The Concept of 'Asian' Values
An extract from a internet discussion:
I've asked this question scores of times but I have never got an answer....WHAT EXACTLY ARE ASIAN VALUES and which society practises them?I'm not referring to the PAP bastardized version of Asian values. I'm referring to the term being used in an apolitical generic manner.
The most common example given is "respect for the elderly" but it's hardly an Asian trait. Western society places great emphasis on honoring and assisting it's senior citizens. In OZ, the old receive many benefits and the less mobile are assisted in numerous ways so they can maintain their mobility and dignity. This is in stark contrast to Asian cities where senior citizens are left to fend for themselves on the streets and in squalid old folks homes.
Yesterday was Anzac day and I personally witnessed thousands of youngsters attending dawn ceremonies honoring the elderly who fought in the wars in defence of the Nation.
I ask again? what exactly is "Asian Values"?....
At one time, it was fashionable for our practitioners of politics to every now and then drum into our heads the virtues of 'Asian' values, as though they hold a patent over those values or that they are exclusively 'Asian'. Where it serves their interest, 'Asian' values of subserviency and compliancy are applause while undesirable 'Western' values of social consciousness and human rights are weeded out.
Consider what Asian values we can do without or less with:-
The stress on money and prosperity - This is typical of Chinese society. The stereotype of the money-minded Chinese businessman is known worldwide. Most Chinese customs and festivals centre on the concept of prosperity being the chief goal in life. I do not question the value of money for the things if can afford you in life but many do lose sight of the things that money cannot buy. Any wonder than that the Beatles should sing "Money can't buy me love".
Blind subservience to authority – while respect for elders and authority is laudable, unquestioning and unthinking subservience is not. It leads to an environment of sycophancy where servile self-seekers attempt to win favour by flattering influential people. Our society seems to be plagued by the attitude that to say and do things that please the boss is the right and honorable way to be in his good books.
Suppression of the individual – while it is good to work as a team and put the goal of the group before one ‘s own interests, there is the danger that, put to the extreme, insistence on conformity and frowning on individual initiative would be detrimental to society in stifling the individual’s contribution.
Neglecting the worth of the individual and social consciousness - In the west, the handicapped are well looked after because of greater worth placed on each human being. Here, we tend to be more patronizing than helpful and Asian autocracies have no qualms about leaving an unfortunate few on the wayside so long as the majority does not object.
The Language of Happiness
John Ingalls:
Happiness is an endowment and not an acquisition. It depends more upon temperament and disposition than environment. It is a state of condition of mind, and not a commodity to be bought of sold in the market. A beggar may be happier in his rags than a king in his purple. Poverty is no more incompatible with happiness than wealth and the inquiry, “How to be happy though poor?” implies a want of understanding of the conditions upon which happiness depends.
Dives was not happy because he was a millionaire, nor Lazarus wretched because he was a pauper. There is a quality in the soul of man that is superior to circumstances and that defiles calamity and misfortune. That man who is unhappy when he is poor would be unhappy if he were rich, and he who is happy in a palace in Paris would be happy in a dug-out on the frontier of Dakota.
There are many unhappy rich men as there are unhappy poor men. Every heart knows its own bitterness and its own joy. Not that wealth and what it brings is not desirable - books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best food and raiment, agreeable companionship - but all these do not necessarily bring happiness and may coexist with the deepest wretchedness, while adversity and penury, exile and privation are not incomparable with the loftiest exaltation of the soul.
Josh Billings:
If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will not find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles – on her own nose all the time.
Lloyd Douglas:
It was probably a mistake to pursue happiness; much better to create happiness; still better to create happiness for others. The more happiness you created for others the more would be yours – a solid satisfaction that no one could ever take away from you.
Charles Spurgeon:
It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.
Thomas Drefer:
If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
Emily Dickinson:
I find ecstasy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
To live is not merely to breath, it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties, of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence. The man who has lived longest is not the man who has counted most years, but he who has enjoyed life most.
Eddie Cantor:
Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you’re going and why.
