Desert Flower (Book) & An eventful day

I finished reading this book in the wee hour of Sunday morning. Saturday after lesson I met Huijun for dinner @ Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. We went for the international buffet.

We are their “first” customer, as the buffet start at 6.30 but we reach there at 6pm. The buffet was sumptuous. There’s a lot of cuisine to choose from.

We stayed till 12am. It was a nice to eat & indulge in the atmosphere without worrying about food and drink. When it was time to foot the bill, I was shocked to see that the buffet costs $64.25 per person, and we are not entitled to any discount. We do not have any AMEX or M Hotel membership card.

Sadly, I passed my card to the manager. Suddenly, he came back and told us he’s giving us 50% membership discount but we have to pay cash as the membership’s name and my credit card name won’t tally.

We’re abit confused by the sudden turn of event, and asked him for more details. Apparently the manager gave us member’s discount out of goodwill. The membership fee costs $300, and we are grateful to the manager for his generosity. Huijun and I are contemplating whether to apply for the membership since we love eating buffet.

I was in total good mood when I reached home that I’ve difficulty falling asleep. Thus I decided to finish my book where I left off few days ago.

The book was about the transformation of this Somali model, named Waris Dirie. She’s from a nomad family in Africa. The hardships she experienced as a child just dwell on me that I’ve a blessed childhood.

At a tender age, she already tending to camels & cows and helping her mother to look after younger siblings. I’m definitely unable to do all these when I’m her age.

She also detailed the agony of female genital mutilation. It was horrid whenever I visualize the scene, and she’s only 5 years old back then.

In their culture, girls undergo circumcision is like entering womanhood, and considered “clean”, more “market value”. After the circumcision, urinating & later menstruating became a torture for her. The gypsy woman sewed “it” way too tight, till the “water” can only flow 1 drop at a time. It was later when she started becoming a model then she had a surgery to rectify the pain.

At the age of 13, her father had arranged a marriage for her to a much older man. She fled the arrangement. During the fleeing process, she almost got raped and had a few brushes with death encounter. She went to her sister, then from relatives to relatives seeking shelter and worked for them. Once she overheard her auntie’s conversation, and pleaded earnestly to allow her to work as a maid in London for one of her auntie.

She got her wish granted, and she went there. Throughout she worked as a slave for her auntie, till one day her uncle position as ambassador has ended and they are all going back to Somali, and she refused. Using her wits, she finally stayed in London alone. To survive, she started working as cleaner in MacDonald.

Later she was discovered by a renowned photographer, and as they say the rest is history. Gradually she embarked on her journey to become a supermodel. On the peak of her career, she quit to devout full time to charity work, especially in the area of female genital mutilation…..

It was a nice book worth reading. I just couldn’t put it down. While I’m enjoying my book, a guy sent a message to me. I was shocked when I read the content, it was very offensive and disrespect. We aren’t that close, more like acquaintances than friends, I find his message very rude.

I ignored him and guess what he message me again yesterday morning to apologize for his message. I told him off and asked him to show some respect to gal. I start to be very cautious of guys. They seems to have a motive… It's demoralising whenever I encounter this type of incident….

My Feudal Lord

I finish reading this book yesterday. This book was about Tehmina’s bravery to publicize her ordeal living with her political husband.

I don’t really enjoy reading it, no doubt I pity her ordeal but there’s too much emphasis on political, which doesn’t interest me.

Even though I don’t like political story, but it does provide certain insight to the country political stability.

Eventually, she breaks away from the marriage and found new meaning to her life…..

The Terracotta Army

I finished reading this book early last month but I forgot to update it. This book is all about the creation of the terracotta army by the first emperor of China.

It’s started with a summarized history of the first emperor of China, the warring state and how he unifies China.

The middle section touched on his enthronement and his ambitious of building a never before grand tomb which he wanted to rule China even after death.

It provided some statistical data about the tomb and close estimation on the layout and possible numbers of pits. As the book progress it tells how the pits were discovered in the 1970s by a group of farmers, and slowly to the hands of the archeologists.

