Yukkk!

It tastes disgusting! I am trying out a natural remedy to remove gallstones. The apple and apple juice is fine. The epsom salt drink tasted so weird and bitter. Putting quarter cup of oil through the throat is yukky! I gulped in a hurry. Tomorrow morning, I will know the results. I should see green stones floating when I pass motion.

I hope my gallstone found during my last checkup will come out naturally. Wish me luck!

Thaipusam

The temple is busy all night with vehicles and people going to pray and show their devotion. The moon is in its glorious round smiley face. I like the landscape of hills and uneven terrains. It is very quiet early in the morning everywhere except for the Hindu temple.

Up at 5am, I am now feeling sleepy. Travelling is lonely. One must learn to make good use of the time i.e. read, sleep and watch TV or learn to meditate while waiting for the scheduled time before departing. It is good to be the CEO. Then flying a corporate jet mean I can go anywhere at any time and leave at any time. Well, since I am not a CEO, this jnst a pipe dream. I understand CEOs are lonely too. I find that hard to believe as they always travel with the entourage and local office leaders fawning over them. Maybe CEOs are just like friendless city folks who are surrounded by people and all are strangers and no real friends.

I am glad I have friends and family. So loneliness is just a temporary inconvenience of my job.

Ipoh Knah Choy Kai

My colleagues, Tom and Sam lives in Ipoh. They brought me to the authentic and famous knah choy kai aka chicken and beansprouts. This is my first time to Ipoh. Heard plenty of good things about Ipoh like many Miss Malaysia are from Ipoh, Michelle Yeoh, the actress, the water gives the best beansprouts, etc, etc. I took a walk to my favourite pastime i.e. window shopping and I was disappointed that the local girls did not live up to their reputation. Maybe my expectation are set too high. The girls are no different from KL.

Back to the chicken! The beansprouts are short and fat, very crunchy, blanched and top with simple soya sauce, cooked oil and ground pepper. The chicken is tender and is quite different from the Hainanese chicken in Singapore. We also have the spare parts aka as liver, gizzards and intestines. There is only hor fun soup and the stock favour is excellent yet not overpowering. The meal come to RM48. I thought it is a little expensive coffeeshop meal for a small town. But hey this is the famous stall and they must price it at a premium.

The mall is sizable and there is Popular bookstore which is not the best. But can do. I had a local white coffee in the mall which cost RM2.30 or S$1 slightly more expensive then the hawker center but cheaper than Ah Kun or food court. Coffee is typical Malaysian Kopitiam-style.

I find Ipoh is a nice small town and very hilly. Ipoh used to be a tin mine. The tin miners did make a lot of money and they have many wives and concubines. Now it is just a small town to raise family and enjoying tourists from KL.

Fabulous Japanese Food

The buffett is really good. Many choices and dessert, my favourite section is excellent! I had the local kuehs, ice kacang with coconut milk,and mango ice cream with sticky rice. I had so stuffed up that I will have plenty of workout to do before I can get my weight down again.

I tried to do some window shopping after dinner but no chance as the shops closed at 9pm. The business do not look good. But the food stalls are thriving. People do not buy but still need to eat. It does not suffer as much due to poor economy. I did not buy any clothings or cheap paraphernalia.

Tomorrow, onwards and forward to Ipoh. The beansprouts and chicken rice place.

Hatyai

I arrived Hatyai yesterday after a long day of travel. I have to fly to KL, then to Alor Star before going by road all the way to Hatyai. The business climate in Hatyai is bad. It is no longer vibrant. Many of the roadside stores are gone. The stores start closing at 9:30pm. I know why now the direct flights are no longer daily. Nobody is coming up here anymore. The economic crisis and unrest have high impact on the local economy.

I am in meeting all day. So I will be gaining weight as I sit and eat all day long. My saving grace? I munch on fruits and nuts instead of potato chips.

Have to go for Japanese buffet dinner. Another wonderful meal lies ahead of me...

