Importance of good human relationship, And what it has to do with your late grandma

Hi Lewis,

Your uncle started work last Monday, 16 July 2007. Each time he came back to work, your grandpa will ask him about his work. Yesterday too, we talked a bit. The conversation ended up with me talking about good human relationship. If you are good in human relationship, get along very well with people, very likely you can go far in life. Some consider human relationship skills as important, if not more important a good education. I think both are important. A person with a good education will find it easy to get a job. However, if he is not good at getting along with people, he may not go very far. He will of course get a good start compared with one with a poor education. But someone with a poor education but has very good human relation skills, can get along with people very well, can have a very good chance of overtaking his more educated fellow human, especially if he is hard working and knows how to make the best of opportunities that may come his way.

What has it got to do with your late grandma? Well, she has a natural talent at making friends. She can start conversing with someone new and within minutes be talking like they have know each other a long time. I have been hoping your mom, your aunts and uncles will take after her. Perhaps they have. But in any case, good human relation skills can be learned, if one want to.

This old man hope that you, Lewis, will both get a good education as well as be able to get along with people easily.

Mother tongue. Why Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew says it is important

Hi Lewis,

Just read this news report about what Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore advised his fellow citizens. Mr. Lee is the former Prime Minister of Singapore who led Singapore from a resource poor country with only its human capital to become one of the richest country around this region. Mr. Lee is a very intelligent man. When Singapore got separated from Malaysia, they were about the same level as Malaysia, but Malaysia had the advantage of having very rich natural resources like petroleum, plenty of land, tin deposits, even a little bit of gold deposits, wide expenses of rubber estates and now oil palm estates. Singapore had none of these. But because of good leadership and hard working citizens and a pretty much corruption free government and private sector, they are way ahead of Malaysia now. The previous national airline split into two. Malaysia's part became Malaysia Airline System (MAS) and Singapore's part became Singapore Airlines (SIA). The former CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of SIA (now retired), Dr. Cheong Choong Kong (better known as Dr. C.K. Cheong), actually is/was a Malaysian, in fact was my former Statistics lecturer in my university, University of Malaya. He very likely have taken up Singapore citizenship, I don't know. He led SIA to become one of the top airlines in the world while MAS had to depend on the Malaysian government for survival.

Back to the subject of this post. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew advised the citizens of Singapore to make an effort to keep their mother tongue. So Chinese can speak Engiish and Chinese. Indians and speak English and one of the Indian languages. Malay can speak English and Malay. In this way, Singapore will have a huge advantage in this globalised world, and Chinese can interact easily with China (now a fast growing economy and world power), Taiwan and many parts of the world where there are Chinese migrants. Some have estimated 1 in 4 people in the world are ethnic Chinese. Malays can interact easily with Malaysia and Indonesia and the rest of the world, and Indians can interact with India, also a fast growing country, and with the rest of the world. (Whether things like fast growing economy is a good or bad thing, your grandpa have a double mind, but a country with a growing population need a growing economy so that its growing population can find and keep jobs, but it has other effects I would rather not talk about here. Maybe you will understand your grandpa when you grow up). With this multi-lingual population, Singapore will have a huge advantage over lots of countries.

Malaysia too can have this advantage if it so choose (in fact it do have it, but to a lesser degree than Singapore because of racial pride).

English is not the best language to be the international language as its way of spelling and pronouncing English words is atrocious. Have you ever heard someone trying to speak English according to the spelling (phonetically), like the Japanese? You will have a hard time understanding what they are trying to say. In fact, one of your aunt's name is spelled in a way that can be considered as a kind of "parody" of the English spelling. English only became the de facto international language by circumstances, not because it is best suited to become one. But not every country's citizen are master of the English language, and if you are able to converse with them in their tongue, you normally would be able to get along very much better.

Your grandpa sent your mom to a Chinese primary school for about the same reason as Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. She can now speak Chinese, English and Malay. China was a poor, backward communist country then, but is a sleeping giant waiting to wake up. It was not an easy decision because when you have to learn more than one language, you have to be hard working. There is a danger that if you do not work hard, you do not master any of them, and then you have a problem. You are neither here nor there, and may end up not not been able to keep up with the rest.

I do not know if your mum found that being multi-lingual is an advantage or not, but I think very likely it do give her an advantage over those who know only one language. I do not know what decision your parents will make for you, but whatever it is, I am sure you will grow up to become a hard working chap.

