Why Keen?

New Addition To The Family

Administrator — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 14:42:54 +0000

He's So Tiny

I’m wondering if anyone actually reads this blog! Haha…

No matter, if it acts as a simple log of my thoughts and my family life, so be it! It’s been a mad, mad year. I haven’t been posting much mainly because I am super busy with editing, and my head is on countless chopping blocks for the delays in delivering DVDs, but also partially because I had a faulty WordPress plug-in and I could not access my blog in a long time.

Just a quick update, we have a new addition to the family, Lockeman. He’s named after John Locke who was known as the Father of Liberalism. His Chinese name loosely translates to “Happy To Ask”. I wish for him to have a sharp, questioning mind.

We have employed a domestic helper, Milaluna, who left us despite our best efforts to treat her well and with respect. She left at a time when we needed the most help goes to show that Murphy is alive and well. But we managed.

In that time, I have also found a spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, who wrote the book “the Power of Now”.

So I guess I will have quite a bit to say about the above matters, if I have the time to write, of course! And if my head doesn’t get chopped before I do so!

the simplest diet ever … 2 kg lost in 2 weeks.

whykeen — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:49:05 +0000

I was just shooting with Kelvin Koh at a wedding, 2 and a half weeks ago, and just offered him a drink.

“No, thanks Why Keen, I am trying this new diet.”

That was how it started. The premise, which he shared with me throughout the rest of the day, was simple. According to the book Sweet Poison, by David Gillespie, fructose, a seemingly harmless sugar, is messing up with our body’s ability to tell us that it is full, and reducing the consumption of this sugar type, would produce drastic results, ceteris paribus (all things remaining equal).

Fructose is found naturally in a lot of fruits, and with glucose, forms half of sucrose, or the refined sugar which we eat. Basically, glucose good, fructose bad.

The “Sweet Poison” diet, according to Kelvin, was just a 3 week to a month detoxification process where we take as little fructose as possible. Which means that we can still take our char kway teows, our pastas, our pizzas, and chicken wings, and chicken rice. Just stay away from Coca Cola, cakes, cookies and ice cream.

You better believe that I am taking that “challenge”!

“It is not even a challenge at all!” I remembered thinking.

Kelvin also mentioned that (remember, at this time, I haven’t even read the book!) after 3 weeks, we can go back to trying sweet stuff again, but by then, our body would be able to tell that certain things are too sweet. By then, our bodies would also be able to signal to the brain when we had enough food, and to stop us from eating more than we should.

So I tried the diet first, without reading the book, because it seemed so simple. Of course, I did try to find the book, but found it very hard to get a copy from either Kino or Borders, but then thought of finding the ebook instead, since I am reading books on my Iphone most of the time anyway, and found it at Kobo, an online store with a free Iphone app, here’s a link to the book :-

When I read into it deeper, eventually, I found out much more from the research that David Gillespie did on the effects of fructose in our diet. The famous Atkin’s diet, (zero carbohydrates) and other diets, (zero fat, only salad) all work to a certain extent, but he felt that there was something wrong somehow. These are the major food types, and our bodies need sugar, protein and fat to operate properly, so why should we need to stop eating any one of these types to stay lean?

He eventually found that huge amounts of refined fructose was cause, and he backed it up with a lot of research data. But I think most of all, I tried it, and the effects are quite apparent. In order to remain fair, I maintained all else the same, I didn’t increase my exercise regime, nor eat any less of anything else, so that I can prove to myself if this diet works. But I think if I had repeated what I learnt from “Slow Burn” too, the effects would have been much more profound!

New Eyes

whykeen — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:41:02 +0000

I guess you would have heard by now about my new gadget, the Canon EOS 7D. The main thing is, it is now hopefully much easier to come up with content, because time taken to render and compress aside, it is actually easier to do bite sized video clips than with my usual equipment.

Anyway, looking at these moments make me reflect on how fast Harkman’s growing up. He’s ability to pick up new skills is amazing. He’s just started taking cereal for two weeks and he wants to have a go at holding his own spoon already!

new eyes from Why Keen Tham on Vimeo.

Harkman : True Origin of His Name

Administrator — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:24:34 +0000

About the origin of Harkman’s name, and the speculation of whether it is related to Ip Man, let me explain. Our criteria for his name is for it to be meaningful for a boy, be a unique name that sounds good in Chinese, Cantonese, and English!

I really liked how my name, when read as “Why Keen” is easy to read, and has meaning in it’s English form too, but find it a pain when people read it as “Wei Keen”. So it was a tough job in the first place.

A lot of words in Cantonese sound funny in English, for example Gay. Imagine if Harkman was Gayman, you get the point. So I was already compiling a list of words that sounded ok, when the movie was released, the word Man was shortlisted.

Hark is a nice, masculine sounding word, and the English word Hark is quite meaningful too, to listen; to hearken. So Harkman, means a guy who listens. Hopefully that implies that he has the wisdom to listen, to see, and to think before acting.

Now down to the Chinese characters. Hark Man in chinese is Ke Wen. Ke for Ke Fu, solve, or overcome. Wen for Wen Ti, problems. So Ke Wen is a solver of problems.

