A Guitarist and A Mathematician

I always think that Rana resembles me when I was a kid in a lot of ways - his preference of toys, his fascination in stairs despite his fear of height :-) - reminds me of my childhood. That’s why when I play Lego with him, I usually also build things that I liked when I was a kid, like ships, robots, and jet fighters. But one day, when he played Lego, I saw him constructed something that I never saw before. A guitar. The guitar was small, that’s why I then made a bigger version for him (I was thinking of buying him a guitar toy - I saw some in 100 yen shop :-) - but then I remember that when I was a kid I also didn’t have all the toys that I wanted, but I was always able to make a makeshift from Lego and it was a lot of fun. I don’t want to steal that kind of exciting experience from him, that’s why I didn’t buy him a guitar toy).

It’s not the fact that he was able to make his own guitar that surprised me, it was the fact that he was thinking about making guitar. When I was a kid, I often saw guitars and guitarists, but I never thought to make one with Lego. I made telephones, cameras, jet fighters, robots, even space shuttles, but never guitar. While on the other hand, Rana rarely saw guitar here, but still, he built his own Lego guitar. Is this what it’s called by talent? Well, I am not a believer in the concept of passion (any skill or activity that you are willing to invest on for a certain amount of time will become your ‘passion’ eventually), but I do believe that each of us was born with multiple talents that can always be leveled up throughout our lifetime. Maybe one of Rana’s talents is music, or even mathematics (studies showed that the brain area that we use for playing music is the same as that for math thinking), I don’t know. But if one day he comes to me and says, ‘I want to be a guitarist!’, I will let him choose the road that he will embark forward (of course after he finishes his compulsory education). The same will apply if he says that he wants to be a mathematician. (Well, if I ask him now, I think he will say that he wants to be a train driver, which would also be superb :-) ).

But of course I don’t want him to be just another guitarist, or just another mathematician. If he chooses to be a guitarist, I will show him how good Eddie Van Halen with his guitar techniques (both in the sense of proficiency and mechanical: he’s a damn excellent guitarist, and his idea of using power drill to play guitar or his experiment with changing guitar’s stem and body made him more than just a great guitarist). Or, if I wanna nudge him to a higher education, I can also mention that Bryan May holds a Ph.D in Astrophysics. If he chooses to become a mathematician, I can introduce him to Leibniz, who was also well versed in theory of music. Or maybe the fact that Einstein was also good at playing violin will be enough to make him realize that there is no harm in excelling at multiple fields.

And Rana, if you’re already big enough when you read this stuff and still not certain which path to choose, just come to me. I might not have all the answers that you need, but I still can tell you the story of a farmer and a consultant (you know my son, perhaps it would be hard to believe, but once upon a time, a long long time ago, your father was a management consultant :-) ). I believe that the story would chase all your worries away :-).

Another lesson from toilet

It's 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm still wide awake, backing up my old data and pictures to blu-ray disks. I've been thinking about doing this since ages, but the sight of piles of files was always able to make me figure out some excuses to 'reschedule' it on some other times :-). Well, anyways, now that I finally got myself together and started the file grouping and burning, I absentmindedly browsed through my old pictures and stumbled on this particular shot form inside a toilet in Yamagata (yeah, toilet is my favorite picture hunting spot :-) ). Because I think the content is deep enough to ponder over, not only while you're sitting there in a toilet :-), I'd like to share it here.

The title is 五戒 - loosely translated into "Five Lessons" - similar to Japanese version of Buddhism teaching, however, the contents is different. I loosely translated them below. As usual, take it if you think it's good, and just leave it if not.

If you feel that life is too painful, it means that you still don’t know how to be grateful.
If you feel that life is too hard, it means that you are overindulged.
If you feel that life is too sad, it means that you only think about yourself.
If you feel that life is too daunting, it means that you do not live to the fullest.
If you feel that life always holds you back, it mean that you are still not true to yourself.

