Appreciating your mother's hands

One young man went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the initial interview, and now would meet the director for the final interview.

The director discovered from his CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent. He asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "no".

" Was it your father who paid for your school fees?"

"My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.” he replied.

" Where did your mother work?"

"My mother worked as clothes cleaner.”

The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

" Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?"

"Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Besides, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go home today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back home, he asked his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to her son.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother winced when he touched it.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fees. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his education, his school activities and his future.

After cleaning his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, when he asked: "Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered," I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

“I know now what appreciation is. Without my mother, I would not be who I am today. By helping my mother, only now do I realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done on your own. And I have come to appreciate the importance and value of helping one’s family.

The director said, "This is what I am looking for in a manager. I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life.”

“You are hired.”

This young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and worked as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop an "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, they may be successful for a while, but eventually they would not feel a sense of achievement. They will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying our children instead?

You can let your child live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch on a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your child learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

Try to forward this story to as many as possible...this may change somebody's fate.

Source: Unknown  

The Ravages of Materialism

Is the love of money the root of all evil? The age of consumerism is a very new concept brought about from the Industrial Revolution in the 1760's and 1770's. Social intimidation and and emulative spending is penetrating deeper than before, a process which explicitly refers to as the 'Veblen Effect', which is considered to have become a force throughout society 'only in the last two centuries'.

The Veblen effect is a general theory of demand in microeconomics which identifies the concepts of conspicuous consumption and status seeking in 1899. You can read more about it here. The theory was named after economist Thorstein Veblen, and is quite similar to the snob effect and the bandwagon effect. The snob effect is preference for goods because they are different from those commonly preferred, usually for consumers who want to use and own exclusive products, price is quality for them. The bandwagon effect is when the preference for a good increases as the number of people buying them increase, they essentially 'jump on the bandwagon'.

What annoys me is how increasingly materialistic our culture has become, especially among the Asian population. I can't complain too much because I'm also a hypocrite. I too, enjoy the finer things in life, but at least I know I have put in the effort to have the higher level of thinking to understand the forces behind consumerism and to think that one step higher, so that I don't become one of the gullible mindless lemmings in the rat race for consumption, status and power.

I've noticed that among the Asian population there is a significantly higher proportion of individuals who are extremely materialistic, a sign of new money. With the rise of middle class in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, a new materialistic culture has been bred. Mega malls are built. Brand names are everywhere.

With increased income, people have the increased propensity to consume. The difference between the level of consumption between individuals is the motivations and forces behind them. Since in general, the majority of people in Chinese families are the nouveau rich due to the strict communist regime which wiped out social classes, the rise of money has led to conspicuous consumption based on extrinsic motivators for status, power and money. Big brand items such as Louis Vuitton has become a household name for an luxurious item to own.

“That’s sad. How plastic and artificial life has become. It gets harder and harder to find something…real.” Nin interlocked his fingers, and stretched out his arms. “Real love, real friends, real body parts…” 

― Jess C. Scott, The Other Side of Life

People with old money tend to be less conspicuous in their spending and consumption, they tend to be more conservative in general. What I like about people with old money is that although they are extremely lucky to have inherited their fortunes, they tend to be more experiential people with deep thoughts and high levels of thinking. They have well developed manners and etiquette, and their dealings and attitude towards people tend to be humble, honest and with integrity, maturity and respect. They have a fine appreciation of all those things around them, whether it be particular items, history, culture and nature. They don't need to dress flashy and drive the latest Lamborghini although society has pressured some to 'fit in' by doing so.

My friend and I were discussing about the consumerist culture only just last night which brought me to write this blog. We both noticed that those who don't enjoy and appreciate nature tend to be very materialistic and hold shallow values. They prefer city life. The conspicuous consumption of materialistic goods. What we noticed is that there seems to be a significant trend that people from Taiwan and Hong Kong who lack these values and appreciation of nature and natural beauty. They have no interest in star gazing or astronomical events, they have no interest in visiting natural wonders or hiking through the natural bushland. I personally prefer a balanced approach of city life and nature to get the both sides of life.

