Better than Optimism

Columns >> Business Matters

I’m an eternal optimist. I always look for the good behind the seemingly bad thing that's happening. Optimists are people who look for opportunities behind every calamity. Pessimists are people who look for calamities behind every opportunity. That's why I am very sure that it was an optimist who invented the airplane; while it was a pessimist who invented the seat belt.

One lady says, “In the mornings, I'm apt to be sleepy and grouchy. My husband is just the opposite. He springs out of bed, sings in the shower and babbles to me over breakfast. Once, exasperated, I exclaimed, “How CAN you be so happy?!”

He replied brightly, “Because, so far, nothing's gone wrong with my day.”

I guess I'm like that too. When I wake up in the morning, I choose to be optimistic. I know that, even if I’m wrong, I'd have a better time committing the mistake than if I were pessimistic from the get go.

One thing I've realized is that there is something better than plain optimism. Do you know what it is? It’s called “Faith.”

The World Depends on Faith

Famous author Howard Hendricks, in his book Faith in Tough Times, says “I didn't observe any of you come into this room and examine your chair before you sat in it. You just automatically committed yourself by faith to the chair, assuming it would hold you. Most of you got here by car; you slid in the car and turned on the ignition and away you go. You don't have a clue as to what goes on behind the scene. You can't explain the process. You just trust it.”

“The last time you went to a doctor, he wrote out a little prescription. You couldn't read it. In fact, you wondered if anybody could read the thing! Then you took it to your pharmacist, and you gave it to him. Have you ever discovered when you give a pharmacist a prescription, he always disappears behind the screen? That shakes me up. I often wonder what in the world the guy is doing back there. I wonder if he slept through his course in pharmacy school. But he gives you the little bottle and says, 'Take it three times a day'—and, by faith, you do exactly what he tells you to do! Faith is woven into the system.”

When I wake up in the morning, I can be optimistic because my optimism is built on faith. Faith that God has made this new day a brand new opportunity to be productive. Faith in His promise that men might mean it for harm, but God would mean it for good. Faith in my understanding that all things work out for the good to those who love God and are called to serve Him.

That's why, for people who do not have faith, optimism is sheer wishful thinking.

Robert C. Shannon says it best. “They have a saying in Vienna, Austria: The situation is hopeless, but not serious. It's an interesting contradiction in terms. Yet life is truly a mixture of optimism and pessimism, of hope and despair, of sunshine and shadow. Sometimes the same situation can have both elements in it at the same time! But faith is finer than optimism. It has none of the distortions of optimism. It is more lasting; less fragile. It's fine for us to be optimistic, but far better to be believers.”

So, you want to be optimistic? Build up your faith first.

Top 10 Most Expensive Cars in the World

Top Menu >> Top-10

1. Bugatti Veyron


2. Ferrari Enzo


3. Pagani Zonda


4. Koenigsegg CCX


5. Porsche Carrera GT


6. Mercedes SLR McLaren


7. Maybach


8. Rolls-Royce Phantom


9. Lamborghini Murcielago


10. Aston Martin Vanquish

Never the Twain Shall Meet

Sections >> Library

Boyé Lafayette De Mente teaches us about China by using stereotypes.

Take all your stereotypes about the Chinese, run them through a filter of Western superiority, and you have Boyé Lafayette De Mente’s Chinese Etiquette and Ethics in Business in a nutshell.

That the Chinese, and Asians in general, are misunderstood by the West is pretty much a given. That a writer who claims to have been studying Asia for the past 30 years still subscribes to the image of the lazy and corrupt Chinaman is just irresponsible.
The book claims to be a road map to business and social dealings with the Chinese. But it spends more time discussing how the Chinese are so infuriatingly different from everyone else, without explaining why or how foreigners are supposed to deal with them.

Orientalism

He says, for example, that the Chinese are simpleminded and are essentially incapable of independent thought. De Mente attributes this to centuries of putting emphasis on conformity and harmony. A typical Chinese would be afraid to make an independent decision since, as he claims an old Chinese saying goes, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” It’s an interesting point, but has very doubtful usefulness or veracity.

De Mente does not bother to cite his sources, identifying them only as various critics, scholars, and sociologists. Given all the stereotypes and caricatures, one almost expects De Mente to trot out some Fu-Manchu-type character to quote Confucius in broken English.

