Sun

In the morning after our crab gathering, Vivian and I brought Euterpe to the Disneyland - Vivian got a few complimentary tickets and my daughter is a fan of Goofy and Pluto.

But I regretted the decision very soon. It was a windy and chilly Saturday morning. Our princess had to hide herself under the overcoat, and it took us some forty minutes to line up with hundreds of tourists from the mainland before Euterpe could take a picture with Mickey and Minnie.

After that, Vivian suggested to have an early lunch. I happily followed.

And it was a brilliant move. The afternoon sun was warm and charming. Our usual energetic daughter revived - I must say I also found my depression disappeared as soon as I walked under the beautiful sunshine.

************************************

For those who have lived in Britain, the effect of sunshine on our mood is no news. When I was working in Bristol, it was not uncommon to have prolonged consecutive cold cloudy days, and people were overjoyed when they saw the sun.

Alas, I still remember in one particular winter afternoon, the sun emerged from the thick cloud after a whole week of foggy weather, the chief research fellow of my laboratory yelled, "Oh, it's the sun !"

And, you know what, everyone in the laboratory (as Hercule Poirot said, from the duke to the dustman) rushed to the garden and enjoyed a brief moment of sunshine.

It was the rare occasion I found there exists something fair for everyone in the world.

蟹詩

After the hallucinatory interview, Vivian and I had a small dinner gathering with her surgical colleagues - largely for the tasting of Chinese mitten crabs (大閘蟹).

I do not have much to tell from the dinner, but there's a flash back of my memory to some poems I learned from the Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) by Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹).

(賈寶玉)
持螯更喜桂陰涼，潑醋擂薑興欲狂。饕餮王孫應有酒，橫行公子卻無腸。
臍間積冷饞忘忌，指上沾腥洗尚香。原為世人美口腹，坡仙曾笑一生忙。

(林黛玉)
鐵甲長戈死未忘，堆盤色相喜先嘗。螯封嫩玉雙雙滿，殼凸紅脂塊塊香。
多肉更憐卿八足，助情誰勸我千觴。對斯佳品酬佳節，桂拂清風菊帶霜。

(薛寶釵)
桂靄桐陰坐舉殤，長安涎口盼重陽。眼前道路無經緯，皮裏春秋空黑黃。
酒未敵腥還用菊，性防積冷定須姜。於今落釜成何益，月浦空餘禾黍香。

Alas, "眼前道路無經緯，皮裏春秋空黑黃。" What a description.

The eternal question is: what species of crab was on the table ?

Looking at Lin Daiyu's poem, it should not be the Chinese mitten.

Maybe they're the river ones.

Revenue

You may find my story yesterday irrelevant. By coincidence, I encountered a very similar happening last week. Let me modify the scene a bit and give you a feel.

*************************

(In a job interview for the new lecturer of a medical school.)

The chairman asked, "What's your passion ?"

The candidate solemnly replied, "Oh, I love doing research and teaching medical students."

"Are you interested in seeing private patients ?" The chairman went on.

"No ..." the candidate said. He soon found a dark face in front of him, and he added, "... and yes. I can take some."

"I would suggest you to take many. You see, we are going to set up a private teaching hospital. I think you could have a busy practice there and generate enough revenue."

For a short while, the candidate suspected he misheard the other side, "Enough revenue ... for what ?"

"So that you could employ someone to do the research and teach the medical students for you !"

Rich

In Tim Ferriss's book, people of his kind are called New Rich. That's not entirely correct - Happy Poverty may be more appropriate.

Let me give you a classic story that's recited in the book:

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An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The tourist then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The tourist then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The tourist scoffed, " I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

The tourist replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?... Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

PS. A very similar story could be found in Zhuangzi (莊子).

4-hour

My recent bedtime reading is The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.

I brought this book when I was in San Diego last month. When I thumbed through its pages at the Borders, it looked like a book on time management - a favorite subject of mine.

But I was wrong. The book consists of three parts; I was about to give up reading in the first part, which outlined the desirable life style of the author. To put it in modest words, that's not my cup of tea.