When the archeologists arrived at the site and started digging, they discovered a grand scale of the site and till to date they are still discovering the tomb, except the emperor tomb. Despite the curiosity of exploring the look and actual tomb of the first emperor of China (no one knows for sure the actual look of the emperor), they never attempted to dig further due to Chinese culture of respecting the dead. Perhaps in the future we might know more about the famous emperor of China but for now this remains a mystery.

Towards the end of the book, it mainly focuses on the finding of the terracotta army, the grand scale of it and the original look of it, they also talked about the restoration of the army and the rest.

Overall I would find that it’s an interesting fact and provide certain insight into the creation of the tomb.

A memoir of Iran

I finished reading this book yesterday. Its provide insight into the revolution and culture of Iran, but too many war and I’m not a war keen person, so the book hardly capture my attention.

I was expecting it to be more cultural and not so war based and it did not answer a lot of my doubts like the woman’s right.

The first few chapters already fail to capture my attention but I finished still. I also find the plot confusing. I’m totally confused as I read. The chapter doesn’t flow……

Summary of events

So long never update my blog, life has been hectic for me as Cora went back to her home country for a holiday. She came back on the 09 January 2010 and she left on the 24 December 2009.

Everyday I was busy juggling with the housework, the girls’ routines, work and study. Those days that I’m studying, my mum will help me to look after the girls.

Thank god, end of December was marked with few long weekend, thus I’m able to rejuvenate myself.

Even though, I was busy with all these mundane chores but I managed to find time to read book and catch up with my friends.



I finished reading this book called – Out of the Dark on the 26 December 2009. It was a biography of Linda Caine and Robin Royston. Linda is the main character and Robin is her doctor-in-charge.

It revealed about her inner turmoil and the dark secret she has chosen to forget. Linda has everything a woman ask for, a loving husband, 2 wonderful children and she needs not worry about financial as her husband is a solicitor. Thing look bright to her but deep inside her, she is suffering from darkness. Inside her it seems like darkness is plaguing her world.

Eventually she broke down and her road to recovery was maimed by her “forgotten” memory. When she eventually recalled her memory, she sank further into her world. After peddling through the mud, she came out to reveal her story to the world on her road to recovery.

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On the 03 January 2010, I met up with Huijun at Orchard to pass her Christmas present. We shopped around before settling down at café to have light meal. I brought along Natasha as my parents-in-law couldn’t handle her. She can be mischievous at time.

The only regret was I have to leave right after dinner to rush home to fetch Dinah and Naomi, as my mother-in-law was attending a wedding dinner that night.

But at least I get to unwind and catch up with her for a short while.

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On the 10 January 2010, I and Ching went to watch Avatar (3D) at Singapore Discovery Centre. I enjoyed watching that movie, but I hated wearing the 3D glasses. It gave me headache. The show was set at 2154 in another planet called Pandora.

A group of profit making human was trying to exploit the ecosystem, and the vast raw material they are eyeing are situated at the base of the Navi’s (humanoid) home.

As human is unable to breathe the air in Pandora, thus they created avatar. It’s a mixture of human DNA with the Navi’s DNA. The body was lifeless by itself. To create life to the avatar is to use the owner’s brain activity controlled by computer, thereby eliminate actual human involvement.

Jack Scully a paraplegic was involved in this project after his identical twin was murdered, as they need similar DNA to activate his twin brother’s avatar. He was roped further into the project when they realized the Navi trusted him and enrobed him into their clan.

His initial aim is to find way to persuade the Navi to move their home or find their weaknesses but gradually he fell in love with Netriyi, their clan princess and they mated.

In the end, he chose to defend the Navi and abandoned human kind. He won the fight against his kind and with the help of Netriyi’s mother; his soul was transferred to the avatar forever.

After the show, we went to Jurong Point for dinner and shopping. But I guessed we spent mostly at the café listening to her trip at China. It was an eye-opener. I guessed we are culturally, hygienically and language ally unused to them. We did not stay for long and left since we all have to work and study the next day………

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Abducted

Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep despite my drowsiness. I was feeling the stress building up within me and the root cause is – financial. I understand it’s meaningless to stress over issue that is not within my control but the psychological battle within me is overwhelming. I gave up struggling to fall into slumber and got up to the living room and continued reading my book.

