Been to Bintan? Been to Tanjung Pinang?

I went to Tanjung Pinang for a short holiday last week.

Tanjung Pinang, a small port town which is getting older and older. Most youngster will leave the town for higher educations, afterward they will settle down in the big cities. The town is left with older people and those school rejects.

Older than Singapore, the town still has many attractions. It is just opposite a small island: Pulau Penyengat, which is the capital for the Melayu Riau Islamic Kingdom. There is the tomb of the National Hero: Raja Ali Haji on that island also. From across the sea, you can see the outline of the castle.

On the other side of the town, also separated by the sea, is the older town which people called "Tua Po" meaning, Big Town. Senggarang was the name of the "Big Town", and though it is much smaller than Tanjung Pinang the "Small Town", people still called it Big Town, because they used to be bigger. A fire long time ago has swallowed the old town, and they never truly recover.

Although Senggarang is not so well developed as a whole, it had a wonderful attraction that draws tourist and money. There are some big temples with big buddhist statues, of which alot of believers, local and singaporeans alike, come and pray for richness and wellness.

Tanjung Pinang has its own attraction as well. The incoming of Singapore tourists has encouraged the booming of Sex Industry there. Apart from that, there is not much attraction in Tanjung Pinang.

For those who wished to enjoy a good scenery, Tanjung Pinang is a good place to go though. I enjoyed quiet evening walk of one hour with my parents during my stay there. Here and there you noticed some wild flowers alongside the road, there is a nice sea view, uninterrupted by vehicles or motorbikes, and you can see a nice sunset scenery everyday if there is no cloud.

Tanjung Pinang holds my memory for the 17 years of my life. It may be old, and boring, but it is still beautiful.

How Do You Value People?

How do you value life?
You may not know, but the way you value life is reflected in the way you handle things when crisis happen.

I read an article about Confucius today. Confucius and his teachings, which we called Confucianism today, teach a lot about relationship with one another. In fact, relationships are the matter of utmost concern and the essence of his teachings. Be it relationship of People and Country, father and son, siblings and friends.

In the article, it was described that there was a fire broke out in the stable owned by Confucius. When he arrived, the first thing he asked was "is there anyone hurt?" The stable was his property, but the matter of utmost concern to him is people, not his possessions. He practiced what he preached!

Let us recall the Nicoll Highway collapsed incident that happened in Singapore sometimes ago. The accident killed four persons, one of them was heroic in saving others and sacrificed his own life. His body was not found till today.

The minister in charge of the project, who I shall not name, appeared on the News that night. He did not apologize for the accident, as what the Japanese Ministers always do. He did not mention anything about the victim. The saying that was quoted :"The project will be delayed by at least 6 months". Similar quote found in the newspaper.

The second time few days later, when he appeared on the News. Again, he did not mention about the victim. He did say sorry though. But to who? "I am sorry to all to motorcyclists, car users, those who are affected by the collapse of Nicoll Highway, that they need to use other route". Similar thing quoted in the newspaper.

Lastly, the third time, when he appeared on the News. This time only did he say sorry to the victims who died in the accident. But it was too late. He was mocked everywhere in the internet and various forums.

Not long after that, he resigned from the post of minister. The reason was he wanted to focus on other thing.

Confucius and the Minister, both faced a crisis, but they reacted differently. One is more people oriented, one is more task oriented.

okay... to the task-oriented, goal achievers out there, maybe the Minister is right in putting the 'project' on top of everything, including human lives. I will not say that he is right or wrong, but I think, people will respect him more, if he put human lives first.

Jesus, when doing His ministries never neglected anyone. He healed the blind, even though that will delay His journey. He blessed the children, who seemingly interrupted his sermon/seminar. Everywhere He went, He put people first. We as disciple of Christ, should follow Him also.

Let us reflect, do we put our goals in study or work, more than the friends, family, colleagues around us?

As Sharp Iron 'Sharpens' Sharp Iron (2)

Not all case of iron sharpens iron have happy endings. And I will illustrate using what happened to my house door today.

I could not open my house door today and had to miss an appointment.
The reason is this, the door lock that is usually unlocked by turning, is not working.

At first, I thought it was because of rusty component inside...
So I used some oil to 'loosen' it a bit
The result was, the turn was smoother, but the door was still locked.
Finally I used a screwdriver to unscrew the lock. And I realized what went wrong...



There is one small rectangular metal shaft (2) that connects between the door lever and the metal bar locking the door. The rectangular metal shaft 'was' of a rectangular shape at its end, with 90 degree corners on four sides. It is supposed to connect to the door lever, which has a rectangular hole that holds it perfectly.

