Geishas
Taylor’s College and Taylor’s University!
•January 5, 2010 • 16 Comments
Pre-University Studies
:: Taylor’s College, Bangsar
:: Taylor’s College, Petaling Jaya
:: Taylor’s College, Subang Jaya
:: Taylor’s College, Sri Hartamas
Taylor’s American Degree Transfer Program
Taylor’s University College, Lakeside Campus
:: School of Biomedical Sciences . . . University of Queensland
:: School of Pharmacy . . . University of Queensland
:: Taylor’s Law School . . . University of Reading
:: Taylor’s Business School . . . University of South Australia
:: Taylor’s Language Centre . . . University of Bristol
:: School of Hospitality & Tourism . . . The University of Toulouse
:: School of Communication . . . University of South Australia
:: School of Computer Science & IT . . . RMIT
:: School of Architecture, Building & Design . . . University of Melbourne
:: School of Quantity Survey . . . University of Melbourne
:: School of Engineering . . . University of Birmingham
The first and original Taylor’s campus was located in a four-storey dilapidated building at Jalan Pantai, Kuala Lumpur offering the Victorian HSC for a student population of 345. With an archaic and dysfunctional education system stagnating the country, the College grew rapidly and by 1985, it moved to its second campus in PJ New Town. Four years later, the Subang Jaya Campus was launched and two new Pre-University programmes introduced: the International Canadian Pre-University programme and South Australian Matriculation.
Rapid growth ensured, and by 1990, a host of other programmes were introduced, including the American Degree Programme; Architecture, Quantity Surveying & Construction; Business, Accounting, Marketing & Finance; Cambridge A Levels; Computer Science; Software Engineering & IT; Engineering; Hospitality Tourism & Culinary Arts; Taylor’s Business Foundation.
An incubator for foreign universities, the College continued to expand and the 4th Campus in Wisma Subang was launched in 2001 housing the Taylor’s Business School. The following year, Taylor’s College Petaling Jaya became the 5th Campus at Leisure Commerce Square and Taylor’s School of Hospitality and Tourism was relocated from Kuala Lumpur to this new campus. The Petaling Jaya Campus also housed the School of Communication, School of Architecture Building & Design and Taylor’s School of Computing. Then in 2004, the 6th Campus was launched in Subang Square housing the American Degree Programme.
As the College could not keep up with increasing demand, the 7th and newest Campus in Sri Hartamas was launched in 2008, incorporating a contemporary design and conducive study environment. Able to accommodate up to 800 students, the Campus runs the Cambridge A Level programme, South Australian Matriculation programme and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.
Having mastered the art of absorption and regurgitation, close to 60,000 students have graduated from Taylor’s and many have became leaders in their chosen fields. From such foundation, thousands of computer analysts, accountants, tax agents, share traders, financiers and speculators have build up a wealthy and progressive society; architects, surveyors and engineers who have put up showcase highrises, roads and bridges linking various cities; hundreds of doctors, dentists, pharmacists, who look into our body and health; teachers, philosophers, politicians, lawyers, judges and even one novelist that writes with brain!
Today, Taylor’s Great-Minded graduates are found all around the world, but more clustered around Melbourne, where a mysterious George Taylor once lived and where initially, the College took its exam from the Victorian HSC. Prided itself as the original capital of Australia, Melbourne also claims to be the intellectual heart of the nation. Here, heads in the sands, backsides in the air, a crazy football is played that is unheard of outside the country. Adelaide, a city of sleepy churches, woke up for a brief moment and usurped Taylor’s Pre-University programmes from Victoria where the current crop of students took its exams from.
Sydney, where the waterfront beauty of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House breathe in a new dimension for anyone with vision, and where the most creative of global talents are put at work. Just as an architect expresses his boldness with his pencil, a writer exposes his vision through his keyboard. And there are other principle cities of Australia: Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, and Tasmania, where they live and observe the world pass by peacefully. Others went to Canada and settled in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and some, who couldn’t stand the cold, sprang south to the states.
In England, many settle around the country but the largest clustered around London, even if it meant moving south from Oxford or Cambridge, attracted by the nightly illumination that wound about the streets like orange snakes. In this Great City, white beams of headlights and red flashes of taillights converge into a swift-moving current in the glow cast by lines of mercury lights that make London a magnet where people from all over the world gather to dance:
Shake shake shake, shake shake shake,
Shake your booty! Shake your booty!
Oh, shake shake shake, shake shake shake,
Shake your booty! Shake your booty.
More like shaking the booby than the booty. But outside the dance floor, people still congregate to talk about politics. Just as time is judged how far east or west of Greenwich, the Law radiates from Oxford, the world’s morals and standards are judged by British politicians or the BBC. BRIT-ISH, the People (ISH) with the Covenant (BRIT), or the “Covenant People,” a People given an unique role in this world. And although the once great manufacturing industries were gone, the Premier League stood tall and alone with no equals.
Remove the diadem, and take off the crown:
this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.
I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it:
and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is;
and I will give it him.
Ezekiel 21:26-27.
And so God Save the Queen as she sits on Jacob’s Pillar Stone. Leaderless and misguided, the Queen utters words of nonsense every Christmas eve as she poodles after Mithras, the Persian goddess. Stunning truth! Painful truth! Truth that cuts. Outside, the skyscrapers still tower around, emitting strength and novelty of the ever Shinning Light of British eminence; a giant black slab speckle with lightsm attesting to the world that the heart and lungs of a dying Empire is still refusing to die.
Still suffering a phobia of an archaic government in charge, some returned and have established themselves in their home states, remembering that mom’s food still taste best. But the most ambitious settled in Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur, where the veins and arteries flow north and south of the country.
Flashed with great income unprecedented in the history of the young and optimistic nation, it is a great metropolis where graduated ladies could enjoy their weekends with their hairdos, tummy tucks, tattooed mascara, boob and facial uplifts, then mingle among the six stories of nail-polished shopping at the ultra-modern KLCC.
For the men, they would find the best eateries along the rat-infested backstreets and stinky alleyways and thereafter, gamble with a syndicate by targeting one of the weak spots in the English Premier or Champions League, then mingle with the ladies of the night who were ever desperate to have a share of the new found spoil.
But the Alma Mater keeps on beautifying and expanding with each incarnation. From its original four-stacks of shit at Bangsar, the College has turned into a stunning Lakeside butterfly. Bold with vision, folly with wisdom, the administrators will soon come to its monstrous potential. A source of amusements and an expression of boys’ high-powered testosterones after a full blown exam, some will plunge into the five acre-lake before cheering girls, as if sending the highly-charged dudes a message, “Bravo! Come and kiss me if you can dive the fastest to the far end of the Lake and back.”
Others, who are at their most vulnerable stage of an indefensible love tussle, could see the lake as their final destiny. Hasty with ambition, the delicacy and fragility of college teens have been overwhelmingly overlooked. Like a crocodile waiting patiently, silently, a memorable romantic outing at night at the lakeside or a juicy death trap, an accident or an incident will soon occur before an army of jagamen will soon be placed, batons ready, a bracelet of pearls in formation, 24/7, adding to the costly pains needed for growth and maintenance.
Lord Denning might long be dead, but his opinions, thoughts and decisions would be well scrutinised and deliberated; his students, ready to pound on any possible fallout of Taylor’s largesse, lurk nearby like rival gangs of hyenas.
Regardless of the ever rising fees and the amazing abilities that collapsing parents worked tirelessly to foot the increasing expenses, the Taylor’s signature will continue to expand, worldwide, unstoppable. Partnered with many foreign universities, more programmes are in the planning stage.
The School of Creative Writing, the School of Music and Performing Arts: Ballet Dancing, Opera Singing, Drama and Acting, with the first international motion picture to be filmed at Taylor’s Universal Studio in Kuallywood, Over Mount Fuji, all staged and acted by Taylor’s graduates. The studio initiated a 4D concept, hailed as the first in the world. Due to uncordinated and poor sound track and actors’ lack of depth and experience, the venture was a disaster.
“Wooden,” patrons complained, demanding full refunds, “We aren’t fooled by such cheapjacks.”
Although the movie was a flop, all subsequence productions were successful, bringing in large profits. Existing schools will continue to expand, foremost the School of Hospitality & Tourism and the School of Architecture.
With a bold 2020 vision and ideally situated right at the equator, all premium hotels around Kuala Lumpur, designed and engineered exclusively by Taylor’s graduates, will have incorporated a launch pad for Space Craft launches, with timely half-hour interval for Space Travel and Tourism, serve onboard with saliva-inducing Mee Rubus, Sup Kambing and Asam Laksa, a culinary art refined and refined to the finest in Taylor’s Lab by its French speaking researchers.
And for romance couples who demand deluxe service, a bed is ready for the asking. Soundtracked music, piped in on its skylab, its preamble and climatic close choreographed by the movement and waggling of the bed, has all been carefully thought-out and pre-programmed by our very own XiaoWei.
This year 2010 marks the forty-first year the College had operated in Malaysia and now is the time for all students of Taylor’s College and Taylor’s University College from whichever discipline or campus to connect and reconnect. If gathered together, the milling crowd of faces from all over the world would comfortably make a sizable city. It composes of many races, many nationalities; from many disciples and campuses; from different eras and as priceless old wine is pour into newly-made bottles, accumulated wisdom is imparted to the new, but it has only one footprint: a bold and Great-Minded vision riding on a global language: English.
(If you like reading this article, you’ll surely like reading my novel, Over Mount Fuji. It has the same style, just that it has a slower build up, but at the end there is far more satisfaction in finishing it. All the chapters are here and free!)