Fortunately, Ferriss went on and gave many practical approaches to save time and outsource every aspects of our life, and the last part of the book was full of relevant reference sites. If The World is Flat of Thomas Friedman shows us how the world could operate in the era of internet, Tim Ferriss provides a practical handbook on how that could be applied to the daily life of an ordinary people.

Confidential

I was recently asked to write a recommendation for one of my colleagues - it was kind of a formal procedure for our university.

Although I became an academic staff for over 10 years, this is the first time I write recommendation for this particular purpose. Our campus MBAs (which stands for Master of Bureaucratic Administration) are so productive that the rules keep changing and there is now a standardized recommendation form for me to fill it.

I read it through. Towards the end of the form, it says:

The information of this form is absolutely confidential. Please send the form directly to our office after it is completed. Under no circumstances should the referee release information on the form to the candidate. However, please also note that in order to comply with the Privacy Ordinance, the candidate has the right to request a full copy of this form from our office - with the details of the referee.

Extra-terrestrials do have a different system of logic.

PS. I recently learn that a second type of MBA is Management By Absence. That's another story.

(cont'd)

With the slightly unexpected question from the candidate, the two examiners looked at each other. Finally, one of them asked, "Why do you ask that question ?"

"My written paper and bedside are not that bad," my mentor explained, "I don't think you plan to fail me. On the other hand, I understand very well I'm not good enough for a distinction in surgery. Then, why do we waste our time ?"

The two men on the other side of the desk were forced to agree.

*******************************

I believe it was the next morning the moustache man sat for the distinction viva of medicine.

He was led to a long narrow room, with a handful of professors sitting in a line.

Along one side of the room, there was a series of X-ray boxes, all turned on.

On the boxes, there were ten X-ray films, put up as a line.

All were X-ray of the hands (from ten different medical conditions, of course).

His task was to comment on all of them, and answer related questions.

And he got through.

PS. The scene actually reminds me of the Wooden Men's Lane (木人巷) in those Kung-Fu movies. I'm not sure it's good or bad but we could never have this kind of challenging examination nowadays.

Memory

You may find it amazing that I could still remember my "job interview" so well. In fact, that's not a privilege of mine. On the morning after the dinner with my laboratory friends, I met AL - my colleague who recent took the membership examination - when I was going to the clinic.

My little friend sighed, "You know, it's over three weeks, but I'm still having such a vivid memory - scenes of the examination keep flashing back."

"Of course," I tried to be reassuring, "I could still remember scenes of my membership and even final MB examination - even though they were in the last millennium !"

**********************************

Actually, even my previous mentor - the man who used to have a moustache - has the same experience. Here is one little scene that he kept telling his trainees (yes, that's me some 15 years ago):

After the written and clinical examinations in the final MB, my mentor had to attend the surgical viva (a regular event for all students at that time), and was invited to the distinction viva of internal medicine.

The surgical one came first. The moustache man entered the room, sat down, and saw two examiners. The more senior one said, "Well, before we ask you any question, you may ask us one."

"Good," the nephrology professor-to-be answered, "My question is: May I go now ?"

I shall tell you tomorrow what happened to him.

Interview

Two days after the parent meeting, I dined with KB and AC - two friends of mine who are laboratory scientists. AC is a father of two; our discussion inevitably fell to schooling and parenting.

"So you are applying for kindergarten ? How about primary school ? Oh, you would be doing a lot of interviews - you know, nowadays they almost always need to interview the parents ..." AC said.

"Quite right. That's expected." I nodded.

"Oh, when did you last have an interview ?" KB added, "You joined the university 10 years ago ?"

"True, but I did not need an interview when I applied for my academic post," I smiled, "You know, AY, the previous lecturer, left for the consultant post, and they could not find anyone to replace. I was summoned during my overseas training in Bristol - actually slightly after the application deadline. In fact I had not completed my specialist training when I joined the department - I sat for the exit examination six months later."

My dinnermates looked amazed, and I went on, "You know, the only job interview I had in my life was for the medical officer, and that was DCA - the chairman at that time. In fact, I did not have to say anything in the so-called interview, and he only murmured two sentences: We are not particularly keen to get you. We have two posts - but you are the only applicant."

