Monster

My favorite Pixar movie is Monster Inc.

The reason is simple – the hidden meaning was obvious.

And, who could miss the message? A country gets its energy and resource from the screaming of the democratic world, and, therefore, tries every possible means to scare the ingenuous free people (that is, the children). On the other hand, their governmental tyrants – if there is such a term – have phobic disorder against human and deliberately infuse a panic idea to their citizens so that they would not try to smell the air of freedom.

Well, since the script was written by a human being rather than a monster, the rule of their universe turns out to be more energy or resource could actually be generated by inducing children laugh – obviously before they realize the child is running an astronomical financial deficit and is struggling whether it is necessary to have something called QE3.

PS. It remains uncertain whether Mr. Waternoose, the owner of Monster Inc., was actually secretly supported by the human world.

Right, you may find this idea absurd. But, true, that’s to the advantage of the human world to have a tyrant who goes to the church once a week – rather than some other extremist who prays more frequently – to rule the monsters.

And, if not, how could this Mr. Waternoose knows so much about the free world?

Pixar

During the holiday, Vivian and I paid a visit to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum and saw the exhibition Pixar: 25 Years of Animation.

Of course we brought our two daughters with us. Euterpe was obviously overjoyed to see all her favorite characters, and I was slightly surprised she remembered the bits and pieces of many stories. (For example, there was a statue of Al McWiggin - the malicious collector in Toy Story 2. Neither Euterpe nor me watch that film, but she probably read it from story book.)

To me, the most impressive item was the gigantic picture next to the entrance, which showed over 100 species of fish that appeared in Finding Nemo as supporting characters. Most of them appeared in the movie for just a second or two, often in a distant. In fact, the file name of each individual fish was shown, each began with misc***, indicating that they were merely miscellaneous species. Nonetheless, each has its own details - attractive colors and impressive mimic of real texture. I was inclined to believe each had its own story behind that had not been explored.

Success is the attention to details.

PS. Thanks to the remarkable appearance in Toy Story 3, the most character of the entire exhibition was the three-eyed alien.

And, as you remember, the three lovely green creatures only started with making a nondescript appearance in the original Toy Story.

Barber

The week passed quickly and I sneaked the chance on the first day of Easter Holiday to visit my barber.

To my horror, the place was closed. I was sure the place was not merely closed for holiday but was permanently off business: The traditional red-white-blue shop pole had been removed.

Some of you may know I visited the same barber for over thirty years. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2009/01/sixteen.html)

Why am I so loyal? Simple, my barber speaks very little.

Here is the usual conversation between us:

"As usual ?"

"Yes."

"Going back to work afterwards?"

"Yes."

And, that's done - not a single word until I leave the shop. I am sure he is not born to have a quiet personality. In fact, he chats quite a lot with other customers - just that he knows I am autistic and therefore decides to respect my disability.

Another piece of the good old memory vanished.

Torch

I had a busy clinic the next morning after I was back from Singapore. In the afternoon, we had the division grand round as usual. PL and CB, the two consultants of my team, were still hot with their experience in Vancouver.

After we finished, PL asked all of us in a curious smile, "Do you know what company X gave me as the souvenir ?"

Of course we had no idea.

"It was a solar energy torch !" Our senior consultant was trying his best not to laugh.

"You mean ... the one we found in From Beijing with Love (國產凌凌漆) ?" We were dumbfounded.

"Yes, the ingenious gadget that was conceived by Stephen Chow (周星馳) ..." PL pursed his lips.

"If there is sunlight, the bulb could light up; if there is no sun, it doesn't work..." One of us try to finish the description for him.

"I must say not as far as that," he continued, "Even if there is sunlight, we need a torch to look into patients' throat. And, it actually has a small battery and could store up energy, so that the bulb could still function for a while when it is dark."

Quite true. I should not laugh too early upon something that appears absurd - it may have a serious meaning after all.

