We are headed for Singapore over the long weekend, so I hope to post a few snapshots when we get back. We are really looking forward to this trip, especially Princess Roy. I was there in 1990 and I'm keen on seeing how the city has changed, other than that chewing gum is no longer against the law. I think Singapore should be considered one of the world's food capitals. The range of food is fabulous, particularly Chinese, and it is very economical. It's just going to be one long glutton fest for us. In the meantime, take a look at the sweet ride an expat friend of mine bought the other day.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/30/2004 09:34:00 PM| |

 
Prince Roy, Diplofat
I'm not exactly proud of that title, but it isn't far from the truth. Hopefully, it will soon be a thing of the past. Four other colleagues and I have agreed to a competition to see who can make the most physical improvement in 6 months. The start date is July 10 and our wager will end on January 10. Prize purse to be determined later. The chubby factor only applies to me and one other contestant. Two others are a bit on the string-bean side, and the last guy is quite fit, because he is on a rugby team that travels all around South India. You might think the deck is stacked in his favor, but I think he is actually at a disadvantage. We are going totally on before/after results, and since he is already at a high level of fitness, it will be more difficult for him to make as much noticeable improvement. That's what I'm banking on anyway. This is the kind of motivation I need. I did this type of thing once before, after my first semester of law school. Law school harbors the sort of stressful environment that can wreak havoc if you are not careful. Take a look at the lawyer nearest you: that briefcase of his doesn't contain a Mr. Olympia trophy. To make a long story short, I won that wager running away. I ended up with quite the transformation, which lasted until the second semester 2L blahs struck. Of course, I might not be so rotund if I wasn't going out on Saturday nights until 2:30 in the morning. Princess Roy had the good sense to stay home. From what I've seen of Madras nightlife, I am not at all impressed. We went first to a place called the "Leather Bar". Not too bad I guess, if you can get past the all-male personnel with gelled hair, black chinos and tight black t-shirts. It isn't a gay bar, but Chennai does have a few of those. Like most places here, they play the music way too loud, so that it is impossible to carry on a conversation, unless it is at the top of your lungs. After a few drinks here, we left for "The Dublin", which is a nightclub in the Park Sheraton. It carries a steep 500 rupee cover charge. Again, more of the same, except here there were actually a number of people dancing, enviously observed from the upper levels by scores of Indian wallflower lads. The saving grace of this place is that they had a large-screen TV so I could watch the Sweden-Holland match. It also had a more international crowd than "The Leather Bar". Awful DJ though. They could sure use a spinner like DJ Wilson. I guess you could say I am a pubber, not a clubber. Always have been. The pub scene in Madras is practically non-existent, other than a couple of boring, stuffy expat businessmen bars in the five-star hotels. Not a trace of character. I'm told Bangalore has an authentic, thriving pub scene. Several from our consulate are making a trip up there in late July, so I'll report on what I find.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/27/2004 09:35:00 PM| |

 
I had a day off today so I spent some time fiddling with the site. It still isn't quite like before, but I think I could grow used to this. Remember how I mentioned that Internet in India has a weird pricing structure? I may be in for a rather rude awakening at the end of the month. Man, I hope I'm wrong, but I have an uneasy feeling about this. On to more pleasant news: I also took our digital camera for a spin today. If you'd like to take a look around my neighborhood, check out my companion site. Finally, I'm going to hate being me tomorrow. I've got to report for work tomorrow at 8:00am, but England plays Portugal tonight in the Euro 2004 quarterfinals. Go England!!! The game won't start here in India until around midnight. Still, ain't no way I can miss that. Well, at least I lacked the foresight to buy beer! I'll just be dead-tired tomorrow, which is far better than hungover and dead-tired... UPDATE: I now understand my site won't look exactly right unless you have installed the "Old English Text MT" font. If the "Prince Roy's Realm" title displays in Old English-style calligraphy, you are ok. If it just appears like normal English, then you need to install the font. If you'd like this font, 'right click and save' here. I have also added another foreign service blog to my links, A Career in Diplomacy. William is posted to Mexico City on a consular tour. Like me, he is on his very first assignment. He is also at a post that handles a lot of visa applications, though maybe not as many as other consulates in Mexico. I look forward to reading many interesting adventures.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/24/2004 09:42:00 PM| |