Villain's Fangirl

 

(Partly for Rana, when he grows up :-) )

Finally Rana became an ordinary Japanese child. No, we didn’t turn his nationality to Japanese :-), we said so just because he started to like Anpanman :-). I remember when Farah was expecting Rana, Matsuda-san give us baby’s record book bag portraying characters from Anpanman series, and she said that every Japanese babies grew up to like Anpanman. I’ve seen a lot of kids’ merchandise with Anpanman character on them which basically support that assertion, however, even though I’ve seen the anime myself couple of times, I still couldn’t understand why the anime so popular with the children. The characters’ drawing was doraemon-level simple and the story was even more simpler - but maybe it was the simplicity that make it a hit among children. Anyway, now with Rana adored it, and Farah said that she couldn’t get the Anpaman theme song out of her head (she accompanied Rana watching it :-) ), I got a real life evidences about how enchanting Anpanman is.

While I watched Rana sang along the closing theme of Anpanman - only partly - with his often out of tune cute voice (I think he inherited my tone deafness :-) ), I started to realized that he preferred Baikinman - the villain - rather than Anpanman himself. Like, he was able to sing Baikinman’s part in the song before the Anpanman’s part. Moreover, he looked more excited while watching Baikinman on action rather than Anpanman. Well, I and Farah didn’t mind at all about that, since we ourselves often fall for the villain rather than the hero of a story (like, if you take Harry Potter for example, I already liked Snape before it was known that he was innocent, and Farah was also always rooting for Malfoy :-) ). And as I also often got stuck in front of the TV when the Anpanman show was aired (and yes, I couldn’t get the theme song out of my head now :-) ), I started to know the story, and I also started to learn the other side of Baikinman character.

The relation of Baikinman to Anpanman was more or less similar to the relation between Lex Luthor and Superman. Like Superman, Anpanman is the mightiest man (cake? :-) ) in his universe, well beyond Baikinman, and of course like any other classic superhero, he used it for the good. On the other hand, Baikinman knew that only with his power he wouldn’t be able to win against Anpanman, so he did all he could to be able to beat Anpanman. He devised some machine, schemed some strategy - all to beat Anpanman, and of course he always failed in the end. I knew Baikinman is a bad guy, but seeing how hard he tried, actually I started to feel that he was too good to always end up in failure. Moreover, seeing how he constructed his machinery, he must be a great engineer - and for someone who got engineering background like me, it was easy to fall for him :-).

I wish I can said that Rana liked Baikinman because of his hard work, or because of his engineering prowess, but it would be a lie (I think he liked him because he was a bit mischievous, or even simpler, just because of his color :-) ). But that’s okay. One day when he grow up and look back and find that he once like Baikinman, instead of turn to hate him, I hope he will be able to focus on his good traits and learn from them. Anyway, in some of the episodes, it was revealed that Baikinman sometimes helped others when Anpanman was not around, and even turned down an invitation of a princess that accidentally being helped by him by saying “I’m the villain here, I cannot accept it.” (Really cool line indeed. Specially when you consider that it came from an anime intended for toddlers :-) )

All in all, maybe sometimes it is easier to be a villain. As a hero, there will be a lot of expectation from around you, some sort of decorum that would bind your behavior. On the other hand, there are no rules for villain, you can do as you please, even helping others like what a hero supposes to do. The difference is that people around you won’t care about the good that you did. But that’s should be okay, isn’t it? For we do the good deeds because they need to be done, not just to please those who try to judge us.

Third Time Lucky

Do you notice that there are some people around you that really care about you? Well, I do notice. They really make my day enjoyable, and even those hard days would feel tolerable with their help. Some (or most? :-) ) of them are even care about my relationship status, and was eager to become matchmaker when they found out that I was still single :-). One of them was Mr. K, who played that role for me several times.

