Big Money Phenomenon

Finally, a credible take on this thing called Neuro-linguistic Programming and it appeared in the ST, written by Andy Ho (Of course, I wrote about it briefly once here at https://akbywerk2.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/fearful-phenomenon/):

Neuro-linguistic classes? Think twice

13 November 2010

WITH the end-of-year school holidays upon us, parents may be packing their children off to learning camps involving ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ (NLP). But some worried parents are asking if this is ‘brainwashing’ as NLP trainers say they analyse learning styles and reprogramme brains to improve learning.

Though popular among personal development circles, NLP remains taboo for health-care clinicians. This is because it has never been thoroughly subjected to scientific scrutiny.

The meagre scientific research on NLP involves mainly lab studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s. These did not find support for NLP.

However, the use of NLP in real clinical contexts has never been scientifically studied. Academics are leery of the fact that anyone can become a certified NLP practitioner after a 14-day course and then be certified to train others after a 21-day trainer course.

Conversely, there seems to be little reason for NLP practitioners to subject themselves to scientific studies as they perceive academe to be hostile.

Despite its name, NLP has nothing to do with neuroscience, linguistics or computer programming. Practitioners explain that ‘neuro’ in NLP refers to the neurons in the brain that send, receive and process signals that become information; ‘linguistic’ refers to the signals moving across the networks of neurons in our brains that are interpreted into thoughts; and ‘programming’ is about manipulating the content of those signals into useful thoughts. One’s internal experience (neuro), language (linguistic) and behavioural patterns (programming) are purportedly interconnected in systematic ways.

In traditional psychotherapy, building long-term individual relationships between therapist and client to unearth the roots of a psychological problem is stressed. By contrast, in NLP, dozens of trainees are together subjected to days of intense instruction on how to unearth their personal obstacles towards a fulfilling life.

Much is made about observing behaviour and learning how to read ‘body language’. Unlike psychotherapists, NLP practitioners do not look for the roots of a psychological problem. Instead, they focus on how to solve it by homing in on how one communicates. What they emphasise is one’s verbal language, body language and eye movements.

The basic premise in NLP is that how people express themselves outwardly reveals how they perceive and represent their problems internally. That internal representation may involve any of the five senses, which is supposedly mirrored in one’s choice of words, tone of voice, body posture, eye movements and so on.

For example, someone in a visual mode may say, ‘I see a way to…’, while a person who has auditory images could say, ‘That sounds right to me’. If I tweak my nose while talking to you, I think your idea stinks. And so on.

But the small body of scientific research available shows no correlation between word choice or eye movement and reported thoughts.

In NLP, your words are analysed, your facial expressions scrutinised and your body language monitored. In this way, your internal state is elucidated and any negative mental associations therein identified. Next, your thoughts are remodelled to overcome these associations. The way to do this depends on learning about and imitating the patterns of thinking successful people supposedly have. Thus recognising successful patterns of thinking is key to modelling human excellence in NLP.

Practitioners have supposedly studied the thinking, language patterns, internal imagery and behaviour patterns of individuals who are masters of a particular capability.

They have extracted models of how these individuals – say, Walt Disney – work, which lesser mortals may then adopt.

Writing with co-author Carmen Bostic St Clair, in the book Whispering In the Wind, NLP co-founder John Grinder says people can be trained to model these patterns and assimilate the exemplar’s capability.

NLP promotes the idea that ‘reality’ is something one defines and constructs individually. Such constructions are maps of the world to guide action even if they are not truly the same as the real world.

Trainers agree that NLP seeks to manipulate behaviour by installing new beliefs or ‘reprogramming’ the brain. They often exhort trainees to test NLP for themselves.

But such ‘testing’ is subject to peer pressure and the fear of a backlash (imagined or real) if a trainee expresses scepticism. Remember, trainee participants are closeted away from the real world in a small group where there is likely to be intense peer pressure to conform. Moreover, one is probably loath to express disbelief in something for which one has paid a tidy sum.

But glowing testimonials are no substitutes for real data from rigorous scientific studies conducted under controlled conditions to ensure people are not deceiving themselves.

If you have the money to put your child through some motivational programme, NLP may do little harm. But your child may not get straight As next year as a result. Take these claims with more than a pinch of salt.

*

A lot of things are unproven in life but people still would believe in them, and the power of belief is strong (eg: placebo effect) and it may ultimately work. The trick/trigger is confidence.

Coincidentally where I’m working at now there is currently consideration about engaging a team of trainers to ‘impart’ some skills to some of the teachers/lecturers here, and strangely I ended up on this team by no design of mine. And coincidentally this team of trainers were the ones who were engaged by my previous employer to train us. There’s also no surprise if I am to tell you that we (at my previous employment) didn’t have many good things to say about takeaways of the training as we have already been either well-trained by Moe’s or seasoned by the brutality of time and tide at AMK. To be fair, they probably are useful, but we were the wrong crowd to be trained. I think I know who were those smarty pants who believed we needed those skills, who assumed we didn’t have those skills (I think there were indeed a few really clueless ones who needed the help, but nobody consulted us on the supposed needs where it was apparently not obvious that our needs were time time time.) That’s a lot of money wasted.

So anyway, after the initial meeting with the boss of the team (I think he was slightly harrowed when he was reminded that I was from that college), the impression I got was that it’s going to be the same old thing over again (I mean, who would want to invest so much time and effort recreating things when you can reuse, reduce and recycle? Only us folks at that college do! Well, most of us, and I’m proud of it.) But thankfully now I have a bigger say here in charting the direction of this workshop for my fellow colleagues, and so I proposed a few things just so that history doesn’t repeat itself (since we cannot do away with that training). I mean, I think some people will benefit, so I think the smartest thing to do is to check with would-be participants what they like to get out of it and we’ll try to ‘force’ the trainers into complying. wahaha… (I think I was really curt with my reply when my colleague, weeks ago when she heard that I had attended the workshop before, asked what I thought of it. There’s just so much animosity in me with regard to those not-so-useful workshops. The scars are deep. I didn’t know I was that traumatised!)

