Appreciation...

Been thinking again, in life, who do you want to be:

An artist? An actor? Or a Cleaner?

What is the difference? well I think the difference is how you will be apprectiated. For an artist, the day you are remembered and loved is the day you are six feet under and well dead. For an actor/ actress, the only time you are remembered is if you do something that makes people sit up or makes them weep for your character. Or you could be a cleaner, never really appreciated, but always essential. Never always seen, but always having an impact. (I will leave it to your highly developed minds to figure out this hypothesis)

So What do you want to be? someone who is appreciated after life, someone who gets 15 mins of fame or someone who is not even known but knows that his/ her contribution is great? Rather hard to choose don't you think?

Chinese reflections....

China Trip

I Ihave to admit that I had harboured tad bit of aprehension before my trip to China. Lets just say that I was not 'feelin' China and that I did not really like the place. So what if my ancestors were from there? I am not Chinese, I am Singaporean!

Thus, needless to say, I had a stereotype of China as a dirty and third world nation that had a conundrum trying to feed its 1.3 billion people (tht is a lot of zeros mind you) Well, I landed in Shanghai and was greeted by the wet and cold weather. Not a very promising sign of things to come. My 8 day trip took me to Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Huangzhou and back to Shanghai. It was many hours on the bus and a real bore.

But before I begin a narration, lemme talk about the trip on the whole. It was barely educational ( the tour guide spoke in Chinese, so not much could be comprehended), most days were raining, the food was full of pork dishes, smoking was a national pasttime and the people were so rude that they would cut the taxi queues!!

Aside from that, China has the most wonderful of scenerys. I mean, it is better than England, Australia, Israel, Spain even Korea. ( the pictures above would do justice to this statement). Anyhow, China was more of an eye opener more than anything else. I kind of feel a greater afinity to it even though it had presented me with so many 'turn-offs'. I felt rather comfortable and not so foreign.

However, passed all the beautiful facades of the rich culture and modern buildings, i saw the lesser known side of her. There were beggars on the streets struggling to survive as the standard of living surges ahead with her development.

For exmaple, an average worker earns about RMB2000, which is like S$500 and the cost of a MacDonalds there is like RMB22. So it is not a lot of $$$ to live on.They really are surving day by day. I think it was an eye opener to make me appreciate the life that I currently have. Anyone of us could have easily been in the same shoes as the beggars. After all, you did not decide if you wanted to be born and who your parents were to be. did you?

Well, I guess that is the purpose of holidays, besides the traditional idea of taking a break, visiting other countries has allowed me to further understand cultures and appreciate not only the life that we live, but the society that we are in. Anyhow, it was a good break but I'm glad to be on this sunny island, at least it does not rain every day! So enjoy the pics and till next time,
adieu

BAck

Well, Just got back. Gimme me sometime and I will share with You about CHINA. (&(%&^$^$OY*&^ (tht was vulgarities)

I saw this really nice quote and thought I should share it:

'She was my cream and I was her coffee and when you poured you poured us together, it was something.'

I saw this outside spinelli's I think. Well, so who is going to be your coffee today? more importantly, do you evn like your coffee with cream? Or are you more of a conventional drinker, no sugar, no cream. If that is so, what do you go well with then??

Conformist?

I am once again suffering from a relapse of my melancholic mood again. So here comes another life questioning post:

Well, the past few days have set me thinking, can there ever be one side to a person? Can a person remain what he/she is for the rest of his/her life? Can we as human beings even remain true to the closest person that we know. Ourselves.
I was thining, the blog is a far cry from my outer personality, yet it is me. However, the outer personality is also who I am. Thus I am faced with a conundrum. Which should I be? Myself or myself?Have any of you reading this had those times when you feel that you have betrayed yourself? I sure have.

Anyhow, can we really have a fixed personality? Can we always hate that person or always love that so and so. Can we be true to ourselves? Society has cast a shadow over our wretched lives, she has spurned a web of deciet and lies. She has forced us to conform, and labeled non-conformist as outkast of the society. When all this time, this people are the ones who are the true victors and we the outkast.

Well, the melancholic phased has past and back to the normal ways, for now. So till next time, adieu.

Food for thought

'Sometimes we can be so superficial.'

I had arranged to have dinner with my parents and their friend today. It was the friend's birthday, and I had thought that we would be dining in some posh 5 diamond restaurant. So I had gleefully tagged along. Instead of that, we ended up eating Chinese food in some shop tucked away in Chinatown. When we reached there, I was pissed! I mean, I came all the way down to eat this? WTF?! (I was thinking all this while I was dressed in t-shirt and shorts) I had never thought to consider if the food was as any good or better than the environment that it was situated. It turned out the food was fantastic and the service was also good. I dare say that it is better than some hotels I have eaten, where the food is a total joke.

Well, I guess this event was a small situation to teach me the basic concept of not judging a book by it's cover. How can one compass the qualtity of the, in this case , the food without having tried it? How can we judge someone with out learning more about him/her and giving them a chance?

