Where Got No Nice Con?

5 Nov 2006

My first experience with a con man took place when I was a young kid growing up in a kampong house in KL – my memories of the area and the character involved in this story are still vivid. In those days, traveling vendors – mobile shops - were common and they came by at regular times and days selling things like pork, fish, veggies, pots, rojak etc. A daily regular then was the ‘roti’ man who was typically an Indian.

The particular roti man involved in this story came by in the early evenings. As part of his ‘service’ he would chat with his customers – a kind of customer relationship building – and I would hear from him ‘news’ from other neighborhoods (he was also a kind of modile CNN for people like me who did not yet know of the existence of newspapers and libraries). Over time, I got to know him as a ‘regular’, and to me he was a ‘nice man’.

One day, a couple of years later when I was about 7 years old, this roti man asked if I could lend him some money as he needed it for some purpose that I cannot now remember. He promised to pay a good 20% interest a month later. Immediately appreciating the ‘good ROR’, I lent him $5 after consulting my mother who did not object nor warn me about the ‘risks’ involved. The money was promptly returned one month later with the promised interest – not bad return and ‘what a nice man’ was what I remembered telling myself then.

My ‘nice’ roti man did that a second time and again kept his promise. On the third occasion, I was hooked and lent him my entire savings which was $20 plus (a lot of money for me then). That was the last time I saw this nice roti man of mine.

At that young age I was not fully aware of the implications of the practice of ‘fan tong san’ (literally meaning returning to the Chinese homeland but generically applied sometimes to mean returning to homeland) common to both Indian and Chinese immigrants alike. What the roti man did was before his departure home to India he had built up sufficient trust in him for gullible customers (fools) like me to part with their money as loans which he finally ran away with.

Although I lost my entire savings, I learnt some important life lessons early in life. I learnt to understand the need to understand, spot and manage risks, and to not just be skeptical of ‘nice people’ but also to spot a ‘con’. For example, I learnt to spot potential pick pockets at crowded bus stops and bus stations (a major problem in KL back when buses were so packed people had fight to get on and had to cling onto them from the sides) by the time I was a teenager. That was the reason I had never lost a wallet this way in my whole life.

I also learnt that that awareness of mine would make a difference to what happened around me. For example, at bus stops I would scan the crowd around me to pick out such people - they would also be doing their own ‘scans’ to pick out potential victims. Once I picked them out I would intentionally look at them long enough to make them realize that they were on my ‘radar’. I would do that more obviously when I knew they were joining in to ‘rush’ for the same bus I was about to take. Often times I learnt that if I gave them a sharp stare they would ‘skip’ the bus and pull out of the rush. That was how I knew that my ability to spot such people actually worked – the logic was simple, grown men choosing to miss out on their buses at a time when the frequency and level of services were terrible, and everyone else had to ‘fight’ to get on? Not so many gentlemen in KL. Not with the ‘let’s see which one to pick’ behaviors spotted earlier. In a way, I was learning from ‘history’.

The reason I am sharing this personal story is to share my views on some common comments I come across many times in various forms or contexts.

For example, I often hear comments like ‘I did not expect such and such a person to do that as he or she was so nice’, or ‘I got burnt but everything made sense to me’. My comments are always ‘how do you know the other person is nice? all con men or women are always nice to the ones conned, that is how the cons managed to work!’, and ‘every con comes with a nice/great idea and has to make some sense for it to work, and would always make most sense to those that it suckered’.

The reaction I often get after that is a ‘how do you know that you….’ look on the faces. I would then volunteer the explanation: I had experienced it before myself but mostly I learnt from others the best source of which is history. History is full of all kinds of ‘great cons & suckers that come with nice/great ideas’ which I learn from without having to directly pay for. But what amazes me is the number of suckers that continue do so despite the historical ‘evidences’ available. What I do learn is that such people are inevitably historically ignorant and cannot see from the thousands of years of recorded history that the basic characteristics of humans have not changed one bit (this is not a new idea that needs divine inspiration) – which explains why thousand year old cons still work.

Below is just one of the many divine examples I had been trying to share with people I know – these 'first world' fools always inspire me. I am sure many 3rd world fools of such 2nd hand divinity out there would be asking similar questions like above when they come across reports like this. My learning question is always the same – let me see what kind of a sucker who bought this con?

Perhaps, you too can learn from them - this short report is full of 'aha I know why they are suckers' revelations - only if you can spot them.... first hand.



Evangelical leader agrees to resign from church
By Associated Press
3:48 PM PST, November 4, 2006

The Rev. Ted Haggard was forced out today as leader of the megachurch he founded after a board determined the influential evangelist had committed "sexually immoral conduct," the church said Saturday.

Haggard had resigned two days earlier as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, where he held sway in Washington and condemned homosexuality, after a Denver man named Mike Jones claimed to have had drug-fueled trysts with him.

