Suit of Armour

Back then, all the glory belonged to the knight in shiny armour. The layers of steel protect the warrior inside, and make the warrior bolder, braver, and fiercer in a battle. Because of its prestige, only the bravest of the brave had the honours to fight in a suit of armour. In this sense, every knight has a special bond with his suit of armour.

The honour and glory associated with 'armour' could be traced back to the Homeric world of Iliad. The armour was a symbol of the warrior who wore it; it was for this reason Hector slew Patroclus and stripped off his armour that belonged to Achilles. Patroclus was unworthy of Achilles' armour; he broke the honour code and paid its price. Fast forward some centuries to the Classical Greek world, to claim victory in a battle, the winning side sets up a set of armour as its trophy. Just before the Spartan men go on a campaign, the they would told by their wives to "come back with your shield, or don't come back". A warrior who was stripped of his armour is seen as the greatest humiliation

Flip a few pages in history, we're in the days of Alexander the Great, who claimed to be a descendant of Achilles, the most blood-thirsty warrior in Trojan War. In Alexander's Eastern campaign, he began at Hellenspont and the ruins of Troy where he took a set of bronze armour that mythologically belonged to Achilles. Though bronze armour was cleary out of date by the time of Alexander the Great, this shows the symbolic aspect of 'armour'. The past fanaticism about armour continues beyond the Middle Ages until the invention of "bullet warfare" that made armour useless.

Oh really? Did the armour's impracticality finally overcome its honour?

In parallel way, a well-tailored business suit is the modern man's armour; not only it makes a man look sharp, but it also makes the man inside feels more confident. The "armour" turns a man into "the knight in shiny armour" whether he was on a date or in a multi-million business negotiation.

Like what many of you could relate to, my job hunting the last lil while led me to a policy analyst position at the Canadian Economic Development, a part of the Canadian Federal Government. Soon I will no longer get away with spending my day in a t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans, of which I call the "Homer Simpson look". I suppose I'll "dress to impress". But this is where I find the classical honours of the knight being violated by modern day's superficial fashion sense.

Because of traditions, we still evaluate a person based on his clothing attires. We would associate the characteristics of an "important person" to a man in suit just as people past of the associated the honour and glory of a knight to the man in armour. But what is upsetting is that because of the social norm, suits are made available and very affordable. This takes away the prestige attached to the armour of the old days. Moreover, a lot of suits are mass-produced these days; what happened to the vintage clothing that were tailored to perfection? The fashion industry is encouraging everyone to dress sharply. But in turn, it makes people more focused on the outer appearance rather than inner quality. Fashion should never be the source of confidence and pride.

Sure, folks like me who works in the office could justify himself in wearing a suit as it's part of "business culture". Certainly, it will make me look like someone important, like Mr. Obama or even James Bond. But does that make me any better than just a 2nd year student who has yet to accomplish anything significant to the society like the classic heroes? In the past I had been a blue collar, a hard working blue collar on the factory floor working the machines. That's still who I am. I know what I am inside, and a set of clothing is not going to change that.

Someday that will change, when the time comes.

My Studio Apartment

Looking for a nice and clean studio apartment for the summer downtown Montreal? Here's something that may interest you. This studio apartment comes fully furnished, with a good size kitchen and adequate bathroom and a balcony that overlooks McGill campus. It also has a large walk-in closet; common room and laundry facilities available.

Regular rent $910/mth, yours for $750/mth sublet from May to end of July. Email me if interested and come take a look ;)

Moonlight Cantata

Once upon a time, we did "silly" things like counting the stars. And while we were at it, maybe we had pointed to a round, big object in the sky and asked "Is that cheese?"

It isn't much of a surprise that we have a fascination for the moon; people in the ancient times were just as much allured by its mystery, from which risen myths and legends from all corners of the world. The personification of the moon had come to us in Greek Artemis, Roman Diana, Chinese Chang'er, Egyptian Khonsu, Indian Soma, and so on...

Three millenniums years later, we're still puzzling over the aspects of the moon, that big bright shiny circle painted on the canvas of the night sky.

The mystery of the moon surrounds not only its purpose. Besides debunking ancient's naive stance on lunar eclipse, which they thought was a phenomenon attributed to the works of divine, and breaking to us that the moon isn't actually made of cheese, science hasn't done so much in explaining the nature of the moon.

Can science one day explain why the moon and sun appear the same size in the sky? Can we explain the pin-point accuracy of the lunar calendar? Or why the period of moon's orbit is same as its rotation, and even after 4.6 billion years of spiral and turns it never suffered a degree of offset? Maybe we should just settle for the classic "it's-just-a-coincidence" explanation.

