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What would I need to do to start a successful career as a luxury real estate agent?
Luxury Real Estate is the best yet you have to be fully prepared for it.There are a lot of factors you need to consider before getting into Luxury Real Estate.First, you need to understand what exactly is the Luxury Real EstateA luxury agent is someone that does not deal in typical homes, instead, they deal mainly in the luxury market. That is to say, homes and properties that average in the millions of dollars in value. These agents may also deal in vacation homes overseas or in exotic locations, and specialty properties that average agents do not have access to. These agents are going to be high power, high drive, and very busy. Agents that are classified as luxury agents are going to make far more on commission on one sale than an average agent might make all year.Sounds something very attractive, That is right.Now the question is how to become one?So becoming a luxury agent is as easy as taking multi-million dollar listing and going with it right? Wrong. Becoming a luxury agent has nuances and tips that will help you break into the market and gain the trust of your sellers and potential buyers. The first step is to learn the game. You need to be well versed in the market, well versed in what being a luxury agent entails, and well versed in how to make the most of your sales. If you have no experience in real estate you need to start there in order to avoid potential lawsuits and other issues.The next step is to take the time to look like a luxury agent. You can have the best listing in the world but if you look like you just rolled out of bed, odds are buyers and sellers alike are not going to have much faith in you. You need to do a few things. First, pay for luxury branding, this means expensive looking business cards, top of the line advertising and a website that lets everyone know you know what you are doing. You should also take the time to dress the part in luxury clothes that make you look like a success.You should also be able to use the latest technology in the business. Using things like apps, websites, electronic signature software, and showing feedback software can all make you look like you are at the top of your game which will help drive buyers and sellers alike to you. Interactive yard signs are also a great addition to your arsenal as well as cloud document storage and the latest gadgets can all let your buyers and sellers know that you are a success and that you are evolving with the times.Still another thing to consider is your listing presentation. Your listing is going to show others that you are not just another person that sells houses. Pay for the extra luxurious branding and listing packages, take the time to memorize your presentation and encourage others to join in on your presentation so that you can make your potential buyers feel welcome and important.Lastly, you need to take the time to make sure that your follow up game is on point. Make sure you are taking the time to send out emails, take phone calls, and stay in touch with both potential buyers and sellers so that you can assure them you are doing all you can to get their sale off the ground. Your customers are your biggest asset and can help send you from a one luxury property agent to a multi-property agent that has the experience and the gusto that it takes to be a real luxury agent.Here is one stop to get this allLH-REX | LUXURY HOME REAL ESTATE EXPERTNow the last part is why bother becoming a real estate agent?Aside from higher commissions, being a luxury agent comes with a certain something that really makes your reputation. Having luxury listings can help you get tons of points when it comes to your reputation and your brand prestige as well. Having luxury listings and being a luxury agent are two different things. If you really want to be the luxury agent of your dreams, you have to be willing to play the part and truly work for what you want.With hard work and dedication anyone, even starting agents, can become luxury listing agents and can really break into the industry and become something more. Luxury agents have the prestige to snag celebrity clients, are often invited to luxe industry events and are even part of a special circle that reflects your hard work and dedication making for an end result that is well worth the work and well worth the struggle.Some part of the writing are taken from a Blog.Blog Author: Shahla JalaliCOO OF Global Real Estate Licence
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How can one be a successful luxury real estate agent?
Ah yes.The lifestyle of the rich and famous. Fast cars. Fancy outfits.Little stone statues at the front of the entryway. The allure is undeniable.And for real estate agents, the chance to eat a slice of the luxury pie is an alluring prospect indeed. ...Especially if that slice comes in the form of a 3% commission off of a multi-million dollar listing. But how does a realtor establish themselves as a luxury agent in the first place?Well, it’s not easy. You can obtain a GREL Certification, for starters.This will walk you down the path of becoming a legitimate, certified luxury real estate agent. But regardless, one thing is certain,To deal with luxury real estate, an agent needs to buckle down.Here are a five powerful tips that could fast track your goals to becoming a Luxury real estate agent.#1 YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOINGBefore you even think of moving forward, ask yourself… do I know what I’m doing? There are many newbie real estate agents that jump from taking the test to becoming a luxury real estate agent.Unless you already have the background and experience in real estate, I strongly suggest you get some experience under your belt. That experience could help you avoid lawsuits and save you money.Simply taking 6 months to learn the ropes at a local real estate brokerage, while shadowing another successful luxury real estate agent, could be the difference in your failure or success. That extra experience will help you feel more confident when taking on a luxury listing and the mentor will help you develop the skills needed to be the greatest in your field.#2 YOU NEED TO LOOK THE PARTNormally we encourage real estate agents to relax and be themselves. Your clients will love you and appreciate your authenticity.Are you the laid back but trusted Realtor who wears jeans and flip flops every day? Show that in your marketing. Are you the young and modern Realtor with a focus on minimalism and technology? Show that in your marketing. I encourage agents to use their personality to market their businesses.However, when you are transitioning to luxury real estate, you need to figure out a way to make sure that your marketing and your style represents the luxury industry. Luxury real estate is a visual niche. The house, the car, the owners, the buyers and the agent all look the part.How to look like a luxury real estate agent? Here are some tipsPay for luxury branding – Make sure everything, from your website and business cards to your signs and advertising, is designed and printed to represent your luxury clientele.Dress to impress – Make sure your clothing is clean, pressed and tailored. First impressions go a long way when trying to win a listing. Just starting out? Purchase one or two neutral suits and multiple dress shirts/blouses. Keep them dry cleaned and wear those when meeting new clients or networking. The suits will be so neutral many won’t recognize you’ve worn it before. Switch up the blouses and/or dress shirts and you’ll always look professional and put together.Drive a nice car – It may sound vain, but in the luxury industry it is a necessity to make sure your car is nice, especially if you are driving luxury buyers around to look at homes. Your car should not only look nice but it should be clean and smell good as well. If you can't afford a luxury car, try Uber, a peer to peer taxi service, allows you to taxi luxury cars. Using Uber, you can sit in the back with your clients and they will get that luxury experience while going on walkthroughs.The only thing to look out for when using any taxi service is timing. This is why I don’t suggest using a taxi service when meeting with a seller unless you are paying them to wait for you outside. After presenting an amazing listing presentation you don’t want to be chilling around at a client’s house waiting for your ride.#3 YOU NEED TO UTILIZE THE LATEST IN REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGYIf you want a luxury buyer to hire you as their agent or if you want to win a luxury listing, you need to show clients that you can provide them with the latest in real estate marketing and technology. Make sure you understand how to utilize the latest technology to find and market homes and that you can effectively combine that knowledge with traditional techniques.Remember, just having flashy tools isn’t enough. You need to know how to use them effectively to increase the client’s ROI.Technology Used by Luxury Real Estate AgentsElectronic signature softwareShowing feedback softwareInteractive yard signsBeautifully designed websites with powerful home search enginesActive social media and blogsCloud document storageVirtual phone numbersThe latest gadgets (Touch screen laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.)#4 YOU NEED A LISTING PRESENTATION THAT WOWSTo win a luxury listing, you need to do more than click through a generic PowerPoint and pass out faded flyers and postcard examples. Instead – tweak your presentation to the property. Imagine the impression you’ll make when the seller sees a postcard with their house on it? And marketing that caters to their neighborhood and their current needs?Making those extra steps to personalize your listing presentation is worth the investment.Here are some key points to help you out.Pay for luxury branding – Make sure your listing presentation, listing package and examples are all professionally designed and printed to represent your luxury brand.Memorize your presentation – Although no two listing presentations will ever be the same, knowing the foundation of your presentation will be valuable. It will allow you to quickly and easily skip sections, answer questions without getting off-track and help you sound professional and knowledgeable about marketing real estate.Encourage participation – Get the sellers involved by allowing them to pretend to be buyers. Show them what happens when they text the number on the yard sign. Take them on a walk-through of their listings from your point of view. Luxury sellers are constantly being “sold” to. To get an edge, show them exactly why they should hire you. Actions speak louder than words.#5 YOU NEED TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR FOLLOW UPPotential clients searching for or selling traditional homes need basic follow-up strategies to convert them into clients. Those strategies include using the information collected in your CRM to send them email marketing, postcards and the occasional phone call.In retrospect, potential clients searching for or selling luxury homes need traditional follow-up combined with action to convert them into clients. Just sending a card that says happy birthday isn’t enough. For wealthy clients, sending gifts on birthdays and invitations to exclusive events in the area are key to establishing a healthy lead flow. Here are few tipsRemember the details – When you run into a potential luxury client, whether by chance or by a scheduled meeting, take notes and/or memorize the small details of their life. These small details include spouses, children, hobbies, vacation spots, etc. Make sure you put these things into your CRM and use these details to come up with innovative follow-up techniques.Use partner resources – Developing a lead funnel for luxury clients can be costly. This is why it is imperative to have partners that can provide discounts and resources to luxury amenities.The decision to buy and/or sell a luxury home isn’t an easy one. The real estate sales and lead cycle is already a long one – add in the luxury component and the lead cycle can be even longer. Don’t be discouraged if a potential client hasn’t responded after following up with them for longer than 3 months. Many times, they are busy, on vacation, or dealing with business. Unless they say “remove me from your list” keep marketing. You’ll be in the front of their minds when they are ready to hire a real estate professional.