The real question is do I love money? For me, I prefer a balanced approach towards earning and consumption of money. I tend to buy things that provide best value in return of services or experience. I put a mental value on these items and services and compare it with other ones to see whether it's worth the price advertised. I avoid the mindset of status seeking and consumption. 

Having a basic understanding of consumption and the micro-economic theory will benefit those with entrepreneurship in mind such as myself. If I do earn money, I will do my best to earn in a morally and ethically manner. The basic thought behind an entrepreneur is to earn money. To me that is an extremely shallow thought and there is much more behind the level of thinking.

How you earn that money, and why you earn that money is important. Some business people exploit the weak-minded consumerists who feed on status and conspicuous consumption. Others exploit the natural resources of their country, at the cost of the growing disparity between the rich and the poor and the destruction of our natural landscapes and also which in turn also gives rise to corruption, An example of which is the oil palm and logging industry in Malaysia. Tycoons have emerged from such industries who practice unsustainable oil palm farming through clearing and logging over 60% of the total Borneo forests in Malaysia and in return replacing them with oil palm reserves.

I was fortunate enough to celebrate Chinese New Year family gathering with one of these tycoons in their private 'palace' which you can read more about here. I don't want to disclose too much information for privacy reasons, but the family is controversially well known for oil palm and logging, which is destroying the Penan tribe's forests in Malaysia. It's a sign of how greed, corruption and lack of empathy can influence people under the motivation for money, status and power. You can read an article about it here.I know with my career as a town planner, as small of a difference I can make, it is still something positive that benefits the community and the city. You are earning money to improve the city. Such altruistic thought is one of my motivational factors in my career.

Such power also comes with great responsibility. Planners are very susceptible for corruption as money can heavily influence planning approval decisions in Asian countries such as China, Malaysia, Taiwan or Vietnam. With a single tick you can demolish a whole forest to be replaced by oil palm reserves or new development. Don't be fooled by the picture below, although it appears to be very green the majority of the green is from oil palm trees.

At least in Australia there are stricter regulations in planning to prevent the likelihood of corruption but it may still occur behind closed doors. Deals may be made. As a planner, you should always maintain high ethics in all your professional dealings.

My entrepreneurship goal is to start my own real estate empire in cities around the world, starting with the Australian property market. It's important to understand the micro and macro economics at play, and each country has different regulations and factors which influence the demand and supply of the market. Why would I want so much money? Financial freedom and power. In this world, money speaks, and if this power is used in an altruistic manner it can really make a difference. I can choose to donate a certain percentage of my money to the poor or to a foundation, but if I can establish a sustainable system to educate and prevent the likelihood of people to become homeless, to fight against human rights and for what I believe in, it can really make a real difference.

Chinese New Year Countdown in Malaysia

This was my first time experiencing Chinese New Year in Malaysia. An experience I will definitely remember for the rest of my life. Here is my story.

I had just arrived at the airport in Miri direct from Kuala Lumpur. It was one of my worst 2 hour flights I have ever had. I was jammed in economy class like a pack of sheep. I spent my first hour trying to figure out the source of stench that lingered in the air. After a careful analysis of my surroundings I suddenly remembered what the smell was. It was... DURIAN.

The Indian man sitting in front of me must have been eating durian prior the flight. Initially I thought someone was letting off gas on the plane. It smelt so bad I wanted to change seats.

The last time I had durian was a month or so ago in the form of homemade durian ice-cream. At first taste it seems pretty good, it was very sweet and creamy. The taste had a uniquely rich custard  flavour with lots of almonds. But then the real taste hits you after a few mouthfuls. Travel and food writer Richard Sterling best describes the smell of durian, "its odor is best described as pig shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock".

