(Sustainable) Fishy Advice

Dining advice along the Atlantic seaboards.

Here's an amusing collection of silhouettes I received with my order from The Book Depository. Charming, informative, and green, the two bookmarks indicate fishes and marine life that should or should not be eaten according to the Marine Conservation Societies. Unsustainable fishing practices have threatened a number of species with extinction, but numerous tasty morsels still swim in our oceans or can be farmed. Bring on the mackerels and winkles. The Atlantic species are above (beware the Kraken!). The Pacific/Worldwide examples are below (beware the Kraken still!).

This is also my endorsement of the Book Depository, a great site for those looking to buy academic or literary material in Singapore. Free shipping.

What to eat when on the Pacific Rim.

US Politics via Singapore

Former House Speaker and Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich. Image via NewsOne.

For anyone who didn't believe the 2012 presidential election in the United States was charging full steam ahead in 2011, votes are now underway in the Republican presidential primary. The next round of voting happens in South Carolina on 21 January, and big money is being spent on behalf of candidates jockeying for the nomination. Some of it comes from Singapore.

The casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, the company behind the Marina Bay Sands "integrated resort" in Singapore, has put $5 million (£3.26m) of support behind Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. The billionaire's company faced dire economic times in 2008, but the company's gambling ventures here and elsewhere in Asia have proven massively profitable.

Adelson has been transparently active in both American and Israeli politics for several years, and he undoubtedly will not cap his political spending at just $5 million this year.

Ho Chi Minh City Traffic (Video)

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

As readers might know, one of the Passengers' favorite discoveries in Southeast Asia has been the walkable, optimistic, fast-changing Ho Chi Minh City. The automotive traffic in the former Saigon – dominated by small motorbikes – is emblematic of the vibrant urban life of modern Vietnam. The above video, as featured on The Dish, captures some of that energy. 

Queuing Up Trouble: Abercrombie & Fitch in Singapore

Abercrombie & Fitch chose a site close to a mosque for its Singapore store, but in the United States the company has faced allegations that it is hostile to observant Muslims.

American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is about to open its first store in Singapore in the shopping complex Knightsbridge on Orchard Road. Southeast Asians will soon be able to buy classy clothes from a store that has sold thongs and padded bikini tops to eight-year-olds. As an American, I have a longer acquaintance with the company, and I am not looking forward to having A&F return to my neighborhood. Singaporeans without such a history undoubtedly will queue up to breathe in Abercrombie's fiercely scented air, just as they did for H&M's opening in September just across the street (and continue to do shamelessly).

The store was announced in March, expanding A&F's Asian footprint after opening an outlet in Japan in 2009. From a webpage that pretty much reads like a reprint of Abercrombie's press release:

Abercrombie & Fitch, an Ohio-based Casual Luxury themed brand, promises to deliver the same ‘all-American’ experience – including the young, fun and good-looking ‘store models’ and the same merchandise that is found at its any other flagship stores around the world, reflecting their brand’s heritage, youth and sex appeal with a unique emphasis on quality and store experience.

“We think that South East Asia represents a great opportunity for the brand and Singapore makes a great fit,” said an A&F spokesperson. “Our launch in Singapore is answering an established enthusiasm for A&F, and giving our fan-base a place to go and live the brand.”

The "Casual Luxury" (read: overpriced) brand zealously guards and controls its image and store experience, starting with its opaque shop fronts that eschew the usual large window displays of available merchandise. The Knightsbridge outlet is no exception, placing oversized dark-wooden washboard shutters behind its windows. No doubt they will soon erect billboards overhead emblazoned with oversized black-and-white images of washboard abs. Full marks to Abercrombie for selling so much apparel without actually displaying any clothes. However, the "store models" and employees inside rarely match the dark panelling in the windows. Abercrombie unabashedly peddles a pernicious, privileged white-bread version of what they believe is "all-American," and it has repeatedly and unrepentantly given little consideration to any other members of a very diverse world, and they are now exporting that rigorously enforced look. 

