How Should One Live and Die?

November 1, 2009 at 12:00 am (Current Affairs)

This article is dedicated in memory of Mr Fu Weng Leng and Mrs Masako Deguchi, whose warm friendships my wife and I will always cherish.

It’s a trite saying that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. While death is inevitable as part of the natural cycle of birth, life and death, taxes, on the other hand, are created by man and could be minimised or even avoided legally if one is rich enough to afford the services of a clever lawyer or a tax adviser. Throughout mankind’s history, human minds have been preoccupied and gripped by the fear of death except the very brave or selfless among them who would deem it a great honour to sacrifice their lives as a patriotic act or for a worthy cause. However, to live a long, healthy and happy life would be the ultimate goal of most people everywhere.

Despite the inevitability of death, some rich and powerful personages would do their utmost to reverse the law of nature in the hope that they could prolong their lives indefinitely. A well-known example was China’s mighty First Emperor, who had the country’s Great Wall built at the cost of numerous lives and who aspired to have his dynasty lasting a thousand years. He devoted a good part of his reign to finding an elixir of life that would give him eternal life, but only to die of gradual mercury poisoning in the hands of his desperate and helpless imperial physicians!  At the other extreme, there had been instances in the past decade of some obsessive multi-millionaires who would instruct their loved ones to keep their dead bodies in cold storage in the hope and belief that in the not too distant future, medical science and technology would have advanced to such an extant that they could then be resurrected from the afterlife and live again! Well, it would appear that nothing is beyond the fertile human mind in its quest for immortality.

Just as in ages past, today most of us would also aim to live to a ripe old age and to leave this world peacefully and painlessly. This would indeed be a perfect ending. In reality, however, this is often beyond our control. For instance, we can be inflicted with a lingering death caused by a dreaded illness like stroke or cancer, or meet with a fatal motor accident or die in a capital crime committed by a felon or be a hapless victim in an earthquake, war or civil disturbance.

One of the saddest things in life is to lose one’s spouse or family members or close relatives and good friends. They would all have enriched one’s life, give it fuller meaning and make it more complete. Be that as it may, this must,  eventually happen and one must accept it as part of living, no matter how painful and unbearable such a loss can be. It is therefore all the more important and necessary that we must treasure every moment that we have with them while it is still possible for us to do so. When they are gone, the fond memories of them would comfort and sustain us for the rest of our lives. The anguish of parting from our loved ones, through death or other circumstances, has been most poignantly captured by China’s celebrated Song poet Su Dongpo in his immortal poem “Shui Diao Ge Tou” 水调歌头, which all educated Chinese, young and old, are familiar with. May I, in my  amateurish way, translate its most well-known lines into English for the benefit of viewers who do not know Chinese. Here it goes: “We humans have moments of joy and sadness, parting and reunion, just as the moon has its cycles of brilliant brightness and contrasting dimness. This has been so since ancient times and, alas, nothing in nature or human life can ever be perfect. So, I can only wish that we will all live long in order that we can always share the sight of the beautiful moon even when we are thousands of miles apart from each other.” Su dedicated this poem to his beloved brother, a fellow poet, who was far away from him when he feelingly composed this poem.

In recent months, my wife and I had unexpectedly lost two valued friends in quick succession. We were quite stunned by the unexpected news because when we last met them not that long ago, they both appeared to be in good health then. We will always remember them with fond memories and cherish the warm friendships between us and them and their respective spouses. I would like to share with the viewers some of their admirable personal attributes which had made them very decent and likeable human beings.

Mr Fu Weng Leng

We first met Mr and Mrs Fu Weng Leng several years ago through an old friend, Dr Chee Choong Seng, a prominent surgeon in Singapore. Dr Chee had invited us to join a 9-day tour of the world-renowned Hakka tulous 土楼 (earth buildings) in the Yongding county in China’s Fujian province, where many Singaporean Hakka Chinese’s forefathers, including Aw Boon Haw of Tiger Balm fame, came from. Some of the extant tulous date back to the Ming dynasty. The tour was organised by Dr Chee and Mr Fu, under the auspices of Singapore’s Yongding Clan Association, of which they were then the president and deputy president respectively. We gladly accepted the invitation as we had always been fascinated by these tulous which are now an UNESCO World Heritage site. The trip was a resounding success, thanks to the efficient efforts of both the organisers. During the tour, some of Mr Fu’s manifested character traits had made a deep impression on my wife and I. First, he arranged for our group to visit his ancestral tulou, still inhabited by some of his close relatives, where we were given a hospitable rousing welcome. He and his charming wife then took leave of our group for half a day in order to pay their respects to the Fu ancestors at a hilly grave site, as all filial Chinese descendants there or overseas would do on special occasions. To ensure that all of us were satisfyingly and happily fed throughout the tour, he, without our knowledge, had generously subsidised us with additional more expensive dishes whenever he felt that the standard menu provided by the travel agency fell short of his expectations. When we later found out that the excellent food that we all had been raving about came from his own pocket, we offered to reimburse him but he cheerfully declined saying that if the food was palatable to us all, then that would make him very happy. Another example of his sincere and helpful disposition emerged when a tour member was anxious to contact a long lost relative, whom he had never met, he came to his rescue by enlisting the help of a prominent local friend to trace the whereabouts of this relative. As luck would have it, his friend was successful in doing so and the two sides had a happy meeting which would not have materialised without the spontaneous and timely intervention of Mr Fu. A further example of his generosity was his hosting a sumptuous dinner at an expensive restaurant and invited the group, 22 of us, to share the joy of his wife’s 60th birthday celebrations. At the conclusion of the holiday, he gave all of us presents of specialty local products to bring home. After this holiday, My wife and I continued to meet up with Mr and Mrs Fu at regular intervals, usually in Dr and Mrs Chee’s residence or as the latter’s guests at social events at Yongding Clan Association. The last time we met Mr Fu was barely six months ago when he and Mrs Fu had decided to join the Chees, us and other mutual friends on a 19-day trip to Eastern Europe, but Mr Fu later changed his mind as he had new plans to take his extended family on a separate holiday elsewhere later in the year.

