Reading

Shortly after we were back from Hokkaido, Vivian and I paid a visit to a local bookstore to buy some children’s book for Adler.

“What did you read when you were a child?” My wife asked on our way home.

 “The Children Paradise (兒童樂園) was very popular in my days but it’s not my cup of tea – too many pictures but very few words.” I said, “There was another periodical called The Joyful Bee (樂蜂報) at that time which I regularly read in the barber’s. The layout is less attractive and it has many more words, but the stories are generally more complicated.”

“How about books?”

“My dear, you know just too well I did not have the luxury of having any children’s book. In contrast, I began reading newspaper since I was four, and I learn a lot by doing so – in those days editor was a prestigious job and newspaper articles were all written in a decent language."

Selection

We stayed in Hokkaido for some five days. Although Vivian could drive and knows a bit of Japanese, we actually join a group tour to save the trouble of planning the trip in detail.

We end up having one day in Rusutsu Resort (it was raining cats and dogs, but there was an excellent circus show and a impressive dinner in a local izakaya - and it was free), one day at Sapporo (Marine Park, shopping, and ice-cream), another at Furano (flowers - what else could it be?), and another at Otaru.

The food in this week was always superb, and I enjoyed steamed rice and marinated fish (my favorite!) as breakfast every morning. As our tour guide said, chefs in Hokkaido are mostly so-so, simply because all ingredients are fresh and outstanding. You don't really need much skill to make a good meal.

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After we were back Hong Kong, my wife said during a casual conversation, "You know, I think we are rather lucky. We have been joining group tour for several times and our group mates are always very nice."

I could not help smiling, "My dear, it depends on the group we choose. If our group mates do not mind paying slightly more to have a decent trip, they are more likely to be nice people and less calculating."

Hokkaido

Towards the end of the summary holiday, Vivian and I brought my two princesses to Hokkaido for a family trip.

Although I've been to Honshu several times and Vivian used to work in Osaka for some months, we have never been to this northern part of Japan. To me, all impression on Hokkaido comes from The Freezing Point (冰點) of Miura Ayako (三浦綾子).

Soon after our arrival, when we took a bus from the New Chitose Airport to Rusutsu (留壽都), Lake Shikotsu (支笏湖) was next to us, and the shadow of Tsujikuchi Yoko (辻口陽子) kept flashing through my mind. Where was her boat? Was she hiding somewhere in the forest? It is 50 years since the story was written and almost 30 years since I read it, but I remain eager to know how the three of them - Yoko, Tsujikuchi Toru (辻口徹), and Kunio Kitahara (北原邦雄) - are doing.

PS. My princesses were, for obvious reasons, very much less excited than I was. To Euterpe, games in the Disneyland is certainly a hundred times more interesting than flowers in Furano (富良野). As to Adler, she is happy enough wherever good ice-cream is served!

Wait

To me, the major problem of double-checking all pathological specimens is the time people have to spend on the inevitable waiting of the result.

The problem may appear trivial. If the delay is 3 days for each specimen, the patient may have, say, 5 extra minutes of meaningless extra worry. (For visitors with some idea in health economics, the QALY is actually very small.)

However, the number of specimen is astronomical. If, by double-checking the result, each and every one of them costs a 5-minute lost of meaningful life, each 100,000 specimens would mean the reduction of life span of one year in one patient – take aside the effect of any delay in treatment.

The estimation is actually very simple. To the society as a whole, the cumulative cost of meaningful life is roughly the same as the number of extra pathologists that we need to hire to perform the double-checking. No, the life of our pathologist is not wasted, but each patient makes part of our time a meaningless waiting.

And, time, in the aggregate, is life.

Urgent

Some of you may notice there's a loophole in my discussion yesterday:

You see? Although a delay of a few days may not be important for most of the pathological specimens, a few hours would already be critical in the scenario of urgent specimens sent during an operation. (For those with a medical background, I am talking about the intra-operative specimens sent for frozen section.) First, the longer you have to wait for the result, the higher the risk of anesthesia. More importantly, when operating theatres would be occupied longer, fewer patients could be treated - cases will be cancelled and treatment delayed.