Let It Flow

I am facing this blank page for a while wondering what to write. So I decide to let it flow with words just out of my mind. I wonder if I should write about events happened today or about a book I am reading or about my trip tomorrow. So many possibilities and so hard to choose. I realise my writings are not as interesting as say Boh Tong, who has intriguing stories about SIA crews. I only writing boring stuff about books and family or my daily events.

I am also reading books to improve my writing. Most important is I am writing everyday. It is practise and more practise. I hope I got the right "practise" instead of "practice". I believe practise is a verb or the act of doing whereas practice is a noun like doctor's clinic or lawyer's office. I do not mean the physical building either. It is their professional work.

I realise many of my books start to fade or yellow very quickly. The quality of paper is atrocious nowadays. Even hardcover books which cost a premium are printed on low quality newsprint that yellow in one to two years. Maybe it is the sunlight. I put all my books on open shelves so that they can be easily seen and retrieve for reference and reading.

With the launch of e-books, so I will have plenty of books in my hard disks. I am fairly happy with the audio versions now. It is fantastic as technology advance and more tools are available. The accumulation of knowledge is increasing and learning to use the knowledge with all the different tools available will allow us to succeed.

I remember when I first run a local distribution outfit. The sales team do not know how to use a computer. This was in 1998. Today, everyone is required to use computer for all office work. Emails are ubiquitous and mandatory mean of communication. While everyone has to use email, the language skills of many have not change or improve. Hence, we have speed of communication but not clarity. So many things change and many stayed the same.

We are all heading to new and greater future. So let's us all continue forward and live a full life. Life is to be savoured.

New Year Goodies in Queens Street

My wife and I when to the Goddess of Mercy Temple to pray today. After offering our prayers, we walk across the road and have Famous Indian Rojak lunch. Queens Street is also has a Wholesale Centre where all the dried seafood and dried fruits are available. A lot of the Chinese New Year goodies are also available like the fried prawn rolls.

We spent a tidy sum today as we bought mushrooms, dried scallops and dried oysters for the new year.

Soon we will all be saying Kong Hee Huat Chye, hehehe.

Gathering

My eldest sister invited us to have hi-tea in Pu Tien in Tampines Mall with my mother. Actually it is a buffett with maybe 10 items and 3 desserts. The food is quite good. Cost only $12.90 per head. Actually quite good value.

We have a good chat after the meal with my neices and nephew. So it is good to stay connected with my family.

Soul Misalignment?

I was in "twilight zone" for some time before waking up. I have a blocked nose on one side. Twilight zone is half asleep and half awake. It is trying to sleep completely and unable to. Then trying to wake up and unable to. I am nursing a headache on my right side of my head all day. What a lousy day. I feel tired and lethargic and cannot focus on when I was supposed to be for tuition. It is also changing with 3 boys and 4 different tuitions.

Good to be back home and have a rest at the poolside and snatch a few minutes of nap. Maybe it is "soul alignment" as Lobsang Rampa puts it. According to Lobsang Rampa, author of The Third Eye, you will get a terrible headache when you have soul misalignment. No medicine will be able to cure this headache. The only way is to sleep it off. All our souls travel when we sleep and return before we can wake up. Dreams happen when we recall where our souls have travelled to when they were out-of-body. This is also known as Astral Travel.

What kind of Childhood?

Weekend is personal and family time in Canada. In Singapore it is tuition time. It is moving from one place to another.

I wonder why academic achievements are the be all, end all of a student life in Singapore. Pressure to perform and doing well is extremely high. There is only one thing in life for a student and only one thing...i.e. get as many A1 as possible.

Family time for me on the weekend instead of soccer dad or hockey dad is tuition dad. Waiting for tuition to be over and onwards to the next location. Poor kids, poor boys. I always wonder about lost childhood here.

My boys have a different kind of childhood. I wonder what are the good time and bad time they will recall when they are think back of the growing up time. Playing computer games? Holidays and tours to different countries? Or learning and enjoying school? More like pride that they have gone through a tough and competitive childhood where learning and passing exams with high grades is the most important thing in their lives.

