Revisiting Chinese Books

 

原子習慣：細微改變帶來巨大成就的實證法則

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Yesterday, I began reading the Chinese version of James Clear’s best-selling book, Atomic Habits. I listened to the English audiobook version years ago, but have forgotten most of the content except that it was a decent book, so I decided to revisit it. The reason why I chose to read it in Chinese is that I wanted to brush up my Chinese, which has gotten quite rusty over the years.

The Chinese version I’m reading is the traditional Chinese edition published in Taiwan. Although I learned Chinese mostly in Mainland China, where the simplified Chinese script is used, when it comes to reading, I much prefer the traditional script because of its esthetic visual appeal. Moreover, due to Taiwan’s more advanced printing technology including its paper quality, Taiwanese books look far more exquisite and even feel nicer to the touch than their counterparts from Mainland China.

Furthermore, I also prefer the general vocabulary that’s used in Taiwanese Mandarin, which has a bit of a traditional feel to it, reflecting Taiwan’s respectful attitude toward history and traditional culture, as well as their harmonious liberal arts environment; in comparison, the Putonghua from Mainland China has elements of toxicity and aggressiveness that have been copiously injected into the language through decades of propaganda and political upheavals under the Communist rule.

I believe that people’s psyche is largely shaped by the kind of language they use in everyday life—if you keep using gentle language, you’ll become a gentle person; if you use abusive language, you’re more prone to exhibit aggressive behavior. Therefore, wherever possible, I try to avoid being exposed to abusive language. When it comes to reading Chinese books, I naturally gravitate toward Taiwanese books rather than Mainland Chinese books.

The only thing I like about the Mainland Chinese Putonghua is their accent, especially the standard variation adopted by China Central Television’s news anchors, which doesn’t use too much rhotic sound commonly heard in Beijing vernacular speech. It sounds purified and sophisticated, and can be easily understood by Chinese speakers from all regions, including Mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. I think it’s the equivalent of the broadcast American accent (General American) in English, which is by far my favorite English accent.

Although I spent six years in Shanghai where I attended local secondary school, I didn’t get very fluent in Chinese. If anything, my favorite subject in school was English, because that was the only academic subject in which I could compete with my Chinese classmates on an equal footing.

As a result, I ended up studying English far more conscientiously than Chinese, which eventually enabled me to lay a much more solid foundation in the former than the latter, especially in vocabulary and grammar. That sounds like a wasted opportunity to learn Chinese, but I don’t regret that my language learning journey has turned out the way it did.

That said, I do find the Chinese language beautiful, and every once in a while I get the urge to delve into the study of Mandarin or Cantonese. Here in Singapore, I speak with my colleagues, clients, and friends every day by alternating between English and Chinese, although in written communications English is almost exclusively used.

My professional needs dictate that I spend more time and energy on learning English compared to Chinese, Japanese, and French, but I consider my Chinese skills, if less-than-perfect, a valuable asset I should never let go of. As long as I live, I will keep coming back to learning the language of Confucius and appreciating its beauty.

"Never Let Me Go" and Taking Baby Steps

Never Let Me Go

On Friday night, I watched Never Let Me Go, the movie adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s eponymous novel. I bought the book a few weeks ago and had been reading it for a few days, but for the first 90 pages or so, I found the story moving too slowly. On top of that, it was written in narrative form by the protagonist—a schoolgirl named Kathy living in a boarding school in the south of England—in highly colloquial British English, adding to the difficulty I experienced reading through those pages. Quite frankly, I found the novel rather boring in the beginning few chapters.

However, as this novel was highly acclaimed—to the point of being named the best novel of 2005 by Time magazine—I didn’t want to just throw it away before getting to the interesting part. So, to facilitate my understanding of the story, I decided to cheat a little and asked ChatGPT to summarize the plot for me. Sure enough, it generated a short summary in a matter of a few seconds, telling me that it’s a dystopian novel surrounding human cloning technology. Despite the obvious spoilers, the summary definitely got me more interested in the story, so much so that I decided to watch the movie adaptation also.

