The First Post of 2008

According to Chinese numerology, the year 2008 is going to be exceptionally lucky and prosperous because the number 8 is a very auspicious number indeed. So, this means that the coming year should work out much better for everyone than 2007 did. Let's pray that this will be so.

The New Year started somewhat ominously. Here in Kuching, 2008 was born in a heavy rain storm which started earlier on in the evening. The almost deafening roar of raindrops outside was competing well with a muffled and rather sad chorus of firecrackers which broke out like a rash around midnight.

My wife and I were in bed, enjoying the cool breeze brought about by this New Year rainstorm. I was lying there thinking how the firecrackers that went off at midnight were an apt expression of desperate human optimism in the face of impossible odds. Just think, you spend all that money on things that are supposed to go BANG! and light up the sky with lots of lovely colour and spectacle, and all you get is a series of spluttering POOFs and wet farts.

Nature is obviously telling you that you should have spent your money on something else! But you still buy the firecrackers and let them off despite the rain, because you're human, and you have hope in your heart!

So that was how 2008 started, not with a bang, as the poet says, but with a whimper. Hopefully, it will end the other way around.