Arithemetics

(Another message from another constellation to a humble academic on Earth.)

Dear Professor X,

Thanks for your application of the research grant. Your proposal has been reviewed by 3 external experts. The scores are as followings:

Reviewer #1: 5
Reviewer #2: 5
Reviewer #3: 4
Final score: 3

Therefore your application could not be funded.

Good luck next time, et cetera.

*******************
(By the way, the maximum score is 5 for each reviewer, and the final score should be the mean or median of the three individual score. When X showed this message to his friend, he got the following reply.)

Dear X,

I believe that's how they arrived at the conclusion:

5+5+4 = 14 = 1+4 = 3

Sincerely,
A malicious nephrologist on Earth

PS. No, one plus four does not equal three - except for aliens coming from a universe with different rules of physics.

Proposal

(A collection of messages from certain distant constellation.)

Dear creature on Earth,

Your research plan was discussed in our constellation. The only thing we want is to see a more sustainable project. Can you please change the proposal to a 10-year plan?

Sincerely, et cetera.

**************************
(A letter that this unfortunate existence on Earth wrote but did not have the courage to send out.)

Dear alien,

If our great country cannot even fix up the agenda for the coming 18th National Congress (共產黨第十八次全國代表大會) two weeks later, I believe the only person in my planet who could write a detailed 10-year plan is Cai Bo-Li (蔡伯勵).

Sincerely,

Your humble servant on Earth

Attendance

The two-hour Q&A session passed quickly. In fact, the audience seemed to have so many questions that the coordinator - a chubby gastroenterologist - had to put a stop for two or three times before no more hands were raised.

Then, the coordinator went up to the stage and thanked us. LS and I thought it's all over. And, then, our host took out from nowhere a dingy sheet of paper, cleared his throat, and said aloud:

"Dear students, I realize there are two students who did not ask any question in the past three sessions. They are XY Zi and ZY Xu. I think you should really be more active next time. Now, the followings did not ask any question this time ... (I omit a list of four or five names) ... I hope this is a transient problem and you would find the topics next Saturday more relevant to your field of study..."

LS and I were dumbfounded to witness an education system with Chinese characteristics.

Question

While my weird story about Dr. W and Professor C was stirring up the water a little, I went to Shanghai with my friend LS for some exchange teaching with a medical school there.

The event went like this: We set off early on a Saturday morning and arrived before noon. After a quick lunch, LS and I each gave a two-hour lecture to a group of postgraduate students there. In essence we outlined our own work, trying to emphasize how to turn a research idea into a real project.

(A few of the audience were basic scientists but most had a medical degree. I was later told that they need a PhD degree to secure a trainee post in any major hospital.)

After we finished with the lecture, LS and I dined with two representatives from their side. Then,  the two of us had the climax of the day: another two hours of Q&A session.

Yes, we sat on the stage, and the postgraduate students from the audience asked questions – about our work, about their own projects, and sometimes about problems of real life clinical practice. 

To my surprise, almost all of them had something to ask.

“What an enthusiastic group!” I said to myself.

(To be continued.) 

Apology

While my little story on the big toe appeared bit by bit in the recent few days, a handful of my friends came to me and complained that I was too harsh to Professor C.

I must say I was not thinking of – or trying to refer to – any real person when I put up that fictitious academic who met the medical officer in the corridor. In fact, every other character in this story, as well as all other stories you find in my blog, are my own fancies and imaginations (including some stories that I put up as genuine encounters of my own).

Nonetheless, I agree, on looking back as a third person, my recent story does appear to be pointing finger at a highly respected professor. To this, I shall not put up any more excuse.

It is my fault. I shall be more careful next time.

PS. As to the story itself, it would be an unfortunate coincident if it bears any similarity to what’s going on in real life. My friend JW actually round up our stand very well: 

We shall try to make sure it won’t happen.

Epilogue

While the two physicians were having their morning chat, Dr. W was starting to work.

And, to her surprise, some final year students followed her round.

Worried and concerned, the young doctor asked if the students knew anything about the big toe.

“No, not yet, but we’re going to,” one of the boys said.

“Oh! That’s good news!” Dr. W was happily surprised, “Why should the extraterrestrials change their mind and employ a big-toe specialist if they pay no attention to education and future?”

“Em… doctor, that’s because of the general medical council,” the boy replied.

“What did the council got to do with all these?” The medical officer asked.

