Asian Excursion (Part 4 – Ain’t no host like a Bangkok host)

Sorry this post is a long one! I had to cover the past few days since I haven’t been able to write the past few days.

I had an incredible visit to Bangkok. I finally met the composer of The Silent Prince, Somtow Sucharitkul. I arrived in Bangkok directly after the Asia21 Young Leaders’ Summit in Jakarta. (I’m getting a chance to see a good part of Asia that I haven’t yet – talk about being blessed with travel). I arrived at the incredible Rembrandt Hotel. (After a lengthy wait in Immigration and Customs.  My mom had sent some gifts for people in India, which I then had to explain to the customs guy – who was convinced for some reason that I had been in China recently).

Anyway, I arrived at the Rembrandt Hotel (thank you, Opera Siam). I walked in and they promptly told me that I would have to check in elsewhere. By elsewhere, they meant in the VIP lounge (again – thank you, Opera Siam). I don’t know why, but I still love nice hotels. Again, I’ve been lucky that most of the hotels people put me in when I conduct are nice hotels, and each time I walk in one, I smile. I hope I never lose that.

The first night I had dinner with Somtow, one of Somtow’s students, Darren (the stage director for Carmen), and Stefan (one of the singers). It was nice to finally meet Somtow. I felt like I had known him for years. (In some ways, I have – we collaborated on The Silent Prince, and the process lasted years, but it was nice to actually meet the person). I ended up back at the hotel and collapsed. I was exhausted.

The next day was sort of a free day for me. I ended up going to the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It was an amazing sight to see. I’ll post pictures of it below. I have to say I enjoyed seeing the aspects of Indian culture in the mix. On one huge wall was a pictorial representation of the Ramayana. (In fact, Rama is a title of the King of Thailand). I didn’t realize it was a Buddhist/Hindu monarchy. It was a cool experience.

The next morning started with an interview for Bangkok’s The Nation. It was a fun conversation. I finally had the opportunity (especially after decompressing) to discuss the experience of putting TSP on stage. What really struck me as I was discussing TSP with the Thai reporter was the enormity of the feat that Somtow pulled off. He wrote a new opera that brought the house down. After going through all the new operas submitted for the competition and all the new operas I see on a regular basis, the magnitude of writing a great new opera is truly incredible.

Somtow and I then met with Renuka Narayanan from the Indian Embassy in Thailand. Plainly put, she was a hoot! What a well-read and interesting person. Honestly, I was rather shocked that she was in the Indian foreign service. We had conversations about authors, philosophy, Somtow’s opera, and of course, India. She was a huge proponent of a tour of The Silent Prince as am I.

What Somtow was able to do is truly incredible.  He wrote a very Asian themed opera with musical influences from traditional Carnatic music. The story was based on a (perhaps for Western audiences) obscure Buddhist folk tale. It used non-stereotypical voice types like the male soprano. The triumph was that it spoke to an audience thousands of miles away of predominately young professional Texans. It’s a testament to the power of music, of course, but there is a lot of music that doesn’t speak across so many cultures like that. I think more than anything it’s a testament to the work that Somtow put into writing this opera. It’s definitely one that I would do again at the drop of a hat. It showed Somtow’s mastery of the art form.

So, given how I felt about his opera, it was great to finally meet him. It was also amazing to see the incredible talent that he’s drawing to Bangkok and to see the hours he’s putting in to making opera an important art form in a city that has never had it as it’s tradition. Thailand has a treasure and a lot to be proud of in Somtow!

My final evening there, Somtow and I met one of my new friends from the Asia21 Summit, Kwang Asadej Kongsiri. It was a fun dinner of Thai food. It was also rather humorous to find out that in some distant fashion Somtow and Asadej are related to each other. Asadej claims to not be an opera fan, but I think we can convert him. We had a long discussion with him on funding possibilities for a tour of Somtow’s The Silent Prince through Asia. One cool idea from Renuka earlier was to perform it at Lumbini, Buddha’s birth place.

You can see all the pictures under the Photo Gallery tab on my website.

Pictures of the Grand Palace in Bangkok:

Asian Excursion (Part 3 – Asia21)

The reason for my stop in Jakarta was as a delegate to Asia Society’s Asia21 Young Leader’s Summit. I admit up front that I wasn’t 100% sure what it was all going to be about. A friend of mine, Paresh Patel, kept encouraging me to apply, and he swore that I would find it a truly life-changing experience, and he was right.

