Why

While thinking of interesting books to boost up the general knowledge of our school children, a series that I read as a primary school student flashes through my mind.

It is A Hundred Thousands of Why (十萬個為什麼).

The origin of this book is in itself remarkable. The first book of the same title was actually written in Russian (Сто тысяч почему) by a Soviet author M. Ilyin (Ильин) in 1929; the idea of this title apparently rooted from Rudyard Kipling's poem Six Honest Serving Men.

Ilyin himself had very little ambition. All he wished to do was to put up a little book for Russian children to raise their interest in art and science by asking simple questions on common daily observations. When the book arrived the communism China, its exceptional potential was foreseen. The Children's Publishing House (少年兒童出版社) expand the tiny volume of Ilyin, which only had no more than 100 entries, to a series of 8 volumes and 1484 entries. It was first published in 1962.

And the rest is history. The entire series was huge success - there are nowadays versions for kids and even toddlers, not to say another several dozens of clumsy mimics.

PS. The series that I used was the second edition, published in 1965, with 15 volumes and around 3000 entries.

PPS. An excellent lesson I learnt from this very series was to be critical and paranoid with your source of information. There were no short of slogans and advertisement of communism throughout the volumes, and a considerable amount of information described was obviously wrong - as long as you open your eyes (and your mind) to look around, and exercise a tiny bit of common sense.

Textbooks

There is, of course, no serious need to put up an elaborated curriculum on general knowledge for our school children. In fact, rather than wasting effort of making our own textbooks, there are no short of excellent books that we often use for leisure reading but are very suitable for our children.

For example:

• novels of Jin Yong (金庸), for Chinese literature and a bit of history
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for Chinese literature and a bit of history
• novels of Harry Potter, for English literature
• The Complete Sherlock Holmes, for English literature 
• A Brief History of Time, for natural science
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, for natural and biological science
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, for psychology and inter-personal relationship
• Sophie's World, for philosophy
• Freakonomics, for economics
• The World Is Flat, for globalization
• Collapse, for history and environment protection

And, as to the teaching of arithmetic, investment, and possibly inter-personal relationship, I believe it would more fruitful by playing Monopoly - or, simply, mahjong!

General

I shall not discuss the possible (but not definite) decline in the general knowledge of our younger generation, or the curious decision of our government to take away important subjects - history, economy, geography, general science, and so forth - in our secondary schools, and make up a new one with a suspicious title general knowledge (通識).

Or, rather, the official translation got to be Liberal Study.

Once again, when I came to realize what areas are included in this subject, I was so impressed that I lost my nerve. In short, there are six aspects - or what they call modules:

1. Personal Development and Interpersonal Relationships 
2. Hong Kong Today  
3. Modern China 
4. Globalization 
5. Public Health 
6. Energy Technology and the Environment

Just for comparison, the top five recommended topics to be covered by the Ivy League are:

• art
• medicine and health science
• natural science
• economics and business
• engineering

Alas, aren't they the ones we used to have in our secondary schools?

Questions

On a recent occasion, Vivian showed me a copy of the examination questions used for the subject General Knowledge in the graduation examination of a primary school in 1953. I believe the questions, which I translated to English here would be interesting to visitors of this site.

(The original document in Chinese is apparently being displayed in a small local museum.)

Part 1: Answer two of the following four questions.

1. Compare and contrast Spata and Athens.
2. Describe the cause of the French Revolution.
3. (i) What are the areas of the monsoon zone? What is their climate and rainfall? (ii) What is the cause of desert?
4. Compare and contrast the agricultural practice of China and United States.

Part 2: Answer three of the following four questions.

1. Describe the structure and responsibility of the legislature, judiciary, and executive  organization s of the Hong Kong government.
2. Why does the Hong Kong government set up the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs? What is its duty?
3. Why should a government tax its people? What could be done if a citizen does not agree with the amount to be taxed?
4. When was the United Nations established? What should it do to achieve its highest ideal One World?

Part 3: Answer two of the following three questions.

1. Explain the cause of tides by text and figures.
2. How many kinds of vitamin are there? What is the use of each of them? What are their contents in common kinds of food ?
3. What is the difference between an ordinary mosquito and the Anopheles mosquito? How is malaria being spread by mosquito?

PS. I must say my face turned slightly red when I recollect, rather recently, I asked the following question on so-called general knowledge to a new-generation doctor:

Have you heard of A Brief History of Time?

