http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/education/29student.html?

The growing Chinese anger towards Western "media bias" raises a few issues.

First, there is the perception that the West is not showing respect for China, and this lack of respect is taken as a personal attack by Chinese students. They get offended by the perceived injustice, and react in an angry way.

Conflict Resolution Class: Everyone wants respect, and to be treated in a "fair way". If they are seen as being on the receiving end of unjust treatment, they get angry.

Case in point.

Anyway, another issue raised was when the Chinese students all assumed that Tibet wanted the economic development that was being forced onto their country.

"Students argue that China has spent billions on Tibet, building schools, roads and other infrastructure. Asked if the Tibetans wanted such development, they looked blankly incredulous. “They don’t ask that question,” said Lionel Jensen, a China scholar at Notre Dame. “They’ve accepted the basic premise of aggressive modernization.” "

I'm sure everyone knows what I feel about this: the happiest country in the world is Vanuatu, hardly the most developed country in the world. Obviously, the link between GDP and modernisation and life satisfaction and happiness is a non-existent one. May I even postulate a negative co-relationship: sometimes the best way to be happy is to live in a "backward" "simple" society, praying in your Buddhist monastary everyday.

That's the case of Bhutan, a slow-moving mountain Buddhist kingdom that's reportedly very happy being what it is: being at peace with nature and with one's soul.

I chatted with Gao Ting over basketball on Sunday night, and he basically repeated the stance that economic progress is always good. But towards the end of the conversation he mentioned that he'd lived in Inner Mongolia before, and he noticed that before the Hans entered that place people did not lock their doors: their's was a very communal culture which emphasised on sharing whatever one had with neighbours, who could basically enter houses and take whatever they needed. Of course, everything ended with the entrance of the Han Chinese, and "modernisation". At the end, he mused that perhaps progress had its social costs, of making people more selfish and estranged from one another.

I hope Gao Ting sees the light one day. I hope I brought him closer to seeing the light.

That's why I like Malays so much. In general, they are more relaxed, more communal, less competitive. Perhaps they don't really get rich, but I daresay they get more out of life because of their more complex and numerous social and familial relations.
In general we Chinese just sell our souls to get rich.

It is worthwhile to work hard for a worthy cause. "Progress", "modernisation" and "wealth" are definitely not worthy.

Relac-Jack man. I should get my degree, and spend my days strumming my guitar and singing rock songs. Or move to Bhutan.

Had lunch at Sukiya with Wanjun today, and just went out for sheesha with Danny, Tiffany, Daniel (from Canada) and Daniel's friend, who's a Canadian of Pakastini origin and is teaching English in Japan now.

Maybe the beauty of life is in these little things, little experiences that make up our everyday life, and we should be thankful for every little one of them rather than always hoping for something more. The thing is that life can always be much worse, and we don't realise that.

Perhaps life is such that we need the pain and sadness to make the good good. I was musing about the possibility of a happy drug, that acts directly on the brain to make you happy all the time. But then you'd just get used to it, and happy won't be happy anymore. You'd just want more and more of that drug, till it's of no more effect. That's what happens to drug addicts, you take that drug till it no longer manages to produce a "high" in you. Your mind just becomes numb.

And life is like that, perhaps. You need the sadness of a breakup to treasure and appreciate your next relationship so much more. You need a life-threatening sickness for you to appreciate the gift of health more. You need a near-death experience to appreciate the gift of life, of existence, that God has given you.

But then that is the tragedy, is it not? Because you live life forwards, not backwards. You have the health of youth, which you don't appreciate, then you have the pain of sickness when you get old. You wish you were healthy again, you would appreciate it so much more. But it's impossible. If only we lived life backwards, we'd appreciate the vigor of youth infinitely more, rather than waste it away.

Same with death. People take life for granted, wasting it on useless pursuits, and when they die, they regret. You never appreciated life till it's gone.

That's why I'm interested in Buddhism. It seems that through the process of meditation we are taught to appreciate the beauty of essence, of existence, of the world around us. We slow down, learn to savour our own bodies, learn to appreciate our senses: our senses and minds become so much more active, so much richer. We learn to appreciate the here and the now.

Our minds focus on the only reality that exists at that point of time: the here and the now. Everything doesn't exist and doesn't matter except the here and the now. Focus on the present. Enjoy its beauty.

