What I’ve Learned On eBay

photo by New York Public Library

I got my 50th positive feedback on eBay recently. Geeky as it sounds, I’ve decided to pause and think about what I’ve learnt about doing business online during my short but sweet experience on eBay.

“Well Hidden Cash”

In The Big Moo, the authors talked about pushing a little further and more in you business, which would make you stand out from others. I had a vague idea of what he was refferring to, but couldn’t really get around to a specific example of how I could do it.

I’ve been on eBay since 2002. I had a fascination for buying stuff from around the world that wasn’t readily available here in Singapore. I’ve since learnt to cut down on needless spending, learning to be a minimalist.

Back in 2002, I had no credit nor debit card, and the very mention of asking my mom to use her credit card on the Internet would raise hell.

“Are you crazy??” she stared at me with disbelief. “The Internets not safe you know?? What if someone steals the information??”

That might have sounded like paranoia, but it is a concern that can be taken of these days with additional precaution and smarts.

A friend gave me a method to get around not having a digital means for payment.

Varun was an avid record collector. He digs heavy-death-metal. He faced the problem of not having access to all the rare recordings in Germany or Norway. But he knew people on IRC and forums that would sell him these things.

Method of transaction? Well-hidden cash.

“You put your cash in between two pieces of wrapped blank papers. So that they won’t show up under the light. Then into the envelope it goes.”

That gave me access to my first “buy” on eBay.

Lesson learned: Sometimes constraints force you to find creative solutions, you just gotta read between the lines.

How I Found The Big Moo

Jason Fried of 37Signals has a saying that “making money is like playing the piano, it just takes practice”. I’d like to think that I’m on that journey.

My first thirty transactions on eBay were of me being the consumer. But those transactions gave me an insight into different sellers online, what made me happy and what pissed me off.

The best  eBay sellers made you feel that they were human, and they cared. Christmas season nearly five years ago, I bought a 7″ 1970 extended play recording of Santana’s Black Magic Woman / Oye Como Va / Jingo / Evil Ways, and when the package arrived, the seller slipped in a note saying “Thanks for buying! Happy Holidays.”

It was refreshing to see that. A handwritten thank-you note.

All the while my buying experience on eBay sometimes left me wondering if a bot had put these auctions up, and possibly a fulfillment company packed and shipped these to me.

I wasn’t complaining about the nicely packed, sturdy packages the others sent, but it seemed mechanical. Out of all my purchases on eBay the last five years, I remembered the only one that left me a noteAnd  when I decided to become a seller on eBay, I thought if this made my purchasing experience special, my customers would appreciate something like this too.

Sure enough they did.

Last month, in an effort to declutter and raise extra cash for travel, I sold a bunch of records during Christmastime. While most of the buyers were from the U.S, a few were from Eastern Europe and East Asia. Along with the packages I sent, I wrote thank you notes too, and relevant holiday greetings in the customer’s own language. All were pleasantly surprised, and mentioned this in the feedback they gave me.

Sounds trivial, I know. But I finally understood what Seth Godin meant by a Big Moo. Everyone’s doing the same, selling stuff online, but it takes only a little effort to go to greater lengths to provide a better experience for your customers. And when you do, customers find you special, a cut above the rest.

What would happen if your company focused soley on giving customers this “cut above the rest” experience? You get a company like Zappos.

I love eBay.

Book Review: Ogilvy On Advertising

Back in college, I was warned about ad industry people. The  account executives who were eager-to-impress. The creative directors  that were hard-to-please, and art directors  that seemed prima-donnic.

An overemphasis on creativity, holier than thou attitude. Those were the words used against ad people.

I was confused at all the fuss over TV ads too. True they were a powerful medium.

But the medium suffered a huge liability: You simply couldn’t account for the effects and gains by advertising on television.

Impressions? What’s the relationship between impressions and someone actually buying a product???

I don’t understand all the focus on winning advertising awards too. You want to win Oscars?

I thought you’re supposed to get people to buy your clients products? Where’s the focus?

