Human Rights Celebration

According to Chinese government regulations, all full-time female employees are entitled to a half day off from work every year on March 8 - International Women’s Day.  
 
Female employees (such as hospital staff or those in the police force) who are required to work on March 8 must be compensated at three times their normal salary rate for the half day of work!

Bravo! 

But really only if you could pick where you live your life as a woman!


In some parts of the world:-

• Women are raped and murdered when they go to fetch water and firewood for their families.  

• Schools for girls are fire-bombed and acid is thrown in the faces of girls who have the temerity to want an education.

• Abortion is still illegal for many women in many places and hundreds of thousands of women died unnecessarily from childbirth related reasons.

Unfortunately, we still live in a world where things mostly operate on the notion that power comes from winning battles and controlling resources and people.

Implicitly in such a system, you can not allow those you want to control to become equal.  And in this world, there is a long history of men asserting control over women.

Are we seeing equality? 

It is clear women can do anything boys can do.  So I guess the answer is...Yes. 

What is disappointing though, is men are not always interested in doing everything women can do.   So...No...may be we will never see equality.

The Very Healthy Chocolate

Women are generally more addicted to chocolate then men.   Hormones is the word you are looking for.

The excuse we women have for chocolate eating may be an unconscious attempt to keep hormone levels more steady and we tend to have an increased frequency of craving for high fat, pleasant tasting food (including chocolate) around our menses.  


That's all fine but most chocolates contain very little cocoa and a lot more fat and sugar.  So...if you are really only going for the feel-good effect of chocolate, make sure you buy the more expensive stuff which contains more % of cocoa.

You may possibly take pleasure in knowing what Forbes Magazine considers to be the world’s most pricey. 


Prior to purchasing any of the suggested gold sprinkled chocolates, you might be better off discovering your goldmine first, so that you can manage to go after a pound, or simply a trifle...or should I be saying truffles?! 

A Dark Side of The Swan Queen

It has always been an absolute pleasure to watch ballet dancing, the swirling and the pirouette;  the elegance and the beauty combined that take your breath away.  

I was quite looking forward to getting all of that in Black Swan. Only to realised as soon as the movie began, I have signed up for a horror thriller! 

Scenes of bloody nails, breaking bones and puncture wounds are just about what I can recall after coming out from the ballet movie. 

The worst bit - I am still trying to figure out which parts were figments of Nina's fervid imagination and which ones were real.  

Too much swirling for me I guess and definitely qualifies for nightmare materials. 

Extending Trading Hours

My father was once a brilliant stock broker and I am guessing no matter how good he was, it must be hard work for him to explain what his career was to an 8-year old kid - who - hasn't got too much of a brain back then.

Adding to that inherent mystery of stocks and shares, his office hours seem rather mysteriously short to us as well: out at 9:00am, back home by 4:30pm, with an extremely long lunch hour in between.  So lengthy that he could drive and drop us off to school before heading back to his office and appeared at home with our afternoon tea - not much later!

I read from the news that starting from 7 March, 2011, the continuous trading session of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing's securities market will be from 9:30am to 12:00 noon and then from 1:30pm until 4:00pm.  And a year later, trading times will be further extended to another 30 mins from 1:00pm instead of 1:30pm. 

Well, it is no longer relevant to my retired father, but if this were implemented years ago, then father couldn't have been our chauffeur and we wouldn't have had those memorable bonding hours between father and daughters. 


Those bonding days were fun, but trust me - back then whenever people asked what my father did then, I hadn't a clue!  

The Thing About Shoe Laces

"One, two, buckle my shoe
Three, four, knock on the door"

Nearly every other day, I would bumped into people on the streets stepping on their own shoe laces.  I kid you not. 

I don't believe I walk with my head down, but I do have this ability to spot people with untied shoe laces and it bugs me so much that I would often walk over to that person and tell him/her about it.   Statistically, most of them would thank me.   

Not sure if you would agree, I think all laces have been cursed to be - liberated from their bonds to each other!   I certainly hope I have mastered at least one kind of shoe knot-tying so that I can claim to be able to tie my own.  And my way of making sure the two pieces stay together - is always a double knot!

$6000 for free (Really?!)

 

Looks like we are going to be getting six grand for free, dumped directly into our impenetrable Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) accounts.