Because the here and the now is all we have. At the end of the day, what is life but a collection of millions of "here and nows". If you don't learn to enjoy the now and the here, always wishing for something more, you'd never get much out of life.

If life is not beautiful today, it will never be beautiful... never ever. Not when you become rich, or have a girlfriend, or have kids. Because the onus is on the individual to appreciate life's beauty, in whatever circumstance he is in.

I don't want to be on my deathbed before I appreciate the gift of existence that God has bestowed me with.

We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry
We have kept the faith!

We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!

Proud we were,
And laughed,
That had such brave true things to say.

Through glory and ecstasy we pass
Wind, sun and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...

And when we die,
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips;

Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!

-- Rupert Brooke, 1910

my first heartbreak experience was probably given to me by God.

it was 2002, my A level year.

i'd just had an encounter with God, after church camp. He felt so real, i felt so loved, i felt that this had to be it, i'd found the meaning in life, which was to serve and enjoy God forever.

but somewhere along the line i lost it. i doubted the validity of my experience, of God. was my experience real? was i imagining? God please show yourself again to me! but it did not happen. i tried to prove God to myself via apologetics but i was not convinced.

and so i was sad and devestated, because the meaning of my life, my spiritual experience and my God, was being put into question. perhaps i was all wrong.

over time i lost hope and became worldly again. when my faith failed, i turned to the things of the world, because the world was my rebound, from my first love. my first love which i believe had failed me. or maybe i was expecting a perpetual spiritual high, expecting too much from it.

my life may have turned out differently if i had not gone through that phase of doubt.

Yesterday afternoon saw me
Bare, empty, naked, helpless, desperate,

Crying out inside:

"God where are you?
Please show Yourself"

"Speak to me,
Comfort me,
Save me"

The poignant cry of a pained soul.

"God where are you?
Show yourself"

A challenge to the Divine.
Borne out of shamelessness
Maybe a hint of disrespect
And desperation.

Met Kumu (Dean's friend) on the way home from NUS just now. Somewhere along the conversation I felt like saying that "the modern man is becoming increasingly emasculated". Perhaps I know too little to say that for all modern males, but it appears to be the case for many Singaporean males. Maybe it's because we've grown up in such comfort, we haven't had the flames of troubles to toughen us up.

So, what makes a man? Looking around me, it seems that a good model would be Jesus, who knew what he stood for, but was yet caring. He was strong, yet gentle. He was secure in his identity, and did not let others shake him from his convictions. He was not nice all the time, but he was good.

Anyway, the Existentialists claim that rationality and reason are what the human mind needs, to hide from the fact that the world essentially contains no order, no rules, and that everything is essentially random. If this is the case, even the study of "what it means to be a true man" can be thrown away. Perhaps there are no rules to this, and it's all purely random.

jonkwok.livejournal.com was my previous blog. it's abandoned now.

On Death

What is the meaning of life? Danny suggests that the meaning of life is to find the meaning of life - that there is no ultimate meaning, and that everyone changes what he defines to be the meaning of his life through its course. Perhaps it's like a dog chasing after its own tail, and while we're all caught up in it, it seems absorbing, and it captures our every imagination. And then the dog finds something else to chase, and it does so, forgetting its initial quest. The meaning of life has changed for the dog, but which of the quests of life is the greatest?

(Sidenote: This notion, that of one's meaning and essence in life being a consequence of his existence, and not the cause of it, is a trademark of Existentialist philosophy. Basically it states: I exist, therefore, I create a meaning out of my life. Satre, in his "Essays in Existentialism", further highlights this consciousness of being thrown into existence in the following fashion: "If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.")

Anyway, no matter what our meaning in life was.... we die. No matter how we lived our life - happily, sadly, angrily, or chasing the wind, we all die. And when we come to that time, nothing matters anymore. In the long run, nothing matters. It's both depressing and gratifying. Depressing because our victories and joys will all come to an end. Gratifying because our sorrows and disappointments and mistakes will also come to an end.

With death, we can take a longer view of things. Haknuna Matata - to leave the past behind and move forward. Because in the long run, many things don't matter. Even in the medium run - 10 to 20 years from now - most of our current sorrows would have sorted themselves out, only mere specks in the seas of our memories, mere footnotes in our lives.

