LA 2 LV

I introduced to M & J the awesome films of Star Wars. Well, the first trilogy (episodes IV, V and VI) were better than the recent trilogy (esp viz a viz II) and I showed them the back end of III (the turning of Anakin to the dark side) then IV and of course VI when the Jedi returns. I am not exactly sure what VII is about, since it's entitled The Force Awakens but surely having returned wouldn't Luke the Jedi have gone on to restore the force? Hmmm.

Anyways, here I am standing in line at Cinemark in Tanforan Malls in San Francisco. An hour ahead of time because it's free seating and I wanted us all to have the better seats in the house. When I arrived though, there were already 30 people in the queue. Good seats ensure the maximum experience, surely nothing less to feel the force esp awakened one! 

We were truly immersed in an other-worldly experience last night. I managed to procure (albeit rather expensively) stall seats where trapeze artists were ha binging just overhead and in the aisles. We were all in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay One, and watched Michael Jackson "awakened" with the help of Cirque de Soleil. It was a true multimedia show and a special "appearance" of the King of Pop in life-like hologram. Science fiction stuff. So, it stands to reason that we follow that up with Star Wars. 

We are actually at the tail end of our 16-day trip across the West Coast of the US of A. Those following this blog would have read about our drive to San Francisco to Los Angeles. The last week has been about heading east, to the bright lights of Las Vegas and more importantly, beyond to Arizona the aptly named Grand Canyon state. 

In a way, this trip mimics (in many aspects) to the golden triangle I did two dozen years ago. As a newly minted airline executive I flew for the first time (on vacation) in business class to Tokyo, then on to Los Angeles with the obligatory side trip to Las Vegas/Grand Canyon and then on to San Francisco. Then, I was travelling alone (backpacking on a shoestring, I might add) and managed to also pack in a visit to Disneyland, Six Flags and Yosemite National Park. 

This time, Yosemite didn't make the itinerary on account of weather and we are all too old for Disneyland, and no longer need thrills from the roller coasters at Six Flags. Instead, we went to Mojave National preserve and its monuments, the Joshua Trees and the wide open natural space was thrilling enough. The sights that I did want to repeat and meaningfully with my family are two sights that awed me the last time: Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. 

Hoover Dam stood out as a true engineering feat, of man's attempt to master nature, in this case damming the mighty Colorado River. Another couple of hours drive away, nature 'fights' back, or rather simply re-asserted itself and reminded us what it could conjure up through the simple fact of erosion over the years in the Grand Canyon. The canyon is truly the first place that was the first time that truly took my breath away, and the family found it equally breathtaking!

Vegas was different to everything else we saw before. Everything, from the buildings to the lights to the people (including the tourists there) are just over the top. The buildings replicate Rome, Paris, Luxor and of course New York. The buskers and street performers entertain but without real magic (that used to be there in Las Ramblas). The people are superbly rich in obscene stretch limos and painfully poor begging for change on walkways. 

In a way, this is the USA we know. A land of opportunity but with a dark side to it. So it's all quite fitting that I conclude this blog just as the movie that really portrays the human condition so well: the force and the dark side. The drive to excel in the former, the passion of the former, the humanity of the former... All can lead to the other side when taken to an extreme. "Learn from this, you shall" as Yoda would have said.

Pacific Coast Highway (aka California Highway 1)

I left my heart in San Francisco, not.... for now I have seen other equally, if not more, charming cities, towns and villages in Palo Alto, Monterey, Carmel by the Sea, Cambria, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. 

But first San Francisco remains a beautiful and I am reminded a hilly city! It does wonders to one's calorie burn, not to mention negating the need for warm winter wear. 

Speaking of winter, the weather here is unpredictable. Almost a microclimate with microseasons within a day! We were lucky sunny days followed rainy cloudy ones, enabling us to "literally" peel away the fog to reveal the sights underneath.

And in the rain, in Muir Woods, D slipped and landed on her derrière.... And her ego was bruised way more than her butt and as luck would have it, it happened seconds after I asked if she was fine. Talk about jinxing it!

The mother has been central in this trip, including playing a starring role (not!) in knocking over a spider web as J was about to attempt his umpteenth (unsuccessful) snapshot of the glistening arachnid creation.

The glitter (and I mean, money literally) of San Francisco I felt had moved south, to Palo Alto and Silicon Valley: home to HP, Apple and Google. And of course Stanford University. We drove out in the rain but it stopped just as we arrived and serendipitously just in time for the next guided tour. Unpredictable as the weather is, it's been kind to us. The locals are well accustomed to this weather changes, like Nathan the student guide at Stanford University who could wear a thin cotton tee in 10'c

What also really struck me is the ferocity of the restless sea, juxtaposed against the famous mild temperate climes of the California

The winds cause the seas to roar, but what courage the trees show against them, especially the lone Cypress Tree along the scenic 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach

Ah yes, the famous Pebble Beach golf club: a truly beautiful enclave for the Rich and famous. I never thought about it but totally got it when I saw what they had on the beach: yes, you guessed it - pebbles!!!

The Pacific Coast Highway is indeed one of the best driving roads in the world. Every turn set us upon breathtaking vistas of ocean on one side and mountainous cliff on the other. M commented that's it's like being on Top Gear

It helped that they were cool cars along the way. Like the time I tailed a Mercedes SLS "gull wing" and almost could imagine being in one :-)

We got to traverse concrete freeways and windy roads, passing big towns and small villages, through mountains and plains, and even vineyards. And some rather iconic places.

For one, Bixby Bridge which according to M is the Golden Gate's little brother. So true! It's less well known but just as breathtaking. Almost unimaginable, right?

Or stopping by a quaint little town called Carmel by the Sea, where we had lunch at a great restaurant with a window by the table. This and other meals (notably Toma in Santa Barbara and Bouche in San Francisco) are together moments to be remembered.

Indeed, this has been our first family trip together to USA. And we are so fortunate it's not just America we saw but Americana! The quiet charm in small towns as well as the loud garish ambitious ones. 