Where to start? How about the minimum $40 million settlement the company agreed to pay in 2004 for denying jobs and promotions to blacks, Asians, and Latinos? In 2009 a UK employment tribunal ruled the company had unlawfully harassed a disabled law student born without her left arm and working in the flagship London store. Singaporean Muslims might want to know about the pending lawsuit of a twenty-year-old Muslim woman who allegedly lost her job at Hollister, a beach-themed Abercrombie spin-off, for wearing a hijab headscarf of the style seen throughout Southeast Asia. The suit was filed this year and adds to cases of the same kind already pending. Chinese Singaporeans will surely want to hear about T-shirts sensitively trading in racial stereotypes in 2002 ("Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make it White"). I want to know if the flagship shop will try to force low-wage shop workers in Singapore to buy and wear very expensive Abercrombie gear. In the US they had to settle yet another lawsuit alleging such practice. Good luck finding out the answers to these questions since in 2010 Abercrombie and Fitch provided "virtually zero" data on its behavior regarding "environment, climate change, human rights, employee relations, finance, governance, and philanthropy."

Some people in Singapore's diverse racial and religious mix end up will want "to go and live the brand," even if the company fails to offer dignified employment here. I am sure that the "brand’s heritage, youth and sex appeal" will attract plenty of business. But I want Singaporeans to know a little bit more about what that heritage is.

The corner location of Abercrombie's Singapore flagship store, soon to be plastered with young, (only?) white flesh. Image site.

NY Times edits Singapore

Marina Bay Sands "Integrated Resort" under construction in July 2010.

The New York Times gave Singapore the 36-hours treatment last week. The popular Travel-section feature summarizes tourism opportunities in locations near and far. I have especially liked the paper's write-ups of St Louis, Hong Kong, and Cork. I concur with the choices of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, the Wild Rocket/Wild Oats restaurant and bar atop Mt Emily, and the shopping experience along Haji Lane. Of course, any travel guide would be remiss not to mention the newly opened "integrated resort" (read: casino) Marina Bay Sands overlooking the Central Business District.

However, many of the other choices in the article seem poorly advised. High tea at the Raffles Hotel is an overpriced endeavor, and walking along Robertson Quay on a Sunday morning followed by a cycle tour sounds like a recipe for heat stroke. Also the Maxwell Road Food Centre has little to recommend it over other hawker centers besides it's proximity to Chinatown. Similarly the Ritz-Carlton Millenia doesn't seem like a terribly interesting hotel choice. Also "Orchard Street" needs to be corrected to read "Orchard Road."

The Big Day in the UK

We can only hope the event will be this festive.

There's a wedding happening today at Westminster Abbey. The Passengers will watch a bit of the ceremony from Changi Airport because we are flying to Thailand for a long weekend. Here in Singapore the royal occasion will be less of a morning event and more of a prime-time affair. The service starts at 6pm for us. Rest assured, Channel 5 will start coverage three hours early.

The video above is sponsored by T-Mobile. I was amused. Then, I had to confirm to myself that the setting was St Bartholomew's in Smithfield, a Romanesque Augustinian Abbey.

Of Men and Muppets

The new production of "Upstairs Downstairs" has arrived in the USA. Americans watched the previous version on PBS's "Masterpiece Theater," and it reminds me of a great cross-cultural moment shared in 2004 after Alistair Cooke passed away. Each of us tried to explain to the other what made him an endearing public figure.

Passenger H: Have you heard of him? Alistair Cooke used to always read the "Letter from America" on the BBC.
Passenger J: Alistair Cooke? You mean the "Masterpiece Theater" host?
H: Masterpiece wha--?
J: (in Cookie Monster voice) "Hello and welcome to 'Monsterpiece Theater.' I'm Alistair Cookie."
H: Is THAT why they called him Alistair Cookie?

I was reminded of the "Sesame Street" parody above by this week's New Yorker podcast.

Nonstop Time Lapse

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

Somebody, please put me on one of these time-lapse planes next time I have to cross the Pacific. Either that or get me a stasis pod.

Ai Weiwei: disappeared provocateur

Video from newyorker.com by Alison Klayman.

On or around 3 April 2011 the internationally known Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by authorities in his home country. Ai was seized at Beijing's airport, and the crackdown also ransacked his Beijing studio and also detained his artist wife Lu Qing and assistants, though they were released quickly. As of writing, the prolific multimedia artist remains missing, though a state news service briefly published a story that he is under investigation for "economic crimes." China's foreign ministry insists this has nothing to do with his previous activism.

Ai Weiwei proffering ceramic sunflower seeds in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. Image from the Guardian.

The artist, most recently known in Britain for his stunning exhibition of 100 million hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds spread across the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, has been an agent provocateur both inside and outside of China. His art is rarely overtly political, more playful actually, but he has spoken out frequently against injustice in his home country. 