“Doctor, you know, the council came and met some of us last month when they did the curriculum inspection – I think for the accreditation of our medical school,” the medical student explained, “We just told them that our curriculum does not cover the big toe properly. After all, if the council had requested dedicated sessions to teach medical ethics and safety issues, it seems difficult for them to justify not insisting on some formal teaching on an important part of our body!”

The medical officer nodded and laughed, “Very well said. Extraterrestrials will only listen to senior creatures of their own species!”

Do

The professor took a deep breath, "Do? Very little. You know, the medical school is not run by any of us - it is a group of aliens from Vulpecula and Lupus."

"But, I suppose they are still concerned about the... em... well-being of the faculty?" L tried to find some suitable words to express himself, "It doesn't look good if a major donor of our university ring up the Vice Chancellor to seek some help for a painful toe, and it turns out that there's no one in the faculty being an expert of the field."

"I know what you mean, and this deficiency would become more obvious - and problematic - as the faculty is beginning to set up a private hospital," C nodded.

"Excellent. I think we have a strong argument here. Let use it to convince those extraterrestrials." L became slightly excited.

"No, you are too naive," the academic physician remained uninterested, "Mollusks from other constellations only focus on papers and numbers. They pay no attention to logic or future."

Both of them became more depressed than ever.

Self

Dr. W was certainly taken aback by the remark of C. After a moment of dead silence, the young doctor said, “Professor, you proposal may have entirely legitimate reasons from a pragmatic point of view, but I still find it difficult to accept.”

“Why on earth?” The academic physician smiled,”Is it what TS Eliot said, man cannot face too much reality? Well, let me tell you the simple and obvious truth: It is not necessary to have a dedicated academic staff to teach each and every sub-specialty subject; medical students are mature university undergraduates and should be capable of self learning – including the legendary skill of reading textbooks.”

"Em..." the young doctor hesitated a bit, "I suppose your comment is absolutely acceptable, and honorable, for a medical student with some self respect to say to himself. However, it has quite a different implication if a medical school to have the same belief - you really have to be ruthless."

The senior physician shook his head and disappeared in the darkness.

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

The next morning, Professor C invited Dr. L to have some morning coffee. They quickly shared their own conversation with the young doctor.

The professor sighed, "You know, I find it difficult to convince myself with the argument that I put up. Dr. W has a point; we are not moving in the right direction."

"But, what can we do about it?" L asked.

Deficient

“Promotion and substantiation are assessed by two different panel of people,” C waved his hand, “After all, I believe a simple fixture is more valuable than an expensive consumable. But that’s beyond the point. I think your worry is if we do away with academic staff of small divisions, our students would not be taught in those subjects. Is that right?”

Dr. W nodded.

“Don’t worry, girl,” the professor said, “Our students will be taught on those areas by our colleagues from the government side. After all, most of our students’ time are spent in peripheral hospitals, learning general medicine.”

“In that case, the most cost effective way of training medical students is to  close down the entire medical school and ask the Hospital Authority to take up the duty. The university can spend all money on employing basic scientists and have all the high impact research!” The young doctor found herself more cynical than ever.

“Oh… ah… That’s actually what we are trying to do!” The professor exclaimed.

Purpose

That evening, Dr. W met Professor C in the corridor.

Knowing perfectly well that the star professor holds several important positions in the medical school, the young doctor could not refrain herself from telling her experience and sharing her worry to the senior academic staff.

“Yes… so?” C asked after listening to the story – he did not seem to see the point.

“So, it doesn’t sound right to do away with those small divisions.” The young doctor explained again.

“Why not?” The academic physician sounded surprised, “The main purpose of an academic staff is to do research and publish. You know, there is an economy of scale. It is more cost effective to focus and expand on a few major divisions and do away with the small ones.”

Dr. W wished to say in her layman’s eyes, the main purpose of a medical school is to train up new doctors. But, she did not want to hurt the feeling of her senior.

After a moment of silence, W said slowly, “In that case, from what I heard recently, how could the university justify the happenings to Professor T? On one hand, the university says that his research performance in the past five years deserves a promotion, but, a year later, declares that his performance in the past six years is not good enough for substantiation and has to be... eh... lay off?” 

Dr. W was surprised to find that she could finish with her statement without taking a second breath.

Dismiss

(The conversation between that experienced medical officer and the young intern went on.)

“Oh, my god,” the medical officer took a deep breath, “This is gout – a simple straightforward obvious diagnosis. Why didn’t you do anything about it last night? Haven’t you heard of this disease?”

“No, I learnt many four-letter words in medical school, but no one taught me this one. I believe this disease does not exist, and I would declare there’s nothing wrong with this old man.”

