Sustain

To go one step further, in addition to the cooked food, banquet organizers do not have to worry about leftover of raw material. For example, if you want to prepare a dish that needs two spoonful of salted shrimp paste, go buy a whole bottle - although you will have no idea where would the rest of the bottle become after the feast.

(One real example I encounter just now is I need one-third a pack of bacon for my hamburger steak, and, therefore, I bought one. I end up splitting the rest of the pack into two halves for separate dishes some days later - one sliced and stir-fried with snow peas, another minced with broccoli.)

You think what I mention is a trivial matter? Quite true. Nonetheless, it illustrates the fundamental difference in the skill required for a project (or event) organizer and an institute executive - or the founder and successor of a country.

For football lovers, it is also the difference between Jose Mourinho and Alex Ferguson.

One-off

Even for two lovers of cookery, there is yet another subtle difference between one who prepares an exquisite feast for a special event and another who has to arrange family meals for five, twice a day, seven days a week, three weeks non-stop.

To me, the latter is both more challenging and satisfying.

(Thank goodness, that's also what I had to do in the recent days.)

Yes, the former is no easy task and needs a whole lot of planning - a suitable menu, purchase of raw material, utilization of stoves (and oven) as well as utensils. However, there is one distinct problem not to be worried by a banquet holder: leftover. For that reason, it is a common phenomenon to prepare excessive food for a party, and, how to tackle the food left behind? Who cares!?

PS. If you are not convinced, go ask the maid of any house that holds a event of such kind recently.

Subprime

There are several reasons for my preference of ingredients of fair rather than superb quality for my cookery.

Well, to begin with, I was brought up from the grass-root class and could not afford any expensive treat until I graduated from the medical school. (For example, shark fin to me on those days was nothing more than a kind of sticky soup in a wedding banquet.)

More importantly, everything has its value. Although it is great to eat A5 wagyu (和牛) and blue fin tuna, you cannot reasonably expect they are the only kind of beef and fish to feed everyone on earth. Not only is their supply limited and would be exhausted shortly; there are wagyu of lower grades and tuna from less distinct families that are not only edible but have reasonable flavor when appropriately treated.

To put it simply, chefs from a Michelin three-star restaurant turn ingredient of superb quality into exquisite dishes, but I am more impressed by people who can make the best use of a limited provision.

Cookery

I must say I may have been slightly harsh to the chef. After all, restaurants in a theme park are meant for satisfying the stomach rather than the taste bud of their visitors. Nonetheless, I did quite a bit of cooking during my (maid's) holiday, and should be in the position of criticizing other chefs.

On our way back, Vivian said with a casual tone, "It is an interesting coincidence that both gold medalists of your class love cookery."

I nodded. She was talking about my classmate TS, she actually mentioned that comment several times in the past - whenever we talked about kitchen matters.

"Similar as it appears on the surface, the difference of you two is equally remarkable," my wife went on, "Both of you are obsessive with all minor details. However, our classmate insists on top quality material. His motto is Food could never be too fine (食不厭精，膾不厭細). On the other hand, you are happy with ordinary ingredients and, I dare say, have a special interest in leftovers!"

I smiled and said to myself, "Very true. The difference reflects our personality as well."

Rice

After a whole morning of exertion (yes, waiting in line is kind of an exertion - if you have to do it with two kids, not to say being submerged into a flood of strong people), we lunched in a small restaurant of the theme park.

We ordered a pizza, some spaghetti, and a plate of fried rice. Well, you could imagine the quality if a restaurant could serve all of them. But, no. I could not imagine - at least for that very last item. As soon as a few grains of it rested on my taste bud, I told Vivian with a bitter smile, "This got to be one of the three specimens of fried rice that have the most horrible taste in my life..."

And I am both right and wrong. On careful reflection, the outstanding dish that I was having should be the first runner up in the competition. (The champion being the legendary experience I had with our previous hospital canteen - shortly before its contract expired.)

But I am wrong. The taste was not horrible- it has no taste at all.

I was almost impulsive enough to play TK, the previous professor of medicine from the other side of the harbour, hold the collar of the chef, and say with a wicked smile, "Soy sauce doesn't cost much, does it?"

Lost

As you may expect, I took my two princesses to one of the famous local theme parks during the holiday.

This is the first time Adler ever meets her Disney friends, and it has been three years since Euterpe last visited this place. Unlike the usual hot and humid summer in Hong Kong, it was a cloudy weekday shortly after a typhoon - the perfect weather for some outdoor activity.