What is the childhood I can remember? I remember playing with marbles, home-made kites, home-made windmills, rubber-powered gliders from Guillows, building model planes, doing science experiments and reading books. The Queenstown library was open when I was in Primary 4 and I read about 3 books per week during school holidays. I bought Enid Blyton's books and kept them for a long time. I remember they cost $1.80 each. I did not go overseas until I started to work. My first overseas trip was to Malaysia via road out of Singapore. Then to India. After that in two years, I travelled around world to US, Europe and many countries in Asia. I counted the number of countries I visited and stop after 30 or 40. It does not matter anymore. After that many countries, I am just a frequent traveller and no longer a novice tracking and adding up the number of countries visited as a badge of achievement.

I hope my boys will have fond memories of growing up.

Wonderland Resturant

I met an interesting gentleman in Wonderland Resturant. He has similar logic and is fearless in giving out his opinion and logic of how things should be done in a bureaucracy. I am very happy to meet a like-minded person. He regales his stories of dealing with the bureacrauts and the customer facing officers of passport department.

He was in a long queue and waited for a few hours. When it is his turn, the counter staff just pull down the blind on his counter with a slam and the sign "tutup" or closed in Malay. He was upset would be an understatement. He told the customer service officer that he had queue for a long time. If there is a fixed number of people the department can service, then they should have stop the queue up to the number they will service and let the people queueing beyond the last person know that this is where the queue ends. He does not mind queuing but he cannot be queuing and then be told to go home and come again tomorrow to queue all over again.
I must say he has fine logic.

Facing the Blank Page

It can be difficult to write at time. I always have to spend some time to figure out what to write. Most of what I write is boring. I will need to write, read and edit what I write in order to have a more readable and interesting blog. The Creative Habit is a good book to start on learning how to create from a blank page. The author is a choreographer who had won acclaimed awards for her work. She start with white empty dance hall with a ghetto blaster(portable CD player in Singaporean lingo). It is her job to fill the white emptiness with dance and music. She gave many suggestion to get the creative juices to work. It is hard disciplined work. No different from selling, management or leadership that I am currently involved in.

I am practising to write and face the "empty" page on my keyboard everyday. I made this a diary as it is easy for me to recall my day's activities and the books I read. While it is easy for me to write, it does not make interesting reading. Once in a while I write a winner which my friend Boh Tong will put it in his main blog. My readership will zoom up for many days. It is obvious his blog has plenty of pull and stickiness. Even when my article a few weeks old, visitors from Airlines Stories still come to read.

I may not be able to write much when I travel. So pictures are a short cut to writing. They says a picture is worth a thousand words. So when the day is long and time is lacking, I will let the camera do the writing.

Happy and Lucky

I am very happy with my iPhone. I feel very lucky our libraries have audio books. Now I can "read" more books through the iPhone. Steve Job did a fantastic job with iPhone. Audio files are very easy to download into the computer and synchronise with the iPhone.

Technology advances have improved and increased my abilities to get to more information and enjoy information in different formats. National Library is doing an excellent job of making the new mode of information available.

Living in a world class city like Singapore has its benefits.

Life is good and happy. Therefore, I am lucky.

Success Intelligence

I am listening to the audio version of this book. An example is quite interesting. A survey was done in US on money and happiness. In US, salary is annual unlike in Asia where the convention is monthly. The question is how much more money will make you happy. For people earning $30K/yr, they think if they are making 50K/yr, they will be very happy. For people earning $50K/yr, they think if they $100K/yr it will make them happy. For people earning $100K/yr, they think if they make $250K/yr it will make happy. For people earning $250K/yr, they think if they make $1million/yr, they will be happy.

You see, money is never enough and the more you make the bigger the gap to make yourself happy. It is a never ending chase. We must learn to be happy with what we earn and what we have.

Be Careful when shopping in Borders

I was very happy to go to Borders today for 30% advertised in the Straits Times as well as the email blast. After I paid, I checked on my bill and found that the 30% discount was NOT given at all. Only the regular 10% member discount. I went back to the counter and the cashier told me the advertisement was a mistake, however he will give me the discount anyway. So my transactions were reversed and then reapplied with the discounts i.e.30% and additional 10%.

