So that Gala was on Saturday night and it was better than I expected. To begin with the venue was amazing. It was at a top hotel here in Bangkok and was held in their best ballroom. After several speeches were made dinner began. Dinner was a buffet with all kinds of food. Having not eaten western food in a little while, I found it to be very heavy and after an hour or so didn’t sit very well. It was delicious though. During and after dinner we were treated to cultural shows from dance routines to musical performances. It turned out to be a good night. I met a fellow Canadian and she has invited me to a kind of “get-together” held every last Thursday of the month for P2’s and P3’s. She said that even though I was a volunteer it wouldn’t matter. So that should be some fun and I’ll get the chance to expand my social circle.
Work was slow for about a week. My supervisor did not assign any work for me while he is away on a field mission to Nepal. I took the opportunity to do some research into PPPs, managing corruption in the area of infrastructure development, and have also offered to help out with the Capacity Development team in general if they would like a hand with anything. When my supervisor returned I had one meeting with him, on Monday and then a meeting today with the head of Public-Private Partnerships for Service Delivery (PPPSD) who flew in from South Africa and my supervisor. At this point we are in a sense asking permission to go ahead with this anti-corruption aspect of PPPs.
This Friday will be the staff Sports Day with a Halloween party in the evening. Although there is a prize for the best costume, I won’t be putting much effort into winning it. I’ve decided just to wear a t-shirt I bought back in Toronto before leaving that has a skeleton on it. I think wearing this would give me a good balance. It shows that I’m in the festive mood but not so overboard that I can’t also enjoy the evening which often happens with costumes that are far too elaborate.
Outside of work I find that I am constantly inundated with information on this global economic crisis and so when I came across a paper, while doing some research into capacity development and global imbalances, which predicted this crises over two years ago in July of 2006, I was shocked. Read the following excerpt:
“Hence, this paper presents a second more ‘realistic’ scenario. In this case, a severe slowdown in the U.S. economy, precipitated by an abrupt decline in household spending, is assumed. Based on such a slowdown, the world macro model delineates the varying impacts on regions of the world and major countries. This scenario assumes, however, that there is no major change in policies in the United States or in the governing international policy regime.”
It seems that this present crisis was not entirely unexpected and furthermore, more importantly, those who did know about it did not choose to do anything to avoid it. In the same article of the last excerpt there is a recommendation on how to avoid it.
“The third scenario assumes a more optimistic, but teasible, scenario – which we call a ‘Coordinated Growth Scenario’. Its feasibility is based, however, on major policy changes, such as 1) movements towards correcting severe current account imbalances among countries that run either a large current account deficit or a large current account surplus 2) progress in the transition in developing countries from the production of primary commodities to manufactures, buttressed by increased South-South trade integration and 3) increased energy efficiency (which we regard as essential to any optimistic scenario). This scenario represents, we believe, a ‘win-win’ option for both developing and developed countries, including the United States.”
As I watched the news last night I witnessed an economist at Walmart explain with no apparent unease that these things happen and can be forecasted. So the question really is, and people are naturally starting to point fingers, if people knew that this was going to happen why was nothing done? When I think about this I wonder if perhaps the next generation will ask a similar question about global warming.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Lots Going On
On Friday night I hosted my first (of perhaps a few) parties. Essentially it was a house warming/welcoming party that started at my apartment and then carried on to Khoa San where we continued the festivities.
In preparing for the event I literally invited all of the junior staff that I met from my first day up to the day of the party. In total around twenty people must have been invited and of that 20, 12 showed up at my apartment and a further 4 or so met us at Silk Bar on Soi Khao San later in the night. I have to say
it went well. I got to know some of the interns a little better and it has given me a base for what I am hoping to turn into a social network. Although I didn’t take any pictures of the night, I am experimenting with adding pictures to this blog so I’ve included one of Khao San which I took on a different night and one of an elephant handler and elephant which although was not on Khao San, may as well have been as they are not unheard of there. I myself have come across several elephants (making sure to feed them each time) this could be in large part because as of this moment I have yet to really go outside of the tourist areas. Not sure really how to escape these areas as the highlights are always the focal points of any major city and Bangkok is certainly no exception.
