Learning from our Asian neighbors

I've only been to two Asian countries apart from Hong Kong, and the last time I went there, I was only five. If I were given a choice between living in Asia and in the West, I would still choose Asia any day. Well, for now, at least. The Philippines may not exactly be a promising country right now, but a lot of our neighbors are. I was just reading about Vietnam's booming economic growth this morning. Call me strange, but I find such a delight in reading about Asian progress. If only I could read about the same thing about our country. =(

Now I don't have data to back up what the succeding paragraphs will talk about. My family's travels has always been such a great source of learning and inspiration about many different things, and I thought I should blog about two of them.

Cottage industries as tourism boosters
China

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine factories as busy tourist spots. But they really work.

The only time we ever took a package tour for our travel was on our visit to China. Afraid that we wouldn't be able to get around by ourselves since none of us can speak Chinese (and only 3% of the population can speak English), we took time off our own hands and toured with a group. What was quite interesting was a number of trips to factories/production houses of materials that are authentically Chinese. For instance, we went to a place where silk was manufactured. We saw how silkworms got transformed into this gooey substance until it was woven into silk. And to culminate the tour, we are directed to a store that sold silk at "factory prices". Of course, being a tourist spot legitimized them to sell at "tourist prices" instead. The same happened in a jade factory. We were also brought to tourist shops that gave commission to the tour guide for his group's purchases.

The great thing about this is that tourists are exposed to the history and the production of these items, leading to a better appreciation for these products. After a saleslady showed us how to distinguish real jade from fake ones, you learn not to go jade shopping in Xiang Yang market. We ought to do the same with our cottage industries. We've got so many! From abaca materials to rattan and narra furniture to dried food, the list is definitely a lot more than silk and jade! Sure, these items are available in malls, but I don't think tourists will mind being taken to remote areas just to be shown how these are made. There was nothing fancy about the factories we were taken to! Silk was smelly, but we all didn't mind. We were even amazed.

Regulated democracy through productive participation in government activities and regulations
Singapore

They don't take their concern to the streets as often as we do, and yet, the Singaporeans are unified and progressive as a democratic society.

When we were in Singapore, my dad stumbled upon a newspaper article that talked about a private citizen who won around a thousand dollars from the government. As it turns out, the government solicits practical ideas from its citizens. They don't have to be groundbreaking. At that time, that month's winner submitted a very simple suggestion that guaranteed cutting the government's expenses on a somewhat significant scale. He simply suggested that the government should stop sending its letters via registered mail, and use the regular postal service instead, since it is efficient anyway. When the receiver forfeits to comply with the letter's instructions, that's the only time the government should resort to using registered mail. He did some calculations on the total savings that will be accumulated from this method. And voila, 1000 dollars. Now that's productive participation.