But it was doubly cathartic (when I scared the hell out of my colleague and the boss of the agency). But I shouldn’t be that mean to these ‘enrichment programmes’ since I may just want to dabble in that in future–that’s where the money is.

If today was a fairy-tale…

From http://www.teenink.com/opinion/discrimination/article/181533/Sexism-in-Fantasyland/

Sexism in Fantasyland

By MissMaegan, Port St. Lucie, FL

And so the story ends. The dashing prince in his tasseled, shoulder-padded suit bends down to kiss her lips. He swoops her up in his arms and gingerly places her on the white stallion. Then the perfect couple gallops toward the prince’s lavish castle, its two towers silhouetted against the orange sunset with its turrets poking holes in the fluffy clouds. Oh, and of course, she lives happily ever after. Bleh.

These sappy, wistful endings seem to be the uniform finish of fairy tales. Back in the days of Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, fairy tales were the wish fulfillment of medieval-day peasant girls.

Think of the fairy tales you know – the popular gooey ones with princes and kisses. Now think of the boring, vapid girls who star in them. Their grand role is to sit pretty and mope around until a handsome hero comes to their salvation. It’s a popular case of the classic someday-my-prince-will-come syndrome.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s famous “Cinderella,” Cindy’s simple jobs consist of cooking, cleaning, crying until a fairy godmother shows up, wearing a pretty dress, being home on time, and ultimately being rescued from slavery to her step-family by none other than … Prince Charming.

Now ponder Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” who lives “under the sea, under the sea.” Clad in just a skimpy seashell bra that would shame a Victoria’s Secret model, Ariel starts out as a spunky, happy-go-lucky redhead who rebels against her stern father’s rules. But as soon as her sky blue eyes glimpse her prince, she becomes meek and shy. And since trading her beautiful voice for a pair of nice legs was her pact with the sea witch, Ariel must capture his heart with just her looks and bashful smiles. Not exactly a good message to send to children, Hans. The story ends just as the star-struck mermaid wants. The evil sea witch is defeated, Ariel’s voice is restored, and the prince is hers. Of course, in the process she gives up her family, underwater friends, her home, her royal title, and everything she knows and loves – all for a man. But hey, whatever makes you happy, Princess.

Think of the Grimm Brothers’ “Snow White.” Snow White herself is described as a translucent beauty with raven hair and blood-red lips. She also happens to be meek, sweet, and a great cook and housewife. The fairy tale depicts women as beauty-crazed fanatics in desperate need of male protection. When Snowy’s evil queen stepmother declares that she wants her stepdaughter’s heart cut out of her chest so she can eat it, Snow White runs away to the forest. At first, it seems this darling femme might actually have an adventure for herself, but alas, no. As soon as she enters the forest, the silly nit joins up with seven dwarves and washes, cooks and cleans for them in return for protection. Apparently, male protection is what Snowy needs, even if they are only two-and-a-half feet tall.

And you can add “vulnerable” and “idiotic” to the list of negative traits fairy tales attribute to women. After all, only an idiot would open the door to a gnarly, creepy old woman in a black cape and actually buy apples from her. Especially if she gives you a hint they’re enchanted. And when she falls into a death-like coma, who wakes Snowy up? You got it … another predictable, face-sucking prince.

And now a different fairy-tale star: Rapunzel. Trapped in a tower by an evil witch who kidnapped her at birth, Rapunzel somehow manages to keep her 100-foot-long tresses shiny and clean with no running water or Herbal Essence shampoo. Her fabulous escapade is to “let down her hair” out of a window. It’s the prince’s job to climb up the side of the tower using her locks. Anyone who’s ever tried to climb a rope, even with knots in it, knows how hard that must have been. Vain ‘Punzel refuses to chop off her lid to get herself out of the tower, so instead she slowly knits a ladder, which adds weeks to her escape date. Then she’s stupid enough to tip off her witchy captor. Even after thorns blind her darling hero, he still commandeers the final escape and provides transportation to his castle.

Think of Mulan. This Chinese girl probably is the best fairy-tale subject out there. She fights, saves the man she loves, kills the Huns, and gets to shoot cannons. Of course, her story is set back in sexist Imperial China, where, as a woman, she is expected to serve her husband. The only way Mulan gets ahead in life and makes friends is by disguising herself as a man. When the truth finally comes out, Mulan’s friends shun her. This fairy tale clearly supports the idea that being born female is a bad thing.

Who remembers the story of Rumpelstiltskin? Oddly enough, the girl we must call our heroine doesn’t even get a name. The creepy, baby-stealing stalker is the villain who snags the title. The lovely miller’s daughter responds to the news that she must spin straw into gold or die, by crying and sniveling. Then when she realizes she must give up her baby, she cries and snivels some more. Throughout the tale, she does almost nothing for herself besides producing enough tears to water a cotton field. The only reason Mr. Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t triumph in the end is dumb luck, happenstance, and a faithful male messenger who informs his queen what he heard the little man sing at the campfire.

All of the classic fairy-tale females end up being saved by masculine heroes. The only women in the tales with any cunning, wit, cleverness, boldness, or strength are hideous hags, murderous witches, and beauty-obsessed stepmothers. The young, lovely heroines are meek, good, obedient, submissive, and naturally weaker and inferior to their heroes. We need more heroines with independent traits.

We need a Rapunzel with the brains to have cut off her hair and climbed down it years ago. We need a Gretel who saves her beloved brother. We need a Beauty to rescue her Beast. We need a Bella to fight alongside her Edward, and a Maid Marian to spring her beloved Robin Hood out of prison. We need a Cinderella who stands up to her stepmother. At least can we have a Snow White who won’t open the door to strange, wizened women?

We need a gal with guts, derring-do, moxie, gumption, and agency. We need female characters who can fight for themselves, and maybe pick up true love along the way. We, along with the rest of America, need a good dose of fresh, unadulterated girl-power.

