Ocean Views

I am grateful to live in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, as it is so convenient to go to the seashore. In the old days, when I was living in Indooroopilly, it was not that easy.

As the warmer season has arrived, we’ve resumed our activities at swimming pools. Despite living close to the Chermside swimming pool, we are keen to travel a little further to the Sandgate Aquatic Centre, which is located on the shore. Next to it is a café with great ocean views. My wife enjoys holding a cup of coffee and taking photographs.

The weather was not good yesterday, but as painters usually believe, bad weather can be more beautiful. When the sky was overcast and the trees were shaken fiercely by winds from the ocean, the view was naturally like an ink and wash painting. Though there was a big umbrella covering our table when we had lunch in the café, we still got wet during a shower, as the winds blew the rain at us from all directions, making it impossible to escape.

After lunch, the two boys — one riding a bike and the other riding a scooter — were chasing each other on the path along the seashore. The tide had receded a great deal, leaving a soil beach that was wet and mostly covered by shallow water. It was interesting to see water birds wandering leisurely on the beach.

The trees on the shore were very special. Having experienced winds and rains from the sea, they had grown into shapes and forms that we typically couldn’t see elsewhere. They stood on the shore like some most delicate statues, crafted by Mother Nature.

In a few spots on the shore, we saw strange rocks. Occasionally, there were crabs hiding on the rocks.

I will never get tired of ocean views. Different places on the shore have different spectacles. They are different at different times, under different weather conditions, and in different seasons.

My International Friends - 2

 In the second semester of 2009, I was enrolled in a unit called "Enterprise Software Architecture," which is probably the most influential unit to me. The second assignment was to work in a group to develop a service-oriented architecture system. My Vietnamese friend, my Malaysian friend, and I formed a group. Every late afternoon, we would gather together to do the assignment. Our Vietnamese friend was very good at C# and became the main developer for the C# component. I took charge of the Java component, and our Malaysian friend focused more on the report as his English was the best among the three of us. When we were tired or hungry, we would go to Queen Street to buy food for dinner. Besides studies, we had lots of conversations, which allowed me to know much about life in their countries. I was very grateful to know them in my first year after arriving in Australia, as they gave me a strong feeling of friendship after I left my homeland.

We almost got full marks on the assignment, and my Vietnamese friend said it was like a miracle as too many of his friends failed the unit. This excellent academic performance directly led me to the opportunity to work for C-YAWL in the BPM team with Marcello, who was from Italy and had just got his PhD degree earlier that year. I'd heard many times that he was the best PhD student QUT ever had in this area. The main reason for me to choose to work with him for a project was that he still didn't have any research students. I thought it was more likely to be able to do a challenging project with him. I had a very good impression of him in the unit, as whenever I raised a question, he could answer it clearly and rationally. Many years later when I joined the BPM team again, I often felt it a pity to not be able to work with Marcello, whom I viewed as more of a friend than a teacher.

During the summer holiday, I stayed mostly in the office of the BPM team on Margaret Street. I made a few friends, including an exchange student from Tsinghua University and a PhD student under Arthur from Iran. I was very unfamiliar with the culture in Iran. However, through sincere conversations, we could still communicate. It was then that I realized that problems in an individual's life are typically quite similar, no matter where we are from. He wanted to do research as he felt proved to himself if he could solve tough problems. However, he felt it too hard to progress in his research, putting him under huge pressure. In addition, he still couldn't win Arthur's trust to provide him enough financial support. I could fully understand his dilemma.

The start of the first semester in 2010 was rather melancholy. My Vietnamese friend and Thailand friend had graduated. I almost couldn't find them anymore on campus. Except one day I saw a familiar back view—my Thailand friend was photographing on campus. He said he'd got a job and used half a year's earnings to buy a camera.

My mind was rather disturbed during that period under financial pressures and anxiety due to immigration policy changes. Moreover, my scholarship to the SAIVT research group was said to have failed. "Is it really that competitive? I don't imagine who can get the scholarship when you can't!" Marcello said when I told him. "Two students from Sri Lanka just joined the lab." I said, "I think I've lost to them."

