Lesson 4 of IT Home Learning - Theme - Gambling

Part 1

Paper:

Generally, I agree with Dao Ming and Mun Kit. Paper is very fragile and easily torn; this probably refers to the stock market which is also very volatile and easily ruptured.

The stock market is just like gambling; you can easily become rich, but also become bankrupt. The stock market is also like gambling because you are never sure if the stocks will increase in value or decrease. When you make gains, it is just on paper, not in reality, and you may just spend what you think you have earned until you have none left.

Tay Soon was very foolish not to take out his stocks when he had made a huge profit. Everyday he hoped that the stocks would increase in value, but they decreased. He should have taken out his money immediately when he made a profit.

As Dao Ming wrote, there is no shortcut to anything. Almost everything has to be achieved by sweat and tears. We also cannot be obsessed with things, just take life one step at a time.

We should strive for things in life, but do this with hard work. Even if you have stocks in the stock market, remember to sell once you have made a profit, don’t wait like Tay Soon did. If the stocks increase, count yourself unlucky, but if they decrease, then you have made the right decision.

It’s better to be safe than sorry in everything that we do. It was ironic that Tay Soon died with the thing that he wanted the most, his dream house, but how he achieved this is not a good way.

Part 2

Lottery:

I agree with Jun Kai and Jonah. This book was written some time ago so the writer probably had knowledge on that era as people are not as superstitious in today’s modern society.

When Ah Boh had finally won some small prizes, she would not stop gambling even though she had won something. This is most likely because she was greedy and wanted even more money. She was probably uneducated like many people of that time were. They believed in superstition because they were naïve about the world around them as they did not have an education.

Ah Boh got so addicted to gambling that she would run to almost every accident scene near her and take down the numbers, not even bothering about the people hurt in the accident. She was so superstitious that she was even performing weird rituals in hopes that she would become very lucky and win.

The last part is rather ironic. Because she used up all her money on gambling, she did not look after her old mother. Further more, she continued gambling even after her mother had complained about it. She spent all her money on gambling and totally neglected her own mother. In the end, her mother died but that did not stop her from gambling, in fact it pushed her to gamble even more. She was delusional, using her mother’s death as an excuse to gamble more so she could buy her mother a good coffin.

Part 3

The Rocking Horse Winner:

I agree with Xue Hao. I think that Paul’s mother was one of the greatest causes of Paul’s death, although there are others who contributed to this.

Paul’s mother taught him that you had to be lucky in order to have money, which of course is not a good way of explaining. She probably did that because Paul was still young at that time. However, this had a bad consequence on his life.

Paul wanted to make the ‘whispers’ in his house go away, and he thought he could do that by making his mother happy by giving her money. He turned to gambling and won much money but he got obsessed with it. The house started whispering even more loudly and this drove Paul to gamble even more. This in turn led to Paul taking a wild ride on the rocking horse, collapsing, and despite being right about the winner of the Derby and making a lot of money, dying.

However, Uncle Oscar and Basset are also at fault. They should not have influenced Paul to gamble when he was so young as this adversely affected his life. They should have told him that he shouldn’t gamble no matter how lucky he was but instead they encouraged him and looked to him to find luck and make money from him.

Paul was also at fault. He was so addicted to gambling so that he could earn money for his mother and stop the house from ‘whispering’ that he did not care even if something bad happened to him. He should have listened to his mother and not gamble even if the money was needed.