We only learned of Mr Fu’s death through Dr Chee after his funeral was over. He told me that it was Mr Fu’s wishes to keep the wake and funeral as simple and private as possible and therefore only his close relatives and a few old friends and business partners, including the Chees, were informed by his family members of his death and they were at the wake. No obituary appeared in the newspapers. However, a memorial service would be held later for those of his relatives, friends and business associates who might wish to bid Mr Fu farewell. Dr Chee asked me to look out for the press announcement as my wife and I would like to attend. The memorial service was called “Celebration of Life”, and took place at the ballroom of Ritz Carlton Hotel, followed by a buffet high tea. What an unusual memorial service it turned out to be, the like of which we had not experienced before. A large group of several hundred people were there, including not a few who had come from overseas countries. This is a signal testimony of the popularity and respect that Mr Fu commanded among his relatives, friends and business associates.

The service began with the master of ceremony announcing that Mr Fu would very much like this occasion to be a joyful celebration of the happy times that he had shared with all present, and not a mournful event. To the surprise of us all, a video, made shortly before his death, was shown to the gathering. A well composed Mr Fu, sitting comfortably on a sofa surrounded by all his caring family members, telling the viewers calmly that he has had a short illness and that he is unlikely to recover from it.  After much discussion and persuasion, his family members have finally come to terms that he will shortly be leaving them. He is much comforted that they have promised him that they will continue to cope well with life without him. He is most blessed to have a good and caring wife, filial children and lovely grandchildren, all of whom he would dearly miss. He has also been blessed with a good and full life. He is glad that his family business has been built up through sustained sound management and hard work, with continuing strong and loyal support of his staff, partners and business associates and he would take this opportunity to thank them all. After the video presentation, poignant tributes from his children and a nephew, laced with interesting anecdotes, to show what a wonderful husband, father, grandfather and uncle that Mr Fu had been to them all. Several other sincere and moving tributes also came from his close friends and business associates, both from Singapore and overseas, from which I caught glimpses of Mr Fu’s fine human qualities as a true friend and a principled businessman. In my view, the tribute that most aptly encapsulates Mr Fu’s life came from his long time doctor friend who said: “Mr Fu not only knew how to live well but he also taught us how to die gracefully. This should be an inspiration to us all”.  To end this memorable service, all Mr Fu’s children came on stage again to bid their beloved father a final farewell by singing their parents’ favourite Mandarin song, which had a sentimental significance for them both. I chanced to look around me and observed that not a few ladies in the audience were wiping off their tears at the conclusion of this celebration of life.

Mrs Masako Deguchi

My wife and I first met Mr and Mrs Hisaki Deguchi in late 1980s when we were dinner guests of our mutual Japanese friends Mr and Mrs A Ishiwara. Mr Deguchi spoke very good English and his wife had picked up enough of it in Singapore for us to communicate with her in that language. They immediately impressed us as a very friendly, cosmopolitan and likeable couple. They first came to Singapore from Tokyo around the late 1970s when Mr Deguchi accepted a key executive position with a well established local firm with operations here and in Malaysia and which had much business dealings with Japanese and Korean firms. Mrs Deguchi, skilled in Japanese flower arrangements and had an artistic flair, opened a florist shop in Orchard Road. Apart from the local Japanese and Singaporean customers, she also specialised in exporting high quality cut orchids to the Japanese market where the demand for these was growing. Besides his full time job her husband, together with a couple of Tokyo-based Japanese partners, set up one of Singapore’s earliest authentic Japanese restaurants in Orchard Rd area. Mr Deguchi later resigned from this local firm in order to devote himself fully to expanding his restaurant business in Singapore and Malaysia and to pursue other business interests.

A few months after meeting Mr Deguchi, I received a surprise telephone call from him. He told me that, although he already had a legal adviser for some years now, he would like to come and see me on some legal matters which needed urgent attention. From then on, the legal consultations on his business affairs became more frequent. At the same time I was also asked to look after his wife’s legal matters as well as acting as their legal adviser on their personal matters. We got on very well in our professional relationship, and, over time, he  became one of my highly valued clients. With my help, he and his wife became permanent residents of Singapore. They were both delighted with their new status, which they said was an important milestone in their life. Once the client and lawyer relationship was firmly established to his satisfaction, Mr Deguchi began to introduce some of his fellow Japanese and other friends to me when they needed a lawyer. Apart from work, my wife and I also met up with the Deguchis for social evenings, sometimes at one of their restaurants, as our guests at  Chinese restaurants as they both liked Chinese food  and also at each other’s house and, occasionally, at each other’s clubs. So, from a purely  professional relationship, a warm personal friendship had thus developed between us and our spouses.This friendship has continued into the present time, after my retirement from my law practice. We would continue to meet up at regular intervals. Just two weeks before Mrs Deguchi passed away recently, I telephoned her husband intending to invite them and our other mutual friends for dinner at our home. He thanked me warmly but had to decline our invitation as his wife had taken ill with an old health problem, but he assured me that her doctor had diagnosed that her medical condition was not life threatening. He also told me that in a fortnight’s time he and his wife would be taking another holiday in Europe and that they were looking forward to it. He ended the conversation by saying that they would tell us all about the European trip when we meet again before long. I wished them bon voyage.

