Present Moment Wondrous Moment 當下

I was going through a rough stormy journey last week. It was almost like a sudden and impromptu verdict passed to the accused without prior hearings. I was unprepared, or rather, deluded to be unprepared due to ignorance, and completely taken aback. As the waves subsided, I started contemplating about the concept of karma. And thinking about my own karma. There were no anger and blame. Perhaps being in a helping position in the past have helped me tremendously to enter into the stage of acceptance almost instantly. However I am still bogged down by curiosity, and definitely still having a sense of helplessness that stems from the lack of insight on the past. What have I done in my past lives to be subjected to what I am going through now? The truth is most of us do not know. There are so much information symmetry (exploiting a public policy concept between principals and agents) between our current live and our previous lives, our present consciousness and our past consciousness. ...

Finally I was able to finish a book that I have been wanting to read but did not have the luxury to sit down for a prolonged period of time to finish it due to my field research in Indonesia. Now that it is over, I was finally able to check out this book from Singapore’s NLB in Bishan (for the wonderful collection in NLB I must say that I really LOVE the Singapore government’s commitment to build a knowledge-based economy and making books so accessible). I have had a glimpse and sneak peek of this book from the TED talk that I watched online- delivered by its author Cal Newport – few weeks ago. This book is a thicker and richer version of the TED talk. Though it did not have that instant ‘wow’ impact like some other books that I have read, many of the messages within resonate strongly. I like the central thesis very much. It says that a deep life is a meaningful life and a life well lived. Deep work – defined as the ability to focus on a cognitively demanding task wi...

It is ludicrous that no one in life has ever faced rejection. We all know that rejection is inevitable at any stage of our life – whether it is breaking up, not considered for a scholarship programme or university admission, not getting our dream job, not able to grab certain opportunities that lead to life changing path etc. Rejection is so normal. But my rejection experience this time round – failure to get an academic paper through second round of reviewing process – is a wake-up call to construct a new normal to this dreadful but inevitable human experience. It is rejection again for God knows how many times since I started to hop on the game of academic publishing. Yes, I am deeply and enormously aware that advancing in academia has always been an unfair game. As a junior researcher, you do all the hard work, suck up most of the crappy stuff, and do not necessarily get the most credit. And without guiding light, the trial and error process takes longer than one could...

Dear Me You are such a blossoming young teenager full of hope and promise. You came to this world with a purpose in life, and you are set to fulfill that purpose with grace, courage and tenacity. Circumstances and conditions are right for you to thrive as a human being with the capacity to achieve ultimate realization, and though you were not born with a silver spoon, you are blessed enough to be born as a middle class kid with parents that place emphasis on education. As a child, your mother reads to you all the time, constantly feed you with the excitement of knowledge acquisition, and the curiosity of knowing the world. You grew up with Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl. Their stories form a big part of an ideal fantasy world for a young passionate girl full of wonders and dreams. At the tender age of 16, you start to question authority and challenge the status quo. You have lots of fun with new found soulmates in high school. You would keep in touch with them for the rest of your lif...

Teguh is my host in Yogyakarta as I was spending the last couple of days here wrapping up my fieldwork in Central Java. I came across his profile from the airbnb page and was very struck by the interior design of his house. I was ignorant about everything else about him until I got here yesterday. Turned out, it was one of the best airbnb experience ever. His place is located at a very secluded Javanese style village down south from Yogyakarta at the city fringe. Facing the widespread paddy fields in the countryside, it is a perfect place for one to immerse in solitude; ideal for personal retreat for anyone who just seeks temporary getaway from a harsh volatile reality. However, as much as I am attracted to the thoughtful interior design of his place and the perfect location for some quiet me time, I am struck by his personal story - a story about firmness and tenacity - very much the resemblance of his name 'Teguh' (means firm in English). He came from humble beginnings...

How many times have we told ourselves to let go, let go, and just let go? When noise arise in our environment, we remind ourselves to breathe and smile, and usually within a few seconds, we are able to redirect our attention to things that matter. This seems pretty easy. When minor anxiety arise occasionally, sometimes, it takes a while to process before we can let go. But still, we could eventually handle that with ease. What appears difficult, is the inability to let go of something that really hits you hard at a particular moment. It causes immense stress. impedes clarity of our thoughts, and sweeps all the positive self-help immediate coping strategies under the carpet. These are things that have shaken your belief towards the fundamental trust and security that you could place on someone in life, or stinking garbage and junk that are thrown at you after having heavily invested in something physically, financially and emotionally. Break ups, divorces, demise of our loved ones ar...

