The Jews of Singapore

On Friday morning I decided to visit the Jews of Singapore Museum, even though the website says you have to make a reservation three days in advance.  I wore my Magen David necklace and took my passport with me to the very secure entrance.  First the guard said I could not come in without a reservation and told me to go online to get one.  I told him I could not get a same day reservation but could I please get in.  He asked if I was Jewish.  Yes.  Then he asked for a copy of my passport.  Done.  Then he asked if I was a member of the Jewish community in New York.  (Maybe because my passport says I was born in New York?)  I told him I lived in California.  He asked if I was a member of the Jewish community in California.  I told him we didn't have much of one but I was.  (Okay, maybe that was a stretch.)  I recognized his accent and asked him in Hebrew if he was from Israel which of course he was.  I said (in Hebrew) I thought so from his accent.   And I got in.

It was an interesting one room museum with a kosher store and restaurant upstairs.  The display explained that the first Jews in Singapore were Baghdadi merchants trading in India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who just continued east.  Next, when the Europeans came, there were Jewish traders among them.  The community grew together somehow, but the museum did not explain how the Ashkenazim and Sephardim merged.  In fact, it referred to modern practice as Orthodox Sepherdi, a phrase I have never heard.

Much of the museum focused on the Japanese occupation during World War II.  Unlike Shanghai which was one of the few places in the world that took in European Jews during the Holocaust, by the 1940's, there was a long established Jewish community in Singapore and and while many left for Israel and the West after the war, many stayed.  The Japanese occupation was brutal but not particularly anti-Semitic.  If anything, the Chinese were treated worse than the Jews.  After the war, the Jewish community rebuilt and now has over 2,500 people.  Since Judaism is one of the ten official religions in Singapore, I was told that there is no anti-Semitism here.  Also, Singapore apparently has the only Jewish community in Southeast Asia.

I had a few questioand so I asked to talk to a docent, and I was referred to the Rabbi upstairs, interrupting him as he was writing his newsletter.  He happily (I think) answered all of my questions, mostly about how the Ashkenazi-Sephardi merger works and what Orthodox Sephardism is.  Much of Ashkenazi "practice" is cultural, I said; the Sephardim do not have bagels or gefilte fish.  He assured me that they all get along in one community and when I was still dubious, he invited me to Shabbat services and lunch as his guest so I could see an Ashkenaz-Sephardi service.

So the next day, I brought Peggy with me to the synagogue next door to the museum, but I forgot to bring my passport again.  Once again security asked us a lot of questions and I told him I was a guest of the rabbi.  So the guard dragged the rabbi out of services to verify me and we were allowed in.  Whew.  The synagogue is named Maghain Aboth, which I would spell (in English) Magen Avot.

The synagogue itself was familiar and mostly Sephardi: prayers led from a central bima, Sephardi cases for the Torahs. From their dress, hats, and tzitzit, many of the men look Ashkenazi.  I could sort of follow the service, but it was all chanted, not sung, so I did not recognize a single tune.  The sidur said on its cover that it was a Sephardi sidur.  Most mystifying to me: before and after the Torah reading was something that sorta looked like the priestly (cohanim) blessing.  Several men and boys went onto the front bima and covered themselves, including their heads and hands, under their large tallits.  The chanting, which seemed to be responsive with the congregation, went on for much longer than the three line priestly blessing that I know.  The rabbi did give a dvar torah after the torah reading.

A little digging turned up that about 180 of the Jews of Singapore are descended from the original Baghdadi Jews and the rest are Ashkenazi ex-pats who came much later.  So I am still wondering why the service seems so Sephardi.

After services, everyone went next door to the museum building and walked up five flights, or took the Shabbos elevator, to the dining room. Or should I say, banquet hall.  There was no herring and gefilte fish.  There was no buffet table with long lines of people who ran of the services fast to be first to the food.  Rather, there were elegantly set tables for ten or more with white tablecloths.  On each table were very sephardi looking appetizers - falafel, chopped salad, and something that looked like baba ganoush.  Waiters walked around with trays of cans of soda.  It was clear that this was going to be much more like a wedding reception - a long lunch with plated entrees and who knows how many courses.