You can imagine how shocked I was when I received a telephone call from Mr Deguchi one week later telling me in an emotion charged voice that he had just lost his wife who passed away peacefully in her sleep at home last night,  just as he thought she was getting better and felt excited about their impending European trip. It was the most painful and unbearable moment of his entire life which would now be vastly different without her. They had been a most loving couple throughout their long married life. My wife and I went to her wake with a heavy heart and, for the first time in our 20-year friendship, I spontaneously hugged Mr Deguchi as words of condolences would have failed to adequately convey that we truly shared his profound grief. Many of their other friends and his business associates of different nationalities had turned up on both nights of the wake to bid Mrs Deguchi a fond farewell. Her Japanese siblings and their family members had specially flown in from Tokyo to attend her wake and funeral. I was told by Mr Deguchi that, after the Singapore funeral, he would shortly be bringing his wife’s ashes back to Japan for burial in the Deguchi family grave site, after their Japanese friends and relatives there had paid their final respects to Mrs Deguchi in accordance with the Japanese custom and funeral rites.

I would share with the readers some of the admirable personal attributes of the late Mrs Deguchi which had endeared herself to my wife and I, and we will always treasure the memories of the happy times that we he had shared with her and her husband. Our first impression of her was that of a friendly, personable, refined and well-groomed lady who was quite at home in the multiracial society of Singapore, which was so distinctly different from Japan. She told my wife that she had many Singaporean friends and enjoyed the informal life style and the different ethnic cuisines here. She had also adjusted herself well to the humid Singapore climate. However, she did miss the seasonal changes  of cooler Japan. As we got to know her better, we found that she always had good things to say about our mutual friends and was never critical of others’ shortcomings. Like most Singaporeans,  she also sometimes did her groceries at wet markets, including the Chinatown market, together with her local friends to ease the language difficulties. A devout Buddhist, she attended the famed Bright Hill Temple on special religious days in the Buddhist calendar. She spent a good part of her day running her florist outlets, with the help of her Singaporean and Japanese staff, and was glad that she had turned her love for flowers and plants into a viable business. When we periodically ordered bouquets from her shop, she would always ensure that the value of the content would exceed the price we paid. For almost two decades, she would, without fail, give us a beautiful floral arrangement during Chinese New Year, in addition to their festive gift of wine and mandarin oranges. Her floral arrangement had always drawn praises and admiration from our friends and relatives. Like Chinese Singaporeans, the Deguchis also celebrated the Lunar New Year by donning traditional Chinese attire, receiving guests in their house and visiting them with mandarin oranges. As her husband is in the food business, it is not surprising that Mrs Deguchi enjoyed good food of both East and West and was skilled in the culinary art of her native country. When she and her husband invited us and other mutual friends to their elegantly furnished home for dinner, she would personally prepare and serve up a delightful Japanese fare of good restaurant standard. Their guests would enjoy the food tremendously in the relaxing setting of their rear garden, surrounded by mature trees and fragrant flowering plants and  shrubs, sipping sake and wine and enjoying the congenial company of each other. The Deguchis must have put in a great deal of thoughtful effort to make the evening such a memorable one. In the latter years, Mrs Deguchi’s conversational English had, to our pleasant surprise, improved markedly. When we complimented her, she modestly admitted that the credit should go to the British Council courses that she had been attending, despite her busy life here. She came from a close-knit family, and she and her husband would visit her siblings and their families annually. They too would come to Singapore regularly, as one of Mrs Deguchi’s nieces did during her recent illness.

We will truly miss her as a good friend and may she rest in eternal peace.

Lam Pin Foo

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Arithmetic in Ancient China

October 3, 2009 at 12:00 am (Chinese Culture, Guest Writer, History, Science & Technology)

An article by guest writer Oon Lay Yong. Refer to “About the Writer” at the end of the post.

Let us consider the basic arithmetic when children begin to learn. First, they are taught the names of the numerals and gradually they are shown how to use them to count. Next, they are taught how to write them and use them for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Arithmetic is considered a very important and necessary learning subject for all young children. As the children progress they will go on to learn algebra and geometry. When we know arithmetic well, algebra is a natural development of arithmetic. Geometry deals with space and the objects in space and its most well known early associations are with Euclid’s Elements. In this article we shall focus on arithmetic and explore its origins.

Our children begin by learning the names of the numerals, that is, one, two, three, four, … etc., and learning how to write them, namely, 1, 2, 3, 4, … etc. They then learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide using them. All these operations are familiar to all of us. Let us list the essential properties of this numeral system: It has nine different signs, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and the “zero” sign 0. From these signs, any numeral however large can be written. For example, three thousand five hundred and ninety two is written as: 3592. This written numeral is said to exhibit a “place value” system. The place value where each numeral is positioned is of great importance. The numeral 2 is in the units place, 9 in the tens place, 5 in the hundreds place and 3 in the thousands place.

