唐閣

羅君班聚乃設於尖沙咀唐閣。地點、菜單俱為病理鄧教授所訂。儕輩中多有嗜杯中物者，席上選酒便由見誠醫生和劉班代作主。余量淺，醍醐椒漿，殊非區區所辨。然菜餚精粗，縱非老饕，亦可濫竽，月旦一二。

先上是海蜇吉濱鮮鮑。吉濱者，即日本岩手縣吉濱，盛產乾鮑，以味濃肉厚聞名，即俗稱之吉品也。海嘯後，大概乾鮑不復有，為生計故有鮮鮑出口。據前輩所言，真正吉品乾鮑上有一深痕，乃矖繩所印，鮮鮑產地，卻難以考究矣。平心而論，此品食味固不及乾鮑鮮濃，然肉質腍卻不失咬頭，配以清爽海蜇，作為前菜卻又不錯。

之後是油泡蝦球螺片。蝦爽，螺不靱，食味亦佳。奇怪是碟邊有蝦醬蠔油各一滴，此乃傳統玻璃蝦球伴碟，蓋製作時蝦肉鮮味已洗漂淨盡，故必須濃味醬料補足。新鮮食材如此，或是蛇足， 或是掌廚者自信所欠也。

再上是魚湯浸班球。自筵席無翅成風，湯品便需巧思。傳統作法，班球乃應油泡，然之前蝦球螺片已用此法，放湯一保肉嫩，二增其鮮，三好飲者不嗜湯，亦不失高明之舉。小人之心，或曰魚湯之中，班球質素便難以細辨，此又無非度君子之腹也。

繼之是鮑汁鮮腐雜菌，菇香而腐皮吸味，倒是意外出色。南乳吊燒雞皮脆而肉質亦佳，只是南乳味略淡，倒亦合格有餘。單尾是薑汁芥蘭和牛油果帶子炒飯，前者爽嫩，後者乾身而作料幼細，也俱不錯。反而甜品桂花酒釀啤梨甚酸，花香酒味亦無濟於事，倒成敗筆。不過總的來說，此餐仍是瑕不掩瑜。海外知己，天涯比鄰，乎復何求？

Half

While I was impressed by what TS said, my classmate decided to change his topic.

"I must say I should not be too harsh to the younger generation. You know, I have lax up a bit in the recent years. Now, I'm only running my clinic in the morning." He said.

"You're doing private practice! How could that be? Wouldn't you loss your patients?" NF, a consultant pediatrician in another hospital, asked.

"True, but many of them would rather adjust their own schedule to fit mine. The bottom line is, I do not aim to earn an astronomical lot, but just a sufficient amount that allows a comfortable life. We are all nearly fifty, and I would take the time to do things that I love - before I am too old to do so!"

He is right again.

All of a sudden, I think of the book The 4-Hour Workweek of Timothy Ferriss.

Determined

(Our discussion went on.)

“NT, Although I have a gut feeling that you are correct, we should not jump to the conclusion that young people nowadays are less enduring. It is equally possible that we are seeing a selection bias and the problem is the recruitment system on its own.” TS said.

“What do you mean?” We all asked.

My friend began his lecture, “You see? When I was a teenager, Professor Y – the famous professor of endocrinology from the island – came to my school and gave a career talk. But, you know, she didn’t tell us how rosy it is to become a doctor. In fact, quite the opposite – she emphasized that life in a medical school is one on a frying pan, while physicians are actually living in the fire. Endless work, bureaucracy, lack of prospect, and what not. Her conclusion was we must think twice before considering medicine as our future career. For the few of us who were not scared by what she said, we were all very determined!”

We were speechless, and TS went on, “And, what do we have now? Professors from the two medical schools give career talk here and there, imagining that their marketing show would attract good school students to study medicine. However, by highlight the glory and concealing the dark side, the seed of an unrealistic expectation is planted. They want to be high fliers and do not expect to suffer…”

As always, TS has a point.

Tough

I met a few most out-spoken classmates in the dinner, and it was inevitable to have our discussion touching on the recruitment of medical students.

“I agree it is slightly controversial to increase the proportion of non-JUPAS students. In my own opinion, it is not a bad idea. To say the least, it guarantees to a certain extend the quality of the recruited students. After all, the island medical school probably gets a better share of the good JUPAS or DSE students.” WL said. He sent his son to a boarding school in England some years ago.

