on how i became a rice farmer, temporarily

I eat a lot of rice. I have always enjoyed it, but after I fell ill again in 2006, the NHS team assigned to me in Cambridge designed a special diet aimed at controlling my health mainly through diet, and at the base of that diet was rice. The diet has been a successful, and I have been healthier since then since at any other point in my life, increasing my love for both the NHS and rice.
And so I find myself in Indonesia, surrounded by endless green rice fields, and inevitably I grow curious. A locally based American anthropologist explains it is the world’s most labour intensive crop, requiring months of work. So I decide to give rice farming a try, to see if I can sustain the amount of physical labour the locals seem to be putting in. the answer, in short, is I am a weakling. I try various aspects of it. The first time I climb into the watery field to start planting rice is a shock. I had seen the water-filled fields from the road, obviously, but I had imagined such rice fields as some sort of mini-pool structures. Of course I realized that there was certainly some earth/dirt/mud at the bottom of those fields, but that didn’t not prepare me for what happened when I climbed in a rice field for the first time: I sunk almost up to my knees in thick mud, loosing my balance and nearly falling over. More surprising still, the mud was extremely hot, almost like some thermal therapy treatment. Unable to understand the instructions being given to me, the locals and I resort to sign language. So I copy them by taking 3-4 of the sprouts at a time and sticking them in the goo below at what appears the correct space, horizontally and vertically. After completing one section comes the task of stepping backwards in that goo, which proves harder than it had looked when I had been observing from the grass footpath above, but I manage without falling over in the mud, which is my constant fear. it is backbreaking work, literally, as you must remain bent over the entire time. The novelty of the experience quickly wears out and my back starts to ache and burn in the 35 degrees heat. Then, predictably around 4pm, the rain starts. It feels great for about one minute, then the drops start splashing on the mud-goo, which bounce and coat my face and shirt with mud. Afterwards, I wash up as much as possible in a stream, but I suspect the mud under my toenails might prove to be permanent. Back at my hotel, the staff are horrified. “you were in a rice field? With INDONESIANS?” shrieked my attendant in horror, adding that he would NEVER resort to such activities (despite being both Indonesian and the grandson of rice farmers, by his own admission). The next day I am allowed to plow another field with the cows. Once I get used to the creatures, I find this really fun, although even messier than planting the seedlings. After less than 5 minutes and one turn of the patch, I am covered to the waist in mud, but I cant stop giggling. Probably even the cows think I am insane, which could well be the case.
Each plot can sustain 2 crops of rice a year. In some areas, a third, different, crop may be planted on the same turf for another part of the year to replace the lost nutrients. Rice is a labour intensive crop that relies on back breaking human labour. Incredibly, a bag of rice in the supermarket in Indonesia costs more than it does at Tesco’s in London, and that somehow seems horribly wrong.

