KHAAAAAANNN!!!!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
at
2:05 AM
I have been interested and a big advocate for proper science and math education for a long time and I have to say that this man has probably done more about the advancement of how we think about education than anyone else in the world. And all he did was just do an online version of educational videos. Then everything exploded. From a fairly low tech teaching tool of just a pen, tablet and screen capturing tool to a full blown website chock full of features to help teachers devote more time and attention to the students who are really in need. This really is the future of education where the world is just one big classroom. Full of Youtube videos. And the best thing is that, his videos are not restricted to science and math. But I have to say it works exceptionally well for science and math.
His teaching methodology and principles however are not something new or at least for me. While the use of education videos are probably as old as television itself and his principle of humanizing the classroom has been around for awhile now, it's the marriage of the two that makes his work so profound. On hindsight, I got a glimpse of that when I was in A-Levels in the form of my two Further Mathematics teachers. While they still gave lectures, spending most of their time giving a roughly one-size-fits-all lecture and marking papers, their teaching methodology was very similiar to what Salman had done (except without the videos). They intuitively knew who were the ones that needed help and spent the remaining spare time helping them than those (myself including) who were just a tad bit slow in understanding, say differential equations and proof by induction. Because they knew the other people who got it fast can help the slower ones. The math exercises were by the bucket full but it was necessary for us to keep on the bicycle, so Salman uses the metaphor, until we understood. Of course back then it was rather infeasible to do what Salman and his academy did but essentially my teachers did it.
It was ultimately because of them that I had this immense love of mathematics, something rather rare among Asians beyond getting through an exam in high school or first year uni math and of course the reason why I pursued my undergraduate degree (and potentially a PhD) in mathematics. Had I not have the wonderful tutoring of the two teachers, I might have wound up in a completely different area, something more mainstream, something more Asian. And I'd probably be a bit less appreciative. A by-product of their teaching was the revelation of bringing that same style of teaching to educate others that science and math isn't that hard to get and that is OK to love science and math. I've always been a firm believer that most people would love science and math if taught properly or had a good teacher. As evident from his academy, awesome tools that help teachers and students get the most out of understanding these difficult subjects is also a big plus point. But the technology by itself cannot replace the human aspect of the teacher in the classroom, as in we cannot learn effectively from just the internet or, in the near future, robots. For some unknown higher level cognitive/psychological reason, we learn the best when there's human presence around as found out by some human development psychologists researching on language in babies. The goal of humanizing technology (crudely speaking, making ourselves cyborgs) where we learn and interactive with technology on a daily basis but still maintain our relational human identity seems to be the general trend for today and tomorrow's people.
By the way, it is because of this man that I learned what really went wrong during the financial crash of 2008 from his videos. And since then I've been rather interested in the economics of a crash and brought me to the beginnings of behavioral economics. So I have experienced first hand what this guy is capable of, teaching wise.
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Basis 2.0
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
at
1:49 AM
Double post!
One my first memories of loving awesome bass lines had a lot to do with Disney cartoons. I had a VHS tape that was basically a mix tape of famous pop songs integrated into various snippets of Disney cartoon shorts when I was like 7 I think. As a big fan of old Disney shorts, I played that tape to oblivion. One of the songs that I absolutely love from that tape was the 1967 hit duet from Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell called Ain't No Mountain High Enough. And of course much later I found out that the bassist behind that song was none other than, as one announcer put it, the greatest bass player in the world, James Jameson. It's hard not to bust a move listening to this song. Simply brilliant.
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Basis
at
12:49 AM
There has been a lot of bass influences throughout the years that I've attempted at bass, anywhere from bass legends like James Jameson, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller etc. but if there's one person that has pushed me to actually take up the bass, it's this guy. David Labruyere (or DeLa to some people). Few people know him in comparison to who he played for, John Mayer. Back when No Such Thing was the hit song from the then emerging John Mayer, the first thing that caught my attention to the song was the opening bass lines just opened up a whole new level of possibilities for bass playing. Before I used to think that great bass playing was mostly restricted to jazz, funk and motown, great stuff but something that it is a bit out there, not achievable to this musically handicapped man. But when great bass lines came to acoustic pop via DeLa, that was when the jaw hit the floor and great bass seemed accessible. How on earth can a two man team, a guitar and a bass, be adequate? Or how is it that funky bass lines exist outside the realms of jazz, funk and motown? Listen to the bass lines of the videos and try not to listen to the singing or the guitar, crank up the subwoofer, whatever and you might discover something that usually goes unnoticed by others. John Mayer's music, to me, will always be about the bass (as evident by DeLa and Pino Paladino) first then John Mayer himself. Just like how I got into his music all the way back in 2001.
For the record, I took up bass in late 2002.