Cambria, for instance, is an old and gentle place where the pace is slow, and the people all friendly (taking the time to treat tourists like their own friends), the food is homemade but everything is vintage because the locals buy each other's used things in antique malls with quaint names like "Love Me 2 Times". The lack of youngsters - esp. teenagers - are sadly felt though in the church, where we had the good fortune to attend a catholic Sunday morning mass. There were no altar servers in this small community. While this town is still pretty and obviously had been successful once, now all I can think of is succession, or the lack thereof. Quite a few shops have signs that say they want to sell-out, not for lack of business but after 29 years, they want to pass it on to someone else.

Even more dramatically, nearby Harmony with its population of 18 and a few shops and houses sited on a large diary acreage surely point to a possible future.

Other towns, especially those with a younger population pyramid, like San Luis Obispo (where California State Poly is sited on) seem more vibrant and nothing says that more than Alex and Phyllis Madonna and their outlandish pink fairy tale castle of an inn. Everything here is over the top, from the colors to the architecture to the food.

Then there are college towns. I had mentioned SLO but nothing is quite built around the college community like Claremont, which is home to 5,500 (mostly undergrad) students and a thousand faculty and their families. So, the population here are either teenagers or seniors :-)

Whether young or old, they all do take care of themselves and the number of joggers I have encountered in my two sunrise runs (in Monterey Bay towards Lovers Point and Santa Barbara Beach towards Stearns Wharf) really attest to this fact!

Having started with a song, it would be remiss of me not to note that songs aren't written about places for nothing. San Francisco is indeed a charming place and so is Ventura Highway which America (who else?!) wrote and sang about. It's not easy to top the experiences of the Pacific Coast Highway but The Ventura Highway with its multiple lanes, high speed and mountain backdrop shining golden in the setting sun is indeed a drive worth making.

Not all who wander are lost

Common 'war cry' amongst those who has been bitten by the travel bug. It's something I caught 30 years ago. I took my first back-packing trip as a 19 year old, travelling over land, sea and air up the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, then up through Hatyai, Phuket, Bangkok and then Chiangmai. One month. One backpack. One thousand ringgit. And a well-thumbed dog-eared copy of Tony Wheeler's SEA on a shoestring.

Right now, a thousand RMs can't hardly buy a family lunch, especially where we are going. 

J is now 18 and had already made a trip on his own, with his classmates to Krabi to celebrate the completion of As. His Thailand trip involves comfortable flights and villas, courtesy of LCCs and AirBnB. His specialty is less about doing it on a shoestring budget, though I'm sure he can but rather he's a careful and well prepared traveller, like the scout he is.his bag contains a wet bag, a whistle and he's probably the only one in the cabin who paid attention to the safety video :-). 

He's about to set off to National Service and then University and family holidays together will become more difficult to arrange. So, we wanted a special one this time, to a place we've never been to altogether as a family: the US of A. The west coast to be precise, which is also where I first set foot in this country 25 years ago. We are going to do the golden triangle of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with the Pacific Coast Highway and Grand Canyon thrown in! Not to mention a few campus tours for J to check out potential places he'd like to spend time in.

But first we had to fly for 18 hours to get there. So, all these special forces emboldened me to make a grand gesture and have us travel in style. A real step up from my backpacking trip all those years back and also to commemorate that my first time in business class was when I was to Tokyo (on my way to L.A.) courtesy of an overbooking-inspired upgrade. 

M is the vacation queen of the family and already has plans to document the trip on video and on her travelogue. She did an excellent one for us during our trip this time last year to Southern Africa, bringing all four parents along on safari. All eight of us enjoyed that trip tremendously, and made all the sweeter with witty words and pretty pictures. She is picking up after her old dad who used to keep a travelogue too. (Which reminds me, I need to find them: these journals are somewhere collecting dust in one of our various storage spaces). In fact, I titled this blog so because she reminded me of this phrase.

But right now, she's just enjoying the ample space she has. Already adjusting her body to US west coast time. Woe to the rest of us, especially me who cope really poorly with jet lag.

 

Schooldays

As we progress into the final month of 2015, a new milestone is reached. No, not that I have matured past my fourth zodiac cycle. Rather, both J and M reached new heights in their school life. 

He just concluded his final A-level papers, which officially marked the conclusion of his compulsory public schooling. From now on, every academic endeavor would be a specific choice he makes. Indeed, from hereon, every move he makes (save for serving his nation though military service) will be due to his singular efforts and choice (guided of course by the Holy Spirit).

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, M will get confirmed next Sunday. Now that's a real milestone. Spiritually, she will become an adult. It's only fitting that she's entering this new state of grace with a winning attitude, specifically a gold medal from a softball tournament that took place over the Thanksgiving holidays organized by the Singapore American School. When I congratulated her, like the adult she is becoming, she replied, "it's the team". Yes, she did hit a home run (and earned the team two runs, significant as they won by a point!); so this response from her was all the more gracious. Readers of this blog will recall an old post I wrote about her learning all about winning and more importantly, losing, together with her team. She has learned and grown so much. And that's the real victory. In life.

They are the products one one wonderful upbringing: specially brought to bear by their mum.

So, as I enter my 7-squared year, despite an uneven unexpected year of growth (in the business), I feel fine. At the core of it, I think it's because everything is well at home. Taken care of. So, I have stability deep down inside. It's really true what they say about "behind every great man ...". In fact, this year, I learned quite a bit about work. It's amazing what a simple reverse can do to accelerate learning, especially when one is standing on a solid foundation.

Which brings me back to the title of this blog: schooldays. Just last month, my primary/secondary schoolmates found me in a WhatsApp group chat. And yes, boys will be boys. Everyone is just as we were, plus 30, 40 years. I am sure many years from now, J and M will also get reconnected (joyfully, I might add) with their friends with whom they have shared and are continuing to share so many wonderful memories together. As Dr Seuss once said, "sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory".

As for D, she knows:

"me" time

It's 8:38am. I am here in the Sala Miro, the lounge in Barcelona airport. By the time the flight leaves (if it's on time), I would have spent exactly 36 hours in one of these favorite cities of mine, all by myself.

Hence the title to this blog. For most of the last 20 years, whenever I had a moment, it was typically spend at work, or with the family, and friends and of course the church. There is hardly an extended number of hours (save for sleeping) that I am spending mainly just doing what I like to be doing.

