Time Passes So Fast

On last Saturday, 04 July 2009, I went for my secondary school class gathering. We celebrated our 10th year anniversary with a BBQ at my friend's condominium pool side. Even though time passes so fast, most of us seem to look the same like when we are 15 years old. Our form teacher of Sec 4, Mrs Clara Sim also look the same like 10 years ago. Hope that another 10 years on, we will achieve all our goals we set for ourselves!

Sec 3A/4A, 10 years on

4A Badge, People With an A-ttitude!

Fortunate As Singaporeans

I believe all men and women should have equal share of the resources in the world, but this is not true in the current world context. Poverty and wealth exist in different parts of the world, leading to unfair and unequal share of the Earth's resources. I believe that a pure communism which promotes the establishment of an egalitarian (a system where all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights), classless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general is great for the world, but most communist structures in the world are not able to achieve it.

Farmer working hard to earn a living

Most Singaporeans are fortunate because we are able to get a huge amount of resources that others are deprived of. My trip to China last week let me realized that we are actually using the resources that should be theirs by right. Thus as the fortunate batch of people, we should live our life more meaningful than those unfortunate batch of people. But this is not true as most fortunate men and women just waste their life trying to reach for more wealth and power and neglect the fact that it is those unfortunate ones who give up their rightful resources to us.

A market in Nanjing, China

A fruit market in Nanjing, China

The fortunate group of people do not understand that they have the obligation to contribute back to the society by helping the poor. In Singapore, some recognize the fact that Singaporeans are selfish and do not help those in need. I do not really know how true it is, but I just hope that we as the fortunate group can do our part to help those in need as a repayment for the over usage of Earth's resources that do not belong to us rightfully.

I chatted with a young lady when I was at 千岛湖 Thousand Islands Lake to find out the standard of living over there. I found that she has about RMB 5 as her daily food expenditure, it might be hard to imagine how little it is. Over at there, a cup of instant noodle or a 500 ml bottle of soft drink sell at RMB 3 plus, so it is considered luxury for her to eat such stuff which is junk food to us. The 2 photos above are showing the better well-off city, Nanjing, China.

武侠梁祝 Butterfly Lovers

I watched 武侠梁祝 Butterfly Lovers on Saturday, was 5 mins late for the movie but lucky found out that the 5 mins was not critical. It is a kungfu version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet with 吴尊 Wu Chun as Romeo and 蔡卓妍 Charlene Choi as Juliet.

心如蝶舞 - 蔡卓妍 Charlene Choi

The 武侠梁祝 Butterfly Lovers Story:

Yanzi (蔡卓妍 Charlene Choi) and Chengen (胡歌 Hu Ge) grew up together. An enemy of Yanzi family who was a high ranking official wanted a forced marriage with her, thus Yanzi's parents have to send her off to a martial arts sect in the mountain to avoid the marriage. Due to this, Yanzi's parents was imprisoned by the official but she was kept in the dark. Chengen who was also an official was forced to work with a general who wanted to eliminate the premier. Chengen betrayed the premier and was promoted 3 ranks which enabled him to eliminate the high ranking official. In the meanwhile, Yanzi took shelter at the martial arts sect and knew Zhongsan (吴尊 Wu Chun) who was the senior disciple of the sect. Both fall in love with each other deeply while Chengen was trying to eliminate the premier for the general.

Love blossoms between Yanzi & Zhongsan

Finally, Chengen went to tell Yanzi the truth about what was happening to her family and fetched her home. He also released Yanzi's parents from prison and imprisoned the high ranking official, thus Chengen became the benefactor to the whole family. Chengen knew that Yanzi had fall in love with Zhongsan, so he quickly proposed to Yanzi's parents for marriage and they agreed. Yanzi was strongly against the idea as her heart was with Zhongsan. She knew that Chengen had done alot for her but she felt that kindness should be repay with kindness, not love. In the end, Yanzi was locked up in her room by her parents because she disagreed the marriage.

Yanzi forced to marry Chengen

Zhongsan secretly went to Yanzi's house and met her, they decided to elope together the next day when Yanzi had a chance to visit the temple. Finally, Yanzi escaped and waited at a pavilion for Zhongsan but Chengen knew about it and held her parents as hostages. Since Chengen was influential and held Yanzi parents as hostages, Yanzi had no choice but to return and marry him. But while Yanzi was in the sedan, she took a fake death pill which will make her seemed dead for a few days. Both Chengen and Zhongsan was unaware that Yanzi was faking death and this was the start of the tragedy.

