Asia on a Shoestring Budget

First Destination: Singapore

We finally arrived in Singapore after a long day for us. Up at 4.30am for a two-hour flight from Cairns to Brisbane, then a five hour wait at Brisbane airport. Then finally on our eight hour flight to Singapore. Poor Josh! But he was great and we had pretty good food and movies on the flight, and the scenery was really interesting. Flying along the coast of Australia, through the red centre, over Kakadu, Darwin and then the large Indonesian volcanoes before landing in Singapore.

Landing at 8pm gave us a fair indication that Singapore does not ever get colder than extremely hot! We were wearing our flight clothes (to minimize weight in bags we wore tramping boots, tramping pants, fleeces, etc) which was pretty intense! Josh loved the guards with guns at the airport and kept smiling and staring at them, so of course they started watching us pretty suspiciously. A first impression of Singapore is that it wasn’t as sterile and fancy as we expected, maybe because our hostel was in the outskirts of town. Although there sure are great efforts by the government to ensure a clean attractive city such as fulltime litter collectors,

sweepers, boatmen who fish out leaves from the river after rain, and roadworkers who only work late at night to avoid inconveniencing people. Another thing we realized quickly is that we needed regular food, water, sitting and air-con breaks (malls have all four). This is also a convenient place to stop in the very regular downpours which are intense and quite short. We look like pretty dumb tourists running around trying to get out of the rain, but it’s the one time of the day when you can actually breathe air that isn’t absolutely thick with moisture and heat (and body odour).

Our hostel was pretty great, spanning two blocks of open air building right by Little India. Singapore is an expensive city to stay in, we found that the cheapest hotel is $100 a night, and so our hostel seemed a bargain at $45. We have free wireless, breakfast, aircon (whew) and great staff. On our first day we got up at 7am and decided to go for a ‘stroll’ to look around. Bad decision! We started at Little India, through the central city until we finally met Chinatown. Getting back at 5pm after spending all day walking in the heat was extreme! Little India was full of Indians, curries, incense, Hindu temples, saris and men who wouldn’t stop staring even with Josh there the whole time. Chinatown is a large, busy place with markets, hawker stalls, huge Buddhist temples and lots of foot traffic. Arab St is a smaller ethnic precinct but with the large Sultan Mosque probably one of the best for photo opportunities.

We definitely think the highlight of Singapore is the food, most of it being Chinese, Malay or Indian. It’s pretty awesome to not have to cook anymore (or eat microwave dinners and noodles). We started with noodles for 80c for breakfast and then found my favourite food of all time (steamed pork buns) comes in 6 different flavours (including honey chicken and coffee!), and they are available in 7-11’s similar in popularity to our mince pies. Another great find is Yong Tau Foo, which is a Chinese soup where you choose at least 7 ingredients for 40c each (like fishballs, tomatoes, tofu, dumplings,etc) and they put them in a large soup with noodles. It’s a great cheap way of getting full. Food can be very expensive here as well, and fast food is similar in price to New Zealand, although KFC and McDonald’s have far less variety (but they do have McSpicy). Chinatown has great variety and they love fried chicken (of course, Josh is happy) and Little India has great Prata (naan served with gravy for 80c). The desserts here are very random, including Malay deserts such as coconut gelatins and many mango and papaya fruit dishes.

But the signature Singaporean desert is Ice Kachang which is shaved ice, syrup, …red beans and corn on top! (we didn’t know about the corn and beans til too late!) (The whole country is obsessed with corn; McDonald’s even sell it in cups!) Josh was almost sick after eating this but tried to keep going so we didn’t waste it! The amount of sugar in that thing must have been intense because we were so hyperactive after that and had a laughing fit for about an hour…

We tried not to spend much money in Singapore, seeing as it seems to be one of the most expensive Asian cities and we want to save our money for the rest of South East Asia, so we didn’t do any paid activities and walked most places. It was exciting going on our first ‘subway’ (or MRT here) between destinations, so fast and cheap. We went to the Botanical Gardens on one of our afternoons, which was a great refuge from this ‘country that’s a city’ place. Great variety of flowers, trees, and even turtles in ponds and we saw our first squirrel (cute). We went to Suntec Mall where there are four large towers surrounding the world’s largest fountain (only runs for one hour a day). This Mall/business centre also houses Singapore’s megachurch where Joseph Prince pastors (he is guest speaker at Hillsong conference this year) and we missed Hillsong United playing the day before we arrived. We spent our last night having a look at Singapore by night; the cbd lights, the merlion (crazy mermaid/lion cross waterfall statue), the river, the Singapore ‘eye’ and various amazing hotels along the waterfront.

So goodbye Singapore you crazy city/country/island/whatever and onto our next destination: Kuala Lumpur.

Made In China!

We can’t deny that a great number of our purchases are “Made In China”, but it is significantly more difficult to name a successful Chinese exporter.

That’s because few Chinese companies have invested in building a brand and the list of Chinese manufacturers whose names are familiar in the west is a pretty short one — Lenovo, Huawei, TCL and maybe a couple of carmarkers like Chery.

Apparently only 20% of Chinese exporters have their own brands and self-owned brands accounted for no more than 10% of total exports.

Consultants have long argue that Chinese manufacturers needs to move up the value chain and distance itself from the “pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” image that has worked well in the past but now risks backfiring on the country’s image because of trade disputes and recent product quality scares.