Even if that were not the case, in the long run, death the great leveler ensures that .... "nothing really matters... to me" (Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody)

How overseas exchanged has changed me. It has probably made me less utilitarian. I'm more willing to undertake pursuits in education that will do nothing for me whatsoever in terms of practical benefits. It has opened my eyes to the possibilities in the world, it has made me more willing to step out of my comfort zone to explore life in all its possibilities.

I'm able to see that life outside the box that I'm accustomed to, is actually possible. O, how many adventures await, if we can sustain this interest and passion in the long run.

Just a musing, but someone like Gandhi was probably profoundly Christian. He exhibited the virtues of Christ, the virtues that make Christ stand out from everyone else who ever claimed greatness. He loved his enemies, he looked out for the oppressed, he turned the other cheek. He showed love, humility, meekness, in everything he did. He was, may I put it, Christ-like in his actions.

My exchange friend Danny (I'll really miss him when he's gone - love the times we spend just chilling and musing and talking about everything in life - we really can click so well, he's really one of my best friends over this past year. He thinks a lot like me. The best part is that he loves to sit and drink beer and just chill and chat, for hours and hours, like me) feels that Gandhi is more Christian than Billy Graham. True, Billy speaks about the Bible, but what great is that? And Billy does not cheat on his wife, or kill, or steal, but that's basic human behaviour. He could very well be Muslim, or Buddhist, or whoever. What makes Christ special is his association with the lowest of the low, and his love for his enemies. And most Christians don't show this. (in all fairness, mainly because they/we don't have the chance to do so)

What is greater, acting out the words of Christ, or speaking about it?

Which is why it is sad that Protestants did away with the monastic movement, because it removes a great opportunity for us normal humans to interact with the lowest of the low. It removes from us a great chance to really be Christ-like. I have such a great love and admiration for the monastic movement, for the Catholic Brothers and Sisters who give their lives to living like Christ.

And one of the main reasons why Jesus is still so special to me is because His moral codes and loving behaviour were really amazing... few other religious leaders preached as He preached. Love your enemies - who dares to teach such stuff?

Which is why I cannot see why God would send someone like Gandhi to hell, when his behaviour was so much like Jesus's. Gandhi was more Christian than I could ever hope to be.

The realities and cruelities of life is that I am free to read, think, and blog, because I have only 2 (very easy) exams in 3 weeks time. (i.e. a very long time away) And my ISM is done.

What would happen if that were not the case? I shudder to see myself as a mindless peon, milling around aimlessly, trying to meet this expectation and that deadline, but never seeing and questioning the point of it, never living life.

I absolutely detest the expectations of our society. They drain the life out of our very souls.

Does society liberate us, or does it imprision us?

There must be alternative ways to live this life.

I got this quote from "Odyssey of a Modern Jew", a book I'm absolutely in love with because the author reminds me so much of myself, it's as if his writings resonate within my soul...

"So many questions that torment me - questions that require sharp commitment in a world that is ambiguous - are decided for most other men by life itself, so that they have no choice but to follow and make the best of it. It seems to be my lot to chase phantoms, and I pray - if I can use that word - they lead somewhere, in time."

Some very smart person once said that the life unexamined is not worth living. But it seems that much of what we do in life, is dictated to us by life itself. What can we do in life, what do we want out of it? Most of the time we surrender control to our world, to circumstances, if you are religious, to God.

I fear work, I fear selling my soul to my workplace, to the routine of it. There is so much that constrains us - why do I have to sleep now, at 3am? Why can I not engage in activity? Why do my activities need to be constrained to the cycle of the day, and of the week? Why does 8am mean breakfast, 1pm mean tutorial, and 6pm mean prayer in catholic church? Can not the timings work in a totally different way? Why must I go to church on weekends? Why must we conform to the traditional norms of dating and marriage? Can I not fashion my own lifestyle, independently? What does it mean, to create one's own life, independently from society? What would that life look like?

And maybe that's why people follow social norms. Because a life without them would take too much energy to figure out, and people are afraid to take the risk. Even if this life we know fails us, we are afraid to try anything new - because this is all we know. Circumstances dictate our lives.

But we have one life, what is there to lose? You come here with nothing, you go back to nothing. What do you lose? Nothing!

Perhaps this is the spirit of Carpe Diem.

But does youthful idealism get buried under the pressures, demands, expectations, experiences of day-to-day living and society?