*

I am just reminded of the one and only romance novel I’ve ever read in my life and that’s The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks. I finished it in half a day, and it was surprisingly engaging. I had difficulty putting the book down, I remember. The gender roles are not as stereotypical as those of the fairy-tales, but nonetheless you can’t help but wonder if Noah and Allie could switch roles. It probably would not work, considering the target audience, and in many societies there are still the prescribed roles for men and women–what constitutes gentlemanly behaviour, what a woman should not do…Like what MissMaegan said about her article, “Fairytales can be just as sexist to men. After all, in Fantasyland, a man isn’t worth his salt unless he can kill a dragon.”

<Insert Plato’s printouts here, about family & society & gender & education & everything else…>

Never Let Me Go

This post is in dedication to Kazuo Ishiguro’s hauntingly sentimental novel which I have not yet read but will one day soon (and so any adjectives that preceded it here should not be trusted without doubt!) But Corliss gave a reflective look at the story from print to screen, from fiction to reality. Read it here:  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2015774,00.html

“Any story about what it is to be a clone implicitly asks what it is to be human,” echoes Corliss. “Whether we live to be 30 or 90, we all have a death sentence hanging over us. Live and love well, so that long before our time is up, we will truly have reached completion. That way, we can live forever.”

The story reminds me immediately of Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail, but this is well-contextualised in contemporary time where science pushes boundaries while romantic love remains evergreen like a musk over the hard edges science cuts.

What remains debatable is–once again–the way the East and the West view heroism. As Ishiguro commented, “It’s antithethical to the American creed of how you should face setbacks.” Submit to your fate.

The option has always been there: to submit or to retaliate, to do something about it.

This story somehow reminds me of the issue of adoption, the life after: when the adopted cant adapt

I never go down without a fight, so I will find the story disturbing, as with a ‘prescribed’ life. I personally don’t quite like Sparta. Plato and Confucius can say all they like about self and the State, but I am probably selfish.

This Sep 16, 2010 comment by Prof Koh Tai Ann should make sense: “These days, people talk about tolerance as a virtue. But tolerance is a kind of sloth because it’s passive: you’re not doing bad, but neither are you doing good. So we have to ask: ‘What good can we all do?'” (Read the full interview here; check out her take on the 3Cs of Singapore–witty.)

AP Ian Macduff was also stressing the importance of thinking and the role of philosophy in an earlier interview (May 26, 2010).

Because we are always short of time, because we are forever fighting to stay ahead, because we want to survive in an environment that doesn’t endow us with the treasures of nature, sacrifices have to be made. The arts are the next best alternative forgone in the cold world of economics. Now, there seems to be a kind of restlessness about the soulless (or mindless) people here.

I think when science and the arts flow as one, great things can be achieved. Here are more examples of what, together, we can achieve:

Bamboo bikes are in

Science diplomacy

Shun blood diamonds go for cultured

 And here is a sketch done by my favourite doctor, Tan Cheng Bock, when I last consulted him for my throat problem about a year or so ago. A pity he retired from politics and I’m not sure if there are many more hearty and compassionate political leaders like him nowadays.

 (Non Sequitur, Oct 4, 10)

Never let me go insane, never let me go away alone. A little love and critical thinking can go a long way.

The Collector of Things

People collect things as a form of recollection later on, especially if they are things that are unlikely to be easily attained in future, and I think I’ve just been attracted by the bibs used in runs or walks. Have just proudly stuck the two bibs I’ve ever received in my life on wall of my bookshelf. One more to come at the end of the year…

A few days ago, I also received a specially designed class tee from an ex-student, and that was a real surprise too. Such commemorative t-shirts are to be worn with pride, and once I get a wardrobe for my office, I will be hanging it there with the other special t-shirts from students. But this one is special; it’s got a poem on the back. The gusto of the message reminds me of Yue Fei’s mother. *haha*

I haven’t really quite finished decorating my workspace, but I will be moving to the section by the window soon, once my room-mate leaves in December. So I think I will ‘renovate’ the place after that. Currently I have a special shelf with some of the nice paraphernalia from my good friends and ex-students displayed there.

I do wonder why people quit this place (maybe I haven’t been here long enough to know why, and the ‘outside world’ is not as open as the small enclave of teachers in most MOE schools); perhaps I have been through a more gruesome pace and I can take the heat better than most. I think this is the quality of most people who have survived at least two years there in Ang Mo Kio. But I just realised–having been idealistic all these years–that money is number one on the survival kit list in Singapore, and if somewhere-out-there offers me a bigger pay, I will go for it. Hell, I’ve almost maxed out all my savings on a new home in Yishun and my wedding and all. This money misery business could be averted, but I simply couldn’t wait till the end of the month for my supposedly big bonus, and so I forfeited it when I left; I couldn’t wait till the end of next year for my supposedly big monetary reward called the “Connect Plan”, and so I forfeited that too when I left. But it wasn’t a mistake; it’s just opportunity cost–money or sanity.

I’m beginning to love the principle of Cristiano Ronaldo, as Giggs slowly belongs to the past. Rooney has just caused Man U to suffer from a sort of identity crisis where Loyalty, Giggs, Scholes and Neville will all retire at the same time. Old Trafford is no longer the Theatre of Dreams it used to be, but a Theatre of Dreams of the Rich and Mercenary. They might as well merge with Manchester City in future–Great City of Manchester Re-united. Wow. But I am more worried about the rich Indian woman who now owns my favourite club, Blackburn Rovers. She even talked about renaming the club ground to raise funds–I hope Ewood Park will not become Bollywood Park, but if her millions could bring in Messi and Kaka, I don’t mind.