Yesterday I did just that. After a typically Western breakfast with scrambled eggs and bacon, washed down with yogurt, I ambled along the Avinguda Diagonal into a flea market and then made my way to The Watch Gallery to pick up some purchases I have ordered before hand. One is a serious buy. The other two more whimsical but nonetheless are odes to my sense of design, like this Seven Friday (designed in Switzerland but with Japanese movement). And to complete the global supply chain, it's retailed in Barcelona by an half Englishwoman to a Malaysian on his way to Singapore. 

This global ecosystem was much in evidence as I concluded the day as well, watching the El Classico, the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid football clubs. The game was played in the Bernabeau, Real Madrid's home, so I didn't watch it in situ but rather in an Irish Pub next to Placa Reail, with some Arab-looking Israelis and lots of English and Australians, of course. 

Good that Barcelona won, 4-0 at that, and the mood was a jolly one. This match is made all the more memorable since I visited the Nou Camp just the hours before. Appropriately, though I should add, that is found the Manchester United tour 6 years ago more meaningful. It's not just because of Munich crash adding poignancy, or the Busby babes showing resilience; it's because that was a guided tour (not just an audio guide) and we got to enter the inner sanctum (whereas we were disallowed into the FCB one on the rationale that it is the players' private place). I didn't mind because deep down the ManU fan in me did want Old Trafford to stand out and remain special.

Of course I found time to eat a good lunch, at a restaurant at the base of Mt Tibidabo and then dinner at Gothic quarters near La Ramblas. Speaking of this famous street, it's lost some of it's appeal. The stalls that used to line the street and peddle unique wares are now surely replaced by homogenous stores manned by Indians selling China-made souvenirs of the city. Gone too are the buskers and performers. 

But apart from La Ramblas, the charm of this beautiful city remains. Nice walks (I must have walked nearly 10km yesterday, some of it in the many parks that dot the city) facilitated by Google Maps and great food (recommended by foodie friends) are the highlights the past 36 hours.

I must admit though that with Google Maps, I didn't once get lost but walking has lost some of it's charms. When I used to travel alone all those years ago, my wanderings would take me into forests and small pathways but I never quite felt lost. I was too engrossed with all the new things I am sensing.  Yes, I did stop and take a few photos of whatever caught my eye (a little David-sequence statue with grapes instead of a slingshot for instance), but for the most part walking was about navigating from Pt A to Pt B, and all other points got lost :-(

While the joys of walking have been diminished, the joys of eating and drinking have been significantly increased. From tapas to smoked ham to the softest pork I have tasted in a while, cuisine esp here in old Europe remains one of the best in the world. 

I had inadvertently even recorded it for posterity when my conversation with the waiter at La Venta was accidentally recorded and dispatched to my High School mates with whom I had recently reconnected with via WhatsApp. Boys really don't change at all. We are all just older and larger versions of whomever we were 40 years ago. 

So, I wasn't quite alone being always in the company of various sorts of people, even virtually. 

Still, at each turn, at every fine morsel of food I chew, at every sight that caught my eye, I find myself wishing you all were here. So much for "me" time then. 

All history is geography

Some TED talks inform, others intrigue. Few inspire. I saw one the other day. The speaker asks a fundamental question: don't ask me where I am from, ask me where I am local.

Simple profound insight. Countries are man made. Humans, if you believe, are children of God. And if you are not, we are still defined less by our nationality, even where we are born (both my kids were  born in one country but grew up in another and will likely pursue further studies in a third, let alone where they would eventually settle down to work). We are defined less by borders of a nation than by the work ethics of our culture, the values of our parents, the influences of our friends, the teachings of our educators and of course the spirit of our God. 

Who we are are the combined result of many things, of which the nation has only some (limited) bearing. The thing that matters is that the country is the geographies which shape the peoples living on it. The harsher the environment, the tougher the people become in order to survive. The more adventurous amongst these tough people tend to migrate seeking more clement lands. They are then subject to discrimination by the natives. Driven by hunger, and a better life, they are prepared to endure hardship. Those who survive therefore also acquire mental resilience as well.

The Jews are oft-mentioned as being special, not because they were called God's special children but because they have shown themselves capable to overcoming the harshness of their lives and it's this constant learning that made them capable of achieving special things. Amongst all Jews, there is a group called the Ashkenazi Jews who, beyond the centuries of character forming desert wanderings and slaveries, migrated to lands new in Europe and faced yet more persecution. This is the group that produced the likes of Einstein, Rothschild and Golda Meier. The Chinese are similarly mentioned in the same breath, especially the Hakkas. Literally, they are called Guest people, because like the Ashkenazis they migrated from the inclement northern territories to the south and faced all the usual mistreatment of their hosts. ZhuGeLiang, Sun Yat Sen, Deng XiaoPing and Lee Kuan Yew are all Hakkas. It's almost bred into them to face the harshest challenges, take on the slimmest odds and win. Leadership at a grand scale.

Today, I am in London. Still one of the major capitals of the world and a melting pot filled with migrants from all over the world. Just a century ago it was undoubtedly the centre of the empire, which was then one of the most powerful in the world. I walked past Westminster Abbey to the Parliament and across the Westminster bridge. Constructions aimed at impressing the crowds, to exert ultimate power, of the church and of the government. There is a small square next to the Abbey called Parliament Square. Statues of great men, national leaders like Churchill, Mandela and now Gandhi, stand on its edges. 

It got me thinking. Apart from Mandela and Gandhi, most national leaders from Churchill and Meier to Deng to Lee, they had to make some really tough trade-offs for the greater good of the nation. Imagine Churchill having to order young men and women to certain deaths so the nation could survive. How does one do it?

Do they have a different sort of moral compass? And in the wake of terrorist attacks (most recently the random killings across Paris), one can indeed imagine that there are grounds for taking out the perpetrators. But if you step back, can this really be justified? Can violence on any scale, on any grounds, upon any intent, ever be condoned. For wouldn't it, with man remaining true to it's basal human nature, only cause revenge and perpetuate this cycle; with a new generation of terrorists to wreck more havoc in the world. 

In the final analysis, the answer has been provided to us. Goodwill to all and Peace on earth. How we use our world-hewn talents to enact this is up to us.