### If you enjoy reading a catastrophic novel on Japan with a touch of sweet romance, have a look at this.
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781849238250/Over-Mount-Fuji
Also Over Mount Fuji is selling in Kinokuniya and MPH bookstores throughout Malaysia.
Over Mount Fuji is a novel with a fictional apocalyptic setting, extrapolating a unique reason for researched phenomena of deep ocean mysteries: ship disappearances, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the mysterious bloop sound in the South Pacific Ocean.
The novel follows the American reporter Eileen O’Neill and Professor Wulfstein, an expert on deep sea phenomena, who together try to find the reason for the increasing number of disasters seen throughout the Pacific. Wulfstein posits a strange hypothesis that makes him the laughingstock of the scientific community, but he has proof, real proof. Proof that the others refuse to see.
A tense adventure with wonderful descriptions of everything from unnatural storms to a mega earthquake, this is a unique and gripping novel. Coupled with a love story involving minor characters Nobuko and Byron, you’ll want to find the ending in one sitting, but be prepared, it has a non-fictional ending.
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji, an alumna of Taylor’s College!
I was a student at Taylor’s College in 1974. That time it was based in Bangsar. My teachers then were (1) Mrs Rashid (a young and sweet white aussie married to a M’sian; and very professional in her teaching) — English; (2) Mrs Wong — Economics; (3) Ms Saw — Mathematics; (4) Ms Squire (an aussie) — Biology; under our Principal, Mr Ted Miles, another Australian.
I now live in Sydney, and doing research into the deep mystery of life, which would sound strange to you, no doubt. But it is extremely interesting, I can assure you, and many of my research are written in the form of articles and critiques which are posted on this site. Feel free to read and reflect on them if you have time. It can be very rewarding and refreshing. If you like to write to me, my email is (no space): eqlunn at gmail.com
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Mystery of the Deep
•December 7, 2009 • Leave a Comment
On July 15th, 2007, Chinese television ran footage of fifteen objects churning across Lake Kanasi in a remote part of western China. No one can say precisely what those creatures were, but it seemed as if something formidable were speeding beneath the lake’s surface, spraying pandemonic plumes of water in their wakes. Only a school of giant fish could have make waves of such formation. But since it was impossible to identify them, such images revived an ancient world inhabited by dragons. It was no coincidence that such mythical beasts have been rumored to live in that lake.
Although the possibility of these creatures existing may seem dubious, maybe the claim that such creature do exist somewhere, somehow, today, has some merit.
Once, it was believed that the earth was the center of the cosmos. How wrong that proved to be. Time and space were viewed as absolutes. A philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, tagged the term “scientific paradigms” for the hard-and-fast notions that scientists have developed regarding the way the world operates. But now and then, there are discoveries so fundamental, they demand a paradigm shift. The established ideas on the Way Things Are, must be brought into line with an emerging body of information that contradicts those paradigms.
First, we must not ignore the large spectrum of knowledge that humanity had given us. Many scientists are contributing to the validity of ancient myths these days. In trying to establish the existence of ancient civilizations, archaeologists are probing the ruins of Iraq, Honan, Crete, and Yucatan. Ethnologists are questioning the Ostyaks of the river Ob, the Boobies of Fernando Po. A generation of orientalists has recently thrown open to us the sacred writings of the East. Hence, myths shouldn’t be easily dismissed as characteristic of illiterate or primitive peoples or societies in the distant past.
An archaeological survey from the 19th Century revealed many lost civilizations. The search began in Mesopotamia, about 1811, when Claudius Rich explored the ruins of Babylon. Henry Rawlinson continued and brought Assyria back from history. Egypt was next when Champollion solved the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Schliemann brought Troy out of the mists of legend. Sir Arthur Evans gave substance to the myths of Crete.
More recently, an advanced culture flourishing along the banks of the Indus River 5000 years ago has joined the rank of lost civilizations rediscovered. And lastly, it is worth noting that Crete and Troy were once considered myths and legends.
By why should we still assign the existence of dragons only to the realm of myth and fantasy?
The destruction of great libraries, for example, set medical knowledge back centuries. A good example is the Great Library of Alexandria. Only in the last one or two centuries was ‘modern’ medicine rediscovered. Many practitioners, even among skeptics in the West, are reassembling the genuineness of indigenous medicines that were often referred to as unscientific. The procedure of following the force lines in our body, or better known in acupuncture as xi, had been seen as superstitious and feudalistic. With increasing zeal, many Western practitioners are leading their patients toward these unorthodox medicines and thus elevating this discipline to more respectability.
Over the centuries, whenever old myths are lost, new ones are born. They flourish, fade and die, creating a vacuum which ensures new ones takes their place. Sometimes, old ones, resurrected in hybrid forms by merging with the new, appear when times change or cultures mingle.
But today, we still have the notion that folklore and legends are ancient nonsense, that dragon’s existence belongs to the realm of fantasy. Scientists assure us that these sea serpents have not existed since Jurassic times. Yet the Chinese footage in 2007 revealed something mystifying was stirring in one of our inland lakes. Their movements through the lake’s surface were so formidable that scientists couldn’t postulate any sensible explanation from our current pool of knowledge.
Such a phenomenon, if we are able to realign our focus to the reality of those legendary sea serpents, would exceed anything the Loch Ness mystery had provided. In both instances, the scene is only from a small lake. So think again; our oceans are huge. We haven’t visited more than a tiny fraction of the 130,000,000 square miles of ocean floor. By making some shrewd extrapolations, what further mysteries might be generated from the ocean? Can we simply discount such ancient testimonies as merely myths?
The existence of this legendary creature is, after all, not as preposterous as once thought.
For thousands of years, the people of the Orient have been aware of a dangerous area south of the Japanese archipelago. Chinese records show that this mystifying sea has claimed ships from the days of the Sung and Yuan dynasties. Chinese legends dating back to 99 B.C. tell of a dragon’s underground “palace” located beneath a small island five or six day’s sail from Suzhou in Kiangsu province.
The Japanese called it the Ma-no Umi. Strange noises could be heard by seamen venturing close by, and they could see strange lights for a hundred miles shone over the water at night. They have attributed the disappearance of fishing vessels to sea demons that come to the ocean’s surface to seize and drag unwary mariners down to their underwater lairs. Today, modern marine geologists and oceanographers are just as baffled by the mysterious Ma-no Umi as the ancient chroniclers.
The Bermuda Triangle has attracted public attention as recently as in 1945 when five Aztec Avenger torpedo bombers collectively disappeared between the east coast of Florida and the Bahamas. It was followed by the disappearance of a Martin Mariner search plane. The search involved hundreds of planes and surface craft, yet no wreckage or any clue as to the fate of men and planes were ever found. Modern science could only label it “unsolved mystery.”
Like the Bermuda Triangle, the Ma-no Umi has a triangular pattern in the western Pacific, and is close to great gulfs in the ocean floor. As the Pacific plate presses against the Eurasian plates, it is subducted, creating the Ogasawara Trench. The Philippine plate presses against the Eurasian plate; it too is subducted, forming the Ryukyu or Nansei Shoto Trench.
These trenches form the two arms of the Ma-no Umi, also known as the Dragon Triangle. It follows a line from western Japan, north of Tokyo to a point in the Pacific, turns west-southwest past the Bonin Islands and down to Guam and Yap, west to Taiwan and then returns north-northeast to Japan.
These two triangles share strange characteristics when plotted on the globe; both are located at the western end of oceanic mass and both have drop-off deep water where the sea is swept by strong currents over active volcanic areas. The sea floor varies from relatively shallow areas to plunging depths of the ocean’s deepest trenches. If Mount Everest, with a height of 29,028 feet, were to rise from the Mariana Trench, it would still be over a mile below the surface of the waves.
These creatures might be there hiding in our oceanic depth. Being the largest body of water on this planet, the Pacific Ocean has the scope to conceal incredible mysteries.
According to Charles Berlitz, records of ships’ disappearances around these great trenches of the western Pacific bare intriguing evidence to our current research. The Norwegian Berge Istra, weighing 228,000 tons, almost five times the size of the Titanic, it sank over the Mindanao Trench on December 29, 1975 when the weather was good and the sea calm.
In September 1980, the British Derbyshire, weighing over 169,000 tons, sank south of Tokyo Bay when the sea was experiencing nothing more than an average China Sea storm. Since then, more and larger ships and planes had been lost over this mysterious sea of Ma-no Umi. There were no satisfactory explanations given.
In former times, when legend was seen as credible, many believed the ships sank as a result of dragons stirring up the sea with engulfing whirlpools.
A curious coincidence occurs in the Japanese term for a type of wave encountered in the Ma-no Umi. Called sankaku-nami, meaning “triangle wave,” these waves appear to head toward a ship from three directions all at the same time! Ships and planes lost in the Ma-no Umi left no trace, according to investigator Charles Berlitz.
Another aspect is that ships and planes lost in the Ma-no Umi disappeared without sending any message indicating what was happening, almost as if whatever caused them to disappear occurred too quickly to report over the radio, or was not noticed until too late. Yet, no scientist has postulated any convincing theory why these ships and planes were lost.
Sightings of dragons in ancient times cut through every culture and spread through many millennia. The writings of Aristotle and Pliny gave credence to the existence of such monsters. Testimonies of Olaus Magnus, Hans Egede and Bishop Pontoppidan also deserve our attention and, finally, Captain Harrington, he claimed to have seen that enormous “monster of extraordinary length” off St Helena while on board the Castillan in 1857.
