Infinite in All Directions

I have been on a whirlwind tour of South and Southeast Asia, some of it intentional, some of it unintentional. Within the span of 12 days, I will have visited Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Dhaka, Delhi and Singapore. Nine flights--two of them about 15 hours duration--and four addresses when all is said and done. Mix in a personal crisis and you have a recipe for complete and thorough exhaustion. While I wouldn't choose this particular pathway, I actually find exhaustion in some doses to be useful. It gives me a reality check on my willpower and stamina. It usually leads to strange but illuminating dreams. It's almost if my shields are stripped away and I'm forced to stare into a spiritual mirror.

As someone who likes to draw connections between seemingly unrelated items, I find Freeman Dyson's Infinite in All Directions particularly appealing. His preference for contradictions rather than clarity resonates with me. While I was in India heading to a workshop on digital preservation, my taxi was charged by a group of running bulls. My taxi driver navigated the situation brilliantly (I had the feeling he'd been through this before), but it still made me realize how odd it must be to focus on digital preservation in a country without clean water for all its citizens. Not exactly the running of the bulls that people seek in Pamplona--or on Wall Street.

I am struck, even dumbfounded, by how much so many people in Asia are trying to emulate Americans. I realize the US remains a dominant force in the world, but there's no denying that the lure of wealth rather than economic aid or military presence has driven this latest round of fascination. People throughout the region are trying so hard to speak, dress, and behave like Americans. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

There is a shiny skyscraper mall in Dhaka that features western retail shops and bright lights. Yet I experienced at least half a dozen power failures in my mother's house in Dhaka. My cousin told me that factories in Dhaka must run according to standards that include air conditioning, one restroom per four employees, an eight hour workday, and a cafeteria. All this so that one secure a contract with WalMart. Apparently, some factory workers rioted when they were served the same food for two consecutive meals. How soon we forget. There's bottled water everywhere which is great. Unless of course you can't afford bottled water in which case you're still dependent on local water supplies--that now may receive less attention given the proliferation of bottled water.

Mumbai is the seat of finance and entertainment in India yet it is still reeling from the horrific terrorist attack last year. My hotel had a metal detector at the entrance, my taxi was examined on the way into the hotel, and there was a guard on each floor. No matter how much everyone asked me in impeccable English if everything was perfect, it was disorienting to the say the least. Apparently, tourism is down in India, yet there's some evidence that high hotel rates rather than fear of terrorism is the main cause. Even now, it's important to maximize profit. Women working in hotels, with airlines, or in restaurants look like they've stepped out of Vogue yet in the newspaper, I read daily about at least two (reported) incidents of men brutally killing their wives for "disobeying" them.

Singapore is a testament to planning, discipline and commitment to society. No doubt that there are tradeoffs involved, particularly related to personal liberties, but I'd love to see an open, honest debate about how their society compares to the US (yes, I realize this debate would probably have to take place outside of Singapore). Yet even in Singapore there is concern that the global financial crisis might lead to "four to six years of recession" in a worst-case scenario. Strange. I don't read such honest assessments in the US press.

The US is a wonderful place in so many fundamental ways. But is it really the only pathway for the entire world to emulate? Do Asian societies really need their own equivalent of "Will it Blend?" How interesting to read articles that some in Asia now believe that the US has its own brand of "third world cronyism" protecting the financial sector.

Freeman Dyson stated: "If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed." Indeed. While he may have meant this from a scientific perspective, it's highly relevant to consider statement from our current economic lens. The finite set of equations that drove the current financial mess turned out to be nothing more than fantasy. But it seems that we're dealing with a worldwide hangover with very real effects.

Yet even before the economic meltdown, there were signs of doubt. Even with fast food spreading like a virus, there remains incredibly rich diverse local food. While the officials languages at India's national level are Hindi and English, there are dozens of state recognized languages and hundreds of local dialects. The jingle of bangles reminded me that local fashion trends still include Asian elements.

There is a discussion--and in many circles concern--about a global culture. The only global culture that would frighten me is one where Madison Avenue dictates how we behave and Wall Street allocates our resources. If we can have an exchange between different cultures as opposed to a monologue we might have a chance to turning a cacophony of voices into mellifluous harmony that celebrates the diversity of our world.

The world may be flat, but it is still definitely infinite in all directions.

A Taste of India

There are so many western influences in Japan, it's possible to forget at moments that I'm in Asia. I have heard from fellow Asians some resentment about Japan's alignment with the West, rather than the rest of Asia. The current G-8 Summit is a reminder of this tension. Perhaps hosting the conference in Japan will allow for greater emphasis on China and India. It's strange to imagine an economic consortium without explicit representation from China and India, or Brazil for that matter.

At one point during a trip between hotels, my taxi stopped in front of an Indian restaurant. Almost anyone of South Asian descent will know the moment. No matter our origins, no matter our self-perceptions, South Asians in these circumstances will often look at each other and smile. As if to acknowledge a bond that transcends national or cultural boundaries. Even the vast differences between Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis seem to disappear when we leave South Asia. I suppose we finally focus more on what is common, rather than what is different.

In this case, each of the people in the restaurant smiled and bowed slightly. One of them came up to the taxi and handed me a menu from the restaurant. I can't deny a certain comfort when I saw curry, naan, and mango lassi on the menu. He spoke to me in Japanese. When I said "thank you" in English, he must have realized I do not live in Tokyo. He made the leap to Hindi, which I also do not understand. I'm embarrassed enough not understanding Japanese, but I'm even more embarrassed not understanding Hindi (after all, my wife speaks it fairly fluently). I miss out on so much because of my poor language skills.

One language that does seem to transcend boundaries is business. I'm struck by the Asian business shows, with men in suits and ties, using the same jargon as the Wall Street pundits. It's a 24 hour a day obsession, spoken in the language of currency. It's difficult to translate English into Japanese, but it's easy to find out the latest conversion rate between the British pound and the Japanese yen. BBC Asian Business Report featured a story on malnutrition in India. The story focused on a young woman who mentioned that her four children are starving. They certainly looked that way. The report mentioned that malnutrition causes $29 billion of lost productivity in India, or nearly 4% of its GDP. India's long-term productivity might be adversely affected if "they can not tap properly into these human resources". We should feed these people only because they can contribute to the economy?

When did human misery and suffering become measured as an adverse impact on GDP?