Water Wars - Asia News Network

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POLITICS
SPORTS
A tale of two
generals
The big fight
JAN UARY 27-FEB RUARY 9 , 2012
WATER
WARS
KEY Interests threaten
the future of Mekong River
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JANUARY 27-FE BRU A R Y 9, 2 01 2 • V o l 7 N o 2
COVER STORY
Water Wars  P8
The drive to
develop and
consume pose
threats to the
Great Mekong
River
VIEW  7
The New Terrorism Playground?
Terrorists have been using Thailand
as centre to procure explosives,
launder money, forge foreign currencies and travel documents
POLITICS  16
A Tale Of Two Generals
Both India’s and Pakistan’s army chief
are in the news, but for different
reasons
LIFE  22
Working Towards An Early Grave?
Hong Kong employees work long
hours for reasons rooted in culture that
may be extremely hard to break
F E AT U R E S
SPORTS  24
The Match Of Giants
The Pacquiao Vs Mayweather fight
could end up as a victim of its own
magnitude
CULTURE  28
Squaring Off With English
‘Square English’ is a combination of
the English language and Chinese
calligraphy
PEOPLE  30
100% Made In The Philippines
Black Eyed Pea’s apl.de.ap is proud to
be Filipino
FASHION  32
Hakka High Fashion
A Taiwanese designer subtly weaves
his Hakka ancestry into his clothes
ARTS  34
Plagiarism Or Parody?
For some artists, there is a thin line
that separates plagiarism from
drawing inspiration
POPASIA  38
No ‘Politainment’ Please+
Like oil and water, politics and
entertainment cannot mix in Taiwan
due to the China factor
ENTERTAINMENT  40
Behind The Glamour
Some Korean stars suffer from
psychological disorders showing the
tragic side of entertainment
EXPLORE  46
Biking Off The Beaten Track
Soak in the small-town charms of Kep
and Kampot, which have yet to be
discovered by the masses
COVE R IM AG E | F i s h me n p repare to go fi s hin g on t he Mekon g river in Thakh aek in lao. HOANG D I NH Nam/AFP
PHOTO
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THAILAND
By Kavi Chongkittavorn
The Nation
The New Terrorism Playground?
Terrorists have been using Thailand as centre to procure
explosives, launder money and forge foreign currencies
❖❖ Bangkok
January 27-February 9, 2012
•7
A F P PHTO/ Pornchai KITTI WO NG SAKU L
S
ixteen hours before
government leaders, it
the US government
showed that the Pheu Thai
issued a warning of
ruling party was hyper senterrorism attack in
sitive as the warning came
Bangkok on January
a few days before the Lunar
13, Hussein Atris, 47, a LebNew Year celebration.
anese-Swedish passport
It is an open secret that
holder, was apprehended at
Thailand is a haven for terthe Suvarnabhumi airport
rorists as well as transnanear midnight.
tional criminal groups. For
What came after the followdecades, they have been using days showed the huge pering the country as a centre
ception gap of Thai policyto procure illegal materials
makers
and
their
(arms, drugs or banned
counter-terrorism measures DRILL: Members of a Thai special force unit show their skills
chemical and explosive
during the anti-terrorism drill at the airport in Bangkok in February
with the international com- 2008.
substances), launder monmunity. Worse still was the
ey, forge foreign currencies
unpreparedness of Thai secuand travel documents. Givrity apparatus to face up with per- The Thai authorities believed that en its centrality in the continental
ceived threats of highly mobile and they were destined for third countries Southeast Asia with nearly one-thousophisticated terrorism networks. No not for local targets.
sand flights daily in operation, Thaiwonder, they are still in denial.
Thailand is no stranger to such ter- land remains the ideal logistic hub
Atris was on the watch list since rorist plots targeting Israeli assets for terrorist operations elsewhere.
Dec 10, 2011, when Thai intelligence and citizens. In March 1994, a Hez- Still, the Thai authorities are not up
was alerted that a group of Hezbollah bollah-linked group planned a car to the task. For instance, the Immioperatives, could plan terrorist at- bomb attack at the Israel Embassy, gration Bureau and Special Branch
tacks in Bangkok targeting foreign- which was situated in Langsuan. Police are still under-staffed and lack
ers, in particular Israeli citizens and Again, by sheer luck, the mission was counter-terrorism training. They
assets. On the list are places they fre- aborted as the car bomb miraculously have not yet tightened immigration
quently visit or stay such as Khaosan broke down. The incident, known regulations, improved surveillance or
Road (cheap hotels and a Chabad), among Thai intelligence, as “Lung set up a viable IT system for anti-terSamui and Pangan Islands (for full Chum (Uncle Chum)” affair—refer- rorism global networks.
moon parties) and Sukhumvit Soi 22. ring to the hijacked Thai driver who
While terrorists have changed their
Although the Special Branch Police was killed and tied up to the bomb strategies, the Thais have not changed
have been on the lookout, they did hidden inside the car—serves as a their mindset. They naively think
not have any lead as bits and pieces of fresh reminder that changes have that Thailand is a friendly country
intelligence were not case specific.
been far too little and slow.
and has no enemy. Their mantra is
It was a stroke of luck that Atris
No wonder, all the top echelons of still the same: we can turn a blind eye
was not aware that his name was on the Yingluck administration were fu- on activities if they do not harm the
the wanted list. Had he chose to exit rious, if not over-reacted, to the US Thai people.
through land check-points, say, at alert on terrorism warning on its
The warning is a crude wake-up
Nongkai on the Thai-Lao border, website. They complained about the call for the security officials in charge
he could slip out without notice. short notice given to them by the and the public in general. Luckily,
After hours of intense interrogation, Bangkok-based US embassy. Foreign this time the only casualties were limAtris disclosed the location of a minister Surapong Tohvichakchaikul ited to the diplomatic rows between
three-storey building in Mahachai, criticised the US and expressed dis- Thailand and its key allies. In the fuSamutsakorn in the outskirts of appointment for not closely consult- ture, if the Thai vulnerabilities conBangkok where he has accumulated ing with the Thai side before the tinue, terrorists will continue to exexplosive materials—urea-based warning was flagged. Judging from ploit gaps and the casualties might
fertilizer and ammonium nitrate. the knee-jerk responses by several not be just words.
COVER STORY
By Avigail M. Olarte
Asia News Network
Water
Wars
The drive to develop and
consume pose threats to
the Great Mekong River
❖❖ Chiang Khan, Loei
E
very morning at sunrise,
Sutas Kom Sri casts his
net into the river out of
faith. As the fog unveils
the horizon, the Mekong
River looms before him, luring him
into the richness of its waters.
But like other fishermen in this
part of the Mekong in northeast
Thailand, his daily catch has been
steadily declining through the years.
As a result, he says, more and more
fishermen have been abandoning
their nets.
“There’s lesser fish and they’re
smaller in size,” he says. “We’re
earning less than half than what we
used to get eight years ago.” The
reason for this, he believes, is the
waters’ increasing unpredictability
wrought by dams in China in the
upper mainstream.
Now he sees a bigger threat, a new
dam in Xayaburi province in northern
Laos, the first hydropower dam to be
built on the mainstream of the Mekong
River. But unknown to him and to
8•
Sutas Kom Sri has caught less
and less fish from the Mekong
River. He believes this is
caused by the dams built in
upstream China.
the other fishermen in Chiang Khan,
they would likely stand to lose in a
complex web of power play that courts
the interests of only the moneyed and
the powerful.
The Xayaburi dam will supply
electricity to the Electricity Generating Authority (Egat), Thailand’s
state energy body, with 1,260MW of
power for 30 years. One of the biggest infrastructure firms in Thailand, Ch. Karnchang Public Co Ltd
(CK), will be the developer with Thai
banks funding it. Under the plan,
commercial operations will start in
January 2019.
“Once the dam is born, everything
will be lost,” Sutas says.
Sutas is among the 60 million people who live and feed from the lower
Mekong basin. Considered as the
‘Mother of All Rivers’, the Mekong
River is the largest freshwater fishery
in the world. Described as the blood
line of the Mekong Region, it yields
2.5 million tonnes of fish per year—
valued at US$3 billion to $6 billion—
making it the most productive inland
fishery in the world.
Should the Xayaburi dam be built,
over 200,000 villagers will be affected. Of the 1,000 fish species in the
Mekong, 41 will face extinction, including the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish.
Worrying, too, is the fact that at
least 23 migratory fish species will
most likely be blocked from both upstream and downstream, disrupting
the life cycles of the migratory fish
and reducing the river catch of up to
600,000 metric tonnes.
“The Xayaburi dam could cause irreparable damage to the Mekong
fisheries. The risk of permanent damage to the Mekong biodiversity and
fisheries is too great and the cost too
high,” says Zeb Hogan of the University of Reno in the US in a technical
review he wrote for the International
Rivers, a network working to protect
the Mekong River.
 At what cost?
Harnessing the power of the Mekong River to supply electricity to
countries in the region dates way
back to the 1960s, upon the creation
of the Mekong Committee—a body
created to promote and supervise development projects in the Mekong.
At the time, seven large-scale multipurpose dams were proposed. According to the Towards Ecological
Recovery and Regional Alliance (Terra), these did not push through due to
“geopolitical conflicts in the region
and concern over social and environmental impacts”.
By 1994, the committee presented a
plan to build 11 “run-of-river” hydropower dams of only 30 to 60 metres
high on the Mekong mainstream. The
dam design was said to be ideal, having a much lesser impact than large
storage dams. Most of the dams were
planned to produce power for export
to Thailand, including Xayaburi, according to a report by Terra.
When the countries signed the
1995 Mekong Agreement, the committee was replaced by the Mekong
River Commission (MRC). This
move, says Terra, was supposed to
“represent a shift in its mandate” and
ensure sustainability. But studies on
the mainstream projects continued,
causing nongovernment groups to
stage campaigns against the plan.
At present, there are 12 planned
mainstream dams that could provide
power by as much as 14,697MW,
enough to sustain a country like Thailand for the next 15 to 20 years.
An evaluation commissioned by
the MRC revealed, however, that
these run-of-river projects cannot
proceed without a fisheries baseline
data, as the likely impacts on the river
ecology and livelihood have yet to be
properly studied. Experts confirm
that any changes in the flow of the
water will “seriously damage critical
habitats” like the pools of fish and organisms that contribute to the entire
river’s food web.
As it is, hydro dams built on the
Mekong tributaries such as the Pak
Mun dam in northeast Thailand and
the Theun-Hinboun in central Laos
have led to a decline in fish harvest
and loss of food and livelihood to
communities.
Fishermen like Udon Ruenkam in
Chiang Khan know this to be true.
Having been a fisherman for 30
years, he has seen less and less fish
from Don Khai, the island in the
middle of the Mekong River where
Lao and Thai fishermen go to every
day to catch fish.
“The water is now too fast, and it
goes up and down very often. At
times, instead of fish, our nets haul in
rubbish,” he claims, adding that dams
built on the rivers have triggered
these. “If they build the Xayaburi
dam, we will lose everything.”
 Transboundary impact
The scenario has equally alarmed
other countries downstream, especially Cambodia where 70 per cent of
its 9.8-million population resides
within 15km of the river. The loss of
livelihood would have a devastating
impact on villagers who heavily depend on fishing and farming as their
main sources of income, Cambodia
being the rice basket in the delta. The
dam could potentially lessen the flow
of sediments or nutrients downstream which aid farmers in growing
their rice and crops.
The project’s Environment Impact
Assessment (EIA) in 2010—a study
done by TEAM Consulting Engineering and Management Co Ltd of
Thailand and Colenco Power Engineering Limited of Switzerland for
CK—was highly criticised for making no mention of any transboundary, damaging impact that the
Xayaburi dam might cause.
The EIA covered villages within
the project site in Laos, claiming only
a few villagers will lose their land and
vegetable gardens. This estimate, reports the International Rivers, is not
even close to representing the number of villages that will be affected
downstream and upstream.
The project’s Social Impact Assessment (SIA), a document prepared by
TEAM, also had no recognition of the
rights of the villagers to “full and fair
compensation for lost land”. The SIA
states that it will compensate by providing livelihood assistance, not with
cash assistance.
An official from the Department of
Electricity in Laos confirms that at
least three villages have been asked to
voluntarily relocate inland, with no
money being offered. In an interview
with AsiaNews, he says the government will help them by providing alternative job opportunities, which
have yet to take place.
 Consultations as ‘rubber stamp’
Experts fear that the people may
not be fully aware of the extent of
impact of the dam. Only 60 per cent
of the people in Xayaburi who were
interviewed for the EIA said they
had heard about the project. But after the survey, 82.6 per cent said
they were in favour, and only 2 per
cent disagreed.
But International Rivers notes the
figures are not surprising “given the
strong central state support for the
project and the reluctance of the
people to contradict state policy”.
What’s more, the TEAM consultants were there to “sell the project”.
In fact, the group said, the fishermen
were even told to “merely adjust their
•9
Ph oto courtesy of Terra
COVER STORY
gear and methods so they can carry
on catching fish like before”.
Unlike in Laos, the consultations
held in three provinces in Thailand
in 2011 showed strong opposition
from villagers.
“The people said they want additional study on fish migration and
aquatic impact. They’re worried
that the dam will cause erosion in
the banks and the fish yield will be
reduced,” says an official at the
Thailand National Mekong Committee of the MRC.
She says the first national consultation on the Xayaburi dam in Thailand
took place in the northern province of
Chiang Rai in January 2011. Participants in that meeting said the information on the transboundary impact
was not enough and that further studies are needed. The same concerns
were raised in two subsequent consultations in Loei and Nakorn Phnom in
February, highlighting the fact that no
single has study has yet fully covered
the extent of damage a mainstream
dam like Xayaburi would have on the
Mekong River’s resources.
In Vietnam, the member country
that has voiced much opposition to
the project, two consultations were
held in Can Tho City and Ha Long
City in early 2011. The people said full
precaution is needed for a dam that
will set a precedent for other proposed mainstream dams especially
since the proposal was unclear on
mitigation solutions.
Cambodians, meanwhile, supported the 10-year delay of building dams
in the mainstream as proposed by
the MRC in the Strategic Environ10 •
ment Assessment (SEA), a study
done on hydropower development in
the Mekong. The report recommended no decisions should be made until
“remaining uncertainties and knowledge gaps” are addressed.
 Access to information
The consultations in the four
countries were done in compliance
with the 1995 MRC Mekong Agreement on the Cooperation for the
Sustainable Development. Under
this, the member countries are to
jointly review any development
project proposed for the mainstream
under the Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA).
Under the PNPCA, the member
states should conduct prior consultation within members of the MRC before any project is to proceed. When
the Lao government notified MRC in
September 2010 about its plan in
Xayaburi, nearly seven months after
the EIA was completed, member
countries were notified. This led to
technical reviews and consultations
in each country, a process that needed to be completed within six months.
But during the consultations in
other countries, the EIA was reportedly not released and was treated as a
secret document on orders of the Lao
government.
The National Mekong Committee
in Thailand also confirms that during
its consultations, they could not give
out a copy of the EIA because it was
considered confidential. “If it were
under our laws, we’re obligated to
disclose the EIA to the public within
a month. But for Xayaburi, we were
not allowed to disclose it.”
“Public input was absent in the
EIA,” says Dr Philip Hirsch of the
Australian Mekong Resource Centre
in a paper he wrote for International
Rivers. “The prior consultation process is flawed because stakeholders
(did not have) access to the EIA.”