Let us look at how the numeral nine thousand and sixty five is written: 9065. 5 is in the units place, 6 is in the tens place and 9 in the thousands place. There is no digit in the hundreds place so the “zero digit” is written there. We can use this numeral system to perform numerous operations including the basic ones of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We can also use the system for fractions and their operations. There are also other properties such as expressing a numeral as large or as small as we wish and finding square root or cube root of a numeral.How did the concept of this numeral system originate? Do note here that we are emphasizing the concept of the numeral system and not the shape of the numerals.

The Chinese used this concept as early as the Warring States period (475 to 221 BC). It probably began with simple addition or subtraction by forming the numerals with the use of bones or sticks. With the passing of time, these “sticks” or rods (as I shall call them) became more refined, and the people who needed to do calculations would carry them in a holder or container. The first nine numerals were represented as follows:

𝍠 𝍡 𝍢 𝍣 𝍤 𝍥 𝍦 𝍧 𝍨

As you can see, they had an ingenious way of representing numbers 6 to 9 by making a horizontal rod to denote the quantity 5 while a vertical rod denotes the quantity 1. With these nine numerals in place, they had another remarkable device to represent numerals greater than these. The digits of a numeral in units, tens, hundreds, thousands and so forth were placed side by side, with adjacent digits rotated, to tell each apart. The rotated digits would look like this:

𝍩 𝍪 𝍫 𝍬 𝍭 𝍮 𝍯 𝍰 𝍱

In this case the vertical rod represents the quantity 5 and a horizontal rod the quantity 1. I quote here a written description of these numerals taken from Sun Zi suanjing 孙子算经 (The mathematical classic of Sun Zi) which was written around 400 AD. An English translation of the book can be found in “Fleeting Footsteps. Tracing the Conception of Arithmetic and Algebra” by Lam Lay Yong & Ang Tian Se.

“In the common method of computation with rods, one must first know the positions of the rod numerals. The units are vertical and the tens horizontal, the hundreds stand and the thousands prostrate; thousands and tens look alike and so do ten thousands and hundreds.”

By using this rotation of rods in alternate positions, they discovered that they could denote a numeral no matter how large it was. For example 75,169 and 706,528 would be as shown:

𝍦𝍭𝍠𝍮𝍨       𝍯 𝍮𝍤𝍪𝍧

Note that in the notation of the numeral 706528, there is an empty space between 7 and 6. 7 is in the hundred thousands place; there is no digit in the ten thousands place which accounts for the blank space, and 6 is in the thousands place, followed by 5 in the hundreds place, 2 in the tens place and 8 in the units place. With this ingenious device, they had discovered a notation that could express any number no matter how large it was. What is of paramount importance is that each digit of the numeral has to occupy its correct position.There is no existing written account on how addition and subtraction were performed with the rod numerals. As these methods were very commonly and easily performed, they were probably considered too trivial to have them written. We can speculate how these are being performed. For example, in the addition of 16 and 7, this would probably be shown as follows: The numerals 16 and 7 would be placed on the board. The “board” could be any flat surface such as a table top. The numerals were probably displayed in this manner:

𝍩𝍥

𝍦

The first step is to add the 2 sets of vertical rods which give the quantity 3 represented by three vertical rods. The next step would be to add the two horizontal rods of the digits in the units place, knowing that each represents the quantity 5 so that their sum gives one tens, which is added to the existing horizontal rod on the left. The result 23 is shown below:

𝍪𝍢

In the case of subtraction of 7 from 16, the two numerals are again displayed as above, the two fives are subtracted and thus removed leaving “2” subtracting from “11” above to give “9” as shown below:

𝍨

Step-by-step descriptions on multiplication and division can be found in Sun Zi suanjing. With the invention of this marvelous numeral notation, the Chinese were able to know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Furthermore, the remainder in the division method led to the concept, formation and notation of a fraction. This in turn led to the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions, the methods of which were very similar to what is being taught to our school children today. All these operations were performed with counting rods.

Despite the vast time difference between the use of the rod numerals and our present numeral system, one cannot help but note that they share similar properties. One of the earliest and most well known book on mathematics in ancient China is Jiu zhang suanshu 九章算数 (Nine chapters on the mathematical art). Li Yan & Du Shiran in their book “Chinese Mathematics: A Concise History” stated that this book “constitutes a consummation and, at the same time, a work representative of the development of ancient Chinese mathematics from the Zhou and Qin to the Han dynasties (c. 11th century BC to 220 AD)”. (Li Yan & Du Shiran’s book has been translated into English by John N. Crossley & Anthony W. C. Lun).

Each of the nine chapters in the book has specific names. Chapter One is titled fang tian 方田 which involves the measurement of areas in square units. This chapter also shows the manipulations of fractions. The title of Chapter Two is su mi 粟米 which means “millet and rice”. It deals with problems on proportions especially on the exchange of cereals. Chapter Three is called cui fen 衰分 meaning “proportional distributions”. Chapter Four is called shao guang 少 广 (short width), Chapter Five shang gong 商功 (discussing work), Chapter Six jun shu 均输 (fair transportation), Chapter Seven ying bu zu 盈不足 (surplus and deficit), Chapter Eight fang cheng 方程 (rectangular tabulation, lit.square procedure), Chapter Nine gou gu 勾股 (right angled triangles, lit. the perpendicular sides of a right-angled triangle).