Olaus Magnus spoke of it as a real creature, albeit with an aura of terror and popular legend. Hans Egede gave a somber description of the monster, “so huge in size, its head reached as high as the mast-head, with its body as bulky as the ship, three or four times as long, and its eyes seemed to be red and like fire.” Furthermore, Pontoppidan described it as being a cable in length, which is about 600 feet, and it had “a horse’s head with crocodile’s teeth and eyes that flashed lightning.”
Or were all these men hallucinating?
However alien this may be to modern palaeontology, Japanese fishing boats have at innumerable times encountered creatures at sea that resemble these fabled monsters. Might it not be possible that some of these creatures are still roaming the oceans?
With infrared night-scopes, sonar, underwater cameras, aerial surveys and other modern equipment, we may uncover some exciting mysteries in the coming decades. Even so, a modern navigator must take account of the number of natural hazards in the area. Typhoons with winds over 200 miles per hour—volcanic and tectonic activity with volcanic eruptions—earthquakes and tsunamis—seiche waves caused by enormous undersea landsides in the vast oceanic trenches.
All these hinder the progress in this direction, and so the mystery remains. And if the greatest minds and technology can’t identify the monster in the tiny Loch Ness today, how much more difficult would it be for us to find an equivalent in the vast Pacific? But that doesn’t mean tales of dragons aren’t true. It just demonstrates how difficult it is to prove they exist.
Moreover, creatures that were once thought to be extinct, have been proven to be still living, are occurring and are gathering strength that more might be uncovered.
On December 22, 1938, the world of science was confronted with the first clue that creatures presumed to be long extinct still live in the deep waters of the oceans. On that day, fishermen netted a large, odd-looking fish in the waters off South Africa. It was dark blue, four and a half feet long and weighted 127 pounds with heavy scales and large, bulging, deep blue eyes. The species was well known to paleontologists, known as Chalummae Latimeria. It supposedly had become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period, sixty million years ago. The discovery caused a storm of popular interest in the light of a living coelacanth. It throws off a good amount of scientific assumption in an era we think of as enlightened. Later, after the Second World War, still more coelacanths were found.
More recently, Anton Bruun described a series of creatures living at great depths, including the giant eel larva, and expressed his bewilderment: “Most scientists say there are no sea serpents, but this has never stopped poets, artists, story-tellers and musicians from exploiting the fascination these mythical beasts exert on our human imagination. If a chordate can live in the bottom of the sea, why not a sea serpent?” he asked to the amazement of his fellow zoologists.
In 1969, the submersible Alvin was following a telephone cable at the edge of the sea near the Bahamas. Captain McCamis looked up from the control board to see a shadowy figure swimming away from the Alvin, a figure that looked remarkably like the extinct plesiosaur.
Eight years later on July 20, 1977, officials from the Japanese trawler held a press conference to announce a mysterious discovery about a foul-smelling corpse caught off New Zealand. The same day several Japanese newspapers published sensational front-page accounts of the find, soon followed by many other radio and television stories throughout the country. Although some scientists remained cautious, others encouraged the plesiosaur idea. Professor Yoshinori Imaizumi, director of animal research at Tokyo National Science Museum, was quoted as saying, “It’s not a fish, whale, or any other mammal . . . It’s a reptile, and it looks like a plesiosaur. It seems to show these animals are not extinct after all.” Tokio Shikama of the Yokohama National University also supported the monster theme, stating, “It has to be a plesiosaurus. These creatures must still roam the seas off New Zealand feeding on fish.”
Such sightings and discoveries indicate that it is very probable that at least some more supposedly extinct species are residing in our oceans. In the deeper and wider Pacific, what further creatures could be discovered? There is little doubt that the disappearance of these ships in the area of the Ma-no Umi has resurrected memories of regional tales and old legends. Creatures once seen could never be forgotten. T.H. Huxley once remarked that new truths of science begin as heresy, advance to orthodoxy, and end up as superstition. Despite this, it is a shame that mainstream science has continued to deem sea-dragons as nothing more than myths.
But the tide is reversing; there is a growing band of unsatisfied scientists turning their attention to monsters featured in folklore and legend, for whose existence there is substantial anecdotal evidence, but which are still yet to be ratified as ‘real’ animals. Known as cryptozoology, the subject is gaining ground—the science of hidden or unknown animals. It’s more and more prudent to say that somewhere in those mysterious depths lurk some unknown creatures that so many witnesses claim to have seen as dragons.
::: Just fiction, but the possibility of dragon being deep at sea is incorporated into Over Mount Fuji – excerpt from Chapter 30 :::
Eileen searched Wulfstein’s face for a reaction. He appeared absorbed, but his eyes glowed.
Kiichi blasted the sub’s headlights in a clockwise circular motion around the monster’s eyes, as if trying to distract the beast’s attention. The ploy appeared to work as the creature looked like stunned, and didn’t come nearer. His action reminded Eileen that in Oriental legends, sailors threw jewels into the sea to pacify the Sea Lord during violent storms.
Keeping its circular motion, Keiko’s headlights remained at full strength. Curious yet unruffled, the creature looked immobilized.
Wulfstein strode to the porthole. His eyes sparkled, and he murmured something to himself. Finally, he turned to Eileen. “Do you see?” he asked. “Have you figured it out?”
“How could I?”
“Look at the head!” Wulfstein pointed. “Can you see?”
Eileen turned. The head was mainly black, but bits of its scales looked green. “I do. How could I miss that?” She raised her brow. Its scales looked hard, its body sturdy, but the creature hovered gracefully.
“Its claws are like eagle’s talons,” Wulfstein said. “It’s a dragon.”
Suspended between fantasy and reality, Eileen struggled to assimilate what she’d seen. She had heard numerous tales of the sea and legends of vanished fleets—whirlpools and tidal waves that swallowed ships and islands. She shook her head, still confused by this creature. “I’m still in doubt.” Kiichi’s head snapped up after he’d checked his instruments.
“A man like you,” Wulfstein said, “should fully understand now.”
“I know, I know,” Kiichi replied. “I’m putting this on record so we can study it later.”
“Remember the Greek legend?” Wulfstein continued. “This sea-monster, from whose eyes lightning flashes, will one day send hail and floods to Sicilian farms.”
That would be like taking an apocalyptic scene from the Book of Revelation, Eileen thought. It was a link to a futuristic time, a catastrophic era of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; killer waves and flooding; deaths and destructions. “I can’t imagine these creatures having anything to do with the sinking and rising of islands.”
Wulfstein hesitated, then said. “Only time will tell if we have enough imagination to decipher these puzzles.”
Eileen turned. “And we haven’t found either Kaiiko or any of the Super Hornets.”
“We may not have the full answer,” Wulfstein said. “But this ancient text could provide a clue. ‘Even when no wind blew, the waves were so high no vessel dared approach the area. At night, a red light could be seen from afar, bright like the sun. It extended over more than a hundred square miles and reached the sky. The creatures could only be seen on nights of lightning storms.’”
Her face hot, Eileen fought to think logically. Didn’t the transcript describe a blazing blitz? “Oh, what was it? Can you remember the Hornets’ transcripts?”
“The blazing flare?” Wulfstein said. “This is too much of a coincidence.”
Drained of energy, Eileen just stood. With dawning clarity, a mythological beast hovered before her. Easy to believe that, millions of years ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth. But more questions plagued her. Might this latest outrage be an expression of the creature’s uneasiness? Animals could sense crucial circumstances that a human couldn’t. And they were territorial. Was it a mere coincidence the dragon arrived after they had spilled blood in the vicinity? She wanted to speak, but her voice died in a gasp.
As she studied the beast, Keiko remained stationary, but its headlight reflected off the creature’s scales. The sub bobbed while gliding closer. In the distance came faint echoes of a hum as though the creature was calling for its mate.
“Brace yourself,” Kiichi yelled. “We’re getting out of here.” A red blinking diamond flashed on the main monitor while he took aim. His vision remained glued to a small screen in his console, waiting to lock onto the target.
But Wulfstein lunged forward. “Have you gone mad? Kiichi!” He pulled the skipper’s hand back. “No! You can’t do this!”
But it was too late; the pilot had already pushed the red button.
The torpedo launched.
It struck the target in a display of flash, then lines of fireworks. Bubbles exploded and collapsed amidst and clouds of debris. A subsonic bo-o-om rocked the sub. Through the rolling silt, the dragon reappeared. Unfazed. Unmoved!
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Wulfstein shouted, his eyes shimmering. “This beast is different—”
Kiichi stood in consternation. “I had to, otherwise we’ll all be dead.”
“It’s a beast of beauty.”
“I’m under instructions to kill,” the skipper shot back.
Eileen’s eyes riveted on the beast. It must have an impenetrable hide. A single breath that resembled flame spewed from the creature’s mouth toward the underbelly of the sub, blasting off the remaining torpedoes.
When the sub bobbed, Eileen squirmed in horror. An inexplicable phenomenon. The image of the creature blurred. In its fiery rage, it must be the most terrifying of all beasts.
“You’ll only increase its fury,” Wulfstein said.
In an instant, the cabin fell into semidarkness.
“Our headlights are off,” Yoshino said.
“Don’t fret.” Kiichi turned. “Please stay calm.”
The sound drew nearer. Fainter, then louder. Her stomach queasy, Eileen felt the temperature had risen. She searched left and right, near and far, but didn’t see any creature. She gasped as a silhouette glided toward Keiko. How could a blast of that magnitude fail? She sensed its presence by an ethereal glow.
“What’s happening?” Eileen said. “Our sub is smoldering.”
“So are our bodies.” Yoshino pointed to his clothes.
