Catching up with friends like Jay, Chi Hung, Kei, and my sister’s family was great. Having the opportunity to have some quality time with them individually was even more satisfying. The fact is, given that quantity was not an option I could offer them in our meetings, we focused so much more on the quality.

Trip to the Discovery Bay was another highlight. To meet the oldest elderly on the entire family tree is always fascinating., Of course, this time was a bit different, with the opportunity to speak to her and my mum about what is really important to me. Despite its constant presence in our conversation, God is still a taboo word to my parents and was not brought up in my mum’s follow up questions to my sharing. One thing for sure is that my parents do need to understand the simple truth about relationship: The dynamic of our relationship is like a social contract. As I can only relax and engage in an open conversation that touches on deeper, more personal issues when they have my trust and my willingness to open up to them, they need to demonstrate respect to my personal space.

The truly important realisation from the conversation was that, without God in my life, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing. I do want to get that sense of assurance that my job and all my other commitments are his first choice for me. The undeniable is that He has been walking me through so far, irrespective of my lack of fellowship with him. It is this fundamental faith that is the most impossible to communicate with the non-Christians.

As I approached the end of my trip, I had this wonderful conversation with a gentleman sitting next to me on the plane, about massage, his business, his encounter with a friend (fair treatment). What’s more interesting is during the conversation, I realised how much more I need to work on in overcoming a cultural barrier. It seems like my issue with the whole western culture, is my Asian expectation of a growing intimacy with people who offer help. This is really interesting. Intellectually, we all understand the western culture isolates kindness from relationship, and this is not unbiblical. So why do we as Asians expect a growing intimacy or closer relationship with someone who has offered help to us? Is it a matter of social contract? An if so, clearly this contract expires as it enters Australia

Thank you for the daily bread God, and your promise that you are in control and I shall not fear. I just need to stick to what you have arranged for me. Deliver us from the evil being Lord.

In her book “Understanding Englishness”, Anthropologist Kate Fox--an English--demonstrates an effective employment of participant observation in studying contemporary cultures and behaviour, even one that the scientist herself came from and was at least once heavily influenced by.

Misinterpretation of cultural signal is not a new subject in social science. In recent years, however, as globalisation has led to increased reliance on a specific, mixed form of intercultural communication in business and even public and non-governmental sectors, misinterpretation of signal has increased the risk of business and cultural exchange in non-business environments. In this article, I will try to demonstrate examples from legal settings as well as NGO’s conferences.

The Cultural Exchange Conference in City, Nature, and Environment was held in Taipei on 12^th-13^th September, 2008. Hosted by the Taipei City Council, the conference was attended by a number of representative groups across different sectors from Taipei, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong.

I attended the conference on the first day as an observer. The conference began with a presentation on abandoned dogs in construction sites by the key-note speaker Leung Man Teo, a president of a policy research centre based in Hong Kong. The most inspiring aspect of his discussion was the perceived distinction between and definitions of nature and city by decision makers as well as the general public. He pointed out that animals are expected to live either in the city realm or the perceived nature of the public. Where the existence of these animals fall beyond the defined boundaries, they are considered having violated the “rules”, thus should be rightly “taken care of”.

The book argues the interpretation of sociology of law from a sociologist is influenced heavily by the expectation that law practitioners gives insider

This has given me new inspiration in looking at the profession of planning. In her book--Planning in Australia, Susan Thompson (or one of the contributors) argues that in order to be defined and recognized as a profession, an industry is required to have 5 criteria. Among the list is exclusive set of knowledge (and I would argue exclusive membership to the qualified, whatever the qualification process involves), What the book of sociology of law has inspired me is a potentially new criterion to the list discussed: capability to offer an insider

A good example of such understanding would be estimation of the likelihood of winning a dispute in the planning list of VCAT. A developer is likely to investigate with a town planner in the Responsible Authority the chances of obtaining a permit for a multi-unit development, which has been supported by Council yet received strong opposition from the neighbourhood.

The dilemma a planner may face in such situation would be the conflict between impartiality and offering professional advice and alternative. Despite the role of statutory planners in Council is primarily ensuring compliance and achieving consistency in decision-maker, many who works in rural Councils are expected to provide insider

Cheers,

Victor Ng

He said, his last lecture was not going to be about his family, spiritialit and religion, but achieve your goal and how to help others to achieve their goals.

As it turns out, it's really about a lecture for his children, and it's about love and relationship with people where true passion can be found. as he proclaimed at the end.

A thought provating material which has received just below 5 millions hit on youtube, till toda, 2 das after his death.

More reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams