Magic of TVB drama

  I have started a new life with my wife since last year. We cooked and ate dinner at home almost every evening after work. During our supper, We watched drama in television. We have seen dramas of different themes during the recent half year. They were all attractive and once we started to see, we could not stop until the story finished.

  If we eat out and miss an episode, will we stop seeing that drama afterward because we cannot pick up the story? No. We found no problems every time. Even we missed two episodes, we found that we would soon take up the pace in 15 minutes. Is there any magic here? I discovered that the actors did revision on the story naturally in their dialogues. Therefore we can know every important scene happened in the episode we have missed. It is wise method to catch the audience!

  Last Friday evening, we have visited my older sister and her husband. We ate dinner together and my wife and I watched the last episode of a drama in television. When we concentrated on the drama, my brother-in-law smiled. He said the ending of most TVB drama were similar. First of all, there will be something breathtaking and let us feel anxious, for example gun fighting, car crashing. After the excitement, it will follow a warm and peaceful ending. The good guy in the drama have experienced a lots and have learned a lots. His life will then resume to normal and calm. We continued to watch the television and the story went exactly with that pattern. My brother-in-law was prophet of TVB drama! We laughed together.

  Someone says the TVB dramas are stupid. But they are attractive indeed! That's why there are so many audience blame the drama without stop seeing it. I remembered one day I saw a prominent movie with my wife, I was confused and felt difficult to understand the complex story. I dawned that my brain have been pampered by TVB dramas for long times! That movie was so strange and the story pattern is not the one I was familiar with. It went too fast and my brain was exhausted! I surrendered!

A marvelous novel, The alchemist

  The alchemist is a book recommended by my older sister many years ago. I have finally read this book recently and was amazed by the marvelous imagination of the writer.

  The alchemist is a little book full of words of wisdom. The story started from a shepherd who loved a merchant's daughter. Love is a motif that always draws our interest. It leaded me to explore another important topic, destiny. When we were born, it was likely that everyone of us has a destiny given by God.

  Knowing my own destiny is the first important task I should tackle with in my life. As time passes, searching my own destiny becomes less important than doing jobs the society respects for. The shepherd loved to travel and therefore he became a shepherd despite of expectation from his parents of being a priest. But he was confused because he loved the merchant's daughter. A shepherd was unstable that a merchant will not let his daughter marry to. At the time he was about to give up, a King appeared and hinted the shepherd his destiny of searching treasure in pyramids in Egypt. Then the adventure started.

  I admit I have oversimplified the story here. When one is searching for his own destiny, knowing it and implementing it, he should struggle endlessly. He may first deny his destiny. If he finally choose to pursue, he knows he should first sacrifice what he now owns. During the trip of searching, some failures are devastating but success can also make him stop on the mid way, especially the afterward success of a big failure. The fear of losing again is so real and makes one perceive himself that he have already reached the goal. There are many reasons to retreat, for example, love. We may stop our dreams for lovers. But the writer reminded that a true love will not impede one to pursue his destiny. Don't let love and lover to be our excuse.

  This is a great book deserves to read several times. This should be a prominent novel for humans even after 100 years.

What I have learned from the tricky opportunity cost question

  The tricky opportunity cost question mentioned in the previous two articles let me learned a lot.

  The first thing reminds me is: Cost is ubiquitous, although we always focus on those measurable. For example, it is easy to say the opportunity cost of forfeiting the current job and start a business. Because you have already known the salary of your current job. What's about the opposite? What's the opportunity cost of keep doing the current job? Hard to tell. But a cost difficult to measure does not mean it doesn't exist! For every activity, there are hidden value and cost and I need to figure them out objectively.

  The second thing reminds me is : Selling price is not the real value. Selling price is value the seller claims. And I should responsible for my own life. I should know the real price in my mind and decide if the deal is worth. If I receive a free concert ticket, I may normally look at the selling price of the free ticket first. Yes. Selling price should be the clue but should not be the crucial factor. I should ask myself honestly if I really want to see that concert regardless of the selling price. Even though the selling price is high, I will not see if it is worth $0 for me. On the other hand, it is no harm to see it, as life needs adventure. If I finally decide to see because of the high selling price, I should bear in mind that I am starting an adventure instead of asking for repay.

A tricky opportunity cost question (the answer)

  This article is the answer of a tricky opportunity cost question in previous article. Read the previous article first if you have not read yet. What's the opportunity cost of attending the free John Lee concert(instead of buy ticket to see Mary Chan one)? As there are four options (a $0, b $10, c $40, d $50), if you pick the answer randomly, the probability of answer it correctly is 25%. The author let the university students who have studied economy to answer, only 7.4% of them correct. Then he asked the university students who have not studied economy, 17.2% of them correct. But it was still less than by chance! The author concluded that a little knowledge may be more dangerous than innocence. Let's see if you are the majority.

