Wireless access frustration

Why is it that when I try to log onto an unsecured wireless network, all the internet adapter does is cycle through the channels without connecting to the Internet? Having Googled this problem it is clear that I am not the only one with the problem (and none of the proposed solutions that I could affect worked). The network shows up as an available network. The adapter is a Netgear external card. When I try it with the internal Broadcom adapter, the network doesn't even show up. What is even more interesting is that M's laptop running Windows Vista has no problem connecting to the network. (I'm running XP and we're connecting to the hotel's wireless network.) Tried updating the firmware and drivers but that didn't produce the desired effect.

This happened to me in Bangkok and I ended up buying another network adapter which worked fine.

Update: When I got back to the US I tried the Netgear adapter and it worked fine as well so I have no idea what the problem could have been.

Bangkok

We were in Bangkok August 7 – August 16 and stayed at the Sathorn Gallery. This was a spacious 3-bedroom apartment but unfortunately was not quite what we had expected. In the past we had stayed at serviced apartments and this is not a serviced apartment. For instance, there were no laundry facilities and while there was a 6-place dining set provided, there were no cooking utensils.

The location however is excellent – near the Taling Pling restaurant where we got food almost daily and close enough to the Surasak Skytrain station. It was also walkable to Silom near Silom Village where we also at. The sidewalks were being repaired at the time on Thanon Pun which made navigating the street slightly difficult. There was also a Vietnamese restaurant on the street which we tried and found to be pretty good.

One thing I like about being in Bangkok is its convenience – tuk tuks are easy to get, as are taxis (which to foreigners are fairly affordable). Now with the Skytrain and the subway, I think it's even easier now to get around. There are also 7-11's and Family Marts almost at every corner and block (or so it appears) where we can get daily supplies – mainly water. There was a 7-11 around the corner from us on Sathorn and a Family Mart about half a block down on Pun. The things sold here aren't always marked up either – for instance, I went to Silom to a pharmacy (Watson's) to get some Vaseline lotion thinking it would be cheaper there but when I popped by the Family Mart, I found that I had overpaid by almost 15 baht.

Liquid chlorophyll

To drink! I saw a billboard for this in Penang. It's considered an anti-oxidant.

Coincidentally, I came across this article "Wheatgrass Juice and Folk Medicine" in the August 2008 Scientific American by Michael Sherman:

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition – thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not. ... On the other side are parents who noticed that shortly after having their children vaccinated autistic symptoms begin to appear. These anecdotal associations are so powerful that they cause people to ignore contrary evidence ...

Take wheatgrass juice ... if you can stomach it. The claims for its curative powers are bottomless.

While we're at this here are some other personal examples from my uncle who swears by the following:

1. Fruit wash when used on the skin can eliminate blemishes and acne.
2. The juices from discarded fruits and vegetable (when left to compost) is a very efficient cleaning agent (even for the skin).

Race and Ethnicity

Reading Rehman Rashid made me wonder what this term/phrase really means. It's on Census forms and various other official and school documents for K1 and K2. In the US I would fill in Asian and when working with public use data I've seen Filipino or even Malaysian as a race/ethnicity usually in the 'Other' category.

Curiously, in Malaysia where this question is always mandatory in all official forms (including religion!) I would have filled in Chinese. So race/ethnicity is relative to where we are, but does where we are define who we are, and does it also define who we are supposed to be as well what our roles are depending on where we are? Or is this question just another useless item on a questionnaire?

Pre-vacation trip reading

1. John Burdett (Bangkok 8, Bangkok Tattoo and Bangkok Haunts) – Enjoyable although less so with each subsequent novel. Burdett starts from gritty to weird to supernatural. I don't know about Thais but if I were one, I'd be insulted by his portrayal of Thai society – all cops are corrupt with the Army being worse than the police and all women in Bangkok are either prostitutes or are downtrodden maids. Men are either drug addicts or pimps and all farang are johns or of dubious character. Do Thai detectives really use regular and motorcycle taxis to get around? Burdett is either an astute observer of Thai society or has an inside track (probably the latter) – Thai society is extremely hierarchical though to the Western observer it is not entirely obvious. How long one wais to another signifies their rank in society, likewise in the way one person addresses another. One of the first things that Thais do when they meet each other is to try to determine who has seniority, theyby earning the honorific 'Pi'. Sometimes they try to do this discreetly by asking a friend of a friend or when all else fails, the direct method is used.