Anyways, I was on my way back to my friends place in Miri. The city was very suburbanised. Everyone lived in Mcmansions, which bared close resemblance to the style of housing in Sunnybank Hills but with large covered patio's and car ports built into the side of the building. After a while it became an eye sore with the lack of variety in housing. Along the way fireworks were shooting up and exploding just beside us every now and then. It was an amazing sight. I never knew it could have gotten more amazing.

Boring and bland housing in Miri

We decided to countdown Chinese new year with my friend's family at one of their relative's friends place. We were greeted at the front entrance by an armed guard with what appeared to be a Winchester Model 70 bolt action rifle. In the background you can hear fireworks going off.

We drove up the pathway and then we saw a house which was bigger than the house shown above in the picture. Everyone was like "woah the house is pretty big" but then we realised the driveway continued on and that house was just an entrance house. We continued up the steep climb and came to an Y intersection with a group of what appeared to be homeless people seemingly sitting on the brick retaining wall. We asked them which was the way to the house and they pointed left. It turned out that these people were the house maids and gardeners for the owner. 

We came across another decent sized house but continued on knowing that it was just another entrance house.

Finally we came up to the house. The house featured an extremely rare and mouth-dropping garage collection complete with sports cars, SUV's and luxury sedans. The most noticeable collections were the Lamborghini Aventador, perhaps one of the only select few in Malaysia. The Nissan GTR and one of the more reasonable cars I'd like to own in the future, the Range Rover Evoque in stylish red.

We were ushered into the guest banquet room where we shook hands with the family members wishing them 新年快乐 / xi nian kuai le (happy new year). We were then led into the guest dining banquet area which showcased the hidden magnificent beauty of the house.

It was definitely an awe-dropping sight. I love houses. My mum used to take me to house inspections and open houses when we were purchasing some property when I was young and I enjoyed exploring each new house. I originally wanted to become an architect but preferred the financial and large-scale side of things so this is part of the reason why I became a town planner so that I can be a developer and real estate investor in the future.

But this house was a whole new level of huge. It was one of the biggest private homes I have ever seen in my life. The house stood five-storeys high complete with a Olympic sized swimming pool. It was a palace. My friend's uncle was certainly very well connected in Miri.

I stood by the balcony and admired the view. It overlooked into the bay with fireworks going off in the distance. Anyways, the countdown to Chinese New year was near. The firecrackers ignited the start of the countdown. The pyrotechnician was all set. This was going to be my first private fireworks display in someone's backyard.

The fireworks display was spectacularly well designed and was magical. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience. The video can only showcase so much. The rest I'll leave to a story I'll have to tell you in person. 

"Gameover" said James as the fireworks display finished. The fireworks display was impressive. I'd say it's more impressive than the riverfire and New Years fireworks display I've seen in Brisbane. We were then ushered down into the guestroom to have a couple of beers, sing karaoke and to play some pool.

The hosts first song of choice was "New York by Frank Sinatra". Frank Sinatra is one of my favourite classic jazz singers of all time. Olivia ong being my number one favourite. But with an Asian singing in a horrible accent, it felt as if the host was a westerner wannabe.

I have a very unique taste in music compared to today's generation. I have very peculiar tastes. I enjoy a range of genres from Chinese pop, jazz, indie, clubbing, lounge, techno, hip hop, rnb, classical and blues. It all really depends on the mood and setting. The music must accompany the ambience and surroundings. I tend to listen more to Chinese pop and easy listening piano jazz while at other times I'd occasionally listen to clubbing, hip hop and rnb music.

I'll finish this blog by saying that this has been a very unique experience to me. I've celebrated most of my Chinese New Years in Australia and it has been nothing like Malaysia. Fireworks going off, firecrackers going off, red lanterns and stickers everywhere, smiles all around. If only Australia shared this much festivity.

The Chinese culture is certainly something to be proud of.

Next blog: Immersing in Malaysian-Chinese culture 

If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so foaming, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility! -

Soren Kierkegaard