Hello there. ‘Selamat Datang ke Malaysia’. That means, ‘Welcome to Malaysia’ in our national language Bahasa Malaysia. It would be impossible to tell you everything about Malaysia in such a short period of time, but I will give you a general idea.

People

One of the things you will find most fascinating about Malaysia is its people and culture. Being a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society of 28 million is no easy feat, as race continues to be a hotly debated issue and permeates almost every aspect of Malaysian life.

The Malaysian population consists of 62% Bumiputeras, which includes Malays and the Indigenous peoples, 24% Chinese, 8% Indians, and the rest are other minorities. Or as we say in Malaysia, ‘lain-lain’ or others. Citizenship in East Malaysia or the states of Sabah and Sarawak are a little different from citizenship in Peninsular Malaysia for immigration purposes. When West Malaysians visit East Malaysia, they are required to bring their MyKad, a biometric smart chip identity card, which must be carried by citizens of Malaysia at all times.

The Malays form the largest community, and they are defined as Muslims in the Constitution of Malaysia- in other words, if you are Malay, you are automatically Muslim. The Malays are the big brothers of politics, dominating the political scene. Their native language is Malay, the national language of the country. They are also sometimes called ‘bumiputra’, or ‘princes of the soil’ and are favoured with certain affirmative action policies. This has been a point of discontent with a lot of minorities. Among others, getting a 10% to 25% discount when buying a house and receiving government tenders and scholarships are some of these benefits. How did this come about? I’ll tell you more in the economy section.

The second biggest group are the Chinese. They are mostly Buddhists, Taoists or Christians. The Chinese community speaks a variety of Chinese dialects including Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew- all from the native familial provinces in China. But today, many Chinese speak English as their first language; in fact there are some who speak only English. If the Malays dominate the political scene, the Chinese dominate the business scene. There is a sizable middle class consisting of the Chinese.

The third biggest group are the Indians. The Indians in Malaysia are mainly Hindu Tamils from southern India whose native language is Tamil. Of course there are other Indian communities living here and they speak many dialects like Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. Many middle to upper-middle class Indians in Malaysia also speak English as a first language. There is also a vigorous 200,000-strong Indian Muslim community that thrives as an independent cultural group. In fact, if you get hungry in the middle of the night, you most probably will head to a ‘mamak’, a kind of 24-hour restaurant that is often owned by an Indian Muslim. There is also a sizable Sikh community in Malaysia numbering over 100,000.

The largest non-Malay indigenous tribe is the Iban of Sarawak, who number over 600,000. Some still live in traditional jungle villages in long houses along the Rajang and Lupar rivers, though many have moved to the cities. Then, there are the Bidayuhs, who number around 170,000 and are concentrated in the south western part of Sarawak. Then there are the Kadazans, the largest indigenous tribe in Sabah and they are mostly Christian farmers. Then there are the 140,000 Orang Asli, or aborigines, living in Peninsular Malaysia. Traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists, many have been partially absorbed into ‘modern’ Malaysia.

Besides that, through interracial marriage, there are a significant number of racial groups such as the Eurasians, who are descendants of marriages among the British, Dutch and Portuguese and the locals. They speak a Portuguese-based creole, called Papiá Kristang. There are also Eurasians of Filipino and Spanish descent, mostly in Sabah. Descended from immigrants from the Philippines, some speak Chavacano, the only Spanish-based creole language in Asia. Then there are Cambodians and Vietnamese, who are mostly Buddhists. Then there are Thai Malaysians, who populate a big part of the northern peninsular states of Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Perak, Kelantan and Terengganu. Besides speaking Thai, most of them are Buddhists, celebrate Songkran or Water festival and can speak Hokkien, but some of them are Muslim and speak the Kelantanese Malay dialect. Then there are the Bugis and Javanese, who make up a part of the population in Johor. In addition, there have been many foreigners and expatriates who have made Malaysia their second home, also contributing to Malaysia’s population. Then there are the Babas and Nyonyas, or Straits Chinese; descendants of Chinese who came to trade in ancient Malacca who married local Malays. They combine Malay and Chinese traditions in such a way as to create a new culture. Most of them dress in typical Malay fashion, wearing the kebaya ketat, which is a Malay traditional costume, and they speak a special kind of Malay, and cook food that is a mix of the both cultures.

Being a multiracial country, cultural exchanges and cultural integrations are inevitable. For example, this can be seen in Malay wedding ceremonies, which incorporates elements of the Hindu traditions of southern India. The bride and the groom dress in gorgeous brocades, sit in state, and feed each other yellow rice with hands painted with henna. Another example is that the Muslims and Hindus have adapted the Chinese custom of giving little red packets of money or ‘ang pau’ at festivals such as Aidilfitri, and Deepavali. The colours of the packets vary, but the practice is similar.

In Malaysia, it is entirely possible to go from a kampong or a village, to a rubber estate to a Chinese coffee shop and feel as if you’ve seen so many different sides to one country. Travel to any Kuala Lumpur suburb and observe. A Chinese house will have a mother praying and lighting joss sticks for her ancestors, an Indian family will be playing the radio featuring the latest Tamil hit, while the Malay family will be getting ready to walk to the closest mosque.

Racial relations remain a thorny issue that permeates every aspect of the Malaysian life. Stereotypes are then inevitable. The Malays are lazy and slow, the Chinese are greedy and like to gamble, and the Indians are always drunk and they beat their wives. You can still hear this very often in the streets, most of the time as a joke, but sometimes as an insult. To be identified with your race is very common. For instance, job interviews require you to state your race, though this practice is slowly diminishing. When you tell a Malaysian that you saw a road accident, he would likely ask you if it was a Malay, a Chinese or an Indian. If you got robbed, you’d be asked if it was a Malay or an Indian. If you get paid peanuts, your boss is likely Chinese. If you ride a motorbike, you’re most likely Malay. If you live in a high-end neighbourhood, you’re most likely Chinese. I could go on, but I encourage you to find out these stereotypes yourself!

Besides being a melting pot of various races, Malaysia is also a multi-religious society with Islam as the official religion. Roughly 63 percent of the population practice Islam; 18 percent Buddhism; 7 percent Christianity; 6 percent Hinduism; and 2 percent traditional Chinese religions such as Taoism. The remaining numbers are accounted for by other faiths, including Animism, Folk religion, Sikhism, while 1 percent has no religion.

While the Malaysian constitution guarantees religious freedom, Malay Muslims are obliged to follow the decisions of Syariah courts when it comes to matters concerning Islam. Converting out of Islam in Malaysia is a largely problematic issue, and while it has been attempted by some, it is a process that requires long legal battles and is not well-received by the majority of the Muslim faithful. The Islamic judges in the Syariah courts are expected to follow the Shafi`I school of Islam, which is the main denomination of Islam in Malaysia. The power of the Shariah court is limited only to Muslims over matters such as marriage, inheritance, apostasy, religious conversion, and custody. No other criminal or civil offenses are under the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts. But there have been moves by the Pan Islamic Party to implement the hudud law, or Islamic law.

That was a lot to digest. But it’s worth understanding how culture, race and religion work in Malaysia in order to understand Malaysian life. Now go out and see if you can recognize who’s Malay, who’s Chinese, who’s Indian, and who’s, as we Malaysians love to say, Lain-lain, or others.

Economy

Let’s take a quick look at the Malaysian economy now.

Spice trade used to be big business in Malaysia during the time of the Malaccan Sultanate. When the British took over, rubber and palm oil trees became big business. Soon, Malaysia became the world’s largest producer of tin, rubber, and palm oil. With these three lucrative commodities, Malaysia was poised for great economic growth.

During this growth period, the government tried to eradicate poverty with the controversial New Economic Policy, or the NEP, after the May 13 Incident of racial rioting in 1969. At that time, the economies were raced based- the Malays worked as farmers in the paddy fields or civil servants, the Chinese owned businesses and the Indians tapped rubber trees in the rubber estates. The policy’s main objective was the elimination of the association of race with economic function as it was during the time of the British. However, the New Economic Policy was laden with controversial affirmative policies that favoured the Malays, and it was a source of discontent even until today.

Back then, Malaysia was very reliant on agriculture. It needed to move to an economy based on manufacturing. Inspired by the Asian Tigers in the 70s, which were South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, Malaysia moved from being reliant on mining and agriculture to an economy based on manufacturing. Then, Malaysia consistently achieved more than 7% GDP growth along with low inflation in the 1980s and the 1990s. Today, Malaysia is home to one of the world’s largest computer hard disk manufacturing sites.

The Asian Financial Crisis hit in the fall of 1997 and delivered a shock to Malaysia’s economy. Foreign direct investment fell sharply and, as capital flowed out of the country, the value of the ringgit dropped from 2.50 Ringgit versus 1 US Dollar to, at one point, 4.80 Ringgit versus 1 US Dollar. A National Economic Action Council was then formed to deal with the monetary crisis. Bank Negara, the country’s central bank imposed capital controls and pegged the Malaysian ringgit at 3.80 to the US dollar. Malaysia refused economic aid packages from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, much to the surprise of many analysts.

Rejuvenation of the Malaysian economy coincided with massive government spending and budget deficits in the years that followed the crisis. It eventually enjoyed faster economic recovery compared to its neighbours. Malaysia’s rapid economic growth and prosperity is symbolized by the building of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the tallest twin buildings in the world and the headquarters of the national oil giant.

While the pace of Malaysia’s development today is not as rapid, it is seen as more sustainable. Malaysia is also the world’s largest Islamic banking and financial centre.

