Master Yun Remarks: Launch of Lotus on Water Chinese Culture Publication Endowment Fund at Nanyang Technological University | 云大师发言：云龙子中华文化出版基金，南洋理工大学

Good afternoon,

Ms Lien Siaou-Sze, Vice President, University Advancement, NTU,
Professor Joseph Liow, Dean of College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences,
My most respected professors and esteemed academicians,
My dear friends, my clients, my clients’ children
尊敬的连萧思副校长，新加坡南洋理工大学，大学事务发展。
尊敬的廖振扬教授，人文社会科学、艺术设计与传播信息学院院长，
我最景仰的教授、学者。我亲爱的朋友。客户，及客户的孩子们。下午好。

Three years ago, the world entered into an era of pandemic, and we are still fighting hard against it. It has devastated every single person on this earth medically, socially and financially.
三年前，新冠疫情肆虐全球。疫情威胁世界上每一个人的健康、情绪与经济。“抗疫时代”，至今尚未过去。

 

Master Yun and Dr Liow acknowledging the establishment of the Fund

The pandemic hits not only the health of people, but also the health of businesses. In March 2020 alone, 4008 businesses in Singapore collapsed. The next month, April 2020, another 8600 of businesses in Singapore closed down.
疫情肆虐的，不只是人类的健康，也是企业的性命。2020年三月，一个月内，新加坡4008家公司倒闭。次月，新加坡又有8600家公司倒闭。

And I suppose many business colleagues would think I am crazy, to sponsor an academic and cultural project at this time, a time when most businesses are still striving and struggling to survive the torment of the pandemic.
在这段大家缩紧腰带、奋力抗疫，甚至是抓襟见肘的时刻，我们竟选择了赞助一个学术与文化的项目。我想肯定有许多商业行家会认为我们脑筋上火。

Master Yun and Ms Lien Siaou-Sze

I am the founder of Lotus on Water, a registered commercial entity selling top quality fengshui related products, art and calligraphies. We have four galleries, side by side each other, along Upper Thomson Road. Three weeks ago, we celebrated our 16th anniversary.
我是云龙子旺财馆的创始人。我们售卖高品质的风水珠宝、风水画与风水书法。在汤申路上段，我们比邻四馆五个单位，占据半条街。三个星期前，我们欢庆云龙子旺财馆16周年。

When this country declared a lock down in early 2020, I had never seen such fear and anxiety hitting my people.
2020年初，当政府宣布封城之时，前所未有的恐慌笼罩大家。

Frankly, I had no answer and no solution at that time. We prayed hard, meditated deeply and brainstormed more than five times a week.
说实话，我当时也没有解决方案。但我们祈祷、冥思，一个星期做了五次以上的“脑力风暴”。

Some of the outcomes of our brainstorming, meditation and prayers are as follows:
以下是我们脑力风暴、冥思与祈祷的一些成果：

November 2020, I accepted the invitation of CCTV China to exhibit about 60 pieces of my fengshui paintings and calligraphies at the Great Wall of China. With great honor, I was the first, and so far the only artist who have exhibited art on this 3500 years old greatest seven wonder in the world.
2020年十一月，我接受中国中央电视台邀请，把近60幅风水画与风水书法搬上长城展览。这个历时3500年，全世界七大奇观之首的万里长城，我很荣幸成为第一个登上长城展览风水书画的艺术家。

 

 

In April 2021, we started the Art Beyond Museums project. We go to different businesses in Singapore. We promoted these businesses while we talked about my art and Laurent-Perrier champagne (who is our sponsor) to Singaporeans and the rest of the world. 

