(266) Possession in Death by J.D.Robb

This story reminded me of recent crimes both in Germany and USA. It is heinous to kidnap young women, detain them against their wishes to do things they would not want to. In Germany it happened in an underground dwelling. In USA it actually happened in a house with near neighbors. In this story the unbalanced perp just wanted to dance with those beautiful girls until a new one comes. Then he had to kill the old one with tears.

The twist in the story is having the deceased grandma taking possession of the detective's body to find the victim added color to the plot.

(263) Unwritten sex rules

In Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts, I read about the rule among girl friends that once a guy was "taken" sexually, the others are not supposed to "conquer" him. I suppose I must be both conservative and from the older generation that sex both outside and inside of marriage was not discussed even among bosom friends in my home country.

I remember when I just returned from college abroad, I was so lonely that I connected with a lady lawyer qualified from UK. We spent a lot of time together doing many things. I even caught quite a few theater shows with her and her different escorts. At that point she didn't drive and I didn't have a car. So naturally she requested whomever to date her to pick me up during the weekends. After the show, he would send me home and went on to the next destination with her.

She dated an accountant, a business manager, an architect, an engineer and well, another lawyer. At least I met all five briefly. It was the fellow lawyer that she pointed out to me. Apparently he was together with another lawyer for four years in UK. I have met his long term girl friend in another party. Interestingly, that girl married shortly after that, but with another chap. Sad to say, the lady involved has had quite a number of miscarriages after her marriage. Much later, we found out that the cause of those miscarriages : the petite and short lady has been taking over the counter birth control pills for more than four years and those pills were designed for white women seven inches taller whose body mass many kilograms heavier.

In the end the couple concerned decided to adopt a Korean orphan girl and they migrated to Australia. From this brief meeting, it seemed that course mates from British universities do date friends' ex-lived ins. Perhaps, one rule works in one country but not another. Well, the law circles in my home town are relatively small, one would have to deal with one's ex professionally and socially to a certain extent. It certainly would not help if one's ex work in the same firm or if one's seniors in the firm become married to one's ex. But then for those concerned, it would have to be all in a day's work!

(255) Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts

 I find this book interesting as it dealt with unwritten codes among friends in the USA. Quite a bit of it reminded me of confidences exchanged in the dorm rooms in the middle of the night. It is certainly easier to tell your friends the difficult to talk about things if it is in the wee hours and there is dimmed lighting and preferably if there is someone asleep and the remaining two whispering in a dark corner.

Yes, I heard about the first kiss, first French kiss, the petting and necking in the back seat ... According to this book, girls tell. They expect each other to, and they themselves disclose.  Well, in my home town, things are different. I used to have a group of close friends, after being abroad for college, I was no longer that close with most of them but one. When I unexpectedly returned from America, everyone has moved on. One got married and had two children. Another was engaged and actually went on a pre-nup trip to Europe. (Well, they have registered legally as man and wife but had not gone through the Chinese ceremonies) Another two were dating seriously with the men in their lives. The rest were busy with jobs and dating around. I actually found myself a whole new set of friends and acquaintances to do things with. I must have missed out on the hot dates and the hot news of the old set because I was away. But, one incident stood out: our advertising consultant managed to grill an errant friend and found out why she chose to go work in Papua.

Now, this errant friend has always been close mouth and kept her own counsel. She has a stubborn streak and would refuse to tell if she so decides. However, she did not count on our media research friend's skills developed by countless consumer research projects funded by international companies. There our advertising consultant small talked and asked more than  sixty seemingly unrelated questions. Those questions were of two types, random ones and the related ones. By being relax and answering those questions, the end result is telling. Even if some answers were lies, our consultant could sieve them out and ask from completely different angles.

So, the consultant taxed her brain cells and came to one conclusion: our dear friend was heart broken with her hot boy friend in Borneo. While the relationship was going well, she must have slept with him (that was her first, we were certain) thinking she would eventually marry him. But she must have found out something pretty bad about him and she wanted out. Just a simple break up would not do, seemed like he was not willing to let her go and she resorted to being transferred to Papua, of all places! I'll end on a happy note, she is the proud mother of one son with a Thai husband. Of course her son is like sixteen years younger than mine as she took her time to select her lucky man and then she has some difficulty conceiving in her late thirties.