Philosopher

You may ask: How about that platypus book at my hand?

Well, it's good for entertainment. After all it is a collection of jokes - arranged in their relation with different philosophical topics. However, if you have very little idea about philosophy or philosophers to start with, you wouldn't expect to learn something more.

By the way, philosophy is not philosophology - if there is such a term. It is important to distinguish the three kinds of people who all call themselves philosopher:

1. Those who are knowledgeable in philosophy, i.e. they understand the theory of all the great thinkers in the history of philosophy. (For example, university professors.)
2. Those who are great thinkers themselves - a rare species.
3. Those who live in a philosophical way.

The sobering truth is, unfortunately, hardly anyone belongs to more than one category.

PS. For beginners, I would recommend The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant.

Em ... Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder is more interesting - but I hold the bias that Gaarder's view was sometimes biased.

Platypus

As usual, I brought a book with me for my trip to Singapore.

My pick this time was Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein.

Maybe the subtitle would tell better what this book was all about: Understanding philosophy through jokes.

I must say I was seduced by the title several months ago when I came across this tiny volume, and I bought it without a second thought. The reason was simple: During the early days of my medical school, I was seriously thinking of writing a book on philosophy.

The title was: The Platypus of Philosophy.

I had even thought of how the book should begin in the Forward:

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

When the first specimen of platypus was brought back to Europe, it was vigorously debated and widely regarded as an elaborated fraud. It had the mouth of a duck, tail of a beaver, feet of a otter, mammary glands, but it lay eggs. How could there be such a creature if it was not a deliberate chimerism?

But no. Platypus shared much similarity in many individual parts because they served the corresponding purposes well. In fact, platypus was far from a clumsy mimic; in the history of evolution, it actually represented the prototype of an entirely new (and the most advanced) Class - the mammals.

Similarly, in this book, you may find my view on human nature similar to that expressed by Arthur Schopenhauer (and Siddhartha Gautama), or my idea of god no different from Baruch Spinoza. Nonetheless, that's because I find they were correct in that particular part, and, when the best parts of these experts come together, they form a new system - which I believe, in the history of evolution of thinking in philosophy, opens the door to an entirely different class.

PS. I have grandiose personality disorder, I know.

Lioness

You may think it is not very polite to read unrelated things during a meeting.

I must say I fully agree. Nonetheless the temptation was irresistible.

Alas, in an international expert committee, even if I try to pretend to be attentive, I would think of Aesop's fables.

Well, as what Hercule Poirot told Dr. James Sheppard (in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd), I was actually only thinking of one of the fables.

Here you go:

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

There was a heated argument amongst all the beasts in the forest, as to which of them had the largest family. So they came to the lioness.

"And how many," they asked, "do you have at a birth?"

"One," said she, grimly, "but that one is a lion."

As the old Chinese sayings: A parrot that could speak remains a parrot; a gorilla that could speak is, after all, a gorilla.

鸚鵡能言，不離飛鳥；猩猩能言，不離禽獸。

《禮記˙曲禮上》

Yuan

When I read through the material (during the meeting), it appeared seminal how the Yuan Empire respond to the ever increasing financial deficit.

Well, in short, there were two parties:

One group, generally believed to be led by Xu Heng (許衡) advocated a drastic cut in government expenditure and the number of Mongolians eligible for pension.

The other was represented by Ahmad Fanakati, the Muslim financial minister of Kublai Khan (忽必烈). The idea is simple: The government should monopolize those profitable business (for example, the trading of salt), and the treasury should print more paper money.

It all sounds familiar, eh?

There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

PS. Did you ask which party win?

Jove, do you think it is easier to cut down your own expenditure, or to induce inflation so that what you own the creditor becomes worthless?

1324

My hotel room number was 1324 in Singapore.

Inspired by Wang Jiawei (王家衛) and Ray Huang, I was intrigued and tried to look up what happened in the year 1324 - I vaguely remembered it was sometime in the Yuan (元) Dynasty but had very little idea otherwise.

