My time away in Singapore certainly began with a bang. I arrived on Friday evening, settled in over the weekend, got some groceries, unpacked 3 suit cases and a big box, then packed for a departure on Monday. This was after a morning at work meeting my students for the first time. No time to register and get access to any of the office systems, but straight off to a workshop on Maritime Law Enforcement that was organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Kuching, Sarawak.
The clientele were about 60 officers from 5 Southeast Asian coastguards. It sounds tedious but was actually rather fun. I especially enjoyed being part of an inspection team going aboard a suspect vessel, and finding dodgy paperwork, 4 stowaways, three ill and possibly contagious, and the fourth carrying a bag of white powder. For me it was an eye-opener in how complicated all these procedures are, and how sticking to the letter of the law (in order to secure a conviction) makes things so difficult in a boat heaving about on the sea. (Ours wasn’t). The Trump administration’s approach is certainly simpler. Although the purposes were serious, it was fun all the same.
My lot christened themselves ‘Team Geoff’ in my honour and very solicitously made sure I didn’t fall down any hatchways, There was lots of socialising and good eating, but of course since this was official business in a Muslim country no booze. Here's me at the podium, not wandering around as I usually do.
However the foreign elder experts ( two ex-naval captains, one Spanish and one Colombian and me ) were recommended a restaurant in the city where we could satisfy any such cravings. It was excellent and so was the food. And then it was all over.
Except for me. I had arranged to stay on a couple of days as I wanted to redo Kuching which we had visited and much liked I guess about 20 years ago. It's supposed to have an association with cats and you see cat motifs all over the place,
statues, restaurant names, pictures etc etc. Staying on was a very good decision and I really enjoyed myself goggling at temples, doing all the museums, finding all the old colonial buildings left over from the extraordinary and amazingly enlightened times of the three famous British Rajahs called Brooks (whose family home I think was near Sheepstor in southern Dartmoor, as different as different could be) who ran the place until the Second World War. Quite a riposte to the all-pervading anti-Empire tropes of today. One price of this which, incidentally comes over very clearly wandering around the memorials in the Anglican cathedral in Singapore. Hardly any of them lived beyond 50, though I suppose that's partly because they would normally have gone back to the UK on retirement. Even so the poignancy is noticeable. Certainly to judge by many of the street names, the locals have no problem with their colonial past. How about this as the colonnade of the general post office. The only corinthian columns in Borneo.
The best of the museums was the ultramodern Borneo Cultures Museum which certainly had things to goggle at, like this carved head. Talking of heads, the remains of that of the so-called Niah Lady who had been formally buried in a cave with some rock art of boats an incredible 35,000 years ago was a real eye-opener. Still on the subject of heads, some of the locals were head-hunters, of course. One of the museum’s displays had 5 of them suspended from the roof of the replica ‘head house, ’ all blackened by the smoke of countless files, but still just about recognisable. I presume they were real !
Anyhow enough of Kuching. I have a big class for my elective, the biggest ever in fact. Here are some of them. All very keen and so far at least bright. Very varied, a senior Malaysian policeman, a Chinese naval officer, civil servants from Singapore, a contingent from India and a young lady from Honduras. Etc etc. The fees here are not negligible, so they must really want it ! Otherwise I have been settling back into the university routine, getting my residency permit that kind of thing.
Not that much sight-seeing so far. settling means getting supplies,doing my bit for King and country with some patriotic cheese,
setting out my work area etc. All outings for a purpose, but I have patronised my favoured locales, got some more tea from the Wang San Yang Tea Merchant, bought some books inevitably, pottered around antique shops and off to meetings in the British High Commission tomorrow. I managed to get a bit more sea-time with the Navy going out on one of the tank landing craft on a day reserved for naval families. I tried to find candles to light for Cherry but nothing doing at either of the Cathedrals or even the Armenian church.
Many of these outings do enable one to get little pleasures like coming across this charming mix of interwar shop-houses with what looks like a 1937 Art Deco cinema squashed in the middle.
But being right next to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, the natural tendency is to take the soft though usually very hot option of having a poke around there. You never know what you’ll spot. It might be working out why the denizens of the ponds are called red eared terrapins.
Last time I was looking a bit vaguely at a bunch of flowers but became aware of something big buzzing around and managed to get an excellent shot of the culprit hovering above a big flower before diving in so deep only a little bit of black bottom was visible. I am told it was a broad footed carpenter bee. He was about 4 centimetres long. Quite a sight !
No comments:
Post a Comment