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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joseph Beltran who wrote (5006)	7/2/1998 1:27:00 PM
From: Amelia Carhartt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Cheer up Joseph: It is always darkest before the dawn. Patience and vigilance will be amply rewarded in the years to come. Susan

To: Joseph Beltran who wrote (5006)	7/2/1998 4:29:00 PM
From: Thomas Haegin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

So sorry Joseph :-) but I think Asia will make us sick for some time longer, including me. In fact, I'm still not sure whether people have factored in all possible bad news already. Real economies move considerably slower than day-to-day coverage in clips on CNN and CNBC... Personally, I still think investing in Asia is risky. I rather stick to the USA and (Western) Europe, to be honest. Cheers - and have a nice weekend Asia threadsters in the U.S... we Swiss have to work over here tomorrow :-) Thomas

To: Joseph Beltran who wrote (5006)	7/2/1998 7:32:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 9980

<<I'm beginning to get physically sick of seeing these headlines about asian problems everywhere I go.>> Re: My Rx for you. Interesting comment Joseph in that I think you are experiencing a feeling that seems to waft over me from time to time these days. From my perspective, here in SE Asia, I not only read a tremendous amount of coverage on the local economies but must add personal anecdotal information as well. Since my wife is a local this frequently includes close personal friends. There have been more then a few occasions that I felt I needed to turn off "all channels". Fortunately for me there are many delightful ways to do that here. Yesterday I went with my brother-in-law to visit a family that lives in the jungle. They are "Orang-Asli" people which literally means original people. They are not so-called Malay people. This particular family is Christian and eke out there living from the nearby forest and the ground they walk on. We were there to join them in a trek up a nearby mountain side to harvest natural Durian (the local "king of fruit") which are much smaller and sweeter then the cultivated variety. The durian trees that grow wild are competitors for sunlight in the forest and are much taller then there orchard bound brethern. The orang-asli must climb to a goodly height to harvest the fruit. He also must compete with monkeys and orang-utan for the pungent fruit that everyone holds here in such high esteem. Even the tigers eat the fruit when it falls to the forest floor. These folks harvest fruit and rotan from the jungle, weave baskets (still widely used for transporting goods to market here), fish, gather material and thatch roofs in the nearby village, and grow vegetables for table and market. The live in a stilted house made totally from local materials and lacking electricity or plumbing. To them the stock market doesn't exist. And economics are directly related to weather conditions. I must say, an out-station trip like this one can be just the ticket to renew your mental outlook. After a very hot 3 hour trek up and back, we sat at dusk in their yard, sponging off with cool water, drinking thick sweetened tea, and watching the children playing with the soccer ball I had brought to them. The old patriarch eyed me silently from behind his pipe. He is old enough to remember a time when white men lorded over this place until the Japanese came and brought an even crueler regime. But the father of the children sees us as a chance to sell some fruit and exchange some talk he seems to find intensely interesting. The subject is fishing tackle and my brother-in-law regales him with talk about the latest fishing reels (something this fellow would never buy but seems to enjoy hearing about anyway). As they talk the old man is silent as I am also. The children scuffle and giggle. Somewhere inside the shadows of the stilted house a pot clinks and smoke is rising from a cooking fire. I glance down and a rivulet of sweat falls on the toe of my boot, a dark stain spreading on the leather. My mind is completely clear of exchange rates, failing banks, p/e ratios, unemployment figures, or anything even close to these subjects. Whatever my thoughts, my mind snaps back as I catch enough phrases from the Bahasa being spoken to know that I am being made the brunt of a joke by virtue of my size (I weigh 290 lbs and stand 6'5"). I wonder how they went from fishing reels to my girth in their conversation. The old man grins, the first one I have seen him make. I glance up the mountain side from where we came and think his grin is a good thing. Best, Stitch