What they have done to our kids.

My neighbour's kids just entered school and I hear the mother yelling and screaming at them everyday trying to " teach" them .First , not everybody knows how to teach>When will they realize this? By yelling and shouting at the kids you are doing great psychological damage to the kids without realizing it and they may grow up the wrong way. When we were children school was fun .Children went to school to obtain a bit of knowledge and there was plenty of time for us to play after school.Who heard of tuition those days ? Who heard of tests and homework? We enjoyed our childhood as we grew up without going through the pressures which children today face>This is the result of firstly political interference in education and the kiasu attitude of parents.You are young only once and the formative years should be the best years of your life.Children should learn naturally,their natural curiosity will lead them to discover things on their own.But what are we doing today? We want them to do well in their studies and as a result they are put through hours of torture in the form of tuition and coaching by parents .They do not have time to enjoy life.During our time our parents left us alone where studies were concerned and if we had a few red marks on our report cards my father would just say " Try harder".There was no pressure to do well and we learnt naturally.We depended just on our class teachers and these were a special breed of people as compared with teachers today in terms of dedication and commitment. Those days teachers had time to teach.We were just given the syllabus and the teachers would make sure that we learned the contents well.Today because of politicians trying to control education for whatever reasons teachers are required to do so many things rather than teach and of course the students suffer and have no choice but to resort to tuition.When you have the direction of education being determined by idiotic politicians the result is a confused medley of educational objectives with the focus still on exam. results.Sad ,this has been pointed out years ago but it remains the same till today. Today as we go along 50 over years after merdeka there is still such a marked difference between urban and rural schools because the policy makes it so.Good teachers are normally concentrated in the urban areas and sometimes working in a rural school is looked upon as a form of punishment. The medium of instruction has changed from English to the National Language without proper planning and as result our schools have become racist with the races flocking to their respective racial schools thus we have the Indians ,Chinese and Malays all divided through the educational system.During our time we had only one type of school ie the English medium schools and there was no issue of racial disunity.Parents should realize that this kind of system is divisive and Chinese parents would want to send their children to the Chinese Schools as would the Malays send theirs to the Malay schools.The poor children are placed in schools through selection by parents who think they are educationists and this may have harmful effects on the kids. Look at the number of books the kids have in their bags and you will wonder how they are going to manage.There are many reasons for this ,political economic and cronyism. The net result is that our kids suffer and have to go through an educational system that has no real direction. Schools should be fun where children learn through discovery and where the learning experience is enjoyable and meaningful.If we put our kids through a confused system the result is a confused future generation.

Lessons in Life (Part 3)

In life values play an important role .Many values are acquired through the family upbringing .We can say to a certain extent that the calibre and quality of a person is seen through the values which he considers important .To Asians especially family ties form an important aspect of our value system. Loyalty to the family, obedience and respect for the elders are important elements in family values.We believe that if man does not embrace and hold dear to these values he is nothing.In Asian society too the man has always been considered as the head of the family and many an important decision affecting the family is made by him for better or for worse.Today this trend has changed as there is more equality among the sexes and children have grown to be more independent.That being so some say they practise democracy in the family where everyone has a chance to contribute to decision making .This is fine but the head should never relinquish his position as the head of the family and at the end of the day he holds the keys to good decision making. As in any group if you are a family member with it comes certain obligations and responsibility.For example families (Chinese) gather for the Reunion dinner on the eve of Chinese New Year>this is the time of the year and the occasion for family members to gather together in the family house and meet and catch up with each other.There is also the Ching Ming festival when family members gather to pay respect to the ancestors keeping in mind the value of not forgetting your roots and your forefathers>This is the essence of Chinese culture which has always emphasized the importance and significance of family ties.If you are a Chinese and do not hold fast to these values then what sort of Chinese are you?. Likewise to the Chinese occasions like marriages, births, deaths are opportunities for family members to gather together and as a responsible family member you would not want to miss out on this. We must have values worth preserving and worth fighting for because without this what are we?

Lessons in Life ( Part 2 )

As we go through life's long journey we realize that we not only learn the good things from people but also how to avoid doing what should not be done.Look around you and you will see so many things which helps in self improvement and self realization. People who shout and yell,people who discuss and end with"That's the way I am",people who are never punctual,people who are self centred ,people who are shallow and possess the wrong set of values all will come your way. They say just because you have paper qualification it does not necessarily mean that you are educated.It takes more than paper qualification to make you educated.Teachers play a dominant role in our lives and its good to recall that during our time we had teachers who were charismatic ,knowledgeable and who took the trouble to ensure that we learnt .They were teachers by choice and represented a rare breed of humanity.Today ,looking at one picture of a teachers photograph in one secondary school it struck me that almost all the teachers were of one race and I'm quite sure this is the norm in many of our govt. schools.Does this mean that the teaching service attracts only one group of people or does it mean that the other races are not interested or are they excluded?Can we entrust our children's education and development to this group of people ? Gone are the days when teachers were made up of diversified people from all over the world.We had teachers from Ireland,USA, Arabia,other than our own and they were all united by the common goal of educating the young irrespective of race ,religion or colour.Today's education has sadly produced a generation of young materialistic kiasu characters. We led simple lives during our time and had very simple needs and easily satisfied.Today's generation lead such a hectic lifestyle that you cannot imagine how the y could ever appreciate and enjoy the good things in life.I pity the poor souls who in the midst of playing golf have to entertain business calls.How can you allow yourself to be disturbed when you have a little free time for yourself? Or rushing over a meal to catch up with some work? We have to determine whether all this is worth it.Some will say its dollars and cents ..I would say money is not everything.If you have only 1 hour to spend would you give it to your dear ones or use it to make money? Something to learn about life. If you keep your mind and eyes open there are many things to learn.The other day a friend of mine who runs a security company was complaining about one of his guards who could not find his way to a certain spot in KL and he complained about the 'stupidity ' of the guard.I told him simply "if he's smart he would not be a guard' or have you considered that you may know KL well but maybe your guard comes from the kampong so be reasonable.There is no harm in listening to others whoever they may be and pride should not make us egocentric snobs to think that just because we are in such a position people below us cannot tell us anything. In life we have to learn to be humble and always appreciate what we have and never forget especially to appreciate those who are closest to us.Sadly ,all too often this is forgotten!!