He adds that foreigners trying to do business in China will have to contend with the slow pace of things in the country, from bureaucratic red tape to the endless negotiations between parties. When dealing with Chinese, he says, one has to have money for bribes and unlimited patience unless one wants to be branded anti-Chinese.

De Mente even suggests that many Chinese values and customs are little more than “cop-outs” and “psychological ploys” to manipulate foreigners. Much, one might suppose, like putting the family name first, a custom that he stubbornly refuses to follow. The man who founded the People’s Republic of China, then, is the unfamiliar Chairman Zedong Mao, and the Taoist philosopher Lao Tze is styled Ze Lao.

One China Policy

De Mente briefly discusses the ethnic diversity of China in the first chapter of his book, but conveniently forgets it, lumping together Mandarin and Cantonese terms without identifying which language a word is from. He also omits tonal marks in his exhaustive vocabulary lists, making them essentially useless in a tonal language.

The book doesn’t take into account regional differences, either, assuming that what works in Guangzhou will work just as well as in, say, Shandong. This is a dangerous assumption to make in a country with an area of 9.6 million square kilometers and a population of 1.3 billion.

In an effort to jam as much information into his book as possible, De Mente touches on feng shui, tai chi chuan (which he inexplicably calls “dai ji juan”), and even includes a run down of Sun Tzu’s (Tzu Sun, in his book) Art of War into the mix. Not to make foreigners understand Chinese culture, it seems, than to reinforce the stereotype of the mystical martial artist introduced in 1970s kung fu exploitation films.

The book promises an “insider’s view” of China, and it does deliver on that. If by insider we mean an American stuck inside Beijing during the Boxer Uprising.

Drinking Diseases Away

Sections >> Colloquy

Veepo Global Resources president Erwin Po shows that innovative products may be the key to preventing diseases

We couldn’t help but feel amazed as we watched Veepo Global Resources president Erwin Po sip dirty brown water with a straw. No, it wasn’t a Fear Factor challenge, but a demonstration of how water-borne diseases can be prevented with a straw.

Life Straw is a portable water filtering device manufactured by Swiss company Vestergaard Frandsen, and used in different parts of the world. The fifty-year-old, Swiss-based company specializes in disease control textiles. Its LifeStraw has enabled children in Africa to drink clean water from different water sources. It was also useful in the aftermath of cyclone damage in Myanmar and the earthquake in Sichuan, China, where clean drinking sources became hard to find.

One doesn’t need to wait for disaster to find a use for Life Straw, though. Po saw the straw’s potential in preventing diseases and decided to bring it to the Philippines. He also decided to distribute another product, PermaNet, an insecticide-treated mosquito net that prevents vector-borne diseases.

No Fly Zone

Po was just watching television when he saw the products that would inspire him to build a company. He checked them out on the Internet, tried to get in touch with the Swiss manufacturer, and after several meetings, secured distributorship for the products in the Philippines. He established Veepo Global Resources last year, a company which aims to provide life-saving, innovative solutions to the public.

The products may look simple on the outside, but it’s the technology inside that makes them stand out. PermaNet looks just like any other mosquito net, but it has one deadly secret; for mosquitoes that is.

PermaNet is treated with a long-lasting insecticide that repels and kills mosquitoes upon contact. It prevents diseases such as dengue and malaria. It may be deadly for pests, but it’s totally safe even for children and pregnant women.

The insecticide lasts long enough--around four years--and can withstand 20 washings. It also repels dust, so one doesn't have to clean it often.

Magic Straw

Life Straw, on the other hand, looks more like a toy flute than an ordinary straw. This is no plaything, however, as the technology inside can eliminate 99.99% of bacteria. And if all those nines aren’t enough to amaze you, the personal straw can filter at least 700 liters, about a year's worth of clean water for one person.

The personal straw also has a bigger version, the Life Straw Family. This can filter a minimum of 18,000 liters of water or approximately three years of clean drinking water for a family of five. Life Straw can prevent water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, typhoid and cholera.

Now comes the important question, how does Life Straw work? Well, it doesn’t need batteries, cartridges or electricity to work. Its secret lies in the nano and ultra filters found inside the straws. These can filter even small particles, making sure that only water passes through it.

Though very effective against microorganisms, Life Straw can't make salt water potable. It can't filter out chemicals, either, but viruses and bacteria are no problem.

All in the Family

At the moment, Veepo Global Resources only offers two products, but Po promises to introduce more innovative items into the market. He says, though, that Veepo will only carry products that are in line with the company’s focus on health care and green technology.