(249) Red by Ted Dekker

Red - Second Part of The Circle Series - The Heroic Rescue

In this book we have Justin (Elyon) being betrayed and put to death by a most inhumane method of drowning. Meanwhile 21st century earth was spinning out of control to imminent mass death and nuclear strikes and counter strikes.

In the final pages of this book, twelve adults and five children followed the footsteps of Justin in choosing to be drowned in the red water of the lake. Miraculously, they did not die but emerged cleansed from the dreaded skin disease the desert dwellers had. Strangely, those forest dwellers who used to dip daily in the green lake to escape from the dreaded skin disease were all affected by the disease in their brains to stay away from the lake water which by washing could no longer heal them.

It is all a paradox: with Jehovah, one chooses death of self in order to have new life. A real believer must hold his or her life loosely as in losing one's earthly life would lead to gaining eternal life. It somehow does not seem logical nor smart. Therefore, God chooses the fools to shame the wise. And only the sick would need the Great Physician. That is why we find that sometimes Buddhists and Taoists actually are much nicer people than some Christians in many churches. Perhaps the relatively more righteous people outside of the sheep fold feel less of a need for forgiveness and cleansing. When I was so sick that I could hardly stand up at age 31, only two Christian sisters could and would comfort me. Most  judged me and told me that there must be sin in my life, my illness was judgement from God. The rest shunned me, as if by walking near me or by having contact would mean they would catch my ailment.

Looking back, it was a difficult test. It must have been by the grace of God that I did not walk away from the Church or from God. Now that it has been over, I become a person that would be able to sit for hours to listen, understand, cry, and to pray with any one whom God called me to be alongside to help. It was like undergoing the refining fire, it was terrible to be burnt for the duration. But the end result is good for me and for others.

(248) Black by Ted Dekker

Black - First part of The Circle Series - The birth of evil

This book reminds me of The Time Traveler's Wife. Thomas Hunter is like the time traveler. The major difference being the fact that when Tom is asleep in America in the twenty first century, he was asleep and dreaming of another world in a different time and vice verse.

From the abandoned son of an army chaplain, Tom became an internationally known villain who kidnapped a virologist in Bangkok. The new vaccine that was just unveiled was wrenched into the bad guys' hands to become a mutated virus capable of killing billions on earth within three weeks. It was a good plot, full of suspense!

The colored forest and the innocent long living people who enjoyed the fruits and water bestowed by Elyon (the creator) paralleled the garden of Eden. Those evil black bats that have no power over the innocent people are like the fallen angels before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

After being a practicing Christian for more than twenty years, I am afraid I still cannot see why nor am I able to explain fully why God created humans who are given the choice of good and evil. Yes, books explained that men cannot be truly free without such a choice. But look at what the choice led to: violence, suffering, perverse actions, evil ... But how can the created being question the creator? I bow to the deep knowing in my heart that God loves me and everyone else in this world. Yet even before the foundation of this world was laid, God already knew who would choose Him and who would reject Him. Even knowing that, He sent His son Jesus to die for our sins so that we can find a way to go back to Him. My son Kenneth said that reading this series (Black, Red, White and Green) enables him to understand Genesis (the first book of the Bible) better. I am still reading the second book Red, I cannot claim anything of this sort yet. Though I went right to the back and read both the given endings.

(237) The Report Card by Andrew Clements

This is a Scholastic book written by the author of Frindle - a two-million-copy bestseller.

The story tells of a hidden genius call Nora. She was able to appear normal from 2.5 years old to fifth grade. That shows she not only is high in her IQ, she must be full of EQ (emotional quotient) too. Most parents would love to have really smart children, but I suppose it is not easy to bring up a genius in a balanced way.

