Unspoken Words of Loy: December 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005

性情枷锁

我拥有一个箱子，上面的锁头已将它锁了二十多年。好想把它给打开，但所找到的钥匙却似乎派不上用场。也许是因过了太多年，那锁头里已经有些生锈了，所以没办法轻易的打开。我透过箱子所仅有的一些缺口，向里面窥探，但看不清里面的所以然。我深深知道，必须尽早找到法子将它给打开。时间过了越久，那枷锁将越难打开。里头的东西也很可能会变质。到底有什么办法？想了很久，还是毫无头绪。时光继续毫无留情地流逝。。。

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Hip Reading

Have started observing what others are reading in recent months in order to get inspiration on what books I shld be adding next onto my list of "to read books". Can't help but noticing that many pple that dun normally read have actually started reading and "coincidentally", most of them are reading the same books. Just like fashion where there is normally a trend of what is "in", there also seems to some books that are "in season", that are hip and trendy. I started to coin these ppl as "hip readers", only armed with books, if any, that are the "in" thing and most talked about at the moment. Books ranging from Harry Porter, Rich Dad series to the most recent Dan Brown's series. A most interesting phenomenon...

What do these readers want to achieve? What are the reasons that propel them to be ardent fans of these titles?

Is the writer so good that she/he can mesmerise readers of all ages? How is it possible that so many pple have the same interests and reading habits?

Or was it simply becos they feel the need to be part of the action? Was it becos its trendy to be seen reading and being able to discuss abt these titles, and to fear being viewed as ignorant otherwise? Peer influence?

As a side note, maybe there are another class of readers consisting of the few that read "hip books" with the intention of understanding the "hip readers"....

Friday, December 23, 2005

A Day, A Life

This morning, as I was sitting in the bus on my way to work, with the cool breeze, from the movement of the bus, blowing in my face, it struck at me how our life can be compressed into a working day.

In the early of the morning, as we make our way to work, we are feeling so fresh, ready to face the challenges at work, and thinking abt what we are going to accomplish for the day. As we begin to start work, we are full of energy, and we seems to approach everything with much enthusiaism. Yet as the morning proceeded, things started to sway away from what we had planned and expected, with an increase in fustration and weariness. At midday, the much awaited long break finally arrived, lunch. After lunch, we expect ourselves, after a good rest, to be recharged and ready. But alas, we begin to feel drowsy and tired as the "Z" monster attacks. We make all efforts pushing ourselves to carry on, looking forward to the end of office hours, getting more and more weary as the day drags on. Yet when the official knockoff time finally arrived, some of us realised that we still had some unfinished work and thus have to carry on working. At last, we are able to knock off, thinking that we finally have time to do the things we like. Yet often, we found ourselves having no energy left, and we see ourselves idling the evening away until we fall asleep. Many of us will try all means to push our sleeping hours to be as late as possible until we can no longer hold out.

Parallel to life....when we are young and still in school, we are fresh, full of dreams, ideas about what we are going to accomplish in our life the moment we graduate. When we got our 1st job, we begin with so much vigour and ambitions, approaching everything with much enthusiaism. As months and years passes, we found that things were not going as we had expected. We begin to feel tired and unmotivated, longing for all the holiday breaks, and clearing our leave, thinking that once we have our break, we will be recharged. Yet when we come back, nothing seems to pick up. As we trod past our mid-life, it seems that all our energy has been sapped, yet we have to push ourselves to carry on working, all the while thinking abt retirement. Yet when the time of retirement comes, many will find that they have too much financial commitment to stop working as they have no choice but to carry on working past retirement age. When we finally retire, thinking that we can finally do all the things we have wanted to do, but then we no longer have the energy of the past. We felt that we are no longer young, and many will just idle the whole of their twlight years. Many will find all ways trying to prolong their life until finally its time for them to rest for life....

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Random Thots

Been a week since my last post. 7 days of having nothing to pen down. What have my thoughts been? Was none of my thots worth thinking abt? In fact, I can't even remember what I have been thinking for the past 7 days. Felt kinda scary, esp when I pride myself as someone who thinks a lot...

Seems to start recalling sth...yah...one day, I suddenly realised I was thinking without words. Meaning normally when we thinking, its like we are talking to ourselves. But then, it seems that at times, I am thinking, analysing, but I wasn't thinking in terms of words, I wasn't talking to myself in my mind, I'm just thinking, period. Sounds a bit strange. Then things start to link up. Could this be reasons that sometimes I had difficulty putting into words of my thoughts, or explaining to someone a concept which I clearly understood? Because in the 1st place, those thoughts, those understanding weren't in word form all the while. They are just there....hmm...

Thursday, December 08, 2005

4 Blind Men and An Elephant

I'm sure we have all heard of this story since young, about how each of the 4 blind men who touches a part of the elephant and assume they knew what the elephant looks like. Many of us when we 1st hear the story, would have laugh at how silly the 4 men were. Yet, thinking abt it, everyone of us is taking the role of the blind men everyday of our life. How often have we heard or seen something and assume that we know the whole story, and we are fit to pass judgement? And worse, how often have we, armed with only a portion of the "elephant", and went ard, indoctrinating others abt the side of the story that we knew? Worst, how often have we, when presented with another portion of the "elephant", insist that our "elephant" is the right "elephant" and whoever that differ from us is wrong, absolutely wrong.