This Saturday I will be going to a World Language Day Gala. This should be a good networking opportunity (I hope to make the most of it) but beyond the networking one of the important aspects is that I’ll be able to wear my suit for the first time. I’m actually surprised at how exciting that alone will be. Nothing like a good suit I guess.
On the office front my direct boss has come and gone being in the office for only a day to meet with several colleagues and then head to Nepal for a week long symposium. From what I remember he will be away for two weeks in total and back (not sure for how long) at the beginning of November. Although I was given a clear task when first arriving, nothing was really provided this time around in the form of instructions for while he was away. At least not yet. He mentioned he would send me something to work on from Nepal but he also mentioned that he might be too busy to even do this. Not wanting to sit around and do nothing I have taken this opportunity to offer my assistance to other members of the broader capacity development team and to read up on 5Ps in general. I think it is never too early to start gathering research material for the publication.
Last night I went to Central World plaza which is the largest shopping mall in South-East Asia. Not surprisingly it was massive! This mall has it all including a full scale cinema and grocery store. The immense size of this mall was ever the more apparent as when I went it was on a weekday evening and there was only a small number of people shopping at that time. After wandering around for a few hours just doing some window shopping and taking note of what was offered in case I need to buy something in the future, I went home. I had had my little adventure and it was time to hop back onto a tuk-tuk for the ride back. As I mentioned before riding on a tuk-tuk can be adventure in itself but I made it home safe and got ready for the following work day.
As for the weather it has been consistently hot but not unbearable. I have become acclimatized to the heat and sometimes prefer it to the cold air from an air conditioner. Although at first I thought I managed to miss the rainy season altogether, I have been proven wrong as of late with the witnessing of consecutive days consisting of heavy downpours in th
e late afternoon lasting for about half an hour to an hour. Although the rain only lasts for a short while the intensity of it is unbelievable. Only once before have I ever witnessed such a heavy rainfall in Canada, while here I have seen two in as many days.
That’s all the news I have to share for now. Stay posted.
In preparing for the event I literally invited all of the junior staff that I met from my first day up to the day of the party. In total around twenty people must have been invited and of that 20, 12 showed up at my apartment and a further 4 or so met us at Silk Bar on Soi Khao San later in the night. I have to say
it went well. I got to know some of the interns a little better and it has given me a base for what I am hoping to turn into a social network. Although I didn’t take any pictures of the night, I am experimenting with adding pictures to this blog so I’ve included one of Khao San which I took on a different night and one of an elephant handler and elephant which although was not on Khao San, may as well have been as they are not unheard of there. I myself have come across several elephants (making sure to feed them each time) this could be in large part because as of this moment I have yet to really go outside of the tourist areas. Not sure really how to escape these areas as the highlights are always the focal points of any major city and Bangkok is certainly no exception.This Saturday I will be going to a World Language Day Gala. This should be a good networking opportunity (I hope to make the most of it) but beyond the networking one of the important aspects is that I’ll be able to wear my suit for the first time. I’m actually surprised at how exciting that alone will be. Nothing like a good suit I guess.
On the office front my direct boss has come and gone being in the office for only a day to meet with several colleagues and then head to Nepal for a week long symposium. From what I remember he will be away for two weeks in total and back (not sure for how long) at the beginning of November. Although I was given a clear task when first arriving, nothing was really provided this time around in the form of instructions for while he was away. At least not yet. He mentioned he would send me something to work on from Nepal but he also mentioned that he might be too busy to even do this. Not wanting to sit around and do nothing I have taken this opportunity to offer my assistance to other members of the broader capacity development team and to read up on 5Ps in general. I think it is never too early to start gathering research material for the publication.