  If you attend the free concert, what you need to give up is Mary Chan concert which costs $40 but is worth $50 in your mind. Therefore what you can potentially "earn" in the Mary Chan concert is what you sacrifice for the free concert. Then the answer is $50(return) - $40(ticket price of Mary Chan concert) = $10. You may argue that you have not bought the Mary Chan concert yet, you pay no money and therefore no "cost" to attend the free concert. The word "cost" may confine our understanding in this situation. The meaning of cost is broader. It is not just the money you need to pay for. Giving up a glorious occasion is also a cost. This question is interesting because it quantifies something not measurable,i.e., seeing the Mary Chan concert is worth $50 in your mind, we never think like that when we buy concert ticket! It helps us to notice there are hidden costs and hidden values in our daily life.

  The question is difficult but is still quite generous by not mentioning the original price of the free ticket. If the question also mentions the price of free ticket, says $20, I will be further confused and my brain will explode. Actually, the original price of the free ticket contributes no meaning on the opportunity cost of attending John Lee free concert and even Mary Chan concert! It has no meanings on both choices!

  What's the meaning behind $10? It helps you to make rational decision. If you think the John Lee free concert is worth more than $10 in your mind, go for the John Lee one. Otherwise, proceed to buy Mary Chan concert ticket.

  I have also learned a lot from this tricky opportunity cost question. May be I talk about this next time.

A tricky opportunity cost question

  I have recently listened an introductory section of the audio version of a book "The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explains Almost Everything". The author talked about "opportunity cost", which is a term we are all familiar with. The first time I heard this term was coming with an easy example. If a man wants to start a business, he should forfeit his current job. If the salary of his current job is $15000, then the opportunity cost to start a business will be $15000. Opportunity cost is the value one should give up in order to pursue an activity.

  I have not studied any economy courses in my school days but I still think the concept of opportunity cost is not difficult to comprehend. Then the author gave a far more tricky example. I was confused and finally took half an hour to contemplate. I say with my own wordings here but the concept behind is the same.

  You have just received a free concert ticket of singer John Lee. You cannot resell it. Before getting this free ticket, you originally wanted to buy a ticket of Mary Chan concert which will perform at the same night of John Lee concert. Mary Chan concert ticket is sold at $40 dollars. And in your mind, Mary Chan concert ticket is worth $50. The question is: What is the opportunity cost of going the John Lee concert? The options are: a $0, b $10, c $40, d $50

  This question is quite weird. Firstly, you do not know the ticket price of John Lee concert. Secondly, you have not bought the ticket of Mary Chan concert yet. Thirdly, the selling price of Mary Chan ticket is different from the price you give in your mind. The third point is quite funny for me. When we buy something, we consider not only the selling price, but also the price in our mind. I will buy a product which selling at $10 dollars and I think it is worth $15 dollars. If I think it is worth just $6, I will not buy despite $10 seems cheap. I will see the singer I love because a ticket selling at $100 is worth $200 for me. If I hate that singer, a $100 ticket is worth $0 for me and even negative(as I need to waste my time). Then, what is the opportunity cost of going the John Lee concert? Are the hints enough for you? Let me give the answer in the next post.

A funny audio book - Les Miserable

Last week, I started to listen an audio story book of a famous novels, Les Miserable. I am surely not capable of listening the original full version which is too difficult for me and takes 59 hours, I listened a simplified one instead. The story was narrated by a pleasant, clear voice. She spoke native English and the voice was so sweet as if I was hearing a catchy song.

One day when my wife and I was at bus, I introduced this audio book by sharing one side of my earphones to her. After listening the first chapter, she was attracted by the story and the voice too. The story started with a traveler called Jean Valjean. He was released from prison and wanna find an inn to have supper. He was refused rudely by all inns and finally accepted by a bishop in church. He stole a silver plate at the dinning table at night and have been discovered by the police. The bishop forgave him and rescued his heart......

My wife and I listen the audio book every night before bed. We discussed the story after each chapter. My wife thought that Fantine was miserable but also ridiculous. The little girl, Cosette was looked after by a cruel couple who always swindled Cosette's mother, Fantine. Fantine believed them and coughed out money recklessly. She finally lost her teeth and became a prostitute and died from bullying of a soldier.

The audio narration was so lovely that we sometime imitated for fun. The native audio linked up every English words neatly just like a flow of river. This reminded us the old days of learning English in primary school. When the teacher taught us a new word, says "evening", the kids would then record the pronunciation with Chinese characters "依,訓,玲", which sounds like "e-fum-ling" neglecting the rhythm. Although it was a bad method, this childhood episode made us laughed and was funny indeed.

The audio book also reminded us the sweet trip. We have seen the Les Miserable Opera in the England trip two years ago. But I failed to enjoy it because my English was poor. I hope I can enjoy this opera one day.

Blog writing review

  I am delighted that I have written more than 30 English articles within two months. I started this blog last month and hoped to write English essay in an easy way. I have seen many blogs ceased with several articles and I worried this blog will be the one of these. That's why I wanted to take this habit easy. An easy habit will be an everlasting habit. While a difficult task seems great at first, it is not sustainable.

  The greatest resistance stopping me from writing is not the fear of English, but lack of sharable topics. After writing about twenty articles, I ran out of topics and found nothing to say. Sometimes I felt stress and pushed my brain to cough out stuff but failed. My brain complained by letting me felt dizzy and tired. Throughout this period, I discovered my brain is my close friend that I should understand more. Rather than pushing and requesting my brain, I should let go and trust my dearest friend. I confess I know very little on him but demand too much. The conscious mind is just a tip of the iceberg while the subconscious mind is the great deep sea. If I trust my brain by relaxing and doing something else first, my brain will reward me by picking up some funny topics from the subconscious sea! Then suddenly booms! Idea comes!