The first ‘encounter’ happened several months leading to my departure to Japan. I was helping Mr. K with a project, and we spent quite a time together, tried to complete it on time with ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ played at the background (we prefer to called the song ‘Parking Lot’, though :-), and it was supplied by G who also worked in the project). It was then that out of the blue he asked me the million dollar question :-): ”Awan, sorry if I’m asking you this, but do you have girlfriend?”
I was in a relationship at that time, so my reply was, “Yes. Why is it, sir?”
“Well, actually I’m thinking about introducing you to a girl. She’s the Al Quran reading teacher of my daughters. She’s a fine girl...”

As surprised as I was to hear the question, you can guess that the topic didn’t go far from that. Later Mr. K informed me that the girl actually already had someone, and I remember Mrs. E (Mr. K’s wife) commented, “You should have been able to tell that both of them are already not available...” :-)

Moving forward 5 years later, the second ‘encounter’ occurred, this time I was already in Japan. Out of the blue (again :-) ) we received email from Mr. K. What I meant by ‘we’ here were A, M, Z and me, the member of FPE group, a research group under Mr. K back in my undergraduate days. Mr. K asked us whether we know someone that could be introduced to a girl and willing to explore the possibility on having serious relationship that hopefully would last for all eternity..., or to make it sort: someone who is interested in matchmaking :-). A quickly mentioned me and B (quasi-member of FPE :-) ) as candidates. At that time I was still not thinking about marriage, but I said I wouldn’t refuse because it’s a good chance to make new acquaintance, and Mr. K was okay with that.
“Good then”, he replied. ”Do you have facebook account? I think it will be easier to do it via facebook.”

And by this, now you know why I have a facebook account... :-) 

Similar to the first one, this encounter didn’t progress further. I did open a facebook account, however, I was busy finishing my doctoral curse, oops, course, I meant :-), and preparing for work, so I didn’t take any follow up on the talk. I even didn’t do much on facebook, didn’t put any profile picture and other detail for several months. When finally the dust from my doctoral defense and newcomer training had settled and I got a chance to take a breath, I completely forgot about the whole matchmaking talk - until along came that historic day :-).

This time I already work in a University in Japan, and I got a chance to visit my former university for a business trip. It’s been a while that I didn’t meet the professors, so when there was a chance I slipped out of the meeting room and visit Mr. B, my thesis advisor, who later brought me to Mr. K room. Mr. K looked glad to meet me again, and after some small talk, he proceeded to ask me, this time with the million and one dollar question :-): “Have you married?”
“I simply replied, “Not yet.”
“That’s okay. I’ll introduce you to someone”, he looked around his room, stopped his stare at F who by fate :-) was there, and then continued, “First, I would like to introduce you to F.”

We greeted each other, but again, no magic seemed to happen. We continued our conversation and that was it. A couple of weeks past, and when I thought that the matchmaking talk would again dissolve into thin air, I got a message from Mr. K.
“Awan, do you remember F that I introduced to you the other day? Don’t you want to know about her a bit more? I asked her about you just now, and she just smiled, so I think she’s not refusing.”

I really didn’t know what made Mr. K really wanted to pair me with F, but I thought F was a fine girl, so I didn’t mind to give it a try. Later I knew from F that actually Mrs. E was the one who told Mr. K to let me start the contact. When Mr. K was busy asking F about what she’d think about me (and F was busy pretended to ignore :-) ), Mrs. E told him to send me a message instead and let me start the connection. And fast forwarding several months into the future (exactly 2 years ago :-) ), we took the picture above.
(Actually, a lot of things happened during that ‘several months’, but it can fill another note, so I won’t write it here :-) )

From this whole matchmaking process, I realized how important the combination of chance and preparedness - or I prefer to call ‘luck’ here. I could have entered Mr. K room one or two years earlier, and I might still found F sitting there, but there was no guarantee that our story would unfold as smooth as this. One or two years earlier, I or F might still not thinking about getting married, and the matchmaking talk could end up like the previous two. I think it was because both of us were ‘ready’ when we got the ‘chance’ to meet - or simply said because we were ‘lucky’ - that finally we decided to bring it on only in a matter of months.
(Anyway, both I and F have some experiences before our meeting that made us feel like we were prepared for our encounter. Whether that was real or just our feeling, only God knows.)

