tuk-tuks (a 50cc moto pulling a tourist-wagon, for $15/day) and great weather. We took a packed-to-the-gills boat back to Phnom-Penh across the largest freshwater lake in SE Asia, had the day to sightsee in the capital city, then I flew back to Singapore.
First impressions of this little bitty city-state island, hidden on maps by the dot intended to point to it: it is HOT and HUMID, usually between 80 and 90 and rains for between 20 minutes and 24 hours of the day. There are a lot of people, and they spend all their free time shopping, clubbing, and eating. Every MRT (a brand-new, super classy subway system) stop has a mall attached. The few that don’t are virtually uninhabited, and the rest of them have hordes of people. Every boast a massive food court with a variety of Asian cuisine, and very specific booth names like “pig organ stew” or “econo rice”. With that said, English is their first language, but their grammar is horrendous and spellings are from the moon. Not even England: the moon.
The buildings, landscaping and public works (botanical gardens, the zoo, museums) are all extremely well-kept and nicely designed. The citizens revere the government (a dictatorship, for real) and have a naïve respect for Big Brother’s ability to keep them nicely tucked in at night, safe from bedbugs and bad guys. The government builds, owns, maintains, and profits from its assets. In return, they’re free to tweak policy and grow the economy, all without corporate and personal income taxes. Pretty crazy, right? It works.
So Singapore is pretty cool. It’s nice to look at, easy to get around, and you can find whatever you want to buy/eat/drink all the time. My living situation is solid as well. I’m in an apartment with 4 roommates: TJ is the German who maintains his ego as a full-time job; Nastassja is Swiss, very nice and a lot of fun; Manuel is from Costa Rica, and runs the gamut between painfully shy and giddy-as-a-schoolgirl. He’s a riot. And Joyce is from Hong Kong/Malaysia, went to high school in London, college in California, speaks terrible English (that she claims is flawless), and makes up stories about trips to Switzerland, dancing in a cage, drinking bottles upon bottles of alcohol, etc etc etc. But her good intentions outweigh her ridiculousness (usually) so it all works out. And on her behalf, the girl ate two giant plates full of fish balls (cotton ball-sized balls of fish-composite, the Chinese version of Chicken McNuggets before they were all white-meat) the other night. I wanted to throw up, but it really was a feat.
Also, Kyle (a friend from the U) is visiting before making his way to study in Hong Kong! It will be great to have a piece of home/one of my close friends in town for a few days, and we’ll definitely send pictures to any Fall 2004-ers :D
A short list of miscellaneous items:
People of Chinese descent eat things that smell horrible, including durian, which is a rancid, rotten smelling and tasting spikey green fruit, about the size of a coconut. They’re not allowed in the MRT or other confined public places.
Singaporeans are extremely flexible. In yoga, I’m pretty intermediate, but these people can wrap their legs twice around their heads while clapping their hands.
Starbucks is not Starbucks is not Starbucks.
In non-Singapore-related news, I accepted a job for the summer: I’ll be a summer analyst in the Global Capital Markets group of UBS in equity sales and trading. While still a Wall Street bank, UBS is in Stamford, CT. I think I’ll live in Manhattan for the experience, so please drop me a line if you’re looking for an excuse to visit between June and August!
That’s quite an earful for now...I hope to update this thing weekly-ish, so revisit if you wish!
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