DRAWING THE LINE ON GOOD PARENTING

WHEN we first bought a chinchilla for a pet, we fussed over her and gave her an interesting diet of grains packaged under the name of Charlie Chinchilla. Now, this particular type of chinchilla food came in an assortment of colours -- red, orange, green and brown -- all mixed together. So, she feasted happily on the grains, but we noticed that she was leaving out the brown ones. We suspected that the brown ones took longer to chew and being smart and picky, she chose all the other colours. As types of pet food go, some suppliers will stop importing some brands. So, when we discovered that Charlie Chinchilla was no longer available at our local store, we had to buy a different brand. Just like babies being weaned off a certain brand of milk for another, we had to do the same for the chinchilla. This is called "challenging" where we mix pet food from the familiar brand with the new brand, and slowly decrease the portion of food from the familiar brand and concurrently increase the portion of the new pet food brand. To make the situation more difficult, we discovered that the new brand had only the brown grains that the chinchilla rejected. We watched anxiously as we saw, how true to her nature, the chinchilla would unearth the coloured grains even when we buried them beneath the brown grains. I was starting to get worried. What if she rejected the new brand altogether and died of starvation? I would carry that guilt with me all the way to my grave. Then Audrey, my 18-year-old said: "Don't worry mum. If she is hungry she will eat." On the first day, when the coloured grains ran out, the chinchilla took a look at the brown stuff and scampered away. On the second day, she even climbed over the food bowl to pee over the brown grains. Then she rolled up into a ball, went to the corner of her cage to sulk. She was making a statement indeed. Was I worried? Yes. I was already wrecking my brain on whether I should take a two-hour drive to another pet store. I had heard that they stock up Charlie Chinchilla pet food over there. On the third day of the hunger strike, a miracle happened. I saw the chinchilla take the brown grains into her padded paws and slowly, but surely, began to stuff them hungrily into her little mouth. This reminds me so much about how we bring up our children. Most modern day parents tend to spoil their children rotten, giving in to their whims and fancies. We see children throwing tantrums at supermarkets, students challenging teachers, children shouting at their parents, children challenging teachers, parents blindly defending their children and the list goes on. There is a proverb that says "Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it". How true. I have seen how boundaries help mould a child's character and how discipline, that goes hand in hand with love, produces responsible and stable adults.

Professor Amy Chua's method of discipline in her controversial book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother speaks about how we should imbue our children with living skills rather than molly coddling them in the name of love. I have read the book and seen in talk shows over the television how Irish parents fight over her methods. For those who argue incessantly that the child should be worshipped and put on a pedestal, I would like to hear their views again in 30 years' time when that child becomes a man. Although I do not totally agree with Professor Chua's methods, I agree with the underlying principle that a parent's dedication to train a child right and to prepare him to embrace his future independently will not go unrewarded. As parents, it is not easy to do the "right" thing when others are simply pleasing their children for fear of retaliation or of losing them. The strict but loving parent, who teaches basic values and manners, who chooses to draw the demarcation line of who is the parent and who is the child, is sadly labelled as the ogre of today. With Mothers Day coming up, I am reminded of my strict and loving parents who taught me the meaning of building relationships, independence, self worth, perseverance and tenacity, and I have passed on the legacy to the next generation. I can never thank them enough. Read more: Drawing the line on good parenting - Politics - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/nation/politics/drawing-the-line-on-good-parenting-1.81055#ixzz1u5JGXDsh

Painting on a Canvas of Life

Discovering the Musée du Louvre is like a historical walk through the eyes of the artist. The museum which houses one of the most stunning collections of artworks in the world is also where the Mona Lisa is displayed. This portrait created in the sixteenth century by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is painted on poplar wood canvas. I am not an art critic but the artistic craftsmanship has given it world-wide recognition. The least I could do as a tourist is to be photographed next to it and agree that it is a magnificent piece of art.

To me, a person’s impression of a country and its people is like painting on a canvas. The artist places his canvas on the easel. With expert flicks of his brush, he mixes the paints on his palette and creates something beautiful to be admired but not necessarily understood by others. I have met two Irish who gave me conflicting images of my home country. The first a fowl manager whom I met at a fair. He had proudly displayed his collection of fowl: geese, ducks, chickens and guinea fowl.

