NorthEast

Last week, Nelly and and I have begun to see how our apartment at M@P is gradually to feel like a home. A few aspects of the apartment have caught a better side of Xin Ning; the yellow light at walk-way to common room, the height of switches means she can now switch on/off the lights at ease, pink writing table, and the purple curtain she has chosen finally got fixed. Nelly, on the other hand, is excited with the prospect of living at M@P that comes with vast space, resort-like layout, a big pool (Olympic size), and its close proximity to St Nicholas Primary School. I, too, am excited with the fact it is situated next to Upper and Lower Peirce which helps bring nature really close to my weekend running regime. One other interesting point about moving into M&P is the on-going discussion among netizens on where is the nearest MRT station for next Thomson MRT Line. An engineer from Poh Lian, the main contractor for the project, has speculated with confidence that it is somewhere n...

Marriage, to me and people around me, is more a traditional call once a person attains a certain age and in my case it was 31. Years later, i have begun to realise 'marriage' is far from just fulfilling a tradition or family call. Living in a uber cosmopolitan society and a city-state like Singapore, everything in our daily activities revolve around transaction. From the moment the bread and butter is served on table, to taking bus or train to work, lunch, dinner, and even a small personal indulgent called 'Kopi-O' worth 90 cents; all these transactional activities call for exchanging and circulating of money within the society. And these particular transactions are meant for me but the concept in itself is universal. Given I am pretty low maintenance in term of cost of living, these transactions are within my mean. Now think about having 2 persons' transactions in a household, it does not take long for us to conclude the transactions could easi...

Time flies. Xin Ning is now 4 years old. And we are about to move into our first brand new apartment, and pretty excited about it. With the move come a new school for Xin Ning, Carpe Diem. Both Nelly and I are hoping she will enjoy this school and make best use of the new learning experience and environment, and make more friends. Next target is to get her into St. Nicholas Primary; this will be a tall order but we will remain hopeful. Intend to keep this blog alive so promise to visit and post more. Got to go now.

China has posted 10.7% growth rate for the last quarter year-on-year. This rate of growth, by any standard, is above impressive and give rise to inflationary pressure on China's economy. The government is now confronting with serious challenge in containing assets bubble and rapid increase in prices of daily consumable goods and services. My view is the government will soon perform withdrawal of its massive stimulus package amid gradually, and begin the tightening of credit creation to reign in lending activities, particularly to property sector, consumer credits, and speculative investment activities. Having said that, any measure to cool the economy invites unwanted potential surge in unemployment, which could threaten the societal stability that form the pivotal hold for the government's stability. One other concern is should the cooling effect proved to be potent, the 'over capacities' in China manufacturing could pose deflationary risk and this problem could only g...

China has surpassed US as the biggest car market in the world with 13.6 million cars sold last year. Assuming the average size engine is 1.5L, with average monthly petrol consumption at 60 litres, the annual petro consumption for these 13.6 million cars will be 9.8 billion litres. On average, 1 barrel of crude oil could process out 19.5 gallons of petrol (1 gallon:3.785 litres) so it will take 504 million barrels of crude oil to produce 9.8 billion litres of petrol. On daily term, China will require 1.38 million barrels of crude oil to power these 13.6 million new cars. What do you think of China's appetite for oil consumption in the future?

Tan Sri Robert Kuok Hock Nien (born 6 October 1923, in Johor Bahru, Johor), is an influential Malaysian Chinese businessman. According to Forbes his net worth is estimated to be around $10 billion on May 2008, making him the richest person in Southeast Asia. He is media shy and discreet; most of his businesses are privately held by him or his family. Apart from a multitude of enterprises in Malaysia , his companies have investments in many countries throughout Asia . His business interests range from sugarcane plantations (Perlis Plantations Bhd), sugar refinery, flour milling, animal feed, oil and mining to finance, hotels, properties, trading, freight and publishing. Robert Kuok Hock Nien's notes on the past sixty years (On the occasion of Kuok Group’s 60th Anniversary 10 April 2009) (1) My brothers and I owe our upbringing completely to Mother. She was steeped in Ru-Jiao – the teachings of Confucius, Mencius, Laozi and other Chinese sages. Ru-Jiao teaches the correct behaviour f...

Recently we made a trip back to Pematang Siantar, some sort of annual visit for us, and spent a good week there with family and friends. The town has not changed much physically, but the variaties of shops have somewhat improved. I have made several observation during a week along there: One observation is price hike. I have noticed an over the board increase in food prices. These days, the popular Mie Pangsit, is selling at least Rp10,000 (SGD 1.50); I consider this price expensive given the fact I could enjoy a bowl of noodle in hometown for 2/3 of that price though it is not similar noodle to compare. Another observation is the frequent power outage. As far as i can remember, the power outage is a norm in Siantar so no surprise to find most big shops are having electric generators powered by fuel as backup. I wonder if this is a sign of power shortage to a growing economy of Indonesia or simply due to inefficiency in power distribution, or both? Third observation is the condition of...