In the book a very wise teacher asked Nora why she was given such high IQ. It would probably take Nora the rest of her life to find out. I probably would not test as high on the scale as Nora. In those days I doubt any of my teachers have access to any IQ test. But I remember cooking my scores in primary school so that I don't stand out like a sore thumb. From Grade Three to Six I alternated at First and Second place with my Assistant Monitor. When he begged hard enough, I would score just low enough for him to be first in class - after all, he claimed that his father would beat him for coming second. The the next year he would boast and get on my nerve - then I would make sure I outscore him by about thirty marks in the final exam so he would come second again.

Now I can see that I was given a brain that is able to absorb facts and incidences and file them most systematically away. As Kenneth said, I don't just have on-line and off-line storage, I seemed to have the ability to instantly recall things stored away from any part of my life -- whether real life experiences, things I heard or things I read at will. This come in handy in my teaching life, I could tell interesting, one of a kind stories at the drop of a pin to wake up nodding students. Most of these stories are true too, maybe with a few minor facts altered so that the people involved would remain anonymous. There is a purpose in telling real stories, apart from entertainment. Usually I would ask for the moral lesson and more often than not, at least one person would give me the correct or an acceptable answer.

Since I have not continued in teaching for the past seven years, I have noticed that this unique memory serves me really well when people I spend time listening to tell me facts or experiences that they have never shared with anyone before. Keeping in mind that each person is unique, and the fact that I do not have a psychology degree nor am I a qualified counselor, to be able to come up with an upbeat, encouraging response use up every bit of my immense storage files.

(233) A Murder is announced by Agatha Christie

On page 10 of A Murder is Announced, we read "And die on the same day and be buried in the same grave. That would be lovely." Bunch, a happy vicar's wife said this to her husband.

In real life, a fair number of people seem to take their lives for granted. My mother's neighbor, Mrs Kok, used to say that she planned to live in her present house with her husband in old age, as she expected her children to move out one by one. My mother, the realist, chose to point out to her that one day one of the pair would most likely die before the other. Then the prospect of living alone in a big house presented itself to Mrs Kok. She did not relish the idea of being all alone since women usually outlive men if they are about the same age. Since then, she no longer said that she would urge each child to move out.

My cousin lives in a small single story house. A few houses away, an old man lived alone. He seldom talked to anyone and there were few visitors. Since he did sometimes leave his house to be away for a week or two, no one was alarmed that he was not seen for a few days. The complacency lasted four days, when foul smell that came from his house caused neighbors to call him and then later the police. He was found dead seated in front of a TV that was tuned on world news.

(228) The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie

In her story, a woman received a poison pen letter accusing her of having a son with someone other than her husband. She was found dead after a daily nap, with a note saying "I cannot go on ..." That was a fictional account, I am sure.

However, in real life I have come across one parallel case. A friend of mine is married to man with five brothers. One of those brothers has a young son with some congenital defect that could be fatal if not treated. In order to find a suitable bone marrow donor, all the uncles as well as the nucleus family members went for blood tests and tissue typing.

All five brothers were gathered in the home of the affected boy. They proceeded to compare test results. All six men were trained in science. One glance at the blood types, their faces paled. My friend, who is married to one, could not comprehend anything even when she looked at the myriad result; since she was in the arts stream as early as lower secondary school. Being alert and curious, she quietly memorized each individual result and consulted me when she came home.

Being conservative Chinese, the entire incident was swept under the carpet and not mentioned again. It is clear that at least three of the six brothers were conceived from man or men other than the legal father. By now, the long suffering father had died. The mother who has led such a colorful life is rather old and is becoming senile. Little wonder that the old woman would complain that throughout her married life, her husband had beaten her time and again. In the old days, wife beating was somewhat tolerated and not many couples would divorce even if there was spousal abuse. It is interesting that deep secrets such as these could not be submerged for long. I guess this saying explains it somewhat: old sins cast long shadows.

(225) They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie

This is one of Christie's big picture of the entire world being threatened by a bunch of bad guys story. What I truly enjoyed reading about is Victoria, the impressionable young girl who could "follow" a handsome guy to the other side of the world. After all, there is nothing much in common between London and Baghdad.