As I read the book, gradually my stress seems to depart from me. I was so carried away that I kept reading and eventually I finished the whole book.

It was about 2 young girls named Charlene and Lisa from the same elementary school and they are best friends, being abducted by Alan Hopkinson, a convicted and released sexual offender.

A chilly morning while they were walking to school, Alan abducted them and the beginning of their ordeals. They were tied up in the car boot and transported to a run-down and unkempt flat.

Alan got them to strip naked and wore an oversized T-shirts. He would take turn bringing either one of them to his bedroom and raped them repeatedly, but mostly Charlene. There was an opportunity for them to escape but they chose to give him the benefit of the doubt as he has promised to free them.

Reality it was a lied and they were back to where they originally were. They tried to find way to escape but there was nothing they could use or do to escape from him as he has blocked the entire exit and that included the windows.

Four days later their ordeal finally ended, when policemen came to his flat to investigate an abused filed by his neighbor, regarding him abusing her daughters. Cornered, Alan revealed that the two missing girls were in his flat.

Due to the intense appeal to search for them, thus the policemen could easily identify them, and notified their parents to bring some fresh clothes for them at the police station.

Eventually Alan got nine life sentences, but the emotional turmoil caused their friendship to a breaking point. I suppose it was an aftermath result of their ordeal. Perhaps there were some dismay and poisonous thought going in them, but that was my speculation.

After years of separating, Charlene be the ice-breaker and called Lisa. Lisa being wary of her due to her previous attitude towards her went to meet her anyway. Once they met, all the old grudges left, and they are best pals again.

Now they are the proud parent themselves, and they wanted to protect their child from the abuse they suffered…………

I believed their ordeal will make them stronger than most of us and it’s really amazing that they have moved on greatly in lives………………

Bamboo Palace

Tuesday (03/11/09), I finished reading this book. It was the history about the royal family of Laos and their eventual dooms.

The author described the various places of Laos and the palace. The idyllic scenery behind hid a deeply traumatizing revolution that would make Laos something similar to China – from dynasty to communist.

As the author tried to trace the ending of the last king and queen, he encountered hiccups along the way either by the government official or the ordinary people. Not many of them wish to divulge or go into detail about the dynasty for fear or for loyalty – which I couldn’t comprehend.

After much effort spent travelling across the villages, he managed to get the answer he has been searching for – which I don’t think I would write down………….

It has a good description of the places, and the livelihoods of the people are very sad…….

Inside the Kingdom

I finished reading this book yesterday. It was another story about the repressive and depressive lives of Muslim women living in the Middle East. But the exception of this story is that it revealed the Bin Laden’s family.

Carmen Bin Laden is the ex-wife of Yeslam Bin Laden, half brother of Osama Bin Laden. In the Middle East, especially the rich older generation, it is very common for a man to have more than 4 wives. For Carmen’s ex-father-in-law, he had 22 wives, both current and divorced, and from them he had 54 children.

Carmen’s heritage has a combination of Persian and Swiss, but she spent her un-marriage lives in Geneva. Due to her exposure of western values, she found it oppressive to live in Saudi Arabia later when Yeslam suggested shifting there.

Initially her marriage was blissful and she had a supportive husband, whom is very unlike any Arab men. But as he aged, his Saudi’s ways become more apparent, and it’s the beginning of a souring marriage.

Carmen is considered a lot more fortunate than the Saudi’s women, as she enjoyed small liberty from her husband as compared to the rest of the story I read, where women are treated like an object, unworthy of any respect and strip off any remaining dignity.

Instead this story reveals the rich Saudi’s women side of the story, another form of confinement, or golden fish bowl. I would think their plight will be more of an emotional problem – the loneliness and emptiness they feel, rather than the physical harm most woman experience.

