Celebrate the Young Entrepreneurs of Asia

A Bar and Cafe Truck in Phnom Penh

Celebrate the young entrepreneurs of Asia, many of them struggling between jobs, classes and business appointments. Lucky for those who are able to get scholarships through family connections or those who have employers who understand their situation and allow them leeway in their schedule. 

Whatever their situation is, these people work very hard on very little resources. Many of them still support their families in the rural villages sending part of their earnings to them.

It is, however, very encouraging to see so many of these young people in poor countries try very hard to get out of poverty and establish themselves in small business. It is a rough start for many of them but they take the step each day. One day, in their own patient way, they too will reach the top.



Here are some interesting stories:

Entrepreneurship in Asia 

Mr. Ka is Asia

Fabulous Gifts for Dinner Hosts

Dinners often take time and work to prepare. For us, taking a small gift to surprise your Hostess will cause some tattle and prattle and good fun altogether. 

Here are some suggestions.

Gifts for your Dinner Host and Hostess

Choosing a Gift for your Dinner Hosts

The weekend is coming and you're invited for dinner or maybe, for a stay at the beach house. What gift will you take to your hostess?

This time, bless your host and hostess with some imagination. No more gifts of a scungy bottle of indifferent Shiraz. No bargain basement Chablis. Forget the desperate Rose slipped quietly into the kitchen and never seen again. Or the bunch of flowers which will just rattle her as she can't remember where she last put the vase that will hold these well.

Think of gifts that will help her enjoy the evening not take her away from her task of preparing the dinner and entertaining the early comers. assure her that it is perfectly alright for her to open the gift much later and enjoy it when she has the time to relax.

However, don't make choosing this gift a major challenge. 

Base your gift on the hostess' unique taste, hobby, collection or personal preferences. This is, of course, assuming you know your dinner hostess well. If she is just a casual acquaintance, take notice. From the little you know of her, what do you think will she like? or, just surprise her with something unique and different.

1. Pampering Gifts

Every hostess needs a bit of pampering after a special dinner preparation or a weekend of entertaining so time in a spa, a manicure and pedicure or a clean-up for two hours will definitely be most welcome. You can buy gift certificates from spas and beauty parlours as well as from cleaning companies. You can place this in a nice envelope or boxes being sold for gift cards.

Or, maybe, after having guests, your Hostess just want to unwind at home. Get her a pampering basket.

Gourmet Gift for your Host. Source: aesta1

2. Special Gourmet Treats

Choices for your hostess are many and varied. Depending on what you think her personal tastes are, you can gift her with homemade healthy pasta, especially flavoured kinds of vinegar, her favourite teas specially mixed and presented in well-designed canisters or a jar of her favourite jam. 

You can even have fun preparing or packaging these yourself.

3. Organizers for the Home or the Car

Many things need organizing in every home and choosing just what your hostess need will not be difficult given the choices available. You can get her jewellery organizers or a tote to keep items in the car or her recipes or magazines in the living room.

4. One of a Kind Gift

You can get one of a kind blown-glass from a crafter. Your hostess would love this as she can easily hang it on the window or place it on the table as an accent to the table setting. Hand blown glass is always special and it is a collectable. You can choose a colour to match the decoration.

Hand made craft items are also good options. Something unique that she can use as accents in her home or for the table.

Once, we watched a glassblower in his studio make a friendship ball. We bought several of these and gave this to friends when we stay for a day or two with them. They always appreciate receiving this as they could not get this just anywhere.

5. Memory Gifts

Here is something you can really have fun with. If your hostess is someone you know very well and has shared many memories with, say your sister who each year gathers the family together either for Christmas or Thanksgiving or a long-time friend. Look at your pictures and choose some of those fun times and frame one you love to share with her.

Fresh Flowers for the Home. Source: aesta1

6. Fresh Flowers or Plant

I know that this seems such a stale idea but when you see these flowers grace the room, you'll enjoy the freshness that goes with them. This is good when you are staying in the house and you see that there are no flowers or the flowers are near decay. You also know your hostess has vases that are easily accessible. We do this often when we stay with families and they add so much colour to the house.