2. Mai Pen Rai means Never Mind by Carol Hollinger. Almost 50 years old, this book was still extremely enjoyable. Self-effacing and humorous, I get the impression that Carol Hollinger is not as helpless as she makes herself out to be – and this is true because as a farang in Bangkok who does not speak the language, she somehow manages to get a teaching job at Chulalongkorn University, drives herself all over Bangkok as well as goes on trips outside Bangkok without her husband while enjoying parties almost every weekend. She only devotes one chapter to raising her 7-year old daughter who was put into a British school and it almost seemed like her daughter spent more time in the company of maids and nannies than with her. I suppose this was what a liberated woman in the 60s was supposed to do.

3. Bangkok Days by Lawrence Osbourne. It's hard to tell how much of this dark travel writing is true but this book was more enjoyable than I had expected. It opened up a whole new view of Bangkok - drug addicts (ya ba), the seamier side of Klong Toey by the river where the slaughterhouses for poultry is, the relationship between Bangkok hi-so and their maids, Sukhumvit Road in a way that I would never have seen it.

4. Christopher Moore's Minor Wife. I picked this up on one of our trips and have only just gotten to it. Unlike Burdett, Moore's characters seem more real and gritty and depicts a harder, more scrabbled life of ordinary Thais (albeit from a farang view) than Burdett does. Burdett's characters and scenes seemed more air-brushed while Moore's are somewhat darker. His farang detective is more Sam Spade and at least the Thai police (while political and fight over jurisdiction), are not all corrupt or dishonest – just regular folks trying to do their jobs.

5. A Malaysian Journey by Rehman Rashid. This book brought back a lot of memories growing up although the author preceded me by 10 years. It also made me realized how sheltered and naïve I was growing up. Not surprisingly, a large chunk of the book deals with race relations and the New Economic Policy and the bumiputras. I am less optimistic than he is about race relations in Malaysia. This book cries for a sequel but does not appear to be in the offing.

What I hate most about Penang

I came upon this realization rather suddenly – the kiasu (literally "afraid to lose" or roughly, "mine is bigger than yours") attitude in Penang is just as prevalent and pervasive in Washington. And the traffic in Penang is worse than Washington. Egads!

Penang

After Phuket, we were in Penang from July 30 – Aug 7. Stayed at a condominium on Gurney Drive found via Holiday Lettings. It turned out to be a very well stocked place with a lot of movies to watch (I only got to see 3) and close to the Cold Storage in Gurney Plaza which was essential for groceries. In a spurt of environmental activism that surprised me – the shops in Gurney Plaza do not use plastic bags from Mondays through Thursdays so we either had to bring our own bags or carry our purchases. One could argue that this was no skin off their backs since these are the least busy days in the mall but it was the awareness and the desire to do something about it that surprised me. (We won't see this in Bangkok malls!)

The touristy things we did: Kek Lok Si, butterfly farm and batik factory up in Teluk Bahang. The butterfly farm was impressive – probably on par with the collection we sometimes see in Wheaton. The weather was very mild and it only rained one or two days while we were there. It was even cooler than in Washington. There was too much eating on this leg of the trip (as expected) – it has probably undone a year's worth of exercise and diet. (And the reason I started on exercise and diet was because of last year's trip!)

One meal we had was at the Hollywood Restaurant at Tanjung Bungah next to the another defunct restaurant (Sin Hai Keng? I forget the name now but the food there was much better than at Hollywood.) Sad to say, the beach fronting the restaurant has not gotten any cleaner. We used to play at a beach where the Spring Tide restaurant was and there used to be a large pipe that discharged effluents straight into the ocean. (The site is now a high rise condominium!) We used to think it was so cool to see a river of 'water' come into the beach and would stand near the pipe and let the 'water' wash over our feet!

The memory that I will probably have of this trip is sitting out on the balcony of the rental apartment and enjoying the view of the hills in Penang and the coastline of Tanjung Tokong with the cool breeze on my face – while brushing my teeth or having coffee.

One thing of note was that at McDonald's I saw three women – a Chinese, an Indian, and a Malay together – who seemed to be friends and I thought of Rehman Rashid's A Malaysian Journey.