The public nature of Ai's protests against police brutality and his recruitment of citizen activists to investigate shoddy construction standards in Sichuan province, where countless school buildings tragically crumbled in a 2008 earthquake, have made Ai's disappearance a prominent international incident. For more on the artist, his work, and his opinions, see the profile published by Evan Osnos in the New Yorker last year. The video at top shows images of the studio and a contentious confrontation with local police.

Examples from Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. Image from NY Times.

 Update (5 May 2011): The artist remains in detention, and Chinese authorities have said little else about his imprisonment. However, a series of Ai Weiwei sculptures can be seen outside the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, and they will be on display in the courtyard of Somerset House in Central London from 12 May. Several talks about the travails of artists working in China have been scheduled in conjunction with the London exhibition.

Long Beach Seafood

Mmmmm. Seafood.

 A couple of weeks ago the Passengers accompanied some out-of-town visitors to Long Beach, a seafood restaurant known especially for good chili crab. The dishes did not disappoint us, and the staff at the Dempsey location were very kind to the ten-year-old member of our party. He didn't much like seafood, but he was fascinated by the fish, crabs, and bivalves awaiting their fate in bubbling fish tanks. On the way out we were handed a brochure. Click on the image to see some of the delicacies served here. Some of you might find the dishes tempting; others might think them disturbing.

Fearless beauty queen: the logical accompaniment to fresh seafood.

The front of the brochure features an award-winning spokesmodel. I am not sure how Long Beach found a person who holds fresh shellfish with such poise, but I am certain that is why she was selected. She is listed as Ms Intercontinental and Ms Kimberly Anne Byers. Wikipedia says she won that title in 1994. It remains unclear how America's pageant winner landed a gig with Long Beach, but for some reason, the restaurant has not updated their promotional material since then, despite having opened several additional locations in the last fifteen years. Some of you might find their advertising tempting; others might think it disturbing.

Inculcating the Needy

 

Chinese New Year begins this week, and Singapore will enjoy what counts for a long public holiday (Thursday and Friday).  The Passengers are going to Lombok for some tropical relaxation in Indonesia.  We will be sure to put up a couple of pictures.

As in many cultures, new-year festivities are a chance for new and better beginnings. Chinese traditions associated with the lunar new year include spending time with family, carrying out a massive cleaning of the home, and giving to charity. We received the above solicitation for donations to the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society tucked inside our gas/electric/water bill from SP Services.

THKMS is a major good-works organization here. They run their own hospital and retirement homes.  We walked past one on Saturday while exploring the old Peranakan neighborhoods around East Coast Road. Donations to the charity are not only tax deductible, but the Inland Revenue of Singapore will automatically factor in the donation when they prepare your annual tax assessment.  Sometimes it helps to think of this island as a family business rather than a city-state.

Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society's appeal for donations.

Be sure to read the above appeal for donations written in English (Click the picture for a larger image.). It's a great example of written English as practiced in Singapore. It is generally technically correct, though occasionally a few articles and nouns get omitted where they would not be used in Chinese syntax. It reads very differently from copy written for British or American non-profits. Sometimes Chinese terms like "ancestor village" receive rather awkward direct translations. Other times older English usage has remained from colonial times: "Granny Yang is at peace too with her present lot..."

Keeping it Clean Online in Southeast Asia

MICA Minster Lui Tuck Yew. (Image: Straits Times)

The Minister of Information, Communications and the Arts in Singapore said today that the internet is too expansive for the Singaporean government to block viewers from accessing all undesirable content online.  However, internet service providers (ISPs) in Singapore are required by the MICA to exclude users from 100 websites as "a symbolic statement of our community's stand on harmful and undesirable content on the Internet."  The ministry uses censorship in pursuit of its rather milquetoast stated goals "to nurture, amongst Singaporeans, a deep passion for the country, and to inspire Singaporeans to explore, take pride in, and celebrate our identity."  Of course, these measures don't come close to censorship practices in China, where the government recently boasted that in 2010  they blocked 60,000 websites filled with obscenity and pornography, a category that includes political satire.

Men in Jakarta, Indonesia, checking their smartphones. (Image: Yahoo! News file photo)

In similar news, the majority Muslim nation of Indonesia announced today that it has won concessions from with the makers of Blackberry smartphones to keep pornography off the popular handheld devices.  The Communication and Information Technology Minister in that country has given Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion two weeks to placate the ministry.   The Minster baldly stated, "If in the next two weeks, RIM fails to comply with the order by January 21, we will revoke its permit." The encrypted and unfettered connectivity provided by RIM's addictive business gadget drew scrutiny in 2010 from Indonesia and the governments of Saudi Arabia, India, and the UAE.

