老年人的悲哀

长寿是福气吗？看到长者没有了健康，经济有限，孩子弃他们不理，只能哀叹，“可怜的老人”。
即使经济富裕，没了健康，请人来照顾，没有子女在身旁，也只能作个寂寞的老人，还是可怜。
少数的老人，健康欠佳，有钱请自己孩子看顾，但久病无孝子。有的是看在钱的份上，父母成了商品，服侍他们变成一项厌烦的长期交易，没有亲情。多令人心寒！
有者因病只好选择搬去医药设备比较好的地方住，勉强自己在陌生的环境里再重新适应。其中包含了委曲，寄人篱下，缺乏安全感等。那种有家归不得的凄凉，实在是他们的悲哀！
真正可以自己经济独立，健康，夫妇健在，儿媳孝顺的，寥寥无几。
我们身为儿女的，千万不可藐视年老的父母（他们曾经也是年轻力壮，容貌俊美，就象现在的我们）。只是，岁月不留人。有一天，我们也会步入他们同样的景况。
记得，他们为子女付出多少心血，金钱，时间？ 没有伟大无私，爱我们的父母，那有今天的我们？ 当他们需要我们时，请赶紧牵着他们的手，扶持他们，关心他们，爱他们，及时捉住回报父母的机会。因为，生命是非常短暂和脆弱的。明天，可能他们静悄悄的，没有道别，就走了。那时，任我们身我为孩子的，如何呼喊，都唤不醒他们已经被伤害的心。不要让自己留下一生的遗憾和亏欠。
天下的老人，只有为你们祷告了。愿你们都要有喜乐的心，知足常乐，祈求上帝赐你们平安。
小时候，爸爸常常背着我，因为我有气喘病。如今，他有气喘病，我却不能背着他。我这一生，永远不能回报。而且我也不能常常侍候年老多病的父母，因为地理的缘故。没有尽孝，是我的遗憾。

Talking about games, Farmville and Mouse Hunting

It's been quite a while since I last posted something on my blog.Facebook has offered so many interesting games that many peoples find it irresistible and have helplessly fallen in love with them.Time is always scarce and therefore, if we are spending more time on facebooking, then naturally less time and thoughts will be spared on e-mailing or writing on the blogs.
At the moment I am a serious farmer in Farmville, making lots of money due to hard work such as planting fruit trees and crops,rearing animals, and even helping my neighbors to clear their weeds, scaring away wild animals and birds, and fertilizing their crops . I find it rewarding, not just the money making part, of course, it is the satisfaction that I can be a keeper and helper of my friends! I hope they appreciate and treasure my assistance.Even though my neighbors are strangers to me, I mean we have never met each other in real life, we have built up this "friends" relationships because we share the common interest.Strange isn't it? But we are no strangers , thanks to Farmville.
Another "should not missed game" is mouse hunting.It was introduced to me by my son/adviser/adopter.I am glad I am now the journeyman hunter in the game. It is never boring, full of surprises , and very creative and clever, it amazes me! They always have unexpected stories for their hunters and all of them proved to be delightful, though dangerous at time, saturated with festive atmosphere. This is what makes all the hunters spell bound by upcoming Christmas celebrating mood as well. Imagine myself hunting in Festive comet,which is thick with snow and wild wind is howling? But there are so many types of Christmas mice running around, begging to be caught that I forget about the coldness and fear totally!That is why I will tirelessly sound the horn every 15 minutes, and claim many courageous points from the King himself.Even if I am away from my PC, the hunt continues as usual, and indeed the moment of counting how many mice one has caught after so many hours is definitely the moment of anticipated hopes, or it could be "Oh, No! " However, never despair, the next " BIG , RARE BREED MICE " could be fallen into your trap already, and I bet when one sees them, the satisfactions and joy can ultimately sweep away all the disappointments and "Oh, No!"
I think to be fair to my blog readers and facebook, I must scribble something, so that my friends can read my blog and not thinking that I have disappeared from this earth!And who knows, some might join in the games.That will be fun, if we can become hunting partners!
Merry Christmas every one.God Bless you all!