Yet, through a series of danger and muddling, she met someone she would probably marry later on should the story has a sequel. What I admire most about her is the fact that she was able to make the best of everything that happened to her. Most importantly, she could learn from her own perceived mistakes. If it was foolhardy to fall in love with a good looking guy who was arrogant and evil, she next chose a slightly older chap who was solid and dependable.

I have a childhood friend who married twice. The first husband was a widower with three boys. Whatever reason she has for choosing him, it was not because he had a lot of time to spend with her. After all, he was a busy specialist doctor. None of her friends know much about why she left him: if it was difficult to be a step mother to three boys? He was nasty to her? She felt badly neglected? A couple of years later, she remarried. This time round it was to a younger guy from another country. He loves her enough to relocate to be with her initially.  Even though they remained married for a much longer period, she failed to bear any children. Lately, I heard that he spent more time in his own country than with her. Knowing that he is an only child, I won't be surprised that he started another family in his home country to ensure that he has descendants (traditional Chinese view having heirs as extremely important).

Should there be a third marriage (since my friend is still a most attractive lady although she is in her early forties now), I certainly hope that she will have learnt from her first and second marriages. Let the third man love her, be good to her and will stick to her through thick and thin.

(215) Second Glance by Jodi Picoult

It is interesting that when a ghost hunter met a ghost, he thought it was a living person. Perhaps it is because I am from the East, I know that there are things between heaven and hell that human could not find explanations for.

Personally I have not seen any apparitions. But my grand ma and eldest aunt both could and did see spirits. During the Japanese occupation, they ventured into deep jungle to find edible leaves and roots. My eldest aunt saw a native mother and two children clearly while my grand ma saw them as shadows. My grand ma cautioned my eldest aunt not to say anything as the two parties passed each other on the narrow trail.

When my children were young, I had a helper. A few years before, she actually saw a woman combing her hair in a hotel room when my helper barged into it to retrieved some item. Interestingly, the woman looked normal, both human and spirit ignored each other.

When my youngest was about five, she saw people walking home in the moonlight. I turned and had a good look and saw nothing at the first floor window. Taking the counsel from my grand ma and my helper, my daughter and I went back to sleep while whomever she had a glimpse of went back to wherever they came from.

(214) Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult

The name Salem brought two images to me: cigarettes and the witch hunt. Picoult wove a story that brought a handsome, well educated man from a rich background to a rape victim who not only kept her rapist's child but loved and mourned her for years after the child died of an illness. While the victim suffered in silence, the man was openly accused of rape of a minor and was imprisoned as a result of a plea.

Both the man and the woman were innocent who suffered grievously. I felt very angry with Jack, the history teacher who doubled as soccer coach, who did not have a care about what others thought about him. He was a fool for getting his class of teenage girls to put on their swim suits and then draped table cloths over themselves for mock war fare. He was a moron for picking up his student's bra and kept it on his person. That just about sealed his fate of being charged as a child rapist.

When I was residing in Silver City, there was a woman who waited for words from her daughter who disappeared during her first year as a university student in Australia. The mother kept her old house and her old house phone for years until the death of her husband. Then she sold her house to a relative who promised to keep the old house number and would pass the message if her daughter called. Twenty one years to the date her daughter was missing, a call did come. Two months later, her long lost daughter came back with a twenty year old son. Apparently, she was raped on a date. As a Roman Catholic, she refused abortion and accepted state aid. She changed her name legally to protect herself and her son. Overnight she relocated to another state with the help of a social worker. Happily for the mother, her long wait was over.

(201) Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult

In Perfect Match, Nina Frost (Assistant District Attorney) lost it when her own son was raped by a priest. Instead of putting faith in the faulty legal system, she shot the child abuser dead in court.

My daughter read this book some time ago but she remembered this plot and said that it was one of the best she came across. I was born with a slant with words and grew up with adults telling me that I should become a lawyer to use my gift. Some how I did not but quite a few of my closest friends are in the legal profession.

Perhaps I was rather sheltered, I honestly can claim that I did not personally know of any child abuse victims in my country. Well, in the East, such things are buried and everyone concerned considered it best forgotten. And so, my readers probably wondered why I choose to elaborate on response to such a book.

