The Arrogance Of The Chinese

I’ve always enjoy reading what Lee Kuan Yew has to say and his views are widely respected by leaders around the world. This year he commented on The Rise of China and his prediction of what is to come. He reminded the Chinese not to repeat the mistakes of Germany, Japan and the former USSR where they had all been too carried away with their powers that they eventually collapse. He also doubted the Chinese sincerity when they assure the smaller countries in South East Asia that China does not wish to pursue any imperialist vision. This is because China will tell you that you have made 1.3 billion Chinese unhappy if you do certain things that would irritate their government. This sounds too familiar to me because we experience the same thing in Malaysia whenever the opposition demanded certain things that touch on the special rights of the Malay, the government would come out and say that you have made the Malays angry, they would go on the streets and we couldn’t control what they would do. These are all strategies of fear that are aimed at silencing the people.

Now back to China. The Middle Kingdom has showed mind boggling growth for decades and is now the second largest economy in the world. Lee Kuan Yew predicts that China will surpass the US in 40 to 50 years economically. The Chinese know that and that is why its people now have a sense of pride that they never possess before. But too much pride inevitably leads to arrogance and I have experience first hand myself. My first job in Australia was with a Chinese company. Their sense of arrogance are simply unbelievable. They think that they are superior in everything, so much so that they would want to bend any laws if they could. They are a developer and being Chinese they would want to maximize their profit by providing low quality products for their customers. Most of their products were imported from China of course. What is worse is that their Project Manager did not respect the other local professionals and would always override their decisions. I couldn’t bear working with arrogant people and I eventually left the company.

I’m actually saddened embarrassed by their behavior because I myself am a Chinese although I am not from China. And I feel what a shame that thing could be developed in another way around. With their rise in the global stage, they should be more humble in embracing other people and show greater leadership in improving the world. This opportunity does not come to just anyone and the Chinese should consider themselves lucky in this regard.

Before I migrated to Australia, a lot of people are advising me not to come here because they said that the Aussie are racists, that they do not like Asians and all that crap. These are the people who most of them have never even set foot in Australia and they are giving me advice on the country. Luckily I have studied here 13 years ago and I should know better. I never thought the Aussie are racists, in fact I’m more weary of Asians in Australia. Most of the time I don’t feel the courtesy upon entering any Asian grocery stores in Perth. Asians don’t treat other Asians well and in this regard I prefer services provided by the Australians. Most Australians are wonderful people who respect everyone regardless of their cultural background and I have so far never come across any unwelcoming attitude towards me.

My point is it is OK to celebrate your success in the case of the Chinese. But it is not right to be so arrogance that they don’t listen to others’ views in everything you do. China still has a long way to become a great nation and catch up with the US. I suggest they accept Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s advice and do not repeat the mistakes of other superpowers before them. 

When Is The Best Time To Blog

I love Saturday because there is so much I can do and achieve in this day. I usually start my Saturday very early in the morning to write my blogs. This is the time when my daughter and wife are still sound asleep so that I could have quiet time to think things through and express them in words to publish on the internet. Today is no different, waking up full of spirit and just wanted to kick start my productive weekend. I managed to publish a post on how to deal with a stubborn spouse and then came the constant banging and drilling noise from neighbor unit. I couldn’t complain because it is Saturday morning and it is ok by law for them to do renovation at this hour. The problem is I can’t think and write with this kind of background noise, it is not like I’m listening to nice and soothing piece by Mozart or Bach. So I have to stop writing but thankfully I still managed to publish one quality post that I’m sure would help people who are searching for answers to improve their relationship with their spouse.

This afternoon we plan to watch the movie Planes. I just showed my daughter the preview and she loved it! She is so excited that she can’t go back to sleep now! Saturday is the best because you know that you still have one more day off before you start working on Monday. Saturday night is just magical and I usually like to watch DVD movies at home and unwind from the previous week’s hard work.

Now back to blogging before I am too carried away with the excitement. If you were like me working full time, you would find that you hardly have time for yourself let alone blogging. But I know that I must continue to grow my blogs so that hopefully one day I may start to earn some decent living from my hard work. Blogging is my future contingency plan to sustain our lifestyle if in case my primary job is not doing well. And I love blogging and share ideas with others. The problem now is to have sufficient time for me to develop my blogs in the midst of my busy life of working and spending time with family.