Last night I went to Central World plaza which is the largest shopping mall in South-East Asia. Not surprisingly it was massive! This mall has it all including a full scale cinema and grocery store. The immense size of this mall was ever the more apparent as when I went it was on a weekday evening and there was only a small number of people shopping at that time. After wandering around for a few hours just doing some window shopping and taking note of what was offered in case I need to buy something in the future, I went home. I had had my little adventure and it was time to hop back onto a tuk-tuk for the ride back. As I mentioned before riding on a tuk-tuk can be adventure in itself but I made it home safe and got ready for the following work day.
As for the weather it has been consistently hot but not unbearable. I have become acclimatized to the heat and sometimes prefer it to the cold air from an air conditioner. Although at first I thought I managed to miss the rainy season altogether, I have been proven wrong as of late with the witnessing of consecutive days consisting of heavy downpours in th
e late afternoon lasting for about half an hour to an hour. Although the rain only lasts for a short while the intensity of it is unbelievable. Only once before have I ever witnessed such a heavy rainfall in Canada, while here I have seen two in as many days.That’s all the news I have to share for now. Stay posted.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Office Life
Since I really got the feel for how things will be when at work this week I’ve decided to devote this entry to my work.
Before even arriving I knew that my “boss” (I prefer the term supervisor) would be away for much of October on field missions. It was decided that I would meet with Delger the day before he left which just so happened to be the day right after I arrived. Things went well though and I was introduced to most of, if not all, the staff and was given a general overview of what my responsibilities would be over the long term and most importantly what they would be in the short term (i.e. for the two weeks while he is away). In short my responsibility was to first understand as much as possible about Pro-Poor Public Private Partnerships (5Ps) and then revise a template which will be used to document three successful 5Ps in Nepal. The overall goal is to find out what lessons were learned and what were the core principles and methods used that resulted in these initiatives being a success.
So that was the main task but there was a lot of other things going on that I became involved in. Shortly after getting into my second week I was asked to comment on a Power point presentation that was going to be delivered at a management board meeting. I guess they liked what I had to say because I was asked the following day to review, comment, and edit where need be for all of the presentations being delivered at a meeting of heads in Bratislava next week. Over this last week I must have re-formatted, edited, reviewed, revised at least a dozen presentations, and in the process learned a good deal about Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007s features. It has been a little bit of a trial by fire which personally I like. I find gets you moving without wasting time in the build up. You will know immediately whether you can cut it or not. Also keep in mind that the UN complex is under a phase 1 security alert due to the political unrest which is literally on the UN’s doorstep. What this means in real terms is that you may be asked to work from home (happened twice) or be sent home from work (happened once). The security system here is top notch though and I have at no point felt that I was in the least bit of danger at any time.
That’s it for now. I’m hosting tonight with was an open invitation for the young staff and interns. Since half of the tenants in my apartment building work for either for the UNDP or UNESCAP there is bound to be a few people coming. I’ll write about how the party went (and perhaps start posting pictures as well) next time.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Tuk-Tuk's, Q-Bar, and a little bit of culture shock
This week was an interesting one. On Tuesday I was sent home right after arriving at work because of protests in the area. The scene got really bad with one person dying and 400 being injured. I worked from home on Wednesday as well and was sent home early on Friday.
On the weekend I decided to do a little exploring and went to a bar highly recommended in my Lonely Planet Guide book, Q-Bar. To get there I took a Tuk-Tuk which is an experience in its own right.
Tuk-Tuk’s are fun to ride. Essentially they are a powerful golf cart but far less glamorous to ride. They all emit a lot of exhaust but if your on one you don’t really notice it, just a nice breeze as you zip down the busy roads, that is to say until you’re at a red light and stopped behind another tuk tuk. Then you might wish you were in a taxi.
Once I arrived at Q-Bar I found that I was too early to get a sense of what the crowd was like so I shortly left and went to a 7-11 (which are in surprising abundance here) and bought a few energy drinks to keep me awake. While I sat on the street corner and drank my red bulls (Thailand is after all the birth place of such drinks) I saw right in front of me a food stall specializing in fried bugs. These weren’t the small kinds either that you could swallow whole. No, these were grasshoppers the size of small mice. I will have to try them someday but that night I wasn’t really feeling it. I must say though that I finally felt a slight tinge of culture shock.