Some collect football clubs as if they were horses because they are a mark of prestige and affluence. Some collect sweaty handshakes from footballers as if sweat was blood because it shows they are one of them at the ground, touching base: some are likely to be genuine while others have been accused of some hidden agenda. I remember about 20 years ago, one PAP member, while doing her rounds at a hawker centre, had to wash her hands at the wrong moment and that cost her the Gombak constituency. I’m not sure if Merkel’s washed her hands after visiting the German national team dressing room–maybe she’s some fetish over sweaty bodies–but she’s received some dressing down from some purists:

 (crying foul over merkel’s dressing room visit)

I would guess that she had to do something like that after saying something like this…germany wakes up

On the topic of naked bodies and integration (we’re not talking about sex, although some people do believe the world will become a better place if we have more inter-racial marriages), Ground Zero is (was) really hot. (See one hot, sexy article here.) In the name of political correctness, I wonder if some rednecks would actually want to come to the primary schools in Singapore and beat up the kids playing Zero Point during recess or after school–or is Zero Point history?

As people and things slowly become history, the green ones hope to make the problem of the environment a problem of the past too. And technology will expand as far as the human will and imagination can stretch to do good for the world…

The human race can one day collect the badges of honour and the purple heart in the fights against evils and recollect the past in the present which would not have a future if there were no dreams of a better tomorrow.

The importance of being dishonest

This post will likely be updated again–very likely in two month’s time because that is the amount of time a particular government agency takes to do so. In any case, it is not going to be a pleasant wait. If the outcome of the wait is in favour of truthfulness and logic, then this post shall not see any updates. The odds are stacked against honesty though.

But Blair has been rather honest, as reported in ST, Sep 3, 2010: “It’s a strange thing, politics and sex [well, are you admitting it is unnatural?]…Politicians live with pressure [so do many professionals]. They have to be immensely controlled to get anywhere [so too my taxi driver], watch what they say and do, and behave [teachers and parents too]. And your free-bird instincts want to spring you from that prison of self-control…Then there is the moment of encounter, so exciting, so naughty, so lacking in self-control. Suddenly you are transported out of your world of intrigue and issues and endless machinations and the serious piled on the serious, and just put on a remote desert island of pleasure, out of it all, released, carefree [if you are in heat and you can’t take the heat and the hot seat, go free yourself and get another job].” (For the uninitiated, Blair’s talking about extra-marital affairs.)

Probably society isn’t ready for straight talking, and honesty is best hidden from view. Blair could have observed the Gricean Maxim of Quantity in his writing by simply telling the world it is fine for politicians to be infidel, but that would probably give the sense that he’s going to be a weasel of a premier. Or it will sound too casual and irresponsible for anyone like that to qualify as the head of the nation. As you can see, it hurts to be plain truthful. The truth must be concealed by some make-up (such that it is rather beyond recognition). People do love a beautiful lie more than an ugly truth, and certainly a beautifully designed truth wins hands down.

The Straits Times

October 16, 2010 Saturday

The young general’s realm; Straits Times Correspondent Sim Chi Yin was among foreign journalists allowed into Pyongyang when it celebrated the 65th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party last weekend. She first visited North Korea in mid-2008, and gives her latest impressions of the hermit kingdom as it embraces a new leadership.

