From Hyesan to China

From what I knew from the mainstream media, the life in North Korea is hard but I don’t have a clear idea of how hard it is. Even though, I saw some North Korean who were working in a local shipyard as general workers when I was studying in Europe, a follow-up study through internet exposed me to one of the ways how the regime earns the money to fuel its already depressed economy . Very often, the news on the media is about the supreme leader of the country and not much information and description about the lives of the ordinary people. Only until this week, when I started reading a book about a defector from North Korea, I gained some basic background information of how the living conditions and what exactly happened in the countries.

The lives there were tough after the collapse of Soviet Union and increasingly lesser assistance from its neighbour who is now a big economic and political powerhouse in the region. According to some news online, there was a famine during 1990s and lots of people died because of the lack of food and medicine. However, some people simply survived more easily than others due to the existing system which categorizes the citizens into a few main groups according to their backgrounds and contributions to the country. It is cruel but it is a fact that people at top of the pyramid are always getting the better treatment and sufficient food allocation and therefore indirectly increase their chances of surviving through a famine or a harsh winter. For those at the bottom of the pyramid, they are the most vulnerable group that are treated not like human being and not enjoy equal right. They are likely the first group of people to sacrifice when there is famine.

When the only hope to live is to find sufficient amount of food so that one do not die of starvation or malnutrition, it is not surprising at all that people are willing to take the risk of being sent to reeducation camp or even execuated and flee to china with their families to live underground. Perhaps the lacking of enforcement and boundary control made the human trafficking of North Korean women to China so prevalent then. The local traffickers would bring the women to cross the Yalu River that separates the two countries during winter when one could basically walk on the iced surface of the river. They then sold the women to the brokers in the Chinese small town, which was the start of the human trafficking network, before the women were sold at higher price to the middle-men from cities, one level by one level, the price tag grew bigger and bigger. In the process, the women were not treated like human beings; they were humiliated, threatened, raped, beaten and even killed for those who tried to escape. At the end of the human trafficking network, the women would be sold to the farmers staying in the rural areas as a wife-cum-slave or ended up in brothels or nightclubs populated by South Korean and Chinese businessmen. The crime gangs that dominated the illegal business controlling both the police and gangsters and they knew well what they could manipulate to make money out of the defectors. With limited knowledge in speaking the local language and the fear of being repatriated back to North Korea, the defectors usually stayed low profile and leaded an underground life to avoid alert the people around about their existences. The lucky one would flee from their husbands or gangs and obtained a well-forged Identity card to pretend as an ethnic Korean who was born in China.

It was really sad and sick to know how some people make money by selling other human beings just like animals and without dignity at all. Also, it was so desperate to do nothing and wait for starvation that people have no choices but risk their lives to go to a new place even though there were uncertainties, but at least food to survive…

(675 Words)

***With information from In Order To Live : A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park  

Impromptu speaking

Attended a workshop about impromptu speaking last night and really enjoyed what I had been taught. It was not the first time I attended this kind of workshop but perhaps the speaker yesterday gave me something more impactful and inspired me to think not only on the ways of making myself a better impromptu speaker but also in a bigger picture, how to change from a quiet introvert to an outgoing and more sociable extrovert who is usually seemed to have better communication and interpersonal skills. The speaker showed us the comments given by his teachers on the report cards to show that he was not good at interacting and socializing with people when he was in schools but what happened after his graduation encouraged him to improve himself and his own efforts made him an excellent communicator and professional trainer of sales and interpersonal skills.    

 

Three useful formulas to prepare an impromptu speech that he shared – PREP, Pendulum and 5W1H. PREP is about how a speech can be structure and organized by using the formula of point (agree/disagree) + reason + example / elaboration / story + point (summary / restatement / conclusion). Pendulum is about giving the listener the freedom to make his own decision by analyzing certain things in detailed without bias. 5W1H is about using “What, Who, Why, Where, Which and How” to ask questions and generating the content of an impromptu speech. In addition, there are two more tips. Firstly, for a topic with a long and complicated title, speakers should only focus on a few key words and avoid explaining the title at length to avoid misunderstanding and make full use of the time. Secondly, if the topic is something very specific that a speaker without prior knowledge on, “reframing” technique could be used in preparing a speech in short time. By “chunking up” a certain topic, things tend to be more general and with that, we could link the existing topic to something that we are more familiar with. The speaker gave a good example by sharing with us how Mr.Tony Tan, the ex- president answered a question raised by someone during the presidential election, “What was the biggest mistake that you ever made in your career?”

“Practise makes progress” We can only progress in what we are learning if we constantly make an effort to practise it. The speaker shared with us how he made use of his toilet time to practise his impromptu speech by using the quote of the day on the newspaper as the title. And only by repeating the practise numerous times, he made a breakthrough in his skill. Lacking of motivation, I must admit that I put almost zero time to practise my impromptu speech even though I always want to improve myself. An impromptu speech needs only a few minutes and it does not cost much of my precious time, I believe I can afford to repeat it a few times per day under the same topic. There will be an impromptu speaking competition on 6 March 2018, 13days from now. I want to challenge myself how much can I learn and progress in delivering an impromptu speech if I put in real effort every day. Let me start from today to make a difference!

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09 [The Power of Habit] by Charles Duhigg

This book explains in details how a habit can be changed and modified to make life better based on the research results done in United States. In comparison to change a habit completely, a better approach is to understand the habit loop and replace the routine that we do when we receive certain cue in order to get the same rewards. 4 steps to change a habit (1) identity the routine (2) Experiment with rewards (3) Isolate the cue and (4) Have a plan. Perhaps it is easier say than do so I decided to use apply the steps on one of my bad habits that I want to get rid of and see how it works.

To figure out the habit loop, the first step is to identity the routine which I want to change. The routine here is whenever I am free and have nothing to do in office, I feel empty and an urge to do something to keep myself busy as it is not good to be always free while other people around me are working so hard. Therefore, I start learning a few languages that I am interested in but not have sufficient time to study or browsing the internet looking for possible job opportunities.

To figure out which cravings are driving particular habits, it’s useful to experiment with different rewards. After experimenting a few times, I found that the reward that I got after sending out many resumes or indulging myself in language learning was the feeling that I had tried my best in learning something and therefore I were satisfied with the meaningful thing that I had done during my time in office.

To identify and isolate the cue amid the noise, the same system used by psychologist is applied: Categories of behaviors ahead of time are scrutinized in order to see patterns. By asking the following questions: Where are you? What time is it? What’s your emotional state?  Who else is around? What action preceded the urge? The answers would be as listed below. The cue is likely to be identified based on the answers to the questions. The possible cue is “Feeling everyone is busy with tier stuff except me”.

Where are you? (Office)

What time is it? (Early morning 8am)

What’s your emotional state?  (Ennui and despair)

Who else is around? (Colleagues)

What action preceded the urge? (Feeling everyone is busy except me)

Once the habit loop is figured out, the reward that driving the behavior, the cue triggering it, and the routine itself—actions can be taken to shift the behavior. A change to a better routine by planning for the cue and choosing a behavior that delivers the reward that one is craving. Put another way, a habit is a formula our brain automatically follows: When I see CUE, I will do ROUTINE in order to get a REWARD. To re-engineer that formula, I need to begin making choices again. And the easiest way to do this, according to study after study, is to have a plan with a specific timing and well-mentioned objective. My plan perhaps can be any of the suggestion mentioned below.

Option A

Before working, list down a list of meaningful things that I want to do within a day and use it as a guide to focus on my tasks and prevent distraction from others.

Option B

Ask for more assignment from the superior and keep myself busy with works so that I don’t feel that I am the one who is free and lagged behind.

Option C

Spend partial of the 9 working hours in something that can give me fulfillment and spend the rest in doing assignment that I have in hand.

Not sure which option is the best to go ahead, perhaps I should try out each and every of them. If none of them are effective, I shall repeat the steps until a satisfactory formula is found to replace the existing habit loop. Changes don’t come easily, but it comes with determination and perseverance.

(675 words)

08 [The Spy] by Paulo Coelho

Mata hari in Malay/Indonesian language it means “Sun / Sol / Soleil”. It’s hard to imagine an European woman would use this as her name. After so many years in SE Asia, I never heard of any woman with such a name. After the first chapter, I knew better why she got this name; apparently she was married to a general stationed on Java Island which was then still a Dutch colony. In spite of the big gap in their ages, the exotic life in a Far East country seemed more attractive to her. However, the marriage didn’t last long, after the death of her second child, she returned to Netherlands then she moved on to Paris to start a new life.

The period of time in which the story happened is during La Belle Époque. I believe during that time France is the center of Europe. As an erotic star, Mata Hari became famous by presenting the oriental dance which was novelty among the Parisian. Even thought, some people see her as nothing more than a whore who strips naked in public under an artistic pretense. There were many other dancers who followed what she did after she gained her fame but for her, all the others was shake their bodies grotesquely and take off their clothes without artfulness or inspiration.  At the same time, she had many lovers who were in high ranking in the government or rich people who were able to offer her the luxury in terms of housing and money.

Beauty is not eternal and she was growing old, when she was thinking how she was going to live the rest of her life. There was an offer from Berlin. She accepted it and left Paris for Berlin in the hope that she could repeat the same success in Paris. However, it was a wrong decision. A war broke out soon after that between German and France, she fled to her hometown with the help of the agent that brought her to German in the first place. Even though, she remained loyal to France, she was then no choice but accepted the money given by a German Consul and became a spy. At the same time, she tried to get in contact with the French intelligence and attempted to tell them what happened on her. She contacted a wrong person who desperately needed a scapegoat to keep his power and regain his fame.

The German intelligence set a trap to eliminate her after noticed that she was possibly a double agent. The French also did the same. She became someone who squeezed between two big power and none of her lovers wanted to get involved due to her espionage. She was judged and convicted of what she didn’t do. Without sufficient evidence, appealing was useless and soon, she was executed. She ended her life in a way that was very different from what she expected. I believe if she had been given a choice, she would have chosen to stay in Netherland or other European countries instead of going back to Paris.  

This book is quite different from the other books of the author but nevertheless, it remained one of most interesting books I have read and it actually inspired me to find out more about the La Belle Époque which was virtually unknown to me before I read this book. Looking forward to the next book of the author.

(581 words)

Willpower strengthening...

It is not easy to muster sufficient self-control to repeat something tedious everyday especially something you are not interested at all. It can be a torture and a waste of time if a task is carried out simply for the sake of doing it without clear motivation and rewards. For people who are highly self-disciplined and with clearer objective in mind, they are more likely to stick to their daily routines and outperform their more impulsive peers in longer term on every performance variables. In simple words, Impulsive momentum can last only a short period of time and for longer run, willpower is definitely necessary to go through all the ups and downs without being distracted from the original track.

 

Am I a person with strong willpower? My answer would be “ it depends on the situation”. Even though, it is quite often that I am lagged behind in my learning schedule and cannot keep pace with the targets that I set, but perhaps I overcommit myself always or the targets are too ambitious and not realistic enough. Appropriate expectation on my own capability and the limitation of time must be taken into consideration while making a plan to avoid disappointment that come afterwards when the original schedule has to be modified repeatedly to suit the changing dates.

 

I read an article this morning and it said that if one wants to do something that requires willpower—like going for a long jog after work—one has to conserve his willpower muscle during the day,” “If one uses it up too early on tedious tasks like participating in a long brainstorming meeting or doing something that requires high concentration for a long period of time, all the strength will be gone by the time one gets home. Very often, there is less willingness to do what has been planned and choosing an easy way out is more likely to happen. I really agree with this point as it happened so many times in my life. I cancelled my visit to gym every time after working very hard in office especially when I was required to prepare something urgently needed or visit to a site. I didn’t feel like working out in gym even though I was aware of the importance of exercising a few times per week but I simply didn’t feel the motivation to do it.

 

The article also has an interesting discussion on whether it is possible to exercise willpower muscles in order to make them stronger like the same way using dumbbells strengthen biceps. It is an inspiring question that helps us to look at the problem from other perspective. In addition to understanding the obstacles in carry out our daily routines because of the lacking of willpower, we are actually focusing on how we can strengthen the willpower muscle in one part of our lives and make use of the momentum slowly creating a possible spilling effect that can touch every aspect of our lives. Suddenly, I feel un urge to find out how could I strength my willpower so that I can be better in the areas I want myself to be. Haha.