Mother tongue in books etc

Lee Kuan Yew in books
Lee Kuan Yew biography
Lee Kuan Yew memoirs
Lee Kuan Yew the man & his ideas

Lewis and this old man music slideshow

Hi Lewis,

Hope when you grow up a bit more, you will enjoy this music slideshow. Since the music accompanying this music slideshow is "This old man", thought I show show the mugshot of that old man, your grandpa. This one includes a Nuchal scan when you are still in your mom's womb, and according to the doctor, showed your recognizable face which is rare in Nuchal scan. So you are lucky to be able to see yourself with your face while still inside your mom's womb.

There is actually another music slideshow with another music - Old MacDonald with less photos and without me (old man) in the slideshow. Thought you may enjoy the music more.

Warm welcome, Lewis, my first grandson

Introducing my first grandson Lewis who first joined our family in this world in the morning of July 1, 2007 at the Pantai Hospital. Post of photos couldn't be added earlier because I had to finish many other tasks first, sorry.

Lewis still in hospital, day 1

Lewis at home now, with the paternal grandparents

Lewis on a mattress

Photo of Lewis taken between 7-8 July 2007

I didn't include Lewis's full name because there is some controversy over whether putting up blogs and photos like this on the web is a wise idea. Some says when the kid grows up, he/she may not like it because of privacy issues. When looking for spouse or employment in the future, prospective partner or employer do background checks on the web and posts and photos like this may turn up in the search and it may have a positive or negative effect, depending. His grandfather (paternal side) says if it turns out to be negative, he can then sue his granddad (me). Feedback welcomed in the comments.

BTW, any resemblance to Nuchal scan with a recognisable face?

Also, made 2 music slideshows at Old MacDonald and This Old Man which really contained a photo of this old man.

Poem in memory of your great-grandmother

Hi Grandchild. You will soon be joining us in this world. Don't know when you will be able to read this. I got this from one of your grandaunt, who said that she doesn't know how to express her feelings, but found this poem which helps. This is obviously a poem directed to the memory of your great-grandma, but she did not state her source. If she ever do, I will update this if the author gives her permission.

Update July 11, 2007: Actually got the information much earlier, but only editing this post now. Apparently my children already guess who the real author is. It is I who is blur and didn't know (actually I have some idea but without confirmation, don't want to put it down in writing). I didn't ask the author for permission, neither did she gave any indication of whether it is forthcomming. But I suppose saying that it is Lewis's third grandaunt without mentioning names should do no harm. The author of this poem says she wanted to write a poem to express her feelings but didn't know how to start. Then she saw a poem in the newspaper (I think) and the first few lines gave her the inspiration, and the rest just flowed easily.

Here is the poem:

We speak your name with love and pride,
We smile through tears we try to hide.
We thank you ,Mum, for the years we shared,
The love you gave, the way you cared.
You left a place no one can fill,
We miss you, Mum, and always will.

A year ago,
The long day closed,
The hill was too steep to climb.
You've journeyed hard'
You deserved to rest.
God opened the heavenly gates
And whispered softly,'Come inside'
And there you saw Pa
Whom you've often asked to take you home.
Welcome home he said
No more suffering, no more pain.
You were so glad to see
The father who told you so gently
when you left for another land,
'Siew Yin, it won't be too hot there
You'll find relief under the trees'.
And so you left with Pa
Bound for a land unknown
But you persevered and built a life anew.
You must have seen your Ma, the gran we never knew.
And what about the gran we knew?
She must have smiled and said,'What kept you?'
You must have seen your brothers,
One so kind you often said,
The other died so young it must have hurt.
Did you see the daughters who died before you did,
And whom you must have sorely missed?
One went so young you rarely talked of her,
The other we knew and loved.
We know not what you felt or knew
We can only guess how much it hurt.
Did you see your only daughter-in-law
Who so bravely fought and lost.
Did you finally get to see again
Those relatives and friends you have yearned to meet?
Have fun up there'
You deserve every bit of it.

Year of the pig

I subscribe to Berita Malaysia, a Yahoo group where you get news often not found in the normal newspaper. Today, while reading through the digest, I came across this and thought I would copy-paste an extract from a report from Imran Imtiaz Shah Yacob, a broadcast journalist and trained lawyer:

"The Feng Shui faithful will tell you that according to Chinese
astrology, people born in year of the pig are born lucky. Hence, many
Chinese chose to have their babies this year. It is perhaps also for
these children that their parents will fight for a better future. And
if luck has anything to do with it, they will live in a nation that is
at peace with its very diversity and secure from racial
discrimination."

My First Grandson Second Nuchal Scan with recognizable face

There were a number of second nuchal scans. Here is one of them that is more recognizable. It showed a face.

Scan with a recognizable face

Doctor said it is a boy. If you are interested in the rest of the scans, surf over to Enviroman's Album