A short recap: I suffered emotionally from some form of learning disability as a child. At 21, I witnessed first hand how angry a full blown dyslexic child was when taunted by peers that he could not read. The trip I made to a self diagnosis became a life long passion. I worked with my own children. Then I took in other people's children to help them to over come obstacles in learning. Ultimately I become a listener to women who might have overcome all the learning obstacles but whose lives were plagued by unresolved anger, frustration, irrational fears and whatever emotional scars caused by the desperate fight many years ago.

Recently I heard of two children in my church. A teenage boy who aimed high to become a medical doctor found that he was not made for studying the sciences at age 16. In fact no matter how hard he worked, his grades fell. Until now I hesitate to get involved. Both the mother (who is kind of a friend) and the teenager are Chinese educated. Even if I reveal my blog name and ask them to read the relevant blog, they are not going to understand enough to help the situation.

The other child is seven years old. His parents sent him to a Chinese primary school. He is already displaying the classic symptoms of not being able to cope in  class. In fact his back ground is rather interesting. His mother possesses two degrees and is an educator in a local college. His father, I don't know his educational back ground, works in a restaurant selling a local delicacy. Since both sets of grand parents have money, the boy will turn out ok in the end. But even as I think about their decision to put him in a Chinese school, I get angry. He may end up with much baggage and lots of emotional scarring. I somehow survived with my perfect recall (long ago I probably functioned as a photostat machine, which explained why I excelled in Chinese which is made up of unique ideograms), and now I can still pick up knowledge easily as I can elect to turn on an in built tape recorder. But funnily enough, I live in a house full of English books but you would be hard pressed to find a single Chinese book. No, I don't hate the Chinese language. On the contrary, I do love Chinese literature and Chinese poems. At some point, I should rewrite my entire set of blogs in Chinese. But I delay and I drag my feet. I suppose it is all a matter of time. My next person to listen to is talking to me in Cantonese now. In a few years' time I would have acquired all the working vocabulary in Cantonese to explain about the learning process and the emotional journey she struggled through. By then, it would be easier to type in Chinese characters without bothering with Han Yu Pin Yin.

(200) The Pact by Jodi Picoult

I find that I not only need to think deeply when I read a Picoult book, I also learn interesting facts. Two apparently happy and well adjusted teenagers were found with one shot in the head and the other fell down with a head wound. It is every parent's nightmare!

Emily, the dead girl, was her mother's pride and joy. Her mother loved her very, very much. To that, no one would dispute. But, look a little closer, did the woman love Emily as a person or as a successful image that brought her pride?

I met some one lately who was a little like Emily's mom, Melanie. This woman brought her son, Byron, to work in a non-profit book room because Byron, who was quite a scholar academically, refused to go to college and he refused to go to work. The reason for being a recluse was he could not take criticism. Since everyone who takes a hefty pay cut to work in the religious center would likely to be kind, we all hope that Byron would find the book room a safe refuge. One thing everyone observed is that Byron would not utter a single word in the presence of his mother. Did she speak on his behalf all the time? Did she make fun of his opinion? Yet when his mother stays away, he is not exactly chatty but he would talk. Did his family insist on him taking up a profession that he absolutely fears? It was obvious they have the necessary money. And Byron would qualify, with his excellent grades.

In The Pact, the last picture painted by Emily was evaluated by an expert. The skull found in her self portrait indicated possible preoccupation with death. The way that black and red were juxtaposed in the background was a documented hint about suicide. The painting of clouds and rain are drawn by people who are depressed and/or suicidal. The eyes are symbolic of a person's thoughts. In Emily's self portrait, she painted gathering downpour in the empty eye sockets. The long developed eye lashes and a highly realistic tongue sent off warning signals about sexual abuse. Apparently, victims of sexual abuse fixate on tongues, eye lashes, wedge shaped objects and belts. When someone paints a floating image, the person doesn't have a feeling of control in his or her life.

