Rigel Kent

A friend of mine sent me an email this afternoon. It is a news clip titled: Genting founder dies. And so, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong (林梧桐) is now dead. He passed away this morning at Subang Jaya Medical Center. It is not easy to build a business like Genting, because you need a lot of hard work and a lot of luck. There is no doubt that Lim fulfilled the first criterion. To understand how dedicated Lim was, you can read his autobiography or you can go to Genting's website . The second criterion, the luck element, is rarely mentioned. And it is my intention to highlight a little bit in this article. At the time when Lim was 32, he was introduced to a Muarian named Mohammad Noah Omar (1898  –  1991). And the friendship and business partnership between Lim and Noah turned out to be very fruitful and beneficial to both parties. In 1948, the second daughter of Noah, Suhaila, was married to Hussein Onn. Four years later, Noah's youngest daughter, Rahah, was married to Abdul Razak. So, Lim...

In 2003, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov came to Malaysia to do promotion on his fighter jets. Ivanov is a very good business man because he knew his customer very well. And in May 19, 2003, Najib Razak announced that we have agreed to purchase 18 Indian-made Sukhoi-30MKM fighter jets from Russia. Later, it was announced that the price of the 18 jets is $900 millions and there is also an offset agreement in which Russia will offer Malaysia one seat in the Russian spacecraft. Did Ivanov and Najib discussed in detail about the offset agreement in 2003? We are not very sure. But I guess Ivanov must have hinted Najib on the possibility of realizing Malaysian dreams of creating his own Angkasawan, free of charge. Initially, we were told by the Russians that our boy will be trained in Star City, Moscow in 2004 and be sent to space by 2005. But the American businessman, Gregory Hammond Olsen paid $20 millions and he got the place in the Soyuz TMA-7 mission, launched in October 1, 2005....

I need to take two types of math papers when I was in Form Four. The year was 1996 and it was the year when we celebrated the completion of the Petronas Twin Towers. The first paper is called modern math , the second paper is called additional math . Although the first paper is prefixed with the word modern , some of its contents is not modern at all. One example is that the government forced us to learn an outdated technique of multiplying numbers with the aid of four-figure tables. A booklet of four-figure mathematical tables, arranged and compiled by two English mathematicians Jeffrey C. P. Miller (1906 – 1981) and Frank C. Powell (1905 – 1993). I can still recall that I watched bemusedly, as my modern math teacher, Mr. Chan Wai Cheng, demonstrated to us, the lengthy and laborious procedure for obtaining product like $$7314 \times 7986$$ in the classroom. The procedure requires the student to first read the logarithms for the two numbers from the l...

17 years ago, journalist Akiyama Toyohiro (秋山豊寛) was the first passanger to go to space with private fund. On December 2, 1990, he flew on the Russian Soyuz TM-11 to the Mir space station. Akiyama's main purpose in Mir is to conduct live television broadcast to celebrate the 40th annivesary of Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS, 株式会社東京放送), and I believe that this is surely some marketing gimmicks. But there was a very expensive price to pay, for his 190 hours in space, his boss at TBS spent approximately 10 to 20 millions. When he returned to his hometown in Tokyo, Akiyama was rightfully recognized as the first Japanese cosmonaut (日本人初の宇宙飛行士). I am not sure whether or not Dr. Mahathir knew about Akiyama. Chances are that he did not know Akiyama back in 1990, otherwise he could have issued a purchase order to the Russian government and included the Angkasawan project in his Wawasan 2020, announced in 1991.

