11 May 2007: Guangzhou (Day 1)

Nothing much really happened today. I am a Cantonese, but honestly speaking, I felt happier in Hong Kong than I was in Guangzhou, even though Guangzhou is situated in the Guangdong province where I can better locate my roots. Maybe I am too much of an urbanite. Anyway, we boarded a bus and crossed the Chinese border, stopping over in Shenzhen before we finally arrived in Guangzhou in the afternoon. We visited a junior high school, and then proceeded to a local university for a welcome dinner hosted by its vice-principal. We met a few good friends there who could communicate well in English, and all of us enjoyed our dinner to a large extent, accompanied by Cantonese cuisine and, of course, some beer. How can a meal in mainland China be complete without booze or wine?

Life is like a Vacation

Life is like a vacation, and should be treated like one. Life may be perceived as a time frame in which experiences of sorts should be gained and novelties tried out to derive its fullest. However, it is nonetheless a limited time frame, and imagine rushing through a 3-day tour of Beijing, in a bid to cover the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, the Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing, Xidan and the 13 Ming Tombs altogether. Yes, it may be accomplished, but the quality of the trip will be compromised. Similarly in life, our whole existence should be taken in stride and simply be enjoyed. We may only live once. Do coffers and grades really matter?

Antidotes of Life

We are all doomed to die right from the start. However, antidotes of air, food and water shall sustain us for decades before we breathe our last. Emperors who had sought for elixirs aimed to break the limitations of these antidotes, but they usually died faster due to excessive mercury poisoning instead of natural causes. Therefore, "Do nothing, yet nothing is left undone". Why seek fame and glory, when we should let nature take its course?

“无为以无不为”

“古今多少事，都付笑谈中”

Thanks, my dear friends!

To those who had attended my talk last week: Thank You very much! I understand that the talk was not my best presentation to date and that the delivery could have been better, but nonetheless I hope that your time had been well-spent at my mini-seminar. Thank You!!

I had sprained my back and experienced a stiff neck some days ago. The greater pain in the neck goes to my countless assignments. More specifically, these assignments comprise 3 essays that will be due soon, 2 ISM reports due much later due to time grace, and my field research at some temples, of which I have visited none.

Here are some of the dire consequences if I fail to meet the mark this semester for academic performance. I will:
1. Be sacked from the research assistant post for spending too much time on petty assignments and none on my field research.
2. Witness a dramatic drop in the CAP score that allows me to kiss my class of honours goodbye and renders my Masters application useless. It shall be my maiden kiss if this happens.
3. Feel so utterly demoralized that I shall slack through my last semester in NUS.

Whatever the outcome may be, life has to go on. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Everything is transient. I shall possess no desires whatsoever. The worth of a person should never be determined by his or her looks, qualifications or wealth. How myopic and superficial if that's the case. Attitude, character and other inner virtues should be the currency of assessment instead. Easier said than done, but it can be done.

In any case, although it sounds a bit Buddhist, singlehood for life is the epitome of personal freedom. The hassle of courtship and the bondage of marriage are killjoys. Please prevent the diffusion of such views to the general public. After all, the power of procreation can reduce any form of dependence on foreign talents.

Updates on Mini-Seminar

As a follow-up to the most recent entry, here are some of the updates that my dear friends should take note of:

The venue remains unchanged, but more specifically it is called Discussion Room 04-01. This room is located next to the stairway of the USP Block Admin. If you are taking a lift up to level 4, be sure to make a right turn after exiting from the lift, and enter the first room that you see on the left side of the corridor.

Light refreshments will be provided, in gratitude for the support of my dear friends, some of whom not really interested in the topic, others skipping classes to help fill the quota, as well as those who do not have lessons on Friday but will attend the talk nonetheless. And of course, to friends who are genuinely interested in an academic discourse of sorts, THANKS!

I'm now like Taiwan, which is desperate for more support from member states of the international community to gain a seat in the United Nations. So please continue to spread the word further, and see you this coming Friday! :)

Mini-Seminar: The Longzhong Plan: The Geo-Economic Factors leading to the Tripartite Division of Han China

Dear friends,

I will be giving a talk on the above-mentioned topic next Friday. Details are as follows:

Date: 19 October 2007
Time: 2pm-4pm
Venue: Seminar Room ADM/0401 (USP Admin Block; please take the lift to level 4)

Please don't be late, and come prepared with questions! My professor will regard a lack of questions as a failure of my presentation to be stimulating and engaging. Please help!

Despite the fact that I had booked the room for 2 hours, please rest be assured that I shall only speak for about 30 minutes, followed by a Q & A session for another 30 minutes. Please bombard me with loads of questions, and I mean it!