“We’re dealing with a formidable creature,” Wulfstein said. “This elasmosaur is preternatural.”
Preternatural? Feeling her body burning, Eileen shook her head. Beyond what is natural? An aquatic cryptozoology. A dragon! For a few seconds everything glowed.
She covered her eyes with her hands. “No! Oh, no! Are we . . . ?” The sub lit up. What’s happening?
A sudden jerk. Wulfstein held Eileen’s hand as she stumbled to the floor. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” She pulled onto his arm to get up. “Oh man! What was that?”
The temperature cooled; the glow dimmed. The astounding phenomenon appeared to have passed. It took Eileen a moment to adjust to the fading light as she looked out the porthole. Shapes and figures became slowly visible, gliding stealthily beside the sub. Then a familiar set of fangs appeared, probing at Keiko’s stern, turning her icy.
Gr-u-k. Gr-u-k.
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
JAPAN: A Necklace of CALDERAS!
•December 5, 2009 • Leave a Comment 
Calderas of Japan!
Located in the Pacific Ocean, Japan is an island country in East Asia. It lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People’s Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south.
This chain of islets sits on a potentially explosive region where four tectonic plates, the Eurasian, Philippine, North American and Pacific, meet, causing constant seismic activity, posing danger, not only to its 120 millions who live there but also to the rest of the world.
With 108 active volcanoes, Japan represents about 10 percent of the world’s total. Forty-three people died in 1991 after Mount Unzen erupted on the southern island of Kyushu, while 15,000 people were evacuated after Mount Usu erupted on the northern island of Hokkaido in 2000.
Japan may be known as a necklace of islets, but what’s not well known is that Japan is also a necklace of calderas. A caldera is a large, supervolcano, usually circular depression at the summit of a volcano formed when magma is withdrawn or erupted from a shallow underground magma reservoir. The eruption and removal of large volumes of magma would result in loss of structural support for the overlying rock, thereby leading to collapse of the ground and creating a large depression. Calderas are different from craters, which are smaller, circular depressions created primarily by explosive excavation of rock during eruptions.
A silicic or rhyolitic caldera may ejaculate hundreds or even thousands of cubic kilometers of material in a single explosion. Even small caldera-forming eruptions, such as Krakatoa in 1883 or Mount Pinatubo in 1991, had resulted in significant local destruction and a noticeable drop in temperature around the world. Large calderas could have greater effects.
When Yellowstone Caldera erupted some 640,000 years ago, it released about 1,000 km3 of dense rock equivalent (DRE) material, covering a substantial part of North America in up to two metres of debris. By comparison, when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it released only a mere 1.2 km3 (DRE) of ejecta. The ecological effects of the eruption of a large caldera can be seen in the record of the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia.
In the Asian context, Japan has six of the thirteen major calderas in the region, taking nearly half of them:
1. Aira Caldera (Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan)
2. Aso (Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan)
3. Kikai Caldera (Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū, Japan)
4. Ashi (Kanagawa Prefecture, Honshū, Japan — near the beautiful mountain of Mt Fuji)
5. Towada (Aomori Prefecture, Honshū, Japan)
6. Tazawa (Akita Prefecture, Honshū, Japan)
Outside Japan:
7. Krakatoa, (Indonesia)
8. Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia)
9. Mount Tambora (Sumbawa, Indonesia)
10. Mount Pinatubo (Luzon, Philippines)
11. Taal Volcano (Luzon, Philippines)
12. Mount Halla (Jeju-do, South Korea)
13. Tao-Rusyr Caldera (Onekotan, Russia)
Below is a more detailed list of known calderas in Japan; however, most lack of well-defined features makes them difficult to recognize for a casual observer:
:: Iwo Jima — is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which makes up the southern end of the Ogasawara Islands. The island is located 1,200 kilometers (650 nautical miles) south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo. It is famous as the site of the February–March 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Japan during World War II, when the iconic photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima was taken. The U.S. occupied the island until 1968, when it was returned to Japan.
:: Iōjima, Kagoshima — also known as Satsuma Iōjima or Tokara Iōjima, is an island in the Ōsumi island chain located in the northern part of the Satsunan Islands. Along with Takeshima and Kuroshima, it makes up the three-island village of Mishima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyūshū.
It is a volcanic island that makes up the northern edge of the Kikai Caldera, and is ranked class A for volcanic activity. The main peak is known as Mount Iō and is 704 meter in height. It is constantly erupting, emitting massive amounts of sulfur dioxide which causes damage to agricultural products. Hot springs high in iron concentration from the port bottom gush and due to contact with oxygen, the port waters change to a reddish-brown color. Due to the sulfur, the sea area around the island is yellow in color. This gave rise to the name “Sulfur Island” (Iōjima).
:: Aira Caldera — a 150-square-mile volcanic caldera in the south of the island of Kyūshū. This gigantic caldera was created by a massive eruption, approximately 22,000 years ago. The major city of Kagoshima and the 13,000 year old Sakurajima volcano lies within the caldera. Sakura-jima, one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, is a post-caldera cone of the Aira caldera at the northern half of Kagoshima Bay. Eruption of voluminous pyroclastic flows accompanied formation of the 17 x 23 km wide Aira caldera at the eruption 22,000 years ago. Together with a large pumice fall, these amounted to more than 400 km3 of tephra (VEI 7).
:: Mount Aso — is the largest active volcano in Japan, and is among the largest in the world. Standing in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the island of Kyūshū, its peak is 1,592 m above sea level. Aso has one of the largest caldera in the world (25 km north-south and 18 km east-west). The caldera has a circumference of around 120 km (75 miles), although sources vary on the exact distance.
The present Aso caldera formed as a result of four huge caldera eruptions occurring over a range of 90,000–300,000 years ago. The caldera, one of the largest in the world, contains the city of Aso as well as Aso Takamori-cho and South Aso-mura. The somma enclosing the caldera extends about 18 km east to west and about 25 km north to south. Viewpoints from the somma overlooking the caldera are perched upon lava formed before the volcanic activity which created the present caldera.
:: Kikai Caldera — is a massive mostly submerged caldera up to 19 kilometers (12 mi) in diameter in the Ōsumi Islands of Kagoshima prefecture in Kyūshū. The remains of the ancient eruption of a gigantic volcano, the lake was the result of the Akahoya eruption during the Holocene era (10,000 years ago to present). About 6,300 years ago, pyroclastic flows from that eruption reached the coast of southern Kyūshū up to 100 km (62 mi) away, and ash fell as far north as Hokkaidō. The eruption produced about 150 km³ of tephra, giving it a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7.
Kikai is still an active volcano. Minor eruptions occur frequently on Mount Io, one of the post-caldera subaerial volcanic peaks on Iōjima. Iōjima is one of three volcanic islands, two of which lie on the caldera rim. The most recent eruptions have occurred as recent as 2004.
:: Lake Ashi — or Hakone Lake, Ashinoko Lake — it is a scenic crater lake in the Hakone area of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshū. Lying along the southwest wall of the caldera of Mount Hakone, a complex volcano, the lake is known for its nearby scenic views of Mount Fuji and its numerous hot springs.
Most visitors to Lake Ashi stay in the nearby resorts or visit some of the local attractions, but many are not aware of its explosive nature.
:: Naruko — is a stratovolcano located in Ōsaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Honshū. The volcano consists of a 7- kilometer wide caldera with several lava domes. The summit of the 461 m high Mt. Kurumigatake is one of the four lava domes located in the center of the caldera. The volcano is well known because of its relationship to the Naruko Hot Springs Villages.
The Naruko volcano was formed through two pyroclastic flows, which occurred 73,000 and 45,000 years ago. The first lava domes were formed approximately 20,000 years ago. The rocks produced by the pyroclastic flows and lava domes vary in composition, but are generally dacitic. Subsequent volcanic activity continued to create more lava domes, while also resulting in explosive eruptions that destroyed such domes. Tephra created by an explosive eruption approximately 18,000 years ago is said to be related to the formation of Katanuma lake. The lake is located in the center of the volcano, and is known as one of the most acidic lakes in Japan, with a pH around 1.6.
:: Guanlongwucaii/Mount Hakone — Located on Honshū, the Hakone volcano is truncated by two overlapping calderas, the largest of which is 10 x 11 km wide. The calderas were formed as a result of two major explosive eruptions about 180,000 and 49,000 – 60,000 years ago. Lake Ashi lies between the SW caldera wall and a half dozen post-caldera lava domes that were constructed along a SW-NE trend cutting through the center of the calderas. Dome growth occurred progressively to the south, and the largest and youngest of these, Kami-yama, forms the high point of Hakone. The calderas are breached to the east by the Haya-kawa canyon.
:: Kurose Hole — it is a submarine caldera located between Mikura and Hack-jima islands. The caldera is 600-760 deep and 5–7 km wide.
In the larger context, it’s part of the Izu Islands, a group of volcanic islands stretching south and east from the Izu Peninsula of Honshū. Administratively, they form two towns and six villages; all part of Yokyo. The largest is Izu Ōshima, usually called simply Ōshima.
:: Lake Towada — is the largest caldera lake in Honshū. Located on the border between Aomori and Akita prefectures, it lies 400 meters (1,800 ft) above sea level and is 327 meters (1,073 ft) in depth, and is drained by the Oirase river. With a surface area of 62.2 km², Towada is Japan’s 12th largest lake, its bright blue color due to its depth.
:: Lake Tazawa — is a caldera lake in Akita Prefecture, northern Honshū. It is the deepest lake in Japan (the maximum depth is 423 m). Because of its depth, it never freezes. Several hot springs resorts can be found in the hills above the lake. Akita Prefecture’s largest ski area, Tazawa Ski Area, overlooks the lake.
