My Travels in Asia: Remembering Bali (Part 5 of 5)
December 5, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I conclude my travels in Asia with a place that has left an indelible mark in my soul, Bali, but not for the reasons you might think. More about that in a moment. I spent a week in Bali to attend the Oriental Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (OSAPS) meeting arriving on a Sunday night. The meeting would start on a Tuesday, and I had pre-booked time to go scuba diving on Monday morning. 7 am on Monday morning I stood outside of my hotel ready to go diving but with no divemaster showing up for an hour, so I gave up. Calling the dive agency, they apologized profusely and asked if I wanted to venture out on another day. I told them no and found another dive outfit for Friday morning.
Bali has always been a quiet Hindu community centered around tourism set amidst a chain of Indonesian islands that are mainly Muslim in outlook. The people in Bali are generous, warm, and indigent by Western standards. They make a hard living by catering to the mass of tourists that flock to the island. I remember for one dinner we had a spectacular live show near the hotel pool and a lavish buffet. The following night for closing ceremonies, we went all the way to this new multi-million dollar center that was built to resemble some ancient Incan-like ruins and ate a sumptuous feast on the lawn while being entertained with a perpetual tribal dance playing out in front of us. Friday morning came and I went to go to dive after about a 6-hour drive to the Eastern coast of Bali to a site famous for a U.S. WWII wrecked ship that had been even more splintered by the nearby active volcano that oozed into every cranny of the timbers. It was an amazing dive.
I was debating at that point whether I would be safe to fly out on my appointed 1:30 pm flight on Saturday given that it would be barely 24 hours to off-gas the nitrogen load. I went to Kuta to dine on some indigenous food that night and then retired to the local bar scene at Paddy’s nearby. I remember talking to a lot of Australians (since Bali is a favorite destination for proximal Australian tourists) and asked this one Austrialian woman why all of these men were in drag. She explained that they were the Australian football team (that’s soccer to us Yanks) that had just won a championship back home and were celebrating their victory.
I decided to fly out on my 1:30 pm flight on Saturday back to Hong Kong which served as my base camp for part of my travels in Asia. I rarely cannot sleep, but on Sunday evening I got up and opened my friend’s laptop to scan through the New York Times online, which is usually part of my daily morning ritual. I was astonished to read the story about the Bali bombings that occurred the night before at 11:03 pm Saturday night that literally decimated everyone at the night clubs, Sari and Paddy’s, where I had been the night prior. A chill went through my spine, and I lay now definitively awake for the remainder of the night. Fortunately, I phoned my parents the night before to inform them that I had safely returned to Hong Kong on Saturday so they didn’t worry when they heard the news themselves.
I heard that most of the individuals who survived were burned beyond recognition, had lost their sight and/or hearing, and were permanently crippled from the experience if they were not fortunate enough to die. I remember reading a story in the local paper of a Hong Kong man who bent over to pick up some coins he dropped at the precise moment the bomb went off and was spared significant corporeal harm because the bar served as a physical barrier to the blast. When he got up he saw everyone with at least 80% body burns and he held a teenage girl in his arms for less than a minute before she expired. That tale has stuck in my head.
I am extremely thankful for surviving but do not want to be so arrogant to think I am more special than anyone else who did not survive. I emailed the Australian girl that I had met at the bar on Friday, and she recounted that she had made it home prior to that night like me but that the entire Australian football team didn’t. I will always be grateful that I am alive and well, not burned, not deaf, and not blind. If anyone is fearful today or negative, remember well how close we are to having it all taken away and that we should live with an open heart of gratitude.
My Travels in Asia: Remembering Shanghai (Part 4 of 5)
December 4, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
One of my favorite cities in all of Asia is Shanghai. Perhaps my feelings emerge from its magical history as the international, polished jewel of China a century ago. Perhaps my cherished view of Shanghai reflects half of my legacy, as my mother and her family hail from Shanghai. In any case, it has more to do with it being a fascinating, almost over-wrought, urban metropolis that bespeaks the decadence, opulence, and gusto of modern China.
I travelled with my mother in 1993 throughout China including the greatest-hits tour of Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, and Xian. By the time I had finished my travels I became intensely appreciative of my home country, the United States, and foreswore a return trip to what I deemed a dusty, impoverished, and barren land. However, by 2002 when I returned to lecture in Shanghai I was floored at the transformation I witnessed. It was as if Sturgis, Michigan (sorry to my in-laws there) had become Chicago, Illinois over night.
I flew into the old airport that is reminiscent of one of the tiny airstrips in the Caribbean islands and flew out of one of the best, if not the best, airport in the entire world, Shanghai Pudong International. The old, dust-caked roads in 1993 gave way to superhighways that arced across the sky and linked every conceivable part of the city to another. The buildings that crowded the skyline were modern and distinct like a major U.S. city with a little less decorum, reflective of the nouveau riche status of China. I remember having a 4-dollar, one-hour foot massage followed by a luxurious French dinner in a restaurant called T8, dining on sweetbreads and foie gras. What a contrast!
After dinner I strolled through the cobblestoned streets that were fabricated to match Europe in a vibrant other worldly area called Xin Tiandi (literally new heaven and earth), partook of some Billie Holliday at a jazz club where the chanteuses sang in English, saw a music video being filmed with interracial couples embracing under a boom crane and was mystified at a McDonald’s version of Starbucks called McCafe. Shanghai is a must see if you are in the Far East even more than Beijing. It will stimulate you, shock you, and offer you a glimpse of the collision of cultures and tastes that is modern China.
Btw, if you haven’t read China Inc. by Ted Fishman, you should. It reveals a lot of the current commercial roots of how China is emerging as a world superpower and how it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.