Alas, I was essentially right. This year had even less significance than 1587, which had none - if it was at all possible. It was the second year under the reign of Yesün Temür Khan (元晋宗), who seized the crown after Shidebala Gegeen Khan (元英宗) was assassinated in 1323; most historians believed that the conspiracy was the plot of the major beneficiary.

But there remained turbulence under the calm surface of this uneventful year. The Yuan empire was running an astronomical financial deficit, largely because nearly all Mongolians in the kingdom did not need to work and were living on a very comfortable pension, and there were continual wars along every border of the empire.

Doesn't it sound like America ?

PS. By coincidence, Marco Polo died in 1324 - nearly thirty years after he returned to Europe.

Victorinox

While I was still reflecting the implication of voting for the truth, I went to Singapore for another short meeting.

Although I did not have any jet lag, it was really a rush to stay in my home city for two days and set off again. In fact, I only partly unpacked my luggage on Tuesday night and put back a few necessities on Thursday.

Alas, there came the problem. I arrived at the airport on time, got my boarding pass, and tried to went through the security check.

And, there, I was caught – there was a small knife in my hand-carry.

I was dumbfounded. After a few seconds of silence, I was back to myself, and my heart sank: that’s my Victorinox card - a little present that Vivian bought me when we had honeymoon in Lucerne.

I said to the friendly officer, “Oh, that’s my Victorinox.”

She nodded, and sneaked it out from my bag.

“We shall keep it for the moment. When are you coming back?” She asked.

I gave her the detail; she told me I could claim back the item from the airline office by the time I return – or within two weeks.

My heart went further down. My return flight would arrive by midnight, when the airline office has long closed. For obvious reasons I have no time to go back to the airport and get it back in the following weeks.

What should I do? After a brief moment of consideration I made the decision: It's better to give up the card and use the time to stay with my wife.

Vote

If you take Inshitemiru as a game, a rule of it is remarkable: All players vote to determine whether someone is guilty – and it doesn’t matter whether that someone did commit the crime or not. In fact, in the middle of the novel, it becomes clear, both to the readers and amongst all characters of the story, that the decision depends more on the immediate (social) need rather than the truth.

On the face of it, the regulation seems irrational. But, on a second thought, that’s what most of us are doing – even in the law court.

You may say: No. The jury does vote, but they do so according to the fact.

Alas, I would say: They make the decision according to the material being presented, which, as Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn long pointed out, may represent the truth, part of the truth, what we hope to be the truth, or what we hope the others think what we believe to be the truth.

And, after all, jury is a collection of human beings. By definition, they are laymen, and their judgment would easily be biased after being led (hopefully not misled) by the lawyers. (Well, if they are legal professionals, they are biased to start with!)

“Shouldn’t the judge be leading the jury to reach the reasonable solution?” You may ask.

Oh, don’t you realize that’s another source to introduce bias?

And, the worst bit is, rather than each member of the jury form their own conclusion, they may now all be led to a particular direction.

Like the lemmings?

Inshitemiru

As usual, I brought a novel with me for the flight.

My pick this time was The Incite Mill (the original title was Inshitemiru) (算計) by Yonezawa Honobu (米澤穂信) – a modern detective fiction I borrowed from AL.

Was it good?

Oh, don’t be silly. A detective fiction would never be called modern if it is good – classic or traditional would be the appropriate adjective. Well, the flesh of the story was healthy; the plot was meticulous and deduction serious. Nonetheless, it lacks the sole.

Well, you can call it motive (of the murderer, or the master of the entire plan), or the story behind every character that appears in the novel. (For example, for those who have ever read And Then There Were None of Agatha Christie, you would have a clear idea what brought each of that ten characters to the island.)

And, another major problem was Yonezawa cited too many excellent detective fictions: Ellen Poole, van Dine, Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, and Dickson Car. Readers who are not familiar with these giants would not appreciate some of the details in the story – but for those who have come across all these terrific works, in the words of Hercule Poirot, we used to see better things.

