A bicycle lesson

Few nights ago, my elder daughter, Filomena, excitedly shared with me her cycling experience. She has managed to cycle without the training wheels on Amanda's bicycle. A much smaller bicycle compare to hers. To leverage on her excitement and achievement, we decided to remove the training wheels from her bicycle today. With little guidance, she managed to cycle independently around the park. With more practice, she managed to maneuver her way thru every corners and turns confidently. I'm so proud of her. Same for my younger daughter, Cordelia, we managed to convince her that she can do it as well. she made a significant progress today. With a few more attempts, I'm pretty sure she will do just as good as Filomena.

For a moment, I try to reflect the sudden change in their attitude, desire and courage to 're-visit' the bicycle challenge. I've been trying my best to convince them that it's very simple and they can do it. But they never buy my ideas. Sometime, both got very agitated when I press too hard. Why now? I don't know.. But I concluded that people will only put in effort to do something that they've a strong will, confidence and desire to succeed. Mentally they must be convinced that they're ready and they want to do it. It doesn't matter if the father think that they're ready. I recalled what my boss, TeckMeng, once told me. Do our engineers think that they're as good as we position them. Any mismatch is a total failure on our part. They're never ready if they don't think they are. Hence, communication and alignment of expectation become part of the continual development program for my engineers.

Thx, OKY

Malacca, Malaysia

It's the start of the June school holiday. Together with Steven's family (Samantha, Kenneth and Clairice), we decided to have a short trip to Malacca over last weekend. We left on Saturday 11am and check-in to the Kings apartment at 3pm. Traffic is very heavy with many tourists from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. We headed to Malacca town for our Peranakan dinner after wash up. As we're early (restaurant started at 6pm), we first treated ourselves to cakes and white-coffee from 'Secret recipe'. It tasted extra yummy when you've skipped your lunch. After a good dinner, we visited the Jonker night market. We saw a woman calligraphy artist. She wrote great chinese characters. Only difference is she has lost all her fingers (no hands). Her achievement in calligraphy is from 20 years of hard work and practice. I saluted her for her courage and determination. We also witness a young lady playing electric organ. But, she is blind. Handicap is in the mind but not the body, as I reflected how fortunate we are, especially the Singaporean.

The next day, we woke up early for our 'food hunt'. Have a complementary buffet breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the town. We visited the A-famosa, Christ Church and St Paul Church. Have our lunch at a famous Teochew restaurant whom Steven has booked before the trip. Before heading back home, we dropped by a shop to purchase the local delight and food product.

We took another 3 hours drive back to Johor Bahru where we stopped for our dinner at one of a chinese restaurant for its famous herbal chicken. We reached home safely at about 8.30pm. Unpacked, bathed and put the kids back to bed. It's supposed to be an easy night until I received a call from citi bank customer officer that someone found my pouch with all our passports and my credit card. We're lucky that a group of Indonesian students from NUS, took the trouble to track down my contact and returned my belongings. I'm so glad of their kindness. I strongly believe there is many more foreigner working and living in Singapore whom is equally kind and sweet.

Cheers OKY

More Malacca picture

A family outing to Pulau Ubin

Last Sunday,my family and I went to Pulau Ubin.My cute sister took this photo of me with my father's camera.We were very happy.

By Filomena Oh