Hooligans' Game ...

... played by gentlemen. I know for those who do not understand the game, this oft-used phrase to describe rugby, is somewhat perplexing. After all, it's a game that features team-mates grabbing each other by the crotch and head butting the opponents in a scrum. It's a game that permits bringing down another player who is in full flight by shackling his legs. Players emerge from a game with nicks, scratches, tears and even fractures, often bloodied. And to add to the machismo, in some cases, the play continues even when some player is down and out and receiving treatment on the pitch.

All I can say to these not unfounded notions of the game is to watch one, especially a world class one. Watch the hooker who is right in the middle of the scrum. Watch the scrum half direct the play. Watch the wingers sprint to touch... And most of all watch the fly half who kicks the ball impossibly accurately into goal.

So what is gentlemanly about rugby? Consider these:

- there is no room for feigning, no fake falling in the penalty box for instance, and certainly not for interrupting a move because play can continue 

- to move forward you have to throw the ball backwards (what a deferential thought in sports!), so to advance you need the whole team to move together

- you can't move onto the opponents' side to grab the ball off them, so all 'battles' have to be settled face to face

- some moves are rewarded more than others, therefore ensuring just pay-offs for great effort

- and punishments are real where players are sent off the game either temporarily or permanently

Appeals to the civilized, don't you think? That this game was created in a posh English public (read private) school during a game of football explains a lot already.

Even more poignantly, it's a game that been the great leveler. The winning NZ World Cup team this year had more than the fair share of indigenous Maoris who were born to play this game given their stocky build, and indeed begin every match with a war cry, the Haka. More dramatically, Nelson Mandela used the 1995 WRC finals (hosted in South Africa) shortly after his release and election as President to unite a divided country post decades of cruel apartheid practices.

Though I played the game competitively (as a hooker) in university, I didn't really follow it. I have only watched two matches (on TV) end to end. Both are Rugby World Cup matches. Both featured Australia in the finals, once as host of the 2003 RWC finals and recently in 2015. Both times the Wallabies lost. And both times to a match winning performance produced by the opposing fly half. 

In 2003, Jonny Wilkinson showed the world what fly halfs can do the win the game with their kicking. Appropriately enough, it was his drop goal in injury time that won it for England in 2003.

Dan Carter also won it for the All-Blacks in 2015. He alone scored 19 points, two points more than that scored by the Aussies. The score line may have suggested a one-sided match but it was far from it. Yes, NZ did lead 21-3 right after half time but the Australians fought back (esp when they had a headcount advantage as a player got sin-binned) to 21-17. And then Carter restored the faith. His drop goal pulled NZ ahead by a clear 7 points and in a game as close and as passionate as this, this margin of a try+conversion meant almost victory.

Victory they got. Both match winners were also man-of-the-match. Their names forever remembered in the history of the game. A game that is truly played by real men!

Tragic Talents

It's been one of those weeks where I had to take a flight every day, sometimes two! This week I started in Jakarta, then KL, then Hanoi, then KL again before returning to Singapore. Once a month I have to travel like this. Thankfully most weeks, I will start in KL, head to one other ASEAN city then back to Singapore. Is there any upside to this? 

Well, I get lots of thinking time to myself. That's helpful as I have been strategizing the next strategic act for the business. More meaningfully, a friendly priest told me it's a good time to pray. He's absolutely right of course and I occasionally do say the rosary as I settle on board. All this flying takes a toll, especially when some are at odd hours but I do get a chance to catch 40 winks (typically right upon boarding) and then I'd wake up mid way through the flight. Then I'd while the time away watching whatever is showing on board.

This week I caught an Amy Winehouse documentary. What a talent, and what a wasted life. She had this strange affection, even addiction to men who treated her badly. Her dad, who abandoned her at nine which started her spiral downwards. Her boyfriend Blake who was not only living off her, but also multi-timing her not to mention being her drug fiend.

Photo credit: dailymail.co.uk

She died expectedly at the mysterious age of 27 (as did Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain) from an overdose.

I found it very hard watching the film but yet was totally gripped by her music and lyrics that I couldn't tear away. So much so, it kept playing in my mind that I couldn't fall asleep as I landed in KL. So, I pulled out the laptop and watched a movie, this one starring one of my favourite actor, Al Pacino. He produced, directed and acted in a documentary about a play, written by that wonderful wit Oscar Wilde about the biblical character Salome.

Oscar Wilde remains one of the best playwright/novelist the world has produced. This Irishman was also incredibly clever esp. when commenting (sarcastically) about the human condition. The play Salome combines all of these talents of his and brought well to life by Pacino as Wilde/Herod and Jessica Chastain as Salome. Prophetically, this play preceded his own doomed relationship, having fallen in love with another man, and was incarcerated for this crime against nature. He died shortly after being released from jail, never recovering from the fact that his children were taken away from him and that his Bosie had fallen out of love with him.

Photocredit: Elysium.com

Still in their brief lives, they have illuminated the arts and left behind moments for us to continue to enjoy today. What they could have produced had they lived longer, we'll never know. 

Just last night, the family (minus J who was mugging for his A's) (re)watched Dead Poets Society starring that incomparable Robin Williams. There are just so many lines there that inspire one to greatness, to make one's life extraordinary. I picked this one because many of us are at the point where we are in a position or about to get into a position to write our story.

Photo credit: all-the-news.com

There he was, standing at a different spot so as to see the world a little differently, urging his boys on, as I urge my own brood on: carpe diem. Seize the day!

Watching time

There is only one useful indicator of a man's self-image: his wristwatch. Once that jacket sleeve creeps up, the sole piece of acceptable jewelry beyond a wedding ring reveals the wearer's sense of taste and occasion.

Watch sellers employ a logical Italian dictum: a well-dressed man owns at least three timepieces. The day watch is most important: it is the watch that suits your occupation. If you're in finance, sobriety is all your watch must offer beyond the time. If you work in the media or the arts, you can be more eccentric. If your occupation involves specific tasks—from ambulance driver, to insurance broker, to 747 pilot—then, just as with iPhone apps, "there are watches for that."