  What topics I aim to talk? I am not ambitious to express some wonderful,intelligent opinion that can seize reader's admiration. I also don't want this blog will be full of petty daily stuff, for example just a photo of my meal without any further meanings. Being a copycat to fill up the blog with some second-handed stuff such as video clip, photo or news is also not my wish. I want to write something that the readers and I ,as the first reader, can read in pleasure, hopefully can pass some meaningful messages or knowledge. I will be satisfied every time I finish that kind of article.

  Do you know why I talk about this today? It is because I had nothing to write this morning. And after several hours, suddenly my brain suggested, "You have written for nearly two months, let have a review on blog writing." "Good idea!" I replied.

parallel universe explained(II)

  Continue the previous post, parallel universe claims that there are many universes coexist. You may wonder if there is such enormous space to hold so many universes. If you think out of the 3 dimensional box, you can see it is possible. In order to comprehend easily, think about a 2 dimensional world first. In a 2 dimensional world, it is an area with long and width but without height. If I show you a 1000-pages book and ask you how many 2 dimensional area inside the book. You may answer 1000 because each page can be considered as a 2 dimensional area. You may soon notice that a 2 dimensional area has no thickness(i.e. height) while every page has thickness although the thickness is negligible. If you split each page further thinner, you can has more than 1000 2D areas inside the book. As a 2D area has no height, you can therefore split indefinite number of 2D area from a 3D cube. That means any 3D cube can hold indefinite number of 2D areas! Similarly, if there is a 4 dimensional space, it can contain indefinite number of 3 dimensional universes!

  A 4 dimensional world may be a territory of God that human can imagine but cannot understand. When a new parallel world will be created? Some fictions claim that if anyone uses a Time machine to travel to the past, a new parallel world will be produced. That means time machine is a machine that clones the existing world and then set the timeline at a specific past time. Some fictions even imagine that if anyone makes a decision, a parallel world will be produced instantly. For example, if you decide to swim instead of jogging. In the current world you are swimming but at the same time there will be another "you" are jogging in another parallel world.

  What do I feel about parallel universe? I may say it is interesting at first but boring after you know the trick. As a man come from future has no way to influence his own world, it is nothing special comparing to a man solely come from other place. Man comes from future may tell you something interesting, but man comes from mysterious place such as tropical rain forest can also tell you something marvelous. Time machine contributes less fun under parallel universes. As I said in previous post, the Japanese cartoon "Doraemon" has no concept relating to parallel universe. It creates many fun indeed! If you travel to the past, What you have done in the past induced direct consequence on the present world. It can lead to recursive causality that drives me laugh! You don't trust me? Let enjoy some episodes of "Doraemon"! You may find it in youtube.

Parallel universes explained

  Last week my wife and I saw a Japanese cartoon movie called "Stand by Me Doraemon". After the movie, I said:"In the Doraemon's world, there is no concept relating to parallel universe." My wife then asked me what parallel universe was. I said it was a guess in order to solve the paradox induced by Time machine. Bear with me, I am going to explain here.

  As a human being living in 3 dimensional world, time is our ultimate limitation which we always dream to overcome. People dream to have a time machine to travel to the past and hopefully stop any mistakes we were going to make. But then someone doubt forcefully :"If you travel to the past and kill your parents. Do you still exist in your world? If exists, how come you are born but your parents have been already murdered?If not, how come you are here and travel to the past?"This breaks the causality at both sides! This paradox is equivalent to claim that time machine is pathetically impossible. As people are so eager for time machine, they invent a guess to let the causality still hold and therefore "Parallel universe" introduced.

  Parallel universe claims that there are many universes coexist with the one we are living in. The hypothesis claims that if your travel to the past with time machine, you are actually going to another different universe. What you have done on that universe will induce no effect on the original one. They are perfectly independent. If you kill your "parents" at that universe you traveled, that universe will continue to run without your parents and eventually without you. At the same time, the original universe will go smoothly with your parents and you as the son/daughter now travelling to the past. Causality will not break and problem solved, isn't it?

  What's your opinion? I know you may ask:"If there are many universes coexist, how to find such enormous space to hold so many universes?" Let talk about this next time.

a luxury earphones set

  I have used earphones frequently in this year during commuting and doing housework. The earphones set was a gift from my father-in-law. It came with a Samsung smartphone he has bought last year. He gave it to me after I lost my own one. I admitted I did not treat the gift very well. Although I used it every day, I always squeezed it into my trousers' pocket. Last week, one side of the earphones could not speak. I concluded that earphones were vulnerable and I should not invest an expensive one.

  I went through the shopping malls and visited many shops selling digital accessories. I found that earphones with hand-free were mostly expensive. The earphones set given by father-in-law was sold at $130 HKD. As I didn't want to invest in stuff which will damage in half years, I chose a $68 one. I worn the new earphones quickly and walked to home happily. When I played a song and started to enjoy, I was shocked! The earphone speakers were very loud. But loud didn't mean clear. I immediately turned down the volume. I then switched to a speech that I was familiar with. The speech was very blur, the sound quality was terrible! I could not believe I was so picky on the sound quality of earphones. When I passed through a crowded street, noise passed through the earphones mixed with the voice from the speakers. It was so annoying and I failed to endure even for one minute.