After regaining my energy I went back to Q-Bar but it was still empty. I had arrived far too early. The hostess at the door said I should go and check out a bar which was across the street on the top floor of a hotel. Having nothing else to do and with a keen sense of adventure (and some new found energy) I went to the bar called Nest. It was a very nice place, nice décor etc. but a little pricey compared to local bars. As I lounged on an industrial sized hammock I was able to find some peace and tranquility in an otherwise frenzied environment that is Bangkok. Eventually after about an hour I ventured back to Q-Bar in hopes that things had picked up a little. And they did. To my dismay however it was fully of tourists with not a single Thai in sight. All in all I stayed there for just a quick drink and headed home.
The night time taxi rides are more expensive than the day time ones as none of them actually use their meters. Rides can cost more than three times what the same ride would run you during the day time, assuming you don’t feel like bartering with them which is a practice I have always hated and therefore, never been really good at. Not sure which came first.
The ride back from Q-bar was interesting. Reminded me of driving under the Gardner in Toronto although in Bangkok it is a train above your head and either side of you is fully developed with major shopping malls and mega-plex’s.
This week look’s a lot better, so far as actually being able to work at the office, and the weekend, I’m sure, will also prove to be another adventure somewhere in this big city I’m slowly calling home.
On the weekend I decided to do a little exploring and went to a bar highly recommended in my Lonely Planet Guide book, Q-Bar. To get there I took a Tuk-Tuk which is an experience in its own right.
Tuk-Tuk’s are fun to ride. Essentially they are a powerful golf cart but far less glamorous to ride. They all emit a lot of exhaust but if your on one you don’t really notice it, just a nice breeze as you zip down the busy roads, that is to say until you’re at a red light and stopped behind another tuk tuk. Then you might wish you were in a taxi.
Once I arrived at Q-Bar I found that I was too early to get a sense of what the crowd was like so I shortly left and went to a 7-11 (which are in surprising abundance here) and bought a few energy drinks to keep me awake. While I sat on the street corner and drank my red bulls (Thailand is after all the birth place of such drinks) I saw right in front of me a food stall specializing in fried bugs. These weren’t the small kinds either that you could swallow whole. No, these were grasshoppers the size of small mice. I will have to try them someday but that night I wasn’t really feeling it. I must say though that I finally felt a slight tinge of culture shock.
After regaining my energy I went back to Q-Bar but it was still empty. I had arrived far too early. The hostess at the door said I should go and check out a bar which was across the street on the top floor of a hotel. Having nothing else to do and with a keen sense of adventure (and some new found energy) I went to the bar called Nest. It was a very nice place, nice décor etc. but a little pricey compared to local bars. As I lounged on an industrial sized hammock I was able to find some peace and tranquility in an otherwise frenzied environment that is Bangkok. Eventually after about an hour I ventured back to Q-Bar in hopes that things had picked up a little. And they did. To my dismay however it was fully of tourists with not a single Thai in sight. All in all I stayed there for just a quick drink and headed home.
The night time taxi rides are more expensive than the day time ones as none of them actually use their meters. Rides can cost more than three times what the same ride would run you during the day time, assuming you don’t feel like bartering with them which is a practice I have always hated and therefore, never been really good at. Not sure which came first.
The ride back from Q-bar was interesting. Reminded me of driving under the Gardner in Toronto although in Bangkok it is a train above your head and either side of you is fully developed with major shopping malls and mega-plex’s.
This week look’s a lot better, so far as actually being able to work at the office, and the weekend, I’m sure, will also prove to be another adventure somewhere in this big city I’m slowly calling home.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Getting Settled In
At long last I have arrived in Bangkok and settled into my new apartment situated on a small side street located near the UNDP office. As I go through the culture shock I am still experiencing both get lag and emense heat. Today in particular is a hot one up near 36 degrees but with a clear blue sky.