For watch No. 2, you have more scope. This is your dress-down timepiece, worn everywhere from the beach to the ski slopes or for pottering around in the garden. Whether a sub-£50 Swatch, or a close-to-unbreakable Rolex, it will mean you don't have to worry about a quick dive in the pool or a round of golf. This is your casual watch.

Last is the dress watch. If you find yourself wearing black tie more than once a year, or if film premieres, opera visits or smart restaurant bookings keep appearing in your diary, your day watch may lack occasion. For this final part of the trilogy, you may go one of two ways: a classical, slim, time-only gold dress watch—or blatant bling. The presence of diamonds on your watch will accomplish this for you.

Where to start? One's first watch is often a gift—anything from a Timex on up—received at graduation, confirmation, first job or Bar Mitzvah. It will never be exactly what you want, but you will wear and cherish it from your teens until your first pay check. Then you will be seduced by TAG Heuer, Omega or Rolex, depending on your budget. It will be your first "real" watch.

Buying well is the key, and it's not as tricky as you might think. As master watchmaker Peter Roberts observed: "There really are no bad watches out there, because they all have to perform the same basic function and perform it well: tell the time. Manufacturing standards are impossibly high. So you should buy according to your budget and your taste."

Ken Kessler wrote the above in the Wall Street Journal back in March 2010 when J was just about experiencing teenhood. Now 5 years later, with many years of the trusty Casio digital watch (the defacto official watch of all schoolboys), he has asked for his first watch. A Luminox watch that tells the time, date and day. It's a military style watch and one eminently suited for a boy finishing college and entering military service. With it's guaranteed luminosity for half a century, I expect it will light his path for a long time to come. 

The ride home

This photo was taken in the car about a month ago as I was driven back to the hotel after work in Jakarta. From 4 to 7pm, to alleviate traffic congestion, the city authorities require all cars to have at least 3 passengers. In theory, this is to encourage car pooling and hence reduce number of cars on the already choked up streets of the city. It hasn't really worked because those who can afford cars in this high Gini-coefficient city can also afford a driver. So a new industry of car jockeys arose. Unemployed men and women would offer themselves to be picked up as the third person in the car, thereby allowing the car owner to be driven to wherever he needed to be at the peak hour.

In a decade and half of travelling to Jakarta, I have made use of many such jockeys but never one as young as this. Aliyah, as she told me her name, is merely 15 years old, the same age as my daughter. She should be in school or doing her homework but no, she's helping me get back to my hotel. I struck up a conversation with her because I while I understood she was trying to earn a living (for herself and her family), I wanted to encourage her to arm herself with the weapon that truly would get her to a better place: that is to gain an education. 

At the end of the trip, I paid her three times more than the usual jockeying tip and urged her to study. I have always been moved by scenes of kids having to look after me, esp kids who are the same age as my kids, whom I love and care about dearly. Also in Jakarta, some 10 years ago, I remember it was pouring and in order to ensure i remained dry, a young boy (about my son' sage then) offered to shield me in his small umbrella as I walked to the car. I refused because I couldn't bring myself to have a young boy getting drenched on my behalf and tipped him anyway.

Just last weekend, I was again seated at the back of the car as my wife and daughter sat in front. She was being picked up from school after a peer support board event, and heading to her usual cathecism class. For M, the car ride is a time to unwind, connect with the driver (one of her parents, usually the mom) or even catch forty winks before arriving at the destination. 

Truly, a child's trajectory is so much determined by his or her station at birth. 

Bill Gates was quoted to have said something like, "it's not your fault to be born poor, but to die poor is". I do hope Aliyah takes my advice and launch herself on a better trajectory.

Of sneezing and cold...

I... Not of the medical sort, mind you, but the economic sort. It's been said that when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. That's just how important the American economy is. If it slows, it's buys less, and all the factories in the world start to accumulate inventory. This has been true for as long as I understood these things.

But just last week, something rather profound happen. I was even asked by CNA to comment on it: the fact that the US Federal Reserve Bank decided not to raise interest rates despite decent economic data domestically for fear of tipping the emerging markets (read China) further into slow down. The Chinese economy has been slowing the past few years and it is now markedly in a slower growth mode. And it looks like the maxim has found another powerful patient.

I was in Chengdu earlier this week. This city was one of the epicenters of the Three Kingdom Wars. In fact Liu Bei's masuleoum is right there in the middle of the city at WuHou shrine, along with giant statues commemorating him, his grand strategist, ZhuGeLiang and the warrior general, ZhangFei. It was also one of KuoMingTang's last bastion before they ceded control of the Mainland to the Communist Party. For a city that is arguably in the middle of nowhere (sited as it is in the southwest of China), it sure has an illustrious past.

Its recent past, however, proved more difficult. As the communist party mismanaged the country and the economy, all of China started to deteriorate and while the great "capitalism with chinese characteristics" revival worked, it started first with the coastal cities, first Shenzhen, then the rest of the eastern seaboard esp Shanghai. It took a few decades before the effects reached inland. In many cases, the 'build it and they will come' philosophy to create new 2nd and 3rd tier cities left quite a few of these places as ghost towns. Chengdu threatened to be one of them.

But as I spent half a week here, in meetings and some sightseeing (incl pandas!) I remain astounded by the world class infrastructure (6-lane main thoroughfare, with additional side lanes for buses and bicycles) laid out in an organized grid template dotted by efficient square blocks of commercial and residential buildings. It's far from a ghost town but a thriving modern city that somehow still manages to hang on to its traditions of tea and mahjong.

The idealism of youth

I just finished watching another F1 race. The Singapore Grand Prix one to be precise. Sebastian Vettel won (no suprise there). He was driving a Ferrari (again, no surprise). But three former world champions DNF-ed (did not finish): Alonso, Button and Hamilton. That's quite surprising given these guys know how to look after their cars and to nurse their damaged equipment to the finish line. The really pleasant surprise was a young Max Verstappen in his debut race. He finished in a decent point scoring 8th place from 20 cars and even set one the fastest laps in the race. At 17 years old, he is even younger than J (who is just starting to get his driving license). If this photo from telegraph.co.uk is any evidence, this kid still has spots... And he's already shown that winners mentality.

