Fu Lu Shou

Fu (福), Lu (祿) and Shou (壽) are 3 of the famous deities in Chinese culture. They are also referred to as the 3 stars - the legendary stars of blessings (Fu), prosperity (Lu) and longevity (Shou). Each of them embodies an attribute of a good life.

In this Chinese New Year which is just 2 days away, I wish that these 3 legendary stars shine on us and our families. May they bring all of us happiness, prosperity and longevity to last through the year and through the lifetime.

Gong Xi Fa Chai!!!

Quality Friends

It's often fun and refreshing meeting up with my ex Buddhist society uni-mates. When we meet up, we seldom talk about how much we are earning, or how big are our houses, or what new cars we are driving, or what shares we are buying. Instead we catch up on how we are doing in our lives (minus the superficial part) and new methods of keeping healthy and living a better life (again, minus the superficial part).

I had the chance to meet them up again yesterday for a Pre-CNY celebration at a Shabu-Shabu restaurant in Bandar Puteri. It was a small group, just 7 of us... but I feel the number is just right. We talked about lots of things, from updating each other on how we are doing to Ayurveda cleansing and "The Secret" book/movie.

Throughout the conversation, I gathered 2 very important points that I should constantly remind myself of. They are

1) Look beyond the black dot

Many times we tend to concentrate on things that we are not happy with. In doing that, we forgot to see the other aspects of our lives that are going well. Just because of a small black dot, we forgot about the whole piece of white paper! Count your blessings!!

2) Stop complaining

We often complain about things that are not going smoothly in our lives... incompatible partners la, terrible friends la, chaotic family la, sucky job la, not earning enough money la, etc etc.... Sometimes we know what we should do to make things better, but we are either too lazy to take those efforts or we dare not take the risk to change. If we are not taking any actions to improve the situation, then stop complaining! Complaining will just make things more negative for us as we will keep imprinting in our minds on how things suck; and it does not make things better!!

I am very grateful that I still have such friends to talk about such things. Although I may forget all these sometimes, I know there will always be these people around to put me back on my feet. ;-)

Piglet and Papa Pig

I saw the following clip from a website long long time ago and it was so funny. I gave the link to my nephew and niece and they watched it so much that they could memorise all the conversations.

I stumbled across it again in YouTube today. You will need to know Mandarin to really appreciate it. I translated the conversations into english for those of you who don't. I don't think the translation did the clip any justice but well, give me credit for trying lah....



Translation:

1st Conversation
Piglet: Daddy, today I found 10 dollars but I have returned it back to that person.
Papa pig: Good girl!! So did that person say "Thank you"?
Piglet: No la...only when he pulled my ear that I returned it to him. In such situation how would he say "Thank you"?

2nd Conversation
Piglet: Papa, if there's a 5 dollars note and a 10 dollars note on the floor, which would you take?
Papa pig: Of course I will take the 10 dollars note.
Piglet: Papa you are so dumb! Why don't you take both!!

3rd Conversation
Piglet: Papa, why when that person came and asked you to return his money last month, you told him that you didn't have any money.. and this month when he did the same, you still told him that you didn't have money?
Papa pig: Aiya I must keep to my words ma...

4th Conversation
Piglet: Daddy... today at the school, the teacher asked us to do donation.
Papa pig: HUH! Then did you tell her that you don't have any money??!!
Piglet: I did! but she said you have!!

5th Conversation
Piglet: Papa, why are other people's houses so big whereas ours is so small?
Papa pig: Papa doesn't have money ma...
Piglet: Then what's the way to get big big house?
Papa pig: You must study hard and when you grow up, you will earn a lot of money and will be able to buy many big houses.
Piglet: Then why didn't you study hard when you were little???