李光耀

The passing of 李光耀 signifies the end of an era of Singapore.  He is a visionary and strong leader.  Before independence in 1965, Singapore was the capital of the British Straits Settlements, a Crown Colony.  After its independence, along with Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, Singapore became one of the original Four Asian Tigers. The Singaporean economy is known as one of the freest, most innovative, most competitive, and most business-friendly. The 2013 Index of Economic Freedom ranks Singapore as the second freest economy in the world, behind Hong Kong. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Singapore is consistently ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, along with New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries.  This astonished achievements largely was due to the vision and the policies of 李光耀 who steered the treacherous path of Singapore's development in the modern world.  From the very beginning, Singapore adopts English as the official language in the country even majority of them are Chinese.  This gives Singapore instant advantage in almost every international activity among Asian countries.  It is  as if a set of people suddenly abandons its cultural burden and press a reset button for a fresh reboot.

As of 2014, Singapore is the 14th largest exporter and the 15th largest importer in the world. The country has the highest trade-to-GDP ratio in the world, signifying the importance of trade to its economy. The country is currently the only Asian country to receive AAA credit ratings from all three major credit rating agencies: Standard and Poor's, Moody's, Fitch.  Singapore attracts a large amount of foreign investment as a result of its location, corruption-free environment, skilled workforce, low tax rates and advanced infrastructure. There are more than 7,000 multinational corporations from the United States, Japan, and Europe in Singapore. There are also approximately 1,500 companies from China and a similar number from India. Foreign firms are found in almost all sectors of the country's economy. Singapore is also the second-largest foreign investor in India.  Roughly 44 percent of the Singaporean workforce is made up of non-Singaporeans.  Over ten free-trade agreements have been signed with other countries and regions.  Singapore also possesses the world's eleventh largest foreign reserves, and has one of the highest net international investment position per capita.  Acute poverty is rare in Singapore. The government has rejected the idea of a generous welfare system, stating that each generation must earn and save enough for its entire life cycle.  In Singapore, the philosophy of welfare rests on four pillars:

1. Each generation should pay its own way.

2. Each family should pay its own way.

3. Each individual should pay his own way.

4. Only after passing through these three filters should individual turn to the government for help. 

Singapore has the world's highest percentage of millionaires, with one out of every six households having at least one million US dollars in disposable wealth. This excludes property, businesses, and luxury goods, which if included would increase the number of millionaires, especially as property in Singapore is among the world's most expensive.  Singapore does not have a minimum wage, believing that it would lower its competitiveness. 

However, something may not be that glitter.  In recent years, the country has been identified as an increasingly popular tax haven for the wealthy due to the low tax rate on personal income and tax exemptions on foreign-based income and capital gains. Australian millionaire retailer Brett Blundy, with an estimated personal wealth worth AU$835 million, and multi-billionaire Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin are two examples of wealthy individuals who have settled in Singapore.  Also despite market freedom, Singapore's government operations have a significant stake in the economy, contributing 22% of the GDP.  Below the surface Singapore is not a Shangri la either.  李光耀 holds the view of so-called "Asian Values".  The cult of "Asian values" grew in the 1990's as the economies of East Asia and Southeast Asia took off.   He argued that there were hard and clear differences between "Eastern" and "Western" cultures: In the former, the individual matters less than in the latter, and, as a consequence, in the former, human rights matter less than the need for the security of the collective and economic growth.  This argument finds its backers in Asia's authoritarian countries, but it has also been widely criticized as well. More than 60 percent of the world's population lives in Asia, and to imply that each and every Asian is somehow bound by a shared system of values is utterly preposterous. The fact that some of East Asia's most advanced economies — Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan — also are healthy, battle-tested democracies suggests that societies steeped in Confucianism can happily accommodate more liberal, "modern" forms of politics. 

Perhaps the right question to ask is that which way of governing is better in the long run.  Singapore is a miracle in her achievement so far.  Its economy, education and the transparency of the government are highly ranked in the world.  Most Singaporeans seem content and few protest has been found in and outside of the society.  If government is for the people, Singapore must be the one. As to 'of the people' and 'by the people', it depends on how you look at them.

Here are some of the many criticisms worth noting.  

