Another inspiration

August 9th, 2008 at 22:32 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Education · 7 Comments 

While I was helping students to plan and secure scholarship for their graduate study abroad, I realized two types of mind. One is the Chinese-educated mind and the other the opposite. The Chinese-educated minds are tend to be less receptive in ideas especially abstract ideas and are more materialistic. These minds are closed and also are obligated to relationship among their friends, peers and family members. The Chinese-educated minds are more self-centered, have no clear definition of goals, and have desires to outwit matters without investing too much efforts. There are more characteristic of these Chinese-educated mind but just to mentioned a few for the purpose of this post.

Well, a Chinese-educated mind I am talking above is referring to people who have gone through primary education in Chinese medium and many of them may continue studying Chinese in their secondary school which is in Malay medium.

I was a Chinese-educated mind for 6 years in my primary education and I took Chinese language in the first to second year of my secondary education. However, my thinking is quite westernized. I use English in my work but I do communicate in Chinese with certain people when English is not an effective language to them. Besides the 8 years of Chinese language class, I use English most of the time and I prefer English to Chinese. I was called a banana man by female ex-classmates during my sixth grade because I spoke English and they hated it. Banana man means a person looks like a banana not because of shape but the skin color. The banana skin is yellow in color analogous to the skin color of a Chinese. But when we peel off the banana skin, the white meat of the fruit reveals. The white meat symbolizes a westerner. A Chinese who speaks English and does not know (or forget or intentionally not to speak) Chinese is called a banana man among some Malaysia Chinese. What a ridiculous discrimination.

There are people purportedly against we sending our children to non-Chinese school. In my opinion, it is not necessary to be in the Chinese education system to learn Chinese and to maintain our own culture. There are many so called Chinese educated people can’t even write proper Chinese and/or have proper pronunciation of Chinese words. Many claim themselves to be the savior of Chinese cultures education in Malaysia do not even have a mere understanding of our own cultures. It appears that I know better than most of them.

But today, I am still able to write Chinese as you may see some Chinese posts and poems in my blog.

Let’s come back to the scholarship things. Most Chinese-educated students do not have a clear goal in their mind. It is a huge dark gray blank screen and they do not know where and how to start defining their goal. I have a clearer defined goal and audibly know what I want. This is another inspiration for my decision.

Another inspiration for me is to prove another impossible and also to set an example to my children so that they will see their daddy is still able to continue learning. Perhaps, this is one of another good way to bring up my children by setting an example of good learning attitude.

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Clear things up

August 9th, 2008 at 21:51 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Education · 3 Comments 

I wrote an article earlier today and after I have gone through it again this evening, I found some statements which some readers might have misunderstood. The reason I write this post is to clear things up so that the aforementioned article will not be misunderstood.

No one has given me a tick off or spark. I found my inspiration while working to help some undergraduate students to plan and secure scholarship for their graduate study abroad.

I wrote another post much earlier about Ada tasking on multi-core and received couple of comments yesterday. I have been a mentor to dragon and apparently she knows more than me about distributed computing with Ada. It is not about pride but an assessment to my knowledge which needs to be upgraded. I then got a bigger inspiration after I read some papers about distributed computing, quantum computing, computational physics, computational mathematics etc. These papers or articles have fascinated my imagination and of course have excited my long sleeping inspiration. Hence, a powerful spark has enlightened my stimulus.

As in the comment, the baggages which I mentioned were certainly not people around me. What I meant was that I was ready to let go many things like changing my car to a smaller car so that I could liquidate some fund for aid. What I meant was that I was willing to let go material things I was owning or longing to own.

I will be very sad if people has misunderstood my intention and purpose so I decide to write this post to clear things up.

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Huge disappointment and backing off

August 9th, 2008 at 4:11 · Filed Under Blogging, Days in My Life, Education, Family · 4 Comments 

I used to be firm with my principles in most things but there’s a huge disappointment after all I have done. It makes me realize at some point, I will have to back off and start thinking about my own ambition. In the past 5 years of experience working with university students, I learned a lot from them in the way of handling disappointment and also enjoying the fruits. One of the project I will never forget is the 2006 FYP at UTAR. My team won a trophy, a consolation trophy to be precise, but the students decided to present it to me for memory. I have seen most of my teams to pull through their projects and graduated. Some are continuing their graduate study which I am somehow proud of their achievement.

I have not revealed my feeling towards them so far. But somehow this comes to me suddenly and I realize it is time for me to move on and leave behind my principles and pride for the betterment of my life.

I have decided to continue my study and to pursue my goal once I dreamed so much. Some readers or friends may say I am impulsive. But this thought has been in my mind since 2 years ago and I am waiting for the spark to light it off. I have found the spark though.

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