the year of the tiger

I am not exactly sure how I came to be spending the night after Chinese new years on the 25th floor of a Chinese hotel, by myself. There is of course a technical explanation- problems with airline tickets that have led me to reevaluate the otherwise saint-like image I have long held of Cathay Pacific. But it seems they are not saints, of course, as no one and certainly no modern airline deserves such a position. So, last minute, I must spend one night somewhere in Southern China. And it is the night after Chinese new years, so predictably Hong Kong is practically entirely booked up. The hotel stand at the airport has only a handful of rooms available and the cheapest would cost me close to 1000 US dollars, even for a crap room in terminal 1’s soulless standard airport hotel. Macau seems even worse, as apparently everyone in the South with money to burn have already made their way to that odd enclave’s casinos. But there is no such rush to the mainland, and since I do have time to kill, I head there. Fortunately Hong Kong’s border with the mainland is less than 30 minutes away, and British passport holders don’t need advance visas, astonishingly, you can just show up. I take the metro to the last station and walk the rest of the way to the border. It seems surprisingly cool here in China, and a refreshing change from the tropical heat of the other places I have been in of late. I enjoy my stroll to the checkpoint, where there is virtually no queue and the bored and hungover looking guard waves me through after barely looking at my passport. I had been planning to then hop a cab to the hotel booked for me, but there is no point- I can see it from the border. Shenzhen has been converted into one huge shopping enclave, and not surprisingly, my 4 star hotel is located on top (or adjacent to? I never do figure it out) a major outlet shopping centre. As it was 10 pm by the time I arrived there, I was not able to check out the plethora of shops below me, but should I ever feel the need to visit a mango or polo Ralph Lauren outlet, I at least now know where they are to be found. My room turns out to be on the 25th floor, with a spectacular view of the urban development that surrounds me. In every direction all I can see are massive buildings that would impress the most ambitious of Soviet housing planners. Directly across from me is a 50-something story structure that extends for what must be a kilometer in length, comprising 5 subsections, all filled with peoples flats. In the closest dwellings, I can just make out familys going about their business, cleaning tables and moving children to bedrooms. I am thirsty and wander out of the hotel in search of the ever-ubiquitous asian 7-11, which turns out to be less than 3 minutes away from the hotel, over a high tech skybridge, which provides a stunning view of a well lit fly over. The sky bridge has a number of other people on it, some of whom stare at me, as do the girls at 7-11. They giggle at me and keep repeating “thank you very much” in stilted in English. I appear to be the only white person in town, or at least the only one buying noodles that night at a random 7-11 overlooking an autoroute. The whole population appears in post-new years recovery mode. I am sure if I had arrived a day earlier, all of Shenzhen whould have seemed totally different, and packed with revelers. But the people I pass all seems tired and dazed. The only people in the hotel bar are a squad of intoxicated young Chinese businessmen. I contemplate having a drink, but then they start singing a karaoke rendition of “Hotel California” and I decide to head instead to my super high-tech room instead, where I entertain myself pressing the various buttons around the bedside table. My father would be horrified by such a hotel, and in this way I represent a serious departure with the rest of my family, all of whom favour personalised, small-scale B&B style accommodation, the kind where you chat with the owner over a civilised breakfast. Even as a child, I hated such places. This sky scraper in a random city in the People’s Republic is my ideal- clean, modern, with high speed internet and a pool, where I can be completely anonymous. No one greets me by name. no one pays any attention, other than perhaps staring at my odd skin tone. In such an empty space, I feel safe. There is no need to put on a show. So, undisturbed, I crawl in bed with a Chinese beer and watch a ridiculous Korean soap opera on the 42 inch pazma TV. So far Western 2010 has proved a rotten year. Lets hope the coming of the Tiger will bring me better luck.

racial matters, part II

The Singapore propaganda machine (for lack of a better term) is at pains to insist there is no racism in the country. Part of the reason that the island state broke away from Malaysia in the 1960s is supposedly because they objected to the overtly racist laws that Malaysia was introducing at the time, which ultimately favoured Muslim Malays over other groups. Housing in Singapore is carefully planned to ensure that buildings are as racially diverse as possible, and the same goes for schools. The country has four official languages (English, Tamil, Chinese and Malaysian) and celebrates New Years four times as well. Our driver is at pains to reiterate this official line, insisting again and again that the people are colour blind and refuse to even discuss religion, as it is an exclusively private matter. Sure enough, I pass a school group while visiting a temple, and it does appear totally mixed, with Chinese guys chatting with Indian ones, and no one seeming to care. One the streets it is true that everyone is polite and speaks English, although never once do I see, for example, a mixed Indian-Chinese couple (although there are plenty of white men with Asian women!)
I arrive back at the docks. It is late and I had been wandering about. Singapore has tight security I need to go through every time I want to get on or off my ship, even though I have already been cleared and my passport is already stamped. I go to the control area where I will have to shop my passport once again, before I am readmitted to the shipping area. The queue is massive, there seems to be some problem with the passport control machines and there are at least 300 people waiting to reboard their various vessels (several large boats are docked in the same area). Most of the people people in the queue are Chinese, many appear to be actually from the People’s Republic, as opposed to Singapore. There are several Indian families as well. I go to the back of the queue, anticipating an hour-long wait at least. But then a whistle blows and a guard rushes over, signaling to me and two Australian women nearby. We all simultaneously indict we are happy to wait (a lie, obviously, but the Right Thing to Do) but the choice is not ours. “Europeans straight ahead” the guard barks. A special gate is open, and we are ushered through without even the normal formalities. As we move past the queue, I see a boy with an Indian face and holding a British passport ask his mother why we don’t have to wait, she shrugs and examines her feet. As we move through the gate, we pass the queue for handicapped people, with about 7 PRC pensioners in wheelchairs. They stare at us, as we are moved in front of them. I cringe internally. I imagine the Australian women do too. As we enter the secured area, and the door closes behind us, separating us from the now exclusively Asian queue, I jokingly ask the Aussies exactly when they became “Europeans.” One of the women laughs and says they apparently have it both ways. So much for racial equality.