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First of the Last
Saturday, March 5, 2011
at
6:19 PM
So week 1 of the final semester has just gone by. As always, the first week stuff is pretty boring with all the administration stuff and the general introduction of the courses. But one thing is pretty clear from all of the first impressions of the subject, I am going to die this semester. Probably not as bad as my honours year but I'd probably rate it pretty close to it. Not only do I have a lot of stuff to do this semester, I also have to start thinking about applying for jobs and obviously trying to get some sort of a work visa or temporary residency. Then if not, then I have to reevaluate my options again. Lots of work to do.
I am pretty excited for one subject on Game Mechanics and Game Play Programming. It is pretty much one big project to do which is obviously to construct a game and to fine tune it for proper game play. Super interested about it but I shudder at the work that is to be done even though we are all in teams of 4-5. That's another thing that I didn't quite like about this semester is group work. I've never been a fan of group work partially because of all the horror stories of group work from other people. That said, I've been pretty sheltered from these horror situations since the first and only time before this semester I've only been in one group project work and that group was pretty good. It seems that this group may turn out to be a good group after all but the true test is when we are hard pressed to get our game out for submission. There's another subject that I have to do group work but I don't know much about it so will see how. Still not looking forward to it.
There's one subject that I honestly don't believe I have to sit through. The subject itself is pretty fundamental and potentially be very interesting. But so far the people I've met for the whole subject is just one facepalm after another. For starters, the lecturer stresses the importance on being able to do some math in this course but during a short test that he has devised for the students to gauge whether they have the necessary skills in programming and math, nearly all the math questions that he set gave the wrong answers or had the wrong concepts. And the errors were errors in addition and other simple things that probably should have been checked first. Second, some of the students attending the course are so noisy, complain on a whim, terribly immature, and sorry to say this but stupid on some occasions. There are some bright students in the course no doubt but there so many of the former that you just want to stab yourself. Third, the tutor I got was someone I knew since the first year even though he was never my tutor. He's a very nice guy but as a tutor he's quite lacking. And it's a bit hard to decipher his thick Scottish accent. Granted that this is just the first week so things might settle in to things a bit better later on. But it is really terribly difficult to sit through the 4 hours of lecture, tutorial and labs with the above mentioned. Had I taken this subject earlier in the degree, I'd probably be a bit more forgiving. Meh.
It's back to OCF once again and it's been great to see some of the people back again. The new comers this time around are quite little in comparison to other years so that is one thing that I worry a bit but I'm sure God will provide. I've been shifted to a fundamentally different group this time since I'm not Bible study leading this year and I have to say I feel not at ease with this group. There have been times where I felt like an alien in OCF especially these past few years but this group makes me feel like an alien to that alien in OCF. There are so many things that I cannot relate to them and not to mention very hard to talk to. Whether God is telling me to get my butt out there and just do it and lay aside whatever bones I have with them or not, it is certain that I've been thrown to the deep end of things. Oh help.
On a lighter note, buying stuff is tempting me to greater levels now. Things to buy: a new bass, medium format film camera, laptop (when I get to work) and many more. If I had $6000 to waste on something rather useless but cool (who hasn't bought something based on those?) there's this. A pendant of a full functioning turbine crafted from military specification G5 aerospace grade titanium. Iz sic.
I am pretty excited for one subject on Game Mechanics and Game Play Programming. It is pretty much one big project to do which is obviously to construct a game and to fine tune it for proper game play. Super interested about it but I shudder at the work that is to be done even though we are all in teams of 4-5. That's another thing that I didn't quite like about this semester is group work. I've never been a fan of group work partially because of all the horror stories of group work from other people. That said, I've been pretty sheltered from these horror situations since the first and only time before this semester I've only been in one group project work and that group was pretty good. It seems that this group may turn out to be a good group after all but the true test is when we are hard pressed to get our game out for submission. There's another subject that I have to do group work but I don't know much about it so will see how. Still not looking forward to it.
There's one subject that I honestly don't believe I have to sit through. The subject itself is pretty fundamental and potentially be very interesting. But so far the people I've met for the whole subject is just one facepalm after another. For starters, the lecturer stresses the importance on being able to do some math in this course but during a short test that he has devised for the students to gauge whether they have the necessary skills in programming and math, nearly all the math questions that he set gave the wrong answers or had the wrong concepts. And the errors were errors in addition and other simple things that probably should have been checked first. Second, some of the students attending the course are so noisy, complain on a whim, terribly immature, and sorry to say this but stupid on some occasions. There are some bright students in the course no doubt but there so many of the former that you just want to stab yourself. Third, the tutor I got was someone I knew since the first year even though he was never my tutor. He's a very nice guy but as a tutor he's quite lacking. And it's a bit hard to decipher his thick Scottish accent. Granted that this is just the first week so things might settle in to things a bit better later on. But it is really terribly difficult to sit through the 4 hours of lecture, tutorial and labs with the above mentioned. Had I taken this subject earlier in the degree, I'd probably be a bit more forgiving. Meh.
