Coconut Ice Cream at Gold Luck Delicious Food

Apple Ice Cream at Gold Luck Delicious Food

Restaurant Review: Gold Luck Delicious Food

It's a rainy Monday evening. Most restaurants in the Hac Sa Wan district of northern Macau were half empty. (I've been told to maintain a more positive attitude, so I will now change it to half full.) There is one exception, Gold Luck Delicious Food, where all the tables were either occupied or reserved, and people were lining up outside the restaurant for a seat. So we decided to give it a try. There was a large poster claiming that their seafood were delivered daily from Wanshan Islands (Ladrones Islands) of the Pearl Delta. Their fish tank has larger variety than most other nearby restaurants. The shrimp, fish and shell we ordered were indeed quite delicious and we can almost smell the freshness. After a wonderful seafood fest, Gold Luck Delicious Food offers a unique selection of imported ice cream placed in actual apples and coconuts. Fresh seafood, distinctive dessert and reasonable price, Gold Luck Delicious Food is definitely the place to be.

Perfect Example of Government Failure: Monetary Authority of Macau

On Monday, 22 September 2008, rumors began to surface in local online chat rooms and on the following morning, mobile phone SMS text messages began to circulate. The content suggested that certain Macau banks were about to go into bankruptcy due to their involvement in the Lehman Brothers and AIG incidents in the U.S. In the afternoon of Tuesday, 23 September 2008, the rumor became so widespread that it appeared on almost all news websites in Macau and people began to panic, especially the senior citizens. 

The golden rule of market economy is that the government should do what the market failed to do. Although the whole incident was obviously caused by unproven rumors, and a simple clarification from the authority was enough to restore public confidence in the financial institutions, the Monetary Authority of Macau, or the de facto central bank of Macau, failed to do anything. They even refused to make a press release or issue a public statement after the banks involved in the rumors had requested their assistance.  Even worse, depositors and investors called the Monetary Authority of Macau office were not given any assurance or positive remarks about the banks, which had made the local residents even more nervous about the safety of their lifetime savings.

In my opinion, Monetary Authority of Macau had failed miserably to uphold market confidence during time of turbulence. When they finally came out with a press release titled Macau Banking System Remains Stable, the run on the banks was so severe on Wednesday 24 September 2008 that it already caused huge damages to the stability of the financial market in Macau. 

The Monetary Authority of Macau had definitely committed the deadly sin of inaction. Morpheus in Matrix Revolutions once said, "There is difference between knowing the path and walking the path." The law clearly stipulated that the Monetary Authority of Macau was obligated to take necessary means to stabilize the banking system in Macau, but they had clearly committed the unpardonable sin of inaction. My sympathy to those who stood in tropical storm for 8 hours just to get their a few hundred dollars back. This could be prevented by a simple and timely action from the Monetary Authority of Macau. But it didn't. 

Typhoon Hagupit Hits Macau

Typhoon Hagupit hits Macau on Tuesday, 23 September 2008. A couple trees fall down near my home and electricity was out for a brief period at night. I've heard that some areas were flooded with water, but my home was not affected. The good news is: we get half day off on Wednesday, 24 September 2008. Finally, I get the chance to sleep until noon.

Cinderella and Snow White: The Stereotype of Beauty and Ugliness

I spent a lot of time watching Disney cartoons on the Cartoon Network during the Mid-autumn long weekend holiday. After watching a series of Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, I suddenly realized that there was a pattern in most of the so-called classic fairy tales. Cinderella has a gentle heart and she is beautiful. Her sisters are both evil and ugly. Snow white is a kind person and she is the most beautiful person in the world. Her stepmother is ugly and also an evil witch. In the world of classic fairytale, it seems that beauty always belongs to nice persons, and the not-so-beautiful person is always evil. I really don't know who started this terrible trend of stereotyping, and puzzled over why such kind of nonsense in children's comics, cartoons and merchandise for so many years without anyone realized that there is a series problem in this. We were told that we shouldn't judge a person by his/her appearance in textbooks, but that's what our kids has been told repeatedly in the television. What a paradoxical world we're living. Maybe Shrek and Fiona has done something to reverse the trend. But it's simply not enough. More work has to be done to fight the century-long stereotyping surrounding our children.

The Death of Public Education in Macau

September 10 is Teachers' Day in China. It was officially created in 1985 to improve teachers' social status and call on the entire nation to respect teachers and to seek knowledge. Students from around the country greeted their current and former teachers with flowers, SMS and e-cards on this day as a sign of respect. However, September 10 of 2008 will forever be remembered as a tragic day for all teachers in Macau, as two well-experienced and qualified teachers were told by educational officials to leave the profession simply because they exercised their constitutional rights to express their views on how their schools should be run.

