Bitter and sweet

I had written about ‘bitter’ and ‘sweet’ earlier and I thought it needed a little clarification.

The word ‘bitter’ (苦) has a slightly different meaning when my mother used it (and when it’s commonly used in our dialect) from its meaning in English.

If you type in the word ‘bitter’ in online English thesauruses, words like ‘sharp, acidic, pungent, vinegary, resentful, embittered’ come up.

When my mother used the word, and in common usage among our dialect, the word ‘bitter’ simply means ‘sad’ or sometimes ‘hard or difficult’ as in ‘hard or difficult life.’

There is no element of ‘resentfulness’ or ‘embitteredness’ in its meaning.

In her old age, my mother liked to use the phrase ‘first bitter then sweet’ to describe her life.

‘First bitter’ because she grew up without a father with all the hardships involved and ‘then sweet’ because in her old age, she had a good easy life.

Peace

‘Peace is never made with weapons.’

That’s the Easter message from his holiness.

This is the kind of BS that does not inspire confidence in ‘infallibility’ whatever that may be.

I suggest his holiness look at the situation from the other side of the coin which is:

‘War is always made with weapons.’

In other words, if he’s honest and sincere about wanting peace, maybe he needs to talk to the person who started the war.

Trying to make peace by asking the victims to give in to an aggressor is not peacemaking but appeasement.

And it will not bring peace, instead, it will only bring more aggression and wars.

Because giving in to bullies only emboldens them.

It leads to only one conclusion.

Either his holiness is extremely naive or clueless about human nature or there’s a secret agenda here.

AOV drafts

I started writing (or tried to write) my Art of Virtuosity in 2003.

The endeavor was going to take the better part of about ten years before I was happy with it. But even then, part of me says it needs one more revision, which I’ve been putting off.

It went through so many revisions I’ve lost count.

And I kept everyone of those revisions so you can imagine how many boxes they filled.

Most of these printed hard copies of the revisions had many annotations and corrections which was why I was so reluctant to let them go.

But reading through them today, I realized that they weren’t all that noteworthy, so I decided it was time.

As I was tearing them up, one page slid out and it caught my attention.

I don’t even remember writing it but I decided to save that one page and share it.

LIVE LIFE EFFORTLESSLY

Apply the light touch to everything you do. [Lightness]

Whatever problems you encounter, stay loose and soft inside. [Looseness]

Do not hurry through your day, live in rhythm and harmony. [Rhythm]

Do not let too much thinking get in the way, trust your instincts. 

Avoid surprises, stay ahead of the curve. [Fluidity and Anticipation]

Eliminate distractions and keep to the simple path. [Simplicity]

Stay true to yourself. [Naturalness]

And take the easy way, it is better that way. [Economy]

Two Tyrone Power movies

I haven’t watched channel 30-4 (Movies!) in quite a while, mostly because they’ve been running the same shows lately.

Tonight, I happened to turn it on and it was a Tyrone Power Iconathon.

The name is a familiar one, but I hadn’t watched any of his movies, up until tonight.

The first movie tonight was ‘The Razor’s Edge’ and I was immediately hooked—the story is about this man who is on a search for meaning in life (something I have a little empathy for).

There are some incredible pieces of wisdom in the dialogue, especially from the Indian guru. I don’t recall them but I’ll post them one day when I find the screenplay.

I watched the movie from beginning till end.

It was like reading an epic novel from another time. The movie was made, I believe in 1946; right after the war but it was set around the depression era.

So the scenes were very authentic and quite breathtaking.

The story is set in Paris and the south of France and I thought that was quite a bit of coincidence as it also coincides with some future plans of mine.

Right after the Razor’s Edge, it was the Luck of the Irish.

This is in a completely different genre.

It’s a comedy about Tyrone’s character meeting a leprechaun in Ireland and the twists and turns in his career when he returns to America.

The ending is slightly predictable about how he eventually decides to turn his back on a lucrative career in America, preferring instead to live the simple life in a small Irish village called Ballynabun.

Now, this happens to be quite a bit of a coincidence too as there’s another Irish village (a real one) by the name of Ballyhoneen which is in one of my future plans and I’ve been wondering how to pronounce the name.

So now I know that the ‘ba’ in Bally is pronounced ‘baa’ as in ‘baa baa black sheep.’

But why am I planning to go to this village in the middle of nowhere in western Ireland?

Because of a certain Mr O’Flaherty.

Which, by another coincidence, is the name of a minor character in the movie—a fireman called Mr Flaherty.

I like to think that the universe operates in completely random ways and there’s no rhyme or reason when parts of its workings happen to line up in a particular order.

Still, it’s tempting to think there’s a message somewhere in there, the many serendipities in these two movies are just too much of a coincidence.