Or does the radical freedom that each of us essentially has bring us dread instead?This is what Existentialism suggests. To try to suppress our feelings of anxiety and dread, we confine ourselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing our freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another.

Does everything need to be destroyed, for something new and better to be built up?

This is the spirit of Anarchy, of Communism.

Anarchy and Communism - the political and social ideas of some of the world's most beautiful idealists.

As Queen sang - I Want to Break Free.

On introversion

It just occurs to me that the way to peace and comfort - the way to fill the gaps in our hearts – would be to look inside, not outside. For me, an extrovert through and through, it is indeed a tall order.

But rather than looking at the outside world and trying to glean satisfaction and acceptance from it, one should be comfortable with oneself first. It’s indeed true that no man is an island, but everyone should be comfortable with himself to a certain level, and not seek to fill every second of his waking time with something new, or with someone to accompany.

Having confidence in myself, knowing that I can always withdraw if things turn bad… ain’t that a good thing? The temptation to call someone out, male or female, for a chat is always so tempting, but I should learn to be alone, to meditate, to pray, to examine.

Always needing someone to fill up my time - my theory is that it makes us less needy lovers or friends, and less likely to die if something goes wrong.... much as we would love for our lover or friend to NEVER let us down and break our hearts, we know that that is close to impossible. Rely on yourself and rely on God before you rely on someone else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/world/middleeast/14cairo.htm

cool article, makes us think about the soundscapes we live in.

how much can we get out of life, if we just sit and listen to the everyday noises that we are so used to by now.

Soccer and American Football teach me that there is such a thin line between success and failure, hero-hood and condemnation in sports and life. Eli Manning is hailed as a hero because of only a few vital moments of luck and determination in his game-winning drive in the 4th Quarter in the Super Bowl, if not he would have lost and Tom Brady would have been the hero. Such a thin line. As it turned out, Eli is hailed as a hero and Tom criticised as a loser, with poor planning skills.

Soccer. Liverpool got to the Semi-Finals of the Champions League thanks to a dubious penalty against Arsenal. No penalty, and Arsenal would have been through instead. Such a thin line. As it turned out, Liverpool's grit and excellent spirit were praised, and Arsenal criticised as a team that often dominates but do not score.

Match Point is an excellent movie, and it studies this theme of luck in real life. In the end the protagonist, who is also a villain, wins out because of a slice of good luck. Success versus failure, sadness versus bliss, the winner versus the loser… such extreme human reactions and labels to bestow upon unwitting recipients of good fortune. Of course this theme is offensive to many. It offends our every sensibilities, and even a character in Match Point (a very innocent and prudish rich young lady) points out that it cannot be, human effort somehow has to make a difference. Her Atheist husband, also the protagonist and villain (damn why can’t I remember his name), intelligently indicates that even the generation of life by evolution is a massive game of blind chance. Life depends massively on luck.

We would like to think that our actions make a difference. But do they?

As a religious person I’m not doubting the influence of God in the events of life. Indeed, God’s intervention changes the equation massively, such that humans believe that they can change the world by a simple act such as praying. This throws the idea of impersonal luck or fate out of the window.

But having said that, it is unfair how we label people mostly on things that they had absolutely no control over. Just like we label Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool a winning team because they gained a penalty that was extremely dubious (can assure you the game-winning moment was not a product of Liverpoolian efforts), we label people as “intelligent”, “beautiful”, “rich”… even “successful”, based on things which they may have had little control over. Yes, even “success” is often out of one’s control. The Bible says: A man plans in his heart, but the Lord determines his steps. The Chinese say: 成功, 是天时， 地立， 人和。。。

i took out my earring last night. like many things in life, it was driven by impulse, and nothing much else. i guess i wanted to de-ornament myself.

i've had a earring on 24-7-365 for almost 2 years now, so much so that it has become almost a part of my body. my left hand habitually reaches up to my earlobe, seeking for a piece of metal or plastic to fondle, only to be greeted with virgin flesh. discomforted, i play with the flesh of the earlobe instead.

two artificial objects come to mind when i think about foreign things becoming a part of our bodies - piercings (or earrings) and spectacles. after a while, it just becomes as if you were born with these things - until you lose them.

i could actually write a poem or song about this.

i would be the first to admit that i'm still not totally over her, that i'm reminded of her now and then, that i'm emotionally affected. in her words, i'm "still not over her, and this includes the good and the bad."

