Broadcast

(My conversation with the retired cabinet secretary continued.)

I paused for a while and strike back, "Well, what would you use to defend for the old man?"

"I don't think I have to," Sir Humphrey was in the best of his mood, "But if I were going to do so, I would use the incident at the King's Cross Station."

For a moment, I thought he was talking about the platform 9¾ of Harry Potter.

The senior civil servant certainly saw through my mind, "Don't be silly. I'm not saying our giant in news could not be compared to the Dark Lord. In fact, his right-hand woman really makes me think of Bellatrix. Alas, I was actually not referring to the railway station, but the talking about the tube station of St. Pancras - to the incident on 7 July 2005."

"You mean that bomb attack at the Piccadilly line?" I was at a lost, "How's that related to the Corporation?"

"None what-so-ever. But, that's exactly the point. If the hacking was so extensive in the general public, they should have some hints well in advance." Sir Humphrey said.

"And they would have told the police and avoided the tragedy?" I asked.

"No, they would have arranged a live broadcast of the event!"

PS. I shall leave it to your interpretation whether Sir Humphrey meant the woman who served as the right hand in the old man's business, or the other woman who used her right hand and played volleyball.

Trap

(My discussion with Sir Humphrey continued.)

I paused for a moment and said, "But there may be a demand for them to hack those innocent people. After all, how could a morning paper or TV channel be influential? Because the general public love it. How to make a paper or channel attractive? To have a lot of exclusive first-hand news - not only news of politicians but of all walks of life."

"You have a point there," the retired cabinet secretary nodded.

"The situation is, in fact, a classical psychological trap," I went on, "Most of us enjoy that brief moment of satisfaction and love to hear some private news of the others - except when that's our own news."

"Then, where is the trap?"

"To put it simply, most people get a tiny benefit at the cost of a few unfortunate ones," I continued, "If you balance the two sides, the harm to that few persons obviously outweighs the cumulative benefit of all the others. But, most of us would only focus on what we get and forget about the others - or, at most, pray and hope we do not become one of those unfortunate few in the future!"

"Well, are you going to defend for the old man with this argument ?" Sir Humphrey smiled.

Hack

Humphrey Appleby visited the city again and I had the honor to have a casual chat with him.

"Time flies. It has been two years since we last met!" The retired cabinet secretary smiled, referring to our little discussion in 2009. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2009/09/party.html)

"Your memory is excellent. Or do you actually keep your habit of taking notes after seeing every person?" I chuckled, "But I suppose you are pretty busy recently - and who doesn't? All British politicians seem to have a hand with the Murdoch's scandal."

"I was a government servant, and never a politician," my friend tried to correct me, "Alas, the entire business is silly."

"Well, it is illegal to hack others' phone." I said.

"You misunderstood me," the senior government servant smiled, "True. That's illegal. And, therefore, since the stakes are high, they should not hack the phone of innocent ordinary people."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. Let's be pragmatic and take aside any moral consideration," he continued, "Why should the owner of the News International be one of the most powerful men in the world? Because he controls the media and therefore, no matter whether you like it or not, the opinion of the general public. The end result is he could determine, to a large extend, who would be invited to the Buckingham Palace and be invited as the Prime Minister."

"I could see that."

"Now, having additional private information from your own news network is, in that case, a distinct edge. If you want Mr. C to win the election, not only can you advertise his policy, but, more effectively, you could choose to release some unfavorable information of his opponents."

"You mean ...?" I was slightly incredulous with the inevitable conclusion.

"I mean, although the stakes are high, the payoff is rewarding if you hack the phone or computer of backbenchers or party leaders or senior government servants - but not the innocent general public. It only turns them against you as soon as they know their lines are also hacked."

"And that's exactly what's happening!" I was forced to agree.

HP

Watched the finale of Harry Potter with Vivian.

I must say I am not a great fan of the boy with a lightning scar. To me, this classic series of JK Rowling is no different from other martial arts fictions - just that the characters fight with each other by curses and wands rather than qigong (氣功) and sword.

