This week, he told me how his wife was upset.  Even before hearing from him, I could guess her complaints.  After talking and listening to him, I tried to close the conversation with a positive note.  “Don’t worry.  You won’t be going home late because of work next year, because her birthday is going to be on a Saturday.”

“How do you know?”  My friend was very surprised that I knew which day his wife’s birthday would fall on.  I replied, “It will be on Saturday next year, and then Sunday in the following year.  Unless if there is a leap year, in which case it will skip a day.”

My friend then made fun of me for being very “Berkeley.”  I laughed with him by laughing at myself, pretending that I acquired this observation about the calendar days because of my nerdiness from Berkeley.  But if he knew that I had this piece of knowledge not because of my engineering and analytical training from college, but because I had loved a man.

Once upon a time, I had loved someone so much that I would plan a lot for his birthday and remember it by heart.  In fact, I remembered it so well that very soon I started to observe the pattern — last year, I celebrated his birthday on this particular day of the week, and this year his birthday was falling on the day after.  For all these years, I never noticed this trend on anyone’s birthday — not even my own.  But because of him, I was able to draw this connection with just two data points.

Our paths will not cross anymore, but you have my best wishes, sent while I am standing afar on a parallel line.  Happy Birthday.

He didn’t answer my question; all he said was “I’m leaving today, too.”  And then, sadly, “It’s much further… It’s much more difficult.”
I realized that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him in my arms like a little child, yet it seemed to me that he was dropping headlong into an abyss, and I could do nothing to hold him back.
His expression was very serious now, lost and remote. “I have your sheep. And I have the crate for it. And the muzzle…” And he smiled sadly.
I waited a long time. I could feel that he was reviving a little. “Little fellow, you were frightened…” Of course he was frightened!
But he laughed a little. “I’ll be much more frightened tonight…”
Once again I felt chilled by the sense of something irreparable. And I realized I couldn’t bear the thought of never hearing that laugh again. For me it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert.
“Little fellow, I want to hear you laugh again…”
But he said to me, “Tonight, it’ll be a year. My star will be just above the place where I fell last year…”
“Little fellow, it’s a bad dream, isn’t it? All this conversation with the snake and the meeting place and the star…”
But he didn’t answer my question. All he said was “The important thing is what can’t be seen…”
“Of course…”
“It’s the same as for the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, then it’s good, at night, to look up at the sky. All the stars are blossoming.”
“Of course…”
“It’s the same for the water. The water you gave me to drink was like music, on account of the pulley and the rope…you remember…it was good.”
“Of course…”
“At night, you’ll look up at the stars. It’s too small, where I live, for me to show you where my star is. It’s better that way. My star will be… one of the stars, for you. So you’ll like looking at all of them. They’ll all be your friends. And besides, I have a present for you.” He laughed again.
“Ah, little fellow, little fellow, I love hearing that laugh!”
“That’ll be my present. Just that…It’ll be the same as for the water.”
“What do you mean?”
“People have stars but they aren’t the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they’re problems. For my businessman, they were gold. But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you’ll have stars like nobody else.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing. You’ll have stars that can laugh!”
And he laughed again.
“And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me. You’ll always be my friend. You’ll feel like laughing with me. And you’ll open your window sometimes just for the fun of it… And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky. Then you’ll tell them, ‘Yes, it’s the stars; they always make me laugh!’  And they’ll think you’re crazy. It’ll be a nasty trick I played on you…”
And he laughed again.
“And it’ll be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of tiny bells that know how to laugh…”

If only I also have a rose.

For all these years, I have not paid particular attention to Raymond’s work.  But I have always liked his 記得忘記.

When I first listened to this song many years ago, there was nothing particular that I needed to remember to forget.  But my recent belief has probably been closer to the philosophy in his other song, 愛不疚 (Love without Regret).  Sincerely wish you the best, and then let you go.

From trying to forget to learning to let go.  Sometimes it may seem like no progress has been made.  But actually it is not true — a long journey has been made, only that the destination happens to be the same as the starting point.

And because of 記得忘記, I ended up sitting in the cafe with my iced tea for one hour, finishing the rest of the concert — which he closed with 愛不疚.

We should travel to some of the more exotic places while we are still young, people tell me.  When knowing where I plan to go for my vacation, 95% of the time the response would be, “What?  Again?  Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

I have been to so very few places.  But for the cities that I have been to, I have fallen in love with a couple of them.  It is often enjoyable to travel to somewhere new and experience its lifestyle and culture.