Middle-aged men

Last year, my hubby was going to Kuching by Air Asia.While waiting in the queue he was honored to be called in first for boarding.My hubby thought that he was granted the privilege because he was helping an Iban lady to hold her child, as her hands were full.So, no hurt feeling in this case.
Few months ago, he went to Gui Ling,China.When they got in the bus, it was packed with peoples,thus he had to stand up,along with his friend.Suddenly, a young lady raised up and offered him the seat.He was surprised of her kind gesture while turning to his friend in confusion, he asked, " Was she referring to you or me?" "Of course, is you!", his friend answered in a matter of fact manner.You see, my hubby is blessed by his parents with a head of Grey hair, which I think is great.It makes him look mature and wise, but others might think that it is an indication of aging.Whatever it is, he sat down,probably feeling different now that he is being treated as a senior citizen.
When we approach middle aged, there is always this sensitivity about look and aging.I am of no exception.In fact, even when I was at my forties,I found the hawker lady very provocative if they called me "Ah Sing", or Ah So,meaning aunty in chinese dialects.Such unwelcoming addresses would compel me to walk past them as if they were transparent and I was deaf. But deep in my heart,I would murmur,my lips motionless of course," Why didn't you call me miss or ah mui yang( Foochow meaning, young lady) , so stupid of you! You just missed one customer."
I thought I was sensitive to age, but I am not alone.Most of my lady friends felt the same and this gives me a lot of comfort. I called this voluntary reaction ,"ladies nature " , so what's the big deal? We are in the same boat.Welcome to the half a century age club.
Now that I am fifty, I began to realize that aging is an on going process of life and there is nothing disappointing or scary about it.Frankly,I am never secretive about my age, indeed, I enjoy telling peoples my real age. Because quite often than not, their immediate response was that," What? are you joking? You look like only forty plus.." And my heart would dance with joy, whether they meant it or otherwise.
Lately,I was surprised to see that there were few white hairs on my head.I had to expressed my disbelief, so I could not help myself but exclaimed :"Gosh! look at my white hairs?"
My hubby was calm and indifferent I must say."How many?" He asked.
" Three or four!" I turned towards him.
And guess what he said? "I can give you some as presents if you like." He was cheeky as ever, but it really made me feel so much better.
My 3 sons probably understood how a middle aged mother felt.They would look at me and say : "Mum, you look like woman in the early forties, honestly , you are younger than women your age." Well...Notice the word,honestly?

