Morrie's Lesson: Marriage

So what is Morrie's take on marriage?

I remembered way back in the early 90's when I was in Sri Lanka. It was dawn when we got up. Three of us-Devendra Agochiya, Ong Ang Ieam and I sat along a corridor, faced the horizon, hoping to catch the first rays of the morning sun in Columbo. We were at the International Youth Centre, a couple of kilometers away from the city.

It was a day after the hartal, the first anniversary of the death of Rajiv Gandhi. Things were very tense in Sri Lanka then as no vehicles were allowed on the road for a day by the Little Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). If they are, they will be bombed! I am digressing.

I remembered Ong asking Agochiya this,"What is marriage?"

"It's a commitment," Agochiya replied.

So when I read this word" commitment" in Tuesdays with Morrie, I am again transported back to the halcyon days I was in this troubled island state.

So what are the pointers from Morrie on marriage?

A general statement first-almost everyone has problems in marriage; so you are not alone.

Morrie's pointers are

Firstly, marry someone who has the same set of values

Secondly, respect your partner always

Thirdly, be open to your partner

Finally,learn how to accommodate and compromise

Why is marriage important to us all?

He says we need someone to care or to be cared in our hours of pain like in times of sickness. Friends can be dear and near but they are not at hand all the time. They is no substitute for a family and its members.

Morrie says that marriage was a commitment for him and his generation. Today, that no longer holds true. The younger generation seems to get in and out of marriages and divorce is almost a norm.

Morrie contends that partners jumped into marriage out of selfishness. Actually they do not know themselves well when they jumped into holy matrimony. So,what would you expect-when you do not know your own self well, can you actually know your partner well or care to know the partner well? Do they actually know who they are marrying?

What does marriage do?

Marriage test us.

It allows us to know ourselves and to know who is the other person.

It allows us to accommodate any differences.

His advice: Every one should marry. If not, they are missing out a lot.

Morrie likes to quote W.H. Audern: Love each other or perish.

Remember the other saying?

It's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all?

Taps in the Economy

How do you make a layman understand what brings cash into the Malaysian economy?

A simple analogy is through the taps scenario.
So how many taps are there that flows in cash into the Malaysian economy?

Off my head, these are the ones.

Manufacturing
Construction/Housing
Tourism/Hotels
Plantation and Commodities
Tertiary Services
Others

What are the main elements of manufacturing? The bulk of it is Electrical and Electronics in the free trade zones in the form of semiconductors. The others could range from textiles to automobiles assembly, furniture to component manufacturing.

Construction and housing refers mainly to highway construction,civil works for the government and the private sectors and housing projects.

Tourism are for inbound, air transportation,hotel accommodation,restaurants, tourist destinations and theme parks.

Plantation and commodities refers to oil palm, rubber, timber, pepper, minerals and crude oil and gas.

Tertiary services include transportation, banking, shipping,and insurance.

Others will include health services, health tourism and education.

So how did Malaysia fare in the first quarter of 2009?

Every tap gave less cash except for construction which added 0.5% more. Manufacturing took a beating losing 17 sen to a ringgit. All the rest were negative in contribution.

The jury came in with a minus 6.6% contraction.

So what about Q2?

So say we will still be swimming in red ink but may be not as great a volume as in Q1.

So let us wait for late July or early August for the figures to show.

Give us Moola Direct!

So why is the Malaysian government not doing what Japan, Australia and Thailand has done?

To expedite economic growth, these three governments have decided to give outright cash to its citizens.

Why? So that they can spend,spend and spend to quickly bring back growth to the local economy.

The Malaysian way? Stimulus packages are implemented in a too round-about way and will not get to the people who really needs it.

Perhaps only to the contractors. Sad, sad,sad.

So, please consider giving outright cash gifts-it certainly works.

Give more to the senior citizens as they are badly affected by the gila inflation and the siow low interest rate.

We are waiting.....

Studying in Malaysia

I was posed this question.

How does one get a student visa to study English in Malaysia?

"Where is the student from?" I enquired.

"China," came the reply.

So I asked around.

Not a difficult process.

This is how it goes.

Call up any institute offering Adult English classes.

Ask them whether they take in foreign students from China.

If the answer is affirmative, the institute itself will do the processing with the Immigration Department for a student visa as well as obtain security clearance with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

I will get back to my friend on this.

Teaching Bahasa Malaysia

A friend asked me whether I could teach him Bahasa Malaysia as he needed it to converse with investing partners in Kelantan. However, he could not spend much time with me. So face-to-face contact is out.

So I suggested using cyberspace. What I would do is to teach him words thematically.

Take for example the word-makan. It means to eat.

Next, add prefixes and suffixes to it.

The common ones would do. The words generated could range from: makanan (food), dimakan(to be eaten), bermakan (to eat-depends on context), memakan(to eat-depends on context), pemakanan (nutrition,diet)and so forth.

Then these words will be shown its usage in the literal form. For example:

Mereka sedang bermakan dengan kawan-kawan sepejabat. (They are eating with their office mates.)

The usage in figurative sentences are also provided. For example:

Kita bukan orang kaya. Kita makan gaji.(We are not rich. We work for a salary)

I have yet to get a response from my friend on this mode of teaching.

Nordic Time-Warp

Just saw Outlander as my afternoon matinee.

Out of sheer greed,an intergalactic race seized upon a planet owned by ghastly giant bug-like creatures called the Moorwens. Unfortunately, they failed to kill all of them and one of these creatures stowed away on the protagonist's spaceship when it crashed into the Nordic Coast of Planet Earth.

How he came to be accepted by the Norse,fought alongside with them in their battles, married the King's daughter and finally became king is a short brief of the plot. Nothing really great about the movie except that it could have borrowed wholesale the monster in the Alien movie.

Quite predictable and lack thrills.

Stars: James Caviezel, Sophia Myles and Jack Huston. No great acting performances here.

A Day in DUMC with the Gans

And so we went to DUMC at the appointed hour.

After introducing the Gans to Senior Pastor Dr. Daniel Ho at the church doorway, we all sat in one of the front rows. The celebration then started with Stephanie Ong leading off with some new songs. Gan told me she has the look at a person who has just got up from bed. As usual, there was the dancing and the harmonious singing. Three professional singers, Patrick, Steven and Juwita Suwito then showed off their singing prowess.

The it was prayer time by Pastor Foo Yong Chan and all of us gave our tithes and offerings.

Pastor Daniel then spoke of the main issues currently facing the country. Leading these were the economic downturn from the US meltdown,the political tsunami that swept Malaysia and continued to have its reverberations and the power wielded in cyberspace. He then spoke of an opportunity-a confused and upset population that has now become more receptive of the gospel. Another observable trend was that the church as an institution has become more courageous and willing to speak as a moral bulwark on national issues such as reaching out to the community, and as an agent of love, compassion and justice to migrant workers and foreigners. He also mentioned on the necessity of churches to network with like-minded churches to meet common ends.

He informed the congregation of the growth of the Christian community; currently at 10% of the Malaysian population of 28 million, which is more than the total number of Hindus.

After the sermon, we brought Gan and Aileen to the Visitor's Lounge to register as guests and to have tea. We had cakes and biscuits.

Gan seems to be more aloof but I guess God will speak to him in his own time. Aileen seems more acceptable to the good news.

After that, we went to PJ new town and had Kon Loh Mein. Not too good.

We hope the Gans will go to DUMC on their own in the following weeks.