Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

When it comes to understanding the everyday social mentality of East Asians, your writer ashamedly bills himself as a leading grassroots expert.  After five years in China, seven years in Japan, half year each in Korea and Malaysia, one would learn to make out some trends and generalizations about people there.  And after ten years in the US, one in UK, and a few months in Australia, one begins to see how such trends and generalizations are continued or discontinued when the Asians move into a Western environment .

Once again, Diwali, or the Hindu Festival of Lights, is upon on us, and just as Hindu community around the world does, the Malaysian Indian community is busy reuniting with families and friends while everyone in the country is enjoying a couple days of public holidays even though they have literally nothing to do with this particular religious event .  But while the Indosphere indulge in some wholesome family gatherings, something remarkable just happened in China: on Nov. 11th, ecommerce portal Tmall set an all-time world record for one-day sale by a single site by raking in 3.1 billion USD.

Looking at the published stats, the tiny Sultanate of Brunei in northern part of the island of Borneo, sandwiched between Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, is definitely one of the wealthiest states in the world.  Massive income from exporting oil and liquified natural gas have created a land where every citizen enjoys automatic enrollments in hefty and regular pension payments, near universal access to modern facilities, perhaps the highest per capita consumption of cars in Asia.  Many a travel guide out there refers to the country as the "Islamic Singapore. "

The late morning party at the poolside of the local tennis-cum-swimming-random-conference-hosting family club was reaching its climax: the little star of the party: a baby boy turning one-year-old tomorrow was about to blow the candle on his little birthday cake from the comfort of his mom's lap.  The entire attendance of the party, some two dozen family members, friends, and coworkers, gathered around the cake, the boy, and the happy parents, clapping and singing the birthday song.  They broke into spontaneous laughter every time the boy cooed or smiled, and captured all that on their cameras.

Consistent with Muslim traditions, Malaysia is again at a three-day weekend, celebrating the second Eid of the year to mark the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael to God (as detailed in the holy books of both Christianity and Islam).  Much as the first Eid of the year celebrated not that long ago , the occasion, for the Muslims, marks a time to travel to home villages/towns, get together with family, and have nice meals over nice stories.  Many, as in our company, took extended vacations before and after the actual three-day break to have more substantial trips.

That is the central question posed by the interviewer, picking off where the examination left off , as our conversation continued on the topic of Oriental ideologies in modern-day world affairs.  The interviewer's argument was not that Confucianism can be revised to be compatible with democratic values, but that it is fundamentally democratic from the day of its very inception...it is simply not conceived as so by anyone with excess "Western bias" because the idea of what is considered democratic under Confucian socio-economic system is completely different from the Western sense.

Finally, a day of endless sunshine sizzles the city after a week of endless monsoon rain turned its streets into rivers and ponds.  The countless puddles formed on the streets quickly evaporate into the air and the streets, so devoid of life during the rain quickly regains life, with families crowding into cars and outdoor shopping streets to enjoy a Sunday morning at its fullest tropical glory, thanks to the rain, feels freshly devoid of the smog that regularly blankets the city with just a few too many cars and jammed highways to facilitate (?) their use.