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What are some great free online tools for entrepreneurs?
There’s quite a lot out there, depending on what you’re looking for :)Some free online tools (in no particular order):Dropbox. Save and share everything.Evernote. Best note app ever.FreePik. Find thousands of free images.SurveyMonkey. Create surveys to gauge customer feedback.Rapportive. Useful tool for Gmail that allows you to see other people’s social media profiles.Trello. Project management made simple.Slack. Work communication simplified.AdCat. Allows you to use a single picture to get perfect-sized, up-to-date ad images for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Free.Easel.ly. Great infographic generator for creating attractive content. Engaging content is vital for attracting audiences.Google Analytics. See who’s coming to your site and from where, among many many other awesome functions.Sidekick. Awesome email tool that tracks when emails are opened — super useful for proper follow-ups.Hotjar. Recordings of users on your website. Amazing to understand user behavior, which drives marketing strategies.Hootsuite. For social media management in one easy to use dashboard.Leadin by Hubspot. For lead management.Ahrefs. Powerful SEO tool.Later. Instagram consistently shows amazing engagement with users. This tool manages scheduling for you.Crowdfire. Great tool to figure out who to follow on social media for optimal engagement.BuzzSumo. Analyze what content performs best.Social Rank. Allows you to see which are your most valuable followers.UberSuggest. Free keyword suggesting tool.LinkMiner. Free tool for the link building strategy.JustsignNowOut. Finds journalists interested in covering you.Keyword.io. Free keyword research tool for SEO.MailChimp. To run automated email campaigns.Optimizely. A/B testing to optimize your website.Google Trends. Shows how often a particular search-term is entered.TweetDeck. Owned by Twitter, it makes discovering content easily digestible and allows you to find the topics and people you want.Title Maker. Content idea generator.Explore. Get to know what’s trending.Engage Master. Convert visitors to customers.Startup Bootstrap. Website building templates.Submit.co. Get press for your startup.SumoMe. Tool set to grow your website traffic.Quip. View documents on any device.Atomic Squirrel. Startup checklist.There’s tons more out there depending on what you are looking for specifically. I’m happy to update and reorganize if you need more :)Disclosure: I’m working on AdCat.
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How was Balaji Viswanathan's overall experience attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 held in Hyderabad, Where his I
Honestly, it was overwhelming. Things went truly viral and we were completely unprepared. We were so unprepared that we left the arena while there were important dignitaries trying to talk to us. Thanks to all of you for making this magical and thanks for your wonderful compliments.I was just a few feet from Mr.Modi as we entered the place and it was an amazing feeling. Someday I will get to talk with him. And Ivanka was probably the most beautiful woman I have met. We just joke that even our robot went giddy infront of these amazing personalities. Top entrepreneurs like Ritesh Aggarwal [founder of Oyo] walked up to us to congratulate and it was a magical feeling.The highlight of the whole thing was Amul making its signature billboard with our robot. I feel humbled by these billboards.We were truly excited by Shri Modi’s and Ms. Ivanka’s expression and the thousands of snaps that were taken along with hundreds of media coverage we got. The PM tweeted about it and his office featured the bot in their homepage.Yesterday in Finland at the Slush event a founder of a European company building robots walked up to me after recognizing the Mitra and talked about partnership in taking our robots to the European market. That felt elating [inspite of the fact that the product was not in the perfect shape especially after disassembling for the flight]. Many Finnish people took selfies with the robot to put it on their timeline and that was great.We also had a delegation from Japan’s Olympics committee visit our office to explore robots for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. These sales might or might not happen in reality, but it felt amazing to imagine that Europe and Japan could buy products from India not for cost, but for uniqueness.To our well wishers:I’m humbled by your comments and it comes as a great boost for my team that has been tired and dazzled from months of hard work. Everyone in my team come from humble backgrounds and are out to prove something big and this comes as a shot in their arm.They worked day in and night to get the models going. We faced a number of setbacks. A model made in China never came home as it is stuck in Chennai customs for 2 months. A clay model we made had several inaccuracies and could never be completed. An android device we planned didn’t support our code base and we had to go for a quick fix with another tablet. Logistics went crazy and so did a million things.There were many hands that went in. Our CTO Bharath built the overall mechanics and everything to get it moving. He was helped by our production engineer Ram and Salman who helped in the structure. Our BDM Kaundinya pulled off this event and got our robot in after our COO Mahalakshmi was invited as a delegate for the event. Mahalakshmi and her brother Sudarshan did the whole supply chain and logistics for getting all the components. Her father helped us secure funding resources to sustain the R&D.Our electronics engineers Murali, Raushan and our new hire Spandana helped in building the circuit boards and making the electronics work. Our software engineers Ashwin, Anand and Sreejit made the entire stack. Our project manager Amit made sure the things went on schedule. and Our clay modeller Mr. Angappan helped us prepare the final fibreglass body. Our designers Vinay Rao and others at Bang Design helped us design the body. And journalists like Ranjani Ayyar and Nilesh Christopher spent time understanding the product to build an accurate story.And a special thanks to Kishlay Raj and his team at Sumeru. Their CEO and CTO gave their team’s personal time to finetune the underlying product. While we couldn’t showcase Hindi language NLP in the limited time it is a part of the product that we would sell.It took the whole village to put up this show.To the general public:Just to clarify, it was not any approval from the Indian government for being best startup or anything. And it didn’t involve me using any connections or favours. The event organisers were looking at something unique for the event. They were set on a large, humanoid robot to move around and greet the dignitaries and ours was the only one in the market - not just Indian - that could do so. We have done many events across India with our robots and we had worked with the event organisers before.A few days before the event, our robot was even cancelled for the event due to security reasons etc. Then we got back in the game once the senior leadership Wizcraft [the organisers] realised this was Made in India and they wanted to encourage such a product. And being a poor bootstrapped startup, they recognized the need to encourage entrepreneurship of all kinds. We got to this place without any angel/VC money.We have had many successes so far this year. Nasscom put us in a number of top events - including letting us pitch to the Japanese delegation at the Ministry of IT earlier this month. We were among the top 50 startups chosen by them and were in almost every top Nasscom event this year. We were also invited as a part of the Indian delegation to China and close to closing a big order there.We have also worked with Thub and had the honour of presenting a PoC to the global leadership of Novartis who came to Hyderabad earlier this year.To our critics:A few people on the Internet trolled us saying this looks like 70s toys, 90s toys, children’s project etc. I’m used to getting trolled and don’t mind criticism on me. But, since you guys were abusing the work of a group, I’m forced to respond in kind.I just ask them if it were that easy to make our product, why was there never a robot in a major Indian event so far? Why didn’t they make it and take all the honours? Why are you reading about an Indian robot doing such a thing for the first time? And why are there no global product companies from India, if making hardware is a child’s game? Think about it.People who never make things are usually the ones who underestimate the complexity that goes into a product. If you have never made things, you won’t know the pain of making.People said I pulled my connections. The event organizers don’t know anything about me and neither does anyone at BJP’s top brass or the US government that sponsored the event. Our event participation was pulled off by our excellent BDM and I had little to do with it. The event organizers would draw a blank if you ask them who Balaji is.Some people said I should learn from Elon Musk and Steve Jobs in how not to make shitty product. With due respect, I studied business history more than most of my critics. Jobs and Musk are geniuses. But even the geniuses start with more achievable targets. Elon Musk started with a product like this: Yellow Pages. Steve Jobs started with a product like this: Apple I. Honda’s Asimo started this way: Honda E1. Benz started this way: karl benz. Our own amazing ISRO guys started like this: The Story of How ISRO Defied All Odds To Put SatellitesGreat looking products don’t sprout in thin air. They are a result of years of work, starting with more modest looking creations. You cannot become an adult without starting as a fetus.We are trying to prove that there is a mass market for humanoids. It would be suicidal for a company of our stage to worry about a perfect product. Ours is more like a fetus and we are trying to keep it nourished and nurtured for a grand future.A few more critics said we should have been embarrassed to put such a product. Predictably none of those are entrepreneurs or someone who have created something. Because, real creators and entrepreneurs don’t worry about breaking things. Taking risk is what we do. Rather than an embarrassment, I would feel elated for my team even if it had