我没有邱瑞荳和周味结婚的正确日期，但我想应该是在四十年代中期。那这时代，大姑娘们可没有什么选择的机会。但是，阿嬷这样子嫁了也不是坏事，至少阿嬷为人类自然选择尽了力。他生了十个孩子，虽然有一个在孩童时期就死掉了。 生物进化理论不是由达尔文发现的，但是他是第一个就物种进化问题而做出的理论性解释的人。这个解释就是自然选择，是达尔文在一八五九年提的。达尔文的基本理论是：只有那些适应环境的组织可以生存，遗传其特征从而数量增多，传种接代，而那些不适应的就会被淘汰。 是的，阿嬷是生了十个的孩子。但是阿嬷对我说，生这么多又怎样，生这么多也是没有用的。也就是说，阿嬷他老人家他妈的生产了一群没有用的孩子。前面的那一句是阿嬷亲口说的，后面的是我给他补充的。为什么这群孩子没有用呢，我不是很清楚，但阿嬷他自己说的，跟真实的情况应该不会差太远的。当然我也要在这里谢谢我阿嬷，因为这些孩子的其中一人之后生育了一个叫邱静茹的人，所以我现在才有事干。 说了半天，还没有告诉你们阿嬷的宗教信仰。阿嬷是个基督徒，至少在他自己的心里面，阿嬷是个基督徒。照我看，阿嬷应该是来自一个信仰基督的家庭。 你看，阿嬷他老爸叫周保罗，清朝刚解体的年代出生的，洋化的华人名并不普遍，除非你老爸是信耶稣的，才会帮你取这样的名字。但是阿嬷嫁给了阿公，阿公是个信仰传统华人宗教的一个人，他不是基督教徒。 零六年三月七号傍晚六点约三十五分的时候，阿嬷死掉了。阿嬷跟着他的耶和华老大走了。我想阿嬷他一辈子也没干过什么大坏事，阿嬷应该是去天堂吧。 葬礼的时候，在阿嬷的第四的儿子的家，我看到阿嬷的孩子们用道家的仪式来处理阿嬷。一个黑袍道人在两脚伸直向外，仰卧在棺材里面的阿嬷面前，用福建话叽叽歪歪，不懂在念什么。你这样子，如果有天使的话，天使是会被你吓跑的。 所以我说，孩子们都没有体恤老母亲，他们都不清楚，也不理会一般教徒的遗愿。 而在今年，我爸爸的妈妈也因为内脏衰竭死掉了。我的四个阿嬷里面，现在就只剩下方金龙，也就是我老婆妈妈的妈妈。

About 1700 years ago, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great made two decisions that would forever changed the course of human history. The first decision was made in 313 when he signed the Edict of Milan, which granted civil rights and freedom to adopt any religions including Christianity. With this, hundreds of years of oppression of Christianity in the Roman Empire was effectively brought to an end. The second decision was that, shortly before his death in 337, Constantine was baptized and thus, formally adopted Christianity. In some ways, these decisions have profound effects in accelerating the growth of Christianity, and therefore making the Bible the most important literature ever produced. However, pious Christians often see the Bible as a source of spiritual inspiration and lack the knowledge of the evolution of its content. To understand the present structure of the Bible, it is necessary to go back to the Jews living in ancient Judea. The ancient Jews, like many other earl...

We learned quite a great deal about Malacca in secondary school. We were taught, for examples, that Malacca was a great seaport during the 15th century which has attracted a lot of people to do business there, that the founder of this kingdom is an Indonesian prince called Parameswara, that Tun Perak is a wise prime minister, and so on. However, the standard history textbook pays extremely little attention on the connection between Malacca and China, despite the fact that Malacca is intricately related to Ming China. In 1403, Zhu Di 朱棣 became the third emperor of Ming Dynasty. One of the important decisions he made almost immediately after he ascended to the throne was to order a series of marine expeditions to the Indian Ocean. This famous series of expedition is, as you might already know, led by a muslim eunuch named Zheng He 鄭和. In October 1403, diplomatic emissaries were sent out to a lot of foreign countries. A eunuch named Yin Qing 尹庆 was sent to Malacca 满剌加, bringing wi...

我是在两年前过年的时候认识周味这个女人的，他是我老婆的阿嬷，那时是在老人院里边认识他的。本来是没有想过会去的，是那一天老婆突然向我提起，然后我们几个就开了车过去。到了老人屋，一推开门就见到了阿嬷，他就呆坐在一架十四吋的小电视机前面。 其实我听老婆讲他阿嬷的故事讲了许多，只是一直没有亲眼见过他本人，这一次是我第一次见到了他。阿嬷看见有这么多孙子来看他，心里一定很爽，虽然当时我好像没有看到他笑。阿嬷的人很和蔼，很可爱，也很叽喳，就像小孩子一样。我们没有血缘关系，但我从见到他的那一刻就打从心里把他当成自己的阿嬷来看待。 一开始我就问阿嬷他的生日，老人家不懂。我再问阿嬷的生肖，老人家说他知道，但他忘了。后来我们讲着讲着，阿嬷突然间想起，想起了原来他是属兔的，他是一只快要八十岁的老母兔。 之后我知道了阿嬷农历的生日，他农历的生日是在丁卯年十一月二十九号，换算成现在的格里历就是二七年十二月二十二号。为什么我会算呢，因为我会背子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥。华人的历法就有这个好处，只要你会这十二个地支，你就能够根据一个人的生肖算出他的年龄。 阿嬷的出生地是在印尼，当时是荷兰鬼佬统治的。在他十几岁的时候，苏卡诺想当老大，发起民族独立主义，说要他不爽荷兰人，并要赶走他们。可能当时印尼政局不稳定，周保罗举家迁了过来马来亚。这是二战前的事情，迁过来后，阿嬷就住在柔佛州麻坡县六马路，就是我以前住了十多年的地方。按阿嬷第一个儿子的出生年份来算，他应该是在迁过来之后几年就嫁了给年长他七岁的邱瑞荳。

