House of Seafood @ 180

A friend of my wife is in town, so we went for dinner at "House of Seafood @ 180" for some black pepper crabs. It is one of the seafood restaurants that we frequent.

I shan't talk too much about the food, just to say that you really must try out the black pepper crab, which is delicious! A word of advice, though. It is hard to find parking, so best not to drive there. But they do offer valet services (starts after 7pm, I think) so all is not lost for those who drive.

Our last visit(s) (two of them, a few days from each other) was in early August 2009, when the baby was 4 months old. Back then, he already drew the attention of the waitresses, who kept coming over to play with him. They kept him occupied, allowing us to enjoy our dinner.

Today, when we went, the waitresses (some of them) still remember the baby (the baby is now 8 months old), and played with him, and even carried him around. While we were seated just beside the road, the baby ended up at the counter way inside the restaurant, being carried in turns by waitresses and even one of the kitchen hands! Guess the baby is more popular than the dad... the good thing is, he doesn't cry a lot (only when he is hungry or sleepy) and he is quite okay with people. I will be posting recent photos (we visited a goat farm and koi farm yesterday) of him soon (like in a few weeks...) so watch this space!

事事不顺心

事事不顺心，
出手不如意，
气急心不定，
不能成大业。

Top PSLE student 2009 is Chinese national who had problems with English

This year's top PSLE student is Qiu Biqing, a Chinese national who had problems with English when she first came to Singapore. But she worked hard and scored well for PSLE. So those who have problems learning Chinese should quit complaining and look at this little girl, who showed that with hard work, it is not impossible to learn another language. And she even mentioned that she got better in English because one of her teachers was an ethnic Indian and didn't understand Mandarin, forcing her to use English to communicate with him. Things might have turned out differently if her teachers had tried using Chinese to teach her English (not that our English teachers would have been able to use Chinese to teach her English...)

It is hard work, not the easy way out, that allows one to become better at something.

Thirteen Days (film)

This movie, Thirteen Days, is about the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. It is about how the Kennedy administration struggled internally to come to a solution on how to handle the Soviet's deployment of medium range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM) in Cuba, capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the United States.

The movie shows the importance of close civilian control when managing a crisis, to prevent it from escalating further. Left to its own, militaries are trained to fight, to win wars, and are more than ready to go to war. It shows that while rules of engagement are meant to protect the soldiers on the ground executing the orders, they can also lead to escalation if not handled properly and run contrary to the higher political agenda. Thus, while orders are given and rules of engagement are set, and chains of command exist, there are times when direct control by the top over the ground units (bypassing the chain of command in between) is necessary to ensure that things do not get out of hand.

Of course, while close civilian control is needed when managing a crisis, when war breaks out, let the military do what they are trained to do. After all, that's why we spend so much money on them during peacetime training them up.

Charlie Wilson's War (film)

This movie, Charlie Wilson's War, is about a real person, US Congressman Charlie Wilson and his efforts in getting funding to support the Afghan mujahideen in fighting against Soviet aggressors. It is about a small group of determined people, setting the ground for change affecting the whole world. It is actually based on a book by George Crile.

The Congressman, Charlie Wilson, leads a life quite unlike what you expect of a politician. Instead of avoiding vices in public life, he embraces them. He is portrayed as a man who loves women, employing only pretty women in his office, stating that "You can teach a girl to type, but you can't teach a girl to grow tits."

Yet behind all that is actually a man who cared enough to try to make a difference. Once he believed in the cause (of freeing Afghanistan from the Soviets), he actually set down to securing the funding needed for the Afghan mujahideen to get modern weapons so that they stand a fighting chance against the Soviet arsenal. It eventually resulted in the Soviet Army being driven out of Afghanistan, showing the rest of the world that the Soviet Army is not invincible and eventually leading to the crumbling of the Soviet Union.

