Kidney transplant tourism to hit Singapore?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Last year, Singapore’s government, faced with an aging population and a shortage of human kidneys available for transplant, reconsidered its prohibition on the buying and selling of human kidneys. Only the second country to legalize such markets, Singapore is also attempting to stem the tide of illegal, back-alley organ sales that have become increasingly common in parts of Asia.

Under Singapore’s new scheme, those willing to donate kidneys will be paid anywhere from US$6,500 to $33,000 in order to compensate for medical expenses and time away from work. In Iran, the only other country where kidney sales are legal, donors are paid several thousand dollars by the recipient for their donation, or, if the recipient is poor, the payment comes from a charitable organization. The implementation of this program has eliminated the wait time for those in need of a kidney transplant in Iran.

While there’s not much danger of potential kidney recipients heading en masse to Iran for a transplant, it seems entirely plausible that people might travel to Singapore for such an operation. In the US, for example, it can take potential donees from five to ten years to obtain a healthy kidney, depending on where they live.

Until the buying and selling of kidneys is legalized in other parts of the world, Singapore may find that thousands of desperate kidney-seekers are willing to travel abroad for a new chance at life.

More here. Gadling talks Singapore with Bryan Caplan here. Why kidney markets are a good idea here.

Beijing’s treasures endangered from modern development

by Jamie Rhein on

During China’s Cultural Revolution, one of Mao’s bright ideas, people burned, broke, buried and threw out loads of items connected to the arts and intellectual pursuits. Lately, due to economic development, the treasures found in Beijing’s old neighborhoods are being removed in the name of development. Old houses along alleyways that date back to the imperial city are being torn down and modern buildings thrown up at a dizzying rate. Eighty-eight percent of the original, ancient neighborhoods are gone, according to this New York Times article.

The article is mostly about one man who has taken up the cause to save the buildings’ architectural treasures like ornate doorways, screens and statues. Li Sontang has been collecting these items for years by going to sites where buildings are torn down. He’s able to get the goods for nothing and has paid workers to take away the heavy stuff. With the bounty Sontang has gathered, he started a museum.

The Songtangzhai Museum is housed in a two-story building from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) . With its $4.50 admission fee, the museum offers people a glimpse into what Beijing looked like before Mao and bulldozers showed up. I’m hoping that Beijing officials get a clue that they have a tourist hot spot if they stop tearing down what is left. Restore it to its earlier beauty and entice people to head there by the opening of interesting shops and eateries. All they need to do is turn to Singapore’s Boat Quay to see what can occur.

There was a neighborhood I visited in the mid-1990s that that was in back of Mao’s tomb. Of all we did in Beijing, wandering down the alleys was the highlight of our trip. One family who didn’t know English invited us into their humble house for tea. In one shop, I bought two carved wooden panels that were probably off of someone’s door. One panel is of children doing a dragon dance. The other shows another ceremony. I’m wondering if the neighborhood is still there anymore. I doubt it. How terrific it is that there are people like Li Sontang who recognize treasures and save them.

Borobudur in Indonesia–a memory maker and other people’s photographs

by Jamie Rhein on

This essay by Lisa Reed in the New York Times about her return to Borobudur with her nine-year old son reminded me of a couple of points. Mainly, I am reminded about how utterly spectacular this Buddhist temple complex is, and how fortunate I was to have lived in Singapore for three years so that places like this in Indonesia could be seen on a long weekend trip. I’m also reminded of picture-taking.

When I went to Borabudur, Yogyakarta, the city closest to it, was also part of the attraction. Friends recommended this city on the island of Java in Indonesia as a worthy jaunt for the history, the scenery, the food and the shopping. On all counts, my husband and I were pleased with our good fortune. I have great memories of buying an elaborate leather shadow puppet from the man who made it after visiting with him in his shop.

Borabudur was the centerpiece of a wonderful time and we were lucky enough to climb up its stairs early in the morning before the crowds came. We did not, however, get up before dawn to see the sun rise like Reed did.

However, like Reed, we did have the experience of people in Indonesia wanting us to be in their photographs. In Reed’s case, her son attracted attention. In our case, it was my husband.

In Asia he often looked like a toned down Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians, thus, he was the topic of many a conversation and a prized catch for a photo op. Maybe people thought he would bring them good luck, but whatever the reason, there he was on most vacation days in the middle of a group of Asians, smiling broadly, while they captured their image with him for their photo albums back home.

Borabudur, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, was built in the 8th and 9th centuries and is one of those places that is perfect for picture-taking with or without people. With its 72 rounded stone stupas and Buddha statues that mediate like calm sentries overlooking the valley that is edged by mountains, there is no end of an interesting angle.

Unfortunately, when I went to Borabudur, I was taking slides which are now stored in a box in one of our closets. One day I will go through them, but by reading Reed’s essay, I can see their angles. I seem to remember one with my husband in the middle of a group of Asians.

I’m wondering if the same people are looking at their albums from time to time asking themselves, “Who is this guy?”

Talking Travel (and Singapore) with economist Bryan Caplan

by Aaron Hotfelder on

“I used to think the same things as everyone else,” economist Bryan Caplan said in a recent podcast, “and then I started reading economics.”

I too was a pretty conventional thinker once upon a time, and then I began following provocative economics blogs by the likes of Tyler Cowen, Will Wilkinson, and Chris Blattman (all three Gadling interviewees– really, click the links!)

One of my new favorite bloggers, Bryan Caplan recently visited the unusual city-state of Singapore and wrote about some of the most interesting aspects of his trip at his blog, EconLog (see here, here, and here, for starters).