I thought it is not nice of Borders to do this to their customers. I find it hard to believe that it is a mistake since it is both advertised in today's Straits Times as well as sent by email. Even if it is a mistake, the management should take immediate action to make good the advertised sales rather than let only Customers who saw the discount and ask about it before honoring the advertisement.

It is poor etiquette and not honorable and will destroy Customer's trust. I do not know how many were taken in. I suspect most people do. This is not the company I can trust now and have to check every time I pay.

2.4cm Gallstone

My annual checkup reveals I have a 2.4cm gallstone through ultrasound. The doctor does not seems so concerned. It is my fatty diet. I ate too much cholesterol and transfats. I will need to do more exercise and watch my diet. I had review my life and I think I will die satisfied that I had a good life. I am still young and will not delve on death but life and the future ahead...unless 2012 happens and everyone on Earth dies or become enlightens.

I am extremely lucky and blessed. My classmate told me stones are very common. Most time it does not give problem. So do not worry.

No worry be happy. Exercise and watch my diet. That is the name of the game of life!

Mosquitoes and Millipedes

Mosquitoes are plentiful now. I am eaten alive. It is non-stop feasting by all the female species. There are also many millipedes at the Sengkang Garden. Millipedes are fine but mosquitoes carry diseases and cause scarring on my skin. I wish there is a way to get rid of all the mosquitoes on earth.

I may get the machine that give mosquitoes fatal attraction. Hahaha!

Expensive Education in Singapore

Education is so expensive in Singapore. The tuition fees are astronomical. All 3 boys have to go for tuitions. The tuition fees alone take up sizeable amount of my income. The drive toward A1s is incredible. The recent "O" level results shows that 6, 7, 8 A1s are very common. All the mothers keep telling me the world has changed and that tuition is a must to make sure the school children stay competitive in school.

As a father, I am always pooh-pooh by the mothers whenever this topic is discussed. My pet peeve is if the kids are given a crutch and spoon-fed by all the tuitions, when will they learn to learn independently. How critical is it really to spend so much money on tuition so that their grades can improve? There is no tuition for independently thinking or entreprenuership or how to be effective in business or at work. It is just academic subjects. Granted, academic subjects are important foundation for modern day work and living. Does having A1 make a huge difference to your capability in delivering strong performance at work?

I hired a Manager who scored all A1s in school. She lacks people skills and initiative. She does not speak up during meetings. She was ineffective as a Manager and has to leave. This is just one example I personally experience. I am sure there are probably many people who scored A1s and does exremely well at work. I have not personally seen or met any. Those who do extremely well in school are all working for our Government through many scholarship schemes. It is the old Mandarin system of China. Do well in imperial examinations and get an official post. You are set for life.

Am I grumbling at the enormous cost or expressing the stark realities of life in Singapore? You decide.

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

This is a book review of all the excellent business books by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. I borrowed this book from Bishan Library. I enjoy reading this book as every review is not more than 3 pages long. I have read many of books in this list. I do own many of the "best" business books. The key ideas for every books are highlighted. At the end of the review, there are recommendations for other similar titles.

It is a quick way to find out if the book is appropriate for the issue you are dealing with or learn the key ideas of the book is worth your while to spend time going in depth. It is good to get a summary of the books I have read as well.

White Tea

I read on the internet white tea contains lots of catechin and gallic acid. The benefits of drinking white tea is more abundant than green tea or any other tea. I just bought a box of 25 teabags by Lipton. Will drink white tea and see how it go. Maybe I will brew them and keep them in the fridge to consume more and test the claims.

There are more and more types of new products with health benefits. So the claims are hard to substantiate. I have tried manuka honey, concentrate vegetable juice mixture from 33 different veg, cranberry juice, promengranate juice even tongkat ali the famed Malay herb suppose to help back ache and cheap substitute for viagra. None has really work because I did not keep up continuously. My backache is not bothering me anymore. It is not due to tongkat ali but exercise. Consuming pills is easy but did not do the trick as promise at least for me. Exercise did wonders. Maybe I should stop getting sold on all the miracle cures and live healthily. This will save me a lot of money.

