When Death becomes a statistics

After an earthquake that measure 9.0 on the Richter scale that shook Indonesia on Boxing Day, gigantic tidal waves called tsunamis claimed many more lives in the aftermath of the disaster. Mounting death tolls were reported in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand. The current total death tolls stands at more than 40000 and even as I type, more grim news are filtering in from many inaccessible areas where communication are destroy by this sudden fury unleash by Mother Nature.

Describe as one of the worst natural disaster faced by mankind can’t be an understatement. With millions made homeless and expected casualties to be as high as 50000, it certainly brings a certain gloom to the end of the year.

Anyway, enough of news snippets of the natural disaster, I just wish to express some personal feelings about this event. When the 9 year old Huang Na was brutally murdered, thousands of people wept at her wake. However this time round, Singaporeans reactions were rather muted in response. It is indeed quite strange when you probe deeper. A death of a single child has left a far greater mark then a large scale disaster. (Powers of the media to sensationalise news) The number of death reported over the news was almost regarded as a mere statistics and one seems to be numbed by the event which took place outside the country boundary. The man in the streets don’t seem to be exactly affected by this disaster despite its magnitude and the close vicinity where it has left its mark.

Singaporeans are very generous when it comes to giving out money as shown by numerous calls received when it comes to fund raising events for NKF (National Kidney Foundation) and other charity groups when funding are short. (This caused a furore lately when NKF revealed they had reserves which could last for 3 years of funding but that is another story) But when it comes to feelings of empathy and sympathy, I do feel as a nation we are lacking in these two humane values.

I expected the various charity organisation such as Red Cross will be organising donation drive to help the victims in the next few days. Perhaps, due to the fact than most of us have never been thorough any natural disaster of any scale (even a nation wide 5 hours blackout being a big hoo ha) , most of us will never imagine the suffering of these victims. While aid are given out plentifully, I wonder aloud if the hearts of Singaporean match their generosity of their gifts? Perhaps it is time, we sit back and realise how fortunate we are to be alive and many of our problems actually pale in comparison to life and death issues.

May this chapter ends with minimal further suffering.

Amended lyrics to a song I like

Amended lyrics of Eason Chan song

This took several days, and I can’t say I am absolutely happy with the final result. Well, I would say it is a decent effort since it is my first “complete” attempt at writing in mandarin (others which were abandon halfway), which is not exactly my preferred language of writing.

Just wanted to do something different for a change in the holidays and I am glad I tried to do it. Why such a lyrics you might ask? Well the original lyrics strike a chord with me and I attempted to change it in order to affiliate more with the emotions portray by the song I guess.

The lyrics were amended from the Eason Chan song of “Ji Mo Rang Ni Geng Kuai Le” or“寂寞让你更快乐”. I guess I didn’t really change very much of the original, leaving half of it intact.

Some of the inspirations of the amendment were from my experiences, others from friends around me. I wanted to convey the feelings of a guy who cares for the female he likes even though she does not reciprocate the feelings in return. In order not to ruin the friendship between the two parties, he agrees to appear contented in the public eye and would only show his true emotions to himself. He plays the role of a friend, a brother, or simply a listening ear to suit the female who treasures the friendship too. However, he knows that being just a friend, he is unable to be there all the time for her, since his role does not allow the capacity for him to do so. He also feels the hurt whenever he recalls the happy memories spent together, and wonders if he will be better off without meeting her in the first place. (slightly bitter emotions)

Hope the above explanation clears up some of the doubts that were inadequately expressed from the lyrics. I enjoyed the process of writing the lyrics. I hope that you will like reading it too.

How to understand females (Part I and II)

Dear all,

I have been reading up on this book on “How to understand a female?” Just thought to share it with you guys. Some the points raised are actually quite interesting. You may or may not agree with everything that is written but hey to those non-believers, just treat it as entertainment.

How to understand a female.
(Pg 1 to Pg 20)
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1. Females believe that it is fate and destiny should a guy share similar interests or traits.

Similar traits could include “insignificant” matters such as having the same birthday, living in the same area or even sharing the same starting letters of a Christian name, or having the same initials.

Should guys want to impress females, they can try as suggested by the book, to find a similar trait to subtlety hint to the female, to prompt her to think that you are a gift from heaven.