 
Tamil Tucker Perhaps my greatest anticipation about moving to India was the culinary experience I imagined was in store here. That has played out in both the positive and negative sense. We are fortunate in Chennai that food from almost every region of this vast, diverse nation is readily available. Much of it is very good, too. However, experimentation here is not for the faint of heart (or more accurately, stomach). Standards of hygiene in food handling and preparation fall far behind what we consider even marginal from a Western standpoint. I've been here over two months now, and there are still places I dare not enter. Actually, that is the majority of restaurants here. That is something I cannot say about my time in China and Taiwan, where I will eat almost anything, anywhere. Part of it, perhaps, is that I am so much more familiar with China culturally and linguistically. Here I feel very much an outsider. Getting food poisoning in India at some point is just a fact of life. I thought I would go about it the smart way, and for the first few weeks I only ate in the five-star hotels. Well, I still got sick from something I had at the noon buffet in the Park Hotel's Thai restaurant in my second week. Lesson learned: stay away from the salad bar, even in the posh places. Thankfully, it was a very mild episode, and by the next morning I was 100%. Colleagues of mine have related horror stories about getting some bug from one of the juice bars that seem to dot every street corner; one unfortunate fellow was sick for over a week, and lost close to 20 pounds. Some of the curry dishes I've had have been amazing, not just in their pungency, but in the subtleties used in blending the scores of different spices. Actually, while people in Tamil Nadu appreciate spicy food, theirs is not the most fiery, a fact borne out by my own experience. It doesn't come close to Sichuan or Korean, falls somewhat below Thai and Vietnamese and maybe ranks close to Louisiana. I'll have to make it up to the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh where I hear they don't shy away from the chilies. If anyone out there can tell me the region of India that deserves the title of Spicy King, please let me know. But my favorite food so far is the Masala Dosa. Our maid makes the best I've had anywhere. This is a crepe-like delicacy stuffed with potatoes (mashed), onions, and curry leaves. Knowing my taste for the spicier things in life, she adds little whole green chilies that are too hot even for Princess Roy (成都人, my foot!). One thing that surprised me is how rich the food is here. They use gobs of ghee (clarified butter) in almost everything. Also, plenty of cheese, called paneer. It looks exactly like tofu, but it most assuredly is not. And fried, greasy foods abound. As much as I enjoy a samosa, I only dare eat one or two, out of consideration for my heart. In fact, if I had to compare Tamil Nadu food with any other, I would say the soul food of the American Deep South---lots of deep frying and a love of greens and okra. With this kind of diet, it should not surprise you that heart disease, hypertension and diabetes are the major health problems afflicting people of the region. Dear, Dear Dumplings People here love Chinese food. I pass no fewer than 8 Chinese restaurants on my three-mile drive to work. They are everywhere. Unfortunately, though, it is not authentic Chinese, but heavily 'Tamilized'. Meaning thick brown gravies and a good amount of sugar. The fancy hotels here even have real Chinese chefs. We've made friends with one, 杨师傅 [Chef Yang]. He works at the Chola Sheraton, and is a native of Beijing. It turns out we are actually neighbors in a sense; his home is in 麦子店, which is where I lived in the summer of 2002 when I did my legal internship in Beijing. He has been in Chennai since 1999, when Sheraton India hired him from the Great Wall Sheraton. He lives in the hotel with his wife and 13-year old daughter. As a special favor, he made us 12 orders of 饺子 [Chinese dumplings] today for lunch. They were about as authentic as you can get here, considering Indian flour is not appropriate for the dumpling skins. But they tasted simply divine, my friends! However, those of you in China should probably sit down before I tell you the cost. An order of dumplings in this hotel contains four. The cost is 225 rupees per order. That comes out to $1.25 per dumpling! Our lunch of 48 dumplings would normally cost $60, but Chef Yang knocked 50% off the price and we have a membership card that entitles us to another 50% discount, so our total bill was around $15. That same lunch in my favorite Beijing dumpling joint? Easily under $6. And that's including cold, draft beer. But I think our favorite restaurant is a Korean one located in the InSeoul Hotel. The hotel itself is still under construction, but the restaurant is open for business. This place is authentic Korean right down to the Soju (真露---actually that may be the brand name: soju in Chinese is 烧酒 shaojiu). Like anything else foreign in India, a meal here isn't exactly cheap, but it is still pretty reasonable considering the quality. It costs about the same as a similar meal would in the US. They have even opened up a Korean grocery store, located a few blocks away from the hotel. Chennai has a fairly large Korean expat community. Hyundai is the most popular foreign-made care here, and many Koreans come to manage dealerships. You have to admire the Koreans; out of all the different national foods that locate to foreign markets, Koreans are the ones who remain most true to their cuisine's authentic flavor. They tend not to make adjustments in consideration of local tastes, god bless 'em!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/23/2004 12:30:00 AM| |