The girls were, of course, overjoyed. On the contrary, Vivian and I were disappointed on numerous occasions. The place was not full - it was literally over-flooded with visitors from a strong country. To a people who is so poor that the only thing they have is money, queues are for jumping, rules are for bending, and the strength of their vocal cord is regarded as representing their argument. No wonder such a country has the largest population on world: Her citizens are exceptional adaptable to the environment; they can eat anything, rest anywhere, and pee anytime (for example, next to the Mad Hatter's tea cup as we found in this incident).

A lost civilization.

Pray

The young man was mute; he did not know how to respond.

After a long time, the priest tapped on his shoulder and said, "My child. Do kneel down. Let's pray for your sin.

Be humble if you are correct, for correct may not be right, right may not be just, and just may still hurt innocent others. Only our Lord knows what is just, and we should not assume we understand him.

Be thankful if you are wrong, for you have the opportunity to come to His house and ask for forgiveness. For His kindness, he knows wrong may not have a wicked intention, and the soul under the wrong may be pure.

In God we trust. Amen."

Reason

The priest takes a deep breath and says, "My child, may I know why you did all these?"

"My lord, I am worried. As you say, with time, the hole may become a big crack and ruin our city. To add oil to the fire, the hole seems so big and obvious to me but nobody seems to have noticed it!"

"But now you think it is just a tiny furrow on a piece of brick?"

"No, I still think it is a sizable defect. The officials say that they notice it all along and it is an inevitable problem for an enormous construction like the dam; they will mend it later, but it takes time."

The priest sighed, "My child, not only have you sinned, you have also done something very silly. Don't you know why no one says in the public that there is a hole on the dam although it seems rather obvious? From now on, if it does ever collapse, it will be all your fault!"

Tell

The priest remains silent for a moment to digest the story of the young man.

"My child, do you mean it is a self-fulfilling prophecy - since you tell everyone there is a problem, you create the problem?"

"Yes and no. I suppose if I say nothing, the hole may be noticed by other people who pass by - it is not that difficult to notice anyway. However, since I say it in the public, the hole is enlarging very much quicker than it should be."

"My child, if you say nothing, the hole remains a time-bomb of our city."

"Yes, sir. That may be the case. But, rather than saying it aloud to everyone in the market, I should tell the engineer who built the dam. After all, he is my friend."

"In that case, do you mean there are two things you have done wrong: You make the hole bigger, and you hurt a friend of yours?"

The young man nodded.

Confession

A young man goes to see a priest for confession.

"My lord, I have sinned," the man begins.

"My child, what happened?"

"I tell everyone that there is a hole in the dam," the man continued.

"Are you talking about the dam at the bank outside our city?"

"Yes, sir. I find a small hole there and say it aloud in the market."

"If there is really a hole, with time it may become a major leak and ruin our city. What have you done wrong?"

"My lord, since I draw the attention to a good many people, they all go and try probbing the hole. As a result, it has become a major leak by now! Things would be very much different if I have kept my mouth shut."

Advice

You may ask: Where are we getting at?

Simple. If you need regular advise, the best strategy is to find a good advisor and always follow the suggestion. After all, even if you are fully capable of picking the best advice from a jungle of proposals, it is much less troublesome to make the decision once and for all by choosing the best advisor. It goes without saying we should regularly assess the performance of our advisor and make change in case necessary.

The scenario is, you know, similar to investing in the stock market: True investors focus their effort on a few good companies and hold for quite a while. Speculators study many stocks and believe they could predict, amongst thousands of the listed companies, which one would have its price boost up in the coming week.

PS. What I outlined is also the true purpose of a democratic system: We want a bright chap to take charge of all civic issues. Don't ask for our opinion on each and every trivial matters.

Best

The situation is simple for a genius. He has his own idea and does not discuss the problem with someone else. He make the decision, and things settle.

But, let's face it, if 20 idiots come together and discuss a problem, it is not the best opinion that would stand out - but the one made by the most outspoken (alas, maybe I should say loudspeaking) member.

What about if the decision is to be made by someone else?

First, let's assume this someone else, who is usually at a higher position, has no idea of himself. I must say that's not the most common scenario as it is highly probable that he is just another idiot. Otherwise he should have his own idea and made the decision already.

If he asks advise from a single genius, he should follow the advise and there's no problem what-so-ever.

But, once again, that's not usually the case - even if there is a genius sitting next to him all the time.