A senior knowledge management
officer of a nongovernment organisation in Laos confirms that the
government refused to release a copy
of the EIA. “A person from the MRC
who attended the consultation said
the government merely wanted the
people to to say ‘yes’ and they were
merely informing them how the dam
will benefit the country. The villagers were also confused since they
were fed with too much technical
information,” he tells AsiaNews.
(The person’s name and his organisation’s are not disclosed on the
interviewee’s request.)
But unlike the EIA, the dam’s Feasibility Study was released to the public in February 2011.
The feasibility study, which was
done by CK and TEAM, had the same
conclusions as that of the EIA. It read
that the “social impact of the barrage
is at medium level, while the environmental impact is at low level”.
It added that the project would
benefit the Mekong countries, especially Laos and Thailand, and urged
for “speedy negotiations and early
conclusion of agreements” between
Laos, the investor and Egat”.
 The politics of power
But by April 19, during an MRC
Joint Committee Special Session in
Vientiane, the MRC reported that all
countries instead agreed to defer the
decision on the Xayaburi dam, with
Vietnam strongly recommending the
SEA findings that projects on the
mainstream be deferred for another
10 years.
Less than a month later, during a
side meeting of the prime ministers
of Laos and Vietnam at the 18th Asean Summit in Jakarta, the Lao premier announced that “it agreed to
 Breaches of obligations
According to International Rivers,
Senator Surajit said the signing of
P hoto courtesy of International Rivers
temporarily suspend the Xayaburi
Dam”. Both countries also agreed to
instruct agencies to conduct a joint
research on the dam under the framework of the MRC.
Two days before that meeting,
however, a letter leaked to the International Rivers revealed that Laos on
May 5 hired Poyry Energy, a Finnish
consulting firm, to determine whether Laos has fulfilled its obligations
under the 1995 Mekong Agreement.
By June 2, Poyry said the Lao government had complied with the agreements and that it had taken the concerns of the member countries into
proper consideration.
By June 9, the Xayaburi Company
wrote a letter to Egat saying that Laos
has complied with the 1995 Agreement and that it was now ready to
execute the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Egat. Under the
PPA, CK Karnchang, a subisidiary of
Xayaburi Power, will be purchasing
95 per cent of the project’s 1,260MW
capacity at a rate of about 2 baht per
unit (6 US cents).
Several months later, Thai Senator Surajit Chiravet, member of the
Senate Committee on Corruption
Investigation and Good Governance Protection was quoted that a
high-ranking official from the Ministry of Energy said in a Senate
hearing that the PPA for Xayaburi
Dam had been signed on October
29 and that Xayaburi had already
been included in Thailand’s Power
Development Plan.
But when news of the decision of
the MRC members during the December 8, 2011, meeting in Siem
Reap, Cambodia broke, declaring a
need for further study yet again, Thai
senators launched an investigation.
They wanted to know if Egat violated
the Thai government’s instructions to
have the MRC member governments’
approval first before any agreement
to purchase power from Xayaburi is
to be made.
the PPA likely violated the resolution of the National Energy Policy
Council, the body that has the authority to approve power import
projects, stating that projects like
Xayaburi need to fully comply with
the 1995 Mekong Agreement before
any of the countries are to enter into
any concessions.
“By moving under the radar of the
Mekong River Commission, Thailand and Laos have threatened the
spirit of regional cooperation and the
integrity of the 1995 Mekong Agreement...it’s no surprise that the dam
builder Ch. Karnchang has lobbied
extensively for the dam to proceed,”
says Piapoorn Deetes of the International Rivers.
Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia programme director of International
Rivers, says Thailand now has to cancel the PPA because the process was
not in accordance with the 1995
agreement.
“The gaps still exist and to proceed with the dam without a regional decision is not only reckless
and irresponsible, it also threatens
regional security,” she says.
But for the Lao engineer from the
Department of Electricity, who refuses to be identified for fear of reprisal, he says the PNPCA is nothing
but a “document” to implement the
1995 Agreement and that it should be
treated independently from the economic agreement.
“The project is momentarily delayed but we will not stop,” he confirms. Construction for roads and
buildings is still ongoing in Xayaburi,
he says, but no infrastructure work
has started on the river. According to
him, Laos will have to wait for the
countries to agree until they can start
with the dam structure.
In the meantime, the Lao government is considering paying for another firm to conduct more studies on
the transboundary impact. It is also
waiting for another study spearheaded by the MRC, which would include
the transboundary impact of hydro
projects like Xayaburi in the Mekong
region, as part of the agreement during the meeting in Siem Reap.
“We have to consult with other
countries to make them happy. We’re
being gentlemen now,” he says.
But should Laos proceed with the
project without the required consensus, it would be in breach of its
obligations under the Mekong
Agreement.
It would also be violating its commitment to negotiate and consult in
good faith under international laws,
specifically under the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. All countries in the Mekong
Region under the Rio declaration
agreed to consult each other first
should there be projects “that may
have a significant adverse transboundary environmental effect”.
And should there be disputes that
cannot be resolved among the countries, Trandem says under the Mekong
Agreement, they may elevate matters
to the International Court of Justice.
But for fishermen like Sutas, whose
voice and others like him have been
largely ignored and unheard, the
message is simple: “We love the Mekong River. We don’t want any dams.”
• 11
COVER STORY
Farmers and fishermen in
northeastern Thailand sign a
petition to stop the Xayaburi
dam in Laos.
To Dam Or Not To Dam
 Phu Wiang, Khon Khaen
On a green postcard shaped like
the Mekong giant catfish, a
74-year-old farmer carefully writes
his name and signs it. His postcard,
along with thousands others, will
be sent to Thailand Prime Minister
Yingluck Shinwatra this February,
as a message not of love, but more
of a plea: “Respect the lives of the
people who rely on the Mekong and
let them live with dignity forever”,
the postcard reads.
“The river is our only path to freedom,” writes a fisherman from the
nearby province Undonthani. Others
went for a more direct message, “Stop
the dam”, and urged the Thai government to have a strong policy for dams
on the Mekong mainstream.
“As the country that is going to
buy electricity from the Mekong
dams, the Thai government should
by now be able to say something,
make a firm stand on the issue,”
says Premrudee Daoroung, director
of the Bangkok-based environment
group Towards Ecological Recovery
and Regional Alliance.
Among the four Mekong countries, Thailand has been most silent
on the issue of the proposed Xayaburi dam in Laos, the first hydropower project to be built on the
mainstream of Mekong. Ninety-five
per cent of the energy from the
12 •
plant will be sold to Thailand.
Under the Energy Industry Act of
Thailand, listed in its objectives are
in support of energy security, energy
self-reliance, efficient use of energy,
with minimal impact on health and
the environment.
But Chuenchom Sangarasri Greacen, co-founder of the Thai-based
nonprofit organisation Palang Thai,
says there is a disconnect between the
policy objectives of Thailand with
what’s really happening in reality.
“A lot of power plants are added
when we don’t need the electricity.
Some projects are put on the fast
track even if they are not in the PDP
(Power Development Plan) like the
Xayaburi dam,” Chuenchom says
during a recent forum of the Mekong
Energy and Ecology Network held recently at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Her analysis shows that the stateowned enterprise Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand’s
(Egat) PDP in 2010, which was
approved by the Thai Cabinet, is
based on an “unrealistically high
peak demand forecast”.
Thailand in its PDP doubled its
electricity demand from 23,900MW
in 2011 to 52,890MW in 2030, much
of which is to come from coal, gas,
nuclear and imported hydropower.
“According to official forecast we
would need more electricity, but the
actual need is lower than the projected level,” she says. In her group’s Alternative PDP 2012, the average increase would only be 800MW a year,
as opposed to the Thai government’s
forecast of 1,500MW a year.
She says the government forecast
was made under the assumption
that, among others, Thailand’s annual GDP growth rate would stay at
4.4 per cent for the next five years
and 4.11 per cent for the next 20
years. “This rate is optimistic, considering that average growth in the
past five years has been only 2.9 per
cent,” she says.
According to Chuenchom, an official criteria for determining electricity needs in Thailand is the reserve
margin, or the capacity in excess of
the peak demand. By her calculations, Thailand needs to maintain a
mere 15 per cent reserve margin to
ensure reliability.
In her analysis, the alternative PDP
would give a total of 35,579MW installed capacity (the maximum
amount of electricity produced) by
2030 versus the government’s forecast of 65, 547MW. Her calculations
maintain the 15 per cent reserve margin and would allow electricity bills
to be lower by 12 per cent in 2030
compared to the government’s PDP.
 Xayaburi not needed
With this forecast, no new coal,
natural gas, nuclear power, or hydropower imports will be needed.
“Thailand has sufficient excess
surplus capacity and projects that
no additional resources are needed,” she says.
Wasteful energy also leads to a less
efficient economy, she adds. In principle, a country with an advanced
economy will have a lesser energy intensity. Energy intensity is a measure
of the energy efficiency of a nation’s
economy. A chart shows that Thailand is bucking that trend, Chuenchom says. “We are actually using
more energy to meet our economic
activity when worldwide there is a
downward trend in energy intensity.”
(See graph)
 Who loses?
Thailand remains the top importer
of energy from Laos. Often referred
to as the “battery of Southeast Asia”,
Laos exports power to Thailand
through Electricite du Laos—the
state-owned corporation under the
Ministry of Energy and Mines—and
the Independent Power Producers.
Prachakporn Sophon of the Mekong Energy and Ecology Network
says the Lao government sees exporting electricity as highly viable.
At present, there are nine operational projects in Laos that provide electricity to Thailand. Three
more hydropower projects are under construction and 12 more are
under the planning stage, according to a December 2011 document
from the Ministry of Energy and
Mines. (See table).
Indicated in Thailand’s PDP 2010
is its plan to buy a total of 7GW
from Laos until 2030. PPAs have
reportedly been signed for the projects Nam Ngum 2 (615MW), Nam
Theun Hin Bun (220MW) and
Hongsa Lignite (1.47GW). And just
Photo courtesy of International Rivers
As a result, she says, there are cases
in Thailand like the highly controversial Pak Mun dam—a plant barely
able to power one mall—but as a result, 1,700 families had to be relocated with over 6,000 families deprived
of livelihood.
“This is the sacrifice the government is asking from people in the
name of energy security,” she says.
Instead of building more plants,
she recommends in the alternative
PDP that Thailand should invest
more on energy efficiency by, for
example, extending the life of
power plants.
Or it could engage in cogeneration,
which is considered highly efficient
because it captures heat lost during
the production of electricity and converts it into thermal energy. By engaging in this alone, Thailand could
add at least 4,800MW more, which
means the government would not
even have to purchase more power
from proposed plants like Xayaburi.
recently, memoranda of understanding have been signed for purchase with Xayaburi Power
(1.29GW), Nam Ngum 3 (440MW)
and Xe Pian Xe Nam Noi (390
MW).
According to the Lao government,
imports from Laos are necessary to
meet Thailand’s demand for power.
Since Laos is fully able to supply it, it
says, the government can use this revenue for its anti-poverty plans. Hydropower projects, it also claims,
help avoid flooding downstream in
the rainy season and supply water in
the dry season.
But reports show that these may
not be exactly true. For instance,
Prachakporn says one of the four major IPPs that supply power to Thailand, Nam Theun 2, had to cease operations in October 2010 because the
water downstream was already too
high. As a result, EGAT had to source
power from its own power plants.
The plant’s income decreased by 14
per cent in 2011 and its projected energy generation was lower than initial
estimates by about 11 per cent.
According to Prachakporn, power
was purchased from Nam Theun 2
because Thailand’s northeastern region needed power as its peak demand was expected to spike. The
PDP 2003 of Thailand says the peak
demand in the area will increase by
151MW from 2003 to 2006. The actual peak demand was in fact only
21.5MW per year on average.
Further, the reserve power of Thailand in 2010 was already 32 per cent.
And if Nam Theun 2 was not to be
included, the reserve capacity would
still be at 28 per cent, way above the
15 per cent margin.
“It means that we have more reserve power than we need,” she says.
And if Lao power producers “generate revenue uncertainty and cannot
prevent floods and generate power”,
Laos is clearly at the losing end. As
for Thailand, its consumers will continue bearing the cost of power imported from energy-inefficient investments.
 What drives these projects?
“We see a rapidly changing role of
electricity. Electricity used to be a
public service that everybody has the
right to; now it’s becoming a commodity from which profits can be
made,” says Chuenchom.
In October 2006, when the government announced energy investment opportunities, PDP-related
investments saw a massive increase
of 66 per cent compared to nonenergy investments at only 8.7 per
cent. “We can see how energy policies can move stock prices. People
close to the energy sector can profit
handsomely from this kind of
movement,” she says.
Increasingly, the private sector is
playing a bigger role in the energy
sector. During a recent energy forum
in Bangkok, Carl Middleton of the
Chulalongkorn University says Thai
banks are lending regionally more
and more, with Western donors now
seeing a declining role.
“Regional banks are now key financiers and therefore important decision-makers,” he says. At least six regional hydropower developers are
• 13
COVER STORY
POWER PROJECTS IN LAOS,
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
(AS OF DECEMBER 2011)
No.
Name of CONSTRUCTION
project
Installed
UNDER
capacity
(AS
1
2
No.
3
1
2
OF
DECEMBER
Hongsa
Lignite (IPP) 2011)
Theun-Hinboun Hdyropower
Name
of project
Expansion
(IPP)
Xayaburi (IPP)
Hongsa Lignite (IPP)
Theun-Hinboun Hdyropower
Expansion (IPP)
Xayaburi (IPP)
1,878 MW
220+60 MW
Installed
capacity
1,285
MW
1,878 MW
220+60 MW
Planned
market
Laos/Thailand
Laos/Thailand
Planned
market
Laos/Thailand
Laos/Thailand
Laos/Thailand
from Thailand, including Ch
be on an upward trend in
Karnchang Public Co Ltd
the next five years, even if
(CK), the developer of the
CK’s net profit forecast for
Xayaburi power project.