I got the picture but did not want to sit for two hours at the awkward table where you don't know most of the guests.  So we left.  I still have a few questions but I was very impressed with the Jews of Singapore.

Singapore

On our last day of the cruise, we sailed down the Strait of Malacca from Banda Aceh and stopped at Malacca in Malaysia.  The Strait of Malacca is a 550 mile long narrow waterway between Sumatra (Indonesia) and Malaysia that turns out to be one of the world's most heavily trafficked shipping lanes, carrying three times as many ships as the Suez Canal.  Who knew?  It is the key link between the Middle East and East Asia.

Lying on a shipping route, Malaysia and Indonesia were trading posts for India, China, and other countries long before the Europeans finally arrived in the sixteenth century. Then the Europeans came and "claimed" the lands since no one lived there, fought wars over them, and traded them back and forth in various treaties related to wars in Europe.  First the Portuguese came to Malaysia but they somehow lost it to the Dutch, who had to cede it to the British after the Napoleonic wars. 

We took a walking tour of the historic part of Malacca starting at Red Square.  No, not that Red Square.  On the right is the Dutch Statehouse that was later used by the British.  There is, of course, a church and a clock tower as well as a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria.  We went to an interesting museum showing the history of Malacca, and walked the same route taken by Queen Elizabeth when she was here in 1948 and again several years later.

The next morning our cruise ended in Singapore, the city at the end of the Strait of Malacca, and which is one of the busiest ports and trading centers in the world.  We started with a walk through Chinatown and lunch at one of the 1,500 hawkers centres here.  I guess you could call a hawkers centre a food court on steroids.  Each centre has dozens of stalls serving every type of food.  The centre can be contained in one huge building or on one or more floors of a modern office building.

The next day I took a bike tour to get oriented to the city.  Singapore is surprisingly rideable despite being a huge, crowded city.  Seven million people live in Singapore but the city only allows one million cars.  If you want a car, you pay $150,000 for a permit to own a car for ten years.  When your name gets to the top of the list, you can then buy a car.  Ten years later, when the permit expires, someone else can buy a car and you have to apply again.  So not as much traffic as there could be.  Also, like Japan, everyone obeys the traffic laws and no one jaywalks, so riding here is pretty easy.  There are bike lanes all over but the coolest thing I saw:  a bike lane that went through a shopping center.

They claim that Singapore is the most diverse country in the world and I believe it.  The vast majority of the population is ethnic Chinese, but there are many Malaysians, Indians, and Europeans.  There are ten official religions and four official languages:  English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.  Government business is conducted and schools are taught in English.

What makes Singapore work:  authoritarianism and, if I believe what the guides have told me, total lack of corruption.  When Singapore became independent in 1965, the government decided to impose strict fines, jail time, and yes, caning, for various infractions.  Jaywalking, vaping, littering - each of these can cost you hundreds of dollars.  Groups of more than four teenagers being rowdy - jail time for disturbing the peace.  Protesting without a permit - jail time.  Meanwhile, the prime minister is paid like a chief executive of a company so he does not need to get rich on "gifts," bribes, and kickbacks.  His salary is $1.5 million.

Another interesting thing about Singapore is its commitment to remaining green even as it constructs more and more high rise buildings.  So each building must be green.  The architecture is imaginative.

Singapore's Gardens by the Bay has two huge greenhouses, one with flowers and one with over a million plants from every continent except Antarctica.  They also have a grove of eighteen Supertrees with elevated walkways.  At night we saw a beautiful sound and light show from under the Supertrees.  Then we walked to the Bay and saw an incredible sound, light, and water show unlike anything I have every seen.

On Friday afternoon, we took a walking tour called The Past, Present, and Future of Singapore.  And, of course, we saw the iconic sights of Singapore.

The Merlion - half fish, half lion.