gastarbeiters

Most countries, especially developed ones, rely to some degree on exploiting the labour of the less fortunate. These people are normally foreigners, and almost always from poorer countries. Britain has/had the Poles, Russian the Central Asians and Moldovans, and the US the Mexicans. But everywhere has the Filipinos. It is estimated that 10 million out of a population of 90 million work abroad. There are estimated to be 300,000 of them in Hong Kong alone. They are cleaners and nannies for the better off in Singapore, Dubai and across Europe and the Middle East. And, along with Indonesians, they are the staff of practically every ship I have ever been on. When our boat docked in Manila, there was nearly a riot. Hundreds of people were waiting for us, or rather, for their relatives on our ship. Docking in Manila is a big deal for the crew, and the only time in nine months they get to see their families. As we are waiting for customs clearance, the crew are all visibly nervous. When they disembark, all seem to be carrying some large technology item: plazma TVs seem the most popular, but one guy was wheeling a fridge about. D, one of the bar staff aboard has been living on the boat for 8 years, and was on another boat before that. He claims the crew are all recruited by an agency in Manila, and shipped out to sea that way. They work 10 hours a day for 7 days a week for 9 months of the year. In most cities they dock in, they are not even allowed off the boat, other than for an hour or so before dinner. The other 3 months of the year are spent at home in the Philippines with their families, who are supported by their salaries. D claims in the three months he spends back in Manila, he does absolutely nothing (“I am as active as a tree there”), and when the break period is over, he is flown back to whatever port the ship is in. and he fully intends to continue working like this until he retires, in several decades time. His logic is clear: if he stayed at home, he would be able to watch his children grow up, but not be able to do anything to help them. By working abroad, he can send them to better schools and one day university. “As long as they are having a better life, I don’t need to see them” goes his argument. The logic is commendable and I am sure whatever wages these guys are paid must make the sacrifices worth it. Yet it is sad that the ship follows a sort of GDP pecking order. None of the Filipino crew hold management positions. The middle level crew members are from random developing countries: Chile, Turkey, India. They get the whole day free in port, and work a much more flexible schedule for higher pay. The “European” staff (British, Serbian, South African and tons of Poles) do better still, appearing to be largely on holiday most of the time. All considered, it is amazing that the Filipinos never seem resentful. I would be.

brunei

I have been to many strange places in my life, but this must certainly be close to top of my weirdo list. The state of Brunei Darussalam, or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace is one of the richest countries in the world, and has an exceptionally high standard of living. This is all due to its leader, known as His Majesty. While some leaders sitting on huge oil and gas fields would use the resources exclusively to fill their own pockets, His Majesty has taken a more enlightened path. All 300,000 citizens enjoy free healthcare and free educations. Should they wish to go abroad to Britain for university, that is paid for as well. Over 50% of the citizens work directly for the government as civil servants, many of the rest are employed by the country’s oil and gas sector, which represents 95% of the GDP. They are all entitled to heavily subsidized housing, and much of that housing is spectacular, my dad notes as we pass through endless neighbourhoods of massive houses with swimming pools and satellite TV. Everyone assures us that basically any citizen who works is guaranteed a god, stable life filled with material comforts. Of course, His Majesty leads the way, with 4 massive palaces, the largest of which has nearly 2,000 rooms and is run for him by the Hyatt. His car collection supposedly contains nearly 5,000 cars. My father and I are invited to have tea at the house of a lady who (proudly?) identifies herself as one of the “less fortunate” (they don’t use the word “poor” here). She is a cook in a local school. Her house is a wood house built on stilts over the water. Her living room is bigger than the flat I share with other people in London, the snacks she serves are more nutritious than what I can typically afford.
Yet her house is also an indication of the conditions attached to this wealth. An entire wall in her living room is dedicated to His Majesty. Later, I stumble into a Bruneian wedding. There are 1,200 guests, all exquisitely. There is a massive buffet of delicious food that seems to span Indian and Chinese simultaneously, and where for the first time in my life I am treated to curried pineapple, a peculiar taste I conclude I enjoy- in small doses. And again, next to the picture of the bride and groom is a portrait of His Majesty. There is also one in every restaurant we visit, and every public building. On TV, journalists must address him by his full name, all 32 words of it, and they can face severe punishment if they mess up even one word. The national museum is a tribute to him and his family. It mainly contains gifts given to him by important people, such as honorary general’s and admiral’s uniforms given to him by Queen Elizabeth II while he was at Sandhurst. We also get to see the gold throne-mobile he gets carried around in by human labour. It is also a state that relies on the near slave labour of hardworking Philippinos and other South Asians. Of course I have seen many weird states with ruler-cults, but this one defies my stereotype, precisely because it is so damn wealthy and the people seem genuinely satisfied with their lot. They look at their neighbours in Malaysia and Indonesia, and thank their despotic ruler for bringing them 18th century style enlightened despotism. Weird place Brunei.

