Catholic Perspective of Religion in the East

My holiday to a strange land started on the aircraft flying from London to Doha, long before we touched the soil of Qatar. As I noted in an earlier blog entry, the menu on Qatar Airlines specifically advised us that our food was prepared according to Islamic principles and the big screen at the front of the cabin showed the direction to Mecca, in case anyone wished to pray in the correct way. Just before we landed in Qatar an announcement reminded us of the fasting requirement for Ramadan. On the return flight from Singapore to Qatar I sat beside a most friendly young man who inquired of the stewardess exactly when the discipline of fasting "dawn to dusk" would start to apply; she assured him that she would check with the captain (These things are tricky when you are flying in the dark across several time zones). One of the advantages of paying for the Premium service with Qatar is not just access to the executive lounges at airports, but separate prayer rooms for men and women. All this showed what happens when a society takes its religion seriously; all aspects of life reflect its influence and all businesses and institutions accommodate its practices.

The influence of Islam reaches far beyond its main population centres. In Bangkok's huge new airport, to judge from the architecture, you at first think that you have entered a temple of modernity and stark rationality. Yet among the five or six key direction signs at major junctions inside the airport you see "Muslim prayer room". Yet Thailand is allegedly 95% Buddhist! There is no suggestion of a facility where people of any faith other than Islam might want to pray quietly before a flight. Airports are places where people leave on journeys full of anxiety and sorrow; other airports provide generic "prayer rooms" for them to gather their thoughts and pray to face what lies ahead. You might blame this little example on an expansionist and intolerant Islam, but there are much more numerous signs everywhere in Bangkok of how vulnerable traditional societies and cultures are to Western modernity.

It is true that, as you walk from the aircraft to the Immigration area at the airport, you see huge replicas of the grotesque and gaudy demons which guard the gates at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in the city centre. But you cannot help feeling that this is merely lipservice to traditional Thai religion. So much of everyday life is Westernised and in implicit (and often explicit) contradiction to Buddhist practice: the hideous traffic congestion, the open prostitution, the movies at the multiplexes, the luxury malls full of exclusively Western technology, labels and goods, the immodest dress of so many of the young women. Huge billboards urge young people to learn English by enrolling at various language schools and thus improve their career prospects. Religion obviously plays an important role in some Thai lives; after such a brief visit I could not give any worthwhile estimate as to the percentage who fully participate in religious duties and believe in Buddhist precepts. But you know about the devastating impact of modernization on so many previously deeply devout Christian nations (Ireland, Holland, Italy, Spain etc) and it is difficult to see why the result should be any different for Buddhist societies in the long term - which may not be very long, given the ever increasing speed of cultural and technological transfers between countries. Obviously Bangkok is only one part of Thailand, but I cannot imagine provincial towns and villages escaping the same process a few years behind the capital.

You might want to blame someone for this corruption of Thai society and King Rama V could be a suitable fall guy - or at least a very telling example. He went to Oxford University in the 19th century and came home obviously besotted with Western culture and technology. Of course the late 19th century was almost the high watermark of Western European imperial expansion and military domination, before the rise of the USA and Russia. Dizzying economic progress, the amazing redevelopment of major cities like Paris and Berlin, industrial innovation and scientific discoveries all fuelled the impression of a future of continuous invention and limitless wealth. This scenario must have given many perceptive leaders from outside Europe the idea that the only way to survive in the future was to swallow the Western ways hook, line and sinker. They were hardly alone in being dazzled by this apparently overwhelming and unstoppable process. Much later, even in the 1930s, after a few little hiccups like WW1, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, George Orwell was having great fun mocking the fanatical British worshipers of "progress" and "science" who still refused to see any sinister side to reckless innovation and dumping traditional ways.

Rama V built a very handsome summer palace north of the traditionally Thai palace beside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The new summer palace is beautifully constructed from teak, with no nails, but its contents are so heavily western: china and glassware from England, France, Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Ireland, a typewriter from America (the first such machine to have Thai characters), a wine cooler from England, one of the earliest electric light systems in the country.....

Outbuildings at the palace house the collection of royal carriages - all made in Europe, the sort of horse-drawn landaus and closed carriages used by European monarchs and nobility in the early 20th century. The beautiful boats built in a uniquely Thai style for Royal transport on the river are housed in a museum elsewhere. The collection of Royal limousines naturally included Rolls-Royces, a Cadillac, BMWs and Mercedes.