THERE he stood, beaming a rare smile and clapping as his father waved to the cheering crowd with an unsteady hand.?The chubby, civilian-clothed Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s anointed next leader and youngest son of the ailing Kim Jong Il, was making his second appearance before his people and the world’s media, whose cameras were trained on him.?Piercing the still, autumnal Pyongyang night with their loud cheers, emotional young dancers hailed the leadership from their perfect formations across the grey- slabbed Kim Il Sung Square, named after the country’s founding president and the younger Kim’s late grandfather.The sickly father and his chosen son looked down from a balcony just above a giant painting of a grinning Kim Il Sung – completing the three-generation family portrait, as it were. They had just watched a mass dance and song performance to mark the 65th anniversary of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party which, along with a massive military parade on Sunday morning, was the coming-out party for the leader-in-waiting, widely believed to be about 27 years old. Symbolically enough, the last segment of the night was an energetic modern dance by teenagers dressed in fluorescent orange and green, while shots of computers played on two giant screens on the square, projecting a North Korea ready for the 21st century. It may be no coincidence then that while little is known of the mysterious Kim Jong Un, he has been referred to in the North Korean media as ‘CNC’, short for ‘computer numerical control’ – as if to boost his credentials as a leader for the future.? Following months of murky murmurs about the secretive communist nation’s succession, the younger Kim, who has emerged in the past two weeks to be appointed a four-star general and anointed heir, may be seen as a source of stability at home.? North Korea expert Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul said this may be so, since Mr Kim’s oldest son Jong Nam – a former favourite to succeed his father – has told the Japanese media in recent days that he is opposed to the hereditary transfer of power to his younger half-brother but seems unlikely to challenge him. But that stability, Professor Lankov said, will hold ‘only as long as the leadership does not reform, continues with the policy of zero tolerance for dissent (everybody who openly expresses doubts about the system should be shot) and does its best to roll back changes – like private businesses springing up – which have happened spontaneously’. Much also depends on how much longer the current leader is around.? ‘If he lives for several more years, Kim Jong Un has time to grow into the responsibilities of running the state as well as to put in place within the top levels of officials some of his favourite people,’ noted Professor Brian Bridges of Lingnan University in Hong Kong. ‘But if Kim Jong Il passes away in the near future, then the son may take over as a figurehead, while three factions – the military, the party, and the family – jostle for real power. That would be destabilising.’ Nonetheless, some within and outside of North Korea’s borders hope this changing of the guard and the future leader’s youth might usher in a new era of change and more openness, with Western diplomats already calling on Kim Jong Un in recent days to engage with the world in a way his father did not. But North Korea watchers warn there are few signs yet that the young man is any different from his dad or that he is in a hurry to bring about change.? Prof Lankov told The Straits Times: ‘We do not know anything about him. His face was first shown to the public a couple of weeks ago. Nobody is aware about a single act or policy decision which is initiated by him.? ‘But the fact that his rise began from the promotion to general and that his coming-out took place during a military parade does not look too encouraging.’ After all, the North Korea that Kim Jong Un – now commonly referred to as the ‘Young General’ by ordinary people – will inherit is still an impoverished state which locks its citizens away from the outside world, and a temperamental, nuclear- and missile-armed nation which causes regional powers to lose sleep.? And the Pyongyang he lives in seems to stand still in time.? Tired-looking, boxy, grey or pastel-coloured apartment blocks line the capital’s wide, smooth streets – as neat as milk cartons, as I had described them on my first visit two years ago. Save for a couple of new buildings, a construction site, and spanking new restaurants lining two sides of the street leading up to the downtown Koryo Hotel where I stayed on both trips, not much appears to have changed.? Outside, women cut the grass with scissors and scrubbed pavements with hand brushes, while children wielded toy guns and swords shaved out of wood, or roller-skated or ate ice-cream.? A row of food stalls selling buns, pancakes and grilled chicken across from the hotel seemed busier than before, bustling as Pyongyang residents were out on the streets to enjoy the long weekend public holiday for the anniversary. Flags lined the streets while women walked home in traditional chima jeogori dresses, lending an air of festivity. Bright red and yellow flowers sat in pots on almost every balcony in the city, as if all Pyongyang residents were uncannily green-fingered.? At night, streets and apartment blocks which sat in stony, pitch-black silence on my previous trip to the electricity-starved country were lit this time. But middle-aged men and women strolling or sitting at the foot of their blocks for a leisurely chat at night held torches, hinting that power outages might not yet be a thing of the past. In the morning rush hour, men in Western-style suits and red ties, school children with backpacks and teenagers with fashionable calf-high boots jostled on the electric trams with middle-aged women with worn shoes and scruffy bundles on their backs. ? There were few hints of the crisis brought on by a currency devaluation late last year which reportedly, for some North Koreans, was the worst disaster since a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the mid-1990s. Prices of food and other items were said to have doubled in the months following that devaluation, but have since levelled off. Still, past 11pm on the night before Sunday’s massive military parade, women waited in line at a store holding big cooking oil bottles.? At a seven-storey department store near the railway station, only two counters had queues. One was selling porcelain ornaments of a pig holding a fruit The ornaments cost 850 won each. The currency exchange rate for the North Korean won is somewhat secret – the hotel had it as 140 won to 1 (S $1.82). In this city, which is known to be home to only the politically approved and the privileged elite, there appeared to be more cars on the streets this time around, including new Toyota four-wheel drives and China-made BYD sedans.? While private enterprise is still not officially allowed in North Korea’s command economy, young couples and families washed down three- or four-dish lunches with beer and soda in a local restaurant, where three journalists including this one had a similar meal for 10 – suggesting the possibility of a growing middle class.? More Pyongyang residents seemed to be able to afford mobile phones now, using a 3G network installed by the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom in 2008. A government official I had met that year who did not have a cellphone back then told me this time: ‘All my friends have mobile phones now.’ Perhaps, seeing how excited I must have looked, he added, somewhat apologetically: ‘Domestic calls and text messages only.’ ? For foreign journalists whose phones are still confiscated upon arrival at the airport, that sounded like an improvement.? But to veteran North Korea watchers, this is nothing new – cellphones were first introduced 10 years ago, only to be recalled in 2004 – and not a sign of new openness, but just another symptom of Pyongyang’s two steps forward, three steps back way of ambling along.? There is little doubt the country’s leadership could take the advice that its top ally, China, and many others have been giving it – to open up and marketise its economy – should it want to. But that would mean risking all the accompanying sweeping changes marketisation would bring to its society and puncturing the carefully cultivated and protected image of the Kims as all-caring leaders who have given the good life to their people.? The fact that foreign journalists were even let in to cover the political anointment is read by some as a tentative signal of greater openness to come, perhaps with the younger Kim at the helm. But even if that were true, other indications show Pyongyang to be as contradictory and unpredictable as ever.? Reporters were packed off home by Tuesday morning, having served their purpose by covering the parade, despite some having seven-day visas. And while many took the opportunity to walk around the streets, minders ran after some to yank them by the backpack and order them to return to the hotel. At least one journalist was told to erase pictures she had taken of a heap of corn by a military post, and I was chastised by a military-uniformed man for taking pictures of residents cheering parading tanks. When a British photographer took pictures of two women bearing cloth-wrapped boxes on their heads, an agitated minder yelled, getting his English idiom a tad wrong: ‘When in Rome, do as the Romanians do.’ In the Rome that is Pyongyang, what is constant and unchanging is the cult of personality that surrounds the leadership.? Giant paintings of Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung pop up in crop fields, in housing estates, bookstores and at monuments. There are no books, posters or drawings yet of the chosen one. But it may only be a matter of time.? At a flower exhibition set up for the 65th anniversary, portraits of the two older Kims stood among beds of a purple-pink orchid which is the ‘Kimilsunglia’ and a red begonia, the ‘Kimjongilia’. A young woman guide who spoke pitch-perfect English explained: ‘The bright red of the Kimjongilia symbolises a person with passion. The style of the flower is just like a lion’s mane. Its stem is just like a pillar.’? Asked if there was a Kimjongunlia flower named after the ‘Young General’, she smiled and said: ‘In the future, we will.’

*

In such a hermit kingdom, what the photographs can capture are less powerful than words because your camera is unlikely to shoot anything without the permission of the officials or you risk losing it. I think the writer did a great job in this report.

Truth is easily mired in fear and what results may be inconsistent knowledge or warped memory. It happens.

Review – Others

The myths behind fears of nuclear power

David Ropeik

18 October 2010

Straits Times

GERMANY’S ambivalence about nuclear energy, common in many developed countries, has been on display again recently, following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to extend the operating life of the country’s 17 nuclear plants for an average of 12 years beyond their currently scheduled closure dates.

Dr Merkel says this will help Germany develop the ‘most efficient and environmentally friendly energy supply worldwide’. Opposition leaders say that the government is ‘selling safety for money’.

Both sides argue about the facts, but underlying that debate is an argument about how those facts ‘feel’.