Eventually, the fixed exchange rate was abandoned in July 2005 in favour of a managed floating system within an hour of China announcing the same move. In that very same week, the ringgit strengthened one percent against various major currencies and was expected to appreciate further.

Currently Malaysia is recognized as a newly industrialized country and as of 2008, has a GDP per capita of 14,215 USD, ranking the country 48th in the world, and 2nd in Southeast Asia, but lagging far behind its Southern neighbour, Singapore.

Healthcare

Let’s take a quick look at healthcare in Malaysia. Malaysia generally has an efficient and widespread system of healthcare. It implements a universal healthcare system, and co-exists with a private healthcare system. Anyone can walk into a government hospital and get treatment for free, though waiting time is usually longer. Prescriptions may cost money but are often given to the patient at a subsidized rate. Infant mortality rate – a standard in determining the overall efficiency of healthcare – in 2005 was 10, coming in favourably in a comparison with the United States and Western Europe. Life expectancy at birth in 2005 was 74 years.

If you need medical assistance in Malaysia, you’re free to walk into any government or private hospitals, but as a tourist, you will not be able to enjoy the free healthcare.

Education

Before we get into some language lesson, I’d like to tell you how the Malaysian education system is organized. Why do different children go to different types of school? At this point, you’d not be surprised if I tell you that the education system is very much based on race too.

If you’re between 3 to 6 years old, you’d most likely go to a kindergarten. Usually they are run privately, but some are run by the government.

When you turn 7, you’d move on to primary school for the next six years. There are two types of primary school you could go to. The first is the SRK, or Sekolah Rendah Kebangsaan, which are government run schools. You’d be using the Malay language as the medium of instruction.

Or, if your parents are Chinese or Indian, they could choose to send you to the second type of school called SJK, or Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan. Here, you will be using either Mandarin or Tamil, depending on which school you go to. If you’re a girl, you will wear a dark blue pinafore, coupled with a white shirt, or the dark blue and white baju kurung, or Malay traditional costume. If you’re a boy, you will wear dark blue pants or shorts and a white shirt. And you’ll happily slog through 6 years, and by the end of year 6 or when you’re 12 years old, you’ll be taking a much-dreaded exam called the Primary School Achievement Test or Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah, UPSR.

Then, you’d move onto Secondary education where you will study for the next 5 years. National secondary schools use Malay as the main medium of instruction. At the end of Form Three when you turn 15, you will sit for another much-dreaded exam called Lower Secondary Assessment or Penilaian Menengah Rendah, not so fondly known as PMR. And finally, in the last year of secondary education or Form Five when you turn 17, you sit for the really dreaded Malaysian Certificate of Education or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, SPM. It is similar to the British Ordinary or ‘O’ Levels, and more comprehensive that the American SATs.

You’ll realize there are a lot of exams for Malaysians students to take. This is because we take after the British system of ‘qualification by examination’, a legacy of our colonial days.

While English and Maths used to be taught in English for a short period, the government has decided to scrap this measure and revert to Bahasa Malaysia, starting in 2012, a move many have protested.

Here’s another stereotype. Due to the stringent teaching methods, Chinese schools are noted for producing some of the top students in the country, making some Malay and Indian parents send their children to these schools as well.

Oh, your education journey is not over just yet. At 17, if you’re lucky enough to be born Malay and bumiputra, you get into a fast track called matriculation and secure a safe seat at university. In line with affirmative action policies that favour your race, you won’t have to worry much if you’ll get a place. If you’re Chinese, Indian or Lain- Lain, you’ll have to go through two years of upper secondary education called Form Six, divided into Lower Six and Upper Six, at the end of which you will be rewarded with the most dreaded of all exams- the Malaysian Higher School Certificate or Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia, or STPM. It is the Malaysian equivalent to the British Advanced or ‘A’ levels. However, if you have money to burn, you can buy your way out of STPM by enrolling yourself in a matriculation course in private colleges.

And finally, the pinnacle of education- the university. The number of public universities in Malaysia is few, in fact less than 20, so places are very limited. Finding a place in a public university is an annual source of frustration, with many qualified students going to the media to complain they have been denied a place. If you’re Malay or bumiputra, you can save your parents’ retirement fund and secure an almost guaranteed place in a public university, where schooling fees are minimal. However, if you’re Chinese or Indian and you fail to secure a place, your other option is private college education, where you will need to ask your parents to postpone their retirement by a couple of years.

I did tell you that race plays an important role in the Malaysian society.

Then, after 3 to 6 years of university, you graduate with a degree and can choose to continue your post graduate studies.

Language

Alright, that’s the end of our education on education. And now, comes the practical part. Here are some handy tips for you to make your stay in Malaysia better.

Communication is easy in Malaysia. Contrary to popular belief, most of us speak English, at least some English. Bahasa Malaysia or Malaysia language is the official language. Here are some helpful conversational Bahasa Malaysia phrases you can try. Let’s begin!

Good morning! Selamat Pagi

Good evening! Selamat Petang

How are you? Apa Khabar?

I’m fine, thanks! Khabar Baik, Terima Kasih

Thank you! Terima Kasih

You’re welcome! Sama-sama

Good night! Selamat Malam

See you later! Jumpa Lagi!

Good bye! Selamat Jalan!

If you need to ask for some help or directions, these are some useful phrases:

I’m lost Saya Sesat

Can you help me? Boleh Tolong Saya?

Where is the toilet? Mana Tandas?

Go straight! Then turn left/ right! Jalan Terus/ Kemudian Pusing Kiri/ Kanan

I’m looking for my friend. Saya Cari Kawan Saya.

How much is this? Berapa Harga Ni?

Excuse me!Maafkan Saya…

If you’re really enthusiastic about trying out even more Bahasa Malaysia, here are some more advanced phrases.

Do you speak English? Awak Cakap Bahasa Inggeris ke?

Just a little. Sedikit sahaja.

What’s your name? Apa nama awak?

My name is… Nama Saya…

Where are you from? Awak Dari Mana?

I’m from…Saya Dari…

Where do you live? Awak Tinggal Di mana?

I live in…Saya Tinggal Di

I have to go Saya Pergi Dulu.

I will be right back! Saya Akan Pulang Nanti.

I Don’t Understand! Saya Tak Faham!

I Don’t Know! Saya Tak Tau!

Now that you know some simple phrases, get cracking and converse with some locals, and get them to teach you more! There’s no better way to make friends than by taking some effort in learning their language. Malaysians will love you for it!

Tourist Tips

Here are some tips for you. If you’re being introduced to a Malay Muslim for the first time, extend both your hands, grasp theirs and bring yours back to your chest. This is the traditional Malay ‘salam.’ To keep it simple, smiling and nodding is fine if you don’t know whether to shake hands or not. With Muslim women, in general, if a hand is not offered, it’s best not to shake hands!

If you ever get lost or need any help, look for the tourist police officer. They can be recognized by their chequered hat bands, dark blue shirts and trousers, and the letter “I” for information on a red and blue badge on their breast pocket. They usually stand around tourist areas. However, if you’re looking for regular policemen, the number to call is 999 from your phone. Emergency calls in Malaysia are free.

Malaysia has approximately 20 public holidays in a year, so plan your trip wisely and check with the Tourism Malaysia website. Also affecting travel are school holidays, as families take days off with their children, so certain parts of the country, like tourist sites and beaches could get crowded.

As you’ll be doing a lot of walking, you can always buy mineral water bottles for drinking, and it’s generally not safe to drink straight out of the tap. The electrical supply is on a 240-volt 50-cycle system, similar to Britain.

Should you wish to catch up on local news and events, the English language papers that are available are The New Straits Times, The Star, Business Times, Malay Mail, Daily Express, Sabah Daily News and Sarawak Tribune. If you want international newspapers, you can most certainly find them at any major bookstores and newsstands. For events, try Time Out and Klue magazines.

The two significant climate changes centre on the monsoon season, but besides that, the weather rarely changes. It is either hot with rain, or hot without rain. The temperature ranges between 21 C and 32 C, but with high humidity. Rain tends to occur between November and February on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, western Sarawak, and the north-eastern part of Sabah.

Due to the climate, light clothing is ideal. It is advisable for ladies, when entering mosques and temples, to wear long sleeves and loose pants or long skirts. Or you could carry a shawl- it’s a lighter alternative.

If you need to adjust your watches before arriving, Malaysia is 8 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Remove shoes when entering homes and places of worship. Malaysians do not wear shoes around the house.

While sitting down or resting in a group, do not direct your feet towards someone, or any religious statues.

Public display of affection in larger cities like Kuala Lumpur is generally tolerated but might invite unnecessary attention from the public. Public displays of affection in more rural areas are frowned wupon and should be avoided. Also, same-sex relationship is taboo in Malaysia, so gay and lesbian travellers should avoid outward signs of affection, and this includes holding hands in public. Due to strong influence from Islam, homosexuality is technically illegal, although there are many underground gay and lesbian clubs.

End

This is the end of part two of About Malaysia. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about the people of Malaysia, and its economy, healthcare and education systems, as well as the short language course and general tourist tips.

Now that you’ve gotten an idea of the country, it’s time to go out and explore! Do make sure you take your time to soak in the essence of the country, its people and most importantly, its food! Have a great time in Malaysia.

Until next time, Selamat Tinggal and goodbye.

For the best and only audio guides to Malaysia, visit Audio Guide Malaysia.