And for those who have pledged to come, THANKS! I really appreciate it. All are welcome! Please ask your friends along too! I need more publicity. If the number of attendees falls below 15, I will have to do the presentation again in an open seminar for members of the public. Please spare me from that by allowing me a reasonable turnout. Thanks!

Yours Truly,
Wacky Jacky

10 October 2007: Happy Birthday, Republic of China!

I dare not call it Taiwan, but it is definitely one of my favourite places on the surface of the Earth. Happy Birthday!!

One of my online purchases on eBay has yet to arrive, when it ought to at the end of last month. So infuriating! I need it for one of my assignments! Shall I file a dispute?

10 May 2007: A Happy Reunion!

I woke up early to the smell and taste of Portugese egg tarts. It was my first breakfast in weeks, since I never have the practice of eating one in my hectic Singapore mornings. After having the tarts, I went to meet Elvis at the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station. It was noon, and he brought me to a buffetaurant for lunch. Our next destination was Harbour City, a famous shopping mall for the rich and affluent. I was the great pretender, comparable to King Richard III.

Of course, it was nice meeting up with Elvis! We skirted the whole district of Tsim Sha Tsui and walked the Avenue of Stars, where we had most of our photos taken. My tired legs soon demanded a rest, but ironically led me all the way to Mongkok before stopping. It was there where we had my favourite mango dessert, again!

In the evening, I went to meet up with Debby, Teresa, Paul, Ansel, Alison and Vivian (from left to right in photo) at a Chinese restaurant in Mongkok. Teresa and I, the Taurean babies, were pleasantly surprised when they wheeled in a cake lit with candles. Then, I received from Debby a bag of homemade cookies as a belated birthday gift. Great taste came with the thought, and Debby has good culinary skills to speak of! Thanks everyone, if you are reading this belated post! Sigh, when will we meet again?!

9 May 2007: Tsuen Wan, Sha Tin and Tsai Wan

Professor Graham took us on a morning trip to the Sam Tung Uk in Tsuen Wan, followed by a tour of a temple that reveres the Goddess of the Sea, namely Mazu.

We also went to a museum located near the Chinese University of Hong Kong at Sha Tin. It's a pity that I don't have the photos of the museum with me here.

I concluded the day by meeting up with Kieron, a friend from the Hong Kong University. We knew each other in Taiwan last year during a competition. Kieron offered me a treat at a Japanese restaurant at Tsai Wan, and we went for mango dessert at my favourite 许留山 outlet at Causeway Bay where I broke a shoe. That spells the intensity of my Hong Kong trip. Thanks to Kieron's discount card, I was able to buy a new pair of New Balance shoes for less than SGD 50 at a nearby shop. An added contribution to the already-robust Hong Kong economy!

8 May 2007: Lamma Island and Causeway Bay

The summer in Hong Kong was unbearable. Nonetheless, it did not deter me from visiting Lamma Island, one of Hong Kong's southern islands. No one else in the group would want to risk a possible heatstroke there, so I took a 1-hour ferry ride to the place alone.

Besides having a beautiful landscape, which I had enjoyed viewing immensely, Lamma Island is also known for its fresh, delectable seafood. What may be less known is that Lamma Island is actually the birthplace of movie star Chow Yun Fatt, who had famously quipped "Welcome to Singapore" in the recent Pirates of the Carribean III. In short, Lamma Island provides a great escapade from the urban hassles of ever-busy Hong Kong.

After a whole afternoon of hiking and trekking, I met up with the rest of the ding gang at Times Square of Causeway Bay for dinner. We headed back for the YMCA hotel after some shopping in the vicinity, feeling thoroughly bushed at the end of the day.

Rewarded for being Overloaded

Thanks to Qihua Jie for her steamboat dinner treat, and also to Daniel for his ramen treat after he has received his first paycheck! Kudos to them for offering me treats, despite my pathetic assignment grades amid the daunting workload that I am currently enjoying. Life is indeed like a box of chocolates, both black and white.

Happy Birthday to the People's Republic of China!

26 September: Happy Birthday, Jacky Wu!

7 May 2007: Amandae and my Hong Kong friends!

We visited the Kowloon Park with our Canadian friends, and I'm happy to know Amandae, Ying Hui and Hui Ping even better through this trip to Hong Kong! We had a sumptuous dim sum lunch at Professor Graham's treat, followed by a group visit to the infamous Chungking Mansions. It was my first time there despite many previous trips to Hong Kong.

