牛 Year '09 home trip

I had a awesome and wonderful trip. For the first time, I feel so trouble-free in taking transport when I visited home. I followed my ex-classmate JinCai's car to go back on the 24th dawn and followed my cousin GuiHui's car to come back on the 29th afternoon. I think I was very thick-skin when I requested them to give me a ride...haha. When I was in Banting, my good friend PengKiat came back and forth (35km) from Klang to pick me. In the evening, he sent me to 1U, back and forth again. I was thankful but he said I was too 客气(courteous)！

On the first two days, I helped my sister sell home-made CNY cookies at 1U. I tried my best to be a good salesman to the aunties and 小姐(young ladies)。We hit RM1700 sales on Sat and RM800 sales on Sun (half-day) which is considered very good. I was amazed by the willingness of the customers to spend on our relatively-expensive cookies. Later on I learned from my sister that they are many rich people living in the area. Another unforgettable event is that my sis 美芳 was interviewed by NTV7 reporter and was broadcasted on the evening news.

My father surprised me by cooking reunion dinner for us (my mum was away during this new year). He never did it for us as far as I remember. The dishes are grilled fish cooked with garlic and ginger (it is slightly over-cooked), veggy soup, 菜花+prawn+pork. He also bought and prepared roasted pork and chicken for the dinner. I was quite touched by his act of love. I also feel that his relationship with my 2nd sister had turned better.

The happiest thing this CNY is I can meet quite a few families and friends whom I treasured. I hope to spend more time with them and keep them in my prayer and thought.

The Conflict in Gaza Strip

I had been following the news on the Israel-Hamas conflict. I am saddened by the many innocent civilians killed during the war. I would not comment who is right and who is wrong. I think both side is equally wrong in many ways.

To Hamas:

1. You smuggled in weapons and fired rockets at Israel to kill innocent civilian is wrong.
2. Your movement policy is to wipe out Israel from the map. You are extremely wrong because you plan to murder a nation.
3. You trained suicide bombers to kill themselves and innocent lives. You disresgard dignity of life so you are wrong.

To Israel ruling goverment:

1. You are wrong because you invaded Gaza to advance your political cause. You have an election on February and you want to save your 'face' from the humiliated war in Lebanon 2006.
2. You are wrong if you imposed unreasonable blockade and without providing aid to the Gazans. That caused the people to live in a 'cage' and suffer great poverty.
3. During your operation, you did not exercise your utmost restraint from killing innocent lives. Palestinian death toll is 1300+ (50% are confirmed civilians). Israel death toll is 10 soldiers and 3 cilivians. Your force is far too disproportionate. This is not a war. This is a bully. You are a big bully because you attacked a defenceless nation to show your military might.

Why these two nations have a long history (almost 100 years) of war? They cannot live in peace because they have not overcome their hatred, intolerance, misunderstanding and selfish ambitions. As long as these human weaknesses still exist, we will not see sustainable peace soon.

《赤壁》决战天下

上周六我看了《赤壁》决战天下。我最喜欢的环节是各种阴谋和诡计在战场的应用。印象最深刻的包挂周瑜“反间计”和孔明“草船借箭”的并用使曹操中计，误杀两大水军将领蔡瑁和张允。在戏中也看到了孔明“借东风”和“火烧连环船”的威力。在南方二大军师的精明策划之下，曹操做了错误的判断而输了这场赤壁之战。

最有趣的是当周瑜称赞孔明的发明时，孔明回复说，“什么都略懂一点点，生活也多彩一些些”。我觉得这也蛮有道理的。

这部电影在战争场面的拍摄很不错，我觉得很接近西方电影的素质。

Flipping-card testimony 2008

I gave a flipping-card testimony on stage on 28/12 in the Adults Services. Just as how the ecomony had sank deeply in year 2008, my life had headed to the south in most of the year. I was turned around from "being depressed, in bondage" to "having full of joy and freedom" in the last quarter of the year by the grace of God. I can share with you the "how" part face-to-face if you are interested.

The coming economic collapse 即将来临的经济崩溃

Recently I read a book called “The coming economic collapse”. This book mainly discusses the effect of oil supply on the future world economy. The author views that there will be a severe oil shortage if the world leaders are not urgent on developing alternate energy. In that time, oil price will go up higher than 200USD per barrel, and the consequence will be grave.

Because now we have sufficient energy, we are able to support the present complex civilization. But when the days of cheap oil are over and we don’t have alternate energy, our civilization will collapse and we will be forced to go back to “stone age”. Reason is very simple: when the oil price is skyrocketed without control due to supply shortages, we will not drive our cars to the city to work due to expensive petrol price. We will rather work near our home. In that time, we probably don’t need very specialized jobs such as finance, banking, etc...Instead, we will work the land to produce crops for our basic needs such as food and shelter.

The other interesting point the author wrote is about “collective blindness”. It happened during the dotcom bubble in 2001 and American War in Iraq 2003.

During the dotcom boom, almost all the investors speculated dotcom stocks had limitless potential for growth. Hundreds of thousand investors lost their investment and retirement fund when the bubble burst.

In 2003 when America decided to wage war against Iraq, all the intelligence was pointing the evidence that Iraq have WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction), but did not attempt hard to find the evidence that Iraq does not have WMD. In 2004, officials announced there was no WMD in Iraq and the decision to go to war in Iraq because of WMD was wrong.

According to study, we will naturally respect the power (or leader) above us and we do not voice out our disagreement easily when we work in the team. It is important the people follow and respect the leader to create unity to complete certain task successfully. However, we may easily fall into a trap that we do not look at things objectively. The leader may make wrong judgment and the team may collectively head to the wrong direction.

Learning: In order to succeed, we have to assess the fact and info by ourselves to make sound judgment rather than following people blindly.

Christmas Gifts

I received two very meaningful gifts last Christmas:

1. The World Map (from Name) - I serve locally and think globally. I hope to have more travelling opportunities in this year.


2. A book titled "Cross Cultural Conflict" (from Florence) - My caregroup is very diversified and exotic. We have five nationalities - Thailand, Singapore, Myammar, China and Malaysia. Yet we can make good friends with each other. This is amazing. The book will definitely provide me greater insight on cross cultural teamwork and conflict handling.
   

I also gave out two gifts I think meaningful:

1. Bible - I bought a quality NIV Bible with good price for Britma - James' brother. It is gold-plated at the pages' surrounding, with reasonably thick cover and quality papers. I was surprised I got it at a much cheaper price at Nexus (after membership discount) compared to other Christian shops in town. I managed to get everyone in the caregroup to write words of encouragement in it. I did all these hoping he will treasure the Word of God.
   
2. Shirt - I bought a red-colored Giordano shirt for Name. I blessed him as he needs it to serve in the church's usher team. He desires to live for God and has been faithfully serving in the usher team.