The last few weeks the situation in Egypt has been dominating the headlines and making the markets even more volatile than normal. The gold price has been moving very rapidly since the uprising started. This shows the important role gold is playing in traders portfolios in times of uncertainty. They are trying to protect themselves with gold as it traditionally moves inversely to other equities.

The tension in Middle-East might keep investors on their toes for quite some time as Jordan and Yemen are very close to losing the control of their people too. Investing in gold will offer a safer option to invest one's money than stocks as long as the inequalities between people keep causing problems in Middle-East.

According to bullion dealers in Hong Kong and Shanghai the physical demand for gold has been unbelievable before Chinese New Year celebrations. Chinese people traditionally buy gold as a New Year's gift and because of the emerging inflation pressure the hunger for the metal has been at record high ahead of the holiday.

Traditionally the physical demand calms down after the Chinese New Year and won't pick up until early September but currently the inflation pressure is likely to stop any major falls as governments are pretty helpless in front of market forces. In a healthy economic environment inflation is caused by increasing consumer spending and can be controlled by raising interest rates. Presently inflation is caused by rising commodity and food prices, not people spending too much. This causes politicians a dilemma as rising interest rates would cool down the commodity prices but it also would kill the emerging recovery.

Both the ECB and the FED have stated that they will not raise interest rates until the recovery is on firmer ground and the economy is adding far more jobs than it currently is. Recent employment data from the US is backing up this as the country is not creating new jobs fast enough to support the recovery. ECB is expecting inflation to be 1.8% in 2011 which is below the 2% target and would ease the pressure to raise interest rates in the Euro Zone.

As central banks are not currently able to do anything to cool down inflation without affecting the recovery, commodity and food prices are likely to keep rising. Some analyst suggest that rising food prices were the bottom reason for the riots in North Africa as in most of these countries over 50% of family income goes to grocery shopping. As food prices keep rising, it is likely that the anxiety and tension keeps spreading to other developing economies.

Resent economic statements from America and Europe are suggesting that the recovery is picking up but financial markets remain doubtful about it and especially Asian investors are keener than ever to buy gold as an inflation hedge. Whether the western world will follow until it's too late will be seen in the next few months but a lot of so called smart money from Asia is buying all the bullion they can get.

Great Tips from Experts on Diversifying Political Risk

To paraphrase renowned speculator Doug Casey, the biggest risk to our portfolios today is not investment risk; but rather it is political risk. Mr. Casey authored the all time best-selling financial book CRISIS INVESTING, and is a well-traveled international speculator. He says that anyone who does not transfer a portion of his assets out of the country in which he lives will ultimately, in Mr. Casey’s words “be led into a lobster trap and cooked.”

So, how do we offshore our assets? There are currently a number of good options for transferring assets out of U.S. jurisdiction, including 1) acquiring real estate in foreign countries, 2) buying and storing precious metals outside the country, and 3) buying foreign currencies and/or opening bank accounts in foreign countries. Before acting however, it is important that those who plan to own assets outside the U.S. fully understand two fundamental concepts; 1) the concept of “reportable assets, and 2) U.S. Income Tax Law. Some foreign held assets are “reportable” to the U.S. Government and some are not.

Offshore Real Estate Holdings

If you own real estate in a foreign country that real estate is not reportable to the U.S. Government. Those who have read Ayn Rand’s opus ATLAS SHRUGGED remember “Galt’s Gulch.” It was a hidden enclave inhabited by true capitalists who physically and geographically removed themselves from the control of their government. There are a growing number of “Galt’s Gulches” springing up around the world today. Doug Casey is involved with one in Cafayete, Argentina, and you can check it out by simply Googling “Cafayete.” Cafeyete is near the equator, 7,000 up in the Andes Mountains. It has a nearly constant year-round temperature range of 40° to 80°, with sunshine almost every day, and it is surrounded on all sides by 15,000 foot peaks. Cafeyete is safe, clean, beautiful, and inhabited mostly by American capitalists and entrepreneurs. Another new foreign enclave that is extremely desirable is Rancho Santana on the Pacific coast of Nicaraugua. Rancho Santana can probably best be compared to Hilton Head Island forty years ago. Beautiful and lightly developed, ocean front properties can be purchased right now for 20% to 30% of today’s Hilton Head price for comparable property. Right next door to Rancho Santana is Guacolita, Nicaraugua. This resort is gaining renown as one of the most strikingly beautiful places on earth.

Many expatriate American capitalists now also are moving to Singapore, where entrepreneurial investment opportunities are said to abound, and some, including precious metals expert James Turk (see below), live in Southern Spain. In any event, you should consider having somewhere safe and far away to go to if and when food riots and looting begin in the US.

Offshore Precious Metals Ownership

Perhaps surprisingly, gold and silver bullion held abroad are also not currently reportable under U.S. law (this will likely change as the crisis deepens). Most investors know that all U.S. gold was confiscated by FDR in 1933, and they also know that it could conceivably happen again. There are several good alternatives for offshore precious metals ownership. My personal choice is Gold Money. Gold Money is owned by James Turk, one of the financial world’s most trusted and respected experts on gold and silver. Gold Money offers low acquisition prices, along with some unique storage options. The Company owns three vaults, located in London, Zurich, and Hong Kong, respectively. If you buy your gold and silver (or platinum and palladium) from Gold Money, it can be stored for you in a vault of your choosing and insured for a nominal price. Gold Money’s vaults are audited quarterly by an independent third-party and you will be provided with an audit certificate each quarter verifying your holdings. At any point in time, you may instruct Gold Money to change your vault, and, more importantly, entirely at your option, you may convert some or all your gold holdings into silver, palladium or platinum and vice versa. As testimony to Gold Money’s popularity, on May 31, 2011, Gold Money’s vaults safeguarded precious metals with an aggregate value of over $1.9 billion for 18,823 individual customers.

Another way to own foreign gold or silver is to buy shares in Switzerland’s Zurcher Kantonalbank (ZKB) ETF (Exchange Traded Gold Fund). ZBK is Switzerland’s third largest bank and is financially sound. Shares of the ZBK ETF are matched to physical gold stored in the Bank’s vault. You will buy the shares at the exact prevailing spot price of gold – no premium. The only requirement is that the shares must be purchased on the Swiss Stock Exchange. Your Broker should be able to help you do this.

Foreign Bank Accounts and Currencies

Currently, U.S. citizens can open and maintain bank accounts in foreign countries up to a maximum of $10,000 per person without reporting the account to the U.S. government. If your aggregate accounts reach or surpass $10,000 at any time, however, you must either report or face serious penalties. If there are five persons in your family you can open five accounts of $9,999 each in the five names without reporting. One good option for an offshore account is the Caye International Bank in Belize (CIBL). Banks in Belize have a 24% capital requirement compared to 3% for U.S. banks, and you can have check writing privileges on your CIBL account just like you do here. So, in relative terms, Belize banks are both safe and liquid. If Belize doesn’t appeal to you, you can take a trip to Canada any time you like and open an account there for $9,999.

In terms of foreign currencies you also have several options. Everbank, a privately owned bank in Jacksonville, Florida, enables customers to purchase Certificates of Deposit and/or maintain savings accounts in any one of 22 foreign currencies. All accounts are FDIC insured, and give holders the full benefit of appreciations of currency valuations. If you maintain an Everbank savings account (minimum $2,500 opening balance), you may call the bank at any time and convert to another currency (Swiss Francs to Chinese Yuan, for example). You can also convert back into dollars and take your “winnings” at any time you choose. Another option is to simply buy foreign currencies with your U.S. dollars and take physical delivery of the currencies just as you do with gold and silver. Both Asset Strategies and Gold Money can sell foreign currencies to you for physical delivery. The premiums are nominal in both cases.

Summary

Hopefully, it is not too late for the country to change course and avoid the coming crisis, but I, for one want to be prepared for what I believe is the inevitable reality. I hope that you have found these suggestions useful, and that you will consider them seriously as you plan for what almost certainly lies ahead.

I can't name any two world leaders who will greet the New Year more joyously than President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin – though they will celebrate for opposite reasons.

Obama surely cannot wait to see the last of 2013, a year in which it seemed that anything that could go wrong did go wrong for his White House team. In fact, this year was so bad for Obama that things even went wrong by going right. Remember how the president and his aides raced around the country last winter, proclaiming the imminent end of everything that is good in America if the federal budget sequester took effect on March 1? That proved to be an early taste of many subsequent embarrassments. The sequester took effect and most Americans outside the Beltway barely noticed, except when the president and his team went out of their way to inconvenience travelers like my elderly mother.

Meanwhile, Putin is celebrating because he has so many legitimate victories, a great share of which came at Obama's expense.

First and foremost there is Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker. Having fled his Hawaii post as an NSA contractor with a huge trove of data, Snowden caught the US administration by surprise when he presented his case to the press in Hong Kong. He then escaped an American dragnet by catching a flight to Moscow, where he took shelter in the airport for three weeks before Putin granted him a general asylum. Meanwhile, Obama and his spy chiefs fulminated helplessly in Washington. They compounded their embarrassment by encouraging friendly European countries to block a flight from Moscow to South America by Bolivia's president in the mistaken belief that Snowden was aboard.

The Snowden affair allowed Putin, a former KGB spymaster turned autocrat, to present himself as a defender of human rights and free expression. Meanwhile, the leader of the free world had to explain to allied leaders why his spooks have been bugging their meeting rooms and monitoring their phones. His less-than-reassuring explanation was that he did not know.