Bryan and I recently chatted about Singapore’s rather unconventional policies, some misconceptions that are often shared about the country, and why travel memories are the most valuable to those who live longest….

Singapore is often thought of as an authoritarian dictatorship and it’s strict laws are well-known– corporal punishment is still employed, drug trafficking is punishable by death. But at the same time, it seems to be undergoing a period of liberalization. Why, in your view, is this happening?

Well, I think it’s not true that it’s a dictatorship. It’s a British parliamentary system and by the accounts of international observers the elections are not corrupt. Really what you have is just the ruling party has managed to win up to 60% of the vote in every election for the last 40 years. Which I’ll admit is strange, but I was thinking about it more upon getting back, and I realized that when you think about Singapore as a city rather than a country, there are lots of cities where one party has been in power for 40 years in the United States. For example, the Democrats have been in charge in San Francisco for longer than a single party has been in charge in Singapore.

So it’s not true to say that it’s not a democracy. You could make a case that it’s not a liberal democracy– you’ve got corporal punishment and a wider use of the death penalty. But in terms of liberalization, my main guess would be that it’s modernizing like other Asian countries, and as countries modernize they become more Western, and the attitudes of the population become more similar to those of other developed countries.

And the Internet has a lot to do with it. On the one hand, the standard media are quite dull, but they have a very active blogosphere that the government doesn’t censor, and that’s where a lot of intellectually alive people are getting their information. The only Internet censorship they have is that they have a token list of about 100 porn sites that they block, but that doesn’t make much difference because there are a lot more than 100 out there.

What policies has Singapore adopted that have allowed it to flourish?

There’s a lot going on in Singapore, but what is unique about it is that its government is much more willing to follow policies that economists think of as economically efficient. They’re much more willing to use incentives, and they’re one of the few really free trade countries.

What about the immigration policy in Singapore?

It’s very interesting– about 25% of Singapore’s population is foreign-born. It’s certainly not free immigration but it’s a much less restrictive policy than in, say, the United States. It’s a lot easier to get low-skilled laborers into Singapore. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that the public is very deferential to the government. One of the main kinds of complaints about the main party is that it does allow in a lot of immigrants. Probably if there were a vote just on immigration policy, Singapore would keep out a lot more people than it does.

What are some misconceptions that residents of Western countries might have about Singapore?

People think it’s not a democracy, or they think the elections are corrupt. And those seem to be false. The idea that it’s a rigid, rules-based society, there’s something to that, but it wasn’t nearly as rigid as I was expecting. I blogged about the fact that on the walls at the civil service college there are a bunch of things that make fun of government and government policy.

Before I went to Singapore, they asked me what I’d like to talk about and I said public opinion in Singapore: Do they actually support these unusually economically-efficient policies? Some Americans I talked to said they’ll never talk about that, that my trip was going to get cancelled. But it was nothing like that. They set up a very interesting lunch with one of their main sociologists who works in public opinion. Later that day I had the same discussion with an audience of civil servants. And not only were they happy to talk about their government’s policies, they were enthusiastic.

What were some of their feelings about the West?

I think they think they are the West. They identify with the US more than with Britain because of television. The older generation still feels British while the younger generation feels American.

One of your colleagues Alex Tabarrok says that people tend to have a status quo bias about travel– that if they knew their lives would be longer, they’d travel more, and they’d also travel more if they knew their lives were going to be shorter. Do you feel the same way?

Alex thinks that’s a paradox. But my thinking is that if I knew I was going to live longer, I’d travel more. If I knew I’m going to live less, I’d travel less. With a longer life, you have more time for experimentation and to see what else is going on in the world. And also your memories are like a durable good– you get to keep them with you for as long as you live. The longer your life is, the better the memories are to have. But if I knew I had six months to live, I probably wouldn’t go anywhere. I’d probably stay home and enjoy the things I’ve worked for.

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Besides being an economics professor at George Mason University, Bryan Caplan is the author of the outstanding book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.

Leave the poppy seed strudel at home if you’re heading to UAE

by Jamie Rhein on

Yesterday, while wandering through Westside Market in Cleveland, I passed by several stalls laden with baked goods, some sporting poppy seed. The poppy seed strudel was mighty tempting. This brought to mind the sidebar I saw that was attached to the article about Michelle Palmer’s and Vince Acors escape from jail time in Dubai after they allegedly had sex on the beach.

Before Palmer and Acor’s legal woes in Dubai, there was an earlier account about how people who bring poppy seeds into the UAE can also meet serious trouble. There could be trouble even if there are only a few seeds dribbled on a coat after eating a bagel before heading off to Dubai. Iva posted on that very situation back in February. There was one Swiss person who had eaten a bagel with poppy seeds and was arrested.

While eyeing the poppy seed strudel and thinking how yummy it looked, I also remembered that poppy seeds are not allowed in Singapore either. At least, you couldn’t buy them when I lived there in the 1990s. Perhaps Singapore has loosened up, but I think not.

The issue with poppy seeds is the same issue in Dubai. Instead of baking with poppy seeds, people could just get a notion to turn them into opium. The thing is, from what I understand, opium is not made from poppy seeds, but from the unripe poppy seed pod. Eating poppy seeds, however, can result in a false positive for the drug. Tricky.

Because this is an older story, I checked the U.S. Department of State page on UAE to see if poppy seeds are still banned. Yes, they are. I looked on Singapore’s page to see if I could find out about poppy seeds. I couldn’t find a reference to them, but the don’ts in Singapore is a mighty hefty list.