Particularly important is that towards the end of the show, he tried to get the US government to see the need to rebuild Afghanistan, rather than simply washing their hands off the matter now that the Soviets have left. He cautioned against simply making the changes and then leaving, and advocated the need to make the change and stay behind to rebuild things. While there is little glory and little short term gains to get from rebuilding, the effects are longer term, something which short-sighted (short-lived?) governments are probably not concerned about. I guess this is true of most governments, and policy makers should ask themselves if they are just effecting change for the sake of change, or whether they are willing to follow through with the changes.

Fedora 12 installed!

I finally managed to finish installing Fedora 12 on my old laptop, with all the additional packages that I wanted. Took quite some time to download the packages from the Internet (because my old laptop's DVD drive is sort of old and cannot read the installation DVD or CDs well) but managed to get through it all.

The next challenge is to install Fedora 12 on my desktop, currently running Windows Vista. I am thinking of setting up a dual boot system (Vista and Fedora 12), but the current harddisk has only 60GB of free space left. I am wondering whether I should get a new harddisk and install Fedora 12 on the new harddisk (problem is whether Fedora can boot with the boot loader on one harddisk, while the rest of the files reside on another harddisk), or to install it now on the current harddisk (and subsequently get a new harddisk for data).

Whatever it is, I need to do some housekeeping for the desktop (archive files onto DVD/CD) so that's what going to be keeping me busy. Meanwhile, I am open to suggestions and advice on the two options above.

Bowing to the Japanese Emperor

Article: It's a gesture of respect

You can read the article at The Straits Times, but if you are not a subscriber, you probably won't be able to access the article after 7 days from its publication.

I don't see what is the big fuss about bowing to the Japanese Emperor. I agree that it is a sign of respect. And it shows how well President Obama understands Japanese culture. In Japan, when you bow to the Emperor, you use the 90-degree bow. And the Emperor, by stretching his hand out, shows that he wasn't expecting Obama to bow, but rather to do what is common in American culture, a handshake.

Bowing is not a sign of subservience, it is a sign of respect for people above you. "Above you" need not necessarily be in terms of authority, but can be wisdom, knowledge, age, experience, etc. Rather than make a big fuss about the President of the United States bowing to the Japanese Emperor, we should be talking about how culturally aware the President is.

And as to why the Emperor didn't return the bow (as is usually the case when bowing is used as a greeting)? He isn't expected to, and probably has never bowed to anyone since he took over as Emperor.

Installing Fedora 12

I have been trying to install Fedora 12 since it was released.

First, I tried downloading the DVD. Got it from a mirror site in Japan, burnt it into a DVD, and then when I tried to install, while testing the media, it came back that the DVD has an error. I ran a checksum test on the downloaded ISO image file only to realise that it has errors. So back to downloading again.

This time, I used a mirror site in the US, and tested the checksum before burning the DVD. Yup, checked correct. But the media testing still came back negative when I tried to install using the DVD. I suspected there is a problem with the DVD drive on my old laptop (about 5 yrs old) and so I ended up downloading the CDs instead. Downloaded all 5 image files, tested them correct, and they all passed the media testing.

But halfway through the installation process, when I was told to change from Disc 1 to Disc 2, the DVD drive won't open. So I couldn't change discs. Argh! All that time wasted downloading so many image files and burning them and testing them.

I downloaded the LiveCD version, booted up my old laptop with that, and managed to finally install Fedora 12 using the LiveCD. Only problem is, the LiveCD is barebone minimum, so I still have to install most of the packages subsequently. I first tried using PackageKit, but that kept giving me errors. Finally resolved that by first updating the installation with yum ("yum -y update") before running PackageKit again. Right now, PackageKit is still running, trying to download all the required packages over the Internet, but it seems to be so-far-so-good, so wish me luck! I think it should be able to get everything done.

The moral of the story? While Fedora may run on old computers... your old computer may not be in the best of form (old harddisk about to crash, old DVD drive working intermittently, etc.) so don't blame the software, it could be your hardware that has the problems. Fedora has saved me before when Vista crashed on me in the past (read about it here) and at the end of the day, yes, the problem was with the hardware.

Using English to teach Chinese

Article: English to teach Chinese

You can read the article online at The Straits Times (I think it is available for non-subscribers for 7 days from publication, after which you need to be a subscriber to read it.)