1. Singapore as "the most open and clear society in the world", and that since every minister is paid at least $1 m a year, "there is no temptation and it is the cleanest society you would find anywhere".  To some people, this is also a bribe to the government officials.  That is to say, they support Lee Kuan Yew's unjust laws and policies in return for money.  Officials who seek authority as custodians of political power must have the character to keep away from crime no matter what the temptation might be.  The argument that ministers should be paid millions of dollars to keep them from corruption does not hold water.   

2. Many journalists were imprisoned. Independently owned newspapers were shut down. Today all Singaporean publications, TV channels and radio stations are owned and run by the government.

3. Civil society is nonexistent. Non-government organisations, student bodies and trade unions are tightly controlled.  Public assemblies outside a small and demarcated area are banned.

4. The opposition is in a moribund state.  Many of its leaders have been arrested and detained without trial, prosecuted in court, and sued till bankruptcy for defamation.

5. The election system is far from free and fair.  The "election" of the country's president to be held in a few weeks' time, for example, is restricted to a handful of candidates allowed by the prime minister.

6. Political power amassed in the hands of the few in Singapore is also used to ensure that a disproportionate amount of financial power is accumulated in those same hands.

Two books are worth reading for the dark side of Singapore.

(1) To Catch a Tartar: A Dissident in Lee Kuan Yew's Prison, October 1, 1994 by Francis T. Seow.

This book details everything from Mr Francis Seow's journey as Solicitor-general to his detention without trial by the ISD and his eventual exile from Singapore. It disproves every piece of nonsense about Singapore's impartial and transparent judiciary and media. 

(2) Singapore's Authoritarian Capitalism," by Christopher Lingle

Mr. Lingle describes an unwritten social contract under which citizens tolerate political repression in exchange for material rewards. After visiting the country for 25 years, He underestimates the appeal of the package of rising living standards and clean administration that the governing People's Action Party delivers in return for a fairly free hand in running the country.  From a perspective gained from his service as a former Senior Fellow at the National University of Singapore, Dr. Lingle identifies Singapore's authoritarian capitalism as combining a selective degree of economic freedom and private property rights with strong-armed control over political life. According to him, political loyalty is the ultimate determinant of success rather than the efficient utilization of resources, and sycophantic business relations replace the growth-inducing actions of true entrepreneurs. Singapore's Authoritarian Capitalism questions the long-term survival of the PAP and its capacity to sustain Singapore's miracle growth record due to internal contradictions arising from the imposed institutional arrangements.

Leaders in Singapore's PAP regime see themselves as a permanent fixture. Yet despite their grip on all organs of political power, the record clearly shows a continual decline in the margins of victory at the polls. These results suggest that Singaporeans are suffering from PAP fatigue. Apparently, an increasing number of people believe that the material gains do not constitute adequate compensation for the nanny-state nagging of an arrogant political leadership.  Some of the regime's most prominent spokespersons have gone on the offensive by promoting a contrived set of Asian values to legitimize their exercise of unchallenged authority. Simultaneously, they also identify certain values as a threat to stability, usually equated with one-party rule. The PAP's position on these issues remains unchallenged at home due to an obsessive control over the media and the vigorous suppression of dissent.

Singapore's critics have plenty of genuine grievances to denounce.  So why do the critics keep complaining about "lack of democracy" when the real story is that most Singaporeans persistently prefer the PAP to the opposition?  You may think in Singapore, one knows something is wrong, but he cannot question it like the person in any other free country in the world.  But this can't explain why there are not many protests by Singaporeans outside the country.

While studying Singapore, we can find some precedents in history.  It is Enlightened Despots.  By the end of the 18th Century, the new ideas from Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire exerted enormous influences in Europe that most rulers tried to transform themselves.  The most noted two are Frederick II of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia.  They ruled according to the principles of enlightened despotism.  These principles included favoring religious tolerance, making economic and legal reforms and justifying their rule by its usefulness to society rather than by divine right.  However, after the passing of Frederick and Catherine, their forms of ruling eventually collapsed and ideas got forgotten.  Since the real system is not there in root and the passing of a strong leader usually causes the collapse of the reform.  It remains to be seen whether the case of Singapore mirroring the 'Enlighten Despot'.