Although The Pact is probably a fictional story, it is a story that I can learn from. As parents, we should not insist on the future that we visualize on our reluctant children. Emily was bright, pretty, talented and probably had a winning personality. But she could not reconcile between an unexpected pregnancy with college, she could not face an early marriage while she dealt with the feeling of being unworthy and being dirty/tainted with an act of sex abuse years ago that she hid. She could not see how she could live the ten years between her present self and the future of being a painter. And so she planned and pressurized her beloved to kill her since she could not kill herself on her own.

(199) Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

This week belongs to Picoult books. I have been reading quite a few of them: Vanishing Acts, The Pact, Perfect Match and Salem Falls. Each of these involved sexual abuse or assault of minors. Each book is different.

In Vanishing Acts she dealt with multiple issues: kidnapping, stealing identities, alcoholism, and child abuse as well as neglect. While reading this, I think of a Klang mother who lost her son on his first day of school. It was unthinkable for her son to be claimed by a woman with dark glasses in plain sight of a teacher on duty in the waiting area after school. Until today, the boy was not found. A few years ago, a reporter interviewed the family on the boy's birthday and found the family keeping a place for the missing child at the dinner table. Actually, a relative who visited Southern Thailand claimed he saw the boy begging by the way side, but by the time the parents rushed there he was nowhere to be seen. It is not unusual for such a child to be maimed and used for earning money by crooks.

A few weeks ago, a boy called William walked out of his family car one evening and vanished. A huge man hunt was mounted, much money was offered for clues to recovering him. Sad to say, his body was found about a week later in the river. Many people commented on face book, much of it was sympathetic and some filled with anger. The shocking part was the bereaved mom chose to read those messages and was so upset that she made a  public apology to the Chinese media. It was perhaps a not very wise decision to leave three children locked in a car while both parents went to see washing machines in an electrical appliance shop. The story went into a twist when the autopsy found some old wounds in the skull and some smart reporters unearthed a report of physical abuse by the father a few months back. A further high point was having clips of the grandmother turning up at the cremation wailing as she had not met up with William, whom she brought up, for a long six months.

I suppose no mothers who love their children deserve to lose them, whether in not taking leave to be in the sending and the picking up of the child on his first day of school; or in desiring to be alone with her husband to find the dream washing machine! But I firmly agree with Delia (the central character in Vanishing Acts) that if her birth mother chose to be blind to the sexual abuse carried out by her boy friend and later second husband, then she deserved to be alone and could not expect visitations from her only living daughter and little grand daughter.

(197) Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck

According to The New Yorker, this is the first novel Buck concerned herself with Chinese of wealth.

I am glad that I did not read it when I was younger. I suppose even ten years ago I might not have understood what she was trying to convey. It is ironic that the priest Andre was considered a heretic by his church in Italy. Yet he housed, brought food and love to orphan girls and he fed and cared for those who could not help themselves. With that good work, no religion and culture would condemn. Compared to him, the traditional missionary Little Sister Hsia was insignificant. It is not that I want to belittle one who left behind her loved ones, country and everything to proclaim the gospel. She gave her entire life up for the love of her God and she was sincere in heart. One preached with words while the other with deeds. Of course deeds outshone words alone!

What Buck portrayed was pre-communist China. I am sure little remain in the China of today. After decades of shared poverty, the gap between the have and the have-not in China widened again. Not being much read in history, I can't tell whether the gap today or seventy years ago was wider. I only know that my ancestors escaped to South East Asia to find a living. Around that time hundreds of thousands left China for many parts of the world. On my father side, his clan spent years clearing virgin jungle to plant rubber trees. On my mother side, my grand parents tapped rubber trees as daily waged labourers. Now, I hear of Chinese nationals robbing restaurants at knife points in the cities. We see China dolls in the big cities as well as tiny towns. I have known a few families and marriages being broken by the wealth seeking Chinese females. At the other extreme, I also have close friends who work in companies and factories owned by Chinese nationals.

(196) Book of Souls by Glenn Cooper

This is a sequel to Library of the Dead. In the second book we see more about how one book of records written by the mysterious monks was passed from one hand to another through the generations.

It was smart of Cooper to link a son of the owner of the book to John Calvin the reformist. Then a plague brought the same son to Nostradamus who wrote the books of predictions. Later another descendant even brought in the young William Shakespeare who was supposed to write a sonnet as a clue to help find hidden letters.