Decades of research have found that risk perception is an affective combination of facts and fears, intellect and instinct, reason and gut reaction. It is an inescapably subjective process that has helped us to survive, but sometimes gets us into more trouble, because we often worry too much about relatively smaller risks, or not enough about bigger ones, and make choices that feel right, but that actually create new risks.

Consider the two aspects of the risk of nuclear radiation: the facts and feelings.

For 65 years, researchers have followed nearly 90,000 hibakusha, the name in Japan for atomic bomb survivors who were within 3km of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions in 1945. Scientists compared them to a non-exposed Japanese population in order to calculate the effects of the radiation to which they had been exposed. The current estimate is that just 572 hibakusha – a little more than 0.5per cent – have died, or will die, from various forms of radiation-induced cancer.

Research by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) found that the fetuses of hibakusha women pregnant at the time of the explosions were born with horrible defects. But the RERF found little other serious long-term damage – even genetic damage – from exposure to those extraordinarily high levels of radiation.

Relying on the Japanese research, the World Health Organisation estimates that over the entire lifetime of the population of several hundred thousand people exposed to ionizing radiation from Chernobyl, as many as 4,000 might die prematurely from cancer caused by the leaked radiation. That is tragic, of course, but it is a smaller number than people assume.

So, if ionizing radiation is a relatively weak carcinogen, why is nuclear power so scary? Research into how people perceive and respond to risk has identified several psychological characteristics that make nuclear radiation frightening:

It is undetectable by our senses, which makes us feel powerless to protect ourselves, and lack of control makes any risk scarier.

Radiation causes cancer, a particularly painful outcome, and the more pain and suffering something causes, the more afraid of it we are likely to be.

Radiation from nuclear power is human-made, and human-made risks evoke more fear than natural threats.

Nuclear power plants can have accidents (many still believe that they can explode like bombs), and people are intrinsically more afraid of risks associated with a single large-scale ‘catastrophic’ event than they are of risks that cause greater harm spread over space and time.

Many people don’t trust the nuclear industry, or government nuclear regulators. The less we trust, the more we fear.

Despite all these fears, public attitudes towards nuclear power are shifting. The psychology of risk perception explains that too. We are more aware of the benefits of CO2-free emissions, and when the benefits of a choice seem larger, the associated risks seem smaller.

These psychological factors have nothing to do with the facts about the actual risk of nuclear radiation. But, as is often the case with risk perception, emotional filters, more than the facts, determine how afraid we are, or aren’t.

Whether this is rational or irrational is irrelevant. It is, inescapably, how it is. But we must recognise that our response to risk can pose a danger all by itself. Our fear of nuclear power has led to energy economics that favour coal and oil for electricity, at great cost to human and environmental health. Particulate pollution from fossil fuels kills tens of thousands of Europeans every year, and CO2 emissions fuel a potentially calamitous shift in global climate.

No amount of education or good communication can get around this. Subjective risk perception is hard-wired into our architecture and chemistry. What governments can do is to learn what psychological research has established: our perceptions, as real as they are and as much as they must be respected in a democracy, can create their own perils.

With that understanding, government risk assessment can account not only for the facts, but also for how we feel about them and how we behave. That way, we can reduce conflict over nuclear power and other risk issues, and foster wiser and more productive policies for public and environmental health.

The writer is is an instructor at Harvard University and the author of How Risky Is It, Really? Why Our Fears Don’t Always Match The Facts

 *

Editorial Desk; SECTWK

Magic by Numbers (ST, Oct 18, 2010: Magic numbers influence decisions? It all adds up)

By DANIEL GILBERT

17 October 2010

The New York Times

I RECENTLY wound up in the emergency room. Don’t worry, it was probably nothing. But to treat my case of probably nothing, the doctor gave me a prescription for a week’s worth of antibiotics, along with the usual stern warning about the importance of completing the full course.

I understood why I needed to complete the full course, of course. What I didn’t understand was why a full course took precisely seven days. Why not six, eight or nine and a half? Did the number seven correspond to some biological fact about the human digestive tract or the life cycle of bacteria?

My doctor seemed smart. She probably went to one of the nation’s finest medical schools, and regardless of where she trained, she certainly knew more about medicine than I did. And yet, as I walked out of the emergency room that night with my prescription in hand, I couldn’t help but suspect that I’d just been treated with magic.

Certain numbers have magical properties. E, pi and the Fibonacci series come quickly to mind — if you are a mathematician, that is. For the rest of us, the magic numbers are the familiar ones that have something to do with the way we keep track of time (7, say, and 24) or something to do with the way we count (namely, on 10 fingers). The ”time numbers” and the ”10 numbers” hold remarkable sway over our lives. We think in these numbers (if you ask people to produce a random number between one and a hundred, their guesses will cluster around the handful that end in zero or five) and we talk in these numbers (we say we will be there in five or 10 minutes, not six or 11).

But these magic numbers don’t just dominate our thoughts and dictate our words; they also drive our most important decisions.

Consider my prescription. Antibiotics are a godsend, but just how many pills should God be sending? A recent study of antibiotic treatment published in a leading medical journal began by noting that ”the usual treatment recommendation of 7 to 10 days for uncomplicated pneumonia is not based on scientific evidence” and went on to show that an abbreviated course of three days was every bit as effective as the usual course of eight.

My doctor had recommended seven. Where in the world had seven come from?

Italy! Seven is a magic number because only it can make a week, and it was given this particular power in 321 A.D. by the Roman emperor Constantine, who officially reduced the week from eight days to seven. The problem isn’t that Constantine’s week was arbitrary — units of time are often arbitrary, which is why the Soviets adopted the five-day week before they adopted the six-day week, and the French adopted the 10-day week before they adopted the 60-day vacation.

The problem is that Constantine didn’t know a thing about bacteria, and yet modern doctors continue to honor his edict. If patients are typically told that every 24 hours (24 being the magic number that corresponds to the rotation of the earth) they should take three pills (three being the magic number that divides any time period into a beginning, middle and end) and that they should do this for seven days, they will end up taking 21 pills.