It may be interesting to compare the three regions formed by mostly Chinese ethnic people in recent history and see how they stack up in the performance and also project their future.  'Democracy', 'Science', 'Capitalism' and 'Communism' are the four major ideologies of the 20th century.  孫中山和胡適 服膺 '民主' 與 '科學', 毛澤東和同恩來擁抱國際共產主義,李光耀追求'科學'和'資本主義'.  香港 什麼都不重要,祇要 Free to choose 的資本主義.  三人行,必有我師焉, 大家可以從他們的經驗得到一些教訓和智慧. 到現在為止,好像大陸的變相共產加資本主義和科學有後來居上的趨勢. 大陸和新加坡不用民主而採 Plato 式的政治程序,類似羅馬天主教,倒是近代很值得探討和思考的議題.

Venture Capital and Shark Tank

Shark Tank is a TV reality competition show that five or six investor tycoons pitch against the aspiring entrepreneurs for investment and fund.  The contestants make business presentations briefly.  They talked about the exchange of 15% of the company with $100K or something like this.  You’d think how a business deal can be decided within 15 minutes.  It must be like an impulse buying and most impulse buying is not good investment.  However, you watch the show and see the exchange of the idea and figure, you realize the deal can be made and the outcome may not be that bad after all.  In fact, most of the deals go pretty well as the time can tell.

Well, after watching the Shark Tank, you start to wonder why the VC business in the real world is so complicate and time consuming to arrange.  Perhaps VC & ST are the two extremes of the same business.  VC depends on the detail analysis and number crunching to reach the conclusion as to invest or not.  In contrast, ST depends on a brief presentation, some general number & figure and mainly some quickie inquiries and gut feeling to make decision, invest or not, ie make a deal or I am out.

In VC, the fund is a pool of money from various sources.  In ST, the fund is from the shark 100%.  The investor is like CEO or the owner of the project, so he can say yes or no in the right spot.  It is not a team sport.  It is not a symphony, it is a solo instrument.  It is like a special case of business investment.  It is like one-man company with a lot of money fund.  You go out to seek and buy some business deals. You try to bid against other people and try to get deal at the lowest possible cost you can get.  Meanwhile you skip all others you don’t think they are worth the time and effort.  I wonder why this business model can’t be executed on the street, Wall Street or City Street.  To push this further, why can’t we do it on the Internet?  With instant video conference, the Shark Tank can be assembled easily and performed in a daily basis.  The investor shark & aspired entrepreneur can be screened and qualified depending on the particular business model.

The figures and numbers most of the time are beyond my head.  I know one thing I can't do is to make the decision right there within 15 minutes.  I sort of admire those Sharks, they sure look sharp on number and have keen sense of the nature of business.  Some of us work in the high tech industry know that it is hard to write a business plan and proposal.  It is even harder to meet those VC investors.  Now these five or six sharks look at those small fishes in the tank.  It is sometime hard to watch the episode without emotion.  You either feel good, bad, distress or downright disgusting when the shark calls fish cockroach or something else.  The Shark Tank looks like a micro-cosmos of VC as it tries to compress 6-month VC process to a 15-minute decision.  I kind of think the shark can not lose as long as there are enough good & reasonable proposals come along.  After all, if you have the cash, you are the king.

Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert 2015

There are three major events attract most people's attention near the end of every year.  one is Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York, then the Rose Parade on New years day at Pasadena and the last is the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert.  People around the world gather around fireplace, watch the heart-warming parades and music/dance performance in their family rooms.  This becomes a tradition for many people to end the year and usher in the new year.  Of course just before watching the Rose Parade, most people sing Auld Lang Syne to send the old year off for nostalgic purpose.

This year, Zubin Mehta leads the concert for the fifth time and arranges a repertoire dedicated to science, technology, wine, music and dance. The concert is considered to be the largest worldwide event in classical music, reaching millions of people annually through radio, TV and the Internet in over 80 countries.  It showcased Viennese musical culture at the highest level, and since the first telecast in 1959, sent the world a New Year's greeting in the spirit of hope, friendship and peace.

The concert is about two hours long and the program consists of two parts with intermission.  The Austrian telecast version is by ORF (Austrian Broadcasting).  The American version is edited to one and half hour narrated by Julie Andrews this year.  Here let's take a look of the second part of the program (after Intermission).