2012 was reduced by 49.3
3
1,285 MW
Laos/Thailand
At least six private banks
per cent.
in Thailand are key financiIn its third quarter report
ers of energy projects—
in 2011, CK reported it sold
Bangkok Bank, Bank of
its shares in Xayaburi Power
Ayudhya, Kasikorn Bank,
Co. Ltd to Natee Natee SynOPERATIONAL (AS OF DECEMBER 2011)
Krungthai Bank, Siam Comergy Co Ltd, which now
No. Name of project
Planned
mercial Bank and Thai Miliholds 25 per cent, and to the
POWER PROJECTS INInstalled
LAOS,
capacity
market
tary Bank. Nearly all of them
Electricity Generating Pub(AS OF DECEMBER
2011)
OPERATIONAL
1
Houay Ho (IPP)
152 MW
Thailand
have funded at least one hylic Co Ltd, which owns 12.5
2
Nam Leuk Hydropower
60 MW
Laos/Thailand
No. Name
of project
Installed
Planned
3
Nam Mang
3 Hydropower
40 MW
Laos/Thailand
dropower in Laos, with four
per cent.
capacity
market
4
Nam Ngum 1 Hydropower
155 MW
Laos/Thailand
of them—Kasikorn Bank,
The Mekong River Com1
Houay
Ho (IPP)
152
Thailand
5
Nam
Ngum
2 Hydropower (IPP)
615 MW
MW
Thailand
Siam Commercial, Bangkok
mission’s Strategic Environ2
Nam Theun
Leuk Hydropower
60 MW
Laos/Thailand
6
Nam
2 Hydropower (IPP)
1,075
MW
Laos/Thailand
3
Nam
40 MW
MW
Laos/Thailand
7
Se XetMang
1 3 Hydropower
45
Laos/Thailand
Bank and Krung Thai—
ment Assessment in 2010
4
Nam
1 Hydropower
Laos/Thailand
8
Se XetNgum
2 Hydropower
State Utility 155
76 MW
MW
Laos/Thailand
funding Xayaburi.
showed Thailand and Viet5
Nam
Ngum
2
Hydropower
(IPP)
615
MW
Thailand
9
Theun-Hinboun (IPP)
Laos/Thailand
220MW
A stock information renam are the ones targeting
6
Nam Theun 2 Hydropower (IPP)
1,075 MW
Laos/Thailand
7
Se
Xet 1
45 and
MW Mines
Laos/Thailand
Source:
Thailand’s
Department of Energy
leased on Nov 29, 2011,
to purchase close to 90 per
8
Se Xet 2 Hydropower State Utility
76 MW
Laos/Thailand
showed the Xayaburi procent of the power generated
9
Theun-Hinboun (IPP)
Laos/Thailand
ject, which was to be finalfrom the Mekong mainised “by the end of this year (2011) or
With the decision of the Mekong stream projects. “If Thailand and Viearly next year (2012)”, will drive the River Commission member countries etnam decided not to purchase maincompany’s backlog. Xayaburi along in December 2011 to defer the con- stream power, the projects all
with a mass transit investment troversial Xayaburi project until fur- designed for export would be very
(worth 14 billion baht or $455 mil- ther studies are done, a securities unlikely to go ahead,” it said.
lion) will push up CK’s revenue by firm report showed that even without
— Avigail M. Olarte/Asia News
47.3 per cent.
Xayaburi, CK’s earnings should still Network
CHANGING ENERGY INTENSITY OVER 20-YEAR PERIOD
1.7
1.6
Thailand
1.5
1.4
1.3
1.2
1.1
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
WORLD TOTAL
0.6
0.5
0.4
CHINA
0.3
1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
United States
France
Germany
United Kingdom
Russia
South Africa
Burma
Cambodia
China
Indonesia
Japan
Laos
Malaysia
Philippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Asia & Oceania
World Total
Source: Palang Thai
14 •
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POLITICS
SRI LANKA/PAKISTAN
By Kuldip Nayar
The Island
A tale
of two
generals
Pakistan’s Army chief General
Parvez Kayani
Both India’s and
Pakistan’s army
chief are in the
news, but for
different reasons
❖❖ Colombo
Ph oto s by A FP
T
he army chief is in the news
in India as well as in Pakistan, but for different reasons. In both cases, the Supreme Court of either
country is an arbiter. In India, Chief
of Army Staff General V.K. Singh
claims that his year of birth is 1950
while the Ministry of Defence has recorded it as 1951. If the government
sticks to its date, as it is doing, he retires this May, nearly 10 months before his own calculation of birth date.
Some retired top brass have made it a
point of honour for the armed forces
and want Singh to vindicate it by
challenging the government’s decision in the Supreme Court.
In Pakistan, Chief of Army Staff
General Parvez Kayani has already
gone to the Supreme Court which has
set up a commission of nine judges to
probe into the charge that the army
16 •
was contemplating a coup. The matter, called the Memogate, came to
light a couple of months ago when
the then Pakistan Ambassador to the
US, Hussain Haqqani, sent a message to the US through a Pakistani
businessman that President Asif
Zardari required America’s support
because he apprehended a takeover
by the army. It was October when
Haqqani sought the help but he did
not make it public till the US did so.
The disclosure made Kayani furious.
To lessen his anger, Zardari ordered
Haqqani to quit. This was not a fair
charge against Kayani because why
should he threaten a takeover when
the army already has the country under its control?
The argument that the Supreme
Court surrendered to the army when
it constituted the inquiry commission
is churlish. And to make a charge
against the Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Choudhary is meaning-
less. He is the person who suffered at
the hands of the army, then headed
by General Pervez Musharraf. Choudhary and his family were confined to
one room and harassed in every way.
But he did not give in.
Doubting his integrity is neither
fair not factually correct. It is possible
that Haqqani was playing politics
when he was sponsoring the message.
But then this is not the first time that
Haqqani is doing so. Looking at his
career, it is evident that he is a man of
all seasons. Jumping from one political party to another for feathering his
own nest is all that he has as his
achievements.
In fact, the constitution of the commission of Supreme Court and High
Court judges was the only way to get
at the bottom of the truth. There is no
institution in Pakistan to which one
can turn. The Supreme Court still
evokes confidence and credibility. In
fact, it has already issued a notice to
India’s Army chief General
V. K. Singh
Zardari to which he has replied.
This is the maximum one can
achieve in Pakistan. The controversy
over the date of birth of the army
chief would not have arisen in Pakistan because the conditions prevailing there are quite different from
those in India. Yet the embarrassment caused over Singh’s claim could
have been avoided if the matter had
been handled better and earlier, both
by him and the defence ministry.
I can appreciate Kayani making a
fuss because he felt that he was being
blamed for an act which he had not
contemplated. But I fail to understand why Singh is making his birth
date an issue when it was “resolved”
between him and the defence ministry before he was appointed Eastern
Army Commander four years ago and
the army chief two years ago. He
himself gave in writing to the defence
ministry that the matter was “closed”.
Good or bad, Singh should have
adhered to what was decided then. It
was wrong on his part to have consulted former chief justices of India
to bolster his case or to brief persons
who came to TV shows—resembling
Kangaroo courts—to participate in
discussions. It can be interpreted as
an act of insubordination.
I heard some retired top brass converting the matter into an issue between civil and military. Such irresponsible talk, even if allowed in a
democratic system, tantamount to
challenging the ethos of our polity.
General Douglas MacArthur, hero of
the Eastern sector of Second World
War, was dismissed by President
Henry Truman when he found the
general deriding democracy.
Even if the defence ministry’s decision on his birth date is not to his liking or some of his ambitious supporters, the buck stops at the table of an
elected government. I am disappointed to find bonepartism taking hold of
some top retired military officers.
The media itself should have undertaken the matter with care instead of
sensationalising it. The Pakistani media in the case of Kayani acted with
restraint and responsibility. It has
shown guts even when threatened.
Saleem Shezad for example was abducted, tortured and killed, reportedly by a state agency last year. A
commission of inquiry is still seemingly trying to find the murderer. He
had broken the story on the infiltration of the armed forces by elements
close to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Several journalists from Baluchistan
have been killed by non-state actors,
said to be close to the security forces.
The compromise formula hawked in
the case of Singh is again bad in content and intention. The proposal to appoint him as the chief of joint staff suggests as if there are two parties and an
agreement has to be reached so that
none loses face. What is not realised is
that there is only one party in democracy, the people who elect their representatives who, in turn, constitute the
government. In fact, the very proposal
to create a post of chief of joint staff is
not acceptable. America has such an
institution but the democracy there is
150 years old. Democracy knows of no
compromise which restricts or impinges on people’s say.
The irony is that all military coups
in Pakistan have been at the behest of
America. The Pakistani military has
signed more defence pacts and agreements with America than all civilian
governments put together. It is the
Pakistan military which joined America in Afghanistan in the eighties and
recently leased out Pakistan air bases
and air space corridors to America.
Still Washington did not trust the
army when Osama-bin Laden was
killed in a house at Abbotabad.
Both generals in Pakistan and
India should introspect. Kayani can
get away with his allegation against
the civil government and allow
President Zardari say that he is supreme. Singh cannot because in
democracy, the elected government
is supreme. He should have known
it before he raised the dust.
• 17
Society
INDONESIA
By Lynda Ibrahim
The Jakarta Post
Dirty Jakarta
Why fret about the Mayan prophecy,
when the city needs saving now?
❖❖ Jakarta
Ph oto by A FP
H
ow has 2012 treated you
so far? While some of
you, probably the Mayan prophecy diehards,
are still recovering
from a prolonged New Year celebration, some of us have had to
return to real life.
At this time of the year, real life in
Indonesia involves rainy season, a
heavy dose of tropical rain that is
actually much-needed to wash away
dirt and dreariness from the halfyear-long dry season. As a child, I
loved this season.
Either curling up in bed listening
to the sound of rain, or enjoying the
scent and view from the inside of a
moving vehicle. It was one of my
life’s small blisses.
That is a small luxury that I, and
many Jakartans, can no longer
relate to.
In the past few years the rainy
season has turned into an urban
horror story, when blocked waterways pushed excess water onto the
streets, where dirt turned them into
sludge, then halted the already
jammed traffic into a standstill—
hour after hour.
There are many sophisticated
ways to count how much Jakarta
and its people suffer from overused
petrol, wasted productive hours, extra costs to business opportunity
losses.
18 •
But there is never an adequate
way to quantify the loss of energy,
fighting spirit, or just general positive attitude whenever someone has
to trudge along the impassable
streets.
Just glance over what Jakartans
colourfully tweet during rush hours,
including, um, the merry ways to
incorporate our governor’s name
into swearing.
A friend missed my after-hours
birthday party recently because she
had no energy to brave the path
from her office on southern Jl. Fatmawati to downtown Plaza Indonesia, which she likened to “parting
the Red Sea a la Noah”.
I’m lucky to live near downtown
and mostly work from home, but
even I had to reschedule or cancel
various engagements, business and
social, because the traffic, raining
or not, was simply not worth all
the fuss.
Growing up I’ve always been
known as an outgoing, people
person—yet lately I feel like I’ve
been confined to and trapped in a
city that wouldn’t let me freely
move nor breathe.
Eve n w i t h o ut p e rs o n a l e co nomic demands, Jakartans aren’t
that much different to caged animals. It is no wonder many of us
suffer from all kinds of physical
and social illnesses.
Jakarta is up for its governor election this year. I have only three
things to say to all aspiring candidates—adequate mass transportation system, trash management, and
sewage canals. Yes, in that order;
even before any grand plans.
A n ad e q u ate a n d a ffo rd a bl e
mass transportation system will
quickly reduce the need for personal vehicles.
We’ve toyed with monorail and
subway ideas, and finally somewhat
settled with the Transjakarta buses,
yet it’s not adequately serving the
mass population, who’s been obtaining motorcycles on cheap credit
and far from attracting the upwardly mobile, upper middle class JakarJanuary 27-February 9, 2012
tans, still comfortably tucked into
AC-ed cars. Fix it or provide us with
something else.
There are the ugly details of trash
management. With the rise of income, the more we consume, the
more we discard.
Modern building managements
have started to properly manage
trash, but we live beyond offices,
malls and posh apartments. The
city needs to devise much better
protocols and laws, not only for advanced waste management like recycling, but first to induce Jakartans
to actually follow them.
The fewer people throw garbage
on sidewalks and sewers, the fewer
blockages and less sludge there will
be during the rainy season—it’s as
simple as that.
Last but not least, remember
those canals transporting water
from establishments or rainfall.
Look around and see the latest
trend in both residential and commercial buildings, to cover roadside
sewers with concrete, mostly to
make way for wider parking spaces.
Don’t these people have logic?
How are raindrops supposed to be
absorbed or channeled away? No
wonder the streets are flooded an
hour into rain, the water has no
place to go! And how come the city
turns a blind eye to this stupidity? I
vote and pay taxes, so now it’s my
turn to ask for the city government,
which has been collecting my taxes,
to get their act together and provide
me and 13 million inhabitants with a
livable, living city.
I don’t need empty slogans on giant-sized billboards featuring smiling candidates. A candidate with
clear, concise, deliverable plans will
win my vote.
Forget the Mayan prophecy. Without better governance, Jakarta may
just suck the life out of you before
the year ends.
• 19
Society
INDONESIA
By Elly Burhaini Faizal
The Jakarta Post
Indonesia’s
‘Lost Generation’
number of children with stunted growth is alarmingly
high, especially compared to the government ‘s claim of
reduced poverty rates in recent years
❖❖ Jakarta
S
ix-year-old Selvia Rahm awat i a p p e a re d u n d a u n t e d wa l k i n g b e tween cars and
motorcycles at an intersection in Karet Bivak, Tanah
Abang in Central Jakarta.
She only had one objective—to
knock on doors of cars and ask for
small change from the vehicles’
occupants.
“Just to buy snacks,” said Selvia,
when asked about what she would
do with the money.
With the 15,000 rupiah (US$1.64)
she earns every day, Selvia only
spends a little to buy instant noodles, as she also has to support Uyi,
her 45-year-old aunt.
“I don’t know whether she is malnourished. I have no money to bring
her to a hospital,” Uyi told The Jakarta Post, adding that most of Selvia’s daily diet consists of nothing
other than instant noodles.
Selvia, with her stick f igure
body, is probably one among millions of children in the country
who lack proper nutrition, often
resulting in stunting.
Data from the Basic Health Re20 •
search programme (Riskesdas) conducted by the health ministry in
2010 shows that in spite of impressive economic growth, the percentage of children in the country experiencing stunted growth reached a
staggering 35.6 per cent of children
below the age of 5, a total of 26.7
million children.
Growth stunting is a primary
manifestation of malnutrition in
early childhood, including malnutrition during fetal development
brought on by the mother’s own
malnourishment. Growth stunting
could be identified by comparing
measurements of children’s heights
to the growth reference population.
Growth stunting occurs due to a
dietary deficiency of micro nutrients, and in the long run it can affect
both cognitive development and
productivity.
East Nusa Tenggara has the highest rate of children with stunted
growth—58.4 per cent of children
below age 5.
West Papua comes second with
49.2 per cent, and West Nusa Tenggara is third with 48.2 per cent.
North Sumatra trails in fourth position with 42.3 per cent, and South
Sulawesi in fifth with 40.4 per cent.
The number of children with
stunted growth is alarmingly high,
especially compared to the government claim of reduced poverty rates
in recent years.
According to the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Indonesia’s poverty rate
dropped by 5.26 per cent over the
2006-2011 period.
As of September 2011, the number
of poor people reached 29.89 million people, or 12.36 per cent of the
total population.
Bappenas expects that poverty
rates will decline in the next
five years to 10.5-11.5 per cent by
2012 and between 8 and 10 per
cent by 2014.
Razak Thaha, a professor of
nutrition from the Makassar-based
University of Hasanuddin said
Indonesia ranked fifth in the world
for the number of children with
stunted growth.
“Instead of malnourishment, we
are now facing the problem of children with stunted growth as their
main health problem,” he said.
Razak said stunted growth in children showed chronic malnourishment affected children in their development ages.
The 2010 Riskesdas data,
however, also showed that
the country is dealing with
a d o u b l e - w h a m my o f
growth stunting and obesity in children.
“We are facing a double
burden—stunted growth
and childhood obesity. Malnourished children will
suffer from stunted growth,
but consuming an unhealthy diet will cause obesity in children,” he said.
Despite claims of success
by the health ministry in
handling malnutrition, the
problem remains high
among children under 5
years old, reaching 17.9 per
cent as of 2010. About 14.2
per cent of the country’s
children under 5 years old
suffer from obesity.
Health minister Endang
Rahayu Sedyaningsih said
in a statement that improving the nutrition of children under 5 years old
would be the focus of the
ministry’s agenda in 2012.
