Sim Wong Hoo is a Singaporean who made it big as head of Creative Technologies, a computer company specialising in sound processing and multimedia technologies for computers. Creative Technologies is listed in Nasdaq (a US exchange for technology stocks) and Sim Wong Hoo is now a multi millionaire. So it is no surprise that he was awarded Businessman of the Year twice The Singapore government often cites him as an example of a successful local entrepreneur in the new world of information technology. Someone that all of Singapore should try to emulate.
During lunchtime a few weeks ago I came across a book written by Sim Wong Hoo in the MPH bookstore near my office. The book is actually a collection of short articles he has written over the years about lessons learnt and his insights into things. So I took a quick read of all the articles in the book. One of them was about something that happened during dinner one day when his family was celebrating his Businessman of the Year award the 2nd time round.
According to him, his mother quoted a Chinese saying in her dialect out of the blue and kept entirely quiet after that. Neither a word more to explain what she meant. That was a few months before she had a stroke. Sim Wong Hoo said that his mom's saying really caught his attention then and it had not got out of his mind since. He said that his mom who was then an uneducated 80 year old has never said that particular quote before even though he used to hear many of her Chinese sayings before. He said that his mom's quotes were learnt by word of mouth as it was passed through the generations. Other than being rich in meaning, the saying also had a very nice rhyme to it when spoken in his native dialect. It was "Hao Go Kan Bai Jia, Hao Ren Yi Tian Xia". Literally that means "A good dog watches after a hundred homes, a good man benefits all beneath the sky".
I know what Sim Wong Hoo meant by the richness in those old sayings. I also enjoyed the company of my old aunt in Taiping (my father's sister who's more than 10 years older than him) because she has the knack for quoting some old Chinese sayings whenever we talk about something. One or two short phrases with four to six words each. I used to go off trying hard to remember the sayings that she learnt from word of mouth and through a traditional Chinese book known as the "Tung Sing" (in Cantonese).
Sim Wong Hoo's short story also took my attention and it stayed in my mind. For I interpreted, as I was sure Sim Wong Hoo did, that what he had achieved will not mean much (to his mom at least) until he does something more meaningful. She could have easily joined in her son's celebration and expressed pride of his achievements. But she chose instead to remind him of something else. Her silence after was equally significant and it reminded me of a Slovenian proverb : "Speak the truth, but leave immediately after."
Then 2 weeks ago when I was flying to New York I happened to read a news item in the Chinese article about a donation that Sim Wong Hoo made to setup an eastern cultural development center (don't know it's real name as my Chinese was not that good). May be it wasn't by chance that I noticed that article (given my little bit of Chinese language capability). May be it had to do with the fact that the story was very much still fresh on my mind - how many of us can even consider ourselves comparable to the good dogs as described in the saying let alone good men? That is also why I have to write this down. He had also offered a section of his company premises for use by the center. The reason he gave for why he did that was that he thought that the future of the Internet (or IT in general) lies in the content business and he sees the benefit and synergy of the center's work to his IT business.
That event however made me wonder how much of that had actually been affected by what an uneducated old woman once said to her son over dinner. In her quiet way and in less than 10 words, she might just have made a difference. May be some of that has also got to do with her genes and what she had passed on to her son. The genes that gave him the awareness and control that helped him realise what his mother was trying to tell him and to continue her principles of life Who knows.
To me the story also reflects certain aspects of the Chinese language and the character of the Chinese. A language that can be succinct and yet beautiful. A people whose relative silence may belie the wisdom they possess. A people whose wisdom if deployed will be done so discreetly and without repeat that the future generation will miss it altogether if they are not fast enough or attentive enough to catch it in its quick passage. A people whose tradition teaches one to see meaning beyond personal achievement and personal wealth, and reminds its people of the importance of the greater good. Even if it has to be done through the word of mouth. We should remember not to lose that culture. Hopefully then, the Sim Wong Hoo's of the future will have the benefit of the mother that Sim Wong Hoo had.
Now I can go back to my Chinese lesson 102 without this story bothering me at the back of my mind. Is there any old ladies around for me to talk to?
Saw this quote by Mark Twain one day : "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."
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