Throughout the ups and downs of my PhD journey for the past three years I have gradually developed some self-defense mechanisms that could help me wade through the storms of failure and/or rejection, and potentially coping with any kinds of challenges in life. I name them the 3A self-defense mechanisms for now. 1) Avoid self-blame It is easy for most people to drown into self-blame and be overly self-critical, especially during difficult times. It is always during those volatile moments that we start questioning the decision that we have made, doubting our intelligence to finish a seemingly challenging task, and worse still, putting down our inner self-worth. We often attribute all the wrongs and mistakes to our stupidity and miscalculation. Sure, we all have our moments of ignorance and stupidity, moments when we feel that if time travels, we want to turn things around. However, it is also during such moments that we grow and thrive rapidly. We may made stupid economic, financial...

We all experience moments of frustration and stagnation from time to time - such are inevitable struggles that we all face in human existence. While the nature and intensity of our angst fluctuates, it generally seems to escalate over the years, especially when entering new life stage, and venturing into new initiatives. Three years ago I took a gamble to pursuing something I thought I always want to do but potentially risks producing an outcome that does not reward - a PhD - just to realize the pain and angst that it would then bring me. Of course to give this decision some credit, I am also learning and growing every single day. But as I was paddling through storms at the beginning of the journey, many times alone, I realize how important it is to adopt some self-defense and self-care skills. I gradually learn how to adopt some rituals and routines of these mechanisms whenever I feel frustrated, stuck, despair and hopeless. I am starting with self-care tips:- 1) Talk to someon...

Almost 72 years ago an archipelago country of close to 10,000 islands at the southern hemisphere - today one of the most populous country in the world with ironically 100 million at the bottom struggling with less than USD3 per day - was unchained from the shackles of its colonial master. It was perceived as one of the most promising developing countries in Asia - a huge population with thriving domestic market and a maturing democracy that offers the potential for checks and balances if it conforms to what the liberal west espouses - standing an opportunity to rise and on par with the Asian economic giants then. This prediction fell apart. In fact quite the opposite had happened. I shall not attempt to act as an Indonesia expert here to diagnose the country's problem. I am in no position to do that too. Over the past three weeks in which I have had the chance to speak with various levels of bureaucrats in the local government, I have seen a common sentiment/theme emerged fr...

Turning on a combination of reflective and academic mode now… Armed with a strong intuition that implementation of public policies across 500+ districts in Indonesia is bound to be different - a natural assumption that one could make under a highly decentralized context in Indonesia - I came to this country with a research project that aims to tease out those differences that I speculated in terms of their implementation mechanisms. While gazing at the lush greeneries, looking at the trees interspersing among the wide paddy fields and dense forests in the mountain, I was reflecting on what I have heard from my informants, as well as observed from different health facility visits so far. It has been an intense first week in the field, and I am still mustering thoughts on what should be the focus in my research. It was not a long journey, but the winding roads from Kota Magelang to Banjarnegara (the second district that I will be conducting my fieldwork at) is enough to create ...

Bu Endang is a typical motherly figure that anyone would easily connect with. Humble, loving, warm and kind, she resembles the qualities of many other cadres, nurses, female doctors and Kepala Puskesmas that I have met so far. A health worker with nursing training for over 30 years, she has served in her community throughout her entire career. I have to say that I have enormous respect for them! To sustain in helping professions for a good 30 years, this in itself is very admirable. I had quit a good social work career after three years of service due to restlessness. Of course the lofty reason is I did this to pursue an opportunity that I thought I should not give up, all for the purpose of self-actualisation, with so little knowledge of the anguish and pain that I would encounter then. I thought our informal conversation will just be another conversation that fills the air time after we wrapped up the focus group discussion and before we parted ways. It did not quite turn o...

Kota Magelang resembles my little lovely hometown - Alor Setar - in many ways. I left Alor Setar after secondary school to pursue my higher education as well as career in five other different territories/countries around the world – starting with Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, the UK and again Singapore. The usual trajectory for a country girl seeking to maximize the odds of upward social mobility. Coming to this small city at the southern part of Central Java reminds me of my very own lovely hometown which I grew up in, and defines who I become. There is this small town charm here in Magelang where people are warm and friendly, cost of living is affordable, and good amenities are within proximity. Unlike Jakarta, people do not seem to be too unequal in this city. At least from a very superficial observation so far. Pace is slower, people have more patience, which is good for human sanity. I do not know if I will ever go back and live in a small town at so...

To borrow the term 'improbable' from Elizabeth Pisani, I am reviving a blog that I started nearly 10 years ago in Hong Kong and start penning my experiences on the road for six weeks in Indonesia for the field work of my doctoral thesis.  I have stopped blogging for a while, which was a pity as it goes to show how long I have not really tapped into the creative juices of my brain. I want to do this again, not only to get my mind off the systemic rigidity in life, but also to evoke more inquiries on the existential issues of human life. I start this by keeping a digital diary of my footsteps in Indonesia from February 2017 onwards. Prior to the field trip in Indonesia, I have constantly reminded myself not to get into the mode of romanticizing everything that I witness in this country. After all, I am fully aware that I have this tendency to glorify and romanticize alien foreign cultures in foreign countries out of complete ignorance, things that may be completely insi...