 
As my blog description indicates, I was a law student in a recent former life. But I knew by the third week of law school that practicing law wasn't for me, thanks to our mandatory 1L course, Lawyering Skills (if you follow that link, look under "Course Descriptions". The class quickly cured me of any illusions that I was cut out for the formulistic tedious drudgery required to actually practice law. However, I still maintain an intense interest in the law from an intellectual and policy standpoint, particularly with regards to First Amendment and other Bill of Rights issues. That's why I waited in anticipation all spring for what I believe to be the most important case in the Supreme Court's docket this term, the Pledge of Allegiance case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow. Yet instead of confronting a serious constitutional issue, SCOTUS, as it is so wont to do when the fat hits the fire, chose to punt, by rejecting Newdow on 'standing' grounds. Unlike many other legal commentators I've been reading, I think this was nothing but a cowardly cop-out on the Court's part. But while disappointing, it is not surprising. Given America's current frigid reactionary climate, where civil discourse is all but dead, I can't judge them too harshly for not wanting to touch this one with a 10-foot pole. But if there was ever a slam dunk establishment clause case, this baby was it. Drafted at the height of the McCarthy era, the entire legislative history behind Congress' adding the words 'one nation, under god' to the pledge screams the fact that its intent was to establish religion at the federal government level to distinguish the United States from the godless commies of the USSR. Not to mention the fact that the original sponsors of the legislation were the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic religious fraternity. David Greenberg does an outstanding job analyzing the background here. The decision does settle one point, though, and very clearly: Justices O'Connor and Ginsburg ain't the only ones on that Court with no cajones.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/20/2004 08:58:00 PM| |

 
It's always a pleasure to receive email from people who have discovered my blog because they are interested in pursuing a career in the Foreign Service. I can tell you from personal experience that it can be a long, daunting, and discouraging procedure. You have to pass two rounds of tough examinations and the security clearance can be a nightmare, especially for those of us with extensive international experience. But it sure is worth it in the end. Whatever happens, persevere. If this is what you really want to do, don't give up. I'm glad I stuck with it, but I can tell you at times I wondered if I'd ever make it. By all means, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions about the process. I'll answer as best as I'm able. I'd like to introduce "World Adventurers", the excellent website of a guy who entered the Foreign Service two classes after I did. In fact, our class, the 116th, served as the mentor for his class. For those of you interested in what our initial training (popularly referred to as 'A-100') was like, he did a great job of keeping a journal describing the experience. Actually, it is because I tried to add his site to my links that I lost my template. After I added the link and tried to republish, a glitch with Blogger's publishing software wiped my template clean. But don't worry Mike, I'm not blaming you! Much. Mike is an interesting fellow. He also married a Chinese woman and they have a baby son. He's a China Hand wannabe like the rest of us, but his first assignment will be in Korea. He's written several short stories, and one, Zhao Ai 找爱 [In Search of Love], is China-themed. I've been meaning to take him to task on his pinyin, but I haven't had the time yet. There's a lot of other great stuff there, so do check it out. As for me, I've been extremely busy. Our consulate is the 6th busiest in the world for non-immigrant visa applications, so you can imagine what our days are like. Each of us interviews and adjudicates well over 100 visa applicants daily. And still we are backlogged. In fact, I have to go in tomorrow for the third Saturday in a row. But hey, at least we get overtime pay!
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/18/2004 09:18:00 PM| |

