With eyes but unable to see the mountain
Selection of truly meainingful, useful proverbs from childhood days in Chinatown

Those were the days  in Chinatown

Small sweet world Taipei’s mini-food alley

Another Earth, another chance
Suppose there exists another Earth and you have a chance to go there and change things

Will anyone cry at your funeral?

Confucius: At 50, I know Heaven’s will

Reading chim, fakey stuff

In Malayan jungle Go feed the leeches

Supplication of Nebuchadnezzar

Fireflies, falling water in forest retreat

Run for your life  If youre middle-aged and pregnant, start running for your life

Stop, Look, Listen 
Run for your life but dont get overrun

Fit, running and dying

An egoist looks at life & the world

Live smart and safe 
King Solomon tells how, in a dangerous world

The Man of Life Upright  Integer Vitae

China Dreams Long thoughts on a slow train

Heaven above, Hangzhou on Earth 
More thoughts, Shanghai to Hangzhou

Living in the context of eternity
Reflection on washing dishes

Love that conquers even death 
Wifes undying love

In the beginning God created greens
and the Devil created McDonalds

China's Guest People
Hakkas and the Great Taiping Revolution

Write thoughts, not words

Happiness is finding a scapegoat

Everyday courage of Dr Johnson

Guanyin Bodhisattva 觀音菩薩
Protection for a sickly child

Masturbation prevents cancer

Naked ladies  Oggle for arts sake

Buddhist meditation The only workable approach to deal with old age, suffering, death

All that we are is what weve thought

The man who lost his heart

Live well, live long

Are you aging well

All I want for Christmas

Pangolins in the city

How not to be cakesim at work

Girls, don’t feel paiseh asking for date on Feb 29

Moon at Mid-Autumn but whos there to see?

New ideas

A little gossip, a little chat Man of La Mancha

Saudade: Longing for lost days, lost love

Going...

Two things alone are worth a man's utter devotion

When is the next tsunami?  Experts know nothing of the future

The bucket list  Have you written yours?

We happy few, we band of brothers Henry V
Life on the sideline

Here are essays, brief remarks, poems and reviews, diary jottings, and photographs I have produced for local newspapers and magazines since October 1978 when I graduated from a three-month course on reporting and subbing, and called myself a “journalist”. Instead of leaving them as yellowed cuttings, I've updated some of my published stuff for the Web so they can be accessible to friends and sympathetic readers. I've also added the occasional contributions by others.

In three decades of journalism, I have written about practically everything under the moon (I write best at night), except fashion, golf, crime and movie stars. On this site are those writings I enjoyed reading back to myself (if you don't enjoy reading what you’ve written, trash ’em). My subjects are mainly on loafing and leisure pursuits, pretty girls and dreams, life and the next life, and, always, Buddha’s exhortations to make the most of this human span before death hits us unexpectedly and inconveniently.

Except for the Latin quotes and maxims, and tidbits from Chinese classics and the King James Bible (God save me from modern-day insipid translations!), there’s nothing pretentious or preachy. here The last thing I want to do is pontificate pious prattle (pardon the alliterations).

If you’ve got anything to share, write in the Guest Book (bottom of this page).
– Francis Chin, January 2005

Above painting of an Indian beauty was given to me by Chris Lim at NCS in 2008; according to Ankita Choudhari, a lucent-eyed university student from Hyderabad, the instrument depicted is a sitar
Sign InView Entries
Picturebook of people & places www.picturebook.homestead.com
Favourite book excerpts www.reader.homestead.com
Wild Geese  You do not have to be good

Wild Geese Memorial Service

The Don’t-do List when you're going broke

Art of Failure  A more forgiving lifestyle 

Die happy

My Letter to the World
Why nobody reads your blog

Let your clone do the donkey work
Father of Internet on future world

Destination Earth 
Great places for adventure

Like the surf of great music
Review of Ting Shao Kuang's art

Growing up under the British crown
Life was tough and a squeeze 50 years ago

Ipsa quidem virtus pretium sibi
Robust Latin maxims to stiffen your conduct

Heaven and hell are real, in my mind
Devils and angels at my death

Waiting for Happiness 
Credit card, chicks and other Cs that
Singapore males die for

Spinoza philosopher saint

How not to get retrenched
Adopt a godfather, always credit your boss &
other proven strategies

Digging out an old faun’s tooth
Lorenzo the Magnificent & Michelangelo

Sentimental over pretty girls 
Re-reading Dream of the Red Chamber














Tang Poems

Sound of bells from Hanshan 
Fun with Tang poetry

Yellow Crane Tower
Translating Li Bai

Song of the Pipa  琵琶行
Much-loved Chinese poem

Rainy Night in the Mountains  
Recalling a night with his beloved

Fading sun across the water
Song of sunset on the river 暮江吟

Happiness is a pretty girl 
Unexpected encounters

In the company of beauties 

Song of Eternal Sorrow
長恨歌

One day at a time for one plucky girl

Because I could not stop for death  Meditation on Emily Dickinson

The unhurried life brings its rewards
Won the Rat Race, but still a rat

Life is more than a video-recording  Keep memories in vignettes, not videos

The unexamined life  is not worth living,
really

Imagine what you can do with $100 million

Getting Granny ready for home 
Celebrating life at a Chinese funeral

Once is not enough  Pleasure of re-reading

Tagore, Genji, Ah Q  Books of the last millennium that have changed Asia

The root of misery is the lack of ready cash

Getting out of misery in old age

Is God a Taoist?
He’s actually Tua Pekkong

Middle Age Not any richer but better

Teaching vampires to fly
Surviving the terror of the Bardo

Getting stuck in English

About the Bystander  All about me

What women really want

Smart people doing stupid things
Google mentor couldn’t swim, drowns in pool

Choose what you enjoy doing
Not what people say are “nice”

Last year this day by the door...

Blooms from China

Celebrating a god's birthday 
May all your prayers be not answered

One star aglow in a vast nocturnal sky

If there were dreams to sell
the poems of Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Through tear-clouded eyes
Su Shih remembers his dead wife

Content with my little garden
无可奈何花落去,
似曾相识燕归来
小园香径独徘徊
Classical Indian beauty
The flower falls, the person dies...
Tale of Genji, Tao Te Ching and other classics for a lifetime of reading
Anna Karenina, best-loved fiction
Anna Karenina Best-loved fiction