Life's Options

I traded options (期貨) in 2012 and 2013, and I lost around $5000. I learned something from this experience.

An option with an expiry date in the far future, can be worth much. But as the option's date of expiry gradually draws near, the value of the option gradually becomes worth less and less, until it becomes nothing of worth once the option expires. Therefore, the aim of the game is to hold the option until it reaches its maximum value, then sell it, then use the proceeds to purchase the next option that will yield a high return. The aim is often not to hold on to the option until it expires, because then you may lose everything.

Options is like using money in life. As a child with a long way to go in life, the potential uses for money is vast. As one grows older, there are still lots of uses for money, but he may find that there are some things money cannot buy. As one grows old with few years left, the way he sees money changes, because the value money is diminished now that there are a lot less things of desire that can be purchased with this money. So he either spends the money on something that yields him little utility or he keeps it until the day he dies, yielding him zero wealth.

But life does have options. There are things he could have done with that money, and there are things he could have done with his life. He doesn't have to yield zero, if only he knew how to sell at the maximum of the option, to purchase the next option that will yield a high return. So that he will never yield zero, even when he dies.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

2015 Year of the Shmita, Economic Troubles and World Chaos

Revised post from last month. Written from a slightly different angle.

The recent two biggest economic troubles we've had in the past history, most would agree to be the 2001 9/11 attack and the 2008 global financial crisis.

1. The first thing that is mildly interesting is that there is a pattern of 7s and economic troubles. 2001 is 7 years before 2008. 1994 (Mexican crisis and brewing of Asian crisis), 1987 (Black Monday - largest percentage decline in history of Dow Jones index), 1980 banking crisis, 1973 oil crisis. While there were also economic troubles between these years, the above-mentioned years were significant and more widely known. So that's the first thing - the 7 year cycle of economic events.

2. The second thing that is also interesting to note is that the years these economic trouble years fall on, is known to the Jews as something called the 'Shmita' year.

"The sabbath year (shmita Hebrew: שמיטה‎, literally "release") also called the sabbatical year or sheviit (Hebrew: שביעית‎, literally "seventh") is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed in contemporary Judaism."

This is also the year that debts of a fellow brother must be forgiven. It's the year of the forgiveness of debt. So the Shmita has fallen on 1973, 1980, 1987, 1994, 2001, 2008 in recent history.

3. The third thing to note is, going back to 2001, the biggest single day drop of the Dow Jones to that day, was on 17th September. In the Jewish calendar, this date was on the month of Elul of the 29th day, which is the last day of the calendar year. In 2008, the biggest single day drop of the Dow Jones to that day of 777 points, was on 28th September 2008. This record day occurred on, yes Elul 29th. 

4. Fourthly, there is a jubilee year every 7 shmitas = 49 years and the 50th year is the jubilee. The Jubilee year will start on 2015 September 14th. Date back 49 years to the last jubilee, the Jews recaptured Jerusalem in the six day war in 1967. Date back another 49 years, and we have the 1917 Arab revolt where the Jews gained a degree of freedom.

5. Fifthly, 2014-2015 is the year of the rare Tetrad of blood moons that fall on the feasts of God. In 2014, these fell on the dates:

15th April 2014 - Passover

10th August 2014 - Feast of Tabernacles

4th of April 2015 - Passover

28th of September 2015 - Feast of Tabernacles

The last time something rare like this has happened was 1967-1968 (recapture of Jerusalem), and 1949-1950 (Israel independence), two of the biggest events in Jewish history. The next time we see a Tetrad will be 400+ years later.

6. 2014 - 2015, with the year ending on 13th September 2015, is a shmita year and the last year before jubilee, also coinciding with the Tetrad of blood moons. I don't believe in numerology or astrology. I believe God uses numbers in his wisdom (many numbers in the Bible have a meaning which is carried through-out the Bible), and He uses signs in the sun, moon and stars for warning, prophecy and to show that He is in control. 

7. For someone to read this, he:

- doesn't have to be Jewish

- doesn't need to believe in God

- just needs to understand that the calendar days, feasts, years of the Jews were instituted thousands of years ago, and yet history tells us that they are now aligning with the signs in the sky, and major world events.

8. I believe this will be a big year for the world and for the Jews. The below is only my speculation. In fact it may be the case that nothing major will happen.

- - border expansion, plans of rebuilding the temple, major wars and major Jewish victories.