Intention

While talking about my experience as a teacher of medical ethics, I must say I am often confused with its aim.

By and large, I agree with Steven Silbiger, as he described in The 10-Day MBA:

"The purpose of ethics in the MBA curriculum is not to make students model corporate citizens. Rather, the intention is to make students aware of the ethical implications of business decisions. Through casework and role playing, students confront ethical dilemmas similar to those they will face in the workplace. The top business schools train their future champions of industry to deal with any challenge."

Unfortunately, that's not the idea of many of the other teachers - nor that of the faculty board, the medical council, the bureau, the university grants committee, or most of the lay public.

As it was once said: If you think the whole world is crooked, you would just have a twisted neck.

Decision

(The tutorial continued.)

I paused for a moment, and then began my story.

"Let's say you are the emergency call medical officer. A nurse in the ward tells you there is a middle age man just admitted for acute chest pain. Heart attack is possible, but, more likely than not, it's nothing really serious. At the same time, another ward calls you and says that they just admitted an old woman with severe chest infection. Well, she also has many other problems, say, some form of cancer, and, even without this infection, she is not expected to live for anything more than a few months. The dilemma is: Which patient should you see first?"

My students had their mouths wide open.

"Oh, we can do away with all details of medical science, as well as any discussion about the principles of triage and resource allocation," I became more serious, "I just wish to show you a general principle: The scenarios you guys presented always involve one patient, and there's almost always no dilemma in this situation - because there's something called patient autonomy, or, we can ask individual patients to be their own god and make the decision. The real problem actually comes when a decision involves two or more patients with conflicting interest - in which case you have to play god and make the decision."

PS. My argument was obviously simplistic. For example, for a single patient, there may be more than one party, and their interest may not agree with each other.

Dilemma

Shortly after I had my family dinner, I was asked to lead a tutorial on medical ethics for our final year students.

This was not the first time I did it, and, honestly, most of the sessions were rather boring. The arrangement was simple. There were four students in my group, and, in the hour allocated, they were asked to present two cases of ethical dilemma that they recently encountered in their own patients, with an aim to stir up the discussion.

This time was no different. I must say the presentation in itself was reasonable, but the cases were hardly interesting. We probably finished in no more than 20 minutes, and then I made the conclusion, half yawning, "Your scenarios are actually very straightforward. There was hardly any dilemma in your first case. And, as to the second one, any difficulty was created by the doctor himself!"

Alas, I shouldn't be too harsh on my students. "How could they easily spot the ethical dilemma in the case that they encounter in the ward?" I said to myself.

"Professor, you may be right. But, can you outline a scenario that you consider a real ethical dilemma?" One of the student asked.

I was taken aback.

糯米

正躊躇店家是否漏單之際，葷菜便上。先係葱爆牛肉，看來無甚特別。此碟實為席上兩位印傭而設，自己也未細嚐。

之後是豬肉兩味。先為蓮香一字骨，即肋條混和糯米，再裹以蓮葉蒸之。廚子手重，米夠味而肉軟糯，只是蓮香甚淡，未能儘善儘美。另一味是清燉獅子頭。肉物質輕鬆化，湯亦鮮甜，大抵店家無視健康，不吝肥肉，才有如此珍味。

再來是香酥八寶鴨。此物亦為手工菜，係以全鴨去骨，腔中釀入糯米，兼有冬菇、蝦米等作料，先蒸再炸。究其原理，與陸羽茶室的古法糯米雞相彷，然鴨架較大，去骨後仍甚足觀。且吃來外皮極酥脆，而鴨肉耐火，混和糯米及其他餡料，滋味複雜而有層次。較之廣府製作，似乎更勝一籌。

單尾醬炒年糕，無甚特別，較之杭州酒家，自不能同曰而語。

此時各人亦十二分飽。甜品奉上，驚見是煎八寶飯。至此方才想起已吃過一字骨和香酥鴨，一餐三味糯米，實為區區失策。然事已至此，唯有姑且下箸。相比老飯店等之薄身版，此店較小而厚，賣相是有所不及。然而，正因形貌厚實，可以煎得外焦脆而內綿軟，甜味似無還有，倒是出乎意料的精采。