As I read of how the young agent Nancy fell for her partner, Will, even though he was old enough to be her father. Will has been through two marriages and numerous girl friends. Well, Nancy didn't mind and neither did her parents. In contrast to that, my neighbour who is a young fifty year old divorcee was not an acceptable choice as a wife to her boy friend. They have been together more than six years but his mother could not accept her because she has married before. I think of her boy friend who is 48 as a man without back bone. If he loses her, it would have been his own fault. It is futile to fight for equal rights for women because in things like marriage and remarriage, men are often more equal than women.

(190) Watchers by Dean Koontz

I think I wrote a blog on another book of Dean Koontz quite some time back. There is a list of 39 books by him, he is indeed a most prolific author. Watchers is his 11th book. It is the second I have come across.

He writes well. By looking at the many titles he chose, I would guess that he sells horror tales. But no, he claimed he regretted writing Phantoms because most people classified it as horror but he preferred to think of it as a science fiction. I guess those who look for thrills could see it as a horror story while others could logically log it as a sci-fi.

In our world, there are many happenings that cannot be measured by science. Hence we have the supernatural as well as meta-physics. Yet cutting edge science is approaching to the capability of playing the role of our creator. We need to be afraid of what greedy and mad scientists could produce in the name of science. We have just passed the supposed the end of the world scare predicted by the Mayan calendar. When will that be, no one knows! Only we are racing towards it by destroying the earth.

(173) Where There is a Will by Jeffrey Archer

It is interesting to note how Ms Lynn Beattie skilfully talked her elderly sick employer to amend his will to give 30% of his huge estate to five of the organizations with prestigious law firms in USA and keepsake of a cane with a silver handle as well as a photograph of the deceased at Princeton to her. Once the new will was drafted, she adeptly substituted one paragraph to exchange things around to benefit herself. She was smart to pick a lawyer who did not qualify to become a partner in her employer's Law firm to witness the signing of the improved version of the new will.

The long and short of it meant Ms Beattie inherited a cool 70 million dollars while Chester(son of the millionaire who lived away from his dad) was left with a silver handled cane and Joni (daughter of the millionaire who lived in another country) was to get an old picture of her dad.

Recently I attended a wake of the husband of my mum's girl hood friend. During his final illness, the deceased's wife turned down an appointment for a proper will to be drawn up. She chose to save a few hundred dollars and decided to put the entire estate into one off spring's name as caretaker. For the moment, it seemed a convenient and economical decision. But no one lives more than a hundred and twenty five years, should that caretaker dies intestate then all the worldly goods would go to the family, who is to say whether these individuals would restore what was rightfully the rest of the siblings (uncles and aunties)?  

Very often decisions of this kind would eventually cause families to fragment, the wealth left behind became a curse to alienate the heirs rather than to bless them.

(172) The Queen's Birthday Telegram by Jeffrey Archer

When I was studying in America, I have heard lots of jokes making fun of women who never become older, at least by their own claims. It came as no surprise that a wife would lie to be a few years younger than her beloved husband in Archer's story.

Strangely, since I have returned home, I have come across only one neighbor who blatantly claimed to be at least five years younger than her legal age. In her case, it was futile to lie as there was a lady from her home town living a few doors away. The person who told untruth went to the same school as the other lady. In fact the former was a classmate of the latter's second elder brother. While the latter said she was sixty five, the former claimed her brother's sixty one.

All the while, I have been filling in forms that my father was born in the year 1923. When he died, by Taoist practice, there were to be two lanterns showing his age added to 3 (1 for heaven, 1 for earth and one for man kind). I was taken aback when it showed 91. I was expecting it to show 87, which means after deducting 3, he was 84 when he passed on. Apparently, according to his horoscope, we could tell his legal age was 4 years less than his biological age. After the funeral, I asked my mother about the discrepancy and the answer was ages were often reported lower for guys during the prewar years to avoid conscription into the army. If my father did not resort to lie about his age to the Japanese, he could have been sent to build the death railway that passed through Thailand to Burma and I might not be here today writing about him.