A smallish bird in a coop that caught my attention was the Serama, a bantam breed of chicken. Immediately I felt great kinship with the chicken and told him that we both came from the same country. Surprised, he told me that he had visited Kuala Lumpur three times and went on to describe his trip. All good memories. The second Irish had visited a few cities and islands in Malaysia. Recounting her journeys to me, what took me by surprise was a number of inaccuracies that she made about Malaysians in general. I believe this was partly due to the fact that she saw Malaysia through the eyes of the host that she stayed with. Obviously the host did not give her a balanced perspective of the nation and its people. The teacher in me immediately tried to put the facts right. After trying to explain at length, I found myself stopping in my tracks because she was not listening at all. She still insisted that she was absolutely right and nothing that I said would change her perspective at all. How sad.

Painting on the canvas of life, takes a similar process. The different dabs of colour are the result of our experiences and our interaction with others. Bright colours for good times, pastels for pleasant times, grays and blacks for sorrow. The different hues when well blended result in the masterpiece of character. We make judgements all the time. Over time these judgements may be proven correct or erroneous. We have trusted friends who betrayed us later and we have been weary of strangers who later became our best friends. We have been influenced by the prejudice of another and we have been seduced by external appearances. Art critics claim that Mona Lisa may not even have been considered to be finished by Leonardo himself. It is rumoured that after lingering over the painting for four years, Leonardo left it unfinished. However, it is well-known that the painting took several years to complete probably between 4 and 7 years, intermittently. Just as it takes years to paint a masterpiece knowing a country and its people takes more than a few days in a hotel by the beach. We also hear of paintings that have hidden paintings beneath. Artworks across Europe have been plastered or painted over due to historic regime changes. It is often by chance that these fascinating paintings that have been hidden for centuries are uncovered. Artisans would painstakingly edge away the surface paint to reveal the hidden wonder. This takes time and expertise. This brings me to the question: What layers of thought in our perception of others do we have to painstakingly edge away for us to enjoy the hidden wonder?

Source: Painting on a canvas of life - Columnist - New Straits Timeshttp://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/painting-on-a-canvas-of-life-1.76386#ixzz1sivrqQXE

IT'S ALL A MATTER OF CHOICE REALLY

I was visiting Amsterdam for the second time and I was still amazed by the presence of polders which are low-lying tracts of land enclosed by embankments known as dikes. It is therefore no surprise when people say: God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland.

As the Dutch have a long history of reclamation of land, about half of all polder surface within northwest Europe is within the Netherlands and the first polders went as far back as the 11th century. To me this is a fine example of human resilience and tenacity. Where there is no land, reclaim. Where there are floods, build dikes.

It is amazing how we respond differently to problems: personal or global.
Psychologists say we are loss-averse as human creatures.
Losing holds a stigma, be it losing face or actual loss. Studies have indicated that we attach greater value to losses than we do to successes of equal measure. Apparently the pain we suffer in losing one thousand ringgit is greater than the joy we get in receiving one thousand ringgit. We can go on lamenting for days when we lose something but the joy of finding something is short-lived in comparison.
Repeated failures may result in prevailing pessimism.
We all have known people who are always grumbling or lamenting about their ill-fortune even though they are much better off when compared to others. These are the ones that we find it a pain to talk to because they are always talking about their troubles. These are the ones who attribute mistakes to conditions that they cannot change. Each mistake is interpreted as a testimony to inadequacy. The result is the tendency to rely on self-defeating coping behaviors such as making excuses, quitting, avoiding challenges, denying, or blaming others.
Instead of punishing ourselves with ‘I must have done something wrong to deserve this’, viewing loss as a random occurrence provides a beneficial lesson that will help us succeed in the future. Some say that it is but a ‘teaser’ from life when we are on the brink of succeeding.
Let’s take the school scene for instance.

It has always been said that Asians do well in math but not so with the Irish. More than 4,000 students failed math in the Leaving Cert last year, with close to 10 per cent of students failing the ordinary level math paper. At present only 16% of students take Higher Level math, and curriculum planners have a target of 30%. All seven universities in Ireland now give bonus points for higher level maths in the Leaving Cert. Apparently, the large number of math teachers taking Leaving Cert classes are not fully qualified.
In Malaysia, if you throw a stone, you are likely to hit a tuition centre. Such is not the norm here. Malaysian parents are also seen scuttling from one tuition centre to another looking for the best teachers, best teaching strategies or best tutorial notes.
Another difference is the book store. In Malaysia they are well-stocked with materials for examination classes: reference books, guide books, model answers, how to score distinctions and the like. Over here the scenario is very different. The next best thing besides the textbooks in a book shop are past year papers only.
So it is not uncommon that most students just give up in the math classroom.
On a more global scale, in the face of disaster lies opportunities for renewal or ultimate defeat.
When Japan was hit with an 8.9 magnitude earthquake in 2011, there were no signs of looting although millions of people did not have water or power and security forces had their hands full with rescue operations. A reporter on CNN said it was because of the Japanese culture.
With the recession hitting Europe, Canada is an attractive destination for Irish job seekers. According to Canada’s immigration department, numbers of temporary Irish immigrants have shot up over the past decade, from 1,118 in 2000 to 2,959 in 2009. The numbers of registered permanent immigrants went from 180 to 503 over the same period.
Having said that, it takes great resolve for one is to rise from the ashes. Yet, like the mythical phoenix, to do so is to emerge confident and strong.

