鲁冰花 by 曾淑勤

我知道半夜的星星会唱歌
想家的夜晚它就这样和我一唱一和
我知道午后的清风会唱歌
童年的蝉声它总是跟风一唱一和
当手中握繁华心情却变得荒芜
才发现世上一切都会变卦
当青春剩下日记乌丝就要变成白发
不变的只有那首歌在心中来回的唱
天上的星星不说话地上的娃娃想妈妈
天上的眼睛眨呀眨妈妈的心呀鲁冰花
家乡的茶园开满花妈妈的心肝在天涯
夜夜想起妈妈的话闪闪的泪光鲁冰花
啊闪闪的泪光鲁冰花
天上的星星不说话地上的娃娃想妈妈
天上的眼睛眨呀眨妈妈的心呀鲁冰花
家乡的茶园开满花妈妈的心肝在天涯
夜夜想起妈妈的话闪闪的泪光鲁冰花
夜夜想起妈妈的话闪闪的泪光鲁冰花

东方女孩 by 蔡幸娟

寻遍山外山找遍水中水
谁是你梦中的女孩
走遍海内外巴黎到上海
谁能比东方的女孩
她的眉呀眉像双雁飞过长江水
她的眼呀眼好像西湖水含烟
她的唇呀唇像栖霞山上枫如醉
她的心呀心天山雪般晶莹莹
千万里的胸怀五千年的色彩
孕育了东方的女孩

(A song that I love, it describes how beautiful Oriental women can be. Very simple and short lyrics, yet it fully describes the features that makes an Oriental woman a beauty.)

Whoever Finds This, I Love You by Mac Davis

On the quiet street in the city
A little old man walked alone
Shuffling through the autumn afternoon
And the autumn leaves reminded him
Another summer's come and gone
He had long lonely nights ahead waiting for June

Then among the leaves near an orphan's home
A piece of paper caught his eyes
And he stooped to pick it up with trembling hands
As he read the childish writing
The old man began to cry
'Cause the words burned inside him like a brand

"Whoever finds this, I love you
Whoever finds this, I need you
I ain't even got no one to talk to
So, whoever finds this, I love you!"

Well, the old man's eyes searched the orphan's home
And came to rest upon a child
With her nose pressed up against the window pane
And the old man knew he'd found a friend at last
So he waved at her and smiled
And they both knew they'd spend the winter
Laughing at the rain

And they did spend the winter laughing at the rain
Talking through the fence
Exchanging little gifts they've made for each other
The old man would carve toys
And the little girl would draw pictures of beautiful ladies for him
And they laughed a lot

But then one day on the first of June
The little girl ran to the fence... the old man wasn't there
And, somehow she knew he was never coming back
So she went back to her little room
took a crayon, And wrote

"Whoever finds this, I love you
Whoever finds this, I need you
I ain't even got no one to talk to
So, whoever finds this, I love you!

(An old song that I like. I almost cried when I first heard this song. Very sad lyrics. I prefer the one by Qi Yu, though.)

Giving way to ambulances

You come across an ambulance on the road every once in a while. Yet in Singapore, people don't really get out of the way until the ambulance is right behind them.

When I was in Hawaii, we came across two ambulances (on separate occasions) while on the road. The moment people noticed the ambulance in the distant, cars pulled over to make way (in the midst of a traffic jam), allowing the ambulance an easy path through the crowded street. I guess we still have some way to go before we can call ourselves a gracious society.

Love to swim

We know that the baby loves to swim since the first time we brought him to the pool.
He is also easier to carry in the water, which makes it easy for us parents. :)
We even tried sliding down the waterslide together. First time for me on the waterslide as well, I was a bit apprehensive at first (since it is meant for kids) but for the sake of the baby, I went down with him.
And after swimming in the pool, what better way to dry off, than to use the special bathing towel sewn together by the wife? She even put a ladybug design on it.

Learning to stand

The baby's been trying to learn to stand. Here he is, using his bumbo chair to stand.
And here he is, using his gym to stand.
Caught in the act!
Soon he will be walking, but for now, he still needs his walker to get around quickly.

The Land of Rainbows

I recently went to the land of rainbows, Hawaii (Oahu, to be exact) for a working trip. So here are some pictures (not a lot, since I didn't get to sightsee much).

Rainbows greeted us everywhere. Here's a picture of one.
From my hotel room, I had a good view of Honolulu, and here is the sunrise at Honolulu.
Waikiki Beach is just nearby (within walking distance if you want). It was December, so there weren't as many people on the beach as in summer.
And here's the sun setting over Waikiki Beach.

Visit to goat farm

The wife hasn't been updating her blog of late, so I thought I would help out a bit so that pictures of the baby (he's a toddler now) get uploaded to cyberspace in good time.

We visited a goat farm in Singapore a few weeks back. It was a good break from city life to drive into the countryside (whatever remains of the countryside in Singapore). The farm visit was very short, though, since we are not allowed to come into contact with the goats anymore (hygiene reasons and so on). So we did a round of the farm, saw the goats, and then went off to see fishes (koi, to be exact).
Here's the baby focused on looking at the goats.

Solid food

The baby has been taking solid food for a while now. Here's a picture of him in his bumbo chair (which he thinks is his personal toilet...) enjoying his brunch (looks like a mix of porridge, pumpkin and baby paste food).

Merry Christmas

Wishing all a Merry Christmas!

Fedora 12 on a portable hard disk

I have managed to install Fedora 12 on my new portable hard disk. It was actually quite easy, since the installation DVD was able to detect my portable hard disk (connected via USB) during the installation process, and all I had to do was select it as the target for installation, shrink the existing partition on it (from 500Gb to 400Gb, using the remaining 100Gb for Fedora). Then install Fedora on the newly created partition.

