Neutralizing the Proton

One of the cool things about living in Asia is getting to see models of cars that aren't sold in The States. In fact, not only do I see unfamiliar models, sometimes I encounter entire car companies I’ve never heard of.

In Malaysia, I started to see Proton cars. A lot of them, actually.

In 1983, Malaysia’s long-term Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad decided that rather than importing other countries’ cars, Malaysia should produce its own car. With a little technological help from Mitsubishi, the first Proton hit the streets of Malaysia in 1985. In just three years, the Proton car had managed to capture over 70% of the Malaysia car market.

But it wasn’t all just national pride. To ensure the success of its first national car, the government slapped steep tariffs on imports and simultaneously offered rebates and tax breaks for the Proton. The result was that the Proton was priced 30-60% cheaper than comparable imports. No wonder they cornered 70% of the market. Since then, the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement -of which Malaysia is now a member- stipulates that as of 2008, large trade barriers like tariffs and preferential discounts are not permissible. The tariffs are now down to 5% and Proton’s market share has dropped to just 30%.

So much for national pride.

But at least they still have that cool stylized tiger in its logo.

Adrift part 2 of 2

The first half of our ninety-minute rafting trip we had the river to ourselves. Then we made the mistake of taking a short rest. Sham had us pull over to a wide rocky shore. We saw that a previous visitor had stacked some of the smooth river rocks. It looked fun and challenging. It turned what could have been and should have been a five-minute rest into a twenty minute stop. This gave all the other rafters that were behind us a chance to catch up.

Kota Kinabalu and Borneo are a popular tour destination –especially for Chinese tourists. It is popular among Japanese and Koreans as well, but they mainly fly in for the cheap golf. Our Chinese river rafters weren’t quite as enamored with stone stacking as we were and only stopped for two or three minutes –which meant they shoved off at the same time we did.

The second half of our river rafting trip we were surrounded by rafts full of Chinese tourists.

I am not sure who started it. I suspect it was one of the good-natured guides from one of the other rafts. Those blonde heads proved to be too irresistible. He gave our raft a playful splash. Before long the Chinese tourists were in on the action. Big laughs all the way around –well, except from me. We found ourselves in the midst of a spontaneous game of “Splash Whitey.” I noticed none of them were splashing each other, just us.

“Elise, don’t splash back. You'll only encourage them.”

As a bonus, this also gave them an opportunity to try out their two or three English phrases. Splash. “Hello!” Splash. “Nice to meet you!” Splash.

Ya, nice to meet you too buddy.

Ah, a bucolic day on the Liuli River.

Anybody have a towel they can hand me?

Adrift part 1 of 2

Whenever we have a chance to get out of Hong Kong for a few days, we always try to strike a balance between down time and activity, culture and nature, fun and educational. Sorry girls, but there’s always going to be some hiking involved.

On our recent trip to Borneo, Malaysia, one of our crowd-pleasing activities was to go white-water rafting for the day. I thought we could handle a level 3-4 section of the river, but my wife convinced me that since this was our girls’ first time, the level 2-3 excursion would be wiser.

A ninety-minute van ride, we were at the launch site at the edge of the Kiulu River. Life jackets, helmets, and three minutes worth of instruction and we were ready to go. It was just the four of us and Sham our Malaysian river guide on our inflatable rubber river raft.

Sham was a perfect guide. He was funny, informative, and gave a great ride down the river. The girls kept yelling at me because I wasn’t paddling enough and helping to control the raft. What they didn’t realize was that our paddling was superfluous and simply for show. Sham had complete control of the raft. Girls, do you think it was just chance that we gently bumped into that big rock on the right side of the river, spun ninety degrees clockwise, dipped into a swell, got hit by a big slash that doused us on the left side of the raft, felt like we were about to tip –but didn’t- and then popped back out? Sham was in complete control the whole time.

Amongst the Graffiti

Graffiti Park in Downtown KK

Tagged

It’s a little tricky with a family in tow, but its nice when traveling to not overplan the trip and to leave a little room for spontaneity.

We got into Kota Kinabula late on Friday. We had activities in mind for Sunday, but Saturday was wide open. We slept in, spent some time mapping out the rest of the trip, and then spent the day wandering the city and getting familiar with KK.

We had just left the HSBC bank when we turned the corner and found what could only be described a graffiti park. It was an abandoned building that years earlier had burned down. All that was left of it was a series of square support columns. They had all been painted white and various people had added graffiti over the years.

It was quite the unexpected find right in the heart of downtown KK. Without consulting each other we all started to silently mill about and explore. We spent the next half an hour checking out all the mini-murals and photographing our favorite ones. It was pretty obvious that the artwork had been down by a wide variety of artists because the styles were so different from each other.

It would have been fun even if we had read about the graffiti park in a guide book and planned our visit, but it was a whole lot more fun serendipitously discovering it for ourselves.

KK

It takes a few inducements to convince people to leave behind their lives in the States or Australian and relocate to an international school in Asia. In addition to a salary and a housing allowance, it is pretty standard for international schools here to offer decent professional development stipends.

The biggest educational conference in the region is hosted every year by EARCOS (East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools). The four-day conference rotates its location among Bangkok, Manila, and Kota Kinabula in Malaysia. Considering the tropical locations, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the annual EARCOS conferences are pretty popular. This year, the conference was in Kota Kinabalu.

We went several days early in order to do a few things as a family. We stayed in a low-budget hotel in town so that we could afford to switch over midweek to the more upscale hotel where the conference was being held. For the last four days of our trip, Julie and the girls sat by the pool while I attended the conference. This gave the second half of our trip a decidedly different feel than our usual backpacking treks through Asia. I told the girls to enjoy it while it lasted because this was the first and last frou-frou vacation I would be taking them on.

We've Been Reviewed

Our blog was profiled by a site that reviews blogs that are about Hong Kong:

If there is a Norman Rockwell-type of American family, we might have found one in this HK blog. The blog, VANNOORD ADVENTURES, is by an American couple living in Hong Kong with their two young children. The expat bloggers, Jack and Julie VanNoord, are teachers in a Christian international school.

Like many wholesome subjects of Norman Rockwell's famous iconic Americana paintings, the picture-perfect VanNoord family is from America's heartland, the Midwest of the United States. Out of hundreds of HK blogs we've read, VANNOORD ADVENTURES is one of the most notable, family-oriented expat blogs we've come across. This blog is the embodiment of all that is good in some of America's core values -- a sense of fair play, respect for culture different from your own, always seeing the positive side of people, treating everyone as equals, and so on.

Mr. VanNoord has a good sense of humor and the writing in this blog puts Hong Kong and her people in a best possible light: safe, modern, efficient, inhabited by industrious people. Hong Kong is a shining city by the South China Sea to the VanNoords. Through VANNOORD ADVENTURES, a chronicle of an American family's experience and their "adventures" in HK, the mainland, and some Asian countries, readers are presented not only a Christian heartland Americans' perspective; but the perspective is illuminative, thoroughly positive, and at the same time, heart-warming.

Hong Kong Blogs Review highly recommends VanNoord Adventures.

To see the original review, go to http://www.hong-kong-blogs-review.com/Vannoord.php

Short Sabbatical

I will be out of Hong Kong for several days and will resume posting the end of March. Thanks for reading.

-Jack