7. Hostess Gifts for Christmas

Christmas is often the time when invitations come in a bundle so prepare your hostess gifts early. Bless your hostess with something colourful, useful and memorable.

My choice is a stunning Christmas ornament explosive in colour. The centrepiece platter with hollies and poinsettias for the Christmas table. The ceramic Santa candle holders for the once a year mega dinner. A tasteful turkey memorial setting to be assembled in one corner of the dining room. It's up to you to make the choice.

Choose a theme so you can make it a tradition each year to give one in the theme you have chosen: a Christmas tree ornament, a Christmas wreath that you make yourself, a vintage blown-glass Christmas ornament, a Christmas angel, Santa, Nativity, snowflake or Christmas around the world. Or, you can be more specific and choose something she loves like dogs, cats, or rabbits.

The Swarovski Christmas Ornament

Snowflakes mix well with any theme so this will be a good addition to your friend's box of Christmas ornaments.

Get a beautiful poem on snowflakes, print this on a nice card or paper and tie this beautifully with a ribbon to the gift. It gives the gift of snowflake a special meaning.

Your friends will treasure it more

Start a traditon of giving your hostess a specially crafted ornament every Christmas. You know somethihg she likes, the color she uses for her Christmas decors and her style of decorating. But over and above this, making a special one for her will make her feel very special.

Maybe think of something she can use for the next Christmas dinner. Then, everyone can enjoy it, too.

Fabulous Christmas Wreaths

Christmas South Africa

Do you like decorating with wreaths? Where do you usually place it?

Wreaths have 3 major uses. They show remembrance when laid at memorials. They show triumphs when they're put on horses and they show the combination of the two when put on our front doors at Christmas.

For those in the Christian community, the wreath shows the house is celebrating the future and the memory of its own history. For the rest of the world, it simply says that the house inside is ready for the annual explosion of too much food, new clothing, for the year and new toys for the little guys.

The wreath is such a good signal that's even edging its way into thanksgiving celebration not with holly and pine branches but made of corn and other harvest symbols. But the Christmas wreath is special, especially the homemade ones.

With fresh leaves on your Christmas wreath, you herald spring as well and if you are in the midst of wonder Winterland, this will bring hope in your heart. But since many of us have no access to fresh evergreens, we just have to make use of other things.

There are lots of choices for wreaths aside from fresh leaves. Dried leaves and fruits can also be used. If not, use Christmas balls. Or, use whatever you have lots of from your collection or your storage.

You can mix and match your tiny toys, dolls and other decors and presto, you will have a fabulous wreath.

Looking at pictures of ancient civilizations like Egypt and Persia, circlet around the head decorated with precious stones seemed to have already been worn.

But the use of evergreens seemed to have been part of the tradition practised by the Germanic tribes who gathered evergreens and built fires to extend daylight and remind them during the gloomy winter days of the coming spring. The Scandinavians lighted candles around the wheel to signify the coming around of spring as the wheel turned.

The wreath was also found as a symbol among the early Etruscans who used leaves of laurel, oak, wheat, and olive sewn in decorated bands which they used as crowns. The wreath symbol was also stamped in some of their old medallions. The circle is so apt a symbol for eternity and many ancients must have also appreciated this.

In Greek mythology, Apollo, the son of Zeus is shown wearing a crown of leaves around his head. Around 776 B.C., the Greeks used these crowns to honour the victory of the athletes in the Olympic Games and depending on where the Olympics was held, the leaves used were of the popular trees of the locale.

The Romans made this even more of a symbol of achievement when conquerors like Caesar were given these to give them honour for their victory, the laurel crown. Those who got these laurel crown proudly wore these to show their crowning achievement.

Then, eventually, the symbol was taken by the Christian Churches to instruct people on the coming of Christ. Again the circle is an apt symbol for the eternal God.

Wreaths were made four weeks before Christmas and embellished with 4 candles, each candle symbolizing the weeks of preparation for the birth of Christ, thus, the Advent Wreath.

Eventually, the wreath even became more popular as decors not just on Christmas but on other occasions as well.