So despite the very obvious inspiration from Ip Man, a lot of thought had gone into thinking about the meaning and vocalization of Harkman’s name. Of course, if he can be half of the man Ip Man was, it would have been pretty cool too. I am also a huge fan of comics, and Harkman sounds like some superhero, that contributes to his name too, I guess.

Imperfect Creation

Administrator — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:18:16 +0000

Born without sight
but I can see reason,
I reason that people and animals hurt like me, because I feel hurt.

Born without sound
but I can listen,
to the silent care that others give, even when I do not know them.

Born without words
but I can show, in ways that you can reason or listen too.

I cannot see, hear, nor speak your words,
but I think I understand your love, don’t I belong with you too?

Imperfect Creation by Why Keen

Wealth Retreat 2009 – Looking Back

whykeen — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:39:10 +0000

It is that time of year again, when we re-assess our lives and ask ourselves where we’ve been and where we are going. In , Robert Kiyosaki described his life changing skiing trip in December 1984 with his wife Kim and his best friend Larry. Robert and Kim were down to their last few dollars, and Larry was on his way to building another business.

Highly inspired by this story, Hwei Min and I decided to have our own annual retreat, where we set goals and set to achieving them. Looking back, it had been four years now.

I still remember our first retreat in 2005. It was a huge paradigm shift for both of us, as we actually planned a long holiday trip that wasn’t a holiday trip. We planned to go to Genting because that was one of the cheapest option then. We needed a place that was different enough from home, yet cheap enough that it wouldn’t burn a hole in our pockets. Of our four day three night itinerary, three and a half days were jammed packed with discussions and visioning exercises, and only half a day for shopping. (By the way, the fact that Hwei Min was totally aligned to this plan was a hundred per cent why I am so blessed that she is my partner in business and life. How many ladies would be open to such an idea?!)

It was a huge leap of faith because no one seemed to understand the importance of what we planned to do. Everyone asked us, “Genting, for four days? What are you going to do up there??” I remember everyone’s reaction when I told them we were going up the mountains to talk.

Anyway, this year had to be different because of our little boy, we can’t travel too far. Here we are now, at Orchid Country Club for two nights, he’s here, by the way, oblivious to the fact that we would be dreaming, and planning for all our future, and making it a reality. And in fact, that HE was a a dream turned reality, our little bundle of joy.

TED Talks : Finding our Genius

Administrator — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:27:39 +0000

For more than two years now, I’ve been in a creative line, and I must say, the stress level has never gone down. I always feel this fear that my “creative juice” would run dry, so to speak.

So, while idling surfing for some TV to watch (I don’t watch anything on the real TV nowadays), I found this interesting video by Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity, and it struck a chord.

She mentioned about the origins of the word Genius, very interesting. Genius is like a spirit guide, or a deity, and it is believed that there every human being has a Genius attached to him/her. Here’s what I found about the word Genius on Wikipedia :-

—
Genius in Roman mythology is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing
…
Every nameable mythological figure was a genius of some sort; but further, the rational powers and abilitiies of each and every human being were attributed to his soul, which was a genius. (Source : Wikipedia)
—

So Elizabeth Gilbert proposes that all artists try to put their burdens as well as their ego on this disembodied entity, their genius, and let it take claim or credit for the magnificence or failure of their work. Aha…

By the way, I’ve tried. Though it was a little silly, I actually spoke out loud and said, “It’s now up to you”, especially since I was under a very tight editing schedule for my last wedding shoot, and you know what? It was one of my better works. So maybe it works, huh?

Here are some of my shots from a wedding my genius helped at:-

Poo never smelled so good

whykeen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:12:53 +0000

Uh … pardon me for the very graphic description. Well, poo does not actually smell good, but being able to smell poo is a good thing… does that even make sense?

Anyway, it’s because Harkman is having a little bit of a constipation issue, so having any sign that he is passing motion normally is a good sign. Hey, but the title of this post isn’t that far from the truth, it’s the context that affects the outcome.

Be thankful I don’t have any pictures to illustrate as I usually do, haha.

Sweet Smile

hweimin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:15:31 +0000

Our little boy has learnt to use his smile to interact with people. Why Keen had commented that Little Harkman’s smiles’ will melt people’s heart. He had once used his sweet smile to charm his Granny to give him more milk.

Harkman seems to smile more readily to ladies than guys (Why Keen feels more assured that Harkman behaves this way! ).

Looking at Harkman’s sweet smile lets me forget his screams and cries. .

Here’s a warm welcome…

whykeen — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:05:58 +0000

Here’s a warm welcome to my partner, Hwei Min to this blog. (Partner sounds very gay doesn’t it? But wife sounds so passé though.)

I had intended the very first incarnation of this blog, tweak-me, to be about both of us, that must have been 2-3 years ago now, but never actually got her to contribute even a single line to this blog, I am glad she is finally going to contribute!

We’ve just watched an excellent Pixar movie, UP, and I guess we were both pretty inspired by the film. I had to use our dear boy Harkman as a leverage to finally get her to take action by telling her that this blog would serve as a journal about him growing up.

Do catch the movie, watch it with or without 3D, but please do watch! As usual, Pixar is unrivalled when it comes to solid storytelling with a universal message, this is another gem that would last for many years to come.