Personal touch

I used to work in a family bank in Sibu.It was the oldest in Sarawak, well known among the Hokkien peoples because the founder was a Hokkien.And eighty years ago, many Hokkiens and Teochews" owned the shophouses in Sibu town.These china born men traveled by ships through rough sea,finally set foot on Sibu, Sarawak.They were humble sole proprietors,mainly engaged in groceries trading,imports of china goods, textiles,hardware, and coffee shops(otherwise known as kopi tiam). Nevertheless,proud of their hard fought achievements ,they were known as "taukays" or "taulows".Comparatively, there were fewer Foochows business men then, most of them were farmers or rubber tappers living in the "san pa"(meaning village in Foochow )
As majority of the bank customers and staffs were Hokkiens,naturally,almost everybody spoke in Hokkien dialect, even during our loan committee meetings.I am blessed to be able to speak Hokkien fairly fluently as I grew up in Mukah, and that was the common dialect that most peoples used in town as well.Thus,when I joined the bank, I fitted in very well, as most of the staffs were friendly, with the exception of a few.
I remembered seeing the customers pouring in ,everyone knew exactly where they were heading, but there were no queuing system.Somehow, there was never any argument on who was being served first, which was amazing.Then , I realized there were mutual understandings between customers and bank staffs.So, there was no need to fight for whom to be serve first, because some customers would not wait at all.They just quietly slipped their cheques and application forms to the staffs, and swiftly left the bank ,only to collect their documents later, usually taking their sweet time.Sometimes, it was late in the afternoon, when the bank nearly closed shop, at 5pm.I was with remittance department at that time, I noticed that the application forms were left blank, only the cheques weren't.And the staffs knew exactly what they wanted, they would readily and automatically filled up the details and prepared the bankdrafts or mail transfers or telex telegrams for the customers.Indeed, it was so personal that they even knew which customers were special, that certain charges had to be waived.For new staffs this was a "landmine" area, because if they were not careful, they could step on it and got themselves bombarded either by the customers or our big boss.Our customers were pampered to such an extent that they could walked right up to our boss's room and filed in their complaints in person.Now, this was the testing time for the new staffs, they had to be observant and studied their customers background well.If in doubt, asked the senior staffs, they were not under any obligation to tell you every thing.Besides, they were so busy sometimes they stood up and typed!
And we had customers who thought that the bank was their second home.When they came to collect their documents or drafts, they would stretched out their hands and grabbed any pen,then briskly started to write on their envelopes.Next, searched around for glue, and almost without failing, they could found it and happily sealed up the envelope before the last touch of pasted the stamps on .Sometimes, they would look for staplers and paper clips too.One day, one of the clerk was so impressed by their manner that she asked, "Do you want us to post it for you?" No offense, of course.No joke no fun.One of the customer happened to be a self made millionaire.So humble in his look that one would thought he was a poor hawker,(judging by his worn out shirt and trouser), and true enough he started his business as a hawker.The lesson? looks can be deceiving.
Our bank premise had a few doors, though closed and sometimes not, were easily accessible by outsiders.I must say, security, zero.One day, I was engrossed in my work , but somehow, I sensed that there was a presence of a being . When I turned around,my customer was standing behind me, almost breathing down my neck.Goodness! I nearly jumped up form my seat.But how could I lost temper when he said he needed my help? And don't forget the golden rule : "customers are always right."
The trust between customers and cashiers were just unbelievable.Can you imagine a customer passing a black plastic bag to a cashier,mumbling something and hurriedly walked away? It was actually bundles of XXXXX cash , wrapped in old newspapers,handed to the cashier in good faith. And our good old cashiers would never dare to refuse to accept .Golden rule number 2: Service above all.Again, there was a mutual trust here, the customers left without waiting for the cashiers to count, and the cashiers took their words for the correct amount.During my 17 years banking life, I had only seen once or twice miscalculations.Otherwise, all went pretty well.
Donkey years ago, Bank Negara auditors seldom called at our bank .Later, the audit became a yearly event.There was once this "rude"comment made by the Bank Negara chief auditor." Your Bank is a kampung bank, but solid as a rock."No insult here, take it as a compliment.
Whatever it was, the bank was once a very solid bank in Sarawak.And I must say,the personal touch that the bank staffs could furnish, none others could compare.

Working in the Bank

When I walked into the Bank, I could sense that many eyes were following me around. That made me totally uneasy, but I could not run away, could I?It was my first day at work.
I looked around the premise,the building was really old, it was situated at Bank road, near to the Chinese Tua Pek Gong temple, which must had been at least one hundred years old.Our Bank premise was in fact a block of 4 and half stories shop house, it was in the middle of a row of coffee shops,hardware shop and grocery shops, typical type of china men building. The office furniture and fittings matched the building perfectly well, not surprisingly.I could remembered vividly some of the chairs were really ancient, brown in color, round seats,nevertheless quite comfortable to sit on.(Many years later, I saw the same type of chairs in the museum of Singapore) We did not grumble about the old looking office furniture,but initially I did feel a bit difficult to adapt in this run down environment. As I just came back from London, England was still fresh in my mind.We were using computers in the College ,but back home in Sibu,even banks were using manual and electrical typewriters only.Computer was not even heard of. Undoubtedly,we were many years behind the Western world .But life went on, and everyone was quite happy because we were rather complacent.
Every now and then, we would hear the pin point typewriters and manual typewriters clinging forward and back again.Our business was good,as this was the oldest bank in Sarawak. Quite often, the clerks just stood up and flashed their fingers over the typewriters, busy preparing bankdrafts while attending the customers at the same time.They were efficient workers I must say,as I was the remittances and loan office then.Junior officer, to be exact. I was given a probation period of 6 months, then, the management would confirm whether they would take me in as a class 3 officer.Luckily I was confirmed after 6 months and not longer,some officers were confirmed only after one year, which meant that they had to bear with low pay for 6 more months.
There were a lot of senior clerks at that time, most of them were form 5 school leavers.Many of them were proud of themselves,because to be able to secure a job in the bank was like striking a golden rice bowl,at least, it was, at that time.When I joined the Bank they were at least 10 or 15 years my senior, in term of age and experience.May be it was only natural that they were apprehensive towards us, their officers, whom in their eyes were "green and hopelessly useless", since they were far better than us in hands on experience .One day, while I was typing the telex message, one lady clerk was talking bad about us.She purposely raised her voice so that we could hear her remark.It went like this: "those peoples hold higher positions because they had "pan sai chua", (In Hokkien it means toilet paper).All the new graduate officers heard the remark, but none dare to stand up for ourselves.We were insulted but we had to keep low because their "gang" was powerful.At that time three words floated in my mind, humiliation and office politics.
However, I am glad that I had survived all those criticisms and sometimes unkindly gossips.It makes me see the different faces of peoples and learn to be more patient and forgiving.