To make myself happier, I enrolled in a unit called "AI for Games," which was lectured by Rune for computer games' agent development. Most students in this unit were in the major of computer games, and they really liked what they were studying. "In fact, you're hard-pressed to find a job in the computer games industry!" Rune frankly said, "But you're most likely to get a job in other related areas like simulation or computer graphics." I asked my Malaysian friend whether he was worried about a job. "Not at all. If only one in the class can find such a job, I will be that one." He's always optimistic, and this was why I said I would be happier to study with him.

One afternoon, I entered the BPM team's office to submit all materials to Marcello. He was in Arthur's office. I heard Arthur blaming him with his fluent English in a bit of a Dutch accent. "Do you know how important this work is? You should give the project to a PhD student rather than a master's degree student by coursework!" Arthur said. "Arthur, but he's excellent. He's more excellent than any PhD student in the team," Marcello said. "I know he's excellent. I can't disagree with you on this point. But this is not your paper. It's Wil's!" Arthur said.

I then knocked on the door, and Arthur's face suddenly smiled merrily when I came in. I told him that if they found any issues in the codes I submitted, I would still try my best to fix them. Under Sridha's plan, I enrolled in a unit for signal processing and image processing. I grouped with two students for the assignment: one of them was from India, and the other was from Saudi Arabia. The student from Saudi Arabia often asked me to tutor him. Then later he said I was his friend. "Do you want to migrate to our country?" he said. "No," I refused politely. "I don't think I can master your language that easily."

Sea Birds

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny Sunday, and my family went to spend a day in a seashore park in Redcliffe Peninsula.

Having finished lunch in a pavilion, the two boys urged to play sands on the beach. The two brothers, each holding a bucket of toy spades and shovels, were digging the sands under a tree’s shadow on the beach, while my sister put the windmill on the sand. The winds from the ocean had spun the windmill to a speed that we had not seen before. My wife then walked into the water to have a feel of the cold. I picked up my sketchbook in my pocket and used a ballpoint pen to capture what I was seeing on the paper. I drew the line of pine trees along the shore, the lazily floating clouds in the sky, the calm ocean waves that were pushing to the beach, the people who were swimming and playing in the water, a couple of surfers far away in the ocean, as well as a few sea birds, some of which were flying over the sea while others were standing on the sands under the warm sunshine.

Long, long ago, when I was still a student at Queensland University of Technology, I had a few classmates from Sri Lanka who were devout to Buddhism. One day I asked them why some of them were vegetarians but others were not, and why some of them only ate chicken as the meat.

“In fact, chicken and beefs shouldn’t be considered as to be different!” Ahilan said. “People just copied the convention from Sri Lanka, whereas they don’t understand the reason. In Sri Lanka, some people only eat chicken because chicken were all imported, which means those chicken had been killed elsewhere and those who eat them do not involve in the process of killing them.”

He finally concluded, “In Australia, the beefs and chicken from supermarkets are generally the same in this perspective.”

“What will happen to me if I go to a Chinese restaurant to order a fish, and then the boss lead me to a glass container where a few fish are swimming, to select one for the dish?” I asked, and said that this was the normal procedure in a Chinese restaurant.

They were startled. Kanes said, “Then you will have to be an animal in the next reincarnation.”

“But no worries. Sometimes animals have a life better than human beings,” Ahilan said.

“Yes,” I said, imagining I were a cattle eating grass on a range with endless green covers and great mountain views.

“I mean you can be a puppy of a rich man,” Ahilan said. “In western countries, puppies are darlings to their masters.”

“No!” I shook my head firmly, thinking that a puppy would first be castrated when they were bought, and with a rope leashed on the neck while walking outside.

“I want to be a wild animal! In Australia, wildlife is protected by the law. They don't need to work or study. There are no life burdens like those of a human being. I want to be a possum climbing on the power lines with no anxiety or pressure.” Then I thought for a while and said, 'I think a wild bird is the best, as it can fly.”…

Then I walked to the group of seagulls on the beach while recalling the past. I tried to wave to them, as if to ask, “Would you mind accepting me as your peer?” 