- Currency devaluation

- World financial troubles and economic chaos

Sources:

https://swissthomas.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/the-mystery-of-the-shemitah-jonathan-cahn/

http://www.pray4zion.org/TheComingShemitahJubileeYear57745.html

Stock Market Crash of September 13th, 2015

It's time to consider the possibility of a Mega financial crisis in the month of September 2015 or earlier.

I'm going to summarize my findings below in 10 points.

1. The 12 months of the Jewish year are:

Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Teves, Shvat, Adar, Nissan, Iyar, Sivan, Tamuz, Av, Elul

2. Every 7 years, there is a Shemitah year, on which the land must not be worked, and where debts are forgiven (Deuteronomy 15:1–6, Jeremiah 34:13–14)

3. The last day of the Jewish year is Elul 29 - every single year. 

4. Remember the 9/11 attack? It happened on Tuesday September 11th, 2001. The stock market closed on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and it re-opened on September 17th, 2001 - where one of the stock indexes crashed 7% - one of the biggest crashes. This day was Elul 29, on the Shemitah year.

5. Seven years later, on Monday September 29th 2008, one of the stock indexes fell 777 points - biggest drop in history. This day was Elul 29, on the Shemitah year.

6. Fast forward 7 years from the previous drop and we have September 13th 2015 as the day of Elul 29. 

7. Going back to the Shemitah years, 1994, 1987, 1980, etc, all had significant economic events.

8. Consider another aspect. There is the rare Tetrad blood moons occurring on the feasts of God in 2014-2015 (four blood moons each occurring on a feast of God according to Jewish year). The last time something like this happened was in 1967-1968, coinciding with Israel's reclaim of Jerusalem. The time before this, occurred in 1948-1949, coinciding with the formation of the state of Israel (14th May - realised this recently). These Tetrad blood moons have occurred another 5 times between 0 AD to 1948, and each time, something significant happened to Israel whether good or bad.

9. Conclusion: I think some big things will definitely happen this year. During September 2015 and throughout the whole year. 

10. Having knowledge calls for preparation. I believe God will use signs in the sky (objective signs) to warn people about various happenings.

Weirdest Night Out

I had one of the weirdest nights in the past 365 days. The guy was really weird, and the guys around all became weird because of him. We are normally normal :)

The guy who appears multiple times in the photos, he:
- Is a squash coach
- Takes us to a vegetarian buffet and eats plates of avocado because it gives energy for 1 week
- Weird vibes are hard to describe. Well he thought I was really weird, which I was, while it is a compliment.
- He gives a good chest massage, and has developed some of his own 'techniques'.

Paulus was hilarious that night. This post is for the memories.

On Sleeping

My bro is really bad at physical connection, so he's no good with any affection related to any type of touch.

Therefore the standard response to anything like such as a hug, would be "get off" / "gggnnnnn!", and the standard response to "can I sleep in your bed tonight?" is "no." But I ask anyway.

Yesterday, we got a call from a friend in need. He said that his two daughters urgently need to come over to our house to stay because they are being treated badly at the current home stay.

We both lol'd when we heard the news, because guess who will be sleeping in the bro's bed tonight? Yes, it is I.

Tomatoes and Crying by Woman

Tonight I wanted to make duck vegetable soup, which comprises of duck wings, spring onion, onion, radish, carrot, tomato, salt, pepper, chili and water. And add noodles.

I bought some $5.98 tomatoes and checked out. As the lady helped the items through the check-out, I glimpsed a $3.48/kg for my tomatoes so I looked at the item display and it said:

$3.48/kg Potatoes

HAHA

So I said: "What, these are potatoes??"
She said: "Yes" with so much conviction it sent me jumping backwards.

- - -

I was quite inspired by a middle-aged lady who talked with me for 3 hours straight on a walk in a bush. She lives the spend little on self, while spend large on others, life.

She is so stingy on herself, that she doesn't even reply text messages to save a few cents text (not saying that's the best thing to do, but the heart is there). While she would give hundreds of dollars away to charities and friends in need and generous donations whenever the time calls.

I tried not to cry from all the being touched, because man doesn't cry in front of woman. But in the end all sorts of bugs and leaves got into my eye.

I know she will be blessed so much more because she blesses others. I was changed and took action that day.

Rubbish in Australian News

Mainstream news sites in Australia is evolving into higher and higher quality rubbish and becoming less and less relevant to humans.

Example here:
http://www.news.com.au/world-news/six-really-stupid-911-conspiracies-debunked-in-about-six-seconds/story-fndir2ev-1226717737311

Incredible article. Check out, the comments. I dislike putting down people in general (in this case the author of the article) and think it's quite mean, because you don't really know the circumstances of the author (sticky situations and all). I attribute a portion of the worthlessness of this article to the news.com.au entity as a whole.