And, if anything, the movie is putting too much emphasis on the muscular aspect of the novel. An army led by the Lord Voldemort tried to take over the School of Witchcraft, while the bright side of the wizard world defend their castle to the last man. If you stand one step backward, it becomes obvious that there is very little difference between Hogwarts and Modor, or Tom Riddle and Sauron. (By coincidence, the two are both called the Dark Lord.)

In fact, the gigantic stone statues activated by Minerva McGonagall reminded me of their mechanical equivalents in Transformers.

PS. An excellent wizard he might be, Lord Voldemort badly need basic training in strategy, and should not bring Nagini, his snake which carried the last piece of his own Horcrux, with him during the final attack of Hogwarts.

His portfolio was not diversified.

Digest

While I was thinking of the temptation to be active, I met my friend L on my way home.

He saw me, and immediately put up a curious smile.

"What's there so funny?" I asked.

"No, nothing," my friend replied, "Just that I believe you've mistaken the story about that tree."

"Which tree?" I was at a lost.

"The Tree of Wisdom!" He was referring to my recent blog. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2011/07/trees.html)

"Yes...?"

"Alas, the very truth of that apple of wisdom is it could never be swallowed and digested - but, merely got stuck in the throat. And, for that tiny trace of wisdom, Adam could open his eyes and he had to leave Eden," my cynical friend pointed out.

"Then, what would happen if Adam could swallow and digest that apple?" I asked.

"What a question!? In that case he would get the whole of the wisdom and close one of his eyes, if not both, and stay in the Garden!" L continued.

"I see you point now. As the old Chinese sayings: The wisest man would appear foolish (大智若愚)."

Active

There is, however, another aspect of loophole in human psychology that Daniel Gilbert did not touch on.

You see? We worry more about damage caused by human beings than that by objects, and prefer eliminating a small risk to reducing a large one. Now, the observation still holds when you turn the table around. Most of us love to see direct benefit from our action rather than doing nothing but wait, or prefer curing a few patients to reducing the suffer of many.

(As to the last point, that's at least partly, if not entirely, because those few recovered could turn up in the press conference and advocate that wonderful treatment.)

All of a sudden the four-stage strategy in response to crisis, as outlined by Sir Humphrey Appleby, flash through my mind:

1. Stage one: We say nothing is going to happen.
2. Stage two: We say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
3. Stage three: We say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
4. Stage four: We say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

Gosh, I find this strategy less repelling now.

Loophole

You may think the entire argument is simple and straight forward. Why should there be so much trouble?

The problem is reviewed succinctly by Daniel Gilbert. To begin with, we tend to pay more to eliminate a small risk of illness than to reduce a large one, and more to insure ourselves against a scary way of dying than against every way of dying. Similarly, we will save all the members of a five-person group before we will save six members of a ten-person group, and we will save lives by pushing a trolley into a person but not a person into a trolley.

(For the last example, you may like to watch the classic talk of Michael Sandel in http://youtu.be/sHHa4ETr2jE)

Going one step forward, our mind set was selected by evolution remained little changed in the pass ten thousand years. We are specialized in understanding other minds, and are hypersensitive to the harms those minds produce. To cite directly from Gilbert:

"And so we worry more about shoe-bombers than influenza, despite the fact that one kills roughly 400,000 people per year and the other kills roughly none. We worry more about our children being kidnapped by strangers than about becoming obese, despite the fact that abduction is rare and diabetes is not. Terrorists and child-molesters are agents, viruses and French fries are objects, and agents threaten us in a way that objects never can."

For that reason, we cannot accept giving the wrong medicine once in a blue moon, but would tolerate many patients having no medicine at all. Similarly, we prefer overworking and treating patients in a haphazard manner, rather than importing one awful doctor from overseas.

Estimation

You may wonder how could we balance the risk of human life in this circumstances.

See this:

• Let's assume the average delay is 2 hours.
• During this period, a patient needs to stay in the ward and wait. This is the duration of life that is consumed. (Let's take aside the humanistic cost of suffering. I also try my best and used the word consumed rather than wasted.)
• Our hospital probably admit 60 patients each day, and almost all of them need some drug treatment. In other words, 5 days of human life is consumed every day if we check the prescription once more before dispensing.
• Let's assume the average life expectancy of a patient admitted to our hospital is 15 years. (Given the age and prevalence of multiple diseases, this is probably a slightly optimistic number.)
• The inevitable conclusion is: The recommendation would achieve zero balance on its cost to human life if it could avoid one death in every three years - provided that we neglect the cost of human suffering.

True, no one dies of the policy that seemingly saves lives, but everyone pays part of his time.

And time - in aggregate - is life.

PS. Frequent visitors of this site would have a deja vu feeling as I did an almost identical calculation here two years ago.

As Andre Gide said: Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

Balance

You may ask what would be the recommendation by those extra-terrestrials.

Well, that's not difficult to imagine: Let's have another round of checking before any medicine is dispensed to patients. It sounds reasonable - after all, no one is in favor of medication error. Therefore, when an incident happens, we should do everything we can to make sure it won't happen again.

But, hold on. We should not.

The reason is simple. It is because time and all other resources are finite, every sensible thing we do is another sensible thing we don't. More often than not, using the time to double check a prescription would mean a corresponding delay in our patients' receiving the treatment. It is, in fact, a well known psychological loophole that when human beings make decisions, we focus on what we are getting and forget about the opportunistic cost that we are giving up.

And the theory is not new. Three hundred years ago, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat derived mathematically the optimal strategy for betting on games of chance. In short, the best choice about harm prevention is the product of two estimates: How likely the harmful event is, and how much harm it will cause.

Go read Daniel Gilbert. Buried by bad decisions. Nature 2011; 474: 275-277.

Mistake

The hot topic within my hospital is the recent medical incident.

I shall not elaborate on the details. After all, despite decades of training to be objective, our response remain primitive (but, to me, seems to be entirely sensible): We ask who that house officer is, and how he or she usually performs.

Our target is the person, not the event.

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

As the usual procedure lay down by some extra-terrestrials, there will be a committee to look into the matter and do a root cause analysis. People directly or indirectly involved would be summoned to give evidence before some formal recommendations would be published.

But, I really learn something new this time; KM told me that people who need to give evidence have to go through training and rehearsal sessions. Although it was the classical René Descartes' teaching that you only see what your eyes want to see, I suddenly come to realize people on earth have evolved so much that we have gone one step forward in our approach to aliens.

They only see what we want their eyes to see - and hear what we want them to hear.

Hallelujah !

Office

Another major change of my computer is I am now using Office 2010.

Seriously I hesitated a lot to begin with. I was using Office 2003 and everything worked out fine. I was familiar with the setting and, like my desktop, I made quite a lot of personal changes to the toolbar.

But, the situation changed a lot ever since Office 2007. The traditional toolbar disappeared - it becomes something called ribbons and another quick access toolbar. In short, people who get used to the old versions often lose their way and cannot find the command they want.

Is it because Bill Gates is getting old and fails to appreciate what his customers need is convenience? Or, is it the one getting old is me and thus there is so much difficulty for me to adapt to a new environment?

I have no idea.

Well, in order to show I am young, or, really, in order to give my neurons some new challenge to delay the process of dementia, I decided to go with the latest version of Office - rather than having a funny hair style and dressing up like a superannuated gigolo.

Personalize

You may think I was creating trouble for myself because I could leave all the set up and file transfer to Stanley.

Well, that's partly true. Nonetheless, I have a habit of personalizing my computer - just like many of you decorating your own desk. As a rule, I adjust the time zone and language setting, add shortcuts to common programs and files, change the color scheme of dialog boxes, and put a picture on the desktop.

By the way, to keep myself consistent, I put up The Scream of Edvard Munch.

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

Another major change is I am now using Windows 7.

I presume it is the default setting, the desktop icons are much bigger than those I found in Windows XP. (Vista? What is Vista?) Initially I wished to adjust the setting of the monitor so that I could reduce the size of the icons. But, after a while, I decided to give up.

It is always better to pay attention to a few big things rather than losing your focus to a sea of small matters.

New

My week was exceptionally busy - I just had a new desktop computer.

Unfortunately that's an inevitable nuisance every few years. My previous desktop had been in use for 5 or 6 years and, with time, had gradually slowed down. Like cooking a frog in warm water, I was quite unaware of the problem until a few weeks ago, when Stanley, our department computer technician, came and did some software update for it, and he left with the very remark, "How could you tolerate such a slow computer?"

But I hesitated for quite a moment before deciding to have a new one. No, it's not a problem of money. (It actually costs less than the graphic software that I bought for my research papers.) My real worry was the effort it takes to move every piece of my work to a new place (which Stanley helped me a lot), personalize all settings from scratch, and install all software anew.

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

By the way, you may find the list of software that I need useful:

• Cute PDF Writer (for creation of PDF document)
• Screen Hunter (for converting a computer screen into a picture)
• FastStone Image View (for figure editing)
• EverNote
• iTune
• Google Chrome
• Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional
• PASS 2000
• SigmaPlot

The last three are paid items, while you could download the others online free. In fact, the first three on this list was recommended by The Lancet as useful aids for academic research.

Notes

On the next day I met NT, my classmate and now a professor of chemical pathology, during lunch, and I told him the story of LS.

To my surprise, he was not impressed, "You know, I have just finished with interviewing a group of secondary school students who applied for our medical school."

"Yes...?" I could see my friend had another story to tell.

"Oh, to begin with, I noticed a small but significant subgroup of them only applied to our side, but not the other one across the harbour, and their examination result are all respectable," he continued.

"That's impressive." I nodded.

"And, therefore, I asked each and every one of them why."

"I suppose they did not say there're too much good news recently concerning our sister faculty?" I smiled.

"No, more remarkable than that - and a simple but worrying reason too," my friend went on, "They all said that our teaching is probably better because we distribute a whole lot of handouts and PowerPoint slides - while our friends across the harbour use the problem-based learning and give no lecture notes!"

Alas, I was coming to the conclusion that we have advanced beyond spoon-feeding our students.

We are now bottle-feeding them.

Spelling

Met LS during lunch. She was obviously exhausted.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"No, nothing. I just finished with bedside teaching the new class of third year students - and was absolutely impressed," our professor of rheumatology sighed.

"Eh ...?"

"I showed them a case of systemic lupus, and, while I was going through the clinical features, one of them asked what serositis is." LS began her story.

"That sounds reasonable. They are new to internal medicine." I said.

"True, and therefore I asked them to read it up after the tutorial," she continued.

"Well ...?"

"And then, that student asked how to spell serositis," my friend continued.

I nodded and smiled.

"I asked him to find out from the book," LS went on.

"Don't be upset," I tried to sooth my friend.

"How couldn't I !?" She became more agitated, "You know what. The student immediately retorted: If you do not tell me the spelling, how could I look it up?"

Well, literally that's correct.

Language

As expected, that young man with an excellent quality heard no news – except he learnt from his friends that the citizenship was given to someone who, in his biased opinion, was not as good as he himself in every aspect - except the very fact that this one could speak a funny alien language.

A few days later, the young man found that poker face officer again in a coffee shop. Frustrated and feeling not being fairly treated, the young man took the seat by the side of the officer and said, “Hey there. Do you remember me? We met not too long ago in the emigration interview.”

“Why! Who doesn’t? The walking Wikipedia! How are you?” The officer seemed enlightened.

“The tough life has to go on," the young man could not hide his unhappiness, "By the way, why was that chap allowed to emigrate?"

"The ability to speak our language!" The officer replied without hesitation.

"Your language ?" The young man was confused.

"Come on. Don't you know our country is outside the solar system?" The officer was really surprised to see an applicant unaware of what country he was trying to emigrate to.

Emigration

(In the Consulate office.)

“Good morning. Take a seat,” the officer smiled to the young man who just entered the room, “Let me see … You come here to apply for emigration to our country. Is that right?”

The nervous young man nodded. He thought the question was a nuisance. What else could he be coming for? To say the least, the morning was dedicated for interviews of this kind, and there were another two dozens of people – young men and women like himself – lining up outside the room waiting to be interviewed; unfortunate for them, the number of vacancy was limited.

“Why do you think our country should give you, rather than the other people behind the door, a citizenship? The officer returned to his usual poker face and began questioning.

“I am capable and hardworking; my friends actually called me the Wikipedia in Seven-Eleven. And, I am a good team player and teacher. Just look at the list of trainees who had been under my supervision,” the young man hurried to finish. All of a sudden, he had a gush of grandiose idea and was convinced that he was the best citizen a country could expect to recruit.

But, the one on the other side of the table did not appear to be taken in, and murmured slowly, “Right, you may go now. We shall let you know if we have good news for you. However, I must say our country is not looking for a tough worker, encyclopedia, or a Confucius. After all, none of us in our country has those admirable characters.”

(To be continued.)

Trees

While talking about the pursue of justice, I believe you must have heard of the story described in the Old Testament about that Tree of Wisdom in Eden.

But, you may not know there were actually four trees in the Garden.

In fact, Adam was shown all of them by the Lord:

"Boy, this is the Tree of Fortitude - or courage if you like," God said.

"What would happen if I eat the apple from it?" Adam asked.

"Oh, you show your courage, and you would die immediately," God smiled, and he pointed to another one, "this is the Tree of Temperance - or moderation as they usually say."

"Lovely, but I see no apple on it." Adam said.

"Quite true. Moderation is a funny virtue - as soon as you want to show it, you lose it." God said, "Now, this third one is the Tree of Justice."

"What would happen if I eat the apple from it?"

"I don't think you could ever have that chance because it is very poisonous," God giggled, "As soon as you hold it's fruit in your hands, you would become mad ..."

"Alas, what about this fourth one?" Adam sighed.

"Great. This is the Tree of Prudence, or wisdom if you like. I tell you, if you eat the apple on it, you could open your eyes - but you would have to leave this Garden immediately."

And the rest is history.

PS. You may ask: Wasn't Adam introduced to those trees by Satan? True, but, I'm sure that's part of the plan of the God.

If not, who would be able to sneak into the Garden?

Others

I must say I cannot decide. After all, as usual, I have come to the conclusion that it is not necessary for me to have a definitive opinion.

Nonetheless, I was impressed by the head figures of the demonstration. When they were released from the police station in the morning and being asked how they felt about disturbing the innocent people, they said, "This is the price you have to pay in the pursue of justice."

Yes, exactly the same argument as Tao Kit.

The context is, unfortunately, different.

You see? It is entirely legitimate for our Scholar #19 (十九才子) or any of us to say the incident was an inevitable price that we have to pay - we are the ones being affected. In contrast, it is horrifying to see someone come out and say it is the price that you have to pay - for my pursue of justice.

Did I last hear the same declaration at the annual meeting of the Third Reich? Or was it the Gate of Tiananmen?

PS. I said the Gate, not the Square.

Demonstration

The real matter that I recently found difficult to decide was the happenings in the night of 1st July.

For those who are not familiar with the local news, a group of slightly more aggressive people occupied the roads in the center of Hong Kong after the ordinary parade in the afternoon. The traffic was severely affected, and the police had to put up a certain amount of effort to "clean up the scene" when the night came.

Many of us believe they're going too far. However noble their incentive was, their doings should not affect the daily living of the others.

On the other hand, people like Tao Kit (陶傑) pointed out, with excellent arguments, that a certain degree of inconvenience to everyone of us is an inevitable price to pay during the pursue of justice. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_sZZx11Ebw)

Which side should I take?

籌碼

There is, of course, an entirely logical reason why our council representative preferred to defer and declined to tell his intention - even though he might have made up his mind right from the beginning.

