A Busy Month Has Passed By
22nd October
Sunday afternoons are always a nice time for us to relax and treat ourselves to a good meal after a long and tiring week. Usually we would eat out and then do our groceries, but today we decided to eat in and watch a DVD along the way. I prepared the Szechuan delicacy "gong bao ji ding" and whipped up a fusion dish of Italian zuchinis cooked in a Chinese style, Aili prepared a few sushi rolls made from cucumber, egg, carrots, crab and tuna, and Delia cut some salmon sashimi slices. It was quite a satisfying lunch, and the girls complemented the meal with a healthy cup of pineapple juice each, while I sipped away at a glass of California red (though I was made to drink a glass of pineapple juice first as well). As you can see from the photo, it was a relaxed and informal atmosphere, and we did not even take out our tablemats, improvising instead with some newspapers. We planned to go for a jogging session in the evening, but unfortunately I fell asleep, so we will have to postpone our "Healthy Lifestyle Project" to next week.
It has been a busy month that has just passed by. During the stay of our friend Joan from Singapore, we held a talk on education in Singapore at one of the top colleges in Peru, and then a talk on Chinese culture that was targetted at professionals and businessmen. The talk on Chinese culture coincided with the Mooncake Festival Night, and so we invited our guests to sample some Chinese mooncakes. Unfortunately, mooncakes don't seem to be too much of a hit among the locals. Besides these two talks, Joan also had a great time doing up some question and answer session with some youths here, and the topics ranged from issues such as tips for preparing for exams to issues such as whether there is a difference between evangelical Christianity and catholic Christianity.
Recently, we have been engaged in some lively discussions with different groups of people from different age groups over a very pertinent question: What is the meaning of life? Most people would be familiar with a king from the pages of biblical history, whose name was Solomon. It is interesting to note that the most wealthy, intelligent and powerful king in history made this conclusion at the end of his life: "Everything is meaningless". It's interesting that this conclusion is reached today by many rich and successful people today as well. Recently, I had the chance to talk with a couple of very successful professionals from Peru and from China, both of whom had significant educational degrees and who owned large multinational firms. Despite all of their wealth and success, they were both beginning to wonder if there was any meaning to all their achievements, since it was slowly dawning upon them that they could not bring these achievements with them to the world beyond this lifetime. In contrast, I have a friend in Peru who has just quit from his job. This morning, he was sharing to me that he must be "the most happy unemployed person in Peru". He suddenly discovered that he had more time to do things he had always wanted to do, like reading, helping his mother with the household stuff, and most importantly, to help in the development of the youths from financially disadvantaged backgrounds in our youth project. Amazingly, he has also been receiving a flurry of freelance assignments which have more than met his financial needs. It would seem that meaning in life is found beyond a collection of personal achievements, and moving towards the capacity to help and bless other people. Even that may be fail to provide the ultimate meaning in life, but an altruistic outward-bound perspective certainly brings us nearer than a self-centered perspective.
Many of our youths are waiting to enter the university. They are unable to enter university not because of lousy grades, bad character or health reasons. They simply don't have money to further their education. As a result, we are setting up a project to enable the youths to earn some money for a centralized education fund through entrepreneurial means, and we are inviting different professionals to join us to act as consultants to the youths. In fact, we are having dinner at home with a young business consultant that I met recently tomorrow together with two other young professionals Karen and Oscar, and we hope to discuss ways in which we can get more young professionals to be involved in this project. We believe that getting involved in this project will bring the young professionals one step closer towards discovering a life of significance, a life that is filled with a sense of meaning and fulfillment. Of course, we are holistic people, and they will be sampling my Chinese-Japanese fusion delicacies amidst the time of getting to know one another.
Sunday afternoons are always a nice time for us to relax and treat ourselves to a good meal after a long and tiring week. Usually we would eat out and then do our groceries, but today we decided to eat in and watch a DVD along the way. I prepared the Szechuan delicacy "gong bao ji ding" and whipped up a fusion dish of Italian zuchinis cooked in a Chinese style, Aili prepared a few sushi rolls made from cucumber, egg, carrots, crab and tuna, and Delia cut some salmon sashimi slices. It was quite a satisfying lunch, and the girls complemented the meal with a healthy cup of pineapple juice each, while I sipped away at a glass of California red (though I was made to drink a glass of pineapple juice first as well). As you can see from the photo, it was a relaxed and informal atmosphere, and we did not even take out our tablemats, improvising instead with some newspapers. We planned to go for a jogging session in the evening, but unfortunately I fell asleep, so we will have to postpone our "Healthy Lifestyle Project" to next week.
It has been a busy month that has just passed by. During the stay of our friend Joan from Singapore, we held a talk on education in Singapore at one of the top colleges in Peru, and then a talk on Chinese culture that was targetted at professionals and businessmen. The talk on Chinese culture coincided with the Mooncake Festival Night, and so we invited our guests to sample some Chinese mooncakes. Unfortunately, mooncakes don't seem to be too much of a hit among the locals. Besides these two talks, Joan also had a great time doing up some question and answer session with some youths here, and the topics ranged from issues such as tips for preparing for exams to issues such as whether there is a difference between evangelical Christianity and catholic Christianity.
Recently, we have been engaged in some lively discussions with different groups of people from different age groups over a very pertinent question: What is the meaning of life? Most people would be familiar with a king from the pages of biblical history, whose name was Solomon. It is interesting to note that the most wealthy, intelligent and powerful king in history made this conclusion at the end of his life: "Everything is meaningless". It's interesting that this conclusion is reached today by many rich and successful people today as well. Recently, I had the chance to talk with a couple of very successful professionals from Peru and from China, both of whom had significant educational degrees and who owned large multinational firms. Despite all of their wealth and success, they were both beginning to wonder if there was any meaning to all their achievements, since it was slowly dawning upon them that they could not bring these achievements with them to the world beyond this lifetime. In contrast, I have a friend in Peru who has just quit from his job. This morning, he was sharing to me that he must be "the most happy unemployed person in Peru". He suddenly discovered that he had more time to do things he had always wanted to do, like reading, helping his mother with the household stuff, and most importantly, to help in the development of the youths from financially disadvantaged backgrounds in our youth project. Amazingly, he has also been receiving a flurry of freelance assignments which have more than met his financial needs. It would seem that meaning in life is found beyond a collection of personal achievements, and moving towards the capacity to help and bless other people. Even that may be fail to provide the ultimate meaning in life, but an altruistic outward-bound perspective certainly brings us nearer than a self-centered perspective.
Many of our youths are waiting to enter the university. They are unable to enter university not because of lousy grades, bad character or health reasons. They simply don't have money to further their education. As a result, we are setting up a project to enable the youths to earn some money for a centralized education fund through entrepreneurial means, and we are inviting different professionals to join us to act as consultants to the youths. In fact, we are having dinner at home with a young business consultant that I met recently tomorrow together with two other young professionals Karen and Oscar, and we hope to discuss ways in which we can get more young professionals to be involved in this project. We believe that getting involved in this project will bring the young professionals one step closer towards discovering a life of significance, a life that is filled with a sense of meaning and fulfillment. Of course, we are holistic people, and they will be sampling my Chinese-Japanese fusion delicacies amidst the time of getting to know one another.
posted by Terry at 8:41 PM
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