Life's So Beautiful

Archive for the ‘Family Life’ Category

“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”

~ Norman Vincent Peale

It is Christmas and I wish all of you a very blessed and happy Christmas and may 2010 bring you an abundance of joy, love and peace.

Christmas is about giving. If there is no joyous way to give a festive gift, give love away.

Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.

To an opponent, tolerance.

To a friend, your heart.

To a customer, service.

To all, charity.

To every child, a good example.

To yourself, respect.

~ Oren Arnold

Keep this in mind:

“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:the presence of a happy  family all wrapped up in each other.”

~ Burton Hillis

Have a fun-filled happy Christmas……….ho ho ho!

Today is not only Christmas Day but also my 27th wedding anniversary. How time flies! I can still remember my wedding held in Kuching. And the wedding photos we took at Monica Salon in Kenyalang Park now looked really “outdated” compared to the stylish wedding photos we see today.

Wedding anniversaries are the remembrance of the most special day in a person’s life when he or she agreed to share his or her life with that special someone. When two persons exchange marriage vows it is a solemn and sacred rite which binds these two persons in holy matrimony for the rest of their lives. Sadly in our modern society these very same vows are not treated with the respect that they deserve. Nowadays a lot of marriages last only for a short period of time. This sorry state of affairs threatens the very sanctity of marriage institution.  Anyway for those few couples who make it through their first year of marriage they have every right to celebrate their wedding anniversary. In fact every year of a wedding anniversary should be celebrated in a special way.

Candlelit dinners, romantic holidays, gifts and bouquets of flowers are all commonly associated with wedding anniversaries. A carefully planned and executed anniversary will no doubt show your spouse how much you still love him or her

As the old saying goes it’s the thought that counts. The most important thing is to remember the wedding anniversary date itself. Woe betides any spouse who forgets this day as there will be hell to pay later.

Here are the corresponding symbols and gifts for each Anniversary:

1st Wedding Anniversary — paper

2nd Wedding Anniversary — cotton

3rd Wedding Anniversary — leather

4th Wedding Anniversary — flowers or fruits

5th Wedding Anniversary — wood

6th Wedding Anniversary — sugar or candy

7th Wedding Anniversary — wool

8th Wedding Anniversary — bronze

9th Wedding Anniversary — pottery

10th Wedding Anniversary — tin

11th Wedding Anniversary — steel

12th Wedding Anniversary — linen or silk

13th Wedding Anniversary — lace

14th Wedding Anniversary — agate

15th Wedding Anniversary — crystal

16th Wedding Anniversary — silver hollowware, peridot

17th Wedding Anniversary — furniture, watches

18th Wedding Anniversary — porcelain, cat’s-eye

19th Wedding Anniversary — bronze, aquamarine

20th Wedding Anniversary — china

21st Wedding Anniversary — brass or nickel

22nd Wedding Anniversary — copper

23rd Wedding Anniversary — silver plate

24th Wedding Anniversary — musical instruments

25th Wedding Anniversary — silver

26th Wedding Anniversary — original pictures

27th Wedding Anniversary — sculpture

28th Wedding Anniversary — orchids

29th Wedding Anniversary — new furniture

30th Wedding Anniversary — pearl

31st Wedding Anniversary — timepieces

32nd Wedding Anniversary –conveyances (including automobiles)

33rd Wedding Anniversary — amethyst

34th Wedding Anniversary — opal

35th Wedding Anniversary — coral or jade

36th Wedding Anniversary — bone china

37th Wedding Anniversary — alabaster

38th Wedding Anniversary — beryl and tourmaline

39th Wedding Anniversary — lace

40th Wedding Anniversary — ruby or garnet

41st Wedding Anniversary — land

42nd Wedding Anniversary — improved real estate

43rd Wedding Anniversary — trips

44th Wedding Anniversary — groceries

45th Wedding Anniversary — sapphire

50th Wedding Anniversary — gold

55th Wedding Anniversary — emerald or turquoise

60th Wedding Anniversary — diamond

65th Wedding Anniversary — diamond

70th Wedding Anniversary — platinum

75th Wedding Anniversary — diamond

To my wife Jennie, I just wish to say this:

After 27 years in this sacred institution of marriage, I can safely say: There is no one with whom I would rather be institutionalized.

Today is Dongzhi or Winter Solstice Festival. This is a festival celebrated by the Chinese on or around December 22 every year. For countries in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has the shortest day and the longest night of the year. This phenomenon is more obvious further north. After the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere enters its coldest period. From that day onwards, people in China divides the next 81 days into nine periods. The coldest days begin with the third period. After the nine periods, spring begins and farming begins again.

The festival is a time for families to get together. The most important activity is the making and eating of tangyuan which are balls of glutinous rice symbolizing family unity and prosperity. The balls, which may be plain or stuffed with condiments, are cooked in a sweet soup. A lot of Chinese in Malaysia also prepare and eat the tangyuan coated with peanut and sugar.

Many Chinese, especially the elderly, insist that one is “a year older” right after the Dongzhi. Oh dear, that means I will be one year older tomorrow.  No wonder more and more white hair are appearing on my head….at this rate, I will look  like “pehmo” (white hair) in a couple more years!

I watched the China movie “In Love We Trust” (the mandarin title is Zuo Yu meaning left right) a few days ago. The movie won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival.

The movie is a drama about a young girl who was diagnosed with leukemia that requires a bone marrow transplant or else she would have only a couple more years to live. The girl’s birth parents are divorced and she is staying with her mum and her mum’s new husband who both love her dearly. The girl’s father has remarried an air hostess.The girl’s parents’ bone marrow was found to be not a match and the doctor advised that the girl can only be saved with stem cells from a sibling.  So the girl’s natural parents decided to have another baby through artificial insemination. This failed though they tried three times. They wanted to give it a few more attempts but the hospital declined as it was deemed a waste of time. The mother, at her wit’s end, asked the ex-husband to sleep with her to get her pregnant again. The mother’s fierce love for her daughter blinds her to the potential damage she is doing to everyone around her. That is the gist of the story.

The movie is very slow-paced and is quite sad. However I laughed a lot during the course of the movie. You are probably thinking that I am contradicting myself. Laughing a lot watching a sad movie? Am I going bonkers?

I laughed a lot because of the atrocious English subtitles. Quite a lot of the subtitles will have you in stitches. And some of the subtitles had me scratching my head trying to make head or tail out of them.

A sample of the “gems” :

My horse go up (direct translation from the Mandarin words meaning I will go immediately).

I beat to you (direct translation from the Mandarin words meaning I will phone you).

You good you good (nihao nihao).

Do you stir my telephone? ( Did you phone to me?).

Eat point more, the disease likes quickly (The Mandarin words mean eat a little more and the illness will go away faster).

Since today, you can’t cry again, be the kid’s noodle especially ( In essence, the dialogue in Mandarin means from today onwards, don’t cry in front of the kid……the Mandarin word for face can also mean noodles).

Fill this watch ( The Mandarin dialogue means fill this form….the Mandarin word for form can also mean watch).

A father and his young son were out walking one afternoon when the youngster asked how the electricity went through the wires stretched between the telephone poles.

“Don’t know,” said the father. “Never knew much about electricity.”

After a while the boy asked what caused lightning and thunder.

“To tell you the truth,” said the father, “I never understood that myself.”

The boy continued to ask questions throughout the walk, none of which the father could explain. Finally, as they were approaching their home, the boy said,”Pa, I hope you don’t mind my asking so many questions…..”

“Of course not,” replied the father. “How else are you going to learn?”

Sooner or later, of course, the boy will stop asking his father questions, and that will be most unfortunate. Curiosity and the desire to learn should be encouraged and nurtured.

Parents who want their children to do well in school but who don’t respect learning are deluding themselves. Not many children will be motivated to do it on their own.

The father in the above story should have told his son that he does not know but he will find out the answers. That way his son will be greatly encouraged especially if the father search for the answers together with his son. This will create a strong bond between them.

Christmas is a mixture of secular and religious traditions. At its core, Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. For Christians, it is the time to renew one’s faith. But Christmas is also a secular celebration of family. It has become widely accepted by people of other religions

Christmas is a bonafide gift-giving bonanza. Desperate parents scrabble over the under-stocked toy of the season. Stores bring out the tinsel and greenery as early as October.

I was in Bintang Megamall yesterday and saw this nice Christmas decoration. It really put you in a festive mood when seeing such decor.

Christmas is a time for reunion and giving generously. A few days ago I received an email from my eldest brother with this wonderful true story. And with Christmas less than two weeks away, I really want to share this story with you……

The new priest, newly assigned to his first ministry to open a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excited about the opportunities. When he saw the church, it was very run down and need much work. He set a goal to have everything done in time to have the first service on Christmas Eve.

He worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc, and on December 18 was ahead of schedule and just about finished. On December 19 a terrible tempest – a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the priest went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The priest cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.

On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory coloured, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colours and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church.

By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The priest invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later.

She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the priest while he put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The priest could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area.

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. ‘Father,’ she asked, ‘where did you get that tablecloth?’ The priest explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.

The woman could hardly believe it as the priest told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria.

When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. He was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again.

The priest wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the priest keep it for the church. The priest insisted on driving her home; that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.

W hat a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the priest greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return.

One older man, whom the priest recognized from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the priest wondered why he wasn’t leaving.

The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike.

He told the priest how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison.. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between.

The priest asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the priest had taken the woman three days earlier.

H e helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.

In 2004, Amanda Chong Wei- Zhen, then a 15-year old Singaporean student of Raffles Girls’ School, took part in the Commonwealth Essay Competition, choosing to compete in the higher age category for 16-18 year old as a personal challenge to compete with writers older than herself. She won the Top Prize in the competition that attracted over 5000 entries from 52 countries!

Her short story, titled What The Modern Woman Wants, focuses on the generational gaps and the conflicts in values between a modern career woman and her old mother. She got the inspiration for her essay from the book “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan. She used mother-daughter relationship as a platform to explore the themes of identity and what a modern woman wants.

The message she wanted to convey was that we should not forsake our roots for the sake of success and material gains and that what society holds important today are fleeting and ephemeral. Material wealth does not equate to happiness.

Her essay was hailed as a “powerfully moving and ironical critique of modern restlessness and its potentially cruel consequences” by the Chief Examiner Charles Kemp.

This is her essay……..

What The Modern Woman Wants………by Amanda Chong

The old woman sat in the backseat of the magenta convertible as it careened down the highway, clutching tightly to the plastic bag on her lap, afraid it may be kidnapped by the wind. She was not used to such speed, with trembling hands she pulled the seatbelt tighter but was careful not to touch the patent leather seats with her callused fingers, her daughter had warned her not to dirty it, ‘Fingerprints show very clearly on white, Ma.’

Her daughter, Bee Choo, was driving and talking on her sleek silver mobile phone using big words the old woman could barely understand. ‘Finance’ ‘Liquidation’ ‘Assets’ ‘Investments’… Her voice was crisp and important and had an unfamiliar lilt to it. Her BeeChoo sounded like one of those foreign girls on television. She was speaking in an American accent.

The old lady clucked her tongue in disapproval. ‘I absolutely cannot have this. We have to sell!’ Herdaughter exclaimed agitatedly as she stepped on the accelerator; her perfectly manicured fingernails gripping onto the steering wheel in irritation.

‘I can’t DEAL with this anymore!’ she yelled as she clicked the phone shut and hurled it angrily toward the backseat. The mobile phone hit the old woman on the forehead and nestled soundlessly into her lap. She calmly picked it up and handed it to her daughter.

‘Sorry, Ma,’ she said, losing the American pretence and switching to Mandarin. ‘I have a big client in America. There have been a lot of problems.’ The old lady nodded knowingly. Her daughter was big and important.

Bee Choo stared at her mother from the rear view window, wondering what she was thinking. Her mother’s wrinkled countenance always carried the same cryptic look.

The phone began to ring again, an artificially cheerful digital tune, which broke the awkward silence. ‘Hello, Beatrice! Yes, this is Elaine.’ Elaine. The old woman cringed. I didn’t name her Elaine. She remembered her daughter telling her, how an English name was very important for ‘networking’, Chinese ones being easily forgotten.

‘Oh no, I can’t see you for lunch today. I have to take the ancient relic to the temple for her weird daily prayer ritual.’

Ancient Relic. The old woman understood perfectly it was referring to her. Her daughter always assumed that her mother’s silence meant she did not comprehend.

‘Yes, I know! My car seats will be reeking of joss sticks! ‘The old woman pursed her lips tightly, her hands gripping her plastic bag in defence. The car curved smoothly into the temple courtyard. It looked almost garish next to the dull sheen of the ageing temple’s roof. The old woman got out of the back seat, and made her unhurried way to the main hall.

Her daughter stepped out of the car in her business suit and stilettos and reapplied her lipstick as she made her brisk way to her mother’s side.

‘Ma, I’ll wait outside. I have an important phone call to make,’ she said, not bothering to hide her disgust at the pungent fumes of incense.