“We will increase the
number of Nutrition Improvement Centres to 153
units, up from 95 units in
2011,” she said, adding that
the government would distribute more micronutrient
sprinkles called Taburia.
In 2011, the ministry distributed 38 million sachets
of Taburia, exceeding the
5.5 million sachets it distributed in 2010.
Data from the Basic Health
Research programme (Riskesdas)
conducted by Indonesia’s health
ministry in 2010 shows that in spite
of impressive economic growth, the
percentage of children in Indonesia
experiencing stunted growth
reached a staggering 35.6 per cent
of children below the age of 5, a
total of 26.7 million children.
TODDLER’S STUNTING PREVALENCE
D.I. Yogyakarta
22.5
DKI Jakarta
26.6
Kepulauan Riau
26.9
North Sulawesi
27.8
Papua
28.3
Bangka Belitung
29
East Kalimantan
29.1
Bali
29.3
North Maluku
29.4
Jambi
30.2
Bengkulu
31.6
Riau
32.2
West Sumatra
32.8
Banten
33.5
West Java
33.6
Central Java
33.9
South Kalimantan
35.3
Indonesia
35.6
East Java
35.9
Central Sulawesi
36.2
Lampung
36.3
Maluku
37.5
Southeast Sulawesi
37.8
Aceh
38.9
South Sulawesi
38.9
Central Kalimantan
39.6
West Kalimantan
39.7
Gorontalo
40.3
South Sumatra
40.4
West Sulawesi
41.6
North Sumatra
42.3
West Nusa Tenggara
48.2
West Papua
49.2
East Nusa Tenggara
58.4
10
20
30
40
50
60
Source: Health Minister
• 21
Society
HONG KONG
By Simon Parry
China Daily
Working Towards
An Early Grave?
Hong Kong employees work long hours for reasons
rooted in culture that may be extremely hard to break
❖❖ Hong Kong
O
ne of four Ebenezer
Scrooge would have felt
at home in Hong Kong
over the New Year public holiday. The fictional
miser who declared Christmas a
“humbug” would have heartily approved of seeing nearly six out of 10
office workers spend the festive season at their desks.
A study found that 59 per cent of
Hong Kong people worked over
Christmas and New Year, even
though more than 40 per cent of
overall respondents said they believed workers would get very little
done in the holiday time they sacrificed to be at work.
The number of people working
over the holiday in the survey by office solutions company Regus was 5
per centage points higher than the
global average and reflects a familiar trend among Hong Kong white
collar workers to sacrifice their free
time and family lives to be last out
of the office at night.
While employees in other countries switch off the office lights at
6pm or offer overtime payments to
anyone who stays after hours, Hong
Kong employees seem almost pathologically afraid of closing the office door behind them before their
boss has gone home.
So why do Hong Kong employees
22 •
spend so long at work? The reasons,
according to Lau Yuk-king, a professional consultant at the Chinese
University’s Department of Social
Work, are complex and rooted in
culture—and it is a pattern that may
be extremely hard to break.
Lau’s studies found that the average working day for a Hong Kong
person is 10.47 hours including travel
time—putting the city way above the
International Labour Union standard of a 40-hour working week.
More than 57 per cent said they
felt exhausted after work and 50 per
cent said work ate up time they
would like to spend with loved ones,
according to her research which
concluded the conflict between
work and family harmed people’s
mental health and the functioning
of their families.
“Some employees told me they are
too afraid to leave early because it
will impress their employer that they
are not industrious or as hard-working as their co-workers,” she said.
Hong Kong people are not workaholics, however, Lau insisted. It is
factors other than sheer love of
work that make them spend so long
away from home. “We work hard for
our family and our family appreciate our hard work even if sometimes
we have to spend family time in
work,” she said.
“It does cause some disturbance
on family life, but Hong Kong peo-
ple are more accepting of this kind
of work-life disturbances than people in Western countries.”
Significantly, perspectives on long
working hours are very different in
the West compared to Chinese societies, where they are seen as a sign
that someone is doing an important
job and is somehow indispensible to
their company, Lau said.
In her studies, Lau measured the
impact of family life on work and
the impact of work on family life.
“We don’t allow our family to disturb our work,” she said. “This is a
Chinese norm, because our employer expects us to behave this way. If
not, we are not a good employee.”
By contrast, there was little negative feeling over the effect of long
working hours on family lives.”I
found respondents said the workfamily enrichment is higher than
the work-family conflict they experienced,” Lau said. “They found a
more positive impact on their family life because they are at work.”
In other words, Hong Kong people
measure good salaries and social
prestige as a positive contribution to
family life, even if it means the bread
winner working late at night and
spending long periods away from
their spouses and children.
“Imagine, for example, my husband has a high-ranking job in a
multi-national corporation. He may
be a regional director earning a lot
• 23
P hoto by A aro n Tam /A F P
“Productivity goes down otherwise. Problems you can’t
solve between 6pm and 8pm
sometimes are a lot easier
when you start at 8am in the
morning with a fresh head.”
Hong Kong’s attitude to
working hours differed greatly to those of northern Europe, said Leijten, a Dutchman
based in Shanghai. “When you
work in north Europe especially, it is almost like the
lights get switched off at
6pm,” he said.
“People go home and that is
it. You have stronger unions.
How many unions in Hong
In this file photo taken on Nov 4, 2011, an office worker walks against the backdrop of office blocks in
Kong actually bargain for
Hong Kong including the International Finance Centre.
working hours and overtime
regulation?
of money and I am proud of him, surveyed by Lau had daily meals
“In Hong Kong, long working
and my children may be proud of with family members and 59 per hours is a normal part of life. It is
him,” Lau said.
cent said they went out as a family seen that I am important in the of“If he has to travel frequently to for activities such as meals or going fice or the boss is there and I want
go abroad and go to the mainland, I to the movies once a week.
to make sure the boss knows I am
will accept it because it is part of his
Regus, a company which pro- trying to do a good job and put all
work and he is making very impor- motes flexible workspaces, warns my effort into it.
tant contribution to the family pres- that overly long working hours can
Transforming the unhealthy
tige and status and the family’s fi- call cardio-vascular disease, stom- working culture of Hong Kong will
nancial situation.
ach ulcers, high blood pressure and require “comprehensive change not
“As a result, I can send my chil- depression.
only at individual level but also in
dren abroad to study or to an interThe company’s regional vice- social policy”, Lau argued. One manational school in Hong Kong. My president Hans Leijten said: “There jor hindrance is the stigma that goes
family has a lot of choices, a lot is the health risk and there is also with accepting any form of governmore choices than families in lower the psychological risk of being ex- ment handout.
economic status.”
posed to too much stress which has
“Most people don’t have any
Hong Kong employees might an effect not only in the office but at sense of security in our society,” she
spend long hours in the office but home, where family life is suffering. said. “We are used to earning our
they make the most of the precious People need to spend time with own money and saving our own
little time they have with their fami- family and friends to make sure money for retirement. We try hard
lies, Lau found, something she their work-life balance stays intact.
to earn as much as possible and save
views as further evidence that Hong
“There are also indirect health as much as possible. So work is very
Kong is not a city of workaholics.
risks. I remember one guy, a sales important to us. We make every ef“I found that Hong Kong employ- director at my office in Holland, fort to keep a good earning job.
ees have a high involvement in who significantly overworked. He
“I think the government should
(family) leisure activities,” she said. was three times involved in a car ac- create a more comprehensive pen“So they work long hours but they cident driving home.
sion system or retirement system so
maintain their active participation
“There is a higher risk of alcohol we can feel more secure about our
in family activities, especially with abuse among people who work long future. Now we just rely on ouryounger children.
hours. They can sometimes com- selves and we have to work hard for
“They are very responsible par- pensate with smoking or drinking ourselves to protect ourselves and
ents. They work hard but they seek for the stress level.”
our families from uncertainty.”
out what limited time they have to
Long hours do not equal greater
Until that changes, Lau believes,
enjoy activities with their children.” productivity either, he argued. “You the lights will continue to burn
Despite their long hours, an im- need to be sure you have a balanced late into the night in Hong Kong’s
pressive 55 per cent of employees work and break period,” he said. offices.
SPORTS
P hoto by A F P
By Francis T.J. Ochoa
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Pacquiao Vs
Mayweather:
THE FIGHT THAT
COULD BE A VICTIM OF
ITS OWN MAGNITUDE
Pacquiao is rated as
the best pound for
pound boxer in the
world and Fighter of
the Decade having
won six world titles.
P hoto by Phil ippin e Daily I nquirer
❖❖ Manila
M
Pacquiao fights Juan Manuel
Marquez for the WBO Welter Weight
Title at the MGM Grand Garden
Arena in Nov 12, 2011 in Las Vegas.
24 •
anny Pacquiao is, without doubt, at the crossroads of a career that
has turned a one-time
street urchin into an
international icon beyond
the boundaries of sports.
For the pound-forpound king, the only boxer
in history to win world titles in eight different weight
classes, 2012 will be a defining year, a season that
will chart the last few paths
of Pacquiao’s career.
And when one speaks of
Pacquiao 2012—not in the
electoral or political manner it may
sound like—the names that immediately come to mind are those of fivedivision world champion American
boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and
lightweight champion Mexican boxer
Juan Manuel Marquez.
“There are negotiations going on
with both camps, along with Timothy
Bradley,” said Pacquiao during a recent dinner with sports journalists.
Take Bradley out of that statement
and you get the two most important
fights in Pacquiao’s career. In fact, a
definitive victory over both Marquez
and Mayweather may be the perfect
horse that the current Sarangani representative can ride off on to his chosen sunset.
Of the two, Mayweather is the bigger bout. Financially, it presents Pacquiao with the opportunity to rake in
his biggest guaranteed purse—at
least US$50 million, analysts predict—plus huge additional sums
through his share of the pay-per-view
(PPV) and gate receipts pie. It also
presents Pacquiao with the chance to
validate his spot in not just the
pound-for-pound rankings but in the
all-time list as well.
The Mayweather bout also cuts
through different platforms beyond
the sporting arena. It is an entertainment spectacle that promises to break
existing pay-per-view records and
should be an economic force—casino
revenues tend to spike during Pacquiao fights, The New York Times
once reported.
And none of those fights were within the zip code of the hype, importance and anticipation of PacquiaoMayweather.
The bout’s historical significance
must not be overlooked. Argue all you
want about who’s No. 1 and No. 2,
you will still end up with an inescapable truth: They are, pound for
pound, the two best fighters in the
world. And rare is the opportunity
that the world’s two best fighters belong in the same weight class that
they can actually duke it out to settle
who’s No. 1.
By some twist of fate they are also
at the prime of their careers, and are
both certified cash cows of the sport.
In fact, the fight could be the
single most important fight in modern boxing history that it may end
up a victim of its own magnitude.
The fight can become so big that
putting it together could be a logistical nightmare that’s a stone’s throw
from being impossible.
There have been several investors
willing to shell out the money it will
take to get the two best fighters in
the world to finally face off in the
squared circle. Each fighter will command astronomical sums from these
investors. But promoters will be faced
with the question of how to repay
these investors.
While boxing is big business, there
is little income to be generated outside of PPV buys and live ticket sales.
Knock-offs have turned merchandising into a joke. And both PPVs and
ticket sales are self limiting. Beyond
the US, there is little PPV income. In
the Philippines, where time stands
still and virtually everyone stands frozen in front of TV screens, movie
P hoto by A F P
Mayweather Jr. celebrates
after defeating Victor Ortiz
by knockout in the fourth
round in a WBC welterweight title fight in Las
Vegas last Sept 17, 2011.
houses and community
screenings during Pacquiao fights, PPV is
hardly a force incomewise. And Mayweather’s reluctance to fight
outside of Las Vegas—
his comfort zone—
greatly paralyses the
revenue earning capabilities of the fight at
the ticket booths.
It could take a busload of marketing geniuses to help Top Rank
and Golden Boy Promotions greatly increase the fight’s income generating pool.
The fallback? Pacquiao-Marquez. This is
the more possible fight
and could be the one
Pacquiao will lace his
gloves up for in May
next year.
It won’t be half the
financial success a fight
against Mayweather will be, but it is
significant enough to make cash registers ring.
Pacquiao and Marquez have fought
three brutal and thrilling bouts that
ended up a draw, with two close
scorecard victories by Pacquiao. The
Pacman has been aching for a definitive triumph over the only fighter he
has yet to unlock since hooking up
with Hall-of-Fame trainer Freddie
Roach. But it seems that with each
passing fight, it is Marquez who is
solving the Pacquiao puzzle.
From getting floored thrice in their
first meeting, Marquez managed to
survive one more knockdown the second time they squared off before finally nearly pulling it off in their third
encounter.
Pacquiao-Marquez, therefore, presents the Filipino ring superstar with
a unique opportunity: Laying to rest
the last shred of doubt critics can cast
on him. It is, however, an opportunity
shrouded in a painfully obvious reality. That until the age difference
comes into play—Marquez is 38, six
years older than Pacquiao—every
fight between the two will produce a
less-than-definitive winner.
Which is why Pacquiao-Mayweather is 2012’s top priority. Pacquiao’s
last bout against Marquez has emboldened “Money” to drop his concerns about protecting his last
boxing legacy—his undefeated record—and call out Pacquiao. Both
sides have worked out disagreements
on drug testing protocols (Mayweather may even get a reprieve
from the lawsuit Pacquiao slapped
on him for insinuations of steroid
use) and the money is just a marketing ploy away from being placed on
the table. A definitive Pacquiao over
Marquez might even force Mayweather back into duck mode.
Never before has the boxing
world moved closer to PacquiaoMayweather than it does now. It is
definitely the battle Pacquiao has to
wage in 2012, otherwise it will end
up the fight that, in the future, people will ruefully list under their
“could have beens”.
• 25
CULTURE
TAIWAN
By Joseph Yeh
The China Post
‘HANDSTANDING’
AROUND TAIWAN
A Taiwanese dancer and stuntman encourages
people to follow their hearts by handstanding
his way around the island
❖❖ Taipei
Y
Ph oto s from Ming - ch eng Huang’ s Face b oo k
ou may not have heard
the name Ming-cheng
Huang, but you must
have seen his photographs which show him
doing handstands in weird and
dangerous places around the
country.
The Taiwanese 28-year-old has
had photos of him taken doing
handstands in places near cliffs, on
rocks in the sea, on top of roofs,
and even on the back of a scooter,
which were all shot during his
five-month round-the-island-tour
which concluded a year ago.
The southern Pingtung Countyborn dancer and stuntman is not
crazy, just in case you were wondering; he was simply pursuing his
dream and fulfilling his natural
talent of doing a handstand, which
according to him, is a born gift.
“Since the age of 13, I have
dreamed about standing on my
head and taking pictures,” Huang
said. At the age of 13, Huang was
26 •
already renowned for his acrobatic
skills when he won the first
international prize for Taiwan in
one of the world’s four major stunt
events in China.
During his 20,000-km trip,
Huang worked as a street entertainer to fund the project that had
taken him to spots all over the
country, leaving 12,000 of such
unique photographs.
The performances were not
just to show his acrobatic
talents, however, Huang was also
hoping that the somewhat
strange but inspiring shows
could encourage more people to
realise their dreams.
“I want to convey three main
ideas to Taiwanese people with the
tour,” Huang said.
“One is that I find most Taiwanese people are only doing their jobs
for the money, instead of fulfilling
their talents.”