Receding Gums

My gums have receded. My dentist friend says it is part aging!!! He also asked if I used the Oral-B electric toothbrush. My teeth show signs of abrasions. I had brushed my teeth too much!

It is not good to get dull pain all the time. It is distracting and very uncomfortable as something is bothering me all the time. I think it is terrible my body is showing signs of wear and tear. I thought I do everything right by exercising and maintain good personal hygiene. It is inevitable for the body to run down after going for the 100,000km on the odometer. First, it was the kidney stones. Then there is potential gallstones issue. Now my teeth are wearing out. What will be next?

Looking at my mum, I shudder to think of my distance future. Her mobility is limited, she has to eat soft food as her stomach lining now is thin and can get gastric problems easily. I hope medicine will continue to advance and be readily available i.e. not so costly to maintain a reasonable quality of life for the aged.

New Location for S'pore Media Academy

B3 the youngest boy is attending Chinese lessons with Singapore Media Academy or SMA. The location was moved from Media Corp in Andrew Road to Riverside Mall. The place is right downtown and carpark fee is exorbitant. The place is also dead on a Saturday morning. Downtown is also known as the deadtown after office hours.

The rent must be cheap for SMA. However they do not think of their customers who now have to pay higher parking fees while waiting for their kids. There is nothing to do while waiting. At least in Andrew Road, we can past time in the Thomson Road nurseries. At the Riverside Mall, it is like being thirsty in the middle of the sea. You are surround by water but you cannot drink the water. There are malls and resturants but none of them open in the morning when the kids are attending class. The place is happening only at night.

What to do? My boy need to supplementary Chinese class so that he will learn enough to do well in his exams. Guess I will learn to while my time in deadtown on every Saturday mornings.

The Largest Bookstore in Seoul

My favorite haunt is the library or a bookstore. I remember having to spend a day transit in Zurich in a cold spring day. It was freezing and I look for a library and spent the day keeping myself warm and enjoying the free facility.

The Bandi & Luni's English book section in quite small about 14 shelves out of probably 200 shelves. There are a lot of classics. Classics are books where the copyrights have expired e.g. The origin of species by Charles Darwin or Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although the shelves are limited, they contain all the different categories i.e. Literature, Business, English Language and University level Textbooks. There are many good books on English rhetoric.

The main focus of the Foreign Language is aiding students to learn English. Bestsellers are stocks and many classic business bestsellers as well. I find the section although small can be interesting and engaging. The selection must have the right combination of classic as well as current. If the combination is right, passing time in this tiny section is a joy and selecting books that can only be bought in this store is fun.

There are plenty of cafes in the mall and it is good to get a pick-me-up latte and enjoy reading after purchase. The combination is mmmm perfect!

The Mind of the Strategist

This classic is written by Kenichi Ohmae, former Managing Director of McKinsey in Japan. I think it is a coincident that the book I was reading on the way to Seoul was right on the summary of this book. It look like it is still popular in Korea in even though it was published in 1982. The Strategy formulation Ohmae propose is 3C, Customer Competition and Corporation. There is no need for perfect or big grand strategy. Once the strategy has a small advantage over competition it should be implemented. As I read on, Ohmae has a practical pragmatic approach on incremental change. It is a Rome is not built in one day philosophy or little acorns will turn to mighty oaks given time and right conditions.

The American Way is hero worship. The richest man, Bill Gates. The quickest company to reach Fortune 500, Google. Fastest to become billionaires, Sergey Brin and Larry Page founders of Google. Largest company on Earth, Walmart. All the superlative. Every American loves Superheroes.

While I enjoy reading American books and work for American company, I am glad to have traditional Asian values of thrift, hardwork and family. I am glad to read Kenichi Ohmae whose thinking is close to my heart and soul. American way is at an intellectual level.

Wrong!

My headline was wrong. My memory did not serve me well last night when I write. This was not my first snow in nine years. It is actually only two. But first snow in Korea in nine years. Two years ago, we holiday in Interlaken, Switzerland in Dec and we tobogganed down the mountain. It was an amazing experience. The mountain was so quiet.