I must say this is a major scientific reason against routine double-checking of all pathological specimens. However, this problem is not insurmountable - we can do away with double-checking for all frozen section specimens if only senior pathologists are entitled to take care of them.

PS. Visitors with some background knowledge on logic would notice the fallacy of moving goalpost in the above discussion, but that's not an important problem in this context.

Delay

What’s the problem of double-checking all pathology specimens if we have enough pathologist?

You see? The efficiency of colon cancer screening is limited by manpower and hardware. Provided that there are enough gastroenterologists and endoscopy centers, all people could be screening in parallel and there’s no delay in provision what-so-ever.

On the other hand, double-checking of pathology specimens always means going through the process twice in series and, however many pathologists there are, it would always take longer to prepare the report. In real life terms, if we used to take 7 days to get the formal result, it will take 10 days in the future. (It is not exactly twice as long because we do not need to process the specimen twice.)

You may think you understand what I'm trying to get at: A delay in the report would delay the treatment. For example, a curable cancer may become incurable.

Well, that is true, but, I consider that a minor issue. In general, a few days of delay does not make such a big difference in almost all clinical scenario.

However, there are other problems that we have to consider.

Concern

You may ask: What’s wrong with double-checking all pathology specimens before confirming a report?

There are, in fact, two distantly related problems.

First, the inevitable consequence of double-checking, by simple arithmetic, is doubling the workload of the pathology department. In other words, we need twice as many pathologists. If the supply of doctor is fixed, we run into the problem of opportunistic cost and the manpower for other specialties would be trimmed. Even if the supply of doctor is increased to meet the need, the society may not have the enough number of suitable young people (in terms of intellectual and human quality) to be trained as doctors.

(Again, I discussed these considerations many years ago. See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2008/01/empire.html and related posts.)

However, unlike screening for colon cancer by gastroenterologists, pathology is a relatively small specialty and manpower issue, even if doubled, is not a major concern.

Then what’s the problem?

Competent

The recent hot story within our circle is certainly the unfortunate pathologist who is considered to have made a wrong diagnosis in over 100 specimens that she is responsible.

I shall not postulate how such an incident could happen (Parkinson’s law, of course), or discuss how much (or how little) this incident affects the treatment and outcome of the patients being involved. The inevitable consequence is the whole team is now under immense stress, specimens and slides are examined again and again before a formal report is issued, and no pathologist is considered  competent for independent practice unless they have 15 or 20 years of experience. For the others, even though they may have completed their specialty training, would require careful supervision of their work.

Frequent visitors of this site may remember I discussed a similar problem several years ago (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2009/06/experience.html and the related entries). To put it simply, a close supervision of doctors who have just completed their specialist training may not be a good idea because senior physicians may not be better clinicians, in terms of both skill and knowledge.

However, when we are talking about pathologists, the problem becomes more profound.

I shall explain tomorrow.

Middle

You see? Although people with much time and little money are more likely to be treated by the government general clinic, the situation is very different in the case of the Student Health program. Yes, it does occupy precious time of the parents, but the grassroots are not the only likely group to participate and enjoy the benefit.

The reason is simple. To receive the benefit of this program, parents (like me) need to take a day off in order to bring their children for the check up. For obvious reasons, unemployed people have no problem. On the other hand, parents from the upper class (who either run their own business or have a well-paid administrative job) will also find it easy to join. Yes, their time is precious and hourly paid is high, but they would have little difficulty to leave their duty for a short while.

The problem lies in the middle class with working parents. Their hourly paid is not as high (or, in economist's term, their time is less precious), but they would have more difficulty to take leave from their job.

PS. The phenomenon that I outlined is the classical problem of using time as the payment, because the cost of time is neither flat (equal to everyone) or linear (proportional to the hourly paid), but has an inverted U-shape relation with the income. It is not the classical Kuznets curve, but it looks very much the same.