2021年四月我们开启了《廊外有画》云端画展。我们到新加坡不同的企业，介绍我的画作，介绍罗兰百悦香槟（因为法国罗兰百悦香槟是我们的赞助人），也介绍这些企业。

The project proved to be a hit, and has brought clients to these businesses.
由于这些企业生意大旺，收入腾升，《廊外有画》大红大火。

So we started our Art Beyond Museums overseas. We have broadcasted 13 episodes of Art beyond Museums England edition, we are now broadcasting Penang edition, following up with Bali Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Paris and Australia.
我们也策划了《廊外有画》海外版。我们刚播完13期的《廊外有画》英国版。现在正播放槟城版。之后会有印尼版、寮国版、泰国版、菲律宾版、柬埔寨版、法国版及澳大利亚版。

In March 2021 and March 2022, we imported the sakura trees, and served sake and cakes to all gallery visitors for them to have some poetic moments under the sakura trees.
2021年与2022年三月份，我们进口樱花树搬来云龙子旺财馆，在樱花树下招待清酒与糕点，慰藉客户渴望诗情与画意的心灵。

Then, the Tang festival. We invited visitors to put on costumes of Tang Dynasty emperor and empress, and if they can recite a tang poem, we give them a door gift.
之后是唐人节。我们让客户穿上唐代皇帝与皇后的服饰，如果能背诵一首唐诗，还能赢得一份礼物。

During COVID, we acquired 3,000 pieces of antiques from a seventy-year-old Italian gentleman. A few weeks ago, we invited clients to take family photos on one of the antiques, a Louis-Phillipe sofa we are displaying in our galleries. We had professional photographers on the standby and we gave the family photos to them free.
疫情期间，我们从一位七十多岁的意大利老绅士手中买了3,000多件古董与文物。几个星期前，我们邀请客户在我们收购的其中一件文物，路易·菲利比的沙发上拍全家福。我们聘请了专业摄影师，当场把拍好的全家福送给客户。

In October this year, we will collaborate with an internationally famous fashion and textile designer Mr Eric Raisina to have our third art exhibition cum défilé de mode in CHIJMES Hall, Singapore.
今年十月，我们与一位国际著名的服装布料设计大师爱力克·莱西纳先生合作，在新加坡赞美堂举行第三届的艺术展兼时装秀。

Monsieur Eric Raisina was born in Madagascar, citizen of France and trained in Paris. He flew in from Paris yesterday to spend a couple of days with me. Today, Monsieur Raisina is here with us because he believes very much in culture and academic as well.
爱力克·莱西纳先生出生于马达加斯加，法国公民，学成于巴黎。昨天，他刚从巴黎飞到新加坡，与我们花一两天的时间商议合作。今天，他来到这里，因为他也十分热心于文化及学术事业。

 

Two months ago, we invited the international top sommelier, Daisuke Kawai san, to give a wine and art pairing workshop for our clients.
两个月前，国际级品酒师，日本藉的大辅先生，到本馆向我们的客户讲解葡萄酒与艺术的品配。

 

Above are just a few artistic and cultural projects we churned out in these two years. Some are Chinese, but many involve artists and culturati from other races and culture. And we do these warm and cozy events in the era of the most fearful pandemic. 

我们这两年的艺术及文化有关的活动，有些是中国的，更多也参与了他国的艺术家，文化人。在生死拼博的抗疫期间，我们让艺术与文化温情脉脉地绽放。

We embrace not just a sentiment for Chinese culture, but also a Chinese style sentiment for all people “under heaven”.
我们不只持怀一份对中国文化的情怀，也持怀一份中国式的“天下情怀”。

 

Prof Qu Jingyi welcoming Master Yun

 

When you visit Lotus on Water, you see that clients are not there just to perform business transactions, they are there also to discuss art, touching antiques and artifacts, appreciate tea, wine and champagne, discussing high fashion, wearing traditional costumes, taking family photos.
如果你拜访云龙子旺财馆，你会发现客户不只过来进行商业交易，他们也来讨论艺术，研究文物，品茶品酒品香槟，试穿时尚服装之同时，也穿上古装，顺便把家人带来拍个全家福。

 

In other words, our business have created a side effect for our clients, you may want to call this side effect, “a sense of bliss.”

