Hope in Israel-Arab Conflict

I am extremely interested in the event happening in the Holy Land. The Bible is originated from there so I feel burdened to read more about the history there to understand the issue better. And I am interested to find out whether the Bible reveals certain thing about what is happening there in the present days. I also have many questions why God would allow so many sufferings happen in the Holy Land.

By reading news through the media, we will tend to blame Israel for the terrible sufferings they inflicted on the Palestinian. The videos and pictures of children and women get killed or severely injured would cause the people to feel sympathy toward the civilians in Gaza instead of the residents in Southern Israel. No body knows what is under-reported and what is over-reported. A lot of things are controlled by the media. I think Hamas has achieved their aim as the world start to condemn Israel for the 'crime' they committed.

Through the webcast of "Gaza: The Case for Middle East Peace" in the World Economic Forum website, I listened to the speech of Peres-Israel president, Moussa-Secretary-general of the Arab League and Erdogan-Turkey P.M. Each share their views on the conflict and the solution to address the issue. They are seating beside each other and their speech contain a lot of emotions. Israel president impressed me the most. His speech is powerful. He told me things that I do not read from the media. He also use facts to substantiate his points well.

He mentioned about Iran. Iran dislikes Israel. Their leader ever says that 'Israel should be wiped off from the map'. Such statement is denying the existance of Israel nation and carries the intention of destroying it. It is perfectly logical that Hamas rockets are supplied and funded by Iran to carry out their agenda against Israel. The official policy of Hamas does not recognize the existance of Israel. Iran did the same through Hezbolah 3 years ago in the Lebanon war. The president says that Iran's ambition is to rule the Middle East.

Israel president also said that Israel does not want to go to war, their goal is to achieve peace. They had done it with Eygpt and Jordan before. Israel has the will to help Palestinian establish a state for themselves. That's why they worked closely and is progressing with the other party in West Bank. Why they can't do the same with Hamas in Gaza?

I think this is not entirely the fault of the Hamas movement. They were selected through democratic system introduced by the West. Why would majority elect them to be the government since they deploy extreme policy toward Israel? Reason being that the people in Gaza is not ready to make permanent peace with Israel. Most of them still have a lot of hatred and bitterness toward Israel due to the burden of history.

I am glad to hear that Israel has been supplying water and electricity to Gaza and they make sure no one there is starving. In order to change the hearts of the Palestinian people in Gaza, Israel has to go extra mile to show their kindness and reach out to their needs. Since Israel are a stronger and blessed nation, they have to love their enemy just like what Jesus taught. They have to help them build their country and give to the poor extraordinarily. Perhaps when the hearts of people are genuinely touched and loved, they will one day forgo their bitterness and hatred. That day, Israel and Palestine will coexist peacefully and become a good friend/neighbor.

Now, the enemy government is ruling the area so to do what I suggested above is extremely challenging.

The spirit of the darkness is at work in the hearts of hardened people. God's people, be strong and courageous! Do what is right!

Work - Back to basic

My cousin is doing extremely well in his career in Singapore. He graduated in 2004 and barely worked for 5 years. But he is now earning big time in the energy sector. His pay is almost doubled compared to his peers' on average in the engineering field. He obtained many valuable certs of his industry within a short time and became a very sought-after engineer. People usually get those certs when they reach their 40s. At the age of 30, he already has a wife, a baby girl, a house and a car. He told me the next goal is to obtain a few more important certs, join a giant energy company to get better pay and bonus and buy a condo. What an amazing guy!


Talking to my cousin leads me to reconsider the meaning of work. I think work means using our skills to do something to meet a certain demand. Let's go back to the basic of work. In ancient time, most of the people worked the land to produce food for their living and survival. Food is a demand in that time. Of course, skills are required to carry out the work. The skills determine the productivity and result which will be translated into some form of return. We call the return wages in modern economy.


I remember the current generation would say things like, "I am not interested in my work". I wonder whether this is a valid statement. When we talk about interest, there are a lot of feelings involved. Our interest may change over time as well. Further, our interest may be not relevant to the demand of the economy. Imagine, a person is very interested and reasonably good at singing but in his village people would not pay him a cent to sing. In order to make a living, wouldn't he get a day time job and treat singing as his leisure activity? A person who truly works would think about whether their skills and abilities meet the job requirement or the demand of the economy. In this argument, interest became a secondary issue. Very few people use their interest as work to make a living. However, many people tend to be too concerned about their interest and ignore what is the demand of the economy.