Source: www.nst.com.my/opinion/.../it-s-all-a-matter-of-choice-really-1.7402

On stage- feeling animated, enchanted and just right

WHEN I go and watch a musical, I always wonder how props are moved around with such ease, how a staircase can just appear from nowhere and how dancers tango in perfect symmetry. Sometimes I wonder, too, why the legendary Phantom of the Opera insists on his Box Five, how the Man of La Mancha is performed on a single set that suggests a dungeon or when the eyes of the camels in Joseph's Technicolour Dream Coat will move when you least expect them to.

I know now because I am on the other side of the performance hall: not sitting down and watching a musical but on the stage and being part of the cast, albeit a smallish role.

When the Nenagh Choral Society put up a notice last year in a local tabloid called The Guardian inviting interested amateurs to join the musical production of Beauty and the Beast, I knew I must give it a try.

I had watched the Disney movie countless times when my three children were young. We used to dance and sing in front of the television imitating the antics of Mrs Potts the teapot, Lumiere the Candlestick or Cogsworth the clock. So to actually be part of the cast, I asked myself, "Why not?"

The last time I performed before an audience was when a group of us staged a play at the Experimental Theatre in Kuala Lumpur. It was hard work but great fun. So I rallied my daughter to join me in this new adventure, although it meant driving miles on cold windy nights for practice, practice and more practice. We had each other for company and we knew we would enjoy being animated objects in the enchanted castle.

As with every endeavour, I braced myself for new experiences.

Under the wings of dedicated director Greg Browne and committed music director Laura Kearney, we learnt to sing and dance in harmony. I was practically singing or humming the songs during my waking hours and possibly in my dreams as well. The best part was the more we sang, the more confident we became.

Staging a good production comes with a cost. Costumes had to be made or rented. For instance, in the opening act, we are at a French market place complete with baguettes and bonjour. And for the enchanted castle act, we are transformed into knives, plates, napkins, wardrobe, teapots and such.

The fund-raising projects were varied and I took part in the packing of groceries for customers at the check-out counter of a local supermarket. This was something novel to me as supermarkets in Malaysia have a ready pool of salaried staff to do that for the customers.

The customers would hand me their shopping bags (plastic bags are bad for the environment) and I would put in their groceries. As with most innate organisational skills, I separated food items from non-food items. Then I separated the food items accordingly (wet and dry produce) and packed them. One of the customers said, 'I would have done exactly the same. Thanks a million' and dropped a generous contribution into the collection bucket.

The next challenge was, of course, making friends, which is never easy, especially when you are new to any group. I appreciate Francis Burke, who opened the door with a smile to the school hall for every one of our practices, and Majella Keogh, who coached us in our dance steps. Then there are Bernie and Margaret McGee, who make me feel at home with the crowd, Billy McNamara, my charming animated 'salt and pepper' partner, Alan O'Brien, the versatile and talented actor and singer, Jimmy McCarthy, who gracefully waltzes with me, and many others, too.

Needless to say, the greatest challenge was that of commitment and punctuality. Private agendas had to make way for the musical. This was especially crucial during the weeks leading up to the opening show. Being part of a team meant that if you were absent or late, the whole team would be affected.

Today is our second performance and we have six more to go before March runs out. It seems as if the stars are in alignment and everything is just right. I do not feel the passing of time, but only of the moment which leaves a good feeling within.

Absolutely no regrets.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/on-stage-feeling-animated-enchanted-and-just-right-1.65703

A Circle of Friends

I HAVE just befriended Sarita Bergess and I am amazed. A beautiful lady with a gentle spirit, she makes doll houses as a hobby. I stand corrected; not just doll houses but lots of other crafty stuff as well like stained glass, wickerwork, pottery and wooden figures.

As I have never had a doll house before there was a certain thrill seeing the miniature chandeliers light up to show the beds complete with duvets, the intricate miniscule furniture, that tiny sewing machine and the floral wallpaper so carefully coordinated as if to ensure that the little individuals that live within have a place where they can be happy.