However, I do not anticipate that I will be leaving my footprints around the world.  Not yet.  Just like how there are four Ps for marketing strategy, I believe there are three Ps for traveling: price, people, and place.

When I was still in school, traveling was not a luxury — it was a dream.  With tuition, rent and other living expenses, I did not even think about traveling.

However, after I have started working, the game plan has changed.  Now it is about utilizing a limited sum of money and a limited number of vacation days to visit people and/or places.  We need to prioritize price, people and place.

As I close the browsers on these travel sites with enticing packages and pictures, I will be lying if I say that I do not hope to be visiting these cities.  However, I do not feel that it is a great pity because to me, people almost always come first.

People before price.  And price before place.

I have a strong faith in places, including Venice and Maldives and other areas that are sinking.  They can wait, but people may not.

And there is the story of Immanuel Kant, an influential German philosopher.  In his entire life, he has never left his hometown, Königsberg.  Perhaps one does not need to travel often or travel far to have profound perspectives on various matters, I encourage myself.

What about getting some deals to travel to places that you prefer with people whom you want to spend time?  That will be ideal, but I have already learned that life is never so perfect.

Recently, in different conversations, two friends talked about their plans of traveling to Africa.  People tend to believe that Africa is suitable only for the younger travelers.  Go when you still get a chance.

I smiled.  I did not tell them that Africa has always had a special place in my heart.  Just like how I took an ice skating course after watching Full House and read the Little Prince because of Healing Hands, I had the dream of going to Africa because I was deeply moved by a scene (8:13 in the video below) in the movie, Who’s the Women, Who’s the Man, the moment when Sam unveils the wall painting from Wing.

To me, Africa means more than the animal migration or a step closer to the nature.  My perception of Africa is also influenced by a few novels, in which at some point the protagonists lose the motivation to fight, leave everything behind, go to Africa alone and come back metamorphosed.

It may be an escape, but an escape can also be a release.

Now that I have read about nemawashi, I realize that I have seen it being practiced.  And I am surprised and fascinated that there is actually a specific term for such technique.  This reaction resembles the feeling from the first economics course at college.  Diminishing marginal return.  Consumer surplus.  Negative externalities.  I was in awe; learning usually involved knowing the theory and then applying it to practice, but this time I understood its application even before knowing that a theory existed.

And many Japanese business models put an emphasis on the reduction of muda, i.e. waste.  Meanwhile, the culture embraces the importance of form.

While results matter, achieving the desired result in the “right” way is of equal significance… Westerners are often similarly nonplussed in the Japanese business world. The Japanese emphasis on form is counterintuitive from a Western perspective, as substance (“Cut to the chase!”) is almost universally given disproportionate emphasis in our society.

However, isn’t adherence to form a hindrance to the reduction of waste?

I love concepts.  Whenever I read about some interesting ideas, I grow a bit impatient.  If only I have been wiser.

After having solicited help on kneading the dough from the bread machine, honeybun escaped from the machine, sat outside for fermentation and finally ran into the oven, pretending that it was a home-made bread fresh from the oven.

However, as with any other fable, wrongdoings often led to bad outcomes.  Honeybun had a rough life.  It was made following an award-winning bread machine recipe that was greatly modified (i.e. butter was reduced, sugar was substituted by honey, and cream was skipped), so it was no longer “award-winning.”  Also, when it came out of the oven, it looked almost like charcoal.

Honeybun then realized that it had mixed up the fermentation and baking time; instead of sitting in the oven for 20 minutes, it hid there for almost 35 minutes.

While it was waiting to be cooled, honeybun was nervous.  How would it interior look like?

Fortunately, it was fine!  Chewy and slightly sweet, honeybun was a bit hard but delicious.

After all these experiences, honeybun decided to learn from avocado, who was grown in the backyard, unpretentious and down-to-earth.  And they lived happily ever after.

I am surprised.  What about the stereotype that men usually want presents that are useful and practical?  Have we always been wrong?  Do men prefer thoughtful presents with a personal touch, while woman is the more practical gender when it comes to gifts?

When I discuss this finding with a friend, she provides me with a different perspective.  She claims that it is not because men prefer gifts that are personal and thoughtful.  It is because women like to shop, she says, so they would rather pick the products by themselves.  Men, however, are too lazy to go shopping, so it is easier when others choose the items for them.