Facebook

I started to sign up with facebook when my son Adrain impressed on me that it is something new and is gaining tremendous popularity among the undergraduates in his Uni.Now, this popularity has spilled over to all levels of peoples, even kids are using it.
However, I still have some reservations to reveal too much of myself.It makes me feel like "very exposed" and fear of certain degree of being invaded if some strangers suddenly popped up and wanted to become my friends.The uncharted territory gives me creeps.Perhaps I have been reading too much of negative stories about "strangers" who can prove to be malicious and deadly sometimes.
But, I must say it is fun when other known friends join in and chat about the same topics.It makes the world so much closer and smaller.My heart just warm up whenever I see that someone is sending me a message.It is good to have friends and be remembered as one.Thanks to the wonder of science and technology.

贪污

最近看报纸，每天都有陈水扁的新闻。一个堂堂的前总统，落到如此落魄卑贱的地步，真的可悲又可惜。常言道，‘’权利带来腐败‘’，而贪污是很多从政者的最爱，虽然他们都知道犯罪的下场是可怕的，除了身败名裂还要赔上宝贵的黄金岁月。所以就是拥有数不尽的黑钱，到底还是见不得光,身在监牢，能想不能用。猜想，阿扁一定恨死那些揭发他的人，这可也是报应吧！
最让我痛心的是阿扁自称是个基督徒，不懂得反省，认罪悔改，反要怪罪于别人，包括他老婆在内。这认我想到了在伊甸园里，亚当跟上帝说,"你所赐给我，和我在一起的那女人，她把树上的果子给我吃，我就吃了。“ 换句话说，都是夏娃惹的祸，他，亚当，只是听老婆的话而已。同样的，阿扁是台湾当年的杰出律师，照理，智商一定比老婆高，但他却知法犯法，不肯认罪，一再狡辩，真是令人反感之极。倒是吴淑珍，虽然是个非常贪心的女人，最终知道大势已去，干脆认罪算了。两者比起来，阿扁真的显得太愚蠢了。据报导，他每天还费尽心思，想尽办法，研究如何上诉，难道他还会咸鱼翻生？
很多人认为，阿扁如果是在大马就不会落到这么悲惨的地步，因为贪污的政治家在这里比比皆是，阿扁洗黑钱算不了什么，他应该可以消遥法外，只是他命不好而已。贪污已经成了我们社会的风气。肃贪局的表现差强人意，能将犯罪者绳之以法的寥寥无几，虽然前首相曾经定下要消除贪污的宏愿，但没有具体的规划和高效率的推动，宏愿变成了政治口号，贪污依然是社会上的沉重包袱。
我曾经在银行担任过分行经理，每逢华人新年，有些客户就会包红包或送贺年卡（当然里面是钱）给我，我都一一退回。我总觉得，这不是我所应该得到的，因为，为客户服务是我的工作。工资老板已经付给我了，再向外人拿额外的，就是贪心，也就是接受贿赂。那我岂非成了贪污者？ 以后我怎么向上帝交账？
圣经里十诫里的最后一诫里就是吩咐世人不可贪心。（出埃及二十章十七节）
我想陈水扁一定没有好好读圣经。希望他在狱中多研读上帝的宝贵话语，多多思考十诫，和十字架的真义。当他看到上帝的圣洁和公义时，他一定也要俯伏在上帝面前说，”主啊，求你怜悯我。“