團結

With the tsunami our senior officials have been running like chickens with no head.

One said, "Hong Kong citizens must come together and do not lose our unity in order to tackle the worst financial crisis in our history." (Come together for what ? Jewish people did so in the Nazi concentration camp - it just made them easier to be exterminated.)

The other said, "Hong Kong has a small and open economic system; we are prone to hiccups of financial tyrants overseas." (Translation to modern layman English: It all depends on the others; we could do nothing about it.)

And the third commented, "What's going on is just a prodrome - the worst is yet to come." (Do you mean the Hang Seng Index is going to touch the floor, and we're heading level B18 ?)

But, on a second thought, I shouldn't really be too harsh to them. At least they are honest. What they are trying to tell us are:

1. The stock market will continue to fall,
2. and we can do nothing about it.
3. You guys should stay where you are and meet your fate.

I'm sure if anyone says a similar thing north to the Shenzhen river, he will be at once arrested for spreading rumour - with a possibly malicious intention to disturb the order of our financial system. (By the time the case comes up to the court, of course, they will instead be found guilty for leaking national secret. That's another story.)

Question

Went to the college's annual meeting on Saturday - I was asked to do a small part of a symposium.

The talk was so so. As usual, after the three of us (I mean ST, SL and myself) finished with the deed, we sat around a table and tried to take some questions.

A senior private physician put up one - primarily for ST, and the latter gave an orthodox answer.

To our surprise, the president showed his hand, stood up and made further comments. Oh, we realized very soon the man with a wig was all confused with the definition of orthostatic proteinuria. As a previous student of this local giant in nephrology, my horror was no less than finding Albert Einstein could not tell the difference between mass and weight. (Eh ... you may not either, but you have not been awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physics.)

We sat quietly. The comment seemed to last for ages. ST and I exchanged a quick glance: What should we do ?

In no time our neuronal activities were in phase: We did not hear anything. It's coffee time, let's have a break.

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Don't take me wrong. I do not think our president was a shade less brilliant than what he demonstrated over the years. Every man has some loopholes in his knowledge.

It's just because of his position my teacher who lost his moustache could no longer hear an objective comment or have someone to point out where he is deficient.

Alas, friends, don't put me into such a position for once, and I shall be all too thankful.

Iceland

It is sad to hear the government of Iceland is on the verge of bankruptcy - I always consider the country as one of the most successful few in the world.

You know what: Although this small island on the edge of Europe (so much so it is considered negligible on the map of the board game Diplomacy) and has a population of merely 300,000 (smaller than Macau, and just half of that of Kwun Tong), it is the fourth most productive country in the world by gross domestic product per capita, and the most developed society in the world (ranked first on the United Nations' Human Development Index).

Yes, Iceland lacks natural resources (except some hydro-electric and geothermic power), but over the centuries her inhabitants made an exceptional achievement in preserving their natural environment - while making their country fully modernized at the same time.

As a case control study in history, have you heard of the Norwegian settlers in Greenland around the 10th century ?

PS. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, in 1986. For that single event, which signified the end of the Cold War, this lovely island should be awarded with the Nobel Prize in Peace.

Meal

Had some cookery experiments during the public holiday.

In the morning I made some steam rice with fresh shrimp and dried Japanese scallop (brought by my mother-in-law from Osaka) for Euterpe. We - I mean my mother, my maid, and myself - tried very hard but our boss just took a mouthful or two. (I begin to realize that other than KM, my muse of music is the second one who could live against the physics law on the conservation of energy.)

Well, I ended up taking the rice as my own lunch - the taste was not bad at all. Yes, females are always difficult to understand, I know.

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In the evening I tried and made some Padaeng beef (巴東牛肉) - again from ingredients brought by my in-laws from Indonesia. While I was looking for coconut milk from the shelf, I found a bag of vegetable instant soup for hot pot - we bought it last Christmas for my family gathering.

I checked on the label; it read: Best before 16 October 2008.

God, that's next week - and we certainly have no intention to have a hot pot meal in the coming seven or eight days.

An idea came to my mind. I continued my search in the shelf and found some bags of Korean instant noodle. What's better than using the soup for them ?

This chimera worked out well. The problem is: there might be nothing suitable for my girl's dinner. As soon as I realized this, she looked at the noodle in a wicked smile. (Yes, that's the time when she looked like me.)

And, she finished a good deal of it.

Oh, females are not only difficult to understand but could never be predicted; I had a lesson.

Dream

I sat at a corner with JW during our recent department dinner.

This was a gathering to celebrate the promotion of some of our colleagues. (It gave me an excellent opportunity to listen to an expert's view on world economy and investment strategy. That's beyond the point.)

In the middle of the evening, the man from Chaozhou suggested each new medical officer to come out and have an one-minute introduction of themselves. Well, that sounded a good idea because demented beings like me always have the difficulty to recognize new colleagues.

But the introduction show made a sharp turn when we began to hear penance and confession and career plans with an agenda. Yes, with an agenda.

JW gave me a weird smile.

I replied in a wicked one.

And an old Chinese saying came through my mind: 皮裡陽秋.

書空

On a few occasions recently Vivian and myself were each asked about what our dreams, or birthday wishes, are. (I have a deja vu feeling of being asked to write an essay with the title "我的志願" in my primary school days.)

Here are some sample answers:

"Able to be off work at 6 p.m. each day."
"Retire at the age of 50."
"Have more time with my family."
"脫貧."
"但願生兒愚且魯,無災無難到公卿."

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You may find my recent writings somewhat obscure. Oh, I am in no way trying to imitate Franz Kafka (although I would love to).

殷中軍被廢,在信安,終日恒書空作字. 揚州吏民尋義逐之,竊視,唯作‘咄咄怪事’四字而已.
[世說新語-黜免]

Privacy

One thing I learn from this Debate is about the privacy ordinance.

The scenario is simple: If you wish to hire someone to take care of your children, should you be allowed to check on the criminal records (especially those related to paedophilia) of the applicant ?

To my (and probably your) surprise, many of our senior officials say no - this is the privacy of the applicant.

What about the two sides of the argument in this book ?

Of course one side say yes: there is a strong security consideration which overrides the need to protect privacy. The potential employer should have the right to check on the information - without the need of a consent.

How about the other side ? Well, you can choose not disclosing any information of this kind - that's your privacy. The trade off is your potential employer would have the right to, and inevitably will, not hiring you - assuming that you have a positive record of that kind.

And, you see, this logic also applies well to the recruitment of medical students and employing doctors - potentially avoiding the embarrassment of having a pin-hole-camera peeper as our graduate.