Today I leave Singapore to head back home. I'm excited to stop in HK to see an old buddy, but even more excited to get back to JMP and EP, who despite this picture below was not able to join…
My mother-in-law asked JMP yesterday "so what's going on in Indonesia and Malaysia these days?" JMP cruised over to the Jakarta Post website and found this gem about 100 workers at an eyelash factory falling into a trance. So weird….
Once upon a time there were two small island countries with really high standards of living, really boring politics, and highly open financial sectors. Each of them had a pretty concentrated banking sector (one of them had three domestic private…
Some things that I’ve learned over the past couple of days. From the Department of Now I’ve Seen Everything: I saw a development by a company called “China Sonangol” today. That means that a Chinese subsidiary of the Angolan national…
When you look through the newspaper here, the most striking thing is how many ads you see for education-related things. "Tuition" services to help you kid pass his A-levels. "Twinning" programs to get you an Australian or British degree from…
Regular readers of Indolaysia will know that I really like bak kut teh, the porky soup whose name literally means “pork bone tea.” See here and here. I’ve decided that this is my favorite Singaporean food. On the recommendation of…
Singapore, as I've mentioned before, is really small, but it still has to cram into its territory all of the things that a regular country has. That includes a vacation spot, which a friend and I saw today. East Coast…
All of these serious blog posts have me worried that I’ve lost my sense of humor. So, herewith, some silly stuff. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was up in Tokyo telling Japanese people what to do yesterday. Among his suggestions…
A good friend of mine is currently in Bangkok doing some exploratory field research (he studies how politicians mobilize the poor). There was a point a couple months ago when we considered whether or not it would be possible for…
I participated in a small workshop today on contemporary issues in financial policy in Asia. I was the only political scientist there–the other participants were either academic economists or analysts affiliated with some of the big banks active around here…
