Post 96 “Nothing will come of nothing”
Old King Lear wanted to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. Whoever could flatter him would get a share. His two eldest daughters flattered their father and were rewarded. They were good in fabrication.
The youngest one, however, could not manifest her love for the father in words like her two sisters could. She could only say “Nothing” when pressed to speak up and praise her father. The outraged Lear then told her that "Nothing can come of nothing: speak again", and later excluded her from inheriting any part of his kingdom. King Lear might have misjudged the character of his youngest daughter who was not as sly as her two sisters.
In the present society we may find widespread versions of tales which are pure fabrication. It is satirical that some rich and titled who belong to high society are especially skillful in ensuring that “something can come of nothing.” They tell lies upon lies hoping that those lies can ultimately become true to the uneducated. It takes people with critical minds to unravel the fabrication of the wicked.
24 May 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Penang Hill climbing competition
Post 95 An interesting school life!
The Penang Hill funicular railway was opened in 1923. The blue, air-conditioned Swiss-made coaches, capable of ferrying up to 100 passengers at one go only started operation in 2011. The 87-year-old funicular railway system is now history.
In 1959 I was studying in Form One at the Chung Ling High School Penang. The school was and still is the first choice of many aspiring graduating primary school boys. At that time the school, which even attracted students from Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and other states of the then Malaya, had two co-curricular activities which were the envy of many students from other secondary schools: the annual swimming competition across the Strait of Penang to Butterworth, and the Penang Hill climbing competition. I was interested in the latter.
On one morning, all potential competitors for the hill climbing event gathered together at the school field. We were then told to run round the 400m school field. I did not know exactly why we needed to do so but nevertheless join in the race. After running the 400m, a doctor used his stethoscope to check on my heart beat. Only then did I realize that he was our school doctor and that all competitors had to go through such test.
“Have you participated in this event before?” the school doctor who took time off from his clinic asked me. When I replied in the negative, he told me, “Well, you can try!” I was given the green light to participate in the hill climbing competition!
I did not finish the climb with any prize; neither did I become the fallen climbers who needed help from the Red Cross members at the finishing line.
At the next Hill climbing competition I found myself as a member of the school brass band performing at the top of Penang hill.
17 May 2011
The Penang Hill funicular railway was opened in 1923. The blue, air-conditioned Swiss-made coaches, capable of ferrying up to 100 passengers at one go only started operation in 2011. The 87-year-old funicular railway system is now history.
In 1959 I was studying in Form One at the Chung Ling High School Penang. The school was and still is the first choice of many aspiring graduating primary school boys. At that time the school, which even attracted students from Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and other states of the then Malaya, had two co-curricular activities which were the envy of many students from other secondary schools: the annual swimming competition across the Strait of Penang to Butterworth, and the Penang Hill climbing competition. I was interested in the latter.
On one morning, all potential competitors for the hill climbing event gathered together at the school field. We were then told to run round the 400m school field. I did not know exactly why we needed to do so but nevertheless join in the race. After running the 400m, a doctor used his stethoscope to check on my heart beat. Only then did I realize that he was our school doctor and that all competitors had to go through such test.
“Have you participated in this event before?” the school doctor who took time off from his clinic asked me. When I replied in the negative, he told me, “Well, you can try!” I was given the green light to participate in the hill climbing competition!
I did not finish the climb with any prize; neither did I become the fallen climbers who needed help from the Red Cross members at the finishing line.
At the next Hill climbing competition I found myself as a member of the school brass band performing at the top of Penang hill.
17 May 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
An impressive tour guide
Post 94 Hakone Lake
The Japanese tour guide who took my wife and me for a pleasure ferry ride at the scenic Hakone Lake impressed me with his knowledge of classical music. While we were having lunch at the lake, I heard my favourite piece of music composed by the Austrian composer, Schubert F.P. (1797 -1828), being aired.
As we were eating trout (a type of freshwater fish) at that time, I casually told the guide that the title of that piece of music was ‘The trout’. He immediately replied to me that it was. I was deeply impressed because he was not just a tour guide; he was knowledgeable enough to know that ‘The trout’ was played while visitors to the lake were enjoying a meal on trout.