Cost

You may say as a taxpayer (and probably one of the heavily taxed few in this city), I am entitled to enjoyed such kind of medical welfare.

That's true, but, my question is: Is it a good system to deliver medical welfare?

Let me explain in a convoluted way:

Consider the scenario of the government general clinic. The charge is low, but it always takes a long time to wait before you could see a doctor and get the treatment. In other words, time is the currency of payment. For people who are poor or earn little, they could afford to wait because time is their only resource with an abundant supply. In contrast, for the rich people or working middle class, time is precious; they would rather pay for a private medical care to save the time.

PS. The same strategy is used in the delivery of many other welfare and benefit to people in need - from supermarket discount coupons to special offers by political parties (蛇齋餅糭).

Check

I took an extra day off after back from Seoul. Euterpe has joined the government's Student Health Program and it was time for her yearly medical and dental check up. Naturally I accompanied her to the clinic.

To my surprise, it turns out to be a busy day. We left home at 10:30 AM and went to the student health center in Chai Wan. The procedure took an hour or so, and then we lunched in the shopping mall next to the MTR station. Rather than going back home, we spent the time between the two check-ups in the Central Library. The dental appointment was 3:30 PM in Wan Chai and it was well after 5 PM when we were home again.

And the day was not activity without result. During this trip around the Hong Kong island, Euterpe had a formal test of vision and hearing, a dental caries being filled, a thorough cleansing of her teeth, and a number of minor things.

On our way home, my princess was obviously exhausted. I was, too. However, I felt puzzled and disturbed.

It is an expensive service that we are having!

Deoksugung

I was so happy to hear from KF that I decided to appreciate the rising sun (not my usual self, seriously) and went for a walk.

It was early in the morning. The weather was perfect. My hotel was next to Deoksugung (德壽宮) and, naturally, I could not resist the temptation of paying a short visit. The Taehanmun Gate (大漢門) had not yet opened, and I ended up walking around the palace – appreciating the artistic castle wall, falling leaves of the early autumn, and a symphony of the nature by an orchestra of cicada.

Happiness is often very simple.

PS. I always find the castle wall of Korean palaces more friendly than the Chinese ones, simply because as a tributary of the Middle Kingdom, the former were not allowed to be as tall as the Forbidden City.

Mistake

I went to bed and didn't sleep very well. Had several bad dreams, some related to KF, some not. In the next morning, when I woke up and check, the following post appeared on the Facebook:

Szeto, What did hear about him? I know he has just finished practicing piano pieces from Bach and Mozart. His wife has just finished 3 bowls of herbal jelly with fruits. KF

I was so relieved that I replied in Cantonese:

KF，嚇死我。得，你冇事就放心。攪到我成晚發惡夢。好好保重。返嚟先同你道歉，再去搵某哋人算帳。

Around that time, another message came from J:

The faculty must have made a major mistake. I need to ask them to recheck before sending the flower condolences. A big relief as I know him well too!

I have never noticed the rising sun is so beautiful until this morning.

Where

I jumped when I read the mail and replied:

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Dear J,

No. I still saw him on Facebook last month and he was absolutely well. Will check with my classmates.

Szeto

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In no time, I put up a post on the Facebook page of my class:

Does anyone know what happened to KF recently?

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(I got a few quick responses in no time, but no one seemed to have any clue. Another mail from J quickly followed.)

Dear Szeto,

Her wife is in a state of complete breakdown.

I hope the Faculty can express condolences and do something for his selfless contribution to his Alma Mater.

J

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(I decided to put up another Facebook post immediately. It was almost midnight.)

I am at Seoul at this moment. Does anyone know how to get in touch with his wife and see if she needs any help?

Message

To my surprise, when I returned to the hotel after dinner, I received an email from my friend J:

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Dear Szeto,

Are you aware of this ?

J

(An email was attached as followings.)

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Dear J,

I learnt from my colleague that our medical alumnus, Dr KF, just passed away and his body will be donated to our dissecting lab according to his will.  According to our database, he should be the Class of 1991.

While we are so sad to learn this news, we wonder whether we should do something to show our sympathy to their family and also our gratitude to them.

Your view please, et cetera

(To be continued.)

Obituaries

In the evening before leaving Korea, I was invited to a dinner at the Seoul Museum.

To be honest, the museum has a gorgeous garden for us to appreciate sunset (well, I may not have used up all my quota of watching sunset. See http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2008/06/sunset.html), but the collection of exhibit is limited. Some antique pottery, ancient costume, modern painting, and so forth. Our pre-dinner tour could hardly be called interesting.

But, towards the end of it, I found a remarkable piece of work: On a casual look, it is a collection of newspaper clips sticked together to form a protruding craft. Under the camera, however, it appears as a flat sheet of paper with deep holes. Seeing that there are Korean as well as Chinese words printed on those paper clips, I naturally went as close as possible to try and read what's there.

"Dr. Szeto, can you read all these?" One of our hosts asked.

"Yes... quite a bit of the words are Chinese."

"So, what's written there?"

"My god! They are newspaper obituaries!"

Hoshino

I must say after reading Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun some 20 years ago, I actually came to the conclusion that Haruki Murakami is not an author that I should pursue, and I would not have read any other novel of his – if not for a title "Kafka".

“You know, if I did have a second degree given for the period of my medical school study, it must be a degree on Kafka. During year two, I spent almost half of my time reading everything about this Czech author – not only all his work, but all books about him.” I told the others.

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I shall not pretend I understand what Haruki Murakami is trying to express in Kafka on the Shore. My gut feeling is, by using that very title, Haruki intends to discuss the topic that the Czech existentialist wished to talk about in all his work. However, I could vaguely sense a story about the confusion in tradition and value faced by modern Japanese. Johnnie Walker must die, and so do Miss Saeki and Satoru Nakata. On the other hand, Kafka Tamura should return to reality after Walker and Saeki leave the stage.

And, there is the inconspicuous Hoshino - the truck driver, who opened his eyes while following Nakata throughout their journey in Shikoku. I consider him an indispensable character in the drama.

Haruki

In the next evening, I had the opportunity to dine with a group of doctors and business representatives from other countries.

I must say our conversation was nothing but a random flight of ideas. Someone talked about Japanese sake (清酒), next on whisky, then Johnny Walker, and, finally, we ended up discussing Kafka on the Shore (海邊的卡夫卡) of Haruki Murakami (村上春樹) – a book that I read not too long ago.

For that reason, I could recall quite a bit of the details of the book, and my friends at the dinning table were all surprised.

“Are you a fan of Haruki Murakami?” One of them asked.

“Oh, no, far from it,” I shook my head, “I have only read three of his novels – Norwegian Wood, South of the Border, West of the Sun, and Kafka on the Shore. He’s really not my cup of tea.”

“Why?”

“There’s no scientific reason, just that his writings doesn’t suite my palate. As to potential Nobel Prize winners, I prefer reading Milan Kundera.”

Korea

On the next day after dinning with the senior physician, I went to Seoul for a business trip.

I arrived at the Incheon (仁川) Airport in the evening, and, as soon as I set my feet there, I could not stop thinking of Douglas MacArthur and the battle in 1950. In fact, I always wonder what would happen if the aggressive American General was given the free hand to handle all matters in the Far East and never called back by President Truman. Our world would be very different.

Alas, once again, there's no IF in history.

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This is my first time to Korea, but I must say I'm not particularly keen of sightseeing - not to say I do not have the time. My hotel is next to Myeongdong (明洞), and the place is flooded with tourists from some strong country. In fact, when I was doing some inevitable shopping at a department store, I was forced to speak Putonghua - simply because those shopkeepers could only speak Putonghua or Korean.

Hong Kong is not alone.

Parent

Shortly after meeting my classmates, I had the privilege of dinning with DT, probably the most senior and respected physician of our city.