A three tower hotel with a ship across the top that contains restaurants,
 an observation deck, and a swimming pool.

After the tour, we went to Lau Pa Sat, another hawker centre which Barbara Ullman had recommended, as did our guide.  He told us that at night, they close the street to cars and the hawkers set up grills to make satay.  We also followed the guide's advice and chose the stand with the longest line.  After fifteen minutes, we ordered and they took our money.  Then they gave us one of those beeper things and said "forty minutes."  Forty minutes?  Look at the other orders we have, they said.  They had our money so we waited.  It was worth it.

If you eat in a restaurant or cafe, they add a ten percent service charge which goes to the business, not the servers, and a ten percent tax.  And tourist restaurants are a little pricey.  But in a hawkers centre, it is hard to spend more than ten dollars for a meal and you can easily eat well for under five dollars.  (These prices are Singapore dollars which are about twenty percent less than US dollars.)  That is why there are over 1,500 hawker centres.  Everyone eats there.  Office buildings often have hawkers centres in them or nearby, and they are packed at lunchtime.

So one more afternoon in Chinatown for a little shopping and a last meal at a hawker centre, and the trip is over.  I will leave Singapore on Sunday morning at 10 AM and arrive in San Francisco on Sunday morning at 9 AM.  Go figure.

Waves

We have been sailing up the east side of Sumatra without setting foot on land there.  Rather, we have visited the small islands off the coast.  Several of these islands have small, rather isolated populations, but many are uninhabited with beautiful sandy beaches, coral reefs, and tropical fish.  Yesterday we stopped at Pulau Asok which is part of the Banyak Islands, and it had all of those things.   In the background you can see several other islands.

I have been on many islands in the Caribbean as well as Hawaii that have beautiful sandy beaches, but they also tend to have hotels, restaurants, roads, and lots of people.  It was amazing to be on a completely pristine, unspoiled island.  And we could see many more as we (sadly) sailed away.  Even more sadly, when we returned to the ship, we had to turn in our snorkel gear because we would not need it again.  

The reef was full of tropical fish:  angel fish, zebra fish, schools of baby fish, and a blue-green species I don't the name of.  We were warned not to touch the poisonous spiky starfish which is even more dangerous to reef life.  I don't touch anything when I snorkel, but I saw a beautiful sixteen armed something with bright blue/purple stripes on each arm.  I thought it might be an octopus, but it turns out that starfish can have more than five arms.  I was lucky enough to see (but not touch) a crown of thorns starfish.  Beautiful but deadly.

The next day we finally landed on Sumatra, visiting Banda Aceh, the city at the far northwest of Indonesia.  On the day after Christmas in 2004, there was a 9.2 Richter underwater earthquake off the coast of Aceh that did a lot of damage.  But the real damage came afterward when a tsunami devastated all of the coastlines of the Indian Ocean, killing over 200,000 people in fourteen countries.  Banda Aceh got the worst of the tsunami with waves over one hundred feet high only a few minutes after the earthquake since it was so close to the epicenter.

We visited the museum dedicated to the tsunami as well as a 2,600 ton boat that was torn from it mooring at the port and carried five kilometers inland by the waves.  The boat, which landed on and destroyed an entire neighborhood, has also been made into a museum.  Finally, we visited the central mosque which was the closest building to the sea to survive.  Clearly, a sign.

And that was our last stop in Indonesia.  After one more day at sea, we will stop at Malacca in Malaysia, and then arrive in Singapore.

Cruising

On Monday we stopped at Ujung Kulon National Park, a natural sanctuary for Asian wildlife.  The last population of seventy or so Javan rhinoceroses live in this park, but we were never going to see them.  If the rangers spot a rhino, they close off the entire area to all humans.  Monkeys (macaques) abound in the park, as well as wild pigs, bats, and a lot of birds.