Not without my sisters

I finished reading this book last Friday (09/10/09). This book talked about the lives of 3 sisters. Celeste and Kristina are from the same set of parents while Juliana shares the same father.

But all of them had something in common – they grew up in “The Children of God” – a cult. They exploited the name of Jesus and committed all these innocent children to incest relationship or adult-child sexual relationships – all in the name of Jesus.

I’m disgusted as I read the story. All of them are considered the “first generation” of an untainted child. The cult leader – David Berg who was the “founder” of the cult controlled and brainwashed the group members.

The members are so effectively brainwashed that they willingly gave most of their incomes to him. He named himself – Moses David.

The thing he encouraged his members to do were totally perverted e.g. “flirty fishing”, that is, female members having unprotected sex with men in order to “convert” or “savage” them from the Systemites (which is the law or the non-believers).

Together with his wife – Queen Maria, they embarked on a unbelievable inhumane journey or torture – even to their own children.

Both of them even committed incest and forced their children with others as well since a tender age. Many felt into depression or committed suicide.

Thus the 3 sisters suffered from the same fate. In the cult, children rarely live with their own parents; they are always under “carer” (foster family within the cult). Everything in life is control by their “prophet” and his “queen”.

Kristina, her younger siblings and mother are sent to live with a man called Joshua, while Celeste remained with her father.

At a very young age, Kristina witnessed Joshua daily abusive behaviors to them as well as her mother. He forced her mother to flirty fishing on the pretext to “save” souls but reality he’s relying on the money to feed his luxury lifestyle.

When Kristina was 12, her mother came to her senses and realized that the “religion” she embraced was actually a devious cult. She made plan and escaped with all her children.

But she never forgot Celeste, and tried every way to gain her freedom, but Celeste is too brainwashed to see beyond the lied that has been drilled into her since young.

The turning point came when she has her child – Cherie and she realized that she doesn’t want her daughter to grow up as she was. Most importantly, she started to question her faith and grew suspicious of it teaching.

Juliana was an unloved child, who has been moving from places to places. Many times she contemplated suicide but withdrew at the last minute. It was the death of one of her half-sisters – Davida (she suffered from depression and overdose on heroin) that served as her wake up call, and she decided to get out of the cult.

Currently, all of them are free from the cult and this book is to inform outsider about the danger of getting involve in cult who uses the name of religious groups………

Damaged

I have finished reading this book on Saturday (26/09/09). It was about a foster carer named Cathy Glass. She has over 20 years of experience in fostering so the girl in this book – Jodie isn’t her first or the last child she cared for.

Jodie is a deeply traumatized 8 years old girl, and Cathy will gradually come to learn of it.

Cathy soon realized that Jodie isn’t the normal affected child whose parents neglect them instead her parents abused her sexually subjecting her to the world of pornographic.

They used materials to bride and threaten to prevent her from revealing thing that has been done to her.

When Cathy learned all the shocking revelation from Jodie, she called her social worker in charge – Ellen. Apparently she’s not interested. Fortunately, there’s Jill the foster agency worker who act as the middle person between the social worker and the fosterer.

They tried to prosecute the abusers but Jodie refused to reveal to the police. Meanwhile, Jodie’s behavior plummeted. She started to behave increasingly bizarre and hallucinate. Despite Cathy’s assurance, she still distrusts her surrounding and her conditions worsen.

Concerned Cathy informed her psychologist, and she has been diagnosed as suffering from mental illness. They recommend her to stay in a therapeutic unit, and reluctantly Cathy has to let her go……

Cathy still visited her constantly over the weekend, and she will always welcome her back to her family if she is ever recovered to be out from the unit.

Last but not least, Jodie’s abusers (her father and uncles) have been charged in court but not so much because of Jodie as her evidences are not strong. Instead it’s her friends…….

Mama Tina

This morning while on my way to work, I have finished reading this book. It is a sequel to bridging across my sorrows.

The first book was about Christina’s childhood and the growth of the foundation from ground zero. This book focused on the continuance growth of Vietnam and their expansion.

In it they mentioned about her means and way to get sponsorship and raised funds for the operation of the foundations in Vietnam.

