SINGAPORE: Little India

For most of my visit in Singapore I've been staying in Little India, and I have been thoroughly enjoying the neighborhood. Little India breaks the Singaporean mold. While the rest of the city comes across as planned, button-down, and corporate, Little India is anything but. Rather than the smell of cleaning agents and perfume that dominate the rest of Singapore, Little India smells of spice and incense. The exotic odors hit you as soon as you take the escalator up the surface from the subway. Other parts of Singapore are filled with carefully planned and designed retail outlets. Little India, on the other hand, is a hodge-podge of grocery stores, hawker stalls, Indian music shops and a host of other independent businesses. In the rest of Singapore the sidewalks are clear and limited to pedestrian traffic. In Little India the shops spill out onto the sidewalk. Much like in Vietnam, the sidewalks are for commerce, not walking, and pedestrians share the streets with cars. Little India possesses a liveliness not found in other parts of Singapore, and it's made for an interesting home base.

SINGAPORE: Retail Overload

The modernity and sterility of Singapore comes as something of a shock after months of living in Vietnam. My travel companion Dave and I find ourselves gaping at the skyscrapers, the clean streets and sidewalks, and the well-dressed Singaporeans. The women in particular have our jaws on the floor. Half the population of Singapore seems to be made up of attractive women in their 20s. This is not meant as any disrespect to Vietnamese women, who are also quite lovely, but there's something about how the Singaporean women dress, put themselves together, and carry themselves that makes them incredibly attractive. The stylishness of Singaporeans is probably explained in part by the city's love affair with high-end retail.

Critics have called Singapore "the only shopping mall with a seat at the UN." At first I laughed at this assessment, thinking it a flippant remark made by some anti-consumerism get-back-to-nature hippie type. Having been here a few days, though, I'm starting to agree. I've never seen such commercial materialism in my life. Practically every non-governmental building seems to have a shopping mall. I swear that half these malls have the same stores, most of which are quite high-end. I frankly don't know how they all stay in business. How many Rolex, Charles & Keith, Prada and Chanel outlets does a city need? The epicenter of this retail onslaught is Orchard Road, a kilometer-long stretch of shopping mall after shopping mall. There must be at least a dozen malls lining the road, no exaggeration.

Even the subway takes on the appearance of a giant outdoor shopping center. The subway stops have marble-looking floors and walls and are decked out with mall-style advertisements. The train is automated with no driver, and a glass doorway aligns with the train doorway. The glass doorway opens only when the train doors do, so the entire station sounds like a shopping center, largely devoid of the engine sounds and whoosh of air as in New York or Washington, DC. You could be forgiven for forgetting that you're trying to catch a train, not a pair of shoes.

Buzzing Around Asia

Despite my three month absence, I’m happy to report that I’m not finished with this blog yet. Over the course of the past semester, I found myself much busier than I had been compared to the fall. While I was pleased to be of use and keeping active, one of the downsides of this increased schedule was that I had much less time for this blog. Don’t worry, though; I kept taking notes and in some cases even wrote rough drafts to be posted later. I’ll put these posts up as I finish them.

Furthermore, I’ve begun my Asian tour, and have also been keeping a journal of my experiences. In between my Vietnam postings I’ll also put some of my thoughts on my travels. In order to differentiate, I’ll write the city or province I’m writing about in all caps.

So, sorry again for my absence. For those of you who have continued to check this blog, I hope that you’ll find my new postings worth the wait.

Argh! A Pirate's Life for Me!

The Vietnamese are master pirates. I’m not talking about Jolly Rogers or the Gulf of Aden here; I’m referrinig to the Vietnamese’s ability to copy seemingly any consumer product you can think of. The streets of Hanoi and Saigon are filled with knock-off brand-name clothing. Prada, Gucci, Lacoste, Adidas, Nike; you name it, it’s there. Some of these copies are exceedingly good. One Adidas tennis polo I bought was copied down to the tag explaining how to wash the shirt. The only thing that tipped me off that the shirt was a copy was the fact that the word “washer” was misspelled and the Vietnamese sizing (last check I don’t wear a 3X).

Vietnam is renowned for its DVD piracy. I’ve been able to find nearly any title you could want. A friend of mine “in the business” told me that all the DVDs come from China. They might all come from the same factory, too. The reason I think this is because any copy of a film or TV show is the same throughout the city. For example, the copy of The Matrix you buy on Pham Ngu Lau Street will be identical to the one you buy on Hai Ba Trung. This isn’t always good, because if that copy is a bad one, say the soundtrack is a second off from the video, then every copy of The Matrix in Saigon, if not all of Vietnam, may be similarly flawed. This having been said, may I recommend to future visitors of Saigon to avoid purchase of Saving Private Ryan, for precisely the reasons explained above.

The Vietnamese flair for copying continues to the world of art. There are dozens of art studios in Saigon that produce nothing but copies of other famous paintings, some of which are quite good. Imagine if some of these artists actually put out original works – Vietnam could have quite the art scene.

Watches are another pirate favorite. There are so many fake Omegas, Longines, and Rolexes floating around the country that I couldn’t find a watch that wasn’t a knock-off. Even in Cao Lanh I had to settle for a watch with “Valley Jewelers” on its face, probably an overrun from some specialty order.

The watch dilemma is a great example of just how commonplace piracy is in Vietnam. So accessible are pirated goods that most Vietnamese don’t actually understand what a brand name is. To my students, “Armani” is just a cool word you put on a shirt. Of course you wear a “Rolex” watch - that’s the word you put on watches. No doubt you wear a massive Hugo Boss belt buckle - what else would you use to keep your pants up? The idea that these names represent high quality or a special kind of style is completely lost on the majority of Vietnamese.

Of course, there is one arena where the Vietnamese are too good at piracy: the classroom. My students, in spite of their beginner-level English, will lift anything from the Internet – Wikipedia, newspapers, professional reports – and call it their own. They always seem shocked when I catch them. One of the other Fulbrighters taught a lesson on poetry, and for homework asked her students to write a simple poem, something like an acrostic or a haiku. Bear in mind that these students had just learned what rhyme was, rhyme not being common in the mostly monosyllabic Vietnamese language. Next class she received several works from the likes of Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. Some of this blatant cheating comes from an overwhelming fear of failure. Students would rather cheat than risk a failing grade. Some of this cheating comes from apathetic or overworked teachers who allow such behavior. Also not helping matters is the fact that the university itself is massively involved in piracy. All my university’s texts are photocopied. With counterfeit goods being the norm, and universities being some of the greatest perpetrators of piracy, I can’t help but see my students’ behavior as a mere reflection of their society.