My thoughts on this?

I remember how I first started learning Japanese. The teacher taught in English. Because when you know nothing about a language, there is a need to start from a common starting point. But once I picked up enough basic vocabulary and grammar, the teacher started teaching fully in Japanese, using English only when I still couldn't understand the simple explanations given in Japanese.

I guess it should be the same for all languages (including Chinese). When you first start learning the language, there is no harm using a common language to help teach that new language. But once you have a basic grasp of the new language, teaching should be done in that new language, because as with all things, practice makes perfect. Any opportunity to use that new language (listening, speaking, writing, reading) only serves to improve your skill in it. If you keep giving people the easy way out (allowing them to revert to English, for example), they lose the opportunity to improve, they don't see the need to improve (since they can always switch back to English). Without practice and without necessity, how are they going to improve?

Learning languages

Recently, there has been quite a few newspaper articles on learning Chinese in Singapore schools, and how to improve the teaching methods to make Chinese lessons interesting.

I remember my Chinese lessons in the past. Boring. Because most of it was trying to get us to memorise words, phrases, and write compositions, fill in the blanks, etc. But I can say the same thing about English lessons. Same old boring stuff as well.

What got me interested in Chinese was my Chinese tuition teacher (my Chinese grades were so bad, my parents got worried and hired a tuition teacher for me). He didn't believe in going through the textbooks ("Your teacher will do that in school") or going through tons of assessment books ("There is already enough homework for practice"). What he did was find out what I was interested in, and how to get me interested in Chinese.

It started with using the language. Speaking Mandarin outside of class was not something that I often did (I usually spoke English at home), so the practice did help. Then he found out that I was playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 2 and used that to introduce me to the story itself. I remember discussing the characters with him (I had read the English translation of the story) and he gave me a copy of a Mandarin recitation of the story. I got so interested in the story that I got myself the book in Chinese, and we eventually went on to discuss the poems inside.

Chinese poems. That was another means used to get me interested in Chinese. He would introduce poems to me, and I would learn what they meant. Discussing the poems would bring about discussions of the historical settings, and from there, I learnt Chinese history. As I learnt more and more about Chinese history, I delved deeper into the Chinese culture and traditions, and since then, my passion for Chinese has never died.

My grades got better. In fact, they became good. Class was a breeze, and eventually I even wrote my own simple poems in Chinese (you can find some of them here with the rest of my works).

I think the most important thing about learning a language is interest. Next is necessity. Interest allowed me to pick up Chinese even though I was getting by well on English. Necessity made me pick up Japanese.

Studying in Japan in an environment fully immersed in the Japanese culture (where no one is even going to bother speaking English to you) forced me to pick up Japanese. Classes were conducted in Japanese, and no one knows enough English to be able to explain anything to you in English, so either I pick up Japanese to understand what the lecturers were saying, or I flunk my classes. That sure did help to motivate me to pick up the language. Having to use it every waking hour (greeting people, asking classmates about homework, asking people for directions, etc.) really did help a lot too. Writing reports, listening to the news, watching TV, all these helped. At the end of the day, this total immersion in the Japanese culture allowed me to pick up the language even though I had only 2 months of formal Japanese lessons.

I guess if we are really serious about getting our kids to learn more than one language, then we need to work on their interest, since they will eventually pick up whatever is necessary when they are immersed in the situation. With our tech savvy kids, if you allow them to play War of Warcraft during class, but only using Chinese, I am sure they will improve in Chinese. Rather than find ways to make lessons (Chinese or English) interesting, I think it is more important to find out what the kids are interested in, and weave in these languages, and once they are hooked, get them to start seeing the beauty in the language (that's when poetry and literature usually comes in).

Parenting boot camp - Day 5

Day 5, the last day of boot camp (weekends don't count, since I help to take care of the baby on weekends anyway, so it is not out of the norm). I survived yet another day.

The baby loves to take a poo whenever he is having his meals. Guess with his little body, for something to go in, something needs to come out. With him eating solid food now, his poo smells different too (it is much more smelly now...)