Essentially, that means bankrolling the hidden tax, with surcharges being paid to private fund managers.  Most probably by the time I retire, the amount would have been devalued to near nothing if we take into account the present value theory, the price index and all that. 

This is really crap seriously.  I thought the government's windfall should be aimed at helping the one in needs (i.e. the poor).  But then, the poor do not have MPF.

So what are we talking about?   Can someone explain this to me in plain English or illustrate with simple Mathematics please? 

The Untapped Potential

Growing up, I wasn’t a great student, athlete, musician or a great anything for that matter.  I have been good at a few things (eat and drink perhaps), stay average at a few and pretty crap at a whole bunch of others.

I see you nodding your head huh?

OK, that hurts, but at least I have the guts to admit it here. 


I was having this friendly bash with a friend today about parenting.  What would I know?   Clearly me with no kids is not the best to turn to for parenting advice.  I mean, I have only raised 2 dogs before and I accidentally killed a rabbit years ago!  


Yes, never gifted in that arena too, but I realised I do have a knack of remembering the constructive things that people taught me.  


Someone I respected dearly once taught me not to question, “how gifted I am” but rather, “how much of that gifted potential I am using”.  She said the amount of inherent potential you and I have is finite but how much of that potential we tap into is entirely optional. 


I couldn't quite get it then, but I do now.  And even better, I figured I have a role to play.

Sharing the positivity I encounter in life with as many as possible, bit by bit, in my own words, starts small - here in my blog - if that's considered alright with you people out there. 

 

The Most Annoying Soundtrack

I must google how popcorn becomes part of the package in a cinema. 

It's funny how we insist on buying huge buckets of popcorn and horsing it into ourselves even before the main feature comes on the big screen.  Some say it should be banned, just like using your phone.

I tell you what should be banned - tinned foil wrappings, plastic bags, doggy bags, Aluminum packets of snacks. 


The crackling noise of those food packaging often gets to my nerves, particularly so when some would choose to take the whole world of time to crack open these wrappings, thinking it will create less disturbance. 

Oh, heaven forbid those late comers too, if possible.  

Patti Page's Greatest Hits

I wonder how many of my readers know who Patti Page is for a start.


I generally stay away from greatest hits compilations if I have all or most of the artist's albums.

For a singer like Patti Page though, who is now over 80 something, where we only have her cassette tapes, it makes sense to purchase a CD for a change!

For those of us who grew up listening to songs such as "How Much is That Doggie in the Window" and "Tennessee Waltz", you will notice that these songs don't sound quite the same as the originals you have heard so many thousand times when your parents played them.

I later found out Patti re-recorded them for this album, which is on the Columbia label (she was on the Mercury label when she had all those hits).

You know how some things can never be changed and when it did, it just doesn't feel quite the same any more?

This is one of those things.  Big mistake. 

Signs Of A Stroke

Coincidentally, I have heard a few of my friends have had family members of theirs suffering from different degree of stroke recently.  This suddenly strikes me that this is not just something that happens to elderly people any more, it is not completely uncommon that occurs to the younger generations too.

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify and most often than not, the lack of awareness spells disaster.  Doctors are saying a bystander can easily recognise a stroke by performing 3 simple actions to the victim.

All you need to do, is to remember the first 3 letters of the word STROKE - S-T-R.

1. Ask the person to SMILE
2. Ask the person to TALK, or say something really simple
3. Ask the person to RAISE his/her arm

If the victim has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call the emergency number immediately.

Try to remember this, the next thing you know, you could have saved someone's life. 

Something Only Time Can Heal

Time passes. 

What has caused you to burst into tears now will soon be forgotten.  Sooner or later, you may remember that you cried bitterly today but not why you cried!




I am not saying you are in any way, particularly forgetful or even resembling a cold-blooded person.  I am just saying this is a brutal fact of life.  Whatever our troubles are, and however aggrieved we may feel, time will make us forget and time will heal the wounded.

Surely there must be something we can do to prevent ourselves from being hurt in the first place.  Yes there is.  

There will always be a reason to be sad, there need not be a reason to be happy.  

MFEO?

Over time, you realised that many relationships fail apart, often because one person cares more than the other and that unrequited love can be rather depressing, leading to a whole lot of heartbreaking.

It probably started in college back then, where you have clung onto that one-sided relationship for as long as you can breathe, so convinced that he would finally change his mind and appreciate you were MFEO (made for each other). 