總的來說，此店服務殷切，這餐也是漸入佳境，尤其糯米三味，俱為不可多得的珍饈。回程時細思之，這次上菜次序顛倒，大概是店家歲暮客忙，掌廚者一時不察。然而，先素而後葷，由淡入濃，以健康、嚐味而論，都是王道，也可說是歪打正着矣。

綠楊村

歲暮，舉家於綠楊村飯店團年。一如既往，地點為內人所選，菜單則是區區所定。

前菜三味，計為宮廷富貴花，丁香雞，和煎素鵝。富貴花即漬蘿蔔切片，砌成花形上碟。外貌嫻雅，脆嫩而酸味適中，確為開胃良品。

丁香雞亦為店內名物。量其作法，應是雞隻浸熟放涼後切件，再配以丁香醬進食。肉嫩皮爽，口味近乎粵式沙姜雞，倒也無甚特別。

素鵝乃滬式煎法。此店有趣之處是腐皮餡內除草菇外，竟有些日式金菇。這個恐怕是將貨就價再加上掌㕑者不知素鵝原理的蛇足之舉矣。

湯品是文思豆腐。此乃江浙手工菜，以豆腐切成髮絲細條，和入火膧湯內。以外觀而論，無可置喙，然食味則與一般食肆高湯無異。一試無妨，倒也不是非吃不可。

出乎意料，再上是蔬菜兩碟，計為炒雜菇及腐衣津白。前者平平無奇，且琉璃獻略厚，非余所喜。後者倒清甜不膩，奶油濃淡，恰到好處，值得推薦。

席行至此，已略感納罕。這時樓面傳上的，竟是單尾蔥油薄餅。平心而論，此處蔥油下得夠多，餅亦煎得香脆。只是誠如蔡瀾所言，蔥多難熟，成餅便稍有草腥之氣，是嫌美中不足。

(待續。)

Streetlamp

(The conversation continued.)

The daughter was silent for a moment. Her father decided to change a bit of the topic, “My dear, do you have any favorite star?”

“Em… yes, dad,” the girl hesitated for a moment, “I like the one over the other corner of the street.”

Her father laughed, “Don't be silly, sweetheart. That’s not a star – it’s a streetlamp!”

"Is it? To me, they are quite the same," the girl explained, "The lamppost was high up, and its light showed me the way when it is dark. Dad, there's a trap round that corner and people often got stuck when they pass there at night. But, when I see the lamppost, I feel warm and safe with the humble light. It is a gorgeous star to me all the same."

"Well, you may have a point. But, don't you think the star is more important? The Polaris leads the way of thousands of sailors for hundreds of years!" The father said.

"Dad, I am not a sailor, and I don't quite have a plan to travel far. All I want is to wander around the village every night, and, for that purpose, the streetlamp is the best guiding star - the Polaris is too high up and a little dim for me."

The father was speechless. All of a sudden he found his daughter had already grown up.

Have a nice lunar new year eve.

Star

(Conversation between the little girl and her father again.)

“Look at that star, dad. It’s so bright.” The girl was pointing at the sky.

“Yes, my dear,” her daddy said in a soothing voice, “You know, tonight our village is celebrating the star festival.”

“Oh, that’s why the atmosphere is so enchanting,” the girl seemed cheered up, “Em… dad, why do we worship stars?”

“Because stars are high up, they are bright, and, above all, they show us the way when it is dark.” The father explained.

“You mean the Polaris? Oh, and there are the 12 Signs of Zodiac. Stars actually give clues to our fate, don’t they?” the daughter said, half-jokingly.

“You know, my dear, each of these tiny spots of light actually has its own remarkable story.” Her father sounded slightly more serious, “When we look up the starry sky, we should always be grateful for having so many great people who have set us examples and lead our way.”

(To be continued.)

Result

While Friedrich von Hayek wisely deduced that communism would inevitably lead to dictatorship, the reverse is obviously not true.

For example, look at Philippines at the time of Ferdinand Marcos, or Taiwan under the reign of Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石) and his son.

The real question is, therefore, although we agree communism in itself would lead to poverty, and the process is aggravated with dictatorship, would dictatorship per se - without a communism system - always result in the collapse of economy?

I don't know. But, it does not seem to be the case - just consider what Rhee Syngman (李承晚) achieved south to the 38th parallel.

PS. As a scenario more close to North Korea nowadays, I should actually cite the Shu (蜀) Kingdom with Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) as the prime minister - but that would probably hurt the feeling of many of my audience.

Dictator

The first question that came through my mind when I read this book of Barbara Demick was: Which component of the system caused the tragedy?

Specifically, was it communism, or was it dictatorship?

My initial naïve idea was: It got to be communism.

The arugment is simple: When every farm and factory is owned by the country, who would have the interest to work hard?

But, in no time I realized I might be wrong. Communism will always end up with dictatorship. (If you find the causal relationship not immediately obvious, go read The Road to Serfdom of F.A. Hayek. Or, just consider this: The two only species that follow truly communisum are ant and bee; both of them need a superior queen as the head of their society.)

And, it seems needless to explain why dictatorship commonly results in tragedy: Although a democratic leader and a Nazi tyrant are equally like to make a wrong decision, only the latter would have a chance to make bad ones repeatedly.

Alas, but, what would happen if a communist country has such a good luck and find a brilliant dictator?

Well, in that case, I’m sure this very leader would bring an end to Karl Marx’s theory.

Don’t you remember Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiao-Ping?

Envy

While talking about different shades of gray, my recent bedtime reading is Nothing to Envy – Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick.

Yes, a place without black and white.

I must say this paperback is the best book I read in the past twelve months. But, ironically, it is also amazingly simple. The entire content could be summarized into one sentence: Everything George Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four does happen in real life.

*******************
A usual excuse people use to explain the tragedy of North Korea in the past ten or fifteen years is the country locates in a much more deserted area than its brother in the south.

But, that argument hardly holds water. The rotten empire of capitalism harbors twice as many people as his communism brother. Yes, as compared to Pyongyang and its surrounding, there is more land suitable for agricultural use south to the 38th parallel – but not quite twice as much. The two countries share roughly the same sea area for fishing, and the land under the feet of Kim Yong-Un has arguably more mines and ores of heavy and precious metals.

It got to be a problem of the system.

Gray

While I was thinking about the problem of black and white, a little story that I heard some time ago flashed through my mind.

Here you go:

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The headmaster of a primary school in a small village put up a new rule: All teachers must dress in no more than two colors – socks and ties and mittens and everything included.

On the next morning, a young teacher was stopped by the headmaster as soon as the former appeared at the entrance of the school. Her blouse was white, her skirt was black, and she was wearing a red scarf.

“Hey there! Are you aware of our new dressing code?” The headmaster was obviously not happy.

“Yes, sir. What’s wrong?” The young woman sounded innocent.

“In that case, why do you dress in three colors?”

“Oh, no, sir. There are only two colors,” the teacher explained, “I have a red scarf; my blouse and my skirt are actually in one colour – they are just different shades of gray.”

I don’t think I have to explain in which country this incident happened.

B&W

After a few weeks of practice, I am now quite accustomed to use my Kindle to read most of the journals.

(Rather than the slightly complicated method I described earlier, I find a Send to Kindle apps in the Google Chrome Web Store, and everything becomes very easy.)

But, I come to realize hardly anyone around use this gadget of Amazon - most of the people I observe in bus or  underground use iPad or Samsung. When I show my pseudo-tablet to the others, the invariable first response is, "Oh, there's no touch screen!"

(Of course. I do not want to connect to the Internet. In fact I am only interested in reading text.)

Then, the next comment would be, "Alas, it has no color!"

Well, if we cannot tell black and white, why do we need so many colors?

Finning

Another recent episode of this TV series was about shark finning.

The story is simple and should be familiar to many of us. In short, shark finning refers to the removal and retention of shark fins and the discarding of the rest of the fish; it takes place at sea so the fishers only have to transport the fins – and therefore more sharks could be killed.

I must say I am no fan of shark fin soup and am eager to preserve all resources on our planet. Nonetheless, I am always skeptical with those environment protection groups. (The analogy is one could deeply believe in the god but is paranoid with the church, or we can love our country but have a different feeling with the party.)

Just a few facts I gather from the Internet:

• Around 100 millions of sharks are caught each year, one-third by the method of shark finning, while one-half are actually bycatch (that is, the unintentional capture of species by other fisheries).
• Sharks are common seafood in many countries, notably Japan, Australia (as fish-and-chips), India (deep-fried as sora puttu), Iceland (fermented as hákarl), and many other European countries (as fish fillet).
• A number of American States (for example, Hawaii, California, and Washington) ban the possession, sale and distribution of shark fins. Whole sharks could still be legally fished, but the fins could no longer be sold – and are therefore discarded.

No, I’m not saying we should allow shark finning – it is cruelty, as simple as that. From the point of view of environment protection, however, I am sure there are more important areas to focus our attention.

Island

One of the favorite TV programs that Euterpe enjoyed every weekend is a documentary series about the South Pacific Ocean.

I must say Vivian also like it very much – and so do I, but for a slightly different reason.

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

A recent episode was about unique species of birds and reptiles on those islands.

There were no fewer than a dozen of similar stories. Take moa on the New Zealand as the example. Before Homo sapiens came to the island, this gigantic bird was probably the largest animal on the island. Since food was everywhere and there was absolutely no predator (except a few Haast's Eagle), it soon evolved to suite the heaven: it became slow, timid, pleasant, and, the most important of all, it lost the ability to fly. (In fact, moa has no wings.)

The consequence was dramatic. When Māori arrived in the thirteenth century,  moa was in no way comparable to the newcomers; it had no means to protect itself, and soon became extinct.

PS. A critical bit of detail was not touched in the program: The time that took for many of these wingless birds to evolve and became incompetent was very much quicker than you expect from the traditional Darwin’s type of evolution. (Many species of wingless bird on these south Pacific islands arrived no more than 30000 years ago – obviously when they could still fly.) The reason was obvious: It always takes a long time for a random evolution to come up with a desirable trait, but it is very easy (and in a lightening speed) to lose a valuable character – because the maintenance of which involves effort and flesh and blood and competition.

Twin

You may argue the Tree of Justice in Eden and the other that Satan showed Adam were all but one plant.

On that, you are wrong.

“Aren’t justice and fairness the same virtue?” You may ask.

No, no, no. For fans of Jin Yong (金庸), justice is Qiu Qianren (裘千仞) in The Legend of Condor Heroes (射鵰英雄傳), while fairness is Qiu Qianzhang (裘千丈) – the younger twin brother who was good at nothing but pretending to be his more successful sibling.

“What’s the difference?”

Simple. Justice means all people have to obey to the same set of rules. Fairness, as it now turns out, has become the pursuit of everyone having the same treatment and benefit. The passing mark of all medical students in the final examination is identical; this is justice. All students should, irrespective to their performance, get the same grade – this is fairness. (Don’t laugh. It really happens. Many courses in the university give only pass-or-fail grading nowadays.)

To go one step further, fairness is not an advanced or modified form of justice. To make sure everyone gets an identical outcome or benefit – irrespective to their effort and performance – inevitably we have to twist the rule applied to individual person, or, in other words, we have to give up justice.

Fairness is, therefore, not only not a virtue – it is a sin.

It is the predecessor of sloth.

Fifth

Some of you may remember the story I told some months ago about the four trees in the Eden. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2011/07/trees.html) The story that followed was equally interesting but, once again, not mentioned in the Genesis.

Here you go:

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

Contrary to the common belief and what’s described in the Genesis, Adam actually did not realize he didn’t quite swallow the apple of wisdom, and was convinced that he saw things differently after acquiring the fourth virtue.

And he left the Eden, content and full of confidence.

In no time Adam met the snake again. The poisonous reptile greeted him enthusiastically, “Hullo, my friend. Let me show you something great.”

The avatar of Satan led the first man to a new corner, where they saw an enormous tree. Long branches were stretching in all directions from the trunk, along those there were numerous fruits – red, juicy, and seductive.

The snake said, half smiling, “Look, this is the Tree of Fairness. Yes, the fifth virtue – and the most important one too. Come. Try its fruit. It’s good for your heart.”

I shall not elaborate what happened afterwards. Suffice to say, if the first apple dragged Adam out from Eden, this second one sent him to hell that and there and forever.

Discrimination

You may think giving up the opportunity of appreciating our hard-working staff is an inevitable consequence from the pursuit of a fair society.

On that, I beg to disagree.

My argument is simple. If we follow the same logic of not discriminating against those who fall sick, we should also not award any scholarship to outstanding students. In fact, we should not fail a medical student in final examination because he knows nothing – we are discriminating the incapable people.

Great. I would suggest all supporters of this kind of equal opportunity – and their families – should be cared by doctors whose performance is outstanding in the other side of the spectrum.

