After 6 years, on and off, of blogging here, it's time for a change. So we are migrating Indolaysia from this Typepad site to a spiffier new site that is more customizeable, easier to navigate, and (best of all) free.... Continue reading

There are basically two kinds of people who show up in business class for super-long haul flights: regulars and transients. The first group, the regulars, always fly business class because either they never pay for their own flights or because... Continue reading

Today I leave Singapore to head back home. I'm excited to stop in HK to see an old buddy, but even more excited to get back to JMP and EP, who despite this picture below was not able to join... Continue reading

My mother-in-law asked JMP yesterday "so what's going on in Indonesia and Malaysia these days?" JMP cruised over to the Jakarta Post website and found this gem about 100 workers at an eyelash factory falling into a trance. So weird.... Continue reading

Once upon a time there were two small island countries with really high standards of living, really boring politics, and highly open financial sectors. Each of them had a pretty concentrated banking sector (one of them had three domestic private... Continue reading

Some things that I've learned over the past couple of days. From the Department of Now I've Seen Everything: I saw a development by a company called "China Sonangol" today. That means that a Chinese subsidiary of the Angolan national... Continue reading

When you look through the newspaper here, the most striking thing is how many ads you see for education-related things. "Tuition" services to help you kid pass his A-levels. "Twinning" programs to get you an Australian or British degree from... Continue reading

Regular readers of Indolaysia will know that I really like bak kut teh, the porky soup whose name literally means "pork bone tea." See here and here. I've decided that this is my favorite Singaporean food. On the recommendation of... Continue reading

Singapore, as I've mentioned before, is really small, but it still has to cram into its territory all of the things that a regular country has. That includes a vacation spot, which a friend and I saw today. East Coast... Continue reading

All of these serious blog posts have me worried that I've lost my sense of humor. So, herewith, some silly stuff. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was up in Tokyo telling Japanese people what to do yesterday. Among his suggestions... Continue reading

A good friend of mine is currently in Bangkok doing some exploratory field research (he studies how politicians mobilize the poor). There was a point a couple months ago when we considered whether or not it would be possible for... Continue reading

I participated in a small workshop today on contemporary issues in financial policy in Asia. I was the only political scientist there--the other participants were either academic economists or analysts affiliated with some of the big banks active around here... Continue reading

Due to the relative lack of anything interesting, I will not be writing about Singaporean politics while I'm here. Suffice it to say, the news this morning reported that Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew went to China to have a... Continue reading

Jetlag woke me up at 3:30 AM this morning, which left me with a big chunk of time before my flight to Singapore at 11:00. Fortunately, I had a plan: head down to Tsukiji, the world's largest wholesale seafood market,... Continue reading

One of the dirty little secrets of the nice folks here at Indolaysia is that although we are big travelers, and although we are fascinated by Asia, we actually haven't traveled that widely in the region. This goes even for... Continue reading

Indolaysia is going live again for about two weeks, starting in a couple of days. I will be traveling in SE Asia, but based for the first time in Singapore rather than Jakarta or KL. So expect fewer posts about... Continue reading