Gradually with many kind hearted and generous sponsor from company as well as ideas contributed by her children and close knitted friends, they expanded to several countries.

Thus now they have foundations at Europe and Asia countries. The book mostly focused on Vietnam’s foundation and how she has to constantly travel to countries to highlight the cause of the foundation and raising the much needed funds to continue operating the centre.

Somewhere in the middle, she explained her dream of visiting Mongolia exactly like her vision of Vietnam. She worked on her dream and visited Mongolia. She found that the place is the cruel remnants of Russia Soviet’s rule. After the Russian has left, Mongolia is left to survive on their limited resources. Sandwiching between China and Russia, they have to depend on both countries for a lot of their resources. Cripple with their harsh weather, it make Mongolia living condition terrible.

Children there are suffering from coldness, malnutrition and abused from family and outsider. Most of them are living on streets or in the prison (for stealing). Their conditions are worse than Vietnam. It is horrendous.

Sensing the urgent needs to recue the children, she co-operated with the existing organization based in Mongolia and started building “ger” village for the children. Slowly her effort paid off slightly. Even though they still have a long way to go but at least they are making headway.

I feel fortunate and bless that I live comfortably well despite my current predicament (divorce). At least compared to them, mine is peanut……………

Bridge Across my Sorrows

I finished reading this book on Friday (21/08/09). It was about Christina Noble Foundation beginning.

The main character was Christina. She is the founder of the foundation and based in Vietnam.

The first half of the book described her childhood’s life and her journey to building the foundation from zero.

I was appalled with her childhood story. It was filled with unpleasant memory mostly. She came from Ireland and was very poor. Her father was a drunkard who drank away every penny he earned. Her mother was the home provider mainly, with the rarity of her father contributing to the household expenses.

Despite their poverty, her mother ensured that they all went to school and looked after the house. When she was 10 years old, her mother passed away, and their living conditions became worse. She became the mother to her 3 younger siblings, and tried to earn meager living doing whatever she could.

Their living conditions were so squalid that was beyond imagination. She was caught and sent to industrial girl school. When she reached 16 years old, she regained her freedom and set off to England in search for better life and hopefully to reunite her siblings.

Her decision to England came shortly after she was released from industrial school and got gang raped by 4 men. Later she became pregnant but forced to give up for adoption. In those days, illegitimate child was a disgrace. Ireland to her was a memory of heartache and despair.

In England, she met a guy and deceived by him. She ended up marrying him just to realize that she married a wife abuser. He would beat her up and abuse her for the slightest thing. He explicitly brought women home for merry making total disregard of her presences.

She tolerated with him for 14 years for the sake of their 3 children. During these times, she suffered mental breakdown and several miscarriages due to his abuses.

Finally she mustered the courage and ran away, and when she was settled down, she fought for the custody of the children. Eventually she won, and her new life began. She managed to financially provide for her 3 children through her catering business.

At the peak of her success, she closed down everything and went to Vietnam to fulfill her dream of decades ago.

Thus the foundation is founded based on her dream. She went to a foreign country with few hundreds pounds and slowly extended her networks. She got the official permission to start the foundation and seek donors to operate the centre.

At night, she walked around the streets to help as many children as she could. I was disgusted by those foreigners taking advantages of young children. They took advantages of their vulnerability and poverty, thus most of the little girls ended up as prostitutes.

They treated Vietnam as sex tourism where they could exploit the children. I guessed these exploitation will always perceive as long as they are poor countries and pervertic people………………..

Ghost Girl

I finished reading this book today. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did for the previous books by the same writer – Torey Hayden.

Since she works as a special educator, it’s natural that she will encounter children who need special attention and possibly abuse from family.

Her previous books were very captivating and clear, whereas this book was ambiguous.

This book talked about Jadie – an eight years old girl who never talked nor participated in class activity. She’s always hunched-backed but not due to medical issue, it’s as if she deliberately did so.

Torey took over this class in middle of the term, and it’s in a small town called Pecking. Her class consisted of 4 students all having problem integrating in main stream school, thus they needed a special educator who’s well known in this area.