In the above I have emphasized that both our present arithmetic and the ancient Chinese arithmetic are built on numeral systems which have the same properties although the shape of the numerals are different. Besides the above two Chinese books, the ancient Chinese had also written numerous other mathematical texts. However, it is sufficient from the above two works to note that the Chinese were the initiators of the arithmetic that is still being taught to our school children today.

About the Writer

Oon Lay Yong is a retired professor of mathematics, formerly from the National University of Singapore.

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Epiphanies on Interstate-80

October 1, 2009 at 12:00 am (Current Affairs, Guest Writer, Travel)

An article by guest writer Maynard Chen. Refer to “About the Writer” at the end of the post.

February 2nd 2003, San Francisco, California

I started the engine, drove out of my loft in San Francisco and headed towards the Bay Bridge. Light mist enshrouded the bridge as I drove across. My thoughts were a mist of anticipation and apprehension. This was the first time I was driving across the North American continent.

The Tech Stock bubble had burst and Dot-com had morphed into Dot-bomb. Gone were the heady days of lucrative contracts in the technology job market that came with fancy take-out lunches from gourmet restaurants, and free massages to tempt us back into the office on weekends. Goodbye Tech Bubble.

Then 9-11 happened and in the aftermath, the Fed started pushing down interest rates to cushion the stock market crash. It was a time when one could refinance a housing loan without any closing costs to freeze interest rates for 30 years. Six months later one could do it again and ratchet down to lock in at an even lower rate. Housing prices began to soar. The banks made it so easy to take out home equity loans on the rising property values that people began to treat their homes as self replenishing ATM machines. Hello Housing Bubble.

As the owner of both a condo in Cambridge and a loft in San Francisco, I became worried when the housing market got so hot, that rentals started to drop even as housing prices were rising. This paradox came about because many would-be renters, able to qualify for easy financing, had decided to purchase rather than rent. I decided it was time to sell at least one of my properties. Since I had bought the Cambridge townhouse in 1981 it had made substantial capital gains. In order to lessen my tax burden, I had to move to Cambridge and live there for two years in order to qualify for the home owner’s deduction on Capital Gains Tax.

So it came to pass on that cold and wintry day, with my Toyota Camry packed to the gills with my computers and clothes and other worldly possessions, I was driving across the Bay Bridge embarking on a 3000 mile trans-continental journey from San Francisco to Boston. Even my front seat was completely filled with barang-barang, ruling out a tentative idea of taking a friend along to relieve the boredom of driving.

I considered two alternative ways to cross the USA. The southern route was longer but more sensible in winter because there was less likelihood of disruption by snow. I chose however the northern route because of the shorter distance and to avoid having to drive through regions that were reputed to be less friendly to people of color. A friend who was a member of AAA kindly obtained for me free maps for the entire trip. It was going to be essentially driving along Interstate 80 all the way. Security was also a major consideration since I could not hide any of the stuff in my car and I thought that it might be wiser to drive where climate would force most people to be indoors.

Besides the weather and security, my other concern for this trip was boredom, especially since I tend to suffer from highway hypnosis. I resolved to always pull over and take a nap whenever I felt drowsy. A friend made the brilliant suggestion of audio-books. So I assembled an eclectic stack of tapes borrowed from SF library and friends. Along the way I also planned to visit a few friends.

Berkeley was for me at the northern fringe of familiarity in the Bay Area, since I seldom visit Vallejo or the towns beyond. Towards evening I arrived in Sacramento where I spent the night in the apartment of an ex-colleague from Cambridge.

February 3rd 2003, On the road to Wendover, Utah

After Sacramento I began the ascent into the Sierras. This was where one was most likely to encounter snow. I began to listen to Red Azaleas by Anchee Min. It was a poignant semi-autobiographical story of her growing up in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. As I drove past Emigrant Gap and Donner Summit(7239 ft) I thought of the early settlers who had passed along the route. The nearby pass is where the Donner party were stuck in the winter of 1846. Of the 81 emigrants, only 45 survived to reach California and some resorted to cannibalism. There couldn’t be anything more disparate and disconnected between the two chains of thought alternating in my mind: Anchee Min’s story of interpersonal struggles as a budding actress in China and the trials and tribulations of the early immigrants pitted against the weather while moving west to California.

Fortunately for me the weather held up, only a light dusting of snow. I turned on the windshield wipers to clear the snow, but something weird was happening. The more I sprayed fluid the dirtier it got! Upon closer examination I realized that the “dirt” was nothing more than the windshield cleaning fluid freezing and turning into slush. I had forgotten that my sunny California windshield wiper fluid did not contain anti-freeze. A new bottle of wiper fluid fixed the problem.

After driving over the Sierras, I crossed my first state border into Nevada – the casino state. The border was quite obvious because of the plethora of gigantic neons inviting you to try your luck and make(or more likely lose) your fortune. It was quite clear they were there to suck money out of California. Despite the glittering neons I did not stop except for gas, food and toilet breaks.

As I approached Wendover on the border with Utah, it was getting dark and I had resolved earlier to stop whenever it got dark so as to avoid getting into a situation where I might be stranded on the freeway at night. If I had engine problems, it would be bitterly cold, and if I was caught in a snowstorm I would not dare to leave the engine running anyway. In the Massachusetts blizzard of ‘78, some people who were stranded on the freeway and left their engines on to keep the car warm, died of carbon monoxide poisoning because snow drifts blocked their exhaust vents.

