Welcome to the year of the Snake. Happy Lunar New Year

Welcome all, youngsters and hipsters, English illiterate, and motivated procrastinators!

(Advice for the elderly: click on a picture to make it bigger. Link to my journal website: www.teilointheworld.blogspot.com)

The Hebrew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Burmese, the Tibetan, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the Mongolian, and the Korean all celebrate their new year based on the lunisolar calendar. The lunisolar calendar is based on the moon phase and the time of the solar year and, after looking at the mathematical calculations, is quite complicated (source Wikipedia). 

That gives a total of 2.8 billion people that base their life on the lunar calendar. That is is 41% of the world population! (Calculations done based on information from WolframAlpha. Counting of individuals twice due to population overlap cannot be excluded).

This year, the Lunar New Year (also called Chinese New Year) falls on February 10th and will be the official start of the year of the Water Snake.

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"Welcome to Year of the Water Snake! Snake is the Yin to last year's Dragon Yang. That said, Snake does not settle for mediocrity, either. We're likely to see significant developments in the area of science and technology this year. Research and development are apt to flourish. This is a Water year as well, the element most closely associated with education and research, making 2013 a very special year for scientists and scholars. Snake is a great sign, a positive one, with energy that can help us face all of the challenges ahead of us. Let's take advantage of this vibrant influence to improve our lives -- and our world!" - Bill Hajdu

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And it just so happens that I am currently living in the ethnically Chinese country called Singapore. As this is the first culture that I have noticed in Singapore, I am paying special attention to the proceedings and am happy to report of my sightings.

First of all, it is important that I convey the Chinese New Year feeling. Different from the Western world, the people look toward the new year as a chance to increase their profits. Instead of wishing someone a "Happy New Year", everyone wishes you a "Prosperous New Year". This is well received by various companies seeking to boost sales, including McDonald's current promotional "Prosperity Burger", "Double Prosperity Burger", "Prosperity Drink", and "Prosperity Fries".

Numerous ancient Chinese traditions surface during the New Year, including a requirement to wear brand new clothes by February 10th, going to watch the dragon dances, listening to strange traditional music, and carrying around two oranges. The orange tradition is actually very fascinating. Since New Year Festivities last for over a week, every time you go to a New Year's party or gathering, the unmarried people bring two oranges and get to exchange the oranges with married people for envelopes full of money (8-10 dollar each). It does not matter whether these people are related, friends, or complete strangers. I myself am invited to join one of the festivities by a Chinese person I met at University and have been instructed to bring two oranges. o_O

To give you an even better feeling for Chinese New Year, I present you two Traditional Chinese Videos. One is the Dragon dance (I made this video in Singapore) and the other is the strange traditional music (I made this one in Malaysia). Can you guess which one is the Dragon dance?

These videos can be viewed in large either by clicking on the square at the bottom right of each video or by clicking on these links: Video 1 and Video 2.

Oh, and people, you must ALWAYS watch out for FALLING COCONUTS!!

A year without Christmas and New Years, but with a lot of other things...

Young Rice

Welcome imaginary friends!

(Advice for the elderly: click on a picture to make it bigger. Link to my journal website: www.teilointheworld.blogspot.com)

2013 is here and 2012 is gone. The Mayan Calendar has ended and the apocalypse has spared humanity. The USA will be independent of foreign oil reserves by 2020 and the western world is fighting real and imaginary terrorists in Mali, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Palestine.

And during alllll this turmoil, I made new friends and went on vacation in Bali and Vietnam.



To Bali:

My Christmas present this year was that my favorite person came to visit me from America. May I introduce Ashlee, a young, intelligent, and beautiful American. In return for this pleasant visit, I decided to take her on a short trip to Bali and show her the Asian countryside.


A brief history is required here: Bali is part of Indonesia and has been inhabited for a long time by people that call themselves the Balinese. Originally, all the tribes in Indonesia had their own form of religion (aka animism). However, at some point Hinduism, then Buddhism, and finally Islam were spread throughout that region of the world. While the rest of Indonesia accepted the Islam as the whole truth, Bali has remained devoutly Hindu, with a distinctinve Balinese twist. This has rendered a unique culture that all visitors seem to enjoy. Bali was discovered in the 60's by the hippies, and it soon became renowned on the secret hippie trail as being the best spot for surfing, eating mushrooms, and visiting immense and unique water temples. Sadly (or luckily), one of the hippies revealed the secret to the rest of the world, making Bali one of the most well known and most visited locations in that region.