I met up with Debby in the evening, and she treated me to a kebab spread before we went to meet Fatpo at a dessert outlet (by the popular franchise 许留山). I had my favourite mango sago called 杨枝甘露 there while catching up with them on our lives and future plans. I was truly happy to have visited Hong Kong, my most preferred travel destination, again within mere months. Amandae will be heading for Hong Kong in the coming weekend, with my shopping list to look at if she gets too bored on the plane.

6 May 2007: Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong

I had gone to Hong Kong in May for the UBC-NUS Summer Programme to learn more about the Chinese Diaspora and migrations in Asia. Coincidentally, Francoise, Hisashi, Marvin and Jasmine were holidaying there as well, so I met up with them in the wee hours of the morning after my hectic schedule earlier in the day. We had drinks and snacks near the Avenue of Stars at Tsim Sha Tsui, and strolled the promenade before parting ways. That was the last time I saw the former three, whom I have known since last year in Taiwan. I often wonder how they have been so far. Wonder too when we will meet again in the near future.

Will I Survive?

I am currently taking 6 full modules that weigh 24 MCs in total, of which 1 is a level-5000 Course-Based Module offered at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and 2 are level-4000 Independent Study Modules taken with my favourite professors back at the Chinese Studies Department. To spice things up, I am also a Research Assistant in an academic collaboration between the Chinese Studies and Sociology Departments on the study of the City God belief system and temples in Singapore. To make matters worse, I have to submit proposals and make preparations for my Honours Thesis due by the end of my next semester.

I guess I need to frequent the temples for 2 reasons: to complete my research and to pray that I do not collapse before or upon such completion. Good luck to myself.

Dissident or Distant?

It takes a simple mind to assume that things can be aboslute. As a matter-of-fact, they are not. This applies to any issue or policy, which dictates the rules that in turn govern a system. Lone actors within the system may oppose the way things are run, harbouring little more than a simple intention to improve it. However, those who concur with the system, especially those who have benefitted much from it, may dismiss their opinions as pointless ramblings from ones who seem too difficult to please. More often than not, apathy prevents such obliging souls from making critical judgements, and sadly speaking, these souls often constitute the bulk of the system. No constructive change can ever be effected, when the boundaries between conformity and loyalty are blurred.

Realism in Life

All men are self-interested, rational beings who believe that they lead sober existences to face the miseries of the harsh reality of life. Nonetheless, precisely because they are so sober, as well as aware of their own existence, they make a conscious effort to survive in this world of anarchy, and the discreet way to do so in this seemingly civilized world is through mockery and trickery. Breaking psychological defences of others and the sneak-attacking of back-stabbers were more of novelties in the past than they are now.

Laws, rules and principles are simply some of the stardards or norms that reinforce a loose form of conformity upon mankind, and these intangibles constitute a false veneer beneath which an emerging kind of brutal savagery and blatant exploitation lies. In specific terms of gaining a global ethos and thus allowing humility and morality to reign in our worldly realm, we have all failed terribly as global citizens. Disregarding the narrow definitions of progress, the world has certainly not improved in such aspects, and an envisaged future of gratuitous wars and ever-starving children filling our global landscape appears reasonable.

We urgently need a second Enlightenment, before the world tilts beyond its final phase of redemption.

Nostalgia

I've been thinking much into my past. Nothing great or grand seemed to have happened in my life, and simplicity is a virtue in its means and definition. What better way to relive those moments than letting myself go and immerse in a timeless dimension?

Our Defeat

Sunderland lost 0-2 to Liverpool. My heart goes out to this underdog team, as always, for we are indeed two of a kind. Something seemingly (or truly) as rotten and incapable as I am dodging ahead in life in the midst of adversity and condemnation. I wish I can survive in this game of life but I doubt so. Life has proven itself too much for me to take. Thanks :)

I am really not Mr. Tan

I'm truly amused by my new joke book. I have the spontaneous urge to laugh at every word or sentence of so-called inspiration.

The book offers high levels of sheer entertainment and comic relief. The author hallucinates so much that he had lived on the false impression that the world is bent on fixing (I think he needs to be fixed, in a different way) him for the past three decades, and he feels unduly exploited and oppressed in the heavy-handed system. With this comical work he seriously tarnishes the reputation of his fellow counterparts. Using his vivid and often incredulous imagination, he distorts views and theories at whim, hopelessly trapped in his very own world of self-delusion and spectacle. He quotes little citation to substantiate the content, and his arguments and reasoning are horrendously flawed.

There are many modes of resistance or retaliation available that seem more practical and sensible to me, leaving the book a hard, weird, and therefore, distasteful nut to crack and chew on.