It's back to OCF once again and it's been great to see some of the people back again. The new comers this time around are quite little in comparison to other years so that is one thing that I worry a bit but I'm sure God will provide. I've been shifted to a fundamentally different group this time since I'm not Bible study leading this year and I have to say I feel not at ease with this group. There have been times where I felt like an alien in OCF especially these past few years but this group makes me feel like an alien to that alien in OCF. There are so many things that I cannot relate to them and not to mention very hard to talk to. Whether God is telling me to get my butt out there and just do it and lay aside whatever bones I have with them or not, it is certain that I've been thrown to the deep end of things. Oh help.
On a lighter note, buying stuff is tempting me to greater levels now. Things to buy: a new bass, medium format film camera, laptop (when I get to work) and many more. If I had $6000 to waste on something rather useless but cool (who hasn't bought something based on those?) there's this. A pendant of a full functioning turbine crafted from military specification G5 aerospace grade titanium. Iz sic.
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Addendum
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
at
11:47 PM
So apparently DVD marathon #3 didn't quite end with those 15 movies that I borrowed the last time. Impromptu thing. I'm sure you understand.
There are just some days that you just don't understand anything anymore. Things that you think you've got it figured out suddenly had a wrench thrown in by some random monkey. Friends you've mixed around for quite awhile suddenly feel like strangers. Or even things that you don't understand at all just coming back to annoying poke its finger at you. And so on. Have had a few of those recently and it's a fairly frustrating thing to live through. Some of it is entirely your own fault, others are just a by-product of chance and bad timing. On hindsight of course.
One that recently surfaced was the issue of this image that I seem to carry around. For many instances, I've had dozens of people essentially express a very high opinion of my abilities of which I don't think I deserve, that I am capable of great things, things far greater than what I think is the proper ball park figure. This ranges from a wide range of my dabblings such as cooking, photography, my academic disposition etc. There are some that I can let it slide for example cooking. It's just feasible that my ball park figure can be a bit higher than what I think simply because the variables in the game are easier to predict or learn as I do tend to think in cooking (some may argue against this). Photography, not so much although some friends of mine tend to think otherwise. But the one thing that I am quite stubborn about is my recent move to the area of computer science.
Despite my grades what my grades may tell you, I really am playing second fiddle to everyone else who is in this business. Possibly third. And here I am getting comments that I am capable of doing something great, like writing a killer app or something to that effect or to be able to get into that exclusive workshop affiliated with a certain fruit that keeps the doctor away. One, this area is almost certainly short term in its mission. There is no heart or passion that is poured into it, just pure drive to get the job done. That by my definition is not the sufficient condition to be great. Two, it's an area where hands on work is valued more than what you've got on a piece of paper. And I'm a person nearing 30 and I've only barely scratched the surface in this area compared to the thousands who've tinkered with computers before they've even hit puberty. Add the two together and you can see why my ball park figure isn't going above sea level.
According to a good friend of mine, it is all in the image I portray. How good I talk, how good I present myself will give them some sort of a judgment about my abilities and what nots, which I agree whole-heartedly. If this is the case that I am presenting a self-image which gives them the illusion of reputation that precedes me, to give them a relatively high expectation of my skill sets, then I am guilty of a crime. A crime of false advertising. Worse is that I may not be fully aware of it at all. I may seem like I know my stuff but judging from past experience, that is far from the case. Which means all of this talk about why people view me highly, on why can't they see what I'm really made of, is essentially my fault. That, my few fellow readers, is a very dangerous thing to know and do. Subconsciously know and do. I could get into a lot of trouble just strictly on the basis of high expectation that I somehow set myself up and indeed I have a couple of times.
So, problem identified. Now what? If I've learned a few things from the behavioural economics books that I've been reading, is that foreknowledge about something before actually seeing it in person (or in action) reshapes our thinking, our expectations. So, using that piece of information, if I really want to eliminate this expectation and make people see things first before laying down the fancy jargon or passionate discussions on the subject matter...
...I should just shut up and just let them see it for themselves first.
I'd probably emphasize on the shutting up. It's the less talking, more doing stance that should be taken here. So I realized that there's a lot of empty chatter on technicalities on the matter and very little of actually showing it off hand that I've done. Hopefully, it will be the other way around at the end of the day.
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It's amazing what a couple of hours plus a movie can do to your thought processes.
- Firefly - This is a series that just show that a good concept and good characters will not survive without general popularity. It's a big mish-mash of stuff put together to give an interesting but short TV series. Post apocalyptic, western theme science fiction with expletives in Chinese. Probably a bit too strange for the average American audience and probably a bit slow initially. Which is a pity that it got pretty interesting a lot later on but too bad the show was canceled. I think it's not bad but I'm pretty sure that this series is not for everyone, even hardcore science fiction fans. Anyway, it's only about 14-15 episodes long.
- Serenity - The feature length movie continuing from where Firefly left off and this is clearly a big change in terms of how they style the show to appeal to the mass audience. Instead of heavy western motives that you see in the series, it has been significantly cut back and gave it a slightly cleaner futuristic look. The great thing is that they managed to get the entire main cast of Firefly back into the movie to get back as much of the chemistry from the series to the movie. Non-watchers of the series shouldn't find it too difficult to jump into the movie but it's obviously better if you did. It's still a pretty good science fiction movie. And yes, the expletives in Chinese is still a little weird to me.
- My Blueberry Nights - Continuing my run of watching Wong Kar Wai's movies. Very noir story telling style, something that I really love, coupled with slow 15-ish frames per second sequences reminiscent of 2046. Colours are saturated, blues and jazz and almost constant night scenes add to the noir feeling (although some might argue about the colour being noir. Ironic you say.) The special features of the DVD had a Q&A session with the director and it's just interesting to see how he thinks and how he translates his "script" to film. Great stuff. The movie too.
There are just some days that you just don't understand anything anymore. Things that you think you've got it figured out suddenly had a wrench thrown in by some random monkey. Friends you've mixed around for quite awhile suddenly feel like strangers. Or even things that you don't understand at all just coming back to annoying poke its finger at you. And so on. Have had a few of those recently and it's a fairly frustrating thing to live through. Some of it is entirely your own fault, others are just a by-product of chance and bad timing. On hindsight of course.
One that recently surfaced was the issue of this image that I seem to carry around. For many instances, I've had dozens of people essentially express a very high opinion of my abilities of which I don't think I deserve, that I am capable of great things, things far greater than what I think is the proper ball park figure. This ranges from a wide range of my dabblings such as cooking, photography, my academic disposition etc. There are some that I can let it slide for example cooking. It's just feasible that my ball park figure can be a bit higher than what I think simply because the variables in the game are easier to predict or learn as I do tend to think in cooking (some may argue against this). Photography, not so much although some friends of mine tend to think otherwise. But the one thing that I am quite stubborn about is my recent move to the area of computer science.
Despite my grades what my grades may tell you, I really am playing second fiddle to everyone else who is in this business. Possibly third. And here I am getting comments that I am capable of doing something great, like writing a killer app or something to that effect or to be able to get into that exclusive workshop affiliated with a certain fruit that keeps the doctor away. One, this area is almost certainly short term in its mission. There is no heart or passion that is poured into it, just pure drive to get the job done. That by my definition is not the sufficient condition to be great. Two, it's an area where hands on work is valued more than what you've got on a piece of paper. And I'm a person nearing 30 and I've only barely scratched the surface in this area compared to the thousands who've tinkered with computers before they've even hit puberty. Add the two together and you can see why my ball park figure isn't going above sea level.
According to a good friend of mine, it is all in the image I portray. How good I talk, how good I present myself will give them some sort of a judgment about my abilities and what nots, which I agree whole-heartedly. If this is the case that I am presenting a self-image which gives them the illusion of reputation that precedes me, to give them a relatively high expectation of my skill sets, then I am guilty of a crime. A crime of false advertising. Worse is that I may not be fully aware of it at all. I may seem like I know my stuff but judging from past experience, that is far from the case. Which means all of this talk about why people view me highly, on why can't they see what I'm really made of, is essentially my fault. That, my few fellow readers, is a very dangerous thing to know and do. Subconsciously know and do. I could get into a lot of trouble just strictly on the basis of high expectation that I somehow set myself up and indeed I have a couple of times.
So, problem identified. Now what? If I've learned a few things from the behavioural economics books that I've been reading, is that foreknowledge about something before actually seeing it in person (or in action) reshapes our thinking, our expectations. So, using that piece of information, if I really want to eliminate this expectation and make people see things first before laying down the fancy jargon or passionate discussions on the subject matter...
...I should just shut up and just let them see it for themselves first.
I'd probably emphasize on the shutting up. It's the less talking, more doing stance that should be taken here. So I realized that there's a lot of empty chatter on technicalities on the matter and very little of actually showing it off hand that I've done. Hopefully, it will be the other way around at the end of the day.
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It's amazing what a couple of hours plus a movie can do to your thought processes.
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Trois
Saturday, February 19, 2011
at
3:25 PM
More DVDs to pass the time since being internet-less for about 2 weeks now. And I'm still internet-less.From top to bottom, left to right in chronological order:
- Enchanted - Yes, I didn't watch it when it first came out. When every major lovey-dovey princess themed animated Disney movie is essentially compressed into this, it actually becomes so ludacris that it's actually funny. Not bad though the ending was kinda rushed. And that Idina Menzel didn't sing in the movie. Not happy.
- Enron - A documentary on how one of the biggest trading companies fell to its knees in 24 days after spending 15 years increasing their supposed assets from $10 billion to $65 billion due to very creative accounting. Even with this big event happening way before the financial crash of 2008 and bear in mind this happened in 2001, people still don't learn that greed kills everyone, including the person seeking it.
- Pulp Fiction - Having finally watched this movie, I now understand why this is such a cult classic movie. The lines and scenes are hilarious and something that should be remembered. There's a lot of big names here that I didn't expect. A few notable characters were Samuel L. Jackson and the small part that the director Quentin Tarantino played. Must watch although I have to warn that profanity is abundant and some rather questionable scenes.