not even started moving.The challenges:Try moving a 50kg, 5 feet tall object through varying terrain in a noiseless, smooth way without tripping and you will understand the physics behind the design. And with a battery life to last hours of rehearsals. It is a non-trivial piece of engineering with suspension systems that my team created. From the fiberglass body to the internal structure, everything was made here.We built the hardware, software and electronics for this. We built 9 prototypes this year. We are bootstrapped and have done all this hardware investment without any external funding. And while we didn’t show its real capabilities in the GES event [too risky to try] our robots can move autonomously and that what the funky head antenna is for. We integrated NLP tools and face recognition APIs and those are non-trivial things. And over the years we iterated a million times to get things better and better.Of course, there are plenty of inaccuracies and faults. This was handmade and in a very short span of time. But, the team has gone through enormous things to get this far, from where we started earlier this year.Developing product in India is hard. Making everything in India is hard. Making such a large object is hard as the mould costs multiply and the complexity goes as a square of that. Talk is easy, getting the stuff work on the floor is hard and why these don’t happen often.I’m not saying that our product is perfect. I’m saying the product is perfected and we will get there someday. If we keep worrying about breaking things, we are not a startup.In conclusion:I’m not saying we are India’s best product or even India’s best robotics company. The GES event was not about that. They wanted to showcase entrepreneurship at an early stage and a product that fit their needs. Large finished products come from large companies, startups backed by billionaires or at least startups with large venture funding. GES thought having a product from a company that didn’t fit any of these categories above and supported by no one was worth doing.Hardware in India will sprout only when difficulties of building hardware is understood and its complexities appreciated. Everyone says they or their grandmother or their child could have our product. But, they didn’t. Only our team did. And it is much easy imagining doing a product than doing it.Is the product overhyped? Maybe. Was there luck involved. Yes. But hey for a bootstrapped startup that has been teetering on brink of bankruptcy and has had more than its share of misfortune this year, I would not mind a little luck. Would you? Peace!
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What are the regulations for online beer sales in the UK?
Selling online: an overview of the rulesThis is an edited version of a guide for businesses.E-commerce TMT & Sourcing TMT Retail Education UKThere has been a steady growth in the variety and volume of goods and services which are available on-line to both businesses and consumers, and on-line selling is increasingly seen as a major way for all businesses to save costs. Almost inevitably, as the practice of on-line selling proliferates so does the amount of legislation governing it. This article provides an overview of the law governing on-line sales in the UK and an analysis of the issues that a business should consider before setting up an on-line sales process.The law governing online salesThere are two distinct types of legislation that affect on-line retailers. Firstly, traditional consumer protection regulations apply to all consumer sales made on-line. These regulations are well established, but it is important to remember that they apply to on-line retailers as much as they do to traditional ones. Secondly, there are regulations designed specifically to deal with problems and issues facing retailers on-line.Traditional consumer protection regulationsThese protect purchasers and consumers whether they are buying the goods over the counter of a shop or over the internet. For instance the Sale of Goods Act gives certain rights to purchasers about the quality of the goods they receive, and their rights if the goods fail to live up to these standards. The Consumer Credit Act protects consumers' rights when they enter into an agreement for someone to provide them with loans or credit facilities including circumstances where they buy goods or services using a credit card. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations protect consumers' rights where they enter into agreements with retailers who try to impose unfair terms in the agreement. There are also numerous other pieces of legislation, many of which will apply to different contract and product types.Online regulationsThese regulations are new, and were brought into force largely to protect consumers' rights when they buy products either over the internet or by telephone. They largely derive from EU Directives, and include the E-commerce Regulations , the Distance Selling Regulations and the Electronic Signatures Regulations . These are the regulations that control the actual on-line sales process and they provide the starting block from which we can consider the practical business requirements of on-line retailers.Although the traditional consumer regulations are important for all sales processes, this article focuses on the on-line regulations and how they affect the various stages of the on-line sales process. The next five sections take you through what the regulations require including information that must be provided to a purchaser, the use of electronic signatures, contract formation issues and ensuring your contract is legal.Information that must be suppliedThe various regulations share a central theme: companies should not hide themselves from purchasers, and should provide as much information to purchasers as possible.Company information that must be supplied under the E-Commerce RegulationsThe E-Commerce Regulations require that all commercial web sites make the following information directly and permanently available to consumers via the website:the company's name, postal address (and registered office address if this is different) and email address;the company's registration number;any Trade or Professional Association memberships;the company's VAT number.All of this applies regardlessof whether the site sells on-line. In addition, any commercial communication – that is any email or even SMS text message – used in providing an "Information Society Service" must display this information.The E-Commerce Regulations also require that all prices must be clear and unambiguous, and web sites must state whether the prices are inclusive of taxes and delivery costs.Contractual information that must be supplied under the E-Commerce RegulationsWhen it comes to actually going through the contractual process the requirements for information increase once again and the consumers must be told:the steps involved in completing the contract on-line;whether the contract will be stored by the retailer and/or permanently accessible;the technical means the site uses to allow consumers to spot and correct errors made while inputting their details prior to the order being placed;the languages offered to conclude the contract;The website must also provide links to any relevant Codes of Conduct to which the retailer subscribes and set out the retailer's Terms and Conditions, in a way which allows users to save and print them.All of this information must be provided before the purchaser selects the product and starts the contractual process and it is possible to convey it early on in the sale, without deterring users with an unwieldy sales process. The most common route is to bundle as many of these details into the terms and conditions as possible, and ensure that consumers are appropriately directed to read them.Information that must be supplied under the Distance Selling RegulationsThese Regulations set out the information which must be provided to a consumer prior to the conclusion of the contract.The information must be provided in a clear and comprehensible manner which is appropriate to the means of distance communication used. This means that the information can be set out on a web page, provided that the information is brought to the attention of the consumers before the contract is entered into. The information to be provided includes all of the information which a supplier should, in any event, wish to provide in relation to:the identity of the supplier;the main characteristics of the goods or services;their price;arrangements for payment and delivery; andthe existence of the right of cancellation created under the Distance Selling Regulations.Information that should be set out in the terms and conditionsThe terms and conditions should:make it clear who is selling the product, together with the geographical and email address;describe clearly what the customer is getting and what it will cost, including all taxes and delivery costs; andidentify the arrangements for delivery of the product.The terms and conditions of the site are very important, and will vary for every retailer. It is important that the terms and conditions are properly drafted, as poorly drafted terms and conditions will expose the retailer to unnecessary risk.Electronic signaturesThe Electronic Signature Regulations apply to any contract and not just those entered into with consumers. In order for there to be a binding contract the following essential elements of a contract must be present:an unconditional offer;an unconditional acceptance of that offer;consideration passing from both parties other than in Scotland where consideration is not a requirement; andan intention to create legal relations, i.e. the parties must intend to enter into a legally binding contract.There must also be certainty as to the terms, parties and subject matter of the contract. For the majority of contracts there is no legal requirement for a signature.Whenever a person buys or sells something he or she is entering into a contract, no matter how small the purchase. In the newsagents, when a person buys a newspaper he or she contracts with the newsagent for the purchase. The newsagent makes an 'Invitation to Treat' by placing the publication on sale. The person offers to purchase it from the newsagent, proffering money, and the offer is accepted (concluding the contract) by taking the money. This is still a