Gen Stanley McChrystal

I chanced upon a sole remaining copy of THE Rolling Stones magazine that featured the now infamous interview of the belaguered military general. Now, I have never bought the said magazine before and at $13.40 it seemed too expensive just for one story, although the cover page featured Lady Gaga.

Still, I bought the magazine and read the story on Stan the very night.

As a soldier and leader, he has joined his men in their missions, braving stray bullets and ruthless forces.

While he said things he should not have said, and Obama really have no choice but to remove Stan from command, reading the article in entirety, what came across to me was a frustrated General fighting a impossible war (started by an ex president), an enemy that is elusive and allies that do not always appear to be helpful. Against this backdrop, his was a voice calling for recognition of the problems that beset his mission.

Suicide

I remember one colleague mentioned that when a person chooses to end his life, he is already not himself. Because for one conscious mind to take the very first step to kill own self will take a great deal of "courage" and determination.

Recently, 2 suicidal news caught my attention. The news were on the Korean star and Ms Kerin Peh (I will call her the Bride). I realised how tough times can be, to cause such distress to human beings like us who are educated and "were taught how to handle things in life". Some of us learnt vicariously, while others have to go through the harder way, i.e. personal experience.

Saw some comments about the news about The Bride who took her life just yesterday. Some were sympathetic while others criticised and preached how precious life is. I am not here to judge but I think one has to go through a great deal of trauma to understand. For me, I took a sympathetic stand. Really felt sorry for her having to go through the pain and yet not able to "recover" from the heartache.

As for the Korean actor, it was said that the stress and guilt in juggling his career and his ill dad pushed him to choose this path. He said life was hard.

Indeed, life was very difficult for the 2 cases. Depression is a trap. To get out, you have to be willing to leave a part of you and free the rest of yourself. Some are lucky enough to pull themselves away while others need others to give them a thug. Of course, there are also some who "choose" to fall deeper and deeper.

What we have learnt in schools is somewhat "fairytale" and usually good things happen in life. We were taught the moral values and good behaviours. We were taught how to handle academic topics, how to solve problems in Maths, in Science. Real life experience is hard to teach, no doubt. Still, with the increasing pace and expectation of the society nowadays, the issues on handling extreme emotions cannot be undermined.

A Little Ambition

A colleague asked me what I thought of his impending transfer to a new appointment. I said I think it is good to which he replied I was the first to say something positive.

I said in life you must have minimally a little ambition to be useful and gain knowledge. Without this, then it is likely that every job or opportunity will be viewed negatively.

And one cannot overemphasise the importance of communication in the corporate world. While the ultimate objective is getting the desired message clearly understood, the form ie tone, language and style, do a play equally important roles particularly in your supervisor's comparison of you with your peers.

A good chat

There is a saying that discussion/talk about ideas is the highest form and discussion about people is the lowest. That is easily understood because the talk tends to become gossip, wild postulations, albeit just for a laugh.

I met my university professor at my office canteen and we had a good chat. It was one of the most fulfilling chats I had in a long while.

Whilst we talked about people, it was to update each other of people we know in common and how they are now. We also enquired about each other's family.

Largely, we shared our ideas and experiences. It helped that although we are both engineers by training, we have a healthy respect for culture and the arts.

We both agreed to task ourselves to meditate more often so that we can be better balanced to face the world.

Documentary

I watched a National Geographic documentary titled "Escaping from North Korea". It is an excellent production. Real lives and faces (some blurred to protect their identities) need no dramatisation.

Against the risk of being caught and possibly imprisoned or executed (repeat offender), some north koreans take this path to escape their homeland. The journey is a ironic one, summed up by the cliche so near yet so far.

The destination is South Korea ie next door. But the route is through China, then through Laos and finally the Soth Korean embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.

It is not just a matter of luck whether one will be caught in China or Laos and be deported. Physical suffering and patience tests the refugee -- the entire ordeal could take months while the actual border crossings takes place over a few days. Many pack a handy dose of opium to commit suicide if caught.

Border crossing take place at night, refugees including children and old grandmothers make the more than 10 hours trek in near darkness and heavy vegetation. I think of it as an over-extended exercise in Pulau Tekong minus the food.

The greatest irony of all is that for the lucky ones who end up in Seoul, the real journey for them starts. Adjusting to a life from communist to capitalist, feeling out of place and being the underclass, poor and starting life all over again no matter your age. But the lure of freedom...that surpasses all.

Bing-bang or ping-pang

As a matter of correct pronunciation, the chinese words for table tennis 乒乓 is pronounced "ping-pang" and not "bing-bang".