Dr. W collapsed and had a seizure.

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

The medical officer recovered quickly. She soon sent away the ingenuous intern and continued with her own duty round. A few hours later, she found herself in the canteen with Dr. L, a cynical colleague of hers, and she could not refrain herself from telling her friend the remarkable story she encountered that morning.

To her amazement, Dr. L did not appear surprised. Instead, he made an irrelevant remark, “Did your intern tell you anemia does not exist?”

Dr. W wished to say it deserves more than a Nobel prize for the eradication of such a common medical problem. But, instead, she grunted.

“Same problem,” the cynical physician smiled, “They’ve not been formally taught on any blood disease either. You know, teachers on these topics were dismissed one after another.”

Prologue

(July 2016, 9 a.m., general medical ward of a teaching hospital.)

“Excuse me, sister, who was the on-call house officer last night?” The medical officer – a well-tempered lady – asked after starting her morning round for 5 minutes and was still seeing her first patient.

“What’s wrong, Dr. W?” The nursing officer asked back – slightly alarmed as she noted that the medical officer sounded serious.

“Em… You’d better called him to come here now…” The doctor said calmly.

The senior nurse duly followed.

Ten minutes later, a young man in dingy clothes presented himself in front of Dr. W. He had a baby face. The medical officer actually fancied some lanugo hair on the lips of this sordid-looking boy.

“Come here, young man,” she began, “You saw this patient last night. Look at his left foot. What do you call this?” She was pointing at a grossly swollen big toe of an old man lying in bed.

The intern shook his head. His eyes appeared hollow – maybe his brain as well.

(To be continued.)

Books

While I was wandering in a jungle of books, our Vice Chancellor gave his remarkable speech to the new university students and encourage everyone to read more books.

(See http://www.facebook.com/notes/joseph-sung/read-a-book-every-month/10151228608174188)

Of course I cannot agree more with this suggestion and has always been practicing this advise.

For example, here are the ones that I bought for myself from Kinokuniya:

• On Strategy by Havard Book Reviews
• A History of God by Karen Armstrong
• The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• 100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know by John Barrow

PS. On the other hand, I am not so sure to support becoming more global. To me, the concept of globalization has become a bubble; everyone seems running after it for no reason. After all, what good is there to have a vague idea on what's going on thousands of miles away, but know nothing about the place you live?

Kinokuniya

I stayed in Kuala Lumpur for four days.

There’s very little for me to say with the conference. Much of my time was spent on attending symposium and other business meetings, and, as many of you expect, I am not particularly fond of traveling around or sightseeing. As an old bookworm, the only kind of place that I always try to identify and explore is – bookstore.

Fortunate for me, the convention center this time was close to a large shopping mall, and, in there I found a gigantic and comforting one.

It was Books Kinokuniya (紀伊國屋書店).

You may recall I visited Eslite not too long ago. Nonetheless, I was a humble servant of my elder daughter in Taipei and did not really have a chance to enjoy strolling through the jungle of books. I did not miss the rare opportunity this time, and took an afternoon break from the conference – dedicated for a visit this Japanese symbol of culture.

No, I didn’t read any book in detail there. But, rather, I spent two hours exactly to visit all bookshelves, scan through most of the titles, and decide what books to buy.

That, in itself, is joyful.

Outcome

My blog in the past few days was written before the result of Legislative Council election was out.

With hindsight, many of you may think my plan for CY was not necessary. After all, our estalishmentarian parties was by an large successful without any help from CE.

In that case, you miss the point: If our CE did withdraw the subject, who would believe the friends of Sai Wan earned the victory by themselves?

To go one step further, this hypothetical move demonstrates several important characteristics of glaring strategies:

1. the cost of the doing is minimal
2. the outcome is certain and not related to what the doing is

By the way, if the estalishmentarians do not follow the proposed gentleman's agreement (for example, if they realize they win by their own effort), selected information may be leaked - and they will pay!

Devil

I became slightly more serious, "My dear, I believe Mr. Hu and Mr. Xi have so many problems occupying their minds that they are not concerned at all."

"That may be true," Vivian nodded, "The unfortunate truth is, we have more than one grandfather in a sense, and some officials from Sai Wan may take the matter seriously."

"You have a point there," I was forced to agree, "Nonetheless, that problem is easily solved. In fact, all I am going to promise is the withdrawal of the National Education as a separate subject - I'm not withdrawing the material."

"What do you mean?" My wife was alarmed.

