A great loss !

Its always painful when you lose someone who is like a brother to you.My brother in law ( I always refer to him as this though he is actually my wife's)passed away after a long battle with cancer.He should not have gone this way because he was always so health conscious and careful with his lifestyle. I have nothing but the highest respect for him from the early days when I married my wife till now a span of more than forty years.I have always admired his determination in life .He worked for the govt. at one time but made it a point to get his degree which he did through distance learning from the University of London. His singularity of purpose in life is amazing.He never failed in what he set out to do.The only thing he did not manage to do (and I used to tease him on this ) was to play golf though he tried very hard.That aside ,he was a self made man getting little assistance from any one in his quest to succeed in life .Of course in the early days there was always his wife who stood by him through thick and thin. Their marriage was blessed with 3 lovely daughters who grew up to be his gems in his life.He was a doting father and would give his children whatever he could and its heartening to see the bond between father and children.He loved not only his children but mine and others' too.Whenever we went to Spore he would make sure that my own children were treated well. His only vice ,I should say passion was eating something which he really enjoyed.Eating a meal with us was always a lavish affair with him making sure that we got the best food he could get.We were always humbled by his generosity and the way he treated us.We loved him not because of this but because of the qualities which he displayed as a man from so many perspectives.He did well in life but was never snobbish or proud.He would always make it a point to think of others like he is one of the few men that I know who would go to the market and come back with loads of food for the family.He loved to eat and made sure others shared with him. He would go to the market everyday and take the trouble to buy the necessities back.Carrying the stuff back was no easy task but he did this willingly and happily.If we drove down to Spore he would make sure that our car was loaded with fruits ( The best he could get). He did what he had to do and I must say did it well.To him family was everything and in his life he made sure that all his children are well taken of even after they were married and had families of their own.He always walked tall because he had never done wrong in his life and had given so much not in terms of money alone but in terms of how to live life as we go along.He was very " Chinese" and held fast to Chinese beliefs and philosophy and tried by his very own example to pass this on to others. Its not easy to come across a man of his calibre who really had so much character.We will miss Uncle Chao and may his soul RIP and to his family all I can say is that "Be happy that he has gone to a better place " and he has done what every man should be proud to do and he did it all His Way !

lessons from movies

I am currently absorbed watching a Korean Movie (With English subtitles of course) about the Korean monarchy and the political scheming which goes on in the palace and strangely enough its all too familiar because you can see the same scheming going on everywhere today. The movie not only has an interesting story line but shows a lot about ancient Korean culture which are really quite admirable>You get to see palace etiquette, palace language and palace dress code.Its interesting to note amongst other things that you cannot live in comfort even though you are a king.As a king you cant have absolute power to make decisions and I cant help but compare this to the kind of lives our leaders have.I'm sure that any national decision will have to be made in consultation with the ministers and other leaders and as leaders do not often go to the ground they have to depend on the feedback given to them by their trusted aides.Sometimes things are shielded from them and its the underlings who may decide what they should know or not know.That is why its so important for leaders to get down to the grass roots and see and hear things for themselves.That is something which I reckon no leader in the world today does.When the PM for example meet with the people its all superficial and they have little opportunity to talk to the people. I remember when I was an Education Officer and was invited to officiate at school functions I saw what they wanted me to see and I heard what I was supposed to hear.Yes ,if govt. servants today give briefings to govt. leaders they would let them listen only to the good things. The movie also give insights into human character.A leader needs advisers and if they depend too much on them the power goes into the hands of the advisers and sometimes they deliberately give them the wrong advice.I believe this what caused the downfall of some of the weaker Prime Ministers whom we had."Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"..how true>The ruler in reality and the ruler in fairy tales are two different beings,the real ruler has to face countless problems ,the fairy tale one lives in a dream world where all things are fine and rosy.Look at the world leaders today and you can imagine the kind of life they live.That's one of the reasons why the king said he would just want to drop everything ,live in a simple country house and have a simple life style.Sounds familiar right? In our hearts of hearts I'm sure that is something which many of us want....to be able to spend time with our children and spouses and be away from the rat race which many of the younger generation are caught up with today.Ironical ,that there was a time when we used to dream of fame and fortune but today we go back to a dream of a simple life. There is a lot to learn about palace protocol,language ,culture and officialdom from the movie and I would say that if you look out for these things you can learn a lot just by watching it.Incidentally there are more than 100 episodes to this movie and after nearly two months I have not finished watching.I'm sure there is much more to be learned.