Not many chinese are sensitive towards correct pronunciation especially the use of 翘舌 eg "zh" instead of "z" or between "ch" and "c".

I hear a DJ pronouncing 结束 as jie-su when it should be jie-shu.

CANON DE PACHELBEL REMIX

Guard here guard there

My badminton kaki Yap commented that I look like robocop when I play badminton.

Why?

The number of guards or braces I have to don either to take care of previous injuries or prevent new ones from happening.

I wear ankle guards, knee guards and a waist guard. Am thinking of getting a shoulder guard if it prevents dislocation.

Round or square?

This happened just yesterday at my taiji class. Some background: the classes are taught in Mandarin by a very good and knowledgeable laoshi (teacher) who loves to share anecdotes on culture, taiji and from his own experience.

An angmo and his chinese wife joined our class not so long ago. Through the class, I can hear the wife whispering the translation of laoshi's words to her husband.

Yesterday, laoshi talked about 外圆内方 loosely translated as 'outside-round, inside square' at the beginning of the class. It means to the outside, one must have forebearance ie 圆滑, but internally，one must be demanding towards himself.

In the middle of the class, the angmo's wife told laoshi that her husband was feeling frustrated because he cannot understand what the laoshi was saying, and laoshi seemed to be saying so much every class, and he was worried that he might be doing it wrong.

Laoshi merely smiled and say 'just follow the movements (what everyone is doing)'.

I can understand both the angmo and laoshi's difficulties. Laoshi is not telling him the full answer but the answer is not to be found in words, but in comprehension and that requires a feel for the language. For the angmo, he is very keen to learn but the barrier of language is too high to cross.

Can't sleep?

One of my colleagues have been commenting that lately that a night of uninterrupted sleep appears to be quite difficult to achieve. It is a bit of irony because like meditation, the key is letting go, and if you chase after it, the more you won't get it.

Anyway, he said that either it gets too long for him to fall asleep or he will wake up in the middle of the night and then stay awake till dawn breaks. I asked him what was bothering him and he said work.

Normally, I would have laughed it off if the same thing had not happened to me.

I sleep quite well normally but just a few weeks back I was grappling with a risk management issue at work. And one night, in my dream, I was actually dreaming I was grappling with the same issues, so derams mimic life, exactly. I had to tell myself, in my dreams, to wake up and I was laughing at my horrible dream.

In any case, my colleague asked me what options could I offer. I told him he could either use a bit of alcohol (my exact recommendation was milk with some DOM Benedictine), loving-kindness meditation and regular exercise.

He reported back just a few days ago that he slept soundly after a run.

On Running

I participated in a mass run at Macritchie Reservoir park last Sunday. Even though I was contemplating not going for the run during a very brief moment when I woke up, the experience of completing the run made me realise it was all worthwhile.

A colleague asked me what do I think about when I run. He says he counts numbers to establish a rhythm and to take his mind off the running. I said I enjoy the experience of running so I do not distract myself. In fact, through my own experience, the longer the distance and hence the longer I run, the mind tends to focus itself better because the mind has a major issue it has to muster, that is getting the tired muscles to work.

So for me, I let the mind run free and I find that it helps me to think about some of the issues at work and see them clearer.

But most importantly, the benefit of the run is to train the mind particularly in not giving up.

So, today, I signed up for another three runs, one of them a half-marathon.

Primary Sch Friends Gathering, Lau Pa Sat, 26 Feb 10

This was the third gathering I attended. I suppose it was a matter of time when we have shared enough memories of school life, then either find the meetings boring and join the group less or find topics that will appeal to our (middle-aged) minds.

We did a little of the latter at this gathering, sparked off by a sharing of readings Buckminster Fuller and Robert Kiyosaki. Only towards the end of the gathering did I realise where my friend was coming from when he went deeper into his life journey which was not exactly smooth.

But I also realised the importance of diplomacy, especially in sharing one's beliefs and especially if you would like to convince others.

Bad food in camp?

There is an article in Asiaone which reported that trainees at a NS Camp in Malaysia had complained about poor food among other things.

In my days, the food was never good, but thought that the poor food was one of the ways designed to toughen up 'soldiers'. Thankfully for the younger generation, the quality of food has improved by leaps and bounds with 'best-sourcing' (SFI!). Washing chores have also been outsourced.

My memory remains of the worst breakfast I have ever had in my life. Of cold yellow noodles, joined into lumps, dumped on my mess tray then sprinkled with lukewarm diluted water that served as 'soup' at 6am in the morning.