PS. Although the book was nearly 400 pages, it was read surprisingly quickly on my flight back (probably shortly after the plane left Alaska) - so that I could have the time to write this blog.

Succession

After lunch, the elder cousin of my father drove me back to the convention center.

On our way we passed the China town. It was a Sunday afternoon but, to my surprise, the streets were amazingly quiet. I told my new acquaintance my impression.

“You’re right. In fact, many shops and restaurants closed down – and could never lease out again.” He nodded.

“Why? I think these shops should have sufficient business,” I was puzzled.

“No, not a problem of business or rent. The usual story is this: the parents got to retire, but their children do not want to take over the business – they were born here and had incorporated into the cosmopolitan country; they have better things to do.”

I was speechless. My mind was trying to digest the meaning of striking a balance between preserving your own culture and adapting to a new environment.

And, Sakura in Canada is, after all, a different species from that you find at Fujiyama.

Tea

In addition to my grand auntie, I was met by two of her children – that is, cousins of my father.

And, as you expect, the four of us went to a local Chinese restaurant for lunch.

No, it was not in the China town. In fact, there are Chinese restaurants all over Vancouver, and we just had one nearby – it was a rainy day and my grand auntie is 95.

Seriously, the dim sums were entirely acceptable in terms of quality, just that the size of their dish was so much influenced by the Americans: The shrimp dumplings (蝦餃) had the size of a lion's head (獅子頭), and the small bowel that they used to serve congee was clearly borrowed from Shaquille O'Neal.

Of course it was never a matter of quality of the food, but the fact that the (extended) family could get together and shared some old stories.

PS. As a rule I have phobia to restaurants in China town – largely a result of some horrible experience when I had my overseas training. The glutinous rice chicken (糯米雞) that I had in London was not wrapped in lotus leaf, but aluminum foil.

I can still remember the rusty taste that I hallucinated nearly 15 years ago.

Footstep

First, let me tell you a slightly irrelevant story:

Some thirty years ago while travelling around for his work, a Chinese man had to stay in Vancouver for a few days. He remembered that the younger sister of his father emigrated to this city for 15 or 20 years, and, naturally, he decided to pay a visit to this auntie.

His English was not very good, and the address was somewhere in the suburb. After a bit of hazel, he worked out the route and took a bus.

However, when he arrived in the afternoon, he found that the family had moved.

That was the time before mobile phone, and, I must say if it were me, I would call it a day and surrender.

But this man did not. He found a young Chinese girl who happened to pass by and asked if she could show him where the local post office was.

The girl was a university student and luckily could speak both Cantonese and English. She actually brought the man to the post office. In there, the man asked for the whereabouts of his auntie. (And only from this story I know it used to be a custom for them to leave the new address to the local post office so that letters could be forwarded to the appropriate place.)

And, bingo! He got the new address (somewhere a few miles away), and learned the bus route that would bring him to the destination.

Later in the evening, he arrived – safe and intact, and was heartily greeted by his auntie.

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

Yes, you guess that much. The man was my father; and the other reason that I came to Vancouver was to visit this grand auntie who I never met before.

Time changed, but I am sure she greeted me as heartily as she did thirty years ago.

Sakura

I must say Vancouver is a lovely city.

(I had been to Toronto once some ten years ago, in November. To someone who has lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years, you could imagine what Toronto's weather would appear to him. And, worst of all, when I was almost chilled and frozen, the local weather report on TV said that they hard ever see such a good weather in that time of a year!)

On the way to the hotel, my impression was the place is full of flowering trees. One of the common kinds caught my attention: The branches were covered with pale pink flowers, which seemed gradually giving off its bits and pieces upon the gentle spring breeze. It just looked familiar.

"Hey, man. What's that?" I asked the taxi driver.

"Cherry blossom." His reply was brief.