- Departed - In short, I didn't like it. Took very long to build the momentum and the ending, like everyone said when it first came out, was "Huh??". Should have watched Infernal Affairs instead. Or maybe not.
- Ponyo - Didn't watch it when it came out in cinemas but it's still a nice story to watch. The animation this time felt a bit different than say Howl's Moving Castle especially the background. The background looks so textural, like it was coloured with colour pencils. Super like. I didn't watch the English dubbed version but there are so many high profile actors who lend their voices such as Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchette, Tina Fey and many more.
- New York, New York - This is where the famous song of the same title came from. Very long movie with the first 2+ hours being essentially watching a train wreck between two people who essentially brought the song into existence. Robert deNiro played well as a jerk and it's interesting to see a more normal looking Liza Minnelli, on-screen character wise.
- La Vita e Dolce (Life is Beautiful) - It's hard to infuse humour or light-heartedness into a movie that is about the Holocaust because of the great tragedy that surrounds the event. This movie however manages to do just that, not trying to sugar coat it but using humour to survive in such perilous times. The main actor Roberto Benigni looks a lot like a friend of mine from some angles and his character has the energy and humour of some of the older musical-movies. Great to watch.
- The Wizard of Oz - Finally, after so long, I watched it. First thing to note is how immense was the production of this movie back in its time. Financially it was such a big gamble with lots of money being poured in for the costumes and props etc. Sure you can see the string cables hanging in frame etc but that's not really the point (and not have the technology to do so then). It is really something to see the Judy Garland sing the iconic song Somewhere Over The Rainbow in all of its sepia look. Such a classic that it's one of those movies every American knows so well. The special features of the DVD are also worth a watch.
- Funny Face - Oh. My. Goodness. I love this! Super love this! If you think Audrey Hepburn is gorgeous in Breakfast at Tiffany's, you should so totally see her here. Fashion plays a big part in this musical and it really shows off her elegance. Awesome stuff! The music was great and loved every single one of them including the song of the same title. Swoon.
- An American In Paris - Same guy from Singing In The Rain, Gene Kelly, portrays a struggling painter in Paris having to find love and success in his work. Not bad though the final dance scene was quite draggy. It doesn't quite have the same on-screen chemistry with the rest of the actors as in Singing In The Rain which is a pity. One thing I do really like was their version of S'Wonderful S'Marvelous. A bit better than the version done in Funny Face. After seeing Singing In The Rain and this one, you can really tell the style of Gene Kelly's dance choreography.
- Mukhsin - Despite me being a huge fan of Yasmin Ahmad, I've not actually seen any of her films. Sad I know. Great story of a progressing friendship that has the potential to become something more but alas it was not meant to be. Along with other subtle problems that face the family, neighbours and even with each other. On the slow side, you should watch it. Also, this reminds me a lot of my childhood years although I didn't live in a relative kampung setting. Such as the game of galah panjang played by the children, a game that I used to play in primary school a lot.
- Days of Being Wild - Three seemingly separate stories intertwined into one film. An adopted son having problems in both his love life and with his adopted mother, his determination to find his biological mother and a cop turned sailor thinking about life and love. Another slow movie but it is always great to see Wong Kar Wai's story telling abilities.
- Paris, Je T'aime - 16 short stories film around the iconic city of Paris featuring quite a few famous people. Some are like "Huh??" and others are great. Worth a watch I think.
- The Scent of Green Papaya - The slowest of all the DVDs I watched with long scenes of continuous camera panning and tracking. There's also very little dialogue but it is enough to give you information on what is going on. It shows a lot of serenity and calmness of a servant girl in the midst of her master's family troubles as well as a nation wide problem in late '50s Vietnam. Hard to recommend especially those who find it hard to sit still and plow through a very slow movie but if you can, it's probably worth a watch.
- Four Lions - It is very easy to overthink this movie and be ever ready to rain condemnation on this movie as it touches on very sensitive topics like Islamic terrorism and the likes. At its basic level, it's basically Dumb and Dumber except the characters are Muslim. The stupidity of the characters as they plan their jihad attacks in London is hilarious, in the British humour sense which makes it so easy to criticise this as being intolerant to Islam. It is comedy at its heart but it's one of those where you have to take it with a pinch of salt. Watch at your own risk, this is a pretty divisive comedic film. You'll either love it or hate it.
One thing that I seemed to have noticed is that there are common themes in the DVDs that I have been watching. The guys are seriously persistent in chasing the girls, some in situations where I would never EVER do. The success of these guys on screen is a bit of a hit and miss, some got the girl and they lived happily ever after (presumably) or some end up in train wrecks. Of course not all of the DVDs have this theme but more than what I'd expect.
Which leads me to this question: How persistent should a guy be? A question of great importance for self-aware guys such as myself.
