Heavy Heart

So here I am back in San Ramon, tired and struggling with very mixed feelings. Goodbyes are so hard on the emotions and soul. Waved goodbye to YY and UJ from the taxi leaving Pandan Valley with a heavy heart, sad to leave kin yet again. And happy to see the girl-girl and Man and a Half after 17 sleepless hours on the plane. Singapore seems so busy, more than when we left seven or eight months ago. So much has changed since in such a short period of time. Who would have known the economy would suddenly buzz with so much activity, especially on the property front? It was with a big shock that I realized we may have missed out on having enough funds for us to retire because PV is going for en bloc. Life has so many unexpected turns and who knows which fork in the road to take? We take our chances and there should be no regrets but it is not always so...

I watched all the news and excitement with amazement, awe and also much fear for my tiny tiny and still very vulnerable country. Is Singapore pricing itself out of competitiveness again? Property prices are sky-rocketing but only for the desired locations and little has filtered down to the HDB heartland - is the dichotomy widening? Who ends up paying for all the windfalls benefiting the lucky minority in ageing condos and apartment blocks? Office rents are climbing because there is a "shortfall" of office space - when will this again become a reason for companies pulling out to go to cities with more affordable space? Who pays?

In all the optimism, I hear arguments from the media and all around that this is not a bubble, that this is for real and the government is smart and will ensure wealth will eventually cascade down to the heartlanders who form the backbone of the country. Singaporeans will always depend on the authorities to take care of things for them and will willingly/silently pay the high salaries "needed" to keep good people honest and happy to stay in power. The rationalization is already coming out on why we need to ratchet up the already high salaries of these good people - they deserve it because look at how well the economy is doing and how high the benchmark pay packets of the top earners have gone up? It is all so predictable how things work, the facade of open discussion and feedback so people think they have been engaged and consulted. Why was the proposal to benchmark civil service salaries to the growth of the poorest 20% of the population so the good people will work hard to keep the country progressing so easily ignored?

Optimism is good. Optimism is necessary to keep the markets humming and I am happy for my fellow countrymen who have this optimism. All of Asia seems to be very upbeat and it is infectious when you are there.

But I still worry. The last crisis was not so long ago and the heartlanders suffered much. Have we forgotten so fast? When will we pay more than lip service to building a gracious society, not just a fast growing one where people jostle just about everywhere and the roads are getting clogged? In India, I was conversing with an Indian manager who spent 6 years in Singapore and despite urgings from the authorities, gave up permanent residency to return to Chennai where despite the lower level of material comforts, he is much happier because democracy is for real and political debates are unfettered and unshackled. He was so glad to have a chance to talk to a Singaporean to reminisce but that was all - because he is never going back.

Maybe life is too slow in suburban US and I have lost the urgencies that makes a small city state in a hinterland of sometimes cranky much larger neighbours so vibrant. I am so torn. Where does our future lie?

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday, Ryan

Today is the birthday of my son. Please take time out to celebrate with daddy and Nic. When I come home, we will go out and paint the town red. Loving you, mom.

Hello Home

Yo, I am home. Trying to catch a nap because I came on the red-eye from India was patently unsuccessful and trying to call mom was also a misadventure. Is anybody awake yet? It is already 8:16 am... Come see me, please.

I have been sleeping badly last couple of days. Arrived India late Saturday night and only reached hotel after midnight. By the time I hit the sack, it was close to 1:00 am. Had to get up by 6:30 am because my colleagues had this strange notion of going for a hike up some fort on a hill. Sunday night was a bad one - got up at 2:30 am and could not go back to sleep. Jet lag is supposed to hit me going back to San Ramon, not this way! I was the only one of the three going to the Indian partner's office for a full day of meetings followed by a full night of meetings because the helpdesk work here is done at night to fit the US working hours. So yesterday was a very very long day. Got to bed only at 1:30 am again. This lack of sleep is going to kill me, I am sure.

Clearing customs at Hyderabad airport was a bit of an adventure. One of my colleagues, Ann, had brought an enormous amount of corporate gifts to give to the Indian team here and they weighed a tonne. Anyway, custom officials made her opened up the suitcases and were wanting us to pay duties. Long story short, we got away because the amount allowed between the three of us exceeded the value of the stuff. Ann had not prepared any proforma invoices so we were lucky to get away so easily. But in the hassle, we accidentally left Ann's computer bag behind with the customs. Poor Ann had to go all the way back to the airport to see if the bag could be found (and of course, she did). But it gave us such anxiety finding out we had lost the laptop when checking into the hotel.

Gotta run - another long night of work lies ahead. The car is picking us up at 4:30 pm (5 mins away). More later...

