Ripples of Chaos

May 19, 2026 djarmul 5 Comments

I don’t usually write about partisan politics on this blog but I’m making an exception to share what we heard about President Trump during our recent 6-week trip in Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

When people first learned we were American, they were invariably polite. If we asked what they thought about our president, they usually avoided answering. But when we assured them we really wanted to know, without sharing our own opinions, we got an earful.

Why did Trump launch a war that was raising energy prices, they asked us. Why did he impose so many tariffs? Doesn’t he know or care they’re struggling to support their families?

Why does he treat America’s friends so rudely?

And most frequently: Why is the United States supporting Israel as it kills Muslims in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere? We heard this last one repeatedly, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia, which have complicated relations with the Middle East but are nonetheless Muslim-majority. We saw war news often on our hotel televisions, like this one in Indonesia.

As I wrote in my last post, most people in these countries don’t follow every twist and turn in American politics. They are more focused on their own lives. But everyone we met was aware of the Iran conflict. Some of them, like the Malaysian taxi driver I recorded in this video clip, were following it closely. If you listen to the audio, you’ll hear a vastly different narrative from what Americans are told on CNN, much less Fox News.

Champa and I have gotten used to hearing such criticisms. We decided after the last election to spend more time outside the United States and we’ve been on the road a lot since then. No matter how far we’ve traveled, though, we can’t escape the chaos back home.

We toured the Balkans with the five Brazilian guys you see in the above photo. We initially avoided discussing politics with them but, as we got to know each other, they shared their concerns. These were well-traveled, educated men with moderate viewpoints but they all were disturbed by the recent turn of American policy. They expected Brazil to strengthen its ties with China as a result.

At a ceremony in Frankfurt to commemorate the 35th anniversary of German unification, above, the chorus sang “We Shall Overcome” and other songs that celebrate tolerance and diversity. I struck up a conversation with a local doctor holding a candle near us in the plaza and she said she was sad to see these values under attack in the United States.

We visited the southern Caribbean shortly after the United States invaded Venezuela. A guide in neighboring Curaçao, above, told us the invasion had hurt his business. Tourists were avoiding the region, he said, which meant fewer tips for him.

We returned home from Asia shortly before President Trump traveled to China to meet with Xi Jinping. I’ve been wondering since then what people in Taipei, like those we saw praying at a temple, think of the reports that Trump may now be hedging on American military support.

All of us who live in the United States have felt this administration’s actions most directly, whether the issue is immigration, health care, inflation or something else. But make no mistake: The rest of the world is affected, too. They don’t understand why America has changed. They worry about what’s happening to us and fear what it means for them.

I’ll conclude with a final photo, of Ari, the Indonesian driver who accompanied Champa and me across much of Java. He works incredibly hard and barely ekes out a living, even with the generous tips he gets from tourists like us. He sleeps in his car to save money. Now he’s facing rising fuel costs. Ari is among the many millions of people across his country, and billions more around the world, whose lives have been affected by our country’s actions. In Africa and other places that relied on USAID, the result has sometimes been deadly.

As I wrote in my last post, traveling abroad has reminded me that the United States is not the center of the universe. But its impact is still profound. We Americans remain capable of being a true world leader and of helping others, as I saw in the Peace Corps. But right now we’re flailing, and the ripples are churning in every direction.

Top photo: Historical diorama at the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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Six Things I Learned

May 14, 2026 djarmul 3 Comments

I learned a lot during our recent trip to Taipei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Manila — not only about these places, but about our own country, too.

Here are six things I now understand more clearly:

America is not the center of the universe.

Our country has been so powerful for so long that it can seem like the universe revolves around us. But it doesn’t.

Many Americans are obsessed now with our political turmoil, and for good reason. When you leave home, though, you’re reminded that most people around the world are far more focused on other things.

As I wrote while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer several years ago, my Moldovan friends didn’t “care about American politics unless it affects them personally, which it rarely does. At least they know where America is, which is more than most Americans know about Moldova.”

Did people ask us during our trip about President Trump, the war with Iran and other issues? Yes, and I plan to share some of those conversations in an upcoming post.

But we were asked far more often about our family and other matters that had nothing to do with American politics. The television in our hotel was more likely to show a badminton match than CNN.

Recognizing this doesn’t mean our American passions are unimportant. It’s just a reminder that others generally don’t share them with the same intensity.

