Break

The schedule for yesterday was themed around the idea of clashes among the many cultures ("races") present here in Singapore. First, we visited the Heritage Centre of the Internal Security Department of Singapore. They took us around this museum/compound, initially built for the education of civil servants and ISD agents. They many rooms and areas showcased a history of the Singapore intelligence, with descriptions of the main events in terrorism, counter-espionage, and the background of communism and defense of the country. On display were declassified documents about operations carried out against infiltrated agents and factions, and taken together they all offered a good picture of Singaporean history.
Then we went to something called The Harmony Centre. We took off our shoes (as if entering a mosque) and then attended a presentation about Islam that I think made everyone fall in love with the religion. After some Malay food (Chicken rice, fishballs and spring rolls, among other foods), we went to a panel about the multicultural society here. There were also presentations by the panelists on terrorism (more specifically, an Islamic group that wants to build an Islamic state in Southeast Asia), government policies and cultural relations in Singapore.
Yet despite all these activities, which were all really engaging, it was a very messy day for me. There was still a lot to happen that day, but I asked our hosts to take me home. I had gone to sleep at 4:30 am the previous night (as I had don since I arrived here), woken up at 8 am, and for a number a reasons the panel discussion had really pushed my body to the limits. They had 4 huge air conditioning panels in the ceiling of the room, all blowing right down on us (think 20 degrees Celsius of humid air showering on you for hours). My feet had frozen from the first minutes of being in that room, and the summer clothes I was wearing put me on a course to becoming an iceblock.
Apparently the A/C could not be adjusted, but I got a jacket from the staff. I also moved to the corner of the room to be out of the wind. I was still freezing, so I took a walk through the rest of the building, which was much warmer and comfortable. For a minute I thought of lying down on one of the benches there and taking a nap, but since the place was a religious center and looked more like a museum than a community center, I bravely went back for some more cold. I made a few remarks during the discussion, but I'm quite sure I looked very sick, so I pulled out to a corner again to get some heat. When the discussion was over, I was one of the first to leave the room and as the others were also coming out I could hear every other person saying "Oooo... warm!" or "Heat!". Outside there had been a downpour, and all our shoes had gotten soaked. My exhaustion and the other unfortunate experiences were building up to the point where I almost felt like crying. On the bus I fell asleep instantly, and then Chris took me back to the university.
The other delegates had taken everything much better, and I'm not sure I can really blame our hosts here for much. As one of them said: "Because it is so hot and moist outside, we like to have the rooms cold". This is much unlike the The Harvard classrooms, which are overheated, again to contrast with the cold outside.
So in the end, I guess it was going to bed much later than the end of our programme that had brought my body and psyche to their limits. I took a break from everything and slept almost 12 hours, so hopefully today will be much better.

Tropical paradise

As I was walking out the airplane, I started feeling an increasingly powerful wave of heat around me. Along with this came a feeling of moisture that is only to be found in saunas and greenhouses. I thought it was something brief, related to that tunnel. Whenever I had looked at maps, I had clearly seen the equator just a few degrees below Singapore, but it never really crossed my mind that the implications of this would be so serious. Now I actually realized what all the weather forecasts and maps meant: the place has a climate no different than a jungle.
This made me very aprehensive at the beginning, and I kept asking people why it is so hot and moist at midnight on a day in March. "It's like this all a time" just couldn't be a true explanation. But our hosts were wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals, so it had to be (not to mention that this made me feel ridiculous, since I was wearing heavy jeans and a sweater that kept me warm in the chilly airplane). It turns out that the weather was going to be extremely hot.
As we are driven to the hotel, questions pour and "Wow!"s and "Look!"s are to be heard ceaselessly. The vegetation is stunning: there are palm trees everywhere, flowers are blooming in many rich colors, and the grass seems even more vigorous than the carefully maintained lawn that I had seen in Cambridge (either of them). I ask whether for them the heat is more bearable and they say that it's just as annoying and extreme for their bodies just as it is for ours.
The next day, I discover the burning sun, a feature that makes a trip from one building from the other as incovenient as the blistering cold does for Cambridge. We are given hats and water (what a blessing!) and transported with air conditioned buses.
But after I walk around for a while, I start forgetting about the heat and focusing more on what's around me. Except for the buildings, almost everything is green. The vibrant city was turning out to be a beach-like resort as well. The gentle windchill, the hush of moving palmtrees, the sound of crickets, the brightly painted buildings made it all look more like one of the exotic resorts that people go to in the summer. The reality is, I had thought of this trip as being a vacation, since there's no more school, but I had never imagined it could be a holiday in the way that was turning out to be.
The heat was becoming more of a colateral issue; as long as there was shade, things were not only bearable, but actually wonderful. Our hosts are constantly surprised at our enthusiasm: they don't understand what we find so great about living in a place with the climate of a "paradise island". Surely, when they came to Harvard there wasn't that much to impress them (except for the snow that quickly turned into rain and then hail). But for me at least, walking around flip flops and wearing shorts at any time of the year is really more like moving away for good from where I live to some place where I'm always on vacation.

Setting sail

We’re entering the last hour of the last flight we’re taking on our way to Singapore. The 30-something hours initially seemed … interesting and “not a big deal”, but at some point it all got extremely exhausting and annoying. It has made me reconsider the relative length of my trip to Romania, which is a nice couple of flights, one fairly short(2 hours), and the other just a good sleep (8h). The day-and-something on the Asian-bound flights has been a little too much.

When I signed up for the Harvard College in Asia Project (HCAP), I knew nothing about any of the cities and the countries that the program visits. I wrote my country preferences 5 minutes before the application deadline by doing a preliminary research on… Wikipedia. Until pretty much now, I have looked at Singapore as an “OK” destination, thinking at the same tine that I might have enjoyed better something more exotic, or traditional. But now I know a little more about the place, and I don’t think I’ll be anything less than very exciting.

It seems like it’s going to be a wonderful time in what is undoubtedly a very multicultural environment. Although Singapore is geographically just an extension of Malaysia, more than half of the people are Chinese (the Chinatown is well-known and quite authentic. Also, there’s a lot to see in Singapore in terms of identity (3 major ethnic groups) and religion (they have not just Christian and Buddhist, but also Islamic). Not to mention that the city is really spectacular.

I decided to join HCAP because I wanted to learn more about Asia, a place that seemed so remote and different but also tempting and intriguing. Traveling in Europe had been a lot of fun, but I realized that there is so much more to discover in other, more distant places. I paid the airfare boldly, assuming but lacking certainity that it would be ‘a step’ towards this vague and broad goal of "understanding Asia". Yet now I know it’ll go a much longer way than I expected – Singapore is a wonderful and rich place, and I am starting to be very anxious about arriving.

As for the extra week that I'm going to spend in Thailand instead of returning to school on time, that's going to be quite an adventure. I'll be on my own, and I haven't quite been alone on such an undertaking. I’ve heard they’ve recently blown up some buses there, but I’m not particularly worried about that. Instead, what I’m thinking of right now is how I’m going to finish the two bloody papers that will be due that week, where exactly I will travel in that country, and if I will succeed to not lose my documents, money and posessions, or miss my flights.
“We are preparing to land – please switch of all electronic equipment and secure your seats in an upright position.“

Here we go!