We had a choice between a seven kilometer walk through the rain forest or a short two kilometer walk.  Unfortunately, it rained hard all morning.  Imagine that ... tropical rain in a tropical rain forest.  They postponed the landing for an hour and finally said that anyone who wanted to go could.  I had planned on the longer hike, but even two kilometers did not appeal in a pouring rain.  Besides, I figured the animals would be too smart to hang out in the rain.  So I missed my chance to see Ujung Kulon National Park.

Fortunately, the next day was clear when we went to see Krakatoa.  The eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883 was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.  It was also the loudest noise ever on earth.  It could be heard 5000 kilometers away, and anyone within sixty kilometers had their eardrums blown out.  The ash spread so far that there was global cooling for several years.

Krakatoa blew its top completely and most of the caldera is under the water, but a few small islands in a circular pattern show where the rim was.  In 1930, a new volcano poked out of the sea in the middle of the caldera.  It erupts frequently, so it continues to grow and is now three hundred meters high.  It is named, appropriately, Anat Krakatoa, which means "child of Krakatoa."

One of the things I have learned about Indonesia is that it is extremely fertile because volcanic soil is so rich.  But it takes a while for lava to become fertile soil.  Unlike the other nearby islands which are green and lush, Anat Krakatoa is mostly bare lava rock and pebbles, although you can see moss and lichen, and even a fern or two taking hold.  We climbed to the rim and had a view of the smoke coming out of Anat Krakatoa.

Walking to the crest on lava pebbles.  The other islands are tree covered.

It is hard to see the lichen, but a single fern is to the left of the gray area.

Overlooking Anat Krakatoa with steam coming out.

The next morning we were scheduled to visit Enggano but an expedition cruise can change the itinerary because?  Well, because.  They told us things had not gone well at Enganno before, so instead, we went to the nearby uninhabited island of Pulau Duo  We took the zodiacs to a pristine sandy beach where we went snorkeling over a coral reef.

More interesting facts about Indonesia:  it has somewhere between 13,000 and 18,000 islands, depending on how you count the sandy cays and rocky reefs that are submerged at high tide, and over 7,000 of the islands are uninhabited.  Indonesia also has eighteen percent of the coral reefs in the world.

From coral reefs to the tiny native village of Siberut to see traditional Mentawai culture.  Siberut is an island group of at least thirty three islands off the coast of Sumatra, but has a population of only 40,000.  We were led to believe that the Mentawai still practice traditional dance and medicine and they did demonstrate that for us, but aside from the demonstrators, every single person was wearing modern clothes.  They even demonstrated the traditional method of tattooing.

Crushing sago to make flour.  Just like making wine.

The shaman.  Notice the tattoos on his legs as well as chest and arms.

Another tattooed shaman.

The next day we visited another remote, local village on Pulau Nias.  This is also a small island off the coast of Sumatra but unlike Siberut, it has a population of nearly 900,000, and it is primarily Christian.  Go figure.  We saw another native dance festival, but this one was special enough that most of the local people came out to watch it as well.  The main show was the War Dance with over fifty warriors running at each other brandishing swords, stomping, and yelling.  The show climaxed with a few of the springier warriors vaulting over a seven foot stone barrier.

A family band

Houses shaped like boats

War dance

War dance

Traditional vaulting

This is a local fishing boat.  The long arms extended on both sides hold nets that can be lowered into the water.  They only fish at night and they shine lights from the extended poles.  The lights attract the fish and voila! The nets catch them.

Tomorrow we are off to another tropical beach for more reef snorkeling.

Borobudur and Prambanan

Our next long day excursion was to two "biggest" temples:  Borobudur and Prambanan.  Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world.  Like Mount Bromo volcano, it is located in the middle of a huge caldera surrounded by active volcanoes.  It was built in the eighth century but abandoned in the fourteenth century.  Why?  Because the population become Moslem?  Because the erupting volcanoes made it inaccessible?  And for that matter, why was the largest Buddhist temple in the world built in a fairly remote part of Java, a fairly remote island in Southeast Asia?  No one really knows.