At the bullet train station in Tokyo after the day tour, the Japanese guide ushered us into a taxi saying that he had spoken to the taxi driver where to send us. He gave me an envelope and assured me that the taxi fares in it would be more than enough to cover the distance. He was apologetic for not being able to accompany us back to our hotel though it was not his duty to do so. When we reached our hotel, there was more than enough money in the envelope to cover the taxi fares.There was no overcharging.
When one is in a civilized nation, one knows why it deserves to be called the First world.
10 May 2011
The Japanese tour guide who took my wife and me for a pleasure ferry ride at the scenic Hakone Lake impressed me with his knowledge of classical music. While we were having lunch at the lake, I heard my favourite piece of music composed by the Austrian composer, Schubert F.P. (1797 -1828), being aired.
As we were eating trout (a type of freshwater fish) at that time, I casually told the guide that the title of that piece of music was ‘The trout’. He immediately replied to me that it was. I was deeply impressed because he was not just a tour guide; he was knowledgeable enough to know that ‘The trout’ was played while visitors to the lake were enjoying a meal on trout.
At the bullet train station in Tokyo after the day tour, the Japanese guide ushered us into a taxi saying that he had spoken to the taxi driver where to send us. He gave me an envelope and assured me that the taxi fares in it would be more than enough to cover the distance. He was apologetic for not being able to accompany us back to our hotel though it was not his duty to do so. When we reached our hotel, there was more than enough money in the envelope to cover the taxi fares.There was no overcharging.
When one is in a civilized nation, one knows why it deserves to be called the First world.
10 May 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Poem and music
Post 93 A strikingly descriptive poem
I can remember very well till now two stanzas of a Chinese poem which I learnt during my secondary school day in the early 1960s. It was a poem by Zhang Ji (张继):
"From the Han Shan Temple (Cold Mountain Temple) outside the city of Suzhou, was heard the midnight bell reaching the passenger boat" (姑苏城外寒山寺，夜半钟声到客船.)
In the 1990s when I visited Suzhou, China, I was delighted to have touched the bell that sent its sounds to the passing passenger boats nearby. The poem was so picturesque one could form a mental picture of what he was describing. I was not far off tangent in my imagination while being taught this poem in school.
John Keats, the famous poet says, “We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.” How right he was!
Fou Ts’ong (傅聪) who won the third prize in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition, an equivalent to the Nobel Prize in music, in Poland in 1955, commented that there is a close relationship between poem and music. In the year 2000, when Yundi Li of China won the top honour in the competition held every five years, Fou Ts’ong remarked that the Chinese tend to have a strong poetic temperament and thus could play the masterpieces of Chopin, who was a very romantic composer, expressively.
“Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.” (Voltaire, one of the greatest of all French authors, 1694-1778)
3 May 2011
I can remember very well till now two stanzas of a Chinese poem which I learnt during my secondary school day in the early 1960s. It was a poem by Zhang Ji (张继):
"From the Han Shan Temple (Cold Mountain Temple) outside the city of Suzhou, was heard the midnight bell reaching the passenger boat" (姑苏城外寒山寺，夜半钟声到客船.)
In the 1990s when I visited Suzhou, China, I was delighted to have touched the bell that sent its sounds to the passing passenger boats nearby. The poem was so picturesque one could form a mental picture of what he was describing. I was not far off tangent in my imagination while being taught this poem in school.
John Keats, the famous poet says, “We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.” How right he was!
Fou Ts’ong (傅聪) who won the third prize in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition, an equivalent to the Nobel Prize in music, in Poland in 1955, commented that there is a close relationship between poem and music. In the year 2000, when Yundi Li of China won the top honour in the competition held every five years, Fou Ts’ong remarked that the Chinese tend to have a strong poetic temperament and thus could play the masterpieces of Chopin, who was a very romantic composer, expressively.
“Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.” (Voltaire, one of the greatest of all French authors, 1694-1778)
3 May 2011
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