Even more telling is the magnificent Throne Hall nearby. Surely such a building symbolises national sovereignty, traditions and identity, almost as much as the White House or Windsor Castle. I wandered around this wonderful structure with the odd feeling I had been here before. Of course I had - in St Peter's in Rome! The architect was Italian, the artists who painted Thai scenes on the huge domes were Italian, the flooring is Carrera marble by the ton, the floor plan is modeled on St Peter's. You can imagine the public uproar if George Bush commissioned a new Camp David which looked like a mosque, or Queen Elizabeth remodeled Buckingham Palace into something like a Hindu shrine. What does such a structure tell ordinary Thai people? That their best architects, craftsmen and artists are not good enough for the King's new prestige project? Why create such an important building in a totally alien style, which almost spits in the face of the country's majority religion? But Rama V got what he wanted; it cost him 15 million baht. It is difficult to give a present day equivalent price, but if you tried building it today you wouldn't have much change from US $100 million.

Hong Kong and Singapore are obviously subject to the same cultural influences as Thailand but somehow the everyday moral atmosphere feels healthier. The fact that both are largely British colonial constructions which have benefited hugely from applying the rule of law and protecting property rights is one obvious reason for their prosperity and low crime rates. I saw two beggars in four days in Hong Kong, and one of those was plainly a recent foreign arrival. I did not see a single beggar in three days in Singapore. You would see more in a ten minute walk round the centre of Reading. Apparently any indigent in Singapore is pressed in doing some sort of job, even if it is low-paid peddling. To my amazement, I was accosted by one lady of the night among the megamalls on Orchard Road, but she left me alone once I made it clear I was not interested in having a good time.... I was not approached once by any sex worker or pimp in Hong Kong.

Incidentally, I never give to beggars under any circumstances. A substantial number are basically charity collectors for the drugs barons. In the 1990s, I was burgled three times at two houses and had my car broken into twice. As 60 to 90 percent of crime in Britain is drugs related, it is a reasonable guess that 2 or 3 of these crimes against me were committed to fuel drug habits. So I have given more than generously to the drugs barons already. The ferocious Singapore attitude to drug abuse is therefore a major plus in my eyes. Before we landed at Singapore, passengers had to complete immigration forms. The first piece of information on Singapore, stamped in large red letters on this form, was that Singapore executes drugs dealers. So, Mr Drugs Dealer, you might consider moving on immediately to a country with a more relaxed attitude..... The taxi driver who took me from the airport in Singapore deplored this draconian punishment, but then he has not lived in a country like Britain where the drugs problem is utterly out of control.

The corrupting effect of drugs on all areas of society has all manner of unpleasant consequences, from beggars to crime to wholesale police corruption (drug lords can outbid any police salary anywhere in the world) and a section of the population being disabled from fruitful family life or employment and thus becoming useless parasites in prison, mental hospitals, on social security or on the streets. One perceptive British commentator suggested that drugs help to preserve the status quo by having a large number of citizens who are too doped or apathetic to arouse themselves to political or civil action. Thus it helps to shield visibly corrupt governments like Tony Blair's from the overwhelming wrath of an actively intelligent and informed electorate. No wonder that a country like Singapore, which is actively trying to encourage growth in the IQ of its population, would have such a merciless approach to drug abuse.

Still, I could not escape the thought that there is more to the unbelievable success of these two tiny societies than the favorable British legacy and intelligent government over several decades. There is a moral dimension to economic success, in everything from honest dealing and accounting to a hard work ethic. Has the visible Christian presence in both countries had a leavening effect on moral attitudes to sex and on the complex race relations politics in both cities? You cannot imagine any Christian or partly Christian country tolerating such vile and visible exploitation of young girls as I saw in Bangkok. Savage exploitation of many imported east European girls goes on in London, but out of the public gaze. I am not sure if the Bangkok police ignore the sex trade through apathy, lack of legal powers, warped work priorities or honest-to-God corruption, but it is a most unsavory sight which would not survive five minutes in Hong Kong or Singapore. Singapore used to have a hair-raising sex scene back in the 1960s, not far from my hotel. One journalist wrote: "Purple mascara, make-up an inch thick, skirts slashed to the waist...and that was just the blokes. You should see what the girls were wearing." That scene, like the corrupt Hong Kong cops of the 1950s and 1960s, has been wiped away. So it is possible to turn things around, as Guiliani did in New York's Times Square. There are heroic Christian missionaries in Bangkok, working with the desperately poor and exploited, but they are a tiny minority. You can only hope for a huge expansion of a more Christian approach to the weakest in Thai society.