If even one of those pills is unnecessary — that is, if people who take 20 pills get just as healthy just as fast as people who take 21 — then millions of people are taking at least 5 percent more medication than they actually need. This overdose contributes not only to the punishing costs of health care, but also to the evolution of the antibiotic-resistant strains of ”superbugs” that may someday decimate our species. All of which seems like a rather high price to pay for fealty to ancient Rome.

Magic ”time numbers” cost a lot, but magic ”10 numbers” may cost even more. In 1962, a physicist named M. F. M. Osborne noticed that stock prices tended to cluster around numbers ending in zero and five. Why? Well, on the one hand, most people have five fingers, and on the other hand, most people have five more. It isn’t hard to understand why an animal with 10 fingers would use a base-10 counting system. But according to economic theory, a stock’s price is supposed to be determined by the efficient workings of the free market and not by the phalanges of the people trading it.

And yet, research shows that fingers affect finances. For example, a stock that closed the previous day at $10.01 will perform about as well as a stock that closed at $10.03, but it will significantly outperform a stock that closed at $9.99. If stocks close two pennies apart, then why does it matter which pennies they are? Because for animals that go from thumb to pinkie in four easy steps, 10 is a magic number, and we just can’t help but use it as a magic marker — as a reference point that $10.01 exceeds and $9.99 does not. Retailers have known this for centuries, which is why so many prices end in nine and so few in one.

The hand is not the only part of our anatomy that gives certain numbers their magical powers. The tongue does too. Because of the acoustic properties of our vocal apparatus, some words just sound bigger than others. The back vowels (the ”u” in buck) sound bigger than the front vowels (the ”i” in sis), and the stops (the ”b” in buck) sound bigger than the fricatives (the ”s” in sis). As it turns out, in well over 100 languages, the words that denote bigness are made with bigger sounds.

The sound a number makes can influence our decisions about it. In a recent study, one group was shown an ad for an ice-cream scoop that was priced at $7.66, while another was shown an ad for a $7.22 scoop. The lower price is the better deal, of course, but the higher price (with its silky s’s) makes a smaller sound than the lower price (with its rattling t’s).

And because small sounds usually name small things, shoppers who were offered the scoop at the higher but whispery price of $7.66 were more likely to buy it than those offered the noisier price of $7.22 — but only if they’d been asked to say the price aloud.

The magic that magic numbers do is all too often black. They hold special significance for terrestrial mammals with hands and watches, but they mean nothing to streptococcus or the value of Google. Which is why we should be suspicious when the steps to sobriety correspond to a half turn of our planet, when the eternal commandments of God correspond to the architecture of our paws and when the habits of highly effective people — and highly trained doctors — correspond to the whims of a dead emperor.

Daniel Gilbert is a professor of psychology at Harvard, the author of ”Stumbling on Happiness” and the host of the television series ”This Emotional Life.”

*

 (Apr 23, 2008)

Campaign City: Life in Posters

Been to this wonderful exhibition featuring local artists at one of those back alleys I’d never known, and it’s pretty cosy I’d say; I was the only visitor on a warm Thursday afternoon. Took 166–it’s been a long time since I last took a long journey on a bus–to Niven Road and the place looked really rustic… 

I'm not sure if the surveillance camera's part of the exhibition...

One of the two mock-ups requiring audience participation (standing by the heart-shape balloon within the photographic frame) such that you are indeed part of the campaign--for mockery or sincerity

One of my two favourites...

Here’s eeshaun’s site: http://www.gardensilly.com/projects/2010/world-of-watches (he’s one of the artists who designed this year’s NDP goodie bags, which I am still looking for around dumpsters.)

Bunnies breed really quickly...somehow I was reminded of the Killer Rabbits in Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Reminds me of David Beckham's Hindi tattoo

My second favourite work, by Ian Woo...you know why...

And here are the souvenirs I bought: one for Ivan, in commemoration of the publication of his short-story about a loser and the Aedes. I didn’t have much cash on me and these cost me $8; I wanted to buy more cool stuff, but unfortunately they only accepted cash. Thankfully, the girl was nice enough to agree to my request to buy two of the postcards in the pack of 10. That’s flexibility!

Anyone interested in discussing the works, please let me know. I don’t think there are many, so I didn’t post extra comments about them here. Operators are standing by, nonetheless.

And more shots of the works can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artituteart/sets/72157624909726628/

Second days

This is the second day of work at my new place and it’s been fine. I do know I will be taking Teamwork & Cooperation Skills and Critical Reasoning Skills modules, so I am happy! Will be working on a kind of Liberal Arts/GP programme here with the rest of the team too. What’s more impressive is my new workstation; I’m sharing a room with another lecturer here (and I was totally unprepared for this) and here’s a shot of my new desk!

– Bookshelf not fitted into the frame!

The pace is still rather slow currently, but it will pick up from next week onwards, I am sure, and once the students come in, the real test begins!

In the meantime, I shall allow myself the liberty to drift into the mood of tranquility best defined by the days at Scarborough Beach…that was a lovely beach; loveliest I’ve ever been to. Great weather and climate, lovely Indian Ocean. I picked the right hotel! (But there isn’t much to do around here; I was just here to ‘detoxify’ and chill out.)

Here’s dusk at Scarborough Beach as viewed from my hotel room on the second day:

(All pictures here were taken with a 2.0MP camera!)

And that was my maiden trip on a plane!

It’s all plane-sailing.

Should we be concerned about anything at all, and other short stories

“For though he was gentle and kind, it was Quasimodo’s crime to have been born hideously deformed. But one day his heart would prove to be a thing of rare beauty. She was Esmerelda. The victim of a coward’s jealous rage, she is unjustly convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. Her sentence is death by hanging.”

Nothing quite puts it the way this extract does. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, should have been resurrected in a few of the questions in Prelim Paper 1 this year (eg: Q8 and Q11), but that was not to be with the scripts I marked (Q8, 9, 10 & 11). You don’t really need Quasimodo, actually, and substance and style are on equal footing. What are less forgivable are some of the crimes that some candidates commit. Here I post documents (censored or otherwise, as indicated by the description) related to the scripts I’d come across.