**With ideas and lots of quotes from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

(528 words)

Small wins

A paragraph I read this morning inspired me how should I make changes and improve my communication skill…. “A man said that he found new friends among whom he could practice being gregarious. “When I do make the effort to overcome my shyness, I feel that it is not really me acting, that it’s someone else,” he said. But by practicing with his new group, it stopped feeling like acting. He started to believe he wasn’t shy, and then, eventually, he wasn’t anymore.“ …When people join a group of people where changes seems possible, the potential for the changes to occur becomes more real or in simpler words, the surrounding make the changes easier to happen. Now for me it seems a wise choice to attend the culture and language exchange every two weeks, meeting new people give me a chance to do something that I do not normally do in office or at home. In fact, I feel good doing something which is not all about me as I think that starts me on a different path. With that, I could step out of the comfort zone and practice being gregarious through talking, mingling with people or as a listener listening intently to their conversations. Also, I could apply the tips that I have learned from the self-help books through trial-n-error in order to find out what is ill-suited and also the stuff that is workable in communicating and socializing with people of different backgrounds.

By doing the same things again and again, with much hope, sooner or later, I could be someone who I always strive hard to be. In fact, I am really excited every time I have a really enjoyable conversation with a stranger. I called the good experience a small win. Once a small win has been achieved, forces seem to be set in motion that favors another small win. After repeating it for a few times, the small wins actually fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach. Just like once people learned how to believe in something, the skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change. Therefore, the change of “key” habit may bring spilling effect and causes unexpected changes that are not anticipated at the beginning. However, since we don’t know which one is the key habit that can trigger the changes, I think that we have no choice but try one by one (it might sound stupid to change everything at once, but my point is changing one habit after another) We are lucky enough if we can tackle the “key” habit in just a few tries or else, we don’t lose  anything by making changes for better.   

I hope I can continue to work on my communication skill until end of this year instead of practicing it only for a short period of time and after the initial burst of enthusiasm wear off, slip back into my old habits - compromise with the status quo and with less willingness to interact with others.

**With ideas and lots of quotes from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

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07 [Grit: The power of passion and perseverance] by Angela Lee Duckworth

I first heard about the word “Grit” when during a dinner on a weekday’s night, a friend of mine said that she had not yet seen any grit in her second daughter who was in secondary school and she wondered how she could do to make her grittier. Then, she expanded the topic by saying more about the existing educational system and how the government was looking to teach the young generation who were the future pillars of society to be grittier in facing challenges. And all of these because of a book called “grit” that changed people’ thinking about the necessary conditions to succeed in life. I found that book in the library and then spent another two weeks listening to the 9hours plus audio book and I must admit that I learned many things from this book that I wanted to share some of them here.

We all face limits in our lives, not just in talent, but also in opportunity. But more often than we think, most of these limits are self-imposed. We try something but fail then we conclude that we have bumped our heads against the ceiling of possibility. Or we change direction because of the enormous obstacle right in front of us even though we are only after taking a few steps forward. In either case, we never venture as far as we might have and put in as much effort as we could. To be gritty is to invest, day after day and week after year, in challenging practice relentlessly and to be gritty is to fall down many times but each time to be able to stand up with great fortitude and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I don’t think I am a very gritty person based on the tests given in the book but I want to make myself a grittier person and thus better prepare myself for the possible changes that may happen in future, be it in my career or other aspects of my life. I always want to step out of my comfort zone but I don’t have a clear idea about how I am going to achieve that. Now, I have a better idea. I need to find out the real extent of my comfort zone then deliberately manufacture situations slightly outside of it. After that, try my best to overcome them through trial and error and through doing them repeatedly. By keep on pushing myself, the zone is more likely to get bigger and once an uncomfortable thing may become something that belongs to my comfort zone and I don’t feel reluctant to do it anymore. In order to do that, I must surround myself with people whom I want myself to be because by doing this, I tend to fall in line and following along what the people are doing.

A quote from Nietzsche: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” There are always setbacks in pursuit of something and we should not let setback to hold us back and discourage us from moving forward, even though we are in fear and trepidation. We must be positive enough to think nothing is impossible and no goal is beyond reach. The most important is we must give it a try!