Torey was very well trained in elective mutism, thus on her first day she managed to get Jadie to talk. Everyone was amazed by her capability.

Gradually Jadie grew fond of her, and revealed thing happened at home, but her details were imprecise. Torey was sure she suffered from sexual abuse, and reported the matter to the principal who alert the authority.

From there thing happened quickly, and Jadie and her sisters were removed from their parents, while investigation was underway.

The book did not indicate clearly the investigation findings, but one thing sure was Jadie and her sisters were placed permanently in foster home. Jadie blossomed into a fine young lady who has done well academically and walked upright instead. But her sister, Amber deteriorated and became drawn into her own world. Her youngest sister, Sapphire was too young to understand anything.

By her own choice, Jadie never visited her natural parents again. This story just wasn’t interesting enough to hold my attention for long. A lot of thing weren’t mention and I find it hard to believe certain thing……..

Just Another Kid

I finished reading this book on Saturday (01/08/09). It’s by the same author Torey Hayden. I guessed I’m hooked on reading her book. She’s a special educator for kids, thus she came across many emotional disturbance kids.

This book unlike One child or Tiger Child, which focused on Sheila, rather this book talked about 6 children – Leslie, Mariana, Geraldine, Shemona, Shamie & Dirkie. Her short stint there while waiting for her permanent visa to England.

Along the way she helped Leslie’s mum – Ladbrooke too. Ladbrooke was a doctor (she earned her doctorate in physics). She’s young, pretty and rich. Practically everyone is envious of her, but she aloof.

Slowly, Torey realized she too was like another kids in her class who met with a trouble childhood. Together Torey morally supported her and pulled her through her dark period but not totally.

Among the kids, Geraldine is the most disturbed kid. Exteriorly, she’s joyous, talkative and seems protective of her sister, Shemona. Reality, she controlled her sister, scared her into silence and self-destructive. She, Shemona & Shamie came from Northern Ireland, a country like Iraq now, plagued by religions conflicts.

Mariana was mainly sexual precocious otherwise she’s alright. Dirkie needed special education and Leslie main problem lied in family spoiling, and she’s autistic too.

I guessed my disappointment came from knowing Geraldine still has not found the inner peace she’s looking for……

The Tiger's Child

I finished reading this book on 24/07/09 (Friday). It’s a sequel to One Child.

After a separation of 7 years, Torey reconnected to Sheila. By now, she was a 14 years old teenager.

Gradually, Torey felt they have became distanced and tried to build the bond. She got Sheila to help in her clinic as helper.

Slowly, they picked up where they left from, but with lots of up and down in between.

Torey also found out the lives of Sheila during those 7 years. Together they embarked on a journey similar to previous except with more emotional upheaval as Sheila has grown up and no longer the 6 years old girl.

With Torey encouragement, Sheila continued her studies but she did not further to university, and started working in fast food restaurant.

The last time, Torey heard about her – Sheila wrote that she has her own apartment and was doing very well, except for her relationship with guys……

One Child

I finished reading this book last night. The story was a record of the author experiences with this particular disturbing girl named Sheila.

The author specialized in special child education. She taught a class of special children either mentally handicapped or from exceptional environment.

One day her school principal announced that a 6 years old girl was going to be placed in her class temporarily till the state hospital has an opening for her. Few days before, she read on the newspaper that a 6 years old girl has tied a 3 years old boy to a tree and burned him alive. He wasn’t dead but in critical condition.

Her encounter with her was eventful initially. She was severely uncooperative and violent. She was almost at her wit end, and had never encountered such a violent and inwards child.

She called her previous teacher and all came back with negative comment either she a destructor or a little devil. She tried to have a chat with her father (cos her mother has abandoned her in the highways when she was 4 years old and taking along her younger brother) but he was never in (leaving Sheila alone at home).

She sympathized Sheila and knew it’s because of the hurt and abused she has received thus result in her behaviors. She was patience with her and gradually Sheila opened up.