“That may be true, but I’m slightly skeptical. Although non-JUPAS students may have very good academic performance, most of them come from affluent families and, because of the very nature of the non-JUPAS teaching, they are generally not as tough – which is a very important character of a good doctor.” TS said. His daughters are studying in a local international school.

“I’m afraid that’s not a problem only amongst non-JUPAS students,” NT said, “Secondary school children are, in general, less enduring nowadays. I believe it is the problem of our society rather than the JUPAS non-JUPAS system.”

Memory

Shortly after helping to update our list of recommended textbook, I joined a small gathering of my university classmates. Our good friend SL was back from the States for a short stay, and it has been at least 15 years since I last met him.

(SL did appeared briefly in my blog some time ago. See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2013/03/cooperate.html)

The event was organized by, in my own terminology, our GOLF club - gentlemen only, ladies forbidden. As you would expect, gathering of this kind means we settle at some exquisite place; everyone sitting around a table (we had so may people this time that there were actually two tables), followed by a traditional Chinese dinner.

*********************
“It really feels great to meet so many good friends,” SL said, “You know, it’s such a long time since I went to the States, but, looking at you guys now, everything seems just happened yesterday!”

“Alas, that’s because you have an extraordinary memory!” One of us said. And that’s exactly the remarkable capability of our friend – he could probably remember every detail that he read or encountered.

“May be, or may be not,” our friend blushed a little, “I suppose we all remember a good part of our enjoyable past. For example, we will never forget what we did in our graduation trip.”

“Do we?” TC, now a consultant orthopedic surgeon, said with a smile, “Yes, I can still recall with whom I went for the trip, but, seriously, I cannot recollect where we went!”

“How could that be?” SL was surprised, “You went to Prague, then Vienna, then Budapest, and finally to Rome…”

We were dumbfounded.

Rubenstein

Shortly after the final MB examination, we were asked to review the list of recommended textbooks to our students.

Seriously, we do not update the list for nearly 10 years. As my colleague LY summarizes the problem succinctly:  If I were a student and see a recommended textbook published 10 years ago, I will immediately put it on my Facebook and laugh at it with all my friends.

*********************
When I was reviewing the list, an item caught my eyes: Lecture Notes on Clinical Medicine by David Rubenstein and David Wayne, 2003 (6th Edition).

I looked it up from Amazon. Everything has changed - including the name of the book. The latest one is Lecture Notes: Clinical Medicine by John R. Bradley, Mark Gurnell, and Diana Wood, 2012 (7th Edition).

I managed to find one and thumb it through. It remains a handy paperback. Nonetheless, the zest of the original Rubenstein has vanished. The famous wide margin at one side of the page has given way to a dense concentrate of text, tables, figures, and bullet points - akin to the life of a modern physician, which gives up the spare time for digestion and reflection to committees and documents.

I decided to cross out this item from our recommended list.

Collapse

(The last OSCE station went on.)

The examiner twisted his lips. In no time he could prove an important hypothesis of Stephen Hawking: black hole could be a miniature existence – the examiner turned his own face into a dark cloud that absorbs all light.

He leaned forward to make sure the student could smell the words that he was about to throw out:

"I know."

While these two words was still echoing in the examination room, the bell rang. The student was saved (or so did the examiner think) and marched out of the room.

All of a sudden, he found his legs trembled. Everything was spinning around. The air was thick as mud.

He collapsed on to the floor.

Observing all these from the room, the examiner came to realize why Margaret Thatcher fell down the stairs at the Great Hall of the People (人民大會堂).

Pronounce

The final examination passed swiftly. In no time, we found ourselves doing the last few minutes for the final round of students.

“Pray sit here,” the examiner, who happened to be a malicious nephrologist, indicated the student, “Look at this ECG. What do you see?”

The student gave the correct answer – he was soaked in sweat.

“What could have caused this problem?”

“Di-ti-ec-sin…” the student mumbled.

“What!?” The malicious examiner raised his voice as well as eyebrows.

“Di-ta-er-xin…” the student muffled; his face turned grey, “Excuse me, I may not have pronounced the word correctly…”

(To be continued.)

Years

I must say although I understand the pragmatic reason of directly recruiting supposedly outstanding school children to the second year of medical study, the argument for this policy is weak.

To put it simply: How many years do it take to train up an ordinary doctor? Most of us had five and we do well. Our friends in America have four, and they are not bad. (Well, most of them.) It is good, and probably a luxury, to have six years, but it is not necessary.