My First Snow After Nine Years!

I have not seen snow since I left Toronto in Dec 2001. The scenery is lovely. The white makes it pure and beautiful. This nice sense of beauty quickly evaporate once I step out to the freezing cold and slippery path. The road is dirty with brown slush.

Any decorations in the open is transformed to magical delights especially when lit up with all hundreds of tiny lights. This bring back memories of living in Toronto. The car need to be cleared of snow before driving, the driveway to the garage need to be shovelled before leaving for work, accidents galore on the highways and driving to work will take horrendous hours. Also there are sweet memories. B1 was a young boy in grade 2 or 3. Any small slope become a place to slide and tobboggan. A simple plastic disk like a giant wok will work. I remember him enjoying so much that he does not realise he is actually freezing. We have to force him home and his hands and feet are so cold.

B1 and B2 look so cute in their winter wear complete with scarfs, gloves and boots. They have fun building snowman at our front porch and backyard. We also have wonderful time visiting friends and inviting them over during our long Christmas break. Our office shutdown from 24th through Jan 2nd or 3rd.

Maybe we have to go for winter holiday somewhere next year.

Here You Go! As Promised Yesterday...

All White

I landed in Seoul in the late afternoon. The airport is covered by snow. I have not seen snow since I left Toronto 9 years ago. It look really nice. After checking into the hotel, the news reported this is the first heavy snowstorm in Seoul in a decade.

I took a walk outside and it was freezing. After a couple of shots with my phone camera, I came back in as I could not take the cold. I have trouble downloading the pictures and will post them when I have more time to figure out how to retrieve my photos.

What the Dog Saw

Malcolm Gladwell is a talented writer. He strings facts from different research and the form startling conclusions. Even mundane stuff like ketchup can be a treatise under Gladwell's pen. There is an article on his latest book What the Dog Saw on over-rated over-paid talent. The risk is high when you pay handsomely for "talent" rather than performance. He cited a study done when a group of children were given challenging test. The group is divided into two regardless of their results. One group was praise for their intelligence and the other their hard work. On subsequent tests, the group praise for their intelligence perform worse and tries to avoid difficult test questions whereas the group praise for their hard work improve their performance.

He cited only one study. I am not sure if this can be applied in general and in what context. I read similar research done as well. Psychology experiments can be tricky if we draw conclusions but I think there may be some truths as hard work seems to be the surer way to success as the old adage The key to riches is through honest and hard work.

iPhone Increase My Reading

iPhone is a great gadget. Apple has the system for iTune tuned(pun intended) to a "T". The V9 Motorola phone had MP3 player but loading the songs takes time and patience. With iPhone, loading audio books is a breeze. So now I can "read" books as I exercise. This has increase the number of books I can read. I also learn about Grammar and increase my vocabulary through audio book.
The wonderful thing is I can also borrow audio book from the library. I have the book Undercover Economist for some time now wait for me to crack open the cover. Now I am listening to the book and it is fantastic.

I love the ability to multi-tasks and learn. This is heavenly - knowledge and health.

Happy New Year

Around the world, everyone celebrate New Year with fireworks and many interviewed on Channel News Asia had similar wishes as me. That 2010 will be a better year than 2009. Let's put our past behind and look forward to better times. I am optimistic as Governments of the World put in their best and concerted effort to avert a depression and it is succeeding. The economies recover like a V.

Many jobs disappeared but more jobs were saved. The commodity prices skyrocketed and then drop like a rock. They have climb back up by more than 50% from their bottom. At work, most retain their jobs. The mood while gloomy is not black like the end of the world. The results were astounding for Q4. So we all can celebrate that while the pay is lower, we still have income and maintain a reasonable lifestyle after tightening our belts.

2010 marks the closing of chapter 2009 and beginning of a new chapter. How this chapter will be written is still unclear. There are much hope and optimism by everyone including yours truly. I will continue to log on my blog my daily thoughts and activities. I will read and reflect more. With this blog, I will leave a legacy for my wife and sons. Memories of our lives together and the love we share.