That never happened and that incident also became one of the relationship “life lessons” you learn when you were 18 and when - you have watched "Sleepless in Seattle" one too many times!

You moved on and learned not to bestow a lot of love and awesomeness on anybody.  Until one day, you came across real-life examples of people you know, who within a few weeks of meeting each another, decided they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together and got married.  Some say they are crazy, some say this is destiny. 

Then on, you started to have more grounds in believing the existence of MFEO, only to be let down once again soon after you heard unfortunate news of your friends who told you they just got divorced. 

So...Where do you go from here and what life lesson have we learnt this time?

A Despise

A female in her 20s, 5 ft 5, 105 lbs - was told she was over weight.  She was lured to join a slimming programme that would not cost her a dime if she could successfully shed off 15 lbs (to her ideal weight) in a fixed amount of time. 

I was like...huh?  Using that as a reference point, I probably am considered extremely obese, need to vanish from the surface of the earth or something! 


This girl happily paid USD2,500 upfront, gave her best shot to get rid of the pounds, desperate to reach the so-called 'ideal weight".

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't reach the desired point on the scale, mission impossible and hence couldn't get her money back. 

Don't you just have to despise those slimming companies with utter contempt?  And I condemn such people whose brains are...wired so differently.

  

Read The Wrong Speech??

I have been doing these for years and I understand the quality it entails. 

The associated public speaking fears, such as forgetting the lines, speaking with a faulty autocue occasionally happen and would make my palm sweaty but hey...reading someone else's speech - I wouldn't know how to react!
 

That happened with India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna when he was delivering a speech at the United Nations (UN) last week.  He read the Portuguese foreign minister’s speech for as long as 3 minutes before his officials made him realise his error.   We don’t quite know how the embarrassing mix-up happened, but it sure looked tricky for the bureaucrats. 

Hey you speech writers out there, delete the diplomatic courtier nonsense from now on!  Won't go wrong if you have nothing but a powerful beginning with originality to offer your speakers with.  That should keep your job secure!



 

To All You Lovebirds

When I think of Valentine's Day, thoughts of red roses, chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, mushy valentines, and some stupid cubid flying about shooting starry-eyed lovebirds with arrows would pop up.

And some thoughts are a bit jaded because, sadly, this day has become yet another day to buy things and I think the true meaning is somehow lost there.  If you talk to any florists, they would reaffirm that as traditionally, they take in more orders if Valentine's Day falls on a weekday.   The flaunting, the envy, the ego...you get the idea. 

I don't love the idea that there's only 1 day devoted to celebrating with the person/people you love. I would forgo the hearts and flowers for a dose of love - fed daily - if that's possible.

Don't let the lovingly commercial scenes steer us towards a competition, that is certainly one that I have zero interest in competing in. 

Facebook Places Landed in Hong Kong Finally

After a significant delay, Facebook's location-based service "Places" is finally available in Hong Kong, allowing users in the terrirory to check-in to locations, an added dimension to connect with friends.

Many are still skeptical about the whole thing but when the momentum starts building up and when businesses start to offer deals via some location-based marketing, I think this will make more sense for people to check-in a bit more willingly. 

Say when someone checked-in and claimed an offer, their status update will look something like this on their Facebook:

Picture how businesses can lure more customers with their advertising campaigns, then users get more benefits on the go and ultimately, Facebook more interactivity.

Facebook Places - combining virtual world with reality...What a wonderful world!

Missing Someone In Your News Feed?

I have heard a few friends complain about how their friends' activities never seem to appear in their News Feeds in Facebook.  One even moaned about not seeing her wife's activities! That's not a good sign. 

While you knew what News Feed is all about, you might not aware that Facebook's News Feed took the liberty to pick stories that they think you'll enjoy based on a variety of factors including how many friends have liked and commented on it and how likely you are to interact with that story.

If you want to be cleverer, you can scroll down to the end of your News Feed page by pressing the "End" button on your keyboard, until you see "Edit Options".

From there, you can pick and choose who you wish to see in your News Feed page - including your wifey!

Conference Calls

Conference Call or Concall in short is a word many of us got used to hearing day in and day out.   Some might even get signs of phobia hearing the word because nowadays, it often means nothing but tedius business meeting involving many parties across several time zones, worst of all - carried out in wee hours.