Dreams/2

When it comes to dreams, letting go is an important part of the process.

Because some dreams are just not meant to be.

Despite your best efforts, despite your great desire to make it happen, despite everything, sometimes you’re just butting your head against the wall.

Or flogging a dead horse.

It takes wisdom to recognize this, and this is where perseverance is not a virtue.

If there’s no one on the other side, no matter how long you persist in knocking on that door, it will not open.

Perhaps this was what my mother was referring to when she said, be satisfied, this is all you can do.

In her mind, the limitations are there and why struggle and persist? Sometimes second best is still pretty good.

But in my mind, I knew I hadn’t given it my all yet so I persisted and in that particular case, it turned out I was right.

But it could have turned out the other way.

My mother had a saying about chasing an impossible dream or a fantasy—shooting a deer halfway in the sky.

Deers do not live in the sky so it’s a fantasy.

But I believe that there’s another side to the saying.

Yes, we know deers don’t live in the sky but sometimes, you can try to shoot a deer in the sky and hit something else instead.

That’s what I’ve found out about life.

In life, nothing is ever wasted.

The time and effort you expend chasing a dream, even if it doesn’t lead you to where you want to go, can sometimes bring you to another place, an unexpected place.

A place that you would never otherwise have known if you had not chased that dream.

Everything is relative, everything in life is in a state of constant flux.

An impossibility can morph into a possibility sometimes and when you least expect it.

And while I understand my mother’s concern about living in a world rooted in reality, there’s another side to dreams that she didn’t understand.

Sometimes, dreams don’t have to come true.

Sometimes just having a dream is good enough, because even if it doesn’t come true, you’re still being uplifted; your existence is still being elevated when you’re pursuing it.

As they say, it’s not the destination but the journey.

it sounds like an exercise in self consolation and it is, but that’s part of the process of letting go and acceptance.

Which is why fatalism is a good thing sometimes.

In the East, it’s expressed as—if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

And in the West—thy will be done.

But that doesn’t mean we have to give up the fight easily.

I’ve found that in the pursuit of dreams, there’s a side of me that refuses to give up, that never says die.

And there’s a side that knows when to quit.

Dreams

Dreams, I’ve found, are powerful things. They are not just sources for inspiration and imagination, they elevate our existence and give it purpose and meaning.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been full of dreams.

Back when I was a child still in Primary 3 or 4, I saw a picture of a home on a hillside in a magazine and dreamed of living in it.

I remember drawing an architectural plan for the home with all the rooms, doors and windows and dimensions.

It’s what some might call a childhood fantasy but for me at the time, it was no fantasy.

It was very real, I literally thought I was going to build the home when I grew up.

My dreams changed as I grew older.

There was the time I thought I was going to be a scientist and inventor, after being inspired by what I read about Thomas Edison and I went and bought some test tubes and hydrochloric acid.

At one time, I dreamed of building a small hovercraft so I could drive it to Kuching.

Then there was the time I wanted to build a reflecting telescope and went everywhere looking for a concave mirror.

I gave up on it because concave mirrors were not something you could find in Borneo at that time.

These days, of course concave mirrors are common and every time I see one of them, I would remember looking for them when I was young.

When I was in Form 2, I saw a schedule of cargo ships going from Tanjong Mani (which was and still is a big coastal port) to Long Beach California.

I called up the shipping office and asked them how much it would cost to buy a ticket to Long Beach and they said something around $400.

I remember thinking, how was I going to save up $400 on my monthly allowance of $10?

But I started putting money into my Post Office savings account, with the plan of saving enough by the time I was old enough to leave.

As I got even older, my dreams became less farfetched and more realistic.

Instead of a hovercraft, I actually took my bike and rode it to Kuching with two friends.

After Form 5, I took the train to Bangkok with the intention of taking the overland route to Europe. I chickened out in Bangkok and went back home, much to my parents’ delight.

The thing about dreams is that I’ve never believed in just dreaming, I’ve always believed that you have to make them come true.

In that sense, I never differentiate between dreams and plans.

When a dream comes to me, I always have to turn it into reality.

This was something my mother, who was for all intents and purposes, a practical person, could never understand.

She always told me; don’t dream too much, you’ll just get disappointed.

When I was in the middle of trying to make a dream come true, which was to make a CD no one has heard before, my mother was staying with me at the time.

Every morning, after I had had a recording session at the school, she would ask me, so you think you got it?

And when I told her no, she would say, why try so hard? You know this is all you can do. Be satisfied with what you got.

But of course I wasn’t satisfied.

Because I had a dream about this incredible CD I was going to make, I could hear it in my head and I knew I had to make it come true.

I believe so much in pursuing my own dreams when I see someone with a dream, I would always encourage them to go for it too.

