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Greetings from Bangkok! It's monsoon season here and about once a day the sky opens up with a huge downpour. Every time this happens I'm hoping that the rain will dissipate the oppressive heat and humidity but it doesn't, it just makes the whole city into a big steam bath with boiling puddles of sketchy water everywhere.
I got here Friday and I've been dealing with jet lag.
The famous Thai Massage, billed as an antidote for fatigue, has been helpful and I had a 90 lb. Thai woman walking around on my back for large part of the hour-long massage.
Bangkok is one of the most polluted cities on earth. I took the requisite Tuk-tuk ride a few times and I think that will be enough. The Tuk-tuk is like an overgrown scooter, with a top on it and a bench in the back that can squeeze three people.
It's quite an experience to ride around in one, and you feel a bit like an emperor, that is until you get stuck behind a huge bus belching blue smoke and crowded with faces staring down at you.
It's not much better aside from the bus. Bangkok is one big traffic jam and with the heat and humidity sitting in the Tuk-tuk feels like you're cultivating cancer. Many drivers and pedestrians walk around with surgical masks on their faces.
The Tuk-tuk drivers can be, surprise, surprise, a less than honest lot. My first ride I got charged twice as much as I should (which was more of a case of me not wanting to haggle with the guy over what was essentially a dollar) and took me to the wrong temple. I was trying to the famous Wat Pho - home of the reclining Buddha, which is 151 feet high - and I wound up at Wat Saket. But this was great as well, the architecture is amazing, and they had a huge Buddha as well. I chilled with the monks as they prayed and I was the only tourist around.
Afterwards I walked around the courtyards and watched some kind woman plop down scoops of rice for all the stray dogs that occupied the courtyard and have a somewhat tense relationship with all the roosters (don't ask me about this combination).
The food here is incredible. My first night I had dinner across the street from my hotel at a place that was recommended to me. I was told to have the spicy crab soup and I ordered that, but, being hungry, and thinking that was just a bowl of soup, I also ordered a fish.
The soup turned out to be a gigantic stew with shelled crab in it. The broth was spicy, red and delicious but I was at a bit of a loss over how to eat the crab. Eventually the wait staff encouraged me to just eat it with my hands, which I did, and was then the source of amusement for them as I labored over the minutia of the task and dribbled spicy sauce down my chin.
The fish, something called (I'm not lying) sweatfish, was fried in garlic and delicious. Last night I ate at one of the seafood market places in town. You walk through an area where the seafood is on ice and pick out what you want. I was with a colleague and we ate squid, giant prawns, red snapper, fried noodles, steamed rice and sauteed vegetables. It was some spread and all delicious.
The guy I was dining with is a long-time journalist and is advising me on some of the countries I'm visiting. I particularly sought out his advise on Malaysia, where I arrive on Wednesday, and which has no real free press.
Some of you know that Project Syndicate is partially funded by the Open Society Institute, George Soros' vehicle to promote civil societies around the world.
Well, Soros is the near-daily whipping boy of Prime Minister Mahatir, one of the world's most vocal opponents of globalization. Recently the Far Eastern Economic Review broke a story that the website malaysiakini.com, the only voice that is critical of the government, receives money from Soros (which is only partially true).
The site might be shut down and the Editor, Steve Gan, has faced an enormous amount of criticism and pressure. So, I have meetings with the Editors of the few major papers out of Kuala Lumpur at the end of next week and how do I present myself and the press freedom I'm promoting with Soros' money?
Do I tell them about the connection and put it all on the table and then surely get shown immediately the door? Should I avoid bringing it up and hope that the strength of our contributors will hold their attention? I'll probably do that but it's not clear what would happen if in, say, several months it comes out that they've been publishing commentaries by a Soros-funded organization.
I have hopes that should that happen, it would hold up a mirror to the society because there is really nothing wrong with trying to promote a global debate (which is all that Project Syndicate tries to do) and perhaps scapegoating a global figure to cover up government mismanagement and authoritarian backwardness is wrong.
But, I'm concerned that I could hurt some journalist's career or bring a flood of negative attention to P.S. (or even myself). This is probably overblown but that's what we were chewing along with the squid.
