I love traveling in Malaysia. I used to land up in Kuala Lumpur or Johor Bahru and just take a random bus and end up in a random city. Once, on the way to Penang, the bus stopped for a while in Taiping. I had heard about this towns history and I knew some people who call Taiping their hometown. I decided to spend a couple of days in Taiping.

In colonial Malaya, Taiping was a tin mining centre. The Chinese groups involved in the mining always ended up fighting with each other. Fed up, the authorities got some troops from India and managed to subdue the groups after a long and bloody fight. Then they named the city Taiping – The city of everlasting peace.
Continue reading →

I was listening to a recent episode of a Japanese learning podcast. This episode had a conversation between a school kid and his mom. The dialogue went on something like this

Elementary School Kid: Mom, would you buy me a mobile phone
Mom: Why does an elementary school kid need a mobile phone?
Elementary School Kid: Everyone has one.
Mom: What will you do with the mobile phone.
Elementary School Kid: Play games and do Mairu (mairu = mail. When the Japanese use the word mail, they are generally talking about email. When they refer to snail mail they use the word yubin)
Mom: If you are going to make a phone call then I will buy you the mobile phone.
Elementary School Kid: Sorenara, I don’t need it. (Sorenara = in that case, this is the new word I learnt in this episode of the podcast)

Many Japanese youngsters use mobile phones primarily for messaging, games and browsing the mobile web. Making phone calls in not a priority. I guess, part of the reason for this is that making or taking a call in a public place is considered as impolite. And I think the youngsters prefer textual messaging to verbal speech because the emoticons on their phones lets them leave somewhat ambiguous and non committal replies. There is a rich vocabulary of such text based emoticons in Japan in use both on the web and mobile.

I was at a SoftBank outlet looking for a phone. This SoftBank phone has a Yahoo! button in the top right corner.
SoftBank is the largest stockholder in Yahoo! Japan. SoftBank also recently acquired Vodaphone’s Japanese operations becoming a mobile operator. Even though its name has the word bank, SoftBank is not a bank. They had actually have a notice outside their Kyoto train station outlet saying “SoftBank is not a bank” in English to stop foreigners who go in asking to exchange money etc.

Another model with the Y! button on the top right.

Here is a Kodomobile. Kodomo in Japanese word for Kid. Kodomobile is a good reason to buy your kid a mobile phone. If your kid is accosted by a bad man then the kid can pull the tab at the bottom. The phone will sound of an alarm and the lights on the cover will start flashing. A Kodomobile has a built uses GPS whereabouts can be tracked so you can check where your kid is at any given time.

Another interesting thing I found was that Softbank sells iPods in their stores. One would think that a mobile operator would prefer its users to download music from the network and play using the mobile phone as this brings in additional revenue to the operator.

Then why is iPod so popular ?

I asked a friend of mine and she said it is mainly because of the battery life on the phones. People are reluctant to use the mobile phone music player because they are afraid that they may run out of power. They don’t mind carrying two devices. Its not an uncommon sight on Tokyo or Osaka metro to find people with their phone and an iPod nano decked together between their fingers.

Technorati Tags: ipod, kodomobile, softbank

Anyone who has been to Vietnam or had any contact with the Vietnamese probably becomes a fan of Ao Dai (pronounced Ao Zai in the North and Ao Yai in the South) – The traditional attire. There is nothing that made my Vietnamese morning brighter than sipping the cafe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee drink) by the roadside and watching the girls in Ao Dai glide past. (Wikipedia page on Ao Dai)

My photos don’t do justice to this wonderful attire as you can see this one blurry attempt of mine in deep south of Vietnam. Diem Thuyen has a whole Flickr set of Ao Dai pictures and pencil drawings. Diem Thuyen (who is also the model for most of the pictures) has released the pictures under creative commons license. That means I can post her picture on my blog (with attribution). I love people who put a CC license on their Flicr pics. They can redeem a free beer (or drink of their choice) anytime they visit me.

From Diem Thuyen’s Flickr Photostream.

Meanwhile “technically” I am able to speak basic Vietnamese, must try Burmese next.

Technorati Tags: aodai