:: Lake Shikotsu — Surrounded by three volcanos (Mount Eniwa to the north and Mount Fuppushi and Mount Tarumae to the south) this lake is located in the south-west part of Hokkaidō. It has an average depth of 265 meters (870 ft) and a maximum depth of 363 meters (1,190 ft), making it the second deepest lake in Japan, after Lake Tazawa. It is Japan’s 8th-largest lake by surface area and the second largest caldera lakes in the country, surpassed only by Lake Kussharo.
:: Lake Kussharo — located in Akan National Park, eastern Hokkaidō, it is Japan’s largest caldera lake in terms of surface area, and sixth largest lake in the country. The lake’s central island, Nakajima, is a composite volcano. Volcanic gases render the lake water acidic, and it supports few fish except in areas where inflowing streams dilute the water.
:: Lake Kuttara — is a near circular caldera lake in Shiraoi, Hokkaidō. It is part of Shikotsu-Tōya National Park. The lake is recognized as having the best water quality in all of Japan.
:: Lake Mashū, Naruko — (Ainu: Kamuy-to) is a landlocked endorheic crater lake formed in the caldera of a potentially active volcano. It is located in Akan National Park on the island of Hokkaidō. Formed less than 32,000 years ago, the caldera is the remains of a stratovolcano, which is actually a parasitic cone of the larger Lake Kussharo caldera.
:: Mount Tarumae — is located in the Shikotsu-Toya National Park in Hokkaidō, near both Tomakomai and Chitose towns and can be seen clearly from both. It is on the shores of Lake Shikotsu, a caldera lake. Tarumae is a 1,041 meter active andesitic stratovolcano, with a lava dome. It is a rare triple volcano.
:: Tokachi-Mitsumata Caldera — is an 8-kilometer wide volcanic caldera in the Ishikari Mountains of Daisetsuzan National Park in Hokkaidō. The caldera is bounded to the north by the Ishikari Mountains and to the southwest by the Nipesotsu-Maruyama Volcanic Group.
:: Lake Tōya — is a volcanic caldera lake in Shikotsu-Toya National Park, Abuta District, Hokkaidō. The stratovolcano of Mount Usu lies on the southern rim of the caldera. It is a nearly circular lake with 10 kilometers diameter in the east-west direction and 9 kilometers in the north-south direction. The main town is Tōyako Onsen on the western shore. The town Tōyako is located on the other side of the lake.
:: Lvinaya Past (literally “Lion’s Jaw”) — technically, it is a volcano located in the southern part of Iturup Island, Kuril Islands, Russia, but is very near to Japan geographically.
::: Just fiction, but the idea of caldera being all over Japan is incorporated into Over Mount Fuji – excerpt from Chapter 16 :::
Kiichi pressed the throttle to full, and the hull groaned under the strain. Yoshino yelled out more instructions, but the sub still couldn’t move. Bubbles floated up when the tentacles pawed the sub, snapping off the external instruments as though they were rotten wood. Then the tentacles grasped the spotlights and started shaking the sub, rattling the crew and instrument inside.
Keiko’s bow angled downward. The crew shouted while being tossed about. The sub plummeted, landing at the seafloor with a boom. Eileen felt a shift of pressure when Keiko somersaulted and bounced around, toppling maps, charts, and other paraphernalia as she tumbled from wall to wall amid more screams.
When the sub finally stabilized, Eileen’s head throbbed. Shaken and disoriented, she realized her body had taken a hard hit against a wall. Her colleagues stood up, and she struggled with the help of a handrail. Among the debris, one computer monitor had shattered on the floor.
But EQ-Lun beeped. Then a red message flashed wildly: CALDERA! CALDERA! CALDERA!
As Wulfstein rushed to his laptop, Eileen treaded to the porthole. She couldn’t understand why Keiko’s intrusion could have caused the creature’s violent reaction and EQ-Lun to beep. The beast had moved aside and appeared to be watching the sub’s robotic arms. But after a moment, it grabbed the antennae and yanked off two search-lamps with its suckers.
. . . and on Chapter 38 ::
Wulfstein gasped. “The earth is disintegrating.”
The screen flickered. The pink lines reappeared, showing a chain of islands.
Wulfstein murmured something; he tapped the keyboard again and the distinct image shuddered. The rumbling wind around them added to the horror of the image. Sakura’s lights flickered again.
Another eruption and a low roar emanated from the mountains. Sakura shook, and Byron limped to the window. Asphalt-like rocks fell in successive showers as though subterranean caverns collapsed upon themselves, creating more shocks. He staggered back. “Let’s have a clearer look.”
Wulfstein clicked again. An outline of a reptile floated across the view, then it faded and vanished. The image returned, its body joined by a curved tail, covered with a chalky glaze of silt. Its huge eyes jutted from an angular head.
“The image is moving,” Byron said.
“A seahorse!” Nobuko said.
“It’s damn close,” Byron insisted.
She stared. “Japan is like dots in the sea, superimposed onto the profile of a reptile.”
A blurry image popped up: a head with a body tapering to a tail.
“Hold on,” Wulfstein said. “I see a different image here.”
Byron edged closer. The image appeared similar, but had a more prominent vertebra-like column. It had a jaw with teeth, ribs, a pectoral arch and a chain of interspinal bones supporting a frame.
“The body has a few limbs.” Byron stepped back to refocus.
“What’s it doing?” Nobuko asked. “Swerving from side to side?”
Wulfstein tapped a key and stopped. “I didn’t expect this.”
The cursor kept blinking, pulsing and running on its own.
“Professor,” Byron said. Caught in his own fear, bile rose in his throat. “Can you make the image sharper?”
Wulfstein tapped in more strokes and the pink image blurred. He tapped again. The screen cleared and then the pink deepened into red, emitting a series of hissing sounds, like a lizard about to attack. But as the screen blackened, a long beep replaced the hissing sound. Then a white message popped up.
YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO EVACUATE
Wulfstein typed in more commands. A grid of faint lines returned. The lines crisscrossed to form the archipelago, and still the cursor kept blinking.
Byron studied the outline of the double images. “What happened?”
“Check this out,” Wulfstein said.
After accepting the headset and magnifier from the Professor, Byron turned toward the screen. He knew earthquake and volcanic activities had activated seismometers and triggered an alarm signal that flashed on the screen. Five minutes to evacuate, but to where?
A message popped up. “TOKODO, THE LIFERAFT.”
Byron rushed to his room, grabbed the haversack from under his bed, and slung it over his shoulder. He hoped the liferaft could be of some use.
Wulfstein returned to his seat and tapped more commands. Mumbling to himself, he flipped through a series of images, stopped and stared, looking like he was delving into the hidden depths of nature and discovered its horrifying secrets. Finally, he managed to minimize the blurs on the outline, grasping the terrible implication with dismay. “I want you to see this, Byron.”
Byron yanked a chair to sit beside Wulfstein as the image brightened. The picture stunned him—a feeling of déjà vu threw him back to the Mariana Trench. “Professor, what’s that?”
“Here, you can see its horn, head, and mouth.” Wulfstein pointed to the northern island of Hokkaido. The neck was close to its torso at Hakodate. “Now, what do you see?”
A different color and distinct pattern emerged.
Red! The series of intermittent lights outlined a reptile. Byron shook his head, thinking that something might have gone wrong with the computer. Then, as he studied the image closer, an unsettling realization occurred to him. “Look, this is Honshu.”
Wulfstein pointed at the screen. Beeping lights blinked from a cluster of islands east of the archipelago. “Its claws are planted on the ocean floor.”
Nobuko squinted out the window. She looked like a frightened antelope sensing a predator, ready to fly. “Shut up! Shut up!” she shrieked. “I’m tasting salt already.”
Byron looked at her, then at the landscape. Winds had toppled much of the surroundings. Waters was racing onshore, pushing further inland.
“I lost my mom and two brothers,” Nobuko continued, her fear-filled eyes cringed at Byron. “I’ve just lost my dad. Are we here to die?”
Byron stood, transfixed. Despite the urgency of her words, a creature of mythological significance hovering on the screen drew him back to the laptop. It didn’t seem real that the archipelago should be shuffled to look like a monstrous beast. He shook his head; his curiosity turned to astonishment. He shook his head again. “It’s a dragon.”
“Does it matter?” Nobuko cried. “I’m tasting horror. Who cares about the damn beast?”
“I’m sorry life is a horror, Nobuko,” Wulfstein said. “I’m also sorry life is pushing you over the edge.”
“I’ve gone over the edge, and it’s all for nothing.”
Nobuko’s breathing remained labored as Byron stumbled over to comfort her. He realized she couldn’t bear any more discussion in the impenetrable gloom. He held her close, trying to console her, whispering words of comfort, but he knew the end was coming, and his words seemed empty and lacked conviction.
WULFSTEIN APPROACHED NOBUKO. How could he assure her of anything? He shut his eyes for a moment as Byron stepped aside, allowing Wulfstein to put his hands on her shoulders and give her a fatherly hug. “I’m sorry. It’s only my life that is all for nothing,” he said, his words intense, overwhelming and deep. “I owe you an apology. I’ve risked your life through all these delays.”
Nobuko stiffened under his unfamiliar embrace. She stood still; her sobs rose higher.
“But you’ll live, Nobuko,” Wulfstein said, his voice reassuring and passionate. “I’ve this feeling that a cataclysm is going to strike, but I also have a feeling you’ll survive.”
