A Glorious Weekend
20th June 2005
I was so busy in the past three days that I neglected to update my posts. The prelude to my cousin's wedding took place on Friday and Saturday, with the big wedding dinner falling on the night of the latter day.
It was another cherished opportunity for me to catch up with almost all my relatives, and encounter some people whom I haven't met for ages: an old servant of my auntie's family, who no longer looks stick-thin but whose face hasn't aged an iota since I last saw her in my teens.
I had breakfast on Saturday morning with my most senior uncle and aunt, when my uncle queried me on my future career in his customary straight-to-the-nub style. I vaguely broached the possibility of moving to Japan or Saudi Arabia to be a rich expatriate drawing a fat salary by teaching locals English.
He, instead, suggested China as the place where my pot of gold, so to speak, lay, as there was an unbelievably vast market for my expertise. In a precise manner that reminded me of his previous profession as an accountant, he enlightened some possible alternatives in China: the one which stood out for me was getting employment teaching English while seeking business alternatives on the side.
Somehow, this idea struck a chord in my mind and I have thus decided to seriously research and consider this alternative.
After all, I've all but made up my mind that it wasn't prudent to continue slogging on in the little- red-dot-on-the -map-of -the-world any longer, for men tended to be hopelessly parochial, fruitlessly judgemental, and condescendingly low-class.
Anyway, back to the topic of my happy weekend, I had a ball of a time watching my demure cousin get high on alcohol, gleefully observing another cousin fend off a matchmaking attempt by the bride's father, generating varied witticisms for those within earshot and preening, albeit discreetly, in my head-of-state -styled long-sleeved shirt from Australia.
And knowing that I had just corralled a speculative profit of over RM3 000 over three weeks didn't hurt either.
Tonight, I brought my dad out for a classy Fathers' Day dinner at a new Continental restaurant, willingly splurging over a hundred and twenty ringgit for a quiet(and much-needed) evening with my parents.
A constant thought in my head revolved around how all three of us were survivors, in a very real sense of the word. I felt special gratitude towards a spritely-looking, but small-sized old lady
whom I learnt had been a courier in my grandmother's courtship days, delivering love-letters clandestinely from my grandfather to my grandmother under the dark cloud of disapproval of the former's partially Thai ethnicity by the latter's parents.
If these letters had not been delivered, I might not even be alive today. This thought gave me a sense of being at one with destiny.
Also, I've chosen to stick to stock specu-vesting despite the fluctuating fortunes and misfortunes, knowing that I am better at it than I was earlier because lessons learnt from both successes and failures have equipped me with an above-average knack for predicting the direction of market prices.
To reinforce my belief in this, I have decided to highlight some of my memorable coups(albeit small potatoes compared to Soros' killings!):
1. Buying 1 000 shares of Hwa Tai(a biscuit company) in June 1998 at RM5.05 with almost all my spare savings, I put it out of my mind as it deteriorated to a RM2.46 low in August that year, only to rebound to a high of RM25.25(yes, it's not a typo) in December 5th that same year, as I held off the temptation to sell out for small- change profits. Eventually, it pulled back to RM7.40(!) but I waited and sold it off at RM 13.20 in May 2005, pocketing a handsome 8 000 in profits that helped me recover post '97 Crisis.
2. Selling 4 000 shares of Datacraft Asia close to the peak of US$1.86(I sold out at US$1.82) proved to be an uncannily prescient decision and crucial in providing me the seed capital to grow by selective specu-vesting in early 2004.
3. Boldly nibbling at fifteen penny stocks that had been hammered unjustifiably by forced-selling recently, recognising a rare opportunity in a crisis and coming out richer in the process.
I was so busy in the past three days that I neglected to update my posts. The prelude to my cousin's wedding took place on Friday and Saturday, with the big wedding dinner falling on the night of the latter day.
It was another cherished opportunity for me to catch up with almost all my relatives, and encounter some people whom I haven't met for ages: an old servant of my auntie's family, who no longer looks stick-thin but whose face hasn't aged an iota since I last saw her in my teens.
I had breakfast on Saturday morning with my most senior uncle and aunt, when my uncle queried me on my future career in his customary straight-to-the-nub style. I vaguely broached the possibility of moving to Japan or Saudi Arabia to be a rich expatriate drawing a fat salary by teaching locals English.
He, instead, suggested China as the place where my pot of gold, so to speak, lay, as there was an unbelievably vast market for my expertise. In a precise manner that reminded me of his previous profession as an accountant, he enlightened some possible alternatives in China: the one which stood out for me was getting employment teaching English while seeking business alternatives on the side.
Somehow, this idea struck a chord in my mind and I have thus decided to seriously research and consider this alternative.
After all, I've all but made up my mind that it wasn't prudent to continue slogging on in the little- red-dot-on-the -map-of -the-world any longer, for men tended to be hopelessly parochial, fruitlessly judgemental, and condescendingly low-class.
Anyway, back to the topic of my happy weekend, I had a ball of a time watching my demure cousin get high on alcohol, gleefully observing another cousin fend off a matchmaking attempt by the bride's father, generating varied witticisms for those within earshot and preening, albeit discreetly, in my head-of-state -styled long-sleeved shirt from Australia.
And knowing that I had just corralled a speculative profit of over RM3 000 over three weeks didn't hurt either.
Tonight, I brought my dad out for a classy Fathers' Day dinner at a new Continental restaurant, willingly splurging over a hundred and twenty ringgit for a quiet(and much-needed) evening with my parents.
A constant thought in my head revolved around how all three of us were survivors, in a very real sense of the word. I felt special gratitude towards a spritely-looking, but small-sized old lady
whom I learnt had been a courier in my grandmother's courtship days, delivering love-letters clandestinely from my grandfather to my grandmother under the dark cloud of disapproval of the former's partially Thai ethnicity by the latter's parents.
If these letters had not been delivered, I might not even be alive today. This thought gave me a sense of being at one with destiny.
Also, I've chosen to stick to stock specu-vesting despite the fluctuating fortunes and misfortunes, knowing that I am better at it than I was earlier because lessons learnt from both successes and failures have equipped me with an above-average knack for predicting the direction of market prices.
To reinforce my belief in this, I have decided to highlight some of my memorable coups(albeit small potatoes compared to Soros' killings!):
1. Buying 1 000 shares of Hwa Tai(a biscuit company) in June 1998 at RM5.05 with almost all my spare savings, I put it out of my mind as it deteriorated to a RM2.46 low in August that year, only to rebound to a high of RM25.25(yes, it's not a typo) in December 5th that same year, as I held off the temptation to sell out for small- change profits. Eventually, it pulled back to RM7.40(!) but I waited and sold it off at RM 13.20 in May 2005, pocketing a handsome 8 000 in profits that helped me recover post '97 Crisis.
2. Selling 4 000 shares of Datacraft Asia close to the peak of US$1.86(I sold out at US$1.82) proved to be an uncannily prescient decision and crucial in providing me the seed capital to grow by selective specu-vesting in early 2004.
3. Boldly nibbling at fifteen penny stocks that had been hammered unjustifiably by forced-selling recently, recognising a rare opportunity in a crisis and coming out richer in the process.
posted by DP at
6:54 AM
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