Reminiscing the little kitty moments

Once upon a time...

The picture that cheated our hearts! Seeing how cute, adorable and harmless she is, this little kitty that a friend's cat gave birth to won our hearts instantly. Don't you just want to hug that little kitty?



This cute little kitty is finally called Twinkle by the new caregivers. For the first few days after she arrived at her new home, she slept a lot. Either she's too tired or she is still a little baby needing 18 hours of sleep a day :)




And finally when she woke up, she was just in a playful mood, yet not entirely accustomed to her surroundings, she just rolled on the sofa.



Ok I got a little playful with Twinkle, and did these. Knowing her curiosity, i purposely left a gaping hole leading into the plastic bag, and Twinkle did what she always does, slowly finding her way into the bag. And my fingers could not resist the temptation to tie a knot on the bag and left a hole only big enough for her head to pop out... Doesn't she look like the wolf in little red riding hood? Only much cuter hehe...

Doesn't Twinkle look like some hiphop nigga with those oversized Fila socks? yo, yo! wazzup! haha... Ok, please don't call SPCA.. it's just some moments of fun and laughter :D

Mexican Dinner Night

Here are some pictures to an evening of dinner filled with joy and laughter at a Mexican restaurant in Osaka. After Japanese class one evening, we decided to go to town for dinner.

Mango Margarita!~!

Lime Margarita!~!

Cecilia, a friend from Japanese class

The bottles of hot sauce are really super, duper hot.
They're called "Sudden Death" and "After Death"

For a French guy who is not used to spicy food, it is a great achievement for Thomas.

Gupta, a colleague in NEC and Thomas

new place

Despite only extending my internship period for about 3 weeks, I have to move to a new place (which fortunately is quite near to the old place). Initially I thought this doesn't make sense, as another intern student (my good friend Thomas) is staying put at his same place with an extension of more than 2 months. So why can't a 3 weeks extension be allowed to stay put as well?

Today, the answer surfaced. Apparently, there has been a mistake! :D The manager in charge of booking our new place confused me with Thomas! Well, I wasn't angry or anything, in fact i felt the situation was kinda funny :) So actually, Thomas has to pack within a day and move to the new place because he also only got to know today. Since I have already packed all my belongings, I offered for him to move to my old place , which is separated by 1 room in between. This would certainly be much more convenient, despite I having to move to a new place which is strategically less convenient than the previous place. But the solution is obvious. If I were to be selfish, it would highly inconvenient both parties, the manager in charge and also Thomas.

So we went according to the original *wrong* plan and save everyone the trouble. Well I can't say that I have a bad deal, at least I have a new , clean room, and poor Thomas has to live in my old room and take care of my dirt and dust... sorry!

In the bigger picture, I thought I am already quite fortunate to be living in this location, which is nearer to town. The new interns would have to move in to another far away place, which is nearer to the Office, but far away from town. I like this place and am thankful to be living here. It will be another 1 month and 10 days to go from now before I leave Japan, and I plan to cherish every minute of it.

It's all about the "feel good" factor

Did you remember what transpired since the 2nd half of 2006 and for 3 quarters last year? Stock markets around the world rallied like there is no tomorrow, with pundits all agreeing that the benchmark would go higher and higher. In countries like China (including Hong Kong) and even the whole of South East Asia, places like Singapore and Malaysia, investors (mere speculators perhaps?) have sky high confidence. You hear many people getting into the 'hot' jobs in the financial sector or real estate. There is money to be made all around, and nothing can seem to go wrong as the tide of big investment funds poured in.

Fast forward to now, as I write this entry, there is pessimism everywhere. It all started with the housing credit problem in the US, and suddenly it seems that all the banks or big financial institutions in the US made the wrong bet at the same time! As one company announced its huge losses, it started off a domino effect that seems to get the ball rolling, revealing more and heavier losses. Perhaps that is what the whole idea of the free market system is about. When confidence is high and no one is looking or asking questions, do whatever it takes to make money out of money. Banks lend each other money, and they lend to any consumers that would walk into a bank, even those without good credit rating. And perhaps the going is so good that, there isn't a need to hedge their bets in something else. Or maybe they are even putting most eggs in one basket (ok this last point doesn't seem possible). But did you see what happened to Bear Stearns? How can a big financial company, worth 20 plus dollars per share on the stock market, turn into a $2 per share company overnight? There is no other explanation besides making a bet larger than they can bear, and making that bet all in the same direction.