Ashlee and I spent 5 days on this not-so-little Island that has been called "paradise" for the past 40 years. And I must concur, the island is comprised of beautiful beaches, superb waves, sheer rock cliffs, numerous volcanoes, endless rice paddies, and over 500 temples. I will let the pictures do the talking:

At the beach

Left: Dancing at the Reggae | Top Right: Alcohol or 
Gasoline? Both deadly.
Bottom Right: Our Bali Friend, hiking in flip flops

A normal sight in Bali, but one that still takes my breath away

To Vietnam:

Cat Ba Island and Surrounding Islands

Over Christmas I had the joy of seeing my whole family, you could call it a family reunion... in Vietnam! In total we were 7 people: my family, Ashlee, and Jonah. And we all met in Hanoi (all those who don't know where that is, look at the map below).



A brief history: Forgive more not being very knowledgeable on the history of Vietnam, but I do remember the most important points. The Vietnamese are direct descendants of Chinese groups that immigrated south and eventually developed their own language. They are a very nice people that have never been conquerors, trouble-makers, nor mean people. You could argue that the only mistake the Vietnamese ever made was to adopt communism during the cold war, but more on that later. 



Sometime in the 19th century, France decided that the Vietnamese needed to be colonialized. By 1885, the French had taken control of the whole country. I must admit that there were some positive aspects to the French ruling: they introduced the baguette and the wine making industry, two very unique attributes in this region of the world that are still practiced today. 

In the 1940's, there was a communist liberation movement and the French were thrown out. But alas! America did not like the spread of communism to Vietnam (it had something to do with Cuba, but the details escape me, ask Ashlee) and decided to attack Vietnam to set up a puppet democracy. Long story short, 50,000 Americans died and 6 million Vietnamese died over the course of 10 years during the American war. The Americans committed countless illegal war acts, including the testing of Napalm, phosphor bombs, chemical weapons such as Agent Orange (effects still seen on people walking around today), and the killing/torture/etc of prisoners of war.

Die Lange Kanone

- For the motivated, an article about the American War Museum in Vietnam detailing: War Atrocities in Vietnam (Click Here).

Nonetheless, the Vietnamese beat of the Americans, who left defeated, and have kept their communistic government through today.








Anyway, our group of 7 adventurers spent 17 days traveling the 2400 kilometers between Hanoi and Saigon, stopping at numerous cities and interesting sites along the way. Our favorite transportation vehicles were nightmare-overnight-not possible to sleep-sleeping buses and tiny bed-cockroach laden-three story-sleeping trains. But we endured and thrived.


Again, the pictures will do the talking:

Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park: located within is the worlds biggest cave (above water), the "Infinity Cave"

Left: Fishermen at work | Bottom: Just a normal day in the Jungle

Is this a 6 bed compartment on a Vietnam night train heading South? Why yes, I believe it is.

 Top Left: Strong Kids need a big breakfast in the beach city of Mui Ne. | Bottom Left: The plural for dragon fruit is? .... Dragon fruit! Right: Ashlee reading a book and taking care of our humongous backpacks.

Caron the local! Doing local things! Making local friends (from Korea)!

To Singapore: 

And last but not least, I wanted to share some of my research findings, the reason for receiving my monthly paycheck ;).

And no, I have not solved world hunger, nor AIDS, nor the global water shortage, nor Angela Merkel's election problems. However, I have at least made progress on the development of an ocular biofilm (lens) that will provide a steady controlled diffusion of medication into the eye for patients suffering from the Herpesvirus Cytomegalovirus, a secondary disease that is highly likely to develop in HIV patients. We have finished constructing 48 sample biofilms and are in the process of testing the matrix-assisted drug diffusion using fluorescence measurements. The experiment simulates the conditions in the eye (medium, temperature, darkness) in order to provide an accurate reflection of in-vivo drug release.

Pictures from lab!

Left: 60 glass tubes filled with chloroform and biofilm, about to be measured using Gel Permeation Chromatography Top: Organice solvents used to dissolve the biofilm

Dinner in Singapore: Lemon Chicken (3x) at a Hawker Center (Food Court)