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Cynthia Yeung

A photo of red letters on a white background is my computer wall paper.

The picture was taken during a summer visit to a war museum in Normandy, France, near the Omaha Beach.

The beach is known for the D-Day landings during the second world war.

Teenagers would know it if they have seen  Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

The words translate into: 'Remember, because he who is incapable of remembering the past is asking to relive it.'

The words struck a chord with me. They do not ask if you remember the past. They tell you to do so, timidly yet powerfully.

It's not a lot of words or very complicated, but it says it all.

Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and  Cornell University in the US  are studying chemicals that could boost our memory, but what can we do to protect and draw on the memory of

a nation?

Watching the evening news, one can sense that the world has forgotten its past.

It's making the same mistakes over and over again like re-runs of a bad  television soap opera.

Some people believe that we should sweep the past under the carpet.

They say that the past is no longer relevant and we should look forward to our  'bright' future.

Perhaps they are right.

Learning is a wonderful experience, but a good dose of reality is needed to make it complete.

History - the memory of humanity - is most meaningful meaningful when we relate it to the present.

This involves not only recalling past judgments and the resulting failures or successes, but also determining if there are alternative routes that will lead us to the best possible outcome.

When I was young, I kept having the same nightmare.

Chased by a vampire, I would run through a maze of hallways and come to a dead end just before I wake up. But I always remembered the path I took and chose a different route each time.

One night, I escaped. I no longer had to relive the past.

And I never had that nightmare again.



Reliving the past