So the Fed Reserve is doing all that seems possible, even with some new creative ideas, to try to shore up confidence and stop the slide. But it seems like when confidence is low, whatever ideas and however good they may be, comes to naught.

Take a look now at the local Singapore market. I have been looking at the HK and Singapore market for a couple of years now, and can make the conclusion that investors in these 2 countries are highly sensitive to new information. At a glimpse of any bad or remotely bad sounding news, the people scramble for cover and sends the market tumbling. So right now, both markets, due to the bad news coming out of US are many times oversold. Whatever valuations companies have, doesn't matter anymore. It is funny, because you would think that due to globalization, economies would try to divest and not rely too much on the US as their main dependant economy. I would think that Singapore, and other countries in south east asia can now depend on the rising dragon of China and India. But what happen is that, people in these countries still get cold feet when the big brother sneezes.

And so now you see, the property market in Singapore is starting to slow down. Just a few months back, people are queuing up at every new property launch, and most units are sold within the first day itself. I am not sure if so many people actually have the money to own (the more expensive) condos compared to public housing apartments. Perhaps they are taking big loans in view of the ever ascending stock market (at that time). So would there be a credit crunch here in Singapore too? If it does happen, I would just turn on the loud speaker and laugh at all the financially unsavvy people out there who tends to follow the crowd. Ha ha!

World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders 2008

Wow, am I impressed, (though not surprised given his over achieving nature) my Phd supervisor cum mentor Professor Adrian David Cheok has been selected by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the young global leaders for 2008. link

Some interesting notes from the site:

This honour is bestowed each year by the World Economic Forum to recognize and acknowledge the top 200-300 young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.

The current community of Young Global Leaders represents over 60 countries and includes Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Co-Founders of Google, USA; Crown Prince Haakon of Norway; Malvinder M. Singh, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Ranbaxy Laboratories, India; Hiroshi Nakada, Mayor of Yokohama, Japan; Nicky Newton-King, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, JSE, South Africa; Carlos Danel, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Banco Compartamos, Mexico; and Jack Ma Yun, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Alibaba Group, People's Republic of China.

It is our belief that this community of committed individuals can actually change the status quo. They are not only a preview of what effective, collaborative leadership in the 21st century might look like, they are actually putting it into practice today.

I feel honored to be learning from a visionary and passionate person like Dr Adrian. Hopefully, I might walk down the same path one fine day.

Like bees to honey

It is interesting that even in this era where democracy rules, people clamour for those in power. They can be on one side of the fence one day, and somehow magically teleported to the other side of the fence the next day. One case in point is the recent elections in Malaysia.

Long has it been known that most mainstream media are outrightly pro-government (the Barisan Nasional government to be precise). Newspapers that one can buy from the stands seldom give positive coverage to the opposition parties, let alone show their pictures. The media publicity glitz is all focused on only the government people, the PM being the biggest attraction.

And then, the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, mainstream newspapers started showing a more neutral and balanced reporting after the elections where the opposition coalition swept through most major west coast states. An opposition figurehead who was just a few days ago vilified, is now reported as leading the coalition to implement positive changes to the state administration.

It seems like people give in to those in power. When the oppositions are not in power, nothing they do or say can ever be correct. Given the issues that politicians talk about which are subjective in nature and depends on which side of the fence you are sitting, it is sometimes amazing that journalists can report on an issue like the answer is a dead given and that the other answer simply does not hold any water.

So even though we consider ourselves living in a modern era, the nature of humans who submit to those in power, subscribing to the fittest survive principle, still very much influences the way we think and behave.