I took a call today, not the most interesting one I must admit, but someone reminded all of us in the call how the function first came about. 

I first encountered conference call (and call-waiting) towards the end of the 80s and it was a cool thing to brag about having one installed at home.   We would spend hours on the phone gossiping and I even remember setting up a trap to make a classmate admit in the call that she was in love with someone. That someone was in the call all that while -smirking without making a sound on the other line!   I thought to myself - what a wicked way to utilise that conference call function!

Nothing much has changed, I mean, conference calls can still be fun.  Everyone has a part to play in a conference call, else we wouldn't be in there.  We just have to remind ourselves to enjoy a bit more in our next concall.

Japanese Ice Ball

The type of ice ball that is seen used in cocktails is sometimes referred to as a “Japanese ice ball,” because carving ice balls has apparently persisted in Japan's finer bars.  

The reason for using an ice ball (this is when science lessons in school come in handy), is that the large mass of ice has a smaller surface area than a handful of smaller cubes added together, therefore melts more slowly and dilutes our drink less as we sip it.

The novelty of a spherical ice, brought to you by MUJI.

Penalty Forgiveness For A Good Taxpayer?!

I have been doing it for years and I've accumulated a clean record of filing and paying punctually every single time but this time - a little mishap - I forgot. 


Payment including the penalty was made in full first thing after I received the threatening reminder and I have then called and written to the Inland Revenue, asking for penalty to be abated for reasonable cause(s).

I really hope that they can grant me a one time penalty forgiveness for a reasonably good taxpayer like myself.  


Shaking my head now, there really was no excuses whatsoever for not remembering, I mean...you remembered yours right?  See...

Totally disappointed with myself, I am determined not to let this happen ever again.

Innate Abilities

The ability to navigate and the ability to read a map, are two different things.  Are you aware of this?  

Like many skills, the ability to map read comes with practice, but I am afraid senses of direction are innate.  That is why, those who can navigate well often find it hard to imagine someone who can't remember locations even with repeated visits.

And if you think that's bad, there are such people who can't do both.  Can't read a map when they have one on hand and, find it absolutely impossible to orient or navigate oneself even on familiar grounds.  

Be patient to these creatures.  You can either help by saying "practice makes perfect" and give them loads of practices, or simply offer them a hand - or even better - offer them directions! 

Never never tell them to get lost, when they are already - very lost!

Word Of The Day: Dermatoglyphics

People have been studying each others' palms and hands for centuries and many cultures have a history of believing that the features on our hands can provide insights into our character or tell something about where our future leads.

Recently, I came across a science named Dermatoglyphics, which takes a more scientific approach and I shall tell you why's that. 

At first I was wondering if it is similar to palm reading but after reading through some articles, I realised that no, it isn't, because the lines on our palm change throughout our lives whereas are fingerprints are formed even before we are born (and they never change).  In fact they typically outlast us. More importantly, their formation is dictated by chromosome genes and that is why they can be reliably used for fields like medicine and criminology.

A Dermatoglyphicist (if such a word exists) studies the whorls, loops and arches in the fingertips, palms of the hand and the soles of the feet in order to analyse and determine one's personality type, unique learning style, strengths and weaknesses and their intrinsic potential of the brain.

Like any other psychometric tools of course, I believe there is no 100% accuracy, but this one certainly sounds interesting enough to explore further.  






 

My All-Time Favourite Mad Cow Joke

Friend B and Friend C used to jokingly suggest that Friend A has mad cow disease as the Red Cross refused to take Friend A's blood - even till this day.

Here's the 2-part joke they shared.

Part I
Two cows chatting:
Cow 1: "Hey, did you hear about that mad cow disease?"
Cow 2: "Yeah, but I'm not worried about it."
Cow 1: "Why not?"
Cow 2: "I'm a Sheep, meiiiiiiii"


Friend A was the one who forwarded the above joke to Friend B and C and they couldn't stop laughing upon receipt.  They didn't laugh because of the joke itself but Friend A was the subject of their laughter.

 
Part II
What Friend A did to deserve being laughed at, was the fact that she feared they couldn't get this all-so-seemingly-self-explanatory-joke and Friend A decided to append an email to explain!

That act really reaffirmed Friend B and C's belief that she WAS indeed suffering from some degree of the disease!!  