However, the problem at hand is not how many years do we need, but how many are we (the medical school) given? The inconvenient truth is, if we have two groups of students, one doing five years and the other six, that extra year for the latter group must be rather useless, irrespective to what kind of window-dressing you use. In other words, the sentiment is not whether the former group could have a satisfactory training in 5 years (invariable they would), but the old Chinese sayings: The problem is not poverty, but inequality (不患寡而患不均).

Entry

As usual, I had the opportunity during the MB examination to discuss some general issues on student teaching with my colleagues. Although I was trying my best to be evasive, it was inevitable to touch on the forthcoming curriculum reform.

“A major sentiment of our junior students, as far as I know, is the trivial workload during the first year, and its lack of relevance to clinical medicine.” VW said.

“Unfortunately, we can do very little about it.” I shook my head.

“I know what you are getting at.” JW said, “However, contrary what most of you think, students of the Global Stream contribute very little to this problem. There is a sizable number of students – mostly secondary students with an exceptionally high IB score or holders of a first degree – who join the medical school directly to the second year. This is what the university allows.”

Friend

Shortly after the Mother’s Day, we had our final MB examination.

As always, I shall not elaborate here what happened. Everything was smooth. On the first morning, our man from Pluto was back for the examination. During lunch time, I had the rare opportunity of sitting next to him.

“Did you call on M after he came?” He said. M was the boss when I was under training in England. Recently, he came to Hong Kong and took up an important position – and a hot potato – on the other side of the harbour.

“No, I didn’t.” I shook my head, “He must be very busy. I don’t really want to bother him.”

“Oh, for sure he is busy, but I think you should give him a call or something,” the man said, “I dined with him a few days ago; I think he needs some friends.”

Honey

(The Mother’s Day composition homework of Euterpe’s English class.)

Me: Hello! My name is Euterpe. Hey! Baby sister, what are you doing?
Sister: Hey! Why are you calling me baby sister?
M: Because I am writing a creative task.
S: Oh! OK. I’m drawing a picture.
M: Wow! It is a very pretty picture, sister.
S: It is a picture for our mum.
M: Is it for Mother’s Day?
S: Yes, it is my kindergarten’s homework.
M: What is in the picture?
S: I drew some flowers, a butterfly, a bee, and a beehive.
M: Why did you draw a beehive?
S: I needed a place to keep honey for the bees.
M: Would Winnie the Pooh come and steal the honey?
S: Don’t worry. I do not know how to draw Pooh.

Party

While considering how much stress our students could handle, I met my friend KM and he asked me a question that I believe he did not expect an answer:

Why is the white coat party for our graduates cancelled?

Of course I do not know. Not only do I not know the reason, I didn't actually hear of the news before KM told me.

For those who are not familiar with our tradition, white coat party is a small celebration that the faculty holds every year shortly after the result of the final examination is announced. All students who pass the examination would attend with their white coats. A few star teachers - JW, PL, and so forth - would, traditionally, give brief talks on some pragmatic topics, such as professionalism, career planning, and management of personal finance. These are followed by wine and cheese and snacks and photos and whatever. If the graduation ceremony in December signifies the end of their university life, this party is a symbol of their becoming doctors.

Another classical example of taking away a negligible gain turns into a considerable (psychological) loss.

PS. I learn later from JW that a more formal white coat ceremony will be held instead of the traditional party. That sounds a good move - although our new graduates may see it differently.

Neglect

You may say the radiologist does not intend to have such a meaning. To go one step forward, we clinicians who read the report know that he is just being protective and should not react excessively.

However, no layman would take that statement lightly. For that reason, practising physicians would be forced to go ahead with further (futile) investigation to exclude that remote possibility. We know that if we do nothing, patients and their family would have enough ground to accuse our negligence - because the possibility of tumor is mentioned in the original report. Ironically, if the possibility of tumor is not mentioned in the report, neither the radiologist nor the clinician could easily (not impossible, of course) be challenged even if the patient really turns out to have a tumor.

You see? The scenario is not a medical problem, but an economic one, or an illustrative case of the game theory: A trivial gain of one side is transferred to an excessive cost of the other. Unlike the classical paradox, the relationship between the two sides is one-way, and the receiving side could not have any gain (or minimize the risk) by shifting the burden back - although we can pass it on and let the patient or the health care system to shoulder the cost.

Risk

For visitors who are practising medicine, you may think my concern is an exaggeration, and there are good reasons to issue comprehensive reports that mention each and every possibility.

