Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Pre-Approved Straightjackets

Seeing how all of us are going to be doctors and earning an income in little more than three months, the university medical society organized a “Finance Evening 2008” tonight in case we don’t know what to do with all these money we’ll be making.

We gathered at the auditorium. A bunch of people in spiffy pin-striped suits took turn and gave us talks on the ins and outs of managing personal finances and services their companies offer. New words were being thrown around: salary packaging, superannuation, negative gearing, capital protected borrowing… I’ll have to look up these words later, but I did learn that, apparently, there are so many ways for these companies to minimize our taxes – and they are all legal. I’m listening, tell me more…

In the middle of their talks, almost every company told us about these pre-approved lines of credit up to $10,000 sitting there waiting for us as soon as we start working. And then there are car loans and 100% home loans. They are practically throwing money at us. I guess the credit crunch in the US has not come across the Pacific yet. Some may salivate at these “generous” offers, but, to me, each one of these pre-approved loans dangling in front of us looked like someone holding up a straightjacket, just waiting for us to turn around and put our arms through, then ziiiiiiip, we’re trapped for the next thirty years. I am already graduating with a bunch of mortgage-size student loans; the last thing I need is another loan on top of it, no matter how favorable the terms may appear to be.

So, no, I don’t need a new car, my little three-cylinder Daihatsu with 240,000 km on it will do just fine, until it dies. House? I’ll be okay living in my rented hovel as long as my net worth is in the red. No, I don’t need a line of credit either. Now, about that tax minimization…

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Beginning of the End

Yes, it’s the last rotation of medical school! But, sigh, it’s arguably also the toughest one – pediatrics. It’s like everything we learned in the last two years all rolled into one: internal medicine, surgery, psychiatry, emergency medicine, and all those subspecialties like nephrology, cardiology, radiology, and whatever-else-ology. I thought the O&G rotation was busy, but by the looks of it, this rotation is going to be full-on. Goodbye, weekends.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

In Retrospect: Bagan

I had never heard of Bagan until I went to Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma) in February, 2004. It is THE place that gave Myanmar the nickname “The Land of Pagodas”. With thousands of temples and pagodas in various styles and sizes built between the 1000s and the 1200s while it was the capital of the Burmese Empire, Bagan exuded an air of otherworldliness. I stayed in Bagan for four days and explored on a rented bicycle the maze of dirt tracks connecting many of the pagodas scattered throughout the plains. It would take someone with a degree in archeology and Burmese history to fully understand the different styles and significance of the pagodas. Content with a simple description and explanation from my Lonely Planet guidebook for the major pagodas, I just enjoyed the artistry of the architecture and the relative isolation of the place. Pagoda fatigue notwithstanding, I relished the moments of watching sunsets while perched atop one of the taller pagodas, enjoying the delicious local food at roadside restaurants, and talking with the locals at juice stands and at the riverbank.


Sunrise from one of the smaller pagodas near my guesthouse

From the top of Shwesandaw, the countless pagodas dotting the now parched plains came into view. The lush vegetation would return when the monsoon came later in the year.

With very little vehicular traffic around, the trishaw was a cheap and efficient way for people to get around.

Vendors hawked souvenir at the more popular pagodas.

Shrines like this one, scaled to the appropriate size, are always found inside the pagodas.

This little kid sat with us at dinner. He was wearing thanaka on his face like many children and women in Myanmar.

This lady at our guesthouse made thanaka by grinding a log of thanaka wood on a piece of stone. Thanaka is worn as a cosmetic, sunscreen, and skin conditioner mostly by women and children.

With the cooling sensation of the freshly applied thanaka on my face and the drafty longyi tied around my hips, I was now ready for the oppressive heat of the dry season.



Lacquer ware was a famous local craft.

When parched from riding around the dry dirt tracks, a glass of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice was all you’d need.

Goats grazed in the shadows of the Ananda Temple.


Workmen repairing a sign in front of one of the pagodas


Ananda Temple, like many of others here, was still being used by the locals as a place of worship.


The afternoon sun streamed through a window inside the Ananda Temple.

This gilded statue of Buddha received many offerings from the locals.






Dinner consisted of rice with little dishes of delicious Burmese curries.

Sunsets were always magical in a setting like this.




The lifeline for much of Myanmar, the Irrawaddy River is a place where people do their daily bathing and washing.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ride Up Mt. Coot-tha

After a few days of doing not much more than turning pages of a book – I am reading Three Worlds Gone Mad by Robert Young Pelton – I am getting really restless. The weather isn’t all that great, but I will have to go outside and do something.

So I hop on my bike and head toward Mt. Coot-tha, a hill just west of the city center. It’s a good climb to the top at about three hundred meters in elevation. I breeze through the familiar bike path along the Brisbane River, go through a couple of suburbs, and start the steady climb at the six-kilometer mark, according to my cycling computer. The climb isn’t that steep, just enough to make you aware that you are doing a good cardio workout. After six kilometers and a three-hundred meter climb, I reach the observation point with a nice view of Brisbane and the surrounding suburbs.

This is what the city of Brisbane looks like today:


This is what it looked like in February, 2003, when I came to Brisbane as a backpacker:


That’s quite a few more tall buildings just in the span of five years.

All that hard work to come up only means an exhilarating coast back down. The road, devoid of any cars, is all mine. I lean forward with hands just touching the brakes, and let gravity pull me along the surface of the road at speeds up to 55 kmph. In just a couple of minutes, I am at the bottom of the hill, back to where I started. And I continue on my leisurely ride home along the river.

What a good work out. Now that I’ve worked up an appetite, I can’t wait for dinner.