Pascal:
Happiness is nether within us only, nor without us; it is the union of ourselves with God.
Marcus Aurelius:
Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself.
Democritus:
Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold,
The feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart - Helen Keller
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves. – Helen keller
Happiness is …
… the calm, glad certainty of innocence
… the conviction that we are loved .. in spire of ourselves
… tranquility of mind
… enjoying the realities as well as the frivolities of life
… made up of minute fractions .. countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling
… a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp; but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Martha Washington:
I have learned too much of the vanity of human affairs to expect any felicity from public life. But I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be. For I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.
Jane Porter:
Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected ‘till it is shared.
Carl Jung:
There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure darkness, and the word “happiness” would lose its meaning if it were balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
Albert Camus:
In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Helen Keller:
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller:
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.
I would if I could
These phrases come from the song, El Condo Pasa:
Yes I would
If I only could,
I surely would.
What is the difference between could and would?
“Could" suggests the person may or may not have the ability to do something.
"Would" suggests entreaty or an appeal to do something within the ability of that person.
Here are some major differences in usage and meaning for Could
1. past tense of can; ability He could run fast when he was a boy.
2. polite request: Could I borrow your pen?
3. suggestion: Maybe you could get a tutor to help you.
4. Less than 50% certainty: Where's John? He could be home.
5. Impossibility (with negative only): That couldn't be true!
Would
1. polite request: Would you please pass the salt?
2. preference: I would rather stay home tonight.
3. repeated action in the past: As a child he would always obey his parents.
4. polite for "want": I would like you to send me a brochure.
5. unfulfilled wish: I would have liked a cookie, but there weren't any in the kitchen.
: ( “Why all the fuss over blogs???!!!” and “From screen to print”
According Yahoo news, the selected word of the year in 2004 was BLOG and blogging on the Internet is a profound activity of writing. Was it mere coincidence then that today’s Sunday papers featured two articles on blogs?
As if in answer to columnist Janatian Devas’s tongue-in-cheek poser, reporter Lee Sze Yong wrote: “If you accept the premise that new writers are likely to try out their wings on the Internet, then the blog phenomenon is bound to grow”.
Where else would budding writers turn to if not the Internet? There is great potential for publishers to operate and maintain an Internet blogging site successfully. The vast majority of media companies have missed the boat and readers are turning to amateurs, people with a deep knowledge about a niche subject, and others with a flair for writing or have interesting stories to tell - hundreds of thousands of bloggers who have become part of the media ecosystem. If the news media chooses to ignore it, it'll lose a connection with readers on an intimate daily basis. If not careful, the mainstream media as we know it will become a bit less relevant with each passing day.
There have been topics covered by bloggers on the Internet which has not seen the inside of a reporter's notebook, let alone prime space in a newspaper. Bloggers go where the traditional journalist fears to tread.
People are going online for news sources rather than purchasing print copies. As a society we are too busy to consistently read a paper. Everything we want, we want on a screen or pod. Speed and convenience will be the rule. We don't want to shuffle through newsprint to get the news all the time. We are heading to being a strictly electronic age of this medium.
What it takes to be a blogger - ABC says it's simply a desire to write, but is that all? Weblogs were allowed to comment on any subject area without facing any repercussions and it’s been said that the difference between journalism and blogging is that the former is prostitution and latter recreational sex. When you blog, you do it when you want it, how you want it, and on what topic you want and hope there is an audience out there to read what you get off on. On the other hand, journalists have a lot of things to prove to people. There's the editor and the company management to please. You're actually writing what your editor thinks is important and do it in the format and manner in which he wants it. He is the most important part of the equation.
The
Chilean press has an innovative way of deciding what news they put in their paper. The readers decide. This idea has blogging beat because readers are reading what they want, not what is attempting to be force-fed to them.
In his personal blog,
The Lost Remote, NBC journalist Kevin Sites explains his reasons for reporting on the controversial Marine shooting inside a Fallouja mosque. His decision has led many to call him anti-patriotic. Sites writes, "It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw - without imposing on that Marine - guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong." Sites' blog is not affiliated with NBC News.
