Exploits in Southeast Asia
Bangkok, Thailand -- At face value, Bangkok shouldn’t be a great place for an expat assignment. The threat of political instability is the highest in the region, next to Indonesia. The Thai economy continues to be outshined by neighbours: growth projections for this year have been revised downward due to anticipation of falling exports sales. And last August, a bomb at the Erawan shrine in central Bangkok killed 20 and injured more than 120.
If you ask Tin Mg Win, the landslide win seized by Myanmar opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD) on November 8th’s general election is too early to celebrate. The 83-year-old former general manager at Yangon’s AC Martin, a US architecture firm, recalls the last time the NLD came out victorious at the ballot …
The ‘sacred’ story of the Philippines’ former strongman Ferdinand Marcos, as told through a bizarre museum in his home province, where he is still adored. Outside of the Marcos Museum and Mausoleum, beneath a soaring verdant canopy, skinny pushbike tricycle drivers listlessly chatter away the day. They are more consumed by their conversation …
Continue reading History is how you read it: the Marcos Museum (Southeast Asia Globe)
When Marc walks out of his Makati neighborhood, a cramped warren of squat slum dwellings in West Rembo, the view he sees could not be more contrasting to where he has just come from. His neighborhood’s crumbling cranny – too narrow to be marked on maps; too populated to be free of cars – empties …
Continue reading Manila’s Tale Of Two Cities: Where Rich And Poor Coexist
You wouldn’t be able to tell it by looking at newspaper headlines, but China is not the largest fear of the Philippines – the real danger is much more natural. Climate change is the top-of-the-mind fear of Filipinos, a recent survey by Pew Research Center revealed. And, indeed, it should be. The archipelago nation is …
Justin Calderón 