Then there was Syria, where President Bashar Assad notoriously crossed Obama's red line with a gas attack on his own citizenry. Obama promised a military response, then promised that his military response would be mild enough not to threaten Assad's position, then sought to escape his promise entirely after critics on the left and right accused him of pointless posturing. Who provided Obama's escape route? Putin, of course, by brokering an agreement in which Syria pledged to turn over its chemical weapons to any nation that would destroy them. That process is still pending. Meanwhile, Assad – despite Obama's call to replace him -appears to be turning the tide of battle in his favor, while the moderate opposition Obama favored (without actually helping much) has been overtaken by an insurgency. Syria remains a win for Putin and an abject mess for Obama.

Putin also succeeded in muscling Ukraine into rejecting closer political and economic links with the rest of Europe. This was more of a defeat for the European Union, and the large slice of the Ukrainian public that favors western-style open government, than for Obama and the United States, but nobody on our side of the former Iron Curtain wants to see Putin recreate the Soviet empire. On the other hand, nobody on our side of the Iron Curtain seems to have any useful ideas about how to stop him either. Obama's vaunted "reset" of relations with Russia has had no discernible effect on Putin's foreign policy.

Putin is putting together a Winter Olympics that will appear on the world stage in February. Obama is putting together a health care reform and a website to implement it. Both of them seem to be building in a mad dash without much of a plan, with enormous waste and with many structural flaws that will only reveal themselves under the spotlight. But Putin's efforts are just a vanity project that will be polished by media that are paying for the privilege of advertising his glory. Barring catastrophe, the Sochi Olympics will quickly be forgotten after the games' two-week run. Obama's health care project will unfold, or unravel, in bits and pieces through all of 2014 and beyond, as the president and his aides try to jury-rig components and deadlines to minimize political damage to Democrats.

Heads of state are empowered to grant clemency to prisoners. Putin commanded world headlines this month by releasing a collection of high-profile opponents who were incarcerated for patently political reasons. These include former Russian oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, two members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot, and more than two dozen crew members of a Greenpeace ship that protested oil drilling in the Russian Arctic Ocean. All had drawn international calls for clemency.

Obama commuted the sentences of eight drug offenders who received life or lengthy prison terms for involvement with crack cocaine. The president has decried the unfair and often unjustly harsh penalties for crack, which is disproportionately used by black Americans, compared to powdered cocaine, which is more frequently used or dealt by whites. He isn't wrong, but his action on behalf of eight offenders is a mere drop in the ocean, and the individuals involved have no significance to anyone outside their own friends and family.

It's not easy to match Putin on the clemency front. We don't have a lot of political prisoners to free in America. But Edward Snowden comes to mind. Having exposed American surveillance of breathtaking scope, along with a pattern of deceiving congressional and judicial overseers about that activity, Snowden can fairly be said to have acted in the public interest, even though he clearly and seriously violated important intelligence laws. Some form of clemency, or even a guarantee of fair treatment, might allow him to return home someday. Yet there is no hint, and no reason to believe, that such clemency will ever come from President Obama, the self-declared advocate of open government whose hypocrisy and weak oversight Snowden exposed.

So we have two leaders, 14 time zones apart while Obama vacations in Hawaii, both eager for the arrival of 2014. Putin, of course, got there first – technically because of the international date line, but symbolically because that is just how things have gone for the past year. While one leader looks to next year with enthusiasm, the other must feel simply relief.

India Against Itself published in 1999 and Durable Disaster published in 2005 are both written by Sanjib Baruah. I have selected these two books for the review essay as both of them revolve around a similar theme. Both books try to understand the nature of subnational politics in Northeast. While India Against Itself gives us a more historical account i.e., revisiting the colonial status of Assam and the kind of policies taken by the British govt, the other book Durable Disaster takes up the contemporary condition of the region and the problems that are there. However the books are closely interlinked as Baruah tries to show that most of the current issues can be traced to the colonial policies and also the policies of the independent India in the first few decades. In my essay I will take up the broad problems that Northeast is facing today and try to trace their origins. So I will constantly move back and forth from one book to the other.

The books revolve around narratives of “othering” and “alienation” of Northeast which is culturally very different from Indian mainland. To give a brief background-Northeast was never a part of the Mughal Empire. It was brought under British Empire only in 1826 under the Treaty of Yandaboo that ended the Anglo-Burmese war. And after independence it became part of India. Manipur, Tripura were princely states which acceded to the Indian Union. The stories enumerated in the books are the stories of this region’s continuous struggle for the recognition of its difference. A sad irony that his book underlines is that most of the states that joined Indian Union on the condition of continued enjoyment of autonomy are the states where authoritarian rule is almost institutionalised in the name of national security threat elimination and autonomy is not even present in the minimalist understanding. Classic example is how in 1949 the King of Manipur was coaxed to agree to merger of Manipur rather than the loose accession.

Since independence a constant quest has been nationalising space in northeast and using this land frontier as a tool of nation building. Apparent is Sanskritized names of Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. This has also been done by taking northeast in the fold of mainstream developmentalism whereby development and underdevelopment gets constituted discursively and objective material conditions took a back seat.

It is this continued perception of Northeast through the prism of national security, aggravated post Indo-China War in 1962, along with the persistent underdevelopment of the region that has given space to subnational movements. Two major issues of grievances that fuel such movements are:

a) Immigration

b) Underdevelopment

In India Against Itself the author traces the pattern of immigration. After Assam became a part of British India, it became a land frontier and with its vast expanses of uninhabitated space attracted large scale immigration. A dense population, settled agriculture and industry were seen as markers of civilization by the Britishers. Tea, rubber, oil fields were developed and labour migration took place. Huge tracts of land were siphoned for British tea planters under extremely liberal conditions of the Waste Land Grant Law of 1838. By 1901 it was one-fourth of the total settled land. Historian Amalendu Guha will call it a Planter Raj. Even post independence Assam has been having an unnaturally high growth rate of population, much higher than the national average, owing also to the continued migration. This has in fact shaped the insider-outsider dichotomy. In the face of heavy demographic shift, the quest was to understand who is an indigenous resident and who is an outsider. Assam’s culture was as if threatened by this demographic shift. Foreigners would not have been a threat had the Assamese controlled the trade and commerce. Rather it was the immigrants who controlled it. This fear of minoritization can be traced back to the colonial days when Assam was treated as an extension of Bengal especially during partition of Bengal and moreover owing to the presence of a large no. of Bengali speakers the medium of instruction was also Bengali. Making Sylhet, a Bengali district, a part of Assam just added to the problem as its educated inhabitants took away the jobs. It was only in 1873 Assamese became the medium of instruction owing to the demands of people like Anandaram Dhekiyal Phukan. Modernity brought with it the idea that a developed language is a marker of a developed civilization. This made language an active arena of politics. This led to language riots in 1960 and 1972. Such assertion threatened Bengali speakers who comprised of about 22% of the population especially in district like Cachar.

Another issue have been the persistent underdevelopment of the region. As the agitators of Assam Movement point out that the royalty that Assam gets for tea, oil is a little more than rent. Trade and commerce was dominated by business communities from outside the state, e.g. the Marwars of Rajasthan. The Assamese felt disadvantaged. Even the kind of developmental policies that the Central Govt made in New Delhi failed to address the specific needs of the region. Development in Northeast has to be sustainable development and the policies should be made at the regional level by people who know the region and by taking cognisance of the ground reality of Northeast. At present some policies regarding building roads is meant to connect areas with a population of 1000 or more. But such a policy leaves out a huge no of villages of Arunachal Pradesh which is sparsely populated. This is just one example.

Similar grievances accumulated over a period of time gave rise to conflicts in the region. Only Arunachal and Mizoram is comparatively peaceful. It has been an interesting and to some extent disturbing fact that low intensity armed conflicts has infested the area for such a long time that a militarised life has become a part of normalcy in the region. The fight for a greater Nagalim is one of the oldest armed conflicts in the world. The construction of the Naga identity which is neither a linguistic community nor an ethnic community is interesting. It can be traced back to the Inner Line system that the British govt introduced. It was a system that completely segregated the Hill Tribes people from the Valley people supposedly to protect their ways of life. But what such a system did was not take into account the close connections that existed between the Nagas and the Ahoms. Cultural ties in the form of Nagamese being a creolised form of Assamese is a proof. The segregation however led to a decline of the patronage of Vaishnavite Xotros in the Hills and made space for British missionaries. Seeds of differentiation were thus sown. And the attitude that differentiation and segregation is the only way of protecting indigenous ways of life came into being.

Naga is a conglomeration of multiple dialects and a large no of villages which shared anything but a cordial relationship, usually that of headhunting. It was only in 1950s that Naga nationhood related movement gained momentum. However it seriously threatened the state of Manipur as almost 20 Naga tribes reside there. Hurried fragmentation of Northeast has put in place a popular belief that cultures and interests can only be safeguarded in homeland. It encouraged politics of differentiation and discouraged politics of accommodation.

The linguistic re-organisation that took place did not solve the problems of Northeast as Assam was a multilingual state. It became a theatre of “cultural wars”. When the Assamese were busy fighting the Bengali speakers, the hill tribes which initially supported the Assamese felt that such subnationalist aspirations will end up imposing Assamese culture and language on their tribes. Sensing this threat demands for separation came from Mizo hills, Naga Hills. To sort it out what the central govt did is a hasty division of Northeast over a period of time. It created 7 states but never looked at possible alternative solutions. What came out was cosmetic federalism. The fact that this did not solve the problem of ensuring cultural harmony is vindicated by the persistent and violent upsurges in the Northeast.