However, they all flew away before I could approach any closer, leaving a fine row of footprints on the sand.

Mid-Autumn Festival

 I wish I were still a child who was interested in everything. I remember that I often longed for the Mid-Autumn Festival in my childhood. However, I’m not sure from which year on I’ve lost the interest. Like this year, I was only  aware of it a couple of days before the day, when I found Mum was busy buying mooncakes.

The two boys in the family are still at the ages that they could easily be curious about anything. They were giggling in the garden while holding the little lanterns, and chased each other merrily.

Mum had prepared some pastries as snacks for us to admire the moon in the garden.

Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important traditional festival in Chinese culture, only after the Spring Festival. The moon at this night is usually considered as the brightest and most beautiful all over the year. It is a day for people to gather together and miss those whom they love and live far away. Despite people are living in different locations, we share the same moon. Thus, people are connected to each other at this night, while they raise their heads to admire the same moon.

The food Mum prepared for us was much simpler than what was usually eaten on this day in China. In China, we often have taros and fried river snails.

Besides China, many other places in Asia celebrate this festival, despite the forms and traditional meaning might be different. In Korea, it is often considered as the Korean Thanksgiving Day.

Autumn Moon Over a Calm Lake is a well-known piece of music. This is the music I play on xiao flute almost every year. This year, however, I tried to sing!

My International Friends

 Life is always full of uncertainties! I have heard many times that I might be able to go to Australia since I was a toddler. Who could have known that I would actually be able to live with my grandma in Australia more than 20 years after she migrated here? I arrived in Brisbane before Christmas in 2008, and in 2009, I started a master's degree course at QUT. Despite the pressure from almost all aspects of life, I really enjoyed making new friends from different cultures. Throughout the course, I had very few Chinese friends, as most of my friends were from countries other than China and Australia. I think this was because I was tired of Chinese culture and was eager to understand something different, and my English was still not fluent enough to freely discuss many topics with native speakers.

The most challenging subject I took in my first semester was called "Software Development", which covered a lot of software engineering in Java programming. I had never learned Java before, nor had I ever done graphical user interface programming. Therefore, I found it very hard to catch up and got a very poor mark on my first assignment. The second assignment was a group project, and fortunately, I found a student from Thailand to work with me. He was very good at Java. "QUT's courses are always too simple!" he said. "Too simple? I find it hard enough!" I was surprised by what he said.

Later, I understood that he only felt that way because he thought the tuition fees were too expensive. He had graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science from a university in Thailand. Because the tuition fees in Australia were very expensive for his parents, he had very high expectations, and QUT's resources and the depth of the course could not satisfy him. We worked together and got almost full marks. He was probably the best student I met in my master's degree course, and the only one I felt I couldn't compete with.

I had a number of friends from India, though I have forgotten all of their names. For some unknown reason, I felt more comfortable chatting with them than with my Chinese peers. They spoke English much more fluently than me, despite their accents. The most interesting part about them was their view on marriage. Arranged marriage was still the dominant approach. Unlike in China, where arranged marriages are typically for young people who haven't had the opportunity to find a suitable partner by themselves, in India, it was more dominant among the upper class of society. Since my classmates were all from the upper class, they all got married to someone they didn't know back in India after finishing their degrees in Australia.

One of my best friends was an undergraduate student from Vietnam, whom I met because lectures were shared by both undergraduate and postgraduate students. "People in Vietnam don't like China, as we feel the threat!" he said.

"I understand your feelings," I said. The culture in Vietnam was very similar to that of China, but he liked to highlight the differences. "We have the year of the cat rather than the year of the rabbit," he said proudly.

We grouped together for an assignment in C++. Afterward, we went to the teacher's office to discuss adjusting our marks. "Do either of you want to do a research degree?" Dr. Maolin Tang asked. "You both are suitable for a PhD." After the meeting, my Vietnamese friend said, "How stupid it would be to do a PhD degree!" He added, "You have to spend a few years doing something boring, and then you get a job with a salary much lower than those working at tech giants like Microsoft and Google." I asked him why he felt research was boring. He said he had done a project with Dr. Moe Wynn.