He is a very good boy, though. If he wakes up and the rest of us are still sleeping, he doesn't cry to get our attention. Instead, he hangs around in bed, looking at his sleeping parents, or sometimes wanders off the bed and crawls around the bedroom while waiting for us to wake up.

It has been a very tiring 5 days, much more tiring compared to working, since I am not used to the rhythm that the baby follows. I am really appreciative of what my wife has been going through (and will continue to go through) taking care of the baby, seeing to his needs, working her schedule around his.

Just hope no permanent damage was done to the back from all the carrying... if I grow old with backache, at least I know who to look for to claim medical fees...

Parenting boot camp - Day 4

Day 4, and I survived yet another day.

The back is starting to feel the stress... it really is not joke carrying 12kg for stretches at a time. I strained my right wrist a while back (carrying the baby...) and now, both wrists are feeling the strain... I guess it probably will heal only after the baby starts walking.

The baby only goes to sleep when he is fed the bottle (if he is hungry) or by someone carrying him and rocking him to sleep (if he is not hungry). Most of the time, he is not hungry when he is sleepy... that explains all the carrying. I just hope I don't do any permanent damage to my back. My wife probably had it better, since she was taking care of the baby all the while, and her "physical conditioning" was a gradual buildup, rather than the "start with 12kg" for me.

He still cries in the middle of the night (at least that's what my wife says). I am oblivious to the cries... evolution has helped me to filter that sound out of my hearing system...

Fedora 12

Fedora 12 is out. Get it here.

There is a LiveCD version of it as well, with the GNOME desktop. Suitable for those who just want to give it a try. And if you like it, you can install using the CD as well.

Of course, if you are already using Fedora, you can always upgrade your current installation, or do a fresh installation.

I am now in the midst of downloading it, to upgrade my installation on my old laptop (if possible, otherwise, I may have to do a fresh installation).

Parenting boot camp - Day 3

Day 3. I survived yet another day. But I was very tired today, don't know why. Maybe carrying the 12kg baby all the time is starting to take its toll on me. I tried to do some basic taiji exercises today. Usually, my thigh muscles will start to feel tired... today, even before my thigh muscles tire, I could feel the muscles on my lower back and around my bum burning... muscle ache from too much carrying?

The baby is still awake... wonder why he doesn't want to sleep tonight...

Meteor shower

Flashes of light,
Streaks both bright and slight,
Tails of white,
Trailing behind in flight.

(This was written on 18 Nov 1998, when I stayed up to see the Leonids meteor shower. A wonderful sight. Try it some time.)

Leonids

The Leonids is a meteor shower that peaks around 17 Nov each year. If you have never stayed up to watch a meteor shower, I would suggest that you try it at least once, and the Leonids is probably the best bet. Just find a clear spot away from city lights. A clear sky is a must, of course. The best place is out in the open sea (clear sky, no city lights) but not everyone has the luxury of being on a cruise on 17 Nov each year.

The first time I did this was 11 years ago. The last time I did this was 10 years ago. After that, I never gotten down to staying up late at night to watch shooting stars. But maybe if I move to a place far from the city, I will have a chance to watch these spectacular shows of nature again.

Parenting boot camp - Day 2

Day 2. I survived. Yet another day. And it wasn't as bad, since I have gotten my footing, though I am still a long way off. Getting better at seeing to the baby's needs, but he still prefers his mother (of course) though I can manage to calm him better now.

He is a テレビっ子 (terebikko, someone who loves watching TV). Loves sitting in front of the TV, even though I am quite sure he doesn't understand anything that is going on, or what is being said (the shows here are in English and some in Mandarin, which he doesn't understand since the language being spoken at home is Japanese). But still, the TV draws his attention (for some time) so it helps to keep him occupied and quiet and happy. Which makes me happy too.

Wish me luck for the rest of the week ahead!

Top Gun (film)

The classic of all fighter pilot movies, Top Gun. The story is simple, short, and the movie is all about the aerial combat, which is what fighter pilot movies should all be about. After all, that's what fighter pilots do.