contract, although not a word needs to be said, and nothing is written down. However, the essentials of a contract have been formed: an offer (to buy, or sell), an acceptance of that offer, and (everywhere except Scotland) consideration (whether money being paid, or some other form of consideration) for the sale. The various stages of the contractual process will be discussed in more detail later, as it is important to distinguish between who is making the offer and who is accepting it.Signatures are not actually necessary for the conclusion of every contract (your visit to the paper shop could become a chore), but they can have three essential functions when we consider on-line contracts:To identify the person who has bought the product;To indicate a personal involvement, or trustworthiness; andTo indicate an intention to be bound to the contract.The principal, and simple effect of the Electronic Signature Regulations is to make electronic signatures legally valid. Most of the discussion, and further interpretation of electronic signatures actually comes from a report published in December 2001 by the Law Commission entitled "Electronic Commerce: Formal requirements in Commercial Transactions", and in subsequent guidance from the DTI.Depending on exactly what is being sold the method of collecting the electronic signature will vary. In most cases, the function required of the electronic signature is the third one listed above – indicating that the purchaser is making an offer to contract. However, for more complex products being sold on-line, for instance financial services products, the role of the signature may become more important for one or both of the first two reasons.Depending on the value and/or importance of the transaction the parties may want a greater degree of certainty as to reliability of the signature. This may involve the use of public key infrastructure, for example.Contract formation issuesThe main issues considered in this section are how, when and where the contract is formed. This involves an analysis of the contract formation procedure based on the principle of offer and acceptance and the significance of the "country of origin" principle.The offer and acceptance procedure onlineStep 1: Establishing the offer and acceptance procedureThis is where the E-commerce Regulations can be used to the seller's advantage. It is possible to sell on-line and take payment by credit card without concluding the contract on-line. The solution is to provide that the customer is making an offer on the site and that the contract will be formed only if the customer's order is accepted – and that taking payment from the customer's credit card does not indicate cceptance.On-line merchant accounts provide for making refunds to a customer's credit card. Therefore, the terms should explain that, while the customer's card may be debited before the contract is formed, if the customer's order is ultimately rejected, a refund will be made immediately.Step 2: Completing the order formThe customer is taken to the order form where he completes the quantity of goods and his delivery details. It would be good practice to offer three buttons: submit, clear and cancel. The "clear" button is needed because the E-Commerce Regulations require a means for the customer to correct any errors.Step 3: Incorporating the terms and conditionsAt the bottom of the terms and conditions page the purchaser should, ideally, be required to check a box to indicate that he or she has read, understood and accepted the terms and conditions, before clicking the "Accept" button. The "Accept" button should not work until the box has been checked. Equally the page should be designed in such a way that the consumer cannot check the box and click "Accept" until the page has fully loaded onto the screen. By doing this, you improve your position in the event that a purchaser claims there was no opportunity to read your terms.While there is no responsibility on the retailer to ensure that the consumer has in fact read them, following this procedure will demonstrate that reasonable efforts have been made to bring them to purchasers' attention. The terms and conditions should be in a format that can be printed or saved – therefore avoid pop-up windows and ensure that they fit within the width of the page and are presented in a way that they will print properly.It is wise to also include a term like the following:"By clicking the 'Accept' button you agree to these terms and conditions. By completing and submitting the following electronic order form you are making an offer to purchase goods which, if accepted by us, will result in a binding contract."The words, "if accepted by us," are very important.This approach is the suggested 'best practice' approach for relaying the terms and conditions, and ensuring that the consumer has read them. However, it is not the most consumer friendly approach to present the purchaser with a screen of 'small print' in the middle of what, to the consumer, was an otherwise normal shopping experience. Therefore a number of on-line retailers adopt a second-best approach, which is to include a link to the terms and conditions, and make the consumer tick a box to confirm that they have read and accepted the terms and conditions, before they click the main button to buy the product. This approach, while not as legally secure, is probably acceptable in a number of purchasing models.Step 4: Taking the consumer's credit card details on-lineAt this stage, the user should be taken to the page on a secure server where his credit card details are taken. This page should state: "Your card will be debited with the sum of £X when you click the Submit button. This will be refunded if your offer is refused." Repeat the choice of submit, clear and cancel.Step 5: Acknowledging receipt of the orderWhen the card details are validated, the E-Commerce Regulations require that you give the customer an acknowledgement page and send an acknowledgement email. This should not confirm a contract; it should instead confirm that the order has been received and that the order is being "processed". It is helpful to give the customer an order number at this stage so that he or she can chase-up any problems. It is good practice, though not legally required, to ask the user to click a button on a confirmation page to indicate that he has read the confirmation – e.g. a "Continue" button, linking to the homepage of the site.Step 6: Providing confirmation of the information provided and the right to cancelThe Distance Selling Regulations now require the supplier to provide the consumer in writing or in another durable medium confirmation of the information provided prior to the conclusion of the contract and details of the right of cancellation. Generally a consumer has a period of seven working days within which to cancel the contract and return the goods to the supplier. The only cost to a consumer will be the cost of returning any goods received by it to the supplier.A consumer will not be entitled to cancel a contract after it has been entered into, where the supplier has commenced the provision of services with the consumer's agreement prior to the end of the cancellation period then the consumer will not have the right to cancel the contract for the provisional services. However, in order to benefit from this exception, the supplier must have advised the consumer that the consumer will not be able to cancel the contract once the performance of the services has begun with the consumer's agreement.It is not possible to contract out of the Distance Selling Regulations. Any term which attempts to do this will be void to the extent that it is inconsistent with the provisions of the distance Selling Regulations.Step 7: DeliveryFinally, dispatch the goods. If a typo mislabelled an item costing £200 at £2 and someone ordered 500 of them, the site could politely – and legally – refuse the order. This is because by following the procedure set out above the dispatch of goods is in effect the acceptance of the offer made by the consumer at the start of the process. Until this point there has been no acceptance and only an acknowledgement.The "country of origin" principleThe E-commerce Regulations apply a "country of origin" principle. In its simplest form, this means that as long as a UK business complies with UK laws, it can "ignore" the laws of other Member States. In general terms this is a definite bonus for on-line retailers. However, recognising that such an approach would be bad news for consumers, this basic rule is qualified.The E-Commerce Regulations do not apply the country of origin principle to the terms of consumer contracts. In practical terms, this means that a UK-based e-commerce site's terms and conditions should meet the laws of every Member State in which consumers can buy its products, not just UK laws.As a result of the consumer contract exception, any site selling to French consumers must provide its terms and conditions in French – otherwise they may be considered invalid. If selling into Denmark, consumers must be given a 14 working day cooling-off period during which the consumer can change his or her mind about the purchase and return the goods for a refund. In the UK, the cooling-off period is only seven working days. These are only examples, of course there are many other differences.Despite this signNow qualification, there are still advantages in the Regulations' country of origin principle that can benefit a UK-based business. For example, the UK's retail laws are among the most relaxed in Europe. This can give UK businesses advantages over, say, German competitors. A German e-tailer must comply with any German restrictions on promotional offers; its UK rival escapes such restrictions, even when selling to German consumers.Ensuring your contract is legalIt is important for e-commerce retailers to ensure that the contract which is formed with the consumer under the process described above is both legally correct and also affords the retailer the maximum protection. There are various ways in which the contracting process can be structured to be legally correct, and it is important to balance absolute best practice, and a more commercial approach which is still legally correct. Equally, it is surprisingly easy to structure the process in a way which is legally incorrect, and which exposes the company to more risk than is necessary.