Better insights in understanding the moon came to us from the arts community. The observing and meticulous Renaissance artists noticed that the moon is delusional, in that it appears bigger when it's near horizon, even though it's actually further away from us. To explain such "counter-intuitive phenomenon", the scientific community published many papers using theories from electromagnetism to light diffraction. Nonetheless, laboratory experiments and thought-experiments done by the same group of people disproved their own theories one by one.

Exactly why the moon appears bigger near the horizon? Our best explanation came in the hybrid form of arts and science: its size varies simply due our psychological perception. The truth about the moon lies in us (pun unintended); which ever way you feel about the moon, you're right.

Maybe this is why I find the moon to be romantic in its ambivalent nature... I find its perfection in seeing its asteroid-scarred face. I find its luminance in knowing its dark side. Oh who could forget those the moonlit summer nights? Just bright enough to outline the contours of a lover's face, but dim enough to hide from rest of the world...

Inspired by the moon of March 19th, 2011, and Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.14... Moonlight Sonata.

The Acquaintance

At one time, each one of us is alone in our individual universe however we define it. Then by some probability, causative or coincidental -or if you allow me - a causative coincidence, we make an acquaintance of another person.

Now if you think about that moment, when two specific persons meet at exactly the same time at the same place and introduce themselves to each other, it's quite magical...the mathematical probability of such is infinitesimal. Thus an acquaintance in life is far more special than a winning lottery ticket.

Sometimes I wonder how a particular someone has gotten into my life, I go back to the place and the moment we met. If it weren't for that encounter, our worlds would have never overlapped, our individual lives would have just carried on - for better or for worse. For some, I find it difficult to imagine what that'd be like, yet it was something I was constantly aware of until I made that acquaintance. A world once seen, is difficult to be unseen.

As easily, people can disappear from life, sometimes for reasons unexplainable by words. Perhaps there are just aspects of life beyond our control.

I often wonder what each person is supposed to be in my life. That man standing next to me on the bus, the girl sitting next to me in the lecture, and that cute person at that debate tournament, and whoever else that I crossed path with. How else can I know their roles in my life, unless I go up to and say 'hi'? Why not take that chance, for that the encounter, which is less probable than anything else that may come after it, has happened?

Yet as casual as the first 'Hello' may sound, it's just the beginning of a story, sometimes a short story without much content. Others, they turn out to be longer: an adventure book, a love story, a tragic play, or even a fairy tale, or perhaps a combination of all of the above.

The television gives us many stories that make us laugh and cry, but sometimes it's just better to take that chance and write our own stories with our acquaintances.

Job Creation is Always Good?

Whenever there is an economic downturn or political instability, "job creation" often comes up as one of those buzz words that get thrown around in the media; "job creation" is supposed to "steer" our economy back on track. However, the majority don't really understand what happens when “jobs” are created. Contrary to popular belief, government-driven job-creation isn’t such a good thing for the public.

Imagine you are the owner of a little restaurant that serves 100 people each day and you have 10 staff members working for you. During time of economic recession, you notice only half as many people come dine in your restaurant. So what do you do? As a rational manager, you would lay off some of your employees. This makes sense because doing so you recover some of your profit through spending cuts due to a lowered demand.

Your little restaurant functions like our economy. In times of recession, people lack the incentive to dine out the same way market lacks consumer confidence; thus some job positions are eliminated and a percentage of people become unemployed.

If we truly believe in a free market, then the recession isn’t such a big deal because the “invisible hand” shall fix everything and restore the economy back to its potential output. But who gives a damn about a free market when you and I lost our jobs or know a friend or relative who did?

This is when a politician steps in and says “…we’re creating jobs” and suddenly everyone applauses, perhaps even casts a vote for him or her.

The “invisible hand” can be quite uncooperative when anything tries to control it.

Let’s go back to that little restaurant in the midst of a recession. Suppose the government takes over and re-opens the job positions that were lost at the beginning of the recession. It does this for the sake of “creating jobs” to satisfy those who can't find work. When the government does this, these positions fill up very quickly because of the excess supply of labour caused by the recession. While the restaurant maintains its recession-level profit (we’re still in a recession remember?), restoring to previous level of employment means that on average employees would get less than what they got before the addition of jobs. This phenomenon isn’t so new to us; how often do we find too many hands in the kitchen?

The reason why companies aren’t hiring in the first place is because they are at capacity. In reality, hiring more people at a fixed capital decreases their profit. The same principle applies to macroeconomics; to create job positions, the economy must expand by increasing its capital or introduce new ideas/products to the market. Without improving either and creating jobs out of thin-air, the government hurts the economic recovery because it detracts money capital from being invested in the right places. The money should instead be used for skills training, education, entrepreneurship, R&D, innovation, etc. On the contrary, the government-created jobs, such as road-repair, are often temporary and short-sighted. These so called "new jobs" do no more than transfer wealth from one section of the economy to another without creating real growth.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we must think critically next time we see it in the media that the government has created jobs for us।