Zhongsan at Yanzi's funeral

The marriage had become a funeral and Zhongsan fight his way through Chengen's lackeys to see Yanzi one last time. Chengen finally realized what he was doing was wrong, thus he let Zhongsan took the body of Yanzi away. At that time, Zhongsan was already seriously injured after the fight. He carried Yanzi to the butterfly valley which was the place where their love first blossomed. After digging a hole there, he placed Yanzi and himself in the hole and he died. Soon, the disciples of the martial arts sect came and saw both Yanzi and Zhongsan dead thus they start throwing in sands to bury them. In the meanwhile, Yanzi woke up after the effect of the fake death pill went off but she saw Zhongsan lying motionless beside her. Thus she decided to sacrifice and die with him together, being buried alive.

My Personal Opinions:

Chengen was too persistent in getting Yanzi. Even though they grew up together, Yanzi only treat him like a brother. He cannot understand why Yanzi was so deeply in love with Zhongsan whom she had just met and not with him who had known her since young. He does not understand that the law of attractions will overshadow the law of affections which is universal in our world.

Repaying anything (including kindness except love) with love is not a correct thing to do. By doing so, you are harming all the persons involved. Love cannot be forced, thus how can we use it as a repayment material.

Giving is better than receiving. If Chengen give up or give blessings to both Yanzi and Zhongsan, it will result in a good ending. But rather he wanted to possess Yanzi by forcing her to marry him which resulted in such a tragedy. I believe he will receive more if he is willing to give in the first place. Most people will only want to receive and never put in effort to give. It is not a bad idea to surrender or give in, you can still have win-win situation by surrendering or giving in. The Hanged Man of the major arcana of the Tarot card is a very good example of gaining enlightenment through surrendering.

Came Out Of Hiatus

Feel so good! Finally came out of long hiatus, went to club at MOS with friends and buddies. I really enjoyed it since I was absent from clubbing scene for one and half months. Catch up with a platoon mate which completed his service and have good talk with him. He was concerned about his acne and acne scars problem which persisted in him for long time. He was trying out an over-the-counter cream which will repair and rejuvenate the skin, but told me that the effects was not great. You might laugh at this but we guys do discuss about such stuffs.

Some of my friends might even consider me as metro-sexual because of my complex face regime but I personally believe that maintaining appearance is important. Why not if you are able to do something to make yourself look better? If the reason is because you are lazy then you are being disrespectful to yourself and the others. Famous quote: "There are no ugly women in the world, only lazy women", of course we can change it from women to men.

I recommended him to see a dermatologist for advice as past experiences tell me that his skin problem can be easily solved through a proper face regime. I have been seeing a dermatologist for my skin problems also and the advices & medicines that they gave are really good at helping me. Just a tube of topical tretinoin cream may be the answer to acne and acne scars even though long term usage is needed to show the effects. I have been using the cream for more than half a year and the effects are great. Just a short introduction to tretinoin cream, it helps to improve skin complexion and treat & prevent acne.

I am really happy that I can resume my face regime this coming week because of the chicken pox outbreak which forces me to suspend the use of the cream. My face still has some scars left from chicken pox which can be improved by using the cream. Hopefully, I can get back to the good complexion which I always had.

Final note, I will advice anyone facing face problems to see a dermatologist for advice. It is not that expensive as some might think and the regime might not be that nuisance to follow through. This is especially important for those who has low confidence because of skin problem.

Chicken Pox

It has been 10 days since the discovery of my chicken pox. Life has been boring, even if some envy my long MC... Come to think of it, 2 wks of MC = 2 wks of home dentention. Do you want it? Pity myself for getting chicken pox in adulthood. Coincidently, most of my close cousins still havent had chicken pox before. Do they want to carry the tragedy like what I did, only getting it in adulthood? I heard that getting chicken pox in adulthood is bad because the chicken pox will not go off so easily and the chance of scarring is higher. My face and body is full of chicken pox and my parents said that it is better this way, thinking that having a serious one will reduce the chance of getting it another time. Even until now, there are still lots of dried chicken pox on my face and body. Just hope they will disappear soon without scarring. Another note, been eating plain food like porridge with canned cai xin for 10 whole days already. Really hope to eat some good foods but my mum told me not to eat anything "toxic" like chicken and eggs within 40 days. My god....