If you are looking for story, don't bother. Not in this movie.

What you will find in this movie is lots of aircraft, lots of flying, lots of action, designed to show the thrill of flying, the speed at which things take place up in the air. It may not be realistic (fighter aircraft don't fly so close to each other nowadays, not with the progress of missile technology) but realism doesn't always sell (unless you are talking about documentaries). It's a great movie to kill time, to see a young Tom Cruise, to see male bonding, to see competition between the best of the best, to see aircraft and aircraft up close.

Great soundtracks too. Danger Zone, Take My Breath Away, Mighty Wings, and of course, the Top Gun Anthem.









It's a movie that you just want to watch again and again, even though there isn't anything to it.

Parenting boot camp - Day 1

I am on leave over the next few days to help take care of the baby.

It is like going through boot camp. At least, that was how Day 1 felt like.

I am now 100% (200% may be a better figure) appreciative of what my wife does to take care of the baby. Before today, I never had to take care of the baby's every needs. My wife was always there, I was just helping her.

Today (and for the rest of the week), it was (and will be) a reversal of roles. I am now the one in charge of taking care of the baby, while she helps out occasionally.

My back is still hurting from carrying the baby (he is huge, weighing 12kg even though he is less than 8 months old). I still can't discern his reason for crying (Hungry? Lonely? Sleepy? Diaper?) and my wife says I probably end up carrying him more than he needed to be. I had a hard time trying to get him to sleep because I don't know what he likes. I know he goes to sleep when you carry him, but learnt that the other alternative is to feed him the bottle. I still take half an hour to feed him his porridge (my wife usually takes half that time). Bathing him was the easy part since it is something that I have been doing. Keeping him company for hours at a time, however, is something really new (never had to do that before, since by the time I come back from work, it is dinner, bath, sleep). I didn't have time to do my own stuff since I had to keep an eye on him, play with him, make sure he doesn't tear the house down or play with the sockets, keep him from licking things like slippers, and the list just goes on.

I wonder how my wife does all these things, but I guess that is the wonder of mothers. She does all these, plus the housework, and still sneaks in time in between to update her blog, surf the net, watch TV, does sewing, and even go shopping and meet up with friends. Me? I am dead beat just trying to see to the baby's needs.

Day 1 is over, I hope I can survive the week...

Singapore blogs

I didn't know there was a blog to bind all blogs... or rather, a blog listing all Singaporean blogs, or at least try to do so.

Until I happened upon it while searching for the article by Sumiko Tan.

Well, here it is, sgblogs.com, which is a blog that searches the Internet trying to find blogs related to Singapore.

Modern dads

Yet another article by Sumiko Tan. This one is called "Charm of a modern dad". You can read the article here (if you are an online subscriber to The Straits Times) or here.

I am what she terms a modern dad. I like to go out with my son. I enjoy pushing his stroller around the shopping mall, while my wife goes off shopping (and enjoying whatever little time she has away from the baby). I don't mind searching around for a nursing room to change his diapers (and finding out that some malls have the nursing room inside the ladies), feeding him milk when he is hungry, or carrying him when he gets bored sitting in the stroller. I enjoy carrying him around for a walk (although it can be tiring, with him being heavy for his age). I guess it is because I don't spend a lot of time with him, which is why I all the more treasure the little time that I have with him (even if it is just helping to change his diapers or feeding him milk).

And sometimes, when I am alone with the baby, people look at me with curious eyes that seems to be asking, "Where's the mother?" And seems like I am not alone, with a similar article in yesterday's papers as well. Somehow, there is the stereotype that mothers, not fathers, are supposed to be the ones carrying babies around and attending to their needs. While I don't take care of the baby as much as my wife does, I do enjoy spending time with him, no matter what form that takes.