One of the famous manifestations of subnationalism was the Assam Movement that started in 1979 and was mainly concerned with the immigration issue. It was led by All Assam Students’ Union which was a non political body. It wanted to portray itself as if it embodied higher and nobler goals than merely usurping political power. The movement resonated the aspirations of the Assamese civil society. Associations like Axom Xahitya Xabha came up that aimed at the development of Assamese language. However another product of the movement is the United Liberations Front of Assam. It was born in the radical fringes of the movement in 1980s. It believed that only through armed struggle it could regain the freedom that Assam lost in 1826. However ULFA parted ways with the movement on the issue of immigration, rather it appealed to all who resided in Assam i.e., Axombaxi. Initially it enjoyed tacit support of the ethnic Assamese community irrespective of its violent ways. Baruah gives a very interesting example. He traces talks about what the Assamese expects from ULFA by pointing popular Assamese songs of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika. For the Assamese the ULFA members were “our boys”. Because of sympathetic officials, which the State called Subverted Bureaucrats the state could not even crack down on the militants. During the six years of Assam Movement, subnationalism was at its peak, and it finally resulted in the Assam Accord of 1985 which agreed to devise ways to deal with the immigration issue and also to come with resolutions to safeguard the culture of Assam. And with fresh elections, the student leaders formed a party called the Asom Gana Parishad and Prafulla Mahanta became the Chief Minister. But with this nothing changed. There was a regime crisis as the new govt could not deliver what was expected. Added charges of corruption against the young leaders made things worse. This strengthened ULFA’s conviction that they were on the right path. As citizenship is a federal subject, Centre came up with such a law as Illegal Migration (determined by tribunals) Act, 1983 which made it almost impossible to detect immigrants. It is next to impossible to decipher who came to India before 1971 and who came after as culturally they are same. So only around a 1000 immigrants were to be deported. Another by-product of the Accord was that it fuelled the fear of the Plains Tribes like Bodos, Missing, Tiwas etc., that safeguarding Assamese culture will be done at the cost of their culture. Moreover they did not enjoy any safeguards like the Hill tribes. Bodos in fact accused Assamese of being outsiders and claimed that they themselves were the original inhabitants or the adivasis of the place. Their assertion took a violent turn with the formation of groups like Bodo Liberation Tigers, NDFB etc. They demanded autonomous districts if not separate state. But the problem was that the areas where the Bodos were in a large no did not form a geographically contiguous area. However this problem was sorted for the time being by the formation of Bodo Territorially Autonomous District.

ULFA faced a coercive face of the Hobbesian state in the form of counter insurgency operations like Operation Bajrang, Operation Rhino and most recently Operation All-Clear. ULFA which enjoyed popular support at one point of time lost that base owing to their violence which at times victimised the poor, women and children alike. The Surrendered ULFA (SULFA) enjoyed a no. of benefits from the govt and at times misused it to make easy money. ULFA has been time and again pushed to the negotiating table.

Now lets take a look at how the Central Govt has attempted to solve these problems. The solutions for the Central Govt have been twofold:

a) Militaristic for insurgency

b) Financial packages for underdevelopment

Northeast continues to be a land frontier which needs tight security. To curb insurgency the solution has been stringent militaristic rules in the form of AFSPA which has been in place for a few decades in the region which gives virtually unlimited power to the Army to kill without holding them accountable. Also it has put in place a Military Command structure called the Unified Command which puts he Army under the control of the Centre. Prafulla Mahanta supported such a structure and it was only Tarun Gogoi who talked of a greater role of Assam Police in such operations. However there is still a huge presence of paramilitary forces. This attitude is further vindicated by the fact that retired Army Generals are often appointed as Governors of these states. Their gubernatorial interventions often insulate counter-insurgency operations from democratic practices and scrutiny. Counter insurgency put in place a diminished form of democracy in terms of basic freedom, rule of law and principles of accountability and transparency. Mere timely elections can only fulfil an extremely minimalist and reductionist understanding of democracy. The attitude of the Centre has been paternalistic and patronising, treating Northeast as a spoiled child who needs to be disciplined, normalised. This same attitude transcended in other spheres as well.

A reason why low intensity conflicts could persist is owing to underdevelopment and unemployment it was always very easy for the militant groups to recruit new members. And counter insurgency operations can only eliminate a few militants, it does not change the ground conditions of living. Financial packages were made available but this fact was not taken into cognisance that it did not even percolate to the policies that it was meant for.

Baruah towards the end of both the books give very creative solutions which I endorse to a great extent and which I believe is worth pursuing as prospective solutions. First of all what needs to be acknowledged is that Northeast is not only the northeastern part of South Asia but also the northwestern part of Southeast Asia. It is the point where both these regions converge. Studies have shown that the people of Northeast are culturally closer to South east Asian countries. Nagas, Manpuris being in Myanmar, same tribes being inhabitants of Tibet and Arunachal, Tai Ahom of Assam being a part of the larger Tai community are all indicators of the deeper interconnections. The languages spoken also mostly belong to Tibeto-Burman family of languages. Any solution should respect these ties. The govt needs to give up being emotive about the Indian nation and its territorial boundaries. Rather the fact that these regions entered an agreement and joined Indian mainland on certain conditions should be respected. Ambikagiri Rochoudhary, a known poet of Assam, made a case for a loose federation and provisions for dual citizenship not unknown in federations in the Constituent Assembly debates. Immediately after partition such propositions might have sounded divisive but at present it can help as it can be used as an instrument to even incorporate the later generations of immigrants. Rather than exclusive that would be an inclusive idea. More power should be vested in the democratically elected state govts. AFSPA has to be modified immediately. Any further immigration on the scale of disturbing the demographic balance should be avoided but some mechanism of inclusion of those who already are here has to be put into place.

Going back to the history, Northeast India was on the southern trails of Silk Road which connected western region of China through Central Asia to the Mediterranean. Just like Nations regions can also be imagined. As Keniche Ohmae points out nation states are dysfunctional for human activities and it has made way for transnational regions like Catalonia in Spain, Hong Kong in China etc. India’s Look East policy calls for a greater direct role for the Northeastern states. The natural outlets of Northeast needs to be opened to trade with the Southeast Asia. India if it overcomes her fears can actually do to Northeast what China has done to its Yunnan, making it an international city. If this can be revived like the Nathu La Pass rather than funding development from mainland India which is ill connected to the region, the development deficit of the region can be addressed to a great extent. However these issues can be addressed only after the internal situation is improved in terms of law and order.

On the conceptual level, rather than enforcing ideas of nation building in Northeast to make it feel more Indian, the state through its policies should put into place an alternative paradigm, that is, Northeast can be a part of India, despite of being different. Cultural alienation should come to an end. Effective policies should inculcate a confidence in the people and ensure that their interests can be safeguarded irrespective of if they have their own homelands or not. The ways of life of this region does not need to be normalized or standardised. The largest democracy of the world should not continue to put up an undemocratic, authoritarian, punitive face in the Northeast. Its high time that India should move beyond othering Northeast and do something to show its true commitment to the improvement of the region.

I was happy, when I finally learned that I would be meeting up with my ship, it was going to be pulling into the Philippines. I was going to fly from San Diego, to Manila, and then take a van down the country, about 200 miles where the ship was going to be tied up at. About 6 other guys, and me, were going to the Philippines on an Air Force cargo plane that was going that way.

It was totally loaded with pallets of cold merchandise, headed to the Philippines for who knows what. We were just passengers. The seats we sat in, where temporary net seats, and they felt like it. They were seats made out of netting, and they were facing backwards, of the way you would sit on a regular plane, facing forward. We were facing backwards when you took off in the airplane, and you were forced to bend forward, instead of backwards, into your chair. The plane needed to be kept cold, and it looked like a London fog, inside the plane, just like we were sitting in a refrigerator. That was a very long 17 hour flight.

I was 19 years old when I landed in the Philippines. This by far, was one of the funnest countries a service guy could go to. If you just wanted to have a good time in the bars, and a good time with a bunch of pretty sexy Asian girls, you will love it there.

In the Navy, most of the guys that have not been to the famous places, like Thailand, or the Philippines, Korea, or Hong Kong, always want to know if what they heard was true, about what they heard from other guys on the ship. There is no way really to explain another country sometimes to someone, they just need to experience themselves sometimes.

Where are ship was tied up, was about 1/2 a mile from the main gate, which was located right next to party central town, called Olongapo. When you were on the base, it was big. The base had a laundry mat, you could do your own wash at, and the soda machines dispensed cans of beer for you while you did your laundry.

The base had a small casino on it, with slot machines. It had horses you could rent, and a nice golf course, that had wild monkeys, that would be up in the trees, and they would throw things at you, if you came to close to them.

In the Philippines, clothing and services were very cheap and easy to get. You could have all your laundry cleaned, pressed and bagged up for you, for only a few dollars. It was like that in town also. Your money could go far. For clothing, there were out door markets everywhere, and they sold lots of knock off clothing items, for dirt cheap prices. You could be the ugliest guy on the ship, and you would still get a girl. It was not if you could get a girl, but which one you would want for the evening.

Right when you walk out the main gate, there is a small bridge with a river underneath it. All the guys called this “shit river”. It might of been that, raw sewage was always in the river. But that did not ever stop the usually 4 or 5 boats that would sit in it, with young girls dressed up in white dresses, and holding cups, begging for you to throw money out to them. People would throw pesos, down into the boat to them, and this was about 100 feet from the main gate of the base, and the entrance into town, was just steps away.