The Asia21 Summit brought together leaders under the age of 40 from throughout Asia. As I mentioned in the last video in my previous post, on day 1 I was seated next to a lady from Afghanistan.  We had people from Australia, Tibet, China, North AND South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore… the list goes on. I heard some of the most amazing stories of human courage and resolve. There were incredible stories of empathy, compassion, and leadership. I can say that I left the conference completely moved, inspired, and feeling a lot more insignificant about the contributions I’ve made in my life.

There was one person who is the leading candidate for prime minister of free Tibet, Lobsang Sangay. He talked to us about how his father was a Buddhist monk who escaped with their family from Tibet when the Chinese took over. They escaped with three cows. Lobsang said that when they got to India, his father sold one of the cows just to be able to send him to a village school in India. (Lobsang later ended up at Harvard Law – talk about achievement).

As I said in a previous post, I ended up being seated next to a lady from Afghanistan on day 1, Nargis Nehan. She started an NGO in Afghanistan to fight for the rights of women and minorities. She told me that she had high hopes for Afghanistan. At the same summit was an active duty Colonel in the US Army, Col Michael Fenzel. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and also as Director for Transnational Threats at the National Security Council. He told stories about how he worked to keep his soldiers safe in Afghanistan while also promoting security and development for the country.

More stories to come – stories of Indian F-16 pilots, ex-child sex workers who overcame abuse and work with child-sex workers to help them dream again, Emmy award winning film-makers who penetrated Madrasas to figure out how children are convinced to become suicide bombers, to fighting drug companies over misbegotten patents to make sure third world countries can receive meds.  There were some truly incredible people at this summit – I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Nobel Peace Prize winner in there somewhere.

Asian Excursion (Part 2 – Jakarta, Day 1)

I’m a bit exhausted, so I didn’t want to type it all – so I videoed some of my commentary.  Here’s a bit on my arrival in Jakarta:

This morning, I woke up (after sleeping through the night!) and went to the Old Town (Kota Tua).  I spent a portion of my life in Batavia, NY, which is one of the reasons I’m a Bills fan.  Well, the reason for that odd segue is that I didn’t know that the word batavia is Dutch for ‘town.’  I stopped at an amazing cafe in the old town square called Batavia Cafe.  The upper floor was actual made of teak.  The entire cafe was amazing – it had that old school Casablanca air about it.  I then decided to walk from there to the the fish market.  Ok, this was probably not the most brilliantly thought out plan.  Given my knowledge of Jakarta geography and Indonesian… well, put it this way – if I had $1 for every time I thought “wow, this is a bad idea,” I could probably have financed OV’s next season.

I got to the fish market, which for those of you in Chennai is a lot like Luz bazaar crossed with a Beijing hutong.  It was a long and winding neighborhood of stalls and vendors.  I should have known, though, that people were rolling up their pants for a reason… At one point, they flooded the streets.  I came out of the fish market with jeans wet up to my knees.  Luckily I made it out – this was a rather maze-like neighborhood.  My luck continued with finding a taxi.

I then took the cab to see the Istiqlal Mosque.  What a HUGE mosque!  Lakewood church might need another building to catch up.  The cab driver was cool – he turned it into a tour of Jakarta.  (Didier, it reminded me of when we were in Talinn, Estonia on tour and we got the takso driver to give us a tour).  I finally ended up at the hotel in time to clean up for the start of the Asia21 Summit.

Here’s a bit about the summit:

The Asian Excursion (Part 1)

I know I have to post parts 2 and 3 of a previous blog, but since I’m actually in Singapore, I thought I’d write a few things now.  I’m on the start of a long journey through Asia.  Most of it was last minute, but luckily I was able to incorporate some of the things that I wanted to do.  The primary reason for the trip from a personal perspective was getting to India to see family.  One of the drawbacks to living so far away (US vs India) is that you see your family so rarely.  It’s been around 5 years since I’ve been, and as my dad keeps pointing out – nobody is getting any younger.  (Myself included!)

The trip is going to be a crazy one.  I left Houston on Nov 30 and arrived in Moscow on Dec 1.  I was in Moscow about 2 hours then took a 9 hour flight to Singapore.  I arrived in Singapore on Dec 2 at 5:00AM.  It was about 23 hours of travel time just to get to Singapore.  I leave Singapore around 1:40 in the afternoon to head to Kuala Lumpur where I change planes and go to Jakarta – where I arrive at 5:30PM.

My arrival in Singapore:

Here is a glimpse of why I love Singapore’s Changi Airport:

And the awesome food court:

And why jet-lag is no fun:

Alright, time to grab some food and get ready to hit the next flight.