One Way Ticket

We jumped on a tour in Singapore and are getting off this fast moving mega tourism train tomorrow in Penang at 9 AM. We anticipated tourism shock coming from the Maldives and it has happened. The newly built Asian cities with futuristic skyscrapers, transportation systems and with people stylishly dressed all contributed to a type of culture shock. It is as if we stepped off the present and into a futuristic world. Coming from a Midwestern comfort zone and navigating in cities with populations of a million or more which are orderly, clean, quiet, and which offer literally countless choices for dining and entertainment has been difficult. So being with a tour was necessary as some connection into this digitized other world has been needed. We have visited Singapore and the urban areas in Malaysia (Malaka, Kuala Lumpur and Penang). We heard about their histories, development and their efforts at creating a stable multicultural society. But a person would need to live and function for quite some time in one of these urban areas to really understand the complexities. So we come away with a feeling that yes we have visited, but really could not function there on our own, not without support. It would take a long time to understand these modern dynamic places.

There has been some success in building a multicultural unity and nationalism, especially in Singapore. They pride themselves on being a model to the world in how to do this and that it can be done. But the history also has told us that it took a break to build this sense of cohesiveness in Singapore. The history also told us about the successes and problems associated with colonialism.  So there have been many difficulties and continue to be difficulties in doing this, but not without some successes. There have been government sponsored billboards that we’ve seen emphasizing that education is the way to success. Our guides have told us about their free education systems and their free healthcare systems. The guides have been very positive about tolerance between the Muslim people and the Christian people and the Hindu people and a group of people that are mixtures. There is a sense that there is strength in diversity. Also, we have seen that the cities have been very clean. We have not seen graffiti nor large groups of homeless people. We cannot help but contrast this to what we have witnessed in American society. You can’t help but see the difference between our society and here.