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What is it like to have ADD or ADHD?
Wow. So many awesome answers. I share much of what has already been described:* Brighter than almost everyone around me* Learn new things incredibly fast when engaged* See deeply into problems--develop an abstract understanding of a new area so much faster than others* Very, very good at anticipating problems and making a plan. Very, very bad at executing against it.* Terribly easily distracted, always starting and abandoning projects* Information junky LOVE to learn new things* Incredibly verbal and charming when I want to be. Witty and funny.* Viciously self-critical and sometimes viciously critical of others* Hate to wait, always late, procrastinate.* Finish people's sentences for them* Only care about getting the information I need. Please don't tell me why that task isn't done. I don't care. I asked a yes or no question: Is it done? * Being mistaken for a dick because my irritation over delay and distraction is mistaken for judgment about another's behavior or their output.* C student in high school, didn't graduate college. Sometimes spent more time helping others with their homework than doing my own.* Hated to attend lecture. The information came too slowly. Detested listening to others ask questions of the teacher. Why are they so stupid? This is a waste of my time. Learned on my own time in my own way.* Undisciplined about health. Don't take care of my health for years at a time. Then flip-flop to hyperfocused. Eat carefully, exercise every day, drop 40 pounds or more, then peter out and back to sloth.* No self-control around foods. Can't eat one cookie. The only way I can eat better is to not have the cookies around.* Tried drugs as a teenager but didn't like them. I literally didn't get what others thought was exciting about being drunk or stoned. Would 100X rather waste time reading a fascinating history book or playing a strategy game than feel impaired.* TV calms me if it is engaging. Enrages me when it isn't. Commercials usually make me want to tear my eyes out. Poorly written comedy makes me want to kill somebody. I can more-or-less only watch PBS and cable TV because the programs are commercial free. Documentaries are the BOMB. Who knew earth worms were so fascinating? And I feel so much calmer while I watch...* Radio calms me if it is engaging, Enrages me when it isn't. The increased volume of radio commercials and makes me want to firebomb car dealers and other radio advertisers. I am engaged only when I get a constant stream of just the right music or engaging information from people I respect. I can pretty much only listen to PBS and internet radio today.* Movies often bore me, unless they hit the right psychological note. Can't stand to watch shoot-em-ups, blow-em-ups, superpower-them-ups, hack-em-ups. Have to watch movies that show me nuance and psychological realities. When I do have to watch silly movies with my children, have to analyze the symbolism to death. * Always felt different. Always knew there was something wrong with me. Always felt lonely. Couldn't put my finger on the problem with me.* Couldn't achieve my potential. Couldn't even come close.* Verbally Impulsive. Have great trouble concealing a negative emotional reaction.* Will freely express a negative opinion of an idea. Can't understand why that would bother the other person. After all, I was only trying to help improve the idea... * Am not strongly attached to my own ideas. They come and go fast anyways. If you shoot it down, I'll go back to the drawing board and comeback with another.* Consistently underestimate the time I need to complete tasks.The only real thing I can add to what others have written is the depression and self-doubt. If you allow it to get to you, it can be so demoralizing to lose your wallet, phone or keys every morning. To once again leave the house without remembering that form you were supposed to return to the kids school. It sucks to constantly feel you are disappointing others. It sucks to feel you don't know how to love other people because your attention wanders the moment their needs don't require your focused attention. It sucks to know you set a bad example for your children. It sucks to know in the moment you are becoming obsessed over something inconsequential and have pursued it far beyond the point of behaving productively. It sucks to feel that you are self-centered because your need to have your anxiety reassured is so important you often can't suspend it when you should.ADD is the best of times and the worst of times. Sometimes I feel so powerful because it is so easy to put that blowhard in his place by pointing out the myriad flaws in his argument. Sometimes I feel so self-confident because I don't give a fuck what people think of me so I can say what I want. Sometimes I feel so awesome because I can do things with my brain others find incredible. Sometimes I feel hopeless because I can't get up off the couch to do the simple things that must get done today.
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Did Malaysia ever have a strong and intelligent PM like Lee Kuan Yew?