Without warning, the beep sounded again, but Wulfstein ignored it. He wanted to say more, to comfort Nobuko, but the beep sounded louder, persisting. He turned, but another white message had popped up. Releasing Nobuko, he rushed back to his laptop.
YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO EVACUATE
Wulfstein tapped more keys, and an image at the top of the screen reappeared. Flares spilled out of the Kuril Islands. The outline turned red, then black and the screen began to dissolve into static.
He stared out the window in horror. The hum grew, the lights dimmed. Sakura groaned like a lone ship plowing through heavy seas. Transfixed, he stood motionless. The monitor turned blank.
“Damn. Damn,” he said. “Time’s up.” The cursor kept flickering, and then started running on its own. The beep came back to life as a pink message popped up.
RUN!
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Or if you like to write to the author, my email is (no space): eqlunn at gmail.com
The Bloop on youtube
•November 1, 2009 • Leave a Commenthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M3Rpy3tv50&feature=related
The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency and extremely powerful underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.
::: Just fiction, but the blo-o-op sound has been the central feature of Over Mount Fuji – starting from an excerpt in Chapter 1 :::
Forcing his mind back to reality, he reread the reporter’s transcript. A flash of crimson across a blue sky—a missile? Was it feasible for one missile, or even several, to bring down seven jets? Simultaneously?
And they disappeared without a trace!
Wulfstein stabbed a finger at the transcript. If his thought had been conventional, he would have cited the initial problem and written a conclusion based on a series of observations and hypotheses. But to mix anything up with his subconscious mind—especially his dreams—would be more than unconventional.
After placing his laptop on the table, he switched it on and pulled the antenna from its port. He put on his headphones and plugged in the wire to his computer, which he dubbed EQ-Lun. Connected to underwater hydrophones, the spectrogram danced on the screen. The sound increased in volume, signaling a phenomenon had intensified across the Pacific Ocean. It couldn’t have been linked to earthquakes, since it had been continuous even in the absence of seismic activities. He leaned forward, but another sound startled him. A babble like gurgling water, a blo-o-op replaced the hum.
During the last recording, the blo-o-op sound—indicated by the thick cluster of red pixels—was most intense about a thousand miles south of Kyushu Island. He clicked several times until a map of the Pacific appeared in the background, then he superimposed the ambience over the map. Now, after ten hours, the source of this sound had moved further south, its color changed to pink, indicating the intensity of the sound had subsided. He listened to his headset. Yes, the sound had abated. But why? Could a link with a sea creature be possible? Moving. Retreating.
Could this be the same leviathan that had inspired fantasy since antiquity? His shoulders slumped while he shoved the transcript into his briefcase.
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Empress Dowager Cixi
•September 19, 2009 • Leave a Comment
- Empress Dowager
When the world was created, the Sovereign asked Adam and Eve to name the flora and fauna, but he himself reserved naming the nations he created and determined their fates thereof.
Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin says the Sovereign. “Time’s up,” and thus around the beginning of the 1800s, China’s fate was dealed with the arrival of the west.
By the mid century, with the Porcelain shattered and the Summer Palace burnt, the European demanded trade, territory and treaty. China’s loss in the Second Opium War was undoubtedly a major blow to its line of imperial rules. Emperor Xianfeng fled Beijing for the safety of Rehe in Manchuria. Turning heavily to alcohol and drugs and becoming seriously ill, he died shortly and Empress Cixi presided over a country whose military strategies, both on land and sea, and in terms of weaponry, were vastly outdated. Sensing an immediate threat from foreigners and realizing that China’s agricultural-based economy could not compete with the industrial west, Empress Cixi made a decision that in Imperial Chinese history, China would learn from Western powers and import their knowledge and technology. But the Sovereign had determined that the Dragon be tranquilised. Hence internal divisions, strives and turmoils dominated the problems the country needed to quickly catch up.
China was surrounded; by the Anglo-French who came from the sea, the Russians from the north. Later, Emperor Puyi, was like a pigeon with his two wings clipped by the Japanese, who came to share the spoil with a vengence: the Nanking Massacre in modern day Nanjing where some 300,000 were killed, the biological and chemical Unit 731 at Pingfang in Harbin, where another 580,000 souls were experimented upon with vivisections and the study of the viability of germ warfare against the Chinese populace.
The picture above shows the Empress still sitting on her throne, but she was as powerless as a sheep facing her slaughterers, for the words Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin had been spoken and the Dragon tranquilised for a timeframe of some 200 years. China was shattered; it was no coincidence that during that madness in British history, the war should be called the Opium War. The powerlessness of Empress Cixi was only the initial phase, followed by the Last Emperor Puyi.
This story continues . . .
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Stimulating Conversation
•September 4, 2009 • Leave a Commenthttp://www.stimulating-conversation.com/blog/2009/09/03/thursdays-guest-thoughts/
When I was young, I listened to my head. For one who was about to enter university, said all my counsellors and classmates, the best courses are those that would give me a shining career. So I took commerce, with major in accounting, business administration, law. But when I graduated and worked as an accountant, I found it a distaste.
As the tiring years rolled on and as some intriguing thoughts ran through my mind, haunting me continuously, I began doing some research. Like a kid exploring a cave, I became excited over this new venture. Then I started putting these thoughts into a novel, a pretty experimental project for myself, simply because I have no formal training in writing or literature.
Something intrigued and fascinated me. There was that mystifying bloop sound in the South Pacific that had captivated many social websites; there were evidence of cryptozoology from our past that had troubled our scientists; there were dragon and sea-serpent stories that littered all over our diversified cultures; and there was the Leviathan, we were told, that could rise again.
And lastly, but not the least, I was intrigued as to why, in life performances, movies and novels, the Japanese often have their epitome on suicide? How are these observations connected? Are they a ring of inter-connecting information that liken to an outline of a shadowy elephant through the moonlight, or are they rather like some kind of isolated pyroclastic sparks?
Another teething question is whether some subjects are too sensitive or too traumatic that they shouldn’t be documented in text. Or could a fictional story create a truer experience or imagination for an audience?
In this venture, I found it in the affirmative in both instances. And the fact that I’m painting a possibility is precisely why this novel is written. So I began the process of planting plots, incorporating characters, establishing themes along the storyline, and eventually associating a Pekingese in my novel. I found the course of novel-building pretty elaborate and complex, but the general consensus is the same: that fiction explores my mind, explodes my imagination and opens a range of sensitive possibilities that cannot be comfortably expressed in standard text.
Writing could be fun. By creating a professor in geology, some earth science could be incorporated into the story. Professor Wulfstein developed a simulation model on his laptop, dubbed EQ-Lun, focusing on the crust relating to the Japanese archipelago. His mission, to understand what his childhood dream meant. So he shifted his study to mythology. True to his mission, he found how arts could be linked with the sciences.
Eileen O’Neil; she was a reporter for the Raging Planet magazine, interviewed Wulfstein several times in Boston and in Tokyo. She lost her husband three years back, but it set her mission to travel in Japan, joining the scientists in several of their trips, and was later emotionally attached to Wulfstein.
And there were supporting characters: Byron, a PhD candidate, a scientist by training; he believed the Sinking Syndrome is caused by the diving plates, and Nobuko, daughter of a Japanese professor, Hiroshi Yoshino. Pilot Kiichi, the skipper of the deep-sea submersible Kaiiko that disappeared. Mrs Chiyo Okino; a landlady of Eileen when she was an exchange student, mother of Captain Okino who committed seppuku. Yoriko; she discussed her Shinto belief with Eileen from her perspective of life and what it meant to her. Added to the above were cross-cultural conflicts and romance to spice the senses of my readers.
At work, my heart took over from my head, beating with my subconscious emotions, and soon I began indulging further into the project, moonlighting. I was in another world, a world I created myself. On numerous occasions, it seemed impossible to dot all the points to make it into an intelligent outline, but I kept trying. Novel writing doesn’t pay, and most of the time spent on it is unappreciated, but my heart was pumping, loudly, clearly. The cave seemed wider and deeper than anticipated; it seemed unexplored, untouched and I wondered around like a kid would.
Could we, as human, have been too slow to understanding another mystery of the universe? Could an animal like a Pekingese have better sense than us? My accounting profession suffered; I never proceeded to a full fletched chartered member as I seldom go for my regular ongoing courses that are required by members of that profession.
I was able to draw strength from a great speculative fiction writer, Arthur C Clark. He broke his thoughts outside of what were established, and became well ahead of all the encyclopaedic store of knowledge of his time. As his visions of space travel sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike, I too, saw something strange and intrigued in my research and writing. I couldn’t stop; it seemed that I was entrusted with something. What exactly? Why? All these questions, plots and themes kept coming back.
By trying to connect all the dots in my novel, I was, indeed, trying to establish a creative form of fiction, a fiction that may possibly be another source of communication about our understanding of the mystery of the deep. “No one can predict the future,” Arthur C Clark once said, but he didn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Yes, all the possibilities are out there. As I kept ploughing away, the image seemed more strange and puzzling than ordinary.
Few years later and in trying to get an established publisher, I got rejected by all agents. It was frustrating. But it was actually good; it forced me to keep widening and polishing my novel: plot, characterization, dialogue, themes. Now, after ten suffering years, Over Mount Fuji is published. It may succeed, or it may fail, time will tell, but whatever the outcome, I thoroughly enjoy this process of venturing under the real Pacific and onto a necklace of islands called Japan.
Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji
The Pekingese – History
•September 3, 2009 • 2 Comments
The fascinating Pekingese originated in China in antiquity, in the city of Peking and speculated to be most likely from wolves. Recent DNA analysis confirms that the Pekingese breed is one of the oldest breeds of dog, one of the least genetically diverged from the wolf. For centuries, they could be owned only by members of the Chinese Imperial Palace. Others owning any were at the pain of death.