Well, I suppose I could buy the argument to lie to survive so that at least one son could stay home to look after the family. On my mother side, one uncle went to China to further his studies. Since his education had been interrupted by the war, he conveniently reported his age to be four years younger so that he stood a chance to compete for a prestigious placement in the medical faculty. His ploy was successful and years later he retired as a urologist. After he left for China, his elder brother conveniently took his identity and became five years younger. Until today, I could not fathom why he wanted to be five years younger. Could it be that he liked his younger brother's name? Or maybe he thought by doing that he had more years to make money?

Perhaps because women don't have the problem of being drafted, my mother and all my aunties went by their real age. If they lie at all, they often add to their legal age as old age is well respected in the Chinese society.

(171) Stuck on You by Jeffrey Archer

In this real story a young man was besotted by a society girl enough to help steal a pricey engagement ring.

One parallel in my country would be the rich being stolen from by foreign maids whose deeds could hardly be proven. I will bring forward just one case. My mother has a good friend whom she met while studying hairdressing as young unmarried girls. This friend happened to choose a husband of high earning power. While her children were young, she used to have local maids. Once her eldest son was married, she has no choice but to rely on a series of Indonesian maids.

At this point I must point out that I personally know quite a few good and honest Indonesian maids of different religions who work for long periods of time for a few of my friends. While I could not vouch for the integrity of most Indon maids, I could only claim that I am illustrating how rotten one particular "apple" is.

To get back to my mum's friend, she has had a maid that worked for her family for seven years. During that period, they normally hired two maids: one for child care and the other to look after her husband who was wheel chair bound. It was only after the long standing good maid left to get married to a man in her village that they realized she had stolen from them.

There was an impending marriage in my mum's buddy's family, a niece was being married off from her house as the niece's parents are from 400 Km away. They looked for the family heirloom tea set that came from China. (It is customary for the bride and groom to serve tea to older relatives after a wedding.) That particular tea set was worth a good penny as collectors were still looking for it. They used to display that set in a locked cabinet in the sitting room. A guest with special knowledge in ancient porcelain advised them to stop displaying it. It was then placed on the highest shelve in the kitchen out of sight.

Her good maid was well trusted that she was allowed to keep watch for the family when everyone went on vacation. It never entered anyone's mind that she would steal from them. Well! That expensive tea set is no where to be found. As they searched high and low for it, their new maid mentioned about the "loss" to the next door maid who in turn told her mistress. This neighbor came with her chauffeur. Apparently there were a number of occasions when the supposedly good and trusted maid asked on behalf of her mistress for the next door chauffeur to mail a few packages to a relative in Penang. The maid would pay the chauffeur a little in excess of the postage as a small token of appreciation. Neither the neighbor nor the chauffeur suspected the packages were not from our good lady, the mistress. After all, she does have a cousin sister in Penang. This cousin sister hired a maid from the trusted maid's village. Since that cousin sister was bed ridden, her maid had a wide range of mobility. The trusted maid had seven long years to think of what she could steal and send away without being missed. She probably started with things of lesser value. By mailing it to the cousin sister's house, no one suspected anything. After all, she has never left the house on her own without being accompanied by at least someone from her employer's family. Once the item arrived in Penang, the other maid would repack it and mail it to the trusted maid's home. A bed ridden woman could not really be sure what her maid was up to.

Sad to say, the shock was not from monetary loss or even from sentimental reason of missing a family heirloom. They have treated the trusted maid like a member of their family. Every two years, they increased her salary. Whenever she returned home, they bought her and her family members gifts. When she left for the last time, they collected from the extended family to buy her a decent gold necklace as a marriage gift. It was betrayal that hurts the most.

Or you can look at it my husband's way: he said that some of the people in my country have too much money. They ended up buying all kinds of things that they could not use. There are too many assets in the house that are not properly locked up. According to him, if a smart and unscrupulous maid could systematically steal from them for seven long years and they did not find out until she was gone, they could well afford to lose those items graciously: consider they have given the maid a chance to right the imbalance of wealth distribution between my country and Indonesia! What do you think?