And I don’t mind at all that we were just ‘lucky’ to have found each other. I believe God never plays dice on us (yeah, I know Einstein possibly didn’t tell the quote for this meaning, but I like to use it that way anyway :-) ). I believe there should be some reason behind the luck that was bestowed to us. So if you want a piece of advice from me: just prepare for it if you want something, I believe that the chance will spring up in front of you by the time you are ready.

And for Mr. K and Mrs. E: Thank you very much for never give up on me :-).

Universal Communication Device

When I was in Charleston 7 years ago, on my way to the grocery I saw this big man carrying his small daughter. Our eyes met (the child I meant :-) ), and she smiled spontaneously. It’s really hard to resist a beam from an angel like that :-), so my lips automatically formed a grin. The father who saw me smiling looked at his daughter, and when he found that she smiled, he also smiled at me. The mother that followed behind him also smiled, and the grandmother even took the time to stop and chat about how fine the weather that day was with me.

Now, it was in Pursat, and the ‘angel’ was a boy. I saw him standing with his father when I went to a market, and after looked at each other several times, we just start smiled at each other. The father who saw that also smiled at me, and later we were even waving at each other. We stood quite far from each other, so we didn’t have the time to hold a conversation - well, even if we were standing close enough, I think we still wouldn’t talk because of my Khmer lexicon that was limited to words such as fish, delicious, and thank you :-) - anyway, the smiling and waving really made me feel welcomed.

Regardless the culture, a smile, especially from a child, can almost always melt a heart. Maybe because they do it so sincerely, so it blows away all the suspicions. Even though it is one of the most primitive way of communicating, as long as it works, I don’t mind at all to always use it, because it can represent thousands of cordial words. The most sophisticated communication device could sometimes get in the way and ruin our communication anyway, so the trendy stuffs are not always the best :-). Moreover, Rana was really good at communicating using smile to me and Farah. He often used it after he did mischievous things such as emptying the box of tissue or tearing off a page from a book :-), and we usually just forgot about what he had done. Well, with a cherubic smile like that, who can hold a grudge against him for a long time? :-)

(Now I really miss Rana (and Farah too... :-) ) )

Metal Bonding

(Well, the content of this note is not related to the type of bonding that responsible for the ability of some materials to conduct electricity (even though I do have some educational background in chemistry and engineering), nor it is related to the type of music that heavily uses electric guitar and drum (even though all the 6 music groups on my favorite list in Facebook play this kind of music, including the idol one). Anyways, if you notice the picture of the post and happen to have some knowledge in RPG, you might be able to guess where this post heading to :-). )

Having too many stuffs in your storage box often made you lose count of what you have there. And because Farah read some books by Mari Kondo recently (do some googling if you want to know who is she), we decided to follow the advice and do some cleaning of the storage. And indeed, I found tons of stuffs that I’ve already forgot I have them (like: “why did I keep this cat ears band?” or “so there where the other half of my socks went” :-) ).

It was then when I stumbled on the Nintendo DS that had been covered by dust for several centuries (Exaggeration of course. We had just moved to this apartment less than a year :-) ). Long time ago, when I was still young (oops!), I used to play dragon quest in that Nintendo DS. I was wondering whether Farah ever play such games, so I showed her the DS.
“Have you ever played dragon quest?”
“I’ve never played RPG at all.”
“Then you should try this. This is fun!”

I still kept some of the game ROMs, so we played. We were into it, therefore later we searched the net for a decent used Nintendo DS and bought it, so we could play Dragon Quest IX multiplayer together.

Some of you might think that our home would fall silent after that, because both of us too busy with our game to hold any conversation. But it was not. We still talked as usual, but now some of the conversation was altered to stuffs from another dimension :-).
 