The old lady hobbled into the temple hall and lit a joss stick. She knelt down solemnly and whispered her now familiar daily prayer to the Gods.

Thank you God of the Sky, you have given my daughter luck all these years. Everything I prayed for, you have given her. She has everything a young woman in this world could possibly want. She has a big house with a swimming pool, a maid to help her, as she is too clumsy to sew or cook.

Her love life has been blessed; she is engaged to a rich and handsome angmoh man. Her company is now the top financial firm and even men listen to what she says. She lives the perfect life. You have given her everything except happiness. I ask that the gods be merciful to her even if she has lost her roots while reaping the harvest of success.

What you see is not true; she is a filial daughter to me. She gives me a room in her big house and provides well for me. She is rude to me only because I affect her happiness. A young woman does not want to be hindered by her old mother. It is my fault.

The old lady prayed so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. Finally, with her head bowed in reverence she planted the half-burnt joss stick into an urn of smouldering ashes.

She bowed once more. The old woman had been praying for her daughter for thirty-two years. When her stomach was round like a melon, she came to the temple and prayed that it was a son.

Then the time was ripe and the baby slipped out of her womb, bawling and adorable with fat thighs and pink cheeks, but unmistakably, a girl. Her husband had kicked and punched her for producing a useless baby who could not work or carry the family name.

Still, the woman returned to the temple with her new-born girl tied to her waist in a sarong and prayed that her daughter would grow up and have everything she ever wanted. Her husband left her and she prayed that her daughter would never have to depend on a man.

She prayed every day that her daughter would be a great woman, the woman that she, meek and uneducated, could never become. A woman with nengkan; the ability to do anything she set her mind to. A woman who commanded respect in the hearts of men. When she opened her mouth to speak, precious pearls would fall out and men would listen.

She will not be like me, the woman prayed as she watched her daughter grow up and drift away from her, speaking a language she scarcely understood. She watched her daughter transform from a quiet girl, to one who openly defied her, calling her laotu;old-fashioned. She wanted her mother to be ‘modern’, a word so new there was no Chinese word for it.

Now her daughter was too clever for her and the old woman wondered why she had prayed like that. The gods had been faithful to her persistent prayer, but the wealth and success that poured forth so richly had buried the girl’s roots and now she stood, faceless, with no identity, bound to the soil of her ancestors by only a string of origami banknotes.

Her daughter had forgotten her mother’s values. Her wants were so ephemeral; that of a modern woman. Power, Wealth, access to the best fashion boutiques, and yet her daughter had not found true happiness. The old woman knew that you could find happiness with much less. When her daughter left the earth everything she had would count for nothing. People would look to her legacy and say that she was a great woman, but she would be forgotten once the wind blows over, like the ashes of burnt paper convertibles and mansions.

The old woman wished she could go back and erase all her big hopes and prayers for her daughter; now she had only one want: That her daughter be happy. She looked out of the temple gate. She saw her daughter speaking on the phone, her brow furrowed with anger and worry. Being at the top is not good, the woman thought, there is only one way to go from there -down.

The old woman carefully unfolded the plastic bag and spread out a packet of beehoon in front of the altar. Her daughter often mocked her for worshipping porcelain Gods. How could she pray to them so faithfully and expect pieces of ceramic to fly to her aid? But her daughter had her own gods too, idols of wealth, success and power that she was enslaved to and worshipped every day of her life.

Every day was a quest for the idols, and the idols she worshipped counted for nothing in eternity. All the wants her daughter had would slowly suck the life out of her and leave her, an empty soulless shell at the altar.

The old lady watched her joss tick. The dull heat had left a teetering grey stem that was on the danger of collapsing. Modern woman nowadays, the old lady sighed in resignation, as she bowed to the east one final time to end her ritual. Modern woman nowadays want so much that they lose their souls and wonder why they cannot find it.

Her joss stick disintegrated into a soft grey powder. She met her daughter outside the temple, the same look of worry and frustration was etched on her daughter’s face. An empty expression, as if she was ploughing through the soil of her wants looking for the one thing that would sow the seeds of happiness.

They climbed into the convertible in silence and her daughter drove along the highway, this time not as fast as she had done before.

