Life long sharing . . .

 We were reading chapter 8 – Loyalty that night. It’s about Elliott”s sneaky friend – Larry, who was in another team in the game they are playing. Once Elliott lent Larry money to buy a get well card for Larry’s mum, but Larry never paid him back.

Ying was reading these lines:

She paused. And then she looked at me and asked, “Is this the right thing to do?” Ling also looked at me in dismay of the story.

I took a deep breath,

“Yes. Sometimes, when you get to know a person is not good, the best thing to do is try to stay away from him. Forget about the bad thing he did, don’t let the thing he did bother you, or upset you. ”

Girls, I know, at this stage of your life, I have been teaching you that there are good people and bad people in the world; that there are people who choose to do the right thing, and also who choose to do the wrong thing. And those bad people will eventually be punished, by teachers, by police, by the law . …

But dear, in real life, there are times this rule won’t work. And to protect ourselves, one way is to stay as far as possible from these bad people, and also don’t let what they did bother you.

Trust mummy, God knows.

Kept this newspaper cutting, I like the  story.

The story is about Taiwan Ruentex Group CEO Samuel Yen-liang Ying. His business empire has diversified from textiles, cement, construction, realty development, healthcare, retail, banking and insurance in the financial sector over the years. Some said Ying’s wealth has already exceeded the NT$200 billion mark.

The time the author wrote this article, Mr Ying already was bareheaded (after cutting all his hair). He said, two years back, he already wanted to do so, but no barber dare to do it for him. Finally he managed to make two barbers cut it for him. And he said, “What is on top of the head is not important, what is beneath it – that is important.”

I like what the author said, it’s a waste of time if the person only care (too much) about one hair style, spending time to cut it, trim it, perm it, color it ….. What is the most important is the thing beneath the scalp – the brain, that has creativity, wisdom, vision, ambition, and action .

Spotted this book in Popular together with the other 37.2C CDs/VCDs. This book is produced by 37.2C (李观发和纪展雄) and funded by Malaysia 雪隆庄严同宗会. More than 30 thousand copies of this book were sold in Taiwan, when it first launched in year 2006. I even read comments from Taiwan primary school children on this book.

庄子 Zhuang Zi (369-286 BCE) was an influential Taoist philosopher who lived during the Warring States Period. His philosophy of life is categorized as the “逍遥派”. He conducted his teaching mostly using humorous fables and short stories. Some of the famous one are like :

庄周借米-及时伸出援手，很难

两个妾-美得不自觉，是真美

丑女效颦

螳螂捕蝉-得到，必也同时失去

愿意活着

After reading the book, I must say it’s a job well done by these two Malaysian authors, really a marvelous ‘layman guide’ to learn about the wisdom of Zhuang Zi. No wonder even primary school children can read it in Taiwan.  Bravo !! 🙂