Skip to main content

TRUTHS OF INTEGRITY

 RAFFLESIA (thought process)

Generates heat,  miasma, stink, flies,

According to one offender interviewed for the study: “Yes, I was fully aware that my decision was illegal, but I was encouraged to take the risk in order to make ends meet for my family.”

Another summarised his predicament as follows: “But you know, if I were working, I would not have gone and done this. It’s just sometimes when you are in [a] tough situation, you resort to desperate measures.”

While another simply said: “There is no money where I am from. That’s why I was tempted.”

Other reasons included a desire to emulate the lifestyle of their peers who profited from wildlife crime or those who gave into peer pressure. According to one of the offenders:

“It was peer pressure that got me into this. My friends were older than me and they used to poach. They were driving cars and I wished to be like them. I felt bad because I was always with them and I did not match their standard, so I ended up doing illegal things. I wished I could be like them, but I was fooled, and I regret what I did.”

Thriving in rain forests, Rafflesia is in danger of extinction due to habitat loss as well as poaching — its buds are harvested and sold for medicinal properties. The plant cannot grow in captivity, and, as most occurrences of Rafflesia contain only male or female flowers, pollinations is rare. 

Among some particular factors that are putting the species in danger, one of the threats for Rafflesia are the illegal collectors as the plant is widely used as a traditional remedy in Southeast Asia, being prescribed for several internal injuries and also to treat infertility. They usually sell for a hefty price.











TRUTHS OF INTEGRITY

Hwa laughed as she read her father's private ledgers for the first time. A murky relief of events swam before her, reminiscent of limp tea leaves as puzzle pieces began clicking into place. Her hunch was right after all.

Life is never simple. That simple truth bled into ink, swirling into a mix, an intricate layering of lies forming the invisible glue to her family's apparent success. Finally, the world made sense. She snapped the brown-stained ledger shut, feeling her smile cementing as her jaw clenched into place. 

The chubby businessman in a turtleneck dolefully eyed at her across the table. "I already said you wouldn't like it, Hwa. But you have to understand, this is how we managed to stave off bankruptcy. This was how you got your education fund in the first-" 

Hwa stood. "Dad, stop. Just stop." Her knuckles whitened further as her fingernails bit into the thick brown volume. "A month ago, you gave a live-stream for IntegriTea, telling viewers that we are taking down Rafflesia affiliated infusions off our herbal selection because the business cares for endangered species." Father sighed and sunk deeper into his turtleneck. "Business is business..." he muttered.

Hwa pulled out her phone and began typing furiously. Father panicked. "Hwa, stop. it doesn't help at all if you expose us!" She ignored him and took a deep breath. "You publicly shunned the commercialisation of Rafflesia tea, saying that we should be protecting the plants, even if they do have potent health benefits."

Father breathed and sat up. "Hwa, exactly, yes! It's the government's fault. Their deforesting destroys Rafflesias, you see, all to capitalise new plantations and towns-" 

Hwa slammed the ledger open on the table. "You transferred a shipment of Rafflesia to an unaffiliated company, raised the tea prices there and turned in a profit." she retorted. Father deflated and sank back into his chair. "I gave a talk about teas and the environment in a fundraiser to prevent the Rafflesia's extinction." he said as he weakly stirred his third wash of tea. The words echoed emptily in her ear. This will not do. 

"Were you aware of the poaching?" she asked. Father downed his cup in one gulp. "It was for you, Hwa. Look where you are today, comfortable, smart, educated. Don't do this."

"No, you wouldn't understand." Hwa repressed a shudder as she saw the beginnings of a tear in Father's eyes. "You were my hero." The tape ended. 

"That's it." Hwa breathed a sigh of relief and took the time to soothe her features as her secretary prepared the audio to be sent as an official report. Her smile looked more natural now. Good. 

The authorities would have their incriminating evidence of the corrupt partner, and her typed message to the news would throw the other hounds off the scent. By the time father sets foot into his cell, business will be booming via the media. By the end of the week, IntegriTea would have become hers. Case closed.













Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ABSURDISM, EXISTENTIALISM, FREE WILL, POSTMODERNISM

 After the war, Introduction The first world war threw society into a state of disillusionment, and a fracturing of the staunch belief in morals became prominent, sparking literary advancements that challenged romantic ideals, advocating for a new perception of stability and sensibilities. In the poem Gerontion by T.S. Elliot, the modernist stance of fragmentation and the pursuit of purpose lies in man’s actualization of himself. Meanwhile, Samuel Beckett’s waiting for Godot written in the post-war environment of World War II can be viewed as an attack on modernism, rejecting its ideological claims to legitimise purposeful meaning that interprets the world of Estragon and Vladimir with a Grand Existential Narrative . Nonetheless, both these arguments provide a post-war lens that views life without inherent importance nor singular purpose/essence, resulting in the rise of ‘absurdism’— a search for answers in a world that offers no true answer . In this essay, the aforementioned conc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bredlik

 https://yeahwrite.me/writing-help-bredlik/ Bredlik isn’t as easy as it looks, folks. It’s a very tight form with very tight parameters. Technically bredlik is four lines (two rhyming couplets) in iambic tetrameter, or two stanzas of four lines each in iambic diameter with an ABCB rhyme scheme. The other thing that bredlik has going on is that the original poet took inspiration for the poem not only from the incident but from the fact that it happened in a re-enactor setting. So he used 18th century spellings (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) for some of the words.
Post a Comment
Read more

Manglish and its Cina Particles

"The ubiquitous word lah ( [lɑ́]   or   [lɑ̂] ), used at the end of a sentence, can also be described as a particle that simultaneously asserts a position and entices solidarity.  Note that 'lah' is often written after a space for clarity, but there is never a pause before it. This is because originally in Malay, 'lah' is appended to the end of the word and is not a separate word by itself." SNEAKING SUSPICION: "lah" was originally from the Cantonese practicing south of China. The land of Malaya had relations with China since the Ming dynasty, when China was the protector of the Malaccan Sultanate (maybe even from the 5th-6th century), and the use of la as a sentence-suffix particle got integrated into the Malay language its formation, probably during the second phase is Early Modern Malay (1500-ca. 1850) that witnessed the indigenization of Arabic loan words, changes in the affix system, and a rather liberal word order.  Confirmation alternatives: ...
Post a Comment
Read more