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An Essay and a Thought
Thursday, February 3, 2011
at
11:02 AM
Ok, I was going to write this earlier but then recovering from 8 glasses of wine with 0 glasses of water took a bit out of me. Not smart.
For those who haven't noticed yet, it's Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fa Chai! And whatever version you normally say according to your dialect.
Chinese New Year is one of those things that, I find, have lost a lot of meaning as time passes by. I admit that there are somethings that are purely my fault in contributing to this but not critical. It's not that I hate Chinese New Year (although at some point in time I kinda did, apart from all the ang pau [red packets for those not in the know] that I will receive) or just being cynical about the whole atmosphere. I just feel very sad.
You must be thinking "What the hell? There's awesome stuff-your-face-abundance of food, ang pau, the general fun and laughter of the entire extended family, ridiculous CNY songs and TV programs to make fun of. How can you not look forward to it?" and you are right. Or at least it's partially right.
Being a person who has not celebrated Chinese New Year for about 7 years...Well, that's not really true. 7 years of not celebrating it like how I remembered. The first couple of years in those times were at a point where my nuclear family went through a minefield. Some lucky escapes but the damage has been done. This of course generated additional consequences to my extended family and thus how we (as a nuclear family) proceeded with the usual Chinese New Year traditions. Let's just say it's not pretty but now we're good, I think. The remaining years were my fault and this is where I was chasing the dream but as some of you know has hit a massive speed bump. At best that dream may be achieved again in 10 years time. So that is 7 years worth of lost family time. To which I didn't try or unable to try to regain.
But that is not the only reason why I've kinda lost the meaning although I would say it plays a major part in shaping my Chinese New Year traditions, whatever is left of it. The saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" couldn't have summed it up better. The usual Chinese New Year traditions involves making a 3.5 hour trip to Penang, staying at my grandmother's house together with the rest of the extended family, steamboat reunion dinner, going around from place to place in Penang to visit all these uncle and aunties whom some of them I've not known if it weren't for these traditions and of course stuffing your face with food everywhere in between. At its peak, my grandmother's house will have no less than 15 people living under one roof. The great thing about my dad's side of the family is that everyone of his relatives are still living in Penang with the exception of one of his sisters and us. So visiting people is a lot easier plus they are really great people. If that is not enough to scream "Oh what joy!" I don't know what will. My achilles heel was that I am stranger to my own mother tongue/dialect. This means that I have difficulty talking to a lot of them, especially my grandmother. And this was a big wet blanket to my Chinese New Year spirit and have lost a little of the magic so to speak. But this was when I was a child. Towards the couple of years before my grandmother passed away, it came back and I think it was because I was being treated as an adult, an individual and of course the feeling that I should reconnect with my roots. Unfortunately, my grandmother was very old and had dementia and couldn't recognize a lot of us longer than a few minutes. But that never stopped me from trying.
It was when my grandmother passed away did things take a turn, for the worse unfortunately. Grandmother died 2 months after arriving in Australia and quite immediately after did my family hit the minefield. So basically, that was the trigger. I couldn't go back for her funeral, I was disgustingly angry at my family particularly at one person and later would realize that that would be the end of my usual Chinese New Year traditions, so far. Until this day, I've not seen my dad's side of the family since my departure to Australia. This shifted the celebrations over to my mother's side of the family who are like everywhere but most of them are in Melbourne. I don't quite feel Chinese New Year every time I celebrate with them because unlike my dad's side, they still persist in using the label of "kids" on us even though we are very well into our 20s. So there are always 2 tables, one for the "adults" and one for the "kids". Why I don't like this is because the age difference between the oldest and the youngest in the "kids" table is larger than the age difference of the adults table and some of us are approaching the dreaded three-oh *cough* Heck there are people younger than me on the adults table but the exception is that they are married. In fact everyone in that table are married. This does a lot to my subsequent thought processes but I shall leave it at there. Second, over-the-table conversations are almost always about business. There is very little talk about everything else. It seems that it is assumed that everyone is interested in business and whatever words of wisdom as far as money goes one will always listen because that's what makes the world go round. Hence, all this empty chatter about business leaving me to talk to my best friend, my iPhone. Thirdly, food. Since learning to cook (and some fairly arduous recipes), I understand the feeling of making things from scratch as well as the feeling of others who share in home cooked food. So you can imagine my love for food when at my dad's side of the family when every thing on the table is cooked at home. The best soy sauce pork, preserved vegetable soup and a whole lot of other things can be found in that house. Jump over to my mum's side and what I get is...restaurants. Every single time we all eat is at restaurants. Even when they are back in Malaysia, they have a stronger preference for restaurant food than hawker food (sacrilegious I tell you). This year is a bit different, we ate at home. But half the food were brought back from somewhere. Their choices in food are a bit of a hit and miss but it was good this time but no way does it compare with entirely home cooked food. Bear in mind that you have to think this from their business point of view which is about convenience, maximizing pleasure while exerting the least amount of effort. As a side note, my dad is a pretty awesome cook and used to cook simple but kick-ass dishes at home but is no longer the case since we've left the nest, so to speak. Now every time we come back, we've always gone out for food and never eat at home. Sad? Yes.