All that sounds really harsh, I must admit. Friends who are in the advertising business here in Singapore, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Then I picked up his “Ogilvy On Advertising”

Ogilvy’s opinions on advertising and his character shines through his guide to the advertising business. His words are an exploration into consumer behavior. His love for the art and science of using words (and sometimes pictures) to coo and coax is fascinating.

On The Power Of Advertising:

“The first thing I have to say is that you may not realize the magnitude of difference between one advertisement and another. Says John Caples, the doyen of direct response copywriters:

‘I have seen one advertisement actually sell not twice as much, not three times as much, but 19.5 times as much as another. Both advertisements occupied the same space. Both had photographic illustrations. Both had carefully written copy. The difference was that one used the right appeal and the other used the wrong appeal.’

The wrong advertising can actually reduce the sales of a product.

On ‘Creativity’ in Advertising:

‘I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative’. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product. When Aeschines spoke, they said, ‘How well he speaks.’ But when Demosthenes spoke, they said, ‘Let us march against Philip.’

On the Pursuit Of Knowledge:

I asked an indifferent copywriter what books he had read about advertising. He told me that he had not read any he preferred to rely on his own intuition. ‘Suppose’, I asked, ‘your gall-bladder has to be removed this evening. Will you choose a surgeon who has read some books on anatomy and knows where to find your gall-bladder, or a surgeon who relies on his intuition? Why should our clients be expected to bet millions of dollars on your intuition?’

This willful refusal to learn the rudiments of the craft is all too common. I cannot think of any other profession which gets by on such a small corpus of knowledge.

On the underestimated weapon known as Direct Mail:

One day a man walked into a London agency and asked to see the boss. He had bought a country house and was about to open it as a hotel. Could the agency help him to get customers? He had $500 to spend. Not surprisingly, th head of the agency turned him over to the office boy, who happened to be the author of this book. I invested his money in penny postcards and mailed them to well-heeled people living in the neighborhood. Six weeks later the hotel opened to a full house. I had tasted blood.

Advertising has been around for more than a hundred years, but its more than ever relevant in today’s web-enabled world. Web usability revolves around good writing. When the focus of a website is simply on beautiful aesthetics, you lose focus on what is real and important.

“I Just Turned Seventy Five Today”

picture by Yann de la Marne

The first time I talked to him at the gym, he would tell me why he was there almost every morning. After he retired from the Army, he didn’t want to end up at neighborhood coffee shops gossiping the entire day away. Instead he found new challenges by testing his physical self to new extents.

Seeing “uncle” three times a week after my nearly two years of hitting the weights at the neighborhood gym almost made me forget that he was probably the oldest person to be working out amongst us. True, weekday mornings at the gym means that the place is occupied mainly by seniors of uncle’s age, but at seventy five, uncle had done multiple marathons, rock climbing, and has the physique of a fighting fit forty year old man.

Most of his peers would have frail physiques or be grossly overweight, but here was a fine example of a lifestyle-conscious man. The gym wasn’t the first time I encountered uncle. Back when I was ten, uncle used to be my neighbour, and the only memory I have left of him back then was me stepping onto the car mats that he laid out to dry while washing his car.

He turned around and saw me hopscotching on the pieces of black rubber, then said, “Boy, do you know uncle washed these mats? Why are you stepping on them?”

His voice comes back to give me the chills whenever I see him around at the gym. I’ve never asked him if he remembered this, but one thing that stuck with me was how his tenacity stuck with him til today.

Today, while we waited for opening hours at the entrance of the gym, he tells me, “I’ve just turned seventy-five today”.

Seeing him around so frequently, I take for granted that he’s just one of the older guys around. Seventy five.

What will I be doing at seventy five?

And then I told him “Congrats uncle! Happy Seventy-Five! I’m amazed, I wonder what I’ll be doing at 75.”

Uncle was my main man when I was planning my trip out to Hanoi. He’d been around the South East Asian region a couple of times, and had solid advice for me about traveling to Sapa, Ha Long Bay, and Hoi An.

“I can finally relax. My children are moving to work in Sydney. Its time for more backpacking for me. Going to sit down at a coffee shop in Hoi An.”

Will this man ever slow down?

At seventy five, uncle had some life lessons for this twenty four year old.

