It's Not The Hat It's The Woman Wearing The Hat

If you ever visit Vietnam you will see many beautiful and charming Vietnamese ladies wearing the Áo Dài (Vietnamese traditional long dress) and Non La (conical leaf hat, Vietnamese: Nón Lá) walking gracefully along the streets.  While the hats are worn by both sexes, it is the Vietnamese woman who epitomizes it.

Vietnam's conical straw hat or the nón lá has its origin, coming from a legend related to the history of rice growing in Vietnam. The story is about a giant woman from the sky who has protected mankind from a deluge of rain. She wore a hat made of four round shaped leaves to guard against all the rain. After the Goddess was gone,  the Vietnamese built a temple to commemorate her as the Rain-shielding Goddess.

The conical straw hats are used elsewhere throughout Southeast Asia, but they are not as common as they are in Vietnam.  The hats are mostly worn in other countries by farmers and those working in the rice paddies.  Since I've been living in Southeast Asia I have heard the hat refered to in many different ways, a straw hat, an Asian hat, a palm frond hat, a coolie hat but I never heard the hat referred to in any offensive way until today.

In a post entitled Does American Apparel's Ching Chong Hat Offend You?  the website Racialicious asks readers if they find the wearing of the hat by Americans as offensive.  The irony of which apparently eludes Latoya Peterson the editor and owner of the site.  With a website though entitled Racialicious one might think that both the author and Ms. Peterson would be a bit more sensitive considering. 

Remember, it is not the hat, its the woman wearing the hat, and come to think of it, yes Ms. Peterson you would look offensive wearing it.

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Upscale Budget Accommodation In Singapore

A recent article in the Jakarta Globe states that some backpacker hostels in Singapore are going upmarket, to cater to a rising number of backpackers with bigger budgets.   Well, this isn't entirely true.   It isn't just backpackers looking for reasonably priced place to stay but businessmen and tourists as well who have been looking for a decent place to stay without having to pay an arm and a leg.

If you are looking for a hotel room in Singapore expect to pay anywhere from S$200 (US$165) to S$600 (US$493) a night.  On the high end, Singapore has some of the finest and most luxurious hotels in Southeast Asia - if not the world, but on the low end, it can be the lowest of lows.  In other words, if your idea of an "accommodation experience" is a budget hotel with hourly rates, rubber mattresses and greasy sheets then a cheap room at Hotel 81 will be right up your alley.   Trying to find a clean decent budget hotel in Singapore that is below a US$100 a night is for the most part an exercise in futility and the this is the niche that the former backpacker hostels are now starting to exploit.

The competition between Singapore's hostels is booming with many offering crisp linens, hotel mattresses, air conditioning, free movies, wifi and in some places even a free breakfast.  Urban Hostel is one of those such places and in my opinion it's one of the best, it's located only a two minute walk from Aljunied MRT station which makes everything convenient and from Changi Airport the fare is just S$1.80 to Aljunied MRT station, so you can skip taking the taxi.   Urban Hostel has both dorm rooms and private rooms - with prices starting from just S$15.00 a night - bookable online - and later when you want see the city, just hop on the MRT and you can be at Orchard road is about ten minutes.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's recently published Worldwide Cost of Living Report 2011, Singapore is now the 10th most expensive city to live in - in the world.  It can be cheaper though when you know your way around.   

Sleep on that.

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New BC Requirements For a US Passport

Your Papers Please !

Do you know who was in the delivery room when you were born or if your mother received pre-natal or post-natal medical care?   If you can't answer those questions then you might just be denied a US passport.

Beginning April 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of State will require the full names of the applicant’s parent(s) to be listed on all certified birth certificates to be considered as primary evidence of U.S. citizenship for all passport applicants, regardless of age.  Certified birth certificates* missing this information will not be acceptable as evidence of citizenship.  This will not affect applications already in-process that have been submitted or accepted before the effective date.

*A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar's signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.

New Requirements For US Birth Certificates

Interestingly enough, Barack Hussein Obama's forged birth certificate would not be valid as proof of United States citizenship under the new rules now issued by the State Department.  Add that to the fact that no one seems to even know which hospital he was born in.  

Ask about Obama's birth certificate though and we're subjected to this fallacious clintonian pseudobabble  from White House Spokesman Jay Carney,

"This is a settled issue.  The birth certificate that the campaign put up online has been available for everyone to see around the globe.  It’s the same birth certificate you get to get a driver’s license.  Anybody who was born in Hawaii who asks for their birth certificate gets the same thing that the campaign and the White House has provided to the press  ....   So I just think this is -- it’s a distraction, and it’s an unfortunate distraction from the issues that I think most Americans care about.  I think anybody who is watching this exchange in the West Wing of the White House would be appalled -- or most Americans would be appalled that this is what concerns us here when, in fact, there are so many major issues that are facing this country that need to be addressed by the President and by the Congress.  And he’s -- that’s what he’s focused on.  I’ll leave it at that."

No Mr. Jay Carney this is not a settled issue.

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No Hippies Allowed

Immigration Department - Phuket, Thailand

Despite efforts at their eradication, hippies, leftists and liberals continue to be a problem overseas and here at "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" we are doing our utmost to fight the problem, but we need your help.

Donald Trump is right, we have a problem overseas and this problem originates in Washington DC.

We have a problem when our nation's ambassadors and diplomats castigate our fellow Americans  back home for simply exercising their constitutional rights and then having the audacity to say overseas "I wish he were not American".   You can help.