  After I went home, I listened with the earphone again and again in compare with the Samsung one. I discovered my ears have been pampered by the old earphones for half years!. The old earphones set was from father-in law. He seldom used it and therefore gave it to me. Same as many human being, I took that gift for granted and did not notice how wonderful it was. Looking at that new earphones set, I shouted in my mind :"This is rubbish. The sound is terrible. It cannot block any noise but instead amplify it! I make no bones about it! I have to replace another one!" I talked to my wife furiously that I wanted to replace that crap. My wife stayed calm and said:"Well. You used earphones everyday. Why not buy a good one?".

  I sprinted to the shop and told the shopkeeper that I want to replace an excellent earphones set no matter how expensive it will be! I was back. I came and took revenge! The shopkeeper was kind of patient and introduced an excellent earphones set to me. He said :"This is an earphones set with "Dual Dynamic Driver". The sound is excellent and it can impede most of the noice outside. Let try!" I don't know what "Dual Dynamic Driver" was. I took out $220 HKD accompanied with the $68 crap in replace of this great earphones set. I wore it at once and my life resumed to normal with clear sound, negligible noise and with fantastic bass added.

  When I went home and calmed down, I suddenly remembered a statement from Warren Buffett: "I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me." Was Warren Buffett so arrogant? No. First, expensive goods always came with good quality. Second, we will use it with care. Therefore it can be used for many years and become cheap in term of usable hours. I hope this "Bonnaire MX-320 pro" luxury earphones set will be finally cheap on me.

How "long tail business" works in China

  When I talked about the Crazy English echo magazine in the previous post, I wondered why Hong Kong cannot have a fantastic magazine like this. I at first worried Hong Kong of losing her competitiveness. Finally I think the long tail business model cannot be applied in Hong Kong was the main cause.

   Long tail business was a business model explored by a gigantic online book store, Amazon.com. Selling best-seller books is the main source of income for a conventional bookstore. While for amazon.com, she also sell unpopular books which are expected to be interested by a very small amount of readers. Amazon.com managed to venture on this area because she are not bother of the expensive lease in shopping mall where every small piece of area is too precious for displaying unpopular books. Did Amazon failed in this attempt? No! She discovered an entire new blue sea! When an online store facing billions of customers, an unpopular book which only draws interest from 0.0001% customers can result in big revenue. What's about thousands of unpopular books? They were summoned to huge revenue!


  Let go back to the story of China. There are many magazines with specific topics such as, military, travel, computer programming, foreign languages, history, literature, short tales, etc. Some topics are even very strange. As China has a huge population based of around 1.3billions, 0.0001% of readers were enough for the publishers to thrive.  Therefore, magazines like Crazy English echo can enjoy an adequate amount of target customers.

  What's about Hong Kong? Hong Kong is a small marketplace with tiny customer based of around 7millions. Magazines in Hong Kong are mostly digging news from hot topics like eating, drinking, local news or "nosy news" from TV stars. That's why there are so many "nosy magazine" in favour of the majority. Are Hong Kong people so superficial and naive to digest something intellectual? Actually, crowd, no matter from HK, China or America, is mainly mediocre, foolish and not intelligent. While a big country,especially a country willing to embrace the whole world, elites then can find the position they strive for. Therefore, as a Hongkonger living in a tiny space with small population based, we should be aware not to satisfy from the local newspaper,magazine, TV shows that are prepared for the mediocre crowd.They sometimes even pretended to be sophisticated! Instead, we should open our mind to embrace information come from all over the world.

"Crazy English Echo" magazine

  When I started to practice English last year, I went to book store and searched for some English books. There were lots of English grammar books, idiom books, vocabularies books and books taught to write decent English. I concluded that such books all aim to "crack" English. They attempted to crack English by showing the common vocabularies, phases, grammar usage and conversation so that readers can boost their English quickly. As a human being, time is our ultimate enemy we need to tackle with everyday. Such time-saving booster books were very appealing. They were all written in Chinese. They confused me: "Why should I read tones of Chinese books in order to improve my English?" If this strategy works, my English should have been excellent in high school!

  Those books are best-seller books in Hong Kong for two reasons. First, many Hong Kong people are eager to improve their English and believe these books can help them. Second, these books cannot help them therefore they should buy (but not really read through) again and again. The second point is funny and powerful. I have read a book called "One Up on in wall street". Peter Lynch,a super successful stocks investor, said(I say with my wordings here):"What makes a pharmaceutical company thrive is not inventing medicine that can cure illness soon, but to turn patients into chronic-disease sufferers who are relied on those medicine."  The same trick works on these "English cracking books"!