Threats to the state come from outside and inside. In order to facilitate the planning of the enemy of Islam, their main agenda was to bring turbulence from within the country and cause the unity of the Muslim Malays to split. This is happening right now and the government is forced to spend hundreds of millions of ringgit to carry nerves of war to prevent Malaysia from falling into this scene.Malaysia has managed to eliminate the delicate and planned planning from outside because it has a very powerful intelligence network with the help of the Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM) troops and the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) Branch. Only a country with an intelligence network and a really good information network can only cope with many problems thrown into the country.Not a few other countries imitate the way Malaysia uses the concept of "Prevent Before it happen" through the Official Secrets Act which is now imitated by many foreign countries.Where other countries fail, Malaysia remains safe. Try to find out in this world, which country is inevitably disturbed by these "invisible hands", from Indonesia to the Middle East.So far our country is still capable of being defended and you can still go out to march, listen to Anwar or PAS talks and campaign for your political success in the Umno party, all because the Malaysian government and its cronies are struggling to struggle in order to enable you to do all this for FREE .1. To ensure security, the state must have an efficient intelligence network. To ensure sovereignty, the state must have a strong defence. It's easy to form.2. The basis for a strong intelligence network in Malaysia lies with the military, government bodies and the sources of income from government-owned companies with rich funds.3. I think it's funny when there are parties who raise the issue of "people's money", what is the people's money? I am confident through a state-owned privatization policy like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, government corporations or GLCs can afford millions of ringgit to the Malaysian government (your people's money, your money safe in the bank and the Employees Provident Fund).4. it’s not easy to get the thing I mentioned in Paragraph 1 above because it's very expensive. It is a difficulties for Malaysian mentality to pay insurance because the importance of insurance coverage will not be seen unless it is an accident or a disaster.5. Simple example, we are headache when it comes to spending money on our car insurance and we (especially the Malays) are not interested in insurance-based investments.6. This is very different from developed countries such as Singapore, which considers internal and external defence budgets as an insurance protection to the security and progress of the republic.7. There are several parties conducting intelligence in the country and include several agencies in government ministries, the Royal Malaysian Police Special Branch Unit (PDRM) or the Special Branch, Kor Risik Diraja, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, the Malaysian Armed Forces and Air Force and elements within the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Prime Minister's Department of Malaysia.8. Foreign and domestic intelligence elements lie on the shoulders of intelligence agencies such as the Malaysia External Intelligence Organization (MEIO), SB and the Kor Risik Diraja who collect information from abroad to be collected and linked to several issues within the country that are also compiled by the same agency or others agency who collect information from local sources.9. From the public, intelligence networks (networks to real intelligence agencies) will provide information to the Prime Minister's Department, for example, the Special Affairs Division (JASA), KEMAS, the State Bureau of Customs and specially appointed individuals identified as highly patriotic and pass strict security scores, and they are mostly made up of former military personnel in particular commandos.10. This intelligence information is sourced from human resources (HUMINT), signature and electronic intelligence (ELINT) and assisted by experts to analyse data, psychologists and skilled experts and called Cobbler (forged expert document) for the purpose of penetration.11. As the intelligence agencies abroad, the Malaysian security budget is assisted by formal budgeting such as the budget for PDRM, the Malaysian Armed Forces and the clandestine budget of government-owned companies (GLCs) such as the Armed Forces Fund Board, Tenaga Nasional Berhad and much more.12. The role of intelligence in Malaysia is actually greater than the Mission Impossible movie and if you are careful, last year there was an advertisement on JPM's web site where "Electronic Warfare" was needed, if we thought logically why a department of the Prime Minister needed an electronic warfare expert? Of course this expertise is channelled to security intelligence agencies under his auspices such as MEIO.EQUIPMENT13. Like any other intelligence agency, the delivery of intelligence information to the Malaysian government is also made through sophisticated equipment and not very sophisticated (not easy to hang) and this requires machines capable of making Chiper and Dechiper (either the latest model or which has been used since communist times again).14. There are tools produced by well-known scientists and individuals in Malaysia (names do not mention) to create the required gadgets whether the system for debugging or surveillance and communication interceptors.15. I'm not sure if this is true but the giant phone manufacturer (Nokia or Samsung) sells telecommunication equipment products which cost up to tens of thousands of dollars for the use of our intelligence agencies.16. Used vehicles are diverse and diverse including vans from travel agencies that never existed but the most popular are taxis.INVITATION IN COUNTRY17. In general, national threats exist from various parties sponsored by external clandestine elements such as MOSSAD, CIA, M16, SIS, SID and Singapore's sensitive intelligence elements that contain corporate, financial and military data and political data.18. Threats from outside countries such as Thailand and Indonesia are below the lowest level (they are considered a friendly country).19. The threat comes from a variety of forms such as economic sabotage, peace, politics, worsening the image of the country and various other subversive elements.20. I'm not sure if this story is true, when the crew of The Entrapment film creates shooting in Kuala Lumpur, a crew of some CIA agents has installed some electronic equipment (listening bug) at KLCC and Menara KL Tower.21. It looks like they've been tracked, since then it has been very few or no Hollywood film companies made film shooting in Malaysia. I however assume this story is just "rumours" only and it is uncertain.22.All the centre of threats based in Singapore which are the gateway into the country.23. There are elements that point out that there is sponsorship to the chaos in the country that is being inflicted by the elements of the opposition party as well as the subtle elements in Umno.24. Efforts are also being made to topple the Malay Rulers, their fall will move Malaysia into a republic and anybody can be the Head of State (if the people of this nation have been educated to disrespect the head of state, the prime minister ... we hear who And if we talk about the mufti, then we can hear what else? Finally, all leaders named Malays and Islam will be pushed aside and then we know but we are late for our own foolishness.25. DAP may be the best platform for the fall of an Islamic Malay kingdom like Malaysia. Anwar Ibrahim is just a puppet, the best question, who puts on a video camera where Anwar is swaddling with Chinese prostitutes? Who owns the place and the purpose of the camera in pairs? (Sorry, if Anwar is right, please do not). Police should investigate who the real owner of the place is.26. It's just a new, new political threat, not to mention the threat and sabotage of the country's economy and finances as well as various delicate threats aimed at reducing the identity of the Malays and Islam in the country.27.The problem is, no matter the external element, they still fail to study who the real Malays are. Failure to study the psychology of the Malays and they thought the Malays were the same as the Arabs.28. If provocation elements fail to be created through the country, it is likely that they will go to higher levels such as war with foreign countries and so forth.EXTERNAL SCREEN29. To undermine Malaysia, this country needs to be removed from its closest companion, Indonesia.30. The unity and density of these two friends must be shaken through some issues that may have been overwhelmed by third parties.31. This has been confirmed by the Defense Attache at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which claims to be a third party who tries to lead the relationship between the two countries.32. If this third party exists, they are sure to have substantial funding, operating and context centers within the government and corporate structures in both countries.33. Thanks to Indonesia having a very influential President and bringing the republican nation to a better future, as a former military ruler, Bambang Susilo quickly analyzes the situation and does not quickly push Sukhoinya's head towards Kuala Lumpur.34. Indonesia itself has a bitter experience, how these external agents are trying to destroy the big country and the reader's brother certainly remember in the 1990s, Indonesia was called the "Asian Little Dragon" because of its economic progress even having a company to make its own plane but in twinkle it destroyed when there was a reform movement that supposedly supported the rights of citizens and students.http://35.As a result of this reform movement, Indonesia's enemies have succeeded in separating Timor Leste with a view to further destroying the republican power of the majority of its population of Islam.36. Together we pray, so that the close friendship between the two nations continues to be established and their people and we are aware that there is a process to woo these two countries to remain hostile.37. At present, Malaysia's potential to fight with foreign countries is at zero level and if so, I bet in the next 10 to 50 years in crisis with Singapore or China.
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What would China be like today if the Nationalists had won the Chinese Civil War?