In particular, Chinese companies being urged to get out of subcontracting and focus on making their own branded products, because the profit margins in manufacturing for foreign brands are pretty slim. One apocryphal story has it that to buy its first Airbus 380, China had to export 800m shirts.

Quality is at the heart of brands and so fostering brands would undoubtedly help boost product quality, so helping allay growing concerns in the west about Chinese products. “China is seeking to turn from price competition to quality competition,” says Ai Feng, vice president of China Quality Association .

The importance of branding is now more widely recognised in China and at the highest levels. Last month at a national meeting on quality control, Premier Wen Jiabao called on domestic firms to improve product quality and build their own world-class brands.
China’s commerce ministry has stepped up efforts to promote brand strategy, mainly involving the improvement of the brand appraisal system, protection of IPRs and a brand promotion system.

Ultimately, China hopes that the “Created in China” label could be as common as “Made in China” is today. Wishful thinking?

Fuel Restrictions in Malaysia

Malaysia is to restrict fuel sales to foreign motorists on its borders in an attempt to curb the spiralling cost of government subsidies.Hundreds of Thai and Singaporean motorists cross the border every day to fill up on cheap petrol and diesel. The ban, due to take effect on Friday, will be lifted as soon as prices can be set at market level, officials said.

Malaysia has some of Asia’s lowest fuel prices due to high government subsidies.

“Taxpayers’ money is being used to subsidise petrol for those who are not entitled to receive the subsidy,” Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razik said.

“[Foreigners] should not take advantage of our subsidy scheme,” he added.

Subsidies are expected to cost the Malaysian government 45bn ringgit (US$ 14bn; £7bn) this year as oil prices rise worldwide. The government is considering a series of measures to address the problem of rising subsidies, including selling petrol and diesel at market prices.

Malaysia’s trade minister Shahrir Samad said other proposals included cash remunerations for Malaysian motorists and a distribution system involving identity cards.

Until the ban is lifted, those who break the new ruling could be fined or face a jail term.

“It’s a very harsh decision,” Alang Zari Ishak, president of a local petroleum dealers’ association, told the Associated Press News Agency. He added that the ban may affect tourism and relations with Malaysia’s neighbours.

The Indonesian government last week raised fuel prices by nearly 30%, prompting fears of widespread unrest.

Anti-US beef protest draws 100,000 South Koreans

A decision to resume importing U.S. beef by the South Korean government sparked a massive demonstration that shut down a 16 lane thoroughfare in the capital city of Seoul.South Korea had stopped all imports of beef from the U.S. after their 2003 outbreak of mad cow disease.

The protest, a candle-lit vigil of 100,000, was preceded by more than a week of other protests against President Lee Myung-bak, who has seen a drastic decline in his popularity.

College student Ju Ha-na, 24, who took part in a head-shaving ceremony in protest with 19 others said that it was not just the beef deal, but that the government is anti-working people.

President Lee last week apologized for ignoring public health concerns and promised to restore the ban if there was a fresh outbreak of mad cow disease.

Asia Hurt By Western Ageing Populations

The rapidly ageing population in the developed world could hurt Asian economies as precious funds are channelled to burgeoning pension budgets.How European countries and the United States especially respond to the challenges arising from their ageing populations will impact on the rest of the world including Asia, Richard Jackson, from the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies said.

“If the affluent economies fail to confront their own ageing challenge, the crisis could engulf the rest of the world,” Jackson told a forum on ageing organised by a Singapore think-tank, the Institute of Policy Studies.

“The course they choose will shape not only their own destinies but East Asia’s as well,” he said.

“East Asia may experience widespread capital shortages as funds are diverted from financing productive investments in Hong Kong and Singapore to financing pension deficits in Berlin and Washington.”

This would result in shrinking Asian exports to the developed economies which would lead to slower growth in Asia, Jackson said.

He told the forum the world cannot avoid the challenge of an ageing population, caused essentially by lower fertility rates and higher life expectancy.

“The world stands on the threshold of a great demographic revolution. It’s called global ageing and it is about to turn the world on its head,” he said.

“Over the next few decades, the rapid ageing of the developed world population will impose vast new costs on public budgets, bankrupting any government that fails to prepare.”

Failure to respond adequately would also have a huge impact on the global economy and the established world order, he said.

“It threatens to usher in widespread labour shortages and slower economic growth,” Jackson said.

“It could destabilise global financial markets and it may even overturn the geopolitical order.”

Jackson warned that time was running out for policymakers to deal with the issue.

“We can engage the challenge constructively or we can wait for the challenge to overtake us but we cannot avoid it,” he said.

The fallout from a failure to deal with a graying population could hurl the global financial markets into turmoil.

“Global ageing may also usher in an era of greater instability for world financial markets,” Jackson said.

“As retiring baby boomers begin cashing out assets, some economists predict that the markets will experience a great depreciation,” he said.

“At the same time, government borrowings to finance retirement benefits could wreak financial havoc, widening pension deficits could shatter regional economic and monetary unions like the EMU (European Monetary Union).”

Even the social impact could be grave as companies sought to fill the gap in labour shortages by importing workers.

“One way or another, businesses will be looking for ways to tap into the developing world’s surplus labour,” he said.

“If they can’t import the workers, they will export the jobs. Now make no mistake, the potential labour shortages are large.”

Jackson said this could lead to conflicts between countries competing to get the best workers as developed countries increased their intake of skilled migrants.

It also raised the prospect of “a new colonialism in which an ageing developed world siphons off the best educated and the most ambitious workers from younger developing countries,” he said.