  Then I stepped into another book store. It was a book store selling books and magazine from mainland China. There were also many "English cracking book" but a magazine caught my eyes. It was called Crazy English Echo. I picked up and leave through the magazine. I found inside English poem, dialogues of a movie, excerpt of a famous book, some international news, geographical documentary, conversations or speeches on specific topic and song lyrics,etc. It also came with an audio CD. I bought it and copied the MP3 into my smartphone. I listened everyday when I was commuting to work. To my surprise, those audios were "raw material". That means these were natural conversations with real tone and pace but not some actors speak artificially. I am frustrated at first because I did not get used to the "accent" of native speakers. In order words, I was too comfort on English with Cantonese accent. Then I listened the same audios many times and also read the scripts. I discovered I could take up the pace. I could catch the content by "hearing without listening"(lyrics in sound of silence). There are so many funny topics and I never got bored of them!

  I wondered company from mainland China can publish such fantastic magazine but why don't be Hong Kong. Are Honk Kong losing competitiveness? It may be right. But I finally find the crucial factor. It is because "Long tail business" works in China but not in Hong Kong. Let talk about it next time.

Mixing English with Chinese in speech

  Mixing English with Cantonese(mother tongue of HongKonger) in daily speech is a normal phenomenon in Hong Kong community. We take for granted at mixing single English word or common phases in our Cantonese conversation. But when someone mixes English heavily, audiences will be irritated although normally not express in their faces. What they think are similar to me, the guy pretends to be high-class. It may due to historical reason that most of the Chinese regards someone has linkage with western civilization to be high-class. Or western civilization is indeed better than ours. Anyway, learning a second language should be praised. No matter it is English, Japanese, Korean or Spanish. It can broaden our horizon to see the world in a new way. We should keep our mind opened and there is no room for envy.

  Learning second language is marvelous but mixing that with mother tongue should be a bad idea. When someone mixes English words with Cantonese, they always copy the rhythm and accent of Cantonese into English. Making English word sounds like Cantonese can let the mixing not so odd and becomes natural. Rhythm of Cantonese is straightforward. Every word in Cantonese shares the same tone, stress and time frame. Pronunciation of one word does not affect the next word. That is totally different from English speaking. You may imagine English is like a flow of river while Cantonese is rocks and stones.

  Why we always mix English with Cantonese? I practice English every day in this year and also find I am tempted to do so. I have no intention to pretend to be high-class but some English words always surge to my throat. Someone says:"This is a good news. That means you can think in English!" But I know that is not the real story. When we are talking, we always talk intuitively and seldom study every word before speak. I find there are some common words/phases in English which are not so common in Chinese/Cantonese. For example, common sense(常識) , stubborn(頑固) , just in case (以防萬一), pay safe (安全起見),etc. Then I will promptly use the word which is most familiar for me. No matter it is Cantonese or English. But when I speak/think in English with complete sentences, this mechanism functions as well! As a native Cantonese speaker, I need to swallow some Cantonese words when I speak in English. Therefore, mixing English with Cantonese has no way to improve our English but even worsen it. It just means that you always use the easiest,laziest way to speak. And just like Jesus said : "No man can serve two masters well".

Lose money if don't buy

  There are too many people obsess with "price-performance". The psychology behind is solely greed. A Chinese idiom said:"Greed results in poverty" . The Chinese character of "Greed"(貪) and "Poverty"(貧) looks so similar that makes this wise idiom more meaningful.

  One year ago, a well-known Chinese technology company announced a smartphone called redmi. It was a mediocre smartphone without any revolutionary features but sold at amazingly low price. It came with 1.3GHz quad core CPU, 1 GB RAM and 1280*720 high resolution display. Smartphone of other brands with similar specifications were sold at $2000 HKD while redmi was only $1100 HKD. Everyone became crazy and rushed to the online shop and snapped them all within 1 minute. Then they faced a problem. As redmi was just a medium to low-end product, how they use it when they already have had a high-end smartphone? They produced many reasons. They bought red-mi for their parents. They bought red-mi as their backup smartphone and even as a wireless router! It was so funny that they wasted money on a smartphone that is not as good as their own one.

  As a customer, we always wish to pay less and get more. While for crazy sales, it is one step forward. Pay less means earn more. We get hard-earned money from our long hours daily job, and therefore we all want to make easy money. How come buying low-price stuff in a crazy sales will induce a feeling of making money? For a smartphone is worth $2000 HKD selling at $1100 HKD, if a customer don't buy it, he thinks as if he loses $900 dollars($2000-$1100). On the other hand, he can "earn" $900 dollars if he buys it. He replaces his $1100 notes with a smartphone equivalents to $2000. That means his possession is raised by $900! Everyone hates losing money and loves to make easy money very much. Right? Therefore it is a great temptation to do it. They create many reasons to rationalize it.

  My mother also buy lots of groceries because of that. Her buying reason is simple:"We will use them in one day!"

Is Price-performance important?

  The first time I heard the term "price-performance rate" was from computer magazine when I was a teenager. It is a philosophy of maximize the use of money. Instead of buying something cheap or very expensive, we buy something good enough for daily use. As computer technology evolves quickly, the cheapest CPU may become useless soon while CPUs on the cutting edge are very expensive and the price may drop drastically within a year. Therefore, we should lay in the middle. Buying CPU with reasonable price that can be used for reasonably long period (around 2-3 years).

