Month: February 2015

張敬軒 – 斷點

From punters to lovers, many people think that they have a time machine. Letting go of losses is painful, but time machines haven’t been invented. I certainly don’t look forward to the day when everyone can go back in time to savour an ex-lover’s kiss. What kind of a world would that be? Would it be for better or for worse with lessons from the past not learned and futile ventures not abandoned?

Anyway, I heard this song playing at a minimart near my home. I stopped my shopping to catch a few words so I could find it on YouTube. And there it is. 張敬軒 is really new to me. His voice is good but not unique. The feeling of loss and regret is so well expressed. 張敬軒 must feel strongly about this theme himself. So do I.

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

NEW Book: Western Sichuan

Western Sichuan

Sichuan Province in China is an enigmatic place with contrasting landscapes and colourful minority ethnic groups. From the fertile, luxuriant lowlands in east to the arid, frigid Tibetan plateau in the west, Sichuan is indeed Tianfu (heavenly home) regardless of which way you look at it and which part of Sichuan you find yourself.

In this rather unique travelogue, Singaporean adventurer Chan Joon Yee brings his 11-year-old son on the little one’s most challenging trip yet – from arduous, day-long bus journeys over 5000m passes to an earthquake in the love song city of Kangding. Read about some of the author’s tips, his insights, his breathless and poetic moments. Be inspired to try the same yourself – with a kid in tow.

Check it out at Amazon Kindle

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

Why I Like Conan Doyle

Some advice from the creator of Sherlock Holmes

“Read solid books, history, biography and travel and above all, take notes on what you read. Reading without note-taking is as senseless as eating without digesting. It is easy to condense into a single page, all that you really want to remember out of a big book and there, you have your reference forever.”

At the time of his death, Doyle was found to have kept over 60 scrapbooks. With the internet, scrapbooks remain relevant. The whole process of taking notes constitutes a form of digestion – which is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s fast-paced living. The collection of notes (accumulatd over a lifetime) is a personalised search engine with far more relevance than what is readily available online. Being a big fan of Conan Doyle, I will always make it a point to take notes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1932)

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

Farang Obedience School

Bangkok:- To get a teachers’ license in Thailand, foreigners must first take a 21-hour course on Thainess and Thai education laws.

Prof Dr Paitoon Sinlarat, who heads the Teachers Council of Thailand (TCT), says the course is mandatory for any foreigner who is interested in taking a teaching job here.

“We have required them to take this course because Thai culture and theirs are completely different,” he says.

According to him, the course is a must even to foreigners who have already got a teacher’s license from their home country.

I can more or less guess what this course is all about. It’s a kind of obedience school to discourage teachers from encouraging their students to ask tough questions and confront issues with the intention of solving problems. Teaching the wrong values and shaping the wrong attitudes may cause Thailand’s fragile feudal system to crumble. Such is the irony of mai pen rai in the Land of the Free.

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

Inspiration Point

buddhas

It’s difficult to imagine that these profound words came from a handsome youngster, a drinking, partying, poetry-composing wayward monk by the name of Samyang Gyatso – better known as the 6th Dalai Lama of Tibet. Maverick or hypocrite? Genius or madman? Perhaps we’ll never know. I’m now reading his poems and feeling inspired to write my next novel.

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

Why I Like Updike

“The list of our deceased classmates on the back of the program grows longer; the class beauties have gone to fat or bony crone-hood; the sports stars and non-athletes alike move about with the aid of pacemakers and plastic knees, retired and taking up space at an age when most of our fathers were considerately dead.”

John Updike (1932-2009) in My Father’s Tears

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.

Twisted Tweets

Well, all I can say is, even when I was that age, I’d would have been very cautious with girls who are good at attracting guys.

naomi1

Grammar Nazis? What the hell is that? Isn’t it only right to write grammatically? Naomi Neo (135k followers) defends her ignorance and many of those followers (139 reweeets!) agree with her. Looks like our elitist, unforgiving educational system has resulted in the rise of a formidable subculture. Even doctors need them to help advertise their services.

Dewdrop Books – Fiction and non-fiction with a focus on the colourful and exotic Asian realm. Check out our titles.