BURMA’S IRRAWADDY DELTA REGION has been reduced to a vast stagnant pool and the official death toll from Cyclone Nargis is stretching towards 30,000. Yet even in the face of such epic loss Myanmar’s junta is coldly proceeding with its political wheelings, forcing citizens around the country to vote on a meaningless constitutional referendum.

The Asia Sentinel reported yesterday that Myanmar’s generals announced an overwhelming voter turnout on Sunday, outside of the 47 townships that were affected by the storm. Though journalists were barred from the polls, reports are circulating among Burma watchers and human rights groups that the process was unsurprisingly marred by corruption and fear:

Ballots were reportedly ripped out of hands and “yes” votes marked by election officials. Votes were cast in the presence of soldiers, police and fire fighters ‑ a normally benign group, but in Burma given paramilitary training – both inside and outside polling stations. There are also reports that the junta’s mass organization, the Union Solidarity and Development Association, and the paramilitary Swan Ah Shin, which was involved in the violent crackdown on protestors in September, were also present at the polling stations.

Related media: The International Herald Tribune reports that generals are upholding aid restrictions, as the Guardian posts video footage showing the relief effort and the toll the storm has taken on the country.

If you’re feeling helpless: Mike over at Vagabondish has posted that travelers Nora Dunn and Kelly Bedford are in northern Thailand organizing relief efforts. Read more to learn how you can contribute.

calcutta traffic jam. photo by yumievriwan.

THE LOOMING THREAT OF GLOBAL warming and the ever-climbing cost of gas have made options like cycling to work, using mass transit and car sharing trendy in the United States. Green is our new mantra, however far removed our true habits may be from our ideals. But on the other side of the globe, entire populations of consumers that have long gone without are now snatching up cheap automobiles, and you can bet they won’t be slapping “carbon offset” bumper stickers on the back.

As car ownership increases in nations like South Korea, China and India, manufacturers are looking to churn out vehicles at even lower price points; today the BBC reported that Renault-Nissan has announced a joint venture with Indian firm Bajaj to create the world’s cheapest car, at an estimated $2,500.

And while the West and even internal environmentalists shake their heads at the possibility of millions of new drivers throwing tons of CO2 up in the air, the sentiment held in the Eastern hemisphere is perhaps best reflected by China’s “you first” stance — and these nations have a point. Many Americans still drive tank-like SUVs every day, and the US is the only developed nation that has not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, what pedestal do we have to stand on?

But here’s the problem: with more drivers and more roads, these booming Asian nations are unwittingly fostering an auto-culture from which it will take ages to untangle. Right now they’re feasting on the fruits that developed capitalism can afford — the luxuries that Americans have enjoyed for decades. It’s understandable that Western criticism of these trends now would draw resentment and cries of hypocrisy.

The crucial point that must be conveyed, though, is that owning a car does not constitute the good life. Yes, we’ve been driving cars for decades, and the American road trip is indeed a sweet thing. But the majority of drivers are not freewheeling travelers blasting down I-90; we shuttle to and from suburban homes in frustrated bursts. Look at the faces of drivers inching along the snarled roadways in and out of Chicago, LA, Seattle, etc. Driving is convenient only when we have no better option. If American big business and city planners had had more foresight, we’d be riding on trolleys and trains (and probably wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic).

The mayors of Asia’s biggest cities should be regarding the difficulties the US is encountering as it attempts to move away from car culture as a lesson, a cautionary tale, instead of blithely allowing cars to choke their thoroughfares. Because once you go down this road, it’s a long way coming back.

AS THE BREATH OF SPRING slowly rolls over Puget Sound, a sweet, heady fragrance unfurls from budding deciduous leaves and carries on the wind. The smell washes over the Seattle area’s familiar piney scent, and never fails to make me feel nostalgic; an olfactory reminder of the humming anticipation I felt throughout my childhood in those months just before summer.

Standing on the platform outside Seatac International Airport, waiting for my ride, there it was again. Despite the chill in the air, I could sense the seasonal shift. I drank it in, mulling it over and trying to swallow the fact that this would be the last time I would step through the arrivals gate in my hometown for who-knows-how-many years.

On the surface that was a reality I was entirely prepared for, even happy about. After all, I’d been hoping to land a job in Seoul in my field for nearly a year, all the while dreamily sifting through pictures of South Korea on flickr and reminiscing about the months I traveled and studied in the country. But I also wondered how I would feel as I passed the streets where I spent my youth, stealing a few last glimpses of the Northwest, this upper-left corner I’ve come to love so much.

Read more on Vagabondish

FOLLOWING MASSIVE CANDLELIGHT VIGILS protesting the resumption of US beef imports, police in the South Korean capital say they are planning to crack down on demonstration organizers. Critics are calling the move an “arbitrary application of the law,” an argument further bolstered by the fact that protests so-far appear to have been entirely peaceful.