Tonight’s dinner: that old standby during my college days - rice, black beans, and salsa. Except this time, the rice is not instant rice, the beans are cooked and not out of a can, and the salsa is not from a jar – I made that yesterday.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Full Moon Cake

Around this time every year is the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Chinese culture. The exact date is the 15th of the eighth month – on the Chinese lunar calendar. So, just like Chinese New Year, that day shifts around every year, which means I have no idea when it is in any given year. All I know is that, for this year, the Festival has just passed. It still feels a little weird to have the Mid-Autumn Festival in the spring, but then again, it can’t be weirder than Christmas in the middle of summer.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, much like the Chinese New Year, is a time for families that have scattered all over the land to re-unite, feast together, and reinforce the familial bond. For families like ours in which one member of the family seems to move farther and farther away from home, that tradition has long ago died an unceremonious death, along with the family get-together during Chinese New Year, ancestral tomb sweeping during Qingming, and various other family activities that are, per tradition, spread throughout the lunar calendar year. Now we squeeze what activities we can into the couple of weeks every couple of years when my family actually gets together. During those couple of weeks, we’d make up for the reunions and family feasts we missed in the previous couple of years, visit the family grave plot, and do everything else completely out of season.

Okay, I am the guilty party in all of this. Whereas I used to be “only” at the other side of the country, now I am at the other side of the world from my family. My annual visits to my family are now taking place about every eighteen months. And now that, for several major reasons, I am planning on staying in Australia for good, we will have to make up for lost times every eighteen months or so. In the mean time, my mom will have to be content with my weekly phone calls.

Actually, the only reason I know that the Mid-Autumn Festival has passed was that, while picking up my ethnic grocery supplies at one of the Asian grocery stores in Chinatown today, I saw all those moon cakes on sale. I always have a soft spot for moon cakes, even though I can only eat about half of one before the sickly sweet cake becomes overwhelming.


This moon cake contains sweet red bean paste and a whole preserved duck egg yolk in the middle.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Whenever that was.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Nine Down, Just One More To Go

Yes, it’s done! The exams are over! Now I have a week off.

Hmm, I forgot to plan something for next week. I guess I’ll have to sit around, twiddle my thumbs, maybe read a book, have coffee with friends, do some bike riding, and generally do nothing.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

I want It Over Already!

The rotation is coming to an end. Exams for this rotation are going to be in the next two days. I am at a point where the more I try to study, the more my knowledge seems to get all mixed up. All I am getting now is diminishing returns for my efforts. So, I am finished with studying. I’m going to put on a movie. Come on, exams, do your worst!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

In Retrospect: Lhasa

When I spent a month in Tibet in 2003, it was during a period of relative peace when ethnic tension between the Han Chinese and Tibetans was at a lull. There were no major anniversaries of any uprising or suppression or riots. So tourists were allowed to roam around Lhasa unimpeded.

I flew in from Chengdu and, being at 3700 meters from sea level for the first time, immediate got altitude sickness. My head was pounding non-stop; I lost my appetite, and had to gasp for air even by walking from my hostel room to the toilet down the hall. Through the first night, I constantly woke up gasping for air. On the second day, it took me half a day to get out of bed. I had some food and felt a little better. I regained my appetite quickly and was able to walk around soon after that, but the headache persisted for a whole week.

Much of Lhasa consisted of the drab utilitarian buildings found in every other Chinese city. The Tibetan Quarter, with buildings bearing the characteristic white-washed walls and crimson trim, had now been reduced to an area clustered around the venerated Jokhang Temple. I went out on three separate trips to see other parts of Tibet and came back to Lhasa to wash, rest, and plan the next trip.


On the flight from Chengdu to Lhasa, the Himalayas below looked unnervingly close to the plane.

The Potala Palace, once the seat of Tibetan theocracy, is now a museum.

The Chinese made sure that everyone knew who was in charge.

The gilded roof of the Potala Palace shined in the sun.

The concrete square just in front of the Potala Palace

The ruins of the buildings just within the Palace compound was a reminder of the destruction carried out in the city in the last fifty years.

Looking out from top of the imposing Potala Palace

View of the White Palace


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Jokhang Temple was built in the seventh century by King Songtsan Gampo to celebrate his marriage to the Chinese princess Wencheng.

Flower pots on the windowsill

Vendors line the plaza in front of Jokhang Temple, with Potala Palace in the background.

The Dharma wheel flanked by two deer, the symbol of Tibetan Buddhism, is placed at the top of every temple.

Decoration on one of the bronze bells at the top of Jokhang Temple


Pilgrims come from all over the land to prostrate themselves in front of Jokhang Temple, often for hours at a time.

The worn-out padding used by a pilgrim for her prostrations

Pilgrims, and some tourists, waited in line to enter the main temple.

Thousands of lamps fueled by yak butter gave the air a buttery scent.

The kora around Jokhang Temple also served as a market that sold religious paraphernalia.

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Sera Monastery, one of three great university monasteries of Tibet, is situated in the outskirts of Lhasa.

Crimson-robed monks participating in debates

Solar power at its finest

Norbulinka, just a couple of kilometers down the road from the Potala Palace, was the summer residence of the Dalai Lama when he ruled Tibet.

One of the buildings in the Norbulinka compound and its neglected yard

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The front gate of this house near the Norbulinka hints at the wealth of its inhabitants.

Trunks for sale

Always circumambulate a temple counterclockwise, and spin the prayer wheels in the same direction.

Just taking a rest

Playing chess on the sidewalk

I saw outside an electronics store this advertising poster featuring none other than Arnold himself touting a machine to help students learn a foreign language. Hmm, did Arnold use it to learn English?

The sleeper bus I boarded to leave Tibet