 
Tamil Telly
Things are finally starting to happen here. We got our Internet today after all. Princess Roy marched down to the ISP and raised a tempest. It took the company VP to settle her down. Read all about it at her site here. Scroll down and take a look at the tale about "The Lady Whose Lamb Never Came". Then you might understand a bit more about the mindset we are dealing with in this place. Also, I've made a few changes to the site. I'm trying to get the feel of my old Realm back, if not necessarily the appearance. So I do apologize to those of you who left comments using the Blogger feature, which frankly bites. I like Haloscan much better. One of the first things we did here was get cable. That was another battle in itself. One thing though, it is very cheap, at less than $10 a month for around 70 channels, including HBO and other premiums. The catch? Tamil Nadu, and only Tamil Nadu, apparently, requires you to purchase a converter box at a harsh 5000 rupees. No box, no cable. It is a complete racket, and someone is lining his/her pockets with this deal. For the first three days we didn't get any channels at all until after 4:00pm, when reception would magically restore. After repeated phone calls, the guy finally came out to fix it late one weekend afternoon. Only he didn't bring any tools. First he asked me for a screwdriver (couldn't oblige because my tools along with all our other stuff were stuck in port due to the longshoremen strike), then finally he settled for a kitchen knife. That didn't get the job done so off he went for another hour to find his tools. Well, since then no big problems with reception. One bizarre thing though, is that the HBO and Starz movie channels are not quite like they are in the US. The most glaring difference is they have commercials---lots of them. And movie content here is heavily censored, especially the racy stuff. We're basically getting the airline version, though India leaves most of the curse words in. They do cut the most graphic violence, which I find odd considering how the Indian classical soaps (based on the Vedas) show guys getting their domes lopped off with cudgels. Really hokey special effects and George Lucas has nothing to be afraid of, but you still see a guy's head rolling on the ground. They take it to extremes, too; "The Simpsons" airs here each day at 6, and when an episode contains an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, all we get is the initial glimpse of the cat and mouse followed by a shot of Bart and Lisa laughing. Everything else gets cut. We get several international channels, along with several sports channels including ESPN, but they are heavily tailored for an Indian audience (meaning cricket, cricket and more cricket). We also get CNN and the BBC. CNN is much better here than in the US, because it is more focused on international news, and best of all, no Aaron Brown! For you polyglots out there, we also receive Russian, German, Spanish, French, and Italian channels. Not to mention just about every Indian language under the sun. We also get at least five Chinese stations. One, Channel News Asia, is from Singapore. Others are a Buddhist network called 大爱 that airs a couple of days a week, and a Chinese cartoon channel from Macau. The worst of the lot is 美亚电视. It shows nothing but crappy Hong Kong 'B' movies, though I did see a young Maggie Cheung (张曼玉) the other day---eat your heart out, Brendan! The one redeeming feature about the channel is that it broadcasts in both Mandarin and Cantonese. Finally, we get the channel loved by every Western expat in China, the Mighty CCTV-9. Alright, gotta hit the hay. As always, another busy day awaits...
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/15/2004 12:56:00 AM| |

 
I'm sitting in a Chennai Internet cafe with the clever moniker of "The I-Way". The cost is 30 rupees per hour (45 rupees = $1). You may remember where I compared India to 1980s China when I described my initial impressions of India. This swank Internet cafe aside, that impression becomes more reinforced with each passing day. Part of what I meant by that comment is that the inefficiency of India can at times be maddening. Just like China was back in the day. Take my great Internet Struggle for instance. For three weeks now, I have been trying to get DSL at our home. We have already given an 8000 rupee advance for the required cable modem. The guy kept saying he would connect us "by this Saturday". Why not earlier? Because they were 'out of cable modems'. Well, Saturday has come and gone. We called today for an explanation. Naturally, the sales guy was nowhere to be found, but the techie was kind enough to tell us that the sales department is full of beans---they don't expect the next shipment of modems for at least another month. Never mind the fact that Chennai is the fourth largest city in India and sits adjacent to the country's Silicon Valley of Bangalore and Hyderabad; at its heart, Chennai remains a confused jumble of assorted villages not far removed from the 19th Century. And that's not all. For the same three weeks we have been trying to get a four post mosquito net installed in our master bedroom. The circular one we have now hangs on a hook from the ceiling and is not quite large enough to cover the whole bed. These things aren't cheap at around 2000 rupees, and it doesn't take long to construct them---maybe two hours tops. 2000 rupees is most likely equal to two week's salary to the handyman we've hired to do the job and we still have to call every other day or so to spur him into action. First to get him to come out and make the measurements, then to ensure he's got the wood he needs, then to make sure he purchased a large enough mosquito net, then to finally have him come out and do the job (that will be Monday we hope)... Finally, there is the matter of our household effects that we shipped from the US. Apparently they arrived around two weeks ago, but as of yet they are not in our home. The most recent strike by the long shoremen ended the other day, at long last, but now there is a huge backlog of goods stuck in port, and the Tamil Nadu government still has to clear everything. Maybe we'll get our shipment in time for pack out to my next post.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/12/2004 05:53:00 PM| |

 
It's been a couple of weeks since I last checked in, but all you've missed is hearing me hack and sneeze my way through a brutal Madras Monster headcold/flu/respiratory ailment. It went around the entire consulate in about a month's time and didn't hit me until the very end, where it had mutated and evolved by then into a viral maelstrom that rendered all known over-the-counter medications absolutely powerless in its wake. It put me down for a whole week, and that's just the bedridden stage. I'm still not completely over the thing yet, but at least I'm back at work, and good thing too, because we are severly understaffed at present. A number are off on leave or special assignment, and so there are just a handful of us at the windows to handle the visa-seeking hordes. An average day will see well over 700 people come through the lines. One bright spot of news is that I am making progress on getting Internet at home. If all goes well, we'll be up and running in a couple of weeks time---maybe sooner. So I can get back to regular postings again and hopefully repair the template debacle. We've got some fun pics to share and maybe even a small video stream, so keep your fingers crossed...
- posted by Prince Roy @ 6/03/2004 10:43:00 AM| |