Getting the latest Nvidia drivers, though, was tricky. But following the directions here, I was able to get things to work. However, I took out the line "vga=0x318" from the line to add to "etc/grub.conf", since it caused my display resolution to drop.

The only thing I haven't been able to get to work is "tvtime", it has picture but no sound. Plus it doesn't record shows. Guess I will have to be on the lookout on how to solve this...

Spending Christmas

Christmas is just round the corner (tomorrow). A recent newspaper report says that more singles start to date in December. I guess it is true that no one likes to spend Christmas on their own. That would explain the rise in dating, so that singles then have someone to spend Christmas with (assuming things work out well). Of course, since single men usually date single women, and with both parties being singles hating to spend Christmas on their own, I guess they will both hang in there until after Christmas.

Be on the lookout for the post-Christmas breakups!

Avatar (2009 film)

Watched Avatar today. And just cannot help it but link it with another movie (or rather, animation), Princess Mononoke. Both movies have a similar theme, in which humans are taking resources from the earth, while another group of non-humans (humanoids in Avatar, animal spirits in Princess Mononoke) are trying to stop them so as to return the balance of nature.

I must admit that the special effects (computer graphics) were very well done. If games nowadays are anywhere near what I saw on the screen, things would be breathtaking. But I guess I will need a few powerful graphics card as well to be able to render such graphics...

One thing that came into my mind while watching the movie. Gaming addiction. An avatar in the computer sense is a representative of a user in an online community. When in the movie, Jake kept going back to his avatar world, skipping meals or wolfing them down, missing baths, etc. it was kind of like a computer game addict hooked to his game, spending every moment he could to spend time online (as his avatar), neglecting meals and other inconveniences of life.

I guess the message from the movie is twofold. First, we need to treasure our environment, respect nature and not just take it for granted. Secondly, you need to draw a line between your online avatar and your real self, and not let yourself grow addicted to an alter ego such that eventually, the alter ego takes over the real self.

But let's not think too much about this movie. This movie is great to watch just for the graphics.

Survivor: Samoa

Natalie White showed us something. That sometimes, being a survivor doesn't mean being mean and fierce and fighting all the way. She won Survivor: Samoa not because she was able to win all the challenges or strategise who to vote out next. She won because she had good sense (she knew how to avoid drawing attention to herself and avoid being a target),and a good strategy (she led people into thinking she is not a threat). She outwit, outlast and outplayed the rest. The most hardball player, Russell Hantz, never realised she was a threat and that she was using him as her ticket to the finale, until it was too late.

Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

This book ("窓ぎわのトットちゃん" in Japanese) is written by Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, about herself. This book is about her childhood ("Totto-chan" is her nickname) during a very specific period of time when she was in elementary school. She was in a school known as "Tomoe Gakuen" founded by Kobayashi Sosaku.

I first came to know this book in secondary school, when it was used as a textbook for literature class. I really enjoyed the story, which was about how the author spent her days at Tomoe Gakuen, and the lessons that she learnt there from the headmaster Mr Kobayashi. Those lessons probably played a part in her upbringing and influenced her childhood development.

Totto-chan has since grown up and gone on to become a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and also hosts her own talk show on Japanese television. This book was a huge success in Japan and probably worldwide as well. Ask any Japanese if they know Totto-chan and they will all say yes.

I have read the book a few times, including once in the original Japanese text. I would say Dorothy Britton did an excellent job translating the original Japanese text into English, for nothing is lost in translation. The feelings conveyed is the same. Mr Kobayashi is a great educator with foresight and his views on education should not be brushed aside.

If you have children, this is a good book to read, to understand how you can help bring out the best in your children, rather than pile stress on them forcing them to study for school.

Update 18 December 2023: The book received a Guiness World Record for being the most published autobiography penned by a single author.

TV personality Kuroyanagi's "Totto-chan" memoir earns Guinness record

New tactic spotted

Imagine this. You are walking on the street when out of the blue, a young lady walks up to you and greets you. She then sticks out her hand. What do you do?

I guess the naturally reaction is to shake her hand. Once you do that, she holds on to your hand, and starts to introduce herself as being from so and so organisation, and talking to you about a product that her company has, and so on. All the while, she holds on to your hand even though you are trying to pull your hand away. But you can't pull too hard, she is a lady after all.

Great sales tactic. Spotted today on the street (no, I wasn't the lucky one.) So watch out guys. Friendly ladies on the streets may not be what they appear to be.

First words... Not!

I woke up this morning, only to hear the baby making noises. All of a sudden, I heard him say, "Hi Daddy" (actually, it was more of like "hai dah dee"). But I know he wasn't saying "hi daddy" because:

1. English is unlikely to be his mother tongue, not with the amount of Japanese being used at home.
2. Even when I use English at home with the baby, I use "hello", not "hi".
3. I don't refer myself to him as "daddy", and neither does my wife.
4. 9-month old babies don't talk.

What does all these say? Well, it goes to show that what they say about putting a monkey with a typewriter can possibly be true, that a monkey typing randomly on a typewriter may eventually make a string of characters that is actually a proper sentence.

Me? I am happy just as long as he doesn't cry.

Pearl Harbor 68th anniversary

Last year, I posted a note on the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

This year, I was able to visit Pearl Harbor just before the anniversary (7 Dec Hawaiian time, 8 Dec Japanese time). You can see the air traffic control tower at Ford Island, preserved as a monument from the attack. Ford Island is still being used by the US military, though the immediate area around the tower is now a museum (Pacific Aviation Museum) showcasing World War 2.

Autumn rain, winter snow

Autumn rain, winter snow,
Yet in cold the rivers flow.
Falling leaves, empty branches,
Running around, the squirrel searches.

(Written on 3 Dec 1998.)