Now, the shaft's end is a 'rounded' rectangle and smaller. Yet the hole that holds it is bigger and about four time the shaft's size. When I turn the lever, the shaft can never be turned far enough to unlock the metal bar.

What does it mean?
It means, the couple (metal shaft and the hole) who used to hold each other perfectly, due years of friction, are no longer fitting. I need make the hole smaller by inserting some paper, so that it can hold the small metal shaft in place. Or else, I need to replace the metal shaft with a new one.

Reflection:
1. We may be sharp and smart and talented tool used by God
2. Our sharp corner may hurt others (the hole), especially if we always do things our way.
3. When no one sharpen us, we too may lose our sharpness (shaft), we used up of sharpness
4. In the end, both party will have to suffer, even if they were best of friends, they are now useless
5. The hurt/damage done by the sharp corners need to be repaired, or else the whole thing need to be removed.

Lessons learned:
Hurting and learning in relationship is a must that we will always go through. We need to care for those we have hurt. Also, we need to bear in mind, that sharpening is a process that goes both way.

As Sharp Iron 'Sharpens' Sharp Iron (1)

In the Bible it is written, that as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. But this words cannot be taken literally. We need to know how exactly the irons are being sharpened against one another, so that they can be truly sharp. Because if being sharpened the wrong way, the iron will never become sharp, instead, they will be useless and will be thrown away as trash.

dull iron can be of any shape. And they can be shaped into useful things.

Keys, that has the ability to open the door....

Swords, to fight in battle...

Armors, that can protect you from enemy's attack....



To become useful, the iron needs to undergo many different processes:
1. Purifying process by fire to remove impurities
2. Molding process to mold into some basic shape
3. More fire and hammering to form better shape
4. Cutting and Sharpening to remove parts that are redundant or not useful
5. After finished, the tools need to be polished and sharpened regularly so that they can remain useful.

Isn't that similar to how our lives will be useful if we:
1. Let our lives be purified from unclean thoughts
2. Let it be molded and used by God
3. Let it be perfected by 'hammering' and 'further purification'
4. Sharpen our talents and abilities, remove our bad habits and negative thoughts
5. Continuously seek God for renewal

As what is mentioned in the Provers, two man will become wiser, if they sharpen each other. They should work together to remove the bad habits of one another, while encouraging each other to advance in each talents.

Are you burdensome? bearing too much grudge?

Life will never be perfect...

There will always be something or someone that ruins your day.
It can be you yourself, it can be others.
while you may try your most to reach the point of perfection,
someone may say something and dampen your spirit immediately.

The key thing in life, is how to live every day as if it were new.
Every day is God's mercy to us,
the life that we live is new every morning,
and we ought to be grateful for God's mercy and faithfulness

Well, that is the ideal case
Many of us, in fact carry the burden of previous days as we wake up
Many of us, continue to bear grudge to others
even when the event is over weeks, months, or even years ago...

Let me illustrate by telling this simple story:

There were two Buddhist monks on a journey...
The older monk was the teacher of the younger monk who was twenty..

Along the road, the older monk were teaching many lessons of life
the younger monk were and attentive, he desired to be as wise

They come upon a halt, they need to cross a small and shallow river
there were no bridge, they have to wade through the water

Then came along a pretty young lady
She looked as if she was in a hurry

The older monk asked her "do you want to cross the river?"
The young lady replied "yes, but I am afraid of water"

The older monk said again "let me carry you over."
The young lady hesitated a moment and accepted the offer.

The older monk piggybacked her to the destination
The younger monk followed behind with strong indignation

The young lady said thanks and continued on her journey.
The younger monk is now both sad and angry

He asked in his heart, " why the teacher behave like that?
we are monks, we should not be doing that!"

"not only that he didn't stay away from the young lady
he piggybacked her across the river and sinned by touching her body!"

The younger monk remained silent and troubled throughout the journey
He keep repeating the questions in his mind till he's going to be looney

After 20 miles, he couldn't contain himself anymore
He decided to confront his teacher, once and for all

He asked the teacher, "why did you touch the woman?
as monks, we should by all means stay away from temptations!"

The teacher replied, "I have put her down 20 miles ago
You should have put her down also"

"I have walked this last 20 miles with joy and contentment
you have dragged yourself along with sadness and judgment

I give thanks to the beautiful scenery I saw along the way
you were blinded by the petty issue you picked up along the way"


Bearing grudge is not healthy, it is cancerous. It spreads from your brain to your heart, and results in sinful actions.
So, why continue to bear grudge on one another? If you are burdened, by any issue be it relationship, financial, study, bring it all to Jesus.
Then you can continue to journey with a lighted heart, and enjoy all the blessings that he prepared for you.
Don't be blinded by the sin and grudge that you bear toward others.

