Asians banned from public areas

Police officers physically barred workers from entering souqs and the Corniche on Friday, citing that it was "family day." Normally Doha maintains the polite fiction that "family day" at a mall means that no single men are allowed, but one policeman interviewed was more forthright: "Every Friday we come here to stop the labourers accessing this area. No Nepalese are allowed." An editorial by a white dude confirmed that single white men magically count as families.

Links from Peaceful Muslimah, who is charitable enough to see these articles as a good sign, in that the media is at least broaching the topic.

Hong Kong

Got to Hong Kong this afternoon. Three coworkers and I are presenting at a conference here this week; one of them (Ben) and I flew in today, and the other two (Dudley & Hope) arrive tomorrow.

We went for a walk along the harbor and ended up at Belcher Bay Park. Every few feet there were signs telling us not to smoke, not to have dogs, not to spit (with great illustrations), not to skateboard, not to make very much noise, and not to step on, or attack, snakes. Also there were signs we could not identify, but whose rather abstract graphics we interpreted as "no yokes" and "no kimonos."

On the plane ride here I started reading a collection of Ryunosuke Akutagawa stories, with an introduction by Haruki Murakami. Murakami says something about Akutagawa's Japan that made me think a lot of Qatar:

Only one generation had gone by since the end of that age [of samurai], hardly enough time to reshape people's inner landscapes. Superficial aspects such as new systems remained untouched: sensibility, values, archetypal mental images. In fact, the Meiji government openly promoted a policy supporting precisely such a bifurcation, as represented by the slogan "Japanese spirit, Western technology." They wanted to incorporate the technological progressiveness and efficiency of Western systems, but they also wanted the people to remain good, submissive Confucianists.

Living in a culture that is trying to combine the best of Western progressiveness with a Muslim, Arab spirit, it's really fascinating for me to get a glimpse into one of the Asian cultures that has been through this paradoxical process already.