Alas, you imagine that much: If he asks opinion from a group of people and receives several different opinions, he will not pick the best suggestion - but the one make by the advisor with the most outstanding presentation skill.

Decision

Some of you may argue if a combination of three ordinary person cannot beat a wise man , we can hold a big meeting of 10 or 20 people - the more of them, the more likely they would come up with some brilliant suggestion.

For example, if you have 20 idiots holding a meeting, in theory, they are as good as a genius who has the probability of 96.6% in giving a better opinion than any one of them on any single matter.

Of course, the first hurdle for this committee to be successful is: all idiots should be thinking independently - and all have the opportunity of fully expressing their opinion.

But, that's not what I find intriguing. The eternal difficulty of a meeting is: Who is going to make the decision?

There are, by the law of physics, two possibilities: The decision is made by the one (or group) that make the suggestion, or by someone else.

Misconception

Contrary to an autistic bookworm like me, many of our administrators are all for meetings. A common romantic reason that they put up is: Three idiots are more wise than a genius (三個臭皮匠，勝過一個諸葛亮).

Alas, this statement appears absurd as soon as you translate it into English.

Of course there are good reasons for our forming of this opinion: True genius is rare. By probability, it is more likely to have a good idea coming from one of the three ordinary persons than a seemingly clever one.

There is actually a mathematical proof for this phenomenon. In short, on any given matter, if the probability of the clever person to give a better opinion than an idiot is 70%, the combination of three idiots who think independently could almost turn the table around - they can give a better opinion than the clever person in over 65% of the cases.

Some of you may notice there is a tipping point in this case. If a wise person has an 80% probability of giving a better opinion than an ordinary one, combination of three of the latter will not beat the wise man, whose chance of winning is now 51.2%.

Meeting

I am recently on leave to take care of my children. My housemaid is away and my mum is recovering from a surgery. Although housework is no more simple than my clinical duty, I have the pleasure of not attending many meetings.

Many of you may know I have a hereditary phobia of meeting. To be exact, I am not against meeting in its original sense - or its original purposes, which are:

• discussion
• decision
• dissemination of information

Unfortunately, many meetings are hold for very different reasons:

• declaration of power and ownership (by calling a meeting of a good many people, the chairperson shows to everyone that he or she is in power)
• illusion of responsibility (when the decision of a single person - usually the chairperson - is passed by a meeting, it becomes everyone's responsibility in case anything goes wrong)
• peer pressure (when the chairperson cannot convince a single key person on the decision, a easy way to get around the hurdle is calling a big meeting so that a whole lot of unrelated and poorly informed persons agree to the decision)

The sobering truth is, partly for that very last purpose, we are often called to attend meaningless meetings.

Demeaning

The army general went on with his speech:

"Unfortunately, although being viewed as leaders, administrators in the Pentagon or the Capitol may not be successful naval officers. Many of them are forced to change their path to administration simply because they serve no meaningful function in the Navy. Oh, that's beyond the point. What I mean is, the Elite Program is imposing a value - or an impression - to the young people that those so-called leaders at Washington are the real creme de la creme, while front line work of coastal defence and serving in aircraft carriers are only meant for those who do less well in the Scholastic Assessment Test."

"But good leaders are not only the ones staying in Washington; we need the same kind of people to take charge of our fleet and coastal bases." The principal said.

"Exactly. But, front line military tasks dominate their schedule, and leading or administrative work occupies no more than 20% of their time. As a thick-head old school soldier, I shall prefer to have the dozen of high flying students in the Naval Academy - or the West Point - to focus their effort and become trustworthy front line military officers. If chances occur later in their career and they need to take up some role of supervising or leading, there are ample of ways that they could acquire that extra skill."

Purpose

The army general remained mute for an eternity - he was lost in his own thought. Although he did not want to hurt the friendship with his classmate, he decided it was necessary to say something more:

"Sir, you make a point. I must say what you mentioned is the first reason that came to my mind when I heard of your Program, but it is not the only - and not even the most important - reason for my hesitation."

"So, what else?"

"It is the subconscious demeaning of the value of the Navy."

"How do you come up with that idea!?" The principal was, by now, absolutely irritated.

"My dear friend, in my humble and probably biased opinion, the primary purpose of the Naval Academy is to train up people to defend our coast and secure the peace of the water-world. Yes, a few of them may end up as administrators and settle in the Pentagon or the Capitol - but they are the minority."

"I agree with your point so far, but it is exactly for that reason we want our best graduates to take up these important posts."