Recently Singapore government introduced SPUR (Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience) to encourage employers to send their workers for training during this downturn period. The good thing is that people get a chance to upgrade their skills and hopefully they come back equiped with better skills to improve their work productivity. The government has to address the two challenges to make SPUR successful and the money well spent. The first is make sure the workers sign up the right course and come back with targeted improvement. The second challenge is ensure the training provided is relevant to the future Singapore economy.

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.

Two good movies

I watched two movies in the last two days.

Yes Man

This is a hilarious comedy starring Jim Carrey. It is about a man who became very lonely and inward-looking after his girlfriend left her. He became very pessimistic about life and denied (say no to) every opportunities presented to him. One day, he met a friend that introduced him a new philosophy of life called "Yes". In the first seminar he attended, the guru preached to him to make a covenant to "Yes". Basically, he is supposed to say Yes to everything.

A lot of funny things (both good and bad) happened when he said Yes to everything. He found his new girlfriend, got promoted in his job and helped a few people big time by giving them hope. By saying Yes to everything, he also bumped into some troubles. He was arrested by the authority for being a terrorist suspect as he learned flying, dated with Iranian woman, confirmed his flight and destiny at the last minute, etc...

There are some truths in the “Yes” philosophy. The believers must be positive looking but not blindly say Yes to everything. They must also make sense of the things to make the good judgment. He finally realized that he only graduated from the first lesson.


叶问

这部电影真好看。尤其是武打的部分，演员都打的很精采。它也是中国南部（佛山）武林功夫的一些写实。

我最欣赏的是叶问对朋友的谦虚和忠诚，对国家和民族的爱护和忠诚。他的价值观和做人的原则从不被外来压力动摇。

我去年到过佛山工干，只可惜我没时间去了解当地的武林历史和文化。

With God all things are possible...

Two happenings which I think worth remembering:

Shisha - I was spending time with some of my colleagues in a pub at Arab St on Friday two weeks ago. I tried Shisha. They use charcoal to burn with the selected flavour to create smoke which is filtered by the water in the bottom of the piece of equipment. We have to inhale the smoke through a pipe connected to the equipment. That night, we ordered two Shisha, one is rose flavour and the other is cherry flavour. According to Thiru (my Indian colleague), smoking Shisha is Middle East style of socializing with people.

Sundramoorthy - I played futsal soccer at Farrer Park last Thursday. I didn't know that one of the player in the opposite team is Singapore soccer legend Sundramoorthy. He is now the Young Lion coach.

Last but not least, I like this year's verse at Tang's Shopping Mall. It reads, "......WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE - MATTHEW 19:26"

Christmas Dinner Party - Christmas In The City (New York)

"Christmas In The City" was held at Dome located at Singapore Art Muzium on the 13th Dec. I helped in the RSVP, admin & registration of the event. Our goal was to hit 70 people attending this event. I was not encouraged when we barely had 40+ confirmed RSVP at the end of Nov. The leaders knew the situation and encouraged the people to pray & fast, and work hard.

As the event date drew closer, the number skyrocketed to 70 in days. On the actual day we have 80 people attending the event! We were desperate and God gave us a miracle!

We had game (drawing the meaning of Christmas), caroling, song presentation, sharing, testimony, dance (this part was the funniest), food & city light bus tour.

Christmas Meals

Christmas isn't a Christmas without a good Christmas meal for most of the Singaporeans. During this festive season, I have already had several Christmas meals with friends and colleagues to date. Here I recalled them:

1. Fig & Olive at Vivocity (with QA department) - They serve Halal Western food. I took their BBQ chicken served with pasta. The food is ok. However the service is thumbsdown. The last few persons who got their foods had waited for more than 1 hour after the first few persons got theirs. Because of this unpleasant experience, we decided to "ban" this restaurant for future departmental lunch.
2. Warunglele at Arab St. (with colleagues) - They serve Indonesian Ala Cart Buffet food. The food is tasty and the service is excellent. The price is very reasonable.
3. Dome at Singapore Art Muzium (with church friends) - They serve buffet food for 80 people at our Christmas Dinner Party. The food is plain. It could have been better. The cutlery, bowl and plate used are all plastic which doesn't quite match the standard we expected. Furthermore, there is only one male and one female toilet. People are jammed there for long time. We concluded that this place is not suitable for big event like ours.
4. Grand Copthorne Hotel (with EHS committee) - They serve buffet lunch. Most of my colleagues like the big raw oyster and one of them ate 12! I didn't eat much as my tummy was not well. But I was glad I could take my favourite Jap food - the sashimi. Overall, it is a good and sumptious meal.

