Tag: China

Filip please?


Let’s see.

Israel may send a few planes up Iran’s way and release a few bombs and then start a war. If it doesn’t, Iran may get their nuclear toy and point it at Israel, amongst others.

Meanwhile Russia is giving Hilary Clinton (who is looking aged) some stick back for suggesting it and China are not playing ball to the detriment of Syrians. While Russia and China play spoilers to Hilary and company, the Syrian town of Homs gets bombed.

The Greeks are having a go at lenders while meeting with IMF and ECB big wigs. The Eurozone looks like it will fester for a while yet. America cant help because it’s in pretty deep too – about 15 trillion dollars, and Mitt Romney is suggesting he can fix it better than Obama. China wont help because it is smart with money. Europe looks like a bottomless pit as its people demand high wages and Grade A lifestyle despite not being able to afford it.

Closer to home, the PM is drowning and her foreign minister is pouring in more water and hard-to-like individuals like Rob Oakeshott has his day in the sun again, much to the chagrin of many. Bob Brown meanwhile continues to look stupid on finance matters.

As all these merry news make their way around the globe, Kiddo is dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for her new life in Canberra. Last night she had some friends over. They were playing cards and Tress and I came home and fixed them dinner. I got a variety of snags and some fish to throw on the barbie and Tress made a salad. They played till about 10.30pm. It’s great she’s able to spend time with close friends before leaving, and doing stuff at home tops it off.

Some folks in church asked me how I felt with Kiddo’s impending new adventure. I honestly don’t know. I just feel tired. Physically, emotionally and mentally I feel tired. Not in the exhausted sense but in the flat, low energy and almost lethargic sense. I don’t know if it is because I haven’t had a decent break since our trip to Shanghai and Suzhou in September 2010. We have had a few mini getaways – to Echuca and Canberra amongst others but those trips were fillers. They should count as breaks nevertheless I guess, but for one reason or another I just feel like some refreshing in one form or another is badly needed. I need a fillip of sorts.

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Second Attempt Does It for Li Na


Chinese Tennis player Li Na on the opening day...
Image via Wikipedia

Li Na won the French Open ladies’ title last night and while I dont normally watch a ladies’ tennis match I stayed up last night to watch this one. It was the second Grand Slam final Li Na has managed to get herself into, after losing to Aussie Kim in Melbourne Park earlier this year. This time, she beat the lady who stopped Sam Stosur last year, Schiavone – she of the Ah Hiiiii infamy – and became the first ever Asian to win a Grand Slam singles title. I had to watch this one for that reason and it was well worth it.

Well done Li Na, and may there be many more players from China and the rest of Asia, to add variety to the tennis scene. The commentators on Sky made some negative remarks about the both Li Na and Schiavone’s English language proficiency but why should that be an issue at all. Tennis has ceased to be an English speaking countries‘ game for a long time now and while 3 of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments may be hosted in English speaking countries, the players’ proficiency in that language should be no issue whatsoever. One day, commentators may need to be able to speak Chinese before they can be useful even as television pundits, so better avoid that issue for now.

Gong xi Li Na.

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Man Changed, God Hasnt


Some interesting thoughts from the Business Spectator offshoot, Technology Spectator website:

  1. The world is becoming more crowded, older and lonelier. The crowding will mainly be in sub-Saharan Africa (contributing 20% or population growth) and China and the Sub-Continent (contributing 50%).
  2. China has more than 20% of world population but less than 2% of world oil. Oil will continue to be more expensive as will most other stuff. The world will have to cope with living with less.
  3. Mobile technology and communication is the moving force for the world today. This changes traditional allocation of roles such as between producers and consumers and between the collective formal structure and individuals. Mobile communication machines such as smart phones will outsell PCs by next year.
  4. Technological and knowledge developments have been expansive and pervasive, and costs of manufacturing machines which connect technology, people and data in smarter and more sophisticated ways are facilitating a connection (connectedness) and exchange which make learning and adapting a rapid process.
  5. The world economy is being driven by a different engine now. China, India, Russia and Brazil have become the dominant and dynamic forces and the bulk of world money, trade, and production will move towards these countries.

On one level, this looks like a very ripe harvest where evangelism is concerned. This however is only from the perspective of demographics and infrastructure. The soft side – how and whether these developments and changes have any impact or effect on the human perception of his need for God – would probably not change very much.

I wonder if the unbelievable rate of change we have seen in recent years have taken man nearer or further from a sense of their need for God. I mean, the bulk of the stuff we use regularly today, was probably non-existent not too long ago. In my back pack to and from work every day, the umbrella, lunch box and security tag to my office building are probably stuff familiar to someone in say, the year 2000. Maybe my car keys as well.

