In the Course of Routine in a City Suburb

The air definitely feels more than a tad nippy.

The clouds overhead suggest of arriving snow fall, not within the immediate neighbourhood, but more likely kilometres away to the south, where this year's skiing season is due to begin.

Passerbys adorn that extra layer of cosiness, but more because there is a bite of chill from the single digit temperature overnight.

I head straight to the little bakery inside an arcade.  I know precisely what I want.  Not for eating on the spot but like a squirrel in a forest, I am saving the baked delights for another day, the culinary delights with flakiness, bite and fillings.

Yes, there they are behind the glass display.  However, there are several eager people already queqing when I arrive. Indoors, I feel warm enough to wait.

There are three compact shopping centres next to each other.   I easily navigate to another building.  Having not been back there for several months, I am eager to explore, to see if familiarity is still there, but also ready to realise if change has come about.

My subtle expectations of change are right on my path and in my eyes.  The once bustling cafe at a corner is gone.   An ethnic food eatery has its doors closed, an obviously not a good sign.  The bigger restaurant across the aisle has changed names.  Centre tenants come and go.  So it is a delight to see people still take the escalator to a long standing brunch and lunch place on the second floor.

I explore the spaces between rhe shelves in a still existing supermart on the ground floor.

The meet up for lunch with friends is at a recently renovated venue along the main road, but it is still two hours away for that catch up.

So I continue wandering into another building.   I check the custard apples at a fresh produce hall but today they are highly priced.  I relax looking at Japanese made packaging and kitchen items at a low price Daiso joint.  I bought the smallest kitchen filter sink that I needee to replace for years, a break to a lingering procastination.

Then I stumble into a cooked fresh food stall offering takeaways at a good deal of a price.  I cannot resist an exotic dish that I do not know how to make.  So I fall for the choice of pan fried cumin lamb, perhaps so appropriate to partake in this cool season.  There is also a queue lining up for the lamb and chicken.

I proceed to the main street.  It is now chock a block with vehicular traffic, underlying the hustle and bustle of the trading and economic activity there.  I look for a huge and well stocked kitchen ware outlet, but its doors remain well shut today.  I wonder why.  I quietly pray it is not closed, for I got a well made wok there a few years ago.

I pop into a place selling porcelain and furniture from the Orient.  I check out another family run bakery, spot their versions of small chicken pies and pork rolls. I wonder if their version makes the mark.  I get takeaway, no harm trying them once for a start.

The sun comes up, the breeze outside tones down.

I park myself at a contemporary bakery, yes another one, as the restaurant I am heading to for lunch with friends is just across the busy road.  All the walking around so far has energised my body more - and now I need a drink.

Enough hot coffee is my thought.  So I get a bit adventurous and try a new fangled concoction.  It is a cold brew but laced with a fruity flavour.  What am I thinking of, it is still a cold day.

My trying that contemporary brew turns out all right.  It has hydrated me at the right spot and moment.

I cross the road and line up in front of the door to the lunch time venue. The place is full, buzzing with hungry appetites, eager faces and endless chatter.

A middle edged lady rudely speaks to the elderly gentleman waiting at the door, telling him in an over the top voice that he is blocking the way.  The day had been pleasant for me since dawn - and even if such uncalled behaviour was not addressed to me, it broke the magical idyll when a day has been perfect.

#yongkevthoughts

Carving Up or Preservation of Territory

 Contemporary history continues the pattern of changing of boundaries and territories as the fortunes, power and fate of empires, states and societies vary through the course of time.

While some political states have largely maintained their lands, others have been afflicted with division, separation and takeover.

Nations are not created just because we share the same culture, religion or ethnic ties. States can be seen to hold diversity - and that can be both a strength and vulnerability.

Nations have been created or broken up for political convenience, as a result of violent conflict or subject to a powerful leadership past or present.

Europe is often cited as having the affliction of constant changing boundaries, small or large lands affected. Parts of Germany and France have switched to one or the other. The break up of the Austrian Hungarian Empire resulted in a platter of several kingdoms.  Scandinavia was once dominated by Sweden.  Italy was only formed in the late 19th century.   The end of the Soviet Union in 1989 mushroomed independent countries from Central Asia to the Baltic States.