This goal is shared by other companies owned by the Po family. Veepo has a sister company called Fame, a plastic manufacturing company that has been around for almost 25 years. Fame has come out with biodegradable plastics that would be less harmful to the environment. These plastics are mainly exported to Northern Asia, the United States of America and Europe.

Another sister company, Poly-Green Technology and Resources, is a clean technology energy firm that converts plastic wastes to fuel. The company uses a method that the RP Department of Science and Technology hailed as outstanding creative research at last year's National Inventors Week.

Aside from having the same goals, the companies also share one thing in common; they all use technology to help save the environment and people’s lives.

Alchemy

Sections >> Museum Musings

The jewelry, furniture, and home décor of a Filipino-Chinese Davaoeña is making waves in the international design scene. Ann Tiukinhoy Pamintuan has garnered attention in New York, London, Sweden, and Moscow.

Her pieces have twice been featured in the International Design Yearbook and she is also the first female Asian designer to be featured in the design annual. But what makes her achievements more noteworthy is that she has never had any formal arts training, and her design career began as a hobby.

Pamintuan’s sophisticated designs and excellent craftsmanship have helped put Philippine design in the international limelight. She is a pioneering member of Movement 8, an alliance of progressive Filipino designers gaining worldwide recognition from Manila to Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, and Milan.

From her experimentation with leaves and electroplating in the early 1990s to her progression to nature-inspired metal furniture in the 2000s, she has turned her creative pastime into a successful export enterprise. Pamintuan’s award-winning furniture and décor can be seen locally at the Palms Country Club, Makati Shangri-La Hotel, InterContinental Manila, and Hyatt Hotel and Casino Manila.

She acknowledges that her Chinese roots shape her artistic sensibility and entrepreneurial skill. She specifically attributes her capacity for hard work, single-mindedness, and diligence to her father, Felix Tiukinhoy, and her forebears who migrated from Xiamen in Fujian, China.

Her maiden name bears her Chinese lineage. “We come from the same clan as the rest of the Tius, most of whom were migrants to the Visayas from Xiamen, known as Amoy in the earlier part of the 20th century,” relates the designer. “My grandfather chose to have his first names Kin Hoy appended to Tiu, hence the name.”

At an exhibit entitled “AnnTiu.Alchemy” at the Yuchengco Museum, Pamintuan returns to her roots. The incidental genesis of her design history began in the early 1990s, when she started electroplating flora from her own garden in gold, silver, and copper.

Growing up in Surigao, where she was surrounded by nature, strengthened her impulse to capture and preserve the beauty of botanicals. This experimentation with fusing organic materials and metal gave birth to her jewelry line, AnnTiu, in 1993.

These early forays into jewelry became the springboard for working on metal wire and welding them into tabletop accessories such as vases and bowls. Her home décor eventually became bigger, grander, morphing into furniture and sculpture collections, echoing cocoons, ginkgo leaves, bubbles, and weaves. Her venture into furniture and sculpture earned her both local and international recognition.

Asked why she decided to return to her origins as a jewelry designer, Pamintuan replies “I have always been interested in designing jewelry. Despite my seeming preoccupation with furniture and sculpture, I kept making jewelry pieces, although I did not market them.”

No matter the scale, her design process for each piece is the same. She easily shifts from designing intimate jewelry to huge social furniture without fear of losing her sense of proportion. Her early forays into jewelry became the inspiration for her award-winning furniture line. “I always came up with my own jewelry and people would ask, ‘Where did you get those?’ My buyers ask, ‘Can we also carry that in our furniture line?”

Pamintuan’s jewelry has been described as “metal twisted and formed, following the organic flow of nature.” Organic objects—leaves, roots, twigs, and flowers—retain their fragility and, at the same time, gain immortality after being fused with metal.

The artist’s creations bridge fine art and fashion, and the understanding of art as design, design as art. She keeps the integrity of the piece, first as artistic expression, second as functional form.

Art critic Cid Reyes noted, “Caprice and charm may initially seduce the viewer into marveling at these works, but it is the pure pleasure of their stiffness and formality that invite prolonged contemplation.”

The designer admits, however, that the process is not as easy as it sounds. “Since I did not have any formal training or apprenticeship in what I was doing, I learned the hard way at the workshop. There were hits and misses, a lot of trial and error.”

In the beginning, Pamintuan spent a lot of time putting something together, and then breaking it apart to make it better. Today, she is much more confident of the direction she wants her designs to take.

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