Yes, Life is not perfect, but a right attitude and dependence to God will definitely make it better.

Blessed to be a blessing....
Suhandy

Anti-Monopoly Law in Indonesia

Do you ever wonder why it is cheaper to call from Singapore to Indonesia, than to call from Indonesia to Singapore? Indonesia has much more phone users, lower labour rate, but why is it more expensive? Better phone services and quality? ... I don't think so...

Let us consider a typical Indonesian worker wanting to choose which mobile provider to subscribe to. Assuming the coverage and service qualities of different providers are about the same, the worker will choose the one that is cheaper.

Now, let's assume a free market, where perfect competition exists. Any company will want to earn more money, and hence they can choose to increase their rate. But what will happen afterward? People will choose the other company which is cheaper. Of course, cannot continue to push down their price, because they need to have minimum profit to run the company. So, under perfect competition, the users will choose a company which is cheap, yet the company will not suffer.

Now, let's see the price of phone usage in Indonesia nowadays and compare to Singapore. The cost for a local sms in Indonesia is the same or more expensive than Singapore. The cost for mobile-to-mobile communication is much higher. Same thing for IDD call. A standard engineer in Singapore with average salary will be able to send more sms in Singapore, a country with high living standard, compared to an engineer in Indonesia. We arrived at the conclusion that the price to use mobile services in Indonesia is much higher than Singapore.

Let's just say, the price set in Indonesia is unfair. But why is there no competition from other company, to present a cheaper solution, yet still profitable?

The reason is very simple, there is no other company. Or I should have said, there is other company, but the other company is also owned, or largely controlled by the same person, who controlled the first company also. Worse still, the two company formed the majority marketshare, therefore other smaller companies need to follow suit in order to survive.

The current situation in Indonesia is exactly as what I have described. The mobile company A is largely owned by a huge company overseas (though I don't know why an overseas company could become the major stakeholder in the first place). The mobile company B is largely owned by another huge company overseas. Both huge companies overseas are under an umbrella of an even bigger company.

On the outside, it looked as if the mobile market is still in free competition. In reality, it is a monopoly. The issue was raised by some economists some times ago, and thankfully, under the Anti-Monopoly business law, the government finally probed into the issue and reached a verdict that the overseas company should be fined and release ownership of the stake of one of the company. The overseas company, of course, will deny that they are in the wrong, and even suggested that they will go for international court.

I hope that Indonesia Government will stand firm and the leaders will stand clean, meaning, leaving no chance for this overseas company to bribe their way out.

After all, telecommunication is such a vital and much profitable commodity of a nation, why sell it to overseas companies?

End of First Semester @ SBC

Finally, its over!! yey....!!!

16 weeks of study, 1 week of exam, and now the first semester holiday is here....!!!
not so fast, I still have to complete the last paper on Christian Spirituality.. and that is to plot my life map.

How time flies, it seems that yesterday was the first day I was admitted into SBC, and now I have finished the first semester... Does that mean the 3 years of student life are going to pass that fast also?

Well, the key thing is not how fast I finished the course, but the ministry skills that I have learned.

Honestly, the first semester's performance is less than ideal. Why? I struggled more to complete the assignment, rather than to understand the lessons. Many of us agreed that in the midst of studying the spiritual subjects, we may silently forgot about our own spiritual disciplines.

I pray that out of the three years of learning here in SBC, I may get to know about God more, and on top of that, I may know God personally more.

Education System and its impact

One of the main differences between a developed country and developing countries is their education system.

Why is that so?

A good country is run by people who are well educated and trained, and the place to train the future leaders of the nation, be it in governmental or civil posts are in the school.

Therefore, most countries who knows the impact of a good education system, will certainly allocate a huge budget on it. The good percentage will be around 20% of the annual government spending.

Indonesia, a surviving developing nation is lacking in good leadership with integrity to rule the nation. We are not lacking in good natural talent, as can be seen, that Indonesian students are performing well in International competitions such as Physics Olympiade. However, we are lacking in facility to support those talented students to achieve what they can be. We are lacking in good education system that can reveal those hidden talents.

Worst of all, our education system is going from bad to worse.

In the past years, a questionable body under the Ministry of Education introduced something called 'National Examination' as a passing criteria for all the junior and senior high school students. That is definitely an idea that cannot go any worse, why?

