Tuesday, May 20, 2008

鹰蛾

在住家附近发现鹰蛾hawk moth,加上两翼大概超过30cm。头一回总是令人兴奋不已,深深被它古色古香的花纹给迷住了。





鹰蛾有八百五十种,遍布世界各地。跟蝴蝶一样,孩提时代附在叶子上,专搞破坏,成长后传播花粉,贡献社会。成长是一个明心见性的过程,酸甜苦辣,百炼成钢。


明心见性是佛性。佛性慈悲为怀,以人性的光辉坦然面对天灾人祸。世界任何地方都有可能发生天灾,但是短短十天内亚洲地区的两个近邻国家──缅甸和中国,相继发生了特大灾难。

五一二大地震,中国举国上下全力以赴在四川的救灾努力制造了许多可歌可泣的真实故事。母亲垂死前还不忘把乳头塞入婴儿嘴里,拯救小生命。母爱的光辉叫人感动又心酸。当大家往钱看的当儿,灾难巧妙地把人们唤醒。人性与尊严拴成一线,化口号为实践,中国的未来充满希望。



缅甸风灾,估计死亡与失踪人数已达13万4000人,由于善后工作迟滞缓慢,造成尸横遍野和传染病蔓延的重大危机。而流离失所,面对粮食、药物短缺的缅甸民众,则多达两百万人。一次风灾,使得最大城市仰光满目疮痍,灾情恶化。

缅甸军人政府慢条斯理,自然引起国际社会质疑军人政府这三十年来的经济建设和防灾设施到底做了多少,面对生灵为何无动于衷。依洛瓦底江你是否哭泣?







为了不曾忘却的怀念

孩子你要记住
虽然我们的告别没有一点声响
爸爸妈妈爷爷奶奶没有给你送行
我们满怀期待与希望
纵然阳光不会永远灿烂
你们要睡得安详
堆满鲜花的梦想
会把你们送到快乐天堂


爸爸妈妈与亲爱的朋友
请别再为我们悲伤
我们会乘着鹰蛾的翅膀
一天一天长大
不论冰雪严寒
把和平快乐的种子洒落四面八方
你们要记住
要活得比阳光


Friday, May 02, 2008

Passionate-Swedish-Tiger

I went to Sweden on a few occasions. Sweden has 450 thousand sq. km of land (about 600 times of Singapore). Depending on your journey, one possible ways to reach Sweden is transit through Copenhagen. A connection train from the Airport will bring you to the various major cities.

Sweden has 9 million people, about double the population of Singapore. By equal distribution, each person would own 50,000 sq.m of land. Like other countries in the Northern Europe, Sweden is famous for its science, technology and innovation. Back in the Viking years (8th century), Sweden had already invented slender flat-bottom landing ship to fight the amphibious warfare with the Russian. The fighting doctrine was well developed. In a typical battle, each landing ship would carry about 200 soldiers to launch a surprise attack. Swedish won most of the battles.




In Singapore, we would be familiar with the following Swedish products:
-War fighting machines like warships, submarines and Bofor guns
-Advanced electronics like radars and mobile phones
-Power generations like engines and oil and gas machinery
-High-end automotive like Volvo car
-Wooden creatures like IKEA furniture.

Sweden is highly successful in international sports. Sweden ranks seventh in the Olympic medals table with a total of 550 medals, of which 170 gold. The number of World Champions are also plentiful; two mixed titles in Badminton, 1985 and 1993; Bandy four titles in 1981, 1983, 1987, 1993 and 1995; Table-tennis twelve titles. The Swedish tennis players, Björn Borg, Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg are known all over the world with two decades of fantastic achievements. Swedish football team has been competing in the world class arena.

Swedish speak their own native language but they generally have very good command in English. They don’t go round to glamorise their efficiency and effectiveness in commanding other languages. To them, additional languages allow them to break the communication barrier with the external world and enable them to connect the others culture. The world is their Oasis.

I wonder what that additional 4.5 million people have helped in making the Swedish unique? Swedish are not worker-holic. In fact they take a slower pace in order to appreciate the tranquillity of life. They pay about 30% of income tax. These money goes into a common pool which provides social security for them.

My Swedish friends felt that the different is not about that 4.5 million extra people. The different is about PASSION. Passion is a simple but very powerful word. However, this seed must be planted at a very young age, and the schools are responsible for cultivating the mindset throughout the educational years. Once passion is rooted in a person, it will become part and parcel of life.

Passion? Passionate about what? My Swedish friends said you don’t need to have a big dream nor a stretch goal. What you need is just passionate about what you do. You can be passionate about making ice cream, passionate about teaching and crafting, passionate about writing and swimming, and so on. Once the passion is in you, you will automatically develop dream and you will strive to do well. Innovation will come along.

The Swedish model of innovation is rather similar to Japan and majority of the Europe. It relies on deep experience and rooted culture to refine the products and achieve breakthrough. This is unlike the US which emphasises on quantum leap. US generate new products overnight. Which model do we subscribe to? My feeling is we draw the best out from every model. However, a team of 11 world-class strikers do not make a good football team. Perhaps we blended too many models without deep social and culture considerations. The integration of the best strikers did not suit us well.

We do have our own success. Someone coined “management innovation” as our key success. This innovation is a product of our catch-up game. In the process of realising a first-class economy, we developed passion in buying businesses and technologies to quickly lever up ourselves with the first world. This is a short-cut way to get rich. But I afraid that our economy does not have a deep root based on our own products. This may be vulnerable and eventually impact on the long-term sustenance of Singapore Inc.



In early 2000s, the emergence of IT defined the “new economy” for the world. It was a CLICK world rather than the conventional BRICK world. CLICK world was virtual and short-life. It is the BRICK world that last. BRICK gives less excitement and has to be rooted on solid ground, not virtual, not floating. Dream must be rooted on solid foundation. Dream can only be realised on BRICK.

Let’s cheer with Swedish beer. I invited my Swedish friends. Oh no. They said. Swedish beer culture, like a lot of Swedish culture, is imported. Carlsberg controls 75% of the Swedish beer market.



It should be TIGER’s time. We cheered. Oh yes, TIGER is a world class brand. Made in Singapore.