So, I viewed the movie first before finishing the book. It turned out to be a very well-made film with exquisite acting by the three actors playing the central characters. It saddened me profoundly that some people who were born into an unfortunate existence cannot change their predestination no matter what they do or how hard they try—their fate was sealed at the beginning of their lives, as tragic as it may be.

Instead of taking away the joy of reading the original novel, the movie only increased my interest in it tremendously. Yesterday, I sat at a nearby café and read a sizable chunk of the novel with keen anticipation—the plot has indeed thickened—that I’m nearly halfway through now. I expect to finish it within a week.

If you start to read a highly acclaimed novel and yet find it too challenging to read, I believe it’s a good idea to read an abridged version in simple language or watch its movie adaptation before tackling the book itself. That’s how I approached the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, often cited as the greatest work of fiction ever written.

As I was aware of its reputation as a long, difficult book, I first read two abridged versions written for young children, followed by two Japanese comic books, to grasp the general flow of the story. Then I watched the movie adaptation starring Yul Brynner to learn about its highlights. I even bought the CliffsNotes dedicated to the novel so as not to be confused by the convoluted storylines and numerous characters, adding up to around 75 people.

The strategy was a great success—I was able to follow the plot with little confusion and enjoy the various sub-plots without wearing myself out. Had I not made those thorough preparations, I’m sure I would have given up reading The Brothers Karamazov only a short way into the book. 

As I have argued multiple times in these blog posts, your knowledge needs to be built from the ground up, little by little, and new things can only be learned based on what you already know. There’s nothing shameful about not understanding something you’re not familiar with. Starting with baby steps and gradually progressing to more advanced content is the only way you can expand your knowledge in a meaningful manner.

Thoughts on Singapore Election and Critical Thinking

Yesterday was an election day in Singapore, where 97 parliamentary seats were contested among various political parties. The candidates were announced on April 23, and the electorate had exactly 10 days to decide who to vote for.

The polling station in my district was set up at a local library, open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Even though Singapore makes it mandatory for every citizen to vote and penalties are imposed on absentees, when I got to the polling station I was surprised that there was virtually no line of voters—I was able to cast my ballot pretty much immediately.

In my constituency, two political parties were running as groups instead of each candidate running individually, so all I had to do was choose one party over another, making my decision process relatively simple. I spent some time checking the two parties’ platforms on their respective websites and also watched a two-hour-long political debate on television before arriving at my final decision.

We are living in an era of political and economic uncertainties, and there are no straight answers to such thorny issues as rising costs of living, declining birth rates, and defending Singapore’s interests in the face of global superpowers. In the end, I cast my vote wishing for political stability, fiscal responsibility by the government, and a harmonious society. Like the previous presidential election, I’m delighted to have participated in this democratic process.

まんがでわかる　地頭力を鍛える

When I finished voting, I walked across the street and sat down at a cafe to read a Japanese comic book. The book, despite being presented in manga format, was about the serious topic of how we can apply critical thinking skills to the nitty-gritty of our various tasks in the corporate world. It touched upon the processes of induction and deduction, and how we can enhance our work efficiency through framework-based thinking.

One thing that really impressed me about this book was that it clearly illustrated the role of critical thinking skills in finding solutions to numerous issues at work. It drew an interesting analogy of cooking—having knowledge and information was likened to possessing the ingredients, while applying critical thinking represented the processes of cooking the food items, such as frying, baking, or steaming, to produce delicious dishes as the end results.

The book also made me think about the issue of whether studying to acquire knowledge—particularly through reading—is still necessary in this era dominated by the internet and artificial intelligence. The very meaning of my writing this journal entry to practice my English writing skills could be questioned, as tools like ChatGPT and DeepL can instantly translate my Japanese thoughts into English at a satisfactory level of accuracy.

To this question, my answer is still a definitive “yes”. Merely having access to a myriad pieces of factual information is useless unless you learn their meanings through studying. To demonstrate a concrete example, you can easily find the benchmark US interest rates and whether they’re on an upward or downward trend through a Google search. However, if you haven’t learned from a financial textbook that bond prices are inversely related to interest rates, you won’t be able to decide whether you should buy or sell bonds to make a profit.