“Contentment and financial freedom.” he said. Be cautious against greed and lust, for they destroy families. Reminds me of a hero that revealed his flaws in a very public way recently…

All reasonable advice nonetheless. After all, financial freedom would be scarcely thinkable without contentment.

I’ll be seeing you in Vietnam, uncle.

The Importance Of Good Writing

picture by oOoHEAVENLY PHOTOGRAPHYoOo CAPTURED AS SEEN…

At the trying age of 24, it has become almost natural instinct for me to want to get good at whatever skills, even if that means failing horribly for the first ten tries before getting there. Lately, I’ve been getting good at bad writing. If there was one skill I would love to obtain with Neo’s Matrix –like ability to instantly learn any ability, it would be the skill of writing.

Writing Like A Human Being

College didn’t prepare me for the kind of writing that actually works in the real world- the kind that makes people want to read your stuff, not roll your eyes. I’m talking about counter-intuitive stuff. But who wants to read academic stuff? College didn’t prepare me for reality writing. But that doesn’t mean I’m absolved from all responsibilities to learn what works. Writing like a human being, on the other hand, works much better.
Like starting sentences with prepositions. And four word sentences. Stuff that Microsoft Word frowns upon and throws zigzag red and green lines under your words in Word.

“Getting writers to use “I” is seldom easy. They think they must earn the right to reveal themselves or their thoughts. Or that it’s egotistical. Or that it’s undignified- a fear that hobbles the academic world.”
-William Zinsser

What probably worked for academics and robot-speak doesn’t work in reality, and its time for some unlearning. But unlearning twenty odd years of academic writing won’t be easy.

Good Writing = Good Advertising

Back in college, Advertising 101 didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth either. Hey I did fairly well for it, but I got the impression that successful ads were showboats, flamboyant, ultra-outspoken, loud.
Guess I was wrong.  Those weren’t successful ads.

“But the goal of advertsing is not to be liked, to entertain, or to win advertising awards; it is to sell products. The advertiser, if he is smart, doesn’t care whether people like his commercials or are entertained or amused by them. If they are, fine. But commercials are a means to an end, and the end is increased sales-and profits-for the advertiser.”
-Robert Bly

I should have failed Advertising 101, for not understanding the sole purpose of advertising- to increase sales and profits, period. Anything else is wasteful. I had been focusing on the wrong stuff all along.

Enough with this ruse. Let the world of would be advertising experts scorn me. Advertising isn’t about grabbing people’s attention by the throat or balls, its qualifying why people should even bother with you. Its about two words, and two words only:

Good writing. Specifically, good copywriting.

“A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself. It should rivet the reader’s attention on the product. It is the professional duty of the advertising agent to conceal his artifice.”
-David Ogilvy

I’ve found these materials to be very helpful since picking them up, and will be using them in my daily practice to improve my writing:

• William Zinnser: On Writing Well

• Robert W. Bly: The Copywriter’s Handbook

• David Ogilvy: Ogilvy On Advertising

In Pursuit Of Meaningful Experiences: Movies

picture courtesy of muerdecine

Ah, movies. I hold movies in high regard in terms of cultural significance, even for the fact that I usually watch less then 5 on-screen movies a year. At an average screen time of 90 minutes, films are a considerable investment for time. When it comes to film, the majority of my consumption instead, comes from DVDs of films past. Colin Marshall suggests that for any aspiring quality-film goer, they can apply two criteria to their film selection process:

1. go old
2. go foreign

Unconsciously, I have been applying the former much more than the latter. Being a Singaporean, I’m not sure if American films should be considered “foreign”. Probably not, since they’re mainstream cinema. The National Library at the Esplanade (The “Liu Lian”) stocks some of the best American and Asian films from decades past, and I have been reaping the benefits of having premium membership.

The movie screens near you may be playing the latest blockbuster hits this week, but I believe everyone has their own niche interest in film if they know how or where to gain access to them.

Back to the idea of films being culturally significant. Films don’t get as much respect as books do, don’t they? Films can be equally as life changing, and has impacted how we live our life in the 20th century. Brett McKay puts it this way:

“And for better and for worse, film has had a huge impact on masculinity in the 20th Century. Movies have produced archetypes of manliness that many men judge themselves against today. To view how male characters of cinema have been portrayed over the decades, is to see clearly the ways in which our perception of masculinity has changed and continues to change.”

