My first meal in California after six months in Singapore was Mexican food. So was my next meal, and my next.

So, when I was getting ready to return to Singapore, I picked up something you absolutely cannot find here: handmade tortillas and real taqueria salsa. I brought these in quantity and hosted a big Mexican feast for my compadres on this project.

I spent Saturday morning shopping at the Tiong Bahru wet market, and I spent all afternoon making carnitas (slow roasted pork), black beans with chilis and lime, pinto beans, refried beans, mexican rice and guacamole.

I think it was appreciated. My friend Rebecca took one bite and said, “when I close my eyes, I can almost hear the drunk hippies in the Mission.”

It’s amazing how often I get comments here about my chopsticks technique, or the fact I don’t mind chili sauce. Even my Singaporean colleagues who’ve travelled quite a bit seem amazed to see an ang mo wielding chopsticks with any proficiency.

And women I meet in Southeast Asia are amused to no end that I can cook, and even more amused to learn that I actually enjoy cooking. In traditional circles, men don’t cook. In more modern circles, no one cooks. The rat race doesn’t leave much time for domestic pursuits.

That aside, when women find out I’m 36-years-old, unmarried, and cooking for myself no less, I become either a tragedy or a comedy to them. Probably a bit of both actually.

In the wet market Saturday morning, while shopping for dinner, a chinese auntie told me it’s “high time” I found myself a good wife.

But then I’d have to kiss my CLEO cachet goodbye.

A few months ago, my colleague Crystal declared that one of the first things she will do after she returns to the US is go into a public bathroom and “use about 500 paper towels”.

She was referring to the general scarcity of paper towels and napkins in Singapore. Public restrooms in Singapore tend to have hot air hand dryers. What this translates to is that people here (men anyway, I can’t speak for the women) tend not to wash their hands at all after doing their business. Often, though, you don’t have to touch anything, because many public restrooms have open doors or no doors at all.

At my current client’s offices, however, the bathroom doors have twist knobs, which is the worst case scenario for a bathroom door – especially considering there are no paper towels.

The result is that men who wash their hands leave the door knob all wet, and men who don’t wash… well… gross.

So in a country where so many things make so much sense, I find myself wanting something very basic. My kingdom for a paper towel dispenser OR a bathroom door I don’t have to touch. Both is surely too much to ask for, so I’ll gladly settle for one or the other.

I’m back in Singapore.

It’s good to see my incredibly hardworking colleagues, and it’s been nice to begin to reconnect with my Singapore friends.

I met Thavy and Shelly the other night at Brix for a little dancing and a lot of alcohol. A new band called Bliss(?)was playing – I believe it was their first-ever show there – but their repertoire was basically the same as the usual house band. Still, they were more than competent. One of the singers was a killer on the bongos, and the guest rapper/singer who manned the mic for their second or third set was really good.

We watched some joyously terrible expat dancing, and exchanged theories about a diminutive caucasian man we observed with a tall, broad-shouldered asian ladyboy on his arm.

Essentially we were wondering whether he’d gone out seeking a ladyboy, whether or not he knew he was with a man, whether he was too drunk to tell, or care.

At the start of 2001, the twin towers stood confidently in lower Manhattan, Iraq was languishing in the back of the news pages (Afganistan was out of sight and out of mind) and Bush-the-younger could still get away with calling himself a “uniter, not a divider.”

The clearly-starting-to-teeter US economy was the main source of domestic anxiety, and our foreign policy was heavily focused on China.

Now Iraq, and the war on terror, have stolen the headlines for over three years. But our appetite for this is starting to wane, and the press is starting to look beyond the Middle East once again.

The May 9 issue of Newsweek featured the special report, China’s Century as its cover story. Around the same time, the June issue of the Atlantic Monthly hit newsstands, featuring the provocative headline, “How We Would Fight China” and a serious-looking chinese sailor on its cover.

The two reports make good companion pieces.

The centerpiece of the Newsweek report is Fareed Zakaria’s, Does the Future Belong to China? It’s a lightweight (well it’s Newsweek, so yeah) survey of the obvious, but still an interesting read. It spins post-1979 China as the remarkable result of nuanced and carefully-planned reforms carried out by leaders who smartly shifted Chinese policy away from communism without damaging Maoist nationalism.

The two pieces in the Atlantic are a little gloomier, as suggested by the cover headline. They focus on the chess (or go?) match an asian cold war would surely be, characterized by naval standoffs, mid-air confrontations and diplomatic catfights.

I began to imagine the plot of a war satire set fifteen years from now. Our next president, in his (or her?) second term, decides to respond to one embarassing standoff or another – and also put a halt to China’s rapidly-improving military capabilities – by waging a preemtive war. We’re several years into it, in the story I imagine, and it’s looking more and more like a stalemate.

Perhaps we’ve taken Shanghai and even Hong Kong – with the help of Japan, Australia and Singapore, but Europe has abandoned us, and the support of Singapore and the Aussies is starting to look pretty shaky.

