All about him

18 years ago, a woman was holding his beloved child in her hands and was singing a traditional Chinese lullaby to him. Being the first son in the family, the mother was on the cloud nine, but she was also worried about his future. Yet, 18 years later, this woman is relieved and has no more worries on him, since she believes that he has already matured. It is the time to let him go, or even fly. To add to that, she is not regret that she had given such a nice name to him – Lau Tian Eu, which means, God is always by him and takes care of him.

Being born on 7th February 1991, he was the third child in the family – he has two elder sisters and a younger brother. Nevertheless, he was the main focus as well as the worry of the family. Besides being weak physically, he was always sick, so his parents had no choice but to pay more attention to this child. Later on, his parents also noticed that this little kid does not like to sleep. Instead, he was so obsessed with computer graphic until he could play computer games till midnight. To make things worst, his nose used to hemorrhage when he was still studying in kindergarten. Owing to the fact that he was suspected to suffer from leukaemia, his parents needed to bring him to look for different doctors. What a troublesome child, isn’t it? However, what made his parents to be pleased later was that he was no doubt an obedient, hardworking and polite boy, as a result of Chinese cultural values moulding his personality. Thus there was a sudden light of hope shining on his parents, for they hope that their son would excel in studies and achieve success in the future. Factually, he did not let their parents down. Most of the time he managed to top the class, from kindergarten up to secondary school. With his outstanding results, his parents were so proud of him, considering him as the apple of their eyes.

Although his excellent all-round performance in studies and co-curricular activities has endeared him to many people, no one actually understands his personalities well, even his siblings and parents. The ugly truth which contradicts with his achievements is that he has no confidence in doing things. Having a pessimistic view of life, he invariably thinks about bad outcomes rather than positive results, and promptly he will try to link the negative impacts to himself and other people. It is undoubtedly not exaggerate to say that he would still be insecure even though the possibility of success is 99 per cent. Some of the people around him claim that this attitude is encouraging, because he is very cautious and very particular to every detail. Some, on the contrary, rather believe that he thinks too much, and he lets his imaginations go wild. No matter what people say, there are still some drawbacks thereafter. Most of the time he gives himself too much pressure, and eventually he would stress out. In exemplification, knowing the fact that he is not good in languages, he puts lots of effort in German and English, the two killer subjects to him. But one would be shock when he or she found out the real connotation of the phrase “lots of effort”: 4 to 5 hours sleep a day, studying while having lunch and dinner, staying in hostel during weekend so that he could study more…Too stress? He would just reply, “No, I am OK. Don’t worry about me.” Frankly speaking, this is the statement which worries the people around him. Though he does attain great grades after then, ultimately he realised that his life should not be of one he is having now. Life should be beautiful and enjoyable, isn’t it? Thus, he has made up his mind. He tells himself that he should not be that stressful, even if it is the case, he should not make the others worry about him. In his opinion, this is definitely unfair for those who care about him. But all in all, it is true to say that he needs time to transform himself. Just wait and see.

Lau’s mother always refers his own son to a chatterbox, and indeed this is quite true to some extent. Once he opens his mouth, he could talk anything from a-z with a tremendous speed, and the flow of ideas is endless. According to him, communication as well as interaction is crucial in our life so as to improve our soft skills. Therefore, talking and chit-chatting are considered the easiest way for him to strengthen the bond between people and eventually bring the people closer to each other. He could mix around well with his friends, almost without fail. Sometimes, he would also try to crack jokes with them in order to turn the ordinary occasions into merry parties. Well, accidents do happen in our life. At times he would just talk rubbish among his friends– something which is not related to what the others are talking about or he “unintentionally” introduces a topic related to academic studies, while the others are still recovering from stress, sharing opinions on leisure activities and entertainment. As a consequence, the atmosphere of joy would be affected, sometimes all the conversations would come to a halt. Oops, sorry, he is now working hard to change that. Nonetheless, most of the people would still be impressed by his all-time earnestness and dogged persistence. Before he starts doing anything, he would clarify himself about the desired goal or the objective he would like to achieve. Everything must be planned and in an organised way, otherwise he would consider every action without aim as a complete waste of time. And once he sets his target, he would turn himself into a bulldozer, overcoming all the difficulties as well as problems and struggle very hard for the goal. Nothing is impossible? To him, impossible is nothing. He clings on to the principle that everything could be done, every wish could be fulfilled, every dream could be attained – as long as he strives for it, rather than waiting for it. He believes in God, but he also believes that God will only help those who help themselves. In accordance with that, he supposes that the results or the outcomes are directly proportional to the amount of effort one has put in. If one works very hard for something, eventually he or she would benefit the most from his or her efforts. To quote him, “Working hard might not result in success. But if you want to achieve success, there is no doubt that you must work hard.”

Due to this belief, he successfully passed the SPM Examination with flying colours. His wonderful results and marvellous interview performance has convinced JPA to offer a scholarship to him. In the very beginning of the year 2011, he would be sent to Germany to pursue his studies in engineering, which is one of his favourite fields. Studying now in KBU, he realises that life is getting tougher and tougher, and the worst is yet to come. He has already prepared himself to fight his own battles, and every obstacle and obstruction would be regarded as small tests from God. In fact, he expects nothing from himself, but the best.