First, this is a form of protective medicine. By listing all possibilities, the radiologist (or pathologist in other circumstances) could save themselves from the risk of missing a diagnosis, which may have a legal consequence.

Moreover, if you are in the private practice, it is always a good idea to suggest additional diagnosis to be excluded. Uncertainty means opportunity; anxiety creates business.

Unfortunately, this approach often backfires. By saying “there are inflammatory changes”, we understand by common sense that a tumor could be so small that it is not detected. However, by pointing out the very fact that “a tumor could be so small that it is not detected” in the report, the one who writes the report implies that he does believe there is a real risk of having a small tumor.

Exclude

(A private radiology report that I receive recently – the clinical detail is rather irrelevant.)

There is some inflammatory changes with surrounding edema. The appearance is compatible with acute infection. Differential diagnosis include chronic infection and immunological conditions. Although there is no definite mass, the possibility of a small neoplasm could not be excluded.

**************************
For those who are actively practising medicine, you may find the above report familiar. It is, in fact, the standard format of many radiologists to present the list of differential diagnosis. Nonetheless, at the receiving side, my nerve is touched. To put it simply, let's consider the following scenario:

A girl asks her friend, "Do you think my boyfriend is flirting around in the party?"

It would make a whole not of difference for the friend to reply I didn't see anything and I didn't see anything, but it does not mean that he is not doing so.

Concert

During a casual conversation, my wife asked me, “There is going to be a concert of P. Are you interested?”

P is a pop singer who used to be very popular when I was a university student. In the jargon of my own profession, she is still active in practice. To describe the situation cynically, she is living on the fame she earned in the last millennium.

“Alas, I must admit I used to be her fans, but I would prefer listening to her CD or YouTube.” I said.

“Why?”

“First, I am autistic and would try my best to avoid the crowd,” I explained, “In reality, if you take aside the heat and atmosphere, the quality of performance in CD is always better than in the concert because editing and all other electronic gadgets are possible in the former. As to P, her zest has slowly vanished and technique eroded with time. No, I definitely will not go for her concert; I would keep her as she was twenty or thirty years ago in my memory, rather than taking the risk of ruining… whatever.”

All of a sudden, my wife found my inexplicable.

Stress

Shortly after the year 2 examination, I attended a talk on child psychology, arranged by Euterpe’s school.

The lecture was amazingly good. Most of the points are well known but, to say the least, brilliantly presented.  You may not agree with the speaker’s theory (in that case you will be a supporter of teaching by a stick), but I’m sure we parents, without exception, would agree with the idea of spending more time with our children when they are young – before they have their own idea and live in their own world.

*********************
Talking about children education, the main theory nowadays is, of course, to emphasize on reward and praising and avoid punishment. In short, children should not face too much stress; homework should not occupy too much of their time so that they have a chance to play and explore and cultivate their creativity.

I must say I agree with the idea entirely. Nonetheless, I also feel uneasy and confused. If primary school children are too young to handle stress and heavy work, when are they mature enough to do so? In recent years, I hear many educationalists saying that our medical students should not face too much stress and so forth. Are we doing good to our students, or are we treating them as primary school kids?

Transparent

"You see no difference?" The cloud appears surprised, "Let's ask ourselves, how is the visible spectrum of wavelength defined?"

The sun and the rainbow look at each other in a vacant expression.

"The visible spectrum is defined by people's eyes," the cloud goes on with his lecture, "And eyes are the product of evolution - they are meant for detecting signals of electromagnetic waves that could pass through the atmosphere. In other words, the sequence is not people could see certain things, the air is transparent, and therefore people could see everything. What actually happened is the atmosphere filters off a whole lot of signals and moulds the eyes over the years, so that people could only see what they are allowed to see - and they have no idea what they have left out."

The sun remains silent for a long while, and then he says slowly, "That sounds a brilliant strategy of management - or leadership."

"Yes. Of course it depends on who uses it."

Air

The sun and the rainbow are startled.

"You see? Is it the physical property that air is transparent, or is it the biological character of all living creature the perceive that air is transparent?" The cloud explains.

The face of the other two remain blank.

"By physical property, I mean an object is considered transparent if it allows electromagnetic wave of all wavelengths to pass through," the cloud goes on, "As far as I know, the only thing that has this property is vacuum - if vacuum, or nothing, could be considered as something. But, air does not fall into this category. It filters off those with very short wavelengths, such as cosmic X-ray and ultraviolet light."

"Yes...?" The sun murmurs.