换句话说，我们的企业在空气中催生了一个副作用，那是一股浓而不烈的“幸福感”。

 

What is a sense of bliss? It is a good blend of happiness and purpose. And with this sense of bliss, people desire to live better and longer. And living better and longer is what layman calls prosperity and longevity. Isn’t this something every human being should do to create for themselves and their fellow kind? 

何为幸福感？幸福感是一杯沟合了“快乐”与“存在价值”的鸡尾酒。幸福感让人希望活得更好、活得更长。活得更好、活得更长便是大家说的富裕与长寿。这不是每一个人都应该为自己、为同类而奋斗的事吗？

 

On the hindsight, some people say that Lotus on Water is either too willful or plain lucky. These few out of the box cultural and artistic projects have created for us a lot of clients and revenue. Some of them have brought us fame and reputation at a level we have never accomplished before. In fact, for most months, the income during the Pandemic Era has increased more than one hundred percent as compared to pre-pandemic era. 

事后诸葛亮的左邻右舍会说，我们不是太任性便是太幸运。以上这几个匪夷所思的点子，竟然带给我们大量的客户与收入。在名誉及地位上把我们提升至前所未有的高度。有许多个月份，我们在疫情期间的收入比疫情前高出一倍。

 

But at the moment when we were making those decisions for all these “money burning projects”, many people would have called us crazy. Crazy to “burn money”, in the time we should be tightening the seat belts. 

可是在我们做这些烧钱的决策的时候，多数的人觉得我们烧坏脑子。应该“节约光荣”之时，我们竟然“好大喜功”。

 

Most strategies adopted by businesses at this era would be to cut budget, apply for grants or to borrow bridging loans. I refused to do any of these. If I had taken a loan, I may need to seek for permission from the money lenders before I can write a cheque to NTU.

多数的企业在这个时候会选择减少开支、申请援助资金，或贷款。这些我一概不做。如果我当时贷了款，我今天开支票给南大之前，或许必须先向债主解释并申请。

 

Today, Lotus on Water remains number one in fengshui industry in Singapore and probably the world, in term of client size and revenue. 

今天在风水行业里头，我们名列前矛。

 

Ironically, none of my shareholders and employees has a degree in accounting, finance and business. My business partner Mr Kan Ying Loong graduated from Peking University, top in Chinese faculty. My top sales advisor Mr Cola Tay Wei Siong graduated with an education degree from a university in Taiwan China. I graduated in NTU School of Arts majoring in Chinese studies and English literature in 1996, and with a First Class Honors in Chinese in 1997.

奇妙的是，我们伙伴全都没有会计、金融及工商管理的文凭。我们的董事经理简应隆先生毕业于北京大学，中文系的第一名。我们的销售顾问，戴伟祥先生，在中国台湾的大学毕业于教育系。我是南大校友，1996年毕业，主修中文及英国文学。1997年获一等荣誉学士学位，毕业论文的研究方向是唐诗。

 

No, it is not a prerequisite to graduate with a humanities subject to apply for a job in our company. But somehow people with humanitites discipline tend to stay with us the longest. 

我们的公司不是只聘请文科毕业的学生。可是，似乎是有文科底子的人与我们抱团抱得长久一些。

 

Ray Dalio, a famous modern financial guru has published a book “The Changing World Order”. He says that all the great empires went through economic cycles. The cycle went up and came down. Most of the time when the cycle came down, it would never recover. The Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Dutch Empire and the British Empire all shared the same fate. With only one exception, the Chinese Civilization went up, came down and recovered again and again many times over thousands of years. 

雷·达里奥，一位杰出的金融大师，在他新出版的书《世界霸权地位的更替》说道。所有世界性大国都会经历经济周期。周期往上走之后会往下掉。一掉之后，全都回魂乏术。罗马帝国如此，西班牙帝国如此，荷兰如此，大英帝国也不能幸免。只有一个大国是例外，那便是中国。几千年来，掉落之后，依然能够一再回弹。

 

Henry Kissinger said in his book “On China”, out of twenty centuries, China has been the most prosperous country in the world for eighteen centuries. Only in the last two centuries China has lost in her global competition with the West and now she is coming back again. How can any country enjoy prosperity for such a long period of time?