Some might say this is just deluding the person, or giving them false hopes.

But after my own experiences in pursuing my dreams, I would never try to deny anyone the opportunity to pursue theirs too.

A dream to me is like seeing an oasis in the distance in a desert, if you do not make an effort to go towards it, you would never know if it’s just a mirage or a real oasis.

That’s why I always say, the only thing worse than a dream unfulfilled is a dream unpursued because by not pursuing it, you’ve already predetermined that it will always remain a mirage.

Because what if it was an oasis? You would’ve really missed out.

A few years ago, when my son was going to school in San Diego, every time I drove down I-5 to visit him and I saw the freeway signs to Long Beach, I would remember my plans to get on those cargo ships.

Some might say that was just a childhood fantasy too but like all my other dreams, it was no fantasy to me.

Two channels

I tend to keep things a long time—I’m still watching my old 19 inch Sony TV which I bought in 2001 for $350 with my tax rebate, courtesy of the 43^rd.

I gave up cable TV a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago.

So I watch the local news on an antenna which feeds into my Zenith digital converter.

On the converter, I’ve programmed a few favorite channels and one of them is channel 16-1 PBS and the other one is channel 24-3 Daystar.

Today, I went from one to the other and the contrast was heart wrenching.

On one channel, news about Ardviika and on the other channel, business as usual—bible thumping preachers peddling their books and merchandise all in the name of their savior, of course.

On one channel, scenes of utter devastation which makes you wonder what kind of evil and depravity could justify such wanton destruction.

And on the other channel, bible thumping holier than thou preacher men and women who openly support the master mind behind the destruction and the untold suffering of innocent men and women and children in the first channel.

When you look at the scenes in the first channel, there’s no question that it is the work of pure evil.

And so the question is, if a person supports and enables evil, does that make that person equally guilty and evil too?

I guess it’s a question only their god can answer, whoever or whatever it may be.

Legal System

During my high school years, my goal was to enter law school and become a lawyer.

That was my only ambition. The eventual goal was to enter politics, something I had always been interested in (as you might have guessed from these posts).

At the time, Victoria University of Wellington was reputed to have the best law department in the country.

So I applied to the program and was accepted.

Law studies in New Zealand at that time was based on a five-year undergraduate course. (I’ve heard that since then, it’s changed more to the American model).

That first week of school, I went to two social events.

The first one was a gathering organized by the Malaysian Singapore Students’ Association and the second was an orientation for new law students.

At the first event, I was asked to play something on my guitar; I have no recollection what I played although it could’ve been Asturias.

The next evening, at the law school orientation, I met a graduate student from Singapore who had been at the MSSA gathering the night before and he said, ‘What’re you doing here?’

I told him I was a law student and he said, ‘You should be a music student.’

As it turned out, Victoria University had a guitar program headed by the great American guitarist Karl Herreshoff.

Long story short, within a week, I changed my major to music.

Actually technically, I remained a law major.

The way it worked, in first year law, you were required to take one law subject called Legal System and the rest of your classes could be anything you wanted to do.

To go on to second year law, you had to pass the required subject.

So I kept Legal System and took all the required first year music classes as my law electives.

The plan was that if I decided to stay in law, I could still go on to second year law (provided I passed Legal System) and if I decided to become a music major, I could also go on to second year music.

Unlike the music courses which were mostly small classes, Legal System lectures were held in a big lecture hall.

I remember the first day, the lecturer (whose name I seem to recall as Mr. McKay*, but all my googling came up empty) told us to look at the person seated next to us and said, ‘One of you is going to fail this class.’

New Zealand was a small country and there was a quota of law students that could graduate every year so the passing rate was arbitrarily capped at 50%.

Besides the lectures, we also had tutorial sessions in small groups, headed by senior law students.

We spent most of the year studying statutory interpretation and at the end of the year, we had to write our own statutes.

We also had a number of written exams throughout the year and a finals.

Despite not having the best attendance (it was a tumultuous year) I passed with a B and could’ve gone on to second year law, but I decided to go for music instead so that was the only law class I took.

There were a few things I learned from the class which have proven invaluable.

First, the concepts of the golden rule and the plain meaning rule as applied to interpreting statutes.

Over the years since, I’ve had to sign a number of contracts and the lessons from the class have been helpful in reading the contracts and understanding how they could be interpreted in a court of law.

My interest in law and politics has also never diminished.

Especially lately with all the ongoing court dramas and the seemingly endless ludicrous arguments and appeals that are in the evening news daily.

It is mind boggling to say the least.

This is the greatest country in the world, probably in all of history. It put men on the moon. Its institutions are filled with Nobel laureates. The level of intellect in this country is second to none.