Creepy Medical Advice – Singapore Turf Club

The cover.

An addition to yesterday's post about a day at the races. The racing schedule Punters' Way gives out lots of details about the horses and jockeys competing in the day's meeting. I can learn about the pedigree and past performance of a particular horse; I can see what color silks the jockeys will wear for a given race.  I can even find details of how to place a variety of bets, which is especially helpful to racing neophytes like me.

Creepy advert on the inside.

What I did not expect was the above advertisement offering me the kind of personal medical promises usually found in the Junk Mail folder of my Hotmail account. Those who would like to read the hilariously detailed and optimistic text can click on the picture for a larger view; I warn you that it is frankly worded but PG-13.  You will definitely learn about the Thai herb kwao krua. The Sean Connery of Celebrity Jeopardy! (video link) would definitely be interested.

Depressingly, the advert copy claims the product is available from real Singaporean chemists who sell lots of real, useful, scientifically valid medical products: Unity, Watsons, Mustafa.

Love Your Ride

Last year Singapore's Public Transport Council made a crazy music video encouraging a bit of courtesy from straphangers on buses and the MRT.  The new campaign stars the campy Dim Sum Dollies.

The "Love your ride!" catchphrase plays every time a train rolls into a station. That's a bit excessive.

Elections 2010: Don't trust Prefident Thomas Jefferfon

The United States holds its general 2010 election on Tuesday.  Many Americans will be greatly relieved to see the end of the campaign season and the endless string of television advertisements involved. The cacophony makes viewers suspect that even though TV was a twentieth-century invention, attack ads are a permanent fixture of American politics.  ReasonTV suggests such theories are not far off the mark.

"Signs, Signs, Everywhere the Signs"

New York's Penn Station is as charming and welcoming as it is navigable.  This diagram shows the Long Island Railroad platforms deep underground.  Passengers connecting from LIRR to a NJ Transit or Amtrak train should head for the shaded are at the top left.  However, this map doesn't show any doorways or stairs there.  Trust me, the building doesn't feel any simpler in practice.  Image from MTA website.

The online magazine Slate began a multi-part series this week on signs.  The articles focus on how people use signage to find their way around locations.  Author Julia Turner says that the great increase in travel, mostly by air, has spurred architects and planners to think carefully about how they direct people, many of them on a tight schedule and unfamiliar with the local language, to move to their desired destinations.  In some circumstances, like driving at speed down the highway, quality signs can be a matter of life and death.  

The mobility of the post-War era explains why signage has proliferated and improved, but to me the real interest is in how these systems are bettered.  Placards on the wall represent only one example of the indicators by which we navigate.  Humans can also sense environmental zones, which is why we go to a building's high-roofed multi-story lobby to look for the elevators.  That big lobby also serves as a mental centerpoint when walking around the rest of building, whether or not it is actually centrally positioned.  Also a sign can't help if it hangs in the wrong place or contains no relevant information.  This is why hospitals have big red exterior drive-thrus for patients needing emergency treatment and no banners and arrows outside for those visiting the dentist on the twelfth floor.  For these reasons specialists in directions do not refer to their craft as "sign-making" but "wayfinding."

Slate's series does more than satisfies my appetite for visual analysis, but it chooses New York and London as two of its test cases!  Why is Penn Station so confusing?  How can anyone get from A to B in London town without an A to Zed?  The Legible London project might make it possible.  Bonus: The pilot program(me) by the Mayor's office follows the incremental testing and rollout methods advocated by Michael Blastland in Analysis last week on BBC Radio 4.  Art, design, podcasts, Anglo, American  -- trifecta!  Did I mention I am not the mathematical one in this couple?

 

One of the Legible London signs on Oxford Street.  Image from wayfinding firm Applied Information Group (AIG).

Strategic Default Meme

Stuyvestant Town and Peter Cooper Village: another investment underwater.  Photos from the NY Times.

Here's the idea.  The American housing market has become so bad that many indebted homeowners, perhaps up to ten percent of all mortgage holders, are now shouldering a repayment schedule so onerous that they would be better off returning the keys to the bank and finding their family a nicer rental someplace else. If enough people wake up to this reality and act accordingly the feeble property market could enter another round of unrestrained blood letting. 