Let me inject my little humble experience with the Nationalist military—no exactly answering your question, but may provide some insight to the Nationalist government’s downfall.The Nationalist government withdrew to Taiwan in 1949, telling its own people that it was a temporary tactical maneuver and that we would soon counter-attack and retake the homeland. I was brought up in such belief. In all honesty, that was the only belief around—or rather, allowed.In 1967, 18 years after the KMT-CCP civil war, like all my contemporaries at the time, I began my military service as a platoon leader in the Marine Corps right after college (sort of ROTC-like officer in the US). When I first reported to my company with much apprehension, I felt no welcome—or rather, I was made to feel like an outsider. Without saying a word, a master sergeant handed me my uniform and placed my civilian clothing in a bag. I noticed he never bothered to solute, as I was made extremely conscious that respecting rank was an utmost important way to keep the military discipline, regardless personal feelings toward the person who happens to out-rank you. I sort tried to understand how a fifty-some-year-old master sergeant would feel when he had to salute to a young kid thirty years his junior, but, again, I did not invent the rules.I was shown to my tiny officer quarter. The place was already occupied by another officer and he grudgingly cleared out the upper bunk bed for me to crawl in. I considered myself lucky: comparing it to the open double-deck sleeping arrangement during my boot-camp days, it is a private mansion.On the same evening, I saw my platoon the first time. An unhappy—very very unhappy indeed— old sergeant named Li who had acted as the substitute platoon leader rudely summoned the thirty-some skeptically looking young conscripts and reluctantly transferred his command to me. I knew even then from the looks of the young troopers that the old fellow Li would not give up his power without a fight. I kept my posture and introduced myself briefly to the troopers and told the sergeant to dismiss the squad and let the guys rest early. Soon after I turned my back I heard the old sergeant begin barking at the conscripts and kept rambling, shouting out a long tirade about discipline, honor, and duties, which I considered completely irrelevant. I was torn between stopping him from the nonsense volley for the sake of the troopers and keeping the protocol which gave him the prerogatives as a sergeant to bark on. I backed off from the direct confrontation with Li, not a pleasant first day in the service.No sooner did I report to duty than the company was given the order to march out with full gear, with the M2 for foot soldiers, a carbine for sergeants and the .45 caliber pistol for officers. I never shot a 45 pistol but it felt good, I had to admit. We were not told where to go, or what to do or what to expect. I overheard the soldiers mumbling that since no live ammunition was dispensed so that must be good, meaning at best just an exercise of some sort, unlike two years before when live ammunition was dispensed and with all communications with outside cut off did they all break out in tears, realizing something bad was going to happen. Fortunately, I was later told, the mission was scuttled as the first ships entering Xiamen Harbor was intercepted and the entire crew was captured.We marched for hours to get on a gigantic transport ship in ZhoYin. That was quite a sight to behold: hundred and hundred of us jammed on every single square inch on deck, and the loud growling landing ships (LTV) belched heavy diesel fumes rammed into the lower deck. Soon we set sail. It was a calm but queer night; overhead, the Milky Way easily fit into your hands as the transporter was kept intentionally in the pitch darkness. Soon its swaying motions started to its tolls on the conscripts: many began to vomit, and understandably, all toilets soon turned into hell.That was a sleepless night for the most of us, and as the shimmering dawn came we could slowly make out the silhouette of the coastline. Yes, the land! No more sea sickness! The alarm sound could not come a better time as the navy guys come on deck to collect and shove us exhausted marines to the LTVs below. But the sea wasn’t as kind and the surfs were punishing. With propeller-powered bomber roaring above and the iron “water ducklings” humming in all directions, you don’t need to be told that one misstep and you are doomed. Yes, it was like a war game, but somehow I reminded myself that we were all in uniform and if the war did come, we are the most sought-after targets.The LTV ride was proven too short; soon the reality hit home: what happens after we land—this can’t be just a Disneyland ride?No one ever briefed me on the maneuver, nor did anyone bother to inform me of the exercise plan, and here I wore the badge of the platoon leader and I had not even got a map! Could the old sergeant Li keep away the info from me? Before I could collect all my thoughts, we were shoved out of the landing craft by the navy guys. Suddenly, I found myself sinking into the wet sand with twenty-some pairs of eyes looking straight at me for further orders. In front of me was a steep hill covered with thorny bushes, above me was the glaring sun, at the corner of my eyes were a group of mean-looking inspecting colonels and majors dripping white foams at the mouths. I couldn’t hear what they were yelling but my instinct told me that something does not bode well and it would be a foolish attempt trying to carry out a civilized dialogue with these people. So I instantly barked out and took my troopers to run away from the mean-looking convoy, yes, all the way deep into the hills—where no one could get us.Once in a while, I have nightmares over this incident. Clearly, that was an absolutely unprofessional way of handling a military maneuver. I cannot imagine what if that were a real military exercise any the junior officer was not even given a minimum instruction, map, schedule, or destination of the mission and the point of rendezvous. I hardly knew any of these young conscripts in my platoon, let alone the constant usurper Li. They could just easily skewer me on the rack, hang me out to dry, or push accidentally send me down to the hillside?This was in 1967. I can only guess the situation had to be ten times worse then during the Chinese Civil War.Anyway, we were drifting from hill to hill, avoiding the inspecting convoy; occasionally we met other groups who were just at a loss as we were. Loss of sleep and hunger began to take a grip on us and thirst became unbearable thanks to the unrelenting sun. I told the troopers to recuperate in the shade, waiting for instructions over the radio. The old US-made radio, a leftover from the WWII era. cracked and squealed out sporadic firecracker sounds and decided to die suddenly. The communication soldier tried desperately to resuscitate the machine by cranking the handle incessantly, but to no avail. So radio dead on all fronts, none from the company, the battalion or the regiment. We were alone!I figure that at the time, 18 years after the Chinese Civil War, hardly any one in Taiwan had any experience with anything mechanical or electronic in nature, driving was a luxury, and electronic communications were nonexistent. I could only imagine what was like 18 years before then.Lunchtime has elapsed, still no instructions of any sort from anywhere. It was near 1;30 pm came the vociferated fiery furies from the the loudspeakers by the regiment commander who few had ever met; “You can come out now, you useless cowardly bunch. You can now get off the mountains and have your lunch. Remember, if this were a real war, you would be all be dead by now.” Thank you, commander, for the encouraging words, and thank you for the lunch because we really need it. Note: this was in 1967 during peace time; how could the the similar scenario turned out 18 years ago when supplies in dire deficiency, morale low, and corruption was rampant? Did many have to kill one another for food, and drink one another’s blood to quench the thirst?Despondent and injured, I collected myself and took my platoon down the mountain paths where we met many other equally dispirited groups. In the fleeting exchanges of silent glimpse we secured the minimal pride we each sought for: no, we are no coward, we are simply the victims of the circumstances. My platoon was not reprimanded for getting lost in the exercise; the likely reason may be every single platoon, every single company was lost in the landing chaos. Of course, lunch was not meant to reward us cowards and us the fainted-heart, the regiment commander kept up with his bombastic delivery: “ You think you deserve the meal? No, you’re wrong, no one owes you the meal. You left a shameful mark on the regiment’s proud record by acting like a bunch of imbeciles. To make sure you remember your ineptness, you will begin your forced march right after lunch. For those who think they deserve a regular afternoon nap, well, you are wrong. You will march on, and you will retrospect on what you had done while you are marching. “Our fearless commander’s remonstrance clearly felt on deafears: most reaction to it was —well, damn, not even a nap! The forced march did not go well indeed as the already-exhausted troopers struggled to carry the heavy M2 rifle, the light machine gun and bipod, or the 60-mm motor component and marched in the searing heat and the murderous humidity. The first to drop out of march was Sergeant Li, and Li and other old sergeants were picked up by the supply trucks and piled up like corpses. Finally, I had my entire platoon back as all the old sergeants were gone. But the worse just began to unfold: a typhoon started unleashing its might with lashing thunders and pouring rain. A machines gun carriers felt and vomited in convulsion. I stopped to check on him but was stopped by the MP with a deadpan look in his face that the march could not be interrupted by one fallen man. The downpour seemed to produce a bizarre and hypnotic effect on me: in trying to block off the bewailing drench and gnawing fatigue, the mind began to retrograde to some of the most esoteric questions I had considered in life: “should Lady Chatterley’s lover be blamed for her decadence”, ‘why did I get such a thrill reading a banned like this?”, ‘was Freud serious when he spoke of women’s penis envy”, ‘how the homo sapiens species came to be so much alike”, or “are love, procreation, and testosterone the same thing?” Somehow, they kept my mind occupied, and kept the seemingly surreal world away from my desperately needed sanity. Was that a self-defense mechanism in full swing? i would never know.That was a long march alright. After the drench came the sweltering sun. many troopers resorted to replenish their empty canteen with water from the rice paddies. I thought about the parasites in the