And yet hearing the justices in the highest court of the land the other day, and their seeming inability to grasp the essence of what they’re dealing with, and their inane political considerations.

It made me wonder, how did such a great country end up with this kangaroo court as the highest court of the land, one that is worthy of a banana republic?

My decision to become a musician was quite a big blow to my parents.

Over the years, my mother never failed to remind me that I had made a big mistake in choosing music. She always said I could’ve become a good lawyer (to which I must say I am in full agreement.)

However, she did relent towards the end.

One day, we were seated on the couch in her home on Merdeka Road 13 when she leaned over and said, ‘You haven’t done too badly. With your fingers tinkling the guitar, you’ve made a good living for yourself.’

I think she was trying to tell me she was proud of me.

She said this in our Fuzhou dialect so that’s a rough translation.

*After some sleuthing and help from Ms Poupard-Gould at Victoria University, I found out that my Legal System lecturer in 1977 was Professor Lindsay McKay.

You don’t know what you don’t know

I’ve been watching quite a few youtube videos lately, mostly whatever popped up in the recommendations (and quite a few of them I’ve had to click ‘Don’t recommend channel’).

And today, for some reason, two seemingly unrelated videos stayed in my mind.

One is from a finance person, and the other concerns the economic problems of a country in Asia.

The thing that struck me the most was the quote from the finance person, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’

I’ve written about the video game analogy—the person in level one has no idea what’s in level two.’

And this seems to echo that same premise.

It brings to mind my sister-in-law who, with my brother, inherited my father’s thriving wholesale business and within the space of ten years, ran it to the ground.

I’ve said it before, the only thing worse than an ignorant and dumb person is an ignorant and dumb person who doesn’t know he/she is ignorant and dumb.

(The self aware ignorant and dumb person would at least seek advice and listen to others who are more knowledgeable.)

That was the case with my sister-in-law (we won’t go into the details), it’s also the case with a certain former president (the details are out there), and it seems to be the case with the leader of the aforementioned country in Asia.

This country was a juggernaut, poised to take over as the world’s leading economy and within the space of about ten years, this leader is poised to run it to the ground too.

The word is hubris, or over self confidence, pride, arrogance—whatever you want to call it—and the result is the same.

As the old saying goes, pride comes before a fall.

None of us are immune from it—I admit to being guilty of it too, having made many an error of judgment in the past because of it.

Perhaps that’s why it’s made me so aware of it, and determined not to fall into its trap again.

So what’s the best remedy?

Keep reminding yourself that we don’t know what we don’t know, and as the finance person advises, do due diligence and research.

44 Moana Road

I had mentioned my friend’s landlady in Wellington, New Zealand.

Mrs Band, as we called her, was from Poland. She had been displaced, like many of her compatriots because of the war and had settled in New Zealand.

She lived alone, her husband had been killed in the war.

And she also bore the scars of the war on her forearm, a few digits tattooed into the skin.

She used to joke about the tattoo, when people asked her what they were, she would say, it’s her telephone number, she’s forgetful and she needed to remind herself.

But people who knew, knew there was nothing funny about how she got the tattoo.

Mrs Band lived in a beautiful home perched on the hillside overlooking a small reservoir.

The address was 44 Moana Road.

I used to visit the home back in the day and I always loved the home, it was sunny and bright and cheerful, like her owner.

In 1990, when I played a concert at Victoria University, Mrs Band offered to put me up. She was, as always, a gracious host.

Little did I know then, of the history of the home.

44 Moana Road was the last home designed by the Austrian architect, Ernst Plischke before he went back to Austria.

It was commissioned by the Hirschfelds, originally for their son, but they eventually sold it to Mrs Band. From what I understand, it was for a small token sum.

In 2018, I managed to visit the home again and much to my dismay, the new owner had renovated it.

I always remembered the home as a simple place. Its beauty lay in its very unpretentiousness and functionality.

The redesign was mostly in the first or ground floor.

One side of the home had been demolished and the house extended into the actual hillside.

As I walked into the new extension, it felt more like a cave than a room.

It’s a matter of personal aesthetics. The new owner is/was a professor of architecture himself and undoubtedly had his reasons for the drastic overhaul.

To me, as a layman and a purist, and as someone who doesn’t actually live there, the alterations are almost sacrilegious.

It’s almost as if someone had taken a precious artwork and decided to improve upon it, and in the process, (IMHO) defaced it.

There’re very few homes I’m familiar with that have an academic study dedicated to it.

Here’s a study of 44, Moana Road and notes from Mrs Hirschfeld and Mr Gray, the new owner.

The few photos in the study show what a gem the home is.

For me, at the personal level, memories of Mrs Geza Band and her kindness and warmth as a person.

Click to access SAHANZ+2011+June+2.pdf