Sheila slowly but steadily felt close to Torey (the author) and they developed a special kind of bond when bad new befell. There was an opening in the state hospital and Sheila was going in.

She opposed and with the help of her lawyer boyfriend, they won the case and she continued staying on.

Torey knew deep down that they were going to disband her class and hesitantly broke the new to Sheila who reacted strongly to it. But she managed to get her to accept it heartbrokenly, and found her a regular school (she was able to skip 2 grades due to her exceptional IQ. She has an IQ of 182.)

The initial part of the book talked about the hurt and behavior of Sheila, and how she missed and wondered why her mother has abandoned her and took her brother only.

The middle section focused on the transformation of Sheila and the discovery of her astonishing IQ. It also revealed the sexual abuse Sheila got from her Uncle Jerry that nearly ended her life.

The last part talk about the closure of the special class and her transferred to a regular class taught by Torey good friend, Sandy.

Tell me why, Mummy

I finished reading this book on Saturday (11/07/09). It was very inspirational as it talked about the author journey from childhood to adult and his experiences with his sexual abusive mother and subsequently physically abusive stepfather.

As far as he can remembered, his mother sexual abuse started when he was 4 years old. Since young, he has differentiated 2 side of his mother – the good mummy and the evil one. His mother was caring, concern and involved in his affair but once she started drinking her brandy, she became violent, aggressive and often went to his room and asked him to rub her “Minnie”.

Of course at 4 years old, he still too innocent to understand that this was actually wrong and he thought that it was a special time between them.

His parents divorced when he was 5 or 6 years old, prior to that his father was already not participative in his growing childhood, naturally he followed his mother.

Repetitive sexual abuse happened occasionally whenever his mother got drunk. Gradually, he realized that what they are doing isn’t right, but has no one to turn to, it doesn’t help that he doesn’t have much friends in school let alone someone who can confide in the abuse.

Growing towards adolescent, his mother remarried a old man 35 years her senior, and he treated him nicely initially, then all of a sudden became physically abusive. He has kept mum from his mother.

Eventually he retaliated, and the physical assaults stopped, but not his mother. She had grown to be more daring, and asked him to make love with her, which he rejected.

Feeling the urge to leave a confused home, he signed up for fire service at the age of 20 and moved out. In between, he decided he had enough of his mother drinking destruction, and they stayed apart for 4 years.

At the age of 27, he bought a book on memory and 8 months later he competed and won to rank 4th in the world. Eventually he beat an 18 years old boy to hold the Guinness World record. He tapped on his new found ability and moved towards the corporate world where he became successful.

At the same time, he met a wonderful divorced lady with 2 kids, but he got along very well with her kids, and through her he blurted out the long held secret he buried. With her encouragement, he decided to patch with his mother, but never did he brought up the issue on the sexual abuse.

1 year later, his mother died of alcoholic induced heart attack, and till the end, he never found the reason for her behaviors.

He has been through a lot and yet he’s managed to put his past away and forgives his mother. I find that it’s very encouraging of his act, and not many could do it.

Diana Mosley

Last Friday (26/06/09), I finished reading this book. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed a lot but it’s still pleasurable reading it.

This is actually a biography of Diana Mosley. It talked about her childhood to her affiliation to Hitler.

Beginning is all about her upbringing, she was fortunate to be born in a relatively well-to-do family where she enjoyed a luxury lifestyle. But she lacked of parents’ love. Her mother was a disciplinarian and her father nonchalant about them.

I would say she grew up in a traditional family where they hoped to have a boy (after many girls, her parents finally have a boy).

She grew up never attending school despite her family financial standing, and only her brother got the privileged.

She desperately wanted her freedom, thus at the age of 18, she agreed to marry Bryan Guinness. He came from an upper class, even higher than her family. Initially she was reluctance to get married but she knew the only way to be free from her parents would be marriage.

Bryan showered her with love and affection, and they had 2 sons (Jonathan & Desmond), but their marriage wasn’t meant to be lasting.

The tipping point came when Diana’s path crossed with Tom Mosley. He was married with 3 children, but he’s a womanizer. Both of them I would say committed adultery.

