The New Year of the Tiger is just around the corner.
Festivities are the times to think of family members, relatives and friends.
These are occasions to welcome each other into our common space. Mankind shares 99.5 to 99.9% genes, and as such, we are more similar to each other than two vases produced from a single factory.
It is the environment in which different races stayed that contributed to the differences in skin colour , languages and cultures. All these differences are acquired and not real.
The truth is we are all similar inside. Our brains are the same, hearts are the same, intestines are the same.
Even the religions we practice have similarities in which all urge to be tolerant to other faiths.
So on this eve of a festival, let u all ponder why we cannot be nice to others, why cannot tolerate others, why we cannot wish each other well.
I am posting a picture wishing all the people of this world, irrespective of different colours and faith, a very happy and uplifting Year of the tiger 2010. (Those who know me will say that my hereticity is showing up again!!) 🙂
(click to enlarge)
Dr. Hsu's forum 
Feb 12, 2010 @ 14:38:22
Thank you for your unending efforts in correcting the many flaws in our country by speaking what you see and hear. That you are continuously practising to do what you can within the confine of the laws of this nation, as your maxim : ” To do my little bit to make the world a better place.” Wishing you and your family, A Properous, Healthy & Wealthy year ahead.
We are afterall a human race and I think this nation needs more people who are God fearing and and willing to take on the attitude of servanthood as a state representative or an MP, with that we can solve many ills of this nation.
LikeLike
Feb 12, 2010 @ 16:46:59
Happy CNY to you Dr Hsu and family. It is really tiresome and unproductive fighting over what I consider trivial differences when we can all stand united for the betterment of every Malaysian. I had prayed that 2010 will be a more peaceful year but what an explosive start it has been. Looks like it did not happen. Maybe I should change that to a better year from March onward. Let’s see.
LikeLike
Feb 12, 2010 @ 18:04:46
“Our brains are the same, hearts are the same”” You are right Doc, but the problem..the brains never think the same and no hearts feeling for others.
Remember 2 years back it was widely published a muslim cannot wish the non muslim during the feastive season.??…Where is the brain and the hearts????
Wishing you Dr Hsu and your family a successful year.
LikeLike
Feb 12, 2010 @ 22:23:31
Dr, Wishing you and your family good health and wisdom for the year.
LikeLike
Feb 13, 2010 @ 11:35:56
Dr. Hsu. A happy Chinese New Year to you and your family. May you have good health and good fortune.
LikeLike
Feb 14, 2010 @ 02:40:10
Happy new year Dr Hsu and keep up the good fight. Most important of all, take care.
Regards,
Teik Lim
(sorry for being such a pain in the past)
LikeLike
Feb 14, 2010 @ 21:20:07
Dr. Hsu,
GONG XI FA CAI
spot red
LikeLike
Feb 15, 2010 @ 07:47:17
CNY is the time when the Chinese all over the world “burn” their money lighting fireworks hoping to chase away demons and bring “CHAI SENG YE” to their home. It’s a waste of money and pollute the environment.
It’s the same in Malaysia. Our population of 25 million with the Chinese comprising of 30%, that’s 7.5 million. If a Chinese spend RM10 on firework, that’s RM75 million. Imagine what you can do with that money. But when it comes to donation for school building fund or the needy, most of them just shy away and are not that generous.
Lighting firework does create a new year mood but the problem is Malaysian Chinese is overdoing it year after year. It’s like a competition between neighbours to see who can last longer with their fireworks – a display of wealth maybe or ……. It’s the “kia su” attitide and mentality which Chinese always boaste about their 5000 years of history/culture – I am never proud of this heritage.
So to all Malaysian Chinese, be LOGIC and be LOCALIZED next year. Better save all money spend on firework on your essentials – we are still not out of the recession wood.
Dont’ ever contemplate a prosperous life if you ignite tons of fireworks because YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE.
Wish all of you a happy and blessed Chinese New Year.
LikeLike
Feb 15, 2010 @ 08:53:45
1MY
The society is moving from one of thrift, where every penny is saved for a rainy day, to one of more wastefulfness.
In US , AMerican used to saved about 10% of their earnings before the Reagan era, but it has become more wasteful and now, saving is not only zero, but debt is more than 100% of earning.
Imagine a nation that lives on borrowed money.
Asians used to be very thrifty , but the younger generations are not so careful about their spendings. Perhpas because it is easier to earn money, and they have not gone through the hardship of the Second World War and the early struggle of the Asian nationalism in the 50s, they tend to spend much more than their parents ‘ generations.
Such wasteful ways will stretch the Earth’s resources to the limits.
Instead if human are less wasteful and use only a fraction of the money saved to help fellow human beings, the Earth will be a much better place.
Maybe during this festive season, we should think more of others, and instead of spending all on foods and drinks, we save some for the less fortunate.
Even if we have a less rich new year, so what. It is not going to affect us much, but what little we can donate and contribute to the less fortunate, they can live better and sometimes it means a matter of survival. We will also be rewarded with Karmic forces, and i am sure if ever there is such a thing as karma, helping others will enrich our lives much more than spending on elaborate dishes to signify prosperity and longevity.
I believe that if ever there is such a thing as karma, helping others will bring more prosperity and longevity to us and our loved ones than offering 10 course dinner to your gods and ancestors. PAying respect to Gods and ancestors are good tradition,but the spirits of paying respect is more important (even if you only offer one dish but you are sincere about it), than offering up 10 dishes but instead doing all sorts of harmful things outside, even small things like breaking traffic rules, going into a no entry lane, cutting queues at bus stops , throwing rubbish all over the place, and bad mouthing people etc etc etc…
LikeLike
Feb 16, 2010 @ 12:22:22
All things begin with ourselves, especially those good values like morality, courtesy, honesty, integrity, being considerate, helpful and kind hearted.
We should start kicking the ball and not giving the excuses like, if others can cheat their way to success, why not us. We should never use the same way of people treat us immorally, and we in turn do back the same way. As the saying goes, “An eye for an eye, make us go blind”.
This is my CNY message to all people, specifically the politicians from both divides. Go back to morality for all other good values to prosper. Without morality, all things are superficial, not real. The politics of “An eye for an eye” should not be our culture. In this, my salute to romerz for admitting his wrong. If Umno & BN politicians can do that like romerz, how nice?
Last but not least, Dr. Hsu, I take this opportunity to with you and family, also to the readers of this forum, a healthy and happy tiger year.
Not to forget, my salute to cilipadi as well.
LikeLike
Feb 16, 2010 @ 20:57:58
Happy Chinese New Year, Dr Hsu (apologies for the late greetings – no access to Internet).
Will bear in mind your advice above.
Cheers…
LikeLike
Feb 16, 2010 @ 22:58:21
According to recent contacts between Swedish farmer Billy Meire and the spiritually evolved Pleiadians or Prejarans from the cluster of Pleiades (7 stars in the Taurus constellation or Orion belt, we can see with our naked eyes on a cloudless night), there is no such thing as “karma” as we perceive BUT….there is a cause and effect.
To many, the cause and effect is natural karma.
But not in the sense of a punishment type of “karma”. There is no King of Hades too, melting out punishments and no Heavenly Emperor to dish out rewards.
The law of cause and effect is automatic and natural.
The so-called “gods” or “deities” only serve as examples of evolution in the overall “Creator”s creation” of human evolution. So, we have to develop our “own” brains and meditate or nurture own spirituality. Worshiping gods but not “helping” ourselves is useless. Like buying a ticket but not getting on the bus or LRT.
The Chinese should do some critical evaluation and introspection whether their traditional practices are taking them anywhere??
LikeLike
Feb 17, 2010 @ 12:10:38
Dr, Hsu,
Talking about saving in the bank, there is one bank which advertise in their website that their interest rate is at 2% per annum payable monthly for maintaining at least RM50,000 in one of their FLEXI-ble saving account – which is unlike term deposit where you are locked in on your deposit.
In fact this bank may be only paying about 1% per annum instead.
So to those depositors, better check your bank passbook to make sure there is no error in the computation of interest. Maybe they will later come back with an excuse that they forget to revert/reset in their system their interest rate from their adverised rate in mid 2009 of 1 % to the present 2%.
LikeLike
Feb 17, 2010 @ 12:28:45
Talking about eating out during CNY, I like to share with you my experience when I ordered a coffee and some cheezy wedges at a finger licking good restauant in a shopping complex cum hotel in Kuching, Sarawak in Dec 09.
I took a sip of my coffee and almost swallowed something which was not supposed to be in the menu – a baby cockroach.
