Hosea הוֹשֵׁעַ

Author: Hosea

  • Shalom! The Peace Living In Harmony

    The once pure and happy heart was no longer pure and happy but as time aged, worries clogged my arteries and shrewdness intoxicated my heart. My heart was poisoned by worldliness. In the day I was busy with my chaotic routines, in the night my mind was busy plotting tomorrow. Life got weary and heavy laden. The peace, known as shalom, I once had no longer with me.

    This wholesome peace was with me but slowly faded away as I stepped into the working world. I began to worry about my future, what would I become. Then when I decided to be a businessman and built my businesses, I started to worry about my enterprising expansion, my heart was burdened managing the business. Next came along my love life and I enthralled the other half of my exhausted heart upkeeping the relationship.

    Years after years, as life got matured and bond with the world, our childhood friendship and kinship no longer pure. We associated with one another because of our hidden agenda. Friends betrayed friends to strengthen our status quo. We cashed out kinship by borrowing from them. We manipulated righteousness to conceal our deceitfulness and played politics to climb corporate ladder.

    Nowadays when we meet new friends, we tactfully asked questions to check out their family backgrounds and financial worth. We associated to find out their social status and determined if socializing with them worth our time and dining with them worth our investment. Now friendship was forged because of business opportunities. Dinner treat was offered for financial benefits. Life was so fake. We schemed our life and compromised our integrity. We no longer made friends like kids looking for fun and companionship.

    More than ten years had passed. I left all behind and came to china to rest my whole, heart, mind, soul and strength. Almost a year of resting. During the year, I rested by isolating my soul from the world. I forged new friends to rebuild my circle of friends. I gave up my present lifestyle for the shalom I used to have when I was young and innocent.

    What is shalom?

    Shalom is peace. Peace with God. Peace with man. Peace with nature. Peace with self. Shalom is the peace of our whole being living in harmony with everything. With this peace, then we have the mental calmness, emotional stability, that give us the sound will to do what we have set out to accomplish.

    Shalom is so important to me because when I have this peace, my will is like a house build on a strong foundation. When an earthquake comes I know I can stand firm and not shaken to do what I set out to do.

    This peace I once lost, I found it again.

    Shalom be with you!

  • 2006: Year Of The Dog

    2006: Year of the Dog
    What will this year be for me? Another disastrous year? Only the end of the year will I know. Now, I am going to chart my own destiny, fight the good fight and recover all that I have lost.

    2006: Genesis
    2006 will be the beginning of a renew hope. The hope that will sustain me to live on and fulfil my destiny for the next 10 years.

    The goals are:
    1. Complete writing the book and publish by 2006.
    2. Blueprint my retirement at 40.
    3. Learn a third language. (elective)

    I hope to complete writing the book by this year. Lot of research on the topic need to be done and sort out my chaotic thoughts before I penned.

    Where will I be in life when I am 40. This is the important question for the next chapter of my life. Now like 10 years ago, another year of solitary life, living in solitude help me think clearly of what I want in life, how I want to live, what I want to accomplish and my thoughts will not be influenced by peer pressure.

    Finally shalom has come to me, now everything come together in one harmony, writing the book and charting the next chapter of my life, all on the subject of decision-making.

    If I have time left, I wish to learn a third language to broaden my linguistic anthropology. So should I take up Russian or Arab? Or should I polish up my Greek I learn twelve years ago?

    I think these goals are good enough to keep me busy for the year. Well! It is time for me to get my world revolving again.

    Here I wish all Chinese a happy and prosperous dog year.

    Godspeed to all.

  • To Love Or To Be Loved

    I was watching a drama from CCTV channel. Two women were discussing about love.

    One woman asked the other, would you choose ‘the man you love’ or ‘the man that love you.’

    The other woman responded, “What do you think I will choose?”
    “The man you love.”

    “How do you know?” replied the other woman.

    “Because no man love you.”

    Thanks for reading my lame joke!

  • My Friend, Bob

    Find a friend - Bob at Patong Beach, Phuket

    My Canadian friend, Bob, our friendship started five years ago from a supplier-client relationship. He travelled around the world for business and visited Singapore at least twice a year. Bob said to me, “Hosea, I don’t know why every time I come to Singapore you are the only want I want to meet.” He flashed back, there were so many people wanted to meet up with him but he chose to spend time with me after working hours than meeting his associates. Then spontaneously he added, “I think I know why because when you meet me you don’t talk business. You don’t go through the BS and solicit for business opportunities.”