"Our investigation and Pastor Haggard's public statements have proven without a doubt that he has committed sexually immoral conduct," the New Life Church's Overseer Board said in a statement.

Haggard on Friday acknowledged paying Jones for a massage and for methamphetamine, but said he did not have sex with him and did not take the drug.

The church's statement said the investigation would continue, to determine how extensive Haggard's misconduct was.

The Rev. Ross Parsley will lead the church until a permanent replacement for Haggard is chosen by the end of the year, the statement said. A letter explaining Haggard's removal and an apology from him will be read at Sunday services.

"The language of our church bylaws state that as Overseers we must decide in cases where the Senior Pastor has 'demonstrated immoral conduct' whether we must 'remove the pastor from his position or discipline him in anyway they deem necessary,"' the statement said.James Groesbeck, a church elder, said he was glad the investigative board acted quickly.

"I'm saddened by what came out, but I think they've done their job," Groesbeck said by telephone. Church members are drawing strength from one another and are caught up in the activity, but that likely will change, he said.

"I think it's going to be really difficult in a week or two," Groesbeck said.

Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered who Haggard was and found out that the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage -- a key issue in Colorado, with a pair of issues on Tuesday's ballot.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," Jones said.

Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.

Haggard told reporters he bought meth but never used it; he said he received a massage from Jones after being referred to him by a Denver hotel. Jones said that no hotel referred Haggard and that he advertises only in gay publications.

In a TV interview this week, Haggard said: "Never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife.

"Matt O'Connor, 21, a member of New Life Church for 12 years, said Saturday that he knew weathering the fallout was going to be bad, but that "we're still a church, and we are not going to fall apart."

A Happy Deepavali!

20 Oct 2006

Hi all,

A happy Deevali/Deepavali to you.

In line with the spirit of Deevali, here’s to share some more light on Susmit’s note below:

Deevali is probably more alike the Chinese festival of Dong Jie (Winter festival) celebrated around Dec 20. Reason is they are related to the winter solstice where the northern hemisphere experiences its longest night of the year (thus need to set more lights on in case of Deevali or Deepavali).

All agrarian cultures in regions that go through the 4 seasons, winter/summer solstices can be quite easily determined by tracking where in the horizon the sun rises/sets and is already well noted for thousands of years.

In the northern hemisphere, winter solstice is significant as after this day the sun ‘begin to return’ to the northern hemisphere and brings along with it ‘life’ – plants/crops/flowers will start to grow and animals/birds will ‘return’ soon after that day (as mother earth in northern hemisphere warms up). This day is thus well known and celebrated in all great cultures from the Romans, Persians, Egyptians, Indians to Chinese for a long long time.

Over time either because societies grew ‘less’ agrarian or due to ‘calendar drifts’ as some cultures follow a non-fully solar calendar (like the Indian calendar), some cultures lost track of the ‘origins’ of such festivals and/or the day of celebration gets ‘misaligned’ with the astronomical event.

The Romans used to celebrate this event for 1 week (starting from the solstice which falls around Dec 20/21). The Christians that ‘inherited’ things from the Romans hijacked the last day of this festival for another purpose which most people today ‘ignorantly’ celebrate as X’mas.

Quiz:
If the pre-christianity Romans began their 1 week celebration on Dec 20/21, how come the ‘last day’ per the hijack above fell on Dec 25 instead of Dec 27/28? (clue: another piece of dust from history)

Indira Gandhi once told LKY “we are all covered by the dust of history….”

I say “we all need to see through the thick layer of dust covering us and discover how humans behave – how mother Nature and its greatness/beauty can be mis-interpreted/mis-represented or even manipulated by some human minds often to the long term detriment of not just ourselves but Earth itself”.

Man-made festivals aside, we should all celebrate all of Nature and all that it gives… everyday. It is that beautiful.

Rgds
CCK



From: Susmit GUPTA
Subject: Happy Deepavali!

Hi All,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Very Happy Deepavali!

A little background for those who are ignorant as to why Deepavali is celebrated. Alike the Chinese New Year, the Hindus in India also follow a Hindu Calendar. Deepavali marks the beginning of a New Year according to the Hindu Calendar.

In India, Deepavali is also known as the festival of lights because the families decorate their houses with lots of candles and every possible light in the house is switched on. The new year is welcomed by bursting fire crackers is almost all the houses and is the highlight for most of the youngsters of the family. We also pray to the Hindu deities for fortune and good health. For almost a week after Deepavali friends and families visit each other to celebrate and eat lavish meals. The younger family members will always be given some money by the elders of the family (Another highlight of the occasion).

There is a lot more history behind the day (I will not get into it) and is referenced in the Hindu mythological book The Ramayana! For those interested can read the English translation available at the National Library. :)

I would like to wish all of you good health and a prosperous year ahead!

Best Regards,
Susmit Gupta