On a lesser scale, at the border with Utah there were neon signs again attempting to suck money from the residents of Utah. I checked into a Motel 6 in Wendover. This is a great chain. The rooms are clean and comfortable, and the prices very reasonable. One advantage of the presence of a gaming industry for non-gamblers like me is the low price of accommodations and meals. I suspect they can afford to subsidize them so as to lure the crowds to the gaming tables.

February 4th 2003, On the road to Laramie, Wyoming

The next morning I passed by Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. One really gets a sense of the size of the North American continent as the flat landscape affords a view that stretches from horizon to horizon.

Soon I crossed another state line. While driving through the bright snowy fields of Wyoming, I started to listen to “Interview with a Vampire”. There could not have been a more striking contrast between the sunny and open cowboy countryside I was passing through and the dark dank claustrophobic atmosphere of New Orleans as described in this novel. Lestat who was an immortal vampire was lonely, so he turned Louis into a vampire for companionship. Louis was a reluctant vampire who found it morally repulsive to kill humans for their blood, so he had to feed on the blood of animals in order to survive. Lestat however had no qualms about feeding upon the slaves in Louis’s plantation in Louisiana. Gradually Louis was persuaded by Lestat to feed on human blood.

I was very glad to pass the time with this tale of moral angst amongst vampires because otherwise the trip would have been numbingly boring. A three thousand mile journey is little more than endless cycles of the buildup and alleviation of biological and mechanical needs:

Begin Loop
If hungry, thirsty or in need of a toilet, then look for a rest stop
If the gas indicator is down to two thirds empty, then scan signs for cheap gas and fill up
Return to the beginning of this loop and repeat infinitely

Lestat fearing that Louis might leave him, turns a young girl into a vampire so as to give Louis a daughter – someone to care for. This leads to treachery as the vampire girl plots with Louis to murder Lestat and then flee to Europe. The novel was diverting without being the least bit scary and it made the day pass quickly. However as evening approached and the bright sunny landscape darkened into twilight, I found that the dark story became more powerful and affecting. At the same time, the gas tank was getting low and soon I would have to find the next Motel 6. As I was scanning for cheap gas, it gradually dawned upon me that gasoline to me was like blood to Louis. I could now understand at a visceral level the rising lust that vampires feel when the strength they derive from fresh blood is slowly drained and a parching thirst for fresh blood develops. To complete the metaphor, I suppose my spending the night in Motel 6 was the equivalent of resting in a coffin during the day for vampires. I laughed aloud at discovering this inadvertent metaphor, because fortunately, I did not have to kill people to fill my tank.

Driving alone day after day with no human interaction except at the most superficial level, is I suppose a form of sensory deprivation, and it is known that extended deprivation can lead to bizarre thoughts, even hallucinations.

Between Rock Springs and Rawlins, I passed over the Continental Divide of the Americas. I stopped to take a photograph of the sign that marked the line. Behind me the rivers drained into the Pacific and before me the rivers flowed into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally I arrived in Laramie where I would spend the night in Motel 6 again. I used to watch a TV series called Laramie when I was in primary school. Never would I have dreamt then that decades later I would spend a night in this town.

February 5th 2003, On the road to Des Moines, Iowa

The next morning I turned on the car radio and there was Colin Powell giving a speech at the UN on Iraq, so I switched off my audiobooks. It was an impressive and convincing speech. He had intricately detailed information about Iraq’s manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. There were satellite photos of mobile biological weapons factories and taped conversations of people actively engaged in concealing WMD from the inspectors. The case for war was getting stronger.

Upon further reflection however, there was something that didn’t quite add up. He was trying to argue that the inspections were a failure because Saddam was successfully hiding his weapons of mass destruction from the inspectors, and he could prove that because he had detailed evidence of their existence and locations. However if the US did indeed have such prodigious and detailed intelligence about these weapons, why didn’t they pass it on to the inspectors so that they could catch Sadddam red-handed? The weapons could then be confiscated and destroyed and the inspections would be a success. Of course then there would be no rationale for an invasion to remove them. He was like the salesmen selling both invincible spears that could penetrate anything, and impenetrable shields.

Just a week before this trip, I had read an essay by Peter Lee in the Smirking Chimp website*, in which he wonderfully captured the essence of the Iraq situation in a single sentence.

“Today the new orthodoxy of war and pre-emption and empire is slouching towards Baghdad waiting to be born.”

In the late afternoon while heading towards Des Moines, I was again anxiously scouting for gas to slake the recurring thirst of my Toyota Camry. I suddenly realized that even though I personally didn’t have to kill anyone for gas, the country was preparing for war, to slake the collective thirst of millions of automobiles like mine.

February 6th 2003, On the road to Ann Arbor, Michigan

While I was hurtling along Interstate 80 towards Ann Arbor, Michigan. I heard an unfamiliar noise. I glanced up and saw V shaped lines slowly traversing the grey and overcast skies. It was a flock of honking geese on their annual migration to warmer climes. I felt a certain affinity for them. Fearing the impending chill of an economic winter, I too was migrating. We were each coasting on individual trajectories towards private destinies…. just as this great nation that I was traversing was slouching towards Baghdad.

Epilogue

I finally reached Boston safely after two detours to visit old schoolmates in Ann Arbor and Toronto. Buoyed by ever more creative financing, the housing market continued to rise during the two years I lived in my Cambridge townhouse, allowing me to sell at a good price and avoid paying a lot of capital gains tax. Then the bubble finally burst. My timing was sheer luck because I thought the housing market was going to crash much sooner, but then I did not anticipate the creativity of the mortgage industry inventing balloon loans, no doc mortgages and liar loans.