Sarita and I are both members of the International Women's Organisation (IWO) in Limerick. This unique club for women of all ages and nationalities was founded in 1980. We meet regularly for fun stuff like trips to movies and concerts. We meet to chat about the serious and the trivial. We meet to sip the aromatic freshly ground coffee and to savour the guilt-laden rich chocolate cake.

There are all sorts of clubs that you can go for, but to actually find one that you are comfortable with is something else. Then there is this fear that you may annoy someone because of the subtle differences of language and meaning. What we mean well in our culture may be totally misconstrued in another. When we joke, comment or spar with the locals we may be mistaken for attacking the host culture and the worst scenario is when the person becomes very defensive of what he is familiar with.

So in a way, the IWO is unique because against an international backdrop, there is much intercultural give and take. It is some sort of a neutral ground where we feel safe to speak, to laugh or to cry.

The gathering instinct appears to be primal. Prehistoric women gathered seeds and grain for the table. So it is not surprising to see a need for women to gather together for friendship and support.

When we were in school, we wanted at least a "best friend" -- someone who shared our dreams and our interests. We would go everywhere together and even dress in similar fashion. Remember the "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" where four best girlfriends hatch a plan to stay connected with one another as their lives start off in different directions by circulating a pair of second hand jeans that fits each of their bodies perfectly? Something like that.

But as we grew, the chances of not remaining best friends became very real and we separated because of distance, education, level of maturity or a conflict of interests.

Then like a spider trying to repair a torn web, we would search for another friend to fill the aching void. Well and good if the new best friend emerges. If she is not to be found, we continue searching.

Whether by choice or by design we have made Ireland our second home.

Most of us have left our friends and families behind and it takes a lot of resolve to start all over. We try new approaches and put ourselves in all the right places. However, conversations seem to stop at "'how ya?" and "the weather's grand today".

Although we believe ourselves to be interesting, loyal, kind, and friendly, we still have a difficult time breaking into the cliques that have existed since time immemorial. To prove this point, someone in a local sewing group which I attend said that it is "a wonder" how I returned to the group every week to sew. No other "visitor" had survived.

It is not uncommon to end up feeling like a fly on the wall when others engage in their own "craic" and think that Malaysia is in Africa. A staff called Seamus in the butcher and fish section of the local Supervalu supermarket made small talk with me the other day over the counter. He was genuinely interested in where I was from and I thought that was nice. Most times I would have to wait for other staff to finish their conversations with their customers at the post office or bank or any grocery store. And it could be a good number of minutes regardless of how long the queue is.

So back to the doll house.

In many ways, we want to be in a place where there is order. We want to be in a place where we are happy. Most of all we want to be in a place where we have friends.

Source: A Circle of Friends - Columnist - New Straits Times
http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/a-circle-of-friends-1.58752#ixzz1on8e3Vfg

THE ECONOMICS OF LIFE

An excerpt from the book ‘Dumbing Down our Kids’ by educator Charles Sykes lists 14 things young people did not and will not learn in school. Bill Gates also mentioned them in his speech at a High School. I personally like rules 3, 5 and 7:

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

The underlying thread is perhaps the importance of the economics of life targeted at a generation that has no concept of reality and expects hand-outs and bail outs from doting parents and the like.

Quite recently my step sons gave me a beautiful porcelain money box and I took a trip down memory lane and remembered three specific events.

At seven years old, I had my first ceramic money box in the shape of an animal and I began to stash away a tidy sum of unused pocket money.

One day when my mother and sister were leaving for Kuala Lumpur for an event which I cannot remember now, I excitedly asked my sister to get me a teddy bear if she saw one. I had seen teddy bears in books but never had one. The one that I fancied was the Made-in-China one which had bright orange fur and moveable arms. When my mother and sister returned from Kuala Lumpur, I was overjoyed when the very same bear was thrust into my hands.

But the joy was short-lived as my mother quipped, ‘Now who is going to pay for that?’

I knew from the severity of her voice that there was no two ways about it. So I went to my money box, removed the rubber stopper and counted RM21.00 in coins. The bear cost RM13. Much as I loved the bear it was heart rending to have to part with that huge amount of money that had been saved over a long time. So I handed the money to my sister who had paid for it only to be told that she and my brother had split the cost of the bear and I did not have to pay anything for it. Not only did I have the bear but my savings were also intact. That was the ultimate child’s dream.

At eight years old, I had eyed a pair of Shirley Temple’s Mary Jane at a BATA shoe shop. A stipend of RM6 was given for pair of new shoes each year and if I wanted anything fancy, it was understood that I had to pay the difference in price. I paid the difference of RM7.
I am glad that I learnt the value of money and economics.