I started to wake up one hour earlier than usual and that is 5am in the morning to write my blogs. I did that for one week and I fell sick. What a perfect start right? I’m at my best in the morning when my mind is completely fresh after a good night rest. I feel that ideas are flowing like a waterfall in my head and overflow onto my keyboard through my fingers (I started to think for a moment how many fingers I actually use to type!). Saturday morning is the best because I have the whole morning to myself roughly from 6am to 11am, that is a solid 5 hours where a lot could be achieved.

This is how I find time to blog so far. It is not the most ideal method but it works for now under my current situation. If you have better ideas on blogging strategy, do share it with me. Until then enjoy your Saturday!  

It Is A Whole New World

These two days I learned new things. I was shocked to find out that none of my sites are indexed by search engines eventhough I already have them for many years. Now I'm sure you can tell that I'm not a tech guru nor a computer geek. I always thought that it is an automatic thing for websites to be indexed by Google or Bing. Anyway, thanks to Google we can find almost any answers in the internet nowadays and by simply 'Googling' a few questions. I have learned new thing! I actually have to submit my websites' sitemap to Google for it to be indexed and I am happy that I've submitted them all. 

And then came the next hurdle. The forever frightening 'Pending' status right next to your submission. You start to wonder when will your sites be indexed. You then search online to see what people are sharing in the virtual world and the news is certainly not promising. Some have said that their websites were not indexed even after a week or longer! It certainly does not sound encouraging at all. You can't do anything because the ball is no longer on your court. You could only wait for the ball to be hit back from the other end back at you.

And today I was happy to wake up to good news that one of my sites has been successfully indexed! And I have also managed to solve a problem with my other site and get it verified in my Webmaster page. A few hours later after I got to my office, the first thing I did was of course not working but checking the status of my blogs again and realized that 2 more sites have been indexed! Isn't that a wonderful way to start your Friday morning!  

We never stop learning in life and if you were like me only started blogging in my late 30s, then you would have plenty to catch up and learn. But it is good because every hurdles push me harder to look for answers and the by product of that is a more knowledgeable ME!

This weekend is going to be awesome as it is forecasted to be considerably cooler than last week, in fact a sharp drop of 14 degrees to 24 degrees! I love this type of weather as it is not too hot nor cold, just perfect for outdoor activities! With a perfect Friday to start off I would like to wish you all have a wonderful and productive weekends!

Don't Buy Your Kid A Smartphone

It is getting very common that parents buy iPads or smartphones  for their kids at a very young age. I witness that whenever we dine outside, there surely will be some kids at another table playing games on their iPad while their parents are ‘busy’ eating and chatting with friends and relatives.

I also heard in the news that there is a trend among Taiwanese mothers who like to encourage their kids play around with smartphones just to keep them quiet. As a result, a lot of Taiwanese children as young as three years old are already short sighted and will have to wear glasses. This is indeed shocking!

Like most people today, we also have our smartphones but I seldom encourage my 3 years old to play with it unless in an extraordinary situation. We must come out with a substitute if we do not wish her to play with the phone. So I always give her a choice that is she can either watch cartoon or play with phone. She would choose cartoon if her favourite show is on.

Unlike any other kids, my daughter doesn’t have many toys. Most of her toys were given by her cousin after she was done with it. There are three reasons behind this: 1) I don’t wish to cultivate a materialistic culture in her by keep buying her new toys; 2) I want her to appreciate other healthier games like running around in the park; 3) I simply couldn’t afford buying new toys all the time.

Fortunately here in Australia we have a TV channel (ABC 2) that is dedicated to children programs from 6am to 7pm everyday. It shows educational programs like Mr. Maker, Sesame Street and other cartoons with positive messages for the kids. In fact, my daughter Isabelle learned a lot of her English from these programs. I still remember one day when she was still two years old and I asked her something in Chinese, she gave it a thought for a while and then she looked at me and answered: “I don’t know.” That was a surprise to me and I was touched!

Another good thing about raising kid in Australia is that there are many playgrounds and parks scattered around the neighbourhoods and we can always bring Isabelle there to have some fun in the sun, breathe some fresh air and run around to exercise her body instead of sitting in the house playing video games on smartphones.

  

During the week when I am working, my wife will always bring her to the nearby community library to play puzzles and borrow some books for her bedtime stories. She enjoys doing that because she could also have the opportunity to meet other kids and sometimes she gets to play with them as well. Isabelle is very friendly naturally and she will just approach anyone regardless of their age and race. She will play with them as long as they are not adults. The only problem is not everyone would like to play with her.

I worked full time everyday and I can only play with her after I come back from work. I will have only 3 hours quality time to spend with her, play with her and read her bedtime stories. Weekends we will have more time together and we usually go somewhere to eat and play. As a result she likes outdoor and weekends. The good thing is the weather is not as hot here except summer and we all enjoy being out there under the sun.

When I was in Malaysia last time, I always tried to avoid the sun because the hot and humid weather was not something that I was looking forward to. Most people in Malaysian and Singapore spend their weekends mainly in the shopping malls with the air conditioning turned on full blast. It is not a healthy environment for kids. Firstly, they are always in an artificial environment and not out there in nature. Secondly, they are exposed to the materialistic work at a very young age with all the branded outlets you have in the malls.

If we keep doing certain things constantly we will improve over time. Likewise, if you let your kids play smartphones all the time, they will be expert in video games and be fixated in front of the computer all the time. If you bring them to shopping malls every weekend, they would cultivate a culture of buying stuff for no obvious reasons when they grow up. On the other hand, if you train your kids to enjoy other good stuff of life like nature and human interaction, they may grow up to be better adults. Don’t buy your kid a smartphone simply because it is convenience for you. Think about what they would become.

Hot Weekend

With global warming and scarcity of land, city farming is getting popular throughout the world as a new way of looking at sustainability living. There was news on a Tokyo office building which has its entire façade dedicated to planting vegetable. This indeed could become a new aesthetic element that architects could utilize in their future building design.

Perth in its aspiration to be a global city also has its own city farm albeit on a much smaller scale. There is a problem of identity when Perth officials think of city farming. The City Farm in East Perth was listed in one of the venue for Perth Heritage Week this weekend and I just couldn’t understand why. The buildings’ walls were painted with beautiful graffiti that give the place its own unique charm.

We went to this place yesterday hoping to see some cuddling animals as advertised in the brochure so that my little playful daughter could have some fun. However, the only animal we say was a little pink plastic or metal piglet. They were having a farmers market and sold all sort of local produce mainly from the farm. There is a café in the centre of the farm selling cooked food, cakes, drinks and coffee. I imagined it could be a nice place to visit on a much cooler day because the heat yesterday was unbearable. With its tight space and low buildings, I felt that someone the heat is being trap on the ground level and couldn’t escape. This is more so inside the café with its low height of metal roofing without heat insulation.

Yesterday was simply too hot, it was 38 degrees and I think we suffered minor heat stroke from that. I slept soon after I got back because of the intense headache and dizziness. Slept too long in the afternoon that I stayed up late last night watching movies on TV: Shooter starring Mark Wahlberg and The Condemned starring Steve Austin. It was one of those unusual nights where we got to watch entire movies because our daughter was too tired that she went to bed early last night, yeah! Not a bad Saturday indeed except for the heat and headache.

Thankfully today’s weather has changed for the better with the maximum temperature forecasted to be just 29 degrees, that is 9 degrees difference from yesterday! I’m excited because we are going to visit the majestic Government House which we missed last year!

Perth Will Never Beat Melbourne

Today I almost fell off my chair by the backward attitude of city planners when I read the news on ‘Planners reject rooftop proposal’ by Yolanda Zaw in The West Australian.

A rooftop outdoor cinema and beach club planned above an under-utilised carpark in Scarborough has been rejected by City of Stirling planners. The project will have an open air pop-up cinema, restaurant and live music venue that can contain 1000 people with stunning views overlooking the majestic Indian Ocean.

The company behind the proposal, ISpy Entertainment, said that the idea was inspired by the famous outdoor cinemas in Bondi and Broome as well as numerous beach bars in Europe. What they are actually implying is that it is a project that could guarantee success and keep up to pace with the current trend around Australia and the world.

The project is to be named The Sunset Boulevard Beach Club, is planned to be built on the 2000sqm rooftop of the Wilson carpark on Manning Street, and it would operate through summer.

ISpy Entertainment director Robert Redmond said that: "By utilising the run-down carpark, reactivating it and making the empty space accessible, we can change the culture of the building and make it a lifestyle and tourism destination that is the pride of Scarborough beach".