  This philosophy deeply influenced my consuming behavior. For example, I prefer to have three good meals instead of one excellent ,romantic meal. I prefer to have three short trips instead of one long and luxury trip. Finally, I find there is something wrong. It came from a buying experience of my friend.

  Two years ago, my friend wanted to buy a tablet. iPad was too expensive for him and he wanted for a price effective one. After comparing many tablets, he chose one made by a Chinese small company. There are many small companies in China which keen on copying the famous digital products and release with an amazingly low price. Looking at the specifications, the CPU, memory, resolution of display are all powerful. But when he started using it, the tablet was not as snappy as he expected. It compromised on many details and the overall quality sucked. The tablet damaged in only one year's use. Similar stories occurred in his smartphone. On the other hand, I heard another friend was still using his "expensive" iPad for 4 years with good condition.

  In good old days, I knew getting 70 marks in exam was easy while getting 95 marks was far more difficult. It was not effective to exert triple effort in order to get 25 marks more.I still did it because I wanted to excel in my study life. Similarly, will I miss many wonderful scenes in my life if I concentrate too much on price-performance?

Does tiny dehumidifier work?

  Humidity climbed to 90% in recent days. Clothes taken out from washing machine were dried in the air for three days but still moist. When my wife talked about it with her colleagues, they said we should have a dehumidifier. They said we will soon find no clothes to wear and will surely buy a dehumidifier to stop the suffering. My wife and I hesitated to buy because a dehumidifier is very bulky and heavy. It is useful for only one or two months in a year. Then we should make room to hide it.

  My mother also bought a dehumidifier several years ago. She at first used it for fun. She was satisfied to see a liter of water was collected in the tray.But once the dehumidifier was buried in the stockroom(actually it was my study room) in the summer, she was too lazy to take it out in the next humid spring.

  Last weekend, my wife and I walked in the shopping mall, many dehumidifiers are placed conspicuously to attract customers. As the shopping mall was spacious, dehumidifiers were looked small there. But I knew if someone buy it and take it to their tiny home, they will find it was unbelievably huge. Apart from these normal dehumidifiers, some products drew our attention. There was a tiny recyclable dehumidifier for wardrobe. Rather than using the one-off dehumidifier for wardrobe, this one is recyclable . When it absorbs water, the solid pearl inside the box will melt down. When the pearl are completely liquefied, you can charge it and the liquid will condense into tiny solid pearl again.


  Another product looked attractive was a tiny dehumidifier. It was surprisingly small that can be held by my palm. As small is sexy, it soon attracted my greedy eyes. But I quickly dawned on it by searching the specification from web. The water tray of this tiny dehumidifier is 500ml and it can absorb 250ml of water per day. I am not sure if it is workable for drying wet clothes comparing to around 10L per day for normal dehumidifier. I am still hoping someone telling me :"This tiny dehumidifier is useful ! This magical product can replace the traditional huge one!"

Searching for meaning of our life

  "What's the meaning of the life?" This is a recurring question asking from everyone. I remembered that I have read a book, the author said like this:" What's the meaning of the life? It is not a question asking from you. It is a question asking you by your life." I did not remember the actual wordings but it inspired me at that moment.

  We all know we will inevitably die. We all know in the material world, something happened now will surely end in future. Even the earth, the whole human race and the universal will eventually demise. Knowing this destiny, pessimist claims that life has no meanings at all. No matter how we struggle, we have no way to reverse this destiny. In order to tackle this thought, religion introduces.  We have a hope for eternity.

  Now, it seems to contribute some meanings if our life ground on something eternal.  We hope that after we die, our life still exist in another spiritual way, hopefully in a graceful and glorious way. But is this answer distracting the actual question? We are asking :"What's the meaning of the life?" But not :"What will be after we die?" Even we surely know we will be grateful after we die, it does not mean our life currently living are meaningful.  Someone may argues that the meaning of our life is to prepare a grateful life after we die. Despite of it, they should still need to find some meanings on what they are doing now. Otherwise, it is just an excuse of deferring or avoiding the question but not actually facing it. And it is not so exciting if one say when he is dying :"Well. My life is so so, boring, painful. But I will be grateful after I pass away."

    That's why the author I talked before inspired me. Instead of asking, we should answer it. "What's the meaning of the life?" is too general. Let come up with something specific for me: "What's the meaning of my life?" We all responsible to give meaning to our own life. Is the question still too big and difficult? Let break down into smaller pieces. We can give meaning to our daily works. For example, what I am doing now is writing, "What's the meaning of writing English blog now?" Answer:" I can practice my English writing skill, I can share my thinking, I am fulfilled when I finish writing an essay." That's super easy to answer! I spend less than a minute to think about it. Then the next question may be :"What will be the meaning of hiking in the coming Sunday?" "What is the meaning of seeing this movie?" "What's the meaning of having lunch with my friends?", etc.  Let gather many tiny meaningful pieces to build a meaningful life.