"In other words, air is not completely transparent - it only allows the passage of electromagnetic waves whose wavelengths are within the visible spectrum."

"You are just describing the phenomenon by a variety of words. I see no difference there." The rainbow says.

Cloud

While the sun expresses his sentiment to the rainbow, a cloud passes by and joins the conversation.

"My dear, you do not need to be disappointed," he tells the sun, "My brother, air, is always around and has been doing as much as you do. Not only does he get no credit, most of the time his existence is even not recognized!"

"Of course! He is so transparent!" The sun and the rainbow laugh and say together.

"Is he?" The cloud makes a curious smile, "Why do you think the air is transparent?"

"What a question!" The rainbow looks puzzled, "I think it is the intrinsic property that air is completely transparent. Isn't it the case?"

"My friend, don't go that far that quickly, "Let me state the question again: Why is air transparent? Is it a question of physics - or a question of biology?"

Rainbow

The sun meets a rainbow.

The origin of all lives says, “My friend, I’m really jealous. Everyone seems to love you.”

The colourful arc blushes a little, “Alas, that may be true. Who would not welcome a glittering bridge to his dream after a heavy storm and rain?”

“But, may I ask: What have you done? Besides making a mystical appearance every now and then and cheering up people by your lovely face, do you have any solid contribution to their life? None! And, how could there be any? You are not there most of the time. Alas, you are not even a physical existence – just an illusion of colour.”

“Yes, but I give people hope. As Alexandre Dumas said in The Count of Monte Cristo, all wisdom of man is contained in two words - wait and hope. After all, my friend, you do not have to be jealous. There are also many people who worship you.”

“That’s true enough, but it doesn’t make me feel any easier. I work all day and provide the energy for the whole world, and my reputation is nothing different from a delusion of colour that shows his face once or twice a year!”

釋詞

Some new phrases that are going to appear in the new edition of the Hong Kong Political Dictionary:

高鐵： 無底深潭
問責： 你當然可以問，不過佢都冇話答

強積金： 一個到你臨死時先肯還錢俾你嘅債仔

包容： 理虧一方仲可以聲大夾惡嘅原因
文化差異： 個差異好多時就係有同冇

佔中： 書生論政
諮詢： 尋找啱聽的說話
民主： 我嘅意見 (其他人嘅唔算)
基本法： 一些需要時必須遵守的規則

政改： 又話五十年不變？

Subtle

(Here is the story I told BK.)

I asked the students, “How many students do you think have examined this patient before you come?”

As a rule, each and every one of them was startled. After a while, they said four, five, or whatever.

I asked again, “In that case, why do you think there is no used cotton wool balls or toothpicks on the table?”

**********************
BK smiled, but I was serious, “You know, they all look vacant. I thought it over during the coffee break and believed I might not be expressing myself clearly. As a result, I decided to try another way of reminding them.”

“What did you say this time?”

“I asked the students: Who do you think is responsible for disposing the used cotton wool balls and toothpicks?”

“Well, does that help?”

“Sort of. Half of them did understand. For the others, I was forced to the conclusion that either I still had not expressed myself clearly, or they had never cleaned up their own desk in their life!”

Dispose

That afternoon, I went through the second year clinical skill examination.

It is rather immaterial to describe everything in detail. Nonetheless, when I met my friend BK the next morning, I could not refrain from sighing, “You know, I’m a bit depressed after doing the examination. It seems that I am very outdated and, in a modern world, we should not express ourselves subtly!”

“Alas! What happened?”

“It goes like this. For the part of examination that I was in charge of, students need to use a cotton wool ball and a sharp toothpick, both are supposed to be disposable. Unfortunately, more than half of the students forgot to throw away what they had used. Although it is not counted in the original marking scheme, I consider the step that these future doctors omitted being critical because toothpicks are a kind of sharps and should not be left next to the patient after use.”

“Yes…?”

“I tried to remind the students what they had not done – but none of them seemed to understand.”

“What actually did you say?”

(To be continued.)

Performance

A few days after the dinner, I was asked to take part in the clinical skill examination of our second year students.

I lunched with my friends BK and LS before the examination; they both did the same just a few days ago, and, knowing what I was going to do, they naturally gave me some briefing.

"You know, the whole thing is very artificial and it is quite impossible to fail," LS said, "They score one point by greeting the patient, another point by explaining what they are going to do, and another by washing their hands, and so forth. For my station, they hold their stethoscope and are supposed to listen to the heart - but I can never tell whether they could really hear anything, and, it really doesn't matter, because that is not counted in the marking scheme."

