Technology and its Impact in Asia

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The following is a copy of something I wrote for the Pacific Rim Conference on Literature and Rhetoric hosted by The University of Alaska Anchorage. For more information on the conference, you can go to: www.pacrimalaska.org

Technology and its Impact in Asia

Cambodia

As our plane made a nice long, low swoop over the Tonle Sap Lake before landing in Siem Reap in central Cambodia, the view from the window looked like Amazonia. A raging green forest floating on the largest lake of Indochina, a bird-watcher's paradise, an uncharted -or at least unblemished- jungle, a land of mystery. One of our destinations I had mapped out was to be in that wilderness, and I think, even from 4,000 feet, I recognized the temple at Kompong Phluk, a small island in the 'floating forest' inhabited by 2,000 people. A place with not one convenience store, not one television set, not one light bulb shining in one household.

But Cambodia wouldn't be like that, I thought. Cambodia is a 'hot' tourist destination right now, recently grabbing the honor of top ten "coolest places in the world to visit" by Lonely Planet. Even The New York Times recently published an article titled "Why is Everyone Going to Cambodia?" in their travel section, hailing the country as a cultural flash-point bursting at the seams with Indiana Jones-style exploration and traditional Khmer accommodation, a country on the rise that will turn stereotypes of the place on their heads. Technology must have made inroads into this small Southeast Asian nation, one would think.

After all, Cambodia opened its doors to tourism in 1994, roughly the same time as the advent of the Internet, the dot-com bubble, and Bill Gates' stardom; this awakening kingdom surely caught some of the spray from the technological typhoon that raged through the 1990's. Computers had been around for decades, cable and satellite TV old hat by now in 2006. One could expect at least the basics in terms of modern gizmo amenities.

Floating closer to the ground, we passed rice fields, water buffalo, and farmers in conical hats working the fields. Right next to the runway? It was time to de-board, and the balmy tropical air, after four months in Alaska, was enough to make me want to duck into a PC cafe to whip up a resume as soon as possible.

A webcam recorded our every facial twitch as we filled out our landing visa forms. The immigration officers, looking at their LCD monitors, watched our pixilated movements, and decided when to hit 'stop,' finalizing our digital entrances into Siem Reap, home to Angkor Wat, the Tonle Sap, and thousands of tourists exploring the world's newest trendy playground.

"Sir," I said the immigration officer. "I don't know the street name of my hotel."

He waved off the question. "It doesn't matter, the street doesn't have a name."

"What?" I stammered.

"Very few street names in Siem Reap. Your taxi driver will know the way to the hotel. Just write the hotel name, sir."

One of the first questions I asked the concierge at our hotel was "where is the nearest ATM machine?" He looked at his colleague and turned back to me, answering with a straight face, "I'm sorry, Sir, there are no ATM machines in Siem Reap." I had $400 in cash on me and the hotel accepted Mastercard, so I wasn't too worried; it was only a 5-day holiday in Cambodia, after all.

"Are there any ATM machines in Cambodia?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Yes," the concierge answered, beaming. "There is one in the capital, Phenom Penn."

"Yeah," chimed in a man with a thick, boozy British accent. "There is one in Phenom Penn, and there's a cue for it that winds around three city blocks. That line starts at 7am. Better get there early if you need some Yankee notes."

Cambodia prefers to use US dollars, it's own currency untradeable on international markets. No ATM machines, I could handle that. No street names? So what. But that evening, when we took a walk over to "Bar Street" -named only recently because of the explosion of pubs in the old French Quarter- we noticed another thing Siem Reap lacked -street lights. Astonishingly, my wife had a small flashlight in her purse, so we were able to make our way over to Bar Street without falling into the Siem Reap River -at least that had a name.

The Republic of China

Taiwan, the no.1 producer of semiconductors in the world, was barely visible through the fog as we landed in CKS airport. Those low clouds blocked what would have been a landscape smothered in wafer foundries, dashing with scooters, and buzzing with wi-fi, cellular phones and knock-off iPods. On exceptionally clear days, gleaming steel towers would have been casting shadows against a huge wall of jungle-covered mountains that stretch from Taipei all the way down to the island's southern tip in the Luzon Strait.

However even if the weather had been clear, we wouldn't have been able to see -let alone hear- even from a low elevation, the amplified sorrow of Taiwan's hysterical "professional wailers," or hao lu in Taiwanese. These cry-on-demand weepers (more often women than men but staffed by both sexes) are paid by families in mourning to plug microphones into concert-sized speakers more often associated with rockers like Van Halen and U2 to cry their hearts out at full force for hours on end (minus the occasional 5-minute cigarette break, when they come to a violent halt, their faces congealing instantaneously into relaxation and normality, and saunter off for a smoke).

However, instead of electrifying stadiums of screaming fans, these programmed emotional time-bombs express the grievances of families unaccustomed to displaying personal emotion, but who nonetheless need to let the neighbors know -beyond a shadow of doubt- -loud and clear- just how much they love their dear lost ones. Alas, the family maintains -even gains- "face" with the help of a little karaoke technology.

There an an estimated 15 million motorbike scooters in Taiwan, which means, mathematically, that two-thirds of the population drives one. Taipei intersections are so crammed with red light-running and gun-jumping idlers that changing lanes in a 4-wheeled vehicle becomes a precision skill more associated with F-16 fighter pilots.