AC obviously had enough of my grandiosity and concluded, "Don't worry, you shall pay back and have as many interview as you like in the coming years !"

Cautious

Had a brief meeting with the class master of Euterpe - it's kind of a regular meeting so that we parents could be updated with the progress of our children in the school.

Vivian and I found ourselves in a small classroom; the teacher was a young chubby lady. My wife sat down and did the talking; I brought my daughter to a corner and tried to play with her - but both of us were more interested in the conversation.

After a brief exchange in thanking, the teacher said, "Euterpe is cheerful and active, but I would say she's very cautious. You see, whenever we brought the class for a new game - seesaw or slide or whatever - she would never be the first to try. She would let a few of her classmates try it, and, after seeing the thing is OK, then she would be happy to join."

"Oh, that's probably because she fell so many times when she was a baby ..." Vivian answered, and she went on to describe a few incidents at home.

Sitting aside, I said nothing. Just that the ordinary interpretation of the meaning of cautious intrigued me. Yes, we feel something safe when so many people did it or are doing it. More often than not we use this as the criteria of safety - rather than examining objectively the task at hand.

Alas, that doesn't always work, and not uncommonly results in a mass catastrophe - for example, in the financial market.

Evidence

You find my discussion yesterday convincing and are about to advocate against organic farming ? I was - until very lately.

The principal assumption is: organic farming is much less efficient (in terms of productivity) as compared to the modern intensive method.

But, what is the evidence ?

I must confess I was quite convinced with the assumption until I prepared to write this blog recently. When I look up for supporting evidence, I find it less assuring.

To put it simply, a number of observational and comparative (not randomized controlled) studies found that organic farms have 10 to 20% lower yields than their conventional counterparts in developed countries. On the other hand, the former have 20 to 30% higher yields than their low-intensity counterparts in developing countries. (The reason is probably a lack of expensive fertilizers and pesticides in the developing world.) When you consider a global picture, there is a slight reduction in productivity, but by a few percents only.

The lesson ? Never appeal to authority. As Martin Ruth advised: You will find it very good practice always to verify your references.

Revolution

The major advance that brought along the increase in productivity of food in the past sixty years was the (so-called) Green Revolution.

Take my mother's poultry experiment as the example: Chickens were expensive in the good old days because they were fed with rice and veges and allowed to walk around. Now, chicks are mostly kept in the barn and fed with a fortified mixture of corn and cereal. Many of them would never see the sun and their biological clock is modified to have an 8 or 12-hour diurnal rhythm - so that they could lay egg two or three times each day.

The same applies - more so actually - to crops. With the extensive use of synthetic fertilizers, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used was increased by only 10 percent. In comparison, using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation.

You see where we are getting at ? Look, organic farming is better for the environment is self-conflicting because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. To put it simply, the more intensively you farm, the more room you have left for rain forest.

You think this argument crazy ? I shall not object. But the line of thinking is not new - it was first proposed by Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, exactly for his contribution through increasing global food supply.

Go read Trewavas A. Urban myths of organic farming. Nature 2001; 410: 409.

Difference

You may wonder why should poultry had an inflation rate of 4.5%, while salary and property rose by 8%.

The explanation is simple: Over the past sixty years, there was a dramatic improvement in the productivity of poultry and other agricultural products - by technology, mass production, and so forth. In short, the amount of labour and other cost of breeding a chicken is much reduced now than 60 years ago.

In contrast, there are entities that advances in technology could not actually improve the productivity. For example, the amount of space that we need to live, or the number of patient that a physician could see in a morning clinic. For those who are obsessive with terminology, this phenomenon is known as the Baumol's curse.

But, one point may skip your eyes: Technology has a limit; contrary to the opinion of a certain rocket scientist who recently deceased, we can never go beyond the law of physics and increase the number of chicken bred by a farm of a finite size indefinitely.

And, I suspect (well, yes, I suspect, I could be wrong - hopefully) we are close to the limit.

In that case, we would expect the price of our needs of daily living (food, clothing, etc.) would go up more quickly that they did in the past sixty years.

Another reason for not leaving our spare money idle.

