The Dalai Lama, the Pope & monkly mistakes

One of the problem with the Westernised media, particularly coming from the Americas is that there is a strong tendency to apply their own world view of how things should be to the rest of the world. This is called ethnocentrisms. Thus it does not get any better when the American/Western media continuously portray the Dalai Lama like he is the sole authority of the Buddhist world, the equivalent of the pope in Catholicism. Of course, the popularity of the Dalai Lama have, in part, a lot to do with the fact that Tibet was taken over by China, and there are good political agenda and interests to use that fact against China, by some government agencies to negotiable deals and force China to obey Western rules. So sometimes it hard to tell when the Dalai Lama is a Western government’s tool of against China or when its really for the concern of the people in Tibet.

Is the four-faced buddha, a buddha?

A quick answer: No and probably nothing to do with Buddhism or Buddhist teachings.

How did the “four-faced buddha”, so popular amongst some Singaporeans (and Thais, needless to say) who goes religiously to Erawan Shrine in Bangkok to “pay back wishes” and to worship, become confused with “a buddha”.

Firstly, when I say buddha (in small), I am talking about a being who is enlightened, full of wisdom, and had escaped the cycle of rebirth according to Buddhist teachings. Whereas the “Buddha” is the founding teacher of Buddhism. More importantly, a buddha:

• does not require your worshiping (he/she is not a god)
• does not grant you wishes, no matter how much you pray or offer
• does not require you to please him/her nor to return any promise for wishes you think you were granted
• he/she does not get angry, punish you, gets pissed off for offending him or not keeping your promise or not paying respect to him/her
• most important we don’t fear a buddha for one is loving, kind, compassion, joyful and generous.

If anyone describes a buddha with these characteristics, he/she is describing a petty deity, not a buddha or the Buddha.

Why can’t R-21 films be screened in HDB heartland cinemas?

The recent news about why R-21 films in the HDB heartland really goes to show what happens when people stop using their brains.

Want do we mean that society is not ready to have R-21 films close to home? If R-21 films are such bad influences shouldn’t they be simply banned in the first place? Who do the people think can watch R-21 films? 13/14 year old kids? Aren’t these films restricted to minors?

Also such a survey speaks nothing about misinformation or prejudice of the respondents. If you ask the same audience if they agree to allow foreign construction/migrant workers to rent their rooms or rent a flat next door to them, you may see the same or even more percentage not wanting this to happen. Does that mean that our ministry should prevent any of the workers from staying in HDB heartlands?

If 21 year old boys can be serve in the army to learn to kill an enemy, hold a gun, throw a grenade, fire a tank and command a company of men, what can R-21 films do that the army have not taught?

If having R-21 films at the heartland can be sure a bad influence,shouldn’t we banned cigarettes, alcohol and gambling at heartlands too? How many of us have seen 16/17 year old kids smoking, drinking and gambling around HDB towns? Aren’t these bad influences for kids? So why are these parents not asking for a ban of these from HDB heartlands also? What more, even though these have restricted  sales to minors, many can still get their hands on them through their older friends. Going to a cinema, on the other hand, is different because there is a gatekeeper at the door.

Furthermore if those kids want to get more sexually explicit or vulgar or violent contents, they can easily get those from the internet. Why need to pay $10 to watch some dumb censored films with nothing to see?

 

The interesting things about disasters

The interesting thing about disasters is that they make us and the government care about the lives of the people in those area, where during normal times, we would hardly give a thought to their sufferings. Of course, this is a good thing. This shows that people are still empathetic about the sufferings of others. Perhaps those people had a difficult life for a long time and had been asking for help from their government or travelers who may occasionally visit, but nobody bother with them. Disaster happens and lo and behold, suddenly there are money in the coiffures to help the poor, to help them rebuild their schools and houses and their lives. Perhaps they had been asking for the same things before disasters happened.

Not to belittle the sufferings of those in a disaster, but I wonder if some of the people may have been better off after a disaster.

Countries that never provided enough money to help their own poor, homeless, sick and destitute, have thousands and millions to give to other countries when disasters happen. How ironic these charity and show of generosity are, why do government not give those same money to help their own? Its hard to comprehend. Perhaps its the believe that people in a disaster are not to be blamed and deserves unquestioning help, whereas the homeless, destitute and poor deserves no help because they are to be blamed for their own state of affairs.

The single story about the happiness of being in a relationship

Inspired by the danger of a single story by Chimamanda Adichie.

Why is it that whenever someone says that they are in a relationship, friends flock to congratulate the person. Even though, some may not feel that it will not last or that that new person is may turn out to be a bastard or a serial killer?

Why is it that whenever someone says that they are now single again, friends again flock with condolences. Even though, that relationship was bad from the start, with bickering, fighting and distrust and it was better off breaking up?

Why is that even when these 2 events happened within a span of 1 or 2 week, friends will still offer congratulations and condolences within the same breathe, as if its an automatic response that they must do in order to show that they care about their friends. Or is this really how we should show genuine care for a friend?