The town had lots of lots of bars, with various themes going on inside. There were little souvenir stores, or sorry sorry stores, as they called them, and different bars and restaurants, just about everywhere you looked. The funny thing about the town was, girls were everywhere and easy to get, but pornography was not seen around town, and it was illegal.

We had a bar that most of the guys from the office would hang out at on a regular basis. Usually on the weekends, or day times after work each day, we would hang out there, because that was our hangout place. The girls there did not try to hassle you into going with them, only if you wanted to, and the drinks were cheap.

They wrote our names on their bar window, just like a lot of bars did, that had special ships, and special departments, that hung out there, and claimed that bar for their own. Our department, pretty much hung out at the Cindi Bar, right on the first block of town, down one block to the right, and easy to get to.

Some of the bars, did not look so big from the outside. But it might be so huge on the inside, when you went inside. Most all the bars had bands, acts, and other things going on inside, to get more customers. It was a rocking town at night time. Back then, there were no such things as AID’s, or any other decease that might kill you these days. It was one big town party each night, and it was a free for all, young sexy woman everywhere, and plenty of cheap drinks.

Most all of our whole admin office, would hang out together, after work, and we would always start in the same bar for drinks. Some of the bigger, better bars, that had more sexier girls, and where the drinks cost a little bit more, were where we liked to go, later in the evening, to pick the girls we wanted for the night, but not spend all our time there drinking. We would go there, and just look for the prettiest girls we could find.

In the Philippines, it’s very easy, for a regular Joe, to have 2 girls at the same time, on numerous occasions, and even try 3 girls at one time, just to say they did it, and see what it is like. In the United States, you would either be the luckiest guy around. Overseas, it was whatever you wanted.

One time, we were having a division office party, and I was putting it together. We decided to have our department and the supply department have the party together. My job was to get the drinks, and reserve the bar in town. I reserved a two story bar, that had a nice balcony overlooking the street below. We had people roasting a pig, and all other kinds of food was brought in. In the Navy, they have a fund for parties. So I collected more money from each person on the list, and then requested that the Navy, give us our money, for our party, so we could have, and even better one. I put the money together, and we had a party on our hands, with everything.

This was a party, that did not matter if you were single, married, or an officer. If you were at the party, you usually had a little sexy Asian beauty with you. It was just a standing rule, that out in town, everyone is a free person, and most married guys are in the bars, and with girls, and that is just the way it is.

This party would land me in jail, but not until after having an excellent fun time at it. With the help of a Philippino chief on board the ship, he got the entertainment for us, to liven up the party. The entertainment consisted of an act of a man letting anyone who wanted to, throw darts into his back. Another act, was a man that would let you put a rope around his neck, and pull as hard as you wanted to, and you could not hurt him.

We also had many acts of girls, doing things like sticking banana’s up their vagina’s, and they would sit on the face of who ever wanted the banana. Other guys would lay down and stick money on their mouth, and the girls would come over and pick it up with their vagina’s. This was a regular division party, that was starting to get wild. Later that evening, I was arrested and taken back to the ship for being drunk and disorderly, and having to much of a good time.

One of my biggest lessons I learned in the Philippines, was about the language, and it was embarrassing. It was the word Benny Boy. In all the 9 months I was able to spend in the Philippines, I was pick pocketed, three times in all.

Once, I was pick pocketed by a group of small kids. They all came up to me, and then all started poking me with their fingers. Well, I tried to shoo them all away, and after they were gone, I realized, I had just been pick pocketed, and lost the money from my front shirt pocket, I had on me. After that, I never carried all my money in the same place, I always broke it up, just in case I got hit, I did not lose everything.

Another time, I was walking down the road, and this sexy lady, standing in a dark doorway, suddenly came out of know where, and asked me to come over to her. When I walked over to her, to see what she wanted, she got really close to me, and started squeezing my penis. I thought she must be to dirty, as she just stepped out of the darkness, and I got away from her, and stepped back and left. Later, I realized she had used one hand quickly on me, and the other went right into my front pocket, and within 4 seconds time frame.

The 3rd time, I lost my watch. I was sitting at a table, drinking a drink, in the middle of the day time. I was sitting outside a bar, at a table. This girl sits down, and after talking with her for a while, asks about my watch, and if she can wear it. Later, she says she has to go to the bathroom, and she never comes back. I asked one of the girls working in the bar, where the girl went that was sitting with me. Somehow, the girl told me she was Benny Boy. I thought that was her name, Benny Boy. Well, I asked the next girl that came over to me if she had seen Benny Boy. She just looked at me and said, “No,” with a weird look on her face.

I went outside, I was looking for this girl that just took off with my watch, and it was just a cheap watch. I had never had an expensive watch before. But, I still wanted to get my watch back from her. I was walking up and down the street, and I would ask people, “Do you know where Benny Boy is?” One girl that I asked, said, “Why you want Benny Boy, when you can have me?” I wondered why she said that.

I kept asking people, and they would give me weird or bad looks. I saw a shore patrol van up ahead, and when I got there, I asked the guys inside, if they knew of anyone named Benny Boy. I told them, that she had just stole my watch, not to long ago, from around the corner. These guys just looked at each other, and I did not know, I was still new to the Philippines.

One of them asked me, “Do you know what Benny Boy means?” He told me that, “Benny Boy, is the Tagalog name for ladyboy, or shemale, or man in woman’s clothing.” I was embarrassed. Not from these guys, but the other girls I asked, thinking Benny Boy might of been one of their friends, and now they all thought I was looking for a Benny Boy. It’s funny now.

In the mornings, most the base was hustling and bustling around. The taxis were busy, and the ship was busy with everyone coming back in the morning to go to work. Even thou the ship is overseas, and about half of the guys are single, and half of the guys are married, most everyone that can, usually stays in town.

Most everyone finds a girl that has a place, or you can also rent hotel rooms cheaply for the night, almost everywhere. The way most of the bars work, is they call it a bar fine. You pay the bar for the privilege of taking the girl out of the bar for the rest of the evening. It is up to you and the girl, to figure out what you are going to do for the rest of the night.

Most of the girls, just want to get away from where they work at, and go to another bar, and hang out with their friends, and bring you along. After all, you have all the money usually. If the girl ever wants money for herself, she usually will let you know that up front, and you can decide for yourself. Other girls, never ask for anything from you, sometimes, and they are the funner ones to spend time with.

Most all the bars have the price of their bar fine, right up on the wall. Some of the bigger bars, with model type dancers, and bar girls, have the highest prices. I figure those are for places where the ship comes in, and only gets to stay for a couple of days, so the guys splurge, and get the best they can buy.

Most all the bars, have the girls wearing bikinis as their outfits. Needless to say, you can easily see what you are shopping for. In the mornings, since the medical department was also in our department, the corpsman would be busy every morning, giving out the VD shots. Some days, the line of guys standing in line to get shots, was 30 or 40 guys deep.

In the Philippines, it was a practice of taking peoples military ID cards, so they could not go into town and spread anything if they got VD. The medical department was swamped all the time. The girls were supposed to have been checked by doctors on a regular basis, that worked in the bars that were big, and the Navy did have people, who checked on them, to make sure the girls were seeing doctors.

You might have a battle group of 15,000 guys pull into port, and there still might be 3 or 4 girls, to every service guy, and all hot and sexy, in bikinis too. This was a playground for any 19 year old.

The ship would seem to always have a lot of parties and cook outs. One of the favorite places that we used to go, was an island, called Grande Island. It was just off the coast, and maybe only 1 mile away by bonka boat. These little bonka boats, had large wooden beams to keep them steady, and afloat. We would take them out to the island, usually in the middle of the night. The island had lots of cabins that we would stay in the for the night. That was the Navy’s party place. We would all drink, and roast pigs, and just have a good time on the island.

Most of the guys still preferred to be in town, where all the night life was happening. If a ship was going to be in town for only a few days. Some of the guys would pay hundreds of dollars to get someone else to stand their watch, or take, or exchange their duty day with them, just so they could go out in town, everyday they were going to be in port.

Even before most of the ships would pull into port, as I would take care of secret message traffic, and I would know when a certain ship was going to be pulling into port, before most people. But, a lot of the bars in town, would already have the new signs painted on their windows, welcoming whatever ship it was, that was going to be coming into port. They just always knew the ships schedule, better than we did.

The whole time I was in the Philippines, I never felt unsafe, walking down alleys, or just hanging out. I was never worried about being robbed, attacked, or anything like that, like I thought might actually happen, when I was in places like Pakistan, or somewhere else. The Philippino people are really so friendly, and they all speak English, and it’s just a really fun place to visit.

A person could really go out for the night on $20. That would be $10 for a bar fine, which might be kinda high, as the peso exchange rate was roughly 50 pesos for 1 dollar. Some bar fines, would only be maybe around 300 pesos, which is less than $10. You could get a hotel room for the night, just about anywhere, for around $7 a night. And, for $3, you could get a handful of beers, and some tacos to eat, for the last $3. So for $20, you could eat, drink, get a girl, and get a room, for $20. You could spend more, and get better, and some guys could spend a lot less.

One night in the Philippines, a lot of us from the office, went out as usual together. This night, a LTJG that was our division officer, decided to go out with us. All the guys called him feel good, because his name rhymed with that, but no one, ever called him that name, to his face. He was the kind of officer, that if you were typing something up, he would come up from behind you, and put his hands on your shoulders, and just look at what you are doing, and try to give you a massage like you were doing a good job, or something.