There are a few reasons:
1. Indonesia is too big with varying education standard. To impose a same examination is not fair.
2. Using examination as the 'sole' graduation standard is not ideal.
3. Teacher and school have no say in the student's capability for graduation

Indonesia is such a big nation, with varying education standard across its 33 provinces. Thousands of schools from the most advanced airconditioned class room in the capital city, to the leaky classroom in the rural area; schools with complete lab facility to the village school without even a tape recorder, are required to go through the exact same 'National Examination'. How can this be a fair examination?

In the past, there are other types of "National Examination" imposed for the country, however, the result from the exam was to be combined with school performances and results, using certain formula to determine whether the student can pass or not. In this way, the government can achieve its purpose to determine the overall national education standard, but also allow the school and teacher factor to decide for the student. The system in the past is for balanced.

Compared to the new 'National Examination' as the sole passing criterion. What if the student is sick during the exam? what if something happen that caused the student to be late for the exam? The continuous good performance and track record by the student throughout the year were canceled out by a single-point of failure. Can this be a good 'standard'?

Teacher and school are those who see the students grow from day to day. They are the one who knows the capability of the students, not some 'stupid' impersonal examination paper set by someone higher up who never care about what happened to the poor students. Teachers and school should play a major part in determining the passing of a student.

Sad to say, the government thought that it has found the best way to improve its education system.

I hope and pray that the ministry will soon be brought to its senses, and abolish this system. The way to improve the education system is to provide funding, eliminate corruptions by evil headmasters and local ministry officials, provide trainings to equip the teachers for better way teaching. May God have mercy upon this nation.

Lost and Found

Did you ever lost something ?

Well, every now and then, we will lose a bit of our earthly possession, such as:
- wallet
- water bottle (a good friend of mine lost 4 in a year!!)
- handphone
- laptop? (amazing is it? Singapore cabs found hundreds of lost laptops in a year)
- etc

When you lost something, what do you normally do?
- Trying to search for the thing first
- if it is precious, report to the police
- start to blame the person who finds it for being a thief

Now.. what if we turn the situation the other way round. Did you ever find something?
- A small coin of little worth
- A notes of 50 dollars
- A thumbdrive in the public computer
- A handphone in the public bus or toilet
- A wallet full of money and credit cards

What do you reckon you would do?
1. Keep the thing, handphone, or whatever. Afterall, the people who found your lost stuff never return them to you.
2. Try to find the owner, if cannot find, then it belongs to you.
3. Try to find the owner, if cannot find, return to police

Do you argue, that the money or whatever, is God's answer to your prayer?


Let's look at what happen to me a few days ago, when I lost my handphone pouch. Luckily the handphone was not inside. I was playing a minigame using my hp, and the pouch was on my lap. When I was changing train at Jurong East, I realized the pouch is gone. I went back to search, but cannot see the pouch.

An old man standing in the platform asked me kindly, 'what did you lost?' I say, its nothing, just a pouch. He said, there was a XXXX guy who picked it up when I dropped it, but he walked away already. I was like, hmm.. if I found someone dropped something, that moment I will pick it up and return it to the person. Why the guy didn't return to me? maybe he thought that it contained some money inside. Well.... go figures

The old man seems to be in his 50s. Looks simple, not rich. He shared that few years ago at 2003, he found a packet in the train. It contained more than 100K SGD in cash. He managed to trace the rightful owner and returned the money. The owner happened to be the boss of a company, who is about to pay salary for his staffs. He was extremely grateful and offered to give 4K SGD to the old man for his honesty. The old man rejected, but finally accepted 2K. They became friends ever since, and the boss promised that anytime the old man need help or job, he will always be there to help.

I was amazed by such a story. Indeed, sometimes, only the poor man recognized the suffering of the poor, and they will always help. Even though they are not rich, but they are contented. It is the rich who is always thirst for more riches, because of that, the rich sometimes failed to reject the temptation for his own sake.

I reflect upon myself. If I found the 100K SGD on the floor. Will I return it? As a Bible College student, the standard, theoretical, idealistic reply is, I will return. But in realistic, practically, can I just keep it for myself? nobody knows right? the person lost the money because he/she is not careful, and he/she need to pay something to learn the lesson right? and there goes the justification lists...

This is my prayer:
God, please do not test me on that. It is too big a temptation for me now. Test me on smaller things first, so that I can prove myself faithful. I want to live a life full of integrity. I dont want to be hypocrites who tells and preach on one thing and do otherwise.