Return

What's the implication of 4.5% and 8% ? Let me give you a slightly convoluted explanation.

Many of you may have encountered those advertisements of our Monetary Authority: the return of an investment is proportional to its risk.

The point is, as Benjamin Graham pointed out (some 70 years ago, in Security Analysis), the return of any risk-free investment is expected to be roughly equal to the nominal inflation rate, which is around 4.5%. (Graham himself used the US treasury bonds as the example of a risk-free investment, which we may not agree nowadays. That's another story.)

How about a business with an average risk (alas, so-called market return rate) ? According to Graham, the expected return is 8% in the long run.

The inevitable conclusion is, therefore, to meet the requirement of the real-life inflation, one must go for business with an average risk and should never do ordinary saving or any so-called risk-free gadgets (including government bonds).

PS. JW, TW, and other friends who are experienced investors would recognize I have done away with jargon such as Beta and Market Return Rate.

By definition, beta is one for an ordinary business. The above calculation indicates that the deviation is 3.5% (i.e. 8% minus 4.5%). For an investment with very high risk, beta equals 3, and the expected return is 4.5% plus 3 time 3.5%, which makes 15%. An investment with expected return above this figure is unrealistic.

Interested beginners are encouraged to read The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham or The 10-Day MBA by Steven Silbiger.

Inflation

You may think the little story of my mother interesting, but there's actually more serious implications that may skip your eyes.

To begin with, the story happened 60 years ago.

Now, let's see: it cost 5 dollar for a chicken and 10 cents for an egg at that time. For those who do not go to (super)markets yourself, the price today is around 12 to 15 times higher.

Of course that's because of inflation.

The point is: What was the inflation rate ?

My BA-II calculator tells me that it is 4.2 to 4.6% per year - a figure very close to what the government officially announce.

But, at this point, you may notice immediately that not everything has its price raised in the same rate. Sixty years ago, a small apartment in some marginal area cost $10,000, and the average household income was $150 - both increased by around 100 folds now.

And it means an inflation rate of 8%.

The implication ? I shall elaborate tomorrow.

Chicken

During a casual dinner chat, Vivian asked my mother, "Have you ever kept any pet - say, chickens ?"

"Why, I did keep some chickens when I was a child. I remember very well, there were seven of them." My mother was always precise with numbers, "You know, the result was gorgeous."

"Result ?" My wife and I were confused.

"You know, I bought them as little chicken at a cost of $1 each. They were kept at practically no cost - one of my neighbour was a vegetable vendor, and I used those broken leaves and stems left in his trash, as well as our own leftovers, to feed the chicks. When they grew up, my mother used one for the Winter Festival, another for the New Year, and so forth. We were so happy - a 2-catty chicken was sold at $5 at that time. Without my little farm, my family could hardly afford any poultry for the celebration."

"Ah ..." I gave a meaningful sigh, and she continued, "And there's more. They were all hens and, not too long after I bred them, they started laying eggs. You know, eggs were sold at 10-cent each at that time."

"Too bad you did not keep more and sell them for a profit," I concluded, "Otherwise you could well be another Warren Buffett !"

Chinese

After a whole morning of discussion, we lunched with our friends from China. The casual conversation inevitably touched on the problems faced by our next VC.

The man from Pluto sighed, "You know, one question that kept coming up when I saw the students, alumni, as well as teaching staff is: Should we use Chinese for teaching ? After all, we are the Chinese University ! Many alumni and senior members also pointed out that one of the mission of our university is to promote Chinese culture."

As an onlooker, I said nothing. Nonetheless, I consider it a straw man to advocate teaching in Chinese because we want to promote our culture. The two does not have a direct link - in fact, they could be quite independent of each other.

After all, even the most vigorous fans of Chinese culture would not insist on preserving our tradition of foot binding (纏足) in women. Right, we remove the barbarian traits from our culture and keep the nice bit. Chinese language is good for poetry and literature but less desirable for scientific communication. Why should we waste the effort on our weakness when there are better ways to show our edge ?

PS. I forget who told me this very truth: a people must be confident with their own culture before they could be open-minded to the others - look at the Tang (唐) empire.