sandakan death marches

Sailing into Sandakan is a fairly peaceful journey. The sea is relatively calm and, aside from the occasional monsoon-like storm, the weather is often wonderful. The city itself is welcoming and provincially pleasant, so it is hard to imagine it was the sight of one of World War II’s many grotesque atrocities. 3,600 Indonesian civilian slave labourers and 2,400 allied POWs were forcibly marched from Sandakan to Ranau by the Japanese soldiers who held them captive. Six survived. Looking at the bush around me I cant begin to imagine what they went through. The forest is so dense I can only see the layer of trees in from of me, behind them is darkness, no light, nothing except layers of undifferentiated bush. Twice I see poisonous snakes on branches, in addition to several different kinds of monkeys. The ground is unsteady, the forest floor is made up of fallen, rotting branches, trunks, and other various plants I cannot begin to identify. It is hard to move without tripping or falling into the green darkness. There is an overpowering smell of rot everywhere. The jungle canopy is so thick it is hard to see ahead, and at times impossible to see what you are stepping on. Half the time when I lose my footing I reach out and gab a tree truck for support, only then to realize that it is covered in bugs who are now on my arms. It is 35 degrees and the humidity is very high. I am a healthy, fit, young person who was raised in this weather, and I am wearing ideal clothing and armed with extra water and other luxuries like knives and bug spray. The prisoners marched through here had already spent over a year in captivity and forced labour. Some of the allied soldiers had been in captivity already 3 years, since the fall of Singapore. Many were already starving. But in January 1945 the allies were approaching quickly and the Japanese needed to move fast, so they strapped the supplies for their battalions onto the 470 strongest prisoners and tried to march them to the west coast. Those who collapsed on route were shot or left to die where they lay. Those who survived and made it to Kota Kinabalu were then ordered on to Ranau. 183 made it to Renau. But by July 1945, only 38 were left alive….and they were all shot. The 6 survivors were all Australians who had escaped along the way and had been sheltered and hidden by locals. But only three were able to cope with the aftermath of what had happened to them, the other three died shortly after the end of the war. Their shocking testimony of the marches, the worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the war, at the war crimes tribunal in Tokyo, makes for appalling reading, and this isn’t ancient history, it happened in my father’s lifetime. Looking around, I am overwhelmed by what humans can do to other humans. We are all indeed animals

manila

Walking around in Manila can be a bit embarrassing, at least once my name becomes known. My name makes me famous in this country, and in this country alone, as some illustrious ancestor of mine is regarded as the country’s national hero. Even though this illustrious personage (who was probably not a relation) died long before I was born, and even though as a historian I am personally rather embarrassed by his behaviour, people still get excited every time my name comes up. It is most peculiar- I feel like a celebrity for the first time in my life. Manila in general is full of surprises. It is a diverse city with a surprisingly developed elite section that resembles Hong Kong’s. We wander by a shopping mall full of Louis Vuitton and Chanel, which surrounds a beautiful inner garden of excellent (and expensive) restaurants. Nearby are elite residential neighbourhoods where the houses look like miniature guarded fortresses. A few streets away, however, half naked kids are playing in the gutter…