Africa today retains the colonial map of the 20th century, even if independent states are in power today, instead of the carve up amongst the colonists from Italy, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and Britain.

Across Asia, several nations echo broken parts of what once was one.  India and Pakistan were separated based on religion when the British gave independence to the subcontinent.  The Korean peninsular underwent through a dramatic war between what was touted to be between communism and capitalism. Vietnam was broken in two when the French left in the 1950s, suffered a long bitter and violent conflict during the American War and finally was reunited under a nationalistic Communist regime.

In the Western Hemisphere, Mexican land was purchased by the burgeoning United States in the latter's expansionist phase going westwards in the 19th century.   Alaska was also bought from the Russian Empire in the late 19th century.

The United States controlled Panama after they built the canal that connected both Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This is an example of territorial  takeover in bits strategic to trade and geopolitics.

The 1895 defeat by the Japanese of a weak China saw the start of Taiwan under Japanese rule, until the break up of the Imperial Japanese forces in August 1945.

When the original territory of nations are divided, there are significant implications for the people caught on either side of the separation. Think of Berlin during the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union.  Reflect of how Koreans have been split up since the ceasefire from so many years ago.

#yongkevthoughts

To Remove One's Self from the Circus

 I do note people I know, in a very calming way, not get agitated, in fact may not even consciously notice, any particular episode or seemingly endless trend, in geopolitics or even localised uproar.

Contemporary society, whether in news readings on broadcasts or telecasts, or in the relentless social media of podcasts, video clips, instantaneous messaging or captivating agenda filled weblinks, overloads the recipient with so much information, many of them silo views, political or commercial agendas, that no one individual can truly grasp the reality behind it all.   And do not even add the role of AI blurring the lines between virtuality, manipulation, tampering, factual and opinion.

So my attention has been to try to understand these individuals who seemingly are not affected by these increasingly intrusive diversions.

Their mindset sails on mostly uncaring of such external events or oblivious to such distractions.

Their personal attitudes seems so charmed, not bothered about the latest conflict, natural disaster or political gaffe, even if it happens not geographically far from where they live.

Are they burying ostrich like heads in the sand?

Are they protecting themselves Amish like or cleverly not allowing the vagaries of outside life affect their seeming inner peace?

They are not like individuals I hear about having burnout from the relentless commercial push, then changing to a completely different lifestyle away from disillusionment and societal demands.  These people I am discussing about on the contrary carry on in the suburbs and do not show obvious signs of having made a drastic sea change.

One thing they teach me is that most things are temporary.  Events hyped about usually reverse and change, so they advise me to just observe and bend with the flow, breeze and temperature.

They also make me wake up to the fact most things in the course of nature are beyond our internal influence, action or cause.  Matters of destruction are naturally followed by adjustment, regrowth and reconstruction.

Many are influenced by philosophical or religious belief.

Some are convinced in their personal comfort and faith that they do not have to react at all, because the only importance they respond to is to their spiritual superior. And all things in their personal life are decided by this factor.

So such people I know remain unfazed by most external matters. They can remain immune to influencers, politicians, snakeoil sales men and peddlers outside their own world of orbit.

There are other individuals with special armour not to be caught up in the distractions of the contemporary world.

Advanced Buddhist practitioners are focused on their continuing journey through various states of unending existence - their aim is eventually for their soul not to be reborn.  So the trappings of current life are to be ignored.

Others are so focussed or obsessed with their personal passions, specialisations or inherent drives, that external matters are just trivia.

So amidst the increased networks of technology, communication and information, I find it captivating there are individuals who are not so affected by the clutter, noise and bang.

#yongkevthoughts

And Where Are You From?

 There are Jews who are so because of their focus on heritage and culture.

There are Israelis who are so mainly because they are Zionists.

I am Malaysian by background, culture and heritage, not by race.

Some in Australia incorrectly reckon I am Malay, just because I come from Malaysia. They mix up nationality with ethnic origin.

The age of colonisation from the 16th to 20th centuries have resulted in many individuals sharing the heritage of the Indigenous and the conquerors.  Think of South and Central America, Australia, India, the Phillippines,

Lebanon, the USA and Canada.

Across south-east Asia, migrants from India and China in the same recent five centuries have also married and set up families with the already diverse ethnic groups residing there.  Today their off spring are popularly referred to as Peranakan Indians and Straits Chinese.  

