Implications

You may ask: What does this little story between a snail and its parasite tell us?

Well, there are several folds of implications:

1. When you are having a war with another person for a trivial matter, it is likely both sides are infected by some malicious parasites.
2. While having the war (and as a result of being infected), you become blind and will be unaware of more sinister dangers around.
3. The very fact that you could be infected and are involved in a war means that you are part of a mollusk.
4. The whole process of parasitic propagation is a flesh-and-blood demonstration of Saṃsāra (輪迴) of Buddhism (or, to be exact, Upanishads of Hinduism).

As to the last point, there is an important difference between reincarnation and Saṃsāra. The former means the persistence of life or soul, while, in the case of the latter, it is the causes and effects of doings and wrongdoings being persistent in the realm.

We call that Karma (業).

Biology

For those who are not familiar with the story of a conflict between the two horns of a snail, you may like to refer to Zhuangzi (莊子) [則陽篇].

Yes, the idea of this little story is simple. Nonetheless, the war that Zhuangzi observed might have been a genuine biological phenomenon.

It goes like this: Leucochloridium is a group of flatworm parasite (i.e. platyhelminthes) that uses various worm-eating birds as the permanent host. The remarkable bit of its life cycle is, however, most of its species use snails as the intermediate host. When a suitable snail is infected, the parasite would grow and move to the tentacles (to we layman, the “horn”; to biologists, those are actually eyes of the mollusk). 

Depending on the actual species of the Leucochloridium, sometimes only one, but usually both of the tentacles are infected. Once the two light-sensing organs are filled with parasites, it shows off funny angry-looking colors – just like they are in war with each other. More importantly, the snail becomes blind and loses its natural tendency of avoiding light; it moves to the top of a branch, and is easily spotted by birds around.

Yes, you guess that much. To those flying creatures, the colorful light-sensing organ on the snail is no different from a worm. The infected tentacles are quickly nipped away by hungry beaks, and, hurray, the life cycle of Leucochloridium completes.

Trivial

Although I had some remarkable encounters with candidates during the licensing examination, the most remarkable story for me throughout the event was a conversation between our nursing officer and the computer staff of our admission office.

The story went like this: We recruit real patients to take part in our examination, and we always ask them to arrive at the ward by 7 AM. For medical legal reasons, these patients need to be registered as day cases under the hospital. However, for confidential considerations, the procedure of admission could only be done in the afternoon – after all candidates of the day reported to us, and we could keep an eye on them and make sure they have no chance of going through the patient list on the computer.

And there comes the dilemma: What time should the patients be recorded as being admitted? Is it 7 AM, or in the afternoon? This time, the spicy discussion came up because all parties agreed to use 7 AM in the past, but the admission office decided to use the afternoon one – when the admission procedure was actually done. (I must say I could understand the frustration of our nursing officer – the time 7 AM was originally recommended by the admission office.)

Trivial point, isn’t it?

I just think of a poem that my friend WB showed me some years ago:

蝸牛角上爭何事，石火光中寄此身。

隨富隨貧且隨喜，不開口笑是痴人。

Standard

Shortly after I survived that evening with a series of unfortunate events, we held the licensing examination in our hospital.

(For visitors outside Hong Kong, the examination is for overseas medical graduates who want to practice in our city.)

I shall not elaborate too much on what happened. To examiners, the event is, as a rule, an eye-opening experience of seeing so-called medical graduates with an exceptionally variable standard. Of course there is, at least partly, some selection bias. Since candidates need to take all clinical subjects at the same time, a doctor who, after graduated from medical school, has a few years of experience in, for example, pediatrics would not do very well in surgery.

Nonetheless, some candidates are really exceptional by any standard. Two years ago, I met a flamboyant man who could not recognize a tendon hammer. This time, I had another cheerful lady who refused to listen to the chest of her patient – because she thought that part of examination was not necessary.

I am surprised I could resist the temptation to ask why she brought along with her a stethoscope.

Memory

My fortunate evening did not end with my glasses repaired. After dinner, while winding up the clockwork of my pocket watch - the souvenir of my wedding - I slipped it on to the floor and its cover glass came off. It took me another 20 minutes to put it back.

And, an hour later, I began to have tummy cramp - followed by bouts of diarrhea.

*****************
No, my point is not to tell you how unfortunate I was that evening, or its astrological implication (if there's any).

The real issue is, that night, before I went to bed, when I wrote my diary, I could only recollect what happened throughout the day and had completely forgotten my unfortunate evening. A few days later, when I came to think of it, I was amazed with how our mind filters out unpleasant information.

A good memory is a bad (or, at least, a selective) memory.

Repair

(Cont'd)

It took me half an hour to struggle and search for my reserve glasses before I decided to put up my jacket and seek for help from the optic shop. Seriously, without that tiny gadget on my nose, everything became blurry and fuzzy, and I was slightly uneasy to do anything.

And, then, my sense came back. Why! My reserve glasses were, of course, still in my suitecase after I was back from San Diego! I quickly fetched for them - thank goodness they were there safe and intact. I put them on, and set off with more confidence.

It actually took no more than half an hour to have the problem fixed. The optician was friendly and immensely efficient. I went home and felt like a cancer patient being discharge from hospital after the tumor was resected.

PS. Vivian is actually a shareholder of this very optic shop - and I would have to declare a conflict of interest and not disclose its name.

Glasses

It was a most remarkable day for me in the past five years - to say the least, from an astrological point of view.

The story went like this: For a few weeks, I was feeling my pair of glasses was a bit shaky. It was a new pair that I bought just a few weeks ago, but, since last week I began to notice it lost its grip of my ears and tended to slide down of my nose.

I decided to fix it myself. That evening, after I was off work, I fetched a set of miniature screwdrivers (orderly kept by my mother) dislodged  and tried to screw the loosen bit tight.

But, it turned out that I screwed it up - one of the handles fell apart.

I tried to put back the part - of course it was of no avail. My myopia was rather severe, and, together with some astigmatism and presbyopia, it was almost impossible to see clearly that tiny screw hole on the disentangled handle.

"Got to get my reserve pair of glasses." I said to myself.

But, my goodness, the reserve glasses was not in my drawer (where I used to keep it), and nowhere could it be found.

(To be continued.)