2011 resolutions

New year resolution 2011 - to learn the ways of being a Chinese.

One advice received: "强迫你学一门中国国粹，你会学什么呢？

1京剧。Opera

2古典乐器。Classical musical instrument (like guzheng played by the bear?)

3中医 Chinese medicine

4中国水墨画 Chinese watercolour

5麻将。Mahjong

6书法。Calligraphy

7民族舞蹈。Folk dance

8古诗词 poem

9鉴赏古玩。Antiques

10中式烹饪。Chinese cuisine

11相声小品。Comics/sketching

12.中国风水学。Fengshui

13.围棋 Chinese chess

14工艺陶瓷 Ceramics

15变脸；Face changing art

16武术功夫 Chinese kungfu

17周易 I ching

18剪纸 Paper cutting

I wonder who can teach me what?

May your wishes come true in 2011

Snowing in Shanghai

The first snow fall in Shanghai was met with different reactions. Some squealed with delight when snowflake fell onto their faces, others pulled their coats closed and groaned. But a gentleman next to me on the plane, came up with a beautiful poem 诗. He wrote it in my diary.

I see snowflakes falling,

Floating down from heaven to earth,

My heart joins you as you swirl,

And capture your tranquility.

( a tribute to the first snow in Shanghai, 15 Dec.,2010 )

Knowing what you want and....

Sitting next to me on my flight home from Changsha is a young man studiously reading an English dictionary as thick as a brick! I cant help but ask. Turned out he was on his way to Hong Kong to take the SAT test, a qualifier to study in the States and he was working on polishing up his English.

More interestingly, not only did he speak English fluently and some Cantonese, Owen Wu spoke with a maturity beyond his years (he is hardly 17) and exuded an air of confidence.

I asked where he learnt his English and Cantonese.

"Self-taught" he replied seriously.

"How?" I could not help asking once again.

"Determination. Step by step" was Owen's simple formula. Starting from the basics such as reading every day (he reads New York Times), saying the words out loud and even reading the dictionary!

"How about a conducive environment (环境)?"

And Owen offered his wisdom once more "环境 is important, but not the most important. No one at home or in my school speaks English or Cantonese. What's most important is knowing what you want to achieve and getting it done'.

From a 17 year old from Changsha? That's doubly impressive.

Life is talking to you

My mentee shared with me "These days I am very busy with projects, while I don't know what I am work for.... Feel lost sometimes"

And my response was

"We all feel lost at some point in our lives. Treasure that lost feeling becos it makes us stop for a moment. It makes us reflect and think about what we are doing, whats life is about and why we are doing what we are doing.

If we dont have these moments, we may suddenly wake up one day to find we are 70 or 80, and then we can do nothing much to change at that time.

I have many of such moments. Each time, inspite of the terrible feeling I have, I will spend the quiet time to find out why I want what I want, how I want it, what can I do. Each time, I come out of these moments, feeling a little scared (because I will be making changes) but re-energised.

And now that I look back, each time these moments have moved me on to higher levels. Treasure these moments. Life is talking to you.

Listen!

Looking back

Dragon lady

I was assured that laid deep within that gaudy gold building along Nanjingxilu Shanghai are the very best Chinese doctors. Climbed up a long flight of stairs (I wonder how the sick and frail do this), was greeted by a few middle aged ladies with out-of-fashion curly hair styles and dressed in white coats that have seen better days. Paid RMB20, was given a number and told to sit in a long dim corridor to wait. I surveyed the surroundings with a sense of trepidation. The walls were plaster boards that looked like it was put up overnight by fly-by-night type of operations. The oldish-looking doctor in the room was spotting Brad Pitt’s type of few day old stubbles (except he was not Brad Pitt by any measure of imagination) and had the same crinkly looking white (once white?) coat on. “This is the best?” I questioned silently and fidgetted in my seat.

My turn soon came. The doctor looked at me kindly and put three fingers across my wrist to listen to the pulse. “Hmmm..” he scratched his three day old beard dreamily. The other wrist, he gestured with his index finger. More “hmmm”. I waited for the prognosis. The doctor shifted slowly in his chair and said to me. “You have…hmmm...what do you call it? Hmmm…inner fire”. I looked back at him and said, “Like a dragon?” A smile, a twinkle and the reply, “Quite so”. “Hmmm” I said, keeping my mouth shut tightly so as not to burn him with my breath.

Be Do Have

Most of us understand "Have", things that we desire in our lives, life goals, aims. Stuff that dreams are made of. And those of us who achieve our "Haves", we are normally good at the "Do". Do involves preparing good plans, setting up steps, processes and yardsticks to achieve our "Haves". However, quite of a few of us, after the initial exhilaration of achievement, we question "Is this all?" and in our quest to find the answer, start on another cycle of Doing and Having. On and on, until one day, we come to realise that we are like a guinea pig peddling crazily in a wheel but getting nowhere at all.