Also, it’s important to know that the human brain is structured in such a way that new knowledge can only be effectively acquired through the framework of your existing knowledge. Bombarding your head with disparate pieces of information acquired through web searches in an uncontextualized manner can’t assimilate them into your knowledge. On the other hand, reading a book that’s suitable to your current level can help you incorporate new knowledge into your brain.

While modern technology can evolve at breakneck speed, the biological traits of our brains do not evolve nearly as fast as compared to our ancestors. Certain things are better done the old-fashioned way, and the importance of studying will never diminish even in a completely digitalized society.

Certain Damage Cannot Be Undone

99% 離婚 離婚した毒父は変われるか

Although it was a Saturday yesterday, I had to wake up at 7:30, a bit earlier than I normally do on weekends. This was because I had to have a Zoom call with my Japanese judicial scrivener as well as my sister to discuss matters related to the probate on my late father’s real estate and financial assets. Even though my father passed away last July, this matter has dragged on until now, so I really hope to bring it to a close as soon as possible.

When probate is finally granted, we will pay the inheritance tax owed to the local authorities and put the real estate on the market. My father’s house, built 30 years ago, is very decent structure-wise, and is located in a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. The house, along with its front and backyard, covers an area of around 7,500 square feet, relatively big by local standards.

It feels a bit of a pity to sell such a nice house, but since I live thousands of miles away, I can’t maintain it properly; on top of that, I have to pay property tax every year just to keep it, so it only makes sense to sell it while it’s still in good condition.

After finishing the Zoom call, I did some household chores around my apartment. While I left my tasks to the dishwasher, washing machine, and robotic vacuum cleaner, I sat in my bathroom reading a Japanese comic book.

It was an illustrated essay of a middle-aged man who used to abuse his wife and daughter in the past. The intensity of the abuse was such that he was divorced by his wife and lost custody of his daughter. Not only that, he was also abusive toward his subordinates in his workplace. He has since repented and tries to improve his behavior, reading numerous books about physical and mental abuse for self-analysis.

In the process, he discovers that he was perpetuating a cycle of abuse, having been brought up by parents who were abusive toward him. He decides to sever this cycle definitively and mend his ways, starting with relationships with his colleagues. Thanks to his efforts, he gradually builds up a reputation as a reasonable boss with a warm personality, earning respect from his subordinates.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been as successful at restoring the relationships with his ex-wife and daughter, owing to the level of trauma he inflicted on them in the past. His daughter hates him so much that she tears up his letter begging her forgiveness before even reading it. She throws a torrent of abuse at him on a messaging app saying she will never forgive him for what he did to her—she doesn’t want to hear from him ever again and wishes he were dead.

This leaves him heartbroken, of course, but he concludes that she can’t be blamed for exhibiting such a violent reaction—after all, it was his fault from the beginning. The only thing he can do is take a lesson from his mistake and never engage in abusive behavior again, while wishing his daughter all the happiness.

I also believe that this is what can be reasonably expected—certain damage can’t be undone, and you have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life. Everyone has done things in the past they wish they haven’t, and you have to deal with it one way or another. I definitely need to own up to my mistakes and, regardless of whether or not I can make up for them, try to be a better person going forward. I’m glad I’ve read this captivating and thought-provoking illustrated essay.

Thoughts on AI and Language Learning

For the past two weeks, I have been on compliance leave from my work and have been traveling in Paris, France and Taipei, Taiwan. I am writing this in my hotel room in Taipei before heading out for an afternoon stroll. My vacation will come to an end tomorrow and I will fly back to Singapore on an evening flight.

Both in Paris and Taipei, I have been buying numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction, in French, Chinese, and Japanese. For the longest time, my knowledge of French has not been good enough for me to read books in French, but during this trip, I’ve noticed that my knowledge of French has grown to an extent that I can now read simple novels without feeling frustrated, so I decided to buy a few novels to read after my return to Singapore.

As I have mentioned multiple times in my past journal entries, I have been studying French vocabulary from a Larousse French-Chinese dictionary since December 2023. 15 months on, I have covered almost 70 percent of the pages. If I continue at this rate, I expect to finish studying the entire dictionary in mid-October of this year. Given my ability to persevere in my study, and the fact that vocabulary learning has been tremendously enjoyable, I should be able to achieve that goal with no difficulty.