基辛格写了一本书《关于中国》，提到在过去的二十个世纪里头，有十八个世纪，中国的经济排全球第一。只有最近的两个世纪她在全球竞争之中输给西方。而最近又再卷土重来。怎么竟然会有一个文明能够富过千代？怎么“不死的传说”只属于中国？

 

Strangely, China never had an East India Company; China did not invent the modern banking system, the shareholding companies, a global reserve currency and internationally approved accounting system. And China still does not have a parliament.

更奇怪的是，中国没有“东印度公司”，也没发明“现代银行”，没发明“股份制公司”、全球储备货币和国际公认会计系统。至今为止，中国没有欧美式的“议会”。

 

China did not even have great economists like Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Frederick Hyak or Milton Friedman. And China had no great scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. But the Chinese civilization has Confucius, Mencius, and the many many poets and the many many more fine calligraphers. 

中国甚至没有经济大师，如：亚当斯密斯、凯恩斯、海耶克、弗里德曼。中国也没有举世闻名的科学家如：艾萨克牛顿公爵、爱因斯坦和霍金。但是中国有孔孟之道，还有许许多多的诗人词家，及更加多的书法家。

 

Could modern medicine save the world from illness? Probably so. But the pandemic showed us that the countries with the most advance medicine might not enjoy the lowest mortality rate in the pandemic. 

现代医学能否消灭世界上的疾病？听说可以。可是疫情给于我们的教训是：医药最先进的国家不等同于死亡率最低的国家。

 

Can the economists bring prosperity to the human world? Maybe. But the current situation shows that the countries that have produced the most outstanding economists are not the countries that have dissolved their own extreme poverty. 

经济学大师是否能够带给我们全球性的富裕？眼下的论据显示，出产最杰出经济大师的国家竟然解决不了自己国家的极端贫困。

 

Can arts and humanities, especially the Chinese arts and culture, bring a greater value to the human world? I have very good reasons to think so. 

文学与艺术，特别是中国文学与艺术，能否为世界带来福祉？历史的论据似乎与我站在同一阵线。

 

In fact, the main subject of the national examination during the Tang Dynasty was poetry composing. And Tang Dynasty China was the most prosperous and powerful country in the world history. 

唐朝的国家考试，科目便是诗歌创作。而唐代的中国是世界史上最富强的国家。

 

In other words, no one can become a minister or a MP during Tang Dynasty without the ability to compose rhythmic poems and write beautiful calligraphy. 

换句话说，在唐代，如果你不懂诗歌创作，不能书字优美，就不能当议员，更不能当部长。

 

Can you imagine one day, our Singapore ministers start reciting poems and sonnets to each other in the parliament when they are debating over policy-making? We would think that something wrong has gone up in the minds of these ministers. 

你能不能想象？如果我们的国会在为制定政策而争论时，部长议员们相互朗诵诗歌？选民们可能会怀疑：“我们是不是投错票”了。

 

But that’s what the officials did exactly in the Tang Dynasty Imperial Court. And it is this same court that has brought China to become the most prosperous country in the world in every sense. Military, finance and culture. 

唐代的中国政府便是这样执行公务的，动辄吟诵诗词曲赋。而正是这样的政府，把国家的军事、经济与文化提升到世界顶峰。

 

And China during Tang Dynasty made friends with the Christians as well as the Muslims at the same time. We had free trade all the way to the Byzantine Roma.

在外交领域，唐朝中国同时与基督教徒及伊斯兰教徒关系友好。唐朝中国，贸易自由，直达拜占庭的罗马。

 

The truth is seldom discovered with naked eyes; the truth is always discovered in our mind. Sometimes, the truth may not be discovered in our mind but in our heart, through our sentiment.