Tough times make tough people ( Part 1)

When I look at children today I cannot help but compare them with what we went through as children in the 1940s and 50s.Whilst we had to learn to be streetwise and self reliant during our time children today are so protected and to a certain extent pampered that they may not know how to survive on their own. There was no TV , I phone ,DVD players ,fast food joints, air con restaurants and a marked absence of all the dessert joints which the children of today enjoy.What did we have ?The only ice cream we enjoyed was from the mobile ice cream seller and you get to turn a fortune wheel to determine how many cones of ice cream you get for one payment.At an early age we were exposed to the wheel of fortune and perhaps a little gambling or the luck of the game. We had no fancy meals for breakfast ,it was most of the time bread and butter.We never had the chance to have pork noodles .McD ,KFC ..these were unheard of and you eat to fill up your stomach .Lunch and dinner consisted mainly of rice and sambal belachan and curry and we ate lots of rice so that we do not go hungry.Water? Just use your hands ,turn on the pipe and drank as much as you want for free. Mineral water was unheard of and coke ,sprite ,iced tea ,fruit juices..never dreamed of.Despite all this we seldom got sick.I dont remember ever seeing a doctor.If at all we fall sick we were given some traditional medicine .Today if a child suffers from a cough or cold off he goes to the doctor. We never travelled in air con cars and anywhere we wanted to go was either on foot or bicycle>I remember at the age of 12 I was already cycling a few km to get to school and on the first day of school I went to school on my own.School was fun , we studied during school hours and after that it was freedom time.No need for tuition classes,no music lessons or second language lessons.We enjoyed school as there were many opportunities to learn and make friends. We played badminton in the open air and you had to learn how to control the shuttlecock against the wind.Football was played in the sun and rain and always barefooted.Whenever it rained rugby was a favourite game as you can run and tackle the other player in the wet soggy field.after all this its back home for a cold water shower as hot water was unheard of.No colds or fever from this ,yes we were tough,unspoilt and had to fend for ourselves. Fruits ? We ate whatever we could get from the trees around the neighbourhood.The favourite was guava and green mangoes ( They never had a chance to ripen with us around )Grapes,oranges,apples were fruits for the rich and we certainly did not belong to this category.Nevertheless we had our share of fruits which we got and were quite contented with this.We did not have much but we were happy with what we had. Taking in a movie was a great luxury.We learnt how to get in the cinema by paying half the price.How? We made a deal with the ticket collector.When everyone had gone in and there were still seats left he would let us in without having to buy tickets but we paid him cash but less than the price of a ticket.That's ingenuity which we learned at an early age. We grew up nevertheless and what we went through enabled us to face life's challenges as we went along.We learned how to think out of the normal paradigm and learned how to be innovative and creative,how not to be disappointed with life but take it as it comes.We had the courage,the strength to face life's challenges because we grew up the tough way.

My students

Recently a student whom I taught in 1965 came back from Canada and the rest of the classmates organised a dinner for him in KL.Never would I have imagined decades ago the I would sit down with them and have dinner together>Though it was such a long time that I taught them I can still remember them clearly as they were good students so its not surprising that many of them turned out to be successful people and what made me particularly proud was that they all spoke good English and one guy thanked me for that as I was their English teacher.Proficiency in the language has take them far and wide and they told me that because their English is good they could speak with confidence at all levels.One of them became a writer for an English newspaper and I remembered that he used to write good essays and his hand writing was always neat and clear. As teachers we had the pleasure of coming across bright students and realising this we not only gave them the academic knowledge but also subtly within our lessons taught them lessons in life so that they become academically good and morally sound thus growing up to be fine upright individuals.Looking at many of them that night it makes me proud that in some way or other we have helped shape them to what they are today.This is what makes me proud to be a teacher.