But those are items I don’t use very much. The umbrella has been used more often this week but other than that it is seldom touched. The lunch box is opened and sandwich fished and that was it. The box is not even looked at till I got home. The security tag and car keys, ditto – only the start and end of the working day.

The remainder 2 items in my back pack used many times throughout the day are: the phone and the computer. 10 years ago, my Treo 280 was state of the art but it has probably just a fraction of the functions and capacity of the iPhone today. I now use my iPhone 20-30 times a day. Other than calls and text messages, I use it for web browsing (several times a day) emailing (every hour or so) book reading (15-20 minutes to and from work), weather checking (2-3 times a day), scheduling (2-3 times a day), listening to radio and music (15-20 minutes to and from work). I use the other item – an iPad – very much in the same way, except when I need to do some additional work such as make notes on my readings or write an email longer than a sentence or two or work on an essay or stuff like that. All of these activities are probably alien to someone (in the way they are carried out) commuting to and from work on the public transport system in the year 2000.

Back then, the external factors are different too. George W Bush was a first term President in a world contemplating energy challenges and peak oil was an emerging concern. Clinton had sealed some important victories in Eastern Europe and pushed middle-east peace process in a promising direction. China was an energetic adolescent fast becoming a virile young man and seeking to rule the roost. John Howard was also riding high and fast becoming quite a figure in world political leadership. With the dotcom bust dust settled, emerging technology entities like Google are promising a second nirvana. Exotic new financial instruments like ABSs and CDOs were starting to promise the rainbow’s end and were making home ownership every American’s dream come true.

I don’t know – can’t recall – what other external factors were there making and shaping thoughts and aspirations then but 10 or so years hence I’m not sure if any or all of these changes have made any difference in man’s perception of his need for God.  If anything, I get a sense that we are nearer than ever to a Babel incident and man seems to think we’re doing ok and we’ll plot our own route and end, without any regard for our Creator.

We ought to engage the world – especially the youth – at a level which is more intense and robust as it has ever been. In many ways, new channels and new methods have come up for the gospel to be communicated in new, refreshing and more effective ways than ever before. The platform to present a cogent, orthodox and biblically true gospel is there and we need to provide the content and widen the reach in these media.  The immutability of God – He is the same yesterday, today and forever – should mean the modern mobile man can come to know the God incarnate of first century Palestine and who remains the God who loves just as much today.  

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China v Middle East


Alan Kohler made the interesting comparison yesterday between China and the Middle East. Both are (were) governed by   long term entrenched leadership with little or no semblance of democracy.  Other than internet restrictions and stiff crackdowns against demonstration, they have little else in common.

China’s communist leaders have been in power since 1949. That is longer than either Mubarak or Gaddafi. The difference however is that the leaders of Communist China change. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, were chosen in 2007 and will next year – after a 5 year probation of sorts – become the President and Premier respectively.

Such planning and the resulting stability (politically at least) ensures proper focus on economy, especially on stimulus necessary to retain jobs.

An orderly and prosperous China is what the world needs, and that is especially so for Australia. So to my ancestral nation – xie xie

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Grandfather Story


Some 20 years ago, my late Grandfather wrote a short account of some parts of his life. He had this published and distributed to quite a few persons. I too was given a copy when it was first published. Sadly, he wrote it in Chinese and for all these years that I have had it, I could only appreciate the grainy black and white photographs. Until now. My uncle Stephen had it translated and earlier today he emailed the translated work to us. There were quite a few gems.

 

In the late 40’s he was sent to prison on suspicion (yes those detention without trial days started all those years ago) of being a collaborator for the Communists in Malaya. There were 2 reasons for this suspicion. He and someone else were going around canvassing investments in post-war China. Of course, the communists were on the ascendancy then so the tenuous link was there I suppose. The other reason was apparently, an Englishman had a few years before, wanted a gala trip to Pulau Ketam for some surreptitious moral dereliction. He approached the Hwee Ann (a branch of Hokkien) Association for assistance and grandfather who was a chief of sorts then, refused. This Englishman (named Hilbert or something) was unfortunately the District Officer of Klang and had a grudge to accompany his good memory. He was the one who falsely dobbed grandfather in. The result was that grandfather was wrongly imprisoned for almost 2 years with immense consequential sufferings on grandmother.

 

The other was less heroic and came as no surprise. It was his abject failure in reading business trends. He went into a diverse range of business ventures, almost all of which failed, resulting in gargantuan debts. I recall him complaining once, about an uncle of mine who buttered his bread and then had some jam on it as well. Grandfather thought it should be either, not both butter and jam. I guess such frugality always has its roots and in my grandfather’s case it was the serial failures of his business ventures. I recall citing the family’s poor track records in business ventures as a reason for getting out of practice as a partner in a wonderful law firm in KL. We just don’t have it in us to mint the dough.

 

I’m itching to put the whole account in a blog but I don’t know how grandfather would feel about that…