    How many of us still make friends like that? It was a great comfort Bob said that to me.

    Our favourite pastime was to go Lat Pat Sat for a satay fest with lot of beers and the hotel VIP lounge for a beer session and drink till our hearts content with our computer notebook on our laps and chat till the lounge close.

    Bob, I miss you.

    Visit Bob at www.bobu.com

  • 2005: Year Of The Chicken

    2005: Chronicle
    From year 2003-2005 were the dark ages of my soul. Everything I did, ventures embarked, project I led, etc, everything started to fail and failed damned badly. Year 2005 was the darkest of my entire life. I felt abandoned by God, rejected by society and forsaken by friends.

    In 2003, I anticipated that years ahead may be a big disaster for me so I started to make provision for the upcoming tough years. The worst ever happened to me was my 6-year-old girlfriend left me. Ever since that happen, it seem like the whole world was against me. I lost focus in my business and lost big time. Kinships and friendships began to break up and by the beginning of 2005 I lost myself, I lost my health, I lost friendship and everything I had seem gone, disappeared, vaporised into thin air.

    The provision I made was to take a year break in 2005 and happened to be in conjunction with my sabbatical plan, I planned 10 years ago.

    In 2005, Now, I was alone but fearless as before. I braced up again, putting all the past behind and looking forward, I went for a year tour and declared 2005 my Sabbatical Year.

    2005: Sabbatical
    This is my resting year because it was the darkest year of my life. I thought doing nothing was the best thing I could do to keep myself alive. I did try to jumpstart some ventures during the year but the favour of God was not with me.

    My original plan was to go Canada for my sabbatical break but then a year before my departure I decided to go China. After Chinese New Year, I took my passport and my baggage and travelled around neighbouring countries and finally retreated to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province of China.

    In Guangzhou, the favour of God was not with me again and I moved from town to town and finally ended up in Zhuhai. Here I found peace and new friendship. I was happy and about to settle down, the wind of God changed and blew me to Chongqing province (an hour flight from Guangzhou airport or 30 hours of train ride).

    2005: Reflection
    I knew this year was the toughest year of my life, nevertheless I still set goals for it but simple and achievable.

    The four goals were:

    1. Go for my Sabbatical Break.

    2. Complete writing the book I decided to write 4 years ago.

    3. Restore my health by losing weight from 100kg to 75kg, restore my physical and mental fitness back to my peak state.

    4. De-gadget my life.

    Go for my Sabbatical Break. Yes I had accomplished it. Leaving all behind, breaking away from support system and leaving your comfort zone were not easy tasks. It was a state of mind, an emotionless calm mind. To some, I might be an irresponsible person running away from responsibilities. To others, seem to be a cool thing to do.

    As for me, taking this break, it took me one year to decide and this decision did not come easy. I had to struggle within myself to unify my heart, my mind, soul and strength as one. The fruit of the decision was not the enjoyment of my one year holiday. It was to destroy the “soulish ties” and rekindle the “passion of life” in me. Do not be bothered if you do not understand, I am talking theology.

    The book… Sad to say I did not complete or near completion. At least I started to pen now.

    Yes! Yes! Yes! From 100kg to 75kg, what an achievement! It took me almost three years to get back in shape. Huh! What was the secret recipe? Go vegetarian, that was my secret. I was not a die-hard vegetarian. Had vegetable meals as possible as you can and avoid meat if you can. Another secret was to eat enough and not eat full.

    I was not physically fit as before but I am much stronger now. Five years ago, I injured my back and was bed-ridden for ten days. It took me till now to be able to walk upright. As a semi-pro sportsman since childhood, my muscles started to ache as my age was catching up.

    Two years ago my mind started to weaken and I lost the will to live. My mind was so weak that I even gave up driving because I almost had accident almost everyday. My mental health resilient from the break. I was thinking again and thinking of things that were beyond comprehension.

    I was proud to say that I had achieved the fitness level that I wanted to attained. In fact I was more acute that before. I was ready to get myself into peak state again.