Crazy stock, calmed mind

  Let me continue the story about a crazy stock. In 2009, my older sister read a financial column in newspaper which recommended a strange stock. It was an industrial stock with no prospect at all. But the stock "shell" (a slang for Hong Kong investors which means the status of being a listed company) was sold to a solar energy equipment company. The article claimed that the company will have a bright future. My sister believed and bought a few at around $1.4 per share. Although the amount she bought was nothing in comparison to the big wealth she owned, her emotion was driven by it. After several months, the stock dropped and dropped. As an (pretended) experienced investor, I advised her to cut loss but she refused. After a year, the stock dropped to $0.3 and finally reached 0.15! My sister felt very down and she finally managed to let go with it. She thought as if she have not ever bought this stock. This stock was totally disappeared in her mind.

  After several years of dormancy, this crazy stock finally waked up! In 2014, Starting from $0.5, it surged to $1 dollar. I told my sister that she could nearly return to her warm homeland! "Return to one's homeland" is a terminology of Hong Kong investors.If you buy a stock but it drops below your buying price for a long time, you long for the rebound just like a home-sicked wanderer longing for home. When it rebounds to your buying price, it can be described as a wanderer returns to his homeland.

  She was glad to know that good news. As she has not logged in the investment account for many years, she totally forgot the password. I advised her to request the broker to activate the account and she should be ready to sell the stocks if the price reaches her "homeland". After two months, this crazy stock surged to $3 and I was overjoyed while my sister kept calm. As a pretended experienced investor, I suggested her to sell half of her shares to grasp back the cost. I thought this tactical move can place her to a unbeatable status. But she was bother to contact the broker to do so. Days after days, the stock rose again and reached $4. Then it seemed to be weak and remained stagnant for two weeks. But starting from this week, it skyrocketed again! It surged more than 10% everyday. Yesterday, it was rumored that a hedge fund has shorted a huge amount of shares. The fund is forced to buy back now. Lots of hedge fund always do something stupid like this. Shorting a stock means borrowing the stock from someone or institutional investors and sell it in advance. They expect they can buy back in a lower price so as to earn the price different. Hedge funds always short the "overestimated" stocks and I can say they underestimate their fools.

  At the same time, the company announced a 55% expected profit increase in the coming year. Last morning, speculators pushed the stocks  40% up and hit $9 dollars and further pullback let it closed at $7.4! The stock became super volatile. The market capital of this stock reached 300 Billions! My sister is still holding it without selling a single share. I became super nervous at that morning but my sister still calmed! The story still continues and it should be a happy ending.

Caught a Ten-bagger

  I have read a funny statement from an investment book where the author said :"I always heard someone still holding the stock which has dropped 90% from their buying price, but never heard someone still holding the stocks which have rose 900%." On the other hand, if your ask me to give some stock which has ever rose 900%, I can pick up many. For example, in US market, it can be Apple, Google. In Hong Kong, it can be Tencent(700.HK), HK stock exchange(388.HK), etc. But none of the rising trends I could ever catch.

  It is difficult to cut small loss and let the big profit run and run. For amateur investors(may be actually gamblers), it needs luck to achieve it. I learned from newspaper that there was an accountant, he discovered an industrial stock and thought it should have glorious prospect. He was so brave that he invested 500,000 dollars with price around $0.5 per share. After a year, the broker he used went bankrupt. His investment account was frozen.He could not get touch with his stocks in several years. When his account was finally unlocked, the industrial stock rose more than 2000% and became more than 10 dollars per share!(It is about $26 now). The company achieved great success by building strong relationship with Home depot(a gigantic US department store). The guy earned more than 10 millions dollar! When his tale was under the spotlight, he was regarded as the "God of industrial stock".

  Luckily, a similar story, although the scale is far smaller, occurs on my older sister! Let talk about this next time!

Obsession on low PE and high dividend rate

  I have dabbled in stocks market for more than ten years but still have mediocre results. I did not lose lots of money and also did not win much. My portfolio performance always lags behind the market index(Heng seng Index for Hong Kong). I always feel frustrated and blame myself:"Why not blindly buy the index fund but crave for the seemingly cheap stocks?"

  Just like craving for Big Sales in shopping mall, I obsess with cheap stocks in the stocks market.I always search for stocks with  low PE(less than 10) and high dividend rate(more than 5%).I think it is a wise choice to buy it. It has high dividend rate and low valuation therefore the safe margin is high. I can wait until the market awakes and let the price reflect to normal value. I think I am the frontier to buy such "underestimated" stocks.

  I was wrong almost every time! The stock price remains sluggish and even drops slowly over years and years. The dividend rate remains stable but the dividend paid to shareholder's bag keeps decreasing! It dues to regression of sales and profit and the market seemingly knew it in advance!

  When I step in the shopping mall, I know cheap stuff is not good and excellent products are always expensive. But I cannot apply this common sense in the stocks market and repeat the fault again and again. It is because human is stubborn. Human is arrogant! I reminded myself many times after each failure:"All stocks are under the eyes of millions of investors, if a stock is apparently cheap, you should have reasonable suspicion on it!"

  I recently started to read a book called "How to make money in stocks". I have read the Chinese-translation version several years before. This time, I would like to read the original English version. Hoping one day I can earn big money from stocks!

Use second language to release your true feeling

  Apart from your mother tongue, do you know another language? For me, Chinese is my mother language and English is the second language I have learnt for many years but still not good. There are many benefits of knowing more than one language. One interesting benefit is to help you release your feeling in a comfort way.