to call her my ex-girlfriend would be a misnomer of sorts, since we were only officially attached for a few weeks. perhaps it would be more apt to call her someone special that walked into and out of my life in 2007.

i could have never guessed that the person whom i cared so much for would end up hurting me the most. it is actually common sense, on hindsight, but i guess i was just blind to the dangers.

i don't really know how to treat her. is she a friend or a foe? do i pray and hope that i'd never see her again, to shield my heart from possible pain, or do i wish for more times when we could spend hours talking and talking about life, when it seemed destined that we would be extremely good friends? with her i've experienced every single emotion in the world, from love to disappointment to hate to doubt. at the end of the day, when it has left me more confused than ever, i guess the stoic and christian thing to do is to continue to love her as a sister, one created in God's image, and someone i'd spend all eternity with (in heaven).

when i question my self worth, when i question if she even cares, i somehow sense that she could be as confused as me, not knowing what to do or say. and it is common sense that she hurt a lot too, maybe not now, but during the relationship. and i just want to apologise, to say i wish i could take all the mean-spiritedness and selfishness back.

and maybe these are the similarities between us. i won't be surprised if our views on the entire thing are more similar that we realise.

but for me, when the hope is gone and the bubble is burst, the challenge is to everyday cling on to the source of all hope, who is God Himself. that hope is that one day, it will all be good.

We walk in present knowledge, but He sees the first and the last....
He sees the master plan, He holds the future in His hand
So don't be like those who have no hope
All our hope is found in Him

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you don't understand
When you don't see His plan
When you can't trace His hand
Trust His heart

And we can speak with faith, with assurance, that even though today is not easy, a brighter tomorrow awaits us, because He holds the future in His hands.

I visited my grandma just now in hospital, it really made me sad to see her so bloated and unhealthy, looking so ill. I just pray that God will heal her, and turn her heart to him.

I talked to Dean last night, over supper at my place. Through all our musings, we decided that Singaporeans should really learn to sit down and chill and talk about life. But amidst everything I sensed that we were very similar, pilgrims on the same voyage, seeking to make sense of life and God and coming to terms with our intellect and questions. And this life has not been easy for us, with his problems and mine. Yesterday mine involved grace, the girl that I had not been able to get over after over 5 months of officially ending everything. There’s the song “Trust His Heart”, which basically repeats Romans 8:28, that all things work for the good of those who love God.

God is too wise to be mistaken
God is too good to be unkind
So when you can’t see His plan
When you can’t trace His hand
Trust His heart

Such simple words, so hard to live out. But yet there was in both of us, I sensed, a striving to trust God, to make Him our vision and motive for our lives. Many times over the past few months I have had hunger and a sense of lost-ness and serious doubts about the validity of my faith that I had declared for so many years. But in both me and Dean I sensed a hope, an optimism, that there was more to life than this, that somehow God still provides the meaning and fulfillment that our hearts yearn for.

I had seen people live the Christian life out, and a self-centered hedonistic life without God seemed to lead to sadness, disappointment, anger, selfishness, despair, emptiness, hopelessness. It just seemed to me that the pleasure-pursuing life that seems so sweet cannot possibly promise much at all at the end of the day, just a mess of emptiness and broken dreams and strife and longings that are yet to be fulfilled.

But it appears to me that the life of peace, contentment, fulfillment, satisfaction, and true joy, comes with living with Jesus as the centre. It is the life that promises a hope greater than the world, a seeking for something bigger, something that the failings of the world would not be able to touch. It appears to me that much of my emptiness and meaninglessness would be satisfied by making Jesus my vision.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to be save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light

At the end of the chit chat session we agreed to pray for each other. But I do not deny that I have doubt, and fear, that I would be let down, that somehow my desire to put my hopes in this Jesus would somehow lead to naught. It would, of course, lead to cynicism and hopelessness and chasing after pleasures and things of this world – again. But the beauty of what is promised captures me: everlasting unquenchable joy and peace, unshakable assurance, a rock to build my life on, a life that can never be shaken, a confidence despite the storms of life, a love that surpasses all understanding, a promise of eternity in paradise, and a beauty that I would give everything I own to catch a glimpse of.

The beauty of what is promised captures me, like it has captured the hearts of so many over the centuries. O, what I would give to have that for myself, day after day.