Visitors

A group of senior physicians from a major medical school of our country came and visited our department – with an aim of exploring potential aspects that we could have some collaboration.

We ended up having a small meeting of a dozen people. After a brief introduction, our chairman showed a video to introduce our faculty – it was a short film specifically prepared by the university for visitors from the mainland, with narration in Putonghua.

After that, our friends from China decided to show a little movie to introduce their hospital – it was in (perfectly spoken) English.

All through the morning, I had a deja vu feeling of reading Fortress Besieged (圍城) of Qian Zhongshu (錢鍾書): People outside the fortress wish to get in, but those who are inside want to come out.

PS. During the meeting, we each took turn to give a brief presentation on our own division. Most of us spoke in Putonghua, but I had no choice but had to do with English - of course our friends from China could understand alright.

I'm sure we should emphasize our difference, not similarity.

"Ah-Q," I could hear you whisper.

Topics

Invited to do a tutorial on medical ethics for our students – it sounds like asking Franz Kafka to teach in a Sunday school. (Well, apparently our organizer had asked many of my colleagues but was constantly being turned down. Maybe he asked Socrates, Hume, and Schopenhauer.)

I must say I had very little idea what to teach. Surprisingly the students had prepared some cases for discussion, and, towards the latter part of the session, the organizer chipped in and offered several extra scenarios for us to ponder.

And they were illuminating ones too. For example,

• What to do if your senior give you an obviously wrong instruction?
• What to do if you find your senior giving harmful treatment to his patients?
• What to do if your male colleague is suspected to have some inappropriate behaviour to female patients?

Alas, interesting as they appeared, I could not see the value of including these into the medical curriculum. Yes, our doctors-to-be may get a glimpse on some difficulties of practising medicine on earth, but it is merely the romantic idea of some extra-terrestrials that medical students would become better clinicians by teaching of this kind. After all, behaviour is determined by the limbic system, not neocortex.

Maybe they should really ask Schopenhauer.

Democracy

Soon after I was back from San Diego, CB invited me to his office and have some coffee.

After some casual conversation, my friend, who happened to be the council member of our society, asked for my opinion on a recent proposal in the society council. (The detail of the proposal is irrelevant.) As you would expect, I said I didn't need to have an opinion on that particular matter.

But CB did try to insist for one, "Why, this is democracy ! I represent you guys and have to ask for all your opinion before I vote in the council."

Well, it became my turn to be obsessive and start a small lecture on democracy:

"Democracy is about our right to vote for our representative. In essence, we believe a particular person shares our own view, is capable, and has the vision, and we put a tick at his name. Other than some rare occasion of a controversial topic, this elected representative should act according to his own judgement and discretion - he has all the information and should be in a better position to decide for his citizens. I consider my representative not doing his job if he has to ask for my opinion on every matter."

"But, nowadays, many people would ask for more involvement in every decision - both the council and our society as a whole !" CB commented.

I said, without even any thinking, "We call them 刁民."

PS. I don't think I have to touch on the very fact that, in a democratic system, if the representative is not doing his job well, we can get rid of him and vote for someone else in the next election.

Social

For my friends in the medical field, you may think the theory of Soros sounds great but has very little practical value.

On that, you are wrong.

It is a romantic idea that medical science falls within the category of natural science. But no. In terms of research and how we advance our knowledge, clinical medicine is by and large a social science - and, as the great hedge fund manager pointed out, people's opinion frequently affect the objective fact.

"How could that be ? We have objective means and elaborated statistical methods to test whether a new treatment or diagnostic test is useful." You may argue.

But no. One notable problem is we are not free to design any clinical trial. For example, if there is a moderately effective treatment for a certain disease, any new treatment should be compared to this supposedly gold standard rather than placebo (otherwise it would not be ethical to the participants). In fact, if the existing treatment is very effective, it is more common to test the additional benefit of a new treatment - on top of the existing one. We would never know the value of that new drug on its own.

Alas, do you now see the point ? Yes, it is in fact easy to tell whether a subject belongs to natural or social science: If a research project needs approval by an ethics committee, the topic falls into the latter category.

