"You're a kind person - how can you eat animals?" My friend was completely earnest with his question.

I was stumped. I check all the boxes to be a Vegetarian:

1. Yes I believe that industrial meat production is cruel (and I care about animals)
2. I believe that a vegetarian diet is better for my body (and I care about my body)
3. I believe that a vegetarian diet is better for the environment (and I give a damn about the environment)
4. I can cook vegetarian and I know where to buy vegetarian food I like
5. My mother is a vegetarian and a hippie (and well, I care about my mom)

So at the start of 2014, I declared to myself I was going to be a Vegetarian on Wednesdays. I realised that even though I eat vegetarian food regularly, I didn't quite understand what the experience of being identified as a Vegetarian.

It turns out that once you tell people that you're a Vegetarian, you lose all other characteristics - they see you as if you tattooed VEGETARIAN on your forehead.  The conversations around you, especially near or during meal times, suddenly revolve solely around vegetarianism.  The good is that people are curious, sensitive and increasingly aware. And the discussions increase the awareness further.

The bad is - don't we have anything else to talk about?  Why is it such a big deal?

How does it feel like to be a Vegetarian? I guess I don't have the full answer as I'm still really struggling - it is way more convenient (and socially accepted in Singapore) to eat "everything / anything". I still like eating meat. The best I'm doing so far is to consciously reduce the amount of meat I eat, veto going for meat buffets - or at least opt out.

I guess being a Vegetarian feels like being part of any other group that is not the default, the mainstream or the dominant. As a tall, young, "free thinker", Chinese, straight, omnivorous, white-collar male in Singapore, being a Vegetarian, even for a day, reminds me that life is often so easy for me.

---

Read more »

I rented a simultaneous translation headset for this 8 hour play in Chinese, out of worry that I wouldn't be able to keep up with the language. And I thought I might become bored.  "A Dream Like A Dream (如梦之梦)" turned out to be the best performance my wife and I have ever seen - and we didn't ever need the headset.

The play is classified as "Chinese" but that's like calling Oxford-born, Japan-residing writer Pico Iyer "Indian".  Key scenes take place in a tiny apartment in Paris, a Chateau in Normandy, a train on its way to the UK and a hospital ward in Taipei.  In between, characters fly through time and space.

At these moments I'm particularly grateful to my secondary school education in Chinese and specifically in Chinese music. During our insecure high school days, being part of the Chinese Orchestra was terribly uncool - not only was the music outdated, China was, after all,the place our families left, for a better life in Singapore. My education gave me the courage to appreciate things without caring for whether they are considered cool.

But sometimes I wish I went deeper. I'm catching Singapore Chinese Orchestra's performance "Dream of the Red Mansion Suite" in two weeks, and realise that although I know the songs by heart, I barely know the novel well.  Almost like not knowing the details of Romeo and Juliet.

I'm also incredibly curious where China is headed. Other than reading external voices of the Economist, New Yorker and Guardian, I try to catch a glimpse based on what's popular in China.  Reading the trashy bestseller "Tiny Times" and watching "I am a Singer."  But maybe it is time for a trip to China, after 16 years.  When I was last in Beijing, it was still filled with bicycles.

My years at Singapore Airlines taught me that it is easy to either be a “yes man” or say what you mean to say, but too aggressively.

Managers who lack confidence love colleagues who agree with them - very humanly so.  In big corporations too many choose what is less painful (seek consensus, disagree behind the back) than what is right for the firm (challenge outdated beliefs of senior experienced people, accept alternative views professionally, not take it personally).

At the same time, frustrated upstart employees find it easy to protest, self-righteously.  I’ve walked out of a 50-people meeting because it was clearly so unproductive, sending a message - too bluntly.

I’ve since wondered where the balance is - both when managing and being managed.  Essentially, how to say what you mean to say?

This is even more critical when I moved to web startups, where speed and trust can make or break a product.

Heavily inspired by John Maeda’s “Four Rules" and the book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, I’ve decided it is best for me to be forthright, but respectfully.  Not making someone look bad or feel insulted is important if you want that person to understand and internalise what you just said instead of rejecting it.  And see why you said it.  

Being honest is actually a form of respect, but only when you make it so - being honest is also an art.

Image: x1brett (Flickr)

Read more »

I am an introvert - who networks.  I don't look down on networking, but it seems like sometimes introverts sneer at networking - maybe as a defence mechanism.

Shocking, unacceptable but true: drivers in Singapore don't give way to ambulances!

I was waiting for the elevator late at night on September 11, 2012 when I saw two paramedics wheeling a stretcher towards it - so I let them go first.  They thanked me, but I thought they didn't have to.  It was only later, when I got to my floor that I realised they had gotten off at my floor too. And then they kept moving towards my parents' apartment that was all the way at the end of the meandering corridor as I tailed them.  I was waiting for them to stop at another home.  But they didn't.  It was like a nightmare that unfolded very slowly - but of course, it was all real.

Eventually they stopped and went into my parents' place.  I still remember one paramedic catching my eye the moment it dawned on me and his expression was of apology.  It was a very gentle "I'm sorry", coming from someone who experiences this everyday.

My dad had a severe stroke.  He was struck by sudden numbness on one side of his body and fell off the bed.  Once I entered the house I had no time to panic.  I had to calm my mom (who was sleeping beside him when it happened) and help the two paramedics (my dad was too heavy for them to manage).

More than a year later I still look back and think that we never saw it coming.  Did he seem out of sorts when I had dinner with him just two days before?  Not at all, but in retrospect it did seem like he was unusually vocal about saying I should go for a vacation in Taiwan with him (he is really frugal and never pushy).

But I guess he never saw it coming either.  During the first night when he was slipping in and out of a dream state, I remember this moment of clarity when he realised what had happened to him and he said some things that broke my heart "Why did this happen to me? It's so unfair. I've been good."

Life is unfair.  I say that not out of dejection or pessimism.  Rather this situation (among others) reminded me that this moment will come - when something happens to you or me that we'd rather not have happen.  In fact the word 'stroke' really tells a story, that your life could change in an instant - in one stroke.

Whether you choose to party hard because you only live once or be compulsively healthy to stay in good shape for as long as possible, just remember to be kind.  Be kind to your friends, your lovers, your parents - and that person in the ambulance behind your car.

Image by pandora_6666 (Flickr)

You may also be interested in: The price to pay for progress is memories