What a way to start and he drove with all the exuberance of youth. I remember that phrase well. I once started my career with just as much gusto where I would write to my Managing Director - oblivious to any hierarchical constructs - and shared what was right and wrong with the company, which was then and still is one of the world's best airlines. My director had to explain and cover for me and he nicely put it all down to youth. I sometimes still pull these 'puppy' moves. But more often than not, I am now a recipient of such equally earnest and exuberant exhortations from my staff and of course from my children.

At dinner tonight with the family, we had a good energetic conversation. Dinners at home for us can sometimes efficient affairs. Pray, eat, chew, leave... All within 10, 20 minutes. Not much love. But not tonight. I was browsing my Facebook page just before dinner and started the meal time conversation describing this photo (from gregasamar's blog) that was posted.

Both M and J truly care about environment and they are especially keen to ensure it and everything on it are sustained. For instance, M has decided her first car is going to be a hybrid or electric one. This topic really got J going and he expressed his views passionately. It gave both D and me to share our perspectives, which are expectedly different from each other's, and from his. It's been said, "where all think alike, no one thinks at all". So, we enjoy these differences of views, no matter how challenging and loudly these are expressed! It's vitally important to have ideas and to stand behind them. Wasn't it Gandhi who famously said,

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words, 
Your words become your actions, 
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.”

I took a moment to share with them what I thought were two recent 21st century ideas that has had truly profound impact. First, the 'gentrification' of social services such that it became more mainstream and that the 'landed gentry' ie the ones with the resources to make a bigger difference, found it not just right but also fashionable to serve. The second was that we should unemploy the label 'unemployed'. If one is not hired by another, one should simply resort to being self-employed. This mindset (like what gentrified social services does to the middle classes) will cause people in the working classes to fundamentally rethink their self worth and hence what they can do even when they are not able to find a job with another. In fact, that's how the founders of AirBnB started. Out of the desperation of unemployment in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, they rented out a room in their own apartment and the rest is history. 

That's the power of a great idea. And very often these ideas and the ideals they purport to originate from our youth. 

Purpose

Today, I concluded the third day of meeting with my colleagues who lead various businesses and functions across Asia Pacific. We discussed many things, including some aspects that were difficult, but in a wide-ranging forum there was indeed a thing or two that I found joyful to engage on. One of these topics was about purpose.

J is at an important juncture of his life. He has to make some big decisions about which university he'd like to attend, and what course he'd like to major in. In short, time to really know his purpose. 

Throughout his life, he's always been driven. The drive comes from having set a goal and then venturing assiduously towards it. As he approaches his exams, he along with all his classmates stood down from their various responsibilities (and J had a few) to concentrate on acing the exams. I knew he would find this vacuum hard to fill. So, I was glad that he managed to fairly quickly figure out his interest, destination and even sponsor. These imbued him with a sense of purpose, and helped him get into the groove of studying for the exams, ostensibly to qualify for sponsorship, get into the school of his choice and read the subject he is keen on.

But given how busy he has been, the mono line act of just studying proved challenging and soon enough he took on another project. To make a treasure chest for a friend of his. He has always been good with his hands but without the right tools and experience, this side-project took him longer than anticipated. It threatened to take away important studying time. I lost my cool, worrying that he has lost his sense of priority (purpose notwithstanding). 

He got it, threw himself back to studying, and over the weekend (as I was sleeping) completed the treasure chest project.

It's really a beautiful thing, complete with a hidden compartment. The recipient is lucky indeed.

As his parent, I feel lucky too. To have a talented son, who is purposeful, determined and as the recent events shown, able to take feedback and yet get everything done. :-) 

Gardens and me

Even before I write this I know it sounds weird. I love gardens. I really do. Back in my younger wanderlust days, backpacking on a shoestring budget, I nonetheless always made it a point to get to the city garden. It didn't matter if I had to spend a bit f my precious little travel cash to hop on a bus to get there and to pay an entrance fee... I just needed to get in, walk the grounds, sit on a park bench, jot my thoughts in my travelogue and generally just soak up the tranquility afforded by the trees, flowers and lawns.

From Tokyo imperial gardens, to the world famous Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York or the beautiful Kirstenbosch in Capetown or Barcelona's Parc Guell, I've been to them all... More than once, even. 

But the gardens that I've been to most almost on a weekly basis,for the past couple of years, is the Singapore Botanical Gardens. I've made it a point to be the chauffeur for M every Sunday afternoon for her Math class. I drop her and then go to the Gardens next door and spend a better part of the next two hours on some functional core routines and run the paths in SBG. It's not too far fetched to say I know every nook and cranny of this impressive gardens. And as I jogged all over it, I am only too aware of its attractions and history and had hoped the UNESCO would see them too.

Yesterday, the SBG was conferred the status of being a UNESCO world heritage site. This means it will continue to be preserved well for posterity. That's a really nice thought. Too many things of worth and purpose, too many institutions too for that matter, have been destroyed by poor governance. In fact, as Singapore Botanical Gardens (and by extensions their custodian, the NParks run by the Singapore Government) is recognised for having taken good care of this asset, my home country is a washed with a corruption scandal so egregious, it boggles the mind. 

But back to Singapore, well done! And to the photographer of the above photo: Lee Hsien Loong.

Comfort food

I occasionally tell D that at heart I am still a small town boy. Yes, I can appreciate the finer things in life, and truth be told, I even enjoy them.

But when all is said and done, I can still live simply. 

Just this morning, I went for breakfast at a neighbourhood market, in my t-shirt, shorts (one orange in colour, the other red) and dragging my feet in flip flops (or Japanese slippers as we used to call it when we were younger). I had myself a large plate of black chai tow kuay (fried carrot cake) and a hot large cup of Kopi Siew tai (coffee with less milk).

It filled me up, warmed my belly... Gave me energy for the whole day. So much so, I could even skip lunch and dinner.

Now, that's what I call comfort food!

Bas, AustinJames, Pepe, Saffron, Stefan...

... All works of mechanical magnificence. I've been interested in them first from matchbox models, then trump cards, then from magazines and of course Top Gear and some 7 years ago started to collect them. 