My initial aim with French was to be able to understand French novels and movies in the original language without feeling the need to look up words in the dictionary. But now that I am getting closer to attaining that goal, I’ve recently gotten more ambitious: not only do I want to understand French, but I also want to be able to express myself in the language with fluency. Traveling in France made me realize the tremendous joy it gives me to be able to converse with local people.

I believe that a big part of what makes a person sound fluent in a foreign language is mastering the correct pronunciation. In the past, this used to be a major obstacle for learners of French, a language notorious for being pronounced differently from the way it’s spelled, what with the famous phonetic phenomenon of “liaison” and all that.

A few years ago, I even attended a language school for a year for private tutoring sessions in the hope of improving my French pronunciation, but didn’t achieve much progress on that front despite the thousands of dollars I spent. The problem with language schools with prepared curriculums and textbooks is that they are not structured in a way that addresses my specific questions on pronunciation in a direct, pinpoint manner.

However, luckily for me, in recent years, the advent of websites employing artificial intelligence, such as ElevenLabs and Youglish, has made it possible for me to get immediate answers to my pressing questions on pronunciation. ChatGPT has been an effective productivity-booster as well, not only explaining the meanings of words and phrases in detail, but also generating sample sentences to deepen my understanding. These tools have rendered my French sentence books with accompanying audio CDs completely obsolete, so I’m planning to dispose of them soon.

As the barriers to studying French pronunciation have effectively come down, now is a better time than ever to learn to acquire a genuine and native-sounding accent. Given this development, I have recently incorporated pronunciation practice into my study of French vocabulary, so that I can learn not only the meanings of the words but also their correct pronunciation.

By the way, some people might argue that in the age of AI there is really not much point learning foreign languages, as these skills can be so easily learned and as such, are no longer marketable. They might have a point, but I beg to differ—it has become more important than ever to learn foreign languages because technology has made it so much easier to learn those skills, not in spite of it.

I believe that for you to become creative, you need to have the basic foundation of knowledge to work with. Artificial intelligence can help you leverage on your existing knowledge to achieve astonishing feats, but if you don’t possess the expertise to begin with, you have effectively nothing to work on, and therefore cannot create anything of value.

If anything, for a language learning “nerd” like myself, things have gotten more favorable than ever to be my real self and realize my full potential. I intend to take maximum advantage of the benefits that modern technology confers and pursue my interests to my heart’s content.

Would You Live in Johor Bahru?

(Image: RTS Link between Johor Bahru and Singapore)

Friday afternoon, I took a half day’s leave from work and traveled to Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The occasion was to attend the housewarming party of my friend, Jack, who recently moved to JB from Singapore. When he extended the invite to me, I eagerly took him up on it, as I had been curious to find out what JB looks like today as opposed to my previous visit 20 years ago.

I set off from my office in downtown Singapore at 1 p.m. I took the subway to Woodlands, Singapore’s northernmost station, and boarded the number 911 bus to the border checkpoint. Although Singapore is a tiny city-state, it still took me a little over an hour to reach the border, which I didn’t quite expect. Either way, I got there well in time to board the KTMB train that departed from the Woodlands Checkpoint toward JB Sentral at 3 p.m.

KTMB, also known as the Malaysian Railway Limited, is a major railway operator in Malaysia. It used to have an international railway that extended all the way to downtown Singapore. However, in 2011, the Singaporean segment of this railroad was decommissioned entirely and the terminal station was moved to the Woodlands Checkpoint, right on the border. KTMB now operates the KTM Shuttle Tebrau, which provides the intercity train service roughly once an hour.

Interestingly, Malaysia’s immigration and customs are located on the Singaporean side of the border, so passengers go through passport control before boarding the train. The train ride only lasts for five minutes. Once you reach the Malaysian side and get off the train, there are no more checks to go through, so you can freely leave the station. I found it to be a very cool and efficient system.

Coming back to my friend, Jack, he is a Malaysian citizen with permanent residency in Singapore. Although he lives in Johor Bahru now, he still commutes to work in Singapore every weekday. I asked him how he handles the stress of crossing the border twice a day, and he replied that if you commute during off-peak hours, you don’t have to spend too much time clearing the immigration and customs, so he’s been able to handle the commute with relative ease.