The Hankyoreh quoted a police official today who defended plans to prosecute organizers by saying : “The event was registered as a cultural event but it was in fact a political gathering overflowing with agitation and agitating slogans.” That’s some shifty legal ground for the government to be walking on — just a few steps away from the blunt politics of the 80s, when demonstrators who voiced their opposition were harshly silenced.

Meanwhile, South Korean officials are detailing new guidelines for beef imports, which will allow bone-in cuts and intestines; both were previously barred. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry says it plans to send four special investigation teams to inspect meat processing facilities in the US, and is promising strict screening in an attempt to cool public health concerns.

But despite taking careful measures to prevent instances of mad cow disease, what appears to be left unaddressed is how the government will control prices to protect South Korean farmers — an increased supply of cheap meat from the US is sure to put them in a pinch. If president Lee Myung-bak is truly interested in reviving the local economy, his policies should take a holistic and sustainable approach, instead of solely weighing the interests of his conservative counterparts in Washington.

• Reports are coming out of South Korea today that at least eight people have died after a freak tidal wave hit the west coast near Boryeong City. Among those killed were five-year-old Park Sung-woo and nine-year-old Chu Seung-bin. My condolences to the families.
• Following accusations of corruption and baby-selling, Vietnam is ending its adoption agreement with the United States. The US embassy in Hanoi released the report detailing shady practices by adoption agencies, provoking an angry response from Vietnamese officials. Despite flaring tempers, the embassy says it stands by its findings.
• Shopping malls and Jesus may be the pillars of the American suburbs, but the two are coming together in an entirely unexpected way on the island of Java. The BBC reports that Christian congregations in Indonesia, fearing violence and persecution from Muslim groups, are seeking refuge in malls on Sunday mornings.
• On the lighter side: It’s a traveler’s nightmare — an overseas flight with nothing to read, no iPod and no in-flight movie. The San Francisco Chronicle’s John Flinn wrestles on the wing with boredom, and gives tips on staying sane.
• Break-ups are hard, especially when it’s with a city you’ve loved so dearly, but every now and then we get the call to wander. John Moe writes, “Sorry, Seattle - I’ve found somewhere else.“

the school from the inside. mokpo, south korea. by 摩根.

TWENTY-HOUR DAYS AND ENDLESS pressure for better test performance; it sounds closer to a description of a robot’s regimented existence than to a definition of quality education. Yet this is the grueling reality for students inside South Korea’s top notch prep schools. And while this rigorous instruction may be helping young Koreans achieve their Ivy League dreams, it raises some serious red flags about quality of life.

So you have to wonder: why did the New York Times leave that angle out?

In a recent story, the Times’ Sam Dillon featured two of South Korea’s premier preps, and seemed to praise Daewon Foreign Language High School and the Minjok Leadership Academy for their ability to churn out roof-shattering SAT scores and undergrads at Harvard, Yale, et al. Never mind the fact that the students hardly have time to sleep, let alone engage in a little frivolous young romance.

But as he was collecting quotes from teachers applauding their students’ superhuman concentration abilities, what Dillon forgot to do was take a step back and evaluate what all this rigor might mean for the development of young minds. To that idea, he dedicates hardly more than a sentence:

Both schools seem to be rethinking their grueling regimen, at least a bit. Minjok, a boarding school, has turned off dormitory surveillance cameras previously used to ensure that students did not doze in late-night study sessions. Daewon is ending its school day earlier for freshmen. Its founder, Lee Won-hee, worried in an interview that while Daewon was turning out high-scoring students, it might be falling short in educating them as responsible citizens.

“American schools may do a better job at that,” Dr. Lee said.

And then it’s straight back to the “Many American educators would kill to have such disciplined pupils” line that Dillon adheres to throughout most of the piece.

A better critique is over at the Metropolitician, aka Michael Hurt, who used to teach at Daewon and quit in the middle of his contract because he was so upset by what he experienced. Hurt faults these schools for over-valuing standardized tests, leaving students academically one-dimensional and “woefully ill-prepared”.

Basically, your life sucks at these schools for 3 years, but the kids and parents swallow their pride and ire, since it is the fast-track to America’s best schools. Period. That’s the exchange. But it absolutely brings out the worst of the Korean school system in a soul-crushing nightmare of pain that many students realize only gets them to the door of the institution they wanted, but has woefully under-prepared them to make it through.

Beyond arguments of educational policy there’s also a simple question of time. If these teens are locked up in their rooms with a stack of books until 2 a.m. every day, when do they get to meet friends? When do they go to concerts? When do they play outside? When do they get to simply act their age? Passing all of these things off as trivia that won’t matter ten years down the road is missing the point. We all need time to grow up.

bags of rice, thailand. photo by IRRI images.

