Typing in Chinese

I realized that many people are not aware that their Microsoft Word allows them to type Chinese characters. I have been asked numerous times how I do it so I thought it would be nice to just post the instructions here.

This was how I turned on the Chinese Language mode in my Microsoft Word...
(I am using windows XP):
You have to add on Chinese as one of the Language options by going to

• Control Panel
• Regional and Language Options
• Languages
• Details...
• Add - Chinese PRC(Chinese simplified)

After that, there should be a little icon at the right hand bottom of the screen that says EN or CH. Left click on that and you should be able to choose between EN(English) or CH (Chinese).

If you are using Vista, refer to this site for instructions.

Once you can type in Chinese characters, you can make your own flashcards and worksheets. Also useful when you want to search for Chinese book titles online.

Why the long silence?

I have been having a lot of trouble with blogger for the pass few months. Every time, it is a different problem.

First, my edit page was all messed up so that I could not "see" my draft. After that several other page formats gone all wrong as well. It took me time to search through the Internet to get the problem fixed. Even then, it was a temporary fix as the same problems keep resurfacing. Later, on some days, I could not upload pictures. Many times blogger would just hang on me! Much frustration has caused me to leave blogging for a while.

That did free me to do other things (so that is good)... and after that, I kind of lost momentum... ... ... ;-b

Surprisingly, I am not pressured to keep posting. As I know that even when I haven't had any new posts lately, the my old posts are still read by many. Thanks to those who took the trouble to email and encourage me. Just wanted you all to know that I am in the process of getting things ironed out. :-)

I do have quite a number of drafts; mostly waiting for pictures to be added. A backlog of about more than a month worth of posts would take quite a while for me to sort out!

Why "Rumphius"?

“Rumphius” is actually just a name. But it is a name that is significant to me on several levels ...

Before I had children, I had dreams and ambitions like any starry-eyed youth. One of my dreams is to travel and see the world. Another is to live somewhere I can have the sea as my front porch and the mountains as my backyard.

Sounds familiar? Well, this happened to be part of the plot of a story out of a picture book as well. It is titled Miss Rumphius. For this reason, I could relate very well with the character in the story when I first read it to my boys. (You'll have to read the book to understand.)

Miss Rumphius however was also challenged to make the world a more beautiful place. She eventually chanced on a way to achieve this by throwing lupine seeds everywhere. That resulted in beautiful "wild" lupines growing at every street corner the next spring.

After reading this book, I was intrigued by this idea. The more I thought about it, the more I feel I want to do the same. I absolutely love flowers and lupines at every street corner sounded like my kind of paradise! I thus made another connection with Miss Rumphius.

As I ponder about it, God has shown me that I could make the world a more beautiful place in many other ways! (I will leave you to figure this out for yourself.) One of the most obvious way for me now is to work towards bringing up "beautiful" children ;-) , who in turn can make the world more beautiful in their own God-given ways! The effect could be exponential!

On another level, I was drawn to the name "Rumphius" because of another silly dream of mine.

I have always admired early naturalists; how they single-mindedly hike through unknown terrains to journal the wildlife they observe. I later got to know about the works of one such great man by the name of Georg Eberhard Rumphius. He authored a book called Herbarium Amboinensis. It became a reference catalogue of plants of the Indonesian Islands. His work was later used by Carl Linnaeus for the development of the now well-known binomial system of classification in the botanical field.

It is my dream to do what Georg Rumphius did. I know such work will not be needed in this time and age, but I still hope to relive those exciting moments of discovery and learning based on personal observations.

So in these ways, the name “Rumphius” very simply encapsulates some of my ideals.