What We Learned in Singapore, Java, and Bali – and Merry Christmas 2023!

When our Mideast trip went ‘poof’ for obvious reasons, we thought we’d head somewhere warm and relax instead. A cruise to Singapore, Java, and Bali? Sounds good, right?

It was beyond good, but it wasn’t the warmth and relaxation that stuck with us. Oh sure, we left our footprints in warm sand on distant beaches, and swam laps in delightful swimming pools. And yet….

We also toured temples, mosques, historical sites, and oodles of museums, and all that learning changed us somehow. The cultural richness of Southeast Asia intrigues us – did you know that ALL the world’s religions originated from here? – and now that we have returned home with time to remember, we are more than ok that our plans had to change.

And speaking of remembering things…   I don’t post on this blog often, but when I do it’s because it helps me make sense of what I’ve experienced. Padre keeps a written journal; I do this. (and I like to share, of course – very fun!) 

So when I completed my first Singapore trip post and website issues cropped up, I despaired at first. I’ve never recovered from the time a Russian hacker stole my Netflix account….I’m still soooooo mad. It’s that sick helpless infuriating feeling when the tech gremlins intrude on our space, and unfortunately most of us have been there at least once. (FYI I got the Netflix account back eventually, but I never did get an old Instagram account back, the one that now has weird Russian travel photos next to a photo of my grandson……curses you tech monsters.)

 Anyway, I couldn’t do much about it until I came home, but I went to work right away and I am proud to say I more than fixed and double-protected it, all by myself! Boomers aren’t completely hopeless when it comes to tech. Oh sure, it took an army of online security help, but in the end it was mostly me. 

So the blog is new and improved, and if you couldn’t read the first post due to problems, here it is. All the old posts since 2018 are easier to find and read as well, so if you’re looking to do some armchair traveling over the holidays, just check out places and off you go.

So on this trip, our key takeaways include the following:

#1: BENEVOLENT AUTOCRACY, OR CHAOS, POVERTY, AND FREEDOM?

One should be careful in a choice of government, or you might be told to sit ‘quietly’ by a stern official or barked at by a bossy machine. After the machine barks at you, a real human will do same. (I couldn’t get the hang of standing on the yellow footprints at immigration, and the barking commenced.)

Yes, I’m talking about Singapore, known for its sophisticated urban planning, cleanliness, lack of poverty and homelessness. I saw only one sleeping woman who could have been homeless, but then again maybe she was just tired. I am quite sure that homelessness is not allowed in Singapore.

So Singapore has its act together in terms of providing housing, human services, and crime prevention. There’s a fine for anything untoward – I’ll bet there’s a fine for loud talking, for instance. You can even leave your purse on a local hawker stall table to save your place while you order chicken rice, and that purse will be there when you get back. 

Seriously. No one would dare.

And yet…..it’s smothering in a way, and old ways of life on the coastline and the Singapore River have been snuffed out, replaced by tall concrete box-apartments the government provides. Most people eat at hawker halls, our driver Lee told us (delicious, by the way),  instead of preparing their own meals at home since apartments are tiny and people are so busy.

I read two historical fiction books with Singapore’s urban renewal movement as their focus: The Great Reclamation, and The River’s Song.

These books, along with museum learning, showed us how Singapore did it. Another of our drivers described how the government took his family land, confirming what happened in my fiction books. Officials bought the land back through forced eminent domain, filled it in, then built tall high rise apartments to house Singapore’s displaced farmers, fishermen, and small store owners.

That was why, when we toured Singapore’s Chinatown on our first day, the place felt like a movie set. Oh sure, some of the old buildings are still there, but the small stalls, and the old messy street life exists only in painted murals on concrete. Singapore’s skyline now stretches off into the distance, lined with rows of tall government-controlled skyscraper apartments blocks-deep. 

We also learned that the government reserves the main floor of the tall apartments for ‘cultural’ events such as celebrations and funerals. It’s the only place left for such things, in a country where space is at a premium. Singapore is so squeezed that, when you die, you only get to stay underground for 15 years. Then you are moved to death condos, stacked up high to save space.  

A talkative Grab driver (Singapore’s Uber) started asking us if we liked our President, what did we think of Trump, did we like living in the US? (I bet you can guess our answers.) So we turned it around and asked him what he thought of his leaders, and living in Singapore? He quickly said no, he did not like it at all. 

Why, we asked?

 Lack of freedom.

So there you go: A benevolent autocracy will clean up the problems, but in order to do so, freedom will be constricted. Citizens will be told where they can live, what they can do, how they should behave.

On the other hand, we toured Jakarta’s Chinatown. Definitely NOT a movie set, but a crime-ridden dark labyrinth bursting with life. Working temples, a homeless mother, baby at her breast, begging the tourists for coins. Dirt and pestilence lurking in the shadows.