        Johann Strauss – Perpetual Motion

        Johann Strauss- Accelerations Waltz

        Johann Strauss- Electro-Magnetic Polka

        Eduard Strauss – At Full Steam, Quick Polka

        Josef Strauss- Viennese Life, French Polka

        Johann Strauss- On the Elbe, Waltz

        Hans Christian Lumby – Champagne Galop

        Johann Strauss – Students Polka

        Johann Strauss Sr.- Freedom March

        Johann Strauss- Annen-Polka

        Johann Strauss- Wine, Women & Song, Waltz

        Eduard Strauss- With Style, Quick Polka

At a glance, the first four pieces are devoted to science and technology.  1850's was the high time of industrial revolution and the music reflects that spirit.  The 'Perpetual Motion' and 'Accelerations' come from Physics, 'Electro-Magnetic' is from Electrical Engineering, 'At Full Steam' is from Mechanical Engineering.  The combined first four polka/waltz is like microprocessor, personal computer, Internet and mobile phone all lumped together in our time. It follows with life in Vienna and on the River Elbe.  Elbe (易北河) is not that famous like Donau (Danube) or Rhine, nevertheless it is a major river in Germany.  Then it comes with Champagne Galop.  It is a hilarious gathering for wine tasting with a 'pop', a sign of good life.  After the high tech and champagne, it ushers in the 'Students Polka', a reflection of college student life.  Before I go further, you might get confused about the waltz, polka, galop etc.  Waltz is easy, it is just a common dance we see in ballroom dance competition.  Polka is a faster pace with two-beat dance.  However, there are many types of polka, to name a few, francaise polka, mazulka polka, quick polka etc.  As to Galop, it is just a much quicker polka.  Now lets get into our main theme, the Students Polka.  You listen to this polka and immediately you catch the familiar tune, "Gaudeamus Igitur".  It is a drinking song sung in Latin started around 13th century.  Johannes Brahms also used this tune in his 'Academic Festival Overture'.  Now the question comes up, why drinking becomes a theme of college life?  Perhaps most people thought the university was mostly for the rich kids at that time.  Well, in parallel with the concert, a modern ballet is performed in the Vienna University to portray the student life.  Like most artistic work, you can interpret with your imagination and find the influence or likeness in your life.  Here is my interpretation based on the experience in our college time and wish you have your own version.  Meanwhile I should say 'thank' to the Internet.  Without it, it is just hard to talk about music and dance in a synchronous manner.  Please visit the following link and just watch it from 35:15 to 39:25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-P46Gr4VvY

35:15---Johann Strauss Sohn, Sohn is son in German.  There are two Johann Strauss, Senior and Junior or Father and Son.  Junior is more famous and is called 'The Waltz King'.  Most music pieces you hear here are by Junior.  However, the well-known march at the end of the concert is always 'Radetzky  March' by Johann Strauss Senior.  Polka Francaise is a French style polka, a slower and mellow polka.

35:35---This is a good old Unversity of Vienna with a very nice library.

35:42-36.00---This is the main theme, the drinking song with mellow tone.

36:00---Three college kids rush into scene, one from physics dept, one from mechanical engineering and one from electrical engineering.  They are heading to the library but meet and chat there.  Before getting into library, they talk about the party the previous night and decide to make some plan for the weekend.

36:30--- They drop the textbook and forget the whole thing about study with the drinking tune hanging around.

36:45---Well, it is the time to pick up the books and head to the main library.

36:51---Just around & up the stairways, here come 兩位外文系高材生.

37:00---Wow, they are teasing and flirting, my goodness!

37:38---But I have to study '电機機械', better go & hurry.

37:50---Hold it, what happen to the girls?  Go with those two guys? 是可忍,孰不可忍?

38:00---Hack with 馬雲龍, let's go to take a look.

38:05---Hey, guy, shape up, don't 毛手毛腳.

38:26---Wait, 君子動腦不動手, why not duel on the study table (not majhang table)? 桌上見.

38:34---永動機?荒謬! Locomotive? runs only on the track! Here is something new, 這邊電場,那邊磁場,中間就可轉起來!

38:50---No hidden deal under the table!

38:54---Here is the demo, rotation!

39:00---兩位外文系高材生 頭被轉昏了. Wow, the EE kid looks real, let's go with him for another experiment.

39:10---See, 左邊電場,右邊磁場,中間的我就可動起來.

39:20---左右逢源,大地回春. What a life!

39:25---Viva Faraday, Viva Maxwell. Long Live the Electrical Engineer.

I mentioned the good old 'Gaudeamus Igitur'.  Some music critic (Sigmund Spaeth) said it is the second most famous tune in the world.  I am not sure about this but at least it stands out to be a popular one.  Most music lovers know this tune is used in Brahms Academic Festival Overture in a big way in its ending.  It sounds odd to celebrate the graduation with the drinking song.  However, if from another angle to look at this, it may not be that inappropriate.  After the toils of four years, labors in library & laboratory, you finally get the coveted degree.  Isn't it the right time to indulge on some drinking binge?  As the lyrics of the song indicates, after the joyous young age and after the painful old age, all we have is the earth.  In other words, 萬物終將歸塵土.