At home in the US, things are more polarized than ever. California might as well be its own country.

On the ground in China, our troops don’t like what it feels like to be the agressors on foreign soil.

That’s the backdrop. Now I have to come up with a story.

Last week was the first week of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and there are a lot of good things to see.

I saw three shows over the weekend, including one called Pandora 88 by a German duo calling themselves Fabrik Companie. The piece was a beautiful blurring of the line between theatre and dance, staged inside a box roughly 1 1/2 times the size of a refrigerator.

It began with the children’s games of tag, hide-and-seek and charades. Then it shifted into an outer-space motif that looked and felt exactly like old school video effects I remember from TV shows I loved as a child – Zoom, Sesame Street…

Toward the end, the piece became heavier and more dramatic. Like growing up.

In its final moments, one of the characters discovered a way out, and with the help of his friend he escaped the confines of the box, through a small hole in the ceiling. He looked around nervously for a moment and then reached down to help his friend.

His friend declined, and the stage went dark.

Since I’ve been back in San Francisco, I’ve completely neglected my blog. One posting every two or three weeks is not what I’m aiming for. It’s not like I’m lacking material. What I’m lacking is the proper state of mind.

As a foreigner in foreign lands, my mind was in a constant and hightened state of discovery. By virtue of the fact that I was new there, everything there seemed new to me. Even things I can empirically say weren’t new at all.

Despite a demanding client and a gruelling schedule, I was able to write something nearly every day.

The thing is, I’m still more or less a rookie when it comes to San Francisco living, and I experience new things here all the time. So, like I said, I’m not lacking material.

As evidence, I present a short list of the things I did during my first week back (a whole month ago now). All of them absolutely new to me (except Zeitgeist, an old favorite)…

Thursday (the night I arrived), I went to a Laughing Squid party at Albion Castle.

Friday, I met Blake for beer on the legendary back patio at Zeitgeist.

Saturday, I went to The Ramp with Amy for a big greasy breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs.

Tuesday, I met Blake and Jeff for a coupla pints and a hearty shepherd’s pie at The Liberties Pub.

Thursday was Cesar’s going away party at Lime.

Friday, I went to a benefit show at SOMArts Christy presented one of the solos from a piece she staged back in December. The dancer was a hip-hop specialist named Skorpio.

Plenty of material. I just need to find right mind.

I’ve been back in San Francisco for more than a week now. I’ve mainly been reconnecting with friends, eating a lot of Mexican food and trying to catch up on my sleep. And neglecting my blog.

The other day, I stepped into Urban Outfitters to browse t-shirts and jackets, and after six months in Singapore, I was completely unable to wrap my mind around the irony oozing from every shelf in the store. Between Jesus action figures, Everyone Poops and white-trash retro, everything was just a little too cool for itself.

Last night, I saw Maroon 5 at the HP Pavilion, along with throngs of teenage girls and their parents. There were a few small groups of people my own age. We were the people holding cups of beer.

Maroon 5 has one hit song, and I heard it every night I was in any club in Singapore. I mention the show because the music snobs amongst my friends will make fun of me, but I am immune to this now.

Singapore is a city without irony. It has other kinds of class systems, but you can’t be a cultural snob in Singapore.

After I’d been there a few months, I listened to one person after another, recently arrived from San Francisco (or New York, London, etc.) moan about fashion or architecture or music. I watched them roll their eyes as a cover band launched into the latest hit, and the joyful throng exploded onto the dance floor.

Before I went to Singapore, I’d been struggling to divest of my inner snob. I was hating the haters, if you will. I walk in several circles of friends, and I’d become so tired of hearing one circle judge the other because of its taste in music, television, clothes, cars…

For me, it was actually beautiful and sort of liberating to be in a place where a cultural snob can’t survive. He’d go blind from eye-rolling.

…before the last chord of Purple Rain fades, the band begins to play Hotel California, and the western mind implodes from the effort it takes to comprehend.

I’m leaving today.

I’ve packed up my humble home of six months, and I’m ready to board my flight back to San Francisco. I have so many feelings swirling around inside me that I can’t tell whether the balance is ultimately tipping towards happy or sad.

Only my Singapore colleagues will really appreciate this, but after six months, I still don’t have a pass to the offices of my client (a major airline). We filled out all the requisite forms months ago. Since then, we’ve waited. In the meantime, every day for the past six months we have stopped at the security gate, queued for 15 minutes and exhanged our passports for one-day visitor passes.

Yesterday, on my last day, after wrapping up a landmark meeting with the chairman and CEO of the company, I received word that our passes have been prepared and will be available Monday.

Six months and four days too late.

I lost my camera somehow.

As I left my hotel in Hoi An, I peeked into my carry-on bag to make sure I had my camera, iPod, journal, book. Everything was there.

But when I unpacked, I found that my camera case – which was in my carry-on bag – was empty.

I’m sad to lose the camera of course, but I’m much sadder to lose the pictures I took on this last trip.
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