Paul Newman

My own interests tend to follow directors and actors. An actor’s choice in films (or the lack of it) in his or her career can be worth looking into. Paul Newman mentioned during the Actor’s Studio interview that he “stole little pieces” every character he played into his own personality. Specifically, Paul mentions that those leading male roles of his famous 50’s-60’s movies like Luke (Cool Hand Luke), Brick (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof), and Eddie Felson (The Hustler) were all “damaged goods”: hurt men.  Very different from the strong silent types that were John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, of the late 40’s and early 50’s.

In Hud, Paul plays a despicable, selfish, and lust-driven cow rancher, but still somehow comes across in the end as charming. Paul likes to say that it might be natural that men and women would be attracted to the bad boy image of Hud. He hets the girls, lives a carefree life, guys look up to him. Paul warns that Hud’s tale is a cautionary tale. Because Hud is nothing but an empty shell.

You want to root for the hero, and he’s got his tale to tell, sometime not with words.

Munich

During college, I wrote a paper on mass media effects and impact. I chose Steven Spielberg’s Munich. The film tells the tale of a Mossad agent that is sent throughout Europe to hunt down those responsible for the murder of 11 Palestinian athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. I had watched the movie no less than six times to write the paper, and like any other writing exercise (including this one), I had difficulty putting pen to paper. Mostly because the themes that revolve around it are complex, and invoked a lot of emotional stir-up within me. The obvious one was the larger idea of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the director’s idea that tit for tat will never resolve the issue. The second was the theme of revenge, or the desire and satisfaction of getting it. Like Park Chan Wook’s Revenge trilogy, the movie explores the desire for revenge and the means of getting it. The end result is some stunning visual scenes that involve the assassinations. Upon completion of my paper, I swore to never watch this movie again for at least five years. This movie resulted in many sleepless nights.

But that’s a meaningful experience from a culturally  underestimated and inexpensive medium.

In Pursuit Of Meaningful Experiences: Travel And People

picture by greekadman

People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.
-Joseph Campbell, The Power Of Myth

I thought I would take some time to write about how I spend the most finite of my resources, which is 1. time, and 2. money. This is written to myself as a self introspective.

Every hour or dollar that you spend would have some repercussion eventually down the road, but more so of time, since it can’t be earned the way money can.

The little things you come into contact with in life can have profound influences on yourself, even if you don’t notice it immediately. A book, a conversation with an acquaintance, maybe a Sunday movie with friends, and that three weeks of vagabonding in Nepal. These are the experiences you’ll want to actively seek: those that leave you somewhat changed, hopefully for the better. You then want these experiences contribute to a richer mental being, and put it all to good use, making us better people, and in turn help make the lives of those around you better too.

What are these life-changing experiences that you can find to put into “good use”? For many, the experiences that seem to yield the richest experiences are: personal travel, genuine human interactions, books and movies. There might be more, but these are the four that you may have noticed in daily life.

Personal Travel

I’ve written much about how personal travel leaves a deep imprint on me, but some points bears repeating. Mainly because personal travel gives me access to my inner thoughts and state of mind that staying at home just can’t. Sticking to our daily routines, we are exposed to the one or two ways of living that we’ve known all our life. Thats fine by all means. But I’ve found that my knowledge of the world and of people increases exponentially when our experiences in foreign lands makes us question the assumptions about daily life we’ve always held.

Assumptions? What assumptions are there? you ask. The assumption that what you’re doing now is the best and only possible way to live. Every other way is wrong. Derek Sivers makes an excellent explanation of this paradox of assumptions with a simple example of Japanese addresses.

Questioning assumptions enables a more creative life, while giving you more options. What is said to be true at home may not be true elsewhere around the world, and vice versa.

Human Interactions

Human interaction as a force for meaningful change and unique experiences might not be too much of a surprise here. You will have met people whom you have interacted with, and have affected your decisions in life. He or she could have even played a significant hand in the outcomes of your actions.