"So desu ne (そですね)!" I exclaimed.

The taxi driver was silenced. I believed for a moment he thought I was a Japanese. (I was sure he would be even more convinced as soon as he saw my last name.) But, I paid no attention to him.

Rather, I said to myself, "Quite true. This is the season of seeing sakura. It is already a month since the earthquake. What's going on in Japan now?"

Their place may be ruined, but their culture would not.

Trip

Went to Vancouver for a conference.

This is one of the best attended conferences amongst colleagues of my circle. Most of us arrived a day or two earlier in order to re-adjust the biological clock and took the opportunity to see things around. I was late in that sense, and arrived only late in the afternoon before the formal conference began. (And I was actually assigned to give a brief talk the first one in that morning.)

You may ask: Wouldn't jet lag be a trouble?

Thank god, no, not usually. I am just so addicted to coffee (probably only less than that Anita Mui equivalent of my department) that I take the advantage and stop drinking anything that contains caffeine (that is, not even Coke or tea) on the day of any long trip, and kick off in the first morning by a good dose of Starbucks - and the clock in my hypothalamus is re-set. (Of course I do the same for the return trip.)

The only drawback of this strategy is I am always in a lethargic and drowsy state when I get off the plane. You know what. I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel that I was going to stay. When we arrived, the digital display showed a charge of 22 (Canadian) dollars. It took me quite a while and I still could not figure out how much it was for a 15% extra charge. At the end of the day, I paid 30 dollars.

When I came to realize what actually happened, the taxi driver was, obviously, long disappeared.

Well, yes, that also help waking me up.

行貨

Some of you may know I like Mozart.

Seriously, I do not know much about our giant in music or many of his work.

And, my humble piece of favorite is the allergo of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Yes, that popular piece of little night music.

You may think Mozart had many other good pieces of work; the Nachtmusik is earthly and not quite elegant enough. That's entirely true. In fact, no one know why this little piece was composed. (It was written in 1787, when Mozart was spending most of his time in the preparation of the opera Don Giovanni.) Like most of the Mozart's serenades, the Nachtmusik was written on commission. There were actually rumors that our great composer was heavily in debt at that time, and a billionaire approached him for a new song to be played in a house party. Out of a rush and an urgent need of petty cash, the Nachtmusik appeared.

Right, in traditional Cantonese sayings, we call that so so (行貨).

But, that's exactly why Mozart was admirable: His so so piece of work was better than the masterpiece of many others.

Chinese

You may notice I use slightly more Chinese in my blog recently.

I must say that's purely incidental. Nonetheless, on one occasion last month, I was surprised with the power of Chinese in history.

It goes like this: When writing the blog on Kamikaze recently (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2011/03/wind.html), I had to cross-check some information about the history of Kublai Khan (忽必烈) and his plan of invasion of Japan. (Yes, I often double check the historical information before I put it down here. As Martin Routh said: You will find it very good practice always to verify your references, sir.) In the Wikipedia website, I found an interesting piece of document.

It was a letter from Kublai Khan to the Japanese Emperor, suggesting the latter to surrender.

The point is: The letter - from the Mongolian Emperor to the Japanese one, and as a formal diplomatic document - was written in Chinese, because it was the lingua franca in Asia at that time.

Yes, you see, neither the Mongols nor Jurchens (女真) ruined our culture; it was something from within.

I shouldn't say any more.

Absolute

One point that I could never agree with all those "experts" in financial analysis is we have to compare all performance measures to other companies within the same sector.

For example, if all insurance company are selling at a price-earning (PE) ratio of 25, then, assuming everything else are similar, a PE of 20 is not expensive.

That, I believe, once again, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the market is mad with a particular kind of business, the price goes up for each and every company of that sector - exactly because the price of another company next door is also going up, and, therefore, the price does not represent an excessive valuation.

Alas, you know, when a tiny mass is expanding in all direction to the same degree, it becomes a bubble.

