20140118, Minutes, Taichung

[Jasmine0316]

20140118, Minutes, by Nathan

Dear Happiers,

Chinese Lunar New Year is at the corner. Are you preparing to celebrate excitedly? Yes, In addition to a lot of meals, red envelopes, travels and reuniting with your family as well as friends, what else you can do? That's right, gambling! Prepare your money, let's go to win a lot of fortune and good luck of this new year.
There is a big surprise of this week gathering, Micro brings his handsome son to join our meeting. A talent young student, only sixteen years old, happens to attend the same school of Jeffery's son, Ken is just like his father, very smart and kind.
Beyond first surprise, Jane also joins us with his good-looking son. Her son Charlie is attending university in Australia. Jane is so happy about reuniting with her son during his son's winter vacation.
Each member talks about their gambling experiences. Kevin was a skilled marble player. He won a lot of marbles when he was a child. Freda has good instinct. She talks about how she luckily playedgambling in a casino. Ken says he only played gambling with his father in spring festivals. But eventually his father Micro always won the game. Jeffery is really a gambling master, he knows every kind of gambling. He also talks about when he was in university how he played majang(麻將) and was caught by school military governor(學校教官), who happened to his high school governor. Vicki says she also played majang, but she is so humble to say she was not very good at playing.
Everyone also talks about their thinking about gambling. We almost agree that a small gambling brings fun to our lives, but be careful to avoid addicting to it. How to control your budget and time is important when you want to relax yourself. Will you play gambling in this spring festival? Yes? I want to say good luck to you. No? I wish happy New Year to everyone.

Nathan

[Jasmine0316]

Dear Taichung Happiers,

Only when we are grown-ups, we start to comprehend how classic some fairy tales are. Full of thrill due to the amazing gathering, I would love to endorse the most “down to earth” fairy tale about problem gambling: Gambling Hansel. (By Brothers Grimm, German academics, linguists, and cultural researchers-- Jacob Grimm, 1785-1863, and Wilhelm Grimm. 1786-1859) http://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/gambling_hansel It will take us only few minutes to re-read this short story, yet the satisfaction of grasping the importance of these words will linger in our minds for a much longer time.

The English writer Owen Felltham (1602 –1668) issued the following statement: “By gaming we lose both our time and treasure - two things most precious to the life of man.” However, this fair warning hasn’t jangled compulsive gamblers’ nerves, partly because of Gambler’s Fallacy. People who have this mistaken belief assume that probability changes depending on past results. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8SkCh-n4rw With this selective perception, they can never remember the probability is forever 1/2 for a fair coin. Fortunately, via our discussion, almost all Happiers are identified as casual gamblers who especially enjoy gaming with family members during Chinese New Year holiday. Personally, I haven’t tried the Chinese game Mahjong, and my curiosity was aroused by this study report about how the game has shaped modern America and a small Mahjong renaissance has helped younger American Jewish and American Chinese regain their cultural identity. http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/july/humanities-mahjong-history-071513.html

Thanks to this gathering, we have the pleasure to meet these two special guests—Jane’s boy Charlie and Micro’s son Ken. Let us thank them not only for coming, but also for being melt into our big family. Thinking of the eyes of the elegant mother Jane and the respectable father Micro, suddenly, I lost in the thoughts about a beautiful quote from José Saramago (Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, playwright and journalist). “You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.” Yes. We were born to win. What are our winning cards?





Best Wishes,
Jasmine