There's nothing wrong with knowing just a part of an "elephant". Its nearly impossible to know the entire "elephant" inside out. We all have some blind spots. What is important is that we recognise these blind spots, and be ready to learn from others about what they know or feel abt the "elephant". Elephants are grey for most part of their body, yet many of us only see the white or black portion of them.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Talents' Epidemic

The SEA games has just ended seemingly on a high note for Singapore. Day in day out, the newspapers, TV, radio has been extensively covering the medals coveted, won and missed. But, sadly, as usual, one group has been left in the cold: the chess players. They shld have gotten used the to chill by now, having braved it starting the day they took up this passion of theirs. Recognition eludes this group of brilliant minds, regardless of their achievements. In school, a place where a reserve in the ever-losing basketball team will hold a higher status than his classmate who won the national title in chess; where a win in the prelims by the soccer team will garner a bigger applause and louder cheer than the chess teams who swept every single championship in the national meet. The spotlight dim the minute one say he from the chess club. How many chess players have shyed away from the qn of what ECA they belong to?

Most know who is Lionel Lewis, and recognise him, but how many actually heard of the name Goh Weiming, a most brilliant & talented player since primary school?

Promising, talented and young chess players, there are quite a handful. With the lack of support, the lack of recognition, the inability to hold their heads up high, many become disillusioned. Their efforts went unnoticed. While atheletes trained just a few hrs a day, serious chess players virtually train 18hrs a day, in the toilet, on the bus, during meals, even in their dreams. Yet they were seen as having it easy. As they grow up, many will succumb, abandoning their talents to pursue anything other thing that can possibly give them back a shred of pride, where they can be seen as at least of equal standing with the rest.

Its saddening to see the "demise" of these talents, buried nine feet under the ground, mebbe forever....sigh....

Well, nevertheless, here, I'll like to offer my salutes and respects to the Singapore chess team, for their resilience, their resolution to carry on with their passion. May they reach greater height and one day they be recognised for their efforts and talents.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

性生活

最近在台湾综艺节目上与媒体商场看到艺人提到关于性生活的言论。从他们的言论，仿佛意味着, 无论已婚与否，性生活都应当是平常不可缺，像饮食一样的活动。若一个人长期没性生活（也只不过是几个月或一两年的时间），就被视为有点不正常，被视为一个问题。这只是台湾的文化吗？还是这文化已侵袭了中港台，甚至新马？将性生活当成生活与话题的中心，给予他的重要性，是他真得如此重要？还是为了证明自己属于21世纪的新人类？性爱的观念，性爱的意义，到底是在进化，还是已慢慢地退化？

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Music Piracy?

Music companies have, in recent years, been pointing all their fingers at piracy for their dwindling records sales. Day in day out, we hear blaming mp3, cd pirates, creating the notion that piracy is the sole culprit for the steady downtrend in the sales number of record albums. But is fair to put all the blame on piracy? Piracy is theft, piracy is wrong...All these I do agree. I agree that piracy did chip away some numbers off the sales, but is that the only cause? Maybe not...Are there other reasons behind that are just as devastating? I believe so... I shall only discuss it in the context of the Chinese Pop music industry, something that I'm more familar with.

For a start, music piracy have been ard for a long time, especially so since the induction of cassette tapes. I remember that, as a child, I could walk into any store that sells music cassettes and see lower priced albums alongside their originals. There's even two categories of pirated albums: one is sang by the original singer, and another is same songs but sung by some unknown ppl. Making your own pirated albums isn't that tough too. There is this mini-compo, with 2 cassette decks, that offer the features of copying from the cassette in one deck to the cassette in the the other deck. You can even choose a fast option which will carry out copy process at ard 4 times the playback speed. You can even copy directly from the radio playing on the same machine. Talk about the ease and convenience of a pirate. Yet, few complaints were heard abt piracy. Album records sales are still hitting numbers in the millions for the more popular singers, a near impossible target in recent years. And bear in mind, it was a time where the China market is still not open, which effectively eliminates a billion audience and potential sales.

Yet with the opening of the HUGE china market, we see dwindling numbers, and start to hear complaints abt piracy, something that have been ard for years.

I believe 1 key area we shld look at is the spending pattern of consumers, since this directly impact the sales of albums. The age group that is listening to pop music are mostly from 10-35 yo. In the past, we only spend money on mainly movies only. As such, we are able to spend more on buying albums. But now its different. The youngsters nowadays are spending hundreds of $$ buying the latest handphones, PDAs, iPod, MP3 players etc. There's also the lure of gaming consoles like PS2 and XBox. These will already eat up a large portion of their spending power. In addtition, most of them are regulars of pubs and nightspots, spending on average up to a couple of hundreds per day. With all these extra and huge expenditure, it is small wonder that they are spending less on buying music albums.

Another difference is the amount of artistes the music records companies are churning out. In the past, there used be only a few more popular singers and whenever there's some newcomers, I would have at least heard of their name or heard one of 2 of their songs. But now, when some of them appear on variety shows, I dun even noe who they are even when thier names are called up, much lest hear of their song. Compare the amount of 偶像派 singers, in the past, at any one time you will be able to count with at most 2 of your hands, but now the number is at least 3-4 times. Not to mention the number of boys groups...With the excessive churning out of artistes, its obvious that the pie is being shared by so much more. How many singers can u support at one time? How many albums can you afford to buy in a month? Especially so when the consumers are spending a large sum of their money on other things. Is piracy the sole culprit for the dwindling number in sales, or are the record company bringing abt their own downfall?

Unspoken Words of Loy