All these seem to be valid reasons to have this project stimulate the local economy and should be welcomed by people in the neighbourhood. However not everyone share the same foresight with Robert when the City of Stirling's planning committee refused to endorse the proposal, citing non-compliance to parking and noise regulations.

They claimed the proposed venue, which fronts on to The Esplanade - Scarborough's commercial strip where bars and entertainment venues are the preferred use - would "conflict with surrounding land uses to the extent it will compromise the amenity of the locality due to noise, light emissions, traffic and car parking". This statement itself is a joke and they don’t even realise that they are actually contradict themselves! Here you have a project proposed to be on top of an existing carpark facing an existing commercial and entertainment strip, and you say that it will create noise problem and compromise with the local amenities. I think the planners don’t know the fact that nobody actually live inside a carpark and therefore shouldn’t pose any noise problem, should someone tell them that? This project will not compromise the existing amenities but will complement and enhance the social activities in the area.

Scarborough has always been a tourist destination but its condition is deteriorating without visionary ideas to rejuvenate it. It will never become a tourism hub if the City keeps pushing away potential investment without any sensible reason.

The planners’ rejection to this proposal is like telling people that: “We are happy with our boring lives, stay away and don’t mess things up. We don’t need progress because we already have the best beach in Australia.”

I was once in Kings Park admiring the beautiful night scene of Perth when I overheard a group of Malaysians from KL talking about what they saw. This lady looked at the Swan River and was amazed by it sheer size. She then said to her friend who is residing in Perth that if it is in KL, the river would be reclaimed to build high rises or even another city! I obviously don’t agree with that view completely because we must always preserve the natural beauty of our city. But we could reclaim partially by having man-made island in the middle of the Swan River and build an iconic tower that would become the new focal point of the area. It would instantly become a new tourist destination.

It always frustrates me to read news like The Sunset Boulevard Beach Club when I think of the huge potential of that state. Western Autralia has the longest coastlines compare to any other states in this island continent and it has the potential to create a second gold coast if only we have more planners with vision. But then again we are talking about Perth where it has always been regarded as somewhat backwards compare to Sydney and Melbourne. It is a city where a ten storey hotel is also being rejected as being too massive. It is just embarrassing. With all the hype of Perth being the boom city and how it is going to become an international city, I doubt it will ever reach the level of Sydney or Melbourne if the same panels of planners are not changed with people who has long term vision for the city and the state as a whole.

Started A New Blog

Today I started a new blog! Blogging is not new to me, in fact I first started way back in 2008. The drive initially was to hone my writing skills and share stuff with friends and students. I then moved on to develop further and created a few sites hoping that they would grow. 

I have little success and there are not many visitors to my website so far. Sometimes it really dampen your spirit when you see how much work you have done so far. Until I saw a share on Facebook yesterday talking about a mother in the US whose blog has gone viral when she wrote something about child bullying. I went on to see her blog and was delighted to find out that she is just a normal person like me with a full time job and a family. If a mother of 2 could do it, there is no reason why I can't. It lifted my spirit once again and that pushed me to start a new blog to document the experience I gain and challenges I face trying to survive in a new country away from home.

Blogging sometimes could be think of as a very lonely exercise. You feel like you are talking to yourself. Unlike sms or online chat where you would always get a response from what you write, with blogging you write on the blank space of your Blogger's interface without any response. You may get a comment or two when someone sees your post months or even years later. 

However, blogging could also be fun when I think that I actually have the opportunity to communicate to almost anyone around the world with issues that I am concern about. People that share similar views may read about my post in the middle of the night when I'm off working during the day. My post will stay on the internet every second after I publish it. The thought of that motivate me because I may be able to help someone with what I wrote. Just like Stephanie of The Metz Family whose article on child bullying struck a chord in many parents who are concern with this issue that is getting more rampant nowadays. In fact I just heard a news on TV saying that students from a school in Mandurah, Western Australia actually started a website promoting fighting among their classmates. This is sickening and should be stopped!

Bloggers have become an extension of the mainstream media where we voice our opinions freely. This power did not exist before the internet. It is a very powerful tool that could create and destroy as well. Some irresponsible bloggers abuse this privilege by posting negative untrue news about other people; some uses it for their hidden political agenda. Instead of doing all these negative stuff, we could use blog as a platform to spread positive information to the world. To warn people of certain things, to teach people on all sorts of skills or simply to share the beautiful things that we may come across in our lives.

On that note, I feel excited. Today I did something extraordinary. Today I started a new blog!