water but was helpless in providing alternatives. Finally we settled into an elementary school before midnight. The school field was flooded but our order was the same: set up the tent for the night. Surely the troopers set up their tents in the soggy field but all chose to collapse on the hallway, and slept in every dry corner of the school. Surely I needn’t mention the fouls from the school’s overflown toilets.The school was still on summer break so we spent a week to recuperate. On the second evening I sensed some disturbance by an unusual gathering of men in a shadowed corner of the school. in the dim light I made my way to the front of the muted and intense crowd, where I saw a scene has haunted me up to this date— a gasping conscript with a contorted face in a push-up position, heaving himself desperately away from an upward pointing dagger planted directly below his abdomen, his vein swollen, his body dripping with bead-size perspiration, and all these under a gleeful eye of an old sergeant. Someone murmured out an expletive…,”Just because he refused to obey the old guy’s order?” Another echoed with an F-word…” I will kill the old SOB when the right time comes.” Others remained hushed—there might be ears among us?On the second evening, I was drawn to a small crowd that gathered around a small windowless hut that was used as a makeshift toilet. Apparently, the toilet was locked from outside. An old sergeant appeared and ordered the door be unlocked. Soon a barely wiggled body was dragged out, obviously poisoned by the foul fumes. His unconscious body was quickly carried away by his comrades and again came the hateful murmurs among the crowd. I was struggling with my conscience on just what I had to do without “rocking the boat’ of strict discipline. I conjured up a plan, and I knew it was risky. I had no friends in this god-forsaken place, and as a junior officer, I had no voice. Tormented constantly by my inaction, I decided to take a reasonable rick to change the intolerable cruelty of abuse in the name of discipline. Thanks to the Sherlock Holmes stories I read as a child, I painstakingly scribbled on the back of an ordinary white wrapping paper with my left hand: “Stop turning a blind eye on the illegal physical abuse on the conscripts or else….” Carefully I wiped off any possible finger prints and slipped the note under the doors of the regiment’s political commissar. The abuse did abate for a while and I did not know whether that was due to my doing.it is a common knowledge that the old sergeants were drafted against their wills when the KMT government fought against the CCP in 1940’s. Most of them are illiterate and consequently it was unlikely they could eke out a living outside of the military compound, especially none could utter a word of the local dialect, the Taiwanese. The company commander was one of the very few who could read and hence managed to rise to the rank of major. Understandably he resented the intrusion by the first college-graduated officer assigned to HIS company, me, guardedly, if not with disdain. The uneasiness manifested itself from time to time, and I guessed that it must be killing him to have to constrain himself in dealing with my first request for leave: “ What the FXXX, you need to take a leave for taking the GRE exam?”, “What the Fxxx is GRE? And why do I have to approve it? “,”So you have the approval paper deemed by the DOD , then what the Fxxx do you want me to sign this damn leave paper?” Of course, he did not know, the GRE request was only the beginning of my many many requests to come, then the TOEFL, then the DoE’ overseas-study qualification exam…. I felt sorry for the old man as his turf was trampled over by an young officer who aspires nothing less than seeing the world, abandoning his sacred duty of counterattacking the mainland. The sorry-old commander punctually disappeared for two days after the payday. I heard through the grapevine that he was a regular of a brothel in Kaohsiung City. That did not surprise me as most old sergeants would disappear in synchrony with the payday. Once the old commander was forced to stay put due to some unscheduled inspection exercise. The entire company fell into the victim of his unsettling wrath. He ranted incoherently for hours, blaming everyone for everything under the sun. In the midst of lunch, he rose suddenly, baring his teeth—everyone froze— dramatically he held up his rice bowl and trashed it on the ground. “What the Fxxx is this, you called this food?, “Get me the hands in the kitchen and have them report to me immediately….yes, at right this moment!” And he looked at me in a strange frown, I guess that meant either “life would be so good without you being in my sight” or “go take a hike, can’t you see I am still the reining king here?” I did not finish my meal either, not because of the food. I did not know what valuable service I offered to my country…or I did so by simply being a nuisance in a changing world?Among all the capriciousness came a handful of personal triumphs and a few bitter-sweet moments. Slowly and steadily, I won the trust of my young conscripts most who could neither read nor write. I became their only means to communicate with their loved ones back home: by writing some of the most intimate letters in life: “Dear A-lien, I can not come home this weekend because it takes five hours to travel one way, and the buses are often jammed. please go to my home and make sure my parents know I am okay here.”, ‘Dear Mom, this is your son Way-Ho. We now station in Che-Chen, a small town in Pin-Dong County, a hard-to-get-to place. So I don’t think I can get home until the Chinese New Year Break. Please take good care of yourself, and wait until I return to plow the field.” “Dear A-Mi, how are you. I think of you often. Did I tell you we have a new platoon leader? He is a nice man and he offers to write this letter for me. I am thinking to invite him over to our wedding the next year. Oh, did I tell you he is a college graduate? He also doubles up as our marching song teacher at the request of the political commissar from the headquarters. Also, because he was so good at many things, he began to teach us the Chiang Kai-Shek ‘s speeches as well, and he is very good at it, and he often makes us laugh.”, “Dear father, with great respect from your son, I am serving my military duty, and I follow the orders of my superiors as you always told me. Last time you said you had a backache, I hope you feel better now. do worry about the chicken flu. Just salt them first and sell them in the market. If you charge less, people will buy it no matter what. Oh, we won the military marching song contest last week, thanks to our new platoon leader who taught us how to beat our competitors; by singing as loud as possible, showing the spirit, never mind the tones, he said….”One quiet Sunday afternoon, I had an unexpected visitor: the old sergeant Li who tried to usurp my authority as the platoon leader. It was the first time he looked so respectful and subdued. I asked him to come into my tiny quarter and offered him the only chair in the room and some water. “Can I help you?” I asked of him. He began to blush and stammered, “I was wondering, Sir, if you can do me a big big favor?” I immediately sensed it must be something extraordinary but I held back my anxiousness less he should back away from talking. “You see, Sir, I left my home in Sun-Dong for twenty-some years and I have always worried about my families back home.” He paused and took a calibration on my reaction to decide whether he should continue his delivery. I knew exactly what he was about to say; back then, anyone suspected to have communicated with the mainland Chinese can be rounded up as a communist spy or sympathizer and can be punished by death. No small matter, this man is trusting his entire life on me. He went on and begged me to write a letter on his behave, telling his families that he is alive and well. “I heard that you are going to America in a few months. When you get there, would you please mail this letter to this address in China for me. Oh, I have managed to save up some money for this date. Please convert it to the US money and sent it to them? It’s not much, but that’s all I have.” His voice turned hoarse and his face buried under his weathered hands. He insisted I took his money and before he left he hesitated for a couple of seconds before he uttered the final words between us: “I wish to tell you how sorry I am when you first came. I don’t deserve to hope to see you again.”A few days before my discharge, I was summoned to the political commissar’s office in the regiment’s headquarters. “Lieutenant Yang, come in.” he was a lanky fellow in his late fifties, with a hawkish look and a easy disparaging smile. “ I have looked over your service record and found blemishes that can easily stop you from getting a passport for studying abroad, you know what I meant? ” I stood in attention and desperately stayed calm, knowing this man alone could derail my entire aspiration to see the world, especially the big world outside of this tiny island. “No, Sir, I thought I had helped to teach political courses and our regiment scores high on the tests.”. He smiled broadly and said, “Now stop beat around the bush; I know you are smarter than that, and I am not just talking about your lukewarm attitude toward slogan chanting during the morning roll calls either.” “Sir, I can explain….” He waived to shut me up and officiated his verdict,”Indeed, your contribution to elevating our regiment’s test score by two notches makes you a net contributor to the military, and I congratulate you for earning your honorary discharge. Just sign your name here and you will be a civilian in no time.”I was a bit startled by the need for enacting such episode, but I still signed in earnest, hoping I never have to see him ever again. But I was wrong; he took his time checking my signature and glared at me dispassionately, “Lieutenant Yang, you have a smart handwriting indeed.” before I collected my self in disbelief , he pulled out his drawer and handed me a piece of white wrapping paper, “ I think this paper should go back to its rightful owner.” It was his final words. And yes, that was the paper I wrote with my left hand. Yes, the ink of my fountain pen gave it away, which Sherlock Holmes never taught me. Still, the old man is cool.Why do I write this story, and is there any relevance to the question of what would happen if the nationalists won the civil war? My answer is; never mind the question. Let the past die! KILL IT if you have to. ” (copyright disclaimer—Star War)Many Many innocent Chinese died; many many families dispersed, many many lives were wasted during the Chinese civil conflicts. Do not glorify the overly fabricated history. Learn from the past we know and look ahead, never make the same mistakes again.
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