Lie

The senior naval officer remained silent for a while, and, then, rather suddenly, he shook his head and said, "My friend, you seem very much against our Elite Program. What's the problem?"

The seasoned soldier was mute. He tried to convince himself the question of his classmate was meant for seeking an answer rather than being a personal accusation. For a moment he felt fortunate to be living in a democratic country with some freedom of expressing his opinion, and not Siberia or its south. Nonetheless, he found it a good idea not to challenge the friendship with his classmate any further, and no response was the best response.

His friend seemed to understand and decided to answer on his behalf, "I think I can understand your worry. You find it difficult to accept our promise to new students of this Program that they will become leaders and admirals after graduating from the Academy. We all know that's not true and actually impossible. All admirals come from the bottom rank; they have to work themselves up the hierarchy by their sweat and blood. There is no one-click fast track method. After all, it is the decision of the Department of Defense to appointment someone as an admiral, and, as the principal of the Naval Academy, I have no say on such a matter. Although we use the Program as a gadget to attract good students, we are giving them a false hope. As a good old honest soldier, you cannot accept our approach - you think we are lying!"

Alumna

The eyes of the principal appeared hollow. It seemed plain obvious that he did not know the difference between useful and interesting.

"I don't quite get what you mean," he said.

"What I mean is: Why should some students choose the Naval Academy and the others the West Point? There are a number of factors; many of them we can do nothing to change. One important factor that is modifiable, however, is the experience of their friends and alumna - or comments by word of mouth if you like. The key misconception is: Which alumna would a secondary school student ask an opinion?"

"Alas..." The naval officer was beginning to see what he friend was getting at.

"You see? It's not going to be the ones who have graduated from a military school 20 years ago and is now holding a prominent position in the Department of Defense. Since they are green, they will ask someone that they have a personal contact. Obviously it would be alumna who are one or two years more senior than they are - which means the first or second year military school students, who themselves have very little idea what is useful and what not. If they are enjoying and doing something interesting - or if they see some others jump the queue and they are wasting their time, they will certainly tell their junior schoolmates."

Slip

The principal was slightly taken aback by the comment of his friend.

'That's not fair!" He almost yelled, "We've been putting up so much effort to improve the program of year one!"

"Have you? From the point of view of an outsider, what the Naval Academy does is a Freudian slip of tongue - or slip of action, whatever - that you guys agree the first year in the Academy is entirely useless. I'm afraid even if your plan of attracting the handful of very top students is successful - and I have doubt on that - you can be sure for the rest of the boys that you recruit for your regular program will not be as good as the ones who joined the West Point. To them, their logic is simple: If they are not in that flimsy layer of creme de la creme de la creme, why should they waste one year - not to say the degree six years down the road may appear inferior."

"The year one program of the West Point isn't any better than ours." The naval officer murmured.

"That may be the case, but they do not come out and tell everyone that the first year of their program is dispensable. From what I could observe, the West Point is not trying to make their year one program useful, but, rather, they make it interesting. That makes a whole lot of profound difference."

Useless

"I must say I am slightly skeptical with the plan." The general appeared grim.

"Er...?" The naval officer was startled.

"Come on, my friend, I know what you're trying to do," the senior soldier tapped the shoulder of the principal, "Yes, those in the Elite Program would have a grandiose feeling - but what about all the other regular year one naval students?"

"Are you suggesting that they would be upset and feel inferior? That should not be a problem. The regular program is the same between our Academy and the West Point. After all, what we want to do is to give some pride and honor to a small group of high flying students, but not to demoralize the ordinary ones."

"No, what I mean is, in my opinion, the Elite Program is telling everyone - regular students, potential students, and the general public - that the first year of your regular program is entirely useless, and, therefore, could be do away with without affecting the subsequent naval study or the quality of the graduating officer!"

Extra

(The discussion between the army general and the principal of the Naval Academy continued.)

"Since you know our plan so well, what do you think about our plan of attracting high flying students?" The senior naval officer asked.

"I'm not sure I know it well enough," the general twisted his lips, "I hear everything through the grapevine and the arrangement seems to have changed so often that I have difficulty to convince myself the version I know is going to be the ultimate plan."

"Alas..." The principal blushed a little, "I'm sure the one you heard last week is the final version."

"In that case the one on the web site is not..." The soldier murmured. But, in no time, he realized he was not in the position to make such a comment. To divert the attention of his friend, he quickly cleared his throat and said, "Do you mean the Elite Program? I mean, under your new program, really good students will join the second year of the academy instead of the first; these students will still take six years to finish with the study, but, instead of doing the first year, they will have an extra year of special study after the regular curriculum so that they could make themselves booming admirals in the future. Is that right?"