The theory has been bubbling away in a number of news sources.  I first read about it before Christmas thanks to Daniel Gross at Slate/The Big Money.  He cited the Wall Street Journal's forecasts that in 2009 one million Americans will stop making payments on properties that they could actually afford with a bit more budgeting or additional income.  Then Nudge author Richard M. Thaler opined on these same homeowners in the New York Times, exploring what behavioral norms prevented people from making a rational business decision not to throw good money after bad.  The Planet Money podcast from NPR chimed in on the matter last week, chatting with a property lawyer in Arizona.  When the idea finally landed in the business section of the New York Times yesterday, the meme was certainly off and running fast.

(Winter) Olympic Dreams

Professional blow-hard Stephen Colbert is ready to race.

Comedy Central's "right-wing" personality Stephen Colbert has thrown his weight behind the US speedskating team ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  For those outside the US and not aware of the Colbert Nation, Stephen plays a bloviating pundit who hosts a news/commentary show airing directly after Jon Stewart's "Daily Show," where he earned his comedy stripes. "The Colbert Report" (don't pronounce the t's) specializes in hyperventilating obscurantist diatribes à la televised rabble-rousers   Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, or Bill O'Reilly.  The mockery extends even to aesthetics with a set  laden with flags, eagles, and red-white-and-blue bunting -- all surrounding a huge desk in the shape of a "C."

Colbert manifests the sort of personality cult that accompanies such commentators by exhorting his followers to attach his name to whatever they can. Fans have responded. His nomenclature empire now includes a water beetle and the undetermined solution to a mathematical problem.  Most famously, loyal voters made "Colbert" the name for a new wing scheduled for installation on the International Space Station.  NASA balked and instead invented a COLBERT acronym for an exercise treadmill in the station. >>Follow the link below left to read on.

A Happy Journey

A short demonstration of Singaporean transportation, manners, and humor.  The MRT system shuttles thousands of people around the island everyday on three (soon to be four) efficient, safe, and air-conditioned subway lines.  Of course, nothing here is really very old so the niceties of daily commuting have not been firmly entrenched.  To help, LCD televisions in various stations play the music video posted above to instruct straphangers about how to behave on the train or the bus.  It's a funny example of the nanny-state chiding visible around Singapore, but I wish London or New York occasionally tried to encourage a few more public-transport pleasantries.

The advisement features the Singaporean television actor Gurmit Singh in his role as Phua Chu Kang of "PCK Pte Ltd."  His gold chain, creepy mole, bushy wig, and yellow gumboots distinguish him as a Chinese contractor on the make, an uneducated type called an "Ah Beng" in Singlish.  Good to know that contractors are well regarded the world over.  Phua Chu Kang also warned Singaporeans about SARS (YouTube link) in 2003.

Shophouse Living

The view from the entrance to the converted shophouse home featured in this week's "Great Homes & Destinations." The high ceilings, whirring fan, and indoor garden help moderate the tropical heat. Image from the New York Times.

The New York Times today shows off a domicile in Singapore in this week's "Great Homes" feature. The piece tells of two pretty young management consultants (jealous? me?) outfitting a classic shophouse with modern designs and local materials. The article taught me that Dahlia Gallery has great furniture offerings and that bespoke hardwood furniture is terribly cheap in Indonesia.

The shophouse facade; note the use of European-inspired plastered ornament. More images from the NYT article here.

Shophouses are an architectural distinctive of Southeast Asia. The houses are built as a series of narrow, contiguous properties. A shophouse is typically two or three stories tall with the ground level dedicated for commercial use and the upstairs given over to accommodation. The business level recedes from the street, creating a sheltered walkway along a row of adjacent shops. Most are ornamented with versions of classical pilasters, bold verticals against the horizontal structures, between the units or beside the shuttered windows. Often each house displays its own color scheme of contrasting colors, a convention that puts on display the riotous palette favored by the Peranakan merchants that prospered in this region.

Today as Singapore has urbanized, most shophouses have been converted to single-use buildings, either as high-end single-family homes or as locations dedicated to business. As houses they carry many of the romantic associations New Yorkers feel towards brownstones or San Franciscans do towards row houses. So shophouses can be hard to find at a reasonable price. The romance has also prompted commercial development of shophouses for upscale boutiques, like Club St/Ann Siang Hill. Unfortunately, ersatz shophouses - lined up, canopied over, and air-conditioned - form the main structures of the monstrous Clarke Quay development.

The shophouses along Club Street host arty shops, international fashion brands, swish offices, trendy restaurants, and even a few of the longstanding Chinese clan associations that gave the road its name. Leone Farbre has more photos on Flickr.

The strange canopies that allow visitors to Clarke Quay to experience air-conditioning whilst still outside. Image from the materials firm Macalloy's website.