Miscellaneous Musings

It is deja vu - a stretch maybe but the scene repeats itself. I have a couple of hours to kill so here I am in the first class SIA lounge in my hometown blogging like I did just hours earlier in my namesake city, Hong Kong. I just had some awful cold chicken rice. I saw chicken rice when I went in search of nourishment after calling YY and GG (short for Gu Gu) and went a little beserk. So I scooped quite a few pieces of chicken on top of the rice and looked for ginger and chilli sauce. Alas, the serving lady said, no more. I thought, never mind, it is CHICKEN RICE what. Man, they tasted nothing like the chicken rice even in the humble neighbourhood hawker stall. SIA should be ashamed.

I looked in the Raffles Class lounge for my two colleagues but they don't seem to be there. And I wasn't looking all that hard :). Nice to have some time to myself because it can be tiresome having to talk all the time.

It is incredible when I think about it. That just two (maybe three - this timezone thing is hard on the brain) days ago, I was in downtown Houston at Benihana's having teppanyaki dinner with some colleagues after a hard day's work participating in a company IT conference. Here I am, halfway round the world, trying hard to get the cold chicken taste out of my mouth. Amazing, modern transportation and modern technology. In my children's time, it will be even more incredible. And who knows, in my grandchildren's time, mass transference may actually come to pass and people will be teleported around the globe in mins not hours. That's probably a stretch but a computer with less power than a modern desktop used to occupy a building less than a generation ago.

Did I mentioned that at that self-same IT conference on Day 1 (which was Tuesday), I won a Polaroid 5 megapixel digital camera? Man, I am picking up prizes these days. If only it was the US$370 million mega millions draw just won by two lucky persons, one of whom has yet to show up to claim his/her share. Still better something than nothing. So Nic will get to use the new camera and Ryan inherits YY's Sony that she passed to Nic. The sweet boy was just delighted about it, both for her and for himself.

I had a bath at the lounge in Hong Kong. I am very tempted to take one here in Singapore. But two baths within the space of 6 hours seem a bit excessive. Just like the feeling of tiredness being washed away...

Long Layover

I got off a 14 hour flight from SFO to HKG less than an hour ago. It wasn't such a bad flight - slept quite some hours even though it was not a comfortable sleep. Still on long hauls and I have had many, I always find some sleep is better than no sleep at all. Others debate this but everyone is made different.

Here I am in the SIA first class lounge with another 4 hours to my next flight which will take me to Singapore where I have another 4 hour layover. My two colleagues left already on the same plane and will be taking advantage of their 11-hour transit to do the free city tour. They tempted me to change flights but I figured I know my own country well enough and it is better to break the long transit so I can get some work done here in the lounge where there is internet connection.

I had packed the stuff meant for Singapore into a separate bag scheming that maybe during the 4-hour transit, I could persuade YY to come pick up the stuff from me. That way, I won't have to bring them all over India. And I could have done it, carrying that bag with me as hand luggage. Except for the bottles of Neway stuff - they won't pass security and I would be darned if I had to throw them away like I had to throw away my brand new tube of toothpaste at the Oakland airport just days earlier because it was too big to carry into the plane. The 5 bottles of Neway was way bigger than a couple of ounces so the bag is checked in all the way to Hyderabad. No matter. My scheming did not work, hee hee.

I wonder how I would fare in India. Will I be able to relax enough to work through two weeks of meetings and discussion or will jet lag get the better of me. I believe things will work out fine. Travelling west seems to take much less toil on the body than travelling east. Coming into Asia will be less torturous than going back to San Ramon when I am done with business. Strange how the body behave relative to the movement of the earth and sun.

It has been 6 months since I travelled. Compared to what I was doing before settling down in San Ramon, I had grown used to being sedentary. I miss my family already...

Cold Comfort

Here I am sitting in a Houston hotel room, feeling very cold. I tried adjusting the climate control and it does not seem to respond to any heat adjustment, only the fan level. I wanted to travel light so all I have to wear in the room are just a simple polo shirt and a pair of shorts. Even tucking myself under the covers of the bed was not much help. Brrr... and the lack of sleep last night is not helping either. Can't believe how lethargic I have been over the past couple of hours since checking in.

I miss having a maid help me with packing for my travels. Used to be I could rely on the maid to help ensure I had everything I needed for a trip - just picking out the clothes I would like to bring with me, depending on where I was going and how long I was going to be away. Guess it is also because I have not travelled in a while and had to psych myself up. Amazing how comfortable one can get with staying put and not worrying about visas, passport, what to wear, how to get to the airport, should I park there or should I book a shuttle or what?? And of course, I still have not unpacked all my clothes and when I critically examined my wardrobe, most of what I had were fairly dated. Brought Nic out shopping on Saturday and got ourselves: No clothes but we did get shoes, a pair each! But a short trip on Sunday to Stoneridge to pick up an eye remedy for Carynn was surprisingly fruitful - got a pair of pants and a shirt on sale. You know me, I would never buy at full price if I can help it.

I had been meaning to get pictures of the cherry blossoms (more than the single shot I posted for UJ's birthday) because by the time I get back from India and Singapore, they would be gone. So yesterday, I got out of the house after coming back from tennis at AVHG and took some. But they are on the home PC so I would have to put them up another day.