Diana was madly in love with him, and decided to divorce her husband which was something very uncommon during that period.

During this period, her younger sister Unity introduced her to Hitler’s political party. Through her sister, Diana cultivated a liking for the party and gradually both of them came to know Hitler personally and many of the high officials.

She even used her connection with Hitler to help Tom (her husband by now) in his political party (his fascist idea) in England.

WWII broke out, and Tom was targeted and locked away. Diana’s ex-father-in-law bearing the grudges for her divorce from his son took the opportunity and reported her connection to Germany. Eventually, she was locked up too (by now she had 2 sons with Tom).

Both of them were locked up during the war period and were released after the war, but they were not allowed to travel. All their travel documents had been confiscated. At least, they had freedom in their own country.

The later part talked about their re-building of life not really interesting, and her ideology of Hitler which doesn’t interest me much either.

Perhaps the only thing interesting was her sister commitment to Germany’s political group and another sister, Jessica commitment to Communist ideas. I was intrigued that political played such a major role in their relationship……..

Daughter of the killing field

Friday (12/06/09), I’ve finished reading this book. I think I’ve read more or less about the story of Vietnam and Cambodia warfare.

This book is another heart-wrenching life of a little girl, named Aseri who has lost her parents during the Khmer Rouge period.

The story starts by building the life of ordinary citizen prior to that dark period. They shared a harmonious and peaceful period, but thing change when communist took over, and their concept of “year zero”.

Soon the soldiers started attacking civilians, and masses of execution became frequent. Slowly, the author must learn that – life is but a breath thinking.

At the age of presumably 4 years old, the soldiers killed her father then mother, and all of a sudden she was left an orphaned.

The soldiers for whatever reason set her and her 4 brothers free. From there, they travelled from relatives to relatives, finally settling with their maternal grandparents.

Daily, their lives were filled with mundane chores, and gradually their grandmother decided to escape poverty and hardship for the sake of her grandchildren.

They travelled through a tedious and dangerous journey to Thailand refugees’ camps. Once they reached the camp, her grandmother wrote fervently to her sons in France and US to get them to sponsor all of them to either one of the country.

They joyfully agreed. After 4 years of living in extreme conditions, they finally left to US for a better future.

Fortunately, in US there’s a Christian organization that helped funded their expenses and slowly they re-built their lives.

The author eventually returned to Cambodia and remained there as citizen to utilize her knowledge, education for the future of the country.

Even though, Cambodia gave her many bad memory, but it was there she has the best too, and what done can’t be undone.

Personally, it took a lot of courage to return to the country that has made you orphaned. Imagine having to interview the leaders who gave down orders for the mass execution of the commoners, and witnessing the brutality of the soldiers’ torture. One can picture her courage and her patriotism for her country betterment. I must say our lives has been very bliss and blessed indeed………….

Biography - Elizabeth Taylor

I just read finished the book on the biography of Elizabeth Taylor. It’s called – A Passion of Life.

It’s intriguing to learn of her childhood and her path to stardom. While reading this book, I was feel with a mixture of detest and admiration. Detest – as she felt it’s alright to break-up a marriage. Admiration – as she managed to over come the negative limelight that has followed her constantly, especially her many marriages.

If not for her mother, Sara, persistent and strategy, I presumed she might not be where she is now. But in another way, her mother has deprived her of a normal childhood and adolescent.

Her mother was a fade away actress. She has placed her desired to be a famous actress onto Elizabeth. Since a tender age, Elizabeth has been undergoing training to groom her for actress quality.

Eventually, her mother did successfully get Elizabeth into MGM, and it was the movie National Velvet that people noticed her potential.

She gained her popularity before she reached her adulthood. Subsequent chapters talked about her numerous marriages. I find it tiring reading all her marriages, but well she’s also famous for that too…..

Nevertheless, it’s still interesting to read about her life as a celebrity. After reading, I think it’s better to have a peaceful life…….My life is wonderful, having the freedom to do whatever I pleased…………..