There could be two layers of applying the same principle. To take the aggressive mode, this is a classical use of the strategy that uncertainty generates bargaining power. In other words, by declaring that one has not decided, one invites lobbying from both side (yes, including the side that one intended to support anyway, because they are not sure of you intention), so that one could gain support from other corners in return should there be other controversial items coming up for discussion in the near future - notably those topics that protect our professional right, or, monopoly if you like, but are against the interest of the general public.

I don't think I need to cite an example here.

How about the defensive side? To say the least, one could show to those on the other side of the trench, or river if you prefer, that it is not your own intention to vote for the, to them, unpleasant side - but the group decision of the whole profession.

PS. Do not jump to the conclusion that politics is dirty and why should anyone consider that much before taking a move. There is good evidence from modern psychology research that human brain tends to focus on moral matters and neglect options that, in the long run, could benefit more people to a greater extend.

On the other hand, unfotunately, the strategy of using uncertainty as the bargaining chip is also somewhat outdated. It is now clear from studies in game theory (on repetitive games) that it is less likely to generate antagonist in the long run by behaving predictably.

Opinion

You may ask: How about if the matter is very complicated and controversial?

Alas, if the matter is complicated and difficult to appreciate the entire picture and take into the account all important considerations, it is even more important for our noble Council member to go through all the details and make the decision by his own discretion - rather than leaving it to people of an ordinary intelligence like myself. We are outside that closed door and do not have all the necessary information, and, therefore, are more likely to make the wrong judgement.

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

There is yet another reason why I lost my nerve: If you agree the question at hand is easy, it becomes inexplicable why one should procrastinate and decline to declare his decision publicly.

Is it because he wishes to vote for the other side, or does he believe deferring the declaration of his intention could earn him a few more bargaining chips in the game house of politics ?

I have paranoid personality disorder, I know.

PS. The situation is somehow similar to our clinical examination. You know, the final score of a candidate does not depend very much on what answer he gives, but, more importantly, on how he gives the answer.

For example, if a student has to consider for 5 minutes before murmuring that the patient at hand is of critical condition and needs resuscitation, the student should fail - even though the answer is literally correct.

Representative

On a recent occasion, our noble representative in the Legislative Council was asked by the media how he would vote on a certain matter.

"I've not decided yet. In fact I shall set up a web site and ask members of my functional constituency to vote - so that my decision would reflect the opinion of the majority of our profession." He said.

I was, once again, so impressed that I lost my nerve.

You may ask: Isn't it important to consult all of us before he votes?

No - for obvious reasons.

Just think. If the matter is simple and straightforward (for example, the topic at hand), what's the point of wasting time and all our effort to reply. We elect someone to represent our opinion and hope he could save our trouble.

In other words, if our representative has to ask all of us to show our opinion each time so that he could vote accordingly, there is little point to support any particular person during the Council election. Why don't we simply find a computer software to sit in the Council and represent our profession?

Limit

By this time, I am about to conclude and support employing overseas graduates.

But, hang on. Let's consider a more basic question:

Why do we need more doctors?

"What a question!" I could hear you gasp, "We need them to satisfy the expanding need of service."

Quite true. (I didn't say quite right.) But, do we need that much expansion in service?

Although there is a good linear relationship between health care spending per capita and life expectancy, have we reach a stage where enough is enough and there is little point to go from, say, 82 to 84 years? (Alas, from the individual point of view, there is often a reason to live longer. However, it should never be the objective of a responsible government.)

And, more importantly, if we begin to have (an almost) unlimited supply of doctors, there would be an irresistible temptation to expand the (probably unnecessary) service - because everyone in the system would try to prove that they worth their salt.

PS. Don't be fooled by the long waiting time and tons of complaints. If a society has a reasonable life expectancy and no excessive disability amongst the working population, the health care system must be acceptable.

Part-time

On my way home from the dinner, I was still considering the very fact that a good number of our retiring consultants are keen to continue with some part time clinical job. They are invaluable to the out-patient service.