The rest of Jakarta? A scooter disaster, brimming with color and people and life. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is sinking, soon to be replaced by a new capital on the island of Borneo. The government seems to be giving up on Jakarta’s chaos.

And yet. We toured a leafy, wealthy neighborhood, where President Barack Obama went to school for a couple years, as well as one of the largest mosques in the world, which radiated peace and goodwill. The mosque serves thousands of meals every day – can you imagine? In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, elegant mosques are there in just about every neighborhood, even in the tiniest subsistence villages, to serve the needs of its inhabitants.

And it’s not just mosques: In Jakarta’s Chinatown, the Chinese temple serves daily meals to its homeless inhabitants, including I assume the begging woman we observed. And just across the street from the giant mosque sits a gothic Anglican church, where services to the needy are provided as well.

So it seems that Indonesia’s residents don’t turn to the government as much for help when they need it, as to their religion of choice. Food for thought, as we Americans wrestle with ‘fixing’ our government and face a pivotal election. If government is the problem, as some contend, can religions take care of all the issues? 

Well, it’s complicated, isn’t it? 

#2: THE WORLD’S MAJOR RELIGIONS AGREE ON SO MANY THINGS

Singapore embraces at least 10 religions, and yes there are penalties (prison!) if you preach against another religion. 

So religious tolerance is enforced here. Of course!

Indonesia embraces similar religious tolerance to Singapore’s, so we observed Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Islamic religious practices everywhere we turned. Islamic invaders did not make it to Bali, and Bali’s Christian colonizers didn’t make a lasting impression either. So Hinduism has survived as the dominant religion of the Balinese, and it shows.

We ended our trip with a visit to Singapore’s Hell’s Museum, which really isn’t about Hell so much as about ALL religious practices concerning death, burial, and the afterlife.

And guess what? The world’s religions have more commonalities than differences, especially when it comes to love, good works, community, and kindness. It’s there, every time. There’s a reason mosques, temples, synagogues and churches feed the hungry, take care of the sick, tend the needy.

It’s ironic, and deeply sad, that the world tears itself apart over religion, again and again down through the centuries, when the world’s major religions agree on so much.

It’s true that the Hell stuff is there as well, of course. At Hell’s Museum, though, it’s more Hollywood than real, one man’s imaginative take on what judgment and punishment might look like. Reminded me of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, rendered in paper machè rather than high art brush strokes.

#3: GIRLS ARE SMART, AND SCHOOL ROCKS

At President Barack Obama’s school, I had a delightful conversation with a young girl who told me how much she loves math and English. She’d like to read more but needs glasses, and I wondered why this toney school hadn’t provided them. I wanted to give her mine right then and there. 

I also wondered why the headmasters allowed the students to run amok. My old school co-workers would never allow such mayhem. Never. It was fun, though, at least for visitors. Wouldn’t want to teach there, unless I could lock student behavior down like we know how to do back in my old district back home.

Later in the day at the giant mosque, a gaggle of teenage Muslim girls insisted I take their picture. I couldn’t figure out why at first, since I really couldn’t send them the picture, could I? I figured it out, eventually. 

One brave girl told me, in halting English, “You are very beautiful.” I replied, “Thank you. You are very beautiful as well.” The gaggle literally shrieked in joy at my reply, which I took to mean they were thrilled that their English communication was successful.

I loved loved loved this. These girls, draped in scarves and robes, were so eager to learn!

Of course they were. Girls always want to learn, just like everyone else, no matter where they live or what scarves they wear on their heads. 

No one will ever be able to talk me out of this belief. (Could have something to do with those years of teaching teenage girls, ‘ya think? Ok maybe.)

#4: THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD PROP UP EVERYONE ELSE

We learned more than we wanted to know about the impact of colonialism, all while luxuriating in a cruise ship suite – a ship tended by mostly Indonesian cabin stewards, waiters, and deck staff. A Holland America ship, with Dutch origins. The Dutch, of course, were the primary colonizers of Indonesia, and they committed brazen atrocities in their search for profits back in the day. We came away from our art museum visits with a renewed appreciation for the plight of the world’s worker classes.

I’ll let the art speak for itself here, while we deal with our guilt as some of the world’s fortunate ones.

Without the workers that keep us fed, clothed and connected, we’re toast. How to make sure the workers are treated fairly, and paid well? Well of course it’s complicated, since the benevolent autocracy of Singapore ensures that all of its citizen-workers make a living wage and have decent retirement accounts. So maybe benevolent autocracy is the way to go? Yet what about those freedoms?

More food for thought.

HOME, SWEET HOME 

There was so much more we learned, and this trip just fueled our desire to know more, as usual. When we saw the sign, below, though, we came home with a new appreciation for some of the issues our country is dealing with right now. Grateful, too, to have the luxury to think on these things, and travel again soon if life allows.

Next up: A Key West post or two soon, since I haven’t written about crazy wonderful Key West in awhile. Things keep changing there, and we’re still headed that way very soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all – thank you, as always, for following along.