There must be a method to evaluate a company irrespective to the type of business.

For the same reason, there must be an absolute standard that we pass our medical students.

Analysis

My recent bedtime reading is Guide to Analyzing Companies by Bob Vause.

Oh, I'm not going to quit my job. Nonetheless, it is usually a good idea to broaden your view and see things from a different angle.

You may ask, "Didn't you learn reading the financial report and all these some years ago?"

Yes, quite true. But, like the practice of medicine, you need to regularly revise your skill - especially if you do not use it very often.

And, like many aspects of medicine, I study a subject not because I am going to use it, but because I wish to have a better understanding how other people in the field think and act. For example, in finance, we need to understand how the "experts" valuate a company - not because that reflects the true value, but, as George Soros pointed out, in the stock market, when everyone believes in something, that something will happen.

And, in medicine, it helps a lot when you have to communicate with colleagues from other specialties (which is very often), and help you to avoid being fooled (which is not all that rare).

PS. Seriously, the book is not all that easy to follow by a layman, for whom I would recommend Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street, or Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

PPS. From an entertainment point of view, the second half of Graham and Dodd's Security Analysis is way better - I used to call it The Encyclopedia of Fraud.

Sick

The weekend after the All Fool's Day proved to be exceptionally busy. The climax came in the Sunday evening; after finished with the physician on-take round in the evening, I found Euterpe remained in bed since her afternoon nap - with a high fever.

She took some paracetamol and went to bed without dinner. (Vivian and I were understandably worried, as our daughter was already slightly underweight.) Of course she skipped her school on Monday and visited the paediatrician instead.

On Tuesday morning, she appeared better. Fever seemed settled for a moment, although our princess remained obviously less energetic than her usual. Nonetheless, by noon, she was complaining of boredom, and asked if she could go to the playground.

I got her a jacket, put on mine, and, there we went.

It was a cloudy public holiday with frequent chilly breeze. In the playground, we were met with no fewer than two dozens of kids. One of them was blowing soap bubbles and the others were chasing around. Euterpe followed suit and ran after those fragile colors for a while, then she tried the swing, and then the slide.

But, her footsteps gradually slowed down. After 10 or 15 minutes in the playground, I caught her at her hands and asked, "Are you OK?"

She nodded, "Just a bit cold."

I said, "Let's go home."

She nodded again.

We went home quickly - her temperature was 39 degree Celsius.

The lyric of Maria Cordero's Mama I Love You suddenly flashed through my mind.

Guess

Another sweet piece of memory I have from our university library is the game of guessing examination question over the pre-clinical years.

It goes like this: Shortly after I got admitted to the medical school and began the first year of preparatory study, I found that many professors did not teach according to the textbook.

But it didn’t take long for me to find out why. A few weeks later, out of the boredom of my study in the library, I flipped through some returned books that were not yet shelved, and, you know what, I found one that contained all the pictures and notes that appeared in the lecture. Obviously the professor used that book as the skeleton of his teaching, and, after he had copied all he needed, he returned the book to the library.

From that time onward, I went through the shelf of “returned books” in the library almost every other day to double-check if there was information that I was not too clear from the classroom teaching, as well as to gather clues for examination question – not infrequently with a gratifying result.

Alas, I must say the reward of this exercise was sometimes more than a pragmatic one. For the microbiology course that I took during the preparatory year, I found that the professor was not using any textbook of that subject for his teaching – the material was found in a nondescript hard cover volume that I discovered at another corner of the library.

I read it through, and was thoroughly illuminated.

It took me some time to realize the book was James Watson’s all time classic: Molecular Biology of the Gene.

Library

On the next day after we finished with the All Fool’s Day exercise, I went back to the campus to give a lecture.

I arrived a bit early and, just to kill time and find a comfortable place to sit down for a moment, I went to the university library.