Why do some people keep on to a bad relationship, fighting, bickering and distrusting; as if, one cannot survived outside that relationship  and be happy and one is not whole without being in a relationship and all that victimizing of oneself something worth pursuing?

Is SwissCash for real?

This was a old post, but I reposted this now that more ponzi schemes are in Singapore. Also see Kinlian blog.

*****************

I first heard of this new investment scheme call SwissCash from Tim. At that time, its 300% profit over 27 months claim sound just too incredible to believe and I left it to one side. Later on, I have old friends calling me who also told me about SwissCash. Not only were they investors, some were also referrers (those who earns a commission by getting others to invest). It peaked my interest because my friends were reaping quite healthy profits from it either being an investor and/or a referrer. Of course, the catch here is that SwissCash is an offshore investment scheme, you basically have to trust your money with the referrer.

Stop having babies if you really want to save Earth

Fact: Earth is not dying… at least not in the next few million years

Earth will probably “die” together with our sun when it goes super nova in like a long time to come. So if anyone comes and tell you that Earth is dying, they are lying. Okay, they are technically not lying, Earth is dying day by day, just like all of us are dying day by day. Earth years is just so much longer than humans can imagine. But if they are trying to incite fear of a doomed earth in the next few years, then they are lying and they know it.

Fact: Life on Earth is not in danger of dying… at least some self-appointed-important animal species AKA humans are in danger of dying out.

Earth has gone through a few cycles of extinction with as much as 90% going extinct and each time new and more diverse species repopulate the Earth. Sure, this time round, if human continue their path to self-extinction, probably 99% (I am stretching this) could go extinct. But then given that Earth have a few more millions to go, surely newly species will repopulate the Earth in time to come.

Up in the air

Up in the air is a movie about a company that helps ex-employees of other companies that fired them get motivated so that can move on after they get fired. We heard the familiar cries when employees are fired ranging from how much the sacrificed for the company and how many years they have been in the company, etc.

Being an employee, how often do we ask ourselves how much the company have ask for our sacrifices, be it overtime, underpaid, long hours, bad managers and even bad environment?

Look back at the previous company that you were in, did you spend sleepless hours trying to get a report completed, a project completed or trying to fix a problem? Where are they now? Where are those countless hours of anxiety, stress, anger and frustration, where are they now? That’s right, you left them behind, those important projects or sales target or objectives are no longer important now. All those stressful days feels a bit silly now don’t you think? Sure some of those achievements went into your resume for the next job, but all those many other sacrifices we made that is not in your resume, are they worth it?

Companies act just like companies should, regardless of how much “sacrifice” you have given to a company or how many long hours and time you put it to make things work, when they need to terminate you due to mass layoffs, it usually don’t count too much. Yes, they may put into your testimony that you are good employee, but you still don’t get to keep your job. The strange thing about layoffs is that it is usually a top management error and they seem to get a big chunk of benefits and even continue to stay in the company where the staffs who made no mistakes and helped to keep the things running are the ones to be let go, instead of the people on top who made the mistakes.

For me after working for so long and having put in so much to keep things running, I always keep the philosophy of not of over-sacrificing myself for the sake of the company, because it will never care. Sure I will continue to do what I do best and well, that is not a doubt.

Any manager who asks you to “sacrifice” your time, money and life for that important target or objective, must not value you as an employee.  So I will just roll my eyes and try to do whatever is required, no more no less, with as much motivation as it should appear to be to the manager, so it doesn’t look like I am rolling my eyes when I am doing the work.

The only time your ought to sacrifice yourself for a job is when its your company. You have a stake in its survival and its survival is important to you. As a employee, its nothing more than a dumb request.

So the next time you get stressed over a deadline, an objective, a target or just getting something fixed, remember all this “sacrifice” will be meaningless to you when you leave your job for the next one.

The case of the flying pigs or piggie cupid

A few people in the blogs including Mr. Wang criticize why some chinese folks are up in arms with McDonald changing their lucky charm for a pig to the cute cupid. After all, it’s a McDonald toy and you can just don’t buy it. Also Mac representative did point out that they are not meant to be Chinese zodiac signs represent the 12 signs..

The issue, however, is not about buying the pig as a complete set, but an issue of the failure of our religious and racial policies, thus leading to irrational fear and narrow mindedness.

No matter how Mac denies it, those lucky charms does come in 12 as a set and all but 1 are coincidentally the same animals in the Chinese zodiac signs, how can they lied with a straight face that those are not meant to represent them as such? At the same time that they tried to hoodwink us, they also admit that they were trying to be sensitive to the Malay Muslim community. Of course, there is also the issue of economics, if you looking at the patronage at fast food joints like MacDonald and KFC, its quite common to see it filled with Malay customers.

The problem lies in that it’s okay to be insensitive to the majority Chinese but not the minority religion or race. It’s unfortunate in our context we cannot talk about the Malay race without also talking about Islam. But who makes the Malay race malay is a question of the government’s policy whitewashing ethnic groups from the Malay archipelago, something which YawningBreading have talked about before.