Blogging is the new wave of the future and is here to stay if you look at the best blogs of 2004 according to
The Washington Post.
The comic strip “CHEW on it!” has a way of making pertinent social commentary. And this Sunday's edition was no exception. It depicts a phenomenon that repeats itself every time the train door opens at any crowed station. I have long accepted it as part and parcel of an uncouth society. I'll go mad if I allow myself to be upset every time it happens.
This was the event Mr Chew was recounting to his wife:
The following actually happened at…..
Venue: City Hall MRT Interchange
Date: March 26, 2006
Time: 1.10pm
Mr Chew:
“A whole lot of passengers including myself, were getting ready to alight”. His wife listens, all ears.
“When the doors opened, one guy fought his way in… the same time we were getting out”.
Mrs Chew held her mouth tight, in solemn anticipation while the narrator continues.
“Someone shook his head in disgust and made a disapproving “Tsk! Tsk! sound”.
Naturally it piqued Mrs Chew’s curiosity to ask:
“Who? One of the alighting passengers?” Her husband’s reply left the wife aghast with gaping mouth, obviously flabbergasted.
“No - that guy who forced his way in!”
It is shocking that people in the wrong should think they are in the right. I myself witnessed such an event at the basement of Raffles Places interchange that almost resulted in a fist fight if not for the fact that the train had to pull off, fight or not fight.
It was peak period. Against the barrage of outpouring commuters rushing out for a connection on the opposite side, a Chinese man who to all appearances was uncouth-looking, elbowed his way in head on. A scuffle ensued between him and an equally uncouth Caucasian in which both were vehemently asserting their respective rights, one to enter and other to exit. They were about to raise fists when the door sounded ‘Door Closing’. One chose to stay in and the other out. (How to fight like that? Commuters were denied a free show).
The ugly Singaporean syndrome manifests itself in other ways too even with the supposedly educated. A widely traveled Singaporean was expected to reciprocate the hospitality of her Hong Kong friend whose country she visited several times. On this rare visit from the visitor, a group of friends planned to treat her out. The woman chose to excuse herself for the reason that she was unlikely to visit Hong Kong anymore and hence the visitor was deemed to be of no further utility to her.
There are many people like her in our midst with a such a materialist attitude.
Do I see any benefit in it for myself? Am I getting more in output for my input? W
hat’s in it for me? Such a calculated approach seems to have permeated very facet of our social intercourse, including interpersonal relationships.
In Bangkok, where Singaporeans form the bulk of the hotel’s guests, the hotel workers do not particularly like them. “They’re rude, demanding and impatient,” the hotel staff said. To that, add conceited.
Is the low standard of our social behaviour the result of our single-minded pursuit of material wealth? If so, is it worth it? An ingrained philosophy inherited from the older generation is that nobody owes you a living. While self-reliance is a virtue, it has given rise to the unfortunate correlation that since nobody owes me a living, I don't anyone a living either. Or, since I don't depend on charity, I do not give charity. Hence, the charity that people do give is motivated by greed or reward, i.e. the prospect of a condo or a car dangling as a carrot.
The unparalleled materialist success of Singapore is not matched by a similar progress in social behaviour. No amount of beatification done to the landscape or modernization by way of our infrastructure can hide the fact that we are far behind European standards in social grace. Living in graceful surroundings, we do not know what graceful living is all about. A higher level of education has not taught us sophistication in social behaviour. Instead, our minds remain unsavoury.
We live in a small environment in even smaller confined spaces. Having to constantly rub shoulders with others can get on our nerves so we have the urge to push them out of the way. We want our private spaces. If only we have a magic wand to cause people to vanish or disappear.
Urban materialist living comes with a price when there is there no other consideration than making money so much so that some people think they are worth a lot of money just because they have it. Of course having money is good for the things that it can afford you but losing things that money cannot buy is tragic. A Beatles song laments “
money can’t buy me love”. To that add respect, loyalty, friendship and patriotism.
