Lest we forget the Classical languages

Being a linguistic enthusiast, I am always fascinated by how much the Classical languages have contributed to our modern vernacular languages. Even more so, I lament that despite how much we owe to these languages of antiquity for enriching the vocabulary of the very languages we use everyday and take so much for granted, we choose to cast aside these forefathers of our modern tongues, denouncing them as dated.

Did anyone who watched "The Kingdom" (starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner) notice when Col. Faris Al Ghazi (played by Ashraf Barhom) said the line "... jawab soalan" (in reference to an interrogated suspect having already answered a question being posed)? If so, and assuming you, my reader, know Malay, did you instinctively note the obvious relationship between Malay and Modern Standard Arabic, both of whom have some roots in Classical Arabic?

For those of you who have visited Japan, and made a fleeting glance at the street signs, posters and restaurant menus written in kanji, has it occurred to you that almost 90% of kanji employed in the Japanese language is congruent with Chinese? For that matter, have any of you browsed through a Korean dictionary and noticed that many words and phrases are actually very similar to Chinese? That is because these two languages, despite being genetically-different from Chinese, borrowed an extensive part of their vocabulary from Classical Chinese - the only form of the Chinese language that can really claim to be common to the East Asian nations (China, Japan and Korea).

For those of you who are fortunate enough to own a copy of the Latin Vulgate Bible, have you attempted to place it alongside an English translation of the Bible, and compared a passage? If you have, you would inevitably have noted Latin words that have been inherited by English (though, not necessarily used in the equivalent verse of the Bible), e.g. principio (from which we get the English principle) means beginning (or first), verbum (from which we get the English verbose, verbatim) which means word, caelis (from which we get the English ceiling) means heaven.... etc.

Sadly, our lingustic education today makes little (if any) references to their Classical ancestors, thus depriving the students of the appreciation of their etymology. For understanding the etymology of the word affords the student more dynamism and flexibility in the use of the word, and a greater appreciation of any other related languages that share a common ancestor.

I got this quote from Wikipedia, by Edward Sapir in Languages (1921):

When we realize that an educated Japanese can hardly frame a single literary sentence without the use of Chinese resources, that to this day Siamese and Burmese and Cambodgian bear the unmistakable imprint of the Sanskrit and Pali that came in with Hindu Buddhism centuries ago, or that whether we argue for or against the teaching of Latin and Greek [in schools] our arguments are sure to be studded with words that have come to us from Rome and Athens, we get some indication of what early Chinese culture, Buddhism, and classical mediterranean civilization have meant in the world's history. There are just five languages that have had overwhelming significance as carriers of culture. These are classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. In comparison with these, even such culturally important languages such as Hebrew and French sink into a secondary position.

Malaysia could do with a good railway system

I truly marvel at the railway systems in European countries. Having visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway in late-2005 on business trips, and spending the leisure time in between travelling around the countries by train, the extensiveness of the railway network (meaning that even if any particular line is down, you still have options to travel via another route), the punctuality of the trains (down to the minute!), and that there are always enough seats on-board for everyone, never fails to impress me. This is the kind of matured public transport system that the public has come to know and rely on.

Contrast that with Malaysia's LRT（Light Rail Transit) system - and this I can attest to, being a daily commuter. There really are only two main lines serving Kuala Lumpur's city centre, and they are both independently-operated. If ever any line is down, you are stuck. And yes, I have been stuck at the KLCC station after work no less than five times last year. The ticket vending machines reject my money once every four times on average (and, let it be added, I use new banknotes).

And this is the part that really grinds my teeth: The LRT system was really supposed to be the answer to Kuala Lumpur's traffic and public transport woes. Why, then, Mr. Ex-Transport Minister, did you guys build a light system of only two carriages, instead of going the whole hog with a proper 4-5 carriage train system? Did you not envisage the volume of people who would use this as their daily means of transportation in and out of the city? Have you actually tried boarding the LRT at 7:45am on a weekday- where there are, on average, ten persons queuing up at each of the four entrances to the train, and when the train finally arrives, it is so jam-packed that only one person can squeeze his way in?