As you would expect, our conversation ended up in discussing what a teacher or headmaster should do if his students are arrested for some street demonstration or protest.

"For sure you would have to go to the police station and arrangement a bail for the students. The problem is not whether you really support their point of view or agree with what they have done," he began.

"Well...?" I was puzzled.

"Boy, let's face it. As a teacher or headmaster, you have a role similar to parenthood. Imagine, as a father, if your children are arrested for an offence, you may not agree with what they are doing, but you would still go to the police station and bail them out - or visit them in the jail. Even though they are against the law or may even be a criminal, that doesn't stop them from being your children!"

I cannot agree more.

Way-out

The reason of making Li Shiji the prime minister was simple: It was his honorable way out.

You know, when Li Zhi (李治) became the Tang Emperor after the death of Li Shimin (李世民), miliary campaigns against the surrounding tribes were largely complete, and the central Tang government planned to take over the control of the army from individual generals. Li Shiji was a major target because he was leading a gigantic troop, and his personal relation with Li Zhi was not entirely satisfactory.

For that reason, shortly before the death of Li Shimin, our Emperor Taizong advised his son to appoint Li Shiji as the chief of the government - a brilliant strategic move. The famous general would have to give up his army and be literally promoted to an irresistible honored position, the work for which was onerous and unfamiliar. He would not think of uprising because he had no good reason (and Li Shiji seemed to be naive enough and believed the Emperor was really promoting him).

The result? Li Shiji stayed in office for just over a year - and the rest is history.

PS. You may not find this story in the traditional Old Book of Tang (舊唐書) or New Book of Tang (新唐書). Well, there is. Just read between the lines.

李勣

While thinking about Y, the usual question that we ask is: What is the honorable way-out?

I would not tell you what I think - or whether I actually have any thought. However, the story of Li Shiji (李世勣) may be illuminating.

For those who are not familiar with the history of the Tang (唐) Empire, Li was considered as one of the most prominent early Tang generals, and was the critical man in the campaigns against the Syr-Tardouch (薛延陀) alliance, the Turks (突厥), and Goguryeo (高句麗). According to the official historical record, Li was made the successor of the lengendary Fang Xuanling (房玄齡) and became Shangshu Puye (尚書僕射) of the Tang Empire (a post equivalent to Prime Minister nowadays).

Alas, you may notice the critical question: Why should an eminent army general be appointed as the chief of the governmental system? After all, we are not in the States and Dwight Eisenhower became the American president for very different reasons.

Destiny

You may think I have a flight of idea. In reality, the conversation with my classmates went like this:

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"How's S?" One asked. S was in an relation with Y when the two of them got admitted to the medical school. They broke up because of J, who married Y shortly after they graduated.

"S is fine," I said, "She remains single, but she's perfectly fine."

"I wonder what would happen if J never appears and S and Y continue to stay together," another one said.

"Don't be silly. There's no IF in history." I sighed.

"No, but, knowing the personality of S, I suppose she would have advised Y better when he faces so much trouble with his subordinates. He would have stepped down with respect and take the honorable way out."

"That may be true. However, I believe character is destiny. Y is resilient and, therefore, chose a wife who would lead him to the inevitable." I smiled and shook my head. A moment later, the joke of Bill Clinton came through my mind, and I added, "Well, if Y chose to stay with S, those self-righteous subordinates would have a different husband of J as their boss and everything remains the same!"

Wife

Dined with my secondary school classmates. For some inexplicable reasons, our discussion made me think of a joke that I heard many years ago:

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Bill and Hillary Clinton are driving in the country near Hillary's hometown. They are low on fuel, so Bill stops at a gas station. The man at the gas station comes out and looks into the window.

"Hey, Hillary! We used to date in high school, do you remember me?" he asks.

They talk merrily for a few minutes. Bill pays, and they leave. As they drive, Bill is feeling very proud of himself and looks over at Hillary.