The place has changed a lot since I graduated (and I saw the change that much because I did come back once every two or three years). During the first three years of my university study, I spent a lot of time in the library – I had no hostel for two years and lived rather far away in Kowloon, so much so that I used to study everyday till late in the evening before I left for home.

In those days, libraries were a simple place: a collection of books and journals, plus some desks and chairs for you to read. Now, the place is full of computers; almost everyone was doing literature search or their homework electronically, and I was probably the only one who was sitting on a comfy chair and reading a journal – which I brought by my own.

PS. One eternal mystery in my life is, in one evening, after I was back from dinner, I found a book left on my desk, with a piece of paper on which a poem of Nalan Xingde (納蘭性德) was carefully scripted. I knew neither who left it nor who really was supposed to be the recipient.

揠苗

One consequential topic for our discussion after the All Fool's Day was how we should treat kids with an exceptional potential.

Another story from the ancient China soon came to my mind:

宋人有閔其苗之不長而揠之者，芒芒然歸，謂其人曰：『今日病矣，予助苗長矣。』其子趨而往視之，苗則槁矣。

《孟子·公孫醜上》

The story is widely known as "拔苗助長" and, of course, is famous enough. Our friend tried to help seedlings grow by pulling it up a bit - for sure the little plant died. If you are too eager to help a smart kid, the result may simply be a ruined childhood and a disastrous career.

Well, a little side track in the wordings of this story may skip your eyes. The original story actually did not say that the silly man pulled the seedlings (拔苗); he actually knew perfectly well that pulling too hard would kill the plant, and what he did was, in his own benevolent idea, merely tug up (揠) the leaves a bit.

And, therefore, the little flower didn't die immediately, but, rather, gradually changed. It lost its direction, its vigor dried, and eventually it fell apart.

Wait

While I was reflecting what competence and professionalism are, we had the examination for our third year medical students.

I shall not go through the details here. VW, the usual organizer, prepared almost everything in advance, but was out of town on that day - leaving the on-site running to TL. For some reason, I was assigned to do the examination in the afternoon. (I usually needed only to sit back and watch in the past.)

Throughout the examination, a little story between the King of the Round Table and YF, a secondary school and university classmate of mine, kept flashing back from my memory.

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

Senior graduates of my medical school would know our King used to have a peculiar habit for the clinical examination: He would pick a few remarkable students - in terms of their attendance to lecture and bedside teaching - and do the examination by himself - obviously in the fairest manner. Given the track record of His Highness, all students would be horrified to find the King as their examiner.

And that's what happened to YF; when he was waiting for his Final MB Short Case Examination, the King appeared and checked my friend's student number. Yes, His Highness would be the examiner.

I believed my friend's face changed colour and twisted in a funny manner - all observed by the King.

And His Highness smiled to my friend, "Don't worry. I arrived a bit early - I am waiting for someone later ..."

Delivery

Just a moment ago, SN, a colleague of mine, helped the baby delivery of a woman - at the taxi stand of my hospital.

Many of us were amazed. When SN posted the news on Facebook, she made a record of having over 100 likes and 80 comments within one day.

In response to all the praise, our specialist in respiratory medicine humbly replied, "I was there and could not declare that's not a medical problem! In fact, I was equally nervous. But I had no choice. Well, with this experience, I suppose I shall do better next time."

Alas, that's what we defined as competence: If there is an urgent demand in the most inconvenient hour and unfavorable circumstance, you could still accomplish the task in need.

Some of us asked why didn't she called the on-call obstetrician.

To that, she said, "No time to call them. I rang up the obstetric ward, but they asked me to call the security while the husband and the taxi driver were screaming!"

And, that's what we defined as professionalism - to act by actual need rather than rigid regulations or hours, a character which distinguishes us from administrators and, unfortunately, many a time including this one, that five-word paramedical professional who-must-not-be-named.