It all began in the January of 2008, when Sou Chio Fai, the director of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, led a group of education officials to have a candid "open dialogue" with teachers of Escola Luso-Chinese Tecnico-Profissional. Although there are only two public secondary schools in Macau, this meeting would mark the first ever visit by educational officials to the school in over eight years. At the beginning of the meeting, the teachers were told by the director that purpose of the gathering was to improve communication between teachers, school administrators and officials at the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, therefore opinions and comments on any matters related to the school was encouraged. A mathematics teacher took and microphone and expressed his disapproval of the quality of leadership by the school principal, the low standard of teaching and learning demanded by the school administration, and the absence of a support system for students with special needs. Most teachers at scene thought it was a good opportunity for an afternoon of candid dialogue and the aim of the meeting was successfully accomplished.

A month later, a disciplinary letter was issued to this particular teacher citing "impolite behavior" towards the management within the work environment as the reason for punishment. The public school teachers' union boss, who was a colleague of this mathematics teacher at Escola Luso-Chinese Tecnico-Profissional, issued a public letter demanded the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau and school principal to reconsider the decision. There had been no official response from the school or the government officials. And the disciplinary letter was subsequently overturned during the appeal process.

Right before the beginning of the 2008/2009 school year, the mathematics teacher who spoke his mind at the meeting and the union boss who petitioned for his cause were both told that their contracts would not be renewed. And the irony is that the news was announced to the public on Teachers’ Day, the day when everyone is supposed to show their respects towards teachers.

Wherever I go, whoever I speak to, people told me that they were totally shocked by the fact that these two teachers were not sacked because of poor teaching performance. The only sin they had committed was that there were brave enough their views on how the school should be reformed while others were used to sit in the role of the silent majority. The decision to dismiss these two teachers from the public school system without proper and just cause went totally against the universally believed system of values, essentially, democratic values which favor freedom of thought and expression and liberty of the person and the rule of law in a civil society. In Article 27 of Chapter 3 Fundamental Rights and Duties of the Residents of the Basic Law, it clearly stipulated that "Macau residents shall have freedom of speech, of the press and of publication; freedom of association, of assembly, of procession and of demonstration; and the right and freedom to form and join trade unions, and to strike." It is also true that the very own Educational Law drafted by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau required "the teaching staff and other professionals of education exercise an activity considered as of public interest and have the right to a statute compatible with their professional qualifications and social responsibilities." Just by reading these legal documents in black and white, it clearly guaranteed teachers in Macau the right of free expression and encouraged actions and comments that are in the best interest of the public.

No matter how I look at this incident, I can't find any excuse for the unjust dismissal of the two teachers whose only wrongdoing was to express their views in a professional meeting that was meant to encourage opinions and dialogues. If the principal of Escola Luso-Chinese Tecnico-Profissional and the officials at the Educational and Youth Affairs Bureau weren't willing to accept constructive criticism of any kind, and all they wanted to do at these meetings were to put on a show, I can't see any light in the future of this particular school, the way public education was being ran, and the professionalism of teachers in the public school system in Macau.

Now with public school teachers totally focused on fighting the unjust treatment of their fallen comrades and struggling against the principal and officials, the students will definitely suffer as a result. Who would want to teach in public schools in the future? And who would want to send their children to public schools in Macau? There will be very few, if any.

This probably signals the beginning of the gradual but inevitable death of public school in Macau.

The Shoppes at Four Seasons Grand Opening Party

I went to the grand opening party at the Shoppes at Four Seasons in Macau. It's the first time I ever attended a party held at a shopping mall. With designer labels trying to steal the limelight from each other, there were always plenty of actions happening among party-goers. There were photo opportunities with handsome and sexy models at Channel, Prada, Burberry and several other shops. Chaumet even gave us a very nice black and white photo in a very elegant frame. Catwomen and models dressed like robots were constantly on the move. I was so attracted by the seemingly endless supply of free snack and Moët & Chandon champagne, I was barely able to move my feet. I was so drunk when I left the place, I had to take a taxi and couldn't even drive my own car.

The Price is Right: The Value of Two Foldable Chairs

Someone gave me four foldable chairs. He told me that these Scandinavian-style chairs are so fashionable that if I ever decided to put them on the internet, it could be sold for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars within days. So I carried those chairs home, took some nice photos and put them online. Now one month later, there are still no buyer insight after several price reductions. Now I wonder why I carried those chairs all the way home from his place in the first place. And I have absolutely no idea what to do with all the chairs sitting in my living room.