Peter Lee’s prophecy came to pass. The unborn beast reached Baghdad when US troops moved into Iraq on March 20th 2003 to hunt for WMD. Two years later the CIA admitted in a final report that no WMD were found in Iraq. Powell told Walters that he felt “terrible” about the claims made in his UN speech. When asked whether it would tarnish his reputation he replied: “Of course it will. It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”

* The essay by Peter Lee is entitled “A few good men … and Condi too” by Peter Lee. Posted on January 23rd 2003 in The Smirking Chimp website. It is no longer available for download, but I saved a copy.

About the Writer

Maynard Chen was a software consultant working in Silicon Valley from 1997 to 2003. He has now relocated to Singapore. © Maynard Chen, All rights reserved 2009.

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The Perennial Problems of Racial and Religious Conflicts

September 18, 2009 at 1:00 am (Current Affairs, History)

For thousands of years racial and religious conflicts had been very much a part of human history. Over the centuries, their intensity and ferocity had escalated as mankind’s civilisation progressed and their fear, intolerance and prejudices towards others of  different ethnicity and religion manifested itself in diverse ways which brought out the ugliest side of human nature. Man’s inhumanity inflicted on his fellow man had resulted in countless wars, various forms of atrocities as well as social, economic and political discriminations against others around the globe and this has continued unabated into the present time.

This is despite the fact that all major religions, be it Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam, without exception, preach love, compassion, charity and harmony in human relations. Unfortunately, some of their misguided  religious teachers and followers had, time and again, exploited or misinterpreted their own religion’s sacred tenet for their own ulterior motives or to justify their otherwise indefensible actions against their fellow human beings. Also guilty are unscrupulous politicians who would play up the race and religion card, as it were, to further their own political ambitions.

Two examples of their most inhuman deeds may bring home the point. The most chilling of them all was the cold blooded murders of some six million Jews in Europe during World War II by the infamous Hitler and his Nazi henchmen because of the dictator’s abnormal hatred for the Jewish people whom he unjustly blamed for the economic and other woes of Germany. He also regarded the Jews as inferior human beings and therefore felt no guilt in getting rid of them. These horrendous mass killings of the Jews are unprecedented in the history of mankind. My recent visit to Auschwitz, a sprawling German concentration camp in Poland, where more than one million innocent Jewish men, women and children were either gassed or tortured to death is a poignant reminder that such a barbaric and senseless act must never be allowed to happen again anywhere in the world. In the same war at the other end of the globe, hundreds of thousands of civilian Chinese in Nanjing, including women and children, were mercilessly massacred by the victorious Japanese Imperial Army because they too regarded the Chinese as inferior human beings. Some of their soldiers were encouraged to shoot the victims for target practices.

Even at this moment in time and in the recent past, racial and religious conflicts have been flaring up in different regions of the world with no end in sight. The deeply-entrenched decades long enmity between the Israelis and the Arabs have ramifications and serious spill over effects elsewhere, especially in the Western world. The two opposing sides had already fought several wars in which numerous lives on both sides had been lost.  In the Bosnian civil war in central Europe tens of thousands of civilian Muslims were brutally slaughtered by their own Serb Christian countrymen. The war was abruptly ended before more ethnic mayhem occurred through the belated armed intervention of the United Nations forces. Closer to Singapore, the  civil war in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese majority and  the Tamil minority ended only in May this year after 26 year of warfare and at the cost of tens of thousands of lives and untold sufferings inflicted on the public. In the civil war in Rwanda in the heartland of Africa, both the government and rival political forces resorted to ethnic cleansing which resulted in hundreds of thousands of people of different ethnic groups and foreign residents being butchered.

In many Western countries, racial and religious conflicts have become a growing problem and racial riots had, periodically, erupted arising from the strained relationships between the majority and the minority groups there. Take the United States as an example. More than 140 years had elapsed since the freeing of the black American slaves by President Lincoln after a devastating civil war, African-Americans are still being racially discriminated by the white Americans and  continue to suffer many social and economic disadvantages. It is widely believed that the election of President Obama, albeit a commendable historical milestone, is unlikely to improve significantly the social standing of the lot of his fellow African-Americans in the foreseeable future. In other countries including the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany , Spain and  Australia, where there are sizable non white populations,  racial and religious disharmony is becoming more worrying and needs to be remedied before it gets worse . In Africa, ethnic conflicts continue unabated  in this poverty and disease stricken continent. In South Africa, until recent years, the undemocratic white minority government had ruled the black majority country for decades with the odious apartheid policy which denied the black South Africans an opportunity for self advancement. In the Asian region, multi-racial and multi-religious nations like China, India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia also have their fair share of similar conflicts which are of great concern to their respective national leaderships. Needless to say, all the above countries will have to handle these racial and religious problems with utmost care and formulate forward looking policies and strategies before they reach a point which will have irreversible adverse consequences on the country’s continuing stability. Even a homogeneous society like Japan, citizens and permanent residents of Korean descent still face perennial racial discriminations and many were compelled to conceal their true identity in order to survive in an otherwise hostile social environment. Those who refused to do so had, perforce, to pay dearly for their ethnic pride.