功德林

次日，拜山後於沙田功德林午膳。一行四人，沒有訂檯卻也不用等候多久。

地方甚擠。女兒肚餓，太座先叫了素擔擔麵。看菜牌後再點醬爆猴頭菇，琵琶豆腐，砂鍋鹹肉菜飯，煎鍋貼。

猴頭菇先到，香而惹味。其實碟頭甚少，猴頭菇亦不多，摻了一些冬菇、馬蹄等，用滬式方法爆炒，是甚難失敗的一味。

擔擔麵、豆腐、菜飯接踵便到。麵試了一口，當然較傳統川式清淡，麵質亦稍嫌略焾。琵琶豆腐也不過爾爾。反而菜飯最有驚喜，素肉卻做到有鹹香效果，飯身油份夠而顆粒分明，煲底飯焦更是久違的珍味。

素鍋貼至。皮煎得香脆，餡料卻甚鬆散，是為美中不足。其實店家只需多放些腐亁什菇之類作料，所費無幾，口感卻會札實得多。故老相傳，醃尖的做法是用磨菇熬湯煮大菜糕，使之混和餡料；煎鍋貼時大菜糕遇熱溶化，便做到素菜而餡料肉汁豐盈的效果。這些當然是不食人間煙火的外星人吹毛求疪的要求矣。

碟頭較小，狂風落葉一番後，追加了豆腐餃子和素小籠包，這兩味倒是平凡得緊，無甚足觀。總的來說，不扮葷菜的幾味都是上佳水準，正如處世做人，永遠自行其是，勝於模仿他人。

食評

週末，與太座到觀塘御泰坊午膳。太座事忙稍遲，自己發辦三味，計為：燒魷魚，茄子毛茄炒豆腐，燒雞配糯米飯。

菜未至，太座已到，笑謂此店乃網上本區食評之冠。我呢喃道：「食評好也未必生意佳。」也好，地方寬敞，午市亦算清靜，晚上喧鬧，自然是另一番光景矣。

炒豆腐先上。毛茄，即羊角豆之別稱，份量不多。豆腐夠滑，茄子亦嫩，用少許豆豉提味，有鑊氣卻不太鹹，可以推介。

燒魷魚不久便到，份量充足，卻全是魚鬚，想是身位已用作其他餸菜。此味是用帶甜燒汁烤制，肉香不韌，連附上的酸汁也不用醮。太座謂吃不完打包，涼了作零食亦應不錯。

燒雞配糯米飯倒是絕佳綑綁銷售的示範。雞和飯是分開上，兩者也沒有甚麼交流。雞有半隻，比春雞大一點。好處是胸和肶等肉厚位置也醃得入味，而雞本身燒得恰好，加上附上的酸辣汁，頗為惹味。反而糯米飯乾而不香，明顯是昨晚的剩餘物物資在微波爐翻叮之作。其實店家只需單賣燒雞，或供應普通白飯，反可省卻許多麻煩。不過總的來說，瑕不掩瑜，埋單兩百一，算是相當滿意的一餐。

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後記：此乃塗鴉之作。常談國是，不免睏乏也。

裨諶

My little experience on the bus actually brings me back to a long-standing question that I had since my days in the secondary school.

It goes like this: In the old days, one of the compulsory story that we had to study was The Ruling of Zi Chan (子產執政); and, in that chapter, the behaviour of Pi Chen (裨諶), the chief political advisor for our prime minister of Zheng (鄭國), caught my attention.

Let's see the original description:

裨諶能謀，謀於野則獲，謀於邑則否。
鄭國將有諸侯之事 ... 與裨諶乘以適野，使謀可否。

《左傳·襄公三十一年》

In short, Pi could formulate excellent plans and tactics in, and only in, the countryside - a fact that I could hardly understand. For sure it was possible that Pi was easily distracted and needed a quiet place for his work. Now, I am beginning to believe he did not quite make his plan at the countryside - but did so during the trip with the prime minister, so much so Pi could explained all elaborated tactics to Zi Chan as soon as they arrived at any exotic place.