Setting aside the fact that Jack is a Malaysian, I believe the biggest draw for him to live in JB is the much more affordable living expenses compared to Singapore. Currently, he is renting a new 700-square-feet apartment with 24-hour security, a fitness gym, and a swimming pool at MYR 3,000 a month (approximately USD 675), less than a third of what he has to pay for a unit of a comparable size and facilities in Singapore.

Jack’s apartment, located on the 24th floor of a highrise condominium, has a view of Singapore across the Johor Strait. Its location is very convenient—a mere seven-minute taxi ride from the JB Sentral Station, and equally close from Bukit Chagar, the future terminal station of the new RTS Link, a modern Singapore-JB shuttle train service slated for completion in 2026. The RTS Link will be capable of transporting 10,000 passengers per hour per direction—a significant increase from the current KTMB Shuttle Tebrau—with a train departure frequency of 3.6 minutes during peak hours.

I’m happy for Jack that he’s found a nice place to live in JB. That said, the idea of living across the Malaysian border while I’m still working in Singapore doesn’t seem practical to me, because I don’t want to spend an hour and a half each way commuting to and from work.

Perhaps, in my retirement years, I could consider living in Johor Bahru to save money, but this will all depend on how hassle-free border-crossing will have become by then. I certainly hope that entering Malaysia from Singapore will start to feel as easy as a domestic journey and no big deal at all in the not-so-distant future.

Buying or Renting—Does It Matter?

(Picture source: いらすとや）

Yesterday morning, I got the faucet for my bathroom sink replaced with a new one after more than 20 years of usage, because it was getting a bit leaky lately. I reported this issue to my landlord, who kindly arranged the replacement with a plumber. The plumber spent around two hours in my apartment and finally got the new faucet installed.

I’ve been renting this apartment for 22 and a half years. In fact, this is the first apartment I’ve rented since migrating to Singapore from Tokyo in 2002. Overall, I’ve been quite happy with this place, so I’ve never moved. As long as my workplace is nearby and the rent stays affordable, I will continue to rent it for the foreseeable future.

There is a constant discussion about whether buying or renting an apartment is a better option for a person’s financial well-being. It’s a fascinating subject for me, so I’ve watched a bunch of YouTube videos on this topic. The tentative conclusion I’ve reached is that both options have their own pros and cons, and in the final analysis, they will work out to be equally worthy from an investor’s perspective.

It only makes sense—in highly developed capitalistic societies like the U.S., Japan, and Singapore, with market mechanisms fully at work, prices for buying and renting properties are constantly adjusted in such a way that arbitrage deals, i.e., trades that take advantage of price discrepancy between equally worthy investments, are few and far between in today’s property market.

By the same token, for those who are keen on buying, there is little point in trying to “time the market,” because the value of a property is decided by estimating the sum-total of all future benefits to be gained from this property that are discounted back to the present value, taking into consideration such factors as inflation and depreciation. If a certain property is showing a cheap price, there most likely are right reasons behind it, so think twice before rushing headlong into buying it.

By the way, my landlord gave me an interesting tip about buying a public housing unit known as an HDB flat in Singapore. He recommended that I buy a unit that has at least three rooms with a floor area of around 1,000 square feet, because they tend to attract well-to-do, highly-educated residents who have relatively decent public manners. While this piece of advice might sound a bit politically incorrect, I think my landlord has a point there, because once again, cheap valuation of a property is a reflection of a variety of issues that are not immediately visible to the investor.

Regardless of whether you’re buying or renting, knowing your preferences well is critical in making the decision about finalizing a deal. For example, I’m someone who tends to attach more importance to the value of time compared to other people, so spending more than half an hour commuting to and from work is out of the question for me. Naturally, I’m willing to pay a premium on a normal rate to live in a place with easy access to train and bus stations. Just because something is expensive doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment decision, as long as it suits your particular needs well.

Property investment has been a hot subject for me for years, as it concerns the critical matter of putting a roof over my head. Whether I’m buying or renting, I’d like to be clear-headed about what I really want and be able to make a fully informed decision in the end.