告白

My recent leisure reading is Murderer’s Confession about a Girl (關於少女的殺人告白) by Seinan Sato (佐藤青南).

It’s a crime fiction about child abuse and a girl from a broken family. Although supposedly original, the story is told in a way very much similar to Confession (告白) of Kanae Minato (湊佳苗), and I have a déjà vu feeling of seeing Yukiho Karasawa (唐沢雪穂) of Byakuyakō (白夜行) when I read about the unfortunate life of Aki (亞紀).

Nonetheless, I am not satisfied. The presentation is fragmented and slightly difficult to follow; it may be acceptable if it is a novel on theology or philosophy, but far from entertaining or reader-friendly if we take it as popular literature for the la(z)y public.

Nippon

While talking about the poor strategy of Nazi, I must say his counterpart in Asia – the Royal Army of Nippon – shared the same problem.

The original plan of Hideki Tojo was simple: The north-east part of China should be conquered quickly; the place was full of petroleum and iron, and should serve as the supply center for further invasion. (You would understand what I mean by supply center if you have ever tried the board game Diplomacy.) Unfortunate for the Japanese invaders, but fortunate for us, was that Manchuria under Zhang Zuolin (張作霖) was largely a deserted area. Yes, there were petrol and iron, but no facility for extraction.

And there came the tough luck (again!) of the Nippon Army (partly because their ambassador to Germany was rudely treated by Hitler but friendly hugged by Stalin): They decided to head south rather than west, leaving the rich ores of fuel and metal in Siberia and Ural untouched, while forcing their soldiers to evaporate one after another on Pacific islands.

Nazi

While talking about poor leadership, a sore example that Ronald Heifetz cites is Adolf Hitler.

No, I don’t mean the Nazi dictator was a good person. He did bring disasters to a good many people and fail miserably at the end. Nonetheless, there is much to learn from his terrific skill in leadership, politics, as well as military strategy. If you take aside his wicked aim, Hitler was immensely successful in leading his people to the destiny that he chose.

Or, we may phrase the question in another way: Is the Pied Piper of Hamelin a good leader?

We should appreciate his brain but despise his heart.

PS. Seriously, the failure of Hitler has very little to do with poor leadership. Some are poor military strategy, others merely bad luck. For example, if he did focus on the western front and form a better alliance with Hideki Tojo (東條英機) so that the Japanese army caught the attention of Stalin, things would have evolved in a very different direction.

Leadership

My recent leisure reading is Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald Heifetz.

The author is a psychiatrist by training but has moved to teach leadership and political skills at Harvard. Although the book sets out to discuss how to be a leader in general, nearly all examples that it cites come from the history of modern America. Published in 1994, Heifetz has the benefit of hindsight to judge these political decisions. For the same reason, it is easy for us to tell all mistakes that Heifetz makes when he comments on those (at that time) contemporary policies.

(In a sense, it gives me a funny feeling when reading the book some twenty years after it was published. The world changed so much. For example, it takes me quite a while to figure out the President Bush that Heifetz refers to is the father.)

Nonetheless, I cannot agree with Heifetz’s view – if there is one. No objective means for judging the quality of leadership is presented (and I am inclined to believe no such criteria exist). The feeling that I get is, in Heifetz’s eyes, a successful person is a good leader; that couldn’t be the case. Similarly, a leader that brings a good fortune to his people is not always a good leader

Just think of Faust.

Praise

Another household story that is better told in traditional Cantonese:

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老竇放工一入門口，個女即刻撲埋嚟鬆毛鬆翼：爹哋，老師今日讚我乖。

老竇：咁奇？讚你乜？

阿女：午餐時，老師當住全班同學讚我食飯專心，冇掛住傾偈。

老竇(諗起個女喺屋企食飯時個花名叫口水瀑布)：真係？

阿女：係！我啲同學個個食飯時都掛住大聲同隔籬位傾偈㗎！

老竇：你調咗位咩？你隔籬個同學呢？

阿女：Clara呢兩日病咗冇返學。

(按：Clara就係阿女個隔籬位，而阿女又一啲都唔覺得老師嘅說話别有用心。)

白粥

二人吃蟹後已飽了大半，預訂的金錢雞此刻便至。一份四件，茶杯口大。除了正統三層雞肝、义燒、冰肉外，墊底尚未有一片烤饅頭。金錢雞之味覺物理，此前已有所述，而處燒得甚為到家。雞肝不老，冰肉不膩，乾身而帶焦香，墊底饅頭更是神來之筆。單以此味計，城中可稱首屈一指。

之後是肉桂話梅骨、薑汁芥蘭和白粥。前者肉桂味甚輕，但話梅甜酸，中和了排骨肥膩，甚是不錯。薑汁芥蘭剪裁得當，翠嫩清新，亦是上品。

然而二者雖好，此處主角卻是白粥。火路充足，底綿香而不見米粒，只有白果少許，誠然廣東米皇的最佳演譯。個人而言，吃慣了家母所弄稀飯，此粥倒少了一份童年回憶。這純是自己偏見，此品技巧上是滿分的。

甜品是杞子雪糕和杏仁茶。前者清淡，余不嗜甜，正合口味。後者以意大利特濃咖啡杯上，僅二口之份，熱、甜、滑、量，俱恰到好處，確是此餐最佳總結。埋單與前夜唐閣相近，何者優勝，倒視乎各人口味矣。

大班樓

唐閣後輾轉數日，便是內人壽辰。夜，於中環大班樓慶生。地點為彼所定，預訂金錢雞加二人套餐，倒不傷腦筋。

前菜是漬小蕃茄沙葛。酸甜合度，配以兩片炸九層塔葉，更有畫龍點睛之效。

之後是炸蟹盒。熱辣香脆，餡料亦足，只是隔油未夠，扣了少許分數。此味雖為傳統廣府食際，而今已少有人作。以余所見，蟹盒用料以濠江某吃蛇酒家最佳，炸功則以楓林小館為首。總的而論，這裡倒也不遑多讓。

再上湯品是粉葛紅蘿蔔㷛唐排。家常風味，夠熱，用料亦足，不過自忖也能辦到。跟着是一道彷彿泰式沙律之物。有酸芒果、洋葱、腐皮等。清新開胃，用以於主食前一清味蕾，是恰當的設計。只是份頭未免略大，如能止於兩口之量，便應足够。

主食是此處名物雞油花雕花蟹蒸陳村粉。蟹是上品，羔豐肉足，雞油香而不過份，反而花雕酒味甚重。内人謂烹煮之後，酒精應已揮發凈盡，此乃物理謬誤。實則明火炆炒，酒精高溫下確是所餘無幾，然而隔水而蒸，便大有不同矣。平心而論，此味確名不虚傳，吃得甚是盡興。蛋中挑骨，只能說陳村粉偶有黏結，蟹汁需自行拌匀也。