Today marks the Singles’ Day or Bachelors’ Day, which I learned from Wikipedia originated at Nanjing University in 1993, but has now spread throughout China and even adopted in the West and highly commercialized. I first knew of the date when my first mentor, Joe, celebrated his 80th birthday some years back and his wife…
Su asked me last week to clear my diary for last evening to accompany her and her longtime friend from New York City, which I did. It turned out that he was her ex-colleague in Morgan Stanley operating mainly from NYC, but unbeknown to her had worked in Hong Kong for a month in 1993…
This is a quote from “A Few Good Men” which is a 1992 film featuring Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, among others. It was a low budget film – $40 Million – but which grossed more than $243 million and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film didn’t win…
I left off nearly a month ago – when the war between Israel and Hamas was in its fifth day – expecting to come back very soon to discuss the position of the United States on Israel. Obviously, I had other priorities. I have a life. My priorities are to stay healthy, corporeally and mentally,…
Mid-Autumn has passed for more than ten days and the northeast monsoon has been working hard, but we faced more tropical storms and typhoons last week. Koinu had taken a rather mysterious path from the early days, causing severe damage along its way. Earlier weather forecast had some people warning for another direct hit on…
Before I knew, it was nearly a month since I posted my last blog when I stopped short of saying that it seemed inevitable that the West would continue to decline; and indeed, since then, a number of friends had forwarded me a video on an interview on LBC with a Chinese official who, in…
Last week, an SCMP columnist wrote that “the sun has already set on the nation they call Great Britain” and questioned whether it (UK) is a failed or failing state. I put that to a young man my son’s age who had recently migrated to UK on the BNOer scheme and asked for his reading….
I found myself spending a weekend in Singapore with a few Masonic Brethren two of whom were accompanied by their spouse. Su actually booked my passage and hotel accommodation, but decided last minute not to join me because the programme wasn’t sufficiently attractive and the stay was too short for her purpose. Indeed, my activities…
I left off some ten days ago with the hope of writing something light. Well, adjectives are always problematic, for what is light to one may be perceived by another as weighty, controversial, incomprehensible and probably irrelevant. But never mind. Let me try. I have been advised to abstain from alcohol while on the TCM…
Paul Wan who gave me unconditional approval to use the original photo he had taken of me for the cover of my first memoir humored me on my threat to write a sequel, suggesting that his experience of sequels – based on movie series – had been such that sequels normally couldn’t match the original….