Sidewalks are so clogged with "gee-chur" as they called in Mandarin, that reaching the street for a taxi requires what amounts to mountaineering skills. When my wife and I do board the taxi, I fear for our lives because our driver seems more concerned with the variety show playing on his dashboard-mounted DVD player than the raging sea of scooters and buses roaring by us. He laughs and smokes as he takes in the program, steering with his knees while he adjusts the volume as we barrel down a city block at nearly 70mph.

The Taiwanese blame the Japanese for the scooter problem, with the latter being accused of exploiting the former's lack of vehicle regulations (indeed, homemade jalopies spewing napalm clouds of smoke from bamboo tail pipes can often be spotted cutting off spanking new Mercedes S-class cruisers in downtown Taipei).

The absence of rules and general lax law enforcement in Taiwan results in hyper-crowded, wired-for-eruption computer markets bristling with cutting-edge PC's, laptops, digital cameras and monitors. The high-tech goods up for sale on one lane at the famed Guang-Hua market would be enough to make Bill Gates and Steve Jobs elbow each other out for room at a sales counter.

With its dazzling science parks, its vehicle-rammed streets, and its ozone of gamma-waves, Taiwan is such a technological powerhouse that its Asian neighbors probably weep with envy. Perhaps they should plug in some speakers and hire a few hao lu to cry for them.

Japan

Sitting at the top of the economic, cultural and technological food chain in Asia is Japan. Famous brand names such as SONY, Panasonic, JVC, Honda, Toyota, and Mitsubishi come to mind at once. According to news reports, Japanese scientists are developing robot dogs and cats that stop barking when you ask and never make dirty on the floor. If you get off the Tokyo subway in Shinjuku, the kaleidescope of billboards might even be more dazzling than those in Times Square. This must be the Asian country on the cutting edge of technology, a digitized wonderland, leader of the pack.

But upon closer inspection before leaving the underground train station at Shinjuku, something ever so subtle yet clearly incongruous with Japan's sleek image caught my eye. What I noticed was by no means limited to this particular subway station, but was evident in the facades of stores, the design of computerized pedestrian crossing signs, and in the flashing billboards lights: the 1980's.

During the 1980's Japan erupted as an economic and industrial superpower that was hot on the heals of the United States. Japanese cars were out-selling American autos, TV's, stereo's and a myriad of electronics from the Land of the Rising Sun were out-selling US brands. Japanese tycoons were buying up prime real estate like Rockefeller Center, golf courses in Hawaii (open only to Japanese men) and other US landmarks. The Japanese were poised to take over America, and it seemed we were powerless to stop it.

In that golden decade for Japan, when the NIKKEI stock index rose from 6,500 to 38,915, people built "stylish" apartment complexes and the cash-flushed government gave the streets and subway lines of Tokyo a "pretty" face-lift.

"What is it about this place?" I wondered. "Why does it seem so old school?" I asked myself. "Why do houses look like giant Atari game consoles? Why do the ticketing machines in the subways resemble large calculator watches? Why do office buildings look like stacks of massive rubix cubes? Why do the digital message signs in the subterranean stations seem more like Little League scoreboards? Is that a Commodore 64 I see over there? No, that's an electronic soap dispenser!"

Boom turned to bust in the 1990's, and very little has been updated or facelifted in a long time, so far as I could tell. Tokyo appeared mired in an aesthetic and technological 1980's timewarp that its little robot pets could not pull it out of.

One thing the Japanese are on the cutting edge of is music. There exist in Japan animated pop divas with hit songs sung by real female singers. But the word on the street is that nobody cares who the real songbirds are. All the guys are in love with the "face" and "voice" and "bod" of the cartoon babes. So many Japanese men are infatuated with these animated singers that entire stadiums are sold out for concerts where a giant screen drops down and a video is played -to full concert-level volume- of the virtual diva "rocking out." The crowd goes absolutely nuts as the prima donna superstar "struts" across the screen and "serenades" them. 35,000 ticket-buying men and women wave their glow-sticks, pump their fists, and shake their rumps to the sight and sound of their beloved animated musicians.

And so I say that Japan is ahead of the pack, musically speaking...

Conclusion

Cambodia is an unexplored "frontier" in terms of technology. Microsoft, Apple and SONY haven't left visible footprints in this lovely but impoverished country. Taiwan and Japan are more like brothers -brothers who pay hao lu to cry for them at funerals, brothers who pay to go to rock concerts together where they go wild to cartoon divas, brothers who take beautiful pictures with their digital cameras of magical Cambodia when they are on vacation.

And have a look at a new blog that I have titled Save Virachey National Park , which I am using to help raise funds for a major camera-trapping expedition to the remote Haling-Halang Mountain deep inside that park. Your help is greatly appreciated.

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Photos

Approaching Kompong Phluk
One of the first sights of Kompong Phluk, a village built on stilts because the water level in the Tonle Sap rises significantly with the changing seasons.

Poverty...and fun
No shoes, no real toys, not much for kids to in Kompong Phulk, but still happy, at least for a little while.

Cambodian countryside
En route from Siem Riep to The River of a Thousand Lingas (Kbal Spean).

Stone carving at Ta Prohn Tempel
Technologically advanced for its time -about a thousand years ago.

Kbal Spean
Sadly, many of the carvings have been hacked away by greedy theives.