Favourite Nike Shoes

I've been wanting this pair of shoes for a long time:

In Taipei, I saw this pair in a shop, and I was quite surprised and excited. I asked the sales guy to get me a pair to try, and well it looked great when I tried it on. Comfortable and a great colour. I was smiling, happy and about to buy this pair.

But just a second before I took out my card, I asked the sales guy casually, what is that abstract image is on the side Nike logo. He said casually, well you know it's the Kobe Bryant's snake symbol. Kobe Bryant? Snake Symbol??

Verified that it was a mamba snake. Verified the image shows an x-ray of mamba and fangs. Gave the sales guy back the pair. He had no idea what had happened both before and after telling him that I don't do snakes, sorry. No other pair will satisfy, at least for this time. End of shoe shopping.

My cousin said: "Is it the same feeling when you like a girl so much, and then you find out that she's Buddhist?" I said: "Yes, sister, you know me well."

Afraid to Check Email

You know those times when you're afraid to check your email. Because of something like, you fear the worst for your VCE score, the girl you like so much rejecting you would hurt too much, or that job interview results email you KNOW is in your inbox right now but you're too scared to face reality?

Yes, well it's back. I haven't checked my gmail for almost 24 hours! I have to learn to conquer my fears, and face reality.

Shirt Off

All the past years, I was never comfortable with taking off my shirt in front of people. Guys, girls, old people.

People always said I was skinny, and I would just think yeah because  I haven't taken the shirt off for you to see, that I'm not really as fat less as that other guy whose shirt just peels up when he takes off his jumper.

Today. I had my shirt off. In my room, and I thought. Hey actually looks quite good.

I have lost weight? Or has that time come in life, where there are much higher priorities, than caring at all what other people thinks about something they don't even care about.

I miss you blog.

Another Lesson from Gaming

Before I begin, I must say that gaming isn't all that good for you, if you play too much.

OK.

The game is called Shogun Total War 2 - based in Japan.

I played a game which lasted 240 rounds, and the aim was to conquer 60 cities, on 'hard' difficulty. I started with 1000 gold and 1 city. The more cities you want to capture, the more gold you require to finance armies and navies.

The game was really quite hard, and after a lot of saving and loading I had about 57 cities under my control, with 3 more to capture before I win.

I had a lot of gold - 130,000. The next turn I took over 3 cities and won the game.

Now, all that effort in accumulating gold, and fighting battles, all amounted to what? To me finishing the race with 130,000 gold? So what does that translate to when the game takes you back to the menu? Absolutely nothing.

I had that feeling of: when I leave this earth, what can I take with me? Absolutely nothing. And what of, all the time I spent on accumulating the earthly wealth? Nothing, of it - waste of time.

--

So in conclusion, gaming is not all that good if you play too much, however some vital life lessons can be learned, if the game is properly played.

The Chef

Who is the Chef?
Anyone who cooks food.

How do you disappoint the Chef?
Not eat his food.

Can eating too much of the Chef's food make him unhappy?
Yes, if you eat all of it without leaving some for other people.

Which one would make the Chef more unhappy: to not eat his food, or eat all his food?
Not eat his food.

What then, must you do?
Eat the Chef's food. Don't tell him, show him.


Love from Sydney

Technology In A Bank

Hello everybody, I'm back.

To talk about what happens inside a bank.

Before I started working in a bank, I thought that all the data was in fancy systems and applications, so when you want to retrieve information, you just press this button and it generates this report that you can use to display information.

Totally incorrect. We store data any ol' how, e.g. word docs, excel sheets, access database, and the worst display interfaces ever. Sometimes we don't even have places to put this information, e.g. the names of the people hired for projects, so we have to quickly come up with an excel spreadsheet that has all the names of people, and design it, and sort it, and try to teach people to use it!!

Every department uses technology differently. SharePoints are different, data sharing is different, and I find that hard to believe.

However, the people are nice, and that's one important aspect about work. Disregard the technology.

I very occasionally get thoughts of having a cat at home, who can wait for me to come home, and stick to me when I'm on the computer. That would be very sweet.