无谓忙碌

千忙百累无闲暇，
日夜奔波到头空，
无谓忙碌不是我，
不如漫步诗人梦。

温柔的夜 by 邓妙华

我的心是幽幽的湖水
温柔的月色是你的倒影
你把自己浸在夜里
微湿的长发牵动我的相思

我的心是轻轻的涟漪
开展的波纹是我的情绪
若能让你笑着不怕
你眼睛将是我梦里最美的星

多希望用我小小的一生
轻轻为你点亮一盏灯
让我看清你 让我看清你
怕过了明天已不是做梦的年龄

多希望用我全部的生命
低低为你轻唱着爱情
让你感觉我 让你感觉我
思念的湖水里浮动你的倒影
让我看清你 让我看清你
怕过了明天已不是做梦的年龄

This used to be an ending theme for a TV serial, and I managed to find it on Youtube.

Still too early, but...

Winds blow,
Footsteps slow,
Rivers flow,
Boats tow,
I know,
It will snow.

(Written 11 years ago, on 4 Nov 1998, when it was still too early to snow...)

Calligraphy piece - 精湛 exhibition piece

This is the actual piece displayed during the exhibition, after all the work thinking up of the phrase, practising for it, and finally preparing it.

Besides the main exhibition at Tokyo, my teacher will also be helping me to enter this in the local exhibition in Yokosuka.

Calligraphy exhibition

The exhibition by 温知会 took place from 30 Oct to 3 Nov. It is an event that happens once every two years in late Oct or early Nov. Below are the pieces displayed at the exhibition, written by my calligraphy teacher.

The first is a set of 76 Chinese characters written by my teacher.

Next is a set of kana written by her.

I will be posting my piece in a separate post.

The Secret History of the World

I recently finished reading this book. It is about how things can be explored in a different way. Instead of the way of science that we are so used to, it asks us to consider exploring the world as how our ancestors would see it, in a more spiritual way. It also touches on the development of secret societies and how these societies seek to preserve the spiritual thinking of the past, and how such thinking actually helped to evolve mankind, and will continue to evolve mankind.

The book tries to draw a parallel between creation of the world as outlined by Genesis (and some Greek mythology), and creation of the world as proposed by science (Big Bang and evolution). I thought it was quite interesting to see how such parallels could be drawn, to see how passages in the Bible could be interpreted in a more conceptual sense rather than taken at face value (word for word meaning).

I think the more interesting idea to explore will be to look into the creation myths of other cultures (such as the Egyptians, the Indians, the Chinese) to see how the theories proposed by science can have parallels to these other creation myths. After all, if what the book proposes is true, the spiritual way of thinking is handed down in various cultures and thus their creation myths must in some way contain similar parallels.

Secret (2007 film by Jay Chou)

Okay, I am not a Jay Chou fan. In fact, I don't really know any songs by him.

I watched this movie because I had nothing better to do. And of course, the girl's (she is actually 桂纶镁 Kwai Lun Mei) face on the DVD cover looked pretty. I found the DVD lying around in office, and decided to take a look. It did help to kill some time.

What I liked about the movie is the simple yet romantic plot. The endearing process of two people meeting and falling in love. And then it seems that they cannot be together. But by some effort, they managed to be together again. Sounds amazing like the Return of the Condor Heroes. But hey, like I said, I am a sucker for love stories.

As said, I like the plot. Impossible yet romantic. And maybe it is because the plot is impossible, that makes it all the more romantic. Recommended for those who like love stories, and impossible romantics.

The moon

We share the same bright white lamp,
No matter where on the earth we tramp.
White light bringing a gentle glow,
Even as the cold winds blow.
The changing intensity of the light,
From bright to dark, dark to bright.
Changing slowly with each day,
As I look up from the bay.
Far apart but close at heart,
It is a pity we must part.
Yet know that here the moon is full,
How I wish you were here too.
To share with you this bright full moon,
And my life, be it midnight or noon.
How I wish you were here with me,
Instead of the miles between us that be.
Watching the moon while holding your hands,
It beats sharing the moon in different lands.

Happy Halloween

I guess Halloween is not something usually celebrated in Singapore, but it has recently caught on (I guess it has to do with the exposure to Western culture) so here's wishing everyone a happy Halloween!