my father must have a medical condition. There can be no other way to explain his utterly phenomenal snoring. The last time I went on a cruise with him, the boat pharmacy sold super high tech ear plugs, with several settings, that automatically adjusted to your ear size. However, over the course of the past year, those earplugs and I went our separate ways, and I assumed they would be easy to replace once I got aboard another cruise ship. Alas, this was not to be. I am now kicking myself for not at least getting some of the Boots’ generic cheap yellow earplugs in Heathrow before I left. They at least are wearable and do the job. But instead I waited until I got to Asia before buying this essential travel item…and by then it was too late. I have now invested in several pairs, but none of them are too my satisfaction. Chinese people must simply have different shaped ear canals, as improbable as I admit that seems. All the pairs appear to be too big, and they get very uncomfortable as the hours pass. So I fall asleep quite easily with them in, but around 3am every morning, I wake up either because my ears are so sore the pain wakes me up, or because they have ejected the plugs on their own, and the sounds coming from the other side of the cabin have become overpowering. There appears to be no solution to this dilemma. I tried to sleep with my ipod on, listening to something soothingly generic like café del mar, which works on airplanes and in the evening, but at 3am fails to put me back to sleep. So I get up and walk around the boat. This boat is much smaller than the other cruises, as well as being older and not as well maintained. Apparently it was used for some soap opera in the early 70s, and they seem determined to preserve its, um, retro charm. My father and I concluded that it looks has all the esthetic appeal of a Soviet intourist hotel in the late 80s, although the food is marginally better as they at least serve curry. In the day time, this peculiar interior design seems acceptable as the passengers are pretty much all from the same era as the ship. There is a bridge club, where every afternoon people gather around for extremely intense and competitive matches. The first day at sea, I stopped to stare, not understanding what was going on. My father then described the peculiar game as being “for hip 20 somethings.” He paused and looked around “or at least so I thought in graduate school” he added and paused “but it looks like the same people are still playing it…” I then explained that I neither play bridge nor know anyone my age acquainted with its seemingly archaic rules. Such people and notions of entertainment fit the setting in daylight hours, but at 3am when I get tired of trying to sleep, the boat seems more surreal. I wander around the ship alone, and the empty rooms seem spooky with their 70s loveboat interior design. We are now in the south china sea, so the air on deck is warmer and more humid than the horrid air-conditioning in the room, but with the breeze of the sea, I still wander around in my hoodie. Sometimes I fall asleep on the lounge chairs on deck. Other times I stare into the blackness beyond the railing. Sometimes I see the lights of a passing ship, but rarely close enough to figure out if they are freight or passenger vessels. But most of the time, the only thing I can see is the shiny oil-like blackness of the water below. Around 6am, the ships crew start appearing and going about their activities, washing the deck and painting the railings for the millionth time. They always look at me strangely, probably wondering why the only passenger under 65 prefers to sleep on a lounge chair than in a supposedly luxury cabin. But then they have not heard my father snore.

but where is hong kong?

Of course everyone has seen images of Hong Kong, and plenty of my friends have worked here. It is a major international city with a sizable expat presence. So much appears familiar: big sky scrapers and ultra modern interiors, massive shopping malls packed with Asian ladies struggling to carry their Chanel and Dior bags. Drunk English expats vomiting. The usual. But what I didn’t expect about Hong Kong is that, actually, you cant see it! The city is one of the world’s most polluted, and covered by an incredibly thick layer of smog. I stay in Kowloon, in a hotel overlooking the Victoria Harbour, and thus just opposite Hong Kong Island. But I had to look on a map to establish that, as my first few days all I saw looking out into the harbour was white haze, and the island just a 10 minute boat ride across was invisible. Sometimes in the evening I could vaguely see the lights from the sky scrapers on the other side, but only on one day were their outlines visible in the daytime. From the top of Victoria Peak, which supposedly has the best views of the city, all I could see where the very closest blocks of flats. Beyond that was the same whiteness that apparently descends over the city most of the year. Apparently now, winter, is the worst period, but only briefly in monsoon season does the blanket ever really lift. Much of the problem seems to be mainland China’s unreliable electricity grid combined with its ever increasingly industrial output, especially around the pearl river delta, whose factories waft population Hong Kong’s way. Yet city mismanagement and denial also appear to play a role, which seems hard to understand. Hong Kong’s airport is one of the greatest (and most costly) engineering achievements of all time, built entirely on reclaimed land, but you would think that if the city planners were willing to spend such funds on an airport, they would do something to make sure pilots could actually see where they were landing!

food

I have the impression that Chinese people will eat just about anything. But they seem to eat what they do for a reason, and generally one other than taste. “Christina” (God knows what her real name is) is from the mainland and has an explanation for everything. She does not think it is odd I am a vegetarian, as “every one knows very good for skin, that’s why, look so youuuung.” But despite acknowledging the virtues of my peculiar condition, she is into her meat and fish, and she has a particular fondness for fish tails, which don’t look very filling to me, but she claims they have a delicate texture. Every meal features something interesting. Every single restaurant we go to features a round table with a big spinning glass disk in the middle. The dishes all get put there, and then they rotate past all meal long. So I would look up from my vegetarian dim sum to find myself faced with pig knuckles, or the head of a duck, whose eye sockets seemed to stare at me accusingly. But Christina as an explanation for each item, and what it supposedly does to your body. This habit is evidently not a personal one. Wandering on my own, I explore the streets of Sheung Wan, where they sell exciting things like Deer fetuses and dogs penises, all of which serve some purpose. Most of the people working in the shops don’t speak English and I am left to guess at what it is I am examining. Some are proud of their English and run up to me to explain that the object at hand is indeed deer antlers (which are surprisingly furry) or that the hair balls from a horse’s stomach can be used against poisonings. Who knew? Shark fins, used in the pricey delicacy Shark fin soup, are on offer everywhere, as are “bird’s nests” and various (still alive) sea creatures. But as strange as some of these dishes might appear, Chinese cooks certainly know what they are doing. Every meal is a treat, and the cooking is exquisite.