Second, Huang said he would
like to encourage all to follow their
heart by facing and ultimately
accomplishing their dreams.
“I believe everyone should live
the life they choose, instead of
following another’s footsteps,”
he said.
Last but not least, he said he
wants to highlight the importance of environmental protection in Taiwan.
“We all love Taiwan’s landscape and environment, but we
don’t know how to protect
them,” he said.
Therefore, during his street
entertaining trip, Huang not only
performed handstands and handwalking for entertainment, he also
displayed the photographs he took
on some of the most beautiful
sceneries and the ugliest parts of
Taiwan to remind all the importance of environmental protection.
“If people do not get that and just
feel happy watching my show,
that’s fine with me. But if people
can get some inspiration and then
start living a life they choose, then
that is much better.”
Huang, also known as “Mr
Candle,” a nickname he came
up with after he showed the
logo of himself standing upsidedown to friends.
“They all said the logo looks
like a candle but I was actually
drawing my handstand,” he said.
But he later found the nickname
suit him very well.
“We can use it everywhere, and
also it symbolises that it can give
people light,” he noted.
The enthusiastic Mr Candle,
however, was not always that good
in following his heart. Like many
people, he used to work for money.
For three years, he worked as a
salesperson in recruiting students
for cram schools in Taipei before
he chose another life to enter
university to become a dancer and
stuntman.
“My superior in the cram school
told me that you are nothing if you
have no money, which prompted
me to earn more money,” he said.
But ultimately, he felt tired and
empty in pursing such material
happiness as he began to question
what is that he really wants in life
and if living is only about making
money? Then 21-year-old Huang
ultimately decided to quit and studied stage and circus stunts at
National Taiwan College of Performing Arts.
Following graduation, he joined
the Lafa Dance Company in 2008,
and toured around Taiwan and to
New York.
Huang described these unique
experiences as a turning point in
his life, during which he rediscovered the happiness he had in his
youth when doing stunts and
hand-standing.
Realising life is too short to
waste in doing things he doesn’t
like, Huang, following eight months
of preparation, officially launched
the unprecedented project that
began on March 13, 2010, in his
hometown Pingtung County.
The journey ultimately allowed
him to travel across the country,
including outlying Penghu, Matzu
and Kinmen.
During the tour, many told
Huang that they were inspired by
his performance and photographs
and gain more courage to do what
they really want, he said.
Currently drafting his second
Taiwan-crossing tour, which is
scheduled to begin next year and is
expected to last for two years,
Huang disclosed that his ultimate
goal is to travel around the world in
this fashion for a 15-year-tour.
Like his nickname Mr Candle,
suggests, Huang wishes to shine
light to more people around the
world with his shows and photographs taken from his unique
perspective.
With himself as an example,
Huang encouraged all to boldly
pursue their dreams and to find
the reason for one to be born in
this world.
“It’s only a matter of how bad
you really want to realise your
dream,” he said. “If you are
hungry enough, you will find it
at any cost,” he said.
Calling for a swift action to
follow one’s heart, Huang reminded
that a person is their own worst
enemy and instead of finding
excuses, one should start the
dream-searching tour as soon as
possible.
• 27
CULTURE
CHINA
By Xu Lin
China Daily
SQUARING OFF
WITH ENGLISH
Square English is a combination of the English language
and Chinese calligraphy
❖❖ Beijing
W
Photo s by Zha ng W ei / Ch ina Daily
Deng Shenyi says for
Westerners, square
English is art, while for
Chinese, it’s a new and
fun way to learn English.
28 •
hen Deng Shenyi used a brush
to write calligraphy in New
York City in 2008, most of the
audience couldn’t understand
the pictographic words.
“Although they look like ancient Chinese,
they are all English words written in a Chinese style,” said Deng, a member of the China
Association of Inventions.
“On a second look, one can identify these
words,” said Deng, 49. “After my explanation,
the audiences began to understand the words
and tried to read them aloud.”
He calls this new artistic form “square
English”, a combination of the English language and Chinese calligraphy.
Like Chinese characters, each square
English word is the same size, no matter
the number of letters. The English letters
are like the parts of Chinese character, and
the writing sequence is from top to bottom, and left to right, following the path of
Chinese characters.
“Culture can stimulate the development of
society. I’m not changing Western culture, but
promoting a Chinese thinking pattern. It’s
easier to promote Chinese calligraphy among
foreigners too,” he said.
Since 2008, his works have been exhibited
in such places as Beijing, New York City and
Las Vegas.
He spent about a month finishing the work
of the Charter of the United Nations in square
English, which was collected by the UN in
A piece of Deng
Shenyi’s work
which reads “Wish
you good luck”.
2008. He also wrote the works of
English versions of Chinese
classical poems, prose and novels.
“It’s neat, pretty and saves paper.
For the UN Charter, there are 117
pages in the English version, 95 in
Chinese, but only 80 in square
English,” he said.
He said the calligraphy could
also be promoted in other languages such as French and German.
“It’s very creative. If the special
calligraphy is promoted to the
world, so is Chinese culture,” said
Gu Xiangyang, a calligrapher and
professor from Peking University.
Deng said the writing of the 26
letters remains pretty much the
same as in English, but they are
assembled in different ways to
make the words diversified.
Square English follows English
grammar, too. For example, capitalised words in English remain
capitalised.
In addition, Deng divides the
words by syllables and writes one
after another according to the
writing sequence of Chinese
characters.
“It’s easy to pronounce the
word when one sees the divided
syllables, especially for Chinese,
who are used to the top-to-bottom and left-to-right thinking
pattern,” he said.
After years of research, Deng has
created about 8,000 words in
square English, each of which has a
fixed form. If he has to write an
unfamiliar word, he will first make
a draft, to think about the perfect
structure of the word.
Deng said the idea struck him
when he first came to the United
States in 1997 as a visiting scholar.
“My English was so poor that I
even had difficulty reading the
street names. If I could combine
English and Chinese languages, I
thought maybe it would be easier
to learn English,” he said.
At first he scrambled the letters
so that the words looked beautiful,
but even Americans couldn’t
understand them.
After numerous failures, he
found the right way to write the
English calligraphy in 2003.
“For Westerners, square
English is art, while for Chinese,
it’s a new and fun way to learn
English,” he said.
He said a square English dictionary will soon roll off the press in
Hong Kong and the Chinese
mainland. The dictionary has more
than 8,000 common English words,
with Chinese explanations and
Chinese pinyin.
He has joined with the Chinese
telecommunications giant Huawei
Technologies to produce square
English typewriting software,
which will come out in a year or so.
One only has to type the first and
last letter of a word, and a list of
words will pop up to choose from.
“It’s easy to type and avoid
mistakes, as you don’t have to type
all the letters to get the word.
People will love it,” he said.
Apart from square English, Deng
leads a productive life of inventing
with more than 160 patents under
his belt, about half of which have
been brought to the market.
He is also adept at both oil
painting and Chinese ink-andwater art.
His inventions of a wide variety
include an anti-fake liquor bottle
that can’t be refilled, a wine made
of vegetables and herbal cosmetics.
“He is such a versatile inventor
and generous about sharing his
creations. He doesn’t invent for
money, but out of interest,” said his
friend Shen Jie, a member of China
Association of Collectors.
Deng said many of his patents
have been violated by companies,
who stole his formulas in the name
of cooperation.
“But I don’t bother to file
lawsuits. As long as the public
benefits from these inventions,
I’m happy,” he said.
• 29
PEOPLE
THE PHILIPPINES
P hoto by A F P
By Eric S. Caruncho
100% Made In The Philippines
Black Eyed Pea’s
apl.de.ap is
proud to be
filipino
❖❖ Manila
Y
ou can go home again.
With his trademark Mohawk hairdo, and pimped
out in an all black outfit
and black, knee-high biker
boots, Black Eyed Pea apl.de.ap a.k.a.
Allan Pineda Lindo Jr. stands out in a
sea of white barong (Filipino traditional suit).
The cream of corporate Makati,
mostly bank executives, have gathered
together in a penthouse ballroom to
honour Apl who has been chosen one
of the Bank of the Philippine Islands’
BPInoy awardees for 2011.
The annual accolade goes to Filipinos who have done their country proud
in the international arena. apl has been
chosen not only because of his membership in the Black Eyed Peas, a massive global pop franchise that has sold
more than 56 million albums worldwide, but also because for the last few
years, he has been coming home to the
Philippines to give some of his blessings back to the land of his birth.
At first it was just an annual Christmas homecoming that saw apl giving
out gift packages to the less fortunate
residents of his hometown in Angeles
City, Pampanga (north of Manila). The
last couple of years, however, apl has
made it more formal by establishing
the apl.de.ap Foundation to serve as
the vehicle for his humanitarian efforts.
Last August, he donated a computer
lab and library to his old school, the
Sapang Bato National High School in
30 •
The Black Eyed
Peas rose to
the top and
became one of
the most
commercially
successful pop
groups with 26
million albums
sold worldwide.
Pampanga. He also built a music studio at the Holy Angel University, also
in Angeles City, where young Filipinos
can hone their talents.
But apl has set his sights beyond his
hometown: he plans to take his mission nationwide. In partnership with
the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, which has appointed him a “special ambassador for education”, he has
chosen to focus his efforts on an education advocacy campaign called “We
Can Be Anything”. It is a perfect fit for
the man who once said: “dreaming big
and doing something about it can get
you really far”.
To help drive the message home, apl
composed and recorded the single “We
Can Be Anything”, complete with inspirational music video.
“I think that with an education, you
can be anything. You could be a musician, you could be an artist, but with an
education you always have a background to fall back on. It’s really important for me to give the youth an equal
opportunity. I want Filipino kids to
compete around the world, with technology and computers and stuff.”
He plans to continue building more
computer labs and music studios.
“I want talented kids that are into
music to have an outlet, to have a place
to go to and record demos, and practise. In the future I want to be able to
discover talents from the Philippines,
and that’s why it’s important for me to
provide technology and music studios
and library. You never know, I might
find the next Black Eyed Peas.”
He has also pledged to help in building 10,000 new classrooms in the next
two years, to help the education department put a dent in the estimated
shortfall of 68,000 classrooms
throughout the country. He has been
using his celebrity status to raise funds
abroad for this purpose through various charities.
“I’ve also been talking to companies
in the US like Google. There’s a Filipino team in Google who are planning to
teach kids computer science and technology via the Internet. Now that we’ve
build these computer labs, we have to
teach the teachers how to teach kids to
work with these computers.”
Like other celebrities who are driven
to give back, he seems to be motivated
by a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunities he has been given, and the
realisation that things could very easily
have turned out differently.
 The birth of a star
Sapang Bato, where Allan Pineda
Lindo Jr. was born on Nov 28, 1974,
lies on the hilly outskirts of Angeles
City, near Clark Air Base. His biological father, a black American airman,
abandoned the family, leaving his
mother Cristina Pineda to support him
and six other siblings.
“We were poor, but my mom is like a
superwoman—she’s just a great entrepreneur,” apl recalls. “We used to have
a store in front of the house, and she
was great with turning money around.
Nevertheless, life was hard, and as
the eldest, apl had to help feed the family from a young age.
To make things even more difficult,
he had been born with nystagmus, a
condition that causes involuntary eye
movements and which leads to impaired vision. Although he was a good
student, apl sometimes had to sit in
front to be able to read the blackboard,
or copy his seatmates’ notes.
“It was pretty hard, but I’ve learned
how to adapt to my surroundings,”
says apl, who is considered legally
blind because of his affliction. “When
I was young I didn’t know how to control it, but since I’ve grown up I’ve
learned to conquer it, I guess. It’s
weird, sometimes I feel like I have selective sight, ’cause I’m very good at
basketball, none of my friends can
beat me in bowling, none of them can
beat me in pool, I can break-dance,
and pretty much do everything. I just
can’t drive.”
Being a “G.I. baby,” apl was eligible
for assistance from the Pearl S. Buck
Foundation, a US-based NGO founded
by the author of “The Good Earth” and
dedicated to helping Amerasian kids.
Through the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, the young boy found a sponsor in
Joe Ben Hudgens, a children’s rights
attorney, who sent money for tuition
and school supplies. Eventually, his
mother arranged for Hudgens to legally adopt her son.
Apl had mixed feelings about being
adopted: he was grateful for the opportunities that being in the US opened up
for him, but he was also homesick and
missed his family.
“When I first got adopted and
brought to the US, I would write home,
and sometimes I’d get my allowance
and put it in the letter. Sometimes it
wouldn’t make it, so what I started doing was, every dollar I had I would
write down the serial number in the
letter, so at least if somebody took it,
they would know that I tried to send
some money back.”
Still, going from Angeles, Pampanga
to Los Angeles, California was a culture
shock for the 14-year-old boy.
“I remember when I first got to the
US, there were a lot of gangs—Filipinos
fighting other Filipinos. It didn’t make
sense to me.”
company because we weren’t gangsters
and we were so different. We had to
prove ourselves—we would play at
clubs, colleges, and what we would do
was we would have a notebook with a
mailing list, and we would call these
people for the next show. We had to
actually create a following, and prove
to the record companies that there is a
market for that kind of music. We
would do shows for 5,000 people, and
we had to prove to the record labels
that there is room for eclectic and more
progressive type of music.”
Finally, apl and Adams got themselves signed in 1992. Three years lat-
 Tapping into his talents
Music proved to be his salvation.
Back in Angeles, the year before he
left for the States, he had gotten into
break dancing after seeing youngsters at school doing the old school
popping and locking moves.
“I didn’t come to the US to be a
gangster, so I changed my whole attire
and focused on break dancing and
making music, and I became neutral
with everybody. I could hang out with
the gangsters, I could hang out with
the Fil-Ams, I could hang out with
what they called the FOBs—fresh off
the boat—because I was into music.
Music gave me that positive outlook
instead of getting caught up in gangs
and fighting other Filipinos. That
wasn’t my purpose. My purpose was
to make it so I could help my family.”
His influence? Groups like A Tribe
Called Quest, De la Soul, the Jungle
Brothers, Boogie Down Production.
In a sea of bitch this and ‘ho that,
apl’s music was actually a breath of
fresh air. But it would take time for the
industry to catch up.
“It didn’t come overnight,” he recalls.
“It was hard to get signed by a record
Born in an impoverished family, apl.de.ap
struggled in his bid to stardom. The FilipinoAmerican pop star raises money for disasterstricken and poor communities in the country.
er, after Jaime Gomez a.k.a. Taboo
joined, they changed their name to the
Black Eyed Pods, and then the Black
Eyed Peas. Their first two albums—
“Behind the Front” (1998) and “Bridging the Gap” (2000) garnered critical
acclaim, but after Stacy Ferguson a.k.a.
Fergie joined in 2003, and the band
released their third album “Elephunk”,
critical mass was finally achieved, and
the multi-platinum pop phenomenon
that we know today as the Black Eyed
Peas assumed its present form.
But for all his globe-trotting, home
for apl will always be here.
“I’m made in the Philippines all the
way,” he says proudly. “I grew up here
until I was 14, and I could never change
that. It’s just a certain feeling. When
I’m here I feel at home.”
• 31
Ph otos from h ttp:/ / www.luxuezh eng.com
By Lydia Lin
The China Post
Hakka High
Fashion
A Taiwanese designer subtly weaves his
Hakka ancestry into his clothes
32 •
C
❖❖ Taipei
onsumers of fashion in Taiwan generally like to follow
trends, but are less
concerned with
their origins. They
know what is “in”
from what other
people are wearing, what is selling
in stores and playing on a loop in
commercials. If they are older,
they might see a re-emergence of
certain looks and styles and point
them out wistfully.
