A Winning Team in Any Colour

This gem of a photo came from Ibrahim Mokhsen, via ELAS. See who you can recognise. This is definitely a winning team ... irrespective of the colour (with apologies to artist Andy Warhol :-)

Enjoy ...

Year of the Tiger

The upcoming lunar new year heralds in the Year of the Tiger, according to the Chinese zodiac. Over the years, I've found that a number of other Asian countries have roughly similar zodiac animals. For instance the Korean zodiac is identical to the Chinese one. The Vietnamese zodiac differs in three animals (the second animal is the water buffalo instead of the ox, the fourth animal is the cat instead of rabbit and the eighth animal is the ram instead of sheep). The Japanese zodiac includes the wild boar rather than the pig.

In most of these Asian countries, the lunar new year is celebrated in grand traditional fashion. I was in Vietnam when I started writing this essay and I observed the Vietnamese preparing for their lunar new year, which they call Tet. It  falls on exactly the same day as the Chinese New Year. Everywhere you went, you could see lots of decorations - arches, lanterns, posters, sculptures, etc. Red is obviously the auspicious colour. And of course, this year the tiger appears in many places of prominence.

All this got me thinking about other incarnations of tigers in our modern culture. I was able to list quite a number of instances where this majestic but fierce animal featured in different aspects of our life.

Tiger in Poetry

I believe it was the Englishman William Blake (1757-1827) who penned the famous poem "Tyger, Tyger" which English literature students in the old days used to have to learn by heart. I guess these days not as much attention is paid to this rhyme, but who knows ... it IS going be the year of the tiger soon so there may well be a revival of interest.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire in thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art?
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand, and what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
 
Tiger in Business
 
I'm writing this at an airport cafe, so it's probably natural that I first thought about Tiger Airways, the low-cost carrier owned by Singapore Airlines and a few others. This airlines plies routes mainly in Asia and parts of Australia.

Do you recall the slogan "Put a Tiger in Your Tank" ? Of course you do. That's from the oil company Esso. One marketing campaign I remember even involved a little bushy striped tail being given out to drivers, which they could attach to the cover of their fuel tank.

Tiger in Sports

This one is quite obvious. Tiger Woods has been a golfing sensation for many years now, until his recent fall from grace over a series of affairs. Still a lot of golfing observers are predicting he will make his comeback pretty soon.

Tiger in Entertainment

In the world of books and movies. there was Shere Khan, that fearsome character from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book". I suspect many of us remember the Disney cartoon much better than the book itself.

A more friendly Tigger appeared in A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh".

Even from the world of Chinese action movies, I still remember that Golden Harvest made a flick in 1973 called "The Man Called Tiger", starring Wang Yu (of "The One Armed Swordsman" fame).

And I'm told that "Flying Tigers" (1942) was a second-rate movie about a band of American Mercenaries called upon by China to help fight the Japanese two years before Pearl Harbour. It even starred John Wayne.

In the area of music, there was a song "Eye of the Tiger" released by the group Survivor in 1982. This song was also used in the Sylvester Stallone movie "Rocky III".

Tiger in Food

There's a certain brand of frosted cornflakes, that we used to occasionally eat for breakfast when we were young which has a tiger character too. Remember Frosties ? Remember Tony the Tiger?

I'm sure you can think of other instances where tigers have been culturally prominent. Do share them ...

In the meantime, an early Happy Lunar New Year of the Tiger to everyone ...

A Note from Bro Columba

Here's a brief email and photo from Bro Columba, sent via Georgie-boy ...

From: "columba gleeson"
To: "George Lo"
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 9:51 PM
Subject: Fw: photo

Hi George,

Greetings again from Belfast. I revisited the '76-ers blog site again recently after a lapse of some time and was happy to see it is still very much alive! Some expressed a wish to get a pic of the Bros who served in SJS and are now retired in Ireland. I am forwarding to you the only one I have and hope it comes up all right for you. The full names of the Bros are Adrian Gaule, Columba Gleeson and Mark Blake. Mike Chew was in U6A in '73 and has been resident in Canada for many years. He was conducting a conference here last Sept. and I drove him to visit Adrian and Mark in Castletown. The pic was taken outside our Nursing Home where they are both resident.

Re. the suggested trips, if some do plan to visit Ireland it would be wise to get in touch well in advance, before finalising dates etc as I am often tied up with the running of Kilmore House, particularly at weekends and for some weeks in July and August. The house is used by a variety of groups as a venue for their own residential programmes and I need to be present at these times.

It is great to note that the Grand Reunion didn't end with the 23rd Dec bash but is being carried on in the form of continuing contacts and proposed programmes. Continue to enjoy it all.

Warm regards ,

Bro. Columba.

Giving Back

As many of you know, most of our blog postings have so far been of a relatively light vein. We try to locate and reconnect with our old friends. We explore our life interests, such as travel, food and hobbies. We try to recall events, people and places from our teenage years.

So one could say the theme for Year 1 of our blog was "Reconnection". The outcome was quite successful. We have linked more than 100 out of the cohort of 120.

For Year 2, I'd like to suggest that beyond reconnection, we focus on "Giving Back". By this I'm referring to giving back something to our alma mater, our hometown, our society, causes we care about, etc. Giving back doesn't have to be just monetary - we can contribute our skills, resources and ideas.

George and others have recently been discussing how we can giving something back to our old school. The teachers and staff of St Joe have provided all of us a strong foundation for life, and for this we should be most grateful. Let's see if we can do our bit to ensure that present and future generations continue to enjoy all the good things that St Joe can provide.

When some of us visited the school on the morning of 23rd December, the day of our Grand Reunion, we had the opportunity to walk around the premises. There have been a number of changes - new blocks, auditoriums and other facilities (e.g. the gym). The external areas looked quite neat and well-maintained, with one notable exception.

We were a little taken aback by the interiors of some of the classrooms. Here's one of the photos I took of a classroom in the Form 4 and 5 block, which shows some of the deterioration  ...

Some of the ideas we discussed included funding a renovation of certain classrooms, "adopting" a form perhaps, and getting involved in the upgrade of some of the school facilities. We should also take into consideration the learning needs of students in the digital age.

I'm sure you will contribute more ideas for us to discuss ...