Among our customers and good friends around the world, there is one family who came from Netherland or Holtlant (wood land in old Dutch term) who has interesting stories with us.
The first visit was their father, who came in a fancy sunglasses, serious looking at first but full of humor later 🙂 Once he was in our warehouse, he move around quickly, Daddy and Grandpa was puzzled, we are the specialist of our wood, most of the customers usually will have a general “overview” of our thousands pieces of wood(may take many days to inspect all our wood in stock) then they will sit down to discuss the price.
The sunglasses man pick up a few pieces up and quickly move to another batch multiple times. Daddy went to him and asked “Dear Friend, what are you looking for, perhaps i can help you in finalizing the size of wood you need.”
That Sunglasses uncle, immediately begin to pick up few pieces of wood quickly and randomly give Daddy some lottery number “6,5,7,9,4,8,7,9,10” He was teaching Daddy about grading our wood using his standard.
In our early days, we have a general mix of wood between good and bad, not focusing much to precisely ranking as natural products are always “One and Only”. Being a Bruce Lee Fan, Daddy quickly grab random pieces of wood after him, saying out loud Daddy’s set of lottery number : “2,3,7,8,6,9,8,7”
“You know what i want” he said to Daddy, Daddy then replied “I will grade your container and you will get something average of 7 and above” We sealed the first deal, which continue for more than ten years until today.(He was very happy and forgot his sunglasses on our table, me and grandpa drive and pass to him)
Some years later, came his Son and Daughter, whom i always joke around, “your Dad teaches me his Ranking system” and i am part of your group external network. I like them both plus the old man, we had fruitful relationship over the years.
So my Dear Rheia, in life if you have awareness on thinking and emotions, sometimes you can attach yourself to groups that exert an upward pull.
Daddy once heard about something like this “Be a Normal person when everyone is crazy” I do not understand it fully, until in our living world, when we have situations which turn things upside down, this wisdom of life suddenly make sense.
Let me share with you, when Daddy was younger, Daddy had a Four Wheel Drive SUV which is the same brand as Grandpa, the car was meant for our wood business and easier access to our lands and plantations. Daddy do not worry when there is any flood or heavy rain because using a four wheel drive system and high clearance level of the car, we can easily overcome the small challenges on the road.
There was one time, Daddy was driving and suddenly right Infront perhaps a 200m away from my car there was suddenly a lot of dust, loud noise and there was countless number of timber logs falling down from a 40ft uncovered lorry.
The cars Infront, beside or maybe all round Daddy was in crazy mode, some do emergency brake, some keep honking while the timber log was scattering down on the road non stop.
It was a dangerous moment, even inside a big four wheel drive SUV with hardy shell, Daddy suddenly feel helpless, it was coming right at daddy and cars on the same row as me and that key moment, Daddy tell myself, OK, let’s drive around the log like a racing game, within a few turns, some luck and perhaps act of god, Daddy was able to avoid the timbers crashing down and drive passed the hazard point.
When Daddy’s soul was partially back, there was already quite a number of people beside the road looking at Daddy’s moving car, (i was like driving down the red carpet of an Oscar event) almost all the cars behind Daddy was either hit by the tree logs or the tree logs was lying like chopstick on the road, preventing them to move. Daddy look at the rear mirror, it was a messy situation and continue driving further away from the incident area.
Later that day, Daddy had a wonderful early dinner at the shopping mall, where i was supposed to meet Grandpa for banking purposes, Daddy called Grandpa and told him, Grandpa has to use another route to come downtown, otherwise it will be super jam for the accident area. The next day, when Daddy was reading the local newspaper, there was quite a big news coverage for this incident.
Sometimes, being normal is not a bad thing after all.
妈妈和姥姥都喜欢花,时常在家里买定时送到家的花。爸爸虽然是男生,可是也喜欢花,爸爸比较喜欢荷花,莲花和osmanthus,加上特定的玫瑰香味。幂儿小时候,我们经常带你去Gardens by the Bay,那里有爷爷的木,幂儿小时候可能不记得了,我们推着你还遇到很多其他父母,都是来溜娃打发时间的,那里有冷气,妈妈喜欢看郁金香,我们也去看了几会,感觉蛮不错的。