What many may overlook is the
fact that the majority of such
trends come from the West, a
fashion industry reality that
deeply concerns rising Hakka designer Lu Xue-zheng.
“Asian fashion is severely underrepresented in the industry,” Lu lamented, explaining further that all
recycled trends on the runway—revamped “retro,” if you will—derive
from different eras of Western history. Whether it is the “hippie-chic”
style of flared jeans and floral dresses from the ‘60s and ‘70s, or the
comeback of Ray-Bans and Doc
Martens from the ‘80s and ‘90s, one
will be hard-pressed to find an iconic, Asian fashion item reminiscent
of a cultural wave—aside from dowdy “Mao suits” or Qi-paos from the
1920s—that has cemented its relevance into the everyday, ready-towear realm.
“When you think about it, there is
really no such thing as ‘Asian retro’
style,” Lu pointed out. It made him
wonder why Asian fashion, unlike
that of the West, was not being refreshed and recycled.
While some Asian designers purposely avoid incorporating oriental
elements in their lines for fear of
being too predictable or indulging
in stereotypes, others, like “Chanel
of Taiwan” Shiazty Chen, have
thrived by capitalising on a distinctly “Neo-Chinese chic” aesthetic.
Does Lu, with his newly minted label “Lu Xue Zheng,” wish to follow
Shiazty’s footsteps?
“I respect her style, but I would
say my clothes are a little younger
and more adventurous,” the Shih
Chien University fashion design
graduate said. Judging by his online
look book and his personal style (Lu
has lines for both men and women),
the young designer has taken pains
to subtly weave his Hakka ancestry
into his clothes.
On the day of The China Post
interview at the TTF-founded Design Atelier offices, Lu is his own
walking advertisement, wearing a
well-structured jean jacket, the
i n s i d e of wh i c h i s l i n e d w i t h
handkerchiefs vibrant with imprints of Hakka Tung blossoms. In
pictures, a Lu Xue Zheng beige
trench coat is also lined with the
similar Hakka patterns.
“I found the handkerchiefs at a local market. Maybe one day I will
draw the flowers myself as my own
interpretation of the fabric, but until then, the real thing will do.”
Lu figured out early that pursuing
a career based on passion and love
can overcome practicality. His determination paid off, too, when as
a student at Shih Chien, he won
both the Taiwan Fashion Award and
the Taiwan Sin Sa Award. Invitations to exhibit at Sweden’s So
Stockholm Gallery, at the Taipei
Flora Expo and the 2011 Taipei IN
Style followed.
The appeal of Lu’s clothes is precisely the blend of East and West,
organic and geometric elements.
Deeply inspired by architectural
philosophy, Lu published his thesis
titled “Between Modern Architecture and Fashion Aesthetic”, which
could very well be his own design
manifesto touting the “fusion of
East meets West” and “the deconstruction of oriental elements with
minimalist influence.”
This translates into stylish colorblock pieces from earlier shows and
a new-age sport jackets with mandarin collars and red trim, one of his
latest creations. Throughout his
evolution in vision, you can count
on Lu to never underestimate the
Made in Taiwan (MIT) factor.
“Taiwan has its own, distinct
lifestyle. It is very important for
me to reach deep within my roots
and look for inspiration there, as
opposed to always following external trends.”
This could explain why the designer has no interest in turning Lu
Xue Zheng into a mass-market
brand, but rather hopes to attract
customers who are introspective
like him — pondering the same
questions, donning garments as a
statement of identity and looking
for fashion that “reflects culture”
rather than “mimicking trends”.
“I have always asked myself what
I can contribute to this industry. I
have found that the answer is being
true to myself and who I am.”
• 33
PHOTO S COURTE SY O F KWO N KYUN G-Y UP
By Park Min-young
The Korea Herald
Plagiarism
Or Parody?
For some artists, there is
a thin line that separates
plagiarism from drawing
inspiration
‘Oblivion’ by Kwon Kyung-yup, 2009.
34 •
❖❖ Seoul
S
outh Korean artist
Kwon Kyung-yub
was recently
shocked to f ind
out that works
very similar to hers were on
sale i n Si ngapore. A fo r eigner who came across an
Indonesian artist’s solo exhibition in Aug ust at Art
Front Gallery in Singapore
sent an e-mail to Kwon to fill
her in on the news.
In the show, Indonesian artist Dani King Heriyanto’s 2011
painting “Bandage” featured a
girl wearing a hoodie and a
bandage over her eye just like
Kwon’s 2009 work “Adios”.
Heriyanto’s 2011 work “Rise
up” also showed a girl with a
bandage wrapped around her
face just as the girl in Kwon’s
2009 painting “Oblivion”.
Appalled, Kwon wrote a
post on her Facebook pointing
out the similarities between
the paintings and also sent a
message to the director of the
Singapore gallery to stop the
sale and promotion of the works.
According to Kwon, the director replied that the paintings are not the
same and requested her to delete
the posts. When she contacted
Heriyanto, he simply claimed that
he is a fan of her works, would like
to be her friend, and that what he
does is parody.
“But what makes parody different from plagiarism is that it
clarifies the original,” Kwon told
The Korea Herald.
An art consultant at Art Front
Gallery admitted the Indonesian
artist was in the wrong and said
he tried to contact Kwon about
the issue.
“What Dani King did was wrong
because he claims that he took inspiration from the Korean artist. So
I actually tried to give her a call, and
I asked someone in Korea to set up
a call so that I could actually send
‘Bandage’ by Dani King Heriyanto, 2011
out an apology, but it never happened. I thought this should be
professionally spoken instead of
being posted on Facebook—what
she has been doing is writing it on
her Facebook and sending out emails to our clients to stop buying
the works,” he said.
But stopping the sale and promotion of the works is up to the gallery’s director and he has no say in
it, he said.
Kwon is an up-and-coming artist
who is actively working in many
Asian and European countries. She
has been participating in art fairs in
Hong Kong and Taiwan since 2009.
She showcased the very paintings in
2009 at Gana Art Gallery in Pyeongchang-dong, central Seoul. Many
Korean critics agreed that there is a
high possibility that the Indonesian
artist plagiarised her work, as the
works are too similar in colour and
composition, Kwon claimed.
Although Korea, Singapore and
Indonesia are all members of the
World Intellectual Property Organisation which means that artists have
copyrights to their work, in most
cases it is only possible to call a
work plagiarism by winning the
case in court, unless the suspected
copier admits to it. There is no stipulated criteria to distinguish plagiarism and parody, but what is vaguely agreed is that it is plagiarism if it
has similarities with another artwork from the general public’s point
‘Rise up’ by Dani King Heriyanto, 2011.
proclamation gets known in the
public so that the copier naturally
dies out in the market,” said Kwon.
Lee Lee-nam, a media artist
known for fantasy-like artwork in
which Western and Asian masterpieces merge on the screen using
high-technology, said
that he quit arguing
about legal matters.
“If it benefits society in
some way, I just decided
to let it go. I just concentrate on new creations
now,” said Lee, who had
argued last year that the
Presidential Council of
Nation Branding and
LG’s ad about global etiquette copied his works
in terms of concept and
‘Adios’ by Kwon Kyung-yup, 200.
technique.
In the ad, characters
of view and if the artist suspected to from Western and Asian masterhave copied had access to the origi- pieces meet through computer
nal one.
graphics. LBest, the ad’s creator,
Artists, therefore, are reluctant to had refuted Lee’s assertion saying
sue because of the lack of specific that it is a universal technique to
standard to distinguish plagiarism parody masterpieces.
and parody, not to mention that lawCritics say that except for starting
suits cost too much. Many, includ- a tedious lawsuit, there is currently
ing Kwon, hesitate or give up filing a no other way to fight plagiarism in
suit, and numerous art plagiarism the art world.
controversies all over the world end
“There is no other way than to
up as nothing more than a scandal.
leave it to the artists’ conscience.
“The best thing would be that the We can do nothing but denounce
original artist proclaims the rights unscrupulous artists,” said art critic
to the work to the copier and the Hong Kyoung-han.
• 35
LIFESTYLE
THAILAND
By Johanna Son
Special for the Asia News Network
A Race
Well
Won
Ph oto s by P C ham p and Hy per pro
Varitthorn
36 •
All smiles from Varitthorn (3rd from left) and his team.
❖❖ Bangkok
F
ire and ice—that is, a
fusion of passion and
nerves of steel. Speed and
control. Skill and luck.
These bring a racer to the
winner’s podium—and they
ignited just the right mix to bring
Varitthorn Siripraphatmongkhon
the championship trophy in the
D-Tracker 250 race series of the
FMSCT Osaki Supermoto Thailand Championship for 2011.
“Never was there pressure (on me)
like this,” Varitthorn recalls, looking
back at his two years in the D-Tracker One Make race series, held at the
Bira Kart track in Pattaya.
The sixth and last round of the
2011 championship, held on Jan 8,
2012, was a particularly nail-biting
one, as Varitthorn and his rival
took turns taking the lead in a race
where one miscalculation would
have made all the difference. That
was a do-or-die race for Varitthorn, whose No. 2 placing in the
5th round the previous day meant
that a loss on the 6th round would
have cost him not just that round
but his No. 1 placing in the series—
and the overall championship.
By the end of that Sunday, he had
won, for the second year in a row,
the Thailand championship of the
D-Tracker One Make race at the
FMSCT Osaki Supermoto circuit.
Because this race was that much
harder to win, the victory was
sweeter to savour. “It’s the pressure
here, the thinking (that you do),” he
says, pointing to his head. “And
knowing I could not do anything
wrong during the (6th round) race.”
With 34 trophies since late 2009
from the D-Tracker races in the
Osaki circuit as well as the Kawasaki
mini-GP races, Varitthorn lists three
elements that make a good racer.
One must have enough practice (“I
think I should practice more”), a
good team (“I cannot do this alone.
I’ve got a good team, that’s why I can
be here”) and good support from
sponsors and others.
Still, this formula, on top of having
a bike in tip-top shape, does not
guarantee every racer the trophy.
“But I have had a lot of luck,” quips
Varitthorn, who calls motorbike
racing a “hobby” he does well
outside his work as a professional
fitness trainer.
Far from getting a high from
raw speed, he muses: “I don’t like
speed too much but I like how to
know how to go fast. Everyone
can do speed, you just open the
engine, but not everyone knows
how to control it.”
While his Kawasaki bike will
continue to be seen in the D-Tracker
250-cc race, Varitthorn has set his
eyes on other goals—and plans to
rev his engine in the Superbike races.
Indeed, the only thing that comes
after one race—is the next one.
• 37
By Yasminka Lee
Asia News Network
No
’
t
n
me
n
i
a
‘Polit
Rainie Yang
Please
Like oil and water, politics and
entertainment cannot mix in
Taiwan due to the China factor
❖❖ Bangkok
P
PH OTO S BY A FP
olitics and entertainment
don’t mix in Taiwan.
This became even more
obvious in the recently
concluded presidential
elections that saw stars keeping
their distance from it.
When asked if he voted,
Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou
was quoted by Apple Daily as
saying: “I don’t touch politics.
I’ve never tried to vote.”
Chou, whose work is featured in
Taiwanese textbooks, instead chose
to go to Hong Kong on January
14—election day—to promote his
latest film, The Viral Factor.
“I have been busy. I will
concentrate on making music,”
he told reporters.
Chou, who turned 33 earlier
this month, said maybe he will
vote when he becomes a father,
adding that he plans to be one at
the age of 35.
Taiwanese artistes may have
learned the harsh lesson of singer
A-mei’s case back in 2000, when
she sang Taiwan’s national anthem
38 •
at the inauguration of Chen
Shui-bian of the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP).
Under Chen, DPP mounted an
aggressive campaign for independence that worsened the
cross-stait relations between
Taiwan and China.
Beijing frowned on what it
considered as A-mei’s ‘politicking’
and promptly banned her from
performing and selling records in
China. Radio stations in the
mainland also stopped broadcasting her music despite the fact that
she has already sold more than one
million records across the Chinesespeaking world that time.
The singer was also dropped
from a multi-million-dollar
advertising campaign in China
with American softdrink giant
Coca-Cola.
A-mei herself was puzzled over
the ban. In a report by The Straits
Times on May 29, 2000, she said:
“We have all sung our national
anthem before. I have never taken
part in any political activities
before. It was such a simple thing.
“This may have been a misunderJanuary 27-February 9, 2012
Jay Chou
standing. I hope it will end soon.”
The ban, however, did not end
“soon”. It took seven years
before the ban was lifted and
A-mei was allowed to perform
on Chinese soil again.
Politics is a touchy subject for
many Taiwanese artistes. When
this reporter tried to ask a few
artistes on “Taiwanese identity”
during a recent trip to Taiwan, they
were all wary about answering the
question. It was only when assured
that it did not have anything to do
with the China-Taiwan relations
that they replied, albeit with an air
of wariness.
They cannot be blamed for such
attitude though. China is the
biggest market for Taiwan actors
and singers. The Taiwan market is
small and already saturated,
resulting in a phenomenon that
Taiwanese film critic and producer
Peggy Chao called as “moving to
the north”. This has seen the influx
of many artistes from Taipei into
mainland productions. Chao noted
that Chinese production companies
pay thrice the fees that Taiwanese
artistes receive back home.
Given this, Taiwanese artistes
cannot afford to ruffle the feathers
of the Beijing authorities.
A-mei was not the only artiste to
have been banned from China. The
late singer Teresa Teng was banned
in the 1980s because she sang for
the nationalist troops in Taiwan. But
according to The Straits Times
article, Teng’s fans rushed to get her
tapes from the black market despite
a news boycott by the state media.
Some have not been able to
completely bounce back in China
as A-mei though. In 2003, singeractress Rainie Yang committed a
faux pas when she displayed on a
Taiwanese variety show her lack of
knowledge about Chinese history
and the touchy subject of its war
against Japan. When asked if she
knew how long the China-Japan
War of Resistance lasted, Yang
replied that she did not know.
When told of the number of years,
she cried out: “Only eight years?”
This prompted many Chinese to
criticise her and McDonald’s was
forced to change her as an endorser
even four years later when it
became apparent that she has failed
A-mei
to win back mainlanders from that
incident.
This day, Yang does not enjoy
complete acceptance in the mainland market unlike her contemporaries who hold major concerts and
shoot films and dramas produced
by mainland companies. The most
that Yang could do is film dramas
for co-productions with Taiwan,
and even these dramas do not have
a guarantee that they will be shown
on mainland channels.
Unlike in the US, or in neighbouring Philippines where stars and
politicians interact and even intermarry, politics and entertainment
cannot be strange bedfellows in
Taiwan because of the China factor.
Giddens Ko, writer and director
of You Are The Apple of My Eye—
last year’s most successful Taiwanese film—was busy promoting the
film in Beijing during Taiwan’s
presidential elections.
“I’m not interested in politics.
Democracy means you are free to
express yourself and you are free
not to express yourself,” Ko said.
theasianpopculturist@gmail.com
• 39
ENTERTAINMENT
SOUTH KOREA
By Shin Hae-in
The Korea Herald
Behind The
Glamour
SOME KOREAN STARS have
psychological disorders AND
BRAVE ENOUGH TO ADMIT IT
Kim Jong-hoon
❖❖ Seoul
B
ehind his boisterous, lively persona hides an anxious man with constant
fears of death, sickness
and depression; Korea’s
top comedian Lee Kyung-kyu said
during a Sunday variety show that
he suffers from panic disorder.