The mad cow Friend A still giggles whenever she comes across this joke and she decides to share this in here so she can make a few more cows laugh. 


 

$ vs ¥

I could have been a few percent richer on my balance sheet.


Six months ago, HK$10 were worth about  RMB¥8.730 and that figure has steadily fallen to a recent ¥8.429!

I should have looked into RMB Savings and Fixed Deposit services as part of my investment portfolio ages ago. 

If you have done that long ago - well done. You are a smartie. 

Though the Central Bank only allows individuals like us to buy or sell 20,000 yuan a day, no harm exchanging bit by bit from today, right?  Given their fixed deposit interest rate is substantially higher too, no reason why not. 

I am going for it starting from the next trading day in the year of the rabbit - better late than never!


And by the way (and I HAVE to do this), even I graduated with an Economics degree, any actions taken based upon any of the information contained on this blog is done entirely at your own risk!!

Strangest Hotel Jobs

While we were on the subject of hotel experience, even if you knew about the mini bar sensors, I bet you would have never imagined this.

There is someone paid to clean and make shiny coins that circulate in a hotel!  And...some involved in warming our bed just before we lie down there.  

These are just some of the strangest professions Hotels.com has "discovered".  

Intrigued?  I am, very.

Imagine the wordings in the job description...you are required to sleep on guests' beds and launder their money.  It would be fun wouldn't it?


Check out the full list in here to find out more.  You could land yourself a dream job that you never knew existed!

Mini Bar

Wynn Macau, a lovely hotel and my family and I were all quite pleased with the accommodation but believe it or not, the only thing we found most bizarre - was the mini bar system in our suite.

We have all travelled a bit to know that mini bar service typically comes in daily and does a tally of the objects in the bar and if today’s tally does not match yesterday’s tally, we have obviously consumed something.


You see, this mini bar was rather different.


We needed a place to store the food we purchased so we opened the mini bar and cleared out the first shelf for our stuff.   No big deal, right?

That was where I was wrong. 

I didn't notice this mini bar was sensor activated! And you have exactly 60 seconds to deactivate. 

According to the rules, when a bottle was moved (consumed or not) and not been replaced to its original position within 60 seconds, it would be counted as having been consumed.

Since we moved EVERYTHING in the fridge (mostly alcohol) we were charged for the entire contents of the fridge at a ridiculous rate within the first 5 minutes of our stay!

I managed to restore order to the mini bar, learned a lesson the fun way.  Realised I definitely haven't travelled enough to make "Don't Touch That" a default!  I shall hopefully try to remember to read all the signs and instructions in the room next time, but...honestly speaking, I really can't see the very smart side of that mini bar system.  Can you?

The Bunny In Its Simplest Form

Two black dots and a cross have been the shorthand for a rabbit - a bunny whose very simple features are every bit as familiar as Roger, Bugs, Peter or Thumper.

Chances are, even if you haven't read the books, I am sure you recognise her face. 

Every time you see her, it’s like running into an old friend and I thought I knew this bunny well but...I don't. 

Miffy has stayed pretty clean and simple in the last 55 years (huh, that long already?) and I bet many (myself included) thought she is Japanese, but no, she is Dutch!  How could you have missed that piece of clue - the orange outfit. 


And here's the ultimate discovery in time to welcome the year of the rabbit:

Miffy's Mom and Dad, being a little older, have an extra line on their crosses - that will be a wrinkle wouldn't it?


A fine example of simplicity at its best!

The Ipoh Coffee War

White coffee or Ipoh as I came to know, is a popular coffee drink which originated in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The fact that the drink has been adopted as the official drink in Malaysia Pavilion at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, says something about its significance.  

Several of my coffee loving-friends got this free sample respectively in our offices today and that was how we found out Nescafe has joined in the fray of the Ipoh White Coffee war by introducing this 3-in-1 White Coffee drink.

We decided to put that to the test and see how good it compares to our long-time favourite - Old Town's White Coffee - which has been dominating the instant white coffee market. 




We are all very impressed with Nescafe's promotional campaign: its mass distribution list and grid-to-grid coverage of offices in the territory, but sorry to say, we still prefer Old Town's foamy, creamy texture.  

The ability for aroma and authenticity to make its way into an instant cup is still quite irreplaceable!