"You used to date that guy? Just think what life would be if you hadn't married me," he says. Hillary looks at Bill and says to him,

"Well, I guess you'd be pumping gas and he'd be President"

History

You may wonder why I am against the Pictorial History from Wuhan.

My consideration is simple: This paperback from Wuhan has all the characters of a good book, except for the very fact that its view is more than biased – it is exquisitely crooked and skewed in favor of communism.

Oh, no. I'm not against communism. I did read the three Ages of Eric Hobsbawm with admiration. All I could not accept is the version of communism (and the point of view) adopted and twisted by that appalling son of a Russian cobbler, as well as his clumsy followers from places south to Siberia.

And, you know, the Earth is round. Although communism goes left while fascism heads right, in the extreme they meet each other and become united.

PS. At the moment when I write this blog, it is exactly the 100th anniversary of the First World War. In that sense the world became flat ever since that poorly planned assassination of the Prince Ferdinand of Austria

Europe

My recent bedtime reading is A Pictorial History of Europe, compiled by the Wuhan Publishing House.

I bought this paperback during my trip to Nanjing last year. Seriously it is an easy read. The structure is well organized; the text is concise and supported by many brilliant illustrations. Although basically meant for the history of Europe, it also covers major events in the rest of the world. If you know very little history to start with, it does give you a good grasp of the fundamental facts. For that very purpose, I used to read JM Roberts’ The New Penguin History of the World, which is twice as heavy and, based on how quick I manage to finish with it, ten times more difficult to read.

You may ask: What is the time to introduce this book to my princesses?

Alas! NEVER.

For amateurs and beginners of studying history, my personal recommendation is Understanding the History of the World in Three Days by Sakurai Kiyohiko (松井櫻彥).

不言壽

落單時原本選了鍋塌豆腐，可惜店家未能供應，便改了經理推介的紅燒雜菌豆腐。上桌時汁醬頗多，心下甚是不喜。然而細啖之下，嫩滑而有豆香，輔以冬菇、草菇等香氣口感，是出乎意料的美味。平心而論，此味豆腐實為近年所吃最佳，當真以貌取人，失之子羽也。

主菜最後一味是蛤蜊勝瓜。是預訂菜，看上去卻平平無奇，也没有什麼香氣。蛤蜊個子甚大，吃來卻有點老，反而勝瓜是時令，也煮得軟嫩鮮甜。想來蛤蜊與勝瓜同煮，後者夠火路時前者便過老，也不能苛求。故老相傳，醃尖的做法是以一份蛤蜊煮熟勝瓜之後，前者棄去而拌以另一份僅熟的蛤蜊上桌。同樣辦法，太史蛇羹如是，某英國粗口名厨的蜆肉意粉亦如是，實英雄所見略同也。

此夜主菜已甚豐富，單尾便只點了煎素餃。餡料剁得幼細，外皮煎得香脆，雖粗賤之物，作法亦毫不馬虎。甜品是女兒自選的生日蛋糕，不過意思意思。古訓有云，幼不言壽，這夜也是項莊舞劍，志在天倫而已。

綠楊邨

聘珍樓後不數日為妤慧生日，在銅鑼灣上海綠楊邨晚飯。數年前曾在此處團年，印象非常不錯，只是不少名菜如文思豆腐、蓮香骨等已經吃過，菜單便得有點變化。

前菜四味，計為熏蛋、餚肉、丁香雞、及宫廷富貴花。前者蛋黃流心而煙熏味重，自己甚為喜歡，女兒卻不太欣賞。餚肉較硬實，感覺只是平平。 丁香雞比尋常醉雞多了一份香氣，皮薄而油脂不多，肉質也不過不失。富貴花雖是觀賞為主，但以酸蔔砌成，也是恰當的開胃菜。