"Exactly. The entire business is very theatrical. It's just a big drama." BK added.

"Alas! I now understand why we don't invite students of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (香港演藝學院) to act as surrogates for our clinical examination," I said to myself, "Because they are actually our students!"

Observe

In the evening after receiving some divine messages from extra-terrestrials, I went to another dinner meeting on the teaching of medical students.

Again, there’s nothing groundbreaking discussed. In the middle of the dinner, however, W put forward her view, “I always find it difficult to understand why our colleagues take so much effort to do clinical teaching or mentoring or supervision or whatever. Isn’t it possible to ask the students to sit there and see what we are doing? I suppose they could learn quite a lot by just observe.”

I was horrified. Thank goodness CL, a senior consultant from another hospital, took the trouble and explained to the senior geriatrician why simple observation doesn’t work. To me, the argument is self-evident: If most of us could learn by observation, all of our hospital amahs would, with time, be promoted to become consultant physicians, and the desk of our ward clerk would be the professor of medicine.

Oh, maybe that does happen.

New

Message #2 of the meeting: We should be cost-cautious when prescribing expensive medications to our patients.

That’s no news. Nonetheless, CP reminded the few of us who are not familiar with the public relation tactics of the Hospital Authority, “Some of you may say the government has given us extra money to cover the cost of many new and expensive medicines, and wonder why we should hold our purse tight. The problem is, the extra funding that we get is for new patients. In other words, by receiving the money, we have to meet a target and start certain number of new patients each year on these expensive medicines. After one year, these patients are no longer new, and, if they need to continue with their expensive treatment, we have to use our own budget; although we continue to receive the money, we have to use it for starting treatment on new patients – and the vicious cycle continues.”

“Gosh! Most of the drugs that we use are for the treatment of chronic diseases. It is silly for the extra-terrestrials to expect the treatment would last for only a year!” Some of us murmured.

I smiled, “I suppose our friends outside the solar system are trying to suggest we should hold off treatment until a patient could live only for a year!”

Withdraw

Attended a regular meeting.

No, it is not really a meeting, but, rather, a kind of gathering which we are supposed to receive messages and instructions from extraterrestrials.

Message #1 this time: Drug D will be removed from our pharmacy. It is to be replaced by D - the same medication basically, except for the dosage schedule.

Sitting at the back of the meeting room, AN asked, “Why should that happen? D has been around for so long and D has nothing different!”

She was right, and I share her frustration. The old and the new preparations are even similar in their costs. Nonetheless, because D is commonly used, we have to explain what’s going on to all these patients.

“There are adverse incidents related to D reported.” CP murmured.

I smiled, “Of course! It may cause choking and suffocation if not swallowed properly!”

Opinion

While I was reading Karen Armstrong’s book on my way home, a story that I heard many years ago (and I am being reminded of very recently) came through my mind.

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One day, the god decides to give some thought on the value of human life, with the aim of improving this transient journey of ours on earth.

He asks a few representatives of human beings.

“Our life is too short, We should be able to live longer so that we can better prepare ourselves for heaven.” Abraham says.

“Why should we take so much time to raise our children? If babies are like ponies and could stand up and feed themselves once after birth, we would have more time to worship god.” Jacob says.

"We need more didactic guide to how we should lead a living." Moses says.

And the discussion goes on. Each and every prophet gives his opinion and suggestion.

At the end of the day, the god sighed, "What a waste of time. It's my fault. You are all living men. How do you know what to expect in heaven and how to prepare for it?"

God

My recent leisure reading is A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

I bought it from Books Kinokuniya (紀伊國屋書店) of Kuala Lumpur two years ago. This is a monograph about the evolution of the concept of god (specifically, the god of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) in the past 3000 years. The topic is one of my favorite subjects (relation between philosophy and theology), but, to begin with, I do not have a high hope. This paperback is over 400 pages, with densely packed words, full of names and professional terms, and no figure.

But, I am happily proved wrong. It is true that the text is boring here and there. Nonetheless, there are a lot more insightful chapters. The first one-third of the book is largely around the two anonymous authors of Genesis (denoted as E and J in the book), how their views differ from the other, how they affected, individually and together, the concept of god in the following centuries, and how it ends up as the idea of Trinity. The last third is about the concept of god amongst famous philosophers – Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, Kant, Nietzsche, and so forth, and why modern man consider the god is dead.

It is a bit heavy, I know.