"My dear, devils are always in the detail," I explained, "I mean I shall keep all the brainwashing materials and infuse them here and there into the existing curriculum. That's actually why I hesitate to support withdrawal of the subject. When there is a well-defined one, people can scrutinize the content easily. But, when all the toxic materials are gradually provided from every angle, it is more difficult to notice and get rid of."

"Em... yes. I suppose brainwashing should be done quietly. It would be an idiot's idea to put up a subject and tell everyone that you are going to be brainwashed."

"Very true," I said, almost laughing, "For example, did the Americans ever tell their Japanese friends that McDonalds in Tokyo is a revenge for Pearl Harbor?"

Agreement

(The discussion on our way to the airport continued.)

I explained my plan, "As the CE, I would have that private meeting and told these party leaders to go out of my office an hour later, call a press conference, and tell the media that they have expressed their concern on National Education as a specific subject for our school children and put pressure on me - so that I, or the government, am going to withdraw the plan of this very subject."

"What!?" Vivian found it difficult to believe her ears.

"Yes, and I shall call the media shortly afterwards and confirm that I am receptive and do listen to opinion; the government will throw this subject to the trash with immediate effect." I smiled, "You see - and everyone could see, this arrangement would give a huge bonus to the establishmentarians who are running for the Legislative Council election this Sunday. And it actually improves their image in the long run. In exchange, I ask for a gentleman's agreement with them: They should cooperate with me in the Council when they win the election."

My wife took a deep breath, and then she smiled, "That may be a good plan, but there may be pressure from  your grandfather and you may not be able to withdraw the subject as you like."

If

While I was considering the life and time of Cai Yuanpei, I had to go to Kuala Lumpur to attend an international meeting.

Vivian gave me a lift - in a black T-shirt; she was preparing to join the assembly in Central that evening.

On our way to the airport, I said, "Quite many of our friends turned black in these days."

"Quite true - and including your face!" My wife chuckled, "Too bad you cannot join us today."

"I'm not sure I wish to join," I murmured, "You know, I am thinking of a different issue - CY is so dense that he misses an excellent opportunity."

"What opportunity?" My wife was confused.

"Alas, if I were our CE, I would call a meeting on Friday (I mean 7th of September) with all establishmentarian parties and their candidates who are running for coming the Legislative Council election."

"What on earth for?" Vivian remained incredulous.

元培

For some slightly unpleasant reasons, the life and time of Cai Yuanpei (蔡元培) becomes a hot topic of us recently.

The traditional record is well known: Cai served as the President of Peking University since 1917. During the ten years of his leadership, Peking University underwent a series of reforms. Cai was famous as a supporter of freedom of thought, and recruited famous thinkers from various campus - including future Chinese Communist Party leaders, Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀) and Li Dazhao (李大釗).

Freedom, eh?

On April 2, 1927, the Central Commission (中央監察委員會) of Chinese Nationalists Party (中國國民黨黨) held a meeting and determined that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (中國共產黨) undermined the national interest of China, and decided to purge the communists from the government administration. This event is subsequently known as the Shanghai massacre (清黨).

But, what may skip your eyes is, the Central Commission was led by Cai, who also supplied much of the evidence that communists were working against Kuomintang (國民黨).

You see? Great people listen to opinion from all side - but they will also take side after listening.

PS. In my personal opinion, Cai was open minded but did not pay sufficient attention to details.

He should be more careful in recruiting librarians!

Evidence

After that remarkable meeting amongst the extra-terrestrials, Rex went back to its own planet.

In no time, the extinct creature met Jessie and Woody and explained to them the situation.

The cowboy shivered, "Oh my god. They are pointing finger at us. What are we going to do?"

Jessie tapped on the shoulder of her friend and said, "Don't worry. Should we first ask the more fundamental question: Are we doing that bad?"

"Why? Of course we are. The mortality on this planet is highest in the solar system!" The green dinosaur and the cowboy yelled together.

"Yes, it is the highest - but, is it significantly higher than the other planets?" Jessie went on.

"What do you mean?" The other two appeared confused.

"Alas, if the difference is not statistically significant, why should those mollusks living outside the solar system make such a big fuss?" The cowgirl explained, "After all, since they are so fond of evidence based medicine, and would not allow the introduction of a new drug unless the benefit is very much significantly better than existing ones, why should they demand actions for a so-called problem if they could not prove there is actually a problem?"

Improve

(In an extra-terrestrial meeting.)

“Look, there is a situation here,” the three-eye alien said to the strawberry bear and Rex the dinosaur, “Your two planets have the highest mortality across the solar system.”

