Laowai

On the plane on my way out to Singapore for a week, I’m already conscious of absence. I’ve been to the Asian area something like 26 in the last two and a half years or so but it seems different to head out now. She was sleeping in the back seat soundly as I left, more soundly in fact than she seemed to do all night last night. That’s not true – she was actually pretty good, a fact I am thankful for since I really appreciated the sleep before a 26 hour flight.

Right now, her mental capacity is little different from a beloved pet, one you love to snuggle and occasionally curse for scratching your furniture or tracking in dirt. But leaving for a week and kissing her on her sleeping forehead, I realized that by the time I get back, I will have skipped out of 20% of her young life to deliver a sales management training to a pharmaceutical company in Singapore. Worth it? I guess only when I try to convince myself that this is how we pay for her 800 dollar stroller and eventually, some college somewhere or a semester studying abroad or whatever else she asks for as long as she never gets any strange piercings or tattoos. And I mean the part about the tattoos, Bea.

Last time I was in Singapore, it was about 80F and pleasantly humid. I’m sure it will be the same since it is about 80 miles north of the equator and two months closer to summer in the northern hemisphere. Last time I went for a run nearly every morning and probably packed 35 or 40 miles under my heels. This time, there should be even less work to get prepared in the evening and, except for a spurious teleconference or two, I should be more relaxed. I am vaguely hoping for a trip to the Botanic Garden or the Nature Preserve or maybe something cultural. Speaking of cultural, how can you beat a procession of thousands of pierced Indians, including one guy who dragged a cart with a person in it behind him with large metal rings hung through the pierced flesh in his back. Thaipusam, I think it was called.

So that was last time. What other cultural treasures await me?