Au revoir Japan?

How time flies. It is almost mid-March now, and by the end of April, i would have to say goodbye to the land of the Rising Sun. (I always thought that Japan is the first country to start a new day, but I soon found out that Australia is 2 hours ahead of Japan. A check on the Internet shows that Tonga is the first country to cross to a new day)

I have been working relentlessly in Japan and had fun doing it too, thanks to the opportunity given by NEC's C&C research lab in Ikoma, Nara. I started back in October 2007, and until now i have managed 2 big milestones, a small project demo at the end of last year, and a Siggraph submission from early January to the end of February. And during this time, i had to balance the day job at NEC with night job at home working on research back in Singapore. It was tiring (still is) but I keep saying to myself, the time is now to achieve a personal breakthrough in terms of my infant research career. There was some really satisfying results, my research team in Singapore, my supervisor Professor and I (through many hours of coordinated work and Skype meetings) manage to produce our first full paper for Huggy Pajama project which was accepted to this year's Interaction Design and Children conference in Chicago which will happen in June. This was certainly not a piece of cake, as I took 2 full weekends off, besides working every night till late, sleeping at 3 am and waking up at 7 am for 2 weeks. Ok I admit, i am not like some people who can do with 4 hours of sleep a night. Apparently, Donald Trump claimed that he lives like that, with 4 hours of sleep a night, in order to stay competitive. Well, competitive to the point of jeopardizing one's health for wealth is certainly not worth it. Ok, that explains why he is a rich bastard and I am still here slogging for peanut paycheck. Well, as I always insisted to anyone who asked, I am in the pursuit of knowledge business, not (yet) the pursuit of wealth.

My internship in NEC has taught me a few things about the work culture and also the people culture here. At first, the 'way' ideas and opinions are communicated are not obvious and direct. I guess Japanese people have a preference to communicate ideas and feedback in a more indirect manner. This may seem frustrating at first, especially for some one used to the more open manner which we communicate in Singapore. However, i have grown to respect this way of communication, as I think it reflects a more civilized manners. Another point which i have observed is the huge amount of respect and commitment one has for the institution of the company and therefore one's boss. I learnt that when you work, you work as a team, and contribute your time fully to ensure the success of your team. It is not so apparent in my research lab, as the head of my lab, Dr Keiji Yamada implements a very open and non-traditional research environment. However, in other labs, i have heard that company comes first, even ahead of the family. This is not to say that it is a bad thing, perhaps it is this characteristics of Japanese companies that today we are able to see so many creative and high quality products from Japan. I do not work here long enough to be able to pinpoint the pros and cons of this characteristics, however my gut feeling is that if I am the boss of the company, I would be very happy if my employees have such mindset.

Even though, traditionally, one might think that in Japanese companies, bosses or managers manage their team in a top-down approach, it was surprising to learn that American or Western managers typically has more power than a manager in a Japanese company. In Japan, it is still very much a one-company-a-lifetime policy for both employers and employees alike, though i heard that this is starting to change. When a company hires a new employee, he or she is like part of the big family, and the company will provide training and learning to equip the new family member with ever improving skills or knowledge. A manager here do not actually have the power or rather it is not in the culture to lay off employees, no matter how bad or how lazy they are. So managers have a big challenge managing and motivating their team to produce the results they want. I am very impressed at how Japanese companies and the Japanese economy as a whole are able to be at their position as the second largest economy in the world, despite not having the power to layoff workers. Perhaps, as we know of Japanese people being creative, the managers have equally creative methods of managing and inspiring their subordinates.

One thing that i will definitely miss when I leave Japan is the food. Food in Japan is not flamboyant nor exotic, but it is simply fabulous. As with all Japanese made products, quality is always emphasized, so you get the best in quality no matter what the price of the meal. Perhaps one day, I might come back to Japan again, if only to satisfy my taste buds.

Winds of change indeed... what next now?