Engravings on the walls

Our ship docked at Semarang, the capital and largest city in the Central Java province, and then we drove two hours south to Borobudur.  The temple is built on ten levels.  Yes, more stairs, uneven stone stairs no less.  On the lower levels there are intricate engravings that tell the story of Buddha's parents, his birth, his life, and more.  On the top levels are circles of stupas with one giant stupa in the middle.

Apparently this is one of the most visited places in Southeast Asia.  We saw many school groups and I struck up a conversation with one group of girls.  Their English was not very good, but it was much better than my Javanese.  They introduced themselves and asked my name.  I asked them how old they are (14) and they asked me how old I am (gasping audibly when I told them).  Then they quickly pulled up a translation program on their phones and asked me questions:  how long are you here?  what do you like about it?  I'm not sure they understood my answers.  They asked if they could take a picture with me, so I felt the need to reciprocate.

Another hour drive and we arrived at Prambanan which is the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia and the second largest in Southeast Asia after Ankhor Wat.  Unlike the single Buddhist temples, no matter how big, Hindu temple complexes seem much less organized with various buildings, platforms, and statues scattered around seemingly randomly.  Also, apparently Hinduism is a generic term that includes many different religious practices.  Some Hindus worship one god, some three, and some dozens.  Prambanan is dedicated to Brahma, the Creator (large tower in the middle), Vishnu, the Defender (tall tower on the left), and Shiva, the Destroyer (tall tower on the right).  Unlike most sites I have been to that restrict entry, you can enter all of these towers by climbing steep stone steps (no handrails, of course).  Inside each, in complete darkness is a statue of the god of that tower.  Like Borobudur, Prambanan was deserted in the fourteenth century and sadly, largely destroyed.  After its "discovery" in the nineteenth century, parts have been reconstructed but it is still surrounded by mountains of stones from other towers that were once here.

One interesting theory for why Borobudur and Prambanan were deserted in the fourteenth century is that when the population became largely Moslem, the Buddhists and Hindus left Java and went to Bali.  This explains not only the desertion but also why Bali itself is primarily Hindu and why the Hinduism practiced in Bali is so different from other types of Hinduism.  Indonesia is 87% Moslem, 10 % Christian, 2% Hindu, and less than 1% Buddhist.  Not coincidentally, Bali, which is predominantly Hindu, has approximately 1.5% of the population of Indonesia.  More interesting facts about Indonesia:  with a population of nearly 300,000,000, it is the fourth largest country in the world and the largest Moslem country in the world.  Fully half the population lives on Java, an island that is the same size as Cuba.

Tomorrow will be our last stop in Java, and then we will continue up the coast of Sumatra.

Mount Bromo

On our first day at sea, we stopped at Probolinggo on the southern tip of Java, and took a long excursion to Bromo Tengger Semeru  National Park.  The Park contains a huge caldera from a volcano 150,000 years ago.  Within the caldera are several smaller and newer volcanoes including Mount Bromo which is still active.

First we took tenders to the port, and then a one hour bus ride up the ridge of the caldera.  After a lunch accompanied by native dancing, a caravan of forty five jeeps took us up the even steeper road to the top of the ridge and then down into the caldera.  From there we walked about a mile across the black sand to the base of Mount Bromo.  Then we climbed.  Gently at first, increasingly steeper, and finally, up a few hundred stairs.  We had seen the smoke from the volcano from far away.  On the top, the smoke was intense and the smell of sulfur was almost overpowering.  Lava was bubbling in the volcano which we could clearly hear - it sounded like the roar of the ocean.  And occasionally, and a bubble of bright orange lava would burst through the smoke.

Starting the climb (stairs in the background)

Approaching the stairs

A toast at the top

After hiking back down, we drove an hour in the jeeps and another hour on the bus to arrive back to our ship, the Jacques Cartier.  This section of Java could not have looked more different from Bali.  There was no traffic (except for our caravan of jeeps), and no overcrowding.  We were back in Moslem Indonesia, so there were no more Hindu temples at each house, but there were several beautiful mosques.  And we could really see the countryside: dense forests interspersed with farmland on the steep sides of the mountain - sometimes in terraces and sometimes in rows that climbed the mountain.  The road was so steep that the houses were built like those in San Francisco.  I enjoyed the scenic drive.

