For those who are oppressed

Almost eight years has gone by since the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and yet many of those badly affected still live in quiet desperation. Across Asia tycoons, millionaires and the working class alike had been affected by the meltdown where market value of shares, properties, and monetary values tumbled into bottomless pits followed by liquidations of businesses and consequently innumerable loss of jobs. Once well known tycoons and numerous millionaires across Asia turned into paupers almost overnight. The lucky few count their blessings although they still struggle under the weight of restructured debts.

Occasionally one come across news on how the distressed cope with their lives; former Thai millionaires selling sandwiches in street corners; the South Korean ones spend most of their time on the net; the negative net worth of properties (that is properties worth less than their mortgage) in Hong Kong; former tycoons having their houses sold under public auctions; Malaysians hiding in foreign countries to avoid arrest for theft of public property or charges of fraudulent practices. The latest news on the long forgotten crisis was that a former governor of the Bank of Thailand was found guilty of causing the loss of his country’s entire foreign reserves to defend the Thai Baht. He was ordered to repay the losses and more! It was after all the unprecedented fall of the baht, pegged to the US dollar that startled the Asian financial markets, caused the huge exodus of foreign funds and withdrawal of credit by international financiers. The severity and magnitude of the falls in asset values across Asia within a short spate of time caught entire nations by surprise.

For those who are or still being oppressed, one would like to share the following thoughts taken from Hexagram 47 K’un / Oppression (Exhaustion):

The Judgment
Oppression. Success. Perseverance.
The great man brings about good fortune. No blame.
When one has something to say, it is not believed.

Times of adversity are the reverse of times of success, but they can lead to success if they befall the right man. When a strong man meets with adversity, he remains cheerful despite all danger, and this cheerfulness is the source of later successes; it is that stability which is stronger than fate. He who lets his spirit be broken by exhaustion certainly has no success. But if adversity only bends a man, it creates in him a power to react that is bound in time to manifest itself. No inferior man is capable of this. Only the great man brings about good fortune and remains blameless. It is true that for the time being outward influences is denied him, because his words have no effect. Therefore in times of adversity it is important to be strong within and sparing of words. [W/B]

Notes:
1) The commentary that accompanies the judgment is in line with what Laozi and Confucius taught in the Tao Te Ching and the Confucian books respectively.
2) The outward influences denied to a person fallen from grace is no different from those affected throughout Chinese civilization- examples are aplenty in the Records of the Historian (Sima Qian). It is a fact of life.