Jibby Jades and Jewellery

Happening of events:

1. We went into this underground jewellery place. With lots of jewellery, jades, precious stones, and rings.
2. We sat down in a room and an ordinary sales person came to talk to us.
3. About 3 minutes into talking with, the sales person suddenly 'receives' a message from his ear piece/outside and says: "what the boss is here??"
4. He hurries out, and a 'boss' comes in, and start speaking loudly and acting boss.
5. The boss starts telling us about these things:
- how it is destiny that we meet, because
- this is only his 3rd time here in 20 years of operation, as he has 200 stores across China
- but unfortunately, his son is having some health issues, and he even chose to be here with us
- he starts to give out some small jades, as a gift, his rationale was,
- he hopes that we can give his son blessing, when we receive the jades

Boss Lin thanks us for blessing his son

- he says he will not sell us anything, he will not do business with us today, otherwise he is not our friend!
6. We proceed outside and he shows us how to tell real jade from fake jade. He says wrapping a piece of hair around a real jade, will disallow it from burning when fire is put against the hair. He tested, and it was true!
7. He then reveals the 'secret' of all secrets of the price markup, which was approximately 3 times higher than cost price. He says he applies this for all his items.
8. Then he says, "These jades are all very expensive (some were marked CNY190,000 = USD$31,000), BUT because he is now our friend, he will give it to us at USD$1,000 with no room to bargain, because if we bargain, he will not be happy and no longer wants to be our friend. He says this is the king of all bargains.
9. Next, 7 aunties rush up to claim the jade. Face palm from some of us non-aunties.
10. My mum picked one and showed it to my dad. My dad looks hesitant...and just at the point of hesitancy, the boss appears and says: "Ok, because you are my friend, please take this gift from me - it is a ring I have worn everyday for 20 years, please take it." Then he takes it off his hand and forces it on to my dad's hand.
11. I go to see what was going on. The boss suddenly appears and takes off the other ring on his hand, and says: "OK this ring I have been wearing for 15 years. Take it. You are my friend." Unbelievable! I took it. It looked expensive, but it didn't look good on me. And unbelievable! Boss's 35 years of ring-wearing given away in just 30 seconds! Truly not-believable.

Boss talks abour rings

12. Then when he sees another lady hesitating about the purchase, he goes up to the sales man, and says: "You! What are you doing?? She is my friend. Give her half price now." The sales man says sorry sorry and bows, and offers the lady the new price on the calculator.

This was exactly what I paid for. Live Chinese drama.

---
Check out this flight ticket:


This means, if you pay AUD$300 for a flight, and they will donate 1/20,000 of it to charity!

Priorities

There comes a time in life, when gaining weight isn't as bad as a lot of other things in life. So 'negate gaining weight' on the priorities list becomes lower and lower.

This may or may not be such a bad thing, depending on what is on top of that priorities list.

New Years Eve What To Do?

Ask Google. Or Google insight.


And the result we get is:


1. Question asked in December - expected.
2. Growing interest over time for this question - unexpected. (Oh by the way, this is not because more people are using Google. The data is standardized.)
3. Australia, being the most interested country to ask this question on Google - unexpected.

Conclusion:

I moderately conclude that the richest countries will be the most interested in what they should do for NYE. I weakly conclude that Australia is among the richest countries in the world, and the reason they are asking this question is because 1. they have sufficient time, 2. they are used to a playful lifestyle, 3. they have sufficient spend.

Linking this back to China, you won't see many searches in baidu.com on what they should do for new years eve. No doubt, everyone is rushing to go back home to spend 15 new year days with the family.

Few observations

1. I was intrigued to find almost nobody reading on the train from Chengdu to Beijing. There were people on mobile phones, listening to music that's played out loud, which is a very acceptable practice, sleeping, watching tv, but didn't see any books!

2. In Sichuan province, people answer the phone by saying: "Wei4", which is pronounced 'Way', not 'Way?' Anyone in Asia not from Sichuan province may find that rude.

3. Everytime I presented my passport at a net cafe, 5-6 people would crowd around me and say simultaneously: "what is that? what is that?" Sometimes they will come talk to me like a foreigner, except as a foreigner with black hair.

4. Strange animals such as camels sometimes can appear in the modern streets of Shi Jia Zhuang.

5. Police crackdown on churches is funny. If you get caught meeting as a church, you say, OK 'this church' won't meet again. Then you change the name of the church, and keep meeting somewhere else. The junior police who 'caught' the church, then won't be responsible. When the senior officers crackdown on the junior police, the junior police can say: "Surely we have disunited this church meeting, see it no longer exists."

6. I like to pretend to take a photo of the taxi's license card while on the journey. Taxi drivers however, like to hide that license card behind something, or anything, such as a the 'available' lights, meter ticker or the rear view mirror! Dodgy.

7. Southern China flight attendants can't speak English. Not a complaint here. Sometimes the translation doesn't make any sense. Sometimes the translation into English is just a few words. Example: "所有不帶下的行李由海官除理" turns into: "All luggage not taken off the airplane will be handled by the customer".