  Nowadays, people contact with their friends by SMS/Whatsapp rather than by phone call. They think phoning to their friends is too odd and too direct. They use whatsapp so that the receiver needs not give real time response. I admit it is not a healthy way of communication, especially with someone who has intimate relation with you. The point is, if you have something embarrass to say, for example, making a request or expressing your deep inside feeling on the receiver, we always incline to seek an indirect way.

  As a Chinese, instead of saying "我愛你"(means I love you) to lover directly, we seek help from our well known second language and say "I love you". It is more indirect and more romantic for us. And I think if some act is regarded as romantic, it should be indirect and implicit in certain extent. I remembered that when I was young, I have worked in a small company for 8 months. One day, my boss gathered all the staff and said our company will be closed down within 2 months. The whole announcement was conducted in Cantonese(our mother tongue), but instead of saying "執笠"(Cantonese slang for close down a business), the boss said "close down" in English. Mixing Cantonese and English is a normal phenomenon in daily HongKonger's speech. He used "close down" in this way because he wanted to deliver this sad message in a more indirect way.

  Artist uses drawing, sculpture or music to express their deep feeling. But most of us are not artist and it may be too abstract for us. Expressing feeling in this way also demands sophisticated skill. Using a second language may be more feasible. Although most of time I realize that my vocabularies are limited and hard to express my feeling in elegant or precise wordings, it seems that my ego and self-protection can be set aside and let my feelings freely released.

Do pin-hole glasses work?

  Have you heard about pin-hole glasses? It is a pair of glasses with no lens but full of tiny holes. Someone claims that wearing this glasses can help to cure short-sighted. Last month, when I shopped in a shopping mall with my wife, I discovered one. The price is only HKD 12 and was displayed like a toy. I bought it without hesitation.

  I cannot wait but unwrapped the package and had a trial. It was a sunny afternoon. I wore the pin-hole glasses and could see distinct objects clearly. "Let me have a try!" My wife didn't believe. After she wore the glasses, she was amazed. She has more than 400 degree short-sighted but she could see the text on a slogan far away.She then detached the pin-hole glasses and saw with naked eyes, the texts blurred. "What's magic behind that?" She exclaimed with joy. "It's pin hole effect. It is similar to squinting your eyes when you want to see far object clearly."I replied with proud and confidence.

  Let me explain the principle intellectually. As seen in the figure, if you have short-sighted, the image of far objects are always focused in front of the retina. Therefore, the images lied on retina are scattered and blurred. When you wear a pin hole glasses, the light beams passed through the eye lens are confined. The image will be likely condensed in a narrower area in retina although the focus is still taken place in front of the retina. Then you can have a clearer view. In order to achieve this, two things you should bear in mind. First, Pin-hole glasses can only contribute better vision on people who have sight problem. For people who have healthy vision, wearing it will have no effect and even worse. Secondly, as pin-hole confines most of the light, you should wear it in bright environment. Wearing in dimmed place will make the image in retina even darker and worse.

  The instruction printed on the package claims that wearing pin-hole glasses everyday for 3 minutes, you will have sight problem improved after one month. I have searched through the web about this. Some optician said this is just a cheat and useless at all. The reason is rational. Using a pin-hole glasses has no way to regulate the focus point which is the key factor of good vision. Whatever you wear it how many times, the focus point is still no change. But on the other hand, as human is complex, we cannot comprehend the psychological effect when someone can see far object clearly with naked eyes and pin-hole glasses. The brain may receive a fascinating message:"I can see clearly without Lens glasses!" Wearing pin-hole glasses may train the brain to enhance this faith and strive to see thing clearly with naked eyes. But it is pity that I am too lazy to prove this thought!

Meaning behind diamond size

  If you ask me to categorize the meaning behind the size of the ring. I may say, having a medium size propose ring is for pay safe. The ring is expensive but still affordable. Girl receives that ring will be happy because her boyfriend is prudent. The size is big enough to make her surprise and decent to wear in front of her peer. It also give her a sense of security because buying a ring will not induce financial problem on her boyfriend.

  When the diamond ring reaches 1 carat, it is super expensive. The man may has pride and reputation to protect or fight for. When the diamond reaches even 2 carat, the love is breathtaking! The girl, even me as a spectator, will be inspired by how eager he desires to express his deep love. The love is priceless, the love is difficult to measure, but he still endeavor to visualize it. Buying a crazy 2 carat diamond is reckless, but that's just because of her, because of the deep gratitude to her of making his life change. Therefore, no matter how unbelievably expensive it is,it's worth.

  Sometime, buying girl some useful stuff , for example notebook computer or smartphone, will not inspire her very much. She may think you buy because you think that stuff is worth the price. What girl wants is, you buy something very expensive but useless and just for beauty. A man buys and gives, the girl will cry as he sacrifices for her. But if the gift is too much expensive, will the girl also feel pressure and worries that she owes him too much?

  What's about a small diamond ring? That's the trick here! Having a small ring is to put his girlfriend on moral high ground. He wants to express his love on her and also trusts she will love him beyond any calculation. He trusts her will not weight her love with the diamond size. He wishes their love will be as peaceful, everlasting as a river. a-Ha! Is it a sound explanation, or just a hateful excuse?