During the Second Opium War, in 1860, Beijing was invaded by Allied troops. When the ‘foreign devils’ entered the Forbidden City, Emperor Xianfeng had already fled with all of his court. However, an elderly aunt of the emperor remained, but she committed suicide. Besides her were five Pekingese mourning her passing. They were removed by the Allies before the Old Summer Palace was burnt.
Lord John Hay took a pair, later called ‘Schloff’, and ‘Hytien’ and gave them to his sister, the Duchess of Wellington, wife of Henry Wellesley, 3rd Duke of Wellington. Sir George Fitzroy took another pair, and gave them to his cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond and Gordon. Lieutenant Dunne presented the fifth Pekingese to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who named it Looty.
Xianfeng’s chief concubine, known better as the Empress Dowager Cixi, exercised almost total control over the court and over a newly installed five-years-old emperor, presented more Pekingese to several Americans, including John Pierpont Morgan and Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, who named it Manchu.
The first Pekingese in Ireland was introduced by Dr. Heuston. He established smallpox vaccination clinics in China. The effect was dramatic. In gratitude, the Chinese minister, Li Hung Chang presented him with a pair of Pekingese. They were named Chang and Lady Li. Dr. Heuston founded the Greystones kennel.
China was shattered, and living up to its name, the porcelain pieces sprang across the oceans. Like the Chinese Diaspora, the Pekingese breed now populated all around the globe with a fabulous history behind it.
::: Just fiction, but an important character, a Pekingese, named XiaoLun, has being incorporated into Over Mount Fuji – excerpt from Chapter 2 :::
When he strode toward the door, XiaoLun groaned beside him. Wulfstein bended to pat his golden brown Pekinese, then rubbed his stomach and long ears.
“Be good,” he said after giving his pet two pieces of bone and a bowl of grains. “I’ll be back soon.”
::: And from the Epilogue :::
Hustling through the horde of reporters, Eileen pushed past Carol. “Byron, great to see you.”
“And what’s this?” Carol asked, pointing to a vigorous pup with a thick coat, barking and jumping around with agitation and excitement.
“His name is XiaoLun. He’s a Pekinese.” Nobuko held him up, his tail wagging. After giving his fluffy body a passionate hug, she looked into his luminous eyes and planted a kiss on his black muzzle.
“Where did you get him?” Eileen asked.
“He’s my Peke. We saved him from the sea.”
“It must have worn a life jacket,” Carol said.
“No,” Nobuko said. “He never had a life jacket or any life-saving mechanism.”
As Nobuko and Byron related how, in the middle of the night, they heard a dog howling in the turbulent sea, XiaoLun kept barking and wheezing, wagging his tail vigorously, as if he also had a story of his own ordeal to tell.
“Byron, you saved him!” Carol exclaimed.
“I did,” Byron said. Then he continued his story. On hearing the dog crying at sea, Byron unzipped the aperture of the lift-raft and, in his excitement, jumped into the sea, swam toward the dog and carried him back into the raft. Only then did Nobuko know he was her pet.
©) Joel Huan, author of Over Mount Fuji (available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
•August 26, 2009 • Leave a CommentJonathan Livingston Seagull is a stunning and inspiring novella to read. Published in 1970, and is still a hot book throughtout the world.
There are so many good books out there, why read a book about a bird?. The answer is simple: the story in the novella is a metaphor about things that can happen to you in real life. Have you ever felt tempted to do the same that everybody else, just for the sake of conformism? Have you often felt like given up when something you really want to do demands too much work? Just think about it…
It’s really amazing that this book, got onto the top sellers of all time list. It is barely 100 pages long, and that includes many pages of seagull photos, with very few words per page. The margins are very large, lol. It’s a story about a seagull who, unlike his comrades, is not happy yelling “Mine! Mine! Mine!” for food. He loves to soar and fly and the most important aspect of life is “to reach out and touch perfection.” He faces rejections and ridicule for his quest for greater heights. And of course, he inspires all of us to reach for our goals.
Already million of copies had been printed and sold. How many more millions are there still to be printed? It’s a stunning inspiration. I guess as readers, we need to strive for a higher goal, keep striving endlessly; and as writers, we need to write with a theme that is special, so that it can pop above the milling crowd.
Malaysian Affairs
•August 20, 2009 • Leave a CommentAt 67 out of 105, swine flu deaths in Malaysia took more than half of Southeast Asia’s total. Msia’s population is around 28m, while the region has a population of 568m, hence Msia’s share should be less than 5 percent or whereabout. But Malaysia’s share per capita is over ten times the region’s average!
See WHO Report
Malaysian Swine Flu
•August 18, 2009 • Leave a CommentWhy is A (H1N1) death rate in Malaysia four times the global case fatality rate?
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai should explain why Malaysia’s A (H1N1) death rate is four times the global case fatality rate.
Malaysia’s death toll from A (H1N1) flu has topped 56 since the first fatality three weeks ago.
The influenza A (H1N1) mortality rate in Malaysia is close to 2% instead of the 0.1% to 0.4% as estimated by the Health Ministry. It reflects an unusual phenomenon. Without finding out the crux of the problem, assuming that 5 million of people are infected, probably 100,000 of them will die, instead of 5,000 to 28,000 as estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Full and satisfactory explanations are warranted from Liow.
Lim Kit Siang
MP for Ipoh Timor
14 August 2009
Petaling Jaya
Swine flu in Malaysia
•August 16, 2009 • 1 CommentM’sia sees 6 new flu deaths — now to 62
MALAYSIA’S Health Ministry says six more people diagnosed with swine flu have died, raising the country’s death toll related to the virus to 62 (out of the world’s total of around 200, or slightly more if figures are updated). Malaysia has a population of about 28 million.
For more information: Straits Times
S’pore, with a population of only four million, has 9th H1N1 death
For more: Straits Times
India, with a population of over a billion, has only 17 victims: The Times of India
Malaysia and Singapore seem like having more of their share of flu deaths? Why? Just curious this is so.
Fiction Writing
•August 10, 2009 • 5 CommentsWe had all thought that knowledge could only be learned from textbooks or from other works of texts, and nothing from fiction. But then again, we had unknowingly set our minds squarely in the box. We need to break out of this block thinking; we need to break into the unthinkable. Sometimes it requires only a small effort; sometimes some sheer imaginations beyond the ordinary are needed.
Take for example, in the field of speculative fiction. A speculative fiction writer would need to accumulate vast amount of knowledge in order to write another work of fiction. The writer must be able to think hard, (broad and deep) through the various problems to make his or her fiction cohesive to work.
Heinlein was one of the greats of hard science fiction; he wanted to be scientifically accurate, and was well ahead of the scientific world. And Destination Moon seems a serious attempt to present a realistic version of how we might reach the moon, filmed nearly a decade before any human being could achieve orbit.
Another great speculative fiction writer, Arthur C Clark, was able to break his thoughts outside of what were established, and was well ahead of all the encyclopaedic store of knowledge of his time. His visions of space travel sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike, and as the years passed, established that fiction is a reliable source of knowledge about the world.
His years of labour was infused with an enthusiasm that could be described as spectacular, engaging with sheer ambition and baffling for the future. His novels were works of fiction, but they introduced us to mind-expanding vistas and immense spans of time and space.
For sure we wouldn’t be able to know all the technical details, or how precisely things will come to pass. As Arthur Clark claimed, “No one can predict the future,” but he couldn’t resist drawing up timelines for what he called “possible futures.” Yes, about all the possibilities out there.
Of course most fiction writers would never be compared to Arthur C. Clark or Heinlein, but then again, to succeed in fiction it means that the writer has to accumulate vast amount of knowledge and work through the fiction progression for the story to work.
An obvious question to ask is whether some subjects are too sensitive or too traumatic that they can’t be documented in text. Or can a fictional story create a truer experience or imagination for an audience? In both instances, yes, they are. The process of novel writing is elaborate, sensitive and complex, but the general consensus is the same: that fiction explores the minds, explode our imagination and open a range of sensitive possibilities that cannot be expressed in textbooks.
And it is precisely for these inexpressible issues that Over Mount Fuji is written.
Joel Huan, researcher and author (Over Mount Fuji in Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Chinese Superstitions
•August 6, 2009 • Leave a CommentDespite the advance of education, many cultures are still deep in superstitions. Though Western also have their part of ominous psyche with their number thirteen, Chinese as a whole are far steep in such practices. The number eight (8) is considered the most fortuitous of numbers, making it much coveted for addresses, phone numbers and bank accounts, as the Mandarin’s and Cantonese’s articulation and pronunciation for eight (ba for Mandarin and paat for Cantonese) sounds similar to the word that signifies ‘prosperity’ (fa for Mandarin and faat for Cantonese). The Beijing Olympics were scheduled to commence on 08.08.2008, at eight o’clock in the evening, which would certainly guarantee that the Games will be carried out under the most auspicious of circumstances.
Conversely, four (4) is a very unlucky number as in Chinese it sounds like the phonetic sound of ‘death’. Thus Chinese adhering to the customs try to avoid the number four in, for example, car number plates, house addresses, etc.
The year two thousand and eight (2008) was supposed to be a prosperous year, since it ended with a fa or a faat, but it went bust with a stock market crash. Horror of losses upon another; the Shanghai Composite soared to a high of 6,036 in October 2007, but plummeted down to 1,706 by November 2008, yet the demigod of the number eight continues. If there is a Sovereign in Heaven, he must have chosen this special year to test their alertness; much like scientists testing lab rats to see how intelligent or dumb they are. But sheer futility and superstitions run too deep in the Chinese psyche for the event to be an eye-opener.