Similarly, quite a few of our resigning colleagues are willing to be back a session or two each week. To say the least, that generates a small but steady income, which is very much needed before the ball of their own private practice is running in good speed.

On the surface of it, therefore, we have a good reserve of manpower to ease off the workload of our front line staff, and there seems little point to employ graduates from overseas by the limited registration.

But, I become less certain when I consider again the nature of duty that's taken up by those part time colleagues. In essence, they helped in clinics and regular daytime duties, leaving to our regular staff those slightly more repelling tasks - continual care of in-patients, dealing with families, and overnight calls. (After all, our resigning colleagues leave the system usually because they want to get rid of these tasks.)

The result is not difficult to imagine.

PS. Isn't it similar to the old story that the husband wishes to employ a Filipino maid to help out the housework, but the wife does not agree - she prefers overworking rather than having another young woman living under the same roof.

Retire

Although the man who used to have a moustache is about to retire (I hesitated for a moment while writing this sentence, considering whether I should actually use the passive voice), he is not going to disappear from our field.

Alas, he just moves to a prestigious private hospital and continued with his clinical and, more importantly, administrative work.

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

During the dinner, we met a few other senior consultants who retired in the recent one or two years. And, as you expect, they do not disappear from the stage either - most of them are still doing part time job in their original hospital, usually helping out in the out-patient clinic once or twice each week.

One of them was YC, a hemotologist who retired not too long ago. (Her husband is a senior nephrologist. That's why she's with us.) Throughout the evening, she asked my mentor more than once, "Why on earth do you work so hard after retirement?"

I could imagine the conversation could go like this:

"Isn't it better to be leisured and enjoy your life?"

"I enjoy the work."

"Yes, wouldn't it be narrow minded to focus on those, when you look at it from a distance, minutiae?"

It becomes a philosophical question.

金錢雞

Later that week our Society hosted a dinner to say farewell to the man who used to have a moustache - he was about to retire. I had the chance to take part.

I shall not elaborate what happened that evening here. Suffice to say the menu was selected by the Godfather of medicine and had enough fat and cholesterol to block the aorta. For example, the starter was Gold Coin Chicken (金錢雞).

For those not familiar with Chinese cookery, this very dish has very little to do with chicken; it is actually a three-layer sandwich with no bread. The poor man's version consists of a piece of pig fat (marinated in sugar, wine, and soy sauce for a few days), another piece of lean pork, and a third one of pig liver. A better alternative uses Char Siu (叉燒) rather than lean pork, and chicken liver instead of the pig one. The most sophisticated one uses Yunnan ham (雲腿) as the lean meat, and put a tiny slice of ginger on the top to add to the flavor. But, whatever ingredient you use, these gangs-of-three are piled up like yakitori and barbecued.

You may ask: What's that so special with this tiny cholesterol sandwich?

Gosh, it is an excellent demonstration of food chemistry:

Ham is a rich natural source of glutamic acid. Yes, with sodium, it becomes monosodium glutamate. (Char Siu and simple lean port are, therefore, a cut lower because the protein is not fermented, and the concentration of glutamic acid is much lower.) In fact, ancient Japanese had the wit to call this excellent but poorly defined taste umami (旨味), which is what we now know as 鮮味.

Liver also stimulates our taste buds - by another receptor, via its rich content of inosinic acid and other purine derivatives.

How about that piece of deadly fat? Alas, recent studies just confirmed our taste buds do have specific receptor for fat, or, specifically, long chain fatty acid. (For example, see Gaillard D, et al. FASEB J 2008.)

A triplet of unconventional stimuli to our tongue.

Families

Shortly after I challenged L on his theory of reducing hospital admission, I met Warren and it became my turn to be challenged.

"You really shouldn't be too harsh on our fresh graduates," he said with a curious smile, "They didn't volunteer a budget of HK$250K for the marriage."

Oh, he was referring to my recent blog entry. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2011/06/question.html)

"Yes ...?" I hesitated to respond.