I am going to use the ideas I learnt from this book and apply it in my daily life to see how big the difference that I can make.


**With ideas and lots of quotes from Angela Lee Duckworth: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance.




(577 Words)

Power of habit

Cravings are what drive habits and a new habit can be created if we know exactly how to spark a craving. Basically, the process within our brains can be simplified into a three-step loop. First, when there is a cue, a trigger tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. With properly selected cue and reward in the end, a habit can be cultivated and by understanding how the whole loop happens, we can rebuild those patterns in whichever way we choose. A good example of the application of this theory is the adding of chemical that generates foam into the ingredient of Shampoo – something expected by people it each time they wash their hair. Another example, it is the tingling feeling that reminds people to brush their teeth every day.

By creating the necessary triggers to make something a routine, we can make everything a nearly effortless thing that we can do it every day. I would like to try out on this theory and see whether I can somehow change some of my bad habits. When I reach home after work every day, since dinner is not ready yet and about 30minute is needed to prepare it, usually I snack a bit even though some time I am not really hungry but I simply have an urge to put something into my mouth and I cannot fight the urge, it is just like a roaring monster inside my mind that make  do something unthinkingly. In order to stop snacking, I need to find out the cue that triggers my craving for snack. The cue may be the omnipresent snacks on the cabinet that triggers my craving for something sweet after a long day in the office. Keeping all snacks in some hidden places may prevent me from being wanted to eat the snack. Also, if there is a new habit to take over the time slot and shift my focus to something else, I am more likely to stop snacking. Perhaps I can add in a small podcast listening session using my mp3 player. It sounds like a good idea; perhaps I can try it out tonight.    

“Sometime a change is able to touch off a series of changes that would ultimately radiate out to every part of one’s life.” This sentence makes me think twice about the number of habit that I want to change to maximize the possible impact on my life even though it is something of a rash decision to change lots of habits in a very short period of time. Perhaps I should give myself some time, start with one or two habits first and see how well I can change them before proceeding to change some other daily habits. Let make February 2018, a month for changes and will be here to write something about what happen this month later.

**With ideas and lots of quotes from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

(517 Words)

Some thoughts

No road is without bumps and no matter which road you have decided to take. Lots of detours and unexpected events are expected in the journey. Some people may travel in the same direction as you but they move so fast that you simply cannot catch up with them. However, you must know exactly where your final destination is and make every step confidently. A lack of intellectual ability should not be used as the excuse for most of the problems that we are facing, a lack of effort perhaps a better explanation why we cannot achieve what we want in life but stagnate at a middling level of competence after so many years of hard works. Or perhaps the approaches that you have been using so far are not effective even though you are a supermotivated person who works to exhaustion everyday doing what you really want to do.

I am pondering a lot on how to keep myself motivated and continue pursuing my career objective in spite of everything that has happened in a year's time. I must admit that it is not easy to be confident when there are thoughts deep inside your mind telling you that what you are doing now are not practicable and changes are of palpable urgency. Without many people to talk to and without access to the helpful resources that may help you to move forward, very likely you may choose the easiest way out and save yourself from all the challenges that can make a difference on your current situation. After one or two times of taking the easiest way out, it is very likely that it becomes a vicious cycle that you simply cannot pull yourself out and instead, full of all kinds of negative thinking that hinder you for any possible changes.

To stay positive and to stay on track towards the direction that I set, I should try my best to challenge myself every day. Be it rain or shine, whether or not there is support or encouragement from others, my attitude and what I do play the biggest part in changing the current situation. If I keep trying to search ways to change my situation for better, I stand a higher chance of finding them. If I stop and pessimistically think that they cannot be found then possibly nothing would happen and everything remains the same. A person’s mind set is important, a fixed mind set doesn’t help in making the existing situation any better and you are  more likely to interpret these setbacks as evidence that, after all, you don’t have “the right stuff”— you’re not good enough. By blaming on others, you can get yourself off the hook, stay contented with the status-quo without forcing yourself hard enough to make a change. On the contrary, a growth mind set always encourage one to look at everything with positivity and go all out to work and learn when an opportunity is given with the thinking that if you try hard enough and if you believe you can do it, you can achieve what you want.

**With ideas and lots of quotes from Angela Lee Duckworth: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance.

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