Here is the little story about this episode of Brahms.  In the summer of 1879, The University of Breslau awarded Brahms an honorary doctorate degree and Brahms accepted.  However, he didn't do anything until sometime in 1880, someone told him that the university expected him to write some music  in return.  Brahms in haste and didn't have enough time to compose something meaningful.  He then threw in several songs sang in various schools and blended them into something like coming out of a soup kitchen.  At the end of the overture, he chose this drinking song 'Gaudeamus Igitur'.  Well, you guess it, some liked it and some didn't.  Some conservative parents thought it is unforgivable to tell graduates starting their life with drinking.  Anyway, Brahms got the degree and the university got the overture, a happy ending after all.

Remark:

The video clip has been removed from YouTube due to the copyright issue.  This is not uncommon these days in the Internet age.  Usually the program is available for several weeks for public view.  Although the owner of the program has the right to do whatever it wants, it is a pity that it diminishes the value of the program by imposing the restriction.  If most people can't watch and appreciate the artistic program, what is the use of the program itself?  Of course we can go and buy the DVD of the program, but to most people it is a severe inconvenience. 

Chaos and Life

Is life predictable?  Isn't it like weather forecast?  Yes, it is partially predictable in the short term.  However, the accuracy of the long term forecast is way off and not many people take it seriously.  Even in the short term forecast, it is only partially predictable.  Sometime a slight cause exerts a big effect in the weather pattern.  Our life is very much like it.  In the late 20th century, there is hardly an earthshaking thought created except the Theory of Chaos.  It is a mathematical model of studying a system related to its stability.  The Chaos states that the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependency on initial conditions in which a small change at one place in a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

In the course of our life, the successful rate of the short term trip is very high comparing to the long term one.  It can be understood by using an input/output model with a deterministic box A, input A(i) yield output A(o).  For illustrated purpose, a person plans with input A(i) = 5.  He thinks it is 5 exact.  But in reality, the input value may be 5.00 with accuracy to two significant digits.  In the real world, a point is like a real number.  The person thinks his input is 5.00 but actually it may be 5.003 or 5.00243 in the real situation.  He can't see the difference in input as he only sees to the two digit accuracy in decimal place.  The point here is that even the person can only control the input to certain decimal places, any slight difference in the nth decimal places may cause a big change in the output for a nonlinear system.  For example the person may control his input to 5.000000....  But the sudden death of his son in a remote area may be the 100th decimal place of his input.  Since life most of the time is a nonlinear system, a small perturbation may cause a big change of behavior.  In this case, it is really look like a butterfly effect as something occurs thousand miles away but the impact is almost instant at the Internet speed.  The result is that the person has to terminate the trip he planned and rush to his sun's funeral.  The outcome A(o) is totally out of prediction from his input but can be explained with the Theory of Chaos.  In real life, we simply can not control the input to the accuracy of reality and the nth decimal place very often causes a big effect to the outcome.  It can also be rephrased as: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.

Since history is the story of mankind (a group of people), its behavior can also be unpredictable.  In the field of Electrical Engineering, there is one discipline called Control System.  It studies the stability of a system and how to control it.  A Russian Aleksandr Lyapunov (1857-1918) figured out some way to determine whether the system is stable without actually solving the detailed states of the system.  Lyapunov's study and impact were significant, and it is interesting to know a number of different mathematical concepts and engineering terms bear his name.  Here are some examples, Lyapunov Equation, Lyapunov Function, Lyapunov Exponent, Lyapunov Stability, Lyapunov Vector, Lyapunov Time etc.  Maximal Lyapunov Exponent (MLE) determines a notion of predictability for a dynamical system.  A positive MLE is taken as an indication that the system is chaotic.

Chaos theory also concerns some deterministic systems whose behavior can in principle be predicted. Chaotic systems are sometime predictable for a while and then appear to become random. The amount of time for which the behavior of a chaotic system can be effectively predicted depends on three factors:

(1) how much uncertainty we are willing to tolerate in the forecast

(2) how accurately we are able to measure its current state

(3) a time scale depending on the dynamics of the system, called the Lyapunov time.