“Very true,” the pink toy did not even sound apologetic, “You know, we are badly short of manpower.”

“It is hardly the excuse – the entire universe has the same problem,” the green creature shook his head, “But we’ve got to do something, or, as Humphrey Appleby said, to appear to be doing something. What do you think if we allocate one extra trainee to your planet next year?”

“That’s terrific! I’m sure that would help our survival statistics a lot!” The strawberry bear cheered.

“Em… may I ask how could that junior trainee help so much? Are you going to ask him to do extra ward round or have some focus care on those very sick?” The three-eye alien scratched his head.

“No, none what-so-ever. He will not see any patient at all,” the furry toy put up a wicked smile, “I shall ask him to put all his effort on entering the diagnostic code of all comorbid diseases for our patients to the computer system – however mild or irrelevant these diseases are. Once we have the full – and maybe slightly inflated – detail on the complexity of our cases, our mortality would appear lower after you perform statistical adjustment.”

“Alas, that’s really an ingenious and cost-effective way of utilizing your manpower!” The thee-eye alien nodded in agreement, and he turned to the great creature, "What about you, Rex?"

Vote

It is the Legislative Council election today.

To begin with, I must say I find it difficult to pick the right candidate to vote for this year. There are, as a rule, two kinds of people running: the ones who I do not want to support, and the others who I consider disaster in case they win.

But I'm saved - I do not have to waste my synaptic activity to consider who to cast my vote because I am in Malaysia for a meeting!

Thank goodness.

PS. Although I do not vote, the poll card I receive from the Registration and Electoral Office is valuable - I use it as the proof of address when Euterpe applies for primary school!

Liar

We stayed in a hotel close to the tallest building of Taipei. In the lobby there was a gigantic craftwork for decoration.

As soon as I set my eyes on it, I could not stop laughing. Here is what I saw:

I would call it The Missing Liar (遺失的說謊者).

Szeto's note: The above picture is copied from the hotel's own website (http://taipei.grand.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels-taipei-grand/index.jsp?null).

Eslite

The one place in Taiwan that most of us must pay a visit to is the Eslite (誠品) bookstore.

And, believe it or not, Vivian and I brought Euterpe to it three times in four days – not because we love reading (yes, we do), but because it is a good place to take some rest, and, since there are more books than an ordinary library, each of us could identify something that we find interesting and spend a good hour.

Yes, even for Euterpe.

We try not to buy too many books. (My personal obsession is I will make sure I read every book I buy.) My daughter picked a colorful volume called Q&A of Insects, while I chose this one:

Strategy, Tactics, Weapons – volume 7 (ancient China) 《戰略戰術兵器事典：中國中古篇》

PS. If you take it as a business model, Eslite could hardly be considered profitable. However, when I see it as a self-sustained cultural mission, it is highly successful and has make a dramatic impact to the community who read traditional Chinese.

BB

A major program of our trip was a whole afternoon visit to BB.

For those who do not (yet) have children, BB is essentially a huge indoor theme park which is full of role-playing games so that children could try different kinds of jobs – literally from astronaut to zoo-keeper (alas, of course not sophisticated enough to be from duke to dustman).

For sure Euterpe was excited. (Not so much for her parents – it is in fact rather tiring.) She tried dairy farmer, pastry baker, fireman, emergency room worker, and, of course, surgeon.

For that very last task, our princess had to gown up and take part in an operation on a dummy. For obvious reasons the arrangement is more for fun than real-life experience. After watching the “surgery” for a while, my wife asked, “Dear, it seems so unreal. What do you think?”

I chuckled,”There is one thing that resemble reality very much: The scrub nurse controls everything!”

Taiwan

Towards the end of the summer holiday, Vivian and I brought Euterpe to Taiwan for a trip.

It was the first time my daughter takes a flight, and, as expected, she was overjoyed. Both my wife and I had been to Taipei for several times. Nonetheless we joined a tour group to save the trouble of planning. The group was actually quite small: There were four families and a total of 14 persons - including five-and-a-half children. (One of the girls was close to sixteen. I consider her half a child.)

You may ask: Why do we bright Euterpe to start with Taiwan? For sure there are a handful of pragmatic reasons. But, above all, I have special personal interest in this lovely island. To me, it has become an experiment of nature and an insoluble puzzle of history: If you agree it has a certain degree of success (and, to me, very much indeed), is it the result of retaining good old Chinese tradition, the legacy of being ruled by Japanese by 50 years, or the adoption of modern party politics?