Countries are complicated.

Is Alaska the same as Texas? Obviously not. Yet Americans often blur entire regions, such as Southeast Asia or Africa. They use phrases like “developing” to obscure immense diversity within places.

The four countries we visited turned out to be significantly different. Taiwan is technologically advanced, orderly and democratic. Malaysia is striking for its multiculturalism and welcoming form of Islam. Indonesia has a huge population with diverse islands. The Philippines has strong cultural ties to both Spain and the United States.

We saw many other differences within and across the countries as well. They can’t be reduced to sound bites and neither can other countries around the world.

They have their own histories.

America has been dominant not only in terms of its military, economy and political power, but also in its cultural imprint. Taylor Swift and LeBron James are more famous than many world leaders.

It’s humbling, therefore, to come to a place like Southeast Asia and be reminded that they had sophisticated civilizations and complex histories long before Europeans arrived, much less McDonald’s. They were shaped by trade routes, empires and migrations that had nothing to do with us.

The interactions among these countries were far more important until relatively recently. When Champa and I were in Malaysia, we stayed in a hotel that was once the mansion of a prominent Chinese businessman in Malacca. He and other Chinese immigrants played critical roles in the development of that city and others. The emigration of families from Taiwan centuries ago changed the face of the Philippines. Muslim traders reshaped Indonesia and Malaysia. The region’s majestic Hindu temples are reminders of India’s influence.

Once America did enter the picture, its impact was mixed. We liberated the region from brutal Japanese occupation during World War Two and provided essential economic and military assistance, notably to Taiwan in recent years. But we also employed scorched earth tactics to keep the Philippines under control in the early 1900s. We supported dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-Shek and Indonesia’s Suharto.

There are far more people in Asia than in the United States.

Southeast Asia is among the most densely populated places on Earth. Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have more people than the United States and Canada. Jakarta has more people than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago , Houston and Phoenix combined.

If you add in Vietnam, Thailand and other countries usually included in “Southeast Asia,” the comparison is even starker — and vastly more so if you include India, China and the rest of Asia.

Yet many Americans cannot place these countries on a map. Their visibility to us doesn’t align with their actual human scale. We regard our own lack of curiosity about other countries as normal and make jokes about it. Viewed from afar, our insularity is less amusing.

Their economies are growing fast.

The United States is generally wealthier than Southeast Asia, in some ways dramatically so. We saw heart-breaking poverty in several places.

But we also saw new rail systems that operate efficiently. Most of the airports were modern and immaculate. Smartphones were ubiquitous. Mobile payment was common. Skyscrapers were everywhere. Many parks and other public spaces were spotless. Taiwan has the world’s leading computer chip factories and other countries in the region are also moving fast in the tech world. Millions of people are highly educated and middle class, or more.

So are we still ahead of them economically? Overall, yes … but that’s for now.

Travel gives us perspective.

Probably my biggest take-away from this trip wasn’t about Southeast Asia per se but about travel generally.

Champa and I have been privileged to travel widely. We’ve seen repeatedly that what seems true and universal in the United States — our politics and assumptions about the world — are culturally specific rather than inevitable.

Especially at this moment when bombast and nationalism dominate our national conversation, it’s been therapeutic to view America with more distance, more nuance and less chest thumping.

I love my country. I’m proud to have served it twice overseas. But I’m also proud to be part of this larger world, which lately feels saner in many ways than my homeland.

We can learn a lot from other countries, even those that are “developing,” if we approach them with open eyes and open hearts. They remind us not only that the United States isn’t the center of the universe; it’s not even the center of our own small planet.

Top photo: Borobudur Temple, Indonesia

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My Manila File

May 11, 2026 djarmul Leave a comment

Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is overflowing with people. To grasp how dense it is, consider that the biggest city in my home state — Charlotte, North Carolina — has around 2,500 people per square mile. Manila is 45 times denser.

It has more people per square mile than New York, Paris, New Delhi or Hong Kong. In fact, depending on how you draw the lines, it’s the most densely populated city in the world.

We just went there for several days and were awed by the traffic. Manila is one of the world’s few megacities without a subway system, although it’s building one now. The average Manila driver loses more than five full days a year sitting in gridlock.

We experienced this ourselves while exploring the city with Grab, the local version of Uber. We stayed in Makati, one of the 16 neighboring cities that comprise “Metro Manila,” and had to allow bountiful extra time to drive anywhere else. These 17 separate city governments have no unified authority, which is a big reason why the infrastructure is so difficult to fix.