If you ever played RPG, you might have known that you need to increase your level in order to gain strength and more ability such as spells. This level gain can be achieved by battling monsters and accumulating experience. In dragon quest series, the best way to level up is by battling metal monsters such as metal slimes, since they will grant you loads of experience points. However, the trouble with them is that they are very hard to find, and it requires some decent strategy to beat them efficiently. In dragon quest IX, since a player can travel to other player’s game, we often visited each other world and did metal hunting together. It’s basically a more efficient way, because by doing it together, the area that could be covered to find those metals will be wider, and of course it was easier to beat the monsters together.

So, during the metal hunting, it was normal to hear us call to each other like “come to the upper left corner, I stumped on a metal here” or “where are you? I found two of them here.” :-)

And since the places where the metal monsters exist usually also be inhabited by strong creatures, the calls sometimes turned into distress calls like “come here quickly, I’m cornered by Earthenwarriors!” or “help, I almost got stomped by living statue!” That’s why we need also to watch each other back there, providing each other with medicinal herbs or magic water if the HP and MP are already low.

And suddenly we realized that playing this game could turn into another way of bonding.
 
In contrary to conventional believe that suggests playing electronic game will diminish communication, it can also be used for bonding to make the players get close to each other. I’m not by any way trying to promote dragon quest here :-), I just want to mention that sometimes games can also give us benefit if we use it the right way. (And I recommend Dragon Quest IV or V if you’re looking for good story :-) ).
 
Now I am thinking to introduce the game to our children too (if we bless with some) when we think the time is already right for them to play it. Rather than forbid them to play a decent game and then have them play behind our back, I prefer to let them play, thus we will still be able to give some guidance. Moreover, by doing so, I could show up by demonstrating how to blow a liquid metal slime with thunder thrust, or perhaps they could also watch their mother sweeps king metal slime with hatchet man (I used spear when I hunt metal, while Farah use axe :-) ).
 
One thing for sure, the game definitely added to the memory share by me and Farah. So, when one day you heard us having an absurd conversation like the following, you would be able to guess why. 
“Do you remember the time when we visit Bowhole, love? The one near the Wormwood Creek.”
“Was it when we almost be swept by Dracularge, dear?”
“Yes, it was. And the Harmours were also hard to beat...”
:-)

Stamp Saga Sequel

I first came to Japan in 2003, and the first 年賀状 (Japanese new year card) that I received was for the year of 2004 - the year of monkey. Since 2016 is another year of monkey, I came to realize that 12 years had passed since the time I received those cards with monkey bathing on an 温泉 (Japanese hot spring spa), or was it a 銭湯 (Japanese public bathhouse)?, anyway, they used the monkey to decorate the stamp.
 
And guess what, not only Star Wars saga that got a new sequel recently - it looked like the monkey also got a sequel in his bathing saga :-). If you compare the stamp of this year 年賀状 to that of 12 years ago, you’d see the monkey was no longer alone. An infant bathed alongside him. Japan post office left the explanation about the relation between the monkey and the infant to our imagination, but for me it looked like they are parent and child. Twelve years is a long period of time, and a lot of things must have happened on the monkey - including having an offspring :-).
 
Life is full of lessons, and if you ask me what can be learn from those monkeys on the stamp, I’d say it is the fact that life always changes, and you need to change for the better as time pass by. Come to think about it, I changed a lot compared to the boy that came to Japan 12 years ago - and I hope it was for the good :-). Well, unlike the monkey, I still don’t have an infant bathing together with me right now :-), but at least I’m not alone in my recipient address of this year 年賀状 - Farah is here now. But similar to the monkey, a lot of happen in the last 12 years span, both good and bad. I couldn’t control what happen to me, but at least I can choose what kind of impact it has on me, so I hope I was able to make use good of them – either the good things or bad things, I hope they were all left a good mark on me.
 
By the way, the 2004 new year card in the picture above was from Yanagida, and this year we were still exchanging new year card. The way to see it, how we change from complete strangers more than 12 years ago to a good friends like now, I amazed on how big the power of time - it can make you strengthen thing, or make it worse. Again, it is all up to us. And I’m glad I used the time to strengthen the friendship :-).