2. Females feel that guys understand them very well should they be able to point out their merits.

If you are one of those who praise a female figure in day one, her legs in day two, and her eyes in day three, the initial feelings of happiness by the female will be quickly overtaken by suspicions of lying. (Come on, they are not THAT stupid :P)

The correct strategy to employ in this case is to truly understand her merits and praise those strengths using different descriptions and methods. Thus, achieving the aim of females thinking that you understand them very well.

3. Females are impressed by guys who take note of their finer details.

The author shared a story of a classmate whom he never meets for 10 odd years and him calling out to her in the streets. She was filled with pleasant surprise and received him warmly. Girls tend to think of males as being forgetful and careless with details. As such, guys who indeed make the effort to remember the finer details of a female gives the impression that you are very concerned about her.

4. Should a guy want a female to talk and reveal more about her attitude towards love and sex, he should link the questions to everyday life.

The author as a note insisted even in this modern society, discussion of sex is still taboo among the females. Should males be able to link the questions to some relevance to the lives of the females, he is more likely to get a reply.

On a date when both parties wish that the time spent together should be longer, it is probably time to bide farewell.

5. To a female, it is not the total time spent together but the numbers of times both of you meet up that is important.

The author mention that although it is understandable that a guy is eager to spend more time with his date especially since he spends lots of effort in making it possible, however it might not be a good thing to drag the date longer than it should be. Females being more insecure in nature, will be more tense up and will not “open up” that easily and as the meeting drags longer, she will feel tired and will be more likely to commit actions (such as doing something unladylike, or saying words that she didn’t mean) and making her regret later and have bad memories of the date itself.

On the other hand, should the date be kept short and the female upon realizing how serious the male is trying to make the date as interesting as possible, will be thrilled and harbour positive feelings for the next date before she gets tired of the current one.

6. Females are more impressed with a guy manner of speech rather than the content of the speech itself.

A female judge a male more on the whole than to focus on specifics.

Hence, a female when praising a guy would not just stop at saying “he is a nice person” but would go on to describe how nice the guy is by giving certain examples.

Females are more captivated by how passionate or serious a guy is when he is speaking than the contents of the speech itself.

I am sure that you guys have come across instances where females burst out laughing or giggling when someone is giving a speech while the guys are wondering what the joke was about. This is because the females probably found some hand movement or manners of the speaker to be funny.

Therefore, for guys who seem to have a problem sustaining a meaningful conversation with females, it might be wise to invest some effort to making some purposeful hand gestures or eye contact. This will enable the female to be impressed with how serious you are while speaking drawing attention away from the contents of your speech.

7. Females would be impressed with guys who mention about the difficultly of doing mundane daily activities.

Females are often relegated to the role of doubling up as a personal assistance in the course of work. It is not unusual to see that the person serving coffee to the boss and filling teacups in a meeting is a female. However, females do not like this role that they are playing and would interpret themselves as being “useless”.

Similarly, the role that a wife plays at home such as doing horse hold chores are interpreted as “useless” to them. Should a guy be able to mention once in a while, “It is difficult isn’t it doing these chores? “, or chipping in to help in would impress upon the female that the guy understand the role she is playing.

8. Sharing a common goal with a female is the first step to winning her over.

The author share a story where an elderly man fainted in the streets and both a male and female who were strangers to each other stopped to help. Because of them were intent in rescuing the man, they had a common goal and in the midst of helping the man, they understood each other better, and got married eventually.

Another typical example would be the boss ending up together with the secretary for the same reasons because of the common goals they are striving for daily.

For guys who can’t seem to get the females they like to ‘open up’ can try as the book suggest to seek a common goal with the female.

9. Females are more eager to talk should guys pose open ended questions.

Guys should avoiding asking questions where a simple yes or no answer would suffice. In order to sustain a conversation, guys should be asking more of “where, why, how, who, whether” kind of questions. This would prevent the awkward silence in a conversation from occurring.

10. A male while listening to a female speaking should display body language that you are interested.

The author mentions that females are still being belittle in today society and they are constantly striving for equal status in modern society. Hence, if males display body language to show that they are keenly listening (eg placing of hand on temple, slight nod of the head) and replying when appropriately.

However be warned that you should not slip into a model of predictable pattern while listening or else it could be interpret that you are merely being too embarrassed to ask her to stop talking about her own troubles and you are being forced to listen. Worse of all is to display a “sianz” look on your face. Try and vary your responses to let her know you are paying earnest attention.

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So it isn't true to say that guys are not paying attention! We do! Hope the following points were useful, and seeya again!