So, hearing of all this excellent speak from friends (especially the Singaporeans. Why them is another story) via the usual social sites on how great their Chinese New Year have been with family, the food etc. one can only reminisce about the good old days where it used to be like that. So one of my short term goals now is to go back to Penang for Chinese New Year plus a bit more, perhaps just by myself. And again I might not have much time left just like when my grandmother was around.
So go ahead and enjoy your Chinese New Year. For it may not last the way you used to remember it, God forbid. And I look forward to when I finally can enjoy it the way I used to enjoy it, be it with my usual extended family or the family of another that does this. I may be a stranger to my own mother tongue and traditions but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you are born in my generation or the generations before me, it is very likely that your parents come from fairly large families. 4-7 siblings is quite common but there are sides of the family that contain 10+ siblings. This makes Chinese New Year fairly big on any account once you add all your uncles and aunties and your cousins, it makes one (very) big happy family. And who can say that it's not fun? Think of all the ang pau that you'll get! Family dinners get huge and loud and crazy which I guess adds to the festivities.
Come to my generation and ahead of me, family sizes have shrunk dramatically. 2-3 siblings are the norm, but probably more 2. Fast forward a couple of generations where my parents generation have passed on and we find that the extended families have shrunk as well. We don't have a lot of cousins, uncles or aunties by virtue of the nuclear family sizes of today and we have a lot of distant cousins which if my own observations are true, are not much in contact. So Chinese New Years will be fairly small in comparison of the generations before that.
We take pride in the fact that we have this huge family "database" to make the festivities grand but how much of that will change we that "database" have shrunk considerably? Will these families be more close because extended families are smaller and thus easier to communicate/catch-up with? Or will it morph into something totally unexpected? What used to be just a strictly family affair, can it include social families into the celebrations to make up for the lack in extended family size? One where we invite our neighbours and their families, our friends and their families to join in? If we really do take pride in have big, loud and crazy gatherings for Chinese New Year, then this picture is probably the best prediction of where things are going to be a couple of generations down the road (which is actually quite a long time to wait given our current life expectancy unless Jesus comes again or some major global disaster hits). That's interesting because then the world just got smaller, breaking down the apparent barrier between strictly family and the rest of the community. Not only we spend less time with family relative to our generation because of the size but we spend more time with someone else's family. This mish-mash of family and friends at the dinner table will ultimately result in reducing our degrees of separation down even more.
For those who haven't noticed yet, it's Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fa Chai! And whatever version you normally say according to your dialect.
Chinese New Year is one of those things that, I find, have lost a lot of meaning as time passes by. I admit that there are somethings that are purely my fault in contributing to this but not critical. It's not that I hate Chinese New Year (although at some point in time I kinda did, apart from all the ang pau [red packets for those not in the know] that I will receive) or just being cynical about the whole atmosphere. I just feel very sad.
You must be thinking "What the hell? There's awesome stuff-your-face-abundance of food, ang pau, the general fun and laughter of the entire extended family, ridiculous CNY songs and TV programs to make fun of. How can you not look forward to it?" and you are right. Or at least it's partially right.
Being a person who has not celebrated Chinese New Year for about 7 years...Well, that's not really true. 7 years of not celebrating it like how I remembered. The first couple of years in those times were at a point where my nuclear family went through a minefield. Some lucky escapes but the damage has been done. This of course generated additional consequences to my extended family and thus how we (as a nuclear family) proceeded with the usual Chinese New Year traditions. Let's just say it's not pretty but now we're good, I think. The remaining years were my fault and this is where I was chasing the dream but as some of you know has hit a massive speed bump. At best that dream may be achieved again in 10 years time. So that is 7 years worth of lost family time. To which I didn't try or unable to try to regain.
But that is not the only reason why I've kinda lost the meaning although I would say it plays a major part in shaping my Chinese New Year traditions, whatever is left of it. The saying "You don't know what you've got until it's gone" couldn't have summed it up better. The usual Chinese New Year traditions involves making a 3.5 hour trip to Penang, staying at my grandmother's house together with the rest of the extended family, steamboat reunion dinner, going around from place to place in Penang to visit all these uncle and aunties whom some of them I've not known if it weren't for these traditions and of course stuffing your face with food everywhere in between. At its peak, my grandmother's house will have no less than 15 people living under one roof. The great thing about my dad's side of the family is that everyone of his relatives are still living in Penang with the exception of one of his sisters and us. So visiting people is a lot easier plus they are really great people. If that is not enough to scream "Oh what joy!" I don't know what will. My achilles heel was that I am stranger to my own mother tongue/dialect. This means that I have difficulty talking to a lot of them, especially my grandmother. And this was a big wet blanket to my Chinese New Year spirit and have lost a little of the magic so to speak. But this was when I was a child. Towards the couple of years before my grandmother passed away, it came back and I think it was because I was being treated as an adult, an individual and of course the feeling that I should reconnect with my roots. Unfortunately, my grandmother was very old and had dementia and couldn't recognize a lot of us longer than a few minutes. But that never stopped me from trying.