"That's obviously the request from the parents - probably from both sides!" My friend pointed out.

"Quite true," I agreed. In fact, just a few days earlier, when I told the story to my mother, she was surprised that I was surprised.

"The budget is entirely reasonable." She said in a tone exactly the same as the one we used to tell Euterpe it is good girl to brush her teeth before going to bed.

I cannot recollect who had the wisdom and said: Marriage isn't between two persons, but instead two families.

Unnecessary

After I overheard that conversion on astronomy, I met L again that evening.

I was still thinking about his comment on our (to him futile) attempts to reduce hospitalization, and could not resist the temptation of asking, "Friend, you might have a point in our discussion a few days ago. But, there are programs that could reduce unnecessary hospital admission - or shorten unneeded hospital stay."

"Alas, I think the explanation is quite obvious?" My friend smiled.

"It's not obvious to me," I grunted. For a moment I thought I were Inspector Thumm and was talking to Drury Lane in The Tragedy of Y.

"So, let me bring you through what I considered," my friend said, "There are actually two possibilities. First, and the more likely one is, the current number of bed does not meet the need, and we always have patients lining up for admission."

I nodded.

"In that case, reducing hospitalization in one aspect would simply be compensated by something - or someone - else. The ward would not thank you." L continued, "More so, the measure that we use to reduce hospitalization still takes money and manpower - nothing is saved. You only increase the health expenditure because you are now treating some patients that could not be admitted under the original arrangement."

"Well, yes, maybe," I considered slowly, "How about if we have no one lining up for admission and the program does create some empty beds?"

"Alas, in that case you boss will certainly urge you to think of something new to fill up the beds - otherwise your unit will face a cut in manpower or money next year!" My friend could not stop laughing.

Substitution

I must say I believe our government should insist on their proposal to scrap by-elections via the substitution system, which seems a traditional method according to our culture.

Just a little story from ancient China:

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On 2 July (a date not by coincidence), 626 AD, in an intense rivalry with his elder brother Li Jiancheng (李建成), who was the Crown Prince of Tang Empire at that time, Li Shimin (李世民) set an ambush at Xuanwu Gate (玄武門) (the gate leading to Emperor's palace), and killed Li Jiancheng and a younger brother, Li Yuanji (李元吉), who was a supporter of the Crown Prince. In fact, Li Jiancheng was shot by Li Shimin himself according to formal historical record.

Who succeeded the place of the Crown Prince? Li Shimin of course!

Within the same day, Li Shimin sent his chief body-guard, Yuchi Jingde (尉遲敬德), into Emperor Li Yuan (李淵)'s palace. Under intimidation, the emperor installed Li Shimin as crown prince, and two months later passed the throne to him.

Who says National Education (國民教育) is useless ?

Astronomy

(Overheard the conversation between a young girl and her father.)

"Why didn't Jupiter appear on the sky that evening?" The girl asked.

"Oh, I'm sure the gigantic planet wished to, but the governor of the universe changed the orbit regulation recently, so that Jupiter did not have to appear in this occasion." The father explained.

"I see," the girl considered for a moment, and then she asked again, "But, why was it necessary for our Lord to change the orbit regulation?"

"That's a chicken-or-egg question," her father smiled, "The regulation was changed because, to begin with, our Lord did not want to see Jupiter on the sky!"

"Alas. I'm sure Jupiter would be upset for not being there," the girl went on, "He could not exert his gravity and affect the orbit of other planets."

"Don't be silly, my girl," her father tapped on her shoulder, "The very point that the Lord did not discuss with Jupiter about the regulation of orbits was in itself decisive. Even if our gigantic planet did turn up in the sky, the position of all other stars were long fixed and there was no chance for Jupiter to exert its gravity!"

As Jonathan Lynn says: Government does not take place in the House of Commons. Some politics and much theatre takes place there. Government happens in private. As in all public performances, the real work is done in rehearsal, behind closed doors. Then the public and the House are shown what the government wishes them to see.