No one ever told him to stop, as he was a nice guy, and he was our division officer also. This night, we were going out, we had a new yeoman that had not been on the ship, or working in the office for that long yet, and he was our youngest guy in the office, and lowest ranking. He also went out with us that evening.

This would be another night, I would end up locked up for the evening, at the end of it all. We were in a bar, that had a mechanical bull in it. We were all drinking, and betting on who could stay on the bull the longest. I remember riding the bull that night, because I did really good at staying on it, but my legs must of hurt for 2 days after that, because I hanged on so tight, I used up muscles, I never even knew my legs had.

Well, I don’t know how things turned out, but before you know it, the new yeoman, had his shirt off, and was sitting in our division officer’s lap. Here we are, surrounded by some of the most beautiful girls in the world, it seems, and these guys are doing this. Well, it turns out, the division officer had to much to drink, and he had taken the shirt off the enlisted yeoman, and pulled him into his lap. When some other guys saw these, they broke it up, and a fight broke out.

We all ended up out in the street, in front of the bar, and a bunch of us, got taken away for being drunk and disorderly. Our division officer was also one of the people that had been taken away, and locked up. I could hear the division officer in another cell, throwing up. I could hear him say, to the yeoman that had his shirt removed, don’t say anything, just don’t say anything.

As it turns out, our division officer, was transferred right away, from our ship, and we all thought he must of been kicked out of the Navy. One of the guys saw him about a year later, and said he was stationed on another ship, and was a LT now. So he got a new duty station, and he got promoted, and I guess it was just swept under the rug.

The main strip of bars in town, where your major bars were located, which had the prettier girls, the bigger dance floors, and the better bands. All the roads to the left or right, were also filled full of smaller bars, and there must of been at least 100 different bars, just in that 2 mile radius.

There were bars with girls oil wrestling, wet t-shirt bars, and one of my favorite bars, and a lot of other guys favorite place also, I’m sure, was called “Begger’s Banquet”. It was full of girls, and it had a little bit of a different twist. This was the place that a girl would bring something out on stage with, and people would throw pesos on the stage, and they would do different things, with different objects, and beg for people to throw money on stage. The more money that was thrown out, the more bizarre they would become.

Some of these girls, were amazing, with how they could stretch themselves, or give themselves their own cunnilingus. Some of the things they could fit inside their vagina’s was amazing, to say the least. And that was just one bar of many different types of bars on the strip, and the side roads.

On one of my journeys, me and a friend were heading to another town, that was about 10 miles away. The town we were heading to, was famous for a game called “smiles”. That is when a bunch of guys sit around a table drinking, and one of the girls goes under the table. When someone smiles, they have to drink. You can only imagine what the girl is doing under the table to whoever broke a smile.

In the Philippines, most people travel by either jeepney, or a 3 wheeled motorcycle bike called a trike, and they are both busy, with lots of horn honking going on all the time, just like a big city. We were heading to this other town, when we saw a small circus set up on the side of the road and off to the side. We told the jeepney driver to let us out there. We paid to go in, and it was a freak circus. They had the half man, half woman person, they had really small people.

They had a man that must of been 8 foot tall, he only had on a pair of torn up shorts, so it was not a trick, and he would not even look at us. He must of lived in that cage for a long time, and they had a lot of deformed people on display. It was one of the weirdest circus’ I ever saw.

One day, I was walking down the main street in the Philippines, they call Magsaysay Avenue, and I heard a guy shout out, “Brandon”. Well, that was the name of my high school that I went to. I looked, and it was a guy that I had went to school with, he was also in the Philippines. I talked to him, and he had joined the Navy as well. He was stationed on a ship, and was import in the Philippines the same time I was.

The bar that we usually hung out at, and played pool, and just lounged around, was called the Cindi Bar. Most of the girls were in their teens, or early twenties. There was one girl, or woman, who was in her thirties. She was the seasoned girl. She had already been to San Diego, and knew all the places there. We were always told, don’t bring back a girl from overseas, she just wants to get into the United States.

It’s O.K. to find one in the states, they are already there, but if you find one overseas, don’t bring her back. She will marry you, and then dump you when she gets her papers to live in the United States, we were told. There was always that goof ball guy, that wanted to marry a girl he met over there, and he might of only known her, for a few days. They Navy always tried to discourage anyone from getting married, as the paperwork had to go threw our office, and you had to request to get married.

This girl that was older, she had her own home, and she would invite us all, over there on the weekends, and make spaghetti for all of us. She would also have some of the girls from the bar over at her house. At one time or another, I think every one of us, had spent some time alone with Maria, who was the oldest girl of them all, the one that owned the house, the one that had already been to San Diego.

Almost each guy from the office had been her short time boyfriend, as they liked to call it. None of the guys seemed to mine, we all had a good time with her, and we all liked her. On one of those occasions, I was on a couple of days of leave. I decide to take a few days off from the ship, and I was staying at Maria’s house. Well, while I was on leave, something happened to the civilians that were working on base, and the base decided to called back all military personnel, and canceled all liberty into town, until further notice.

They were afraid, the civilians might start to riot, over a contract dispute, that was going on. At any give time, there seemed to be more civilians, working on base, than military personnel. At the base in the Philippines. It had lots of Philippino citizens, that did work on the base, and they all seemed to ride bicycles to, and from work. When work would let out, it would just be a traffic jam, and a sea of people on bicycles everywhere.

The town was deserted, except for girls everywhere, and some civilians that were working with the Navy, that did not have to follow the military rules. I was aware everyone had to be back on base, but not until you were officially notified by someone. I was just enjoying having the whole town to myself. I could walk in a bar, and there would be no guys, but all the girls were still there. It was like being Hugh Hefner or something.

Eventually shore patrol saw me, and told me I had to go back to base and report in. A few days later, everything was back to normal, and the town was a giant Mardi Gras type atmosphere again.

1) Commodities usually rise on inflation, as such they are a hedge against it while other traditional assets lose their value. As a consequence they attract a huge flow of speculative money that further drives up prices.

2) The emerging effects of peak oil, and soon peak natural gas, the rising cost of diminishing Crude Oil and Natural Gas, which by the way is the key feedstock for commercial fertilizer, is driving production costs up.

3) The worldwide effort to supplant diminishing petroleum based fuels with biofuels has had the unintended consequence of reduced plantings of food grains. Here is a quote from Paul Krugman's recent article on this point: "You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." So, since food demand is remarkably inelastic, the reduced supply translated directly into higher prices.

4) The emerging middle class of China is trying to follow that of the US, not only in terms of car ownership and the acquisition of material goods, but in a diet that is increasingly consumptive of meat. It takes 2x the weight of a chicken to raise it on grain, and 7x the weight of beef. Going from a diet that depends on grain to one based on meat protein is putting an enormous pressure on worldwide grain supply, and

5) perhaps most important; the world has entered an unprecedented era of shortages in fuel, food, water, metals, building materials and that means that there is a shortage of just about everything that gets consumed. Read Richard Heinberg's new book: It's "Peak Everything."

Today's shortages are unprecedented in the sense that in the past, food shortages in particular were typically local, due to unfavorable weather, wars, and such.

Now, food availability is a global problem, and weather, ie, the recent drought in Australia, has played a part in that, but the more fundamental reason is that there are just too many mouths to feed.

A big part of the problem is a lack of farmland to satisfy growing populations and their encroaching urban footprints.

A representative of the Philippine National Rice Farmers Council recently told Al Jazeera, "The population of the Philippines is growing, now its 87 to 90 million people, but the use of land for rice is shrinking. The government has not prepared for this dilemma. "

According to the United Nations, the annual growth rate of cropland worldwide fell to 0.1% in the last decade, down from a rate of 0.3% that had held since the early 1960s.

For the vast population of the world's poor, food costs represent over half of the household budget, and about half the world depends on rice for the majority of their daily caloric intake.

A $ 0.50 hike in the cost of a 10 LB bag of rice is an inconvenience, but for them, it's becoming a question of whether or not they'll eat, period.

The recent spike in the cost of rice has been blamed on surging demand in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and China and India, the world's two greatest growth economies with some of the world's largest populations, have both recently become net importers of rice.

The rising demand has driven the world's rice stocks to their lowest levels in 30 years, less than half of where it stood in 2000, prompting the UN Secretary General to warn of millions facing starvation.

Meanwhile, the UN's World Food Program recently issued a worldwide distress call for more funding, just to maintain their current list of dependents.

Now get this Friend: we now have only five days' worth of corn in storage worldwide, the lowest level in history.Thank you ethanol …

Wheat inventories are also at a 30-year low.

Stores in the European Union have plunged from 14 million tons to 1 million tons just in the past year.

In general, global reserves of grain now stand at a mere 1.7 months' worth of consumption down from 3.5 months in 2000.

Consider these examples of the real hardships being felt in the developing world over the skyrocketing cost of rice alone:

Cambodia joined Vietnam, India, and Egypt in curbing or halting outright their exports of rice, fearing that they won't have enough to feed their own populations. They blamed the recent rice price hike on surging demand in Africa and the Middle East.

Residents took to the streets of Jakarta to protest the high price of rice, and rice hoarding was reported across Indonesia.

Manila's top 100 companies were forced to begin rice farming by the central government, and the president of the Philippines was reduced to begging Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter, to sign a rice supply agreement. Widespread hoarding of rice has been reported.

In Thailand, the world's top rice exporter, rice farmers are hiring guards to protect their crops from bandits. Over 90% of the country rice crop now goes to domestic consumers.