In my own native Singapore, whose citizens comprise of Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and a host of others, both the Government and the people have learned a valuable lesson from past local racial disturbances and the racial and religious clashes in other countries as to how best to preserve racial and religious harmony for the benefit of the entire community. To begin with, religious freedom is enshrined in the country’s constitution. The Government enacted the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, under which it is an offence for anyone to engage in religious rabble-rousing under pains of fine or imprisonment, or both. In addition, Singapore law further prohibits incitement of racial hatred in the public interest. Of equal importance, the Government’s public housing policy aims at integrating its different racial groups in high rise apartments with communal facilities and amenities which will facilitate greater social interaction among the residents. To top it all, the Government has wisely and successfully promoted equal opportunity in education and employment for all, based solely on merit. Since then, Singaporeans have lived and worked peacefully and harmoniously alongside others of different racial and religious backgrounds without serious problems arising, with give and take attitudes on all sides. Inter-racial marriages have become more common here, compared with a generation ago, and this is beneficial to the successful creation of a multi-racial society.

Most overseas visitors, including foreign political and community leaders, coming to Singapore are invariably favourably impressed by the racial and religious harmony that obviously prevails in Singapore for all to see.  This is not always the case in other multi-racial and multi-religious communities elsewhere. Some countries have even used Singapore as a role model to promote better ethnic relations in their own multi-racial societies. The latest to endorse the Singapore success in this regard is a well-known American academic, Professor Tom Davenport, Chair of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, who recently wrote an article “Not perfect, but still a role model”, which was published in the prestigious Harvard Business Review, in which he spoke glowingly of Singapore’s  multi-racial society. He believed that its Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act could inspire other countries to enact a version of it to suit their own needs.

Despite foreign admiration and envy of Singapore’s success in creating a harmonious plural society with diverse religions, Singapore’s political and community leaders, to their credit, are not basking in their laurels and are constantly reminding the citizenry not to take this success for granted because once complacency sets in and one community tries to impose their way of life on the other groups, then the danger of racial and religious frictions can easily arise and this will destroy the decades of nurturing the different communities to live happily together as one big united family and Singapore will be ruined.

To guard against such a situation arising, the court, in two recent cases, had deemed it necessary to impose custodial sentences for offences under the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. In one case a misguided young man, who had personal grudges against Muslims, posted in his blog statements which were highly hurtful to those of Islamic faith. In the other case an over-zealous Christian couple publicly distributed Christian tracts which were offensive to those of different faiths and also to Catholics.  The court hoped that these sentences would deter others from committing similar wrongful acts in future.

The vital need to preserve racial and religious harmony in Singapore can be seen from the Prime Minister’s 2009 National Day Rally address to the nation, which is the equivalent to the US President’s annual State of the Union speech, when he devoted a good part of his more than two hours speech in Malay, Chinese and English on this subject. Once again, he reiterated  that this is crucial to its long-term survival and prosperity. He disclosed that he and his ministers had discussed the political fault lines facing the country – between the rich and the poor, between citizens and new immigrants – but the consensus was that the most visceral and dangerous fault line is definitely race and religion. The main points of the Prime Minister’s address on this issue are as follows:

  1. All Singaporeans must continue to live peacefully and harmoniously together as one united community. To do so, we need good sense and tolerance on all sides, and a willingness to give and take.
  2. We have made a lot of progress over the past 40 years in building and maintaining our harmony and cohesion. We have integrated our people, we have enabled all communities to move ahead, and we have built a stronger sense of Singaporean identity.
  3. All religious groups have contributed a great deal to the above progress. Their leaders have guided their flocks wisely. They have helped to set a wholesome and moral tone to our society. They do a lot of good works, not just for their own followers, but for all groups. They have accommodated one another, made practical compromises so that all can live harmoniously together in a uniquely Singaporean way.
  4. He noted that all over the world there has been a trend of rising religiosity, and Singapore is part of this trend.  Groups have become more organised, more active. The followers are now more fervent in their faiths. This is true of all faiths, all over the world. However, stronger religious fervours can have side effects which have to be managed carefully, especially in a multi-racial and multi-religious society. What are some of the risks? He cited aggressive preaching – proselytisation, intolerance and exclusiveness, which can provoke others and bring about serious social consequences.
  5. He emphasised that Singaporeans must never take their racial and religious harmony for granted because all have been well. To safeguard this, we must observe some basic principles to keep it the way it is. First, all groups must exercise tolerance and restraint in their interface with one another. Secondly, we have to keep religion separate from politics. Religion in Singapore cannot be the same in America, or religion in an Islamic country. Thirdly, the Government has to remain secular. Its authority comes from the people, not from a sacred book. Finally, for all Singaporeans to live peacefully together, we must maintain our common space that all Singaporeans share. It has to be neutral and secular because that’s the only way all of us can feel at home in Singapore and at ease.
  6. The Prime Minister assures Singaporeans that if we stay cohesive, then we can overcome our economic challenges and continue to grow. This is how we together have transformed Singapore over the last half century– solving problems together, growing together and improving our lives.

After listening to the Prime Minister’s National Day Rally address, my confidence in Singapore’s future well-being, especially in the light of continuing racial and religious conflicts that have been going on relentlessly and fearfully in many of the developed and developing countries with no solution in sight yet, has been further boosted.

The Prime Minister’s inspiring speech reminds me of an article I wrote eight years ago, also on the subject of promoting racial and religious harmony in Singapore, which was published in the Bilingual Commentary Column of Singapore’s national Chinese language daily, Lianhe ZaoBao, and I would like to share it with my readers. It is reproduced immediately after this posting.

Lam Pin Foo
18.9.2009

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