PS. I shall not elaborate on the more serious problem that, when the majority of the experts within the field holds a particular opinion, the result of any new research would be interpreted (or publicized) in favor of that opinion - irrespective to what the data actually show.

That's another (sobering) story.

Reflexivity

Traditionally, we assume there exists an objective fact that could be validated, and knowledge is the process of our gathering of information and synthesis of idea to understand the objective fact. Our great hedge fund manager reminded us that, at least in the field of social science, our idea often form the basis of the objective fact.

(I said remind because the idea is not entirely new. A very similar theory was proposed by Aristotle over 2000 years ago.)

For example, Barack is a man is a scientific description, which has objective criteria and could be validated (to be either true or false). The important point is: whether Barack is a man or not does not depend on your opinion or description.

But, when we consider the description Barack is our enemy, it becomes a different ball game. Yes, there remains criteria for validation, but the objective fact could in itself be altered if we accept the description. In other words, if we see Barack as our enemy, he will sure be. It is, in essence, a reinforcement cycle and self-fulfilling statement.

Soros called it reflexivity.

PS. The best example by the hedge fund manager is, of course, if everyone believes that the stock price would go up, it sure will.

PPS. Seasoned medical students would find my example somewhat familiar. As Virgil said, Hos successus alit; possunt, quia posse videntur. (Success nourished them; they seemed to be able, and so they were able.)

Soros

As usual, I brought a book with me for long flights.

This time, my companion was The Crash of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros.(It was my birthday present from my sister.

Honestly I did not have high hope to begin with - the thing looked explicit and lack something delicate. (In retrospect, the title was probably coined by some pragmatic publisher rather than the great hedge fund manager himself. As Confucious said: 以貌取人,失之子羽.)

This time, I was fortunate to find my suspicion on a false ground.

There are two parts of the book: first about Soro's own theory of philosophy, followed by his view on the financial market. Although you may consider it slightly strange for a financial tyrant to talk about philosophy, I agree with the author and find the first part of the book more impressive.

Soro's discussion was largely on epistemology (a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and limitations of knowledge). His idea was rather simple, which I shall elaborate tomorrow.

Paradox

My recent stay in San Diego brought my memory back to an old paradox.

The story went like this:

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For obvious reasons, I chose a small hotel with a moderate price. (It took me a 30-minute walk every morning to the convention center - the rare occasion that I had to do some genuine exercise.) To my surprise, the room was exceptionally well equipped: In addition to those ordinary gadgets, there was a coffee machine (so that I could boil some water for my own consumption), a spacious fridge, and a microwave.

And, above all, there was free wireless internet service.

When I mentioned this to PL (our senior consultant who lived in a hotel twice as expensive as mine), he became half mad.

"Why ! They charged me US$14 each day for the internet !" He complained.

And that's the paradox. It occurs to me that cheap hotels are often more generous in providing free internet service, while expensive ones often charge their tenants.

I'm sure there's a simple principle in economy that explains all these.

Tutorial

"Who wrote the first textbook on gynecology in Chinese medicine ?" Came the first question of my previous mentor for his dinner tutorial.

(I must say I could not be more happy. Everything seems going back to the good old days.)

I shake my head, playing my part as a humble student.

The answer was, as it turned out, illuminating on its own.

*******************************

The first textbook on gynecology in China was 《女科》, written by Fu Qingzhu (傅青主).

Fu was no ordinary gynecologist. He was an outstanding scholar at the turn between Ming (明) and Qing (清) dynasties, and an expert in medicine, philosophy, literature, calligraphy, as well as martial arts.

For that very last aspect, he appeared in the classic fiction The Seven Swords of Mount Heaven (七劍下天山) by Liang Yusheng (梁羽生) - Fu was one of the Swords.

The same character also appeared in the movie Seven Swords (七劍), directed by Tsui Hark (徐克), who casted Liu Jialiang (劉家良) as our legendary gynecologist.

Lobster

While in San Diego, I was fortunate enough to dine with the man who used to have a moustache. Alas, it was a small gathering at a brilliant seafood restaurant, arranged by a certain third-party. We were there together with a few other colleagues from Hong Kong.