Malcolm Gladwell alludes to the importance of the people we meet in Outliers. Many of the most successful people don’t really fit into the “did-it-himself” or “self-made-man” heartwarming stories. Success here refers to happiness and contentment with lives, not simply monetary achievement. Along their paths to destiny, these individuals were dealt favourable cards by important people they had good luck (and smarts) to come into contact with.  It is safe to say that without them, they won’t be where they got to eventually.

I am convinced that success on any scale probably won’t be the story of lone wolves. The people we meet open doors of opportunity for us. If this is one of your sticking points, you may see it in the tendency to work alone to enjoy the benefits of little interruption and needless chitchat.

***

Part 2 next week

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Ed Murrow’s Prophecy

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”
-Ed Murrow

I’ve been looking forward to my second screening of George Clooney’s Good Night, And Good Luck. I give credit to Dr Bob Armstrong for screening the story of Edward R Murrow and U.S Senator Joseph McCarthy during Mass Media Theory class. The one thing that stuck on my mind that made me revisit GN, &GL is its central message of media responsibility and its role as the Fourth Estate. That and subsequent views of George explaining the movie on Newseum’s Reel Journalism feature that was hosted by veteran journalist Nick Clooney.

Why the interest on the media as the Fourth Estate? That’s an easy one to answer for me: Because traditional media may never play such a role here in Singapore.  Ed Murrow’s words echo the fundamental truth about the need for media to provide the truth and key issues to its people.  For me, this resonates  loud and clear in the Singapore context.

Here in Singapore, media is always under careful regulation and monitoring by the de-facto ruling party, the PAP. Here in Singapore, the media functions more of a broadcast-and-disseminate tool, as opposed to a check-and-balance function of American media. Yet this doesn’t stop many Singaporeans from hoping for more press freedom.

If you asked Ziqi Koey, circa high school and Army days, he might have told you about a career interest in journalism and media,  for my interest in those fields stem from a desire to learn and master the power of words to convey true messages. I have witnessed how the careful and precise use of this art can cause monumental shifts. Mr Murrow and many journalists of his generation have demonstrated this.

Journalism as a career choice in Singapore has an entirely different meaning though. My enthusiasm of finding a job with the biggest media companies in Singapore (SPH and Mediacorp) was doused, for the fact that media in Singapore never always represent the true hard facts in an objective way. Here in Singapore, the media functions more of a broadcast-and-disseminate tool, as opposed to a check-and-balance function of American media. Quality of television programming in Singapore has degenerated to that of mere profit making, the lack of any real substance and depth.

That is why Good Night And Good Luck struck a chord within me. It was the spirit of journalism that I looked up to.

The opening and ending of Good Night, And Good Luck highlights Ed Murrow’s  speech  to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) convention.  Highly prophetic  and relevant, Ed Murrow’s words stirred up thoughts within me about:

• The state of mass media in Singapore today (TV, Radio, Newspapers)

• Social Media: Its ability to teach, inspire, or become merely part of “wires and lights in a box”

• Intelligence, maturity, and perceived apathy of the Singaporean with regards to hard issues

****

Excerpt from Ed Murrow’s  speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) convention in Chicago 15^th October 1958 ( Article Total Read Time: 12 minutes, Text in Bold, 8 minutes)

This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.

….

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

…

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done–and are still doing–to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry’s program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is–an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

…

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the coporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this.

We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn’t matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

…

To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

***

Additional Reading:

Article 19’s report on Freedom of Expression in Singapore

National Geographic: The Singapore Solution

How To Find Meaningful Travel: Volunteering In Asia

ESL teaching in Hanoi: Language learning can be all fun and games

The practice of soulful travel is to discover the overlapping point between history and everyday life, the way to find the essence of every place, every day: in the markets, small chapels, out-of-the-way parks, craft shops. Curiosity about the extraordinary in the ordinary moves the heart of the traveler intent on seeing behind the veil of tourism.

-Phil Cousineu, The Art Of Pilgrimage

Why volunteer in Asia?