Another of my best friends was a student from Malaysia. He said his grandparents were from China, but he had never been to China himself. Later, I learned his grandparents were from Guangdong Province. However, he couldn't speak Cantonese; instead, he was fluent in Mandarin. Similar to me, he liked to watch Japanese cartoons and animations. Crayon Shin-chan was his favorite. He felt very upset when the author died. "Do you like to watch Crayon Shin-chan?" he asked me. "When I was a child..." I said. "Then you didn't really like it!" he said. "If you like it, you will watch it again and again, even when you've grown up." Unlike others, he was optimistic about his future. That is why I liked to spend time with him.

I also had a couple of Muslim friends, one from Iran and the other from Saudi Arabia. We often have stereotypes about people from certain parts of the world, but if you really make friends with them, you will find that we share more than we differ!

Brisbane Night

On the second day of the school holidays, we went to South Bank to watch the musical fountain. There was a facility installed in the Brisbane River. When the music started, water streams sprayed out from the river, forming different patterns. There were colourful lights shining on the water streams, creating an enchanted scene. I raised my toddler a bit so that he could see the show more easily. My wife had led his elder brother to a corner, which was said to be a fantastic place to admire the show. 

After the musical fountain show, we went across the bridge and entered Queen's Wharf. "Why not go up to the Sky Deck?" the elder brother asked. The Sky Deck is a deck on Level 23 of the building, surrounded by glass fences through which we can see the entire city.

"What a splendid night view of the city!" my wife said. "I didn't know Brisbane had such a beautiful night view." "Yes," I responded, "it is in a different style from other cities I've been to before, such as Hong Kong and Shanghai." "Frankly speaking," I continued, "I didn't expect Brisbane's night view would be on such a scale. It's a long time since I have even gone out at night." 

However, deeply in my mind, I was very unwilling to see the city growing that fast. I often think I was born in the wrong era, as I was more keen to live in ancient times. The development of science and technology, the blooming of material civilization, and the fashionable, modern style of night life will make people rather confused, as the environment lures people to pursue material enjoyments while accumulating sins. The colourful night lights in their different forms perplexed our own desires. "Maybe it is time for us to go home," I suggested, worrying that we might be unable to resist the lure of this complicated night.

School holiday

 Today is the start of the school holidays between Term 3 and Term 4. Children may have longed for this holiday for weeks, whereas for parents, it is always a time of great challenges.

When I was a child, I did long for school holidays like others. But when they finally came, I often felt bored and longed for school. My parents operated a convenience store in our residential neighborhood. When school holidays came, especially the summer holidays, I would usually help my parents look after the store. Noon was usually a time with little business, so that was the time I would sit in the store so that Mum could have a rest at home.

One sunny day, when I was reading a storybook in the store, a man came in to ask for soy sauce. I got one for him, and then he asked for a few more items. It seemed that he was looking at the shelves and repeatedly asked for items located in corners that were hard to reach. He asked for more and more things, and then suddenly said, "Oh! I am busy and have to go now." I then had to put all the items back on the shelves. Suddenly, I realised our container for exchange money was gone. "That man was not a customer, but a thief!"

Many years later, when I was living with Grandma in Australia, I told her the story.

"Had you been able to get back the money box?" she asked.

"No," I said. "But mommy didn't blame me. Instead, she cuddled me and told me not to be afraid of it."

"Of course she wouldn't blame you!" Grandma said, and then she fell into contemplation.

Single But Not Simple

 Last night, when everyone else had fallen asleep, I got up from bed to paint a riverbank picture based on a rapid sketch I did from life using a ballpoint pen. This time, I chose to paint in the Chinese ink and wash style using sumi ink on a piece of rice paper. I thought this would be easier than watercolour since it only uses one colour—black.