Although the number eight doesn’t have the same appeal to the Japanese or Koreans, their cultures were still influenced by the Chinese. All three cultures are united in their avoidance of the number four. Because of this, many buildings in Asia do not have a fourth floor. The developer deliberately names the second storey of the building as the first floor, so the fourth storey of the building will be called the third floor. The fifth storey onwards will then be correct as it will be known as fifth floor, and so on. The ground storey will not be called first floor but rather, ground floor. The fourteen floor is also missing, and perhaps even the twenty-fourth. So the numbering system is muddled up.
Another Chinese superstition is that the entire house should be cleaned before New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Eve, all brooms, brushes, dusters, dust pans and other cleaning equipment are put away. Sweeping or dusting should not be done on New Year’s Day for fear that good fortune will be swept away, which if you think about it does make some sense.
After New Year’s Day, the floors may be swept. Beginning at the door, the dust and rubbish are swept to the middle of the parlour, then placed in the corners and not taken or thrown out until the fifth day. At no time should the rubbish in the corners be trampled upon. In sweeping, there is a superstition that if you sweep the dirt out over the threshold, you will sweep one of the family members away.
Also, to sweep the dust and dirt out of your house by the front entrance is to sweep away the good fortune of the family; it must always be swept inwards and then carried out, then no harm will follow. All dirt and rubbish must be taken out the back door. But lots remain, for to clean out the filth would also clear out their fortunes. This might explained why Chinese restaurants are the dirtiest among all restaurants in the West, lol.
Still, on a positive note, superstitions are an essential part of culture. They give us a peek into the lives of our ancestors and can provide insights on the practices, attitudes, principles, and religious psyches of different cultures. In the same breath, they give us an insight why some cultures lag behind in development, others ahead; they explain why the Chinese were behind for the last five hundred years. And with this, one could also predict comfortably that they would still be muddling in backwardness for the next five hundred years.
Joel Huan, researcher and author (Over Mount Fuji in Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
The Globalisation of English
•August 2, 2009 • Leave a CommentImagine that at some point in the near future, say in 2020 to 2030, the country that has the most English speakers is India. And this might be an understatement. Already there is an estimate that one third of India is already speaking English, although it might include speakers in its rudimentary form. Still, with fast communication across the globe, those that could speak professionally are taking an overheated drive.
Just a few centuries ago, English was spoken by just five to seven million people on a few islets off a continent, and the language consisted of dialects spoken by monolinguals. Today there are more non-native English speakers, and the language has become the linguistic key used for penetrating various borders. As a global medium with local identities, English has become an international language, spoken by at least 750 million people. It is more widely spoken and written than any other language, except for, perhaps, Mandarin. But English can indeed be said to be the first truly global language and, unlike Mandarin, English is nowadays the dominant or official language in over 60 countries.
English during colonial times was considered as a “road to the light”, a tool of “civilization”. The British thought that they can bring emancipation to the souls; they considered this as their duty. With missionary zeal, they sincerely thought they would contribute to the well-being of the natives in the colonies, and their language was elevated into being almost divine.
The British from 1600 onwards were given a lot of political stature due to their political and technological power In India, and they were required to adopt a pose that would fit their status. Language became a marker of the white man’s power. A Passage to India said: “India likes gods. And Englishmen like posing as gods”.
The English language became part of the global pose and power. Indians accepted it, too, as English provided a medium for understanding technology and scientific development. Non-western intellectuals admired accomplishments of the west. European literature was made available in colonies. Macaulay shows his ignorance towards the native languages in India by saying: I have never found one amongst them (the Orientalists) who would deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.
By the 1920s in India, English had become the language of political discourse, intra-national administration, and law, a language associated with progressive thinking. Even after the colonial period ended, English maintained its power over any of the local languages.
Today, conservative estimates of the total number of speakers of English in India vary from around 4 to 10 percent of the population, which given India’s current population of around 1 billion makes it one of the largest English-speaking countries in the world. Consequently, English is an ‘associate official’ language used alongside the national language, Hindi. The usefulness of Hindi as a lingua franca, however, appeared to be regionally based, which is spoken mainly in the north of the country as in other regions few people know it, or they dislike speaking it. In fact Hindi has become a vehicle of obscurantism, communalism, blind nationalism and, to top it all, casteism.
India is a vast nation and in terms of number of English speakers, it ranks third in the world after USA and the UK. An estimated 5 percent of the population use English and even though this may seem like a small number that is about 50 million people. This small segment of the population controls domains that have professional and social prestige. But another great percentage of Indians are speaking English in its rudimentary form.
And as the Internet and cellular phones have revolutionized the way we communicate and at a faster pace, the globalization of English has grown in importance. Now it has impacted the youth as well as in the professional sphere. And since India has a severe shortage of higher education institutions and a booming population with more than 30 per cent of its 1.1 billion people under 14 years old, the explosive use of English is expected. And one estimate predicted that one third of India would soon have English as their lingua franca.
Some Indians complain that English brings in too much Western thought, but English in India also exports a vast amount of Indian culture and thought to the rest of the world. Rather than worrying about whether or not English should be used, Indians had focused on extending their children education which allows them to learn and use an international language for communication as in all practical terms, the English language is the most compatible for communication gadgets, email, chat and SMS.
Under new legislation proposed by the government in India, a report said, the world’s leading universities such as Harvard and Yale could soon be allowed to open colleges there. Just imagine that at some point in the near future, say in 2020 to 2030, universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton would be operating side by side with Oxford and Cambridge in India, competing against each other for the best students! Expect the unexpected, but a new educational focus would take place and such a scene could be drastically different from what we have today.
Joel Huan, researcher and author (Over Mount Fuji in Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
The Epitomes of Different Cultures
•July 19, 2009 • 5 CommentsIn life performances, movies and novels, why does the West often have their epitome on the hero who saves the world?
In life performances, movies and novels, why do the Chinese often have their epitome of endless sorrows?
In life performances, movies and novels, why do the Japanese often have their epitome on suicide?
Even years of research, I’m still struggling for a clear and cohesive explanation to the above questions. My inquiring mind keeps lingering since I wrote my novel but I have never been satisfied with any of my own observations. So I would appreciate if readers could kindly drop in their views.
The Chinese Diaspora
•July 16, 2009 • Leave a CommentSome readers on this blog are Chinese and so am I, so let me have my views on the Chinese in diaspora (sorry for others which isn’t cover in this post). The continuation of the current debate about the usage of English for maths and science in Malaysia prompted me to write this article.
China in Mandarin is the Middle Kingdom. The middle part of a body of nations is neither the head nor the tail. In general, China is right in the middle of economic wellbeing, political wellbeing, and social wellbeing. The Anglo-Saxon and other western European are taking the lead, although drinking too much at times. Armed with their military and intellectual might hey had been shaping the world for the last five hundred years or so. And you know where the tail is, normally countries that poverty and disease abound and never seem to get their political or economic system up and running.
In English term, China is porcelain, which also carries an extra meaning. Porcelain is easily fragmented; witness the fragmentations of China’s 5000 years history, continuous broken dynasties and civil wars. When the British Lion arrived, into looking for trade, China was knocked over, the dragon narcotized.
The Sovereign in Heaven had found the emperor on earth wanting. Dethroned and invaded, the emperor’s pretension as the Son of Heaven was unmasked, its national capital Beijing rampaged, the Porcelain shuttered on the floor, creating the Diaspora. One piece was thrown into the ocean and hadn’t recovered up till now (Taiwan). Another piece was thrown further south, its southern inhabitations fled for a better lifestyle. Not life style really, sorry, those days it was just sheer economic survival. Singapore. Malaysia. Some looked at those places as permanent homes, others as transit points and fled further south to Australia and New Zealand lol.
Taylors College was originally established by George Taylor in Melbourne to cater for non-English international students way back in 1920; then a branch (Taylor’s College) was established in Bangsar, KL, in 1969, sitting next to a slum. Since then the college had exploded into different branches and offering degree programmes.
But the original Taylors College had also exploded. From Melbourne it branched into Sydney, Perth and Auckland. Today heaps of students from China dominate these campuses and competing with all the best for the finest course in the most sought after universities in Australia.
In fact this phenomenon has been in operation for the last few decades. Some from China would find ways to settle here, other returned home to become the top brass of society from where they came from. Millionaires. Billionaires. Just one case that you should aware of. From a remote village in China came an unknown Shi Zhengrong to study in Sydney. He took odd jobs making burgers to help finance his study.
Struggling with English, he studied under one of Australia’s leading solar energy researchers, Martin Green from the University of New South Wales, and finishing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1992. Within ten years Suntech Power Ltd in solar technology was founded. Exporting its solar products to all around the world, today Suntech is a global phenomenon. CNN called Shi the sunshine boy; ABC the sun king.
English in China is in great demand in any city there despite having a prominent language in Mandarin. English may not be the international language for culture, but English is a global language for commerce and definitely the international language for advance maths and science. Through Taylors College, special TV channels such as CCTV9m, and other language programmes in China, the nucleus for English speaking had been established.
Although the Chinese in Malaysia were given a head start, they’re now stuck in the mud with an aboriginal language. The Chinese in the mainland had started late, but they had started; they are jogging, they are coming. You can hear their hookbeats, beating louder each day. They are jogging closer, coming. They are jogging, they are definitely coming.
Joel Huan, researcher and author (Over Mount Fuji in Amazon and Barnes&Noble)
Joel
A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob 