think i've been on a reading craze recently, and been reading books which I tot I would never read. best-selling non-fictional books by 'self-claimed' gurus. just finished two books by edward de bono, well known for his lateral thinking and his campaigns for changing thinking. And just now I bought malcom gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”.

Had always been cynical towards these gurus. Had the view that they are just picking out concepts that researchers and academics had worked on, and repacking these concepts into a book that is marketable to the masses. Well, loss of important details may occur, but I think these gurus do the favour of bringing deep ideas to the masses.

Also, had the view that these gurus are just restating things that are happening around us and putting it in a fanciful and fashionable and popular manner. Well, in some sense, the statement is true. But these ppl do a good job in crystallizing everyday phenomena. De bono clearly elucidates the pitfalls and mechanisms of human thinking and even proposes simple and yet effective means to fully utilize the brain.

lastly, had the view that if these ideas are good, they’ll be v popular. So popular that u dun need to read the book to find out more. Somehow somewhere the ideas will be implemented. Unfortunately, not so. In de bono’s book, ‘teaching thinking’ , 1976, he pointed out the inadequacies of ‘content-based’ subjects in ‘developing thinking’. He further proposed specific tools (v simple tools) to help ‘teach thinking’. Well, apparently, his ideas never made it to our education system. Perhaps MOE feels that the ideas are inappropriate. But my feel is that: his tools will work more effectively than things like project work, etc.

1. an interesting quote from de bono’s ‘simplicity’:

“The simplest things are often the hardest to understand – because our minds keep racing off in the wrong directions.”

This is probably one reason why ppl cannot understand mathematics, or even science. Ppl have complex frameworks in their minds and when there is a simple explanation for things, they are unable to accept it. Take for example, the imaginary/complex number i . the general perception is that anything to do with i is v complicated and unnatural, cos the square of any number cannot be negative. Hmmm. I cannot argue against that, but the introduction of i was to deal with this “exceptional case”. So that squares can be negative. The interesting thing is that i is used in many areas in engineering and modern science, of which I am yet unable to describe. But in mathematics, the choice of using i has been quite ingenious. Because now, there are “no more exceptional cases”. What I mean is that, suppose you give me a complicated equation (a polynomial, in technical terms), I no longer need to introduce a “new number” to solve it. i is already sufficient to describe the answer! And this can be proven. That is the simplicity of i.

This leads me to give another quote,

“In order to make something simple, you have to know your subject very well indeed.”

2. This is a super long post, which was never intended for. I just started reading ‘the tipping point’ by gladwell. There’s an interesting excerpt, which is simply interesting and amusing. Nothing deep or thought-provoking. I’ll just quote verbatim.

“A world that follows the rules of epidemics is a very different world from the world we thinking we live in now. Think, for a moment, about the concept of contagiousness. If I say that word to you, you think of colds and the flu or perhaps something very dangerous like HIV or Ebola. We have, in our minds, a very specific, biological notion about what contagiousness means. But if there can be epidemics of crime or epidemics of fashion, there must be all kinds of things just as contagious as viruses. Have you ever thought of yawning, for instance? Yawning is a surprisingly powerful act. Just because you read the word “yawning” in the previous two sentences – and the two additional “yawns” in this sentence – a good number of you will probably yawn within the next few minutes. Even as I’m writing this, I’ve yawned twice. If you’re in a public place, and you’ve just yawned, chances are that a good proportion of everyone who saw you yawn is now yawning too, and a good proportion of the people watching the people who watched you yawn are now yawning as well, and on and on, in an ever-widening yawning circle.”

Ok, I yawned when I read this in the book and typed this onto the blog. Did you yawn too? (You probably had yawned many times before when reading this post.)

3. yeah. on the even lighter side of things, i was doing up a brochure on kuantan for my ship crew. yet again, i decided to practise my "artistic" talent in drawing a turtle. for those who dunno, my ship is called KATONG. for those who dunno (more of you i guess), KATONG is the malay name for a certain type of turtle.

kuantan seems like a boring place. probably, i'll blog even more!

dunno should i feel sad or happy.

today finally got the confirmation that i'm sailing for kuantan for two weeks in june. hope it'll be an eye opener being involved in a foreign exercise. moreover, got one whole week at kuantan to slack about. though i think i will run lotsa errands for my officers.

but the sad part is. i'm sailing on 4 jun in the morning, while mika is coming back on 4 jun in the afternoon. sigh. so two more weeks of parting...

oh well....

just watched 'da vinci code' with xiaoyun, crystal and zhenhao. tot it was a good movie, well staged and directed. v entertaining as some radio djs suggested. having read the book before, i tot the movie was q quite clear in the exposition of the 'holy grail'. but crystal and zhenhao (who nv read it) was q blur after the movie. hmmm. (probably also because they are not christians and nv read about christ before)

anyway, let me try to explain the story which the whole controversy revolved about. the holy grail. well, according to dan brown, contrary to 'popular belief', jesus is just a mere mortal, nothing supernatural or divine. jesus married to mary magdalene, whom (according to dan brown) the church smeared as a prostitude. jesus and mary married and had children. the problem is that the church did not want this 'side' of jesus to be revealed and hence did their best to kill the heirs. the church also did other atrocious acts to keep the secret. the holy grail therefore refers to this 'secret' (which ironically the whole world now knows).

ok. the above is wat dan brown says, and it's debatable whether wat he wrote or the movie showed is true. if u type 'da vinci code' or 'holy grail' in google, u'll find many websites (other than the official ones) which contain discussions of the historical/factual inaccuracies in his book. some say that he has distorted facts and proven hoaxes to suit his hypothesis. of cos, dan brown will argue otherwise, claiming that they are victims of the
great coverup or accomplices of this conspiracy.

watever.

(while dan brown does not claim wat he wrote is fiction) i think as a piece of fiction, it's rather interesting. in fact, i do not see it as anti-christ (but it's rather anti-church). dan brown did not in anyway try to undermine jesus and his teachings. nor did he defame christianity as a religion. (well, at least to me lah)

wat he did was to bring up some questions to provoke thinking. and i quite like the final quotes by robert langdon(tom hanks) in the movie.

"Is human divine? ... Does the heir (of jesus and the accompanying secret) destroys faith? Or does he renew faith?"

yeah. i think sometimes when pple get too zealous in promoting their faith, they tend to forget the true aim of their religion. that, which i think, is to improve the lives of everyone and to bring about spiritual happiness to everyone.

yeah. "Is human divine?" from a buddhist point of view, the answer is yes. yes, if u accept the fact that divinity is nothing more than just understanding how life works and how the universe moves (or wat we call the law). buddhahood refers to the state of life whereby one is enlightened to the law, and the buddha is someone who is in the state of buddhahood.

contrary to 'popular belief', the buddha is NOT some god we worship to to. in fact, it is a state of life which we constantly worked towards to. yes. u can say it's a concept created by man. but so what? i think the values taught are correct and relevant for me to cope with life.

ok. shall stop the preaching. the movie was a good one.

ron howard's adaptation of the book is a good one, though i still preferred the book. but this adaption of 'da vinci code' is much better than his adaptation of 'the beautiful mind'. something is interesting is that he likes to have scenes where his character will still while the surroundings move in a ghostly manner. it happened when john nash (russel crowe) got some revelation in game theory. it also happened many times in 'da vinci code' when langdon and teabing described the history.

shall continue my blogging about my hanoi trip. on the last day, i visited ho chi minh mausoleum and ho chi minh museum.

while the mausoleum and the museum was nothing much compared the museums in europe, the experience was rather interesting.

the mausoleum is where ho chi minh's (hcm) embalmed body is kept, so that his admirers and supporters can pay their respects. apparently, lenin and mao (not me) have their own mausoleums too.

well, like what lonely planet described, the mausoleum had a long queue of visitors consisting of both locals and tourists, and the queue moved v fast (no thanks to unfrenly guards). But the reactions of the locals are not as exaggerated as the lonely planet described. but the sense of respect was strongly felt. ironically, it was shown thru the guards' apparent coarse behaviour. Glaring at visitors who talk or wore headdress. Pushing/pulling people who stopped too long to glance at the late leader. AND pulling out people to check their bags for cameras/handphones/waterbottles. Crystal and Claudine got pulled out many many times.

the museum was not bad. but a bit propagandistic, and sang lotsa praises for the leader. portrayed a v warm image of hcm, and certainly explained his nickname 'uncle ho'. there were tonnes of pictures of him interacting with the common pple and working with them (like at the fields, or carrying arms). at the third storey, there was an exhibition hall, with lotsa interesting art pieces, giving impressions of the communist regime and its leader. again, the pieces were rather biased. but they were rather good and abstract. had this impression that communist art will be straightforward and not v thought provoking, but the pieces showed otherwise.

also felt that history had not been fair to this great leader. to many of us, the americans lost the vietnam war, because of the media backlash and the prevalent public dissent. moreover, the war was seen as exposing the US military weakness. however, i feel that ho chi minh had played an integral role in the victory of the viet cong. he was certainly an inspirational figure, and had set clear moralistic goals for his followers. he had successfully motivated his people to fight and nurtured a strong sense of resilience against the americans.

read this article on times, which placed him as one of the top 100 in the last century. after visiting the museum and the mausoleum, i certainly appreciate the author's viewpoint.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/hochiminh.html

while he stood for may be debatable, i think his qualities as a leader should nv be undermined by history.

nv go back to work immediately after a holiday. was back on wed night and reported to work on thur. today is fri and yet i feel v v stoned.

i realised that i didnt do justice to the food i tasted yesterday at sichuan douhua restaurant. The food was simply marvelous!

1. soft shell crab with pork floss. wow. it was so soft and crispy, and so much bigger than those u get at genki/sakae sushi. plus the fact that the pork floss took out the oiliness. ooh...

2. tender beef. we had two variations, one fried with spring onion, the other in some ma la sauce. oooh... the beef was extremely soft and hua (slippery), that it simply 'slipped' into the mouth. but the nice part is when u chew it, and the juice just flows in the mouth.

3. big fresh peeled prawns. wah seh. cant remember how many variations we had. one was fried with sotong. another one in sweet sour sauce. the peeled prawns were so big. to imagine, just make an O shape with your thumb and index finger. the prawn will be able to sit on your fingers, and may slip off (not through the O shape).

4. other normal stuff like steamed sea bass, fried sea bass, shark fin, scallops, etc etc.

the price of all these were 45 SGD after all the tax. but on weekend, it'll probably cost about 50 SGD. oh yah. met the same tea-serving waiter that served mika and i on new year's eve. the 'tea waiter' serves hot water with a kettle that had a vv long spout.

Oh yeah. must blog about the hanoi trip! it was certainly fun and interesting. hanoi's a simple place with a lively atmosphere.

wat made the trip best were my bunch of 9 (including me) cranky frens. haha. too bad there are no photos to show. will upload some when i get the chance.

here are some reasons that why one should travel with a big grp of crazy frens:

1. when one gets tired of haggering/bargaining, there are 8 others to support and carry on the job.

2. one gets to squeeze into a room with 4 others, hence resulting in overusage of the bathroom, hence resulting in flooding, hence inviting funny 16-year olds to come in and clean the room.

3. one can pose with 8 others to get a variety of stupid photos.

4. there can be an amazing race up a limestone rock.

5. when one jumps down from a boat, there can be 8 others to take pictures/video and cheer u on.

6. one can do yoga/sync swimming/make a fool of yourselves with 8 others on the deck of a boat.

7. one can have the challenge of crossing busy roads with no traffic rules in a huge gang.

8. one can take many many many stupid photos.

9. one can enjoy beer at the roadside on stools with peanuts.

10. one can be assured that there are 7 other pple taking care of your loved one when u are away.

yesterday came back from hanoi and it seemed that many things had happened at work. and there seemed to be many things that were unsettled. and one of which is the officers' dinner that i arranged for today!

thankfully, it went on as planned and all except one could go for the dinner. it was a good dinner at sichuan douhua restaurant at the top of uob plaza. i went there with mika on new year's day eve, and on both occasions, i think the food was excellent!

while it was a buffet dinner, there were some extra charges, which was q exhorbitant. the tea which many didnt drink much actually costs $3!!! (and a bowl of white rice costs $1.50) now, of course, the tea was of a special and exquisite type lah.

The fragrant 'Eight Treasures Tea' is believed to reduce chloresterol, good for blood circulation and increase immunity, among others. Its cooling and refreshing taste makes it the perfect drink for people of all ages.

Ingredients: Red Dates, Wolf Berries, Dried Longans, Chrysanthemum, Rock Sugar, Dried Lily Buds, Jasmine Tea Leaves and 'Mai Dong.'

the results are out. yes, i know this is v slow... haha. alas, my hope for a change is not fulfilled. yes, the aftermath of the elections is setting in...

anyway, was reflecting about my opinions throughout the course of the elections. it has certainly changed q a bit. this sorta validated my fren's view that: "opinions are the easiest to change, while beliefs and values are a bit more difficult." of course, they are all linked.

oh yah. i remembered mm lee talking about the definition of politics. he said it was about managing things in everyday life. was wondering if arresting pple and winning back 2 seats were considered things in everyday life or impt issues in running a country. also, is "being fair to citizens in ALL consituencies" one of the everyday issues that a govt should look at?

hmmm. was also wondering wat constitutes 'criminal intimidation'? Cos i have this weird feeling that i have committed this offence many times. Also, many have inflicted 'criminal intimidation' onto me too. hmmm.

oh well. btw, to whoever is reading this blog, i must clarify that the links i've posted do not represent my stand or point of view. esp www.singaporeelection.blogspot.com think the readers of the blog are getting a bit too over le.