文思豆腐此前試過，湯品便選了花膠螺頭燉羊肚菌。夠熱而湯極濃鮮，湯渣亦食味十足，只嫌略鹹，老人小孩便不能多喝。

主菜先上是乾燒明蝦。此即川式泡油後澆上醬汁，甜酸微辣，味道錯綜複雜。蝦肉也爽而不過老，甚是滿意。

再上是紅燒肋排和葫蘆八寶鴨。前者夠火而不過肥，難得的是瘦肉也炆得軟嫩，愛有咬口的可能不大喜歡，座上各人卻甚頰意。反而葫蘆鴨用炸，雖然外形標誌，餡料豐富，但肉質略乾，效果便是平平。回想上次吃到的是鴨身較大的紅燒版本，外觀雖有所不及，但酥軟香濃，是較理想的處理手法。

十三人

席走至此，菜式突然蜂擁而至。龍躉兩吃，當然是油泡球和炆頭腩。用的大概是沙巴龍躉，件頭剛好。前者有肉味而不過老，火侯甚為到家。炆頭腩亦做到濃香惹味，誠好有骨落地者之恩物。唯一可以挑剔的，是片皮鴨後，鴨架也是醬燒，賣相、食味便與炆龍躉頭腩相彷佛。竊以為將鴨架肉剁碎，混以冬菇、馬蹄、松子等爆炒，伴以生菜包或夾餅，也許是不錯的選擇。

單尾有小棠菜和明太子炒飯。前者一如所料，平平無奇。後者卻是顆粒分明，香而不油，功夫甚是到家。此時小女已連連稱飽，自己便樂得連吃兩碗，大是滿足。

甜品有幾款，名字已不大記得。自己已十二成飽，也無意再試。客人吃得甚為滿意，想來也應不錯。「十三人的晚宴」，免茶芥加一，埋單三千三，實在便宜得難以置信。回程時想起克麗斯蒂同名小說，也非鶴立雞群，仍可稱庸中佼佼。套用現今潮語，是收貨有突。

聘珍樓

內人舅父一家自印尼到訪，便於銅鑼灣聘珍樓設宴，以盡地主之誼。有别於恆常做法，此次地點為區區所定，菜式則由內人負責。一行十三人，其實不過是預訂乳豬一隻，再加套餐一個，倒也不傷腦筋。

人齊，乳豬卻良久未至。據說是即時燒起，故略費時。及至上桌，倒也真皮脆骨酥，只嫌此豬個子也真太小，没有什麼肉吃，未能盡興。據說來貨是越南豬殻而非乳豬全體，便有如此情況。定價所限，卻也無可厚非。

再上是套餐前菜，有拍黄瓜，口水雞等四味。角色是恰如其分，卻沒有留下甚麼印象。唯獨口水雞麻香透辣，雖冰鮮雞卻不失嫩滑，甚是不錯。

之後是片皮鴨。此味素非余之所喜，小女卻甘之如飴。勉強試了一塊，皮香，不太過油膩，伴碟的芹菜、韮黄、甜醬，也不無潤飾之功。只是餅皮放凉後甚靱，也是無可奈何。

接著是鷓鴣羹。每人只有大半碗。區區混跡病房多年，糊仔爛飯，自然避之則吉。然小女咀尖，卻又十分捧場，想來食味也是不錯。

Discussion

In the next morning, I went to the local public library after finishing with my morning round and paper work. It was time to borrow some new books for my princesses.

When I was about to leave, a tiny beep came up from my mobile phone.

A message from my wife via WhatsApp: What do you think of a yearly return of 6%?

In no time I knew where she was, and I replied: Risk?

(Our on-line discussion quickly followed, which I summarized here.)

V (Vivian): No, $XXX per month for 10 years, like life insurance, can take away at 5 years after complete payment.
S (Szeto): There is nothing without risk. What kind of investment is it?
V: Like club deposit (零存整付). By XX Bank Insurance.
S: Then what is insured? How is that 6% calculated?
V: Maybe you come here for detail. Where are you?
S: In the library. You said last night you will get the information and walk away.
V: Guarantee return 2%, extra-dividend (紅利) 4%, the lowest extra-dividend is around 4% during the poorest economy.
S: It’s your money. I think I have expressed my opinion clear enough.