Maid in China

For some reason, I was looking for a nanny in Sydney.

And check out the Google Ad that comes up! Haha.


Zoom in.


It's a maid who can also do some Chinese tutoring when she's done cleaning the house!

Not quite sure about the relevancy. Btw, the only Google that is accessible in China is google.com.hk .

Tour: Cute Small Girl

A good reason to go on tour with a group is not knowing WHO you will meet, which is an exciting feeling.




See the common factor?

This small girl is:
- 6 yrs old
- at the age of not being scared of big people
- shy at first, but once getting to know you she:
- likes sticking to people, especially big boys
- formulates intelligent responses
- lovely, cute and huggable (to my subjectivity)
- tells you stories
- prefers to hold hands, and thinks it ridiculous when teased by her brother (10 yrs old) that I'm her boyfriend. I also think it's ridiculous =].

Makes me want a daughter today! But wait, if something is truly great, it is surely worth the waiting for.

Watch (Out) For These Funny Things

1. If anyone tells/shows/asks you anything on the street, it would be best to ignore and run away, if you're not adventurous. Most Chinese people will ignore you and go away because they have all tasted the negativity of interacting with random people.

one example: occasionally, someone riding a motorbike will drop a bag of goods, or cash, and then ride off. Then, another person comes along behind you and says to you: "hey, we both saw the stuff drop off the motorbiker, so let's be fair about it and split?" When you say OK, he will start stuffing some of the goods into his bag and your bag, and just as you're about to leave, the motorbiker comes back with a few more guys and asks to check both your bags. When they find the stuff in your bag, they will threaten to beat you up/take you to police if you don't give them more money either via wallet or going to the bank to withdraw some.

2. The following scenario has been repeated many times, and it happened to us.

When we were about to leave a hotel in Shanghai, two suited businessmen + a driver pull into the hotel driveway and start talking to one of us. He brings out three beautifully wrapped bags of metal guanyin tea, and says: "Hey! You are really in luck, because we were just driving by and we have some teas here to give to our superior, but as he is unavailable, we need to get rid of it another way because we are going back to Huang Shan today. I bought these for 600 Yuan each, but today I will sell to you for 100 Yuan each." They sounded convincing (but dumb at the same time, but convincingly friendly), so one of us said, whatever it's 300 Yuan, let's purchase it. As soon as one of us handed over the money, another one of us came out screaming, and at the same time, he and his friend quickly hopped back into the car with a small 'oh thank you' and sped away. The another one of us said, "If he really wanted to be friends, why would he speed away as soon as I came out?"

Later on we asked a tea guru friend who said that this case has happened many times in China. When my mum said to him: "But these men were suited, had a driver, and even had a valid mobile number on the business card (she called to TALK to him as politely as possible, and he still confirmed over the phone it was excellent tea)", the guru said these people are in the trade of conning people, so of course they look professional. The estimated price of one bag was 20 Yuan, so the three of them made a healthy profit of 240 Yuan in 5 minutes. Not too bad for people with no conscience.

3. When you buy things in the dark or in big areas of shade, some people will give you these as 20 Yuan note change. These look like Russian currency, but actually they are paper monopoly money! So stupid. Our tour guide said he will buyback ALL of these types of notes we receive from the shady sellers, as he feels embarrassed by this.

4. Some days you'll see 'masters' sitting next to a preset chess board and will ask bypassers to challenge them. The rule in this scenario below is that if the bypasser can defeat the master in 3 moves or less, he will give you back your money 10-fold.

The guy in red is the 'master'.

The challenger in black looks suspicious, because he placed a 200 Yuan bet 3 times in a row and lost. If the average wage for a Chinese is 1000-2000 Yuan/month, can he afford to lose 600 Yuan in 5 minutes?? It looks like they're in the same group, working together to trick money. Another guy standing next to me saw my mobile phone and threatened to hit me. But it was too late because I can now go home to solve this. Likely that it is not possible to win in 3 moves.

5. Sometimes you feel really jibbed when you (or i in this case) walk into a full looking restaurant, sit down, order, and then see all the patrons stand up and start cooking, cleaning, talking, and makes me think: "they were all...waiters??" But it is too late to walk out.

Reminds me of Zen's massage parlours where sometimes if you look closely, the people getting massaged are in Zen's massage uniform. I suppose it is hitting all 3 birds with one stone - owner not wasting acquired resources, workers receiving extra employment benefits, and makes Zen's look like a thriving business for potential business buyers.