The principal nodded eagerly.

Academy

Frequent visitors of this site may remember a series of interesting discussions between the army general and his cabinet secretary. (See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2012/05/colonel.html, http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2011/03/hour.html, and so forth.) Recently, the army general met a classmate of his, who was newly appointed as the principal of the Naval Academy.

"My friend, how's everything going?" The general asked.

"What a nicely put question!" The senior naval officer sighed, "That's exactly the problem: Everything is going in its own direction and it is impossible to make them cooperate or cohesive!"

"I hear that the Naval Academy is going to start a new program to train up budding captains and admirals..." The soldier suggested.

"Quite right. I suppose you are sharp enough to see through what we're trying to do?"

"Oh, yes, of course. It is absolutely necessary to put up new gadgets to attract new naval officers to your Academy. If not, why don't they aim for the army and join the West Point - which has a longer history and is a better established institute?"

杜鵑

Why should I choose this phrase?

To begin with, it is the pen-name I actually plan to use in case I have to write anything outside medicine.

No, I'm not primarily referring to rhododendron (杜鵑花), the flower, which certainly has a special meaning to graduates of my university - it is the symbol of examination. (I decided to use this name long before I took up the arrangement of examination in 1996.)

It is cuckoo (杜鵑鳥), the bird, that is in my mind.

杜鵑，望帝春心所托。

Go read Li Shangyin (李商隱).

PS. I come to realize some years later that Kafka, in Czech, means western jackdaw (寒鴉).

What an honor to be in the same class.

Choice

You know what. If I have to do away with The Scream, I do consider a few alternatives as my profile picture:

• the official picture of Franz Kafka
• a picture of Baruch Spinoza
• a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes
• a book cover with Philo Vance
• the cover of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖)
• my calligraphy of The Poem of Seven Sorrows (七哀詩) by Wang Can (王粲)
• a trilobite (三葉蟲)

But, above all, my all time favorite is a two-word phrase in Chinese: 杜鵑.

PS. After all these hassles, I found out that it was the problem of the hyperlink to my original profile picture, which was broken when I updated my computer folders. Unfortunately, I lost the previous version of The Scream, and I am forced to use a new one.

Cover

Discerning visitors of this site may notice I changed the profile picture recently.

Oh, it is still The Scream of Edvard Munch, just that the colour tone of the picture is slightly different from the previous one. (For reasons that I use it as the profile picture, see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2008/02/scream.html) However, the sequence of event was slightly more complicated than it appears.

It goes like this: In the past few weeks, I noted that my profile picture did not show up in the blog site. I first thought it was a server or software problem, but it didn't resolve after a period of observation. My next working diagnosis was there are copyright issues and The Scream could not be used as the profile picture.

Therefore, I tried to find a new picture to represent myself.

But, what should I use?

PS. Oh, no, not my Facebook picture.

Possessed

On my way home after watching the university life of Mike Wazowski, my mind kept thinking of an inconspicuous character briefly appeared in Darkness God (黒竜王), a story in the all time classic comics of Buichi Terasawa (寺沢武一), Cobra.

That's an old man whom Cobra found living in the gigantic tummy of a robotic whale. He had an all-too-common face - except wearing a wig that looks like an octopus on his head. He was well mannered, and always appeared to be helpful to passers by... although he was actually putting up secret plots against the space pirate.

But, as the story unfolds, it turns out that all through his life, the old man was possessed by his wig - an octopus-like alien. His thought, his emotion, and his behaviour, were all governed by that horrible creature on his head.

The sobering truth is, without the haunting wig, the man did not know how to live and how to think. In short, he had no soul - just a moving specimen of flesh and skeleton, and he died shortly afterwards.

Alas, are we wearing wigs?

Mike

I finally took my two princesses to watch Monsters University.

I knew the plot well in advance from several sources, and was slightly skeptical to begin with. The original Monster Inc was so impressive that I used to have high hope on the sequel (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2011/05/m2.html). Unfortunately, the movie is meant for kids and there is no hidden message this time as far as I could see.

But, it does not mean that the film is totally devoid of dark humour. All through that two hours in the cinema, I kept thinking how Mike feels when he comes to realize what company he is working for and what dream he has been so passionate about ever since he was a child. Unlike Sulley, Mike has no familial advantage but is a frantic supporter of the company. If he does not find out the truth, he will continue to be one of those we find in the crowd, waving a small red book under the poisonous sun. He is born to be used and then discarded by Mr. Waternoose.