It was not until Kate* shared with me the cycle of Be-Do-Have that the scales dropped from my eyes. Yes, "Be" is the missing link. Why do we choose to do what we are doing? What meaning does it bring to us as a person? Not only will the clarity of Being give us a sense of deeper purpose but it would the continuous well of energy that we can tap into to keep going strong when things are not going our way.


Next time before we start on another quest, take a moment to figure out who you want to be, even before you start to think of what you want to have and how you can achieve it. Like Kate advised 

"Focus on the being first, then the doing and the having will come to you".

*Kate Mo is a young lady in her 20s and she has the wisdom of one way beyond her years. She was the first to help me understand Be-Do-Have and how to apply it in life and at work

Through the looking glass

"The I Ching does not vaunt itself, nor is it easy to approach. Like a part of nature, it waits to be discovered. To one person, its spirit appears as clear as day; to another, shadowy as twilight; to a third, as dark as night." C.G. Jung on the I Ching -Book of Changes as translated by Richard Wilhelm (1950)

Through regular study of  the 64 hexagrams of I Ching, I have not only gain insights into how a Chinese mind works, but am amazed that 5,000 years after its first written, the words of wisdom in the book is ever fresh in applicability and practicality. It counsels one to be even-tempered and tread carefully, thoughtfully (#10), suggests another to take a step back to view the situation from a wider perspective (#33) and encourages a third to be brave and set forth to make his dreams come true (#46).

But one thing that comes to mind often, I am reminded of Professor Fred Dubee's words "We see things not as they are but as we are" and I wonder if I am reading the I Ching or I am reading my own thoughts mirrored by the I Ching.

Rain or shine

One of the songs we are taught in kindergarten is "rain rain go away, come back on another day", giving rain a bad name and making us into little sun worshippers.
Thankfully, as I grew older, I learnt to appreciate rain more and more. It's refreshing qualities, its instant relief in a sweltering summer heat, and even its ability to turn a walk in the drizzle, a romantic stroll.
Funny thing is, rain has never changed in all these years. It still makes my nice shoes wet, the ends of my jeans soaked or my hair damp and frizzy. But what has changed is my mindset. My ability to stop judging something as good or bad, but just to take it as it is and make the best out of the situation. Come rain or shine, it is yet another beautiful day worth embracing.

Eat not at home

The I-Ching 易经 first made itself known to me some years ago, but no matter how hard I tried to read it for enlightenment, the words were spun so tightly together with references to dragons, forts, princes and sages that it might as well have been written in Aramaic*.


And recently, it once again re-surfaced in my life. Instead of reading it like a novel, this time I asked the book a question and the answer came back so stark and simple that the 5,000 years between us melted away. Gone were the convoluted references to flying dragons or heavenly mountains. At that point in life, I was dithering between an opportunity locally and one overseas. The I Ching simply stated "Not eating at home brings good fortune, it furthers one to cross the great water". I gaped in wonder at the clarity of advice, almost like an instruction barked out by a sergeant to a cadet. And a week later, I packed my bags to "try the food across those waters". 
So far so good. 


Besides the food on this side of the planet seemed to taste better than my homecooked instant noodles anyway!


* Aramaic - considered an endangered language. Cartoon:Hanging on the rack are roast goose, barbeque pork, roast pork, steam chicken, a typical Hong Kong "烧味  siu mei" fare. The cat (me) gives up eating fish (something familiar) to try the new (烧味). Nice.

The phantom is here

The bear and I watched the Phantom of the Opera more times than we can count.  Each time as enthralled as the last, with sounds of the chandeliers crashing to the ground still ringing in our ears!


Not all phantoms give me the same delight. In fact I can think of a few lurking around (mainly inside my mind) that scares me silly. Sickness, not realising one's dreams, pettiness; amongst the few. 


It was until I read Heraclitus' wise words "It is disease that makes health pleasant, hunger than makes fullness good, weariness that makes rest sweet", I started to view some of my phantoms a little differently.  Instead of being destroyers of a beautiful life, one day I hope to be able to appreciate them the way Heraclitus' sees his phantoms, to make a beautiful life even sweeter and better. One day.

Take me back to me

One of my favourite books is called Simple Abundance. A book of about 2 inches thick, my bear always laughs when he sees me reading it, because "how can a thick book like that be simple?", the bear challenges. But wait. The simplicity lies not in the physical lightness of the book, but lies in the lightness of the inspiration and the illumination received from the ideas. It highlights some simple pleasures in life that we have thrown aside as our calendars get really crowded, our lives get more sophisticated and when demands pile mercilessly upon us.

On most Saturday mornings, with the heavy book tucked in the crook of my arm, a box of pencil colours and my diary, I would sit out at the meditation pond opposite my home and let the book gently take over my time; and take me back to me.

Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort & Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. I dont know how many pages is this book because it does not have any page numbers!

Soaking up all the good things of life

Tis' the season to be hairy

We used to wonder what's the craze about hairy crabs. All over China during late autumn, these little critters with furry claws (the crabs look like they are wearing dark woolen mittens) sell for as much as RMB100 each. For a crab as big as your fist, surely one must be crazy to pay so much. But hey wait, they are twice to triple the price by the time they make it to the dining tables in prosperous Hong Kong.


This year we decided to travel up north to meet the crabs in their hometown - Yangcheng Lake, about one and a half hours drive from the glittering towers of Shanghai. A small town bordering Yangcheng Lake, Bacheng in Kunshan is lined with, literally, thousands of hairy crab restaurants. Yes, thousands!


Advice received from fellow hairy crab revellers:
1. Choose crabs that are staring fiercely back at you, literally waving their eyes at you at the end of the stalks. Frothing even better.
2. When the dark green crabs turn to tangerine orange in the steamer, it is fully cooked.
3. To eat, peel off the top shell, the bottom half of the back shell. Holding it upside down, make sure to scrape away the grey stuff and remove the heart, a hexagonal shaped white star.
4. Use the vinegar dip. Savour the roe. Mmmm.
5. End meal with yellow wine for the brave, or cups of hot ginger tea for the gentle.


The best season for hairy crabs is from early Sept to late Oct.  

Homecoming

In a humid Chinese factory bigger than 10 football fields, I looked out across the sea of black-haired heads bent studiously over the work bench. Fingers furiously sticking pieces of Nike ticks and bits of material onto a sneaker destined for faraway places. It was there I had an epiphany.


400 years ago, my ancestor(s) mustered up enough courage to sail away from home, seeking a land of gold, never to return. 400 years later, with only a Chinese name on my birth certificate and 6* Chinese characters as my worldly possession and claim to return to my ancestors' motherland, I arrived home. 


What a glorious feeling. What a strange feeling. I suppose the mix feelings is only natural if you have been away for four centuries.


* The 6 characters are one, two, three and my own name written in Chinese which translates roughly (and poetically humourous) as "think of the smiling flower when drinking soup". 

We see things not as they are but as we are

drawing by Wawa

At the Leadership Insight Forum held for approx 300 MBA students in Shanghai, we explored the unfamiliar but ever so popular realm of a global mindset. Professor Fred Dubee sums up a closed mindset as "We see things not as they are but as we are".


To break out of the closet and build a global mindset, try some or all of these:


1. Stay (very) curious, ask questions
2. Be brave, take a different view of things
3. Build your network locally and internationally, say, get a penpal
4. Actively ask for feedback
5. Get out of your comfort zone, say, use another way to go home
6. When on a business trip, stay behind to look around
7. Read widely and regularly
8. Travel not just for sight seeing but for people interaction

And as the Chinese saying goes "Come to the table with an empty cup" so that the world can fill you in.

8 hand goddess at work

Style of cartoon inspired by Mandycats

Let me light up your life

"Radiate light, not heat," was the advice from coach James McLeod. Easier said than done but it certainly got me thinking.


Just how does one generate light (on the [problem) without the accompanying heat (the sting of criticism)? 


Here's a shot at light-giving.


To begin with, I think it is critical that our intention must be in the right place. If we intend to help, we would be throwing light onto the problem with a certain kindness, wisdom and/or understanding, as our wish is to bring the matter to a happy conclusion. However, if our intention is to show how much better we are compared to the other, then whatever we say would be perceived as an admonishment or a criticism. Serving only to make the other draw back from the heat defensively.


And a large dose of empathy would certainly help in our light radiation. When we step into the shoes of the other, look at the world through their eyes, we would think and act differently. Perhaps our words would somewhat gentler, more illuminating and certainly more focused on providing a solution than chewing on the problem. 


Copying a famous phrase from the Bible "Let there be light."

Tomato flower

Chao, a beautiful young Shanghainese girl, recorded her few days in Guizhou using a comic book approach. The sketching in black and white are vivid, full of energy and emotion. 


Observing the surroundings in her host's bedroom, a faded picture of Chairman Mao pinned next to Taiwan's heartthrob Jay Chou, expired medicine and a rusty mirror, Chao wrote "It is combination of out-dated fashion and tacky modernity. It is very hard to say whether it is local culture or local poverty." 

Diamond Club

My dream of setting a Diamond Club gets ever nearer. Diamond shines Diamond, I would encourage my mentees. "When we are together, we can help polish one another and help bring out the brilliance in us."

A typical day

Arrghh....the ultimate torture machine - a screeching alarm clock in the morning




And once in the office, keep aiming for the best






Ahhh, end of the day, can relax and reflect on my typical day




(Cartoon style inspired by a Hong Kong cartoonist - Mandycats)