    As a techno geek, I was always the guy that had the latest gadgets, hi-tech devices, etc at hand. Always an early adopter of technology. In 2004, I made a decision to de-gadget myself, reducing my dependency on devices by 2005. It was tough to change my habitual lifestyle but I finally made it. From four mobile phones reduce to one (but now back to two). Remember schedules than depend on Pocket Outlook reminder alarm but I did miss Avantgo and reading ebook on my IPAQ. I was glad to say my stay in China had let me break away from all this hi-tech toys and left it all back in Singapore. Finally I also free myself from the “upgrade” curse, whatever new in the market, upgrade, upgrade upgrade. Switching to Mac platform helped break the curse.

    Although it was a lousy year for me, I was satisfied with my achievement.

    Thank you God for your grace and mercy.

  • Sabbath Tour 2005: Pearl River Delta, Guangdong, China

    Although I spend most of my time in Zhuhai, I travel frequently around the Pearl River Delta. If you want to build an illegal business, this is the best place to start. Best place for prostitution, best for money laundering, best for operating gambling den, you name it you have it. It is also a hideout for wanted criminals. Nevertheless Guangdong is a beautiful place to visit.

    To all that love Chinese cuisine, Guangdong must be one of the places you have to visit.

  • I Had STD

    No, I did not get it through sexual intercourse. By the way, almost three years, my sex drive was extremely very low since my break-up with Shufen.

    I left Zhuhai and travelled around the Pearl River Delta for the past three weeks, staying in many motels and hotels, before flying to Chongqing.

    On my second day in Chongqing, my dick was feeling a bit swollen and I thought I had somehow accidentally kicked my own balls. Then my penis started to discharge milky fluid. I thought was from my wet dream because I had no sex for donkey months. Then the next day it got worse and I suspected I was infected with STD.
    Then I went to see doctor and on medication and quarantined myself for two weeks. After medication I thought I was fine soon because the milky discharge was lessen and my swollen penis was recovering. After few days, my discharge was increasing and I felt I was not completely well and visited the doctor again and quarantined for another week.

    Here I am, alive and kicking again.

    Infected by STD without sex change my perspective on this matter. So the moral of the story is, the probability of STD infection is not based on the number of sex you have. My conclusion is, the probability of the infection is based on bad luck. So fcuk to your heart content. Interestingly, after this experience, my sex drive seem to be back and I do get hard-on again when I wake up. Hmm… seem like a blessing in disguise.

  • Sabbath Tour 2005: Chongqing, China

    Chongqing JiaFangBei

    Having spent so much time in southern China, I had finally moved northwest to explore another part of China. When I reach Chongqing and step out of the airport I say to myself, “is just another town”. As the taxi driver drove me toward city, I was surprised to see the place was better organised and the people were more cultured than the cities in southern China. Now I understand why Chongging was separated from Sichuan province.

    Now was winter season and I hardly see the sun. At most was sunlight every few days. I saw first light at about eight in the morning, sometimes almost ten in the morning. Nightfall around half-past-six. This place was cloudy and foggy.

    Time for me to adapt my new environment.

  • Save Electricity

    l was watching the channel TVS3 in Zhuhai and came this advertisment.

    Two young couple were quarreling in their house and the quarrel was so bad that the guy opened the door and left. The next scene was the wife sat down on the sofa looking blank.

    After a while the guy came back, opened the door and stand between the doorway and compassionately looking at the wife. The wife stood up and smiled happily.  The guy reached out for the switch and turned off the light.

    And next came the text message save electricity.

    Ha ha! What an interesting advertisement！

  • Time And Tide Wait For No Man

    What is your greatest regrets if you die before doing it? What is it that you really wanna do but no time for it? Or you are just giving yourself excuses?

    In life, we are so busy with the little things that we procrastinate the big purposes of our life and miss the important things of what we want to do that is deep down in our heart. I used to say this during school days, “we major in minor and minor in major.”

    Is there something you really want to do for your kids? Is there something you wanna tell your dad or your mum? Is there something you wanna do at your prime while you can?

    Close your eyes and visualise now, for whatever reason, you only have less than 24 hours to live. Use your heart, feel it, tomorrow this time, you know you will stop breathing. Take your time do not rush yourself. Put your right hand over your heart, feel your heartbeats and think again.

    Remember! We only live once and everyday the earth is spinning and the clock is ticking. Time and tide wait for no man.