After all has been said and done, the winds of change did happen indeed. and it was not only a wind, it was a typhoon. The political landscape in Malaysia will be witnessing major structural changes and the growing force of the opposition cannot be dismissed. The onus is now on the opposition who controls 5 states (3 major ones i.e. Penang, Perak and Selangor) to prove that they can walk the talk.

Back in 2004, the electorate gave PM Abdullah's government an unprecedented 92% of total votes casted. That was more than a landslide by any yardstick. It threatened to pummel the oppositions into oblivion, and history to remember them as once having a presence in Malaysia.

But what a (rather expected but still surprising) turnaround! Malaysia is a young country, where voters are generally satisfied with the growth achieved for the past 50 years, and people attributed the achievement to the incumbent coalition government. Status quo has remained the same despite a few attempts by the opposition to galvanize the voters to make the change. In the year 1995, there were huge crowds at opposition-held rallies, but that failed to translate into real votes. In fact, the Democratic Action Party (DAP) almost got a complete wipe-out led by their leader Mr Lim Kit Siang. The strongest challenge in recent times happened in the year 1999, when the popular and charismatic , then deputy PM Mr Anwar Ibrahim, was sacked and jailed rather abruptly. It was Dr Mahathir's final election as the PM, and he got through amidst a significant reduction in majorities of votes casted.

What has happened now? Never before has the opposition controlled states like Perak and Selangor. Penang was once under the then opposition Gerakan founded by Dr Lim Chong Eu, but it later joined the BN coalition. Suddenly, not only constituencies, but states are beginning to fall like nine-pins to the opposition's lose coalition of DAP, PKR and PAS. Where and how did the voters find the courage to sacrifice the period of stability and status quo to bring in the new voices, would need serious post-election analysis. This year will go down as one which is very significant for the political landscape in Malaysia. If the opposition controlled states would see important changes from the past government and bring the desired justice and eliminate corruption, we might see the opposition even taking over the federal level government as well! We would then see a country with 2 major parties, National Front and People's Front Party. But only if the opposition do not each pursue their own agenda, and are willing to be tolerant and work towards a common ideology.

Some interesting post election changes has already been seen. In the state of Perak, where the majority of seats are won by DAP, the opposition has surprisingly got together quickly and elected a chief minister from the Islamic PAS party. It is indeed a great chance for PAS to prove that they are no longer the conservative, extremist party, but one which is tolerant and can bring benefits to other races. Personally, I am sceptical. Perhaps the people had enough of what they perceive as a lack of fairness and justice in Malaysia. It is a strong rebuke to the Government coalition.

What will the federal government do now? Will PM Abdullah, who is seen as weak, make way for his deputy Najib Tun Razak? Or will we see the strong arms tactic that will stifle democracy after this unexpected upset in the elections? Interesting 4 years ahead for Malaysia.

Will the wind of change turn into actual votes?

I was having a discussion a couple of days ago with a fellow Malaysian, who is a law student in UCLA. It seems rather interesting that while US is thousands of miles away from Malaysia, both are witnessing an exciting year due to the election process taking place.

In the US, there is more euphoria than ever being generated by two Democratic party candidates, Mr Obama and Ms Clinton. Usually, at least in the past 2 presidential elections, the excitement on the ground is always on the formidable Republican party and their election machinery. Queues would form at their voting grounds. What is happening today is the opposite. There are also reports saying that registered republican supporters are joining in the fun at the Democratic primaries as well!

It is certainly good, even for the citizens of other countries, to see this happening in the US. We are (apart from the US people) just simply sick and tired of the current administration, the way they handled the war in Iraq and their constant unwavering and totally convicted support of their ally, Israel. I mean, what has China or Russia done that deserve you to label them as threats when Israel kills their neighbors all the time? Well, of course we cannot make presumptions that the President-to-be will have a different stand. But we are all hopeful (desperately? ) that things will change, and the sole superpower will demonstrate more sensitivity and humility in the face of other nations.