Lee, 52, is one of the most popular
entertainers in the country, currently hosting KBS 2TV’s Qualifications
of a Man.
During Sunday’s show, Lee revealed he has been suffering from
constant panic attacks for the past
year and started taking prescription
medication last year.
“I was constantly suffocating
with fears of death. I would sometimes have to pinch myself to
check whether I was still alive,”
Lee said during the show. “I have
40 •
been much better since taking
medication and working out for
the past four months.”
Lee’s revelation came as a surprise
not only for the viewers, but to his
colleagues on the show, as it was hard
to imagine a depressed man from the
funny, active comedian on TV.
An anxiety disorder characterised by recurring severe panic attacks, panic disorder is a form of
psychological illness that many celebrities suffer from, including actors Cha Tae-hyun, Ha Yu-mi and
Kim Ha-neul, as well as singers Kim
Jang-hoon and Ha Dong-kyun.
Panic attacks can also include significant behavioural change lasting at
least a month, according to a medical
encyclopedia. A sufferer of the disease may become stressed and anxious as he or she cannot predict when
the next panic attack will occur.
Symptoms that usually occur
Chae Tae-hyun
for about a minute may include
lightheadedness, blurred vision,
dizziness, shortness of breath,
increased heart rate, perspiration
and body tensing.
Stress, a lack of sleep and too
m u c h c a ffe i n e o r a l co h o l a re
known to be some of the main
causes of attacks, making celebrities more vulnerable to the illness, medical experts say.
“Panic disorder is not an illness
that can be cured with one’s will. It
is important to take prescriptions
and a doctor’s advice as Lee has
done,” said psychiatrist Pyo Jin-in
on his Twitter account.
Dr Kim Bum-jo of Samsung Happymind Psychiatric Clinic said panic attacks can only be fully cured via
long-term treatment.
“The disorder can easily reoccur,” he said. “One needs to take
medication from six months up to
Lee Kyung-ku
one year to prevent reoccurrence
of the attacks.”
According to a recent study by
Sungkyunkwan University School
of Medicine, up to 14 per cent of Korea’s 49 million people experience a
panic attack at least once in a lifetime with about 406,000 people
currently fighting the disorder. Females are two to three times more
vulnerable to the illness compared
to men, the study also showed.
Although one cannot die from
panic attacks, they can be a scary
experience due to the similarities with a heart attack, medical
experts say.
Kim Jang-hoon, a popular singer,
was hospitalised last month because
of a panic attack after five years of
no symptoms.
The 45-year-old is said to have
been fighting the disorder ever
since he was a kid. Panic attacks in
young people can be particularly
distressful because the child has
less insight about what is happening, Kim said in a media interview.
While appearing on a cable channel talk show last year, actress Ha
Yu-mi confessed to having a panic
attack in Hong Kong, which she described as a “near-death frightening
experience”.
“I couldn’t move my tongue and
face at all. The hospital could not
find the cause and I was afraid I
would be like that for the rest of my
life,” the veteran actress said.
Actor Cha Tae-hyun, star of the
movie My Sassy Girl, said he suffered from severe panic attacks after viewership of a TV drama he
acted in fell sharply.
“I was very stressed out and
afraid to get out of the house without medication,” he said during an
SBS talk show.
• 41
EXPLORE
THAILAND
By Phoowadon Duangmee
The Nation
In Lanna
And
Loving It
Doi Kong Moo Pagoda rises over the city of Mae Hong Son
A new travel
guide takes you
to a scenic ride
around Chiang
Mai
northern beauty around you. You’re
also independent, free to go where
and when you please.
The old capital of the Lanna
Kingdom offers panoramic views,
magnificent mountains and ethnic
diversity. There is no better way to
see Chiang Mai than by car. The
Nation recently released “Weekend
Road Trips Around Chiang Mai”—a
self-drive guide to destinations in
the province. Here’s our pick of the
five best routes for a winter escape
around the beautiful north.
∫∫ Pai: All over the hill and far away
❖❖ Chiang Mai
Ph oto s by The Natio n
M
any would ask why opt
for a self-drive trip in
Chiang Mai in Thailand when it’s easy
and relatively cheap to
arrange for a van and a driver,
allowing you to sit back and watch
the landscape roll by, much as you
would a movie?
But drive yourself and you are in
the movie, an integral part of the
42 •
Start: Chiang Mai City. Head
along the east side of Doi Suthep,
passing Mae Rim and Mae Taeng
districts.
Route (133 kilometres): From
Chiang Mai’s downtown take
highway 107 towards Mae Rim, and
keep going to Mae Taeng. The road
to Pai starts in Mae Rim’s Mae
Malai village at the junction of
highway 1095. Pai is 96 kilometres
away. A five-minute drive off
highway 1095 leads into Mae Malai
marketplace. Expect steep uphill
climbs and sharp turns when
passing Ban Pa Pae—where you can
stop over to enjoy the hot spring.
You’re half way to Pai when you
reach the Huay Nam Dung National Park, a good place to take a break
and enjoy a caffeine kick and a
snack. From the national park, the
road sweeps down and twists its
way through the Pai valley.
Look out for: Lots of mountains
and rice paddies stretching out
over the valley. Shops with artistic
stuff, fusion food, and stylish coffee
shops abound in the peaceful
valley, as Pai is famous with young
travellers. Around Pai, visit Wat
Nam Hu, Pai Canyon, Ban Santichon and Ban Mae Ping White
Karen Village.
Where to stay: Phu Pai Art
Resort (PhuPai.com), Hotel des
Artists (HotelArtists.com) and
Baan Pai Village & Riverside
(BaanPaiVillage.com)
∫∫ Mae Chaen: Serenity with carpet of
gold
Start: Chiang Mai City. Head
towards Hang Dong Son Pa Tong
and Chom Thong districts, negotiating the high road to Doi Inthanon
National Park.
Route (117 kilometres): The
rich and century-old traditions of
Mae Chaem, a small and peaceful
town, are well preserved beyond
the towering peak of Doi Inthanon.
Decades ago the only way to access
the town was via the hilly winding
road from Doi Inthanon; these days
it’s far easier to get even in a small
sedan. Take highway 108 towards
Chom Thong, and climb highway
1009 to the top of Doi Inthanon.
You’ll pass waterfalls, the Royal
Projects with massive flowerbeds
and organic farms and hilltribe
villages where everyone welcomes
visitors with unpretentious smiles.
Take highway 1192 and Mae Chaem
is 22 kilometres ahead.
Look out for: You come to Mae
Chaem to leave the hectic world
Mountain
scenery and
twisting
highways make
Chiang Mai a
province of
classic pleasure
drives.
Visitors ride boats along the Salawin River, 100 km of which is shared by Burma and Thailand.
behind. The golden rice paddies
carpet the deepening valley in the
winter. Unlike Pai, where weekenders chat over pricey coffee and
cocktails, Mae Chaem is worth
exploring for its rustic charm and
peaceful valley. Temples are small
and humble, but faith is strong.
Where to stay: Chaem Cha
Guesthouse, Suan Pa Mae Chaem
and Hot Coffee Bed & Breakfast.
∫∫ Mae Sariang: Mists over the Salawin
Start: Chiang Mai City. Leave
Hang Dong, San Pa Thong and Hod
behind you. This less-taken road
offers a “border-run” adventure.
Route (238 kilometres): Head
South on highway 108 via small
towns and the scenic mountains of
Hang Dong, San Pa Thong and Hod
districts, turning west at Hod’s
Clock Tower for Ob Luang National
Park—where, if you’re not in a
hurry, you could camp for a night
or two. From Ob Luang, highway
108 leads through the pine forest
and rolling mountains via Bo Kaew
Silvicultural Research Centre and
Mae Haw Hilltribe Welfare and
Development Centre. The road
through the foothills provides
sequence of panoramas before you
turn left onto highway 105 for Mae
Sariang, a small town in Mae Hong
Son province.
Look out for: Burmese-style
temples, original wooden houses
along the Yuam River, marketplaces and unspoilt scenic farms. Mae
Sariang is recognised as an important river trading port and shares
the Salawin River with Burma for
101 kilometres. Take smaller
highway 1194 to Mae Samlaep, then
jump into the long-tailed boat and
take a trip along the Salawin.
Where to stay: Riverhouse
Resort (RiverHouseHotels.com),
Riverside Guesthouse and Ban
Yodtumlueng Home Stay (BanYodtumlueng.blogspot.com).
∫∫ Mae Hong Son: Tai Yai tales and
tradition
Start: Chiang Mai’s northern
gate
Route (248 kilometres via
Pai district): Scenic as twisting,
the Chiang Mai-Mae Hong Son
route is one of Thailand’s classic
drives. Drive out of Chiang Mai
City to Mae Rim and Mae Taeng
along highway 107, turning left
onto smaller highway 1095 for
Pai district. From here, the
ribbon of high road twists along
the edge of mountains before
sweeping down into the peaceful
valley of Pai. Highway 1095 to
Pang Mapha district provides
sequences of demanding corners
before you pick up the scenic
valley and rice paddies to small
town of Mae Hong Son.
Look out for: Thamrod Cave in
Pang Mapha—where you can
pretend to be Indiana Jones by
jumping into a bamboo raft and
exploring the massive cave where
prehistoric folks were buried.
Leave the car parked and explore
the town on foot. Wat Chong Kham
and other landmarks are all easy
walking distance.
Where to stay: Fern Rimtarn
Resort (FernResort.com), The
Dai Resort (The-Dai.com) and
The Rock Garden Resort
(TheRockResort.com)
∫∫ Lamphun: Longan and ladies, temples
too
Start: Chiang Mai’s southern
gate
Route (26 kilometres): Lamphun is less an hour drive on small
highway 106 via Saraphi district,
but that short ride leads to rich and
original Lanna culture.
Look out for: Nestled on Mae
Kuang River, Lamphun is a quiet
and charming city embracing
old-fashioned Lanna ambience:
laid-back, Yong-speaking folk, small
and humble temples and old
wooden houses from yesteryear.
Wat Phra That Haripunchai, Wat
Chamadevi and Wat Phra Yuen and
Ban Nong Ngueak Cotton Textile
Handicrafts Centre should be the
highlights on your itinerary.
Place to stay: Lamphun Will
Hotel (LamphunWill.com), DNK
Residence and Phrya Inn
(PhayaInn.com).
Remember, don’t start the engine
without the latest in The Nation’s
Weekend Drive series—”Weekend
Road Trips Around Chiang Mai”.
Designed as a roadtrip companion,
the guidebook offers 12 routes in
Chiang Mai and its neighbours,
maps, and a range of itineraries to
suit everyone from daytrippers to
easy riders.
COPYRI G HT: ASI A NEWS NET WO RK
• 43
TRAVEL
THE PHILIPPINES
By Tarra Quismundo
Let the
‘fun’
begin
Netizens spoof, bash
the philippines’
new tourism slogan
44 •
❖❖ Manila
N
etizens did have fun
either defending or (nit)
picking apart the
country’s newest
tourism slogan, “It’s
more fun in the Philippines.”
Filipino humour quickly found a
new target and went viral over the
catchphrase, giving it different
spins which may or may not help
the cause of tourism secretary
Ramon Jimenez Jr.
Ideas fresh or farcical quickly
sprouted on Facebook and Twitter
pages: One user came up with a
“poster” showing two men in a
sing-along showdown and captioned “Death by ‘My Way’: It’s
More Fun...” It was a reference to
that joke about the Frank Sinatra
classic being the usual fuse of
videoke bar violence in these parts.
Another user thought “Watering
the Plants” would also be a source
of fun worth promoting in the
Philippines, posting a photo of a
boy urinating against a wall. The
image was apparently an expression of disgust over locals relieving
themselves in public.
Another mock “fun” poster
featured a unique Philippine “water
sport”, showing people scampering
away from giant, crashing waves on
Manila Bay at the height of a storm.
One gave a lighter spin to the
notorious traffic jams in Metro
Manila, posting a photo of a traffic
enforcer dressed as Santa Claus.
Others thought that the “fun”
slogan should also apply to the
country’s rambunctious and often
controversial elections, as well as
to the coming impeachment trial of
chief justice Renato Corona.
Still, there were also well-meaning suggestions: Have you tried
local pastries like “fun de sal” and
“fun de coco”?
● Mere copy?
Some users weighed in on the
observation that the new slogan
was not a Filipino original but
supposedly a mere copy of Switzerland’s motto in the 1950s.
Mark Manuel (@mimattictheory) tweeted: “#itsmorefuninthephilippines, absolutely! But
stealing one country’s tourism
slogan is not cool!”
Another Twitter user, Sapphire
Ong (@sappong), said that while
the new slogan was catchy, “it
sounded so much better when
Switzerland used it in 1951.”
Other Twitter users thought the
copycat issue should be given a
rest. “I don’t care if there’s ‘It’s
more fun in Switzerland.’ For me
it’s way more fun in the Philippines!” said Marco Paulo (@
countocram).
“Come on! Give me a break!
Switzerland 1951? Nega people, stop
it. I still say #itsmorefuninthePhilippines!” said Mikaela Lagdameo
(@mikaelamartinez).
● Part of DOT plan
The Department of Tourism is
not actually complaining about all
that cyber-buzz being generated by
its new pickup line.
That the new slogan had gone
viral within just hours of its launch
could only mean good news for
Philippine tourism, said assistant
tourism secretary Benito Bengzon.
“This is really part of our strategy, to let it go viral. It has been
trending, a very good indication of
the kind of interest we are generating in social networks,” Bengzon
told the Inquirer on the phone.
“We see the 25 million or so
Facebook and Twitter users as our
strength in the Philippines. This is
something we could use to convey
our message,” Bengzon said.
● Positive voice
Jimenez himself has used his
Twitter account to defend the new
slogan, saying it was merely a
coincidence that it echoed Switzerland’s old come-on-and that
nobody has a copyright to fun.
“Tourism is successful in Thailand because their positive voice is
louder than their negative voice,”
the secretary added.
The early criticisms were
expected, but the campaign’s
success would be gauged by what
foreign tourists would think of the
slogan, Bengzon said.
“I think what people have to
realise is that the application of
this campaign is overseas. We
will see how the Japanese react to
it, how Koreans or Americans
react to it,” he said.
● Honest
The new slogan may not be
bombastic but it tells the truth
about the Philippines, according to
Jaime Cura, a former vice president
of the Tourism Congress.
“I think it is very simple, easy to
understand and easy to recall. It’s
an honest statement. It does not
promise something that we don’t
have,” Cura said in an interview.
He noted that Filipinos could be
fun-loving “even to a fault” and that
many foreigners who had visited
the country always remember their
happy experiences.
“My foreign friends tell us when
they say goodbye that they had so
much fun during their stay. So
instead of copying other countries
with their (one-word) tag lines, we
should focus on this aspect that has
already been proven,” Cura said.
• 45
EXPLORE
CAMBODIA
By Adeline Chia
The Straits Times
Biking off
the beaten
track
Ph oto s by Th e Straits Time s
Soak in the small-town
charms of Kep and
Kampot, which have yet
to be discovered by the
masses
46 •
❖❖ Kep, Kampot
M
ention Cambodia and travellers
might think of temple-hopping in
Siem Reap, visiting The Killing
Fields of Khmer Rouge genocide,
or taking in the buzz of Phnom
Penh, the capital and financial centre.