At the recent BarCamp Singapore 4, I held a discussion and talked about how I benefited as a volunteer in Vietnam. Some have asked about the resources I have used to identify opportunities for meaningful travel. After all, the most obvious “volunteer” opportunities here in Singapore offered through schools and organizations pack 30+ people in a bus, bring them to workcamp sites, and two weeks later, they’re back home. Not that I have anything against large groups of volunteers working for two-weeks, but I believe a personal volunteering journey has the potential be much more meaningful.

As Asians coming from a developed country, having the ability to speak at least two different languages fluently, our potential to contribute to others is limitless. We don’t realize this because we’re living in a country where talent and skill seems saturated. My time overseas made me so much more thankful of the education (even with its flaws) I received in Singapore.

Moreover, volunteering in Asia helps us strengthen that Asian connection. We revisit the Southeast Asia that Singapore seems to have moved on in favor of development and modernization. When you walk on the lanes and streets of Hanoi or Luang Prabang, sitting on a streetside wooden bench having a warm bowl of Pho Ga, it simply feels familiar, even though such experiences no longer exist in Singapore. When I saw men of all ages playing dominoes and Chinese chess in Lenin Park, I wasn’t there to wonder why or what they were doing, but to just feel that sense of familiarity. We often read blogs and articles of our European or American friends experiencing an entirely different culture while they’re in Southeast Asia. I think as Singaporeans, we need to revisit these lost cultures and experiences too, for they must certainly feel foreign to us too.

Please take note that I have not tried every organization mentioned below, some were recommended  to me while others have received very positive reviews from users. As always, do your due diligence:
- Reading reviews and comments about the organization
- Do a web search for the institution/organization you are interested to work with
- Email and call up organizations to speak to someone
- Check if these institutions are registered with the local government

Firstly, it would help to know what you’re good at, and what you’re interested in so that you won’t get lost in all that information available. If you have a skills to contribute to organizations overseas, thats great! But if you don’t, worry not! Your interests will probably point you in the right direction.

Here are some of the resources I used for my volunteering overseas. Hopefully these will save you lots of time and effort.

www.volunteerhq.org
By far one of the most trusted volunteer portals available, this website is clean and simple, and is a good starting point to look at what options are available to you as an aspiring world-volunteer.
International Volunteers’ HQ is based in New Zealand, and provides excellent support (phone and email) for volunteers and the local organizations. It is one of the most affordable too. This was where I picked Vietnam out of the many choices available.

www.idealist.org
If you’re looking for even more options, meaningful work, internships, and the occasional free volunteering experience, you can check out the available opportunities here. Most of the free or paid stints are for long term volunteers though, so be prepared to work for half a year to one year in environments vastly different from what you might be comfortable with. However, these are usually the most rewarding and satisfying experiences available.

www.ashoka.org/volunteer
Similar to www.idealist.org, but most opportunities will be located in India.

Location Specific Opportunities:

Nepal:
www.vcdnepal.org
Very affordable volunteer opportunities in a country of visually stunning landscapes.

Vietnam:
www.vpv.vn
The organization that I went with, and that started it all for me. VPV has volunteer locations throughout Vietnam, while based in Hanoi. Opportunities include teaching English, working with NGOs, and working at orphanages.

www.sjvietnam.org/
I’m biased towards lovely Vietnam, so here’s another organization for volunteering in Vietnam.

Thailand:

www.insearchofsanuk.com/volunteer
In Search Of Sanuk was started by Dwight Turner, who coined the term “Funlanthropy”. Who says you can’t have fun while contributing to a good cause? It’s easy to see why Dwight and In Search Of Sanuk has been so successful so far. As a person, Dwight’s energy and enthusiasm is infectious. Talk to him about volunteering and partying to understand why.

Other helpful volunteer-related info:

www.wisebread.com/travel-resources
Saving money and budgeting during your travels.

Some volunteer Inspiration:
harpermcconnell.wordpress.com/

Harper’s work as a volunteer in Congo sets the tone for what volunteers should aspire to contribute and receive out of a volunteering experience. Her work is truly inspiring.

www.vagablogging.net/

Award winning travel author Rolf Potts maintains a blog about the how-tos, and philosophies of world travel. Very relevant to aspiring travel volunteers.