Instead of spending millions of our taxpayers' hard-earned money on one return trip into space, I suggest you spend it on expanding the railway and public bus networks.

And, if I may add: Mr. Prime Minister, please do not chastise us by doing a dog-and-pony-show trip on board our trains, lamenting on the headlines that the train system is pathetic and that you promise to do something about it... and then retire in March this year. In the first instance, why do you hire a Transport Minister, and then have yourself - instead of him - to ride the trains and experience the Hell we go through everyday?

The Asian mind (Part #1)

My lady works hard. Really hard. 11 hours a day, and up to six-and-a-half days a week. Like the typical Chinese of ancient times, and even of modern times, she knows no Sabbath, except on those lucky days when she can get a weekend replacement.

I have often (and unfairly so, since I have always belonged to the cushy class of five-day-workweek wage-earners) chastised her about the way she works, and how I find it unacceptable for a balanced life. Today's conversation was no exception. Except that I pointed out that in the West, such an unbalanced working life is generally considered unacceptable. Her terse response: "We are not in the West."

As much as I treasure and jealously safeguard my Asian heritage, this one statement brought home something that I have always disliked about the Oriental mind (and no malice intended to my lady, whom I love dearly): Pessimism and fatalism. Where tag lines like "that's the way things are", "it's already done, we cannot change it", "there's nothing we can do about it" paralyse and cow the psyche into accepting the unacceptable, into believing that such is the dismal and natural order of things, that there is not a sparkle of hope beyond what is set before us in the path of Life.

That is why I like the Western mind. Why? The Westerners know the value of dreaming and hoping. Of holding on to that vision of better things to come. Asians think that dreaming is a waste of time. Westerners believe that a dream can be a start of something wonderful. My answer? Let all those wonderful modern creations from the West - borne out of nothing more than a dream - speak for themselves.

I am not suggesting that we pull the wool over our eyes and live in denial of certain stark realities in life. But making fatalism an emphasis in our mindset cripples our faculties, makes us jaded, and takes away the hope of a better tomorrow.

As an Asian myself, I humbly submit that this is one of the failings of the Asian mind. It makes for a mournful and miserable existence.

A shittier week I've never seen...

Here's the roll-call...

1. Monday: Tenant called, the living room couch has finally given way due to old age, the springs sticking out like an impaler's spear.
   
2. Tuesday: The girlfriend chewed me up for making last-minute changes in dinner plans.
3. Wednesday: Two weeks' leave of absence from climbing to recuperate from my near-death experience, and the result is a thoroughly dismal performance at the wall.
   
4. Thursday: My Broadband modem died on me (probably a lightning surge).
   
5. Friday: My bed collapsed (poor build quality, coupled with my penchant for rolling about in my sleep).
6. Saturday: I backed my car out of my driveway and straight into a 4WD parked on the side (it was late at night, and the bloody thing was black), and my bumper now needs a new coat of paint.
   
7. Sunday: My dog chewed up my driver's license (dropped it on the lawn the night before, and Trixie hasn't quite outgrown her teething stage and her inexplicable taste for plastic yet).

Anyone care to up the ante?

A near brush with Death

It is one thing to read or hear about the inherent dangers of extreme sports such as rock-climbing. It is quite another thing to personally experience it yourself, and yet be lucky enough to escape – not only with your life, but also with your limbs relatively intact.

I had such an experience over the recent weekend, during what should have been just another regular outdoor excursion to Batu Caves’ “Damai Wall”. While attempting to clip-in at the third bolt of a 6a route, my lack of jurisprudence in selecting a secure foothold caused my left foot to suddenly slip without warning. My belayer suffered severe rope-burn, and I free-fell 5-6 metres to the ground.

Upon hitting the ground with a thud, the first thing I instinctively did was to stand up. I guess it was my mind telling me to do confirm that yes, I was still alive.