Perhaps my perspective is right.  Perhaps hers is.  Or perhaps both, or neither.  But regardless, I still want to know what the most wanted and second-most wanted gifts by men are.

Sometimes these Asian moms would blog about the bread that they conveniently made at home using a bread machine.  Red bean bread.  Wheat bread.  Sesame bread.  It was like magic; you poured the ingredients into the pan, pressed a button, and then here came the bread.

I showed my sister all these bread recipes and kept telling her what fancy bread I would like to make.  At some point, she must have been very impressed (or annoyed), so she bought me a bread machine so that I could stop talking and start baking.

And isn’t that right.  What sometimes makes a product interesting is simply because you do not have it yet.  Making bread with a bread machine was not that simple when I had to make a trip to the supermarket just for the bread and clean up afterward.  I had used the bread machine once, and then it became a decoration in my kitchen.

Recently, I wanted to give the bread machine another try.  And I finally got around to working on it yesterday.

My raisin bread fresh out of the oven machine!

My favorite part about this raisin bread is that it has a lot of raisin.  (I apparently did not follow the recipe and added extra raisin.)  However, with one tbsp of butter, the bread smells and tastes too buttery to me; I will try to greatly reduce the butter amount in the future.

How come people make raisin bread but not dried longan bread?  I like longan, fresh or dried.  Perhaps I will create my own dried longan bread next time.

]]> http://thinkinginsidethebox.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/raisin-bread-i-can-bake-with-a-bread-machine/feed/ 4 me DSC00197 DSC00199 http://thinkinginsidethebox.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/2-million-and-200-million/ http://thinkinginsidethebox.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/2-million-and-200-million/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:57:10 +0000 me http://thinkinginsidethebox.wordpress.com/?p=2431 ]]> Yesterday, I read an article on American Express CEO getting a 60% pay raise.

Chenault, 58, will be paid $2 million a year, up from $1.25 million in 2009, the New York-based lender said today in a regulatory filing.

“Wow.  $2 million!  CEO is actually paid so much,” I thought.

Later the day, I read an article on the US government deciding the site for the 9/11 trial.

Bloomberg has estimated the cost of security for the Sept. 11 trials to be at least $200 million a year and has asked the Obama administration to pick up the tab.

“Wow.  $200 million!  It actually costs so much to have a trial,” I thought.

In The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the little prince claims that adults love numbers.

Grown-ups like numbers… If you tell grown-ups, ‘I saw a beautiful red brick house, with geraniums at the windows and doves on the roof…,’ they wont be able to imagine such a house.  You have to tell them, ‘I saw a house worth a hundred thousand frances.’  Then they exclaim, ‘What a pretty house!’

The little prince is right.  Adults love numbers.  Because numbers let us compare and sort things in a systematic and relative manner  However, the little prince does not know that sometimes numbers only let us quantify but does not necessarily provide any meaning conceptually.

What does 2 million mean?  And what about 200 million?  An astronomist (or the Amex CEO or the US government) can easily understand these numbers, but to me, these are astronomical figures.  Coincidentally, $200 million is 100 times $2 million; they are of very different scales from a cost perspective.  But what type of lifestyle will having $2 million a year bring?  What incremental differences will $200 million bring comparing $2 million?

It does not help to say $2 million can buy us a $2-million house every year whereas $200 million will buy me 200 houses.  Because we do not need one house per year, not to say 200.

While we may handle large numbers at work, we may not be used to operating in the million range on a personal setting.  On the other hand, if we are told that we can spend $2 versus $200 per day, we will immediately understand what they mean.  We can relate and apply these numbers to our daily activities.  With $200 per day, I can eat decently well for two days and still have money left to buy the musical instrument that I have wanted.  With only $2, however, it means that I better stay home and eat oatmeal for all meals.

On a related note, I often have a hard time guessing the height, weight, or age of an individual whose number is very different from mine.  To me, someone who is 6′ 1″ is tall.  6′ 2″ is tall.  6′ 3″ is tall.  The subtle differences between having those heights are hard to comprehend when my height falls within a totally different range.

Next time, you may ask me to guess your height, weight or age.  This type of game is risky; there is always a chance of offending people.  And I may give you a number that is way off.  It is because I cannot really tell, so I may as well provide a safe and satisfying answer.