The plane ride here was something of an endurance test with a total of 28 hours of travel (21 in the air) on very little sleep to begin with. United Airlines though is a good company with each flight leaving on time and in some cases arriving early. A plus was that there was plenty of leg room, the inflight meals were pretty good for airline food standards, and the movies were watchable. On the plane from Tokyo to Bangkok I met a Thai living in America and travelling back to Bangkok to spend sometime with his family here. It was a good thing we met as he was fluent in Thai and made the transition from the airport to the apartment very easy in addition to the first two days. Once we arrived I checked into my apartment and he checked into a hotel near my place and then we went to a local bar for a few drinks which was good as it exposed me to a typical bar that locals would go to. Great beer and the karioke singers were also pretty good. The second night we met up we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant then went to a club in the downtown area. He met up with his cousin also and a friend of his cousin who joined us after the meal and to the club. I finished the night by feeding an elephant, which was being guided down the street by its handler, some fruit.
My office building is incredible. To get into the building each person must pass through a metal detector then have their bags scanned under and x-ray machine. Once in the building though the facilities are top notch. There is a nice patio café on the ground floor which I think I will regularly go to for my breakfeast and there is also a nice patio on the 4th floor which will be where I eat lunch. On the floor where I will be working you can go to a lunch room order what you would like and then they will deliver it to your desk for you. This is a nice extra little feature which I believe a lot of the staff use as the work does not seem to let up ever and this allows the staff to continue to work while at the same time having a little snack or a full meal at their desk.
On Friday morning I met my boss who seems like a very nice man. Batdelgar Luuzan then showed me around the building, introduced me to the people working there, and then we discussed what I will be doing for the first two weeks while he is away on field missions. My first task is to become familiar with the template that we will use to gather information from the three PPP iniatives we intend to include in the final publication. I will be going over the template to understand, edit, and think through. One of the things that I will need to pick up, probably at MBK, is a cell phone as this will become a major means of communication with Batdelgar while he is away and also when he comes back.
After doing a little exploring today I am now off to grab a bite to eat. Still getting used to both the whole experience of eating here plus the exotic food.
Laa Kawn,
Andrew
The plane ride here was something of an endurance test with a total of 28 hours of travel (21 in the air) on very little sleep to begin with. United Airlines though is a good company with each flight leaving on time and in some cases arriving early. A plus was that there was plenty of leg room, the inflight meals were pretty good for airline food standards, and the movies were watchable. On the plane from Tokyo to Bangkok I met a Thai living in America and travelling back to Bangkok to spend sometime with his family here. It was a good thing we met as he was fluent in Thai and made the transition from the airport to the apartment very easy in addition to the first two days. Once we arrived I checked into my apartment and he checked into a hotel near my place and then we went to a local bar for a few drinks which was good as it exposed me to a typical bar that locals would go to. Great beer and the karioke singers were also pretty good. The second night we met up we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant then went to a club in the downtown area. He met up with his cousin also and a friend of his cousin who joined us after the meal and to the club. I finished the night by feeding an elephant, which was being guided down the street by its handler, some fruit.
My office building is incredible. To get into the building each person must pass through a metal detector then have their bags scanned under and x-ray machine. Once in the building though the facilities are top notch. There is a nice patio café on the ground floor which I think I will regularly go to for my breakfeast and there is also a nice patio on the 4th floor which will be where I eat lunch. On the floor where I will be working you can go to a lunch room order what you would like and then they will deliver it to your desk for you. This is a nice extra little feature which I believe a lot of the staff use as the work does not seem to let up ever and this allows the staff to continue to work while at the same time having a little snack or a full meal at their desk.
On Friday morning I met my boss who seems like a very nice man. Batdelgar Luuzan then showed me around the building, introduced me to the people working there, and then we discussed what I will be doing for the first two weeks while he is away on field missions. My first task is to become familiar with the template that we will use to gather information from the three PPP iniatives we intend to include in the final publication. I will be going over the template to understand, edit, and think through. One of the things that I will need to pick up, probably at MBK, is a cell phone as this will become a major means of communication with Batdelgar while he is away and also when he comes back.
After doing a little exploring today I am now off to grab a bite to eat. Still getting used to both the whole experience of eating here plus the exotic food.
Laa Kawn,
Andrew
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