Some examples of Lyapunov times are: chaotic electrical circuits, about 1 millisecond; weather systems, a couple of days; the solar system, 50 million years. In chaotic systems the uncertainty in a forecast increases exponentially with elapsed time. Hence doubling the forecast time squares the proportional uncertainty in the forecast. This means that in practice a meaningful prediction cannot be made over an interval of more than two or three times the Lyapunov time. When meaningful predictions cannot be made, the system appears to be random.  Perhaps the significance of Lyapunov's work is that someday we may prove the human history to be chaotic without getting into a lot of details in analyzing it.

The Meaning of Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the pilgrims in 1621 after their first harvest in the new world.  It was told that more than 80 native Americans and 50 pilgrims participated the celebration.  It is human nature to say thank after harvest or good fortune to those whom they believe to be the reason behind it.  Originally, the pilgrims are puritans, white and religious.  So the thanksgiving always has religious tone even the native Americans also participated.  When time goes by and new immigrants keep coming to the new world, the celebration of the Thanksgiving became less religious.  After all, most people say thank to God even they believe a different god.  The meaning of God transcends any particular religion.  This is the reason Thanksgiving is accepted by all works of life, all people in the US and Canada.  In fact, it is common in any part of the world, the people celebrate and say thank to god after some harvest activities.  It is only the US and Canada make it an annual ritual that transcends any particular harvest event.

Around 1000 AD, Leif Erikson tried to colonize the new world in Vinland near gulf of St. Lawrence.  After two years effort, they failed and left with most of them perished.  In this particular case, they had no reason to thank and they had every reason to curse as the fate was so cruel to them.  However, when people die, they cease to exist and they never get the chance to say what they believe.  This is like social Darwinism, the history is the winner's history.  Whatever come down generation to generation are those from the survivors and the winners in the struggle of existence.  So it is not hard to comprehend why Thanksgiving thrives and becomes popular as only the survivor and the winner say thank to their God.

Since I came to the US in 1965, the Thanksgiving Day has been important and meaningful to me as I was invited by American friends and host families to spend the day.  We spend the whole day together, talk about our life, our belief, play some games like jeopardy or chess, eat turkey dinner around a long and big table near a fire place.  Finally we say thank to God and go home peacefully.

When time goes by, we start to see something change as the commercial part of the holiday becomes evident.  Lately the first thing people have in mind is Black Friday when Thanksgiving is coming.  Black Friday is a big shopping day for people, started from 6 pm of the Thanksgiving Day.  It means you have to cut short your Thanksgiving dinner, have less time to be with your family and may not have a chance to say thank to God.  For those who have to work at this hour for the retail shops, their Thanksgiving Day are gone forever.  The original meaning of the Thanksgiving is thus lost in the oblivion.

A Miracle

We sometime visited a telephone company and saw a trunk of wires, hundred of switches, relays and thousands of connections.  The whole thing looks complicate and like a gigantic puzzle.  Technology indeed changes the world and the ways we lead our life.  Lately, while trying to find out whether I should use DSL or install Cable for the Internet, I opened the little phone box just outside garage and also examined the cable setup inside garage.  They are very simple and similar, only two wires.  One looks like a twisted pair of tiny wires and the other is a coaxial cable of RG6.  The two wires used for the phone look so fragile and tiny, I almost think it is a miracle that has worked for so many years of service in my house.  First, it can ring the bell and when I answer the phone, it carries the phone conversation to and fro without any hiccup.  It also connects to a fax machine.  These two tiny wires can transmit several pages of document to another side of the world within a few minutes.  It has worked for 30 years, amazing.  Remember, it is only a twisted pair of two tiny wires that accomplishes the task as it is the only connection between my house and the outside world.  With DSL going through the twisted pair, I can see the whole world via millions of websites with tons of information more than I can handle most of the time.  Without the knowledge of electromagnetics and its theory, most people will think it is a miracle.