Like Barack Obama, I've lived in Southeast Asia, albeit a long longer than Obama did. But unlike Barack Obama I've never been subscriber to cultural or moral equivalency nor have I felt compelled to deride my own country in a a pathetic effort to establish that equivalency.  I know that deriding my own country overseas only emboldens those who deny freedom and liberty to others.  As an advocate of American exceptionalism, I've always felt myself compelled to spread the message of what is good about America rather than what is bad, but as always we are fighting an uphill battle.

How can you help?  You can help by making a donation, however big or small and support this blog and  the work we do.  

Help us to fight Obama and spread the message of what is good about America.

Related Posts:

America's Leftists "Persona Non Grata"

Osama Bid Laden's "Useful Idiots"

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Janny Scott's Racist Obsession

In her upcoming book, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother, New York Times' Janny Scott recounts the life of Stanley Ann Dunham and her life as an expatriate in Indonesia.

In the New York Times' article promoting the book, Janny Scott weaves together a  vast collection of  unlikely anecdotes and interviews that oftentimes overshadows Dunham herself and instead attempts to give us a glimpse into the young life of Barry Soetoro and the experiences that helped to shape his life.

Scott's attempt to understand Dunham and the idiosyncrasies associated with the life of an expatriate in Indonesia seem to be labored, and as a result she resorts to simply linking together a collection of anecdotes and stories related to her by others.  And so, instead of dealing with subjects such as expatriatism and an attempt to understand Dunham's mindset as such,  Scott predictably drifts towards the one subject that she is passionate about and that is racism.

As member of the team awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for "How Race Is Lived In America," Janny Scott knows her stuff when it comes to racism in America and she frequently writes about the subject  for the New York Times.  Judging from how often Ms. Scott writes about racism, one might even think she is obsessed with the subject.

Unfortunately Janny Scott knows little if anything about racism in Indonesia or she would have realized that unlike the United States, where racism is based primarily on skin color, racism in Indonesia  has historically manifested itself through discrimination based on ethnicity and religion.  It is the ethnic Chinese and the non-muslims who are the victims of racism in Indonesia.

Take a close look at the photo above.  Is the color of  Barry Soetoro's skin closer to that of his mother or that of his father Lolo Soetoro? 

In her yet-to-be released book the author claims to shed light on the racial abuse that a young Barry Soetoro  supposedly endured as a child.  In one incident, the author writes:

"...After lunch, the group took a walk, with Barry running ahead. A flock of Indonesian children began lobbing rocks in his direction. They ducked behind a wall and shouted racial epithets. He seemed unfazed, dancing around as though playing dodge ball "with unseen players," [fellow American and friend Elizabeth] Bryant said. Ann did not react. Assuming she must not have understood the words, Bryant offered to intervene. "No, he’s O.K.," Ann said. "He's used to it.""

Used to what and what racial epithets?  Neither Bryant or the author say.  I can't even imagine in  the Indonesian language what racial epithets a young child would use.

I will go so far to say that the recalled incident never took place and is a complete fabrication of Janny Scott.

The author later writes, quoting the the same source,  Elizabeth Bryant as stating:

"We were floored that she’d bring a half-black child to Indonesia, knowing the disrespect they have for blacks."

How can you have a disrespect for someone or some race that you have had no exposure to?

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Becoming An Expat

I often get email from readers asking questions on what it is like living abroad, how do you do it and how to get started. I think many Americans have a fear of venturing beyond our borders for any extended length of time. That is unfortunate.

For me the experience and sense of adventure has been something many Americans today will never understand, appreciate or value. There was a time though when things were different, the times when people like Robert Lewis Stevenson or Ernest Hemingway wrote tales of faraway lands. Today many think that globalization has made the world a smaller place when in fact just the opposite is the case. Think of what the interstate highway did to route 66 and you will begin to appreciate what I'm saying. The romance and spirit of adventure once associated with the life of an expatriate is no longer appreciated or valued.

We live in a world now where one can jet from New York to Paris and onto Tokyo without experiencing even the slightest bit of cultural dislocation. We imagine an interconnected world made smaller by Facebook and Twitter. For the sanguine traveler today plopping themselves down in a cookie-cutter Starbucks in some exotic locale with a laptop and WiFi and ordering - in English - a caffe latte from the local barista only seems to fuel this illusion of verisimilitude.

Why travel and immerse yourself in a foreign land for the purposes of learning a foreign language when an online translator will serve your purpose. It is the internet, the information superhighway that has now enabled people to become self-proclaimed experts on subjects and locales that they have never heard of, or even visited before. The harsh reality is that in many ways the internet has not enlightened us, but rather stupefied us. It has become like a new religion analogous to the Oracle of Delphi.

Trust me when I tell you that nothing can substitute for the real experience. While it might not be appreciated now like it once was, the life of an expatriate can be fulfilling in ways that you can never imagine. The life isn't for everyone, but if you are seriously thinking about, make the jump and do it. There are a few links on the sidebar regarding life overseas, feel free to click them to learn more.

For some the thought of living overseas is somehow unpatriotic, for me I consider it just the opposite considering how so many in our State Department and much of our mainstream media present a slanted view of what America stands for. If you are a frequent reader of this blog you will know exactly what I mean. You will make a difference, see yourself as John Galt or as a diplomat, but whatever you do, don't believe everything you see on CNN.

What inspired me to write this posts was not only from the email that I get but from an article I recently read entitled Cost of Living in the US Reaches New Record High. I'm sure there are many Americans now who might be having second thoughts about making a move overseas now that their pensions have been cut or are coming to the realization that they are going to have to get by on less and less in the very near future. And so these people might decide to become expats for financial reasons rather than for the experience or for a sense of adventure.

If you are thinking of becoming an expat, I hope you do it for the adventure and experience as well. Take the chance to step off the interstate, there is a big world out there waiting to be discovered.

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