Panic buying of rice in China sent prices soaring, prompting Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao to take the unprecedented step of guaranteeing rice supplies to Hong Kong and Macau, and issuing a public statement assuring the nation that its supplies of rice were adequate.

Riots broke out in Mexico over the price of rice (just as they did last year, over the price of corn for their staple food, tortillas).

Also, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are circling the wagons to protect their own supply of wheat, by restricting imports and raising export tariffs. The boss of a major Russian grain producer recently told Reuters that his country "is in a condition that has never happened before."

As prices have risen, the poor are being priced out of the market.

Average prices for rice have doubled over the last five years, and have taped a 20 yr. high this month.

The price of medium grade Thai rice, a market benchmark, has spiked from $ 360 a metric ton at the end of 2007, to $ 795 a ton last week, and is expected to hit $ 850 this week, and $ 1000 over the next three months.

For the poor, this is nothing short of a disaster.

Take Myanmar: Once the world's top rice exporter, it's now selling its small surplus to the highest international bidder. Like Nigeria with its cursed Crude Oil wealth, the spoils of the nation's harvest are mainly enriching a small corrupt dictatorship, while its own people go hungry

Friend, the cost inflation of commodities has not been limited to rice. Corn, wheat and soybean futures all set new records on the Chicago Board of Trade this year.

Corn has nearly tripled in price in three years.

Spring wheat quadrupled in a year, and has since become increasingly hard to get, and soft wheat doubled.

Soybeans have tripled in about a year.

According to recent US Labor Department statistics, here's what food prices in the US have done in the last year:

Milk: + 17%
Cheese: + 15%
Rice and pasta: + 13%
Bread: + 12%
Eggs: + 62% in the past two years.

The worldwide story is even worse. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), here's what happened to the worldwide cost of food during 2007:

Grains: + 42%
Edible oils: + 50%
Dairy products: + 80%

You all are aware of the 60% + rise in Crude Oil over the last three years, but compared to the cost of food, Crude Oil is a laggard.

Until the worldwide push for biofuels subsides, and the balance of global tariffs and subsidies for globally traded commodities is revised, it appears that we are in for more of the same: rising grain prices

The USDA recently predicted that global rice production for 2007/8 would fall three million tons short of demand, even while global rice stocks stand at 4% below last year, the lowest level since 1984.

The spell of rough weather over the previous months does not augur well for this year crop, either.

Floods and heavy rains in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, North and South Korea, and the Philippines all hurt the crops.

The coldest winter in recent memory in China, coupled with water shortages, will put a dent in their production this year as well.

Some market analysts are even warning that prices are actually still very low, and when adjusted for inflation, they opine, real prices for agricultural commodities are at a 50-year low.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations recently observed that current commodity prices are actually much lower than they were in the 1970s, and are only just on par with the levels of the 1990s seen during the Asian financial meltdown.

"We believe grain prices in general, especially wheat and maize, have been exceptionally low for a long time. It's a reflection of the way the US and Europe encouraged surplus production.

This discouraged developing countries from producing food because they could not produce at subsidized prices of industrialized nations, "an FAO spokesman remarked. Bad Western policy in hindsight.

The reduced value of agricultural land, and falling prices for its products, has pushed the world to the brink, and you too can profit from this overall shortage.

Henry Wilkins

There is as you would expect a large population of Chinese living in Singapore and like most countries they tend to congregate in small areas where you can find all sorts of things from the Middle Kingdom, like artwork and furniture, to temples and meeting halls, which have a Chinese flare to them. What most people seek is the authentic Chinese food, in Singapore you will be rewarded with a cornucopia of tastes and your nose will lead you in all sorts of different directions here. They have an interesting mall that has a lot of shop houses but I found the best food was in the little carts that lined the street, careful if you have a hard time with hot stuff, as some this food will light you up like a Christmas tree, if you order it hot.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the Singapore China Town; it was a lot smaller than I thought that it would be, maybe 6 blocks square in total. Singapore sounds like it is a Chinese city much like Hong Kong, what a surprise to find out that it is not. Of all the China Towns that I have been in this was the most antiseptic, which you would kind of expect from Singapore where everything is made nice and orderly all the time. The pleasure of China Towns for most is the riot of colors, smells and maze like quality of the architecture that they all take on, Raffles obviously didn’t want that sort of thing in his city, so it is what it is, small and neat with enough Chinese character to make it stand out a bit from the rest of Singapore. What you still have that are a pleasure to dig around in are the Chinese versions of a pharmacy and the small food stalls, and the curious little shops that sell all sorts of bizarre things that you always wondered where they came from. I suspect that as a Westerner I didn’t get to see all of the interesting places that must lie under the surface, which means that I will need to go back again for more research. I hope to see you there!

Pepper spray has been in use for many years as a non-lethal weapon for use in self-defense. It comes in canisters small enough to be easily carried in a pocket or a purse and can even be made as part of a key-chain or a piece of jewelry. For self-defense, its function is to disable an attacker long enough to allow the victim to escape. It works well for this.

Police officers have long carried this or some other similar acting spray as part of their uniform dress, right next to their pistol. Using a spray rather than a bullet is sometimes the right choice, and cops like to have all the options available. There are instances where a spray will not completely disable the attacker, but this is rare. Usually it's effective at doing the job.

The name 'pepper' comes from the main ingredient, capsicum, which is derived from the fruit of certain pepper plants. The capsicum is extracted using a solvent such as ethanol. The solvent is then evaporated and the remaining waxy substance, called oleoresin capsicum, is emulsified with polypropylene glycol (anti-freeze) so it can be suspended in water and pressurized into aerosol form. Capsicum is also made into ammunition used to shoot out of paintball guns to for use non-lethal riot control. It's also very effective in this application.

Pepper spray is a lachrymatory agent. This means is will affect the eyes, causing tears, pain, and even temporary blindness. Getting hit in the face with this spray is not a pleasant experience, but certainly preferred to taking a 9mm or 45 caliber bullet. The spray is advertised as non-lethal. This isn't to say that deaths have not occurred in some circumstances as a direct or indirect result of of a capsicum spray being used.

Pepper spray is an inflammatory agent and causes an immediate reaction in the form of coughing, runny nose, difficultly breathing and painful, burning eyes that forced shut. These effects will usually last for a half hour or more, with residual effects sometimes lasting many hours more. Some suspects will exhibit less willingness to succumb to the effects of being sprayed with pepper gas, but it's rare. Usually these are the ones really high on amphetamines.

Here's some good advice. Try not to ever get sprayed with this stuff. It's a bummer. If you're in a crowd where it's being used by police to control a demonstration or riot, cover your mouth and eyes and try to stay upwind. Then get out of there!

Pepper spray is banned for use in war, which sounds pretty funny, really, but there are conventions of war that disallow any use of riot control agents whether lethal or non-lethal. Laws for non-war use vary from country to country. In Hong Kong, it's classified as a 'firearm' and requires a permit to carry. India doesn't require a permit, but doesn't allow it to be sold over the counter and allows it to be only used in the act of self-defense. In the US, laws vary according to each state.

Pepper spray is a good deterrent. Every woman should have a can in her purse, just in case. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Think about it.

History of gangs goes back to the time as long as humans existed in towns. If piracy is considered to be related with gangs then it stretches back to the time when ships sailed across the oceans. Gangs are generally considered by authorities as undesirable, though many gangs consider themselves as protectors of their community.

Not much is known about gangs before Romans in ancient history, although many historians suggest that if gangs were a law and order problem in Rome, they there possibly known by older empires and states. Suburban criminal gangs during the Roman times caused disruption to life with riots and mayhem, these gangs were the first to invent protection rackets.

Roman gangs were involved in criminal activities of kidnapping for ransom and they often took the help of smugglers and pirates. Most of the early historians blame senatorial corruption under powerful gangs influence for the fall of Roman Empire.

Gangs operated throughout Europe during the medieval ages, although few of them were active outside their localities. The story of Robin Hood is a good example of how gangs operated in those times. The poor people who helped the gangs were pain for their loyalty which led them to become heroes rather than villains.

On the other hand, the Arab world had no belief in the goodness of gangs comprising of thieves as many met terrible fate at the hands of good people. One such famous story is "Ali Baba and the forty thieves".

Criminal gangs existed in India from 13th to 19th century known as thuggee, they raided trading caravans and killed people as they looted. The term thug is derived from these gangs and is synonymous with the word gangster in England.

Gangs of criminals operated in Japan and China in the 17th Century, they were respectively known as Yazuka and Triads Gangs. Japanese yakuza and Chinese Triads started as political groups but soon became known for their threats, robbery and often kidnapped and killed.

The Triads later migrated to Taiwan, Hong Kong and USA. On the other hand, Yakuza of Japan did not expand outside Japan other than Korea. The Yakuza gangs mostly spread their tentacles deep in Japanese business and many became heads of big corporations.

Gangs were known in US since the first cities developed. Most children were involved in minor crimes but later often made switch to more serious offenses.
After the westwards expansion across the continent, gangs started showing their power in the US. The Wild West outlaws like Billy the Kid, Reno Gang, Butch Cassidy, Hole in the Wall Gang and others added charm to the old west gangs nothing more than thieves and murderers.

Since the Chicago Outfit or Gambino Family of New York and the 1920s, history of gangs has changed with gangs fighting for control of territory. Al Capone, Don Carlo and Lucky Luciano were the biggest names in Mafia of that time. Gangs like the bloods and crips from Los Angeles had spread their criminal empires throughout the USA including the military.

The history of gangs is still not complete, there are complex changes happening within gangs that could change the entire industry in the next coming years.