Buddhas, Battles and Birds

Easily the biggest surprise of my trip is the revelation of how beautiful is Hong Kong. I am not referring to the dazzling illumination of the skyscrapers on either side of the harbour, or the stunning modern architecture. A few miles from the airport a bus carries up into the hills en route to a Buddhist shrine with an enormous seated Buddha statue over 100 feet tall. The scenery on the way rivals anything you see in the Pyrenees or the Alps, albeit on a smaller scale and much more verdant with subtropical vegetation. The road is even scarier than alpine hairpin benders, though the drivers are very cautious and considerate to other road users - you never feel in any danger.

The shrine itself reminds you how early Catholic missionaries thought that Buddhism was a corrupt form of Catholicism left over from earlier, forgotten missionary efforts. The burning of incense sticks in large pots looked eerily similar to the burning of candles at Lourdes and similar shrines. The explanatory text at the shrine described the importance of such statues as a visible witness to the Buddhist message - Buddhism is a religion of "image", which stirs memories of Protestant accusations of "idolatory" levelled at Catholics, and the Orthodox emphasis on icons and the need to keep the depictions of Christ, Mary and the saints unchanged down the centuries. At the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, a shrine to the Merciful Mother (surrounded by numerous supplicants) again aroused memories of the cult of Mary.

Now that I'm in Singapore you would think this highly populated little island had no space for wildlife or the plants that support all life on earth. But natural beauty is all around here. Even in the crowded Little India district, I was delighted to see a totally unfamiliar bird on top of a shopfront. In Fort Canning Park, a short walk from the mega-malls of Orchard Road where I am typing this email, you are surrounded by beautiful, unfamiliar trees, birds, birdsong, butterflies.... I probably won't have time to see the thousands of birds at Jurong Bird Park, the 250 acre Zoological gardens, the Botanical Gardens, the Orchid farm, the wetlands sanctuary.....

I have been round the Singapore Historical Museum on the north-east side of Fort Canning Park. The Museum is a wonderful example of redesigning and reinterpreting a traditional mueum's functions in telling past stories. Elaborate audio-visual displays and an excellent audio guide make for a fascinating visit. Fort Canning's very name reminds you of its recent military history. I have wanted to visit Singapore for over 35 years, since I read "The Battle for Singapore", which described Britain's "worst ever military defeat" in 1942. At least that's how it has been described countless times, though you could make the case that some WW1 battles or earlier strategic reverses, such as losing all British possessions in France, were even more catastrophic. Still, February 15th, 1942 was plenty bad enough and the "Battle Box" exhibition in Fort Canning Park describes that day in blow-by-blow detail. The "Battle Box" is the underground bunker where British generals directed the losing battles for Malaya and Singapore. It has been expertly restored with WW2 equipment, furnishings, sound effects and Tussaud-quality effigies of General Percival, General Bennett and several other key players in the debacle.

The weather is tropical, as you might expect, though the evening breezes make it pleasant and the early morning weather is walkable. But come midday to 2pm and you are reminded of Noel Coward's song:

"In the mangrove swamps
Where the python romps
There's peace from twelve to two.
Even Cariboos
Lie around and snooze.
For there's nothing else to do.
In Bengal
To move at all
Is seldom, if ever, done,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun"

Hong Kong: Which way is Mecca?

I'm writing this in the cafe at the top of the Peak on the East side of HK. A tram climbs The Peak at an amazing angle. It is one of the many interesting forms of transport I've used in the last week. The holiday started with Qatar Airlines flying to Bangkok via Dohar. I had never flown with an Arab airline before, so had never enjoyed airline food prepared in accordance with Islamic principles, as the menu assured me. The screen at the front of the cabin were not just for safety announcements and in-flight movies (the little individual screen for each passenger showed you Superman 3). The big screen showed the plane's position, distance from destination and (most important) orientation relative to Mecca. For a large part of the flight the arrow was set roughly at the 1 o'clock position relative to the axis of the fuselage. But as we approached Doha, Mecca drops away to the South-West and the arrow swung round to roughly five o'clock. As we landed the announcements reminded us of the Ramadan fasting regulations. You knew we were not in Kansas now, as was observed in the Wizard of Oz.

We flew Emirate Airlines to Hong Kong, and they were not so emphatic on Islamic observance Emirates have huge expansion plans and are by far the biggest customer for the A380 super-Jumbo. But the menu still claimed that meals were prepared in accordance with Hallal guidelines.

Bangkok offers the joys of Skytrain travel; quick, smooth, air-conditioned and dodges the city's horrendous traffic jams. Also, unlike other cities' metro systems, you get a wonderful view of the city. The tuk-tuk tricycle taxis are noisy, nimble and great fun if you ignore the fact that they offer as much crash protection as a wet paper bag. But they are very cheap and turn in incredibly tight spaces. The river buses are ridiculously cheap (13 to 18 baht, around 20 to 27 British pence or 40 to 55 US cents) and offer easy access to many of the main tourist spots along the river. There are over 30 numbered landing stages (jump on and off quickly, as with London buses!!) and numerous "routes" link these stages in very confusing combinations indicated by the coloured flags they fly. At least it was confusing to me, not the locals.