Stanchart Marathon 2008

I ran the 10km Stanchart last Sunday. I was excited because it was my first time running such a long distance. My target was to complete the 10km within 1 hour without stopping. I didn't stop throughout the race. However, my timing is 1h:11m:49s (gun) / 1h:8m:42s (net), slightly falling short of my goal. Jian Ming and I ran together at the beginning but we parted after about 2km.

I think my regular training before the event helped me to finish the race well. I tried to jog 3km at least once a week. In this way, I trained my stamina and maintained a healthy lifestyle. While I was running the race, I was thinking whether I should sign up half-marathon in 2009. If I were to sign up, I will need to jog at least 8km to train up my stamina.

I was later told that Hope Church (the organization I registered with) got 6th place in the Non-profit Org Distance Challenge and it is the only church that receives placing.

Learning from two good books

I read two good books last week. The first book is Joyce Meyer's "Battlefield of the mind". This book talks about our freedom in Christ in the mind. The content is very practical and useful for personal life. The second book is "The 4th Dimension" authored by Dr David Yonggi Cho. This is a very powerful book for personal life and ministry.

Here are my take-home points from these books:

Battlefield of the mind

1. The smoke of cigarette is disgusting to people who do not smoke. Negative thinking is best illustrated as the smoke of cigarette for those who have the mind of Christ. In order to live a victorious life, we ought to fill our mind with the thoughts of Christ through knowing His Word. Spend a lot of time in reading and studying His Word!
2. When we have judgemental thoughts toward someone, we become a god to the person we judge. Don't choose to become a god to other people, rather learn to love people. Judging people is not our job; it is God's job.

The 4th Dimension

1. The law of faith - a) When we pray, we must pray very specifically. Don't pray vague prayer. Pray and ask God to answer our specific and clear-cut goals. We will know that it is God's answered prayer only when we are clear what we pray for. b) Pray for strong desire to see things happen. c) Pray until we have great assurance from God that he is going to answer our prayer.
2. The 4th dimension - There are 3 dimensions in the material world. The 1st dimension is a line. The 2nd dimension is a plane. The 3rd dimension is a cubic. But it is in the 4th dimension God's spirit works and creates. Our faith also operates in the 4th dimension. We can experience this by creating and envisioning clear and vivid mental pictures of what we want to see happen in our lives. When we do this, God will work through our visions and make things happen.
3. The creative power of the spoken word - Don't always beg with God. We have to learn to command things to happen according to God's word and power.
4. Rhema - Ask Holy Spirit for guidance and direction in our specific situation. Wait upon Him. When God speaks to our hearts He can in one second do far greater than we could do in one entire year. Don't hurry to do a lot of things using our fleshly effort.
5. School of Andrew - Think big. Think miracles. Persevere on when we face troubles and obstacles. In the story of Jesus feeding the 5000, Philips thought of the impossible. In contrast, Andrew had the possibility thinking. He gave to Jesus what he had though he doubted. God can use the little one of us to do the impossible!
6. God’s address – He dwells in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We can tap his endless resource, power and authority to overcome any life challenges.

Improving our languague and communication

We observed that a lot of people in Singapore like to speak Singlish. What is Singlish? Basically, it is English that is greatly influenced by the Singapore culture and languages. Common words used are "mah", "leh", "lah", etc...People here especially the students love to use words such as, "right?", "like" when they construct their sentences. Honestly I sometimes get irritated because a supposedly beautiful language has been poorly spoken and used. In my opinion, the government should create more awareness in the proper use of English.

Speaking proper English is only one of the communication skills. I am not a language expert or gifted communicator. And I only started to use English more frequently when I came to Singaore in year 2000. However, as I want to improve my communication skill, I set some standards for myself in the following areas:

1. Speaking clearly - Don't have to use bombastic English to get our points across. But using the correct word is important. It is fun to learn and discover how one English word can be used in so many ways.
2. Creating simple sentence - Use basic and correct sentence structure. Try not to construct lengthy sentences as it will confuse people. Do away with redundant words. The most basic sentence consist of a noun, a verb and an object.
3. Listening & understanding - Pro 18:2, "A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions". I learned the truth of this verse in the hard way. I seldom sought to understand and clarify other people's point. I focused on airing my own opinions and I always spoke rashly. Now, I make sure I am fully clear of what people say. If what they say is vague, I will seek to clarify and question what was being spoken. In this way, I not only know the issue clearly, but also help people to clarify their own thoughts.

I believe communication is an art. It requires life-long learning process to improve. We can gradually improve through diligent and active listening, speaking, reading, writing (like what I am doing now) and practising.