Solo volunteering trips in Asia are deeply meaningful. I prefer to help out in areas that truly require assistance, and volunteering in Asia seems to me an obvious choice. You learn independence and initiative, while still have the opportunity to work in a team with volunteers from all over the world. The problem I see with workcamps or groups of volunteers (>5) going together, is the “herd mentality” creeping in, and the tendency to only communicate within the group. Venturing out yourself forces you to learn to communicate and work with different cultures. This is a very important life skill to learn and have.

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.

-John Muir, 1888 letter to his wife

Solo volunteering trips in Asia is deeply meaningful. I prefer to help out in areas that truly require assistance, and Asia seems to me an obvious choice. You learn independence and initiative, while still have the opportunity to work in a team with volunteers from all over the world. The problem I see with workcamps or groups of volunteers (>5) going together, is the “herd mentality” creeping in, and the tendency to only communicate within the group. Venturing out yourself forces you to learn to communicate and work with different cultures. This is a very important life skill to learn and have.

Minimalism

I find myself increasingly attempting to live minimally- reducing what I use and purchase.

Everything I am curious to learn about or am learning reinforces the beauty of minimalism. Minimalism sounds easy but is hard to put into action. At the very start, attempts to live a minimal lifestyle requires  attention to every aspect of life.

Write Well

Keen to work on my writing skills, I finished On Writing Well, penned by the passionate, writer-extraordinaire  William Zinsser. Simplicity is the second basic tenet of writing he mentions in the book. Simplicity, the way Zinsser explains it, keeps writing compact and clean. Writing that is simplified to its core elements are a pleasure to read.

I found it helpful that Zinsser declares “clutter” as the enemy of writing.  He identifies corporate jargon and political correctness is the posterboy of cluttered writing.

Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes

-William Zinsser

Get Real

What Zinsser preaches for writing , I found in the mantra of good business and computing. Getting Real! is  Chicago based software company 37Signals’s manifesto for simplicity and minimalism in computing. In a world where the word “simplicity” is loved by all, not all businesses practice what they preach. Especially when all around you, competitors are striving to one-up each other in functions and capability. How could you not do one better, or at least follow suit?

The 37Signals team preaches simple, straightforward functionality over things that seem to represent actual work done. Delivering a project with just one awesome function will always beat a product with unfocused and cluttered objectives.

Don’t use seven words when four will do.

-Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in Ocean’s 11

Kids, Try This At Home!

The most immediate application of elimination/ simplification was with my closet at home. Of all the clothing I owned or bought for the past 5 years, I could tell that I wore 20% of it for 80% of the time. That leaves a bunch of stuff that I hardly touch, or probably worn once. (like really bright colored stuff, oversized jeans after I lost weight etc) After all, we’ve only got 24 hours in a day, 7 days a  week. There’s only so much clothing you can wear at any one time.

I ended up cleaning out that 80% that didn’t matter, handed it all to the Salvation Army.

Congratulations to the lucky guy/girl that gets my 2006 Eric Clapton Singapore Tour T-shirt. Well its a good thing, now I have to be creative with whats left in my closet by doing smart color combinations and layering.

Far From Zen

I haven’t have much success simplifying and minimizing other aspects of my living space though. Cleaning out work and living spaces is a nightmare. The last time I did it, it took me all of daylight, leaving me physically and mentally drained. And since I did it a few months ago, clutter has been building up around me ever since.

I’m looking towards one successful writer that managed to achieve 19 impressive breakthrough goals by focusing on simplifying one habit at a time.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits sums up his success formila for achievement in two steps:

1. Identify the essential

2. Eliminate the Rest

What makes Leo’s mantra so compelling? Its simple, straightforward, and actionable. No complicated set of systems to buy into, no messy flowchart of what to do next.