Or, if he does find out, he is the one to be expired in an exceptionally long May.

Galileo

My recent leisure reading is Galileo No Kuno (伽利略的苦惱) by Higashino Keigo (東野圭吾).

This is a collection of short stories around Yugawa Manabu (湯川學) - not my first book about the remarkable physicist. As always, this little paperback proves an excellent reading for entertainment, although I am not particularly impressed by the hardcore details of the logical deduction.

Of course, there is an inherent problem of having a professor of physics as the detective - you can call it the information bias. To put it simply: If a crime is committed via some elaborated physics or mechanics, the guilty person must have the necessary knowledge and raw material in order to construct and execute the evil plan. For example, half of the criminals in this book of Kuno are experts of physics or engineering.

As Hamlet said: For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.

解說

各位議員，各位巿民:

今日我希望喺呢度同大家開誠公佈，一次過交代我件事。

首先，我嚴正聲明，經過多次嘅轉售，啲地依家係我太太嘅家人持有。(嗰個家人就係我。)注意，嗰啲人唔係我嘅家人，(我自己當然唔算係我嘅家人。我大學時有讀新亞大一通識：李天命嘅思考方法。）我太太自己亦冇任何權益。(啲權益全部係我嘅。)一直以來，我太太參與土地買賣，目的都晤係賺錢，（而係為咗幫我引開傳媒嘅注意。）佢其實亦從來冇一分一毫落過袋。（啲錢全部係入我袋。）

至於啲地，我重覆一次，係買嚟作我屋企嘅休憩用途。(我屋企嘅休憩消閒活動就係土地買賣。好似你哋啲升斗市民玩大富翁咁，不過我用真地、起真樓之嘛。）我同意啲地買嘅時候好平，為咗釋除公衆嘅疑慮，我打算盡快搵完全唔關事嘅第三者買咗佢。（升咗咁多，梗係搵人出貨。）我亦承諾以後唔會投資土地買賣，（但會買賣樓宇、公司、契約、之類之類。）同埋其他同我公職有衝突嘅生意。（有人阻頭阻勢先有衝突。你地俾我横行無忌就冇得衝突。）

最後，我想同大家講，我唔會辭職。一直以來，我擔任公職嘅目的都係服務香港人。（我服務我自己。我係香港人吖，我冇話我服務全部香港人喎。）我其實好謙卑，對各位傳媒朋友嘅質問，我都會想起約伯書裡面嘅教導嚟回應。（係約伯書第38章、第11節。）大家可能覺得我喺度唧牙膏式咁講嘢，係玩緊語言偽術。我同意我嘅措辭係比較華麗，呢個係因為我真心覺得講嘢係一種呃。

**********************
Szeto's note: Job 38:11 - Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. In Cantonese, it could be translated as: 好咧喎，唔好再追問落去咧喎。

PS. I must admit, as an old boy of the New Asia College, I am slightly agitated. I am sure if Ch'ien Mu (錢穆) is still alive, his response will be no more gentle than mine.

辯辭

各位議員，各位巿民:

今日我希望喺呢度同大家開誠公佈，一次過交代我件事。

首先，我嚴正聲明，經過多次嘅轉售，啲地依家係我太太嘅家人持有。注意，嗰啲人唔係我嘅家人，我太太自己亦冇任何權益。一直以來，我太太參與土地買賣，目的都晤係賺錢，佢其實亦從來冇一分一毫落過袋。

至於啲地，我重覆一次，係買嚟作我屋企嘅休憩用途。我同意啲地買嘅時候好平，為咗釋除公衆嘅疑慮，我打算盡快搵完全唔關事嘅第三者買咗佢。我亦承諾以後唔會投資土地買賣，同埋其他同我公職有衝突嘅生意。

最後，我想同大家講，我唔會辭職。一直以來，我擔任公職嘅目的都係服務香港人。我其實好謙卑，對各位傳媒朋友嘅質問，我都會想起約伯書裡面嘅教導嚟回應。大家可能覺得我喺度唧牙膏式咁講嘢，係玩緊語言偽術。我同意我嘅措辭係比較華麗，呢個係因為我真心覺得講嘢係一種art。

**********************
Szeto's note: Since the speech is almost entirely in Cantinese, we have reasons to believe the last word is only misheard as English.

It got to be 呃。