At nine years old, I learnt the meaning of disciplined giving. The Christian faith teaches that the believer tithes one-tenth of what he has. So I acquired a second money box in the shape of a plastic shoe. Only this time there was no rubber stopper at the sole of the shoe.

For every ringgit I had I put away ten sen into the money box. When December came, I gave the shoe to my sister and asked her to take it to the church because my mother did not allow me to go to church then as she was not a Christian at that time. The money was to be given to the missionaries and to the children in faraway lands who needed it more that I.

I had read in a book where some children had to wait a whole day for a benevolent person to give them a cucumber to ease their hunger pangs. I had read another story where a mother had to put rubber bands round a milk bottle to serve as markings so her three children knew exactly how much milk each was entitled to.I felt great joy handling over that shoe that was very laden with coins.

Needless to say, when I studied economics in Form 6, it was like a familiar friend. When I taught economics in Kluang High School, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/the-economics-of-life-1.51928

GUESS WHO IS COMING TO DINNER?

IN Guess who’s coming to Dinner, a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, we see a young white woman bringing home her new fiancé, a black physician, to meet her parents.
Now, fast forward to 2012 and you find your daughter bringing home to dinner a man whom she fancies except that he is of a different race.
What will your reaction be?
Will it be very different from that of Matt (Spencer Tracy) and Christina Drayton’s (Katharine Hepburn)?
In Malaysia, we do have many mixed marriages and most parents have braced themselves sufficiently for love relationships between Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and Caucasians.
But the feedback I got was despite the modernity of this day and age, most Malaysian parents are still not very comfortable with the idea of the fusion of colours on the opposite extremes of the colour spectrum: black and white.

Good friends yes, but to go further than that is a different matter. This reminds me of what Christina Drayton said in the movie:
“She’s 23 years old, and the way she is, is just exactly the way we brought her up to be.
“We answered her questions. She listened to our answers.
“We told her it was wrong to believe that the white people were somehow essentially superior to the black people, or the brown or the red or the yellow ones, for that matter.
“People who thought that way were wrong to think that way. Sometimes hateful, usually stupid, but always, always wrong.
“That’s what we said. And when we said it, we did not add, ‘But don’t ever fall in love with a coloured man’.”
I am all for cross-cultural education and appreciation.
When I was lecturing or presenting papers at conferences, I enjoyed wearing the kebaya, cheongsam or sari to reflect the multi-ethnic diversity of Malaysians.

When I hosted dinners, the menu would be an assortment of dishes from different cultures.
During my travels, I would be very interested in the country’s cultures, traditions and cuisine.

For instance, from Nepal, I learnt how to wear a Daura-Suruwal, which is a traditional Nepali dress; from China, I experienced the “fire cupping” for the tired traveller’s body and from Cambodia, I learnt how to cook a popular Khmer dish called Amok trey which is fish covered with kroeung (a marinade paste) and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed.

When we are exposed to others quite unlike ourselves, we learn a great deal.
Basically, aspirations and needs are relatively similar despite the skin colour.
There are universal values like taking care of our health, being considerate and mindful of others and being polite.
There are also common threads in bringing up children, in the importance of education and in the pursuit of dreams.
However, there are also obvious differences in the way we perceive what happens around us and good taste in one culture may not be the same in another.
Having said that, differences may blur over time and boundaries that once existed between cultures in one generation may not be there in the next generation.
I like the phrase “To separate the chaff from the wheat” which means to separate things of value from things of no value.
What are the things that we look for in a person?
Some girls look for the 5 Cs when choosing their future spouses — Cash, Car, Credit card, Condominium and Country club membership.
Others look for physical attributes. In the choice of a mate, my advice to my children has always been value-based: God-fearing, responsible, sensible, diligent and true.
So the acid test presented itself when my five-foot-three (1.6m) daughter brought home a six-foot-five (1.9m) male specimen for dinner.
The coffee coloured God-fearing, responsible, sensible, diligent and true Sudanese guest and the yellow coloured Malaysian daughter offered to prepare the dessert — an orange coloured carrot cake with cream coloured cheese frosting in my white Irish kitchen.
Now, that is what I call a colourful setting.

I could not agree more with what Matt Drayton said, “There’ll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out....... But you’re two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem….”

Happy Valentine’s Day

SOURCE: Guess who’s coming to dinner? - Columnist - New Straits Timeshttp://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/guess-who-s-coming-to-dinner-1.45449#ixzz1m9zgCQdE