Perfection is now then there is no more to add, but no more to take away

-Antoine De Saint Exupery (author of The Little Prince)

Vagabonding

Perhaps the biggest actionable lesson I got in “living the simple life” I got during my “vagabonding” trip in Vietnam. As mentioned in earlier posts, Vietnam was a huge learning experience. I was amazed at how much I managed to fit my life into a backpack. I lived out adventures and new friendships out of it. While the living conditions at dormitories and hostels couldn’t compare to the comforts of home, they weren’t uncomfortable at all. For the price of what a Singaporean college student would pay for a Starbucks drink, she could pay for a night’s stay at a backpacker’s hostel in Hanoi. For the price of a restaurant meal in Singapore, she could buy herself three days’ worth of sumptuous street food in Bangkok or Penang.

In retrospective, Vietnam made me conscious of my spending habits within a consumer, spending-oriented society.

As with, say, giving up coffee, simplifying your life will require a somewhat difficult consumer withdrawal period. Fortunately, your impending travel experience will give you a very tangible and rewarding long-term goal that helps ease the discomfort. Over time, as you reap the sublime rewards of simplicity, you’ll begin to wonder how you ever put up with such a cluttered life in the first place.

-Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

It might seem like counter-intuitive thinking at first, but the big lessons come down to:

1. Reducing material burdens actually gives us more options in life.

2. A simplified creation process gives us a beautiful and useful end product.

How You Can Find The Best Place To Stay in Melaka or Anywhere… On A Shoestring

picture by spooneater

Eight Jalan Tukang Emas might easily be overlooked by passer-bys and tourists visiting Chinatown in Melaka. The one attraction why people come here is for the food. Old Melaka is a food haven. Chicken rice balls: Rice spheres which are a variation of the famous Hainanese dish, and the local take on the ever-popular curry noodle dish: Laksa. As such, most of the traditional shophouses in the Chinatown area have in some way or another profited from the throngs of visitors who want a taste of Melaka’s culinary delights. The antique stores that stock junk from the town’s colonial past, Chinese temples, and budget hostels, all share the same architecture as 8 Jalan Tukang Emas.

Eight Jalan Tukang Emas looks just like yet another shophouse along this street, apart from its periwinkle blue painted shutters. Its fame and recognition amongst budget travelers as one of the best hostels in Melaka should remain visually obscured by every other shophouse in Chinatown is indeed a curiosity. For fame and success amongst these little businesses in Chinatown seems to always have to do with spectacular neon lighted displays, ridiculously long queues that somehow signify shop popularity, and painstakingly restored multicolor Peranakan decor.

As it happens, I spent two days and a night at 8 Jalan Tukang Emas, better known as the “Jalan Jalan” guesthouse.  I seemed to have spent more time enjoying its home-away-from home comforts, rather than exploring the streets of Melaka’s old quarter. I am fascinated by its tranquil inner garden courtyard, and the rows of bicycles lined up in front of its front shutters, ready for rent at RM 6 per day…

The hostel was rather relaxing. It took me a long time to remove myself from the feeling of being at home, and on the most basic level, I never have, and never will. There is no homely hostel like one that is a home, no garden like a garden an inner garden that entices you with the sound of trickling water that seemed to bring a hot day down to a cool one. I have never experienced any  hostel atmosphere as welcoming, that will always be facilitated by its hostel-keeper Sam.

What are some of the resources I used to find this home away from home?

If buying a copy of Lonely Planet for a weekend shoestring budget getaway makes no sense for you, there are plenty of resources online.

http://www.tripadvisor.com

Trip advisor is possibly the most user-friendly travel resource search engine available, and that’s how many fellow travelers in Melaka found Jalan Jalan.

http://www.hostelworld.com/

Hostelworld gives annual awards to the best hostels around the world, and have been visited by its staff that does personal reviews of the places. Jalan Jalan has won awards for “best staff” and “best cleanliness”.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree

If you’ve got questions about a destination, chances are someone might have already asked, and gotten answers about it on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum. Great for checking out transport options, and potential scams in specific locations too.

http://delicious.com/

Crowdsourcing at its best. The most popular social-bookmarking site can give you the best options for cheap and popular lodgings. See what others have favored in the cities you wish to visit.

http://www.couchsurfing.org/

Apart from surfing on other’s couches, CSers can provide good information about the best hostels in their area. Sign up and ask around!

A combination of the results from the websites above should give you some of the best hostels available in a city. Do you have any other resources to recommend?