Today is a milestone, for more than 2 years since I first bought Bas, in it's semi-restored state,from a migrating young man in Selangor, he is now coming home in a nearly fully restored state. I say nearly because parts of this old van still doesn't work. The side windows wing stay up. The speedometer has flatlined. The drivetrain rattles, and the air con fluid gurgles. Some non essentials like the clock, now set perpetually at 8am which was the time we set off from Skudai where it has been for a year being restored by D's mechanic uncle's network of friends and family. Shortly upon setting off, we found that its fuel overflow connector pipe has corroded. Uncle fixed it and here we are a mere half hour away from OOHH and Bas is still going strong. 

J is quite excited about this old van. In fact when I bought it, I had him in mind because he shares my passion for cars, and is an even bigger fan of Jeremy Clarkson than I am. Of the three Top gear presenters (sadly no more a trio now), I find the pedant James "Captain Slow" May most entertaining. It's the juxtaposition of the thing. He's a fussy, careful man-child sandwiched between a loud overbearing man-child and an egregious daredevil man-child (both of whom one would easily expect to find amongst petrol heads). 

Speaking of heads, here's a view of two similarly shaped ones, belonging to grandpa and grandson, in this old bus bravely traversing the North-South highway, averaging 90kmh (according to Wazw, since the broken speedometer can't do its job). 

Committed to improving the state of the world

Here I am in a private meeting room, set up for the purposes of bilateral discussions for delegates to the World Economic Forum. The forum, which I first attended with D 20 years ago in Davos (even brushing past Yasser Arafat and his entourage of security personnel) has since then grown into quite a brand and its meetings has become the de-facto place for the business community to meet. 

I usually attend the East Asia gatherings, first in KL, then Jakarta, Bangkok, Nyapitaw and now in Jakarta again. After several such meetings, it becomes a bit like a school reunions. There is a bunch of people one has interacted with and even know well, and a whole lot of familiar faces because one has seen them over the years.

But unlike school, everyone here has an agenda. To shape some policy, to help their business, to publicize their company, to brand their wares and themselves. 

Likewise I am here to meet relevant people (clients or clients to be of the firm), to understand where they are and share with them our views. But I am also here because whether we like it or not (esp since some have likened it to be a bit of a vanity talkfest), the people here can and do make a difference to society. They are government leaders, and if they are truly listening, may take away an idea or two that will find it's way into the next policy implementation. They are corporate captains who has the ability to move products, services to where they are most needed. 

And nowhere is the need as stark as the view from my room, where it's obvious how the growth in Indonesia, manifested in modern sky rise towers are gobbling up all spaces.

I then flew from Jakarta to HCM City, another 10m+ mega city in ASEAN, and here the development is no less frenetic. Even the notorious district 4, which curiously resembles other poor quarters elsewhere in the world like the Favelas in Brazil, are giving way to new buildings. In fact HCM City is even boldly re planning their city, including turning Nguyen Hue in front of City Hall into a pedestrian mall and building underground tunnels for traffic to flow. 

These developments are common all across Southeast Asia and if you consider that these are being implemented in countries that are not regarded to be the most well run, or having the most competent civil service, you must believe in the future of the region. It is rising despite of inefficiencies, despite of corruption, even despite incompetence. There is a force unleashed.

I am fortunate to be in the middle of all of this, experiencing it, even shaping it. And I am able to contribute to shaping it because I have spent much of my life living, studying and working in this region. Looking back, it's amazing how all the dots are connected. When as a management trainee, I learnt that my first posting was to Bangkok, I wasn't overjoyed. My colleagues and friends were getting assignments in HK, in London. Then my next posting was to Ho Chi Minh City. While some of them got more developed stations. But what then seemed like inferior postings now look like it a divine plan. It allowed me to understand these important countries in the region from the ground level and have certainly helped me function better leading the business across the region. 

Nothing is lost forever

Nostalgia. One word. Many meanings. 

Technically, it's defined as a wistful desire to return to the past, in thought or even in fact, of pleasant times.

In more melancholic terms, it's about how this world is all painful progress, longing for what we left behind. 

But most importantly, if one gets nostalgic, then there has been moments of happiness in one's life. So, nostalgia is really about a happy life and it's accumulated memories: the day I did well in school, the family vacations, the day I got my scholarship, the day I met D, got my first job, the day I proposed and then married D, when we had J, and then M, got promoted. I reminisced about all these happy memories as I watched "Still Alice" on board a KLM flight from KL to Jakarta.

It's a slow movie, compared to the action and violence so common nowadays. There is no wizardry, compared to the computer graphics animation we see everywhere. Even the synopsis sounded slow... But it starred one of my favourite actresses, Julianne Moore, who has never been afraid of playing emotionally scarred role. It looked like Alice was one such character.

I was not wrong. She played a 50-year old woman suffering from an early onset of Alzheimer's. She's losing her mind and even more tragically her happy memories. The body is still there but like a shell. In the movie, she asks, "Who can take us seriously when we are so far away from who we once were?"

As I blog here, I realize that I am imparting my memories to this medium, to be captured in posterity. No, I don't have Alzheimer's and I hope I won't. In any case, it's comforting to know my memories are here.

"For the time being, I am still alive. I have things I want to do when alive. I still have moments when I  pure moments of joy. Please do not think I am suffering. I am not suffering. I am struggling."

‘Struggling to be a part of things. To stay connected to who I once was.’

Photo from lifethroughframes.tumblr.com

Old friends

This morning I woke up really early (5 am) in Doha, Qatar and had a good chat with a chirpy 10-year old over breakfast. C was about to make a 2-hour trip to school - something she does daily - and yet was in amazingly high spirits. Just last night, or rather this morning, I was chatting with her dad, my good old friend J from SQ days and we reminisced about bosses of 25 years ago (they were then as old as we are now) who inspired us. I recounted a test my then SVP held out: drink with me all night and show up at work before me in the morning and that's the measure of your worth. 

Well, J and I caught (first time after more than a dozen years) after staying up late and we both got to our 7am starts on time: he to work, and me for my flight back to Singapore. He's still in the airline industry like many of our TSM (trainee station manager) start group who are in on way or another still in the travel / tourism industry. Our grounding as management in the best airlines in the world meant we were sought after, everywhere. J is with Qatar Airways, which I am now flying on, and by golly it's service, its planes (brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner), its inflight entertainment, its duty free offering can all rival SQ's. 