By God’s grace, I was spared the very real possibilities of broken limbs, concussion or paralysis. The ground underfoot was grass on soft wet ground. I also miraculously landed on my most well-endowed and least damageable part of my body – my big fat ass. Of course, some degree of collateral damage was to be expected – I suffered lacerations on my left knee and right ankle, and I believe I may have baldy bruised my right ankle.

One of the veteran climbers on-site whom I recounted the event to, told me that I was, to date, the third casualty of that particular route. The first casualty slipped off the fourth bolt and crashed to the ground, but also escaped unscathed. The second casualty was the result of an overly-short rope length (he used a 50m rope on a route that was over 25m in height^*), causing him to plummet 10 metres to the ground, and landing him in hospital.

Some degree of reflection on increased safety awareness, be it during rock-climbing or daily activities in general, is called for here. But it is also a time for some degree of reflection on Life, to be thankful to God that I was spared the loss of it, and to appreciate all that it has to offer.

* The theoretical minimum required rope length is twice the height of the route. An additional 5m as a minimum is required for tie-in purposes.

Urban life? I crave the simple life

This week marks my second business trip to Norway (the first was with my previous company of employment). Norway ranks among the richest and most developed countries in the world, and was voted the Best Country To Live In for five (5) straight years.

One thing I have come to realise while being here for just a few days, is that a society's high degree of maturity does not necessarily equate to a high degree of urbanisation and development. Norway is at the forefront of a multitude of echnologies, ranging from biomedical to industrial technology.

Here I am in Mo I Rana, one of Northern Norway's industrial hubs. And yet, the residents - numbering just under 30,000 - lead a simple and straightforward life, free from the trappings of high-strung urban development so characteristic of Asian cities and industrialised regions.

Families still live in cosy cottages along the hillsides - not in high-rise, densely-populated condominiums. Weekends are spent taking the children to picnics, hikes in the forest, or even ski-ing - not to crowded and air-conditioned shopping malls, theme parks and arcades. Children complete their education, settle down with their high-school sweethearts and start their little families early - not get caught up with the paper-chasing, and the complicated, stressful and multi-geographical career paths that inevitably lead to multiple-failed relationships and settling down late, if even at all.

Asian urban life makes for a complicated life. I certainly do crave for the kind of simple yet developed lifestyle that the Norwegians here enjoy, while retaining the good parts of Asian culture. Regretfully, such a perfect balance does not yet exist in Asia, at least to the best of my knowledge. Where I come from, a comfortable life still requires the trappings of the paper-chase and high-strung corporate life. And all at the expense of a simple and happy life.

The natural cycle of life

A few days after I published my recent blog entry “On Ageing – Age is just a number”, I received comments from friends (both verbal and written), heaping praises on me that I had finally seen the light, that there is no need to rush through life as if there is no tomorrow, and that I should finally stop putting pressure on myself to get on with ‘the important things in life’.

Now, while I still hold onto the opinion that age is just a number, I believe some of my readers have misconstrued my words to mean “take your time with life, there is no rush”. On the contrary, if you read and understand carefully what I wrote, what I meant was “live life to the maximum, as if there is no tomorrow”.

I believe there is such a thing as a natural cycle of life. There are periods in life where you do certain things. And if, for any reason, you did not get down to doing those things during that period as allocated by Nature, then you bite the bullet and let it go. Attempting to “live out your youth” when you are already in the adult phase, is an invitation for disaster. You know why? Because it all starts to stack up and snowball on you. You drag your youthful lifestyle all the way into your physical adult life. And then when you have entered your thirties, you suddenly realise, “Oops, I have not actually gotten down to living my young adult life yet, because I was so caught up being blissfully youthful back in my twenties”. And them you struggle to live out your twenties life when you are already in your thirties. The result is, you end up playing a lifetime of catch-up, never actually living your natural age.

What I am basically saying is this: There is a time to be a kid. There is a time to be a teenager. There is a time to be a yuppie. There is a time to date. There is a time to get married. There is a time to have kids. There is a time to watch the kids grow up. There is a time to grow old. To live those phases or life too early or too late can be really jangling to the soul. You feel as if you are totally out of sync with your physical and psychological self.

You start to look around. You see your friends happily married with kids, and you wonder what the f**k you were doing in your mid-to-late twenties, blissfully squandering the years on youthful endeavours that, no doubt life-enriching, should really have been out the window when you were in your teens or in college. And then you take a good hard look at the last ten years, and realise that you have allowed your life to go on auto-cruise, and the boat has gone way off-course.

By all means, live your life to the full, experience all that life has to offer. But while you are doing all that, it is worthwhile to keep regular tabs on what phase of life you are in at the moment, and what are those basic things you should be doing. And if you have already missed out on any of those phases, perhaps it would do well for you to just let it go, move on and get with the programme.

On ageing

Age is just a number.

Close friends sometimes marvel at how, at my age, I still continue to flog my body with less-than human workout regimes as if I were still in my twenties – carrying a backpack with aluminium pallets up a steep hill, running on the treadmill with a steep incline, and doing pull-ups and dips with a dumbbell dangling from my ankles – and ending each workout session with drool from my lips, gasping for breath, and looking as if I were about to pass out.

I take mild offence whenever friends, relatives or the occasional passer-by tells me, “Ah, but you are not as young as you used to be, so you should not expect your body to perform the way it used to when you were in your twenties.” Now, I am not saying that I am blissfully denying and ignoring the unavoidable fact that I am physically ageing. But at the same time, allowing that fact to be the damper that retards my determination to push the envelope of my physical limits will allow and cause my body to atrophy and deteriorate according to my biological age. On the other hand, if I condition my body to consistently withstand the physical strains, it will remain at an above-average performance level belying its true biological age. Let the vast number of veteran marathon runners in their sixties, who leave the mediocre folks who are a full generation or two younger than them panting in the dust, bear testimony to this.

Ageing is not limited to the physical. A lot of it has to do with the mind, too. And by that, I mean attitude. By their mid-thirties, most people tend to stop exploring new horizons. By their sixties, many would have completely ceased even learning new things. They become risk-averse and unreceptive to new ideas, preferring to remain within their comfort zone and life-long habits. And because it results in laziness of the mind, those little grey cells stop working and start degenerating.

I marvel at the 18^th century mathematician Carl Frederick Gauss who, in his old age, kept his mind active by acquiring new languages just for the fun of it. It was his way of keeping his already razor-sharp mind – machined to perfection by years of research and analysis into calculus and algebra – active till the very last day of his illustrious life. Friends wonder why, at thirty-something, I bother to indulge in such meaningless and non value-added activities as reading mathematics books and studying archaic Chinese dialects. True, insofar as pragmatic life is concerned, they may be ‘non value-added’ activities. But to me, they definitely add value to my mind. I am keeping my mind active by allowing it to indulge in, and feed upon things that stimulate and interest me.

The girl in my life has often chided me for my occasionally acting very boyish, or even childish, especially in my expressions of love and affection. I still enjoy the simple joys of teenage-like love – pummeling with my girl’s fingers, the occasional pout, bear hugs and butterfly kisses. To me, these simple actions are a manifestation of how, at thirty-something, I still see love through rose-coloured glasses – cute and innocent, without the need for all the trappings of a jaded “been there, done that, so let’s just get on with it” adult life. A lot of the joy in love is spawned from having a pure and positive attitude towards it. People wonder why love seems to fade away and die out as married couples get older. The answer is simple: They have lost sight of what it once meant to be young and in love. For love is one thing that the harsh realities of adult life should not, and must not, be allowed to dampen and kill off.

Whether we like it or not, we are ageing by the moment. So, the way I see it, why make the journey all the more depressing by constantly reminding ourselves of it, and allowing it to dampen our mental and physical activities, when there is no reason why we cannot slow it down by constantly pushing the mental and physical envelope? It is not about being old – it is about thinking, acting and living young that keeps us truly young.

Age is just a number.