Word: panjang
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...Geumpang sits in a valley of rice fields at the heart of Ulu Masen. It is famous for its fertile soil and the gold sometimes found in its rivers. Raked by clouds, it is also famously wet: some people joke that the name Geumpang is a contraction of gerimis panjang, the Indonesian for "constant drizzle." A no-go area during the conflict - GAM rebels passed through there on their way between Aceh's east and west coasts - it is now a peaceful place. Children walk to school past paddy fields of ripening rice, while glistening water buffalo wallow in pools...
...Fulwood isn't the only Western expatriate to take up residence in the cheaper peripheries of this Southeast Asian city. An English teacher and community volunteer whose duties include helping integrate Westerners into the Bukit Panjang neighborhood, the 30-year-old Englishman sees a small but steadily growing number of Americans, Australians and Europeans in the fluorescent-lit coffee shop where locals often gather after work around cold pitchers of beer. These foreigners are economic refugees of a sort. Because of the global recession, expat bankers, traders and corporate managers have lost their high-paying jobs with multinational corporations...
...Just a few years ago, when an economic boom was pulling a flood of Western professionals into Singapore, a Western face in a working-class neighborhood like Bukit Panjang was a rare sight. According to investment bank Credit Suisse, Singapore's population grew 18%, to about 4.8 million, from 2004 to 2008. More than three-quarters of that growth, Credit Suisse estimates, came from newly arrived foreigners taking lucrative positions at expanding private banks, oil-exploration firms and shipping companies. Foreigners filled 61% of the 796,000 jobs created in Singapore during that four-year period...
...mood is more cheery around the chipped Formica tables at the Zhenghua Community Club's coffee shop in Bukit Panjang, where Fulwood often stops for a greasy fried-oyster omelet on his way home. Asked if he'd rather be sipping lychee martinis in an air-conditioned hotel bar or swanning around a big Victorian bungalow, Fulwood grins and says, "I'd be crazy not to, of course. But I'd still come back here every weekend. This is real life...
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