It was when my grandmother passed away did things take a turn, for the worse unfortunately. Grandmother died 2 months after arriving in Australia and quite immediately after did my family hit the minefield. So basically, that was the trigger. I couldn't go back for her funeral, I was disgustingly angry at my family particularly at one person and later would realize that that would be the end of my usual Chinese New Year traditions, so far. Until this day, I've not seen my dad's side of the family since my departure to Australia. This shifted the celebrations over to my mother's side of the family who are like everywhere but most of them are in Melbourne. I don't quite feel Chinese New Year every time I celebrate with them because unlike my dad's side, they still persist in using the label of "kids" on us even though we are very well into our 20s. So there are always 2 tables, one for the "adults" and one for the "kids". Why I don't like this is because the age difference between the oldest and the youngest in the "kids" table is larger than the age difference of the adults table and some of us are approaching the dreaded three-oh *cough* Heck there are people younger than me on the adults table but the exception is that they are married. In fact everyone in that table are married. This does a lot to my subsequent thought processes but I shall leave it at there. Second, over-the-table conversations are almost always about business. There is very little talk about everything else. It seems that it is assumed that everyone is interested in business and whatever words of wisdom as far as money goes one will always listen because that's what makes the world go round. Hence, all this empty chatter about business leaving me to talk to my best friend, my iPhone. Thirdly, food. Since learning to cook (and some fairly arduous recipes), I understand the feeling of making things from scratch as well as the feeling of others who share in home cooked food. So you can imagine my love for food when at my dad's side of the family when every thing on the table is cooked at home. The best soy sauce pork, preserved vegetable soup and a whole lot of other things can be found in that house. Jump over to my mum's side and what I get is...restaurants. Every single time we all eat is at restaurants. Even when they are back in Malaysia, they have a stronger preference for restaurant food than hawker food (sacrilegious I tell you). This year is a bit different, we ate at home. But half the food were brought back from somewhere. Their choices in food are a bit of a hit and miss but it was good this time but no way does it compare with entirely home cooked food. Bear in mind that you have to think this from their business point of view which is about convenience, maximizing pleasure while exerting the least amount of effort. As a side note, my dad is a pretty awesome cook and used to cook simple but kick-ass dishes at home but is no longer the case since we've left the nest, so to speak. Now every time we come back, we've always gone out for food and never eat at home. Sad? Yes.
So, hearing of all this excellent speak from friends (especially the Singaporeans. Why them is another story) via the usual social sites on how great their Chinese New Year have been with family, the food etc. one can only reminisce about the good old days where it used to be like that. So one of my short term goals now is to go back to Penang for Chinese New Year plus a bit more, perhaps just by myself. And again I might not have much time left just like when my grandmother was around.
So go ahead and enjoy your Chinese New Year. For it may not last the way you used to remember it, God forbid. And I look forward to when I finally can enjoy it the way I used to enjoy it, be it with my usual extended family or the family of another that does this. I may be a stranger to my own mother tongue and traditions but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now if you are born in my generation or the generations before me, it is very likely that your parents come from fairly large families. 4-7 siblings is quite common but there are sides of the family that contain 10+ siblings. This makes Chinese New Year fairly big on any account once you add all your uncles and aunties and your cousins, it makes one (very) big happy family. And who can say that it's not fun? Think of all the ang pau that you'll get! Family dinners get huge and loud and crazy which I guess adds to the festivities.
Come to my generation and ahead of me, family sizes have shrunk dramatically. 2-3 siblings are the norm, but probably more 2. Fast forward a couple of generations where my parents generation have passed on and we find that the extended families have shrunk as well. We don't have a lot of cousins, uncles or aunties by virtue of the nuclear family sizes of today and we have a lot of distant cousins which if my own observations are true, are not much in contact. So Chinese New Years will be fairly small in comparison of the generations before that.
We take pride in the fact that we have this huge family "database" to make the festivities grand but how much of that will change we that "database" have shrunk considerably? Will these families be more close because extended families are smaller and thus easier to communicate/catch-up with? Or will it morph into something totally unexpected? What used to be just a strictly family affair, can it include social families into the celebrations to make up for the lack in extended family size? One where we invite our neighbours and their families, our friends and their families to join in? If we really do take pride in have big, loud and crazy gatherings for Chinese New Year, then this picture is probably the best prediction of where things are going to be a couple of generations down the road (which is actually quite a long time to wait given our current life expectancy unless Jesus comes again or some major global disaster hits). That's interesting because then the world just got smaller, breaking down the apparent barrier between strictly family and the rest of the community. Not only we spend less time with family relative to our generation because of the size but we spend more time with someone else's family. This mish-mash of family and friends at the dinner table will ultimately result in reducing our degrees of separation down even more.
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