The teacher and his malicious student were sitting at the opposite side of a long narrow table. Inevitably we ended up having some causal talk. My previous mentor was exceptionally elated; he was just too eager to share his wisdom with the others at the table.

• How to choose some expensive and exotic dish that does not appear on the restaurant's menu ?
• Why order a 3-pound-plus lobster (after a seafood platter and some heavy clam chowder) ?
• How to attend a meeting only if the dinner is held at a Michelin 3-star restaurant ?

Oh, did I say share, or demonstrate ?

Scope

During an academic conference, it is my habit to attend symposium that has very little relation to my work. For exactly the same reason, conference of the American Society is particularly attractive to me - they often invite speakers from some unexpected field.

For example, the first plenary lecture was delivered by Roger Tsien (錢永健) - the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Yes, chemistry. Although Tsien focused on the practical aspects (that is, in vivo tissue imaging) of his work on GFP (green fluorescence protein) and skipped much of the technical details, I could appreciate why his prize was on chemistry. (For example, he did explain a little how the side chain of GFP was modified to achieve a different emission wavelength.)

What's the use of all these ?

What a question.

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Most people know very well that one could look far away by standing on the shoulder of a giant.

But, when there's no giant around, we could look slightly farther by keeping our back straight.

And, however far away you could see, make good use of your atlanto-axial joint and look around - you could better appreciate the beauty of the world.

On a few occasions, you may also find an unexpected trail to the place you want to go.

Lag

I set off to San Diego on a public holiday. Vivian took the chance and brought Euterpe to the airport. Our girl was, of course, overjoyed.

As an academic staff, I am a rare specimen of infrequent traveler - in fact this was the first time I went for an international conference this year. (I always hold the opinion that most of the academic conferences actually have very little academic value. True, they remain essential because of the commercial value - but that's not a reason to attend.)

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Take aside a few exceptional circumstances, jet lag is hardly ever a problem to me. I could sleep alright the airplane, and my addiction to caffeine helps a lot. You know what, every time before going overseas, I stop drinking coffee for a day or two as well as throughout the journey. On the first morning that I am in another country, the first dose of caffeine would be resumed, follow by a regular twice-daily dose.

PS. As a rule, I drink Starbucks only when I am away for a conference. Somehow, this year, their regular coffee tastes less strong than previous years - and the price is 5-cent lower than the small shop nearby.

Not a good sign for its shareholders.

School

After reading my calculations yesterday, you may come to the same conclusion of certain Mr. Tsang and suggest that an average couple should buy a flat in some less privileged areas. If the unit price is down by 50% (i.e. HK$2000 per square foot), they could afford an apartment twice as big.

It sounds great - until the parents have to find a suitable school for their children.

For those who are not familiar with the system, primary schools in Hong Kong are allocated by two major criteria:

• where the parents graduated from
• where does the family live

I don't think I need to elaborate on the variation of school quality in our city. It follows that the chance of receiving a reasonable education does not depend on the capability of the child, but who the parents are and whether the family could afford an expensive place to live.

It doesn't take long for the society to segregate into two layers: the cream (alas, or the scum) and the sediment.

PS. Even if a few exceptionally gifted children from average families do get through and entered some prestigious schools, have you consider the time to be spent in the traffic for these kids ?

Numbers

While I appeared to be in favor of TW's opinion, let's shift our attention and consider some realistic figures.

Let's consider an average Hong Kong family with a median monthly income of HK$15000 (the official one for 2005, which I found in Wikipedia). It plans to use 40% of the income to pay for an apartment, and a mortgage of 20 years is made. If the interest rate is 5%, what is the amount of the loan ?

My BA-II financial calculator tells me that it is HK$900,000.

If the mortgage equals 70% of the price, the apartment is sold at HK$1.3M.

It follows that if the unit price of the flat is HK$4000, the area is 320 square feet - for a family of four.

And we have not considered the followings:

• the possibility of a fifth person living together (for example, a Filipino maid or a grandparent, who help taking care of the kids)
• a building area (建築面積) of 320 square feet may actually be 220 square feet in saleable area (實用面積)
• how to make up the down-payment