真理往往不是肉眼所见，而靠思维推理出来。有时，真理也不存于思维，而存在于心中，心中的情怀里头。

 

Today we are here to launch a Lotus on Water Chinese Culture Publication Endowment Fund in NTU.

今天，我们在南洋理工大学设立云龙子中华文化出版基金。

 

In fact, this is not the first donation we have given to NTU. The last donation was the Lotus on Water Gold Medal Award and Book Prizes, which we started in 2013.

其实这不是我们对南洋理工大学的第一个捐赠。上一次的捐赠是2013年的4个云龙子书藉奖及一个云龙子金牌奖。

 

Every year since 2013, we attended the convocation ceremony without fail, except one year during the pandemic. 

自2013年开始，除了疫情期间一届的毕业典礼，年年的毕业典礼我都出席。

 

And last year, when I attended the convocation, Professor Qu Jingyi sat next to me. He talked to me about the academic journal he has just started, the Nanyang Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture (NJCLC) that includes the academic findings from the America’s Harvard University, China’s Peking University and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. 

去年我参加毕业典礼的时候，曲景毅教授坐在我身边。他与我分享了《南洋中华文学与文化学报》。学报的论文将包括中国北京大学、美国哈佛大学及新加坡南洋理工大学的研究成果。

 

I thought, what a meaningful project this is. The gaps between people, that politicians, doctors, scientists and economists fail to bridge could probably be successfully healed by the academicians, the artists and the culturati. 

我想这是件多么有意义的平台。或许，政治家、经济学家、科学家和医生所未能缝补的鸿沟与裂隙，学者、艺术家及文化人能为世界，搭鹊成桥。

 

Could Lotus on Water see any financial return by involving in this project? Frankly, I can not yet see in my logical mind.

云龙子旺财馆是否能在这项投入看见经济的回报？老实说，我的逻辑思维未能推理出来。

 

https://youtu.be/dQoPIgkXNhQ

Frankly, if I have not being an art and humanities student,
If I did not immerse myself in the study of Chinese culture in this university,
If I am not a grandson of my grandfather who was a gentleman that loved composing poetry and writing calligraphy,
If I am not the great grandnephew of my great granduncle who was an imperial scholar from the late Qing Dynasty, sent to Southeast Asia for diplomatic mission, I may not have the sentiment (the heart) to see the profound meaning in a project as such.
如果我不曾经是文学院的学生，
如果我不曾经在这间大学进濡过中华语言文化，
如果我的外公戴桥星先生不是一个爱写书法，以诗词为乐的乡绅，
如果我的太舅公杨芷芗先生不是前清秀才，南下为使，几经政权更替，却终生以人文教育为己任，
或许我的心中的情怀也看不见这个项目的非凡意义。

 

I have also brought along some of my clients who have supported me all these years to witness the launch of this endowment trust.
我今天邀请了一些客户见证这个仪式。

And I would also like to let my clients know that part of the money they have invested in us, I am now reinvesting into something that doesn’t seem so urgent but in actuality very important, which is to help build a better tomorrow for them and their children.
主要目的是让我们的客户知道，我将他们投资在我们身上的部分利润，转投资在一件长远又重要的事情。那便是为他们，及他们的子孙建设一个更加美好的明日世界。

 

We may not be the wealthiest in this country but we are definitely one who is consistently eager to make sure that what we believe, and what we say, and what we do, are in perfect harmony.
我们虽然不是本岛最富裕的人，但我们愿意积极地确保我们的信念与言行，協调合一、天衣无缝。

 

I would like to congratulate Professor Qu Jingyi and all the members of Chinese Department NTU School of Humanities. I have high hopes with what you can achieve. I believe it will shine light to a world that needs recovery, peace, harmony and prosperity. And I appreciate you in taking the initiative to do so.
我恭贺曲景毅教授及文学院中文部的所有团员。对于你们的成就我寄于厚望。这个世界需要愈合、平安、和谐与富足。谢谢你们积极主动地把光明带给我们。

-- Master Yun Long Zi 云龙子大师
6th July 2022