6 may. today is elections day!! finally we shall see the results of the many campaigns and rallies over the nine days. there are some points which I reflected upon. 1. as noted earlier, i've come to realise that our media is appallingly biased towards the incumbent. yesterday at serangoon i coincidentally met an old friend working in the media business, and she shared some difficulties. i shall not elaborate these difficulties less i face libel. but on the bright side, the TRUTH is not kept from the pple! or those who are active in finding out more. Blogs are replete with NEWSWORTHY photos and the FULL speeches of the opposition. Unfortunately i only found out about them recently. But i shall post a few links here.

www.yawningbread.org

www.sgrally.blogspot.com

www.singaporeelection.blogspot.com

and of course, the hilarious

www.mrbrown.com

2. watching wp rallies sort of validated my argument that democracy is inherently flawed. this idea is articulated within st article, 4 may 2006, 'does democracy deaden the mind?' a guy called tocqueville 200 years ago argued that 'systemic effects of democracy can deprive ppl of reasoned thought'. Because the citizens will ‘copy the rough and simplified opinions of the masses’. Wp rallies have the charm of inciting emotions by appealing to v simple things. Rising costs. High stress environment. Unfair and highhanded means of the incumbent. Complaints which are easy to voice but difficult to solve. Of cos, pap is also guilty of numbing the minds of ppl with the Gomez saga and the estate upgrading carrots.

3. BUT today (literally today) I think otherwise. Democracy, despite its flaws, underscores one important value – responsibility.

Like what my friend told me, democracy is fundamentally about the people’s power. What the masses want, be it right or wrong. About people taking responsibilities of their own lives.

Frankly, I still doubt if the opposition is capable of solving the problems they claim that exist. In fact, I think the country will be set back should the opposition win any GRC. PAP will be set in disarray and many repercussions will follow. However, this is precisely what responsibility is about. Suffering for your actions.

It’s been said that our generations had nv suffered. And I feel rightly so. PAP despite the many situations like SARS nv really met with a setback. We had always been sheltered by PAP’s wise policies.

Come this evening the results will be collated. If the opposition win, we shall learn some lessons. For the opposition supporters, or those who hate the govt, governing a country is not simple as it seems. Rising costs are nec evils and competition is inevitable. For the incumbent supporters, yes. There are still many many other pple who are left behind despite the country’s prosperity. Important ideals still need to be communicated to the common ppl.

It seems that I sound rather pessimistic about the future with some doomsday prediction. The opposition may participate well in the govt. or the opposition may not win any seats tonight. Yah. But I think challenges are impt for the development for individual or the nation.

Hmmm... I think I still need to improve my writing skills.. getting yu wu lun ci in the end. K lah. Results coming up soon! Jiayou everyone!

attended two wp rallies over the past one week. one at hougang. the other at amk today. today didnt stay long to hear from low as i was q tired. on the way back, my colleague drove past the pap rally site at buangkok. wah seh. the difference was so damn big. at amk,the place was so crowded that walking or even driving was a problem. at buangkok, there was significantly much less pple.

if one uses the number of pple at rallies to judge the support of the party, then clearly wp will definitely win the elections at their respective grcs. but of course, the crowds at amk do not equate to the number of votes. there are of cos pple like me who go for the fun of listening to an alternative view. and yes. those politically apathetic will stay at home and vote for the pap.

but another thing that sparked me was the apparent biasness that the media display in favour of pap. yes, this is a super wellknown DUHHH fact. but it is simply appalling. i was watching channel 8's coverage of the elections. it was so ridiculously skewed.

1. at buangkok. where the pap was, they showed the crowd which had quite a number of pple. there seemed a lot of ppl simply because of the camera angle. at pasir ris, where sda was, they showed some pple sparsely seated. i dunno the whether this was true or not. BUT they nv show the HUGE crowd at the fields, the long chains of cars and pple moving towards the rally, the wp flags, the pple watching from their hdb, etc etc.

2. when they telecast the speeches of the candidates, the footage was cut to show the support for pap. how? if u notice, whenever the pap spoke, u can hear the cheers from the crowd at the end of the clip. but for the wp, they cut immediately after the wp finish their points. i know there were cheers because i was there. and the crowd was so spontaneous that after every point cheers and applause will be heard.

3. this is not about the coverage. BUT why mr wong kan seng get so much airtime as compared to mr low and mr yip?

i think the media should mature. else, like wat a wp guy said, we are a first world country with a third world free press. you cannot hide things in the present world. with internet it's highly difficult to prevent the masses to know about the truth. come on. the thousands of pple at amk will definitely know how well received wp is. these pple will spread the truth thru sms, blogs or watever means.

ok lah. q late le. but here is the disclaimer: i still dun support the opposition. just feel appalled at how our media works. hmmm... will blog something about democracy. an article on democracy that appeared in st.