There are many theories proposed to explain why Jews, Muslims and some of the pious Christians cannot consume pork or pig products. Reasons such as pigs are filthy, pork are extremely contaminated, pig is the object of worship in the Abrahamic religions, etc are frequently given. But you should not listen to any of these because all of them are not correct. The correct reason is very simple: because this is an order directly from God. For Muslims, this order can be found in Al-Baqarah (سورة البقرة) Verse 173. And for Jews and Christians, the order is explicitly mentioned in Leviticus Chapter 11 Verse 7. Accordingly, an animal is edible if only it is clean. And a clean animal fulfills two criteria: it chews cud and has split hoof. In Leviticus 11:4 to 11:7, God mentioned Moses and Aaron, four examples which fail His criteria. Because cows and goats fulfill the two criteria, beef and mutton are considered clean for consumption. However, because the above Mosaic dietary criteria have bee...

It is well known that the traditional religion of the Chinese is polytheistic. And two of our most popular deities are Guan Yu (关羽) and Avalokitesvara (阿婆卢吉低舍婆罗). According to Chen Shou (陈寿), Guan was born in between 147 to 167 AD in Shanxi (山西). Near the end of Eastern Han Dynasty (东汉, 200 – 220 AD), he was recruited by the warlord Liu Bei (刘备) at Hebei (河北) and became his bodyguard. When Liu was defeated by Cao Cao (曹操), Guan was captured and given a post in Cao’s administration. However, because of his loyalty to Liu, he did not stay long with Cao and later returned to Liu. He was subsequently killed and decapitated in Hubei (湖北). Guan's death is intricately related to Zhuge Liang's (诸葛亮) decision for not dispatching military forces to assist Guan when he was surrounded by Sun Quan's (孙权) men. Deitification of Guan and mass constructions of temple worshiping Guan actually started about 900 years ago. During this period, Guan was given many honorific titles by many impe...

Darwin did something very important for us some 150 years ago, when he published his "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. This famous book, as you might already know, is about evolution. However, contrary to popular belief, Darwin is the not the originator of the concept of evolution. Darwin's grandfather, for example, had also a similar idea. The contribution of Darwin is that he conceived a logical notion to explain the mechanism of evolution. Darwin's explanation is quite simple indeed: the evolutionary mechanism is by natural selection. The important thing to highlight here is that evolution is not a theory, it is an observable fact. For example, that human and other lifeforms living on earth is an observable fact. To explain this fact, we may invoke the Jewish notion that we are created by Elohim using only dust of the ground. The Chinese also have a similar notion for the origin of humankind, they postulated that we are created from soil by a goddess named Nǚwā ...

Usually, people with "Dr" in front of their names are treated with respect in our society. They are better remunerated and can talk louder. So, naturally a lot of people want themselves to be called doctors. Nonetheless, only a few groups of people may put the title "Dr" in front of their name. First, we have the medical doctor. Medical doctor receives rigorious undergraduate training in the field of medicine at the university/hospital for at least 5 years. At the end of their training, they are awarded a bachelor degree . Mahathir Mohamad, for example, is a medical doctor trained in "University of Malaya", Singapore. Second, we have the doctor of higher degree. The most common doctor of higher degree is the doctor of philosophy (or Ph.D). To be awarded a higher degree doctorate, the candidate, who already equipped with a basic degree, will usually do research on one particular subject and spend 3 to 4 years on it, usually guided by one or more academic ...

The biological aspect of human gametic cells is very interesting. At birth, a baby girl has only a fixed amount of eggs (maybe around one million) in her body. When she reached a certain age, we will see that her breasts will begin to grow bigger, and a little genie residing in her ovary will say to these one million eggs: "ok, I shall now start to send you to meet your boyfriends". Each month, the genie will pick a few thousands eggs and give them whatever training that is necessary. At the end of the training, the eggs will need to take what is known as the atresia examination. And the egg who score the highest mark will get the chance to embark on a romantic journey. The rest of the eggs are not sent back to the reservoir, but they are destroyed. From that point onwards, about 13 eggs are ovulated each year from the egg reservoir until the woman reached what is known as menopause. So, for her whole lifetime, a human female will only release about 400 eggs. The number of t...