(Peranakan as one may know is the Malay word for "local born".)

Those who have family trees from both European and Asian sides, originating from the age of the rise of Euro sailing trading powers across Asia,  are popularly known as Eurasians.

There are Portuguese Eurasians ( think of Goa and Malacca), Dutch Eurasians, Anglo-Saxon Eurasians (reflect on Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore) and Spanish Eurasians (the Phillippines).

Their numbers have dwindled in Singapore and Malaysia, perhaps due to emigration.  However many young people across Australia, UK, USA, NZ and Canadia today are the new generation of Eurasians in the 21st century.

In societies that make citizens and residents hold an identity card by law, are Eurasians recognised as an independent ethnic group on their own?  Chindians in Singapore have to choose either Indian or Chinese to state in official papers.

For their own reasons, several political entities insist on identifying and compartmentalising the race and religion of their residents.  Others do not because it suggests discrimination.

So an Australian, British and Canadian need not necessarily be of Caucasian origin.

Residents of homogenous cultural nations can find it hard to accept that an Australian can be African in appearance, a Canadian is Indian and a Peruvian is of Japanese origin.

How much do emigrants settled in a new nation hold strong links back to the mother culture? 

There is strong emphasis by the Japanese on such things.

Indian women proudly adorn their traditional dresses.  Muslims are strongly bound by their religious convention.

Chinese tend to everyday wear contemporary Western styles in their adopted lands, bringing out the cultural wardrobes on festival dates.

Improved economic ability, easier air travel, technologically facilitated contacts and more physical interaction amongst the diverse demographics of the human species have also resulted in more intermixing of DNAs, genes and cultural richness.

The evolving development of an European union is also helped by increased marriages of people from the so many different cultures on the continent.

#yongkevthoughts

Universities Today

 There are 166 universities in the United Kingdom -  currently there are 3 Vice Chancellors in a British university with a South Asian background.

1.  Leceister Uni  - Nishan Canagarajah.

2.  Kings College London - Shitij Kapur.

3.  Canterbury Christ Church University  - Rama Thirunamachandran

The only VC in Britain with an East Asian background is Max Lu of the University of Surrey, who has recently been appointed by the University of Wollongong NSW in Australia as its new VC.

There are 43 universities in Australia.  No one with a South Indian background has been appointed a VC in this Antipodes nation.

No non ethnic Malays have served as VC of any university in Malaysia.

No non ethnic Chinese currently serve as a University VC in Singapore.

There are eight universities in New Zealand with no VCs of Asian origin.
Damon Salesa of Samoan origin is the current VC of the Auckland University of Technology.

In Canada, Mohamed Lachemi serves as VC of the Toronto Metropolitan Univsrsity.
Deep Saini is VC of McGill University and is of Punjabi origin.  There are around 100 universities across Canada.

Across the Australian university sector, there is an obvious under representation of females as Vice-Chancellors.

Are VC roles supposed to reflect the mores and uniqueness of each society?
Or are they increasingly chosen for abilities in corporate management, strategic leadership and financial
prowess, as higher educational instutitions become more of competitive
behemoths obsessed with research rankings, easy student revenues and corporate growth?

Universities do not pay tax and are inherently community entities to start with, originally meant to serve the ideals of education, inspiring thinking, academic growth and embedding benefits from society ideals.   They have now grown to be jaggernauts which can prioritise high level commercialisation over those of teaching, learning and student experience.

Universities are not accountable to shareholders and yet now operate like commercial entities.   The equivalent of a corporate Board can be in University Councils, whose members should be a broad based demographic but increasingly stacked with political aspirations and corporatised vibes.

There are universities burdened and yet enriched with historical traditions.   There are universities which carry the torch of enlightenment and innovativeness in ages of oppression, extremism and backwardness.   Universities are best when they develop the minds and behaviours of progress and reform for the larger society outside their campuses.
Our contemporary age has never seen so many numbers attending university.

Yet universities can be held captive by the overwhelming control of geopolitics.   Donations for such institutions are significantly important, whether in knowledge, finance or human effort.   Universities do not stand alone well by themselves, but are best to serve when they have a collective will and purpose to advance the course of continuing human civilisation.

#yongkevthoughts