I WISH I’D HAD A TAPE RECORDER. One day the manager at the cafe where I work was lamenting the climbing cost of her weekly groceries, the next she was attempting to justify the higher prices on our soup.

“[Another cafe] is charging five dollars for a cup that’s the same size!” she said, explaining why it was now costing our customers a dollar more for a product that we dump out of a bag. The economic reasoning seemed rather dubious to me, especially juxtaposed against her earlier complaints.

“This is how food prices go up,” I said to her dryly. She shot me a look that seemed to say, Whatever.

It was an illustrative moment. While I can’t pretend to fully understand the complexities of the looming food crisis, amid all the factors that lay out of human control — floods, poor crops, shortages, etc. — the common denominator appears to be human greed. This has manifested itself on a range of levels, from questionable price gouging to grain hoarding.

With recent riots over food prices in Haiti and the IHT reporting that elementary schools in rural Cambodia are being forced to suspend free breakfast programs, it’s obvious that — as ever — the world’s poorest are the first to feel the pinch of this greed. But in some backwards way it’s hopeful that Americans are too; proof that the distance of oceans doesn’t insulate us from everything.

The worrisome aspect of that equation is this: Americans have agency and buying power, whereas citizens of third world nations have little to none. Bloomberg says that hoarding by eager Wall Streeters is already adding to the pain of farmers and consumers.

And so we’re left with a reality that has always existed in some form but has rarely been so plainly presented — unless we check greed and panic in this situation, people will starve and die.

Looking at soaring food costs as an opportunity for capital gains is one-dimensional and shortsighted. Those inching up their prices hoping to make an extra buck are only going to turn around to find their dollars don’t go as far in the aisles of the grocery store. But Statesiders ought to reflect on the fact that on the other side of the world, the consequences are more real; kids going to school with empty bellies, families grinding by on rations bought with $2 a day.

TDT won’t be posting over the next several days — some things have popped up that take priority and, well, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Please check back soon for updates.

UPDATE 4/24: Obviously this little break has stretched a bit longer than intended, but I’m still sorting out a few details in my personal life. I hope for posts to resume this weekend or early next week. To those dedicated readers out there, thanks for stickin’ around. Happy travels ~ TDT.

photo by tizzie.

LAST WEEK JAPAN’S JUSTICE ministry announced that it hanged three people in February, according to the BBC. The late disclosure highlighted the shroud of secrecy that accompanies death sentences in the country, and added momentum to the argument that Japan is ramping up its system of capital punishment.

And while that was bad news for human rights activists in the region (not to mention the families of those killed, who were notified only after the fact), a recent Economist article points out how it was worse news for innocent people unlucky enough to have caught the ire of the law — or who just happened to be the easiest scapegoat:

The notion of being innocent until proven guilty is not strong in Japan. Mr Hatoyama [the Justice Minister] calls it “an idea which I want to constrain”. But confessions are important and the courts rely heavily upon them. Apart from helping secure convictions, they are widely interpreted as expressions of remorse. A defendant not only risks a longer sentence if he insists he is innocent, he is also much less likely to be granted bail before trial—often remaining isolated in police custody, without access to counsel, for long enough to confess.

[...] Perversely, where little supporting evidence exists, the system helps hardened criminals, who know that if they do not confess they are unlikely to be indicted. Innocents, on the other hand, may crack—as in the Kagoshima case, or in a notorious 2002 rape case when the accused confessed under pressure but was released last October after the real culprit came forward.

In a nation that proves itself to be advanced in most other ways, Japan’s backwards system of criminal law is baffling. Juxtaposed against the current background of nations taking other allied countries to task for their human rights abuses — eh em, China — one has to wonder why there isn’t more international pressure for openness in a supposedly democratic state.

• Ex-presidents often retain their fame after leaving office, but few ascend to the status of tourist destination. Choe Sang-hun reports on how South Korea’s Roh Moo Hyun has become a popular sensation after returning to his hometown — never mind his poor ratings while he was commander-in-chief.
• I might have to eat my words about the likelihood of Bush’s skipping the opening ceremonies; CNN says the White House has left the door open for a symbolic protest of China’s recent crackdown.
• This is a few weeks old, but if you missed the NYT article about how Japanese Haiku is still being written in South Korea despite the taboo, it’s worth a read.
• The IHT’s Roger Cohen explains why Europe wants a democrat in the US, while Asia is pulling for a republican.
• And this just in from CNN, a former Lonely Planet writer brags to an Australian paper about how he plagiarized material, accepted free travel and sold drugs to supplement his income. Laziness, questionable ethics — does this guy think he’s cool?