Osoroshi

My recent bedtime reading is Osoroshi (怪談) of Miyabe Miyuki (宮部美幸).

It is, in essence, a collection of several inter-related horror stories, presented in a way somewhere between The Decameron (十日談) of Giovanni Boccaccio and Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊齋誌異) of Pu Songling (蒲松齡). As usual , Miyabe is good at constructing attractive plots, describing them with a strong medieval flavour, but less sophisticated in terms of hard core logical deduction. In this collection of strange stories, she certainly makes good use of her edge.

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

The central idea of this book is very simple: Many of us have a hidden story to tell; it represents the dark side of our past that we would bag to be forgiven.

The trouble is, many a time we don’t even know who is in the position to listen to our story and forgive us.

Business

While talking about Fan Li, maybe it is a good idea to try some plagiarism and show you the rules of business practice outlined by Fan.

There are twelve abilities to acquire:

1. Ability to know people's character. 
2. Ability to handle people. 
3. Ability to stay focused on the business and avoid jumping around.
4. Ability to be organized. 
5. Ability to adapt to new condition quickly.
6. Ability to control credit. 
7. Ability to use and deploy people. 
8. Ability to articulate and market. 
9. Ability to buy the right thing.
10. Ability to analyze market opportunities and threats. 
11. Ability to lead by example. 
12. Ability to have business foresight. 

Another twelve don'ts:

1. Don't be stingy; never confuse efficiency with inhumanity.
2. Don't be wishy-washy; be confident in pursuing opportunities. 
3. Don't overspend to make an impression.
4. Don't cheat - honesty is the only basis for business. 
5. Don't be slow in debt collection. 
6. Don't slash prices arbitrarily; it will trigger a price war and everyone will lose.
7. Don't give in to herd instinct; make sure the opportunities are real and not part of a craze.
8. Don't work against the business cycle. 
9. Don't be a stick-in-the-mud; examine new things objectively.
10. Don't overbuy on credit. 
11. Don't under-save and keep your reserve strong; when business is slow, one with money can expand while others collapse.
12. Don't blindly endorse a product; make sure your vendors follow the standard operating procedure.

PS. Yes, some of them duplicate and overlap. Did I say they do not?

范蠡

While thinking about the story of Wu Zixu, an almost identical tragedy almost happened in the opposite campus of this drama.

I mean Fan Li (范蠡) of the state of Yue (越).

The story should be familiar to most of us. To put it simply, Fan was the principal advisor of King Goujian (勾踐). After Yue was defeated by King Fuchai (夫差) of Wu (吳), Fan encouraged  Goujian and led a drastic reform of Yue, which, after some ten years of preparation, was able to defeat Fuchai.

The story diverged here: Fan Li resigned from his ministerial post after the victory. He didn't even continue with a political career, but, rather, changed his name to Tao Zhu (陶朱公), and turned himself into a businessman...

...probably the most successful one in our history as well.

As what we learnt from Chow Yun-Fat (周潤發): The perspective is much wider once you slightly step back (退一步海闊天空).

伍員

Shortly after the birthday party, I dined with Z - a friend of mine who was recently fired.

I shall not tell you what happened to my friend. Just that the story of Wu Zixu (伍子胥) came through my mind.

It goes like this:

************************
Wu Zixu was the second son of Wu She (伍奢), the chief advisor of the crown prince Jian of the state of Chu (楚). During a political struggle, Wu She was accused of setting plots against the kind of Chu, and was sentenced to death. Before his execution, Wu She was forced to send a letter to his sons, Wu Shang (伍尚) and Zixu, and asked them to save him from the prison. While both realized that this was a trap, Wu Shang decided to die with his father. Zixu, promising revenge, fled to the state of Wu (吳).

In Wu (吳), Zixu became the chief advisor (like his father!) of King Helü (闔閭). Under the leadership of Zixu and Sun Tzu (孫武), Wu's army had a determining victory over Chu (楚) in the Battle of Boju (柏舉之戰). After entering the abandoned capital of Chu, Zixu exhumed the corpse of the king of Chu, and gave it three hundred lashes as vengeance.

So far so good?

After King Helü died, Zixu continued to be the advisor of Helü's successor, King Fuchai (夫差). Zixu just wanted to stick to his job. He saw the danger of King Goujian (勾踐) of Yue (越) and advised  Fuchai to conquer Yue.

But no. In short, Zixu was suicided by Fuchai.

PS. You see? Passive suicide has a long history of practice in our home country!