We spent only four nights there, just long enough to get a quick look and break up our trip home. Metro Manila occupies less than one percent of the Philippines land area and, despite its density, accounts for less than 15 percent of its total population. We were very aware it doesn’t represent the entire country. We wish we’d had the time to visit more of its 7,641 islands, which stretch a distance the same as Miami to New York City.

Still, we were able to visit Intramuros, the historic center of Manila. We explored Fort Santiago — the photo shows Champa descending into its dungeon — the beautiful Manila Cathedral and the old San Agustin Church, below.

We took a guided tour through the Chinese-Filipino Museum and wandered around Binondo, the world’s oldest Chinatown. We also visited the Ayala Museum, where we especially enjoyed its 60 intricate dioramas and other exhibits depicting Philippine history.

We kept hearing about the city’s giant malls so, even though we usually avoid malls, we went to two of the biggest. Both were modern and filled with shops offering every brand imaginable, plus diverse food options.

Needing a break from the tourist sites and commercial bustle, we took a (slow) Grab ride to the Arroceros Forest Park, a small urban riverside forest that serves as a green oasis for the city. It was lovely, even with the sign warning of snakes.

We spent our last day at Bonifacio High Street, a long boulevard lined with dining and shopping options.

Manila was the final stop of our trip that also included Taipei, Malaysia and Indonesia, so we celebrated our last night at an outdoor restaurant, watching the sun set over this immense, crowded, fascinating city. We would never want to live in Manila but we were glad to have visited it.

We would have been dense to miss the opportunity.

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Spiritual Bali

May 2, 2026 djarmul 3 Comments

For many people, “Bali” evokes an image of Julia Roberts cycling through emerald-green rice paddies to visit her spiritual mentor, a traditional medicine man named Ketut.

The 2010 film Eat Pray Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel, helped establish Bali as a global destination for spiritual exploration, wellness and self-discovery.

We just spent a week in Ubud, in central Bali, where many of the film’s Indonesian scenes were filmed. Everywhere we looked, we saw yoga classes, meditation sessions and organic cafes.

But we also saw overbuilt hotels, crowded streets and rows of shops selling souvenirs to tourists.

*Foreigners praying at Tirta Empul Temple*

An influx of Western spiritual seekers and other visitors has strained the authentic Balinese identity that attracted them. It’s hard to be an exotic backdrop for Western personal growth while adapting to the complex challenges of modernity.

Some U.S. cities, from Sedona to Asheville, also attract visitors seeking personal transformation. So do Kathmandu and other cities around the world. But Bali felt to me like the crown chakra of spiritual tourism.

When Champa and I took a class there on how to make incense sticks, our teacher began by chanting and sprinkling us with holy water. Only after we’d all meditated could we begin. When I asked him how many sticks I should make, he said: “Whatever your spirit says.”

Not exactly what you’d hear at Target.

We used Ubud as a base to visit waterfalls, a coffee plantation and a forest where monkeys perch atop willing tourists. We saw several temples, including the iconic Tanah Lot perched on a massive rock in the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean.

We splurged on our hotel, the Puri Saraswati, which features a beautiful water temple and nightly dance performances. We ate breakfast beside its lotus ponds. We got massages and dressed up in Balinese clothes to take photos beside the temple. We strolled beside tranquil rice fields and sampled the excellent nearby restaurants.

We then left Ubud for a seaside hotel close to the airport for two nights before our next flight. The vibe there was decidedly different— more beach town, less ethereal. But it was still Bali, which felt almost like a different country than Java, the island where we’d spent our previous ten days in Indonesia. It was like going from Detroit to Nirvana Disney World.

Bali is primarily Hindu, beautiful and bountiful in tradition. Java is predominantly Muslim, historically rich, vastly more populated.

Bali is smoother and easier for Western visitors, as well as more expensive. It’s the simpler choice for anyone new to Indonesia, which is why it attracts as many foreign visitors as all of Indonesia’s other islands combined. If I were on a honeymoon or a spiritual journey, it’s where I’d go.

As I wrote in my last post, though, Java was also compelling in its own way and we were very glad to experience it. My advice to anyone seeking cultural insight into Indonesia along with personal growth would be to visit both islands, and maybe more, if possible.