PS. To consider the problem philosophically, the law of evolution states that we should appreciate excellence and beauty and all other admirable characters of human being. If we reverse this very principle of Darwin, oppress the good, but appreciate the evil, our species will be dying, you know?

Go read Thermodynamics. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2008/07/thermodynamics.html)

Recognition

During another casual discussion, my friend CB asked, "Do you know why our nurses - and doctors actually - no longer get the perfect attendance award (勤工獎) nowadays?"

For those who are not familiar with our system, the award used to be given regularly to a staff who takes no sick leave during a defined period of time (usually one year). This award used to be very common amongst private companies.

"No idea," I said.

"Is that because the Hospital Authority tries to prevent staff with acute febrile illnesses coming back to work?" KM suggested.

"No, not that brilliant a reason," our consultant smiled, "Just that we are forbidden by the Equal Opportunities Commission to give such an award, because it is considered as a discrimination against those who fell sick."

"How ingenious," KM sounded grim, "But for that we lost a nice way to give some recognition to our hardworking colleagues."

"I believe we should follow the advice of that extraterrestrial commission and not to discriminate," I pursed my lips, "We should give two kinds of award: one for those who do not take any sick leave, and the other for the, say, top three, who take the highest number of sick leaves. Well, we should thank the latter for trying to come back and work occasionally. After all, they need to be recognized!"

Incapable

(During a lunch time casual chat.)

"Do you know where is T up to?" One of us asked.

T is a medical graduate from the other side of the harbour. He just finished with his surgical training and is the son of a supposedly very important person.

"Oh, he was recently promoted to be the associate consultant." The answer came from the other side of the table.

"Alas, which hospital - or which team does he join?" I asked.

"Professor L's team, of course."

"I think Professor L doesn't like him very much - and for good reasons?" I was incredulous.

"Yes, but the professor conceded. In fact, L comes to the conclusion that it is not necessary for everyone in his team to be able to do surgery!"

"Well, there's some truth in it," I was forced to agree, "In fact, if a medical student tells me in the final examination that his ignorance is absolutely acceptable because not every doctor needs to treat patient, I shall be quite willing to pass him!"

Nihilism

You may think my recent discussion is nothing but grumble from a (not very successful) investor.

But no. The same problem appears in many other aspects of our life.

Say, for example, we often consider randomized control trial as the gold standard of assessing the benefit of a drug (or other forms of treatment). Yes, we can prove a drug being useful or not. But, we can never prove that the placebo group (that is, doing nothing, or sticking to the available treatment at hand) represents the optimal therapy - there is always something possible to make things even better. Just that we don't know what.

Isn't that the principal reason people do medical research?

For that reason, it really needs wisdom for a researcher to conclude major advance is unlikely in a particular field of study and effort could be better spent in another area.

I don't think I should say any more.

PS. In fact, it is difficult enough for a patient to feel content with the natural course of illness or the limited options of available treatment - or, in other words, be satisfied while knowing that he is in the placebo group.

Nothing

You may realize the method I described yesterday was roughly what I did for assessing my own performance of investigation: first, compare to a benchmark index; next, compare to doing nothing.

But, if you come to think of it, my suggestion is only good for reviewing the performance (or, in the jargon of extra-terrestrials, for auditing). It could never be used for prospective decision on what to do.

In other words, with this approach, you can occasionally prove what you did was entirely useless or had even led to a worse investment return, but there is no situation where you could justify doing nothing - because, with hindsight, there are always better ways of investing.

Bearing that in mind, you may come to realize it needs both exceptional wisdom and extraordinary self confidence to accept the portfolio at hand is satisfactory and decide one should sit and do nothing.

Compare

I must say I have a different opinion on the madman analogy of the stock market. Nonetheless, on a second thought, my recent review of my investment portfolio actually has a more profound implication.

Let me explain in a slightly convoluted manner.

First, how do we access how well we manage our portfolio - or, actually, the performance of a fund manager? The conventional method is to compare it with a benchmark. For example, for a mutual trust fund that focus on the local stock market, we can compare its performance to the Hang Seng Index. (The alternative method is to determine the investment return and rank it amongst all other similar funds. This is usually what's reported for our MPF, and a similar method is used for the examination result of our medical students.)

But, that doesn't really solve the problem - or prove that your fund manager worth his salt.

For example, would the fund perform even better if the manager did nothing in the past one year?

Mad

While I was reviewing my investment portfolio, my friend JW recommends in his Facebook a nice book on financial analysis by a local author.

It was 《一名經人》 by Law Ka Chung (羅家聰)

In no time, a friend of us made the following comment: Don't you think trying to analyse the stock market is like trying to guess whether a mad man wandering in a psyche hospital will take a left turn or right turn with his next move?

For this, a little talk of Hercule Poirot (in The ABC Murders) flashed through my mind:


It is no answer to say that the man was mentally unhinged... A madman is as logical and reasoned in his actions as a sane man - given his peculiar biased point of view. For example, if a man insist on going out and squatting about in nothing but a loin cloth his conduct seems eccentric in the extreme. But once you know that the man himself is firmly convinced that he is Mahatma Gandhi, then his conduct becomes perfectly reasonable and logical.

Napoleon

It doesn’t need a expert of detective fiction to tell the Professor Moriarty under Guy Ritchie is a laughable idiot.

First, a real Napoleon is always an  expert in psychology and, if he prefers to do away with the Duke of Wellington, he could certainly identify a suitable person and infuse that idea into that whoever’s brain. (This idea is long in the tooth, from Agatha Christie’s Curtain to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of Lambs.) To be a master of crime, one does not have to – and, in fact, should not – soil his own hands.

But, there is a more fatal flaw: Would any sane person believe he could make big money by becoming a firearm supplier and then induces wars? Seriously, it may not only not making big money, it may not make any money at all – the government may nationalize your business.

Then, what’s the best way of making big money?

Go ask Lü Buwei (呂不韋).

Moriarty

To me, the biggest disappointment came from Professor Moriarty.

No, it has nothing to do with Jared Harris, who did strike a fine balance between presenting as the original professor of mathematics under Conan Dolye and playing the role of an ambitious Napoleon of crime under Guy Ritchie.

But, it was all wrong. The personal history was not correct. (See the original description in The Final Problem: He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote a treatise upon the binomial theorem which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it, he won the mathematical chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most brilliant career before him. But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the University town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and come down to London.)

And, even worse, the personality of this friend of the Prime Minister in the movie does not only differ from the original resigned professor, his plots are so ingenuous that he could hardly be a real harm to the world - Robert Downey just over-reacted.

PS. In contrast, Jude Law made such beautiful deductions and decisions in the Switzerland Summit that he could not have been the real Dr. Watson.

Guy Ritchie should put Mycroft Holmes to find out whom Rene was disguising.

Holmes

Watched Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

An excellent piece for entertainment I must say. Nonetheless, there remains a slight dissatisfaction to a fan of the great detective - and a real disappointment to a loyal reader of Arthur Conan Doyle. In the first movie two years ago, personality and personal history of all original characters - Irene Adler, Dr. Watson, Mary Morstan - were preserved; we saw one of their untold tales. Now, the Game has changed; we see Professor Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes, and Colonel Moran, but they are not the same persons whom we know from Sir Arthur.

For example, Mycroft is no longer an inconspicuous civil servant hidden in the London city; he becomes an important figure of the English government and needs to attend the Peace Summit in Switzerland. (I am sure the real Mycroft would never agree to leave England - even if ordered by the Queen.) In fact, the scene that a naked Stephen Fry, playing Mycroft Holmes, was looking for his breakfast, reading letters, and talking to Kelly Reilly, did not remind me of the great detective's elder brother; that copious volume of fat moving around in his house looked more like Winston Churchill.

PS. Vivian and Euterpe watched the film with me. My daughter was obviously bored. To her, the only story of Sherlock Holmes that I ever told is this one:


Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of red, they lay down for the night and went to sleep.

Some hours later Holmes woke up, nudged his faithful friend and said, "Watson, I want you to look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Watson said, "I see millions and millions of stars." Sherlock said, "And what does that tell you?"

After a minute or so of pondering Watson said, "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three in the morning. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Metereologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day today. What does it tell you?"

Holmes was silent for about 30 seconds and said, "Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!"

Now

What happen after one year?

The Hang Seng Index closed in 2011 at 18434, dropped by 20% (19.97% to be exact) over 12 months.

And, if I did not do anything with my portfolio, it would drop by 16.6% - dividend included.

But, certainly, I sold some of the issues, at least to cut down the number of stock I hold. By now, it becomes something like this:

The whole thing fell by 11.1% this year, and I'm still having around 20% as free cash.