“Ma,” Bee Choo finally said, “I don’t know how to put this. Mark and I have been talking about it and we plan to move out of the big house. The property market is good now, and we managed to get a buyer willing to pay seven million for it. We decided we’d prefer a cosier penthouse apartment instead. We found a perfect one in Orchard Road. Once we move in to our apartment we plan to get rid of the maid, so we can have more space to ourselves…”

The old woman nodded knowingly. Bee Choo swallowed hard. “We’d get someone to come into do the housework and we can eat out – but once the maid is gone, there won’t be anyone to look after you. You will be awfully lonely at home and, besides that, the apartment is rather small. There won’t be space. We thought about it for a long time, and we decided the best thing for you is if you moved to a Home. There’s one near Hougang – it’s a Christian home, a very nice one.”

The old woman did not raise an eyebrow. “I’ve been there; the matron is willing to take you in. It’s beautiful with gardens and lots of old people to keep you company! I hardly have time for you, you’d be happier there.”

“You’d be happier there, really.” Her daughter repeated as if to affirm herself. This time the old woman had no plastic bag of food offerings to cling tightly to; she bit her lip and fastened her seat belt, as if it would protect her from a daughter who did not want her anymore. She sunk deep into the leather seat, letting her shoulders sag, and her fingers trace the white seat.

“Ma?” her daughter asked, searching the rear view window for her mother. “Is everything okay?” What had to be done, had to be done. “Yes,” she said firmly, louder than she intended, “if it will make you happy,” she added more quietly.

“It’s for you, Ma! You’ll be happier there. You can move there tomorrow, I already got the maid to pack your things.” Elaine said triumphantly, mentally ticking yet another item off her agenda.

“I knew everything would be fine.”

Elaine smiled widely; she felt liberated. Perhaps getting rid of her mother would make her happier. She had thought about it. It seemed the only hindrance in her pursuit of happiness. She was happy now. She had everything a modern woman ever wanted; Money, Status, Career, Love,Power and now, Freedom, without her mother and her old-fashioned ways to weigh her down…

Yes, she was free. Her phone buzzed urgently, she picked it up and read the message, still beaming from ear to ear. ‘”Stocks 10% increase!”

Yes, things were definitely beginning to look up for her… And while searching for the meaning of life in the luminance of her hand phone screen, the old woman in the backseat became invisible, and she did not see the tears.

Hark! The merry chimes are pealing,

Soft and glad the music swells,

Gaily in the night wind stealing,

Sweetly sound the wedding bells.

(Eliza Cook)

My wife and I attended the holy matrimony between my wife’s cousin Josephine Ngieng and Stephen Tan held at 11 a.m. this morning at the St Joseph Cathedral in Miri. How time flies! We used to carry Josephine when she was still a baby…….alamak! This means that we are really getting old, haha!

The holy matrimony was conducted by a personal friend Father Gabriel Chiong.  We got to know Father Gabriel about 20 years ago when he was still a music teacher. He was the piano teacher for my son Clarence for a couple of months and even gave Clarence a violin as a birthday present. My son used to call him Uncle Ding Dong, lol! Gabriel is a person whom I have a lot of respect for as he walks the talk and has such a gentle and kind temperament.

To the newly-weds, we extend our heartiest congratulations. And may the following quotes be an inspiration to you both as you start out on your journey as a married couple:

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up (Ogden Nash).

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person (Germaine Greer).

Two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one (Friedrich Halm).

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage (Martin Luther).

The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).

There are three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love ( I Corinthians 13:13).

World Vision is an international aid Christian humanitarian organization operating in nearly 100 countries around the world to combat the root causes of poverty and to provide international disaster relief. It is dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people and serves all people regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnicity. It helps the poor to help themselves, working with them to build sustainable futures for their children, families and communities through emergency relief, education, health care, economic development and promotion of justice. You can visit their website at this link and the website of World Vision Malaysia at this link.

You can do your part by sponsoring a child for RM50 a month. By sponsoring a child, you are giving that child a chance in life, a chance for the child to develop his or her potential. It really makes a difference!

I am currently sponsoring 2 children through World Vision: Ha Van Minh  of Vietnam and  Mutakali Ronica Mononoga of South Africa. Being able to do something worthwhile without any expectation of personal gain really gives you a sense of inner joy…..it makes you feel you have a purpose in life.

I know of some children who are World Vision child sponsors. You too can be a child sponsor….you too can make a difference. Listen to your heart and sponsor a child today!

Another Sunday and another trip to Emart…and this is what we bought:

This is what a wild durian look like when it is opened up:

And this is a tampoi “exposed”…..and “naked”.

Play around with some of these fruits and you can get interesting “fruity” art!