So we have seen that there is talk about a strong winds-of-change brought about by the Obama camp. It is of course too early to judge whether Obama will walk the talk or simply just talk the talk. While Clinton has proven that she has the experience and the backing to be the president, we cannot but doubt her sincerity to bring about a change in the attitude of the US and to provide a good, clean, uncorrupted leadership to the US. While I do not think that President Bush is a bad person, i believe he had his hands tied down by factions from the money generating oil companies or whichever other money-motivated cronies the family might have. Obama brings about a freshness and a willingness to depart from the way things have been for a long time in the white house. So, we go on to hope, with his ideals.

In parallel, there is the election which is about to happen in Malaysia tomorrow (Mar 8th) and the talk is that many parliamentary seats (or even states) will go to the Opposition party. This is judged by the huge amount of crowds turning up at Opposition-held ceramah or speeches, while the Govt held events only attract a proportionally much smaller crowd. And the opposition leaders are riding on the events happening in the US to galvanize the Malaysian electorate that the wind of change is blowing here too. Exactly what practical changes that they can bring for the benefit of the people, we do not yet know. One thing is for certain, the rhetorics have been coming, fast and furious, and the people have been entertained by them. So, the post-election analysis, we will get to know whether the people are buying it, or this is simply another flash in the pan.

In my opinion (which may not be so accurate given that i have not been on the ground, been living in Malaysia permanently for the past 9 years), i feel that seats will go to opposition not because of their strengths but because of the infighting in the government party and also general unhappiness over the leadership provided by the current Prime Minister. We are ashamed and jaded by all the constant out-in-the-open bickering and fall out among ministers and politicians who hold prominent positions in the government. But can the opposition offer a real alternative? I am quietly hopeful they will gain more force in parliament, and not to become an insignificant part of the Malaysian political system, like in neighboring Singapore.

So as we hold our breath, awaiting the outcome of the elections, we can only pray that something good will turn out in the end... same for the US presidential elections.

How my research interest started

When I was in my teenage years, even while awaiting entry to the university, I have never had the slightest impression that I would become interested in the research field, let alone becoming a researcher. As was the rage during the late nineties, aspiring teenagers wanted to become dotcom entrepreneurs and I was one of them.

However, my aims and aspirations changed when I got my first taste of the research field. I was quite a good student up to my university years, judged by my academic and extra curricular results. However, something went amiss as I started my term in university. I simply could not find my footing. That was until the end of my third year, when students typically had their internships during the vacations. I was accepted as a research intern in the Mixed Reality Lab, and my view of research changed forever.

Life used to be about graduating with exemplary academic results and extra curricular activities from school, and landing that job which puts one on the fast track to success, or so the teenager perceives. However, being a researcher made me realize that the pursue of knowledge and the invention of new things can and do lead to a huge amount of satisfaction. The best thing that I derive from research is the opportunity to work with bright and brilliant minds from all walks of life. Even in the small community of my lab, there are researchers from many different countries and exhibit different thinking and personality. These different perspectives enabled me to expand my views and thinkings, and gave me the courage to believe in my own ability to pursue research.

In the beginning, I did not think that I would have the ability nor the intellect to be in this field. However, I was fortunate to have stumbled across the works of my current supervisor, Prof. Adrian David Cheok. After going through all the research works that he was working on, I gained interest. For me, it was his vision on research that finally convinced me that I had passion for research. Eventually, I developed the belief that this is what I like and this is what I can do. I learned that, as in every big obstacles in life, breaking things down into smaller parts and solving problems in incremental steps are very important methods in research. Most importantly, I realized I have the patience and perseverance for research as well.

Currently, my research interests lies in helping people to communicate, specifically people in remote locations. Current voice, textual and video communication tools have served us well in enabling remote persons to exchange information, be it work or private matters. However, such remote communication tools certainly lack the physical interaction present in daily person to person communication. In addition, current communication methods are sometimes inadequate for us to express our intended mind or feelings. Shapes, icons and color all play a part in giving expressions to the mundane messages being communicated day in and day out. I hope to find the effective communication tools and methods for the busy people of today to help them enhance their relationships with loved ones.