We were lamenting how a wildly successful formula, lack of diversity, management who hasn't tasted failure has led to groupthink and myopically so. 

So, it remained for us old boys to stay up late and get up early. I was there in SQ for only 6 years, J for nearly twice that time, some of our group left earlier, some later but whenever we meet we can just pick up from where we left off and continue. We would drive fast in his car (an AMG 6.3 Merc), talk of the universe and religion, bitch about racial/affirmative action policies and the leadership (or lack thereof) in our homeland, drink good scotch and of course listen to music on his spectacularly well put together high end hifi system (Vienna speakers, here I come).

There's something about friendships made when young. Friends from schooldays, first job: when one was innocent. Connections made then have a certain purity about them. Not that colleagues now can't be friends but sometimes our responsibilities, especially the drive to deliver results and to get the best of our teams, can get in the way. I am blessed that, for the most part, I've been able to keep such company of colleagues who are firm friends in the two companies I subsequently joined.

I spoke about J's daughter earlier, and of my own kids in my last post, and I look at the friends they have now and I know they too have made good friends who will become old friends with whom they can connect and connect and connect, anytime anywhere. 

GTC & PLT

No, these are not new expressways in Singapore. Yes, they share the same three letter format acronymistic nomenclature.

These are inventions of corporate entities of my kids when their years still number in the single digits.

First, GTC. Being a boy, J knew about jobs, especially those with uniforms: the police, the pilot, then postmen. He was curious what I did and I explained that I solve problems. Business problems of my corporate clients. Having two uncles who are medical doctors, he got it when I explained it's like I heal... Not people, but companies. The process though is not dissimilar: diagnosis, options, prescription. He liked that. A lot. And promptly declared he would do the same in future. So, I asked him which firm he would work for and he promptly said he would set up his own. The aptly named Good Thinking Company, or GTC in short. I was reminded of this when his sister asked him to review an essay of hers, and there he was, earnestly and may I add intensely, giving good well-thought through advice.

Second, PLT stands for Pretty Little Things. M made me a name card many years ago when she appointed me her salesperson to this boutique of hers that would feature her carefully designed as well as curated articles of beauty. From a young age, she showed a keen eye for things that go well together. While a fan of fashion shows like Project Runway, she was not a blind follower. Hers was an edgier, less mainstream, but trend setting all the same. Here, rather than inheriting dad's attitude  (of nonchalance about what to wear, where my colour and pattern combos on weekend shopping trips would embarrass her), she had nicely picked up her sense of style from her mum, who is the original bohemian hipster and I should add it was this style of D's that first caught my eye more than a quarter century ago in the canteen of the Science faculty. 

So, there you go: two enterprising kids. 

The ends justify the means

I Last week, he died. 

Growing up, history was one of my favourite subjects. The men and women in the history books were true heroes and heroines. Unimaginably better than the rest of us, esp. to a young kid in a small town.

I never imagined that I could be living in an era with not just one but several people who would figure prominently in the history books. Nelson Mandela for one. Lee Kuan Yew is the other... And I have even met him in the flesh.

History will remember him as the founding father of modern Singapore. And found Singapore he did. In his own image! No wonder the mourning by Singaporeans approached near deification levels. 

He had a vision (formulated through a unique mixture of idealism and pragmatism) and pursued it to reality through a combination of uncompromising demand for results from his subordinates and brutal removal of any opposition that stood in the way of achieving his vision. Yes, he had been dictatorial but look at the result: a country whose GDP per capita has multiplied over 20 times in a mere 50 years. Can you imagine a Sudan or a Papua New Guinea (whose GDP is the same as Singapore's in 1960s) growing at that rate? That's the measure of his achievement! Sure, it's not entirely perfect: gini coefficient is high, there is a foreigner for every two citizens fraying the social bonds. That said, all of this has never been done in history before. So LKY not only belongs in the history books, he has rewritten history.

Historical figures are worth emulating. I am sure many a leader from Africa to Europe, and most certainly in Middle East and the rest of Asia are looking at his methods and justifying their own. A formula at last, they would declare. I am also sure all of them will NOT succeed. Because they would have missed three things about his formula.

1. LKY did not blindly pursue one political school of thought or other. He just did what he thought was right given the circumstances and was able to do so because he had the intellect to figure out the best way forward

2. LKY may have rode roughshod over his opponents but he had a team, a good team, to whom he remain open-minded towards and was capable of changing his mind and course correct

3. LKY was incorruptible and lived his life in a way that he was whiter-than-white

There you have it, he was not just clever, he was wise. He was not just wise, he proved that it's possible because he lived it himself. 

We won't see another like him. I certainly won't. Not in my lifetime. Speaking of my lifetime, he did change my life, through the award of the ASEAN scholarship. I applied for it, got it, moved here and now live here. Thank you, Mr Lee Kuan Yew

Photo credit: unknown, taken from an image on the internet 

Just a little more than a month into 2015...

... And here I am in Vietnam, thereby covering all 5 countries of the system within 5 weeks. I've already taken 11 flights, 4 cross border drives and stayed in 5 different hotels and 2 homes this year.

Frantic as the travel schedule is, it's actually been a softer start to the year (business wise) than I had hoped. This is only to be expected as the business has it's ups and downs. The downs, I find, concentrates the mind and enables tough(er) measures to be enacted: the proverbial kick up everyone's behinds. 

So, as I land into Hanoi, I shall deliver this kick in this market and then hope to see the results :-). And if the results are anywhere as pretty as the street decorations are, we'd be in fine shape!

Truth is, the word kick is poorly used. In leadership, it's all circumstantial. For some, it's a kick. Most times (especially for smart people) it's about persuasion. The lesser of this group would respond to logic. The more sophisticated it's about WIIFM, ie What's In It For Me. And for a small group, it's about threat. For a small (underdeserving, I might add) minority, it's about enticements. I have never used the last ploy though.

But I understand that in all cultures such ploys are widely used and remain rather effective. In this country, esp as the festive occasion comes around, it's a great opportunity to greet one's business associates and to thank them for business done in the past and business anticipated in the future.