The Malay folks should not be too happy too that Mac are  being so sensitive if not overly sensitive to their religious obligation. What this means is that there is an irrational fear of offending the Malay Muslim community and the perception that they, of all communities in Singapore, are most easily offended and petty and cannot understand the needs of others. That is the message Mac sends to everyone.

MUIS, in the meantime, have not made any clarification and prefers to keep silent, perhaps they are all too happy that the majority Chinese race’s tradition is being promised for their rights?

What MacDonald could have done better is to offer the pig toy with an alternative cupid toy. So customers can choose between a pig or cupid to complete their set or buy both and have 13 instead, which is a lucky number. Surely there will be cost involved, but I believe that that is a better move. At the end of the day, it does costs to keep everyone happy.

When racial and religious tolerance really means intolerance

Its unfortunate that the two incidents to enforce religious and racist tolerance in Singapore and Malaysia are related to Muslims and the malay community. Okay, I am not surprise about this coming from Malaysia because the whole world evolves around giving in to the malay/muslim demands in Malaysia, very seldom the other way around.

The first, and first time in Singapore too, is how a few thousand years of Chinese tradition has been changed by McDonald because of “religious tolerance”. Our dear year of the PIG is now officially, the year of the CUPID. Honestly I really don’t know what the MUIS Halal certification for restaurant entails, but a quick browse seems to indicate that it only deals with food production and handling, nothing about toys. Here is probably a case of self-censorship out of fear by McDonald and it does not help that MUIS or the Malay muslim community is silent about this. Perhaps they are happy about the decision?

When will the Muslim community and MUIS come up to clarify this? Singapore is waiting.

Basically how the government in Singapore promote and instill religious and racial tolerance is really through religious and racial fear. The problem is, of course, the problem is never resolved, because true understanding is never achieved. What this episode, if indeed McDonald is being fearful, is that there is an under current of fear of the Malay muslim community and also a misperception that they are intolerant and that giving way is only a one way traffic.

I remember from young, as part of my religious/racial tolerance, I was brought up to constantly be fearful of offending the Malay muslim community. It was never about offending vegetarians, christians, hindus (okay partially), indians or taoist. To the little mind as I was growing up, I get the impression that the Malay muslims must be a very petty and intolerant people and religion because we are all so fearful of offending them all the time. This does not help when the Western media’s view of Muslims in other continents, usually with violence. But as I grew up, I realized that such fears are really unfounded.

If we read articles involving around issues of racial or religious intolerance in these two countries, inevitable the majority of such cases are related to Malay muslim community. The ability to use the law to punish the offenders (i.e. non malay muslim) does not show tolerance. In fact it re-enforce intolerance and fear in the society.

Mind you, I have a number of good malay muslim friends, some are more religious than others, some are more relaxed than others and we never have such issues as I grew to understand the limits of their religion prohibition. Sure, I am critical about their religious text around it, just as I am critical of some buddhist text or christian text, but that does not make me non-tolerant, just argumentative.

The second which is evern more violent is how the malay muslim community and government in Malaysia insists that allah is a patented muslim god word. Interesting, the Indonesian bible society have to explain itself for use of Allah which some christian insists in incorrect!

Worst of all, religious intolerance raises it ugly head by the burning of some churches in the Klang Valley. This does not help to re-enforce the idea the Islam is peaceful, because whenever there is a disagreement its almost always the Muslims turning to violence first in Malaysia. To cut to the chase, the muslim government and the impressionable malay muslim community are just intolerant of anything that does not go their way. PERIOD.

The Malaysian government themselves are at fault of creating an opportunity for the violent elements of the malay muslim community to raise to the challenge, with its insistence to not allow Allah to be used by other religions of the book. They claim that this is not different from Muslim stepping on the cow head previous. This is bullocks! Stepping on a cows head is a direct insult to the Hindu religion and god. The government and muslim community in Malaysia have yet to proof that the use of Allah in the bible is insulting to Islam.

If we really look at it, this has nothing to do with being muslim, because this word has been used in bibles in the middle east without much a challenge and the use of Allah even predate Islam. This is just specific to the brand of chauvinistic religion practiced by the Malaysian government. The Malaysian government insists that this is about being tolerant, yeah right to the violent muslims in Malaysia you mean? But really its just an intolerant religious mind trying to enforce itself to the rest of the society. Religious and racial tolerance don’t exist in Malaysia, it all about putting up with the demands of the malay muslims in Malaysia.

At a quick glance, one would think that the way Malaysia and Singapore “practice” of religious and racial tolerance are different. But in fact, they are not different, because both government use fear to cull any discussions that would help society be more tolerant, through constructive and healthy debate and to allow some some criticism without getting people too worked up. Both governments actually prefer the races and religions to remain intolerant of each other (via their current policies of fear mongering), because this is the only way to maintain power and control over the people and so that people cannot question bad racial quota and policies in the government or the racist bumi putra policy of the Malaysian government.