Momentum is important in exercise routine

After a long (ie one week overseas holiday) lay off from the pool, I found myself struggling to finish my basic 5-lap freestyle routine. Normally, I do a continous 5-lap, stop for a 3 minute or so break and follow up with a second 5-lap. Yesterday, I had to stop after every lap to that I could perform the 5 laps without dying.

This is why keeping up the momentum in the routine is important.

Today is my weekly run again. Because I also missed last week's run, I cannot miss today's run though my brain is conjoling me to take it easy. I am preparing myself mentally for a painful 6.5km journey.

Kampar-Ipoh Trip 2010

I visited Kampar ( 金宝 in chinese) for the first time to attend an AJC's classmates wedding. Kampar is 30-40 mins drive away from Ipoh, so after the wedding, I also went to Ipoh to take a look. Some memories:

1) High cost of living

Cost is rather high in Kampar and Ipoh. Take food for example. A bowl of bak kut teh costs RM5.50, a Sunkist orange cost RM1 and taxi rides are exorbitantly high at a minimum of RM6 (for a really short trip) and RM40 from Kampar to Ipoh. A portion of dim sum costs between RM3 to RM7. Of course, the prices are still reasonable if converted to SGD but we should compare before the conversion.

2) Hot weather
When we left Singapore, it was hot. But it was even worse in Ipoh. One of my friends said this is because Ipoh is a valley and it is inland. When S and I were exploring the town on an afternoon, we looked like the only ones doing that. A taxi uncle later told us it was just impossibly hot to walk around in Ipoh's afternoon sun.

3) Traditional
The Malaysian chinese are more traditional than us (at least my family) and I can observe many detailed rules being observed during the wedding day. What I particularly liked was that an old auntie was continually dishing out auspicious nouns and adjectives as the couple were going about their business. The only setback was that they used Cantonese which I am not very fluent in.

4) Suay

We were so unlucky this trip. Some examples:

i. The theme park "Lost World of Tambun" was closed on Tuesdays when we visited. The taxi dropped us, turned around and left and we could not flag down another taxi till some 40 mins later.

ii. The dim sum restaurant which I visited on the last morning was closed for an hour just at the time I arrived.

iii. The coach left Singapore using the 2nd Link but somehow returned using the Causeway even though my wife and I were the only passengers and we told them early we did not need to alight at Woodlands. It was 5am when we reached Johor customs and it was already packed. At Woodlands checkpoint, I could not go through the automated turnstile as my luggage was too big and later I was asked to open my luggage because the shape of the car air freshener which I bought looked weird on x-ray.

Confucius and Socrates

I had an interesting discussion with my wife's cousin yesterday during a CNY visit. He is not a local and he has sent his children to both government schools and international schools. He shared this insight.

He said that government schools are run along Confucius principles and that is the teacher is there to teach and the students just has to open their ears and absorb. I can just imagine the chinese movies depicting such scenes of rows of students sitting ramrod straight and reciting after the master.

The western version is adapted from the philospher Socrates. The teacher will teach enough and then prompt the students to ask questions. By way of the how and what questions were asked, the teacher senses the level of understanding of his charges and adjusts his teaching.

This however is very demanding of the teachers and the system, as this required customising.

He also shared that in international schools, there is no streaming. Weaker students are encouraged to mixed with the stronger ones so that they can learn from each other. More capable students however are not being forced to learn at a slower pace (as the example illustrated earlier) as the teachers will cater for their learning needs, but even this is done very subtlely.

My batch was streamed at primary 3 and even at that tender age we understood what it meant to be in 6A or 6B. This continued into secondary school and even manifests somewhat in work.

If I have children, I think I would opt for them to be educated in the way of Socrates. That is, if I could afford it.

1st Visit to Ho Chi Minh City & Nha Trang

It was quite an experience for me esp when I saw how the traffic works here. CHAOTIC! But somehow, it works. Don't remember seeing any accident since day 1 in HCMC. Everyone seems to know how to go about manoveuring on the roads with all the motorbikes, lorries, buses, pedestrians comeing from all sorts of directions. (will put some photos when I am back.)

The 10-hour train ride from HCMC to Nha Trang was quite a "thrill" for me too. Thank goodness I could still sleep my way through. The tickets we bought were supposed to be one of the more "luxurious" one, i.e. a cabin with 2 double deck beds. I tend to think the ride will be more fun and enjoyable with groups of 8. Hahaha!

Today marks the end of the trip of the 1 week break in HCMC. It was a good off from office but if you asked me if I would come visit again... hmmmm maybe not but I wouldn't mind to join in if more friends are keen to join the tour adventure.

Well, kinda passing time now cos' waiting to head off to the airport later. So a bit "boliao" to start this post.

Jason and Lyn's Wedding