It is indeed the information theory and technology transform the world to a well-connected universe that brings people together and the world visibly becomes smaller.  If you work in a cubicle of building A and talk to someone in the building B, it makes no difference whether building B is just across the street or in Bangalore of India. In fact, even without wires can accomplish the same feat, it is radio, wireless connection.  We know in the world of electrical engineering, the lumped element model circuit theory, distributed element model transmission lines and EM wave are all related and can be deduced from the Maxwell's four equations with some assumption of the boundary conditions.  In ordinary power applications, circuit theory is good enough.  For information transfer, the concept of transmission lines applies well.  With radio and TV transmissions, EM theory rules the wave.  In fact, when we use the mobile devices outside our houses, it needs hot spot that transmits the EM wave.  In our house, we use DSL or Cable to get the necessary information via modem and then it creates a hot spot for house through wifi, a wireless EM wave.  Of course, with the understanding of the electrical engineering, the whole thing no longer a mystery, it becomes a logical consequence of the mother nature.  But think again, it is still a miracle with only two tiny wires or one coaxial cable that accomplishes such a complicate human task.

People very often say they find miracle everyday.  Some find God, some see Jesus, some see Madonna on the screen door and some see the mysterious light coming from the heaven or even in the Internet.  These miracles happen everyday and around our living space.  The only difference of these miracles from our two tiny wires is that the former seems to happen in un-opportune time and can't be predicted.  However the latter is here everyday that we all take it for granted and ceases to be a miracle by definition.

2014 06 23 台北愛樂電台《早安愛樂》節目，邢子青專訪洪敏弘博士

From Mark Lin,
The following article I post here is for the request from 洪敏弘.

2003年，由「建弘文教基金會」洪敏弘董事長與國藝會共同發起的「表演藝術追求卓越專案」，辦理至今已屆滿十年，是國藝會推動「藝企合作」以來歷史最久、補助款最高的補助計畫之一。2012年，第四屆「表演藝術追求卓越專案」除了原發起者持續贊助外，更加入「許遠東先生 暨夫人紀念基金會」以及「信源企業股份有限公司」加碼贊助，也因此，補助內容從原有的「製作發表計畫」，另擴大增加「三年計畫」項目，在二階段的審查之後，由黑眼睛跨劇團、創作社劇團、稻草人現代舞蹈團、樂興之時管絃樂團四個團隊獲頒高額補助。今年6月開始，黑眼睛跨劇團統籌的《華格納革命指環》率先發表本屆專案成果，而創作社劇團的《西夏旅館‧蝴蝶書》也將於8月底在台北藝術節演出多個場次。
以下訪談節錄自6月23日台北愛樂電台的《早安愛樂》節目，主持人邢子青專訪「表演藝術追求卓越專案」的發起者洪敏弘博士，談到了自己在贊助藝文之前受到的啟發，以及贊助路上的經驗分享。
Q：博士從很早就開始藝文的參與，和我們談談這些經驗？

A：談到藝文贊助的範圍很廣，我先從我的啟蒙者開始說起，那是我高一的同學，江義雲，算一算我們也有五六十年沒聯絡了，也許他聽到這個節目還會記得我。高一時我參加軍樂隊，吹的是黑管，江同學吹短笛，他喜愛音樂，因為我們兩人興趣相同，非常聊得來，他也常常介紹我好的音樂，甚至曾經在聖誕夜帶我到士林教堂聽聖歌。那一年來我受他啟發，開始欣賞古典音樂。

第二年我重考，考進師大附中後開始去學鋼琴，學了兩年，到高三準備聯考之後就停了。我非常感謝江同學和鋼琴老師，以及這段啟蒙的過程，對我後來一生一世可說是受益無窮。

Q：像您參與音樂的這塊領域，雖然不像很多人從孩提時代就開始接觸，而是到了15、16歲才開始，往後這麼多年來您抱有極大的熱誠，也許可以說是大器晚成， 甚至後來不只對音樂藝術熱愛，還更積極地投入了藝術贊助活動？

A：恩！基本上我是個非常好奇的人，也常去看電影。那時候國外的電影公司剛來到台灣，有幾齣好看的電影音樂劇，像是《奧克拉荷馬》、《七對佳偶》……這些音樂片我都非常喜歡，也一直有新的東西可以討論。到了台大之後功課很忙，但會常去衡陽路附近的田園咖啡廳，聽整天的音樂。

在美國留學時，我們密西根州立大學有個非常好的音樂廳，五十年前那樣一個大學音樂廳，比現在新舞台還要好。現在想想台北演出場所，除了兩廳院之外，其他場所真的很不夠，硬體甚至比我們大學當時的音樂廳還要不足，也算是一個啟示：我們台灣要發展文化創意事業，國外的很多都值得我們借鏡。