(1) Examiners’ report for Q8 (this should be printed for all in a week’s time)

(2) Examiners’ report for Q11 (this should be printed for all in a week’s time)

(3) Statistics of scores (useless info unless you love statistics and Excel sheets)

(4) Comments & corrections on marking scheme for Q8, 9 & 11 (this may not be edited in time by our new Chief for a clean print, and in case you don’t receive the amended version, check that against this document)

(5) Comments & corrections on marking scheme for Q4 & 12 (this should have already been factored in in the version which you will receive)

(6) Real cases of funny language, use of Ex & challenging the Q (this will not be printed)

I also have quite a few essays which scored above 30m and if you are interested in taking a look, let me know.

***

It just feels good to be out of bed again. Had to spend the entire Wednesday resting due to some rust-taste cockles in the char kway teow I ate for lunch from Adam Road Food Centre on Tuesday. Maybe it’s not the see-harm. It might be the mouldy ham I ate for Tueday dinner. Or the mouldy grapes. All ready and recovered in time for the final lecture tomorrow…

Wrong a right to right a wrong

If enough people use a wrong word frequently enough, it will soon become right. Two such words are “whereby” and “thereby”. I’m not sure why so many people find the suffix “by” sexy, but I’m glad I have it in my name.

Globalisation scares people because people do not fully comprehend what globalisation is. I’m not sure how confounding it is, but I thought it’s just a word explaining the interconnectedness of the world. I have seen “globalisation” used by students from various schools as if it were “technology”, “geography” and other discrete random variables over the years that it’s scaring me!

Another phrase which has the potential of being abused is “liberal arts”, but it’s still not peddled like cheap imitation the way “globalisation” is, because it is still pretty alien to people here. “To set the record straight: In a liberal arts programme, students are exposed to a wide range of disciplines–in the arts, natural sciences, humanities and the social sciences. The idea is to give students a grounding in various disciplines and to teach them to consider issues from different perspectives,” says Sandra Davie in ST on Apr 29, 2010. (Read the full article here and another article on the same subject here while MOE’s reply to Davie’s article is attached here; reading it makes me think of how justifiable it is to charge consultation fees of $15/student/session and marking fee of $30/script the way a local university does it!)

Newspeak is a terrible thing which everyone is capable of especially if you are in power, so congratulations, some of you may become the next Iranian President!

The Last T-Day

It was a nice and simple T-day, the last one I will be having, the last one that falls on a day other than Friday. But it was one that stretched from Monday to Thursday.

For the first time, I received three bottles of hair gel, or wax, or mud, or whatever the name is with “product differentiation”!

But when that’s low on supply, I use Gatsby. Moving Rubber (TM). (Oh wait, I don’t think Gatsby applied for trademark on that name, but the flap does say,”Do not eat.”) So now I have Air Rise Moving Rubber, Cool Wet Moving Rubber, and what I have been using, Spiky Edge Moving Rubber! All bottled in delicious colours, for different hair length. And they are all carrying some special endorsement from Japanese stylists, apparently: Shuichi Kakuta, Naoyasu Toba and Takako Kato. Okay, that certainly fits my hair styled by a Japanese named Hisato.

Right, that’s one whole paragraph (or two) of product endorsement. I should get a cut or something.

The Nike shoe-bag comes in handy too.

And there’s the mouse from “Micro-mouse”. Coincidentally, I was the mouse who was supposed to bell the cat that same day, and I headed straight to the lunch where some other mice gathered. Some were cautiously trying to bell the cat, but it was pretty much a customary cautious session where no one dared to go too close. I, on the other hand, gave my best shot, and I was mauled.

I don’t usually get home-baked stuff, and the bottle and packet of cookies go straight to my emergency food-aid kit at my desk. I tried them while I was clearing some WRs that caused me bouts of hunger pangs and suffocation. Very tasty. So I stopped gnawing away on those junk on A4.

The doughnuts! D’Oh! Oh my gosh…

(Aren’t they cute…)

I can’t help it but to eat the weirdest looking one first. I don’t really like seaweed, but I thought I smelled wasabi! So I went crazy and ate it. Anyway, it’s a habit to eat the sweetest–and the cutest–last. There is a story behind these doughnuts, and it was a nice story while I remembered it!

(And I hope all of you managed to decipher the Jabberwocky text on the postcards!)

When my stomach’s settled, it’s time for the notes. They are touching and they remind me of what I am, what I can do and have done. They are the balm for my eyes when I read a ‘dedication’ from an ex-student on the Alumni-blog, and though ‘important’ people would have read it and passed their judgement the way they liked, I was reminded of the happy memories captured on these notes of today and yesteryears. I was reminded of the love other institutes have placed on me: the college which picked me out of the trough at the end of last year, the premium institute which I was supposed to go to in 2007, and the institute that I will be going to in October. September will be a short month, but memories of what I have done will linger. There has been no regret being back here for three over years, doing what is true to my heart. There are the SMSes from ex-students–one was inspired to do philosophy at the university. That was unexpected! Everyone’s managing well, in green or in hippie attire in uni.

And there’s the video-montage which was flattering (mostly!) I watched it thrice. Say, I don’t think I arrived in college past 7.20am on any recent Friday…

My colleagues also gave me lots of chocolate which almost all have been eaten. Nothing beats the love of your close friends: a pencil named “George Orwell” from Jack Kie, a lift out of school for lunch in J.Leong’s Mazda, a stool (which I’d always wanted) from Marilyn and intellectual jokes from Ivan. And, the friendship which we still share with Kaifeng who’s now in HQ, whose just an SMS away.

There you are, the people young and old I will miss.

(Shot with a 2-megapixel cam-phone)

There it is, a magnificent sunset at my favourite spot. It had been elusive over the weeks but on a day full of sentiments, the scene was there at Mandai Lake. As Vanilla Twilight played on my iPod coincidentally as I was driving past, I just had to stop and marvel at the view and the sound.