Maybe this has to do with their cleanliness of that restaurant although there is emphasis of stringent peat control in their website.
If an “Ang Moh” was in my shoe, there would be an issue and would certain make headline in the local media.
Though I have written to their customer service centre in KL to highlight my encounter, their personnels have yet to email me. Too busy maybe – Christmas and CNY festive season.
LikeLike
Feb 18, 2010 @ 20:57:44
Human beings have wants and needs. I used to criticize firework and the “multi-billion” paper money but now I deem it as part of our wants. Overall, I think the Chinese are prudence and thrift. But in term of philanthropy, still a long way to go?
Morality has a price. 200k doesn’t work, what about 2 millions? 2 million is too little, what about 20 million? I wouldn’t to the extent to tell morality is useless and ask everyone to dump it, however everything will be back to basic, human decision and greed. We better place our trust into a dog and not a human. Hence the struggle is toward a democratic society, an open media and enforcement of law.
Eat all we can and have fun during this festival, take a good rest and think through what we can do next.
新年快乐。
LikeLike
Feb 19, 2010 @ 09:32:29
Rhan
Man has weaknesses. That is why rules are needed.
Some make rules into law, where law breakers are punished for the different offences that they have committed. This is a form of deterrent so that man would not succumbed to their weaknesses.
Others made rules into a form of behavioural teachings, like Confucius. He laid down the rules for behavious towards kings, towards parents, towards teachers, towards spouces, towards siblings and friends.
When everyone is doing and observing this type of behavioural rules, anyone who break this will be deemed an outcast and the peer pressure and a sense of shamefulness serve as a deterrent.
Unfortunately, many emperors had hijacked Confucianism and made it a tool to consolidate their powers. And by interpreting Confucian rules their ways, they imparted a different cultural behaviour in their subjects, so that blind loyalty became the peer behaviour and anyone not observing it was deemed to be an outcast, and worse punishable by the state law too. (History is repeating itself and many so call religious scholars are interpreting the teachings of religions for their own interests too)
In my humble opinion, it is still possible to cultivate a moral society, by changing behaviours of the people at a very young age, and by strictly and sternly punish any adults for running fouls of the morality rules and laws.
It would be a mammoth task and it would take political wills and and strong leadership to do so. And it takes generations for such a cultural change to be achieved.
But such morality exercises can only succeed when people have a full stomach. That is why i agree totally with Lee KY that the first task of a government is to feed its people.
LikeLike
Feb 19, 2010 @ 15:32:51
Hsu,
When I wrote morality, I solely try to construe it from the point of religion or perhaps a little bit of philosophy, nothing much to do with behavior though it is never easy to segregate the two. Confucianism especially the Neo-Confucianism (宋明理学) affect China political philosophy for the last few hundred years. Confucianism interpretation is did by intellectual (士大夫) like 朱熹 and 王阳明, don’t you think some awful happening is actually the action of intellectual and not the emperors? Anyway, emperor is now become fairy tale. And my question is, does our education that rotten until we have no more learning of morality? I don’t think so.
In the past 50 years, the entire Malaysia political philosophy is base on race, which doesn’t contribute much toward the overall development. After 308, I hope the core values will not turn from one race into some vague ideals that emphasize too much on religion and morality, if you do get what I mean. It was never easy to reach consensus on morality values in such a multi-racial and multi-religion society like ours.
What we shall stress is accountability with rule of law, and democracy mechanism that allow people to choose. Hope my short message does help clarify my stand.
Some of my writing is merely sarcastic remark and make fun of those with religion background, though I am a Buddhist, I find it odd to present a political viewpoint from a Buddhism perspective, but this is my personal opinion. Agree to disagree.
Did LKY also talk about feeding the people? I thought China leaders are the one that loves to talk about this? I know very little of LKY, so what is next when people stomach is full? Just kidding. I never like LKY.
LikeLike
Feb 21, 2010 @ 23:04:38
Someone is stupidly wrong to see morality from the religion point of view.
Robbers, prostitutes, murderers, womanizers, wife-beaters, husband-beaters all have religion, pray to God / Allah, swear in bible / koran, ……
You have no morality, what to talk about religion? Prostitutes have higher morality than you then,……
morality makan cili, someone rasa pedas
LikeLike
Feb 23, 2010 @ 09:45:30
cilipadi,
Wish you a happy lunar new year.
LikeLike