I think this anecedote is just a reflection on life, we never really see the joy that it has. We see a man with a big house and a Ferrari parked outside and we jump to the conclusion that he is one 'hellova' happy man. We see a man sweeping the floor and we think that he is a sad man who is forced to do this. We however forget to see the sorrow in the rich man's life and the satisfaction in the sweeper's life. In society, we should not stick with the 'in-crowd' and forsake our values, we should not be so shallow as that. Lets give everyone a chance and lets live life without jumping into stereotypes.

Another parting thought for another eventful day:
People are like food, you can never tell their true character with out tasting them.

Pondering Bus Thoughts....

Holidays have officially begun and it is time for some fun and to chill out and metally prep myself for the year ahead.

Interesting things happen on buses and I was a recipient of this interesting happening. I was in the bus and it was jammed pack with people. I was sitting on board and pondering over how these people might be feeling on board the bus as the cars whizzed by and as they pack themselves like sardines.

However, there was one constant thing that they shared. They all had these downcasted and stoned expression on their faces. There was no life at all! It's amzing how commitments and work can jsut sap the life out of us and leave us so weak and so 'stoned'. It is therefore my suggestions that we embrace life and for us to see another day as not just another 24 hours. Instead, we have to see it as another window of oppurtunities and another chance to experience what life has to offer.

So what if it is a work day or a school day? Does that mean that no happiness can be drawn from it? Does that mean that it will be void of any meaning? I think the answer begs the question. We have to embrace life, cause, who would know how much time we have left. Are you certain that you will be alive tommorrow? Can you be sure that you will still have your 2 legs a week from now?

The answer is clear. So we should enjoy life and every moment of it. We should not be so downcasted by work that we fail to appreciate the day that has unfolded. We should not let our life be slaves to conventions and dejections.

Ps: listen to 'Closer' by Goapele. It's damn chill out

"Free Hugs"

"What the world needs now, is love sweet love, its the only thing that theres jus too little of". That was a quote from a song some time back. Amazing that it is just as relevant now as it was a few years back. Tht picture that you see above is a women holding a cardboard with the word 'Free Hugs' written in Polish.

What struck me was how we just need acts of kindness and maybe a hug or two to really brighten up those melancholic days. I was on the way for the class party when lo and behold, the phone's battery went dead and I needed to contact the others! So I was in a state of peril. What should I do? I mean who would lend their phone to a total stranger and let him place a call? Well, I decided to try the train contoller and asked for him help. He had not only lent me the battery for my phone, but even offered to charge my phone!

Such an minute act has a great impact on the lives of the people around you. Wether you know it or not, your kindness goes a long way. No this is not a publicity for the courtesy campaign or a belated advertisment for the '4 million smiles' saga. I feel that these acts of kindness really make one's day.

Moving on, what we need to do is be like the lady in the picture. Lets spread the love around. Its the only thing that we do not get poorer from giving more. Life is way too short to remain resentful all the time. What we need to do is to spread the love and joy. As the holiday season draws nearer, let us mean it when we say that this is a season of giving. Let us mean it when we say 'merry christmas' let us mean it when we say 'ol lang syne' (forgive the spelling). Lets stop the hate. Lets stop being selfish bastards and become the society that we are hyped up to be.

'Sometimes it is self benefitting to be selfless'

'Hua Yu Zai Jian'

I think this post is going to be rather redundant, but I need to let this off my chest.

Chinese As are over!

Goodbye 'cheng yu', goodbye 'yan yu', goodbye one of my H1! well now that it is over, I can concentrate on more important and more pressing issues. My Homework. You notice how this vicious cycle continues to play in the Singaporean education system? You are delighted to complete 1 task and only to find another 2 more staring at you.

This cruel irony has got to stop. My time has been sucked up by studying! I think the phrase 'youth is wasted on the young' is rather pertinent here. One has yet to to fully enjoy life and the pleasure of youth when it is heinously stolen from them. Therefore I think that we need to really cherish the moments in our life. Life is not made up of events, but of moments that take your breath away. It is these moments that give it new meaning and purpose.

We all wake up, shower, brush our teeth and go to our respective places of work. What we lack to cherish, is the nitty gritty things that happen around these events. A simple smile, a word of encouragement does wonders to the soul. I guess it is time for us to take stock on the simple things that makes a world of a difference.

PS: I did tell you that this post was random

the Chinese conundrum

'The world would be a better place if we all spoke only 1 language'

Sorry for this random thought, but I am being forced to study for my Chinese A levels and boy! I sure wish we had only needed to speak only a language. Who cares about the preservation of culture and tradition?! It is already being perverted by the mass media and needs no help.

Think of a world where we only speak 1 language. It would be a so much better place. Business transactions would go smoothly with no 'lost in translations'. Holdidays will be so much more fun, considering that you can speak to the locals and ask them where the best places are. The world would be so much happier! So what if we loose a bit of our heritage? after all, isn't the most important thing in the world progress?

Ok, gotta go back to Chinese. Sighs