Clarification:  I am not on a large cruise ship with excursions.  This is an expedition cruise with about 150 passengers and an staff of fifteen naturalists.  Some of the naturalists are generalists in ecology, but most have a specialty such as fish or insects or geology or culture.  Their combined knowledge is impressive.  Each day, the team leads everyone (unless you choose to remain onboard pretty much alone) on a single expedition, often to a place that is not accessible to most tour groups.  The expedition to Mount Bromo was a twelve hour day.  We had a restful day at sea today, and have another twelve hour expedition planned for tomorrow.   Most of the rest of the stops will not be at ports, so we will use the zodiac boats to go ashore.  We were also issued snorkeling equipment today so I guess that is on the schedule, too.  As an expedition cruise, the itinerary can be altered as conditions change.

Living in Bali

The popular vision of Bali as a lush, green paradise with beautiful beaches is, unfortunately, somewhat out of date.  A major problem has been created by overtourism as Bali became popular.  Rice paddies and every piece of bare land were developed.  Traffic clogs the few roads, creating gridlock and hours-long traffic jams.  Sadly, this was the view that I saw most often:

Not very scenic.  I can only imagine what Bali looked like before. 

But overtourism is only part of the story.  Indonesia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.  Its large income, primarily from oil, does not reach most of the people.  If there are laws, the authorities can easily be bought off, so development can occur anywhere with no oversight and no quality control.  Needless to say, the infrastructure is seriously lacking.  Unlike in Japan where there is no garbage anywhere, in Indonesia, there is garbage everywhere.  The accepted standard is to throw garbage on the ground or in the ocean.  The ocean carries garbage from nearby islands to the beaches of Bali.  Thus a typical beach looks like this:

So what is special about Bali?  The people really do seem to be kind and caring.  The reputation of the Balinese is that they are very welcoming and accepting.  I hear the surfing is great (when there is no garbage around).  And there really are Hindu temples everywhere.  People put out offerings at each temple every day as well as at their stores and businesses.  Our driver always had a fresh offering on the dashboard of the car every day.  I wasn't sure why, but people wrap statues and trees with a black and white checked cloth and put the offering in front of it.

I have seen "local" dance shows that are clearly put on for the tourists, but I also see ceremonies at the temples regularly.  I believe there is a core culture of belief, spirituality, and openness that it is hard for tourists to readily access, but comes across as kindness and warmth.  Again, I wish I could have seen it before.

There is one more thing about Bali ... it is incredibly cheap which is, I'm sure, part of the reason for overtourism.  At a local restaurant, dinner for five of us cost $15.  Even at more touristy restaurants, it was hard to spend more than $20 for a meal.  Our driver (and car) cost about $65 for a day.  Labor is really cheap here, so you can be treated royally for not a lot.  Although, you also get what you pay for as the quality of work here may not be up to our standards.

I had the opportunity to live rather uniquely in Bali.  The villa I stayed in for the first week was spectacular, and since it was in the north of the island, I did see a more uncrowded, somewhat rural landscape.  In the south, we stayed with Peggy's friend Ben who has lived here for twenty five years.  When he built his house near Balangan Beach, there were only open fields around him.  But now there are hotels and other houses surrounding his, and destroying the openness and view.  He used to find the inefficiency of life here the price to pay for living in paradise, but now is not sure that he is still in paradise.

Finally, I boarded a luxury cruise ship and was disoriented in the main lounge which has a mirrored ceiling.  So where is paradise?

Backyard and view from villa

Ben's house

Open patio, living room, and kitchen

Guest bedroom

Main lounge with mirrored ceiling

Finally, we visited one last temple on our last day in Bali.  Tanah Lot is built on an island that you can walk to at low tide, but is inaccessible at high tide.

And that was Bali.  One last drive through traffic to the cruise ship terminal and we are off to some other Indonesian islands.