However, I soon realized this was a misconception. The brush was hard to control, especially the water level. If the brush contained too much water, the lines would become too thick. If the brush contained too little water, the lines would not be solid. Furthermore, if the background was painted first, the rice paper would become too wet to be used for drawing the foreground objects.

When a painting contains only one colour, the ratio of ink to water in the brush determines the light and shadow, as well as the depiction of objects in different colours. Therefore, it is much more challenging to represent a complex world this way.

A long time ago, I thought the recorder was a musical instrument that was easier than the bamboo flute simply because it lacks the degree of adjustment offered by embouchure. However, losing that degree of adjustment means you have to achieve effects through a limited number of ways to adjust, which is also challenging from another perspective.

Concentration

Yesterday, during the teacher-parent interview, the teacher told me that my boy sometimes does not listen to her while she is talking. I said he was most likely thinking about something else.

I know he is just like me. There are many occasions when I haven't responded to my wife while she was talking. She has often complained about this. I know I have this problem, but sometimes it is just hard to control. In addition, it is not always a bad thing. It means that when you are deeply focusing on a matter, you can filter out all other information from the surrounding environment.

When I was young, teachers and parents often told me that I should study in a quiet environment, blocking out all noise and focusing only on the books or homework I was engaging in. However, when I grew up, I discovered that I could think about very complicated matters in any environment. For example, I can understand a paper full of mathematical proofs in a train station while waiting for the train. I can conduct scientific research while listening to music. It seems that it is a double-edged sword. On one side, it can cause mistakes, and on the other side, it can achieve unusual productivity. This is why I don't think it is really a problem.

Enviousness

After tutoring my primary school son with his homework, I agreed to bring the Snakes and Ladders board game to the dining table for him to play, given that he had done so well in mathematics. While he was rolling the dice, his younger brother cried out to snatch them. The two boys began fighting over the dice, causing a chaotic scene. "Stop!" I said. "You have to share with each other!"

The next day when I went to work in the city, I bought a bag of colourful wooden dice, each a different colour. When I arrived home, I found the little one waiting for me at the garden gate. "Gift! Gift!" he asked. "No worries, I did buy you a bag of dice in different colours. But you have to share them with your elder brother," I said.

The bigger boy came down merrily upon hearing our conversation. "I want the yellow one!" he yelled. "Yellow! Yellow!" The little brother cried. Then the scene became chaotic again, with the two boys snatching the yellow dice.

I was blamed by both my wife and mother, who thought I shouldn't have bought dice in different colours. "You should either buy the same things or not buy them at all," my mum said. Before I became a father of two boys, I hadn't known that enviousness was so natural for human beings. From fairy tales such as Snow White, we blame it a lot.

Because we blame it too often, we usually underestimate its popularity. We view it as a great sin and refuse to admit its existence within our minds. But in rare situations, we are still brave enough to admit it. I think the problem here is not whether we have an envious mind, but whether we can control our behaviour when we envy others.

In 2013, when Ruan was about to leave QUT, we had a farewell lunch with him in South Bank. I was sitting at a table with some students from Sri Lanka. We discussed many things, including research, war and peace, marriage, religion, and finally, the topic of who was Sridha's best student.

"I know," I said, "Sridha's best student must be Professor Simon Lucey!"

Rajitha shook his head and said, "I'm very sure he thinks you're the best of all."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "Simon Lucey is a renowned professor who worked at CMU before."

"But you cannot compare your current level with Simon Lucey," Rajitha said. "Simon Lucey might not have been as good as you when he was a student. Of course, at the moment he is much better, but you have the potential to overtake him."

"You behaved the best," Ahilan said. "If people didn't bully you, you would have achieved much more research output than what you currently have. I feel guilty that your research progress was slowed down under the collective bullying."

Sabesan then said, "We came here to study almost at the same time. If it weren't for the bullying against you, we should be close friends. But it's hard for us to face you after what we've done." He paused and said, "But it is only because we envied your research capability."

"Yes," Kanes said sadly. "We just cannot accept your progress being that fast. I think we should tell Sridha the truth."

"Yes," all those students said, “we have decided to tell Sridha the truth.”