Lessons in Life (Part 1)

We learn a lot from everyone who have touched our lives in one way or other and it is not surprising that some of the things we learned have formed part of what we are today.My earliest mentors were of course my parents.Dad was unique.I have never come across a man with so simple needs in life,a man who did everything for his family.I have never remembered seeing him lose his cool or get angry. He kept very much to himself when he had problems and would seldom share his thoughts with any one of us.From him I learned patience,sacrifice,self control,family love and above all to be satisfied with what we have and not dream of things which we do not have.Dad in his simple way was a contented man.Though living hand to mouth he never bemoaned the fact that we had little of the good things in life.He was contented to be an office and home man with very little opportunity to indulge.The thing that struck me was that despite this he was happy and perhaps the times when he was not so was when he could not give my mum what she wanted ie more money. My mum was a petite little nyonya with the ferocity of a tigress.She was known as that amongst our neighbours .She loved gambling ( ironically it was dad who taught her how to play mahjong )and was a strict disciplinarian.From her we learned discipline, to respect the elders and to never dispute their opinion.From he we learned to be fighters ,the never say die attitude.Despite her addiction to gambling mum never neglected her duties as a wife and mother.She would make sure that there was a hot meal for us everyday.She was a good cook and all the nyonya dishes were cooked by her.Though poor she would never fail to provide us with a good spread for the Reunion Dinner and she made sure that the traditional dishes were always there.Perhaps this is one of the reasons why till today I would still insist that The Reunion Dinner is eaten at home.I never believe that this occasion should be commercialised and people eat in restaurants lose the meaning of the Reunion.My dad and mum were great role models for us . My own wife taught me a lot of things which have in one way or other made me what I am today.You cannot live with somebody for more than 40 years without having gained something valuable.She taught me to be more Chinese and this is why till today I am a nut for Chinese history movies>Being Chinese means to be more aware ,sensitive ,understanding about Chinese history,values and traditions.Through her I learned more about things like Ching Ming,the various Chinese festivals.She taught me about family ties.To her parents, siblings are of the same blood and must be loved and honoured.Never say anything negative about her siblings ,she is fiercely protective about them and this is quite understandable because she looked after them when they were young.She learned to be independent at an early age cos the father left them at at early age and she learned to be the head of the family together with all its responsibilities at the time when she was still a teen. A tough lady by any standards ,from her we learned the meaning of sacrifice,endurance,loyalty,filiality and lots of other things>This aside she taught me to be more tolerant,more forgiving and not to think bad about others.She would treat anyone as her friend ,the pork seller,the vegetable seller and the fish monger too.She looked at people as human beings and would spend time talking to the maid ,finding out more about her and teaching her valuable lessons in life. The responsibility and sacrifices of parenthood were of utmost importance to her and there is nothing she would not do for her children.She was never one to run away from problems and had the resilience to see anything through.Sometimes I just wonder where she gets all her energy from .We are lucky to have her as a wife,mother ,grandmother and as some of my sons- in law would agree a mother in law.

The Little Worm

Our youngest daughter whom we nicknamed "worm" because she was so active and fast in everything she used to do became a mother in her own right .Her baby came one month earlier than scheduled and with that all the careful planning went haywire as mom had to go to London and would not be around after the first few days and it was quite fortunate we could get a replacement nanny on time. Lucas was born premature and needed special care and it was painful for us to see our "little " girl go through the initial anxiety of mother hood together with her husband.It struck me then as it always has that a parent's love for the child is really special.Right from the day Baby Yeong was born this was very evident.What is there stronger than a parents' love for the child.From the moment it is born you can feel that here you have parents who would do anything for their child.the moment the child is born you can feel that he has become the focus of everything they do and their whole world now revolves round the child. It makes us happy to see our own little girl grow onto motherhood and at the same time it makes us feel pain seeing her having to go through a difficult part of her life.We feel her joy and share her pain .That is all we can do as parents.We have always assured Andrew and her that they should not worry about anything as we are there all the time for them as their child is our grandchild and the family bond is stronger than anything else. Be healthy and grow up well Lucas Yeong !!