So far, so obvious. Yet, why not take the road
less trampled to death?
Independent travellers with an eye on adventure should head south to Kep and Kampot, two small, charming Cambodian towns
that remain less touched by international
tourism. They retain the shabby charm of
the old French colonial era while preserving
a lush natural landscape.
My friend and I begin our trip in Kampot,
which is about four hours by bus from Phnom
Penh and costs about US$6, one way.
Getting into Kampot is like entering a differJanuary 27-February 9, 2012
ent time zone after the traffic and
dust of Phnom Penh. The entire
place is asleep, but not really. Some
locals are watching television while
lying down on the floor in their
ground-floor apartments. The number of tourists can be counted on
one hand.
Kampot architecture consists
mostly of two-storey shophouses in
quiet lanes. A central tree-lined
promenade runs parallel to Tuk
Chou River, which is backgrounded
by the silhouette of Bokor Mountain.
A leisurely evening stroll down
the riverside walk is a great way to
people watch since the breezy bank
is a popular hangout. Some teenagers, dressed to kill, hang out near
their motorbikes to talk and flirt
with one another.
A man is catching fish with a
small net in the dark. When he finally catches one, we are as excited
as his young son, who shines a torch
onto the flapping, dying creature.
Much can be said about Kampot’s
laidback charm but its unique selling point is that it is the gateway to
Bokor Mountain, where an abandoned, French resort town sits.
The town, called Bokor Hill Station, was developed in the 1920s by
French settlers to escape the heat of
Phnom Penh and it comprises an
abandoned church, a casino and hotel, and a post office that has been
demolished.
The French fled the place in the
1940s during the First Indochine
War, but most of the buildings are
still standing—to a certain degree.
Our guide is Tri (pronounced
“Tree”), a sundried wiry man who
could be aged anywhere from 35 to
55, who says he fought against the
Khmer Rouge with the Vietnamese
Army and knows these hills well.
Like all good guides, he is full of
stories. He speaks of how Napoleon
used to relax by the Tuk Chou River
(I find no evidence of this in my research afterwards) and there are
plans to develop the area with a sixstar resort and golf course.
Then there was the king cobra he
saw in the forest that stood up to his
waist. “His face was so big,” he says,
making a circle as big as a saucer.
We finally reach the ghost town.
• 47
EXPLORE
CAMBODIA
The red brick church is furry with
moss and the inside shows signs of
habitation: charred walls from a fire,
a canvas partition, a make-shift
wooden bed. Tri says Bokor Hill
area was a Khmer Rouge stronghold
in the 1970s and the buildings were
used as their military base.
He then takes us to Bokor Palace
Hotel & Casino, formerly the hedonistic playground of expatriates,
politicians and pleasure-seekers.
The imposing building is now sadly
covered with a layer of scaffolding
for restoration work. Unless you
give the guards a small bribe, it is
impossible to get inside.
It takes a few minutes to circle the
rust-coloured, peeling building that
sits proudly and eerily in a green
field. At the back is a steep drop
down a lush cliff-face. Tri says desperate gamblers used to jump off
there, and the Khmer Rouge executed people and threw the bodies
down. We peer down carefully and
see rolling, misty hills.
Eventually we come down the
mountain in a van and take a boat
ride along the Tuk Chou. It is a
calm, meditative trip that is accompanied by only the sound of birdsong and the boat’s motor. We watch
children jump off the bridge into
the water, screaming in delight.
Then there is the final pay-off: the
sight of an egg-yolk sun making a slow
retreat behind the mountain ridges.
48 •
The next day, we take a tuk-tuk to
nearby Kep, a seaside town popular
with domestic tourists over the
weekend. Kep gives off a raffish
charm: It was the beach getaway of
French expatriates and the Cambodian elite in the 1960s and retains
the faded grandeur of a bygone era.
There are still scores of dilapidated
beach villas lying around.
The beaches are unremarkable,
but that does not stop large
groups of domestic tourists from
heading there on the weekends to
swim and to picnic.
But the No. 1 reason they come to
Kep is—crabs.
Fishermen haul their baskets
of catch back to a small pier and
sell the crabs to bargaining buyers. Some are steamed on the
spot in huge vats.
Some hawkers walk around peddling plastic bags full of steamed
crabs to picnickers. There is even a
(crab-shaped, what else?) monument built for crabs.
In the sand and on the pavements,
you see the crushed pink shells of
cooked crab.
We settle for lunch at one of the
beachside restaurants and markets,
which are clustered along the main
drag of town. The menu, of course,
is crab-centric and dishes start from
about US$4.
We order the crab with fresh
Kampot pepper—a speciality of the
province and among the finest in
the world. The light curry-ish taste
is eye-wateringly good.
To better taste the natural sweetness of the crustaceans, we also
choose a simple steamed version
with garlic and a dash of coconut
milk. That is the coup de grace. We
suck the flesh out in reverential silence, closing our eyes and shaking
our heads in regret that we have
come to eat this so late in our lives.
The next day, we rent a motorbike
from the hotel for US$10 for the entire day. Nobody asks for a licence but
you can practise driving around in
the carpark if you need to warm up.
The hotel reception gives us a
hand-drawn map showing interesting spots to check out. Our eyes
scan the flimsy piece of paper: a few
temples, some beaches, the pepper
plantations and salt mines. And
then our eyes land on a spot marked
“Secret Beach”.
 LOST ON THE WAY TO “SECRET BEACH”
It becomes the day’s quest to find
the beach. We putt-putt our way to a
pepper plantation, explore the surrounds, get chased by the resident
geese and buy some pepper.
The business is run by a Chinese
family and on a whim, we lie that we
are from Malaysia. In response, the
owners proceed to speak to us in
Cantonese. We nod politely, mumJanuary 27-February 9, 2012
5 things to do
ble something in what we think is
Malaysian-accented Mandarin and
hurriedly leave.
In the afternoon heat, we give up
on our helmets because no one else
is wearing them. To get to the “secret beach”, the map indicates that
we should make a left turn at “a
temple with new sign”.
We do not see any temple but after
some inquiries at a gas station, we
realise this “secret beach” is called
Angkul beach. But the instructions
in broken English on how to get
there are too hard to follow.
Deciding to wing it, we ride on
and make a random left turn.
Suddenly the landscape opens up
to endless paddy fields of fresh, almost neon, green. We wind through
the fields on a red dirt road, while
curious villagers stare from their
houses and children wave. One little boy is paddling in a pond, naked,
on a big banana leaf that serves as a
raft. There are buffaloes, chickens
and pigs. An old man smoking some
kind of potent-smelling unfiltered
cigarette gives our motorbike the
thumbs-up.
It does not take long to realise
that we are hopelessly lost. We stop
to ask several people and see the
flicker of recognition when they
hear “Angkul”, but their directions
lead us nowhere.
When we see a sign indicating
that the Vietnamese border is nearJanuary 27-February 9, 2012
by, we decide to turn back to the
main road for another fuel stop.
This time, a woman, who is Chinese, gives us clearer instructions.
“You have to drive really quickly,”
she says. The sun is setting and
there are no street lamps.
We speed along and finally the
tarred road opens out to a red dirt
road, and we whoop: “Yes!” On the
map, “red dirt road” is depicted
with wavy lines.
Then it gets very quiet. On the
right, we see some open plains we
recognise as “salt fields”. That
means we are close to the sea, since
the water is let in from the ocean
into these fields to be evaporated.
The scene has a desolate beauty
and perhaps it could be the setting to
the loneliest story ever told by an arthouse filmmaker. Fields of salt are
dyed orange by the setting sun and
the place rings with silence. It is totally indifferent to human presence.
Should we go on? We are so near
the sea.
We decide to call it a day because
the sky is darkening. We turn back
and drive into a sunset so beautiful, complete with National Geographic-level layers of colour
gradations and mountainous silhouettes, that we almost forget
our disappointment.
I ask: “Is there gravel flying up to
hit my chest? It really hurts.”
My companion replies: “Er, I
think they are insects.” We promptly put on our helmets and pull down
the visors.
We clock about 35 freezing kilometres back to the hotel. Our “rustic” hotel suffers a circuit trip about
five times through our hot showers.
I am still shivering when I reach our
crab dinner.
Inevitably, our conversation turns
to the secret beach. What does it
look like? Is it as awe-inspiring as
the salt fields? Maybe it is despicably average.
In any case, we don’t beat ourselves up too much. After all, what
is the good of a secret beach that
can be found?
1 Have US dollars in small denominations because most things
are cheap in Cambodia. Most transactions are done in US dollars and
the small change is given in Cambodian currency, the riel. The exchange rate is about US$1 to 4,000
riel.
2 In Kep, pretend that you are a
1960s French expatriate living it up
in Indochina by booking a night’s
stay at Knai Bang Chatt, a boutique
hotel with Le Corbusier-style modernist seafront villas. Rooms from
US$115 a night (www.knaibangchatt.com).
3 In Kampot, take a guided tour
up Bokor Mountain for about $20
to visit the ruined French colonial
town. An informative Englishspeaking guide adds a lot of colour
to the visit. The package, which you
can book easily from your hotel or
guesthouse, usually includes an
evening boat trip.
4 Buy Kampot pepper from the
plantations, reputed to be among
the best in the world. Because of
the soil conditions and the farmers’
use of cow dung, bat dung and rice
field crabs, the pepper is supposed
to be aromatic and complex.
5 Rent a motorbike or a bicycle
to get around Kampot and Kep, and
make sure you wear a mask as the
roads are very dusty.
2 don’ts
1 Accept any US dollar notes
which are slightly torn or
m u c ky. Yo u w i l l n eve r get to
spend that money because no
one will accept it.
2 Visit Kep and Kampot from
June to October. It tends to be hot
and very wet. November to February is the cool and dry season and
the best time to visit.
Getting There
A number of airlines operate direct flights from Singapore to
Phnom Penh, including Silkair and
Jetstar Asia. A one-way ticket from
Jetstar starts from $58 before taxes. From Phnom Penh, you can either take a four to five hour bus
journey to Kampot or Kep (about
$6 one way) or hire a taxi, which
costs upwards of $45.
• 49
DATEBOOK
BAN G KO K
Guitar Fiesta
World-acclaimed jazz, classical and
flamenco guitarists treat audiences with
their skilful playing at the Thailand
Cultural Centre every year. Snap up
tickets for evening concerts and improve
your talent during daytime workshops
with the artists at the Bangkok Guitar
Fiesta.
When: February 3-5
Where: Thailand Cultural Centre, daily
from 7:30pm
H AR B I N
Ice Lantern Festival
Harbin makes the most of its freezing
winters with the impressive Harbin Ice
Lantern Festival. Huge ice blocks are
carved into sculptures and buildings are
lit from within to create the glittering Ice
and Snow World.
As night falls, the gigantic sculptures
light up in electric blue, bubblegum pink
and other kitsch colours. Touch them
and your hand will come away completely dry—the ice is so cold that even body
heat won’t shift it. Arrive before dark to
watch ice- and snow-sculpting in
progress.
The city-centre Zhaolin Park hosts a
side event, the Harbin International Ice
Sculpture Competition; over the river on
Sun Island is its snowy sister, the Harbin
International Snow Sculpture Competition. The sculptors carefully chisel away
at blocks of ice or snow to create
anything including marble-smooth
Buddha statues.
When: Until February 29
Info: www.harbin.gov.cn/english/
SEOUL
Daeboreum Great Full Moon Festival
Korea celebrates the Daeboreum Great
Full Moon Festival with gusto. Take part
in Namdo folk songs, circle dances,
make lucky kites and witness colourful
rituals for warding off evil spirits in
Seoul’s traditional folk village of
Namsangol Hanok.
Daeboreum is celebrated on the 15th
day of the first lunar month in the
Korean calendar.
When: February
Where: Namsangol, 12pm-7pm
SA PPO RO
Snow Festival
Huge glittering ice sculptures transform Sapporo into a
magical winter wonderland
during the annual Snow
Festival. Teams of professional
artists from around the globe
create the frosty masterpieces
at city venues including Odori
Park and Suskino’s main street.
The festival sprang up from
humble beginnings when, back
in 1950, some students left six snow
sculptures in Odori Park. From that day
the event has, well, snowballed.
Nowadays, teams from Japan and all
over the world compete in the International Snow Statue Contest, some
crafting sculptures the size of multistorey buildings.
Visitors can also get snow-sculpting at
the annual Snowman Competition,
where the aim is to break the previous
year’s record of most snowmen in one
place (the figure usually exceeds
50 •
SI N GAPO R E
Titanic Artifact Exhibit
10,000). In the evening, visit Odori Park
to see the beautiful sculptures lit up. Or
head to the snow theme park at the
Satorando site, kitted out with huge
slides and mazes.
In typical Japanese festival style, stalls
line the streets selling hot, sweet chicken
and other tempting culinary delights. In
Susukino, you’ll even find blocks of ice
containing whole lobsters and various
other forms of marine life.
When: February 6-12
Info: www.snowfes.com/english/
Nearly 100 years later, the ArtScience
Museum brings to life the timeless story
of RMS Titanic, her passengers and crew
in “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition”.
The blockbuster exhibition, which is
making its Southeast Asian debut, will
feature approximately 275 artifacts, 14 of
which have never been seen before.
These artifacts were rescued from more
than 3,800m below the ocean surface at
the ship’s final resting place, offering
visitors a poignant look at the iconic ship
and her passengers.
The exhibition is open until the 100th
anniversary of the historic sailing and
sinking of RMS Titanic in April 2012.
Where: Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Info: www.marinabaysands.com/
ArtScienceMuseum
HGRS_AsiaNewsAdvtv2_080807.qxp:Layout 1
Teaser 197x121 4.6.09:Layout 1
4.6.2009
8/31/07
11:22 Uhr
9:29 AM
Page 1
Seite 1
Global
competition
Building
Asia together.2009:
Two Holcim Awards for Asia
Congratulations to 12 prize winning projects to be realized
in Asia Pacific. They are now finalists for the Global Holcim
Awards and the Global Holcim Innovation prizes 2012.
Whether you’re building or investing in factories, homes, bridges,
schoolhouses or shopping malls we’re the perfect
partner
make for sustainable construction
The Holcim
Awards to
competition
and visions
attracted
your project happen. As the No. 1 supplier ofprojects
building
materials
inalmost 5,000 entries from
121 countries – the most outstanding were honored with Global
Asia we can deliver the right solutions when and where it counts.
Holcim Awards 2009. Find out more on page 15.
The Holcim Awards are supported by Holcim Ltd – one of the
Holcim in Asia-Pacific:
world’s leading suppliers of cement and aggregates – and its
Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, New Caledonia,
New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam Group companies in more than 70 countries including Australia,
Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore,
Accepting
the
Holcim
Awards
Bronze
2011
Asia
Pacific
for
“Ecologically-designed
retail
commercial building, Putrajaya,
Sri Lanka, Thailand,
andand
Vietnam.
www.holcim.com
Malaysia” on behalf of winners Ken Yeang and Tengku Robert Hamzah – Andy Chong of T. R. Hamzah & Yeang International Sdn. Bhd.,
Malaysia. Details on all winning sustainable construction projects and their design teams at: www.holcimawards.org/apac
Strength. Performance. Passion.
www.holcimawards.org

Water Wars - Asia News Network

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