Q：所以其實1950到1960年代，您在台灣本地和到美國求學期間，便接觸了很多不同的藝術層面。一路到後來回到台灣，開始參與、贊助藝術，也得到了許多啟發？

A：是阿！具體來說，應該是從電影中對音樂劇的喜好開始，到美國留學時，學校安排的藝術表演，我幾乎每場都去看。後來常有機會跑去百老匯聽歌劇，回台灣後，又有機會去到歐洲、倫敦，必定都會去聽歌劇，繼續在這方面精進，繼續享受，因為看表演的過程總是非常非常感動的。

Q：國外參與藝術不論是平民百姓，又或是企業界、政府，都非常投入，抱有熱誠。以您長期贊助藝文活動來看，您覺得最完美的贊助，來自民間票房或政府補助的比例，會是如何？

A：雖然我也不是學藝術行政的，但在贊助過程中常常會聊到，曾經和具有國際表演經驗的林懷民老師談到雲門的預算，他說一個文化成熟的國家像是西歐，通常票房占1/3，政府補助1/3，企業贊助占1/3。現實上，我知道大部份的團體都相當困難，像林老師這樣非常傑出的藝術總監，也是非常好的行銷、行政，以他所提供的數據，應該是對各界非常好的參考。

Q：這麼說來以雲門為例，其實民間的票房，也靠團體本身的行銷。

A：是阿，我們曾贊助20多個團體，其中兩個我印象非常深刻，一個是果陀，一個是台南人。

我那時候的想法是，古典音樂和流行音院的欣賞人口差異非常大；古典音樂需要正式的場合，音樂家，表演團體努力了半年一年，每次在國家音樂廳演出一場，最多得到兩千人的欣賞。這是最不符合施振榮所說的的微笑曲線結構，前製的投入時間非常長，表演卻很短暫，即便如此，表演者的收入不會因此提高。當時我在想如何將古典音樂擴大到流行音樂的觀眾基礎，改善這樣的情況。我們看到《貓》、《歌劇魅影》這種介於古典和流行之間的舞台劇、歌舞劇，也許是一條可行的路子，讓流行人口導入文化藝術的欣賞。

那時候我們看到果陀的《情盡夜上海》票房還不錯，後來透過朋友介紹和梁志民先生見了面，我就跟他說，國家有些藝術與企業合作的贊助政策，你需要什麼告訴我。他說，雖然演過二三十部舞台劇，劇本都是翻譯的，最需要的應該是原創劇本。於是我們開始努力，籌了一些錢，找到了國藝會。那時候是林曼麗當董事長，她聽完就開心地告訴我：「國藝會正好寫了一個表演藝術追求卓越計畫，你是第一個自投羅網的！」聽她這麼說，我也非常開心！

Q：除了果陀這麼歷史悠久的團體，您也非常關注一些新生代表演者？

A：累積下來，表演藝術追求卓越計畫已經是第四屆了，前面三屆總共贊助了二十七八個團體，印象比較深刻的大概是台南人劇團。在專案補助下，他們的第一場表演是在台南的億載金城的戶外演出，一齣希臘劇。他們用台語呈現希臘劇本，讓我非常感動，品質和我在國外看的戶外演出比起來，毫不遜色。特別是在古蹟裡演出，感覺非常特別。

Q：像您這樣參與贊助，也有三十多年了。在台灣，您已是個資深且足以拋磚引玉的典範，對未來想參與這種國藝會藝文計畫的企業團體，有什麼經驗分享?

剛提到林曼麗教授，也就是當時的國藝會董事長，點子很多。除了推出藝企合作的各項計畫，也推出國藝之友。目前國藝會在施振榮董事長的帶領下也更精進，每個月都會安排一到二個相當傑出且多元的演出和表演，邀請企業界的朋友們（國藝之友）去欣賞。剛說到的表演藝術追求卓越計畫只是國藝會其中的一個藝企合作的案子，我們也是這個專案的其中一個贊助者而已。國藝會在這裡扮演規畫、媒介、平台的角色是非常合適的。

主持人結語：我們過去常會說一個社會富而好禮，禮而有文化，今天在節目中特別請到洪敏弘博士，談到過去二三十年間，甚至更早之前，他是如何參與藝術活動，進而啟發他對藝術贊助的熱誠。我想在一個富裕的社會，除了金錢，文化也是一個非常重要的指標。今天非常感謝洪博士與我們分享國藝會的表演藝術卓越專案的贊助計畫，謝謝！