Hong Kong has the best metro system I have seen anywhere; immaculately clean, frequent, reliable, with the simplest, clearest route information you could wish for. To take one example: a large panel on the wall of each carriage shows the whole metro network. The route your train is on is indicated by having each of the stations on that route illuminated by a steady light. The next station to which the train is heading is indicated by a flashing light and a green arrow indicates the train's position and travel direction. As if this were not enough, announcements of "next station" and other information are in Chinese and English. Of course, if you're French, German, Russian, Brasilian etc - Learn English Or Die!!

The Hong Kong people love their double decker buses; there seem to be more here than in London. Nathan Road, the main artery in Kowloon, is packed with convoys of them. And what magnificent beasts: triple-axle monsters, much bigger than the puny British twin-axle double deckers. You see why they need three axles; depending on the exact model they carry up to 143 passengers (104 seats, 39 standing). Of course, between their huge diesel engines and industrial-strength air-condiotioning, they throw out terrific heat, which makes summer time even hotter on local roads.

Feed Me - In Hong Kong

Neville Shute in his novel "A Town like Alice" commented that "It is amazing how little difficulty an unknown language makes between a willing buyer and a willing seller". Thank God this is universally true, as otherwise I would probably have starved to death by now. My hotel in Hong Kong, unlike that in Bangkok, does not offer breakfast so I had to go looking in nearby streets. Despite Hong Kong being saturated with eating places of just about every nation on earth, there are very few open early in the morning, even in the seething hotbed of free enterprise called Kowloon. This place makes Wall Street look socialist, but few seem to see a profit in catering for early feeders like me.

I found one less than 100 yards from the hotel, but no one spoke English and the menu was entirely in Chinese. I pointed at Option A and received a fried egg, a steaming bowl of noodles and ham and a cup of coffee. Service was very quick, the cafe was very clean and it cost $HK20 - around $US2.60 or 1.30 sterling. You could hardly complain about value for money and I suppose I could have continued the week by working down the alphabet, but was reluctant to carry on playing Lucky Dip or Russian Roulette with my meals. So the next day I headed downtown to the Island, where the huge mall (is there a small mall in HK?) overlooking the Harbour has numerous eating places. Was there one open? "Pret A Manger", the English sandwich bar with the pretentious French name, was supposed to open at 730, but in the best British traditions of customer service it was still shut at 810. The only one open was McDonalds. Yes, I've seen "Supersize Me", but this was no time to think of healthy eating. McDonalds lacked the view of Victoria Harbour enjoyed by other restaurants, but it employed people who could be trusted to open on time.

I went to 1115 Mass at St Pauls on the east side of the Island city centre. It is a traditional French Baroque building surrounded by the convent, school and hospital run by the dwindling band of nuns. Not easy to find, but well worthwhile. The architecture has been adapted to cope with HK's steaming climate; doors down both walls opened to allow cross-flow of air, assisted by several electric fans. It is much cheaper and almost as effective as air conditioning. An elderly parishioner corrected me when I expressed admiration for his lovely "church" ; it is strictly a chapel, an outpost of St Margaret's up the hill in Happy Valley. I looked for a Sunday lunch venue and noticed an Italian restaurant offering authentic Italian dishes at Central London prices, so I ended up at a Thai restaurant where I was fed for $HK55 - around $US6.60 or 3.30 stirling. In that same street, crowded end to end with Chinese signs, there was a sign in a doorway advertising the British Riding School. Plainly the lessons could not be held anywhere nearby if horse or rider valued their lives, but it was yet another incongruous reminder of Empire days.

After Mass I spoke to one of the elderly nuns who expressed gratitude for everything the British did to develop Hong Kong. A Christian might express reservations at some of the rampant materialism on all sides in the present HK, but British rule plainly had advantages over the joys of Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward, mass executions, mass starvation, Cultural Revolution, concentration camps etc. Of course many current HK residents were so fond of Chairman Mao that they risked everything to swim to the colony - a much more dangerous business than scaling the Berlin Wall.

So far I have seen the Astronomy Museum, the Performing Arts Centre, some of the most amazing modern architecture in the world and a tailor to order a bargain suit - another HK tradition. On the evening of 1st October there is a huge
fireworks display over the harbour for National Day; fireworks is a Chinese speciality, so I look forward to that.